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The original patent was filed by Woodland and Silver in 1949 and granted on 7 October 1952. However, bar codes were not used commercially until retailers in the National Association of Food Chains (NAFC) agreed on the familiar Universal Product Code designs that are still seen on billions of worldwide items today. The first supermarket scanner that could read UPC bar codes was installed at March’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio, in June 1974. The first product to bear the bar code was a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum.
ibm builds 'bar code reader' for dna from foxnews: Imagine a world where medicine is guaranteed not to cause adverse reactions because it's designed for an individual's DNA. Imagine a diet tailored to the precise speed of a person's metabolism. Using a little microelectronics, a little physics, and no small dose of biology, IBM has brought that futuristic world a little bit closer.
The DNA Transistor is a project from IBM Research that aims to advance personalized medicine, by making it simpler (and much cheaper) to read an individual's unique DNA sequence — the special combination of proteins that makes you unlike anyone else.
“The technologies that make reading DNA fast, cheap and widely available have the potential to revolutionize bio-medical research and herald an era of personalized medicine,” said IBM research scientist Gustavo Stolovitzky. “Ultimately, it could improve the quality of medical care by identifying patients who will gain the greatest benefit from a particular medicine and those who are most at risk of adverse reaction.”
and if you're not completely unsettled yet, just read about ibm & the holocaust...
a favorite emerges in obama's cyberczar search from time: Tom Davis, a moderate Republican from Virginia, has emerged as a leading candidate for the Obama Administration's newly created position of cybersecurity czar. Sources familiar with the White House's deliberations on the subject say Obama officials feel a Washington power player would make a better candidate than a tech guru. "They want someone who understands technology issues, but more importantly, knows how to get things done in Washington," says a cybersecurity expert who has been consulted by the White House. "There are very few people who have that combination of skills, and Davis is at the top of that short list."
cyber security czar front-runner no friend of privacy from threat level: Former Republican Congressman Tom Davis, reportedly President Barack Obama’s top candidate for cyber security czar, voted repeatedly to expand the government’s internet wiretapping powers, and helped author the now-troubled national identification law known as REAL ID. Citing White House sources, Time magazine on Friday identified the the former head of the Government Reform Committee as the president’s number one candidate for the new position. Davis’ reputation as a tech-smart moderate who knows his way around D.C. makes him an attractive pick for the administration, the magazine reported.
But an examination of Davis’ record in Congress shows that he’s been on the wrong side of key privacy issues, including the controversial REAL ID Act, which aims to turn state driver’s licenses into a de facto national identification card linked by shared databases and strict federal authentication standards.
“Given his role in REAL ID, Tom Davis would not be a good choice for privacy, which is something that President Obama specifically promised to protect in his remarks on the cyber security strategy,” says Jim Harper, the director of information policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Many cyber security planners refer obliquely to ‘authentication’ and ‘identity management’ programs that would devastate privacy, anonymity and civil liberties. Davis would probably work to roll past these issues rather than solve them.” The creation of a federal “identity management” program is one recommendation in the broad cyber security report published by the White House last month, although the report makes no specific proposals on implementing an internet I.D. card.
cyber-scare: the exaggerated fears over digital warfare from boston review: The age of cyber-warfare has arrived. That, at any rate, is the message we are now hearing from a broad range of journalists, policy analysts, and government officials. Introducing a comprehensive White House report on cyber-security released at the end of May, President Obama called cyber-security “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” His words echo a flurry of gloomy think-tank reports. The Defense Science Board, a federal advisory group, recently warned that “cyber-warfare is here to stay,” and that it will “encompass not only military attacks but also civilian commercial systems.” And “Securing Cyberspace for the 44th President,” prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, suggests that cyber-security is as great a concern as “weapons of mass destruction or global jihad.” Unfortunately, these reports are usually richer in vivid metaphor - with fears of “digital Pearl Harbors” and “cyber-Katrinas” - than in factual foundation.
