Daimler will Uber in der Zukunft selbstfahrende Mercedes zur Verfügung stellen. Die Fahrzeuge dürften dann Taxidienste übernehmen. Uber erforscht jedoch auch selbst das autonome Fahren. (Autonomes Fahren, Technologie)
Quelle: Golem
Hollywood-Filme über die Nasa-Historie müssen nicht immer von Männern in Raumanzügen handeln. Hidden Figures erzählt mit großartigen Darstellern und heiterer Leichtigkeit die nicht ganz so wahre Geschichte dreier Heldinnen, die mit Mut und Mathematik das Weltraumrennen zwischen Russland und den USA mitentschieden haben. Eine Rezension von Daniel Pook (Filmkritik, IBM)
Quelle: Golem
Eine Poker-KI hat angeblich eine Millionensumme gegen menschliche Spieler gewonnen. Ihre Erschaffer von der Carnegie Mellon-Universität verraten aber noch keine Details zur zugrunde liegenden Technik.
Quelle: Heise Tech News
Anfang der 1960er-Jahre scheint die Sowjetunion, den Wettlauf ins All zu gewinnen. Helfen könnten der NASA mehrere talentierte Afroamerikanerinnen, die aber an der Rassentrennung zu scheitern drohen. Ihren mühsamen Kampf erzählt "Hidden Figures" im Kino.
Quelle: Heise Tech News
Seit Apple keine Monitore mehr produzieren will, sind MacBook-Nutzer auf Fremdgeräte angewiesen. Bei dem von Apple im eigenen Store angebotenen LG-Display mit 5K-Auflösung treten nun offenbar Qualitätsprobleme auf.
Quelle: Heise Tech News
Laut Google zahlen bereits mehr als drei Millionen Unternehmen für Dienste der G Suite. Nutzer sollen nun mit neuen Funktionen in den Bereichen DLP und Verschlüsselung mehr Sicherheit für ihre Daten erhalten.
Quelle: Heise Tech News
Ist es sinnvoll, sein Passwort regelmäßig und vorsichtshalber zu ändern? Was in einigen Firmen verpflichtent ist, ist in Security-Kreisen umstritten. Unter Umständen kann das sogar kontraproduktiv sein.
Quelle: Heise Tech News
Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator.
Drew Angerer / Getty Images
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has joined the winter 2017 class of startups hosted by Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator (YC), which in the past helped companies like Twitch, AirBnb, and Reddit achieve and manage initial growth. The ACLU, a 97-year-old nonprofit, falls outside the profile of a typical YC company, but the incubator has invited nonprofits to participate since 2013.
In a statement, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said, “We’re thrilled to have the help of Y Combinator to help us reach new audiences and be at the leading edge of technology. Beyond financial contributions, the Silicon Valley community can help organizations like ours harness recent membership surges and spread the word about what the ACLU is doing.”
The ACLU raised $24 million this past weekend — six times its average amount of annual donations — after it wrested a stay on President Trump's immigration order from a New York federal court.
Public outrage over the order, which barred refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US, fueled protests at airports around the country. The crowds there were jubilant at the news from the ACLU. Several prominent figures in the tech industry matched donations to the ACLU. Most notably, Lyft gave the organization $1 million in a deftly timed move in its perpetual fight with Uber, which recently turned political.
The ACLU and Y Combinator began speaking weeks ago when YC partner Kat Manalac reached out to Romero for feedback about YC’s upcoming call for civic tech startups. Manalac told BuzzFeed News that Romero responded with a request for help on the ACLU&039;s own projects, which led Manalac to recommend it for YC&039;s incubator, and YC founder Sam Altman and Romero “worked out the details yesterday.” Several YC mentors will travel to New York to work with the ACLU.
In a statement, Altman wrote that YC itself will donate to the ACLU and give it “full access to the Y Combinator network and community.” The accelerator won&039;t have any financial interest in the ACLU. As part of its participation in the program, the nonprofit will also present to venture capitalists at YC Demo Day in March.
Altman wrote that the ACLU plays “a particularly important role now“; he invited engineers in particular to work with the organization, signaling that the nonprofit may have come to Silicon Valley specifically to attract some help from the area&039;s technical talent. Altman said on Twitter that 25 startup founders responded positively to the call.
YC has funded nonprofits before, declining to take its usual equity stake in favor of a donation. The incubator put out a call for civic technology companies in 2014, but the niche industry faces funding problems, and VCs are hesitant. Nevertheless, Altman put out a similar call the same day that the ACLU was accepted.
