Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Google Backing Original Shows for YouTube — Lots of Them
January 8th, 2012Plug in and be lit up by the American Hologram. This great loom of media images, and images of images, is so many layers deep that it has replaced reality. No one can remember the original imprint. If there was one. The hologram is a hermetic snow globe, a self-referential circuitry of images, and a […]
Paypal Founder Backs Blueseed, ‘Googleplex of the Sea’
January 7th, 2012Will there be… Plasmids? BioShock is set during 1960, in Rapture, a fictional underwater dystopian city; its history is revealed to the player through in-game audio recordings scattered throughout the game. Rapture was envisioned by the Objectivist business magnate, Andrew Ryan, as a laissez-faire utopia for society’s cultural and scientific elite to avoid the oppression […]
Japan ‘Dream Project’: 600 Acre Farm with Autonomous Robot Workers
January 7th, 2012Does anyone understand how LEDs are supposed to replace pesticides? Under an agriculture ministry plan, unmanned tractors will work fields where pesticides will have been replaced by LEDs keeping rice, wheat, soybeans, fruit and vegetables safe until robots can put them in boxes. Anyway, this sounds like it could have been lifted right out of […]
Microsoft Gets Patent for ‘Avoid Ghetto’ Technology
January 7th, 2012Via: CBS: Microsoft has been granted a patent for its “avoid ghetto” feature for GPS devices. A GPS device is used to find shortcuts and avoid traffic, but Microsoft’s patent states that a route can be plotted for pedestrians to avoid an “unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh […]
‘Gamers Are Now in Full Battle Rattle with Official U.S. Army Rifle Controllers, Backpacks and Headsets’
January 6th, 2012Start ’em young. Via: Joystiq: CTA DigitalTM (http://ctadigital.com) today announced a partnership with the U.S. ArmyTM to manufacture U.S. ArmyTM branded video game accessories. Virtual soldiers on the video game battlefield can now take pride in Being Army StrongTM. Rifle controllers, backpacks and headsets with an authentic U.S. ArmyTM design are some of the many […]
Feds Want Judge to Force Suspect to Give Up Laptop Password
January 6th, 2012Reader Question: Which Encryption Software Do I Use? M emailed to ask about the encryption software that I use. For full disk encryption, I use TrueCrypt. Whether or not you believe that TrueCrypt can protect your data from all attackers, when used properly, it can definitely protect your data from attackers that you are likely […]
Recommended Links for WordPress
January 4th, 2012Nathaniel Taintor, of Golden Apples Design, is now actively developing Recommended Links for WordPress. This plugin will allow WordPress administrators to offer Reddit-like social news functionality to their existing users. For years, I have struggled to offer Cryptogon readers a good way of sharing links with me and each other. Reddit is an open air […]
Scientists Grow Sperm in Laboratory
January 3rd, 2012Via: Telegraph: The development opens up the possibility of infertile men being able to father their own children rather than using donor sperm. Researchers in Germany and Israel were able to grow mouse sperm from a few cells in a laboratory dish. In a world first a team headed by Professor Stefan Schlatt, at Muenster […]
Belarus: Browsing Foreign Websites a Misdemeanor
January 3rd, 2012Via: Library of Congress: As stated in an explanatory note published together with the Law, this act was issued to implement the Decree of the Belarusian President of February 1, 2010, on Improvements to the Usage of the National Segment of the Internet. The newly published Law imposes restrictions on visiting and/or using foreign websites […]
The Coming War on General Purpose Computation
January 1st, 2012Via: Cory Doctorow at Chaos Computer Club: The last 20 years of Internet policy have been dominated by the copyright war, but the war turns out only to have been a skirmish. The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of […]
