travel

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Official: Tesla 'autopilot' car hits Phoenix police motorcycle
A Phoenix police motorcycle was struck by a Tesla Model X reportedly operating on autopilot last week, police said.

The incident came days before a crash in Tempe involving an automated Uber vehicle in Tempe.
The collision prompted Uber to temporarily ground the program as it investigated the incident, but a company representative said Monday that the fleet will be redeployed.

In the southwestern dusk, an accident involving one of Uber’s autonomous Volvo XC90 test fleet cars happened

The iPhone of cars? Apple enters self-driving car race
Ending years of speculation, Apple's late entry into a crowded field was made official Friday with the disclosure that the California Department of Motor Vehicles had awarded a permit for the company to start testing its self-driving car technology on public roads in the state.

Apple will be vying against 29 other companies that already have California permits to test self-driving cars. The list includes major automakers, including Ford, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen and Tesla, as well as one of its biggest rivals in technology, Google, whose testing of self-driving cars has been spun off into an affiliate called Waymo.

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Carnival is a Western Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typically involves a public celebration and/or parade combining some elements of a circus, masks, and a public street party. People wear masks and costumes during many such celebrations, allowing them to lose their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity. Excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods proscribed during Lent is extremely common. Other common features of carnival include mock battles such as food fights; social satire and mockery of authorities; and a general reversal of everyday rules and norms.  read more »

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18 Jan 2017
Tourists Flee 'Nightmare' Paris Amidst Rising Theft, Assaults... Paris' regional tourism office last year reported a slump in visitor numbers to the city. Rising violence and aggression account for the drop. President of the Chinese Association of Travel Agencies in France, Jean-François Zhou, said "increasingly violent” thefts and assaults are turning France into "one of the worst destinations for foreign tourists." In 2016, there were 1.6 million Chinese tourists compared to 2.2 million in 2015. The number of Japanese tourists dropped 39 percent and Koreans 27 per cent."

18 Jan 2017
A lone wolf was spotted prowling just 200 miles from Paris - when an expert was quick to point out that they can cover 300 miles in a DAY on foot. French told not to fear wolves roaming Paris streets as 'they only eat four-legged animals.'
Parisians are frightened that the endangered beasts are now within howling distance of the capital and can't be stopped.

Only lone wolves have been spotted so far wandering its streets. Experts and eyewitnesses claim they are freely roaming French 'departments' (an administrative district) of Yvelines and Essone in Île-de-France - which overlaps with the Paris metropolitan area in the south and west - at night.

Warnings were first made last year when a lone wolf was spotted prowling just 200 miles from Paris - when an expert was quick to point out that they can cover 300 miles in a DAY on foot.

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January 13, 2017
Finnair flight 666, at 13 o'clock on Friday the 13th with a 13 year old aircraft

Finnair Flight 666 took off from Copenhagen, Denmark on Friday the 13th bound for HEL.
Helsinki, Finland, that is.
HEL is Helsinki’s airport code.
This according to air traffic site FlightRadar24.com.

Finnair flight 666, at 13 o'clock on Friday the 13th with a 13 year old aircraft, has landed safely in HEL https://t.co/0kWfkcARmO pic.twitter.com/OPvpyyq4F4
- Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) January 13, 2017

It departed Copenhagen at approximately 1:07 p.m. local time, touching down again at 3:41 p.m.

May 13, 2016
Who wants to get Flight 666 to HEL on Friday 13?

Can it get worse?
Flight 666 to HEL on Friday
— Mike (@FR24mike) May 13, 2016

How’s that for an ominous journey?
Maybe they should have driven – and taken the highway to HEL instead.
… Sorry.
H/T @FR24Mike

How’s that for an ominous journey?
But luckily for everyone, despite being very ominously named the plane landed safely in Finland after all.

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Photo courtesy @FR24mike and TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP / Getty Images

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Jan. 01, 2014
PALM BEACH, Fla. President-elect Donald Trump says that "no computer is safe" when it comes to keeping information private, expressing new skepticism about the security of online communications his administration is likely to use for everything from day-to-day planning to international relations.

Trump rarely uses email or computers, despite his frequent tweeting.

"You know, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way. Because I'll tell you what: No computer is safe," Trump told reporters during his annual New Year's Eve bash. "I don't care what they say."

Today's self-driving cars rely on spinning sensors called lidar that can cost more than $10,000 each. But it took Jonathan Petit just $43 and a laser pointer to confuse and defeat them.

"Anybody can go online and get access to this, buy it really quickly, and just assemble it, and there you go, you have a device that can spoof lidar," Petit, a cybersecurity expert, told Business Insider.

One of the first researchers to show how easy it is to hack self-driving cars' sensors, he was able to trick a sensor into thinking objects were there when they weren't, and vice versa.  read more »