‘Hard Ceilings’ Doomed Past Societies
There were firm ceilings on the amount of energy that humans’ first two energy sources, foraging and farming, could provide. We do not know — yet — if there is also a hard ceiling over what is possible in fossil fuel societies, but the implication of history seems to be that there is.
July 27, 2015 at 07:28PM
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Musk, Wozniak and Hawking urge ban on warfare AI and autonomous weapons
Over 1,000 high-profile artificial intelligence experts and leading researchers have signed an open letter warning of a “military artificial intelligence arms race” and calling for a ban on “offensive autonomous weapons.”
July 27, 2015 at 03:55PM
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Most Android phones at risk from simple text hack, researcher says
The flaw, says researcher Zimperium, exists in the media playback tool built into Android, called Stagefright. Malicious hackers could take advantage of it by sending to an Android device a simple text message that, once received by the smartphone, would give them complete control over the handset and allow them to steal anything on it, such as credit card numbers or personal information.
July 27, 2015 at 03:55PM
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Smart mirror monitors your face for telltale signs of disease
Mirror mirror on the wall, am I at risk of heart disease? One day soon your mirror might actually be able to give you the answer.
July 27, 2015 at 01:36PM
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Google+ and YouTube are finally splitting up
Google is officially divorcing Google+ profiles from its other, more popular services. Today the company published a blog post announcing that over the next few months, “a Google Account will be all you’ll need to share content, communicate with contacts, create a YouTube channel and more, all across Google.”
July 27, 2015 at 12:34PM
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It’s Not Climate Change
Are we capable of thinking about longer-term issues, or, like the lobster in a pot full of water that’s being brought slowly to the boil, will we fail to realize the danger we’re in until it’s too late? We’re supposed to be smarter than lobsters. We’ve committed some very stupid acts over the course of our history, but our stupidity isn’t inevitable.
July 27, 2015 at 10:54AM
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Robots aren’t taking your jobs- and that’s the problem
Robots aren’t taking our jobs — and that’s the problem
July 27, 2015 at 10:31AM
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Gallery: from nets to lasers, there’s a lot of new ways to take down drones
Just as UAVs have taken flight, so too have variously priced countermeasures.
July 27, 2015 at 08:41AM
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San Francisco tests special paint that splashes back pee onto public urinators
San Francisco has been using a special hydrophobic paint on outdoor surfaces that is designed to splash pee onto outlaw urinators who try to use the city as an open-air toilet.
July 27, 2015 at 07:39AM
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Using Algorithms To Determine A Person’s Character
Computers aren’t just doing hard math problems and showing us cat videos. Increasingly, they judge our character.
July 27, 2015 at 12:06AM
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