Technology

The Associated Press reports: Uber is bringing a small number of self-driving cars to its ride-hailing service in San Francisco — a move likely to excite the city’s tech-savvy population and certain to antagonize California regulators. The Wednesday launch in Uber’s hometown expands a public pilot program the company started in Pittsburgh in September. The testing lets everyday people experience …

Via Esquire: Though even diehard fans of the music it inspired are largely unfamiliar with its story, the 808 is revered within the industry. The documentary, which premieres Friday on Apple Music, includes commentary by everyone from Lil Jon, to Pharrell, to the Beastie Boys, to Rick Rubin, to Afrika Bambaataa himself. “You get all of these guys, these big, …

Five million views since yesterday. US Weekly reports: Taking grab-and-go to the next level. Amazon just opened a state-of-the art grocery store called Amazon Go in downtown Seattle that lets customers shop without ever waiting in line or going through a checkout process. In a video introducing the concept Monday, December 5, the e-commerce company refers to it as “just-walk-out …

Two years ago I reported that a business group had proposed a privately-operated $100M gondola system (much like existing the Roosevelt Island Tramway) which would connect Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. The proposal soon vanished into “neat idea but not gonna happen” history but now it has new life with the coming years-long closure of the L train forced by damage …

As many of you have surely noted, this here website thingy has been going down intermittently all afternoon. The problem appears to be “network connectivity issues” with the hosting company’s server farm on the West Coast, where JMG lives in a dark electronic cave. My apologies, but at least this time it’s not a DDoS attack aimed just at us.

The Telegraph reports: Confession, they say, is good for the soul and, in some cases perhaps, the sooner the better. Now, for those with a burning need to unburden themselves, one Roman Catholic archdiocese has launched what is thought to be the world’s first interactive GPS-powered “confession finder”. Using similar technology to the dating hook-up app Tinder, it guides the …

Gizmodo reports: Scientists in the UK have developed a USB stick that can quickly and accurately measure the amount of HIV is in a patient’s blood. The medical device was created by scientists at Imperial College London and tech firm DNA Electronics, and all it needs is a simple drop of blood to measure HIV-1 levels. It then creates an …

NBC News reports: The U.S. government believes hackers from Russia or elsewhere may try to undermine next week’s presidential election and is mounting an unprecedented effort to counter their cyber meddling, American officials told NBC News. The effort is being coordinated by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, but reaches across the government to include the CIA, …

The New York Times reports: As Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration moves forward on plans for a new streetcar line from Queens to Brooklyn, city officials on Tuesday unveiled the different routes they are considering for the project. The $2.5 billion waterfront streetcar would run on streets in some of New York City’s most popular and crowded neighborhoods along the …

TechCrunch reports: With Twitter’s future still in question following failed attempts at finding an acquirer and the recently announced layoffs of nine percent of its workforce, the company today announced it’s shutting down its standalone short-form video app, Vine. According a post, nothing is changing immediately — the website and apps will remain online for the time being, and users …

SC Magazine reports: Xiongmai, a Chinese electronics firm, has initiated a product recall, prompted by the large DDoS attack that caused large internet websites such as GitHub, Reddit and Spotify to grind to a halt on the east coast of the US, and mainland Europe this past Friday. The root distributed denial of service attack (DDoS), was believed to be …

From cyber security expert Brian Krebs: A massive and sustained Internet attack that has caused outages and network congestion for a large number of Web sites was launched with the help of hacked “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices, such as CCTV video cameras and digital video recorders, new data suggests. That’s because while many of these devices allow users to …

This morning numerous major sites were inaccessible across the northeast of the United States after unknown hackers launched a denial of service attack on a major DNS host. The initial attack was “mitigated” in about two hours but another wave launched early this afternoon is presently also affecting accessibility on much of the west cost. Politico reports that your earlier …

At this writing many major sites are unreachable in much of the eastern United States. Gizmodo has the story: Twitter, Spotify and Reddit, and a huge swath of other websites were down or screwed up this morning. This was happening as hackers unleashed a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the servers of Dyn, a major DNS host. …

Reuters reports: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd scrapped its flagship Galaxy Note 7 smartphone on Tuesday less than two months after its launch, dealing a huge blow to its reputation and outlook after failing to resolve safety concerns. Samsung announced the recall of 2.5 million Note 7s in early September following numerous reports of the phones catching fire and on Tuesday …

TIME reports: Google on Tuesday unveiled two new smartphones, the Pixel and Pixel XL, during an event in San Francisco. The Pixel will have a 5-inch screen, while the larger model will include a 5.5-inch display. The Pixel is available for preorder immediately. The lineup starts at $649, or $27 per month. Verizon is the exclusive carrier partner in the …

If it tilts any further, the elevators will become unusable. Today the New York Times picks up the story that has riveted San Francisco for months: The developers of the luxurious Millennium Tower laid out the risks and potential defects of the 58-story building in minute detail when its apartments went on sale seven years ago. The color and texture …

For weeks the alt-right has claimed that Twitter’s falling stock value is the direct result of their crackdown on hate speech and the banning of homocon Milo Yiannopoulos. Surely the latest news will headline shortly at Breitbart. Via the Daily Beast: Social-media giant Twitter is now actively exploring a sale and has initiated talks with technology companies, according to a …

I’ll be there in a couple hours, my shoes are charging. And technically, the laces are only for show: Nike has finally announced when it will begin selling its self-lacing sneakers inspired by the shoes worn by Michael J. Fox in Back to The Future II. According to a tweet from the company’s Heidi Burgett, the HyperAdapt 1.0 will be …

The totally not racist level heads at Breitbart have decided that it’s totally not racist to illustrate a story about the black president of the United States with an image of Harambe, the gorilla recently put down at the Cincinnati Zoo. As you surely know, Breitbart is run by Stephen Bannon, who last month became the third and latest Trump …