EU and Japan Create World’s Biggest Free Trade Zone
February 1st, 2019Via: Deutsche Welle:
A free trade agreement between Japan and the EU entered into force on February 1, covering 635 million people and almost one-third of the world’s economy.
Dubbed the world’s largest free trade agreement, the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement removes duties on almost all agricultural and industrial products and opens up the service sector and procurement. It also moves to eliminate non-tariff barriers to trade.
Google Manipulates Users Into Constant Tracking
February 1st, 2019Via: Forbrukerrådet:
Google tracks users through “Location History” and “Web & App Activity”, which are settings integrated into all Google accounts. For users of mobile phones with Android, such as Samsung and Huawei phones, this tracking is particularly difficult to avoid.
– Google is processing incredibly detailed and extensive personal data without proper legal grounds, and the data has been acquired through manipulation techniques, says Gro Mette Moen, acting head of unit, digital services in the Norwegian Consumer Council.
When we carry our phones, Google is recording where we go, down to which floor we are on and how we are moving. This can be combined with other information about us, such as what we search for, and what websites we visit. Such information can in turn be used for things such as targeted advertising meant to affect us when we are receptive or vulnerable.
Trump Administration to Suspend Nuclear Treaty with Russia
February 1st, 2019Via: The Hill:
The Trump administration announced Friday that it would suspend its obligations under a decades old Cold War arms control pact with Russia on Saturday, citing Moscow’s violations of the treaty.
The White House announced the decision to stop complying with the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in a statement from President Trump early Friday, just before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the move in remarks from the State Department.
“Russia has refused to take any steps to return to real and verifiable compliance over these 60 days,” Pompeo said.
“The United States will therefore suspend its obligations under the INF Treaty effective Feb. 2, and we will provide Russia and the other treaty parties with formal notice that the United States is withdrawing from the INF Treaty effective in six months pursuant to Article 15 of the treaty,” he continued.
In his statement, Trump pledged the United States would “move forward with developing our own military response options” to Russia’s violations and work with allies to “deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct.”
East Bay Biochemist Sells ‘Gene-Editing Kit’ For The Masses
February 1st, 2019Via: CBS:
“Normal scientists want to study, like, how fruit flies have sex or something, something that nobody really cares about,” said Dr. Zayner. “And what I want to study is, how do we make dragons or super-humans or something like that?”
Zayner wants others to do it as well. Out of a West Oakland apartment, he operates a company called The Odin that sells “gene-editing” kits; they come with all that’s necessary to create your own Genetically Modified Organism.
The kit teaches novice scientists how to inject tree frogs with a type of human growth enzyme that causes the frogs to double in size in about a month.
“It sounds ridiculous,” Dr. Zayner said, “but we’ve been doing gene therapy on human beings since the late 90’s, right? The stuff works, we know how to do it, I want to teach people that. I want people to see how it works.”
White House Preps Emergency Wall Plan While Congress Negotiates
January 31st, 2019Via: Politico:
The White House is finalizing details of a potential national emergency declaration to secure President Donald Trump’s border wall, even as lawmakers are trying to broker an immigration deal that could avert another shutdown in just over two weeks.
Trump met with his budget chief, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Jared Kushner and other top officials, including White House lawyers, on Tuesday to walk through the logistics of such a move. And White House aides have been quietly meeting with outside conservative political groups to build support for the president to take such an action. Those talking points, which emphasize Trump’s legal authority, have begun to show up in such conservative media outlets as Breitbart News.
The behind-the-scenes maneuvers indicate that the administration wants to be poised to quickly declare a national emergency, should Trump choose to do so, by the time Congress hits its Feb. 15 deadline to strike a deal before government funding again runs out. And it signals that White House officials may not have much faith in congressional Republicans to secure the funding in the coming weeks that Trump seeks to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump himself has said the odds of a congressional deal are “less than 50-50.”
One senior White House official told POLITICO the goal is to have such a declaration 100 percent ready and coordinated should Trump decide to move on it rather than scrambling ex post facto to draw up and justify one.
The Half Tesla, Half Honda, 100% Electric Hot Rod: Teslonda
January 31st, 2019Via: Vice:
Costco Stops Selling Roundup
January 31st, 2019Via: Moms Across America:
On Friday, January 18, Elizabeth Desiree of Washington state posted on Facebook that she just got a call from an employee at Costco and he told her that Costco would no longer be selling Roundup. She had written him a letter and he was calling her back. I was excited but reserved my excitement. There is so much fake news these days. I called the headquarters, and after two days of messages and calls, I did finally confirm with three people that Costco was not ordering Roundup or any glyphosate-based herbicides for the incoming spring shipments. They would not be selling it in any stores, all across America. This is HUGE! How fantastic! One employee mentioned that they had looked into organic alternatives first and were happy with the results. More than one employee mentioned the lawsuit (Johnson V Monsanto) for part of the reasoning. They said they just felt like it was the right thing to do.
I asked for an official statement and was told that usually, Costco does not issue press releases, etc discussing which items they have discontinued. Despite not hearing back from the Costco PR department, I decided to announce the information anyway. I told them that the 89,000 people who signed a petition to Costco, Home Depot, and Lowe’s deserved to have an answer. I knew that they would be happy to know that Costco was doing the right thing.
Prisons Across the U.S. Are Quietly Building Databases of Incarcerated People’s Voice Prints
January 31st, 2019Via: The Intercept:
In New York and other states across the country, authorities are acquiring technology to extract and digitize the voices of incarcerated people into unique biometric signatures, known as voice prints. Prison authorities have quietly enrolled hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people’s voice prints into large-scale biometric databases. Computer algorithms then draw on these databases to identify the voices taking part in a call and to search for other calls in which the voices of interest are detected. Some programs, like New York’s, even analyze the voices of call recipients outside prisons to track which outsiders speak to multiple prisoners regularly.
Corrections officials representing the states of Texas, Florida, and Arkansas, along with Arizona’s Yavapai and Pinal counties; Alachua County, Florida; and Travis County, Texas, also confirmed that they are actively using voice recognition technology today. And a review of contracting documents identified other jurisdictions that have acquired similar voice-print capture capabilities: Connecticut and Georgia state corrections officials have signed contracts for the technology (Connecticut did not respond to repeated interview requests; Georgia declined to answer questions on the matter).
Schools Are Locking Students’ Phones Away to Help With Concentration
January 31st, 2019Via: Fortune:
Students at a California high school are getting less screen time since the school implemented a ban on cellphone use during the school day.
After one teacher at San Lorenzo High School brought pouches, created by the tech start-up Yondr, into her classroom to lock away students’ phones, the entire school began using them from the beginning of the school day at 8 a.m. until the end of the day at 3:10 p.m.
According to a 2018 study from the Pew Research Center, more than half of teens said they felt loneliness, anxiety, or upset in the absence of a cellphone. The study also found that girls were more likely to feel these sentiments than boys.
“If something feels weird about modern life to young kids who are dealing with a lot of angst and anxiety in general, maybe it has something to do with relating to the world primarily through a screen eight hours a day,” Yondr’s founder Graham Dugoni told CNBC.
Students said they initially felt awkward and annoyed having their phones taken away during the school day, but added that they started to see more teens interacting with each other. One student added that not having a phone in class helped with concentration.
Dr. Jack Wolfson & Del Bigtree Discuss Vaccines
January 31st, 2019Via: Drs. Wolfson:
