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here is one link that took me 3 seconds to google. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/fbi-fears-bitcoin/ it doesn't take an einstein to understand that criminals would rush to using unregulated and uncontrolled methods of payment/money etc. despite the fact that i'm moderated as troll, it's all of you who really are.

Just because they got results, doesn't mean that there's any conscious thought going on.

Case in point: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/
"So, as the fish sat in the scanner, they showed it “a series of photographs depicting human individuals in social situations.” To maintain the rigor of the protocol (and perhaps because it was hilarious), the salmon, just like a human test subject, “was asked to determine what emotion the individual in the photo must have been experiencing.”

The salmon, as Bennett’s poster on the test dryly notes, “was not alive at the time of scanning.”

If that were all that had occurred, the salmon scanning would simply live on in Dartmouth lore as a “crowning achievement in terms of ridiculous objects to scan.” But the fish had a surprise in store. When they got around to analyzing the voxel (think: 3-D or “volumetric” pixel) data, the voxels representing the area where the salmon’s tiny brain sat showed evidence of activity. In the fMRI scan, it looked like the dead salmon was actually thinking about the pictures it had been shown."

fMRI has problems and is very subject to interpretation, misuse and manipulation.

For example the now classic dead fish fMRI tests:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/

I am very skeptical of this until it has been repeated, tested and evaluated in other settings by different researchers.

For some reason when reading the story, it really reminded me of "facilitated communication" which is a terrible, cruel scam non-communicative and vegetative or near vegetative state people are subject to. I realize this is different, but really not very different.

TFA has annoying "you won somthing but uh err really didn't" on Android devices that can't be bypassed. Here is a better TFA:

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/11/google_gator/

Apple might be "stovepiped," but until recently they weren't trying to be everything to everybody. They also tend to care about their customers a hair more than M.S. ever has.

Yes, Apple loves you so much, they come up with proprietary connectors every few years just so customers can experience the joy of spending more time at the apple store rather than use any of the dozens of standardized cables they have lying around.

Then they add authentication chips so nasty third party manufacturers can't supply cheap cables to you without the holy blessing of Apple. After all, they wouldn't want to deny you those precious hours with the Apple "Genius".

And of course they patent the whole mess, just to make customers super satisfied to know that no other company will ever use this connectivity technology in their products. No, your Apple cables are extra-super-fun-special now!

Then they decide to scrap the whole thing, and come out with an entirely new connector when every other portable device manufacturer on the planet has settled on mini or micro-USB. But of course, they gave the new tech a cool new name....just for you, the happy consumer!

Of course, there is also the obvious:
- If your phone doesn't work, you must be holding it wrong. Stupid customer!
- Way to buy our latest product! We'll be releasing a new version which will make it completely outdated in about 3 weeks.
- We're going to try and push legislation to make it illegal to jailbreak your phone. Don't you realize, dear customer, you have no right to tinker with your apple devices?
- Apple Maps.

I'm really happy more companies don't "care about their customers" the way apple does.

Does anyone have more information about the Lego Mindstorms robot that was used in this experiment? I'd like to use it as an inspiration with the kids.

The Curiosity Rover Made With Lego Mindstorms is pretty cool, but the fact that it uses "7 NXT Bricks, 13 NXT Motors, 2 Power Function Motors" makes it out of reach of the average home.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/ - How? Maybe stuff like that. I guess we'll see what Micheal has up his sleeve now. If you'd like me to dig up other links, I'll comply.
Respectfully

Considering the ambitions held by the CIA for all things cyber, I truly hope you've busted me submitting irrelevant material to Slashdot. But I'm the kind of guy who never tires of hearing "what Linus says" about whatever and so on. If you could pardon the post for just one thing; maybe it has value just for bringing attention to a new individual in a position of power and influence, quite possibly including a lot of technology. Otherwise, I continue to sway on the edge of significance and apologize for taking up a space on the RSS. In the meantime, have a look at this: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/ -- It might offer some bit of an answer to your question/statement.
Respectfully

The patent system is totally not broken, says the guy who wields the biggest arsenal of patents. No reform needed! ^_^

Whoosh.

http://www.wired.com/business/2010/08/foxconn-rallies-workers-installs-suicide-nets/

Mind showing the left side of that package, or would such honesty interfere with your agenda?

http://www.getbuckyballs.com/blog/wp-content/themes/buckyballs/images/xblog-graphic.jpg.pagespeed.ic.KAJoHdy4ZS.jpg

http://images1.vat19.com/covers/large/buckyballs-standard.jpg

http://sale.images.woot.com/Maxfield___Oberton_216_Piece_Magnetic_Buckyballs_Set___2_PackuhdDetail.jpg

http://www.wired.com/geekmom/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/orig_box_with_case-350x486.jpg

http://alyssaroyse.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/screen-shot-2012-09-20-at-4-42-56-pm.png

http://media.oregonlive.com/themombeat/photo/11374268-large.jpg

http://ds_product_photos.s3.amazonaws.com/large/16261.jpg

Same exact packaging you show. Except in these pictures you can see the left side of the packaging more easily. The warning is pretty obvious to me.

