Tag: technology

Aliens Or Not, Secret Crash Retrieval Programs Are A Very Real Thing

News first broke just over a week ago that a former career American intelligence officer is alleging the U.S. government is concealing a decades-long top-secret ‘crash retrieval’ program that has overseen the recovery of otherworldly flying machines and their pilots. There remains no hard evidence available to the public to substantiate these claims. Yet the U.S. military and intelligence community’s shadowy crash retrieval programs are a very real thing, although the ones we know about are focused on foreign, not alien, technology.

These secretive endeavors are part of a larger ecosystem focused on gathering intelligence — through examining, reverse engineering, and testing — non-U.S. weapon systems and other equipment through so-called Foreign Materiel Exploitation, or FME. This extensive espionage ecosystem, honed over nearly a century of operations, lives in the shadows, but remains an indispensable discipline that has paid off massively time and time again.

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Synthetic human embryos are created in the lab with NO egg or sperm: Scientists announce historic breakthrough raising hopes for new treatments for miscarriage and rare genetical disorders – but development poses huge ethical dilemmas

Human embryos made without eggs or sperm have been created in a scientific breakthrough which is bound to raise serious ethical and legal questions.

They were produced in a joint project between Cambridge University and the California Institute of Technology and resemble embryos in the earliest stages of human development.

They do not have the beginnings of a brain or a beating heart, but do include cells which would go on to form the placenta and yolk sac.

Scientists believe that their finding could provide significant insight and aid research into rare genetic disorders and the biological causes of miscarriage.

But the synthetic embryos are not covered by laws in the UK or in most countries around the world, meaning that they come with serious ethical and legal issues regarding the use of human embryos in a lab.

Until this breakthrough, scientists had to adhere to the 14-day rule which meant they were limited to allowing embryos to develop in a lab for a maximum of two weeks.

After this point researchers would have to wait until further along its development to pick up their study, relying on pregnancy scans and embryos donated to research. 

The desire to understand this period of an embryo’s development – which starts at day 14 and ends around day 28 – was the main motivation behind the work to create synthetic human embryos.

Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a fellow at the University of Cambridge, described the work yesterday at the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Boston: ‘We can create human embryo-like models by the reprogramming of [embryonic stem] cells.’

Before the talk, she told The Guardian: ‘It’s beautiful and created entirely from embryonic stem cells.’

While it is not yet clear if the synthetic embryos could continue developing beyond their early stages, implanting them into a patient’s womb would be illegal and there is no near-term prospect of them being used for medical purposes.

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Amazon shuts down customer’s smart home for a week after delivery driver claimed he heard racist slur through Ring doorbell – even though no one was home

Amazon reportedly shut down a customer’s smart home after the delivery driver claimed he heard a racial slur coming through the doorbell, even though no one was home. 

Brandon Jackson, of Baltimore, Maryland, came home on May 25 to find that he had been locked out of his Amazon Echo, which many devices, including his lights, are connected to. 

He would later learn that Amazon locked him out of his account after a delivery driver dropped off a package the day before. Jackson, an engineer at Microsoft, said ‘everything seemed fine’ after the package arrived at his home and had initially thought he was locked out because someone had tried to ‘access my account repeatedly, triggering a lockout.’ 

But none of that was true. A representative directed him to an email he received from an executive that provided a phone number to call. When he called the number, he was told in a ‘somewhat accusatory’ tone that the driver had reported ‘receiving racist remarks’ from his doorbell.

‘This incident left me with a house full of unresponsive devices, a silent Alexa, and a lot of questions,’ he wrote on Medium. 

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The world’s top H.P. Lovecraft expert weighs in on a monstrous viral meme in the A.I. world

Artificial intelligence is scary to a lot of people, even within the tech world. Just look at how industry insiders have co-opted a tentacled monster called a shoggoth as a semi-tongue-in-cheek symbol for their rapidly advancing work.

