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no reaction yet from dj-3000... from nbcsandiego: A San Antonio radio station is putting artificial intelligence behind the microphone. "Denise," a computer program that can give the weather, play music and even tell jokes, takes to the airwaves next week on station KROV. She needs help from a scriptwriter, but at a cost of $200 is a lot cheaper than hiring a fulltime human staff, says Dominique Garcia, the radio personality who bought and programmed Denise. "A lot of radio DJs are pretty upset with me because it does work," Garcia told MSNBC's John Roach. Denise can't fill airspace by herself and sounds a "tad robotic," Garcia acknowledges. But she also won't stick her foot in her mouth, say things that inspire boycotts or command a big salary. She won't even need restroom breaks. "The idea and concept was never meant to blatantly disrespect any of my colleagues by creating a situation in which would place their jobs in jeopardy," Gacia blogged on mysanantonio.com. "My intention was solely to reinvent a possible new method of automation.”
This technology is being implemented under the cover of combating human trafficking, illegal immigration, and finding missing persons, but Richard Seldon of NetBio, creator of the scanners, clearly states that "DNA information has the potential to become part of the fabric of day-to-day life." In an interview with Katie Drummond who broke this story for The Daily, Seldon envisions additional applications in emergency rooms, food safety tests, and law enforcement.
DNA collection is actually nothing new, as the Pentagon has admitted that it currently has a DNA database with 80,000 suspected foreign terrorists on it, and growing daily. However, this collection apparatus has been secretly in place for Americans as well...
It is important to note that the technology of tracking, tracing, and databasing innocent people right down to their blood is a top-down directive from federal agencies, not a legitimate scientific endeavor. Legitimate science researches ways to increase human potential and freedom, not use it as a system for identification and control. With the rise of nanotechnology as a federal initiative, we should strongly resist the collection of our life force to be used in any way that government-controlled science sees fit.
from business insider: A senior member of the US Marine corps is telling people "multiple platoons" are deploying to Egypt, a source tells us. There is a system within the US Marines that alerts the immediate families of high-ranking marines when their marine will soon be deployed to an emergency situation where they will not be able to talk to their spouses or families. That alert just went out, says our source.
This senior Marine told our source that the Pentagon will deploy "multiple platoons" to Egypt over the next few days and that the official reason will be "to assist in the evacuation of US citizens." Our source was told that "the chances they were going over there went from 70% yesterday to 100% today." We're keeping these people anonymous because both would get in trouble for sharing this information with the press.
On Friday, the Pentagon announced it would move "U.S. warships and other military assets to make sure it is prepared in case evacuation of U.S. citizens from Egypt becomes necessary," according the the LA Times.
from russia today: Celebrated futuristAlvin Toffler has forecasted “death and bankruptcy” to the existing organizational institutes. Toffler elaborated on this and other predictions on where society is heading to RT.
related video: 'future shock' 1972 doc narrated by orson welles from youtube: 1972 documentary based on the book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. Narrated by Orson Welles. Future Shock... is a sickness that comes from too much change in too short a time... it's the feeling that nothing is permanent anymore. It's the reaction to changes that happen so fast that we cannot absorb them - it's the premature arrival of the future. For those who are unprepared, its effects can be pretty devastating.
from foxnews: It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century technology — and a 20th-century horror movie. A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.
Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.
That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone. EATR will be powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone Power Technology of Pompano Beach, Fla., which uses an "external combustion chamber" burning up fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity.
The advantages to the military are that the robot would be extremely flexible in fuel sources and could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced.
Upon the EATR platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things — a transport, an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship. In press materials, Robotic Technology presents EATR as an essentially benign artificial creature that fills its belly through "foraging," despite the obvious military purpose.
the masonic boston tea party from copycat effect: Today is April 15th, and there will be "tea parties" throughout the USA. Few carrying out these 2009 symbolic acts understand the origins of the Boston Tea Party, which occurred on December 16, 1773. The Masonic background to the Boston Tea Party is part of the twilight history of the nation.
