A robot in Russia caused an unusual traffic jam last week after it "escaped" from a research lab, and now, the artificially intelligent bot is making headlines again after it reportedly tried to flee a second time, according to news reports.
Engineers at the Russian lab reprogrammed the intelligent machine, dubbed Promobot IR77, after last week's incident,
Last week, the robot made it approximately 160 feet (50 meters) to the street, before it lost power and "partially paralyzed" traffic. [The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created]
Promobot, the company that designed the robot, announced the escapade in ablog postthe next day.
Thestrange escape has drawn skepticismfrom some who think it was a promotional stunt, but regardless of whether the incident was planned, the designers seem to be capitalizing on all the attention. The company's blog includes photographs of the robot from multiple angles as it obstructs traffic, and the robot's escape came a week after Promobot announced plans to present the newest model in the company's series, Promobot V3, in the fall.
The company said its engineers were testing a new positioning system that allows the robot to avoid collisions while moving under its own control. But when a gate was left open, the robot wandered into the street and blocked a lane of traffic for about 40 minutes, the blog post states.
The Promobot wasdesigned to interact with peopleusing speech recognition, providing information in the form of an expressive electronic face, prerecorded audio messages and a large screen on its chest. The company has said the robot could be used as a promoter, administrator, tour guide or concierge.
In light of the robot's recent escapes, and citing multiple changes to the robot's artificial intelligence, Promobot co-founder Oleg Kivokurtsevtold The Mirror, "I think we might have to dismantle it."
But in its blog post, the company said it considers the escape a successful test of the machine's new navigation system, because the robot didn't harm anyone and wasn't damaged during the getaway.
According to the company'sEnglish-language website, one of the advantages of the Promobot compared to a human promoter is that it "will not be confused and stray."
China beats its own record with the World's fastest supercomputer.
Sunway TaihuLight, a newly built supercomputer from China, now ranks as the world's most powerful machine
During the International Supercomputer Conference in Germany on Monday,Top500declared China's 10.65 Million-core Sunway TaihuLight as the world's fastest supercomputer. Moreover, the supercomputer is leading by a wide margin, too, With 93 petaflops of processing power, Sunway TaihuLight is nearly three times more powerful than the world’s previous fastest supercomputer,Tianhe-2, which had been the world's fastest computer for last 3 years with speeds of 33.9 petaflops per second.
That's 93 quadrillion floating point operations per second (FLOP), which means the supercomputer can perform around 93,000 trillion calculations per second, at its peak. The Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer is installed at the National Supercomputing Centre in Wuxi. "Sunway TaihuLight, with 10,649,600 computing cores comprising 40,960 nodes,"is one of the world's most efficient systems, with"peak power consumption under load (running the HPL benchmark)"at a relatively modest 15.37 Megawatts of energy consumption.
What's the irony?
The microprocessors inside Sunway TaihuLight are 100 percent Chinese.
Sunway TaihuLight is powered entirely by Chinese processors (the 260-core ShenWei 26010) and runs on a custom Linux-based operating system
Speaking of theTOP500 list, the National Supercomputing Centre's director, Professor Dr. Guangwen Yang said:
"As the first number one system of China that is completely based on homegrown processors, the Sunway TaihuLight system demonstrates the significant progress that China has made in the domain of designing and manufacturing large-scale computation system."
In the past, China relied heavily on American processors for itssupercomputers, but the US thought that China was using the Tianhe-2, which was built with Intel cores, to run its nuclear simulations Due to this reason, the United States government banned Intel from exporting its powerful Xeon processors over a year ago to a number of Chinese supercomputer makers.
China is Leading the World in Supercomputing
The US decision did not halt the Chinese progress. Instead, it seems like the US policy has made an opposite effect For the first time since the Top500 list began, China has overtaken the United States in the amount of supercomputers being used. China has 167 computers in the top 500 while the US has 165
"Considering that just 10 years ago, China claimed a mere 28 systems on the list, with none ranked in the top 30, the nation has come further and faster than any other country in the history of supercomputing," said the latest Top500 announcement.
Sunway TaihuLight will be used in scientific research and engineering work in fields including life science research, data analytics, advanced manufacturing and climate, weather and Earth systems modeling.
From GPS system to satellite radio to wireless locks, today vehicles are more connected to networks than ever, and so they are more hackable than ever.
It is not new for security researchers to hack connected cars. Latest in the series of hackable connected cars is the Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV).
