Tag: technology

DHS’s Facial/Iris Recognition Can ID Airline Passengers Wearing Masks

It is official, unless airline passengers are willing to wear motorcycle helmets or Daft Punk style masks, the Feds can use facial and iris recognition to identify nearly everyone.

According to an S&T press release, a pilot program run by DHS proves they can use facial/iris recognition to identify airline passengers.

The in-person rally, held at the Maryland Test Facility (MdTF), included 10 days of human testing during which six face and/or iris acquisition systems and 13 matching algorithms were tested with help from 582 diverse test volunteers representing 60 countries.

What is DHS’s so-called motivation to ID everyone?

Keep reading

Stanford researchers claim new facial tracking software can determine your political affiliation

Because artificial intelligence wasn’t already frightening enough, researchers decided to teach computers how to identify a person’s political ideology based upon their facial appearance and expressions.

The study was led by Stanford researcher Michal Kosinski, who already caused a stir in 2017 by programming machines that could determine whether you are gay or straight based on your appearance.

Keep reading

Six Extinct Animals, and How We Can Bring Them Back

Father-and-son scientists George and Hendrik Poinar have helped set the stage in recent decades for a dramatic advance: Resurrecting extinct species.

George led early explorations of the notion before essential technology had been invented. Later, Hendrik and George together pioneered new methods of extracting and sequencing ancient DNA.

To turn those genetic blueprints into living organisms, however, is quite a challenging proposition. One approach is to take a similar existing species and modify individual genes to match its extinct relative. But this of course wouldn’t be an exact match of the original animal.

Another approach could be to use a donor egg from a modern animal but with its DNA replaced by that of the extinct animal.

Here, six of the candidates for de-extinction, and the modern counterparts that could shepherd them into being.

Keep reading

EDITOR’S NOTE: WTF??? Have these people never seen science fiction movies? Read a book? Even a comic book?

Police Robots Are Not a Selfie Opportunity, They’re a Privacy Disaster Waiting to Happen

The arrival of government-operated autonomous police robots does not look like predictions in science fiction movies. An army of robots with gun arms is not kicking down your door to arrest you. Instead, a robot snitch that looks like a rolling trash can is programmed to decide whether a person looks suspicious—and then call the human police on them. Police robots may not be able to hurt people like armed predator drones used in combat—yet—but as history shows, calling the police on someone can prove equally deadly.

Long before the 1987 movie Robocop, even before Karel Čapek invented the word robot in 1920, police have been trying to find ways to be everywhere at once. Widespread security cameras are one solution—but even a blanket of CCTV cameras couldn’t follow a suspect into every nook of public space. Thus, the vision of a police robot continued as a dream, until now. Whether they look like Boston Dynamics’ robodogs or Knightscope’s rolling pickles, robots are coming to a street, shopping mall, or grocery store near you.

Keep reading

New Photos From Area 51. Is There Increasing Evidence Of Alien Aircraft?

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the government has been hiding details of UFOs for years. Former CIA Director John Brennan thinks there may be life on other planets too.

[I]s there other life besides what’s in the States, in the world, the globe? Life is defined in many different ways. I think it’s a bit presumptuous and arrogant for us to believe that there’s no other form of life anywhere in the entire universe. What that might be is subject to a lot of different views.

But I think some of the phenomena we’re going to be seeing continues to be unexplained and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon that is the result of something that we don’t yet understand and that could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.

The Covid-19 relief bill includes much that has nothing to do with Covid-19 or relief, from a ban on the postal service shipping e-cigarettes to $35 billion for zero-emission energy technology and wind and solar tax credits. It also requires “he Pentagon and spy agencies to say what they know about UFOs” within 6 months. People with the highest of security clearances think there’s something out there.

After the release of the navy pilot UFO videos this spring, there’s a real deluge of information coming out.

Keep reading

How silent signals from your phone could be recording and tracking you

Aside from networking, companies use ultrasonic signals (or beacons) to gather information about users. That could include monitoring television viewing and web browsing habits, tracking users across multiple devices, or determining a shopper’s precise location within a store.

They use this information to send alerts that are relevant to your surroundings – such as a welcome message when you enter a museum or letting you know about a sale when you pass by a particular store.

But since this technology records sound – even if temporarily – it could constitute a breach of privacy. An analysis of various Australian regulations covering listening devices and surveillance reveals a legal grey area in relation to ultrasonic beacons.

Keep reading

Joe Biden Wants to Restrict Free Speech and Make Building Firearms at Home Illegal

In order to save the Republic, President-Elect Joe Biden wants to stop people from having general access to computer files related to the 3D printing of firearms. According to Biden’s website, he “will stop the proliferation of these so-called ‘ghost-guns’ by passing legislation requiring that purchasers of gun kits or 3D printing code pass a federal background check.” Biden also plans to reverse President Trump’s move to prevent the U.S. State Department from blocking gun file code from being available on the internet.

FPC opposes restraints on Free Speech, and Code is Free Speech. Like words on a page, code is an encapsulation of ideas, and the restriction of the possession and sharing of code is a violation of the First Amendment. The files that Biden wants to restrict may be held, exchanged, or published for a multitude of reasons such as political protest, to encourage technological development, or yes, for the purpose of homebuilding firearms, an activity which has never been federally illegal. By requiring background checks or licensing before acquisition of these files, Biden would be instituting a prior restraint on the exercise of a Constitutional right.

Not only does Joe Biden want to restrict the exercise of Free Speech, but he also wants to ban the home-building of firearms, an activity that traces back to the founding of the nation. He wants to do this two ways: first, by restricting access to the files required for fused deposition modeling (aka 3D printing), and by preventing the purchase of firearms components online. American history is rich with stories of individuals building their own firearms, from colonists and woodsmen building the Kentucky Rifle, to a young John Moses Browning toiling in his father’s shop.

Keep reading

NASA scientists achieve long-distance ‘quantum teleportation’ over 27 miles for the first time – paving the way for unhackable networks that transfer data faster than the speed of light

Scientists have demonstrated long-distance ‘quantum teleportation’ – the instant transfer of units of quantum information known as qubits – for the first time. 

The qubits were transferred faster than the speed of light over a distance of 27 miles, laying the foundations for a quantum internet service, which could one day revolutionise computing.

Quantum communication systems are faster and more secure than regular networks because they use photons rather than computer code, which can be hacked.  

But their development relies on cutting-edge scientific theory which transforms our understanding of how computers work. 

Keep reading