WcP.Scientific.Mind's blog

Update 15 May 2016 Unlucky woman's GPS led her straight into a lake
(quote)
Technology doesn't always love you back.
A woman in Tobermory, Ontario drove down a boat ramp and into Lake Huron last Thursday thanks to faulty directions from her GPS.
The GPS has not yet apologized for its actions.
Luckily, she was able to roll down the window, retrieve her purse and clamber out of the car before it started to sink.
She is reportedly doing just fine, with no injuries other than a few technological trust issues.

26 March 2016
BBC: The company said Google Maps directed them to the wrong address; they were supposed to tear down a home just one block away. Diaz says she has now received a personal apology but hopes the company will change its procedures to ensure addresses are more thoroughly checked before any demolition starts. And she warns against relying on GPS for directions. "I do not like to rely on GPS," she says. "I've had GPS take me to the wrong places also. So I look at the map."

Diaz says the demolition crew, who were still at the site of her home when she arrived, did offer a kind of explanation. One employee told her they had been due to tear down a house at 7601 Cousteau Drive, one street away, but their GPS mapping system had taken them to her home at 7601 Calypso Drive instead - The building, which included two homes, was pummelled in December's tornado but was due to be repaired  read more »

Primary school students play the board game "Go", known as "Weiqi" in Chinese, during a competition.

Fan Hui makes a move against AlphaGo in DeepMind’s HQ in King’s Cross

AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol match - Go moves 1-99; moves 100-199; moves 200-211:

(quote)  read more »

(quote)

Texting while driving is a growing trend, and a national epidemic, quickly becoming one of the country’s top killers. Drivers assume they can handle texting while driving and remain safe, but the numbers don’t lie.

Texting While Driving Causes:
1. 1,600,000 accidents per year – National Safety Council
2. 330,000 injuries per year – Harvard Center for Risk Analysis Study
3. 11 teen deaths EVERY DAY – Ins. Institute for Hwy Safety Fatality Facts
4. Nearly 25% of ALL car accidents

Texting While Driving Is:
1. About 6 times more likely to cause an accident than driving intoxicated
2. The same as driving after 4 beers – National Hwy Transportation Safety Admin.
3. The number one driving distraction reported by teen drivers

Texting While Driving:
1. Makes you 23X more likely to crash – National Hwy Transportation Safety Admin.
2. Is the same as driving blind for 5 seconds at a time – VA. Tech Transportation Institute
3. Takes place by 800,000 drivers at any given time across the country
4. Slows your brake reaction speed by 18% – HumanFactors & Ergonomics Society
5. Leads to a 400% increase with eyes off the road

A lot of times, we often wear our technology addictions as a badge of honor. Many people say “Oh, I’m so addicted to my phone. I can’t live without it. It’s like air.”

Here are several reasons why you shouldn’t be addicted to your phone.  read more »

(quote)

Car Hacking: What Every Connected Driver Needs to Know - many new cars are equipped with wireless technology that can make a driver's time on the road more stress-free and entertaining, but the technology can also bring a dark side. Two hackers were able to take control of a connected Jeep Cherokee from their living room as a Wired reporter, who agreed to be their test case, drove the SUV down the highway at 70 mph, according to the article.

Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, the two hacking experts behind the stunt, were able to access the SUV's Internet connected computer system and then rewrite the firmware to plant the malicious code allowing them to commandeer the vehicle, including everything from the air conditioning and music to the Jeep's steering, brakes and transmission, according to Wired.

TheGuardian - The problem with self-driving cars: who controls the code? Every locked device can be easily jailbroken
Should autonomous vehicles be programmed to choose who they kill when they crash? And who gets access to the code that determines those decisions? The Trolley Problem is an ethical brainteaser that’s been entertaining philosophers since it was posed by Philippa Foot in 1967: a runaway train will slaughter five innocents tied to its track unless you pull a lever to switch it to a siding on which one man, also innocent and unawares, is standing. Pull the lever, you save the five, but kill the one: what is the ethical course of action?  read more »

Image courtesy NASA and Scott Kelly

(quote)

ABC news - Couple Fighting With Verizon Over $2M cell phone bill, said it took them 10 months to clear up - $2 million for one month
A couple in Oregon say they spent 10 months trying to clear up a whopping $2 million phone bill, which they say has prevented them from buying the home of their dreams. Ken Slusher and his girlfriend, of Damascus, Oregon, have a balance of $2,156,593.64 on a Verizon Wireless bill that was for a wireless account that they opened in November. "Yeah, it's been very stressful to say the least," Slusher told KPTV.com.

The couple canceled their service in December and returned their phones in January, but the bills continued to arrive, as first reported by KPTV. Customer service representatives told them in-person and on the phone that they promised to clear up the matter, he said.

Slusher said he hoped to close on a new house next Monday and his girlfriend and their children are eagerly awaiting the move. But he said his mortgage company won't sign off on a loan due to the phone debt. They began receiving several calls from collection agencies demanding upward of $2,000, KPTV reported. According to Slusher, the couple's first bill should have been around $120, but it was actually $698 with a balance of $451.

CBS - Volkswagen said its cheating software affects 11 million vehicles and may cost up to $87 billion  read more »

(quote)

The duel was based on a code of honour. Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain "satisfaction", that is, to restore one's honour by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it, and as such the tradition of duelling was originally reserved for the male members of nobility.

telegraph.co.uk -MegaBots, an American engineering company, challenged Japan's Suidobashi Heavy Industry to a duel. Japan's Suidobashi accepts MegaBots' challenge of a duel, paving the way for robot wars on a grand scale. It's the moment we've all been waiting for: two giant fighting robots - one Japanese and one American - will square off in a melee one year from now.

dailydot.com Jul 6, 2015 - The makers of a giant, real-life, human-powered robot have challenged their Japanese counterparts to a giant robot duel. Japan responds to U.S. giant-robot battle challenge: "Bring it on"
Last week, a U.S. giant-robot company summoned a Japanese giant-robot company to fight them in a giant-robot duel. In their challenge video, U.S.-based Megabots gave Japan's Suidobashi Heavy Industry—and all of Japan—the opportunity to name the battlefield and "meet in one year's time." It's on.  read more »