A security expert has discovered vulnerabilities in the Mitsubishi Outlander's Wi-Fi console that could allow hackers to access the vehicle remotely and turn off car alarms before potentially stealing it.
The company has embedded the WiFi module inside the car so that its users can connect with their Mitsubishi mobile app to this WiFi and send commands to the car.
Researchers from security penetration testing firm Pen Test Partners discovered that the Mitsubishi Outlander uses a weak WiFi access security key to communicates with the driver’s phone.
The key to getting into the Wi-Fi can be cracked through a brute force attack (“on a 4 x GPU cracking rig at less than four days”), according to researchers. In fact, "a much faster crack could be achieved with a cloud hosted service, or by buying more GPUs."
Once cracked, the researchers captured the handshake or connection process between the driver's phone and the car.
The researchers then used a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack between a driver's home WiFi network and the car's access module to spy on the data flowing between the Mitsubishi app and the car, and compromise the car's system.
The researchers were then able to mess with the air conditioning system, turn lights on/off, push the car to charge on premium-rate electricity, change the car’s charging settings, drain the battery, and most disturbing, break into the car and turn the car's anti-theft alarm off.
Another issue with the vehicle is that the name of each Outlander's Wi-Fi network is distinctive.
"Some were spotted while driving and others when parked at their owner's house," security researcher Ken Munro said. "A thief or hacker can therefore easily locate a car that is of interest to them."
Since the company has sold more than 100,000 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV worldwide, the hack would not be a great news for its users.
A short-term fix for car owners is to unpair all devices from their vehicle's WiFi module. For this, go to the app's "Settings" and select the "Cancel VIN Registration" option.
Once all paired devices are unpaired, the car's Wi-Fi module will effectively go to sleep.
Mitsubishi responded to the issue bysayingthat "this hacking is a first for us as no other has been reported anywhere else in the world," and that it is working with Pen Test Partners to fix the issues permanently.
Last month, it was reported that the European Commission is planning to impose a record antitrust fine of about 3 BILLION euros (US$3.4 Billion) on Google for violating antitrust laws.
Not just Europe, Google also lost an anti-monopoly appeal in Russia two months back against ruling for violating its dominant position with the help of its Android mobile OS by forcing its own apps and services like Google Map, Youtube, and others, on users — reducing competition.
Now to put an end to the monopoly of major mobile Operating System, Russians are developing their own mobile operating system to compete with Android, iOS, and Windows mobile OS.
The Minister of Russian Communication Ministry, Nikolai Nikiforovtweeted last month about the initiative to develop a new Russian mobile operating system, for which the Russian company Open Mobile Platform (Открытая Мобильная Платформа) is hiring developers, testers and security engineers.
Open Mobile Platform is developing a Linux-based mobile operating system for big business and privacy seekers who are looking for "trusted" mobile solutions.
The new mobile operating system will be developed on the top of Sailfish OS, a product developed by the Finnish company Jolla formed by former Nokia engineers, which is now registered in Hong Kong.
According to Nikiforov, the Russian Federation agreed with the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China And South Africa) countries to join efforts to Sailfish OS development in response to the total domination of US software, i.e. Microsoft Windows, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS that fully control most of the world’s IT-market.
The new Russian mobile operating system will be targeted at the mass audience, and smartphones based on the new OS will be inexpensive, OMP President Grigory Berezkin said in an interview with Vedomosti, a Moscow business newspaper.
Meanwhile, Russia is also working on the development of its own version of Tizen operating systemthat can be used on smartphones, tablets, laptops as well as the Internet of things (IoT) devices.
For this, Nikiforov revealed that the Russian Federation wants to hire homegrown developers to migrate popular apps from Android and iOS mobile platforms to Tizen as well as Sailfish OS. He alsosuggests Tizen devices will be launched widely in Russia soon.
Russia is not alone, who is developing its own operating system. China has also developed a Desktop Operating System named NeoKylin (and ‘Kylin’ in Chinese), which is already running on more than 40-50 percent of commercial units sold in the country by Dell.
Persistence. It's what permeates the fabric of upcoming sci-fi odyssey No Man's Sky, and it's what will see the game well past its launch this summer.
While eager to set out into a digital space that's populated with 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 unique planets, gamers have, for the most part, expressed patience as the handful of developers at Hello Games marched toward the release of what may be the most ambitious game to date.
