Archive for December, 2011
MIT Scientists Create Camera That Allows Photons To Be Seen Moving In Slow Motion
December 13th, 2011Via: New York Times / MIT News Office: More than 70 years ago, the M.I.T. electrical engineer Harold (Doc) Edgerton began using strobe lights to create remarkable photographs: a bullet stopped in flight as it pierced an apple, the coronet created by the splash of a drop of milk. Now scientists at M.I.T.’s Media Lab […]
Multimillion Dollar Crowdturfing Industry Growing Exponentially
December 13th, 2011Incredibly, laughably, this piece doesn’t mention things like the U.S. Military’s desire to develop persona management software or Team Themis (HBGary Federal, Palantir and Berico): After having spent several months studying those emails and otherwise investigating the industry depicted therein, I have revealed my summary of a classified US intelligence programme known as Romas/COIN, as […]
FBI Holding Carrier IQ Data for ‘Law Enforcement Purposes’
December 13th, 2011There’s a shocker. Via: The Verge: When we spoke to Carrier IQ at length about the company’s controversial cellular tracking service, there was one question we didn’t include in the transcript. “Would you say no if the government asked Carrier IQ for a wiretap into user databases?” we asked. At the time, we felt the […]
Butter Shortage in Norway: Bids to Roughly $465 Per Pound
December 12th, 2011Via: AFP: An acute butter shortage in Norway, one of the world’s richest countries, has left people worrying how to bake their Christmas goodies with store shelves emptied and prices through the roof. The shortfall, expected to last into January, amounts to between 500 and 1,000 tonnes, said Tine, Norway’s main dairy company, while online […]
Internet Piracy Bill: A Free Speech ‘Kill Switch’
December 12th, 2011Via: The Hill: What began as an attempt to restrain foreign piracy on the Internet has morphed into a domestic “kill switch” on First Amendment freedom in the fastest-growing corner of the marketplace of ideas. Proposed federal legislation purporting to protect online intellectual property would also impose sweeping new government mandates on internet service providers […]
Rare Photographs Show Ground Zero of the Drone War
December 12th, 2011Via: Wired: The epicenter of global terrorism, and the CIA’s highly classified drone war against extremist groups, is a black hole on the map — a region of Pakistan off limits to outsiders, and especially Westerners. It’s an area so dangerous that even the Pakistani military avoids it. The CIA may have launched 70 drone […]
Iran to Practice Ability to Close Strait of Hormuz [???]
December 12th, 2011Via: Reuters: A member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee said on Monday that the military was set to practise its ability to close the Gulf to shipping at the narrow Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil transit channel in the world, but there was no official confirmation. The legislator, Parviz Sarvari, told […]
Beyond Guantánamo, a Web of Prisons for Terrorism Inmates
December 12th, 2011Via: New York Times: It is the other Guantánamo, an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away on back roads. Today, it houses far more men convicted in terrorism cases than the shrunken population of the prison in Cuba that has generated so much debate. … As of Oct. 1, the […]
Company Wants to Mine the Moon’s Resources and Leave Trash Behind
December 12th, 2011Via: Los Angeles Times: Most people don’t take it literally when they’re told to shoot for the moon — but thinking small isn’t Naveen Jain’s way. The 52-year-old Internet entrepreneur is a co-founder of Moon Express Inc., one of several companies in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, in which privately funded teams will try […]
British Police to Test Riot Control Laser
December 12th, 2011Via: Telegraph: A shoulder-mounted laser that emits a blinding wall of light capable of repelling rioters is to be trialled by police under preparations to prevent a repeat of this summer’s looting and arson. The technology, developed by a former Royal Marine commando, temporarily impairs the vision of anyone who looks towards the source. It […]