But their online memes and references to that creature — which originated in influential late author H.P. Lovecraft’s novella “At the Mountains of Madness” — aren’t quite perfect, according to the world’s leading Lovecraft scholar, S.T. Joshi.

If anyone knows Lovecraft and his wretched menagerie, which includes the ever-popular Cthulhu, it’s Joshi. He’s edited reams of Lovecraft collections, contributed scores of essays about the author and written more than a dozen books about him, including the monumental two-part biography “I Am Providence.”

So, after The New York Times recently published a piece from tech columnist Kevin Roose explaining that the shoggoth had caught on as “the most important meme in A.I.,” CNBC reached out to Joshi to get his take — and find out what he thought Lovecraft would say about the squirmy homage from the tech world.

“While I’m sure Lovecraft would be grateful (and amused) by the application of his creation to AI, the parallels are not very exact,” Joshi wrote. “Or, I should say, it appears that AI creators aren’t entirely accurate in their understanding of the shoggoth.”

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An Anti-Porn App Put Him in Jail and His Family Under Surveillance

ON A WEDNESDAY morning in May, Hannah got a call from her lawyer—there was a warrant out for her husband’s arrest. Her thoughts went straight to her kids. They were going to come home from school and their father would be gone. “It burned me,” Hannah says, her voice breaking. “He hasn’t done anything to get his bond revoked, and they couldn’t prove he had.”

Hannah’s husband is now awaiting trial in jail, in part because of an anti-pornography app called Covenant Eyes. The company explicitly says the app is not meant for use in criminal proceedings, but the probation department in Indiana’s Monroe County has been using it for the past month to surveil not only Hannah’s husband but also the devices of everyone in their family. To protect their privacy, WIRED is not disclosing their surname or the names of individual family members. Hannah agreed to use her nickname.

Prosecutors in Monroe County this spring charged Hannah’s husband with possession of child sexual abuse material—a serious crime that she says he did not commit and to which he pleaded not guilty. Given the nature of the charges, the court ordered that he not have access to any electronic devices as a condition of his pretrial release from jail. To ensure he complied with those terms, the probation department installed Covenant Eyes on Hannah’s phone, as well as those of her two children and her mother-in-law. 

In near real time, probation officers are being fed screenshots of everything Hannah’s family views on their devices. From images of YouTube videos watched by her 14-year-old daughter to online underwear purchases made by her 80-year-old mother-in-law, the family’s entire digital life is scrutinized by county authorities. “I’m afraid to even communicate with our lawyer,” Hannah says. “If I mention anything about our case, I’m worried they are going to see it and use it against us.”

Covenant Eyes is part of a multimillion-dollar market of “accountability” apps sold to churches and parents as a tool to police online activity. For a monthly fee, the app monitors every single thing a user does on their devices, then sends the data it collects, including screenshots, to an “ally” or “accountability partner,” who can review the user’s online activities.

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Philip K. Dick predicted ChatGPT and its grim ramifications

Philip K. Dick had some strange ideas about the future. In his 40-plus novels and 121 short stories, the science fiction author imagined everything from “mood organs” which allow users to dial up an emotional state including “the desire to watch TV, no matter what’s on” to pay-per-use doors that refuse entrance or exit without sufficient coinage. Characters in Dick’s mind-bending novel “Ubik” (published in 1969 and set in 1992) include a psionic talent scout named G.G. Ashwood, who wears “natty birch-bark pantaloons, hemp-rope belt, peekaboo see-through top and train engineer’s tall hat” and a taxi driver wearing “fuchsia pedal pushers, pink yak fur slippers, a snakeskin sleeveless blouse, and a ribbon in his waist-length dyed white hair.”

But our weird present is looking increasingly like a Philip K. Dick future. While we may not have Deckard’s flying car from “Blade Runner” (adapted from Dick’s novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”), many of the author’s predictions have materialized in real life after appearing on the big screen, including Dick’s fondness for robo-taxis (who can forget the lovable Johnnycab from 1990’s “Total Recall”?), and the predictive policing Dick called “pre-crime” in his 1956 story, “Minority Report,” which hit the big screens in 2002 with the help of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise.  And now it looks like Philip K. Dick may also have predicted ChatGPT. 

