Earnings for July and August
September 2nd, 2012I would like to thank everyone who kept Cryptogon open in July and August.
July: $1081.47
Pookie $75
TR $15
CS £20
DS $20
pseudo-psychic.com $25
CS2 $25
DB $15
JS $50
RL $25
Amazon $569.15
Amazon UK £31.89
Anonymous $90
leafandlight.com $90
August: $1619.33
Pookie $75
Eileen $104
JB $16
CM $25
Furry Wombat AU$25
NG CA$100
MW $20
Nikki NZ$50
Amazon $912.60
Amazon UK £16.58
Amazon CA$3.06
leonik.net $90
digisbroadband.com $90
neurocrank.com $90
Wal-Mart Tests iPhone App Checkout Feature
September 1st, 2012Wow! Bonus points to Wal-Mart for getting their own employees to test a system that will be used to lay them off.
Via: Reuters:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc is testing a system that would allow shoppers to scan items using their iPhones and then pay at a self-checkout counter, a move that could trim checkout times and slash costs for retailers.
If the “Scan & Go” test by the world’s largest retailer is successful, it has the potential to change the way people shop and pay, making the process more personal and potentially faster.
Earlier this week, Walmart invited employees with Apple Inc iPhones to participate in a test at a Walmart supercenter in Rogers, Arkansas, near the company’s headquarters, according to a form on the Survey Monkey website. (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/selfcheckout)
“All of the effort is to speed your way through the checkout so that we can reduce costs and improve the shopping experience,” said Paul Weitzel, managing partner at retail consulting firm Willard Bishop, who said he had not seen Walmart’s test. “With smartphones and improved technology we’re only going to see more of this.”
South Africa: Police Kill 34 Protestors, Survivors Face Murder Charges
August 31st, 2012Via: BBC:
Workers arrested at South Africa’s Marikana mine have been charged in court with the murder of 34 of their colleagues shot by police.
The 270 workers would be tried under the “common purpose” doctrine because they were in the crowd which confronted police on 16 August, an official said.
Police opened fire, killing 34 miners and sparking a national outcry.
The decision to charge the workers was “madness”, said former ruling ANC party youth leader Julius Malema.
“The policemen who killed those people are not in custody, not even one of them. This is madness,” said Mr Malema, who was expelled from the ANC (African National Congress) earlier this year following a series of disagreements with President Jacob Zuma.
“The whole world saw the policemen kill those people,” Mr Malema said, adding that he would ask defence lawyers to make an urgent application at the high court.
The killing of the 34 was the most deadly police action since South Africa became a democracy in 1994.
Software Meant to Fight Crime Is Used to Spy on Dissidents
August 31st, 2012Via: New York Times:
Morgan Marquis-Boire works as a Google engineer and Bill Marczak is earning a Ph.D. in computer science. But this summer, the two men have been moonlighting as detectives, chasing an elusive surveillance tool from Bahrain across five continents.
What they found was the widespread use of sophisticated, off-the-shelf computer espionage software by governments with questionable records on human rights. While the software is supposedly sold for use only in criminal investigations, the two came across evidence that it was being used to target political dissidents.
Drones Over Britain
August 30th, 2012Via: BBC:
This year the US Congress passed legislation giving US airspace regulator the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) until September 2015 to open up its airspace to drones, and Britain is expected to follow suit.
The UK’s airspace regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), has told BBC Newsnight that large unmanned drones could be flying in British skies by the end of the decade.
The CAA has already handed out 120 permits to fly small, lightweight drones. By 2020 this may be extended to larger unmanned aircraft.
“In aviation terms you can probably equate where we are with unmanned technology now to manned flight in 1918 or the early 1920s,” Gerry Corbett at the CAA said.
“We’ve found them useful in war fighting and we can see the way ahead for commercial use.”
Large defence companies and small start-up firms are investing heavily in what many think could soon be a market worth tens of billions of pounds.
To date the development of unmanned aircraft has been driven by the huge increase in military spending in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Now the sensors and cameras used in drones are cheap enough for a whole raft of civilian applications to be possible.
