Category: Uncategorised

Kim Jung Un points at stuff at a nuclear missile assembly plant...or a mock-up of one. (credit: Rodong Sinmun (DPRK Party Central Committee Newspaper))

Just over a month after successfully putting a satellite into orbit, the government of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) claimed to have successfully built a miniaturized nuclear warhead capable of being placed on ballistic missiles. As if to add emphasis to that message, North Korea's military has gone on a missile testing binge.

On March 10, North Korea launched two "Scud" tactical ballistic missiles from North Hwanghae Province, the North Korean border region just north of Seoul, toward the Sea of Japan. Then on March 17, the North Korean military test-launched longer-ranged ballistic missiles from South Pyongan Province, near the Yellow Sea, across the Korean peninsula. The missiles flew 500 miles, again landing in the Sea of Japan. The latest launches took place early on Thursday morning local time, 20 minutes apart, according to a statement from the Republic of Korea (South Korea) joint chiefs of staff.

John Grisafi, director of intelligence for North Korean watchdog site NK News, believes the missiles launched Thursday were likely the Rodong-1 missile. “It’s beyond any known Scud variant’s range,” he said.

We'll stop reusing images from old PSN hacking stories when they stop being fascinating to look at.

Since Microsoft announced a new policy of cross-console openness regarding online play earlier this week, we've been stuck parsing vague statements from Sony on whether the PS4 would accept the Xbox One's metaphorically extended hand. Now, Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida has offered another vague statement that suggests the possibility of a connection between PlayStation Network and Xbox Live without fully committing to anything.

In a video interview with Eurogamer, Yoshida leads off by pointing out Sony's history of allowing for cross-platform play between PlayStation systems and the PC, as in recent releases like Rocket League and Street Fighter V. From there, though, Yoshida goes on to suggest that interoperability between two competing consoles is different.

“Because PC is an open platform, it’s much more straightforward," he said. "Connecting two different closed networks is much more complicated, so we have to work with developers and publishers to understand what it is they are trying to accomplish."

Magnolia Pictures

Here's what the future looks like: collecting data on people while wearing AR glasses.

7 more images in gallery

In the film Creative Control, set in near-future New York, people can slip on a pair of normal-looking glasses and experience a world that is part reality and part fantasy. This is what companies like Google and Microsoft have been trying to achieve with AR: technology you can wear on your face that doesn’t look completely ridiculous and allows the wearer to access a constant virtual overlay on the real world. There are obvious privacy concerns associated with this kind of device, namely, that you can record people without their knowledge. But there’s also the risk that your real and virtual worlds become so intertwined that you won’t know the difference. That's exactly what happens in Creative Control, with fascinating and genuinely funny results.

David (Benjamin Dickinson, who also directed and co-wrote) is an ad executive who hires musician Reggie Watts (playing himself) to create something using augmented reality glasses for a new client, the appropriately named Augmenta. David is also tasked with trying out a pair of the AR glasses. He talks to friends in the street, goes to parties, and works while the glasses collect data on anything he sees. He then uses this data to create virtual fantasies—which are centered around an avatar of his best friend’s girlfriend. Whenever he is having a bad day at work or gets in a fight with his own girlfriend, he puts on the glasses and escapes into his fantasy world. It’s probably not giving too much away to reveal that David’s virtual world does not make him any happier—the technology makes him anxious, paranoid, and unable to focus on his real life.

Augmented reality eyeglasses aren’t on the market yet, but Creative Control feels like it could happen in the next five minutes. The film captures the addictiveness of consumer technology—and sometimes, the loneliness and anxiety that can follow—with alarming accuracy. We see characters use their smartphones (which, in this vision of the future, look like see-through iPhones) to argue and flirt with each other over text messages. And David often chooses his Augmenta glasses over human interaction. David’s girlfriend, Juliette (Nora Zehetner), serves as the film’s voice of opposition to technology. She’s a yoga teacher who dreams of living away from the city and its plugged-in culture. Together, they represent two familiar desires of people who use tech from the moment they wake up until they go to sleep: one is to always stay connected, and the other is to throw your phone in the trash and return to nature.

(credit: Ford)

The number of car makers committed to making automatic emergency braking (AEB) a standard feature on all new cars has doubled this week. On Thursday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced that 20 manufacturers are now on board with the plan, which will see AEB systems installed throughout their model ranges by 2022. In September of last year, we reported that 10 OEMs had already made the pledge.

In the past, government mandates were needed to spread advanced driver safety aids like airbags or electronic stability control systems beyond the luxury cars in which they first appeared. In this case, the auto industry has gotten ahead of possible NHTSA regulation and looks set to implement AEB itself.

Speaking at an event last fall, NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said that the agency wanted to see OEMs implement AEB as quickly as possible. "Safety," he said, "should not be a luxury item. Its an obligation for all of us." Whether 2022 qualifies as "quickly" is a matter of opinion, but the time frame may be reasonable given the long product development lifecycles of new vehicles.