Kevin Hayden – TruthisTreason.net

Source: Forbes

Boston Dynamics, a Massachusetts technology firm Skynet predecessor and DARPA contractor, announced Monday that it’s broken the speed record for legged robots. Its new four-legged creation is Cheetah, which can run chase you down at 18 miles an hour.

Hayden’s Note:

It seems that each week, I have to post a new video of another creepy robot designed by DARPA, the Pentagon’s research wing.  While cool, they still make me shudder to a degree.  Pack mules, bi-ped humanoid bots, autonomous copters that fly in formation, and now this…

When I spoke with Boston Dynamics ten months ago, the company’s president Marc Raibert told me the firm was building a four-legged robot that would run at 20 mph by late 2012. It seems to be ahead of schedule. As well as hitting that 20 mph mark, the company also aims to take Cheetah out of the lab and onto other terrains.

“While 18 mph is a good start, our goal is to get Cheetah running much faster and outdoors,” reads a statement from Boston Dynamics’ chief roboticist Alfred Rizzi....

Kevin Hayden – TruthisTreason.net

This is the $250 OPMOD Battle Mug, a 24-ounce coffee (or beer!) mug milled out of a 13.5 lb. block of solid aluminum.  The tacti-cool mug comes equipped with a removable A2 carry handle and three mil-spec rails so you can attach all sorts of scopes, lights, and sweet mall-ninja add-ons.

Who would have ever thought you could mount a bipod, 3 lasers, 2 flashlights, nightvision, an Eotech sight, foregrip, can opener, and an angled scope to a coffee mug!?  And more importantly, WHY?!

Continue reading for more pictures, a video demo of an insanely decked out OpMod Battle Mug, and a link to the product page. ...

TruthisTreason.net – Kevin Hayden

Source: TechEYE via Cryptogon.com

New standards for long range wireless networks have been published today by the IEEE.  The 802.22 standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRANs) means that broadband access can be provided over long distances, up to 100 kilometres.

This will mean that rural areas could more easily benefit from broadband access, with developing countries targeted by the IEEE.  The engineers at the IEEE have very cleverly managed to use the VHF and UHF bandwidths usually used for TV, accessing the “white-spaces between TV channels” at the 54 MHz to 862 MHz spectru,.

This is possible by using cognitive radio capabilities. These include dynamic spectrum access, incumbent database access, accurate geolocation techniques, spectrum sensing, regulatory domain dependent policies, spectrum etiquette, and “coexistence for optimal use of the available spectrum”.

Essentially this means that it will be possible to send wireless broadband access without interfering with TV signals, achieving delivery of up to 22 Mbps per channel. According to Andrew Ferguson at Thinkbroadband.com such wireless networks could potentially be for connecting areas that are without access....

TruthisTreason.net – Kevin Hayden

Screenshots don’t really do the new wave of gaming engines justice, but suffice it to say the next generation of video games will look like high-def movies.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting a looong time for technology to get to this point.  Video games should look like movies.  Over the last few years, I would have to say that Call of Duty 2 and the original Crysis, among others, were about as close to realism as any popular game had gotten, but even those appear pixelated and old now.

CryTek’s CryEngine 3

Here are some screen shots and a demonstration of CryEngine 3, the newest ultra-realistic video game engine from Crytec (the makers of Crysis). Please note that these shots are in real-time (rendering on the fly, not a pre-saved scene).

 Epic Game’s Unreal Engine

With little information available, these are pictures taken while viewing a demonstration of the new Unreal engine.  The quality is grainy and poor due to essentially being bootleg imagery, so I’ll look around for an actual video and better screenshots.  In the meantime, check this out:

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Source: TorrentFreak

The domain seizures by the United States authorities in recent days and upcoming legislation that could make similar takeovers even easier in the future, have inspired a group of enthusiasts to come up with a new, decentralized and BitTorrent-powered DNS system. This system will exchange DNS information through peer-to-peer transfers and will work with a new .p2p domain extension.

In a direct response to the domain seizures by US authorities during the last few days, a group of established enthusiasts have started working on a DNS system that can’t be touched by any governmental institution.

Ironically, considering the seizure of the Torrent-Finder meta-search engine domain, the new DNS system will be partly powered by BitTorrent.

In recent months, global anti-piracy efforts have increasingly focused on seizing domains of allegedly infringing sites. In the United States the proposed COICA bill is explicitly aimed at increasing the government’s censorship powers, but seizing a domain name is already quite easy, as illustrated by ICE and Department of Justice actions last weekend and earlier this year.

