Technology

In a video that similar to those videos where humans push around ATLAS, researchers at Delft University of Technology have created a system that will let a quadrotor drone keep flying even if one of the propellers is broken.

The video above & which is, arguably, pretty boring & shows the drone fighting against both structural damage and wind and most definitely winning. The fact that it is able to stay airborne under such wild conditions is the real draw here and ita fascinating experiment in robust robotics. In other words, this drone routed around damage that would destroy a normal quadcopter.

According to IEEE the system works by adding a multiple subsystems to the drone in order to manage the position and altitude. The system uses the built-in gyro and accelerometer readings to keep itself in the air and lots of processing power to keep it moving forward even as it seems to careen into the wild blue yonder. Further, the system manages motor power to ensure that the propellers aren&t &saturated.&

The researchers, Sihao Sun, Leon Sijbers, Xuerui Wang, and Coen de Visser, presented their paper in Spain last week at IROS 2018.

Fellow citizens! An important election is approaching, and you should vote in it. But are you registered Are you sure Why don&t you take ten seconds now to check

Maybe you moved recently and the notices are going to your old place. Maybe your county had a records snafu. Maybe you&re one of thousands of voters being purged from the rolls in order to tip a close race. Who knows

Itvery simple to do this online. You don&t need any documents and you don&t need to send anything in or call anyone. The nonpartisan Vote.org will query your stateregistration database for you, or you can scroll down a bit at that page and go directly to the state site to do it yourself.

If you&re not registered, don&t worry. Many states allow you to register right up until election day, and if you haven&t registered before or itbeen a while, all you really need is to be a citizen with a valid ID. Special welcome to all new citizens!

Some states have already closed registration: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Texas. Some states have deadlines that have already passed for mail-in registration, in-person registration, and so on. But as of today it is still possible to register to vote in every state not listed above.

For instance here in Washington, online registration closed on October 8, but I could still register in person for the next couple weeks. In Delaware you only have until the 13th — but you can register online, by mail, or in person until then. South Carolina and Florida would normally have closed registration but have extended it because of the hurricane.

The New York Times has put together a comprehensive list of deadlines for each state, with links for each registration method. And if you&ll be gone for election day, November 6, you should be able to check your statesite for an absentee or early voting ballot.

Every vote counts. Your candidates and issues need yours! Check if you&re registered at Vote.org or your state site, and if you&re not, therestill time to register.

Apple has strongly criticized Australiaanti-encryption bill, calling it &dangerously ambiguous& and &alarming to every Australian.&

The Australian governmentdraft law — known as the Access and Assistance Bill — would compel tech companies operating in the country, like Apple, to provide &assistance& to law enforcement and intelligence agencies in accessing electronic data. The government claims that encrypted communications are &increasingly being used by terrorist groups and organized criminals to avoid detection and disruption,& without citing evidence.

But criticssay that the bill&broad authorities that would undermine cybersecurity and human rights, including the right to privacy& by forcing companies to build backdoors and hand over user data — even when itencrypted.

Now, Apple is the latest company after Google and Facebook joined civil and digital rights groups — including Amnesty International — to oppose the bill, amid fears that the government will rush through the bill before the end of the year.

In a seven-page letter to the Australian parliament, Apple said that it &would be wrong to weaken security for millions of law-abiding customers in order to investigate the very few who pose a threat.&

&We appreciate the governmentoutreach to Apple and other companies during the drafting of this bill,& the letter read. &While we are pleased that some of the suggestions incorporated improve the legislation, the unfortunate fact is that the draft legislation remains dangerously ambiguous with respect to encryption and security.&

&This is no time to weaken encryption,& it read. &Rather than serving the interests of Australian law enforcement, it will just weaken the security and privacy of regular customers while pushing criminals further off the grid.&

Apple laid out six focus points — which you can read in full here — each arguing that the bill would violate international agreements, weaken cybersecurity and harm user trust by compelling tech companies to build weaknesses or backdoors in its products. Security experts have for years said that thereno way to build a &secure backdoor& that gives law enforcement authorities access to data but can&t be exploited by hackers.

Although Australian lawmakers have claimed that the billintentions are not to weaken encryption or compel backdoors, Appleletter said the &the breadth and vagueness of the billauthorities, coupled with ill-defined restrictions& leaves the billmeaning open to interpretation.

&For instance, the bill could allow the government to order the makers of smart home speakers to install persistent eavesdropping capabilities into a personhome, require a provider to monitor the health data of its customers for indications of drug use, or require the development of a tool that can unlock a particular userdevice regardless of whether such tool could be used to unlock every other userdevice as well,& the letter said.

Applecomments are some of the strongest pro-encryption statements itgiven to date.

Two years ago, the FBI sued Apple to force the technology giant to build a tool to bypass the encryption in an iPhone used by one fo the the San Bernardino shooters, who killed 14 people in a terrorist attack in December 2015. Apple challenged the FBIdemand — and chief executive Tim Cook penned an open letter called the move a &dangerous precedent.& The FBI later dropped its case after it paid hackers to access the devicecontents.

Australiaanti-encryption bill is the latest in a string of legislative efforts by governments to seek greater surveillance powers.

The U.K. passed its Investigatory Powers Act in 2016, and earlier this year the U.S. reauthorized its foreign surveillance laws with few changes, despite efforts to close warrantless domestic spying loopholes discovered in the wake of the Edward Snowden disclosures.

The Five Eyes group of governments — made up of the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand — further doubled down on its anti-encryption aggression in recent remarks, demanding that tech companies provide access or face legislation that would compel their assistance.