Take Photos With Your Hands

Sand Flea Jumping Robot

Sand Flea is an 11-lb robot with one trick up its sleeve: Normally it drives like an RC car, but when it needs to it can jump 30 feet into the air. An onboard stabilization system keeps it oriented during flight to improve the view from the video uplink and to control landings. Current development of Sand Flea is funded by the The US Army's Rapid Equipping Force. For more information visit www.BostonDynamics.com.

Tactile Display With Directional Force Feedback

Touch-Based 3D Surveillance Camera System Interface

Eminem Talks About His Attitude Towards Money

Science 'Moon Rising'

Disclose.tv - Science 'Moon Rising' - Full Documentary Video

National Geographic - Print Tools

Disclose.tv - National Geographic Known Universe S03E06 Print Tools Video

Mysterious Illness Strikes Uganda

World Health Organization is on high alert about new Ugandan outbreak, cause is not fully known It's called the "nodding disease" and it's a baffling illness that has struck thousands of children in northern Uganda. The illness brings on seizures, violent behavior, personality changes, and a host of other unusual symptoms. I. Violent and Mindless: Child Victims Have no Cure, no Future Grace Lagat, a northern Uganda native, is mother of two children -- Pauline Oto and Thomas -- both of whom are victims of the disease. For their safety, when she leaves the house, she now ties them up, using fabric like handcuffs. She recalls, "When I am going to the garden, I tie them with cloth. If I don't tie them I come back and find that they have disappeared." Reportedly the children gnaw at their fabric restraints, like a rabid animals -- or "zombies" of popular fiction -- in an attempt to escape. The effort to restrain the children is not unwarranted. In one of the most bizarre symptoms of this tragic illness, children with the disease are reportedly setting fire to buildings in their communities. Coupled with the aimless wandering this disease provokes in victims, this is a deadly combination. More than 200 people have been killed in fires believed to be set by the zombified children.

500 ft Wide Hole Opens up in Malmberget, Sweden

On Tuesday morning, March 20th at 6:20am, the ceiling of the "Fabian"-part of the Malmberget iron ore mine in north of Sweden collapsed.

Heightened activity in the mine during recent days is believed to be the cause of the collapse. A small cloud of dust with limited spread westward into the adjacent "Captain"-pit. Water vapor from the warmer air in the cavity produced a white pillar of cloud that appeared on Tuesday morning. The event has not affected the work in the mine and no injuries have been reported. The actual breakthrough or collapse process is said to have been a fairly peaceful event. Vibrations have been felt in the community "Kilen" nearby.

http://redicecreations.com/article.php?id=19082

Night Time Rainbow over Windsor, Ontario.

Nokia patents vibrating tattoos

Nokia has applied for a patent on tattoos that would vibrate when your phone was ringing or the battery was running low.

To dismiss the alert, which would feel like a tingling sensation, the user would simply have to scratch their arm, according to the US patent, the Telegraph reports.

The tattoo would be made using metal ores, or ferromagnetic ink, which could detect magnetic fields and 'sense' when your phone was ringing.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/8438613/nokia-patents-vibrating-tattoos

Unknown Tech Company Defies FBI In Mystery Surveillance Case

Sometime earlier this year, a provider of communication services in the United States – perhaps a phone company, perhaps Twitter – got a letter from the FBI demanding it turn over information on one, or possibly even hundreds, of its customers. The letter instructed the company to never disclose the existence of the demand to anyone – in particular, the target of the investigation.

This sort of letter is not uncommon post-9/11 and with the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act, which gave the FBI increased authority to issue so-called National Security Letters (NSLs). In 2010, the FBI sent more than 24,000 NSLs to ISPs and other companies, seeking information on more than 14,000 individuals in the U.S.

The public heard about none of these letters.

But this time, the company that received the request pushed back. It told the agency that it wanted to tell its customer that he or she was being targeted, which would give the customer a chance to fight the request in court, as a group of Twitter users did last year when the Justice Department sought their records under a different kind of request. The minor defiance in this latest case was enough to land the NSL request in a federal court docket last Friday, where the government filed a request for a court order to force the company to adhere to the gag order......

