Slashdot Mirror

"It looks like a tiny yellow submarine, but this underwater drone is on a mission to kill," reports ABC. Specifically, to kill the starfish that are destroying coral on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. An anonymous reader quotes ABC: In a bid to eradicate the pest, Queensland researchers have developed world-first robots to administer a lethal injection to the starfish using new technology... Researcher Matt Dunbabin said the technology was 99.4 per cent accurate in delivering a toxic substance only harmful to the starfish.... Divers have played a big role in helping to combat the starfish, but Professor Dunbabin said the robot would take the efforts to the next level. "Divers currently control certain areas, but there are not enough divers to actually make a difference on the scale of the reef," he said. The drone can also monitor and gather huge amounts of data about coral bleaching, water quality and pollution.
"RangerBot will be designed to stay underwater almost three times longer than a human diver, gather vastly more data, map expansive underwater areas at scales not previously possible, and operate in all conditions and all times of the day or night," according to Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology.

The starfish-killing robots were partially funded by Google (through their Google.org Impact Challenge program to fund and support nonprofit innovators), reports The Drive. One study had found the reef's coral cover declined 50% between 1985 and 2012, "with nearly half of that drop resulting from the coral-destroying starfish species."

A new government proposal included in Road to Zero, a report on climate-change related policies, would require all new homes to be fitted with electric car charging points. It follows a commitment made last year by the UK to end sales of new gasoline and diesel cars by 2040. The Drive reports: "It is our intention that all new homes, where appropriate, should have a charge point available," a government statement said. "We plan to consult as soon as possible on introducing a requirement for charge point infrastructure for new dwellings in England."

To help achieve that goal, the U.K. will reportedly establish a 400-million-pound ($531 million) fund for companies that manufacture and install charging stations. The government is also reportedly looking at integrating charging stations with newly-installed streetlights, as well as wireless-charging technology. A new Automated and Electric Vehicles bill will also give the government power to mandate installation of charging infrastructure at highway service stations.

Several Colorado lawmakers are trying to urge Congress to pass a bill that would make flying unmanned aerial vehicles over wildfires a felony, citing safety concerns. The Drive reports: On Wednesday, Senators Cory Gardner (R-Colorado), Michael Bennet (D-Colorado), and Representative Scott Tipton (R-Colorado) introduced the Securing Airspace For Emergency Responders Act, which would fine people for flying UAVs over wildfires without authorization, and potentially send them to jail for a year. "When an unauthorized drone flies over a wildfire, it poses a huge threat to aircraft working to suppress the fire and forces them to ground," said Tipton in a statement. Steve Hall, a spokesman for Colorado's office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, staunchly echoed that sentiment, claiming that firefighters face enough of a challenge navigating smoky and turbulent conditions while piloting firefighting aircraft, that adding rogue drones to the mix would only increase danger and hamper their efforts. On top of that, Hall explained that once an unauthorized drone is observed during a wildfire, firefighters ground their planes. The Denver Post first reported the news (paywalled).

A modern car should be treated like a personal computer. Before you sell it, you should make sure all connections are severed and personal information is wiped before handing the keys to the buyer. The Drive reports of a former Volkswagen owner who recently discovered that her connection to her car lingered even after her old car was sold to a new owner. In what may seem like a public service announcement, The Drive writes: "It's up to you to wipe out your data and connections, not the dealer or manufacturer." From the report: Ashley Sehatti sold her 2015 Jetta back to her local VW dealer back in December. Like most car owners, she figured that was the end of it. So she was baffled when she continued to get monthly reports about her car's health. After receiving April's report, she attempted to log into her account for Car-Net, Volkswagen's connected car service. Much to Sehatti's surprise, she found that not only was her account still active, she still had access to her old car. She could see its current mileage, the status of its locks and lights, and, most disturbingly, its current location on a map. Sehatti was not aware that she, not Volkswagen or her dealer, was responsible for disabling access to Car-Net when she sold the car. Its new owner likely didn't sign up for the Car-Net service, which meant that Sehatti's access remained available, even though she didn't even want it. "Our Car-Net Terms of Service explicitly outlines that as a subscriber, the customer has the responsibility to terminate the contract when selling their vehicle," writes Catharina Mette, the head of technology communications for Volkswagen Group's North Americas region. "This is a practice common in the industry." The takeaway here is to read the Terms of Service because most car owners don't do so in any great detail.

An anonymous reader quotes CNBC: No drones or driverless vehicles for delivering packages -- that's one of the major demands from the Teamsters labor union in the big contract negotiation it's undertaking with UPS this week. The union wants to ban UPS from using such new-fangled technology, which the logistics company has been reportedly testing... The current agreement affects 260,000 full and part-time UPS employees and expires in July. "UPS is focused on a contract that provides the flexibility needed to remain highly competitive, given the challenge of an increasingly crowded logistics segment," the company told CNBC.
The Drive notes the smaller carbon footprint of drone deliveries, while adding that "one completely understands and empathizes with the aversion truck drivers have toward this stark, autonomous future.

"If it feels like their jobs are being endangered by the incredible exponential growth in technology, it's because they are."

The Chinese government is blocking foreign companies from mapping its roads in great detail, according to a Financial Times (paywalled) report. The restrictions, which reportedly do not apply to Chinese firms, are being instituted in the name of national security. China is concerned about spying. From a report: China has restricted the recording of geographic information for more than a decade because it believes giving other countries access to that information constitutes a security risk. Geographic surveys can't be performed without permission from the government, and many digital cameras don't record GPS coordinates for geotagging, as they do in other countries, according to Fortune.