The machine in the video is an ES&S IVotronic terminal. It's the same terminal I voted on this morning. It directly appears the digitizer is incorrectly calibrated. What the video author doesn't show is the paper tabulator in the lower left corner. It would of clearly showed his vote being tallied incorrectly. Perhaps he was voting Romney and didn't want his cast vote shown, but the paper trail recorder clearly shows your selection in the window. It even shows when you got back and correct a selection. Now, they key is that each candidate field on the screen is independently calibrated and can be re-calibrated in under a minute by any third party.

At minimum, this terminal should of been isolated and inspected for tampering. Hopefully that was the ultimate outcome. I know I would of not left the area until a proper election official arrived.

The cyberweapon that could take down the internet
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20113-the-cyberweapon-that-could-take-down-the-internet.html

More on BGP Attacks â" Updated
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/08/how-to-intercep/

http://dankaminsky.com/2008/08/27/the-emergence-of-a-theme/

CNET and Wired disagree. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57545241-37/yes-apple-will-approve-google-maps-for-ios/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/11/report-google-maps-app-trouble/

The 42nd fastest supercomputer on earth doesn't exist. ... Amazon EC2 ... virtual supercomputer for an unnamed pharmaceutical giant that spans 30,000 processor cores, and it cost $1,279 an hour. "

- http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/12/nonexistent-supercomputer/

You should be glad you're not getting the full attention of the federally mandated "civil liberties", like the one to indefinite detention. Once your right to be a free citizen can be taken away without a trial, the rest of your rights are pretty minor, and you'll need more than medical marijuana to make the detention trip fun. If anything I'd like to see more state rebellion against the mandates of the federal government, in hopes our whole government deadlocks rather than keeping up the Change it's been enacting recently.

Of course the cloud is not suitable for many applications, and it won't compete head-to-head with traditional supercomputers. But is does work for some applications. Least year a Pharmaceutical company used a 30,000 core system on AWS for a short period, and a company is already in business that specializes in cloud supercomputing. I expect the capability will grow.

It is happening, it isn't man made. This has not been proven. Stop pretending it has been.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot/all

Either that or you're panicking. Again.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot/all

And then lingered over Ontario for a week. This is considered "unusual". If it happened today we'd blame it on global warming. Hell, any time there's any sort of freak weather it's blamed on global warming, whether it's true or not.

A little less religion and a little more science would nice.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot/all

Direct link to the article http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/hack-proof-drone/

Have you read this? http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot/all

No, it's the alarmists who haven't read all the literature and cling to an unproven hypothesis that no government has accepted yet, that NASA proved faulty and even their own spiritual leader has backpedaled on.

NASA/NOAA to IPCC: your models are broken, you ignored the facts plants eat CO2 (2010)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/08/new_model_doubled_co2_sub_2_degrees_warming/

NASA: 150 year Greenland melt cycle right on time (2012)
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/greenland-melt.html

James "Gaia theory" Lovelock gives up (2012): "The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books — mine included — because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened," Lovelock said. "The climate is doing its usual tricks. There's nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now," he said. "The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that," he added.' Lovelock still believes the climate is changing, but at a much, much slower pace."
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/ideas/climate/no_consensus/its_over/

A more moderate approach is articulated: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot/all

Global warming is so 1985. It's not like we haven't known about it since the 1940s, nobody could figure out a way to make money of it until now, so they're exploiting it for all it's worth now. And you're helping. *slow clap*

http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/ideas/climate/.images/med_greenhouse_effect.jpg (Popular mechanics, August 1953, P 119)

Selling proprietary software does not infringe on someone else's rights

It has in the past:

http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/news/2006/08/71554

On a smaller scale, my own rights have been affected by proprietary licensing (shortly thereafter I decided to drink the Stallman cool-aid and go all-free). When I was an undergrad, the night before my control systems homework was due, I tried to use Matlab (properly licensed) and I got a message saying that I was not allowed to run the program because too many other people were using it. You would think that running the software on the computer you are using would be the most basic right you could have when it comes to software, yet proprietary licenses can and do deny you that right (and never mind modifying, studying, or copying that software).