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/mystery-nsl/

Nano Ink 'Tattoo' Could Monitor Diabetes

A special tattoo ink that changes color based on glucose levels inside the skin is under development by Massachusetts-based Draper Laboratories. The injectable nanotech ink could eventually free diabetics from painful blood glucose tests.

"It doesn't have to be a large, over-the-shoulder kind of tattoo," said Heather Clark, a scientist at Draper. "It would only have to be a few millimeters in size and wouldn't have to go as deep as a normal tattoo."

Clark and her colleagues didn't set out to create a glucose-detecting ink.

"At first I didn't even think it was possible," said Clark.

Originally the scientists developed a sodium-sensitive ink to monitor heart health, advancing basic knowledge of electrolytes in the body, or to ensure athletes are properly hydrated...

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/12/diabetes-tattoo.html

Exclusive: Darpa Director Bolts Pentagon for Google

Darpa director Regina Dugan will soon be stepping down from her position atop the Pentagon’s premiere research shop to take a job with Google. Dugan, whose controversial tenure at the agency lasted just under three years, was “offered and accepted at senior executive position” with the internet giant, according to Darpa spokesman Eric Mazzacone. She felt she couldn’t say no to such an “innovative company,” he adds.

Dugan’s emphasis on cybersecurity and next-generation manufacturing earned her strong support from the White House, winning her praise from the President and maintaining the agency’s budget even during a period of relative austerity at the Pentagon. Her push into crowdsourcing and outreach to the hacker community were eye-openers in the often-closed world of military R&D. Dugan also won over some military commanders by diverting some of her research cash from long-term, blue-sky projects to immediate battlefield concerns.

“There is a time and a place for daydreaming. But it is not at Darpa,” she told a congressional panel in March 2011 (.pdf). “Darpa is not the place of dreamlike musings or fantasies, not a place for self-indulging in wishes and hopes. Darpa is a place of doing.” For an agency that spent millions of dollars on shape-shifting robots, Mach 20 missiles, and mind-controlled limbs, it was something of a revolutionary statement...

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/dugan-darpa-google/

Giant manta raised from the depths off Africa by ship's anchor

There are few details, but images posted this week to a Nairaland website forum starkly illustrate a story about a giant manta being hauled aboard an oil-rig servicing ship after becoming entangled in its anchor line in the South Atlantic. The unusual catch off Nigeria's Bonny Island involves one of the largest and most docile marine species. Giant mantas, which are found in temperate regions around the planet, can measure nearly 30 feet across and weigh more than a ton. A brief description of the catch, from a forum contributor named Pharrod, is posted between the accompanying images, and it should be noted that plankton-eating giant mantas do not possess stinging spines, contrary to what's stated in the description.

"The stinging Manta ray was killed when the oil rig servicing ship anchored at the middle of ocean near Bonny Island. The anchor of the ship brought the stinging ray up while the ship was about to sail. The stinging Manta ray was killed while resting at the ocean floor.

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/33072/giant+manta+raised+from+the+depths+off+africa+by+ships+anchor/

Darpa: Tactical High Energy Laser

Mythbusters banned from talking about RFID chip by Visa and Mastercard

The 'lost' cell phone project

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Couple who said they 'would have aborted daughter if they knew she had Down's syndrome' sue hospital for $2.9 million and win

A couple who sued a hospital for not telling them their unborn child has Down's syndrome has been awarded a $2.9million payout.

Ariel and Deborah Levy, who say they would have had an abortion if they had known the child would be disabled, claimed they needed the money to pay for their daughter Kalanit's lifelong care.

And a jury agreed, deciding on Friday that Oregon's Legacy Health hospital had been negligent in failing to diagnose the condition in a pre-natal scan.

The hospital is considering appealing the verdict, but the Levys' lawyer urged them to 'let this case finally come to an end'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2113342/Deborah-Ariel-Levy-Portland-couple-wins-case-Legacy-Heath-wrongful-birth-daughter-born-Down-syndrome.html

Wine De-corking Machine

Cameron's Mariana Trench Dive, First Attempt in Over 50 Years

Camp FEMA

Recent legislation attempting to legitimize the use of internment camps to detain U.S. citizens in the event of an uprising or civil unrest has many people asking what nation they live in. Who are the potential domestic terrorists that will end up in these camps? See what the experts have to say and find out where the true power of the people rests in halting these treasonous activities.

Released: Tuesday 2010-06-01

Guardian open journalism: Three Little Pigs advert

This advert for the Guardian's open journalism, screened for the first time on 29 February 2012, imagines how we might cover the story of the three little pigs in print and online. Follow the story from the paper's front page headline, through a social media discussion and finally to an unexpected conclusion.

Justice

1GB Then & Now

Epic net outage in Africa as FOUR undersea cables chopped

Underwater data cables linking East Africa to the Middle East and Europe have been severed, bringing transfer rates to their knees in nine countries.

In a bizarre coincidence, a ship allegedly dropped anchor off the coast of Kenya on Saturday in a restricted area, cutting The East African Marine Systems (TEAMS) cable - shortly after three other cables were chopped in the Red Sea between Djibouti and the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported.

TEAMS was already stuffed with the traffic from the other three cables, the Europe India Gateway (EIG), the South East Asia Middle East Western Europe-3 (SMW-3) and the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSY), which were severed ten days before.

"It's a very unusual situation," Chris Wood, chief executive of West Indian Ocean Cable, the largest shareholder of the EASSY, and a major owner of data-capacity rights on the two other Red Sea cables. "I believe these were accidental incidents, although more will be known when we bring the cables up from the sea bed."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/28/east_africa_undersea_cables_cut/

Mercedes Benz Invisible Car

Tornado hitting parking lot

Pakistan Fishermen Catch A Giant 15,432lb Shark

Angry Birds, Meet Jailbirds: New App Helps You Snitch on Your Friends

In less time than it takes to play a turn in Words With Friends, smartphone users can report a “suspicious person” to the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security.

The domestic counterterrorism agency’s West Virginia branch, in association with the West Virginia governor’s office, unveiled a new mobile app called the Suspicious Activity Reporting Application this week. “With the assistance of our citizens, important information can quickly get into the hands of our law enforcement community allowing them to provide better protection,” Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said in a statement. The app is available in the Apple App Store and the Android Market.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/app-homeland-security/

Speech Jamming Gun Freezes Any Talker Mid-Sentence

Want to be the kind of person who causes entire rooms to fall silent when you enter? Researchers from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Ochanomizu University in Japan have created a speech jamming gun that takes the words right out of speakers’ mouths using a clever trick of psychology.

Psychologists have long known that for whatever reason, it’s very difficult to talk when your words are being immediately repeated to you. Not annoying-younger-sibling repeated to you, but spit back at you just a fraction after you’ve spoken. So by using a simple directional microphone and speaker device, the researchers have created a handheld “speech jammer” that records what a person is saying and repeats it back at them with a two-tenths-of-a-second delay.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-03/speech-jamming-gun-freezes-even-fastest-fast-talkers-mid-sentence

Obama Orders City To Lower Police Recruit Test Scores So More Blacks Can Pass

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice (under Obama’s orders) put pressure on Dayton’s Civil Service Board to lower the police recruit exam’s passing test scores because too many black recruits were failing the test.

The original passing scores determined by Civil Service required candidates to answer 57 of 86 (66 percent) questions correctly on one portion and 73 of 102 (72 percent) on the other. The lowered benchmark requires candidates to answer 50 of 86 (58 percent) questions correctly and 64 of 102 (63 percent) of questions on the other. Source

Naturally, the citizens of Dayton (whose taxes will pay the salaries of these unintelligent officers) are outraged at the rule change.

Who wants to live in a city where certain members of the police force (regardless of their skin color) can’t pass a basic competency exam by at least a C minus? If a D is all that is required to pass the exam, why give the exam at all?

http://sandrarose.com/2011/03/obama-orders-city-to-lower-police-recruit-test-scores-so-more-blacks-can-pass/

Robot Quadrotors Perform James Bond Theme