A Government Free New Year; It Was Likely Russia Maybe; Climate Changed; MaTonomy; Getting Rid of the Humans; and Chicken Face

Iceland

Iceland's 'crazy' year ends without a government businessinsider

Iceland is ending an eventful year in a political quagmire, left without a government for two months after the Panama Papers icij.org scandal and a snap election reflecting deep divisions in the island nation.

US-Russia

Government’s first report on Russian hack is woefully inadequate salon

...the document pdf, termed a “Joint Analysis Report” (JAR), contains nothing of substance pointing to Russia as responsible for any of the attacks and will do little or nothing to assuage public doubts about who conducted the security breaches.

Climate

[Wisconson] DNR purges climate change from web page jsonline w!

In the latest changes, the DNR says of climate change, “as it has done throughout the centuries, the earth is going through a change. The reasons for this change at this particular time in the earth’s long history are being debated and researched by academic entities outside the Department of Natural Resources wi.gov.”

This was the least hostile article I could find on this story :)

Automation

Self-driving car set to hit streets [in Boston] bostonherald

[nuTonomy] will start testing its modified Renault Zoe renault.co.uk electric supermini in the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park, a small and simple section of South Boston that includes many businesses, Iagnemma said. The marine park does not have traffic lights and is essentially a large loop, but the public roads do include bike lanes and plenty of commuters.

iPhone manufacturer Foxconn plans to replace almost every human worker with robots theverge

The first phase of Foxconn’s automation plans involve replacing the work that is either dangerous or involves repetitious labor humans are unwilling to do. The second phase involves improving efficiency by streamlining production lines to reduce the number of excess robots in use. The third and final phase involves automating entire factories, “with only a minimal number of workers assigned for production, logistics, testing, and inspection processes,” according to Jia-peng.

Augmented Reality

KFC concept store launches facial recognition technology stuff.co.nz

A camera scans a customer's face and decides what meal would suit their gender, mood and age. Customer can interact with the machine through emotions and movements.

Others...

This cliff house in Utah is the ultimate off-grid escape curbed v p

Is This The Strangest New Food Trend? Pavement Foraging forbes v

The Island in a Lake on an Island in a Lake on an Island amusingplanet p

This Man Built an Aquarium in His Living Room Large Enough for Scuba Diving industrytap v