Meatbags Prevent Google’s Self-Driving Car
July 2, 2015
Driving is a privilege not a right…for humans and Google wants it for its self-driving cars. Google, however, is still in the test phasing for its self-driving cars and announced that they would publish results of the study on a monthly basis. They first report recently came out and it says that Google cars were in twelve accidents when they were on real roads. The Register takes a snarky, informative approach to self-driving cars in “Google: Our Self-Driving Cars Would Be Tip-Top If You Meatheads Didn’t Crash Into Them.”
Google has twenty-three Lexus SUVs that have driven 1,011,338 miles with the self-driving software and 796, 250 miles with a human behind the wheel. Many of the cars have taken to the real road, but nine are still restricted to the private track.
Google blames all twelve of the accidents on human error, not the software, and it is due to either the human driver in the autonomous car or the driver in the other car. The Google cars, being rear-ended from driving too slow, caused seven accidents. One accident was due to the Google car braking trying to avoid a collision and two more were when non-Google cars failed to obey traffic signs. The worst accident caused when a Google car was driving at 63 mph and was sideswiped by a car changing lanes. No one was hurt. The last two accidents were the fault of Google’s employees: both accidents resulted in Google cars rear-ending the cars in front of them.
Google is quick to point out the software’s positive aspects:
“The report also highlighted some of the smarter aspects of the cars’ software. Google cars can identify emergency vehicles, for example, and automatically give way in a fashion many fleshy drivers are irritatingly unwilling to do. The other example given was Google cars dealing with cyclists who didn’t obey the rules of the road. One cyclist veered in front of the car at night, and the software was clever enough to stop immediately to avoid a crash.”
Google will have its cars drive ten thousand miles a week on the software. A recent luxury car ad campaign was critical of the self-driving car, saying people want the luxury of driving themselves with all the benefits of said luxury car. It will be the TV vs. radio battle again, but the one thing holding back the self-driving car will be human error. Stupid, stupid humans.
Whitney Grace, July 2, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
HP Sales Are Slow, But CEO Says Progress
June 24, 2015
According to Computer Weekly, “HP CEO Hails Business Split Progress Amid Downbeat Q2 Revenue Slumps.” HP’s Enterprise Service has the worst revenue reports for the quarter along with several more of its business units with a seven percent net loss. The Enterprise Service saw a sixteen percent loss.
Ironically, the company’s stock rose 1 percent, mostly due to HP expanding into China due to a new partnership with Tsinghua University. The joint venture will focus on developing HP’s H3C’s technology and its China-based server business, supposedly it will have huge implications on the Chinese technology market.
Another piece of news is that HP will split up:
“[CEO Meg ] Whitman also spoke in favour of the progress the company is making with its plans to separate into two publicly traded business entities: one comprised of its consumer PC and printing operations, and the other focused on enterprise hardware, software and services.
The past six months have reinforced Whitman’s conviction that this is the right path for the company to take, and the split is still on course to occur before the end of the firm’s financial year.”
The company wants to increase its revenue, but it needs to cut gross costs across the board. HP is confidant that it will work. Sales will continue to be slow for 2015, but they can still do investment banking things at HP.
Whitney Grace, June 24, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Apache Samza Revamps Databases
March 19, 2015
Databases have advanced far beyond the basic relational databases. They need to be consistently managed and have real-time updates to keep them useful. The Apache Software Foundation developed the Apache Samza software to help maintain asynchronous stream processing network. Samza was made in conjunction with Apache Kafka.
If you are interested in learning how to use Apache Samza, the Confluent blog posted “Turning The Database Inside-Out With Apache Samza” by Martin Keppmann. Kleppmann recorded a seminar he gave at Strange Loop 2014 that explains his process for how it can improve many features on a database:
“This talk introduces Apache Samza, a distributed stream processing framework developed at LinkedIn. At first it looks like yet another tool for computing real-time analytics, but it’s more than that. Really it’s a surreptitious attempt to take the database architecture we know, and turn it inside out. At its core is a distributed, durable commit log, implemented by Apache Kafka. Layered on top are simple but powerful tools for joining streams and managing large amounts of data reliably.”
Learning new ways to improve database features and functionality always improve your skill set. Apache Software also forms the basis for many open source projects and startups. Martin Kleppman’s talk might give you a brand new idea or at least improve your database.
Whitney Grace, March 20, 2015
Stephen E Arnold, Publisher of CyberOSINT at www.xenky.com
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