YOU CAN DO WITHOUT!
GOOGLE'S RADICAL AGENDA
Google recently agreed to forfeit $500 million to avoid prosecution for knowingly accepting illegal advertisements from online Canadian pharmacies. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Google knew that the pharmacies were promoting illegal importation of drugs, yet it continued to accept the ads and provide customer support to the advertisers.
However, this isn’t an isolated incident. Google has repeatedly been accused of violating privacy laws, facilitating copyright infringement and aiding online piracy. Google consistently demonstrates disregard for the rule of law — a disregard stemming from Google’s radical political beliefs.
Google’s radical ideology consists of five key ideas:
Information should be free: Google and its political allies want to turn the Internet into an “information commons.” To that end, they seek to weaken copyright, trademark and patent protections. This “what’s yours is mine” philosophy is used by Google to monetize others’ information and content without paying for it. For example, Google allows its customers to use others’ trademarks as search advertising keywords.
Access to information should be unfettered: Google aims to replace user privacy and data security with radical transparency and openness. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt wants us to believe that omnipresent surveillance is simply a modern fact of life: “If you’re online all the time, computers are generating a lot of information about you. This is not a Google decision, this is a societal decision.” What Schmidt doesn’t mention is that Google uses its free products and services to track and profile users. That’s why Google has earned the moniker “Big Brother Inc.”
Innovators don’t need permission: Google believes that if you are developing innovative solutions, you shouldn’t require others’ permission to use their property or violate their privacy. Put another way, innovators provide a service to society and should be exempt from laws that get in their way. For example, Google appointed itself to scan and digitize the world’s books without first obtaining permission from copyright holders.
Everything that’s technically possible is allowable: Google believes that if something is technically possible, it should be done, because inevitably it will be done. Therefore, the development and use of technology trumps all other values. This idea can be used to justify everything from tracking and profiling users against their wishes to cloning human beings.
Our information-based society should be run by engineers: Google believes that technology is too sophisticated and complex to be managed by non-experts. Therefore, the Internet should be run by elite engineers (many of whom work at Google). This idea places Google above the laws, rules, norms and standards of accountability that apply to everyone else.
Google’s radical ideology poses a number of dangers. Google is the dominant provider of Internet search service, handling about 80% of Internet searches worldwide. Google has the power to determine what information gets found and what gets lost in the crowd. Google claims that its search engine is “unbiased” but has admitted to using human raters, regularly adjusting its search algorithm and placing its own content at or near the top of search results. If Google manipulated search results in subtle ways for political purposes, would we even know it?
As the world’s biggest data-mining operation, with more than one billion users, Google knows more about influencing people than anyone in history. That may explain why Google’s dominance of search advertising is even more pronounced than its dominance of search. With this knowledge, Google has acquired unprecedented power to sway public opinion — should it choose to do so.
In fact, Google’s leaders have repeatedly said that they are not in business to make money but to “change the world.” As they stated in their 2004 IPO letter, “We aspire to make Google an institution that makes the world a better place.” Eric Schmidt is even more emphatic: “The goal of the company is not to monetize anything … The goal is to change the world — and monetization is a technique to do that.”
As the Internet’s lone superpower (consuming more electricity than Salt Lake City), Google has the wherewithal to influence elections, trade favors with government agencies and meddle in international disputes. Eric Schmidt publicly boasted that Google is on track to develop “truth predictor” software to keep politicians honest. Google’s free Political Campaign Toolkit promises to help candidates win elections. It all sounds non-partisan until you consider the evidence to the contrary. For example, Google removed Republican Senator Susan Collins’s AdWords ads countering television ads by Moveon.org based on a company policy that (as Brit Hume showed) Google only selectively enforces.
Google wants to change the world by destroying privacy, abolishing property rights and putting its engineers in charge of the Internet. With that attitude, it’s no surprise that Google felt justified hosting advertisements by pharmacies promoting the illegal importation of drugs. As the dominant provider of search and search advertising services, armed with its radical ideology, Google could cause far worse damage. It’s up to the rest of us to make Google obey the law, respect the rights of others and be more accountable.