I believe warrantless wire taping started under Bush....*eye roll*

An excellent example! It did start under Bush. And Obama, plucky Senator from Illinois, railed against the program.

Until he became president.

Merely three days after being sworn in, the tune changed, article here, with citations 1 and 2:

On January 23, 2009, the administration of President Barack Obama adopted the same position as his predecessor when it urged U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to set aside a ruling in Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation et al. v. Obama, et al. The Obama administration also sided with the former administration in its legal defense of July, 2008 legislation that immunized the nation's telecommunications companies from lawsuits accusing them of complicity in the eavesdropping program, according to testimony by Attorney General Eric Holder.

AC's point stands pretty clear with this information, I think.

I believe warrantless wire taping started under Bush....*eye roll*

An excellent example! It did start under Bush. And Obama, plucky Senator from Illinois, railed against the program.

Until he became president.

Merely three days after being sworn in, the tune changed, article here, with citations 1 and 2:

On January 23, 2009, the administration of President Barack Obama adopted the same position as his predecessor when it urged U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to set aside a ruling in Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation et al. v. Obama, et al. The Obama administration also sided with the former administration in its legal defense of July, 2008 legislation that immunized the nation's telecommunications companies from lawsuits accusing them of complicity in the eavesdropping program, according to testimony by Attorney General Eric Holder.

AC's point stands pretty clear with this information, I think.

I thought the Wall Street Exchanges were hosted in New Jersey?
http://www.wired.com/business/2012/08/ff_wallstreet_trading/all/

Most Russian ISPs will be implementing DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) to block the content. We're not talking DNS anymore here, we're talking ISPs inspecting and logging everything you send over the wire unencrypted. Be careful about what you type in Google now, the russian Register is watching.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/russia-surveillance/all/

Consider the feedback loop. In response to our actions, the flu itself will change.

We're already seeing how microbes are developing resistance to antibiotics, and how germs acquired during healthcare are more virulent than those out there in the wild.

Do we want to incentivize the flu to mutate into something more vicious and fast-acting?

Sometimes, mother nature represents a balance between extremes. Somewhere between no-flu and a flu that resembles airborne superfast Ebola is the current balance.

I am not saying we should not explore this technology, but with our current record, we should move cautiously.

Why aren't there more datacenters in Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, etc.?

There are datacenters in the Chicago area, particularly for futures. Between these facilities and New York, the latest latency race is microwave relay towers. Any new stock exchange which decides to pop up and locate themselves in the Midwest has to fight the network effect to become relevant. In the long run (assuming they become popular enough to attract liquidity), they would only end up creating an additional opportunity for latency arbitrage in a big triangle between Chicago and New York. Overall, there is a lot of risk and very little value in starting up a new exchange in a brand-new location.

OTOH, some of the existing exchanges do have off-site datacenters for disaster recovery. BATS's connectivity manual (PDF PDF DANGER WILL ROBINSON) lists three locations on p.14. With some digging you can probably find more for the other exchanges. Because the 2-day closure of the stock exchange appears to be a coordinated effort by the SEC, there was little incentive on Monday to actually use a disaster recover site. If a primary datacenter had serious problems during a normal trading day I bet any of the exchanges would fail over pretty quickly.

Why aren't there more datacenters in Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, etc.? Surely the threat from Tornados could be mitigated and the electrical infrastructure built out more cheaply than the losses due to coastal disasters, no?

NSA is building a data center in Utah: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/ Power is cheap, no floods, hurricanes or tornadoes, and evaporative cooling works fantastic.

Apparently the Navy is having problems with aluminum hulls.

"Builder Blames Navy as Brand-New Warship Disintegrates [June 23, 2011] ... the Navy has discovered “aggressive” corrosion around Independence‘s engines. The problem is so bad that the barely year-old ship will have to be laid up in a San Diego drydock so workers can replace whole chunks of her hull. In contrast to the first LCS, the steel-hulled USS Freedom, Independence is made mostly of aluminum. And that’s one root of the ship’s ailment ... Lots of things — major weapons, for one — have been left off the LCS in order to keep the price down. The list of deleted items includes something called a “Cathodic Protection System,” which is designed to prevent electrolysis."
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/shipbuilder-blames-navy-as-brand-new-warship-disintegrates/

Any science claiming to be able to predict human behaviour is not science, but ignorance.

Ahem.

Trade war, or war within the bureaucracy of the US Govt itself? Remember that Cybersecurity Executive Order? Wonder who will be put in charge?

Reminds me of a little story about a power outage, maybe.

We can't tell you what we know, but trust us to be in charge...

