DARPA Developing Alternative to GPS; Doesn’t Depend on Satellites
April 25th, 2013Via: AFP:
To that end, researchers at DARPA and the University of Michigan have created a new system that works without satellites to determine position, time and direction, all contained within a eight-cubic-millimeter chip.
The tiny chip holds three gyroscopes, three accelerometers and an atomic clock, which, together, work as an autonomous navigation system.
DARPA envisages using this technology to replace GPS in some contexts, especially in small-caliber ammunition or for monitoring people.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Unarmed When Barrage of Bullets Hit Boat
April 25th, 2013Via: Washington Post:
Although police feared he was heavily armed, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing had no firearms when he came under a barrage of police gunfire that struck the boat where he was hiding, according to multiple federal law enforcement officials.
Authorities said they were desperate to capture Dzhokhar Tsarnaev so he could be questioned. The FBI, however, declined to discuss what prompted the gunfire.
Other law enforcement officials said the shooting may have been prompted by the chaos of the moment and some action that led the officers to believe Tsarnaev had fired a weapon or was about to detonate explosives.
Israel Airport Security ‘Allowed to Read Tourists’ Email’
April 25th, 2013If you think this is good, why not go for the bonus round: Israel Cloned Travelers’ Passports to Carry Out Assassination.
Via: AFP:
Israeli security officials at Ben Gurion airport are legally allowed to demand access to tourists’ email accounts and deny them entry if they refuse, the country’s top legal official said on Wednesday.
Details of the policy were laid out by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein in a written response to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the group said in a statement.
In June 2012, ACRI’s Lila Margalit wrote to the attorney general demanding clarification following media reports about security officials demanding access to tourists’ email accounts before allowing them into the country.
“In a response dated April 24, 2013, the attorney general’s office confirmed this practice,” ACRI said, quoting sections of the document which said it was only done in exceptional cases where “relevant suspicious signs” were evident and only done with the tourist’s “consent”.
IBM Robotic Coworker Will Help Engineers Fix Broken Systems
April 25th, 2013Via: Network World:
When it comes to fixing broken systems, especially in remote locations, engineers could soon turn to a new mobile robotic system IBM is developing that could help them more easily find the broken equipment, offer up information about the system and provide real-time visual support from supervising experts.
The mobile maintenance, repair and operations prototype includes an application that lets a supervisor monitor an engineer’s progress towards the maintenance site, and a robotic arm coupled with a camera system, a microphone and laser pointer.
Airborne Terrorist Attack Study To Be Conducted In Subways By NYPD, Brookhaven Laboratory
April 25th, 2013Via: Huffington Post:
A multimillion-dollar airflow study will be conducted this summer to help authorities better understand the risks of airborne terrorist attacks on New York City and its subway system, including those posed by chemical, biological and radiological weapons.
The NYPD and experts from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory will conduct the tests in July. The Subway-Surface Air Flow Exchange study, or S-SAFE, is funded by a $3.4-million transit security grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The study, according to a statement released Wednesday by NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, is “the first of its scale to study airflow in a dense, complex urban environment both below and above-ground.” Researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, along with other meteorologists and engineers, will assist scientists from BNL as they “track the movement of harmless tracer gases” through the urban atmosphere — monitoring that movement through about 200 air-sampling tracking devices placed both at street-level and in the subway system.
Expatriotism — The New American Dream
April 25th, 2013Via: Zen Gardener:
The U.S. is going down the police state tubes so fast it’s hard to follow. All the tricks, frauds, ploys and murderous maneuvers the desperate controllers are constantly working are hard to even keep up with. Never mind the continuous waging of wicked wars, overt and covert, in dozens of countries around the world, and all the while the government is passing more draconian laws, measures and executive decrees than you can shake a stick at to subdue its own populace..
Nice place to live, eh? I don’t think so. Not a bad time to get to higher ground. In fact, a perfect one.
Research Credit: emulsified
‘After Boston, Lawmakers See Case for Use of Drones to Kill Americans’
April 24th, 2013Via: U.S. News and World Report:
In the aftermath of the Boston bombing standoff that ended last Friday, lawmakers have changed their tune on whether a drone should ever be used to target an American citizen on U.S. soil.