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World’s first baby is born from a transplanted uterus implanted by a robot – and it brings hope to tens of thousands of American women who lack a womb

A baby boy carried in a uterus implanted into his mother by a robot was born in a world first.

The youngster, who has not been named, weighed six pounds and 13 ounces when he was born via planned C-section in Sweden last month. Both the child and his 35-year-old mother are doing well.

The pregnancy was made possible when a family member agreed to donate their uterus to the mother, who then had a fertilized egg implanted into it via IVF. The case marks the first time robots have been used for the procedure.

It will give hope to the tens of thousands of American women who don’t have a uterus — which can be due to cancer or a medical condition — or have one unable to carry infants.

The case was revealed by surgeons at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, a leader in uterus transplants.

In the surgery, researchers began by removing the uterus in the donor by gradually cutting it away from blood vessels and pulling it out through the vagina.

Small incisions were made in the second patient’s side by the pelvis, and the uterus was implanted into them. It was connected to their blood vessels and vagina.

Surgeons inserted cameras and robotic arms with surgical instruments attached through the small entry holes in the lower belly to carry out the procedure — with the robotic arms being the first for this type of surgery.

The arms were steered via joysticks, with surgeons using consoles to see 3D images of the patient’s insides simultaneously. 

This method is less invasive than the standard uterus transplant, which involves opening up larger openings in patients.

It is also thought to reduce the risk of infections, hemorrhages and allow patients to return to their daily lives faster.

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John F Kennedy murder mystery could be solved thanks to new AI technology

AI could finally help solve the mystery of a “second shooter” in the assassination of US President John F Kennedy almost 60 years ago.

Experts believe Artificial Intelligence, combined with new advances in digital image processing, will either prove or disprove beyond all doubt whether another gunman took aim at JFK in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

The fresh evidence is contained in a little-known home movie shot by local maintenance man Orville Nix, whose descendants have launched a legal bid to get it back from the US government.

His clip – unlike the famous one shot by Abraham Zapruder that has been seen by millions – was filmed from the centre of Dealey Plaza as Kennedy was hit in the head while he and wife Jackie waved at crowds from the back of his open-top limousine.

As a result, it provides the only known unobstructed view of the “grassy knoll” where conspiracy theorists have long claimed another sniper – or snipers – were concealed.

Nix’s film was last examined in 1978 by photo experts hired by the US’s House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Based in part on that analysis, the panel sensationally concluded JFK “was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy” and that “two gunmen” likely fired on him.

But the technology of the time left experts in doubt about whether the home movie actually proves this – and the original film subsequently “vanished from view”, with only imperfect copies remaining in the hands of government officials.

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Plutocracy Uses Technology to Clobber the Poor

Technology wielded by oligarchic government is a nightmare. From killer police dog robots to facial recognition in public housing, it’s not just the poor who are targets, it’s everybody. But the poor and the left get smacked with it the worst. It’s open season on antifa, a season inaugurated by killer Kyle Rittenhouse shooting two Black Lives Matter protestors to death, getting off scott free and becoming the darling of far-right celebrities. As for how technology crushes the poor, just take the case of 33-year-old Tania Acabou, who found herself a victim of constant surveillance in her public housing project.

Cameras bought through the department of Housing and Urban Development have been installed in public housing, supposedly to fight crime. Instead, the poor domiciled there find themselves under continuous watch. “It got to the point where it was like harassment,” Acabou told the Washington Post after being evicted from her New Bedford, Massachusetts project due to this surveillance. The Post reported May 16 that Acabou received “an eviction notice in 2021 after the housing authority…used cameras to investigate her over several months…The housing authority believed her ex was living at the house without contributing rent [he was babysitting their kids]…violating a policy that restricts overnight visitors to 21 nights per year.”

