Cyber security 'the new frontier of warfare, espionage', Malcolm Turnbull says

DATE: 24/01/2017
SOURCE: ABC.AU


Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has declared cyber security "the new frontier of warfare" and espionage, while announcing new measures to protect Australian democracy from foreign interference.

Intelligence officials will host unprecedented security briefings with party officials in Canberra next month, amid concerns they may be vulnerable to foreign cyber attacks.

Mr Turnbull said the Government had been shocked by a United States intelligence report claiming Russia ordered a hidden campaign to influence the US presidential election.

~*~*~*~

Other nations learning from Russian activities: expert

Timothy Wellsmore, director of threat intelligence at global cyber security firm FireEye, said the threats to Australia went beyond China and Russia.

"We've seen some activities in this region from places that you wouldn't expect — like Indonesia [and] even Vietnam," said Mr Wellsmore, who formerly worked as a manager at the Australian Cyber Security Centre.

"There are a lot of other nations that will learn from Russian activities and will turn their offensive capabilities towards [targeting political interests] — if they haven't already."

Assistant Minister for Cyber Security Dan Tehan said every Australian political party must be vigilant and raised some concern about the upcoming Western Australia and Queensland elections.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-24/turnbull-declares-cyber-security-the-new-frontier-of-warfare/8207494

The world's best poker bot is learning, now crushing humanity again

DATE: 21/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 23/01/2017
SOURCE: BUSINESS INSIDER


For a few days, it looked like the humans had it figured out. Four poker pros facing off against the Libratus AI in a 20-day no-limit Texas Hold'em competition pulled back from an early $193,000 deficit with big wins on days four and six, bringing the deficit down to to $51,000, with one human, Dong King, up $33,000.

"It took us a while to study and get an understanding of what was going on," one of the pros, Jason Les, wrote in an email.

But then the bot started winning again and big. By the end of day 10, it was up a likely insurmountable $677,000, with all of the humans down six figures. (You can see the latest here).

What happened? Simply said, the bot is learning.



READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.businessinsider.com/libratus-poker-bot-winning-at-texas-holdem-2017-1

NASA's new Psyche mission will take us to a metal asteroid for the first time

It may be the naked core of an ancient plan

DATE: 04/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 23/01/2017
SOURCE: POPSCI


Asteroids are some of the last unexplored territories in the solar system. To help fill in some of the blanks, NASA just announced two upcoming missions that will visit new types of asteroids in the 2030s.

Launching in 2023, the Psyche spacecraft will fly into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to explore an asteroid quite unlike the balls of mud, ice, and rock we've studied before; "16 Psyche" is a giant hunk of metal. Measuring 130 miles in diameter, it's thought to be made of iron and nickel.

16 Psyche may be the leftover core of a protoplanet—an infant world as large as Mars. Violent collisions are thought to have blasted away its rocky outer layers, leaving behind an asteroid very similar to Earth's own metallic core


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.popsci.com/nasas-new-psyche-mission-will-explore-metal-asteroid-for-first-time

China tightens Great Firewall by declaring unauthorised VPN services illegal

Move means all cable and VPN services need prior government approval and comes as Beijing steps up censorship before power-reshuffle party congress

DATE: 23/01/2017
SOURCE: SCMP


Beijing has launched a 14-month nationwide campaign to crack down on unauthorised internet connections, including virtual private networks (VPN) services – a technology that allows users to bypass the country’s infamous Great Firewall.

A notice released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Sunday said that all special cable and VPN services on the mainland needed to obtain prior government approval – a move making most VPN service providers in the country of 730 million internet users illegal.



READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2064587/chinas-move-clean-vpns-and-strengthen-great-firewall

Facial recognition, fingerprints to replace passports at Australian airports

Radical security overhaul at Australian airports will replace passport scanners and paper cards with facial recognition technology

DATE: 22/01/2017
SOURCE: MALTA TODAY


Australia has announced a radical overhaul of security at its international airports, with new technology set to replace passports as the means of identifying passengers by 2020.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection is seeking tenders for a self-processing system that would abolish incoming passenger cards, remove the need for most passengers to show their passports and replace manned desks with electronic stations and automatic triage.

Instead, passengers will be processed by biometric recognition of their face, iris and/or fingerprints, which will be matched to existing data.


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/world/73649/facial_recognition_fingerprints_to_replace_passports_at_australian_airports

DIGITAL DOS AND DON'TS Pt1

DATE COMPILED: 21/01/2017
SOURCE: VARIOUS

DON'TS

- Don’t use dictionary words or names in any form in passwords


- Don't use common misspellings of dictionary words either

- Do not use your network username as your password.

- Don’t use easily guessed passwords, such as “password” or “user.”

- Do not choose passwords based upon details that may not be as confidential as you’d expect, such as your birth date, your Social Security or phone number, or names of family members. Never use information in a password or passphrase which can be found online.

- Don't use the name of the computer or your account

- Don’t store your password or passphrase within web applications

- Don't use sample passwords

- Never use the password you’ve picked for your email account at any online site: If you do, and an e-commerce site you are registered at gets hacked, there’s a good chance someone will be reading your e-mail soon.

- Avoid using the same password at multiple Web sites. It’s generally safe to re-use the same password at sites that do not store sensitive information about you (like a news Web site) provided you don’t use this same password at sites that are sensitive.

- Do not use reuse a word or phrase if your account or passphrase has been compromised

- Whatever you do, don’t store your list of passwords on your computer in plain text. Store written copies of your passwords or passphrase safely. I tend to agree with noted security experts Bruce Schneier, when he advises users not to worry about writing down passwords. Just make sure you don’t store the information in plain sight. The most secure method for remembering your passwords is to create a list of every Web site for which you have a password and next to each one write your login name and a clue that has meaning only for you. If you forget your password, most Web sites will email it to you (assuming you can remember which email address you signed up with).

- Never share your password or passphrase

- Do not respond to online requests for Personally Identifiable Information (PII); most organizations – banks, universities, companies, etc. – do not ask for your personal information over the Internet. PII includes but is not limited to:

    Full Name
    Social security number
    Address
    Date of birth
    Place of birth
    Driver’s License Number
    Vehicle registration plate number
    Credit card numbers
    Physical appearance
    Gender or race

- Password protect all devices that connect to the Internet and user accounts.




DOS


- A password must be at least 12 characters. The longer, the better.

- Select something memorable unique or specific only to you.

- Use multiple character sets. Create unique passwords that that use a combination of words, numbers, symbols, and both upper- and lower-case letters.

- Avoid using simple adjacent keyboard combinations: For example, “qwerty” and “asdzxc” and “123456” are horrible passwords and that are trivial to crack.

- Some of the easiest-to-remember passwords aren’t words at all but collections of words that form a phrase or sentence, perhaps the opening sentence to your favorite novel, or the opening line to a good joke. Do not choose famous or well-known lyrics/lines/etc.

- Use letters chosen from words in a phrase or song lyric

- Combine a few pronounceable "nonsense" words with punctuation

- Add unexpected characters and removing some letters

- Change your password or passphrase regularly

- Use non-secure networks with care. Only connect to the Internet over secure, password- protected networks.

- Always enter a URL by hand instead of following links if you are unsure of the sender.

Trump makes cyberwarfare an official priority for new White House

DATE: 20/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 21/01/2017
SOURCE: CBCNEWS



Digital weapons would be used to "disrupt and disable propaganda and recruiting" and protect secrets



.....under the section titled America First Foreign Policy, the government calls defeating ISIS and other terroist groups "our highest priority," and says that the U.S. will "engage in cyberwarfare to disrupt and disable propaganda and recruiting" in collaboration with international partners.

Under another section, Making Our Military Strong Again, cyberwarfare is mentioned too.

"Cyberwarfare is an emerging battlefield, and we must take every measure to safeguard our national security secrets and systems," the page reads, adding that the government "will make it a priority to develop defensive and offensive cyber capabilities at our U.S. Cyber Command, and recruit the best and brightest Americans to serve in this crucial area."

President Trump had previously said in October that cybersecurity would be "an immediate and top priority" if elected.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/cyberwarfare-donald-trump-us-president-foreign-policy-isis-1.3944993

CONCLUSION: O KAIPOC ΓΑΡ ΕΓΓΥC (WTF)

Google’s AI is Learning to Make Other AI

DATE: 20/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 21/01/2017
SOURCE:  FUTURISM


Imagine the conflicted feelings of the machine learning expert who is creating artificial intelligence (AI) that they know will one day, possibly very soon, be able to create better AI than them. It’s the new age’s way of holding on to the time-honored tradition of having to train your own replacement. Machine learning experts are currently being paid a premium wage due to their limited numbers and the high demand for their valuable skills. However, with the dawn of software that is “learning to learn,” those days may be numbered.