It is not about mining. That is not their monopoly, their monopoly is on the production of the minerals to usable components. This unfortunately is not easily solved. A full scale production facility takes about a decade to build and about 1 Billion dollars. There was a private investor who was discussing this issue about 5 years ago and was trying to get investors to go in on building a new facility but was unable to get the needed amount of capital.

Already started the process

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/rare-earth-mining-rises-again/

BTW it was my understanding America used to be the major provider over a decade ago and we simply stopped. Shows this was a bad idea. At least now competition is coming back. China may want to rethink their position.

According to Wired, that mine dates back to the 1980s.

Not to mention:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7745868/Scientist-Craig-Venter-creates-life-for-first-time-in-laboratory-sparking-debate-about-playing-god.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sciencebiz/2010/05/20/life-made-in-the-lab-but-dont-freak-out/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/06/tpna/

Kissmetrics also covered here: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/10/kissmetrics-tracking/

S

And cars don't automatically crash if the electronics fail, thats the reason EMP is used against fleeing vehicles.

O RLY?

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/10/nissan-steer-by-wire/

In some of the pictures, the bat looks like it is actually bent forward, toward the ball, when the ball hits it. Does anyone have an explanation for that? It's especially evident in the pic of the breaking bat. Is this just a motion thing that the camera doesn't catch well, or is there a physical reason that the bat would bend forward instead of backward? http://www.wired.com/rawfile/wp-content/gallery/fox-baseball/BROKEN-BAT.jpg

probably enough to make you of interest to the security services

Being alive is apparently enough to make you of interest to the "securicty services" these days.

The NSA, for example, is apparently trying to record, store indefinitely, and no doubt analyze, EVERYTHING.

The former NSA official held his thumb and forefinger close together: “We are that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.”

You're saying they can sequence a life form in one lab and reconstruct it in another lab w/o a physical template of any kind?

Has there been a breakthrough beyond:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/scientists-create-first-self-replicating-synthetic-life/

(which AIUI required the shell an existing cell)

I just don't see how Google's plans work out long term unless they want to get into the ISP and carrier business

Maybe they plan to expand on the fibre to the home services they describe here.

When you combine their move into the last mile physical connection business, with their ties to US government intelligence agencies, I can't begin to understand how they are defining the term "evil" in item 6 on their philosophy page, "You can make money without doing evil." On that page, they seem to want to define evil as not correctly labeling advertising. I think most people have a different definition.

Some examples.

1. Collaboration with the NSA. EPIC attempted to find out more about this via FOIA requests, but was eventually rejected.
2. Ties to the CIA funded venture capital firm In-Q-Tel via their acquisition of Keyhole, which eventually became google earth. Around the same time, Rob Painter, Director of Technology Assessment at In-Q-Tel, took the position of Chief Technologist and a Senior Manager for Google Federal at google.
3. Investing, along with In-Q-Tel, in web predictive analysis firm Recorded Future.
4. Working with the DEA to surveil their users. Google and Yahoo are reported to be charging for it, while Microsoft does it for free. I'm not sure which way is more evil.
5. Developing software to eavesdrop on users.

I guess if they changed their name to Panopticon, it would be a little too obvious. And, they might have to fight facebook for it.

Being tied to them doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot. The Russians have as much of a vested interest as everyone else in spying on their friends and enemies, and while the roles may be reversed from NATO the russians are almost certainly spying on the Syrians and Iranians as much if not more than we are: The russians want to be sure they'll get paid.

Sure, it would be nice if there was a magical operating system not easily exploited by intelligence agencies or computers of any sort tied to any dubious government. But that ain't the world we live in. Who are our choices exactly, Linux, which has major contributors in Redhat, Intel, Novell IBM etc. Linux Contributors (note link talks a lot about MS which is not all that important). As though they don't have ties to potentially hostile governments notably the US (hell IBM supplied equipment the Nazi's used to catalog who they were mass murdering), and Window and Mac OSX both of whom are controlled by Americans, in the US, with ties to the US government, including meetings with senior government officials (Obama dinner with Various Silicon Valley CEO's ). There's not a lot of cause to trust any of them to actually be on 'your' side, especially if you aren't in the US.

Frankly I don't trust any of them particularly. I grant the advantages of open source linux to the process but you need qualified people to review contributions and if that process was perfect there would need to be a lot less patching.

swapping an electric car battery isn't possible in reality? Thanks for enlightening the world with your clearly superior intellectual abilities.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/424587/israel-to-get-electric-car-battery-swap-stations/
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/21/159355676/dont-charge-that-electric-car-battery-just-change-it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu9PST7oXls
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/better-place/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd0WPw3p2MQ
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/better-place-unveils-battery-swap-station/

If only these people were as smart as you...