However, this isn’t an isolated incident. Google has repeatedly been accused of violating privacy laws, facilitating copyright infringement and aiding online piracy. Google consistently demonstrates disregard for the rule of law — a disregard stemming from Google’s radical political beliefs.
Google’s radical ideology consists of five key ideas:
Information should be free: Google and its political allies want to turn the Internet into an “information commons.” To that end, they seek to weaken copyright, trademark and patent protections. This “what’s yours is mine” philosophy is used by Google to monetize others’ information and content without paying for it. For example, Google allows its customers to use others’ trademarks as search advertising keywords.
Access to information should be unfettered: Google aims to replace user privacy and data security with radical transparency and openness. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt wants us to believe that omnipresent surveillance is simply a modern fact of life: “If you’re online all the time, computers are generating a lot of information about you. This is not a Google decision, this is a societal decision.” What Schmidt doesn’t mention is that Google uses its free products and services to track and profile users. That’s why Google has earned the moniker “Big Brother Inc.”
Innovators don’t need permission: Google believes that if you are developing innovative solutions, you shouldn’t require others’ permission to use their property or violate their privacy. Put another way, innovators provide a service to society and should be exempt from laws that get in their way. For example, Google appointed itself to scan and digitize the world’s books without first obtaining permission from copyright holders.
Everything that’s technically possible is allowable: Google believes that if something is technically possible, it should be done, because inevitably it will be done. Therefore, the development and use of technology trumps all other values. This idea can be used to justify everything from tracking and profiling users against their wishes to cloning human beings.
Our information-based society should be run by engineers: Google believes that technology is too sophisticated and complex to be managed by non-experts. Therefore, the Internet should be run by elite engineers (many of whom work at Google). This idea places Google above the laws, rules, norms and standards of accountability that apply to everyone else.
Google’s radical ideology poses a number of dangers. Google is the dominant provider of Internet search service, handling about 80% of Internet searches worldwide. Google has the power to determine what information gets found and what gets lost in the crowd. Google claims that its search engine is “unbiased” but has admitted to using human raters, regularly adjusting its search algorithm and placing its own content at or near the top of search results. If Google manipulated search results in subtle ways for political purposes, would we even know it?
As the world’s biggest data-mining operation, with more than one billion users, Google knows more about influencing people than anyone in history. That may explain why Google’s dominance of search advertising is even more pronounced than its dominance of search. With this knowledge, Google has acquired unprecedented power to sway public opinion — should it choose to do so.
In fact, Google’s leaders have repeatedly said that they are not in business to make money but to “change the world.” As they stated in their 2004 IPO letter, “We aspire to make Google an institution that makes the world a better place.” Eric Schmidt is even more emphatic: “The goal of the company is not to monetize anything … The goal is to change the world — and monetization is a technique to do that.”
As the Internet’s lone superpower (consuming more electricity than Salt Lake City), Google has the wherewithal to influence elections, trade favors with government agencies and meddle in international disputes. Eric Schmidt publicly boasted that Google is on track to develop “truth predictor” software to keep politicians honest. Google’s free Political Campaign Toolkit promises to help candidates win elections. It all sounds non-partisan until you consider the evidence to the contrary. For example, Google removed Republican Senator Susan Collins’s AdWords ads countering television ads by Moveon.org based on a company policy that (as Brit Hume showed) Google only selectively enforces.
Google wants to change the world by destroying privacy, abolishing property rights and putting its engineers in charge of the Internet. With that attitude, it’s no surprise that Google felt justified hosting advertisements by pharmacies promoting the illegal importation of drugs. As the dominant provider of search and search advertising services, armed with its radical ideology, Google could cause far worse damage. It’s up to the rest of us to make Google obey the law, respect the rights of others and be more accountable.
