Technology Getting Ahead of Us

This week we saw technology getting ahead of us in some cases quite literally with advances in medicine and taking us to Space.

(Mad) Science

We begin this week in science where we meet Surgeon Sergio Canavero who claims that full body/head transplants of humans could be just around the corner after years of similar attempts on animals. Sticking with the weird a recent scan of a statue from 1100 AD of a monk has revealed the mummified remains of what is to be believed Buddhist master Liuquan within the structure itself. If the idea of a transplanted body or keeping your own preserved within a statue doesn't appeal to you then there's always the option of eating healthy by doing it the scientific way of eating 3D printed snacks that grow their own fillings.

Digital Dealings

Back to the digital world we're confronted with a major security breach after it was discovered that Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo had installed malware called Superfish on various computers it sold. After revelations of the Superfish malware some took into their hands to express their displeasure when hacking group lizard squad took down the Lenovo website. Speaking of hacking, the FBI has set a record $3 million bounty for the capture of Russian hacker Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev who is believed to be behind the GameOver Zeus botnet. Lastly, the week wasn't all bad with the announcement that the internet would remain free after the FCC chief said he would vote for strong rules on Net Neutrality in the States.

Earth and Beyond

While there was progress in attempts to keep Earth healthy and green, such as the Eiffel Tower making use of wind turbines to generate it's own power, there was shocking news when it was revealed that the ruined Fukushima plant was leaking radiation at 70 times the normal rate.

Taking a break from it all and heading out into space we saw ISS prep for arrival of new commercial capsules expected in 2017 and making the best out of the situation ISS astronaut Butch Wilmore took probably the most epic selfie of all time. Finally we end with news that Russia will keep it's station modules in orbit when ISS goes out of service and has plans to use them to create it's own base, Death Star anyone?

What Happened? 2014 Technology News

2014 saw advances in space exploration while closer to home security online and safety in the real world came under threat.

World Wide Web

With more personal information out in the world it was the security threats that garnered the most attention with the Heartbleed attack showing major vulnerabilities in one of the internet's most critical systems, SSL. The never ending saga between the NSA and Edward Snowden continued with more releases showing the problems the NSA faced with certain security measures and scrutiny of Silk Road resulted in the cracking of Silk Road 2.0 due to vulnerabilities in the TOR network.

With safety a concern the next hurdle was net neutrality and it's impact on users with the FCC being inundated with complaints crashing their site at one point, even President Obama stepped into the debate giving his support for net neutrality. In Europe the Right to be forgotten act was introduced resulting in over 12,000 requesting information be removed from Google in the first day alone. Facebook managed to annoy it's 1 billion users when it was revealed it had manipulated the news feeds of over half a million users while some websites faced censoring with India blocking access to many and China blocking access to Gmail. Finally both the PlayStation and Xbox networks suffered outages due to attacks.

Scientists

Out in space scientists were set back when tragedy struck a Virgin Galactic test flight claiming the life of one pilot. Pushing forward the crew on-board ISS received the first ever zero-gravity 3D printer and used it later in the year to print a wrench which NASA had emailed. NASA's Orion rocket managed a successful test flight along with a successful recovery from the Pacific Ocean.

Further out in space the European Space Agency's Rosseta spacecraft managed to successfully land a robot craft, Philae, on a moving asteroid. NASA's Mars Opportunity rover suffered memory issues after more than a decade on Mars but it's younger sibling, Curiosity, managed to discover organic matter on the red planet.

The annual Nobel Prizes were handed out for excellence in the field of Physics for blue light emitting diodes, in Chemistry for capturing nano scale images and in Medicine for discovering the brains inner GPS. In other areas we weren't so lucky with the Ebola outbreak recorded as the largest to date with over 7000 people dying and the flu was declared an epidemic by the CDC after 15 deaths.

Technology Moving Forward

Technology marched along with new discoveries and announcements while others, the usual suspects, abused technology for their benefit.

Moving Forward

Apple held it's annual WWDC conference where it announced several new developments most notably the new iOS8 and OSX Yosemite and a new programming language called Swift.

NASA was busy when it announced it had discovered a new rocky mega-planet called Kepler-10c capable of hosting life. Amazing new X-ray images of space were released revealing whirlpool galaxy's dotted with black holes. Not keen to leave space to the pro's Google announced it is planning on building a satellite fleet to bring internet to everyone, I guess the balloons weren't up to the challenge.

On the medical front scientist have created the very first 3D printed blood vessels but were shocked to discover 21 new cases of Ebola reported in Guinea.

Some people never learn

The NSA was in hot water again after it was reported that they have been collecting millions of photo's for facial recognition software. The NSA was also blasted by the EFF who claimed that the NSA had intentionally destroyed evidence in a case between the two. If you thought you were in the clear after the Heartbleed bug wreaked havoc a few months back, well sorry, 6 new bugs have been discovered in OpenSSL.

Speaking of the internet, it was reported that the FCC site had crashed after trolls swarmed the site making comments regarding net neutrality thanks to a piece by John Oliver on his new show 'Last Week Tonight'. Turkey came to it's sense when it allowed access to YouTube after a 2 month ban. And lastly Pirate Bay co-founder, Peter Sunde, was arrested in Sweden after 2 years on the run for copyright infringement.

Well that was unexpected

Users of car lift services have been warned after an Uber driver was arrested for kidnapping a women. Speaking of breaking the law, Google allowed people to sign up for the new EU mandated Right to be Forgotten and received over 12,000 requests on the first day alone, allowing any one with a questionable past to be "forgotten".

History was made when US Ambassador, Suzi LeVine, took an oath of office on an electronic device. And finally, in what can only be described as idiotic, the Greek letter Pi was trademarked proving once and for all that the US patent offices need a serious review.