goldman sachs tries to shut down financial blogger from global research: Mike Morgan is a registered investment adviser and a scrappy shoot-from-the-hip guy who doesn't mince his words. Recently Morgan has come under fire from investment giant Goldman Sachs for his hard-hitting web site "Facts about Goldman Sachs". According to the U.K. Telegraph: "Goldman Sachs is attempting to shut down a dissident blogger who is extremely critical of the investment bank, its board members and its practices. The bank has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website. According to Chadbourne & Parke's letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site "violates several of Goldman Sachs' intellectual property rights" and also "implies a relationship" with the bank itself. Unsurprisingly for a man who has conjoined the bank's name with the Number of the Beast – although he jokingly points out that 666 was also the S&P500's bear-market bottom – Mr Morgan is unlikely to go down without a fight. He claims he has followed all legal requirements to own and operate the website – and that the header of the site clearly states that the content has not been approved by the bank. On a special section of his blog entitled "Goldman Sachs vs Mike Morgan" he predicts that the fight will probably end up in court. "It's just another example of how a bully like Goldman Sachs tries to throw their weight around," he writes."
lehman sits on bomb of uranium cake as prices slump from bloomberg: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is sitting on enough uranium cake to make a nuclear bomb as it waits for prices of the commodity to rebound, according to traders and nuclear experts. The bankrupt bank, in the throes of paying off creditors, acquired uranium cake “under a matured commodities contract” and plans to sell it when the market improves “to realize the best prices,” Chief Executive Officer Bryan Marsal said. Lehman, once the fourth-largest investment bank, has an estimated $200 billion in unsecured liabilities left to pay. The uranium, which may be as much as 500,000 pounds, might fetch $20 million at today’s prices of about $40.50 per pound, said traders who asked not to be named because of the confidential nature of the data. Marsal said the traders’ estimate of Lehman’s uranium holding is “reasonable,” while declining to be more specific. Uranium has dropped for five straight months from $55 a pound on Dec. 1 on concerns that countries including China and India would delay nuclear power projects because of the global economic crisis, and because Lehman might dump its radioactive material on the market, the traders said. More than 43 million pounds of uranium-oxide concentrate, or yellowcake equivalent sold on the spot market last year, more than doubling the 2007 trading volume, according to Roswell, Georgia-based Ux Consulting Co.
blackwater's prince cuts & runs from danger room: The rebranding of Blackwater continues. First, the mercenary firm expands beyond its core, guns-for-hire business. Then, the company changes its name - to the inscrutable, barely-pronounceable "Xe." The latest: Outspoken and controversial firm founder Erik Prince announces he's stepping down as CEO. "I'm a little worn out by the whole thing, the politics of it all," Prince tells the Wall Street Journal. "Me not being part of the equation reduces the 'X' on the thing." I guess that means the company is now called "e?"
report: diebold system has 'delete' button for erasing audit logs from threat level: After three months of investigation, California's secretary of state has released a report examining why a voting system made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly known as Diebold) lost about 200 ballots in Humboldt County during November's presidential election. But the most startling information in the state's 13-page report [156kb PDF] is not why the system lost votes, which Wired.com previously covered in detail, but that some versions of Diebold's vote tabulation system, known as the Global Election Management System (Gems), include a button that allows someone to delete audit logs from the system. Auditing logs are required under the federal voting-system guidelines, which are used to test and qualify voting systems for use in elections. The logs record changes and other events that occur on voting systems to ensure the integrity of elections and help determine what occurred in a system when something goes wrong. "Deleting a log is something that you would only do in de-commissioning a system you're no longer using or perhaps in a testing scenario," said Princeton University computer scientist Ed Felten, who has studied voting systems extensively. "But in normal operation, the log should always be kept."
finland's parliament passes 'lex nokia' bill from yle: Parliament has passed the controversial reforms to the data protection law, the so-called "Lex Nokia" bill. The vote was 96 for, 56 against. The hotly debated reforms caused arguments within the government coalition, but also caused a crack in the Green League. Notably, three Green MPs who had previously voted against the bill abstained from the vote: Johanna Karimäki, Ville Niinistö and Kirsi Ojansuu. They were just three of the 47 parliamentarians who decided not to cast a vote. The bill, dubbed "Lex Nokia" because of the mobile phone giant's perceived advocacy for the law, angered unions and privacy rights advocates.