The most prolific minds in AI research from groups such as Google Brain, OpenAI, DeepMind, and university research departments at the nation’s most prestigious tech schools are developing machine-learning systems that can create machine-learning systems. Researchers from Google Brain were able to design software that created an AI system to take a test that measures how well software can process language. The software did better on the test than software designed by humans. So, in a manner of speaking, much like recently reported zebra shark, AI can reproduce asexually.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://futurism.com/googles-ai-is-learning-to-make-other-ai/

CONCLUSION: "AI can reproduce asexually."

Facebook job ads suggest ‘mind reading’ social networks could soon be a reality

DATE: 17/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 21/01/2017
SOURCE: RT


The mysterious Building 8 group was launched last year as a DARPA-style agency to drive innovation in “augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, connectivity and other important breakthrough areas.”

The division is headed by former DARPA director and Google executive Regina Dugan and was given an investment commitment of hundreds of millions of dollars by Zuckerberg.

Several open job postings seeking “slightly impatient” individuals are currently listed for a two year technical project.

A brain-computer interface engineer is sought to work in the area of "neuroimaging" and "electrophysiological data" while another position of neural imaging engineer is seeking professionals to develop non-invasive neural imaging methods.

The project is also seeking a haptics specialist to help the company use touch interactions to build “realistic and immersive” experiences.

In a Q&A last year Zuckerberg described how people would be able to “capture a thought... in its ideal and perfect form in your head and share that with the world.”

“One day, I believe we’ll be able to send full rich thoughts to each other directly using technology. You’ll just be able to think of something and your friends will immediately be able to experience it too if you’d like,” he said.


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://www.rt.com/viral/373691-facebook-mind-reading-jobs/

Accidental Politicians: How Randomly Selected Legislators can Improve Parliament Efficiency

DATE: 07/06/2011
RETRIEVED: 21/01/2017
SOURCE: CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, WIKIPEDIA
Authors: A. Pluchino, C. Garofalo, A. Rapisarda, S. Spagano, M. Caserta



FROM WIKIPEDIA ON SORTITION

In governance, sortition (also known as allotment or demarchy) selects officers as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates.[1]
In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy.[2]

Sortition is commonly used to select prospective jurors in common law-based legal systems and is sometimes used today in forming citizen groups with political advisory power (citizens' juries or citizens' assemblies).


~*~*~*~

Sortition to supplement or replace some of the legislators

    "Accidental Politicians: How Randomly Selected Legislators Can Improve Parliament Efficiency": shows how the introduction of a variable percentage of randomly selected independent legislators in a Parliament can increase the global efficiency of a Legislature, in terms of both number of laws passed and average social welfare obtained (this work is in line with the recent discovery that the adoption of random strategies can improve the efficiency of hierarchical organizations "Peter Principle Revisited: a Computational Study").

READ THE WHOLE WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON SORTITION @

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition


DESCRIPTION OF THE SCIENTIFIC PAPER I'VE FOUND THE MOST INTERESTING

TITLE: Accidental Politicians: How Randomly Selected Legislators can Improve Parliament Efficiency


1. Abstract
We study a prototypical model of a Parliament with two Parties or two Political Coalitions and we show how the introduction of a variable percentage of randomly selected independent legislators can increase the global efficiency of a Legislature,in terms of both the number of laws passed and the average social welfare obtained.
We also analytically find an ”efficiency golden rule” which allows to fix the optimal number of legislators to be selected at random after that regular elections have established the relative proportion of the two Parties or Coalitions. These resultsare in line with both the ancient Greek democratic system and the recent discovery that the adoption of random strategies can improve the efficiency of hierarchical organizations.

~*~*~*

5. Conclusion
In this paper, by means of a prototypical Parliament model based on Cipolla classification, we showed in a quantitative way that the introduction of a well-defined number of random members into the Parliament improves the efficiency of this institution through the maximization of the social overall welfare that depends on its acts. In this respect, the exact number of random members has to be established after the elections, on the basis of the electoral results and of our analytical ”golden rule”: the greater the size difference between the Parties, the greater the number of members that should be lotted to increase the efficiency of Parliament [35].
Of course our prototypical model of Parliament does not represent all the real parliamentary institutions around the world in their detailed variety, so there could be many possible way to extend it. For example it would be interesting to study the consequences of different electoral systems by introducing more than two Parties in the Parliament, with all the consequences deriving from it. Also the government form could be important: our simple model is directly compatible with a presidential system, where there is no relationship between Parliament and Government, whereas, in the case of a parliamentary system, also such a link should to be considered in order to evaluate the overall social welfare. For simplicity, we chose to study a unicameral Parliament, whereas several countries adopt bicameralism. So, simulating another chamber could bring to subsequent interesting extensions of the model. Finally, we expect that there would be also several other social situations, beyond the Parliament,where the introduction of random members could be of help in improving the efficiency. In conclusion, our study provides rigorous arguments in favor of the idea that the introduction of random selection systems, rediscovering the wisdom and the history of ancient democracies, would be broadly beneficial for modern institutions.


READ THE WHOLE SCIENTIFIC PAPER (AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN) @

https://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1224   (Cornell University Library)


CONCLUSION: There is my truth, there is your truth and...there is the optimal solution.

Bitcoin: Why It Now Belongs in Every Portfolio

DATE: 18/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 19/01/2017
SOURCE: NASDAQ


A technology is called “disruptive” if it creates a new market that first disturbs and then displaces an earlier technology.

##########################################################


The digital currency and clearing network is open source, mobile, peer-to-peer, cryptographically protected, privacy oriented and native to the internet. The fusion of these technologies allows for a level of security and efficiency unprecedented in the world of finance.


########################################################


Bitcoin’s potential is not going unnoticed. After it had been praised by tech moguls such as Bill Gates (“a technological tour de force”) and Gmail founder Paul Buchheit (“Bitcoin may be the TCP/IP of money”), the money started speaking. We saw investments in Bitcoin by top venture capital brass such as Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, Fred Wilson and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel; by billionaires such as Jeffrey Skoll (eBay cofounder) and Li Ka-shing (by all reports the richest person in Asia); by iconic executives such as Vikram Pandit (Citigroup), Blythe Masters (JPMorgan Chase) and Tom Glocer (Reuters); and most recently by large cap companies such as Google, Qualcomm, NYSE, Nasdaq, USAA (American bank and insurer) and NTT Docomo ($75b Japanese phone operator). Finally, several academic and government heavyweights have also affiliated themselves with Bitcoin companies: Larry Summers (ex-Treasury Secretary, World Bank Chief Economist), James Newsome (CFTC and NYMEX), and Arthur Levitt (SEC). The core value proposition of this network is the fact that, in the words of IBM executive architect Richard Brown, “Bitcoin is a very sophisticated, globally distributed asset ledger.” What Brown and others hint at is that Bitcoin will in the future be able to serve not only as a decentralized currency and payment platform, but also as the backbone for an “internet of property.”

This entails a decentralized global platform, smartphone-accessible, on which companies and individuals can issue, buy and sell stocks, bonds, commodities and a myriad of other financial assets. The effect will be to remove much of the current bureaucracy and barriers to entry, presenting a huge opportunity for the world’s 2.5 billion unbanked people.

######################################################

The scenarios projected above are, of course, not cast in stone. Bitcoin faces several risks going forward. These include:

     The emergence of a much better digital currency that steals its market lead.
     An undetected bug in the system.
     A hard fork (what happens when some nodes in the network start running a Bitcoin software upgrade that is incompatible with previous versions) causing the Bitcoin payment network to split in two.
     A sustained attack by an organization with substantial financial resources, such as a government.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/bitcoin-why-it-now-belongs-in-every-portfolio-cm734833

CONCLUSION: CREATE A WALLET AND START EXPERIMENTING WITH BITCOIN. YOU ARE ALREADY LATE.

Storyville -Zero Day: Nuclear Cyber Sabotage BBC Documentary 2017

RETRIEVED: 19/01/2017
SOURCE: YOUTUBE, BBC

Documentary thriller about warfare in a world without rules - the world of cyberwar. It tells the story of Stuxnet, self-replicating computer malware, known as a 'worm' for its ability to burrow from computer to computer on its own. In a covert operation, the American and Israeli intelligence agencies allegedly unleashed Stuxnet to destroy a key part of an Iranian nuclear facility. Ultimately the 'worm' spread beyond its intended target.
Zero Day is the most comprehensive account to date of how a clandestine mission opened forever the Pandora's box of cyber warfare. A cautionary tale of technology, politics, unintended consequences, morality, and the dangers of secrecy.