The use of drones to kill American citizens is not “inherently illegal,” as long as that citizen is a “combatant,” a constitutional expert told a Senate panel considering the implications of targeted killings Tuesday.
“I think it’s not inherently illegal to target American citizens so long as American citizens are also combatants in a relevant war. Sometimes U.S. citizens can be classified as enemy combatants” Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University School of Law, told the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights.
“It’s not important [what technology we’re using], what matters is we’re choosing the right target,” he said. “If we’re choosing the right target then we should use the appropriate weapons, we’d be wrong to ban specific technology.”
That question has become increasingly important as senators such as Ted Cruz and Rand Paul consider the possibility of American citizens being targeted by drones on U.S. soil. In September, 2011, suspected Al-Qaeda operative and U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.
Last month, Paul spent 13 hours filibustering the confirmation of CIA director John Brennan because he said he was concerned that the United States could eventually target citizens on U.S. soil. Tuesday, Paul changed his tune, telling Fox Business Network that he would have approved of a drone targeting Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
“I’ve never argued against any technology being used when you have an imminent threat, an active crime going on,” Paul said. “If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and fifty dollars in cash … I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.”
After Death Experiences: ‘The Data Suggests That Consciousness Is Not Annihilated’
April 24th, 2013Via:Wired:
Sam Parnia practices resuscitation medicine. In other words, he helps bring people back from the dead — and some return with stories. Their tales could help save lives, and even challenge traditional scientific ideas about the nature of consciousness.
“The evidence we have so far is that human consciousness does not become annihilated,” said Parnia, a doctor at Stony Brook University Hospital and director of the school’s resuscitation research program. “It continues for a few hours after death, albeit in a hibernated state we cannot see from the outside.”
…
When Tiralosi woke up, he told nurses that he had a profound experience and wanted to talk about it. That’s how we met. He told me that he felt incredibly peaceful, and saw this perfect being, full of love and compassion. This is not uncommon.
People tend to interpret what they see based on their background: A Hindu describes a Hindu god, an atheist doesn’t see a Hindu god or a Christian god, but some being. Different cultures see the same thing, but their interpretation depends on what they believe.
U.S. Sues Novartis, Alleging Kickbacks to Pharmacies
April 24th, 2013Via: Reuters:
The U.S. government filed a civil fraud lawsuit against Novartis AG on Tuesday, accusing a unit of the Swiss drug maker of causing the Medicare and Medicaid programs to pay tens of millions of dollars in reimbursements based on fraudulent, kickback-tainted claims.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp had since 2005 induced at least 20 pharmacies to switch thousands of kidney transplant patients to its immunosuppressant drug Myfortic from competitors’ drugs, in exchange for kickbacks disguised as rebates and discounts.
He said Novartis tried to conceal the scheme by omitting the agreements from rebate and discount contracts with pharmacies.
Top French Lawyer Olivier Metzner’s Body Found Near Private Island
April 24th, 2013Via: Guardian:
One of the giants of the French legal system was found dead near his private island in Brittany on Sunday morning. A suicide note was discovered at his home nearby.
Olivier Metzner, 63, nicknamed the “gangsters’ lawyer”, was a larger-than-life figure known for his spirited defence of high-profile and controversial defendants including the Panamanian former dictator Manuel Noriega, the “rogue trader” Jérôme Kerviel and Continental Airlines, accused of causing the catastrophic Concorde crash in 2000.
In recent years, he had argued for the former prime minister Dominique de Villepin in the Clearstream scandal, represented rock star Bertrand Cantat when he was accused of killing his actor girlfriend, and argued the case of Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers who tried to have her ailing mother, the the L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, declared a ward of court.
Named France’s most powerful lawyer by GQ magazine last year, Metzner was often to be seen standing at the top of the Palais de Justice’s monumental steps, puffing away on his trademark cigar. Occasionally, he would ignore the no-smoking signs and light up inside, confident that no court official or police officer would dare challenge him.
Outside the courts, where he would pick holes in legal procedure to get his clients off the hook, often in the most blunt of terms and so successfully that Libération described him as the “criminal fraternity’s specialist”, Metzner was a discreet figure.
Research Credit: luky
