California Mystery Missile [Video]

CBS affiliate KCBS captured a mysterious rocket being launched into the sky Monday night, while so far there is no explanation for the siting.






Sources: [CBS News] [SPACE.com] [Live Science]

Obama News: Egyptian Photoshopping

President Obama has recently made tech headlines by asking kids to start creating and making their own educational video games. This is clearly an effort to boost America's extremely low educational rate, and increase US math and science scores to offer more of a competitive advantage against East Asian educational tech centers. But last week, Egypt surprised the world with their amazing Photoshop abilities.

An Egyptian newspaper photoshopped the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was digitally moved in front of President Obama. Though you have to admire their photoshopping skills, specifically using the special crop tool and the magic wand to replace the carpet pattern, I have to wonder who's idea this was and why they deemed it necessary.

When analyzing the two photo's above a few things are very clear. First, that President Mubarak was erased from the photo, then a completely separate photo of Mubarak was added in front of President Obama. We can tell it is a separate image of the Egyptian President for two main reasons: first, in the original photo Mubarak's left hand is further back than his right, and if you place an imaginary horizontal line across the Presidents body, his left arm is higher up than his right arm. But in the second photo, the Presidents hands are on the same horizontal plane, allowing us to conclude that this is a different image of the Egyptian President. Second, if you look at the doctored photo, there is a small space where you can see the red carpet between Mubarak's legs as the two legs of his pants touch as he walks. This space is not in the original photo.

It is important to note that the newspaper used a different image of Mubarak to illustrate that there was a lot of choice and work to doctoring this photo. In a world where image and public opinion means everything to politics, technology is a tool clearly being used in world politics.



Sources: [Business Insider]

CIA + Google: Invest in Web-Monitoring Company

With countries like Dubai and Saudi Arabia banning Blackberry's within their nations since the Blackberry encryption cannot be monitored, web-monitoring has become an international topic. Critics of Blackberry argue that their encryption "... hinders efforts to fight terrorism and criminal activity." [BBC]


The United States is very invested in web-monitoring. The company called Recorded Future is a new company that focuses on searching the internet and coming up with all the invisible connections between people and creating information timelines to predict the future. The company works by:

1. Scouring the Internet

Scan thousands [closer to millions most likely] of news publications, blogs, nich sources, trade publications, government websites, financial databases, and more..."

2. Extracts, ranks, and organizes

Extract information from text and html to develop accurate timelines of information that is measured against "momentum for each item in [the] index.

3. Organize the information

Using "powerful visualization tools" allows the user to see "temporal patterns" and links between multiple networks while exploring the past and present to predict the future.

Other companies such as Visible Technologies provide similar search capabilities, as they search 500,000 web 2.0 sites per day. But Recorded Future is gaining the most hype and both the CIA and Google are investing in the company.

CIA Director General Michael Hayden said in 2008 that, "in fact, there's a real satisfication in solving a problem or answering a tough question with infomration that somone was dumb enough to leave out in the open. [Danger Room]

"Recorded Future certainly has the potential to spot events and trends early. Take the case of Hezbollah’s long-range missiles. On March 21, Israeli President Shimon Peres leveled the allegation that the terror group had Scud-like weapons. Scouring Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s past statements, Recorded Future found corroborating evidence from a month prior that appeared to back up Peres’ accusations."

A few things that seem somewhat obvious that no one has talked about. First, the NSA clearly has the capabilities to not only crack the Blackberry encryption, but perform the same services as Recorded Futures. Second, Americans looking to not have their freedom of speech and privacy violated should not worry as under Obama, none of the information obtained via illegal wiretaps or electronic communications is admissible in court.

Sources: [Danger Room] [BBC] [Recorded Futures]

A Flashlight/Machine Gun

Did he say the Magpul FMG-9 is for "checking your mailbox?"



Sources: [Boing Boing]

Top Secret: A Bacteria that Finds Land Mines

Remember in the James Bond movie, Die Another Day, when the villain's satellite of doom shot a powerful laser down from space and destroyed all the land mines separating North and South Korea? In case you don't, here's what happened to the land mines:

But thanks to science, North Korea won't need a satellite of doom, they'll need bacteria. Scientist have invented a bacteria that lights up around land mines.

It seems like something straight out of a science fiction film, but this new bacteria is very real. According to the BBC, the "scientists produced the bacteria using a new technique called BioBricking, which manipulates packages of DNA." The bacteria is then mixed into a colorless solution, "which forms green patches when sprayed onto ground where mines are buried." The bacterial stew can also be dropped via airplane in extremely sensitive areas.

Original Article Link