sonic black hole traps sound waves from discovery news: A black hole created by Israeli scientists won't destroy Earth, but it could make our planet just a little bit less noisy. Using Bose-Einstein condensates, the scientists created a black hole for sound. The new research could help scientists learn more about true black holes and help confirm the existence of as-yet to be discovered Hawking radiation. "It's like a black hole because waves get sucked in and can't escape," said Jeff Steinhauer, a scientist at the Israel Institute of Technology and the corresponding author of the article recently posted on the ArXiv.org pre-print Web page. "But in this case we use sound waves instead of light." To create the sonic black hole, the scientists first had to create the Bose-Einstein condensate, a cloud of atoms cooled to almost absolute zero that acts like a light wave. The Israeli scientists actually created two clouds of rubidium 87 atoms cooled to 50 nano Kelvins and separated by a small gap.
gunman 'lying in wait' kills 3 pittsburgh officers from ap: A gunman wearing a bulletproof vest and "lying in wait" opened fire on officers responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday, killing three of them and turning a quiet Pittsburgh street into a battlefield, police said. Police Chief Nate Harper said the motive for the shooting isn't clear, but friends said the gunman recently had been upset about losing his job and feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns. Richard Poplawski, 23, met officers at the doorway and shot two of them in the head immediately, Harper said. An officer who tried to help the two also was killed.
icing didn’t affect flight 3407, ntsb says from bloomberg: A Pinnacle Airlines Corp. plane that crashed near Buffalo, New York, wasn’t affected by icing, said a U.S. board that continued to probe possible pilot error. The plane functioned normally even after “some ice” likely accumulated, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement today in Washington. Maintenance records yielded “no significant findings.” The safety agency also said one of the pilots pulled the airplane’s nose up after an alert indicated the aircraft was about to lose sufficient lift to stay in flight. Two seconds later, the plane rolled and began its fatal plunge. The NTSB statement updates information collected so far in the crash that killed 50 people Feb. 12. Pinnacle’s Colgan Air unit operated the flight from Newark, New Jersey, on behalf of Continental Airlines Inc. No cause has yet been determined.
from ap: It may seem like the country that used to make everything is on the brink of making nothing. In January, 207,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished in the largest one-month drop since October 1982. Factory activity is hovering at a 28-year low. Even before the recession, plants were hemorrhaging work to foreign competitors with cheap labor. And some companies were moving production overseas.
But manufacturing in the United States isn't dead or even dying. It's moving upscale, following the biggest profits, and becoming more efficient, just like Henry Ford did when he created the assembly line to make the Model T.
The U.S. by far remains the world's leading manufacturer by value of goods produced. It hit a record $1.6 trillion in 2007 - nearly double the $811 billion in 1987. For every $1 of value produced in China's factories, America generates $2.50.
So what's made in the USA these days?
The U.S. sold more than $200 billion worth of aircraft, missiles and space-related equipment in 2007. And $80 billion worth of autos and auto parts. Deere & Co., best known for its bright green and yellow tractors, sold $16.5 billion worth of farming equipment last year, much of it to the rest of the world. Then there's energy products like gas turbines for power plants made by General Electric, computer chips from Intel and fighter jets from Lockheed Martin. Household names like GE, General Motors, IBM, Boeing, Hewlett-Packard are among the largest manufacturers by revenue.
goldman, jpmorgan not affected by executive-salary caps from bloomberg: Executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and hundreds of financial institutions receiving federal aid aren’t likely to be affected by pay restrictions announced yesterday by President Barack Obama. The rules, created in response to growing public anger about the record bonuses the financial industry doled out last year, will apply only to top executives at companies that need “exceptional” assistance in the future. The limits aren’t retroactive, meaning firms that have already taken government money won’t be subject to the restrictions unless they have to come back for more.
global atm caper nets hackers $9m in 1 day from threat level: A carefully coordinated global ATM heist last November resulted in a one-day haul of $9 million in cash, after a hacker penetrated a server at payment processor RBS WorldPay, New York's Fox 5 reports.