For governments it is apparently quite easy to take over the DNS entries of domains, not least because several top level domains are managed by US-based corporations such as VeriSign, who work closely together with the US Department of Commerce....

Source: Pop Sci

If you ever have trouble remembering your dreams, you’re certainly not alone. Our dreams are as elusive as the mechanisms behind them, few of which are understood completely. But Dr. Moran Cerf wants to develop a system capable of reading and recording your dreams electronically. Cue the “Inception” theme music.

Cerf believes that it’s possible to create a system that would allow psychologists to compare patients’ recollections of their dreams with an electronic visualization of the activity in their brains, and he’s taken the first steps toward doing so via a study that associates specific, individual neurons with specific objects or ideas.

By building a database of associations for each patient, Cerf and his colleagues could figure out what a patients was thinking about without him or her saying so. With a large enough database, the thinking goes, a third party could “read minds” by looking at which neurons light up during the course of a dream, creating an electronic record of said dream.

It’s quite a leap from being able to identify a neuron associated with a specific thought or concept and being able to translate the rich canvas of a dream into an electronic visualization....

Source: Independent

It all makes sense, once you know what you’re looking at. The 200 acres of thickly wooded hillside, inaccessible by public footpath; the radio mast strategically poking out on top; the hidden entrance, just off the A44 near Evesham, in Worcestershire, surrounded by CCTV cameras and a high-security barrier. But to the passing motorist, there is nothing about Wood Norton Hall to identify it as the site of the BBC’s secret nuclear bunker.

Who knew there even was such a thing? The BBC would certainly rather we didn’t. It emerged recently that, from tomorrow, the continuity announcers at Radio 4 will decamp there for three weeks while a £1bn refurbishment is finished at Broadcasting House, London. However, a corporation source declined to confirm or deny the story. They would rather not discuss what goes on at Wood Norton, she said, and no, The Independent on Sunday was certainly not welcome to come and visit.

So, what don’t they want us to see?

According to the official line, Wood Norton is a training camp, where sound engineers are sent for residential weekends....

Source: PhysOrg

Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed software for mobile phones that can track your facial features in real-time. Eventually it will be able to tell who the user is, where they are looking and even how they are feeling.

The method is believed to be unrivalled for speed and accuracy and could lead to facial recognition replacing passwords and PIN numbers to log into internet sites from a mobile phone.“Existing mobile face trackers give only an approximate position and scale of the face,” said Dr. Phil Tresadern, lead researcher on the project. “Our model runs in real-time and accurately tracks a number of landmarks on and around the face such as the eyes, nose, mouth and jaw line.”A mobile phone with a camera on the front captures a video of your face and tracks twenty-two facial features. This can make face recognition more accurate, and has great potential for novel ways of interacting with your phone.”

Originally intended as part of a face- and voice-verification system for access to mobile internet applications such as email, social networking and online banking, alternative uses for the device could include fun applications that, for instance, attach virtual objects to the user’s face as they move around....

Source: America Blog

UPDATE: 11:14PM Eastern: BP has now posted the “original” photo, they claim. Except – surprise – they are refusing to post the high-resolution version of the new “original” photo. They posted the high-res version of the altered photo earlier, and in fact, that version is still live via a link below the new photo. Why not post the high-res version of the new “original” photo? Afraid someone is going to enlarge it and find out it’s fake too?

UPDATE 10:37PM Eastern: The Washington Post has the story now. Oddly, BP is now claiming that the photo is real – but it showed blank screens, and rather than show blank screens at AP’s crisis center, they instead put fake content-filled screens in the photo. Uh, a few questions.

1) Why were the screens in the crisis center blank in the middle of the crisis? Coffee break?
2) The BP spokesman claims that the photographer photoshopped the changes. Really? A professional photographer hired by BP Photoshops so poorly that a 12 year old kid could do a better job....

Source: YouTube & Cryptogon

This is DARPA’s newest autonomous robot, named the Little Dog.  It has an extremely acute awareness of it’s surroundings and can navigate incredibly diverse terrains while maintaining it’s balance, even with a heavy payload.

Quadra-peg Locomotion

And here is the Big Dog, obviously what LittleDog was based on.  This original robot is a bit freaky to me, especially at the 00:38 second mark (and again at the 01:32 mark).  I don’t quite know why… Maybe it’s too human?

...

Kevin Hayden

TruthisTreason.net

via Geekologie.com

This is a video of a steampunky-looking cannon that was made to shoot cupcakes at people’s faces. It’s pretty much my dream machine, provided you use [Wedding CupCake from the Cupcake Factory in New Orleans.]