ABOUT STUXNET FROM WIKIPEDIA

Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm, first identified in 2010, that targets industrial computer systems and was responsible for causing substantial damage to Iran's nuclear program. The software was designed to erase itself in 2012 thus limiting the scope of its effects. The worm is believed by many experts to be a jointly built American-Israeli cyberweapon,[1] although no organization or state has officially admitted responsibility. Anonymous US officials speaking to The Washington Post claimed the worm was developed during the Bush administration to sabotage Iran's nuclear program with what would seem like a long series of unfortunate accidents.[2]

Stuxnet specifically targets programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which allow the automation of electromechanical processes such as those used to control machinery on factory assembly lines, amusement rides, or centrifuges for separating nuclear material. Exploiting four zero-day flaws,[3] Stuxnet functions by targeting machines using the Microsoft Windows operating system and networks, then seeking out Siemens Step7 software. Stuxnet reportedly compromised Iranian PLCs, collecting information on industrial systems and causing the fast-spinning centrifuges to tear themselves apart.[4] Stuxnet’s design and architecture are not domain-specific and it could be tailored as a platform for attacking modern SCADA and PLC systems (e.g., in automobile assembly lines[vague] or power plants), the majority of which reside in Europe, Japan and the US.[5] Stuxnet reportedly ruined almost one fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

WhatsApp vulnerability allows snooping on encrypted messages

Exclusive: Privacy campaigners criticise WhatsApp vulnerability as a ‘huge threat to freedom of speech’ and warn it could be exploited by government agencies

DATE: 13/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 15/01/2017
SOURCE THE GUARDIAN


A security vulnerability that can be used to allow Facebook and others to intercept and read encrypted messages has been found within its WhatsApp messaging service.

~*~*~*~

WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption relies on the generation of unique security keys, using the acclaimed Signal protocol, developed by Open Whisper Systems, that are traded and verified between users to guarantee communications are secure and cannot be intercepted by a middleman.

However, WhatsApp has the ability to force the generation of new encryption keys for offline users, unbeknown to the sender and recipient of the messages, and to make the sender re-encrypt messages with new keys and send them again for any messages that have not been marked as delivered.

The recipient is not made aware of this change in encryption, while the sender is only notified if they have opted-in to encryption warnings in settings, and only after the messages have been re-sent. This re-encryption and rebroadcasting effectively allows WhatsApp to intercept and read users’ messages.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/13/whatsapp-backdoor-allows-snooping-on-encrypted-messages/


CONCLUSION: REMOVE WHATSAPP & INSTALL SIGNAL

Gadget mountain rising in Asia threatens health, environment

DATE: 15/01/2017
SOURCE AP


The waste from discarded electronic gadgets and electrical appliances has reached severe levels in East Asia, posing a growing threat to health and the environment unless safe disposal becomes the norm.

China was the biggest culprit with its electronic waste more than doubling, according to a new study by the United Nations University. But nearly every country in the region had massive increases between 2010 and 2015, including those least equipped to deal with the growing mountain of discarded smartphones, computers, TVs, air conditioners and other goods.

On average, electronic waste in the 12 countries in the study had increased by nearly two thirds in the five years, totaling 12.3 million tons in 2015 alone.

Rising incomes in Asia, burgeoning populations of young adults, rapid obsolescence of products due to technological innovation and changes in fashion, on top of illegal global trade in waste, are among factors driving the increases.


~*~*~*~

"We are all benefiting from the luxury of these electrical and electronic products to a certain extent, it makes our lives easier, sometimes more complicated," he said. "However if we want to continue like this we must be reusing the resources contained in electronic and electrical equipment."

A smartphone, for example, uses more than half the elements in the periodic table, some of which are very rare, and in the longer-run will be exhausted without recycling, said Kuehr.


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2017-01-15-AS--Asia-Electronic%20Waste/id-83fc4d0d1d7e4b4e8bb851e657410448

AI pics

The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

DATE: 13/01/2017
SOURCE: NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

In 2011, the Swedes began sharing their surveillance data with the NSA, which included—as NSA officials described it at the time of the meeting—a “unique collection [of communications data] on high-priority Russian targets such as leadership, internal politics, and energy.”

Noting the Swedish spy agency’s unusual technical abilities and reputation for secrecy, NSA officials also viewed it as an ideal collaborator on its hacking and cyberwarfare project, called Quantum. One of the Quantum programs was an ambitious operation called WINTERLIGHT, which aimed at secretly hacking into high-value foreign computers and computer networks to obtain not only communications data but also any information stored on the hard drives or servers in question. Possible targets might be the administrators of foreign computer networks, government ministries, oil, defense, and other major corporations, as well as suspected terrorist groups or other designated individuals. Similar Quantum operations have targeted OPEC headquarters in Vienna, as well as Belgacom, a Belgian telecom company whose clients include the European Commission and the European Parliament.

According to NSA documents, WINTERLIGHT was using a complex attack strategy to secretly implant a malware program on the targeted computer or network. The NSA’s malware would then divert any signals between those computers and the Internet through “rogue” high-speed surveillance servers, called “FoxAcid” servers, allowing the NSA to access in stealth almost any of the user’s personal data—and even to tamper with data traveling from one user to another. The implications for both spying and offensive cyber operations were far-reaching. Wired has described how the attack on the Belgian telecom was able to

    [map] out the digital footprints of chosen workers, identifying the IP [internet protocol] addresses of work and personal computers as well as Skype, Gmail and social networking accounts such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Then they set up rogue pages, hosted on FoxAcid servers, to impersonate, for example, an employee’s legitimate LinkedIn profile page.


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/the-swedish-kings-of-cyberwar/

UAE to invest $163bn in renewable-energy projects

Oil-rich Gulf state aims to meet almost half of its power needs from green sources and reduce fossil-fuel use.

DATE: 10/1/2017
RETRIEVED: 11/01/2017
SOURCE: ALJAZEERA


The United Arab Emirates has announced plans to invest $163bn in projects in a bid to generate almost half the country's power needs from renewable sources.

Our 2050 goals for energy mix are to utilize 44% renewable, 38% gas, 12% clean fossil and 6% nuclear energy. - Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, UAE prime minister


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/uae-invest-163b-renewable-energy-projects-170110160613154.html

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

10 things you need to know about the new EU data protection regulation

DATE: 06/05/2016
RETRIEVED: 11/1/2017
SOURCE: COMPUTERWORLD UK

1. This is a regulation, not a directive
2. Data processors will be held responsible for data protection
3. The regulation has global ramifications
4. Users will be able make compensation claims
5. There are tighter rules on transferring data on EU citizens outside the EU
6. Harmonised user request rights
7. New erasure rights
8. It is your responsibility to inform users of their rights
9. Tougher sanctions and streamlined incident reporting
10. Encryption and tokenisation can come to your rescue

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @
http://www.computerworlduk.com/security/10-things-you-need-know-about-new-eu-data-protection-regulation-3610851/

FURTHER READING:

GDPR explained: How to prepare for the approaching General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force on 25 May 2018, and the British government has confirmed it will adopt the legislation while the country remains in the EU.

With less than 18 months to go until implementation, many of them remain entirely unprepared. More than half (54 percent) of organisations have failed to commence any kind of preparation to meet even the minimum standards of GDPR, according to recent research by information management company Veritas.

The regulation enforces complex data obligations for companies that current policy is unlikely to satisfy, and damaging fines for breaches.


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.computerworlduk.com/data/how-prepare-for-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr-3652439/

Your Threat Model changed

LinkedIn and eBay founders donate $20m to AI safety research fund

DATE: 11/1/2017
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

LinkedIn’s founder Reid Hoffman and Omidyar network, the philanthropic nonprofit of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, are donating $10m each to the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund, which will distribute money to researchers working on the tough ethical problems raised by AI.

~*~*~*~

The specific research areas the fund will focus on aren’t fixed, but the possibilities include ethical design – “How do we build and design technologies that consider ethical frameworks and moral values as central features of technological innovation?” – and accountability in AI – “What kinds of controls do we need to minimize AI’s potential harm to society and maximize its benefits?”

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/11/linkedin-ebay-founders-reid-hoffman-pierre-omidyar-donate-research-ai-safety

Google AI Secretly Uploaded to the Internet, Where it Wreaked Havoc on Gamers Getty Images

DATE: 05/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 11/1/2017
SOURCE: FUTURISM

A major training/proving ground for DeepMind’s software has been gaming. The company has developed AI that can play 49 different Atari games at expert levels. Also, in a world-first development, they created software called AlphaGo which challenged the world champion of the ancient Chinese game of Go, and won.

The latest news out of DeepMind comes back to that historic victory. As a means of testing some upgrades to AlphaGo, the company secretly unleashed the AI on some unwitting Go players. AlphaGo completely dominated the competition. More than 50 games were played and AlphaGo won every single one.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @
https://futurism.com/google-ai-secretly-uploaded-to-the-internet-where-it-wreaked-havoc-on-gamers/

NASA Takes A Leap Towards Asteroid Mining In Space: A Highly Ambitious Venture Under NASA's Discovery Program

DATE: 06/01/2017
SOURCE: SCIENCE WORDL REPORT


NASA has started working towards its future missions of asteroid mining in space. Two asteroids missions were integrated into NASA's Discovery Program and were given the green signal to proceed. The announcement made by NASA on Jan. 4, 2017 stated that the Lucy and Psyche asteroid missions are a "go."

