Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘surveillance’ category: Page 16

Jan 22, 2021

Experimental glider smashes record for high-altitude flight

Posted by in categories: surveillance, transportation

Circa 2018


Riding the wind above the Andes Mountains, an experimental glider has set a world record for high-altitude flight.

On Sept. 2, the sleek Perlan 2 glider carried two pilots to 76100 feet, or more than 14 miles, over the El Calafate region in southern Argentina. That’s the highest altitude ever reached by humans aboard an unpowered fixed-wing aircraft, and one of the highest altitudes reached by an aircraft of any description. Only spy planes and specialized balloons have flown higher.

Continue reading “Experimental glider smashes record for high-altitude flight” »

Jan 17, 2021

Big Brother gets even bigger: Moscow to create database with residents’ salaries, vehicle information & even school results

Posted by in categories: education, robotics/AI, surveillance, transportation

Moscow has revealed a plan to spend $2.4 million on a giant database containing information about every single city resident, including passport numbers, insurance policies, salaries, car registrations – and even their pets.

It will also include work and tax details, school grades, and data from their ‘Troika’ care – Moscow’s unified transport payment system, used on the metro, busses and trains.

The new proposal will undoubtedly increase fears about ever-growing surveillance in the Russian capital, where the number of facial recognition cameras has recently been increased.

Jan 11, 2021

Police Robots Are Not a Selfie Opportunity, They’re a Privacy Disaster Waiting to Happen

Posted by in categories: drones, education, government, law, robotics/AI, security, space, surveillance

The arrival of government-operated autonomous police robots does not look like predictions in science fiction movies. An army of robots with gun arms is not kicking down your door to arrest you. Instead, a robot snitch that looks like a rolling trash can is programmed to decide whether a person looks suspicious —and then call the human police on them. Police robots may not be able to hurt people like armed predator drones used in combat— yet —but as history shows, calling the police on someone can prove equally deadly.

Long before the 1987 movie Robocop, even before Karel Čapek invented the word robot in 1920, police have been trying to find ways to be everywhere at once. Widespread security cameras are one solution—but even a blanket of CCTV cameras couldn’t follow a suspect into every nook of public space. Thus, the vision of a police robot continued as a dream, until now. Whether they look like Boston Dynamics’ robodogs or Knightscope’s rolling pickles, robots are coming to a street, shopping mall, or grocery store near you.

Continue reading “Police Robots Are Not a Selfie Opportunity, They’re a Privacy Disaster Waiting to Happen” »

Jan 8, 2021

Brett Vaughan — U.S. Navy Chief AI Officer and AI Portfolio Manager, Office of Naval Research

Posted by in categories: government, military, robotics/AI, satellites, surveillance

U.S. Navy Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer, and AI Portfolio Manager, Office of Naval Research.


Brett Vaughan is the U.S. Navy Chief Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer and AI Portfolio Manager at the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

Continue reading “Brett Vaughan — U.S. Navy Chief AI Officer and AI Portfolio Manager, Office of Naval Research” »

Jan 3, 2021

Cybersecurity firm FireEye says massive Russia hack was waged inside U.S.

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, surveillance

Intruders took advantage of limits on the NSA’s domestic surveillance capabilities.

Dec 19, 2020

Left of Launch: Artificial Intelligence at the Nuclear Nexus

Posted by in categories: information science, military, policy, robotics/AI, space, surveillance

Popular media and policy-oriented discussions on the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) into nuclear weapons systems frequently focus on matters of launch authority—that is, whether AI, especially machine learning (ML) capabilities, should be incorporated into the decision to use nuclear weapons and thereby reduce the role of human control in the decisionmaking process. This is a future we should avoid. Yet while the extreme case of automating nuclear weapons use is high stakes, and thus existential to get right, there are many other areas of potential AI adoption into the nuclear enterprise that require assessment. Moreover, as the conventional military moves rapidly to adopt AI tools in a host of mission areas, the overlapping consequences for the nuclear mission space, including in nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3), may be underappreciated.

AI may be used in ways that do not directly involve or are not immediately recognizable to senior decisionmakers. These areas of AI application are far left of an operational decision or decision to launch and include four priority sectors: security and defense; intelligence activities and indications and warning; modeling and simulation, optimization, and data analytics; and logistics and maintenance. Given the rapid pace of development, even if algorithms are not used to launch nuclear weapons, ML could shape the design of the next-generation ballistic missile or be embedded in the underlying logistics infrastructure. ML vision models may undergird the intelligence process that detects the movement of adversary mobile missile launchers and optimize the tipping and queuing of overhead surveillance assets, even as a human decisionmaker remains firmly in the loop in any ultimate decisions about nuclear use. Understanding and navigating these developments in the context of nuclear deterrence and the understanding of escalation risks will require the analytical attention of the nuclear community and likely the adoption of risk management approaches, especially where the exclusion of AI is not reasonable or feasible.

Dec 17, 2020

Artificial intelligence co-pilots US military aircraft for the first time

Posted by in categories: military, robotics/AI, surveillance

Artificial intelligence helped co-pilot a U-2 “Dragon Lady” spy plane during a test flight Tuesday, the first time artificial intelligence has been used in such a way aboard a US military aircraft.

Mastering artificial intelligence or “AI” is increasingly seen as critical to the future of warfare and Air Force officials said Tuesday’s training flight represented a major milestone.

“The Air Force flew artificial intelligence as a working aircrew member onboard a military aircraft for the first time, December 15,” the Air Force said in a statement, saying the flight signaled “a major leap forward for national defense in the digital age.”

Dec 12, 2020

Autonomous drone carries an 8 lb payload and unlimited flight time

Posted by in categories: drones, military, robotics/AI, surveillance

Easy Aerial claims its Albatross UAS is a tethered machine that has an unbreachable data connection.


Drone startup Easy Aerial has launched a new unmanned aerial system (UAS), called Albatross, a tethered device with unlimited flight time and an unbreachable data connection.

The drone hexacopter can carry an 8.5 lb payload capacity with three hardpoints, two on the side that can carry up to 4 lb and the bottom hardpoint that can carry payloads of up to 8 lb. The side payload stations feature standard mounting as well as Picatinny rails that support a wide range of applications such as floodlights, communications relays, loudspeakers and cyber-related and other commercial and military electronic systems. The bottom hardpoint is designed for gimbaled cameras or large ISR loads such as radar or communication jammers.

Continue reading “Autonomous drone carries an 8 lb payload and unlimited flight time” »

Nov 24, 2020

Moment meteor explodes near Brazil’s border with Uruguay

Posted by in categories: space, surveillance

This is the moment a bright meteor crossed the sky over Brazil and exploded.

The phenomenon was captured on camera by the Heller and Jung Space Observatory early Monday as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

Continue reading “Moment meteor explodes near Brazil’s border with Uruguay” »

Nov 18, 2020

Expect the Unexpected: Frontiers of Mathematics, Computation, Systems and Design

Posted by in categories: government, mathematics, robotics/AI, security, surveillance

AI designed to be aware of it’s own competence.


Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador interviews Dr. Jiangying Zhou, DARPA program manager in the Defense Sciences Office, USA.

Continue reading “Expect the Unexpected: Frontiers of Mathematics, Computation, Systems and Design” »

Page 16 of 39First1314151617181920Last