Topic: Drone - on March 6, 2012 at 2:07:00 PM CET
I Love You, Killer Robots
Quadrotor drones are amazing and cute and will probably destroy us all.
It was way back in May 2010 that I first spotted the flying drones that will take over the world. They were in a video that Daniel Mellinger, one of the robots’ apparently too-trusting creators, proudly posted on YouTube. The clip, titled “Aggressive Maneuvers for Autonomous Quadrotor Flight,” depicts a scene at a robotics lab at the University of Pennsylvania, though a better term for this den might be “drone training camp.”
In the video, an insectlike, laptop-sized “quadrotor” performs a series of increasingly difficult tricks. First, it flies up and does a single flip in the air. Then a double flip. Then a triple flip. In a voice-over so dry it suggests he has no idea the power he’s dealing with, Mellinger says, “We developed a method for flying to any position in space with any reasonable velocity or pitch angle.” What does this mean? It means the drone can fly through or around pretty much any obstacle. We see it dance through an open window with fewer than 3 inches of clearance on either side. Next, it flies and perches on an inverted surface—lying in wait.
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Topic: SECURITY - on March 6, 2012 at 11:04:00 AM CET
GitHub hacked, millions of projects at risk of being modified or deleted
GitHub, one of the largest repositories of commercial and open source software on the web, has been hacked. Over the weekend, developer Egor Homakov exploited a gaping vulnerability in GitHub that allowed him (or anyone else with basic hacker know-how) to gain administrator access to projects such as Ruby on Rails, Linux, and millions of others. Homakov could’ve deleted the entire history of projects such as jQuery, Node.js, Reddit, and Redis.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on March 6, 2012 at 11:02:00 AM CET
Hackers Steal Unreleased Michael Jackson Tracks from Sony
The plot thickens, and Sony once again has found itself in the news surrounding another hacking-related incident. This time around, the breach doesn’t appear to be in regard any lost user data or customer accounts, but instead, some valuable property owned by the record company.
Today, the UK’s Daily Star and other British news outlets have reported that more than 50,000 music tracks have been illegally accessed and downloaded by hackers, including a large number from the late Michael Jackson.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on March 6, 2012 at 11:01:00 AM CET
Presseverlage gegen den Rest der Welt
Wie heute früh schon kurz berichtet, haben sich FDP und CDU/CSU auf die Einführung eines Leistungsschutzrechts für Presseverlage geeinigt (Seite 4). Gewerbliche Onlineangebote sollen für die Nutzung von Presseerzeugnissen (“oder kleiner Teile davon”) zahlen, die Abwicklung findet nach den Vorstellungen der Koalition über eine neue Verwertungsgesellschaft statt. Primäres Ziel der Initiative ist Google, das den Verlegern seit langem ein Dorn im Auge ist (obwohl sie stark davon profitieren).
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on March 6, 2012 at 10:58:00 AM CET
Gefälschte Transparenz im EU-Parlament
Im Europäischen Parlament fand am letzten Donnerstag (1. März) die Hauptveranstaltung zu ACTA statt. Eingeladen waren einige Kommissionsbeamte und – für das Podium zu Grundrechtsfragen – sogar ein Urheberrechts-Anwalt, der sich auf Nachfrage aus dem Publikum als Lobbyist der Markenvereinigung INTA entpuppte. Als einziger offensichtlicher ACTA-Gegner durfte Michael Geist, Professor an der Universität Ottawa, sprechen. Vertreter der Zivilgesellschaft wurden nicht eingeladen. Obwohl man also allen Grund hatte pessimistisch zu sein, wurde man während des Workshops angenehm überrascht – die Stimmung im Saal war klar gegen das Abkommen.
netzpolitik.org ACTA workshop in the European Parliament Workshop
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