Portland’s Kamp Grizzly developed a steam-punk style pneumatic cupcake cannon and set the stage for eating frosty delights at 120psi. The blasting buffet was documented in at 700fps coming off the Phantom HD Gold. As the evening shook down, cupcake enthusiasts continued to step in front of the cannon and camera. Some shaking in their boots, others perched in zen-like states, ALL were covered in delicious frosting, spongy cake, and showered in a mist of sprinkles.

Mmmm, sounds like some delectable fun, doesn’t it? Reminds me of the time I volunteered for the pie-toss at the local fair. You know how many people hit me with pies that day? Zero, I choke slammed them all before they got the chance.

...

Source: C-Net

Police have seized computers and servers belonging to an editor of Gizmodo in an investigation that appears to stem from the gadget blog’s purchase of a lost Apple iPhone prototype.

Deputies from the San Mateo County Sheriff’s office obtained a warrant on Friday and searched Jason Chen’s Fremont, Calif., home later that evening, Gizmodo acknowledged on Monday.

In an article on Friday, CNET was the first to report on the criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the iPhone prototype and Gizmodo’s acquisition of it, including that Apple had contacted local police. A San Mateo County judge signed the search warrant, which said a felony crime was being investigated, a few hours later.

“When I got home, I noticed the garage door was half-open,” according to an account by Chen. “And when I tried to open it, officers came out and said they had a warrant to search my house and any vehicles on the property ‘in my control.’ They then made me place my hands behind my head and searched me to make sure I had no weapons or sharp objects on me.”

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press told CNET on Monday: “This is such an incredibly clear violation of state and federal law it takes my breath away....

Source: SearchEngineLand

Source: Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY

Watching Apple’s every move is a spectator sport. And the spectators have been agog this week over reports that tech blog Gizmodo was in possession of a lost prototype presumed to be the next generation iPhone. Apple lent credence to the reports when Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel Bruce Sewell sent a letter to Gizmodo Editorial Director Brian Lam formally requesting the return “of a device that belongs to Apple.”

Reports circulating online say that Steve Jobs himself called Gizmodo asking for the phone back. Apple would not comment for this story. Gizmodo returned the phone to Apple Monday night.

Gizmodo Editor Jason Chen, who examined the prototype and took it apart, told USA TODAY that “what I saw inside is as final as you can get without putting actual serial numbers on it. But Apple is known for doing a couple of final prototypes…and Jobs can change his mind at the last minute. Even if this isn’t the final one it’s darn close to what you’re going to see.”

Tech analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies concurs: “It’s mostly likely that was truly a next generation iPhone....

Source: Geekologie & Gizmodo

You can never have enough gold, amirite?  I am.

Zhek Kromtor’s “Frankenstein” setup lets him play several EVE Online accounts at the same time so he can farm for gold and minerals more efficiently. 

You see, he was temporarily banned for running multiple accounts on one computer at the same time. It’s against the rules! But doing this, apparently, is not.

That’s some serious dedication to the gold right there, Zhek. Say, uh, you wouldn’t happen to be selling any, would you? My avatar needs a grill, son! 

Insane MMORPG Rig Lets You Farm For Gold with Six Computers at Once...

Hidden Wall Safe

Because the best place to hide something is in plain sight, this unique safe ensures your stuff is protected by hiding it behind an ordinary looking wall outlet.

Find it for $7.95 at several locations and websites.  (Here’s one and I have no affiliation to them)...

Source: Reuters and DailyMail

A Russian awarded $1million (£666,000) for solving one of the most intractable problems in mathematics said yesterday that he does not want the money.

Said to be the world’s cleverest man, Dr Grigory Perelman, 44, lives as a recluse in a bare cockroach-infested flat in St Petersburg. He said through the closed door: ‘I have all I want.’

The prize was given by the U.S. Clay Mathematics Institute for solving the Poincare Conjecture, which baffled mathematicians for a century. Dr Perelman posted his solution on the internet.

Four years ago, the maths genius failed to turn up to receive his prestigious Fields Medal from the International Mathematical Union for solving the problem.

At the time he stated: ‘I’m not interested in money or fame. I don’t want to be on display like an animal in a zoo. 

‘I’m not a hero of mathematics. I’m not even that successful, that is why I don’t want to have everybody looking at me.’

Neighbour Vera Petrovna said: ‘I was once in his flat and I was astounded. He only has a table, a stool and a bed with a dirty mattress which was left by previous owners – alcoholics who sold the flat to him.  

‘We are trying to get rid of cockroaches in our block, but they hide in his flat.’

It was in 2002 that Perelman, then a researcher at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics in St....

