Machine translations have eased many communications difficulties, but a recent court ruling in the US has ruled that police may not use Google Translate to receive consent from suspects or other individuals. The ruling came after an officer used Google Translate to obtain consent to search a suspect’s vehicle. The

A new Justice Department report has issued details on a “micro-jamming” technology capable of disabling a cell-phone within a 20-foot radius. These capabilities are “a step forward countering the security threat posed by contraband cellphones” in jail, according to one Department of Justice representative. Difficulties with previous jamming technologies were,

A new “smart lock” padlock advertised as the “world’s first smart fingerprint padlock” was hacked in under 45 minutes by researches from Pen Test Partners (PTP). Once the flaw was identified, the team was able to unlock any of the locks using a smartphone in less than 2 seconds. In

The Pentagon has, once again, suspended the purchase and use of commercial drones ‘in order to develop a strategy that assesses and mitigates potential cyber risks of their use.’ The memo also underscored the sufficiency of operations without such commercially-produced drones, writing that ‘military services and combatant commands continue to

Combining artificial intelligence with mass spectrometry, scientists have developed a platform able to diagnose Zika virus with an accuracy above 95%, even as the virus mutates and over a time range unmatched by other diagnostic kits. In the future, any lab in the world with a mass spectrometer could access

A four-year initiative is working to build a small device able to write data onto DNA-like polymers and a parallel device capable of reading the polymer-stored data. The initiative seeks to “present a clear and commercially viable path to future deployment at the exabyte scale” within 10 years. An exabyte

Russia continues to improve its internal networks that can continue operations in the event the entire country disconnects from the “global internet.” The latest improvement in this effort is the creation of a massive cloud network to be used by the military. Russia is also working to allow integration into

The Department of Energy’s new supercomputer is now the fastest supercomputer in the country, and possibly the entire world. In one hour, the computer can solve a problem that would take the typical PC 30 years to complete. Taking over 5 years and 280 million USD to build, the computer

“Google has promised not to use AI for weapons, following protests over its partnership with the US military. A decision to provide machine-learning tools to analyse drone footage caused some employees to resign. Google told employees last week it would not renew its contract with the US Department of Defense

Responding to the significant cooling and energy requirements of data centers, Microsoft has developed and launched an underwater data center off the coast of Scotland containing 12 racks of 864 servers. The project used submarine technology to install the center and runs on renewable energy while using its surroundings for