Another week of LogisticsTech

Hackers, Robots, and More…

On Friday (11/25), hackers breached the San Francisco transport systems — allowing riders to use the transportation system without having to pay.

Computers across the network suddenly displayed the message “You hacked. ALL Data Encrypted.” The anonymous hacker demanded 100 bitcoins (valued at about $73,000) after using a ransomware attack to lock up employee computers at 900 workstations, shut down Muni’s email system and knock out the time-tracking portion of its payroll system.

Muni Metro refused to pay the ransom and instead worked with federal officials to get the system back up and running. Muni has stated that no customer information or safety systems were breached. Phew.

The new Tesla Model S or X — sold with the brand-new self-driving-ready hardware — can’t actually drive itself just yet.

Tesla is working on the new generation using its own ‘Tesla Vision’ image processing architecture. The software will start becoming more impressive once Tesla rolls out monthly updates that will result in the following:

• The ‘Autosteer’ feature on the second generation Autopilot vehicle will become ‘Autosteer+,’ which employs 3 front-facing cameras instead of 1.
• ‘Summon’ will become ‘Smart Summon.’ These changes will improve the capability of the driverless driving experience, which can only manage forward and reverse driving with limited course adjustments.

And of course, all of these updates intend to lead to the fully driverless automobile, which may be available by the end of next year.

Google maps will now tell you how busy your favorite restaurant is in real time. Fancy.

With all the robots. Delta, a global leader in industrial automation, featured a portfolio of smart factory solutions at the SPS IPC Drives in Nuremberg 2016. Among the tech featured was the DRV90L / DRV 70L series — an industrial robot that can integrate with “AC motor drives, motion control systems, sensors, machine vision systems, advanced host controllers and more, to construct high-end automation machines and systems.”

Wanna see it in action? Here ya go:

Delta Air Lines is the first airline to use Radio Frequency Identification tags at all of its destinations worldwide in order to track each bag throughout its journey. Delta is also using RFID-enabled belt loaders, which will eliminate the need for Delta employees to manually scan each bag. A light will flash green when the right bag is being loaded onto a plane and red light if a bag is about to load the wrong plane.

On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump selected Elaine Chao to be his transportation secretary. If confirmed, she would play a key role in what Trump hopes to be his first legislative victory: A major infrastructure bill to rebuild America’s highways and bridges. Another key issue: the regulation of self-driving technologies.

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