Ira Brodsky
Author, "The History & Future of Medical Technology"
Author, "The History & Future of Medical Technology"
Use goodgopher.com or duckduckgo.com and delete your gmail.com, youtube.com and all Alphabet companies.
Use GoodGopher www.goodgopher.com/
Good Gopher, developed by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger and editor of NaturalNews.com is using his technical expertise to create GoodGopher.com which will benefit all "alternative" websites publishing truth rather than publishing propaganda and leftist ideologies.
Good Gopher is building the internet's largest search engine for those searching for information and news on liberty, natural healing, central banks, food freedom, advanced science and a multitude of other topics no longer allowed in NSA-controlled search engines.
Good Gopher's Pledge of Integrity is the world's first privacy-protected search engine that filters out corporate propaganda, government disinformation.
Good Gopher is the "Anti-Google" search engine and here's what we pledge to all our users:
Good Gopher is building the internet's largest search engine for those searching for information and news on liberty, natural healing, central banks, food freedom, advanced science and a multitude of other topics no longer allowed in NSA-controlled search engines.
Good Gopher's Pledge of Integrity is the world's first privacy-protected search engine that filters out corporate propaganda, government disinformation.
Good Gopher is the "Anti-Google" search engine and here's what we pledge to all our users:
- NO SPYING ON YOU. We don't record your search history. We don't track your browsing habits. We don't build a psychological profile of you. When you search on GoodGopher.com, your search is private. Even if GoodGopher.com is hacked, it cannot reveal individual search histories because it does not record them!
- NO CORPORATE PROPAGANDA OR GOVERNMENT DISINFO. GoodGopher actively seeks to filter out corporate propaganda and government disinfo. Because our filters aren't perfect, we also enable users to flag search results with a "Bad Gopher!" flag. When enough users flag a link as "Bad Gopher!" we review the URL and parent domain to determine whether it should be banned from our index. "Bad Gopher!" clicks do not affect rankings, so trolls have no reason to arbitrarily click links for sites they don't like.
- HONEST RELEVANCY ALGORITHM. Our relevancy algorithm is equally applied across all sites, meaning that even small sites have the same shot as being #1 for any given search term as a large site. No site (not even NaturalNews.com) receives any special boost. All sites in the index are subject to the exact same ranking algorithms. Sites can, of course, be banned from the index for spamming or using black hat techniques to try to game the system.
- NO PROMOTION OF PHARMACEUTICALS AND OTHER POISONS. GoodGopher is funded by advertising but we don't let just anybody advertise on the site. We specifically ban all corporate advertisers who sell pharmaceuticals, pesticides, GMOs, vaccines and other toxic products that destroy human life and contaminate the planet. This isn't even the full list.
- We also ban gambling and porn sites and we review each potential advertiser on a case by case basis. Our decision process is guided by principles of human decency, human rights, ecological sustainability and honest business practices. We reserve the right to ban any advertiser at any time.
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- NO BACK DOORS TO THE NSA. GoodGopher wasn't built by a bunch of NSA spooks. We don't have any back doors to spy agencies or federal agencies. It should be noted, however, that we are still subject to court orders from federal judges, but even if a court ordered us to turn over something, we can't turn over that which we don't possess!
Inventor of the World Wide Web warns tech giants must be regulated, or the ‘net will plunge into “weaponization” that harms society
Thursday, March 15, 2018 by: Lance D Johnson
Tags: Censorship, civil war, Collapse, Facebook, freedom of speech, Google, groupthink, Internet freedom, internet innovation, tech giants, Tyranny, violence
(Natural News) Inventor of the World Wide Web,British computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, is speaking out about how the internet is being weaponized against people. He believes that tech giants should be regulated so that free speech can be restored across the net. Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc., control a vast proportion of the information people receive. The groupthink that dominates these organizations drives them to censor dissenting voices on the internet and favor the content that aligns with their goals.