Of course, expectant fans were disappointed by last week's confirmation of a rumor that the launch would be postponed from June to August, but some gamers reportedly were so angry they leveled death threats -- not only against the bearer of the sad tidings, but also against Hello Games Managing Director Sean Murray.
Video game launch delays are nothing new, so perhaps the insane reaction speaks to the intensity of anticipation for No Man's Sky.
Planetary Evolution
Hello Games has no downloadable content planned for No Man's Sky, but it intends to update the super-massive space from time to time. With Murray anticipating that players will only explore 0.1 percent of No Man's Sky over the life of the game, post-release DLC doesn't appear to be necessary.
Despite 99.9 percent of the No Man's Sky universe potentially going unseen, that big and open universe will continue to evolve through the game's existing code and updates to it.
The delivery of improvements will depend on how many boxes the game checks off on fans' wish lists, according to Mike Schramm, head of the qualitative analyst team at EEDAR.
"There hasn't been anything announced post-release yet, but if the game does live up to its high expectations, it's hard to think that there couldn't be some sort of follow-up content, like new ships for players to buy or new additions to the procedural engines powering the game," he told TechNewsWorld.
A Limit on the Sky
When gamers on PS4s and PCs blast off, they'll have three angles from which to attack the roughly 18 quintillion planets.
Players can participate in the pilgrimage to the center of the universe, pillage planets while ducking interplanetary police, or build bases and trade goods. All that is a ton of promise coming from a studio that has just over a dozen employees.
As ambitious as No Man's Sky is, it doesn't instill excitement in everyone, according to George T. Chronis, director of qualitative analysis at DFC Intelligence.
The prevailing view surrounding the game is one of cautious optimism, he suggested.
"It's a huge universe to play in that adapts to player decisions, so No Man's Sky has the potential of having a really long tail where gameplay is concerned," Chronis told TechNewsWorld. "If word of mouth is favorable, the game could have a steady build of new users over time."
There are three main ways to play the game, but the story line is left up to the players.
With its lack of a "clear, centralized narrative," No Man's Sky will have to find a way to resonate with players at a time when story-driven games such as Uncharted 4 are popular, said Joost van Dreunen, CEO ofSuperData Research.
Then there's the issue of pricing.
"At a (US)$60 price point, it may, at least at first, meet a degree of skepticism in the larger consumer market," van Dreunen told TechNewsWorld. "In its gameplay, it looks comparable to Ark: Survival Evolved or Rust, but those have a much lower price point."
The game also will have to contend with Steam's upcoming summer sale.
Known for its deep discounts on PC games, the summer sale will offer gamers the opportunity to select several critically acclaimed games, from hundreds, for less than the full-price fee Hello Games will charge for No Man's Sky.
"No Man's Sky is an ambitious project by Sony and has been in development for a long time," said van Dreunen. "I'm curious to see how a combination with the PSVR may affect its success."
VR, PSVR
It would be nice, after falling in love with a planet, to have the ability to revisit that world through the lens of virtual reality, Hello Games' Murray said in an interview with IGN last month.
VR literally would add another dimension to a game that many players in the mainstream already may feel is overwhelming in scale. Going by Murray's remarks, it's something that could roll out in one of the postlaunch updates later on in the game's life.
For now, Hello Games likely is looking at the feasibility of retrofitting the game with support for VR headsets such as PlayStation VR and the Oculus Rift, according to Patrick Walker, VP of insights and analytics at EEDAR.
"Implementing VR support into a first-person shooter title is technically challenging compared to other genres, which is why most of the VR ports released thus far have been isometric games like Defense Grid 2 and AirMech," he told TechNewsWorld.
With Sony backing Hello Games to push No Man's Sky, VR support would offer both companies a strategic advantage in tackling their respective goals with the game, according to Walker.
The fall release of the PlayStation VR headset gives Sony incentive to push for support for VR. That would get more mileage out of the game, and the additional sales would help Hello Games.
"This would give Sony an additional flagship title for the PSVR. By osmosis, this would be good for the VR industry in general as it would provide an example of a AAA title with VR support at a time when many are questioning the overall quality and breadth of the available content," said Walker.
Stardate: August 9
No Man's Sky will launch on PC and PlayStation 4 on August 9. No Xbox One release has been announced, though Microsoft has been working to change that.
"Hello Games has done a pretty good job of showing what's possible with the title," EEDAR's Schramm said, "and we're excited to hear what reviewers and players have to finally say about the finished game."