Religion is quite delusional in many ways. I agree. However, guess what. So is science. Both science and religion have limited information. The science delusion is often that we actually have something 100% figured out already. Guess what, we are not even close. We have evidence of evolution. I completely agree. However, the same evidence also supports another theory. Code re-use. Only DNA code, not software code. Is similar gene sequences in species an example of Evolution or a was it just a superior being showing excellent DNA code re-use? Unfortunately, DNA evidence doesn't discount either. So does evolution mean there is not God. Not at all. In fact, if we can manipulate DNA with our limited knowledge, how much more could a superior being with far more scientific knowledge than we have do the same and more. Even if we do firm up the theory of evolution as a natural process, then that still doesn't mean that a being, such as God, couldn't have used evolution to create man and life on the earth. Heck, He probably could use both evolution and DNA manipulation. Let's face as much as science has advanced, it has a long way to go. One thing religion has right is the superior being idea. No matter how much scientific knowledge we acquire, there is more to be found. By the way, when does life begin? Scientists used to believe in spontaneous generation, remember? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation. What is laughable is that some people, even scientists, have duped themselves into believing it again. If we make spontaneous generation small enough, down to the level of atoms, then spontaneous generation of life is believable again. There is more to it than mixing elements. We are still finding smaller and smaller parts of atoms. Spontaneous generation does NOT occur, no matter how small we make it. The creation of life is something we still don't understand. I recently read this article where scientists are saying that we can almost create life in a lab. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ribonucleotides. As we try to prove that we as human's can create life (and if you read the article, we didn't even come close yet) the idea of a God being able to create life becomes more possible, not less. If we figured something out, and we can manipulate some part of life scientifically, how much more so could a being that is billions of years more advanced than we are do the same. We can manipulate DNA. Why would science discount the idea that in the vast expanse of the universe a superior race exists that has been manipulating life and DNA forever. A real scientist would not discount the idea because science is out to prove and disprove theories, not make rash statements. A real scientist would not discount the theory of a superior being until it is proven that a superior being doesn't exist. Showing that our limited human race can almost create life is evidence that life can be created in a way other than a natural process, which is more evidence of the possibility of a God. I am a software developer and very logical. I believe in God because I feel there is something more out there and logically, a superior being makes sense, especially since time is forever, without a beginning and without an end. I believe in continued scientific learning because I feel there is something more out there and logically we have infinitely more to learn. I have yet to see the two beliefs conflict.

Journalist Stephen Levy goes into the data center itself:

"Google Throws Open Doors to Its Top-Secret Data Center"

Pretty fascinating stuff. I didn't expect the whole thing to be run on C-64s.

There is no reason why a convict should be denied the tools and space to develop software when that software is in everyone's best interest.

In general, no. However, have you seen his handwritten letters and read the text of his complaints and demands? The guy is seriously delusional and deep in denial. I don't think I'd want to trust my data to code written by a mind that unhinged.

As for the other two things, typing skills and UI concepts, they can be trivially learned by him 10 years from now just as easily. He'll pick them up on his own before that, anyway.

What do you bet that in ten years:
Mice will be dead; everything will be motion tracking, eye tracking, touch tracking, etc.
Nobody will type (by "Nobody I mean you can safely round the number of typists in the world down to zero).
Contemporary "UI Concepts" will seem quaint in the way that most people today view command lines as quaint.

I can't offer any practical advice about helping a 3 year old develop, but ask yourself: "What did your parents do in your formative years?" Are you pleased with how you turned out? Can you think of anything that would have made a difference?
Let's assume you're 35 now. When you were a three year old, that would have been around 1978. Taking a guess at what environment environment enriching things your parents provided for you then, I'm going to go with a teddy bear over an altair. Maybe -speak n spell.
I'm guessing the finger paints, blocks, stuffed animals are more useful than technology.
One more thing to consider, most computer games aren't very interactive - you can play finger paints or blocks with your child. How much time will you interact with them if they're on the computer? In a few short years you both will have lots of fun with geek things in the future so enjoy the time you have now - it will go fast. :-)

Those "DARPA Grand Challenges" are total frauds...gamed from the start. The 'contest' is for publicity.

I put a few links below, also watch the Discovery Channel videos if you want to see it before you eyes. It really is a propaganda stunt...I felt really sad after I realized what was happening. Read between the lines.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2003/11/61030
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxAv4Pm3z40 (link to promo video...the full vid of the Science Channel show is readily available)