army pitches 'future' killers as job-savers from danger room: In late January, the Air Force's defense contractor buddies started pushing their pet project, the Raptor stealth fighter jet, as a jobs program. "Without it, more than 95,000 jobs are at risk," proclaimed one online ad. (The New America Foundation figures the real number is more like 35,000. You get the idea, though.) But at least the Air Force had the good sense to step back and let its industrial partners make the case for their weapons-as-stimulus. The Army wasn't so slick, alas. The Army is trying hard to keep Future Combat Systems - its massive effort to make the force lighter, more-lethal, and better-networked - away from the budget axe. During the presidential campaign, both the Obama and McCain camps talked about slowing down or killing the project. Despite some successes, FCS has become a poster child in Washington for Pentagon bloat and overreach.
russian general says US may have planned satellite collision from ria novosti: A collision between U.S. and Russian satellites in early February may have been a test of new U.S. technology to intercept and destroy satellites rather than an accident, a Russian military expert has said. According to official reports, one of 66 satellites owned by Iridium, a U.S. telecoms company, and the Russian Cosmos-2251 satellite, launched in 1993 and believed to be defunct, collided on February 10 about 800 kilometers (500 miles) above Siberia. However, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Leonid Shershnev, a former head of Russia's military space intelligence, said in an interview published by the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper on Tuesday that the U.S. satellite involved in the collision was used by the U.S. military as part of the "dual-purpose" Orbital Express research project, which began in 2007... Shershnev claims the U.S. military decided to continue with the project to "develop technology that would allow monitoring and inspections of orbital spacecraft by fully-automated satellites equipped with robotic devices." The February collision could be an indication that the U.S. has successfully developed such technology and is capable of manipulating 'hostile satellites,' including their destruction, with a single command from a ground control center, the general said.
a billion over budget, nasa gets a bilion more from stimulus from ap: NASA can land a spacecraft on a peanut-shaped asteroid 150 million miles away, but it doesn't come close to hitting the budget target for building its spacecraft, according to congressional auditors. NASA's top officials know it and even joke about it. This week auditors found that on nine projects alone NASA is nearly $1.1 billion over cost estimates that were set in the last couple of years. Congress' financial watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, reviewed NASA's newest big-money projects and found most were either over budget, late or both. That doesn't include two of NASA's largest spending projects whose costs have wildly fluctuated and still aren't firm - replacements for the space shuttle fleet and Hubble Space Telescope. Historically, overruns have caused NASA to run low on money, forcing it to shelve or delay other projects. Often, the agency just asks taxpayers for more money. In fact, NASA got $1 billion from the new stimulus package. It's to be spent on climate-watching satellites and exploration among other things. "Getting an extra infusion of money doesn't necessarily mean you have a capability to spend it well," said Cristina Chaplain, GAO's acquisitions chief who wrote the study [2.8mb PDF].
task force urges broader role for nuclear labs from washington post: The nation's nuclear weapons laboratories would be spun out of the Energy Department and become the center of an independent Agency for National Security Applications under a proposal to be released today by a bipartisan task force formed by the Stimson Center, a research organization devoted to security issues. Changing the status and making wider use of Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories for other research would help reestablish and assure "the nation's global science and technology leadership in the 21st century," said the task force report. At present, the labs are directed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is a semiautonomous part of the Energy Department. "This action would enable the laboratories to remain trusted third party advisors as well as providers of capabilities, but it would initiate a full transformation from a Cold War, industrial age mindset and culture," according to the task force, which was chaired by Francis Fragos Townsend, who was an assistant to President George W. Bush for homeland security and counterterrorism, and retired Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick, who was deputy national security adviser to President Bill Clinton. The proposal comes at a time when the future of the nation's multibillion-dollar nuclear weapons complex is under review.
video: robo-beast & human troops march together from danger room: We've seen BigDog, the military's alarmingly-lifelike robotic quadruped, climb over hills, stomp through snow, and survive swift kicks to the chops. Now, for the first time, we're seeing it on patrol, with human soldiers. Mass High Tech uncovers this video of the BigDog going through exercises at Ft. Benning, Georgia. It comes on the heels of the robo-beast's longest walk yet - a 12.8 mile hike, following a series of GPS waypoints. Soldiers at Ft. Benning seemed intrigued by the idea of a mechanical pack mule that could one day carry some of their load.
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Welcome back to New World Next Week - the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:
Visit NewWorldNextWeek.com to get previous episodes in various formats to download, burn and share. And as always, stay up-to-date by subscribing to the feeds from Corbett Report here and Media Monarchy here. Thank you.