Each mission has an estimated budget of $450 million and is expected to launch in the early 2020s. Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for Science, NASA, held a teleconference and announced that "These small body missions complement NASA's exploration and are crucial parts of learning about our solar system and crucial parts of our programs going forward."


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/55887/20170106/nasa-asteroid-mining-space-highly-ambitious-discovery-program.htm

World Shatters Heat Records in 2016

Last year was the hottest on record by a wide margin, with temperatures creeping close to a ceiling set by nations for limiting global warming

DATE: 06/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 06/01/2017
SOURCE: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN



Last year was the hottest on record by a wide margin, with temperatures creeping close to a ceiling set by almost 200 nations for limiting global warming, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Thursday.

The data are the first of the New Year to confirm many projections that 2016 will exceed 2015 as the warmest since reliable records began in the 19th century, it said in a report.

The Arctic was the region showing the sharpest rise in temperatures, while many other areas of the globe, including parts of Africa and Asia, also suffered unusual heat, it said.

A few parts of South America and Antarctica were cooler than normal.

Global surface temperatures in 2016 averaged 14.8 degrees Celsius (58.64°F), or 1.3C (2.3F) higher than estimated before the Industrial Revolution ushered in wide use of fossil fuels, the EU body said.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-shatters-heat-records-in-2016/

Honda’s Safe Swarm concept has cars mimicking fish for safer driving

DATE: 05/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 06/01/2017
SOURCE: TECH CRUNCH



Honda is looking to nature to improve the safety of driving, using bio-mimicry of the behavior of a school of fish to inform a new technical concept it’s unveiling at CES called Safe Swarm. Safe Swarm uses vehicle-to-vehicle communication based on the dedicated short range communication standard to provide assistance to a human driver.

Safe Swarm essentially means that cues picked up by one vehicle equipped with connective communication tech can pass along information to others in proximity, far before a driver would be aware of anything. Cars can shuttle their collected knowledge down the line, propagating info about a pile-up potentially miles ahead in near real-time to help make it easier for human drivers to take action to avoid problems before they happen.


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/05/hondas-safe-swarm-concept-has-cars-mimicking-fish-for-safer-driving/

What happens when our computers get smarter than we are? | Nick Bostrom

DATE: 27/04/2015
RETRIEVED: 06/01/2017
SOURCE: TED TALKS

No Job Is Safe, But These Skills Will Always Be Valued in the Workplace

DATE: 04/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 06/01/2017
SOURCE: SINGULARITYHUB

“65 percent of children entering grade school this year (2011) will end up working in careers that haven't even been invented yet."


~*~*~*~

Finland recently shifted its national curriculum to a new model called the “phenomenon-based" approach. By 2020, the country will replace traditional classroom subjects with a topical approach highlighting the four Cs—communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration.

~*~*~*~

In addition to the four Cs, successful entrepreneurs across the globe are demonstrating three additional soft skills that can be integrated into the classroom—adaptability, resiliency and grit, and a mindset of continuous learning.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://singularityhub.com/2017/01/04/no-job-is-safe-but-these-skills-will-always-be-valued-in-the-workplace/

Horgos: a future robot export base in China

DATE: 06/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 06/01/2017
SOURCE: ECNS


A Chinese robot manufacturer is making China's new border city with Kazakhstan its export base, hoping Horgos will provide convenience in trade.

Horgos Boshihao Electronic, a firm registered in southern China's city of Shenzhen, has been ramping up construction of its robot production workshop in Horgos and expects to start production in May.

~*~*~*~

Boshihao's service robots are able to replace human labor in nursing and education-related duties. Prices range from 5,000 yuan (721 U.S. dollars) to 200,000 yuan, with industrial robots priced between 100,000 yuan to 1 million yuan.

The company is looking at export markets in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia.

READ THE WHOLE STORY @

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/01-06/240517.shtml

N. Korea holds mass rally after Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s ‘nuke’ message

DATE: 06/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 06/01/2017
SOURCE: RT


Thousands of North Koreans have taken to the streets of the capital Pyongyang after leader Kim Jong-un, in his New Year’s message, announced preparations for a test-launch of banned ICBMs were at the ‘final stage.’
The demonstrators gathered in Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang and chanted “long live comrade Kim Jong-un,” AFP reported. Some of them were seen holding banners saying “Let us accelerate the victorious advance of socialism!”

~*~*~*~

In September, Pyongyang stated that it conducted its fifth nuclear test, announcing it is now capable of mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic rockets.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://www.rt.com/news/372816-north-korea-mass-rally/

Edible insect industry group set up to support Southeast Asia

DATE: 03/01/2016
RETRIEVED: 05/01/2016
SOURCE: FOODNAVIGATOR ASIA


In the last few years, dozens of edible insect start-ups have popped up in western countries to supply a new wave of interest in bugs as food. This market is now in need of regulation, promotion and support.

This this is the case might might be one reason for the growing number of industry associations are being formed—including one I recently co-founded with some other companies in the region.

The first representative body for manufacturers of insects for food was created by Robert Nathan Allen in 2013 as Little Herds in America. Then came the North America Edible Insect Coalition (NAEIC), formed by start-ups like Exo, Entomo Farms and Chapul.

In Europe, IPIFF, strategically located in Brussels, represents small- and medium-sized companies from the edible insect market, as well as from the feed sector. Lobbying the EU parliament on insects is obviously one of their priorities.

There is also BiiF in Belgium, FFPIDI in France and Switzerland’s GRIMIAM, which successfully campaigned to have the Swiss parliament approve a law on edible insects, which passed in December.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.foodnavigator-asia.com/Formulation/Edible-insect-industry-group-set-up-to-support-Southeast-Asia

China wages cyber war via dharamsala

DATE: 25/12/2016
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2016


With a view to malign the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), China is remotely accessing the computer servers in Dharamsala, planting spywares and malwares and disguising the IP address to target computer systems across the globe, said Prime Minister of Central Tibetan Administration Dr Lobsang Sangay.


“China is also seeking to drive a wedge between CTA and foreign governments by infecting our computer systems. Efforts are on to secure the servers in Dharamsala which is used by the Chinese as a transit point to launch cyber attacks globally,” Sangay told The Sunday Standard.

He said a major study on malware attacks against Tibetans conducted by Munk School of Global Affairs at the Toronto University reported that the attacks on the servers and computer system of CTA are “highly targeted and have low anti-virus detection”.  




Intelligence officials say the need of the hour is to develop an indigenous operating systems (OS) for mobile phones and computers as the MS Window-based systems or even the Safari OS used in iPhones and Mac computers could be susceptible to attacks.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.newindianexpress.com/thesundaystandard/2016/dec/24/china-wages-cyber-war-via-dharamsala-1552795.html

Quantum Computers Ready to Leap Out of the Lab in 2017

Google, Microsoft and a host of labs and start-ups are racing to turn scientific curiosities into working machines

DATE: 04/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2017
SOURCE: SCIAM


Quantum computing has long seemed like one of those technologies that are 20 years away, and always will be. But 2017 could be the year that the field sheds its research-only image.

Google started working on a form of quantum computing that harnesses superconductivity in 2014. It hopes this year, or shortly after, to perform a computation that is beyond even the most powerful ‘classical’ supercomputers—an elusive milestone known as quantum supremacy. Its rival, Microsoft, is betting on an intriguing but unproven concept, topological quantum computing, and hopes to perform a first demonstration of the technology.

Quantum Circuits is focused on making fully error-corrected machines from the start. This requires building in more qubits, but the machines could also run more-sophisticated quantum algorithms.

IonQ aims to build machines that have 32 or even 64 qubits, and the ion-trap technology will enable their designs to be more flexible and scalable than superconducting circuits, he says.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is betting on the technology that has the most to prove. Topological quantum computing depends on excitations of matter that encode infor­mation by tangling around each other like braids.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-computers-ready-to-leap-out-of-the-lab-in-2017/

New Chinese Law on Cybersecurity Will Increase Censorship & Data Surveillance

DATE: 04/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2017
SOURCE: THE MERKLE


The Chinese government passed a new set of regulations that will tighten existing policies on censorship and data surveillance. From June 1 and onward, outflow of any kind of personal and important data will be restricted and censored by key information infrastructure operators (KILO).

Network operators and internet service providers also fall under the newly proposed regulatory regime, and as a result are obligated to impose new security and data protection systems.

