Facebook Wants Non Invasive Brain Computer Interface, Will Avoid Regulatory Scrutiny
October 14th, 2019Via: Observer:
At a recent internal employee Q&A session, the Facebook CEO hinted that such technology could see promising use cases in Facebook’s future augmented reality and virtual reality products.
“Brain-computer interface is an exciting idea,” Zuckerberg told employees, according to a meeting transcript leaked earlier this month. “The field quickly branches into two approaches: invasive and non-invasive… We’re more focused on—I think completely focused on non-invasive.”
“Non-invasive is like, you wear a band or glasses, you shine an optical light and get a sense of blood flow in certain areas of the brain,” he explained.
Such a device would transfer less data between a computer and a brain, according to Zuckerberg, but that would be enough to allow a person to perform many sci-fi-sounding tasks, such as clicking a button, scrolling through a menu and even typing a text message—all without using your hands or any other muscle movements.
“I think as part of AR and VR, we’ll end up having hand interfaces. We’ll end up having voice [interface and] a little bit of direct brain [integration]… But we’re going for the non-invasive approach,” Zuckerberg reiterated.
“Non-invasive” is very important, because an overly aggressive wearable tech product that could inspire explosive news headlines and regulatory scrutiny is the last thing Facebook needs right now.
“‘Facebook wants to perform brain surgery,’” Zuckerberg joked. “I don’t want to see the congressional hearings on that one.”
China’s New Cybersecurity Program: NO Place to Hide
October 14th, 2019Via: China Law Blog:
The Chinese government has been working for several years on a comprehensive Internet security/surveillance program. This program is based on the Cybersecurity Law adopted on 2016. The plan is vast and includes a number of subsidiary laws and regulations. On December 1, 2018, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security announced it will finally roll-out the full plan.
The core of the plan is for China’s Ministry of Security to fully access the massive amounts of raw data transmitted across Chinese networks and housed on servers in China. Since raw data has little value, the key to the Ministry’s success will be in processing that data. Seeing that this is the key issue, the Ministry has appointed Wang Yingwei to be its new head of the Cybersecurity Bureau. Wang is a noted “big data” expert and he will be tasked with making sense of the raw data that will be gathered under the new system.
The plan for the new system is ambitious and comprehensive. As explained by Guo Qiquan, the chief cheerleader for the plan, the main goal of the new system is to provide “full coverage”. As explained by Guo, “It will cover every district, every ministry, every business and other institution, basically covering the whole society. It will also cover all targets that need [cybersecurity] protection, including all networks, information systems, cloud platforms, the internet of things, control systems, big data and mobile internet.”
This system will apply to foreign owned companies in China on the same basis as to all Chinese persons, entities or individuals. No information contained on any server located within China will be exempted from this full coverage program. No communication from or to China will be exempted. There will be no secrets. No VPNs. No private or encrypted messages. No anonymous online accounts. No trade secrets. No confidential data. Any and all data will be available and open to the Chinese government.
Why Everything Is Getting Louder
October 12th, 2019Via: The Atlantic:
Scientists have known for decades that noise—even at the seemingly innocuous volume of car traffic—is bad for us. “Calling noise a nuisance is like calling smog an inconvenience,” former U.S. Surgeon General William Stewart said in 1978. In the years since, numerous studies have only underscored his assertion that noise “must be considered a hazard to the health of people everywhere.” Say you’re trying to fall asleep. You may think you’ve tuned out the grumble of trucks downshifting outside, but your body has not: Your adrenal glands are pumping stress hormones, your blood pressure and heart rate are rising, your digestion is slowing down. Your brain continues to process sounds while you snooze, and your blood pressure spikes in response to clatter as low as 33 decibels—slightly louder than a purring cat.
Experts say your body does not adapt to noise. Large-scale studies show that if the din keeps up—over days, months, years—noise exposure increases your risk of high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, and heart attacks, as well as strokes, diabetes, dementia, and depression.
Scientist Behind The Navy’s “UFO Patents” Has Now Filed One For A Compact Fusion Reactor
October 12th, 2019Via: The Drive:
The War Zone has been reporting on a set of bizarre patents assigned to the U.S. Navy that describe radical new technologies that could absolutely revolutionize the aerospace field, and frankly, the very way we live our lives. These include high-energy electromagnetic fields used to create force fields and outlandish new methods of aerospace propulsion and vehicle design that basically read as UFO-like technology. You can learn all about these patents, their viability, and the issues surrounding them in these exclusive features of ours. Now, the same mysterious Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division engineer behind those patents has produced another patent—one for a compact fusion reactor that could pump out absolutely incredible amounts of power in a small space—maybe even in a craft.
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It is claimed in the patent application that this plasma compression fusion device is capable of producing power in the gigawatt (1 billion watts) to terawatt (1 trillion watts) range and above with input power only in the kilowatt (1,000 watts) to megawatt (1,000,000 watts) range. By comparison, America’s largest nuclear power plant, the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona, generates around 4,000 megawatts (4 gigawatts), and the A1B nuclear reactors designed for the Navy’s Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers generate around 700 megawatts. The patent even claims that the device can “possibly lead to ignition plasma burn, that is self-sustained plasma burn without need for external input power.”