Source: PopSci

GM’s display system might point to upcoming road signs and help outline the road in dark or foggy driving conditions. General Motors

Distracted drivers may soon get some warnings from their windshield displays about road hazards such as children playing in the street or vehicles in the driver’s blind spot. General Motors has teamed up with university researchers to bring the concept to market around 2016, the New York Times reports.

The enhanced vision system would monitor a driver’s eye and head movements via sensors located both inside and outside the vehicle. The display would then overlay enhanced views of the road on top of the actual scene visible through the windshield. GM hopes that the augmented reality (AR) windshield display can allow drivers to view GPS directions without looking away from the road, and cope with difficult driving conditions in fog or at night.

Preliminary tests with an overlay screen showed that driver safety performance improved, as opposed to a head-down navigation system. Future versions of car windshields might have transparent phosphor coatings.

Other companies such as Light Blue Optics has also tinkered with head-up displays for rear-view or wing mirrors as well as windshields, including a nifty holographic version....

Source: Physorg

A group of researchers in Japan have succeeded for the first time in superconducting power transmission of direct current over two hundred meters.

Source: Wired & PopSci

Gadget nerds: Prepare to lose the rest of your day to awesomeness. PopSci, the web-wing of Popular Science magazine, has scanned its entire 137-year archive and put it online for you to read, absolutely free. The archive, made available in partnership with Google Books, even has the original period advertisements.

Head over to the site and you’ll see a simple search box. Of course, the first thing I typed in was “jet pack”. This, naturally enough, returned plenty of results, including a rather dangerous-looking hydrogen peroxide–powered contraption with a belt-mounted controller. The article was printed in the December 1962 issue.

You can’t go directly to an issue to browse, but once you have arrived somewhere by search, there are no restrictions on scrolling around. You’ll also find a properly hyperlinked table of contents in each magazine. The early years are a little dry: I browsed an issue from 1902, and it made the average math textbook look like a Dan Brown novel (only better paced), so I’d recommend starting in the optimistic, tech-loving 1950s.

Oh, and did I mention it works great on an iPhone?...

Source: Fast Company

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Google’s getting into the data visualization game: Yesterday, Google Labs unveiled the “Public Data Explorer,” which allows you to see animated visualizations of some of the most searched-for data sets on the Web.

This is an add on to a search feature that Google Labs rolled out last year, allowing you to find publicly available data sets–things like unemployment and GDP and fertility rates, published by organizations such as the World Bank.

But Google, for once, actually isn’t on the leading edge with this new offering. The fact is that there are projects everywhere bubbling up, that attempt to make data visualization into a viral thing, shared and remixed constantly on the Web.

There’s already Many Eyes, a site from IBM created by infographics gurus Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viegas, which allows you to upload a data set, graph it, and share it. Swivel, a similar service, describes itself as the “Youtube for data.” And Tableau Public is a new freeware app that intelligently suggests the right data visualization, and then lets you publish it to the Web as a flash embed

Clearly, there’s a new attitude emerging towards data–and a need to make it easily digestible and sharable....

Mirrored from Public Intelligence & Cryptome

Exploration of Windows 7 Advanced Forensic Topics

Introduction to Windows 7  171 pages 10 MB Law Enforcement Sensitive ©2007 Microsoft Corporation
Windows Vista and NTFS File System Internals  40 pages Law Enforcement Sensitive ©2007 Microsoft Corporation
Windows 7 Virtualization Technologies  42 pages Law Enforcement Sensitive ©2007 Microsoft Corporation
Introduction to the Volume Shadow Copy Service  89 pages Law Enforcement Sensitive ©2007 Microsoft Corporation
Introduction to BitLocker FVE  107 pages Law Enforcement Sensitive ©2007 Microsoft Corporation
Zip file containing all five documents (18.8 MB)

Source: Gizmodo

Cool Leaf is an input system that’s perfectly flat, and wonderfully mirrored. A Japanese company called Minebea pioneered it, and they’re demonstrating it with a keyboard, calculator, and remote control that are complete key top-free.

The immediately apparent benefit—other than the crazy-futuristic look— is that the devices would be easy to clean: no keys for dust or crumbs to get stuck behind or under. The reflective surface also looks great, although I’d be worried about smudging.

 Technologically, what Minebea has done is pretty fancy: they’ve combined backlights, force sensors, and a new film from a company called Toray Industries to create the world’s first “electrostatic capacity type touch panel and a load sensor.” Which to me reads “ooo, shiny!” No word yet on when products like this will be commercially available, but when they do I’ll be ready with my wallet and a chamois cloth....