~*~*~*~

With the new regulatory framework in place, ISPs and telecommunication companies will be legally allowed to censor and observe “any system comprising computers or other information terminals and related equipment for collection, storage, transmission, exchange and processing of information.”

Websites and platforms that store personal or financial data will most likely be required by the central government to censor and restrict the flow of information, depending on the certain situations. The document emphasizes that by law, website owners or operators are considered as network operators and thus are obligated to pass on necessary information to the government.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://themerkle.com/new-chinese-law-on-cybersecurity-will-increase-censorship-data-surveillance/

Amazon now has 45,000 robots in its warehouses

DATE: 03/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2017
SOURCE: BUSINESS INSIDER UK



Amazon significantly expanded its army of warehouse robots in 2016, according to a report by The Seattle Times.

The newspaper — based in the same city as Amazon's global headquarters — wrote last week that the e-commerce giant now has 45,000 robots across 20 fulfillment centres.

That would be a 50% increase from the same time the year before, when the company said it had 30,000 robots working alongside 230,000 people.

~*~*~*~

Beyond the warehouse, Amazon is also looking at automating other aspects of its business. In December, the company announced it had made its first delivery by an automated drone in the UK. It's also filed a patent that would allow it to use automated drones to deliver packages from large airships in the future.



READ THE WHOLE ARICLE @

http://uk.businessinsider.com/amazons-robot-army-has-grown-by-50-2017-1

Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

The site shows users how Facebook categorizes them. It doesn’t reveal the data it is buying about their offline lives. 

DATE: 27/12/2016
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2017
SOURCE: PROPUBLICA

Facebook has long let users see all sorts of things the site knows about them, like whether they enjoy soccer, have recently moved, or like Melania Trump.

But the tech giant gives users little indication that it buys far more sensitive data about them, including their income, the types of restaurants they frequent and even how many credit cards are in their wallets.

Since September, ProPublica has been encouraging Facebook users to share the categories of interest that the site has assigned to them. Users showed us everything from “Pretending to Text in Awkward Situations” to “Breastfeeding in Public.” In total, we collected more than 52,000 unique attributes that Facebook has used to classify users.

Facebook’s site says it gets information about its users “from a few different sources.”

What the page doesn’t say is that those sources include detailed dossiers obtained from commercial data brokers about users’ offline lives. Nor does Facebook show users any of the often remarkably detailed information it gets from those brokers.

Steve Satterfield, a Facebook manager of privacy and public policy, said users who don’t want that information to be available to Facebook should contact the data brokers directly. He said users can visit a page in Facebook’s help center, which provides links to the opt-outs for six data brokers that sell personal data to Facebook.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-users-everything-it-really-knows-about-them

Police in Bengaluru urged to investigate New Year attacks on women

DATE: 03/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2017
SOURCE: REUTERS


Reports of sexual assaults on women revellers at New Year's Eve celebrations in Bengaluru have spurred women's rights activists to demand that police investigate.

The attacks, reminiscent of those blamed on migrants in German cities last year, shocked many Indians, since Bengaluru, home to many well-educated professionals, is regarded as safer for women than the capital, New Delhi.

Several women were groped and assaulted by a mob in the city's central business district on Dec. 31 as they celebrated, according to a Reuters witness and a report in the Bangalore Mirror newspaper.

Sex crimes are common in India, where the National Crime Record Bureau says more than 34,000 rapes were reported in all in 2015, although women sometimes do not report assaults for fear of the associated social stigma.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://in.reuters.com/article/india-bengaluru-idINKBN14N145

Women's March on Washington organizers promise 200,000 to protest Trump

DATE: 04/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2017
SOURCEl UPI


Organizers are predicting 200,000 will participate in the Women's March on Washington the day after Donald Trump is inaugurated as president.

The National Park Service's list of First Amendment applications lists a permit for that size of a crowd on Jan. 21.

The group applied for the permit under the name "The Gathering for Justice." The application says the purpose is "to come together in solidarity to express to the new administration & congress that women's rights are human rights and our power cannot be ignored."

The next morning, 10,000 responded they would attend. Now 100,000 say they will participate in the march, which is set to begin at 10 a.m. at the Lincoln Memorial and end at the White House at 5 p.m.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/01/04/Womens-March-on-Washington-organizers-promise-200000-to-protest-Trump/2591483534940/

Personal genome testing: The ultimate quantified self

Taking personal metrics to the next level with genealogical DNA home-kits

DATE: 12/02/2016
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2017
SOURCE: WAREABLE


The National Human Genome Research Institute set a target to be able to sequence a human-sized genome for $100,000 by 2009. By the end of 2014 the cost was less than $1,000. Nowadays, as mentioned – £125 gets you a pretty comprehensive set of results through the post.

"The information can affect the user's life in a pretty meaningful way," Erynn Gordon, medical marketing director of 23andMe told me. "One of the most meaningful pieces of information from what people get back is their results related to drug response."

"There is a lot of discussion debating, as we progress towards whole genome sequencing, what is the right point of life to do that. If it's done in the newborn period, you can go through life with a wallet of genetic information that can tapped and access at key points in your life as appropriate."


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.wareable.com/health-and-wellbeing/personal-genome-testing-the-ultimate-quantified-self-2298

Finland begins Universal Basic Income trial as the world watches

DATE: 04/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2017
SOURCE: NEWS.COM.AU



The trial in Finland kicked off on January 1, 2017 and marks a monumental moment for proponents of the idea who hope successful results will usher in an era of free money.

Under the two-year, nationwide pilot scheme in the country of 5.5 million, 2000 randomly picked unemployed Finns will receive a guaranteed sum of €560 ($806) per month.

The income will replace their existing social benefits and will be paid even if they find work, and government officials say it could soon be extended to other low-income groups such as freelancers, small-scale entrepreneurs and part-time workers.

THE RISE OF UBI

UBI is not a new idea having been floated by various economists and politicians across the world for decades. But it has gained real momentum in recent years with small scale schemes being introduced in developing nations Kenya, Uganda, and India.

In the developed world a number of countries have also considered experimenting with the idea. Trials are being considered in Scotland, by councils in Fife and Glasgow to potentially be rolled out soon. Currently the Canadian province of Ontario is pushing ahead with trials to begin later this year.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/finland-begins-universal-basic-income-trial-as-the-world-watches/news-story/7ae91901c856ca697ed6b30e18cbba00

3000 Ubers Could Replace NYC’s Entire Taxi Fleet

DATE: 02/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2017
SOURCE: VICE


A new study released Monday by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has found that just 3000 ride-share vehicles could do the job of New York City’s roughly 13,500 licensed cabs. While this is a remarkable finding about the potential in ride-sharing, there is a catch—it only works if all the passengers are using the carpool option offered by Uber and Lyft.

~*~*~*~

This is bad news for NYC’s already embattled taxi drivers, who have spent the last few years fighting Uber’s rapid expansion in the city. But it might also be bad news for the Uber drivers themselves, who are facing obsolescence as Uber rolls out its autonomous vehicles, a program that could be aided by CSAIL’s algorithm. On the flipside, such algorithms could be a boost to the US economy as a whole, which loses an estimated $121 billion annually (about 1 percent of the US GDP) as a result of the 5.5 billion hours people send sitting in traffic (to say nothing of the 2.9 billion gallons of fuel that is also wasted).

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/3000-ubers-could-replace-nycs-entire-taxi-fleet

Tech’s Next Battle: The Frightful Five vs. Lawmakers

DATE: 04/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 04/01/2017
SOURCE: NYTIMES


In the technology industry, the sharks have never long been safe from the minnows. Over much of the last 40 years, the biggest players in tech — from IBM to Hewlett-Packard to Cisco to Yahoo — were eventually outmaneuvered by start-ups that came out of nowhere.

The dynamic is so dependable that it is often taken to be a kind of axiom. To grow large in this business is also to grow slow, blind and dumb, to become closed off from the very sources of innovation that turned you into a shark in the first place.

Then, in the last half decade, something strange happened: The sharks began to get bigger and smarter. Nearly a year ago, I argued that we were witnessing a new era in the tech business, one that is typified less by the storied start-up in a garage than by a posse I like to call the Frightful Five: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

Together the Five compose a new superclass of American corporate might. For much of last year, their further rise and domination over the rest of the global economy looked not just plausible, but also maybe even probable.
Continue reading the main story

In 2017, much the same story remains, but there is a new wrinkle: The world’s governments are newly motivated to take on the tech giants. In the United States, Europe, Asia and South America, the Five find themselves increasingly arrayed against legal and regulatory powers, and often even against popular will.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/technology/techs-next-battle-the-frightful-five-vs-lawmakers.html

Top ten transhumanist technologies

RETRIEVED: 03/01/2017
SOURCE LIFEBOAT FOUNDATION


Transhumanists advocate the improvement of human capacities through advanced technology. Not just technology as in gadgets you get from Best Buy, but technology in the grander sense of strategies for eliminating disease, providing cheap but high-quality products to the world’s poorest, improving quality of life and social interconnectedness, and so on. Technology we don’t notice because it’s blended in with the fabric of the world, but would immediately take note of its absence if it became unavailable. (Ever tried to travel to another country on foot?) Technology needn’t be expensive — indeed, if a technology is truly effective it will pay for itself many times over.