Research Credit: cr
DHS Will Release ‘Harmless’ Bacteria Into Boston’s Subway Tunnels
August 30th, 2012Via: The Scientist:
The Boston subway system will soon host simulated biological weapon attacks as the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) conducts tests of sensors designed to detect the presence of biological agents in metropolitan areas.
After temporarily shutting down the transportation system, S&T will release small quantities of harmless and inactive bacteria into subway tunnels under Beantown and monitor the spread of the dead microbes using newly developed sensors. The bacterium, Bacillus subtilis, is considered nontoxic even when alive and active.
Russians Dumped Old Nuclear Reactors and Radioactive Waste Into Sea
August 30th, 2012Via: Bellona Foundation:
Enormous quantities of decommissioned Russian nuclear reactors and radioactive waste were dumped into the Kara Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia over a course of decades, according to documents given to Norwegian officials by Russian authorities and published in Norwegian media.
Bellona had received in 2011 a draft of a similar report prepared for Russia’s Gossoviet, the State Council, for presentation at a meeting presided over by then-president Dmitry Medvedev on Russian environmental security.
The Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom confirmed the figures in February of this year during a seminar it jointly held with Bellona in Moscow.
Bellona is alarmed by the extent of the dumped Soviet waste, which is far greater than was previously known – not only to Bellona, but also to the Russian authorities themselves.
The catalogue of waste dumped at sea by the Soviets, according to documents seen by Bellona, and which were today released by the Norwegian daily Aftenposten, includes some 17,000 containers of radioactive waste, 19 ships containing radioactive waste, 14 nuclear reactors, including five that still contain spent nuclear fuel; 735 other pieces of radiactively contaminated heavy machinery, and the K-27 nuclear submarine with its two reactors loaded with nuclear fuel.
Not Just Russians: Ocean Disposal of Radioactive Waste
Harvard: Researchers Grow Cyborg Tissues with Embedded Nanoelectronics
August 30th, 2012Via: Harvard Gazette:
Harvard scientists have created a type of “cyborg” tissue for the first time by embedding a three-dimensional network of functional, biocompatible, nanoscale wires into engineered human tissues.
As described in a paper published Aug. 26 in the journal Nature Materials, a research team led by Charles M. Lieber, the Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry at Harvard, and Daniel Kohane, a Harvard Medical School professor in the Department of Anesthesia at Children’s Hospital Boston, developed a system for creating nanoscale “scaffolds” that can be seeded with cells that grow into tissue.
“The current methods we have for monitoring or interacting with living systems are limited,” said Lieber. “We can use electrodes to measure activity in cells or tissue, but that damages them. With this technology, for the first time, we can work at the same scale as the unit of biological system without interrupting it. Ultimately, this is about merging tissue with electronics in a way that it becomes difficult to determine where the tissue ends and the electronics begin.”
Ray Bradbury FBI File: Sci-Fi Legend Suspected Of Communist Sympathies
August 30th, 2012Via: Huffington Post:
Late science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury was actively investigated by the FBI during the 1960s for suspected Communist leanings, according to FBI files released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Huffington Post.
Bradbury aroused the suspicion of the FBI due to his outspoken criticism of the U.S. government and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which was investigating real and suspected communists in America. In a full-page ad in Variety, Bradbury had denounced the committee’s probes as “claptrap and nonsense” and several informants in Hollywood also voiced their suspicions about the acclaimed writer to the bureau.
‘Americans Shot in Mexico Were CIA Operatives Aiding in Drug War’
August 30th, 2012Aiding in drug war… *cough* *wink*
Via: New York Times:
The two Americans who were wounded when gunmen fired on an American Embassy vehicle last week were Central Intelligence Agency employees sent as part of a multiagency effort to bolster Mexican efforts to fight drug traffickers, officials said on Tuesday.
The two operatives, who were hurt on Friday, were participating in a training program that involved the Mexican Navy. They were traveling with a Mexican Navy captain in an embassy sport utility vehicle that had diplomatic license plates, heading toward a military shooting range 35 miles south of the capital when gunmen, some or all of them from the Federal Police, attacked the vehicle, Mexican officials have said.
Related:
CIA Jet Used for “Rendering” Suspects Crashes with Four Tons of Cocaine on Board
Research Credit: latitude38
