Month: November 2019

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  Garmin Avionics has developed an Autoland system to get a General Aviation plane back on the ground if its pilot becomes incapacitated. [credit: Garmin/Piper ]

If you've been around long enough, you've probably heard stories of passengers who successfully landed small planes after their pilots fell ill or died. It happened in Australia just a few months ago (Aug. 31) when a student on his first flight lesson in Perth was forced to land a Cessna 150 after his instructor lost consciousness.

The student had never landed anything previously, but it worked. However, it usually doesn't, and the consequences are disastrous. That's why electronics/avionics maker Garmin is launching Autoland, an emergency autopilot system that can autonomously land a private aircraft and bring it to a stop on the runway.

Push the red button

Commercial airliners have long had auto-landing systems as well as the ability to fall back on co-pilots if the pilot-in-command becomes incapacitated. Until recently, single-pilot certified general aviation (GA) airplanes haven't had autonomous landing capability. To be clear, they still don't. Garmin's Autoland system is not yet FAA certified, though the company expects certification "soon."

Enlarge / Google's main headquarters. (credit: Cyrus Farivar)

Google has fired a staffer who allegedly leaked the names of Google employees and their personal details to the news media, Ryan Gallagher reports in a scoop for Bloomberg News. Two other Googlers have been put on leave for violating company policies, Google told Gallagher.

A Google spokeswoman told Gallagher that one of the employees "had searched for and shared confidential documents outside the scope of their job, while the other tracked the individual calendars of staff working in the community platforms, human resources, and communications teams." The tracking made affected staff uncomfortable, the spokeswoman said.

Google's move represents the latest sign of growing tensions between labor and management at Google. Until recently, Google was known for having one of Silicon Valley's most open workplace cultures. Employees could access information about projects they weren't working on. Rank-and-file employees could ask tough questions of senior management at weekly "TGIF" meetings that were broadcast throughout the company.

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  The 16-inch MacBook Pro with reduced bezels. [credit: Apple ]

Today, Apple begins taking orders on a new version of its largest MacBook Pro laptop. While its basic design is similar to that of the Touch Bar models the company has made since 2016, it is slightly larger and heavier, the screen is bigger thanks to reduced bezels, and it has new keyboard and speaker designs. The Pro has faster graphics and new upgrade options, such as a 64GB RAM configuration and larger default SSD sizes.

This 16-inch MacBook Pro (the inches here refer to diagonal screen size) replaces the 15-inch in Apple's lineup. Its display has a pixel density of 226 ppi at 3,072 x 1,920 resolution—that's slightly higher than the 2,880 x 1,800 resolution and 220 ppi of the 15-inch MacBook Pro. Apple says that pro video editors will now be able to adjust the refresh rate of the display to match content they're working with. Little else has changed about the screen. It's worth noting, by the way, that the prior model's screen actually measured 15.4 inches, not 15; this new model measures 16 inches.

Dimensions are 0.64 x 14.09 x 9.68 inches—up marginally across the board from its predecessor's 0.61 by 13.75 by 9.48 inches. It weighs 4.3 pounds, compared to 4.02 for the prior model. Chances are it will fit in most existing cases intended for the 15-inch model.

Enlarge / Mug shots of Gary De Mercurio, left, and Justin Wynn. (credit: Dallas County Jail)

In the early hours of September 11, a dispatcher with the sheriff’s department in Dallas County, Iowa, spotted something alarming on a surveillance camera in the county courthouse. Two men who had tripped an alarm after popping open a locked door were wandering through courtrooms on the third floor, she reported over the radio as deputies raced to the scene. The intruders wore backpacks and were crouching down next to judges’ benches. When the first deputy pulled into the parking lot, the men moved to an open area outside the court rooms and concealed themselves.

“They were crouched down like turkeys peeking over the balcony,” Dallas County Sheriff Chad Leonard said in an interview. “Here we are at 12:30 in the morning confronted with this issue—on September 11, no less. We have two unknown people in our courthouse—in a government building—carrying backpacks that remind me and several other deputies of maybe the pressure cooker bombs.”

After more deputies arrived, Justin Wynn, 29 of Naples, Florida, and Gary De Mercurio, 43 of Seattle, slowly proceeded down the stairs with hands raised. They then presented the deputies with a letter that explained the intruders weren’t criminals but rather penetration testers who had been hired by Iowa’s State Court Administration to test the security of its court information system. After calling one or more of the state court officials listed in the letter, the deputies were satisfied the men were authorized to be in the building.