Transhumanists tend to take a longer-than-average view of technological progress, looking not just five or ten years into the future but twenty years, thirty years, and beyond. We realize that the longer you look forward, the more uncertain the predictions get, but one thing is quite certain: if a technology is physically possible and obviously useful, human (or transhuman!) ingenuity will see to it that it gets built eventually.

As we gain ever greater control over the atomic structure of matter, our technological goals become increasingly ambitious, and their payoffs more and more generous. Sometimes new technologies even make us happier in a long-lasting way: the Internet would be a prime example. In the following list I take a look at what I consider the top ten transhumanist technologies.

The List

10. Cryonics
9. Virtual Reality
8. Gene Therapy/RNA Interference
7. Space Colonization
6. Cybernetics
5. Autonomous Self-Replicating Robotics
4. Molecular Manufacturing
3. Megascale Engineering
2. Mind Uploading
1. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://lifeboat.com/ex/transhumanist.technologies

Microsoft’s Testing DNA Storage: 1,000,000,000 TB in 1 Gram

DATE: 28/04/2016
RETRIEVED: 03/01/2017
SOURCE: FUTURISM


Microsoft is now looking to biology to come up with solutions for data storage. The tech giant just purchased ten million strands of synthetic DNA from Twist Bioscience to use for digital data storage research.

The purchase involves ten million long oligonucleotides. Twist Bioscience CEO Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D. said in a press release: “Today, the vast majority of digital data is stored on media that has a finite shelf life and periodically needs to be re-encoded. DNA is a promising storage media, as it has a known shelf life of several thousand years, offers a permanent storage format and can be read for continuously decreasing costs.”

“We need new methods for long-term, secure data storage,” says Doug Carmean, a Microsoft partner architect in its Technology and Research organization. Their initial tests have shown that they can successfully encode and recover 100 percent of binary data from synthetic DNA.


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://futurism.com/microsofts-testing-dna-storage-1000000000-tb-1-gram/

Lenovo enters smart glasses fray, targets business, augmented reality, June availability

DATE: 03/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 03/01/2017
SOURCE: ZDNET


According to Lenovo, New Glass C200 is designed to leverage artificial intelligence and augmented reality. In a nutshell, Lenovo sees smart glasses as a way to bring analytics and data to the small screen in a wearable.

C200 is a modular system that includes a smart glass and pocket unit. The Glass Unit weighs in at less than 60 grams and uses one eye. This design approach will reportedly enhance mixed reality perception. The Glass Unit uses an app and plugs into the Pocket Unit to boost performance. There are also accessories to carry the units on belts as well as in a pocket.

The use cases for Lenovo's smart glasses gear rhymes with other implementations. For businesses, training, remote repair, directions and troubleshooting deliver quick returns.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-enters-smart-glasses-fray-targets-business-augmented-reality-june-availability/

5 Ways Companies Can Incorporate Augmented Reality In 2017

DATE: 03/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 03/01/2017
SOURCE: PSFK



    Better Customer Service

Augmented reality not only makes life easier for customer support staff of any organization, but it also helps them work smarter, and increase overall productivity.


    Visualizing Objects

Visualizing objects through augmented reality can help professionals interact with virtual 3D models in the real world.



    Remote Guidance

Many people, such as engineers, salesman, etc., often spend maximum time working onsite, and at some point in time they face situations where they need a helping hand back from the office.



    Relationship Building

Augmented reality allow businesses the opportunity to develop their own products, improve user engagement, and build a long-lasting relationship with their customers.


    Innovative Working Methods

Besides giving a helping hand for remote guidance, augmented reality can also prove to be beneficial in improving work processes of an organization.


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.psfk.com/2017/01/abhinav-girdha-ceo-appy-pie-5-ways-companies-can-incorporate-augmented-reality-in-2017.html

The WHO has a plan to save the world from the next pandemic—but it doesn’t have the money

DATE: 02/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 03/01/2017
SOURCE: QUARTZ

As a new year begins, the WHO is beginning to implement a new pandemic preparedness plan, so that countries around the world are ready for the next Ebola or Zika. Step one in that plan is the creation of the Emerging Diseases Clinical Assessment and Response Network (EDCARN), intended to help caretakers during an outbreak.

But for the WHO to implement its new health-emergencies program in 2016-17—of which EDCARN is a part—the agency needs $485 million in funding. As of October (pdf), they had raised just over half that. Worse, the organization also needs $656 million to support its humanitarian response plans, but as of October had only raised a third.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://qz.com/876470/the-who-has-a-plan-to-save-the-world-from-the-next-pandemic-but-it-doesnt-have-the-money/

Which Countries Have Nuclear Weapons and How Big Their Arsenals Are

DATE:23/12/2016
SOYRCE: NY TIMES

Russia and the United States are believed to have 7,000 weapons each, or more. Only about a quarter of these are deployed, and most of the others are in reserve or set aside to be dismantled. North Korea's arsenal is cloaked in secrecy, but experts believe it has fewer than 10 weapons.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/23/world/nuclear-weapon-countries.html

A PGP beginners guide, for beginners who want to do it right

DATE:15/08/2014
AUTHOR: CURTIS WALLEN

When I (@curtiswallen) was first learning how to use PGP encryption I followed a bunch of different guides online, but still felt so confused. They taught the bare minimum for generating a key, and then didn't give any real world advice on how to use it or how to actually encrypt anything. After learning a little more and gaining some experience, I also realized that those guides often don't focus on some of the most important aspects of encrypted communications. Namely, that encrypting email isn't enough on its own to provide security. In this guide I've tried to distill my best advice in a simple and concise format. Hopefully you will find it useful.

    Intro
    Getting started/configuration
    Generating your key
    Generating your revocation certificate
    Sending messages
    Receiving messages/sharing your key
    One potential secure procedure
    Epilogue

    Verifying downloads using PGP

What is PGP?

PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") is a piece of software created by Phil Zimmermann in 1991 to encrypt digital information. In 1997, realizing an open standard for PGP encryption was needed to prevent the technology from being locked down by patents, Zimmermann and his team drafted the OpenPGP standard. In 1999, the Free Software Foundation released version 1 of the GNU Privacy Guard (GPG), an OpenPGP standards compliant encryption program. Most uses of PGP today are via GnuPGP (GPG).
What is PGP good for?

PGP is really good at encrypting data. If used correctly, there should be no way for anyone unintended to determine the content of information encrypted using PGP.

However, law enforcement can force a user to surrender her or his passwords/keys, or can use an array of different methods to discover the content they're looking for. Because the encryption itself is so strong, an adversary will rarely focus on breaking it. They will instead look to exploit weaker links in the chain: passwords, keys, plaintext drafts/copies on a target's computer, or the sender/recipient herself.

Or, in some cases, the content isn't even needed. Metadata analysis can often be enough to blow a journalist/whistleblower/etc.'s cover.
What does that mean?

PGP is an important and powerful tool, but it can't prevent you from fucking up in the thousand other ways your adversary is hoping you will. Communications security requires more than encryption. You need to be alert; you need to be smart.
With that in mind, let's get started

A quick note: many people use Mozilla's Thunderbird email client with the Enigmail plug-in to manage pgp encrypted email. I have experienced a few quirks in the past with this set-up that have led me to use a different procedure. It is a bit less convenient, but I believe it is ultimately safer. Of course, feel free to explore other options and do whatever you'd like. :-)

First install the necessary tools and configure everything properly.
GnuPG

OS X: https://gpgtools.org/
Windows: http://gpg4win.org/
GNU/Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, etc): GNUPG comes with most Linux distros, but if you don't have it - https://www.gnupg.org/download/index.html

READ THE REST OF THIS GUIDE @

http://curtiswallen.com/pgp/

Augmented Reality at Daimler

DATE: 25/12/2016
SOURCE: YOUTUBE
VIA: REDDIT

 

CHECK ALSO

https://ektro.blogspot.gr/2017/01/augmented-reality-market-size.html

13 millennial jobs of the future

DATE: 02/01/2016
SOURCE: CITY A.M.

    3D print designer
    Data scientist
    Augmented reality architect
    Professional blogger or vlogger
    Agriculture futurist
    Driverless car experience designer
    Cryptocurrency banker or regulator
    Transport designer
    Lifestyle auditor or efficiency consultant
    Gig economy manager
    E-sports player
    3D food chef
    Extinction revivalist (reviving extinct animals)


http://www.cityam.com/256223/augmented-reality-architect-digital-banker-13-millennial

Earth Vulnerable to Major Asteroid Strike, White House Science Chief Says

DATE: 14/09/2016
SOURCE: SPACE


Strikes such as the Chelyabinsk impact are thought to happen once every hundred years, he added, while Tunguska is regarded as a once-in-1,000-years event.

