Jigsaw, the Alphabet-owned firm formerly known as Google Ideas, has announced a new free VPN (virtual private network) software package called Outline. The new serves as a way to protect journalists, activists, and others who need a secure service to protect sensitive data or vulnerable individuals, though there’s no reason why other organizations or individuals can’t take advantage of it. Outline was designed as VPN software rather than a VPN service, to avoid the problem of having to find a trustworthy company. : Outline makes it easy for news organizations to set up a corporate virtual private network (VPN) on their own server to more safely connect to the internet and keep their communications private.
There has been plenty of speculation about how it was possible for a high-tech autonomous vehicle to plow into, and kill, a woman pushing a bicycle. Much of the early coverage has been framed by some early comments from the Tempe Police that the woman had apparently jumped out in front of the car. The Department has now released dashcam video from the car, and they are really disturbing on a number of levels. The video appears to answer at least some of the questions we posed in . The Pedestrian Didn’t Emerge Suddenly Out Of Nowhere Initial statements from the Tempe Police painted a fairly clear, if ultimately problematic, picture of the pedestrian having suddenly appeared “out of the shadows” — as if she had been invisible behind foliage on the median until the last second — and suggested that the resulting collision might have been unavoidable.
The Hyundai Santa Fe Sport is a solid two-row, compact SUV with a roomy cockpit front and back, a long warranty, and good fit and finish. It sells well to millennials and to empty-nest boomers, both looking for cars comfortable for two sets of adults going out or traveling together. Fuel economy isn’t class-leading, however, and only blind spot detection is standard (above the entry trim line), while adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist are optional. You can buy a Santa Fe Sport in the mid-twenties, but the safest model will set you back more than $38,000.
For today only, you can save up to 51 percent on select Logitech accessories on Amazon. Mice, keyboards, speakers, and more are all being sold at steep discounts. And if you’re in the market for a digital assistant, you can snag an Echo Spot or an Echo Show on the cheap. Amazon Daily Deal: Logitech Peripherals Sale Amazon Daily Deals. with FLOW Mutli-Computer Control with File Sharing (Cut and paste documents between two computers) for $55.89 at Amazon (List price: $79.99). for $58.40 at Amazon (List price: $99.99). for $49.19 at Amazon (List price: $99.99).
Several tech sites are now Google plans to acquire light field pioneer Lytro. Speculation is that Google will leverage Lytro’s impressive engineering team to accelerate its development of VR solutions. That makes a great deal of sense, although there are other reasons this deal will provide some value for Google. Unfortunately for Lytro’s investors, the purchase price is rumored to be between $25 million and $40 million, far less than the $210 million invested in Lytro since Ren Ng founded it as Refocus Imaging. Google Gets Serious About VR Content Recently, Google hired content creation superstar and all-around great guy Paul Debevec to help with its VR efforts.
Conversations about AI tend to oscillate between the wildly optimistic and the obnoxiously dystopian. Some pundits will argue we’re on the verge of a new renaissance, in which self-driving cars will spirit us between locations while robotic housekeepers do our bidding. Others foresee a Terminator-like apocalypse. As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere between these extremes. However, no one should be under the illusion that artificial general intelligence (AGI), meaning an AI that can learn the same tasks a human can, is a vague and distant reality. DeepMind has put any doubt to rest with its recent release of a toolkit for assessing artificial intelligence with the same psychological tools we use for assessing human cognitive abilities.
Like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, some four-year-old data that wasn’t destroyed when it was supposed to may be what finally starts to bring internet giant Facebook under the scrutiny of legislators and a previously complacent public. It’s helpful to look back at what happened, and at how it has blown up into an international headline story. It Might Not Have Been a Breach, But It Was Clearly a Mistake Until sometime in 2014, Facebook’s default privacy settings allowed you to access information about your friend’s friends. And you could do this not just by browsing; there was an API (programming interface) so it could be done automatically.
Microsoft has announced that Windows Server 2019 is now available in preview, with general availability expected in the back half of the year (despite the name, Windows Server 2019 is launching in 2018). This version of Windows will also receive an LTSC (Long Term Service Channel) release, which means it’ll receive security updates for the next decade. Microsoft is focusing on with this update: improved hybrid cloud support, increased security, application platform improvements, and what Microsoft calls “hyper-converged infrastructure.” Hybrid cloud support is exactly what it sounds like — support for workloads that leverage both local resources and edge computing for artificial intelligence or integration with the Internet of Things.
Last week, a heretofore unknown security company, CTS Labs, published bombshell allegations of what it declared were that impacted AMD’s Ryzen CPUs and chipsets. It quickly became clear the entire disclosure process was unusual, , and there’s good reason to think the entire affair was orchestrated by a firm hoping to make a quick buck shorting AMD stock. AMD has now responded to CTS Labs’ initial findings, from one of the company’s defenses for its own actions in the process. All 13 of the flaws identified by CTS Labs require administrative access to exploit. While this fact does not excuse any given security issue, it does put the problems into context — if you have administrator access to a system, you factually can compromise it using any number of attacks.
