Watch a self-driving Audi become 'the fastest autonomous car on the planet'

Audi put a big exclamation point on its self-driving technology — "piloted driving," as the company calls it — with an adrenaline-filled demonstration in Germany over the weekend. The car in question was a 560-horsepower RS7 rounding the course at Hockenheimring during the finale of this year's DTM season (DTM is a little bit like a German NASCAR, so the right audience was certainly on-hand for this sort of thing). The car was going full-out, guided through a combination of precision GPS and 3D cameras. The in-car footage showing the view out of the windshield at triple-digit speeds with no one in the driver's seat is nothing short of terrifying.

Car companies are increasingly relying on extreme demonstrations of self-driving to show that the technology is progressing — they've moved beyond basic scenarios into the edge cases, pushing hardware and software to their limits. The logic, of course, is that if a self-driving car can handle a course at race speeds, it can certainly handle a highway. BMW did something similar at CES earlier this year with a self-drifting car at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Audi claims that its RS7 demo is officially the "fastest autonomous car on the planet."

Via The Verge

Watch a self-driving Audi become 'the fastest autonomous car on the planet'

6:35 PM Audi, fastest autonomuos car, the verge

China is staging a nationwide attack on iCloud and Microsoft accounts

China got its first official shipments of new iPhones last week, but a new report from web censorship watchdog Great Fire indicates Chinese users may be facing an unpleasant surprise when they try to connect to Apple services at large. As of last night, the Chinese firewall is blocking all local connections to iCloud.com, redirecting those connections to a dummy site designed to look exactly like Apple's login page. If you're using Firefox or Chrome, you'll land on a warning page like the one above, but if you're using Qihoo, the most popular browser in China, you'll be routed straight to the dummy site with no indication that it's not being run by Apple. A similar attack is also being leveled against Microsoft's Login.live.com, the company's gateway for all account logins.

INSTEAD OF ICLOUD, USERS WERE DIRECTED TO A DUMMY SITE

Because the attack is taking place at the level of the Great Firewall, it seems likely that this is an attack by Chinese authorities meant to harvest usernames and passwords. Great Fire also provided traceroutes and a wirecapture to verify the attacks. If a user logs into the dummy site, it will give the attackers complete access to the user's account, including any photos, text messages or emails stored in the cloud. Apple recently added default disk encryption to iOS, a feature that drew disapproval from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, leading many to speculate that this attack might be a strike back against the company's new security efforts.

It's still possible for users to circumvent the attack and get through to the real iCloud andlogin.live site unscathed. The attack only targeted one of iCloud's many IP addresses, so anyone routed to a different IP should reach the real site. A VPN service can also be used to redirect users, provided the VPN service is not also blocked by the Great Firewall. It's the first time China has directly attacked an Apple service, but Great Fire also notes that Apple has complied with the country's surveillance requests in the past. "Apple has a long history of working with the Chinese authorities to self-censor content in China," Great Fire said in a statement. "While we worry for Chinese users who may have their accounts compromised, we are shedding no tears for the Apple executives."

Via The Verge

China is staging a nationwide attack on iCloud and Microsoft accounts

6:31 PM apple, china, icloud, microsoft, the verge