scandinavian airlines system to cut 8,600 jobs from wikinews: Sweden-based airline Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) said it will reduce payrolls by 8,600 jobs as part of its "Core SAS" restructuring plan. The airline will cut 3,000 staff directly and eliminate 5,600 by divesting business ventures, reducing the workforce by 40% to 14,000.
macy’s to cut 7,000 jobs & slash dividends from ap: Retailer Macy’s says it will cut 7,000 jobs, or four percent of its work force, and slash its dividend as it looks to lower expenses. Cincinnati-based Macy’s Inc. says the work force reduction includes positions in offices, stores and other locations. The cuts will include some unfilled jobs.
panasonic to cut 15k jobs & shut plants from ap: Panasonic Corp., sinking into its first annual loss in six years, said Wednesday it was slashing about 15,000 jobs and shuttering 27 plants worldwide, joining a string of Japanese companies making deep cuts as they cope with the global slowdown.
ibm invites laid-off US employees to work in india from raw story: Redefining the possibilities of the word "offshore," IBM has invited its recently laid-off U.S. workers to find work with the storied company in developing countries like India – where salaries are a fraction of what Americans are used to. While the invitation is likely more than most U.S. companies have offered the 2.6 million Americans laid off in 2008, the company's standing offer is probably cold comfort to most newly minted ex-IBM employees.
anthrax hoax linked to market losses from washington times: A New Mexico man sent dozens of threatening letters in an anthrax hoax to Chase Bank and government agencies as revenge for money he said he lost in the stock market because of the current financial crisis, prosecutors said Tuesday. Richard Leon Goyette, 47, was arrested Monday on charges of sending 65 threatening letters, 64 of which contained a white powder that was later determined to be nonhazardous.
the financial collapse put to music from cryptogon: Melodies derived from Stock Charts, arranged with Songsmith, the Microsoft Composition Tool. By Johannes Kreidler. www.kreidler-net.de
from cutting edge news: I was expecting a dark tale of gloom and doom, a post-apocalyptic tableau of a born-again, prehistoric oil-free society. After all, Edwin Black is the author of the chillingly revelatory IBM and the Holocaust, a disheartening exposé of America's disgusting attraction to the racist pseudo-science of eugenics, War Against The Weak, and other sobering and impeccably researched investigative works.
Black states the problem clearly and without hyperbole or hysterics. He then presents a sane and remarkably rational step-by-step scheme for quitting our fossil fuel dependency. Along the way, he cites published, noncontroversial works plus his own primary research, which keeps the proceedings well out of the realm of science fiction, except perhaps for one element...
IT'S NO ACCIDENT The fact that this unending and expanding thirst for oil is the world's economic and political choke point is no accident, as Black recalls from his previous book, Internal Combustion. Throughout history, fuel has been controlled by political and commercial interests that were, as now, two sides of the same coin. And despite the fact that oil pollutes, affects all other prices and forces us to play nice with interests that are antithetical to our own, a huge socioeconomic infrastructure supports and promotes its perpetuation. But rather than pound the obvious, Black calmly sets the table, then moves on to his recommendations for extricating ourselves from the nightmare.
RATIONAL IDEAS The required actions are all rational and involve the use of existing technologies - electricity, bio-fuels, hydrogen fuel cells and more. Black lays it out week by week, with each successive step building upon previous ones to move away from the petroleum morass. The auto industry will have to be a large part of the solution. One would consider this a no-brainer with the economy in the dumper right now. Manufacturing and selling gas-free vehicles could revive the industry. But according to Black, automakers that have already developed the technology are reluctant to fully roll out new vehicles to compete with their large stock of unsold gas guzzlers. But the good news is that they would be forced to do so as their business spirals downward.