In 2019, the internet celebrates its thirtieth birthday. What was once an open portal for communication and sharing information, the internet has slowly become a totalitarian hub of thought control. Tech giants now censor certain viewpoints while favoring the content they want people to consume.
Helpful information and contrarian viewpoints are a threat to specific authority figures and industries, and tech giants have the power to police this. For instance, 1700+ videos from the Health Ranger’s YouTube channel were taken down with no justification. These videos teach critical thinking and self-reliance; the content penetrates the fragile philosophies and groupthink that pervades big tech culture. This leftist groupthink is so strong, Google will terminates employees for recognizing the fact there are only two genders and that male and female are inherently different.
Likewise, the Gateway Pundit’s conservative viewpoints have faced censorship from big tech. InfoWar’s in-depth analysis has faced censorship for simply questioning motives and agendas behind the Parkland, Fl shooting. Strong people like Michelle Malkin have fought back against repeated censorship tactics.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee warns: “The web that many connected to years ago is not what new users will find today. What was once a rich selection of blogs and websites has been compressed under the powerful weight of a few dominant platforms. This concentration of power creates a new set of gatekeepers, allowing a handful of platforms to control which ideas and opinions are seen and shared.”
Perhaps, Berners-Lee should consult the Social Media Neutrality Panel, which featured censored voices such as Pamela Geller of the Geller Report and Margaret Howell of Rightside Broadcasting. The panel discussed social media bias, shadow banning and various other methods used to silence voices and restrict access to information on the web.
Berners-Lee is now working to make internet free, open, and affordable to more people around the world while advocating for decentralization of thought and information. The web cannot welcome innovation and the free flow of ideas if a handful of tech giants have the power to control which ideas and opinions are shared. How can small, innovative online stores and bloggers get their products and message out if the most powerful players in the industry dominate what people see online?
Berners-Lee warns that these platforms become dominant by “creating barriers for competitors.” With their deep pockets and heavy-handed influence, these platforms may “acquire startup challengers, buy up new innovations and hire the industry’s top talent.” These dominant platforms meticulously collect user data from people, which give them an extreme advantage in the online marketplace.
All the data that is being collected on internet users, including searches, connections, and interests, can be used against them to target market products, news, and information. This predatory breach of privacy and target marketing is motivated by profit and is all about controlling what people read, so any voluntary changes made by the tech giants will not be done for the public good because any changes will be counterproductive to their financial mission. There must be a new incentive that changes the way platforms operate.
This incentive should stop tech giants from suppressing any competition or dissent. It should not give them more power to police content. For example, Facebook cannot be trusted to weed out “fake news” from being shared on its platform; this only equates to censorship. Regulations that empower the tech giants will only embolden the problem. New regulations should hold the tech giants accountable for violating freedom of ideas and freedom of expression, even if they disagree with the content or find it “offensive.”
For more updates, visit Censorship.News.
Sources include:
ZeroHedge.com
NaturalNews.com
NaturalNews.com
NaturalNews.com
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Cable giants, Bell,Roger and Cogeco step up battle against 'free TV' Android box, but can they win?
Toronto - Canada - December 18 - 2016 - Cable giants are stepping up their legal battle to stamp out the fully loaded Android TV box business. Their method of attack: adding more retailers to the hit list. According to court documents, Bell, Rogers and Quebec's Vidéotron are now going after about 45 Canadian companies for selling Android boxes loaded with special software. Customers connect the box to their televisions and watch everything from TV shows to movies to live sports — for free. High speed internet is required.
The three TV and content providers launched their case in Federal Court in June, naming just five retailers. They have continued to add defendants and will keep doing so if the opportunity strikes, Bell told CBC News in an email. But some industry insiders claim that, no matter how many dealers get hit, legal action is not going to stop the growing loaded Android box industry.
