Cisco locks customers out of their own routers, only lets them back in if they agree to being spied upon and monetized
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UK proposes to allow Google to digitise all copywriten works with no renumeration
Granted, copyright is a fussy subject which stifles innovation and freedom, but copyright holders are entitled to at least /some/ protection, at least for some time!
The UK government is considering a proposal to allow anyone to digitise anything and use the data for commercial purposes unless the creator of the content ‘opts out’ from this proces somehow. The digitiser only has to pay a ‘nominal fee’ (next to nothing) in order to be able to use the content if there is protest.
A deep critique in the link below.
Hargreaves Review: Extended Collective Licensing and Orphan Works « Action on Authors' Rights.
Glasses that show what’s happening to your bloodstream
These glasses can show where your veins run, and shade your hemoglobin levels to show the affective state a person is in.
These Awesome Glasses Will Make Your Veins Glow So Nurses Won't Have to Keep Stabbing You.
BAE develops GPS alternative
BAE systems has developed a system based on radio frequency systems to position itself. It’s a learning system that uses GPS to track it’s own location whilst reading the unique RF signals strength and ID.
One Per Cent: TV and radio signals take over when GPS goes wrong.
Display on a bubble
These guys have developed a screen which is projected on a bubble. The bubble is flexible and can be controlled using vibrations, allowing the membrane to be changed in transparency and roughness.
Adobe kills Flash for Android
There will be no Flash for Android 4.1 devices, unless your manufacturer allready packaged it with the device. It won’t be available from the Google Play store either.
An Update on Flash Player and Android « Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash Player Team Blog.
Concluding the Great MP3 Bitrate Experiment
It turns out that most people can’t tell the difference in sound quality above 160 kbps. So having a raw CD doesn’t make the sound ‘better’.
Concluding the Great MP3 Bitrate Experiment.
$1000,- to hack US UAVs and control them
A group of researchers led by Professor Todd Humphreys from the University of Texas at Austin Radionavigation Laboratory recently succeeded in raising the eyebrows of the US government. With just around $1,000 in parts, Humphreys’ team took control of an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the US Department of Homeland Security.
They used the same technique the Iranians claimed to have used to force the US’ latest and greatest stealth UAV to land on their territory: spoofing the GPS signal of the drone, lending a lot of credibility to that claim.
Texas college hacks government drone — RT.
Guided lighting weapons
Using lasers, they guide lightning to their targets:
“For very powerful and high intensity laser pulses, the air can act like a lens, keeping the light in a small-diameter filament,” said Fischer. “We use an ultra-short-pulse laser of modest energy to make a laser beam so intense that it focuses on itself in air and stays focused in a filament.”
To put the energy output in perspective, a big filament light bulb uses 100 watts. The optical amplifier output is 50 billion watts of optical power, Fischer said.
“If a laser beam is intense enough, its electro-magnetic field is strong enough to rip electrons off of air molecules, creating plasma,” said Fischer. “This plasma is located along the path of the laser beam, so we can direct it wherever we want by moving a mirror.”
“Air is composed of neutral molecules and is an insulator,” Fischer said. When lightning from a thunderstorm leaps from cloud to ground, it behaves just as any other sources of electrical energy and follows the path of least resistance.
“The plasma channel conducts electricity way better than un-ionized air, so if we set up the laser so that the filament comes near a high voltage source, the electrical energy will travel down the filament,” Fischer elaborated.
A target, an enemy vehicle or even some types of unexploded ordnance, would be a better conductor than the ground it sits on. Since the voltage drop across the target would be the same as the voltage drop across the same distance of ground, current flows through the target. In the case of unexploded ordnance, it would detonate, explained Fischer.
Picatinny engineers set phasers to 'fry' | Article | The United States Army.
Corsair Hydro Series affordable CPU water Coolers
These will only set you back around $100,- and will run quietly, much less noise than a fan system.
Flynano
The Flynano is a one man electric amphibious aircraft that costs only EUR 32.000,- and a trailer costs EUR 5.300,-. It files from moderate water and wind states and goes 140 kph. Very basic but looks like fun.
Psychology Of Fraud: Why Good People Do Bad Things
Here is a theory that says that some fraud perpetrators are not actually evil, but they don’t see that they are being evil, depending on the frame of mind they are put into.
Psychology Of Fraud: Why Good People Do Bad Things : NPR.
How Moammar Gadhafi tried to keep a grip on internet and phone networks
To get into Israel you may have to give your email password
Apparently they profile tourists and then force them to open their email on their own PC (which means basically you’re giving them your email login through a keylogger) and they look into it.
If you disagree you’re hiding something and not allowed into the country.
Besides using profiling, which is innefective, it’s a huge invasion of privacy. Not even the USA goes this far.
Israel steps up email border checks | The Australian.
