Domain: ktla.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to ktla.com.
Stories · 6
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Flippy the Robot Takes Over Burger Duties At California Restaurant (ktla.com)
Chain eatery CaliBurger announced today that its location in Pasadena is the first to employ Flippy, a burger-flipping robot developed by Miso Robotics. The robot is able to take over the cooking duties after a human puts the patties on the grill. KTLA reports: "The kitchen of the future will always have people in it, but we see that kitchen as having people and robots," said David Zito, co-founder and chief executive officer of Miso Robotics. Flippy uses thermal imaging, 3D and camera vision to sense when to flip -- and when to remove. "It detects the temperature of the patty, the size of the patty and the temperature of the grill surface," explained Zito. The device also learns through artificial intelligence -- basically, the more burgers that Flippy flips, the smarter it gets. Right now, cheese and toppings are added by a co-worker. CaliBurger CEO John Miller says the robot can cut down on costs as it will work a position that has a high turnover rate. "It's not a fun job -- it's hot, it's greasy, it's dirty," said Miller about the grill cook position. Less turnover means less time training new grill cooks. Flippy costs about $60,000 minimum and is expected to be used at other CaliBurger locations soon. -
Two More 'SWAT' Calls in California -- One Involving a 12-Year-Old Gamer (ktla.com)
In January an online gamer in California was arrested after at leat 20 fake emergency calls to police, one leading to a fatal shooting in Kansas. But this week in California there's been at least two more fake calls:- A 12-year-old gamer heard a knock at his door Sunday -- which turned out to be "teams of Los Angeles police officers and other rescue personnel who believed two people had just hung themselves." The Los Angeles Police Department "said there's no way to initially discern swatting calls from actually emergencies, so they handle every scenario as if someone's life is in danger," according to the Los Angeles Times. The seventh-grader described it as "the most terrifying thing in my life."
- 36-year-old David Pearce has been arrested for falsely reporting an emergency at a Beverly Hills hotel involving "men with guns" holding him hostage. A local police captain later said that the people in the room had not made the call and in fact might have been asleep through much of the emergency. The Los Angeles Times reports that there's roughly 400 'SWATting' cases each year, according to FBI estimates, adding that "Some experts have said police agencies need to take the phenomenon more seriously and provide formal training to dispatchers and others to better recognize hoax callers."
Meanwhile, in the wake of a fatal shooting in Wichita, Kansas lawmakers have passed a new bipartisan bill increasing the penalties for SWAT calls. If a fake call results in a fatality -- and the caller intentionally masks their identity -- it's the equivalent of second-degree murder. "The caller must be held accountable," one lawmaker told the Topeka Capital-Journal.
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Dyn Executive Responds To Friday's DDOS Attack (dyn.com)
"It is said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty...We must continue to work together to make the internet a more resilient place to work, play and communicate," wrote Dyn's Chief Strategy Officer in a Saturday blog post. An anonymous reader reports: Dyn CSO Kyle York says they're still investigating Friday's attack, "conducting a thorough root cause and forensic analysis" while "carefully monitoring" for any additional attacks. In a section titled "What We Know," he describes "a sophisticated attack across multiple attack vectors and internet locations...one source of the traffic for the attacks were devices infected by the Mirai botnet. We observed 10s of millions of discrete IP addresses associated with the Mirai botnet that were part of the attack." But he warns that "we are unlikely to share all details of the attack and our mitigation efforts to preserve future defenses."
He posted a timeline of the attacks (7:00 EST and 12:00 EST), adding "While there was a third attack attempted, we were able to successfully mitigate it without customer impact... We practice and prepare for scenarios like this on a regular basis, and we run constantly evolving playbooks and work with mitigation partners to address scenarios like these." He predicts Friday's attack will be seen as "historic," and acknowledges his staff's efforts to fight the attack as well as the support received from "the technology community, from the operations teams of the world's top internet companies, to law enforcement and the standards community, to our competition and vendors... On behalf of Dyn, I'd like to extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to the entire internet infrastructure community for their ongoing show of support."
Online businesses may have lost up to $110 million in sales and revenue, according to the CEO of Dynatrace, who tells CNN more than half of the 150 websites they monitor were affected. -
Predator Drone Helps Nab Cattle Rustlers
riverat1 writes "KTLA reports police in North Dakota arrested three men accused of cattle rustling with the help of a Predator B drone from nearby Grand Forks AFB. The sheriff of Nelson Country was chased off by three armed men when he went to serve a warrant, so he came back the next morning with reinforcements, including the drone, which, while circling 2 miles overhead, was able to determine the whereabouts of the men on their 3,000 acre spread and the fact that they were unarmed. A SWAT team quickly moved in and apprehended the men. Local police say they have used the Predator drones for at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and DEA have used the drones for domestic investigations as well." -
Woman Dead In Her Cubicle a Day Before Being Noticed
You don't have to be best friends with your co-workers but you should probably notice when one of them dies. Authorities say 51-year-old Rebecca Wells died in her cubicle sometime on Friday at the L.A. County Department of Internal Services, but nobody noticed until Saturday afternoon. -
Man's Finger Bitten Off At Health Care Rally
A 65-year-old anti-health care reform protester had his finger bitten off during a fight with a pro-health care reform protester. Around 100 protesters were holding a health care reform rally when a group of anti-reform folks gathered on the opposite side of the street. A witness says a man walked through the anti-reform group to get to the pro-reform side when he got into an altercation with the 65-year-old. It's good that we can have this debate in a calm, adult manner before we start biting off digits.