“No Cost” License Plate Readers Are Turning Texas Police into Mobile Debt Collectors and Data Miners
February 1st, 2016Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Vigilant Solutions, one of the country’s largest brokers of vehicle surveillance technology, is offering a hell of a deal to law enforcement agencies in Texas: a whole suite of automated license plate reader (ALPR) equipment and access to the company’s massive databases and analytical tools—and it won’t cost the agency a dime.
Even though the technology is marketed as budget neutral, that doesn’t mean no one has to pay. Instead, Texas police fund it by gouging people who have outstanding court fines and handing Vigilant all of the data they gather on drivers for nearly unlimited commercial use.
Private Browsing Microsoft Style
February 1st, 2016All browsing done with Edge in “InPrivate” mode is logged. haha
It even flags the “InPrivate” visits in the log.
Is anyone actually using Edge, besides security researchers attempting to see how screwed it is?
Via: Kinja:
So just how private is InPrivate Browsing mode in Microsoft Edge? Not as private as Microsoft would lead you to believe. Through my research I have discovered that the websites visited while running in PrivacIE mode are still stored in the same IE/Edge WebCacheV01.dat ESE database.
In the Container_n table the website history records are stored. In this table there is a field called “Flag”, if the website was visited in PrivacIE mode there the value of this field will be “8”.
UK Approves Genetic Editing of Healthy Human Embryos
February 1st, 2016Via: MIT Technology Review:
It’s a world first: a U.K. government panel has given the go-ahead for researchers, led by Kathy Niakan at the Francis Crick Institute in London, to edit healthy human embryos.
This isn’t the ethical morass it might at first appear to be. The researchers will use the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, but their work has nothing to do with fixing faulty genes in a developing fetus or bringing designer babies into the world.
The experiment involves growing edited embryos in a lab for no more than seven days. By the time growth is stopped, each embryo will be just a clump of between 64 and 256 cells. Were it sitting in a woman’s uterus, it wouldn’t even have implanted yet. The researchers say the point of the work is to study how embryos develop in the earliest stages after conception in the hopes of understanding more about infertility and miscarriages.
As the technology improves, it seems like it’s just a matter of time before it will become realistic to use CRISPR to engineer babies, treat diseases in adults, and tweak the genes of a whole host of other animals and plants. This research isn’t that, and it should scare no one. The broader ethical and moral questions, however, are important. The good news is the conversation around them is already underway.
Alphabet Passes Apple to Become the World’s Most Valuable Company
February 1st, 2016Via: CNBC:
Google parent Alphabet was set to pass Apple as the most valuable company in the world on Tuesday. At Monday’s after-hours levels (which technically reflect an indication, but not the real-world value), Alphabet’s market cap would roughly be $570 billion, eclipsing Apple’s current market cap of about $535 billion.
4 Out of 5 Americans Prescribed Antibiotics Each Year
February 1st, 2016WOW!
Would you like some chicken with that?
Via: CBS:
Skyrocking rates of antibiotic prescriptions now suggest that as many as four out of five Americans may be getting antibiotics annually, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s is concerning officials, especially because overuse is one reason antibiotics are losing their punch and making infections harder to treat.
…
The report released Wednesday gives the first detailed look at usage of these medicines in every state and finds it highest in the South and Appalachia. West Virginia had the highest rates at 1.237 prescriptions per person, followed by Kentucky at 1.232 and Tennessee at 1.199. The lowest rates were found in California (0.6 per person), Oregon (0.595) and Alaska (0.529).
Related: The Antibiotics that Could Kill You
Zika Virus: WHO Declares Global Public Health Emergency
February 1st, 2016Via: Washington Post:
The World Health Organization designated the Zika virus a public health emergency of international concern Monday, an action it has taken only three times before and which paves the way for the mobilization of more funding and manpower to fight the mosquito-born pathogen spreading “explosively” through the Americas.
Zika, which was first identified more than 50 years ago, has alarmed public health officials in recent months because of its possible association with thousands of cases of brain defects, known as microcephaly, in newborns. The WHO has estimated that the virus will reach most of the hemisphere and infect up to 4 million people by year’s end.
Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said at a press briefing that the primary reason for the decision was that members of an 18-member advisory panel agree that a causal relationship between Zika and microcephaly is “strongly suspected” although it hasn’t been scientifically proven. She said that given the seriousness of the conditions being reported, the consequences of waiting were too great.
