Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Egypt: Internet Down, Police Counterterror Unit Deployed; In Suez, Weapons Looted and Turned on Police
January 28th, 2011Via: AP: Internet service in Egypt was disrupted and the government deployed an elite special operations force in Cairo on Friday, hours before an anticipated new wave of anti-government protests. The developments were a sign that President Hosni Mubarak’s regime was toughening its crackdown following the biggest protests in years against his nearly 30-year rule. […]
DOJ Seeks Mandatory Data Retention Requirement for ISPs
January 26th, 2011Via: Computerworld: The U.S. Department of Justice and an organization representing police chiefs from around the country renewed calls on Tuesday for legislation mandating Internet Service Providers (ISP) to retain certain customer usage data for up to two years. The calls, which are stoking long standing privacy fears, were made at a hearing convened on […]
Consumer Watchdog Wants Investigation Into Google’s Relationships with NSA, Other U.S. Federal Agencies
January 26th, 2011Via: PC World: Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group largely focused in recent years on Google’s privacy practices, has called on a congressional investigation into the Internet giant’s “cozy” relationship with U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration. In a letter sent Monday, Consumer Watchdog asked Representative Darrell Issa, the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government […]
Building a Super Robust Robot Hand
January 26th, 2011Click through for photos. Via: IEEE Spectrum: German researchers have built an anthropomorphic robot hand that can endure collisions with hard objects and even strikes from a hammer without breaking into pieces. In designing the new hand system, researchers at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, part of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), focused on […]
Egypt Simmering as Protests Spread; Regime Blocks Access to Twitter
January 25th, 2011Via: Christian Science Monitor: Egypt’s protests today appear to be the largest public call for democratic reform and an end to the Mubarak regime for years. The scope of Egypt’s protests today, calling for greater freedom and downfall of strongman President Hosni Mubarak, is unprecedented. Though tens of thousands took to the streets of Cairo […]
First UAV Flight in Support of Domestic Law Enforcement Operation Occurred in 2009 in Austin
January 24th, 2011Via: Washington Post: AUSTIN – The suspect’s house, just west of this city, sat on a hilltop at the end of a steep, exposed driveway. Agents with the Texas Department of Public Safety believed the man inside had a large stash of drugs and a cache of weapons, including high-caliber rifles. As dawn broke, a […]
The Pathology of Facebook and Twitter
January 23rd, 2011Via: Guardian: The way in which people frantically communicate online via Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging can be seen as a form of modern madness, according to a leading American sociologist. “A behaviour that has become typical may still express the problems that once caused us to see it as pathological,” MIT professor Sherry Turkle […]
DARPA: ‘Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales’
January 23rd, 2011Via: Fast Company: As DARPA puts it: “When we look through the evidence after the fact, we often find a trail–sometimes even an ‘obvious’ one. The question is can we pick up the trail before the fact giving us time to intervene and prevent an incident?” Computer forensics companies rise to the challenge. … NetCerto […]
Largest Ever West Coast Rocket Launch Carried National Reconnaissance Office Satellite Into Space
January 21st, 2011Update: Some Guesses Mentioned on CNN Just to clarify what’s being said below: It’s not a KH-11, which hasn’t been produced since 1990. See the Wikipedia page for “KH-12”: “KH-12” is an unofficial designation of the successor to the KH-11 KENNAN (“Crystal”) spy satellite. A system with the official designation KH-12 does not exist because […]
Researcher Controls Worm by Stimulating Individual Neurons with Laser
January 21st, 2011Via: Github: Andrew’s research is called CoLBeRT: Controlling Locomotion and Behavior in Real-Time and works by running real-time analysis on video of a 1mm long specially bred light-sensitive C. elegans worm. The CoLBeRT system tracks the worm as it moves and shines laser light on specific neurons as the worm is moving to stimulate or […]