Former NASA Scientist Believes Viking Mission Found Life on Mars in 1976
October 11th, 2019Not new claims, but very interesting if you haven’t heard about this before.
Via: Scientific American:
I was fortunate to have participated in that historic adventure as experimenter of the Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment on NASA’s spectacular Viking mission to Mars in 1976.
On July 30, 1976, the LR returned its initial results from Mars. Amazingly, they were positive. As the experiment progressed, a total of four positive results, supported by five varied controls, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft landed some 4,000 miles apart. The data curves signaled the detection of microbial respiration on the Red Planet. The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth. It seemed we had answered that ultimate question.
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Inexplicably, over the 43 years since Viking, none of NASA’s subsequent Mars landers has carried a life detection instrument to follow up on these exciting results.
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The Viking LR sought to detect and monitor ongoing metabolism, a very simple and fail-proof indicator of living microorganisms. Several thousand runs were made, both before and after Viking, with terrestrial soils and microbial cultures, both in the laboratory and in extreme natural environments. No false positive or false negative result was ever obtained. This strongly supports the reliability of the LR Mars data, even though their interpretation is debated.
In her recent book To Mars with Love, my LR co-experimenter Patricia Ann Straat provides much of the scientific detail of the Viking LR at lay level. Scientific papers published about the LR are available on my Web site.
In addition to the direct evidence for life on Mars obtained by the Viking LR, evidence supportive of, or consistent with, extant microbial life on Mars has been obtained by Viking, subsequent missions to Mars, and discoveries on Earth…
Pentagon to Send More Troops, Fighter Jets to Saudi Arabia
October 11th, 2019Via: USA Today:
The Pentagon will send thousands more troops and two squadrons of fighter jets to Saudi Arabia as tensions increase with Iran.
The move follows an attack last month on oil production facilities in Saudi Arabia that Iran was “clearly responsible for,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday. Iran denied it had a role in the attacks, which an Iranian-backed proxy force claimed credit for.
The deployment adds to the 11,000 troops sent to the region since May in response to requests from U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East. Friday’s announcement covers troops send to the region or whose deployments have been extended. In all, the Pentagon has added about 3,000 troops over the last month.
Giuliani Associates Charged with Illegally Funneling Cash to Pro-Trump Group
October 10th, 2019Via: Reuters:
Two foreign-born Florida businessmen who have helped President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani investigate political rival Joe Biden were arrested in a scheme to illegally funnel money to a pro-Trump election committee and other U.S. political candidates, prosecutors said on Thursday.
The arrest of Ukraine-born Lev Parnas and Belarus-born Igor Fruman at an airport outside Washington carrying one-way tickets to Vienna was the latest dramatic development in a political saga that threatens Trump’s presidency.
Prosecutors said Parnas and Fruman conspired to contribute foreign money including at least $1 million from an unidentified Russian businessman to candidates for federal and state offices to buy influence.
Prosecutors separately said they donated $325,000 to a pro-Trump political action committee called America First Action in May 2018, and the money was falsely reported as coming from a purported natural gas company set up to conceal its true source, according to the indictment.
Dyson Has Scrapped Its Electric Car Project
October 10th, 2019Via: BBC:
Dyson, the UK-based company best known for its vacuum cleaners, has scrapped a project to build electric cars.
The firm, headed by inventor Sir James Dyson, said its engineers had developed a “fantastic electric car” but that it would not hit the roads because it was not “commercially viable”.
In an email sent to all employees, Sir James said the company had unsuccessfully tried to find a buyer for the project.
Burisma Paid Joe Biden $900,000 for Lobbying – Ukrainian MP
October 9th, 2019Hmm…
Via: Interfax Ukraine:
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden received $900,000 for lobbying activities from Burisma Group, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada member Andriy Derkach said citing investigation materials.
Derkach publicized documents which, as he said, “describe the mechanism of getting money by Biden Sr.” at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine’s press center in Kyiv on Wednesday.
“This was the transfer of Burisma Group’s funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe, personally to Joe Biden through a lobbying company. Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which according to open sources, in particular, the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden. The payment reference was payment for consultative services,” Derkach said.
He also publicized sums that were transferred to Burisma Group representatives, in particular Hunter Biden, a son of the former U.S. vice president.
18-Year Old U.S. Soldiers Now Entering Afghanistan 18 Years After War Began
October 9th, 2019Even though Private Nines is from North Carolina, this story reminds me of: Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed:
Terry was the quintessential product of Middle America. Sown like patriotic seed on the plains, his destiny was to be harvested for the nation’s use…
So it goes, generation after generation.
Via: ZeroHedge:
This week America’s longest war in Afghanistan turned eighteen, and so did its youngest solder. To mark the occasion, ABC News profiled the US occupation’s newest American member: “Pvt. Hunter Nines is about to join a war nearly as old as he is,” the report said.
Reflecting on his first impending deployment with the Army Pvt. Nines said, “I didn’t have a lot of thoughts on Afghanistan in particular.” He was but 7 months when the war began with the arrival of US troops on Oct. 7, 2001 following the 9/11 attacks. “I honestly just had the notion of I wanted to serve, and wherever that is, that’s where I’ll go.”