But, Holdren said, "if we are going to be as capable a civilization as our technology allows, we need to be prepared for even those rare events, because they could do a lot of damage to the Earth."

"This is a hazard that, 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs succumbed to," he added. "We have to be smarter than the dinosaurs."

ARM can help educate us, Holdren said. In late 2021, NASA aims to launch a robotic probe toward a near-Earth asteroid; the current target is a 1,300-foot-wide (400 m) rock called 2008 EV5, but that’s not set in stone, agency officials said.

After it arrives at the asteroid, the spacecraft will pluck a boulder off its surface and then fly along with the space rock for a while, investigating the potential of a deflection strategy known as the "enhanced gravity tractor." (The standard gravity-tractor method calls for nudging a potentially hazardous asteroid off course over the course of years or decades, using the subtle gravitational tug of a tag-along robotic probe; this effect will be "enhanced" by the addition of the boulder's mass.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.space.com/34070-earth-vulnerable-to-major-asteroid-strike.html

A Phone That Charges in Seconds? UCF Scientists Bring it Closer to Reality

DATE: 21/11/2016
SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
VIA: REDDIT



A team of UCF scientists has developed a new process for creating flexible supercapacitors that can store more energy and be recharged more than 30,000 times without degrading.

The novel method from the University of Central Florida’s NanoScience Technology Center could eventually revolutionize technology as varied as mobile phones and electric vehicles.

“If they were to replace the batteries with these supercapacitors, you could charge your mobile phone in a few seconds and you wouldn’t need to charge it again for over a week,” said Nitin Choudhary, a postdoctoral associate who conducted much of the research published recently in the academic journal ACS Nano.

~*~*~*~

Jung’s team has developed supercapacitors composed of millions of nanometer-thick wires coated with shells of two-dimensional materials. A highly conductive core facilitates fast electron transfer for fast charging and discharging. And uniformly coated shells of two-dimensional materials yield high energy and power densities.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://today.ucf.edu/phone-charges-seconds-ucf-scientists-bring-closer-reality/

Nanobots could be used for precision attacks on cancer, researchers say

DATE: 27/08/2016
SOURCE: UPI
VIA: TWITTER


Nanorobots containing anti-cancer drugs are capable of taking a direct route through the bloodstream to attack tumors at their most vulnerable points, researchers at Polytechnique Montreal, the University of Montreal and McGill University report in a study published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

“This innovative use of nanotransporters will have an impact not only on creating more advanced engineering concepts and original intervention methods, but it also throws the door wide open to the synthesis of new vehicles for therapeutic, imaging and diagnostic agents,” Dr. Sylvain Martel, director of the Polytechnique Montreal Nanorobotics Laboratory, said in a press release.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.letlifehappen.com/nanobots-used-precision-attacks-cancer-researchers-say/

Space Colonies Will Start Out Like the Wild West, Grow Family-Friendly

DATE: 30/12/2016
SOURCE: SPACE.COM


The initial stages of colonization would most likely be conducted by workers who would build the necessary support systems, the panelists said. This idea led to a vigorous discussion about who those workers might be. An audience member asked if the first colonists would be the wealthy elite, but the panelists quickly dismissed this, saying the group would more likely rely on blue-collar workers skilled at hands-on labor.

~*~*~*~

"Expect a working middle class for a while," Gannon said. "The wealthy will manipulate from safer, easier environments, and the poor are unlikely to have the necessary skill sets that warrant someone else paying a ticket for them."

~*~*~*~

Gannon named the biggest challenge facing a colony that aimed to grow independent from the people back home: the supply of volatiles, particularly oxygen and water. The first explorers would need to find a way for colonists to harvest those on the new world, Gannon said.

~*~*~*~

 "The colony would ask the question early on what it values," Davis said. At that point, the colonists may seek to become fully independent from Earth, much like many of England's colonies did from the home country, Davis said. Each colony might approach its negotiations for materials differently, he said. "They'll find that out [what they value], and play political judo."

An effort to become self-sustaining would most likely affect colonial education. Instead of focusing on traditional schoolhouse learning, education might be more likely to follow family or professional lines, the panelists said.

The panelists named another requirement for full independence that Earth's colonists never had to worry about: genetic diversity.


~*~*~*~

 "If humanity doesn't have the 'right' to exist, who sits in judgment?" Davis wondered. He pointed to the survival instinct that has brought humans to their current state, and the possibility of an event that could kill off the human population, such as an asteroid or comet impact.

But humans could do even more damage than depleting a world of natural resources and leaving behind a barren wasteland. People could inadvertently kill off an undetected life-form, which raises important moral issues, panelist said.



READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.space.com/35179-space-colonies-for-future-humanity.html

Dubai Police Team with UL for Workshop on 3D Printing Responsibly

DATE: 02/01/2017
SOURCE: 3DPRINT.COM

Of all the geographical locations that bring us 3D printing news on a regular basis, Dubai is almost certainly the most consistent. Since the United Arab Emirates city-state announced its 3D Printing Strategy with the goal of becoming the global leader in 3D printing by 2030, we have been consistently inundated with updates as the government’s plans unfold. It’s been truly exciting to watch as the city progresses towards becoming a 3D printing capital, the likes of which we have never seen before.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://3dprint.com/160302/dubai-police-ul-workshop/

Japan eyes safety certification for AI tech

Seal of approval would limit user liability, promote development

DATE: 31/12/2016
SOURCE: NIKKEI


Artificial intelligence technologies could undergo scrutiny to receive public certification as safe and secure, as Japan looks to create a system that limits user liability while encouraging a promising business field.

The system proposed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications would cover everything from AI-equipped computers like IBM's Watson to intelligent robots. No specific regulations or guidelines exist on research and development in the field.

The government seeks to address the risk of unrestrained AIs harming humans, or acquiring or leaking sensitive information.

The Japanese ministry, knowing that severe restrictions could hinder technological advancement, aims to design a certification program that allows safe products to stand out in the market.

AI technology receiving certification would need to be under constant supervision by a human or other AI, with a safeguard letting a human take control at any time. High security also is essential, to prevent AIs from being taken over or having information stolen in a cyberattack. Privacy measures, such as limiting access to or instantly anonymizing personal information, are on the checklist as well.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://asia.nikkei.com/Tech-Science/Tech/Japan-eyes-safety-certification-for-AI-tech

3 Technologies Will Utterly Transform Your World in the Next Decade

DATE: 30/12/2016
SOURCE: REASON


Blockchain
The digital currency Bitcoin is the first way most folks heard of blockchain technology. By one simple definition, a blockchain is a kind of independent, transparent, and permanent database coexisting in multiple locations and shared by a community. (For nice simple explanation of how blockchains work, go here.) The beauty of a public distributed a blockchain is that records are permanent and cannot easily be falsified. It basically solves the problem of trust since everyone can see what was agreed to and what transactions actually have taken place.

CRISPR
Biology is kludgy and complicated and therefore biomedical and biotech progress is maddeningly slow compared to digital technologies. However, precise genome editing made possible by CRISPR greatly simplifies experimentation and will speed up the development of medical therapies, biotech enhanced crops, and even enable humanity to curate wild landscapes. CRISPR genome editing is derived from what is essentially a bacterial immune system in which how bacteria protect themselves against attacking viruses. Cheap and easy to use CRISPR can edit genes much like a word processing program can edit text. And progress has been rapid.

Machine Learning
Various machine-learning algorithms are being deployed as increasingly effective techniques for dealing with the growing flood and complexity of data. Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. Such learning algorithms are generally trained to organize and extract information from being exposed to relevant data sets. It is often hard to discern exactly how the algorithm is devising the rules from which it makes predictions.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://reason.com/archives/2016/12/30/three-technologies-will-utterly-transfor

AUGMENTED REALITY MARKET SIZE

DATE: DECEMBER 2016
SOURCE: GLOBAL MARKET INSIGHTS
TYPE: SUMMARY


Increasing technology penetration across the healthcare, retail, e-commerce and automotive verticals is anticipated to drive the augmented reality market growth in the coming years. Rising number of mobile devices including tablets and smartphones with built in AR functionalities that is becoming an important tool in the workplace to enhance smooth business workflows and operations further contributes to the growing industry size.


Increasing usage of social media and mobile applications that assist customers to have access to information provides ample opportunities to the AR market. Moreover, the growing demand for user engagement along with enhanced customer service across the application like real estate, retail and healthcare also contribute to the augmented reality market share.