"I don't see this court case changing anything," says Patrick O'Rourke, a Toronto-based writer for the tech site MobileSyrup. "You shut down these companies, there'll be hundreds more that will pop up." As with other forms of piracy, O'Rourke says, the only way to effectively combat it is to offer customers what they want — cheaper, more tailored legitimate TV services.
Fully loaded Android boxes have become the scourge of the cable TV industry. The devices are similar to Apple TV, but the added software enables customers to easily stream an almost limitless amount of pirated content.
Vincent Wesley in Montreal used to sell the boxes for a one-time fee of $70 to $250. He advertised that TV watchers could get "everything for free."
"I guess I painted a bit of a bull's-eye," he says.
Indeed, he was one of the first people to be named in the court case. Wesley works as an operations manager for a pharmaceutical waste company. He sold loaded boxes on the side through his company, MTLFreeTV.
He currently can't sell the product or even post YouTube videos about it. That's because Bell, Rogers and Vidéotron have won a temporary injunction to block defendants from selling loaded boxes until the matter is resolved. Wesley is appealing the court decision.
The three TV and content providers launched their case in Federal Court in June, naming just five retailers. They have continued to add defendants and will keep doing so if the opportunity strikes, Bell told CBC News in an email. But some industry insiders claim that, no matter how many dealers get hit, legal action is not going to stop the growing loaded Android box industry.
"I don't see this court case changing anything," says Patrick O'Rourke, a Toronto-based writer for the tech site MobileSyrup. "You shut down these companies, there'll be hundreds more that will pop up." As with other forms of piracy, O'Rourke says, the only way to effectively combat it is to offer customers what they want — cheaper, more tailored legitimate TV services.
Fully loaded Android boxes have become the scourge of the cable TV industry. The devices are similar to Apple TV, but the added software enables customers to easily stream an almost limitless amount of pirated content.
Vincent Wesley in Montreal used to sell the boxes for a one-time fee of $70 to $250. He advertised that TV watchers could get "everything for free."
"I guess I painted a bit of a bull's-eye," he says.
Indeed, he was one of the first people to be named in the court case. Wesley works as an operations manager for a pharmaceutical waste company. He sold loaded boxes on the side through his company, MTLFreeTV.
He currently can't sell the product or even post YouTube videos about it. That's because Bell, Rogers and Vidéotron have won a temporary injunction to block defendants from selling loaded boxes until the matter is resolved. Wesley is appealing the court decision.
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In court documents, the plaintiffs argue that dealers promoting and selling the boxes have "induced and authorized" customers to engage in copyright infringement. They also claim the devices threaten their business because they motivate people to cut their cable."This is an obvious case of piracy, which is why we asked the court to stop the illegal use of our content," said Rogers spokesman Andrew Garas in an email.
Wesley's lawyer, Constantin Kyritsis, argues the devices are like iPads, Apple TVs or computers that can be used for both legal and illegal purposes.
"The vendor doesn't control or authorize what users do, or what software providers enable users to do," he told CBC News.
But whatever the legal argument, O'Rourke argues that the box business is too big to shut down.
"You can go on Kijiji right now, search fully loaded Android TV and buy one."
CBC News tried this and pages of retailers popped up. One Ontario dealer asking for $119 per device boldly states in the ad: "These boxes are great and give you free TV, movies, shows."
Another dealer with the company name, "SimplyFreeTV," announces, "Say goodbye to your monthly TV subscription."
We also found numerous retailers offering the device on Amazon. Wesley says he knows of many people still peddling the loaded boxes and that the publicity from the legal battle has actually helped promote the device. "If anything, they've made it worse because they've put a spotlight on it," he says. But Bell expects the spotlight will work in its favour. "We hope that we've increased awareness that these boxes are illegal and highlighted their negative impact on people working in Canada's content production industry," said spokeswoman Michelle Michalak.
Wesley also argues that even if the cable giants manage to round up every Canadian retailer, people can still order the product from U.S. dealers.