Source: RT News

Two Russian-born inventors have created the world’s first virtual reality sphere. The equipment, resembling a giant hamster ball, allows users to fully immerse themselves in a game’s environment like never before.

Virtusphere is the world’s first fully-immersive virtual reality locomotion simulator developed by the Latypov brothers, who now live in the US.

The gadget’s sensors and wireless receivers connect the gamer to what is going on inside the virtual action, while at the same time allowing 360-degree movement.

  If information is your drug, consider Asus an enabler of the worst kind. The electronics maker unveiled a family of conceptual, data-gathering devices at the Consumers Electronic Show on Tuesday, including the Waveface Ultra, an Internet-ready smartphone you can snap around your wrist like a bracelet or watch. And if a flexible OLED wristband that streams information 24/7 isn’t cool enough for you, get this: You control it by gesturing with your fingers. Source: Ecouterre

Order yours today and help support Truth is Treason by shopping with Amazon!

...

The TeaSub submerges tea leaves to the bottom of your cup, creating the perfect infusion of your favorite brew.

Channel the Beatles “Yellow Submarine” when preparing your morning drink with the Tea Sub. Fill it up with your choice of tea leaves and let the sub dive to the bottom of your mug. No one will consider you a wimp if your tea is prepared with this instrument of war.

Find it HERE –

[Update / Hayden's Note: Although this appears to be on sale SOMEWHERE in the world - myself and several other internet junkies can not find out where.

The Yellow TeaSub is designed by Monkey Business - an Israeli design company.  They offer two different websites from which to order their products, but both are in a foreign language and a search did not turn up 'TeaSub.'  The search continues....

If you find this for sale somewhere, please comment or email!]
...

Gizmodo – Another day, another story about some cheap, plastic Wii motion control accessory finding an application outside of gaming. In this case, it’s the balance board, and not only is this device helping stroke victims recover, it’s saving them money, too.

In fact, doctors at the University of Melbourne found that the balance board, normally used for pseudo Yoga or navigating Mii’s down a virtual ski slope, was so sensitive it could very well replace traditional laboratory-grade “force platforms” doctors use to assess a patient’s balance.

When doctors disassembled the board, they found the accelerometers and strain gauges to be of “excellent” quality. “I was shocked given the price: it was an extremely impressive strain gauge set-up,” said lead researcher Ross Clark, in an interview with New Scientist.

Even better, Clark’s team has already published a paper that verifies the Wii balance board is “clinically comparable” to the nearly $18,000 lab force platform. That’s great news for many smaller physio clinics that would otherwise be unable to afford the traditional rig.

[Hayden's Note: Thinking of getting your own Wii? Never tried Wii Fitness?...

(Reuters) – Google is investigating whether one or more employees may have helped facilitate a cyber-attack from China that the U.S search giant said it was a victim of in mid-December, two sources told Reuters on Monday.

Google, the world’s most popular search engine, said last week it may pull out of the world’s biggest Internet market by users after reporting it had been hit by a “sophisticated” cyber-attack on its network that resulted in theft of its intellectual property.

The sources, who are familiar with the situation, told Reuters that the attack, which targeted people who have access to specific parts of Google networks, may have been facilitated by people working in Google China’s office.

“We’re not commenting on rumour and speculation. This is an ongoing investigation, and we simply cannot comment on the details,” a Google spokeswoman said.

Security analysts told Reuters the malicious software (malware) used in the Google attack was a modification of a trojan called Hydraq. A trojan is malware that, once inside a computer, allows someone unauthorised access. The sophistication in the attack was in knowing whom to attack, not the malware itself, the analysts said....

Source: CNN

Calling it their “superphone,” Google unveiled the Nexus One on Tuesday, marking the online search giant’s first leap into the smartphone market.

The phone, which goes head to head with Apple’s darling of the market, the iPhone, is sold only through a Web store operated by Google and, unlike the iPhone and most other current smartphones, is available either with or without mobile service.

“We are very happy to be able to offer a choice,” said Mario Queiroz, Google’s vice president of product management.

T-Mobile is the initial service provider. Verizon in the United States and Vodafone in Europe will be coming on board later, and more operators are expected.

Already available Tuesday, the phone costs $180 with a contract or $530 unlocked, leaving the phone open to other carriers.

Among the Nexus One features Google announced at an invitation-only event at its California headquarters was text without typing. A voice-enabled keyboard allows users to send texts, e-mails or Facebook updates by speaking into the phone.

It is a global-system device with a 3.7-inch touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi connectivity, an accelerometer and a compass, according to Google....