Robotic pets
The world of robotic pets is a large and varied one. The central place for finding out about them is here:
ElectronicPets.org – The Complete Database of Interactive and Robotic Pets.
There are a few that stand out, however:
Wowwee, makers of the robosapien have two lines that are very interesting:
The Alive baby animals are beatifully made and have a pretty wide range of functions.
Alive animals also come in ‘mini’ versions which are don’t have as many features but are still very cute. Watch out when buying though!
They also have a Perfect Puppy line (as well as many others) which are very cuddly.
Keepon is my favorite, he’s a dancing robot. The professional version costs $30,000 but there’s a smaller version available for around GBP 40,-
One of the most intelligent learning and evolving robots is PLEO rb (which stands for reborn). Unfortunately it’s insanely expensive ($469)
Fuel Nozzle Drip Retainer
The fuel nozzle drip retainer is a simple yet innovative way of saving millions of litres of fuel on a global scale. Anyone who has pumped fuel before has noticed the drops that fall to the ground after you’ve removed the nozzle from the vehicle. We’ve designed a method of retaining these drops, which initiates a recycling process whereby the next customer in line receives the fuel that would have been otherwise wasted. These drops may not seem like a significant amount, however when taken into account globally, these drops amount to approximately half a billion litres of fuel that falls to the ground and is evaporated into our atmosphere every year. Our drip retainer mesh design utilizes a combination of pressure differentials and surface tension to retain fuel within the spout.
GoPro Camera Tips and Techniques
Peter Jennings is an inventor who has built loads of stuff for the Go Pro Hero camera’s, such as a programmable time lapse controller, panoramic mounts, external power using the back door of the casing and DIY wireless remote controllers. Very worth looking at the hacks he has if you own a Go-Pro.
GoPro Camera Tips and Techniques.
NY Mayor & Son busted for hacking and threatening dissidents
Burgemeester hackt kritische site | Webwereld.
He used the data he gained to strong arm political opponents.
So if your elected mayor is capable of doing this, then what makes you think all the drones and other political forces sitting on top of huge centralised databases won’t be capable of this… to much larger effect?
Scotland Yard deploys mobile fingerprint devices
Britain’s largest force says it has distributed 350 of the cell phone-sized devices to officers across various parts of London, part of a nationwide rollout championed by Britain’s National Policing Improvement Agency.
via Scotland Yard deploys mobile fingerprint devices.
So will they store all precessed fingerprints? How quickly will they be removed from the physical device?
SpaceX Dragon, first private ship to the ISS, launched successfully
NASA has contracted this rocket to very carefully approach the ISS for resupply runs. Well done Elon Musk!
SpaceX Dragon, first private ship to the ISS, launched successfully • The Register.
NL .gov PvdA proposes to get rid of useless fingerprint on passport
It turns out that not only is it a massive privacy invasion, but has a 20% (!!) error rate. Besides that it’s useless, because no border guard system can read the fingerprints on the passport.
Tweede Kamer wil af van vingerafdruk in paspoort – update | Webwereld.
Common Unmanned Surface Vessel for Navy
The boat is 39 feet long and can reach a top speed of 28 knots. Using a modified version of the unmanned Shadow surveillance aircraft technology that logged 700,000 hours of duty in the Middle East, the boat can be controlled remotely from 10 to 12 miles away from a command station on land, at sea or in the air, Haslett said.
Farther out, it can be switched to a satellite control system, which Textron said could expand its range to 1,200 miles. The boat could be launched from virtually any large Navy vessel.
Using diesel fuel, the boat could operate for up to 72 hours without refueling, depending upon its traveling speed and the weight of equipment being carried. The fuel supply could be extended for up to a week on slow-moving reconnaissance missions. the boat could be operated in as little as 5 feet of water because of its shallow draft
The CUSV would be hard to sink by accident.
If the boat overturns, it shuts down its engines, rights itself, restarts the engines and resumes the mission. Should the boat lose contact with its command, it’s programmed simply to return to its launching point or another pre-determined location.
It’s not the first unmanned boat. But Haslett said others generally have been boats simply refitted with remote control equipment. The CUSV was designed from the first step not to have a crew.
Phys.Org Mobile: Unmanned vessel could soon be working for Navy.
Life-size hologram-like telepods revolutionize videoconferencing | Human Media Lab :: Queen’s University
Porno scanner breaks $10K insulin pump
Wait – what? It BROKE an insulin pump? And it’s supposed to be safe for people to go in? Really?
Payment alternatives to plastic – an interactive map
Not using a credit card is becoming a much more viable method over the internet (22% of the overall e-commerce payments), with iDeal and Paypal, but also many other methods used to pay for porn or gambling. Worldpay has made an interactive map showing the predominance of specific alternative currencies per country.
This is based on this report by worldpay.