In a Steubenville, Ohio project, the Post added, “One man was filmed spitting in a hallway. A woman was recorded removing a cart from a communal laundry room. Footage in both cases was presented to a judge to help evict the residents in court.” So if you’re poor, you live under a security microscope with the excuse that it fights crime, when really it just fights you. One woman, threatened with eviction “for lending her key fob to an unauthorized guest,” explained that her declining vision necessitated a friend bringing her groceries. She was allowed to stay.

HUD used federal crime fighting grants to buy the cameras. But as anyone with a brain can deduce, this surveillance is aimed at public housing residents, not criminals. Or maybe, as far as HUD’s concerned, the residents are the criminals…While several states have limited police use of facial recognition, as the Post notes, because it produces false matches, HUD does not appear to have caught on. “In rural Scott County, Va., cameras equipped with facial recognition scan everyone who walks past them, looking for people barred from public housing,” according to the Post. “In New Bedford, Mass., software is used to search hours of recordings to find any movement near the doorways of residents suspected of violating overnight guest rules.” So if you reside in public housing or visit someone there, you are treated as a potential lawbreaker.

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Turn Off, Don’t Automate, the Killing Machine

The quest to develop and refine technologically advanced means to commit mass homicide continues on, with Pentagon tacticians ever eager to make the military leaner and more lethal. Drone swarms already exist, and as insect-facsimile drones are marketed and produced, we can expect bug drone swarms to appear soon in the skies above places where suspected “bad guys” are said to reside—along with their families and neighbors. Following the usual trajectory, it is only a matter of time before surveillance bug drones are “upgraded” for combat, making it easier than ever to kill human beings by whoever wishes to do so, whether military personnel, factional terrorists, or apolitical criminals. The development of increasingly lethal and “creative” means to commit homicide forges ahead not because anyone needs it but because it is generously funded by the U.S. Congress under the assumption that anything labeled a tool of “national defense” is, by definition, good.

To some there may seem to be merits to the argument from necessity for drones, given the ongoing military recruitment crisis. There are many good reasons why people wish not to enlist in the military anymore, but rather than review the missteps taken and counterproductive measures implemented in the name of defense throughout the twenty-first century, administrators ignore the most obvious answer to the question why young people are less enthusiastic than ever before to sign their lives away. Why did the Global War on Terror spread from Afghanistan and Iraq to engulf other countries as well? Critics have offered persuasive answers to this question, above all, that killing, torturing, maiming, and terrorizing innocent people led to an outpouring of sympathy for groups willing to resist the invaders of their lands. As a direct consequence of U.S. military intervention, Al Qaeda franchises such as ISIS emerged, proliferated, and spread. Yet the military plows ahead undeterred in its professed mission to eliminate “the bad guys,” with the killers either oblivious or somehow unaware that they are the primary creators of “the bad guys.”

Meanwhile, the logic of automation has been openly and enthusiastically embraced as the way of the future for the military, as in so many other realms. Who needs soldiers anyway, given that they can and will be replaced by machines? Just as grocery stores today often have more self-checkout stations than human cashiers, the military has been replacing combat pilots with drone operators for years. Taking human beings altogether out of the killing loop is the inevitable next step, because war architects focus on lethality, as though it were the only measure of military success. Removing “the human factor” from warfare will increase lethality and may decrease, if not eliminate, problems such as PTSD. But at what price?

Never a very self-reflective lot, war architects have even less inclination than ever before to consider whether their interventions have done more harm than good because of the glaring case of Afghanistan. After twenty years of attempting to eradicate the Taliban, the U.S. military finally retreated in 2021, leaving the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (as they now refer to themselves) in power, just as they were in 2001. By focusing on how slick and “neat” the latest and greatest implements of techno-homicide are, those who craft U.S. military policy can divert attention from their abject incompetence at actually winning a war or protecting, rather than annihilating, innocent people.

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