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Human Achievement of the Day: Nanospiders in Your Blood
In his writings, noted futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil has said that he believes human technology will one day reach a point where the human life expectancy will be radically extended, resulting in near immortality. In a 2009 interview with Computerworld, Kurzweil put the date at which immortality could be achieved somewhere around 2040 or 2050 thanks to the ever-quickening pace of technological development and the rise of nanotechnology that will repair or even replace parts of the human body. Kurzweil may have overshot that date by a few decades, as today’s human achievement is the invention of nanospiders that can crawl along human DNA and change it.
DNA nanospiders, created by Columbia University scientists, are small Read more…
U.S. might be giving away sensitive military technology, report finds
Sensitive military technology might be slipping into enemy hands, in part because of a dramatic decline in the number of foreign workers that the Commerce Department screens, federal auditors have found.
For national security purposes, the United States controls the export of so-called dual-use technologies — items that have both civilian and military uses, including computer security tools — to countries of concern, including Iran and North Korea.
One way to restrict the transfer of such technology is for Commerce to screen visa applications from foreign nationals who wish to work in U.S. high-tech companies.
But the Commerce Department, the agency responsible for checking visa applications to identify potential unlicensed exports, is not screening thousands of those forms, according to a Government Accountability Office report released on Monday.
Reduced visa application vetting is one of several factors that “may indicate the continuing risk that foreign nationals could gain unauthorized access to controlled technology,” the auditors wrote.
Commerce checked only 150 visa forms in fiscal 2009, a dramatic drop from Read more…
North Korea Nears Completion of Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb
abcnews
N. Korea Disrupts Current Military Maneuvers With Russian Device To Jam GPS
North Korea appears to be protesting the joint U.S. and South Korean military maneuvers by jamming Global Positioning Devices in the south, which is a nuisance for cell phone and computers users — but is a hint of the looming menace for the military.
The scope of the damage has been minimal, putting some mobile phones and certain military equipment that use GPS signals on the fritz.
Large metropolitan areas including parts of Seoul, Incheon and Paju have been affected by the jamming, but “the situation is getting wrapped up, no severe damage has been reported for the last two days,” Kyoungwoo Lee, deputy director of Korea Communications Commission, said.
The jamming, however, has raised questions about whether the Korean peninsula is bracing for new electronic warfare.
The North is believed to be nearing completion of an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, if exploded 25 miles above ground would cause irreversible damage to electrical and electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, radio and radar, experts say.
“We assume they are at a considerably substantial level of development,” Park Chang-kyu of the Agency for Defense Development said at a briefing to the parliament Monday.
Park confirmed that South Korea has also developed an advanced Read more…
SUBLIMINAL FLICKER Part II: Fluorescent Lights and Flicker Sensitivity
If you have incandescent light bulbs, I suggest you keep them… Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act Oh yeah if you did not know, ALL CFLs are Made in China. NOT ONE is produced in USA!
by Richard Conrad, Ph.D
Subliminal: below the threshold of conscious perception; inadequate to produce conscious awareness but able to evoke a response.
All types of fluorescent lights have some amount of flicker. Most of this flicker is invisible, at least to the conscious mind. Flicker is invisible when it consists of pulses or waves of light that repeat one after the other so rapidly that they appear to fuse together into steady light. Our flicker fusion frequency (the frequency above which we no longer consciously see flicker) ranges from about 25 to 55 Hz (Hz means times per second). Flicker fusion frequency varies with the person, with the intensity and color of the light, and also depends on where the light falls on the retina. Optic nerve signals proportional to flicker at frequencies far above the conscious flicker fusion frequency do reach our brain from the eye (as shown by EEG and other studies). Any invisibly flickering light that affects the brain is what I call Read more…
China – Security System on Steroids for Mega-City
The mega-city of Chongqing in southwest China plans to build a $2.6 billion security system that will be one of the world’s largest with 500,000 surveillance cameras, state media have said.
Chongqing police chief Wang Zhijun said the system would be the world’s largest new security network since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the Global Times reported.
The system would dwarf a network of 40,000 security cameras installed in the capital of China’s far-western Xinjiang region last year, following deadly July 2009 clashes between Muslim Uighurs and members of the majority Han group.
Chongqing’s more than 500,000 cameras, which are due to be installed by Read more…
Scientists warn of ‘dangerous over-reliance’ on GPS
(AFP)
LONDON — Developed nations have become “dangerously over-reliant” on satellite navigation systems such as GPS, which could break down or be attacked with devastating results, British engineers said Tuesday.
The Royal Academy of Engineering said the application of the technology was now so broad — from car sat-navs to the time stamp on financial transactions — that without adequate backup, any disruption could have a major impact.
It cited a recent European Commission study showing that six Read more…
Microwave Camera Could Aid TSA Traveler Scanning
The media is in a tizzy over recent information found in Homeland Security documents suggesting the TSA might have planned to scan people outside of airports using covert mobile X-ray units (TSA denies testing of this technology, in a Forbes update). As a result, a host of hairy ethical and policy issues related to body screening and privacy are back in center stage.
Technologically speaking, however, scientists at the Missouri University of Science and Technology have at least some good news for the disheartened. They’ve developed a new portable camera that operates like the airport scanners, but which uses Read more…
Biometrics: dream come true or nightmare?
Having previously looked at how biometric recognition is more than a fictional spy-thriller, we didn’t look at biometric technology used in the past which seems like something out of the future. These are some of those past biometrics, followed by a few new biometric recognition technologies being proposed for everything from securing your smartphone, replacing the ID in your wallet, and even required testing to prove paternity.
From WikiLeaks diplomat cables, we discovered that the State Department is more interested in collecting biometric data than was previously disclosed. A cable supposedly from Hillary Clinton told certain embassies in Africa to collect more biographical information like fingerprints, facial images, DNA, and iris scans for U.S. Intelligence. Besides asking for “detailed biometric Read more…
Who has the fastest warplane? Russia tests another supersonic T-50 fighter.
Russia today tested a second prototype of its Sukhoi T-50 fighter, a fifth-generation warplane that is said to be comparable to the US F-22Raptor.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin walks after inspecting a new Russian fighter jet after its test flight in Zhukovksy, outside Moscow, June 17, 2010. The new jet, Sukhoi T-50 fighter, is Russia’s response to the US F-22 Raptor.
Russia successfully tested a second prototype of its revolutionary new “fifth-generation” fighter plane Thursday, a futuristic, ultrafast, and stealthy warbird that may be in the possession of the Russian Air Force by 2013.
If Russian claims about the Sukhoi T-50 multirole fighter are true, then Read more…
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