The challenge is to get past the incumbent infrastructure. Between lobbyists, politicians and the public, the addiction to oil is entrenched. That's where The Plan requires some suspension of disbelief. With their profits on the line, we can expect a fierce and concerted campaign of fear, uncertainty, doubt and obfuscation to dissuade the migration from oil. The government, which should be part of the solution, is still a large part of the problem. The EPA, for example, makes conversion of internal combustion engines to alternative fuels more difficult, according to Black. And its determined indifference toward mileage standards has encouraged inefficiency, too.
premier says china will stick with one-child policy from afp: China will stick with its strict family planning rules, Premier Wen Jiabao said Wednesday, in an apparent rebuttal to officials who raised the possibility of changes to the one-child policy. "We will adhere to the current policy of family planning, keep the birthrate low, improve the health of newborns and adopt a full range of measures to address the gender imbalance in babies," Wen told the annual parliament. Last week, Zhao Baige, vice minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said the policy had "become a big issue among decision-makers".
overstock ceo: russian mafia in bed with wall street from daily utah chronicle: Every day, thousands of Americans look to invest their money in stocks, and many of them go through brokers and traders to simplify the process. Unfortunately, according to Overstock.comCEO Patrick Byrne, a majority of those purchasers will be victims of Wall Street's criminal tactics and will help line the pockets of corrupt brokers and lawyers... In his efforts to stop this charade, Byrne filed a $3.5 billion lawsuit against Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and nine other well-known brokers. Byrne said numerous publications, including the New York Post and Forbes magazine, have protested his "crusade," painting him as a crazed lunatic who is angry about Overstock.com's own stock price drop. Byrne said the Mafia has become a silent player in the Wall Street game. "You don't have to dig very far into this before you get to organized crime," he said.
more fbi privacy violations confirmed from press tv: The FBI has acknowledged that it improperly accessed the citizens' telephone records, credit reports and Internet traffic in 2006. This is the fourth straight year of privacy abuses resulting from investigations aimed at tracking terrorists and spies.
a machine that can look into the mind from guardian: Scientists have developed acomputerised mind-reading technique which lets them accurately predict the images that people are looking at by using scanners to study brain activity... Then a computer was able to correctly predict in nine out of 10 cases which image people were focused on. Guesswork would have been accurate only eight times in every 1,000 attempts. The study raises the possibility in the future of the technology being harnessed to visualise scenes from a person's dreams or memory.
ibm's blue brain project from seed: In the basement of a university in Lausanne, Switzerland sit four black boxes, each about the size of a refrigerator, and filled with 2,000 IBM microchips stacked in repeating rows. Together they form the processing core of a machine that can handle 22.8 trillion operations per second. It contains no moving parts and is eerily silent. When the computer is turned on, the only thing you can hear is the continuous sigh of the massive air conditioner. This is Blue Brain. The name of the supercomputer is literal: Each of its microchips has been programmed to act just like a real neuron in a real brain. The behavior of the computer replicates, with shocking precision, the cellular events unfolding inside a mind. "This is the first model of the brain that has been built from the bottom-up," says Henry Markram, a neuroscientist at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the director of the Blue Brain project. "There are lots of models out there, but this is the only one that is totally biologically accurate. We began with the most basic facts about the brain and just worked from there."
"America rose to power behind a Republican tariff wall. What has free trade wrought? Lost sovereignty. A sinking dollar. A hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing. Stagnant wages. Wives forced into the labor market to maintain the family income. Mass indebtedness to foreign nations, and a deepening dependency on foreign goods and borrowings to pay for them. We have sacrificed our country on the altar of this Moloch, the mythical Global Economy."
from ap: A car circles a high-rise three times. Someone leaves a backpack in a park. Such things go unnoticed in big cities every day. But that could change in Chicago with a new video surveillance system that would recognize such anomalies and alert authorities to take a closer look.
On Thursday, the city and IBM Corp. are announcing the initial phase of what officials say could be the most advanced video security network in any U.S. city. The City of Broad Shoulders is getting eyes in the back of its head.
"Chicago is really light years ahead of any metropolitan area in the U.S. now," said Sam Docknevich, who heads video-surveillance consulting for IBM.
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Welcome back to New World Next Week - the video series from Corbett Report & Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in alternative news & open source intelligence. This week: 
