Technologies Tantalizing Tomorrow

We delve this week into the world of Technology with security threats from hackers looming large and space calling out to the brave.

Fighting on the Digital Front

We begin the week with security after numerous stories of hackers surfaced this week ranging in severity of threat. If you thought being untethered and high in the sky would keep you safe a new report claims that hackers could hack into the aircraft's system via the planes own Wi-Fi, and you thought all you had to worry about was a guy stuck in the cargo hold of the plane. While the odds of a plane being hacked are low the number is increasing as a new report claims a 23% spike in cyber crimes with another study showing data breaches have stolen nearly 29 million US health records in 4 years.

One of the most famous hack of recent memory is that of Sony Entertainment who's documents can now be found in a searchable trove on Wikileaks and more worryingly is the fact that the software used to attack Sony Entertainment can be bought on the dark web for just $30,000 in bitcoin. Speaking of business, Google faces a new antitrust lawsuit in Europe after claims that Google prioritized it's own services over that of others. In the US the new net neutrality freedom is already coming under attack by broadband companies who are taking the fight to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Future and Fun

Focusing instead on bettering mankind's future we saw the first ever donut launched into space giving us even more reason to reach space. However, attempts to get into space took another knock when SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket just failed to land on the drone barge during a test flight earlier in the week. For those already in the heavens we saw footage of a space walk carried out earlier in the year on ISS while even further out in space the Curiosity rover found evidence of small amounts of water on Mars. On the topic of robots, a few of them are being used closer to home mapping radiation at the Fukushima power plant too dangerous for humans to map.

Finally we end this week where artificial intelligence is no match, natural stupidity. The week saw two puzzles fool the internet with Cheryl's Birthday math problem and a picture of a cat either walking up or down a flight of stairs, basically the blue and gold dress all over again.

Technology Far and Near

This week technology allowed man to travel to the outskirts of our world while closer to home it was fighting for it's freedom.

Far

The ESA made history when the Rosetta spacecraft managed to successfully land it's robot craft, Philae, on the surface of Comet 67P. There was a slight hiccup when the anchoring harpoons didn't fire causing the probe to bounce and re-land technically making it both the first and second successful landing. A little further out in space scientists believe they may have figured out how Jupiter's infamous red spot got it's colour.

On the human front of space exploration, investigations into the crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has revealed that the surviving pilot didn't realize his copilot unlocked the space plane's re-entry system early. 3 space station crew, one from Russia one from the United States and one from Germany, returned home after 5 and a half months on board the International Space Station landing their Soyuz capsule in Kazakhstan.

And finally when it comes to orbiting our place in the universe Elon Musk confirmed plans for his company SpaceX to launch satellites in 2-3 months to provide internet access but this was over shadowed when the Chinese revealed plans to create a satellite facility in Antarctica raising concerns of the militarisation of continent.

Near

Closer to home the worlds two largest polluters, the US and China, made progress by agreeing on cutting green house gas emissions and also agreeing to drop tariffs on a wide range of technology products.

But soon it was back to the usual debates with President Obama stepping in to give his support to Net Neutrality but while your access might be free for the time being it's also been revealed that US authorities have been snagging large amounts of data via mobile phones using fake cell towers on planes. But it's not only the American Government as we discovered when Germany's foreign intelligence agency reported that it wants to spend $375 million to spy in real time on social networks outside of Germany.

And lastly the FBI was busy after it managed to uncover and arrest the creator of under world website Silk Road 2.0 causing the TOR project member to figure out where they went wrong but while the FBI may have had success on one front they lost out when a judge said the public had the right to know about the FBI's facial recognition database.