Toyota has patented a cloaking device that aims to make big, chunky car pillars transparent. The "apparatuses and methods for making an object appear transparent" which Toyota just patented uses cleverly placed mirrors to bend light around an object making it visible from the other side. The Drive reports: So you're not really seeing through the pillars, you're seeing around them. This is a much cheaper option than adding more cameras and screens all over the place and much more realistic than Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. The patent was filed with the U.S. patent office by Toyota North America, so if Toyota does go forward with this technology, we can probably expect to see it in cars in the U.S.

turkeydance shares Thursday's report from The Drive: A very unique U.S. Air Force surveillance aircraft has been flying highly defined circles over Seattle and its various suburbs for nine days now... The aircraft, which goes by the callsign "SPUD21" and wears a nondescript flat gray paint job with the only visible markings being a U.S. Air Force serial on its tail, is a CASA CN-235-300 transport aircraft that has been extensively modified... It is covered in a dizzying array of blisters, protrusions, humps and bumps. These include missile approach warning detectors and large fairings on its empennage for buckets of forward-firing decoy flares, as well as both microwave -- the dome antenna behind the wing and flat antenna modification in front of the wing -- and ultra high-frequency satellite communications -- the platter-like antenna behind the dome antenna. A communications intelligence suite also appears to be installed on the aircraft, with the antenna farm on the bottom of its fuselage being a clear indication of such a capability. But what's most interesting is the aircraft's apparent visual intelligence gathering installation...

This particular CN-235, with the serial 96-6042, is one of six that researchers commonly associated with the Air Force's top secret 427th Special Operations Squadron... The 427th occupies the same space with a host of other "black" U.S. military aviation elements, most of which are affiliated to some degree with Joint Special Operations Command and the Intelligence Community... [I]f the military placed the aircraft under civilian control to some degree and with an appropriate legal justification, the U.S. military could possibly fly it in support of a domestic operation or one focused on a foreign suspect or organization operating within the United States... It's also entirely possible, if not probable, that the aircraft could be involved in a realistic training exercise rather than an actual operation... The area could have simply provided a suitable urban area to test existing or new surveillance technologies, too, though this could spark serious privacy concerns if true.
Friday an Air Force Special Operations Command public affairs officer confirmed that the plane was one of theirs, describing its activity as "just a training mission," according to Russia Today.

turkeydance shares Thursday's report from The Drive: A very unique U.S. Air Force surveillance aircraft has been flying highly defined circles over Seattle and its various suburbs for nine days now... The aircraft, which goes by the callsign "SPUD21" and wears a nondescript flat gray paint job with the only visible markings being a U.S. Air Force serial on its tail, is a CASA CN-235-300 transport aircraft that has been extensively modified... It is covered in a dizzying array of blisters, protrusions, humps and bumps. These include missile approach warning detectors and large fairings on its empennage for buckets of forward-firing decoy flares, as well as both microwave -- the dome antenna behind the wing and flat antenna modification in front of the wing -- and ultra high-frequency satellite communications -- the platter-like antenna behind the dome antenna. A communications intelligence suite also appears to be installed on the aircraft, with the antenna farm on the bottom of its fuselage being a clear indication of such a capability. But what's most interesting is the aircraft's apparent visual intelligence gathering installation...

This particular CN-235, with the serial 96-6042, is one of six that researchers commonly associated with the Air Force's top secret 427th Special Operations Squadron... The 427th occupies the same space with a host of other "black" U.S. military aviation elements, most of which are affiliated to some degree with Joint Special Operations Command and the Intelligence Community... [I]f the military placed the aircraft under civilian control to some degree and with an appropriate legal justification, the U.S. military could possibly fly it in support of a domestic operation or one focused on a foreign suspect or organization operating within the United States... It's also entirely possible, if not probable, that the aircraft could be involved in a realistic training exercise rather than an actual operation... The area could have simply provided a suitable urban area to test existing or new surveillance technologies, too, though this could spark serious privacy concerns if true.
Friday an Air Force Special Operations Command public affairs officer confirmed that the plane was one of theirs, describing its activity as "just a training mission," according to Russia Today.

schwit1 quotes Engadget: Both the U.S. and Australia have confirmed that they recently completed a series of mysterious hypersonic missile tests. All the countries will say is that the flights were successful, and that they represented "significant milestones" in testing everything from the design assembly to the control mechanisms. They won't even say which vehicles were used or how quickly they traveled, although past tests have usually relied on Terrier Orion rockets and have reached speeds as high as Mach 8.

The tests are part of the long-running HIFiRE (Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation) program, whose first launch took place way back in 2009. They should help bring hypersonic flight to a "range of applications," according to HIFiRE partner BAE. That could easily include ultra-fast aircraft, but it's widely believed the focus here is on missiles and similar unmanned weapons. A hypersonic missile would fulfill the US military's goal of building a conventional weapon that can strike anywhere within an hour, and it would be virtually impossible to stop using existing missile defenses. In theory, enemy nations wouldn't dare attack if they knew they'd face certain retaliation within minutes.
Originally NASA was involved in the project, which has been ongoing for more than eight years. But it's timeline may have shortened after reports that foreign powers including Russia and China are already building their own hypersonic missiles.