Wesley's lawyer, Constantin Kyritsis, argues the devices are like iPads, Apple TVs or computers that can be used for both legal and illegal purposes.
"The vendor doesn't control or authorize what users do, or what software providers enable users to do," he told CBC News.
But whatever the legal argument, O'Rourke argues that the box business is too big to shut down.
"You can go on Kijiji right now, search fully loaded Android TV and buy one."
CBC News tried this and pages of retailers popped up. One Ontario dealer asking for $119 per device boldly states in the ad: "These boxes are great and give you free TV, movies, shows."
Another dealer with the company name, "SimplyFreeTV," announces, "Say goodbye to your monthly TV subscription."
We also found numerous retailers offering the device on Amazon. Wesley says he knows of many people still peddling the loaded boxes and that the publicity from the legal battle has actually helped promote the device. "If anything, they've made it worse because they've put a spotlight on it," he says. But Bell expects the spotlight will work in its favour. "We hope that we've increased awareness that these boxes are illegal and highlighted their negative impact on people working in Canada's content production industry," said spokeswoman Michelle Michalak.
Wesley also argues that even if the cable giants manage to round up every Canadian retailer, people can still order the product from U.S. dealers.
Sweeping UK spy bill dubbed 'snoopers' charter' becomes law
LONDON (AP) — In Britain, Big Brother just got bigger. After months of wrangling, Parliament has passed a contentious new snooping law that gives authorities — from police and spies to food regulators, fire officials and tax inspectors — powers to look at the internet browsing records of everyone in the country.
The law requires telecoms companies to keep records of all users' web activity for a year, creating databases of personal information that the firms worry could be vulnerable to leaks and hackers. Civil liberties groups say the law establishes mass surveillance of British citizens, following innocent internet users from the office to the living room and the bedroom.
The law requires telecoms companies to keep records of all users' web activity for a year, creating databases of personal information that the firms worry could be vulnerable to leaks and hackers. Civil liberties groups say the law establishes mass surveillance of British citizens, following innocent internet users from the office to the living room and the bedroom.
Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist credited with inventing World Wide Web, tweeted news of the law's passage with the words: "Dark, dark days." The Investigatory Powers Bill — dubbed the "snoopers' charter" by critics — was passed by Parliament this month after more than a year of debate and amendments. It will become law when it receives the formality of royal assent next week. But big questions remain about how it will work, and the government acknowledges it could be 12 months before internet firms have to start storing the records.
"It won't happen in a big bang next week," Home Office official Chris Mills told a meeting of internet service providers on Thursday. "It will be a phased program of the introduction of the measures over a year or so."
The government says the new law "ensures powers are fit for the digital age," replacing a patchwork of often outdated rules and giving law-enforcement agencies the tools to fight terrorism and serious crime.
"It won't happen in a big bang next week," Home Office official Chris Mills told a meeting of internet service providers on Thursday. "It will be a phased program of the introduction of the measures over a year or so."
The government says the new law "ensures powers are fit for the digital age," replacing a patchwork of often outdated rules and giving law-enforcement agencies the tools to fight terrorism and serious crime.
In a move taken by few other nations, it requires telecommunications companies to store for a year the web histories known as internet connection records — a list of websites each person has visited and the apps and messaging services they used, though not the individual pages they looked at or the messages they sent.
The government has called that information the modern equivalent of an itemized phone bill. But critics say it's more like a personal diary. Julian Huppert, a former Liberal Democrat lawmaker who opposed the bill, said it "creates a very intrusive database."
"People may have been to the Depression Alliance website, or a marriage guidance website, or an abortion provider's website, or all sorts of things which are very personal and private," he said. Officials won't need a warrant to access the data, and the list of bodies that can see it includes not just the police and intelligence services, but government departments, revenue and customs officials and even the Food Standards Agency.