Like many of its fellow tech companies, YC traveled a bumpy road during election season and after. Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire and prominent Trump supporter who is now a member of the president&039;s transition team, sits on Y Combinator&039;s board, which has drawn criticism from many in Silicon Valley. Sam Altman vigorously defended Thiel&039;s role in YC, though Altman himself did not vote for Trump.
After Trump&039;s victory in November, Altman told BuzzFeed News he was “officially very worried.” Most recently, Altman has come out strong against Trump&039;s immigration order, offering support and a job to recently fired attorney general Sally Yates.
Quelle: <a href="The ACLU Just Joined A Silicon Valley Startup Incubator“>BuzzFeed
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, left, meets with President Donald Trump and business leaders at the White House on January 23, 2017.
Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images
At least five people who had paid deposits to reserve Model 3s have canceled their orders over Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk’s decision to work with President Trump by sitting on two of his advisory groups.
Musk has joined Trump’s economic advisory group, as well as a manufacturing council. Other tech companies, such as Uber, have come under fire for their political decisions since Trump was elected, forcing their leaders to take sides. Musk, whose cult fan base views him one of the leading luminaries for clean energy, has faced criticism for working with Trump. The president has called climate change a hoax, and recently signed an executive order restricting immigration that spurred protests at airports across the country. The backlash over Uber’s collaboration with Trump led to a viral DeleteUber campaign, and Musk’s stance has also cost Tesla business. Five customers showed BuzzFeed News confirmations of their cancelled reservations for the $35,000 Model 3, which required a refundable $1,000 deposit.
Nate Erickson
“I feel that someone that wants to colonize Mars and who worries about the machine uprising should not be scared to voice opinions counter to the Trump administration,” Jodie Eason, who lives in Chicago and canceled her Model 3 order with her husband, told BuzzFeed News. “We figured that speaking with our dollars is really the most effective way to get through to business people.”
Tesla declined to comment.
Musk told CNBC before the election that Trump was “not the right guy” for the White House. Now, he’s collaborating with him. In an interview with Gizmodo last week, he said “the more voices of reason that the President hears, the better.”
“Simply attacking him will achieve nothing,” he said. “Better that there are open channels of communication.”
On Sunday, about two days after Trump signed an executive order suspending the intake of refugees and restricting immigration, Musk tweeted that he would take suggestions for amendments to the other, and discuss them with the president.
One former Tesla customer in New York City who put down a deposit for a Model 3 called Musk’s comments on the immigration order “rather disappointing.” “Stronger words came from Starbucks,” said the source, who was granted anonymity because his company does not allow employees to speak to the media.
“To see someone I’ve always looked up to give such a half-hearted, mealy-mouthed statement — it was really disappointing.”
Nate Erickson, who lives in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and describes himself as “a huge, huge fan of Elon Musk and pretty much everything he’s done,” paid his $1,000 deposit on the first day the company began accepting reservations last spring. He canceled the order Monday morning, after watching Musk’s reaction to Trump’s immigration ban.
“To see someone that I’ve always looked up to so much, give such a half-hearted, mealy-mouthed statement — it was really disappointing,” Erickson told BuzzFeed News.
“I understand what he’s trying to do. It’s just that I don’t really agree with it,” Erickson said. “He’s somehow deluded himself into thinking that by having a seat at the table, he’ll actually be listened to.”
Jenny Messerly, a software engineer in the Bay Area, canceled her Model 3 order over the weekend.
“While I would like to help fund technological progress to fight climate change, as an LGBT American, raw survival is now the main concern,” she told BuzzFeed. “Learning of Elon Musk's relationship with Trump was the decisive factor for me.”
She said she was surprised to see Musk serving as an adviser to Trump, particularly on two separate councils. “Two is certainly worse than one, in that it indicates deeper ties,” Messerly said.
Another Tesla customer, who lives abroad, canceled his two Model 3 orders, citing Trump’s nationalistic statements, the immigration ban, and plans to build a wall along the US-Mexican border. “Especially, being a German, we have very bad associations with these attributes,” Ahmet Yalcin wrote.
Ahmet Yalcin
“The reason for ordering the cars was the beautiful mission of the company to save our planet, and the values of the company&039;s leadership,” Yalcin told BuzzFeed. “The reason for canceling the cars now is a personal conflict created by their recent political activities and alliances which do not reflect company&039;s core values.”
Quelle: <a href="People Are Canceling Tesla Orders Because Elon Musk Is Advising Trump“>BuzzFeed
Starting today, all new Amazon WorkSpaces will use general purpose SSD Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes at no additional cost. SSD EBS volumes provide superior I/O performance when compared to magnetic volumes, which results in improved application start times, boot times and a better user experience when running applications sensitive to disk latency.
Quelle: aws.amazon.com
