Man accused of being a paedophile for taking a picture of his own son while shopping in the UK
Is it any wonder why we all left?
Upon reviewing the new technologies coming out from companies like “Google”, I’m reminded of great privacy advocates like Bruce Schneier.
If you haven’t heard, Google’s new “Google Goggles” allows recognition software to trace objects and then automatically render it and then search info for you. Just by taking a picture of a subject. For instance, take a picture of the Empire State Building and instantly get a complete list of info on that building. Works with landscapes, buildings, etc. Now the scary thing is, this will work with people too. Just take a photo of someone and it will render a search and give you the person’s complete info. Google has said that this option has been turned off on their phone. I’m not comfortable with this even if they have not turned it on…. yet. The implications for this are astounding. Can you imagine the abuse just waiting to happen? Just point your camera at a crowd and instantly know everyone in the picture. One friend I was talking to today brought up a good point. He said “I’m convinced the government already has this technology, however, what damage could stalkers do with this?” For all the morons out there who say “well, if you have nothing to hide, what are you worried about?”.
For those people, I refer you to Bruce Schneier:
Schneier on Security
Top web retailers have been scamming customers without their knowledge. In case you haven’t been following this, I encourage you to go to the Cnet article to keep up to date with the Federal investigations going on right now against them.
It appears that these sites have been giving customer credit card information to third parties, and then charging them monthly amounts without their consent.
This is appalling. I have decided to boycott every retailer on this list. Mainly because they can’t be trusted.
I personally hope they throw the book at these evil, vile reprobates.
The e-stores are listed on the CNET site.
PAUL REVERE VIRUS: This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It warns you of impending hard disk attack — once if by LAN, twice if by C.
POLITICALLY CORRECT VIRUS: Never calls itself a “virus”, but instead refers to itself as an “electronic micro-organism.”
MARIO CUOMO VIRUS: It would be a great virus, but it refuses to run.
OPRAH WINFREY VIRUS: Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB, and then slowly expands back to 200MB.
AT&T VIRUS: Every three minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.
THE MCI VIRUS: Every three minutes it reminds you that you are overpaying for the AT&T virus.
TED TURNER VIRUS: Colorizes your monochrome monitor.
ARNOLD SWARZENEGGER VIRUS: Terminates and stays resident. It’ll be back.
GOVERNMENT ECONOMIST VIRUS: Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine.
FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT VIRUS: Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of the computer.
GALLUP VIRUS: Sixty percent of the PCs infected will lose 38 percent of their data 14 percent of the time (plus or minus a 3.5 percent margin of error).
TEXAS VIRUS: Makes sure it’s bigger than any other file.
ADAM AND EVE VIRUS: Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple.
AIRLINE VIRUS: You’re in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore.
PBS VIRUS: Your PC stops every few minutes to ask for money.
ELVIS VIRUS: Your computer gets fat, slow, and lazy and then self destructs, only to resurface at shopping malls and service stations across rural America.
NIKE VIRUS: Just Does It!
SEARS VIRUS: Your data won’t appear unless you buy new cables, power supply, and a set of shocks.
JIMMY HOFFA VIRUS: Nobody can find it.
CONGRESSIONAL VIRUS: Runs every program on the hard drive simultaneously, but doesn’t allow the user to accomplish anything.
KEVORKIAN VIRUS: Helps your computer shut down whenever it wants to.
STAR TREK VIRUS: Invades your system in places where no virus has gone before.
HEALTH CARE VIRUS: Tests your system for a day, finds nothing wrong, and send you a bill for $4,500.s.
TONYA HARDING VIRUS: Turns your .BAT files into lethal weapons.
O.J. VIRUS: It claims that it did not, could not and would not delete two of your files and vows to find the virus that did it.
I received a recent email asking me about the best way to introduce young folks to programming.
Actually, there are two that I recommend.
1) Alice.org – Free software that teaches students about 3D programming.
from the site – Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.
- an educational tool for teaching children powerful ideas in compelling ways
- a media-rich authoring environment and visual programming system
- a free software program that works on almost all personal computers
Both websites offer a great introduction to programming. I wish I would have been able to use tools like this when I started programming 25 years ago. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the internet. Hope this helps.
Tom
The 8th annual So Cal Linux Expo will be February 19-21, 2010 at LAX Westin.
If you’re into Linux and open source software, this is for you.
Nine speakers are scheduled. Register here.
Do you want the absolute ultimate universal remote?
Check out the Harmony 880.
Watch the review from TigerTV. (okay, Logan is a little dorkey and needs a serious haircut).
Amazon has this for $139.99
Looking for a free contact manager? An on-line scheduler, calendar, task manager and more. Access it through the internet anywhere, any time.
Do you use rechargeable NiMH? This device is great. Charge your AA or AAA batteries within two hours (two batteries at a time) using your computer’s USB port.
Although I can’t use this to charge batteries for my Nikon D700 (the battery pack uses eight) because it would take 8 hours to charge 8 batteries, I use this to charge batteries for my pocket camera.
Amazon is selling this device for $13.99
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I had the opportunity to use this card, and frankly, I am amazed. A wireless transmitter embedded in an SD card. I’m not sure how many people would take full advantage of it, but once you play with it, you may decide you just have to buy one. The fact that I can take photos with my digital camera and send them instantly to my computer, is the absolute coolest thing. Although this may be considered a toy for most people, I think you’ll love using it.
Technical Details
- Uploads photos automatically from Eye-Fi Card inside your camera. Built-in Wi-Fi connects to your home network
- Provides free and unlimited photo uploads to your computer and your favorite photo or social networking website. Photo transmission is secure
- Supports sharing and printing websites, including Fotki, Shutterfly, dotPhoto, webshots, phanfare, Picasa Web albums, flickr, TypePad, Wal-Mart
- Handles full-resolution jpeg images and intelligently re-sizes photos if limited by your chosen photo or social networking website
- Fits digital cameras that use SD memory cards and offers 2 GB of memory to store photos on the card
Note: This card is not restricted to 2GB, this is just the one I have used personally.
