Collaborate Disseminate
Lately, we’ve seen some exciting advances in the development of robots that can interact with objects in interesting ways, ranging from grippers that work like elephant trunks to coil around odd items to others that use electroadhesion to grasp fragile… Continue reading MIT’s Digger Finger robot can sense items buried beneath the surface
Many of the landmines and bombs dropped in Cambodia during the Vietnam War remain unexploded, which is a huge problem that is not easily solved for those tasked with clearing them away. Scientists have developed a new AI-powered tool that could make th… Continue reading AI scans satellite imagery to locate unexploded Vietnam War-era bombs
A recent article in the Atlantic asks why we haven’t seen a"cyber 9/11" in the past fifteen or so years. (I, too, remember the increasingly frantic and fearful warnings of a "cyber Peal Harbor," "cyber Katrina" — when that was … Continue reading What Happened to Cyber 9/11?
A recent article in the Atlantic asks why we haven’t seen a"cyber 9/11" in the past fifteen or so years. (I, too, remember the increasingly frantic and fearful warnings of a "cyber Peal Harbor," "cyber Katrina" — when that was a thing — or "cyber 9/11." I made fun of those warnings back then.) The author’s answer: Three main barriers… Continue reading What Happened to Cyber 9/11?
I understand his frustration, but this is extreme: When police asked Cryptopay what could have motivated Salonen to send the company a pipe bomb or, rather, two pipe bombs, which is what investigators found when they picked apart the explosive package the only thing the company could think of was that it had declined his request for a… Continue reading Mailing Tech Support a Bomb
Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese journalist whose anti-corruption investigations exposed powerful people. She was murdered in October by a car bomb. Galizia used WhatsApp to communicate securely with her sources. Now that she is dead, the Maltese police want to break into her phone or the app, and find out who those sources were. One journalist reports: Part of… Continue reading Daphne Caruana Galizia’s Murder and the Security of WhatsApp
The Department of Homeland Security is rumored to be considering extending the current travel ban on large electronics for Middle Eastern flights to European ones as well. The likely reaction of airlines will be to implement new traveler programs, effectively allowing wealthier and more frequent fliers to bring their computers with them. This will only exacerbate the divide between the… Continue reading Extending the Airplane Laptop Ban
Moth-powered robotics could come to replace drug sniffing dogs. Continue reading Horny Moths Can Pilot Robots
A sniff-action scent detector could smell bombs 16 times better than a dog. Continue reading How 3D-Printed Dog Noses Can Improve Bomb Detectors
This seems to be a first. EDITED TO ADD (7/10): Another article. EDITED TO ADD (7/12): And another article. EDITED TO ADD (7/16): Several views…. Continue reading Dallas Police Use a Robot to Kill a Person