Rising privacy issues pertaining to the technology is expected to hinder the augmented reality market over the forecast timeframe. The technology is able to reveal personal information to strangers or a group of people, which is the cause of considerable privacy concerns.


Component Trends

Hardware devices in the augmented reality market are forecast to grow at a CAGR of over 90% from 2016 to 2024 due to the advances in displays, processors, and sensors. Increasing adoption of smart glasses and advanced HMDs & HUDs across the globe is anticipated to boost the segment demand over the future. Moreover, increasing penetration of the technology across applications such as manufacturing and healthcare is expected to positively influence augmented reality market share.


Software in augmented reality market will witness substantial growth over the future owing to the rising penetration of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets offering richer media and enhanced experience through mobile AR apps.


Display Device Trends

Smart glass market size is projected to observe significant growth at over 95% CAGR from 2016 to 2024. Rising customer expectations have led organizations to bring digital world into person's perceived real world in an interactive way. Moreover, transforming workflow in industrial and enterprise sectors have led to rise in demand for advanced glasses to develop feature rich products. Such factors are projected to fuel the AR market over the future.


Technological advances in AR devices including smart glasses and head-mounted displays that use technologies such as GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, are expected to propel the augmented reality market growth. For instance, Microsoft HoloLens is a wireless, self-contained holographic device that projects images over individual’s vision so they appear as holograms and provide information about the world. It has wide variety of application across healthcare, manufacturing, and warehouses. DHL warehouse workers are equipped with AR smart glasses that guides them through item picking to fulfil orders and increases efficiency.


Increasing R&D investment has led to the development of sensors used in HMDs escalating the segment demand in the global AR market.  For instance, Meta introduced HMD headset that uses array of sensors for positional tracking & hand interactions, 90-degree visual field view and 2560 x 1440 resolution display.


Application Trends

Industrial applications accounted for over 25% augmented reality market share in 2015. Several industry players are developing AR for the industrial sector to leverage the full potential. Rising demand to handle complex machinery, assemble and maintenance will propel augmented reality industry growth. Several companies such as Bosch, Boeing and Airbus invest immensely to improve their manufacturing capabilities. For instance, Boeing has started using Google Glass to assist aircraft wire harnessing. Bosch has also started using the technology from stat-up Reflekt for its various application including maintenance. Airbus is using Smart Augmented Reality Tools (SART) for error prevention. This technology has been considered mature for quality inspection, training, work instruction and is poised for extensive deployment across industries.


Automotive augmented reality market size is projected to witness significant growth with a CAGR of over 80% from 2016 to 2024. Rising demand in vehicles to reduce driver distractions and safety enhancement propels the industry adoption across the segment. Moreover, AR mitigates the reluctance towards conventional showroom visit with virtual experience and improves user experience. Ferrari created AR showroom app using 3D tracking technology that lets customers in the showrooms to choose vehicle and virtually change brakes, rims and paint job and offers customize as per requirements.


Regional Trends

China augmented reality market is predicted to witness significant growth and drive the Asia Pacific AR industry over the next few years. Increasing funding and investment in the technology is expected to augment the regional demand. Increasing penetration of smartphone & tablets and huge number of manufacturers based in the countries including China, South Korea and Taiwan is anticipated to contribute towards the rising augmented reality market size. Moreover, increasing investment from local vendors in merger & acquisitions activities provide tremendous growth opportunities. For instance, Tencent Holdings Ltd. And Lenovo Group Ltd. joined hands to buy Silicon Valley augmented reality start-up Meta.


U.S. augmented reality market share will drive the North America regional industry, and is forecast to exceed USD 24 billion by 2024. An increased adoption is forecast in the industrial and automotive sectors in the country, which are both set to grow faster than the regional average over the forecast timeframe.


Competitive Market Share

Augmented reality market leaders include Magic Leap, Sony, Blippar, Microsoft, Google, Infinity Augmented Reality, etc. Other notable players that account for augmented reality market share include Total Immersion, Apple, Daqri LLC, ODG, Wikitude, among others. Industry participants are engaged in establishing relationships with the third parties to increase the ability of their technologies and address the needs of the prospective customers. These companies are trying to expand their business with new innovations, product launch and merger & acquisitions to maintain competitive market share.


Industry Background

Technological advancements and innovation drive the global augmented reality market analysis and ecosystem. Firms invest massively in R&D operations to provide differentiated solutions to maximize AR market share. For instance, in 2015, Sony developed SmartEyeglass that connects with smartphones to superimpose information such as symbols, text, and images onto user field of view.


Moreover, rising penetration of mobile devices and applications are increasing the augmented reality market size. Innovations in the technology are offering new opportunities across several applications including real estate, banking, healthcare, and manufacturing. For instance, development of AR in Android application or iOS provide new experience for online and offline shopping. Furthermore, GPS mobile apps with AR assist tourist in routes and directions, translate the signs on the street, and provides information about sightseeing.


CHECK AND BUY THE REPORT @

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/augmented-reality-ar-market
 

ALIEN LIFE FOUND ON ENCELADUS OR EUROPA: SCIENTIST PREDICTS EXTRATERRESTRIALS DISCOVERED IN 2017

DATE:01/01/2017
SOURCE: INQUISITR
VIA: GOOGLE

The search for living organisms on other worlds — alien life — is ever ongoing, and it came up empty again in the calendar year of 2016, but a physicist in the United Kingdom believes that everything will change in 2017 and extraterrestrial life will finally be discovered. He suggests that it won’t come from SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) or from the various devices gathering data on Mars. It won’t come from UFO disclosures that reveal that certain governments have known about alien beings and extraterrestrials for decades. No, proof of alien life will come from Jupiter or Saturn, or more precisely, one of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn.

The Daily Express reported this past week that physicist Simon Foster, a physicist from Imperial College London, is of the opinion that, even though there could be signals of life from faraway stars or biosignatures detected on exoplanets, the most likely candidates to reveal signs of alien life are the moons Enceladus (Saturn) and Europa (Jupiter). Foster says that the spacecraft Cassini is about to end its mission in the coming year and a scientific breakthrough “is just around the corner.”


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.inquisitr.com/3842699/alien-life-found-on-enceladus-or-europa-scientist-predicts-extraterrestrials-discovered-in-2017/

IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) to invest billions in cyber operations

DATE: 01/01/2017
SOURCE: YNET
VIA: GOOGLE


Cyber units throughout IDF will be strengthened, according to a senior officer; the Computer Service Directorate will incorporate some other IDF entities, but a unitary command for cyber affairs will not be established.

~*~*~*~

A senior IDF officer said on Sunday that, "for the first time in the multi-year Gideon project," which began last year, "the IDF will invest billions of shekels in cyber matters. We are currently writing the operating concept of the cyber affairs, establishing an entity of the General Staff to give the cyber perspective for all operational activity and the significance of cyber matters for the regional commands and for the air, land and sea forces. We are conducting war games and simulations and are learning from foreign countries on the subject. Our cooperation with other armies has principally raised two issues: terrorism and cyber affairs.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4901547,00.html

Trump Promises a Revelation on Hacking

DATE: 31/12/2016
SOURCE: NY TIMES



Speaking to a handful of reporters outside his Palm Beach, Fla., club, Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump cast his declarations of doubt as an effort to seek the truth.

“I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge,” Mr. Trump said of the intelligence agencies. “If you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster, and they were wrong,” he added, referring to intelligence cited by the George W. Bush administration to support its march to war in 2003. “So I want them to be sure,” the president-elect said. “I think it’s unfair if they don’t know.”

~*~*~*~

Mr. Trump, who does not use email, also advised people to avoid computers when dealing with delicate material. “It’s very important, 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,” Mr. Trump said.

“I don’t care what they say, no computer is safe,” he added. “I have a boy who’s 10 years old; he can do anything with a computer. You want something to really go without detection, write it out and have it sent by courier.”

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-hacking.html

N. Korea's leader hints of long-range missile test launch

DATE: 01/01/2017
SOURCE: AP, CBS


North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hinted Sunday that Pyongyang may ring in the new year with another bang — the test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

In his annual New Year's address, Kim said that after testing what the North claims was its first hydrogen bomb last year, preparations for launching an intercontinental ballistic missile have "reached the final stage"

Kim did not explicitly say an ICBM test, which if successful would be a big step forward for the North, was imminent. But he has a birthday coming up on Jan. 8, and last year Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test on Jan. 6.

Kim threatened in the address to boost his country's military capabilities further unless the U.S. ends war games with rival South Korea. But he also said efforts must be made to defuse the possibility of another Korean war and stressed the importance of building the economy under a five-year plan announced in May.

The year ahead could be a tumultuous one in north Asia, with Donald Trump set to become the new U.S. president on Jan. 20, and South Korea's politics in disarray over a scandal that brought the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kim-jong-un-hints-north-korea-test-intercontinental-ballistic-missle/