Related: And Now: “Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Join The Fight To Stop Zika Virus”
Steorn: “If This Is All Some Mad Ploy It Is Quickly Running Out Of Road”
February 1st, 2016Several years after their humiliating failure to demonstrate anything at all resembling free energy technology, Steorn now has a couple of Orbo products for sale. There’s a mobile device USB charger and a basic mobile phone. No external power needed, according to Steorn.
After watching this latest chapter in the bizarre story of Steorn unfold over the last couple of months, I think it boils down to this:
Either Steorn is selling free energy devices, or Shaun McCarthy will likely be headed to prison for fraud.
Now that they’re taking money from the public, there are real world implications for McCarthy and the gang, one way or the other.
Not long to wait now.
What do you think?
Via: Irish Times:
When he bribes the golden-ticket winning children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Arthur Slugworth wants just one thing: the ever-lasting gobstopper. Wonka predicts it will revolutionise the confectionery business and Slugworth determines to unearth its secrets from the bowels of a factory he himself could never hope to enter.
Penetrating the inner-sanctum of Shaun McCarthy’s “Steorn” headquarters in Dublin’s docklands is a lot easier and yet it still has the feel of entering the chocolate factory.
After years of speculation, mystery and controversy, the public are finally getting their teeth into Steorn’s gobstopper – the everlasting (or self-charging) battery. Whether or not they will swallow it is another matter.
‘Exascale’ Wind Turbines
February 1st, 2016Via: Engadget:
The US Department of Energy’s plan to generate 20 percent of the nation’s electrical power from wind by 2030 is ambitious, to say the least. To pull it off, the turbines will need to be located offshore, where winds are steadier and stronger. However, putting wind turbines in the ocean is also far more expensive, so they need to be enormous in order to make it worthwhile. Researchers from Sandia National Laboraties have come up with a design that features 650-foot blades — over two football fields long — that can generate up to 50 megawatts of power.
Such “exascale” turbines, called segmented ultralight morphing rotors (SUMRs), are over six times the size of the largest existing models. Thanks to economies of scale, a single unit could power around 10,000 homes. “The U.S. has great offshore wind energy potential, but offshore installations are expensive, so larger turbines are needed to capture that energy at an affordable cost,” says Sandia’s lead turbine designer Todd Griffith.
Eagles Are Being Trained to Take Out Illegal Drones
February 1st, 2016Via: Engadget:
Forget anti-drone drones, one of nature’s most majestic hunters may soon play a valuable role in taking down dangerous UAVs. As part of a new trial, the Dutch National Police force has begun training eagles to intercept troublesome drones during an emergency, when another capture device might put people below at risk.
In collaboration with raptor training company Guard From Above, Dutch police taught an eagle to recognize a DJI drone. Once in sight, the bird flies toward its mechanical prey, snatches it with its enormous talons and then takes it to safe place. The eagle is one of the two “physical” methods the force are trialling — the other being a safety net — but a trained bird of prey gives officers more control over where the offending drone is brought down to earth.
New Technologies Give Government Ample Means to Track Suspects, Study Finds
February 1st, 2016“The history of technology shows that what is invented for convenience can soon become a target of surveillance.”
“The history of technology shows that what is invented for convenience can soon become a target of surveillance.”
“The history of technology shows that what is invented for convenience can soon become a target of surveillance.”
Via: New York Times:
For more than two years the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies have warned that encrypted communications are creating a “going dark” crisis that will keep them from tracking terrorists and kidnappers.
Now, a study in which current and former intelligence officials participated concludes that the warning is wildly overblown, and that a raft of new technologies — like television sets with microphones and web-connected cars — are creating ample opportunities for the government to track suspects, many of them worrying.
“ ‘Going dark’ does not aptly describe the long-term landscape for government surveillance,” concludes the study, to be published Monday by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.
The study argues that the phrase ignores the flood of new technologies “being packed with sensors and wireless connectivity” that are expected to become the subject of court orders and subpoenas, and are already the target of the National Security Agency as it places “implants” into networks around the world to monitor communications abroad.
The products, ranging from “toasters to bedsheets, light bulbs, cameras, toothbrushes, door locks, cars, watches and other wearables,” will give the government increasing opportunities to track suspects and in many cases reconstruct communications and meetings.
…
The history of technology shows that what is invented for convenience can soon become a target of surveillance.
Research Credit: CP
