Robots Will Soon Begin Patrolling South Korean Prisons
November 25th, 2011Via: Telegraph:
Robot guards with sensors to detect abnormal behaviour will soon begin patrolling South Korean prisons to ease the burden on their human counterparts, researchers said on Thursday.
ITALIAN DEBT FUNDING COSTS SOAR
November 25th, 2011Via: Reuters:
Italy paid a record 6.5 percent to borrow money over six months on Friday and its longer-term funding costs soared far above levels seen as sustainable for public finances, raising the pressure on Rome’s new emergency government.
The auction yield on the six-month paper almost doubled compared to a month earlier, capping a week in which a German bond auction came close to failing and the leaders of Germany, France and Italy failed to make progress on crisis resolution measures.
Though Italy managed to raise the full planned amount of 10 billion euros, weakening demand and the highest borrowing costs since it joined the euro frightened investors, pushing Italian stocks lower and bond yields to record highs on the secondary market.
Related: Italy Collapse Would Be The ‘End Of The Euro’
The Surveillance Catalog
November 24th, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal:
Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal open a rare window into a new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology that has arisen in the decade since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country.
The documents—the highlights of which are cataloged and searchable here—were obtained from attendees of a secretive surveillance conference held near Washington, D.C., last month.
Research Credit: GP
Google Quits Plans to Make Cheap Renewable Energy
November 24th, 2011Via: Reuters:
Google Inc has abandoned an ambitious project to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, the latest target of Chief Executive Larry Page’s moves to focus the Internet giant on fewer efforts.
Google said on Tuesday that it was pulling the plug on seven projects, including Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal as well as a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia service known as Knol.
The plans, which Google announced on its corporate blog, represent the third so-called “spring cleaning” announcement that Google has made since Google co-founder Page took the reins in April.
The changes come as Google is facing stiff competition in mobile computing and social networking from Apple Inc and Facebook, and as some investors have groused about rising spending at the world’s No.1 Internet search company.
“To recap, we’re in the process of shutting down a number of products which haven’t had the impact we’d hoped for, integrating others as features into our broader product efforts, and ending several which have shown us a different path forward,” wrote Google Senior Vice President of Operations Urs Holzle in the blog post.
Google said that it believed other institutions were better positioned to take its renewable energy efforts “to the next level.”
Google began making investments and doing research into technology to drive down the price of renewable energy in 2007, with a particular focus on solar power technology.
Amazon Kindle DX
November 24th, 2011If you have been waiting for an excuse to buy the Kindle DX (the one with the big screen), Amazon just knocked $120 off the regular price.
I saw this when I logged into my Amazon Associates account. It said that this promotion ends 11/28.
GERMAN BOND AUCTION FAILS
November 23rd, 2011Via: Reuters:
A “disastrous” sale of German benchmark bonds sparked fears on Wednesday the debt crisis was beginning to threaten even Berlin, with the Bundesbank forced to dig deep into its pockets to ensure the auction did not fail.
In one of the least successful debt sales by Europe’s powerhouse economy since the launch of the single currency, the low returns offered — just 2 percent annually over 10 years — deterred investors made uneasy by the escalating cost of the crisis to Germany.
That meant the central bank had to pick up 39 percent of the 6 billion euros of debt Germany had hoped to sell after commercial banks bought just 3.644 billion euros of the issue.
Undercover Researchers Expose Chinese Internet Water Army
November 23rd, 2011Via: Technology Review:
An undercover team of computer scientists reveals the practices of people who are paid to post on websites.
In China, paid posters are known as the Internet Water Army because they are ready and willing to ‘flood’ the internet for whoever is willing to pay. The flood can consist of comments, gossip and information (or disinformation) and there seems to be plenty of demand for this army’s services.
Canada: G20 Case Reveals ‘Largest Ever’ Police Spy Operation
November 23rd, 2011Via: CBC News:
Police organizations across the country co-operated to spy on community organizations and activists in what the RCMP called one of the largest domestic intelligence operations in Canadian history, documents reveal.
…
In all, the RCMP-led joint intelligence group — a conglomeration of federal, provincial and municipal police tasked with G8/G20 reconnaissance — employed more than 500 people at its peak, the records show. The group ran undercover operations, recruited confidential informants and liaised with domestic and foreign governments, law enforcement agencies and even corporations.
The JIG’s targets included activists protesting the Olympics, the migrant-justice group No One Is Illegal, Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance and Greenpeace.
Malls Track Shoppers with Cell Phone Surveillance Systems
November 23rd, 2011Via: CNN:
Attention holiday shoppers: your cell phone may be tracked this year.
Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year’s Day, two U.S. malls — Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. — will track guests’ movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones.
While the data that’s collected is anonymous, it can follow shoppers’ paths from store to store.
The goal is for stores to answer questions like: How many Nordstrom shoppers also stop at Starbucks? How long do most customers linger in Victoria’s Secret? Are there unpopular spots in the mall that aren’t being visited?
While U.S. malls have long tracked how crowds move throughout their stores, this is the first time they’ve used cell phones.
But obtaining that information comes with privacy concerns.
The management company of both malls, Forest City Commercial Management, says personal data is not being tracked.
“We won’t be looking at singular shoppers,” said Stephanie Shriver-Engdahl, vice president of digital strategy for Forest City. “The system monitors patterns of movement. We can see, like migrating birds, where people are going to.”
Still, the company is preemptively notifying customers by hanging small signs around the shopping centers. Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones.
The tracking system, called FootPath Technology, works through a series of antennas positioned throughout the shopping center that capture the unique identification number assigned to each phone (similar to a computer’s IP address), and tracks its movement throughout the stores.
Massachusetts State Senator: Andrea Rossi Meeting with Government Officials and Representatives of MIT, UMass and Northeastern
November 23rd, 2011Via: Senator Bruce Tarr:
Andrea Rossi, an engineer who has captured the attention of the scientific world with two successful tests of his “E-Cat” cold fusion reactor, arrived at the State House on Tuesday morning for two days of meetings with government officials and representatives of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts and Northeastern University.
Mr. Rossi’s reactor, if successfully proven and developed, has the potential to change the way the world deals with energy, and I’m pleased that he’s willing to discuss basing its production in Massachusetts.
Rossi’s E-Cat reactor, which has thus far been developed and tested in the Italian city of Bologna, is intended to produce large amounts of energy from a reaction between nickel and hydrogen. The reaction produces heat which then heats water to produce steam, from which electricity can be generated. Importantly, the process creates little to no radiation, a major problem for the nuclear fission process currently used to produce power in reactors around the world.
The enormous potential of this technology demands that it be addressed by the best scientific minds in the world. Since Massachusetts is the home of some of the best colleges and universities in the world, it makes sense for that process to happen here.
Our institutions of higher learning have been tremendous in their response to this opportunity, and I look forward to working with them.
Related: Which U.S. Organization Bought Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat System?