"My worry is partly about their access," Huppert said. "But it's much more deeply about the prospects for either hacking or people selling information on." James Blessing, chairman of the Internet Services Providers Association, said the industry has "significant questions" on how the law will work — including "how to keep the vast new data sets secure."
He warned that if the law is not implemented in a "proportionate, considered way, there is a real danger the U.K. could lose its status as a world-leading digital economy." Some aspects of the new law remain clouded by secrecy. Not all internet companies will have to comply — only those that are asked to by the government. The government won't say who is on that list, and the firms involved are forbidden from telling their customers.
Service providers are also concerned by the law's provision that firms can be asked to remove encryption to let spies access communications. Internet companies say that could weaken the security of online shopping, banking and a host of other activities that rely on encryption.
The new law also makes official — and legal — British spies' ability to hack into devices and harvest vast amounts of bulk online data, much of it from outside the U.K. In doing so, it both acknowledges and sets limits on the secretive mass-snooping schemes exposed by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The government has called that information the modern equivalent of an itemized phone bill. But critics say it's more like a personal diary. Julian Huppert, a former Liberal Democrat lawmaker who opposed the bill, said it "creates a very intrusive database."
"People may have been to the Depression Alliance website, or a marriage guidance website, or an abortion provider's website, or all sorts of things which are very personal and private," he said. Officials won't need a warrant to access the data, and the list of bodies that can see it includes not just the police and intelligence services, but government departments, revenue and customs officials and even the Food Standards Agency.
"My worry is partly about their access," Huppert said. "But it's much more deeply about the prospects for either hacking or people selling information on." James Blessing, chairman of the Internet Services Providers Association, said the industry has "significant questions" on how the law will work — including "how to keep the vast new data sets secure."
He warned that if the law is not implemented in a "proportionate, considered way, there is a real danger the U.K. could lose its status as a world-leading digital economy." Some aspects of the new law remain clouded by secrecy. Not all internet companies will have to comply — only those that are asked to by the government. The government won't say who is on that list, and the firms involved are forbidden from telling their customers.
Service providers are also concerned by the law's provision that firms can be asked to remove encryption to let spies access communications. Internet companies say that could weaken the security of online shopping, banking and a host of other activities that rely on encryption.
The new law also makes official — and legal — British spies' ability to hack into devices and harvest vast amounts of bulk online data, much of it from outside the U.K. In doing so, it both acknowledges and sets limits on the secretive mass-snooping schemes exposed by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The government says the law incorporates protections against intrusion, including an investigatory powers commissioner to oversee the system, and judges to scrutinize government-approved warrants to hack into electronic devices or look at the content of communications.
David Anderson, a lawyer who serves as Britain's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said the new law "creates powerful new safeguards" and "achieves world-leading standards of transparency by putting on a detailed statutory basis all the powers which police and intelligence agencies already use."
Privacy groups battled to stop the new legislation, and now say they will challenge it in court. But public opposition has been muted, in part because the bill's passage through Parliament has been overshadowed by Britain's vote to leave the European Union and the upheaval that has followed.
Renate Samson, chief executive of the group Big Brother Watch, said it would take time for the full implications of the law to become clear to the public. "We now live in a digital world. We are digital citizens," Samson said. "We have no choice about whether or not we engage online.
"This bill has fundamentally changed how we are able to privately and securely communicate with one another, communicate with business, communicate with government and live an online life. And that's a real, profound concern."
Follow Jill Lawless on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless
David Anderson, a lawyer who serves as Britain's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said the new law "creates powerful new safeguards" and "achieves world-leading standards of transparency by putting on a detailed statutory basis all the powers which police and intelligence agencies already use."
Privacy groups battled to stop the new legislation, and now say they will challenge it in court. But public opposition has been muted, in part because the bill's passage through Parliament has been overshadowed by Britain's vote to leave the European Union and the upheaval that has followed.
Renate Samson, chief executive of the group Big Brother Watch, said it would take time for the full implications of the law to become clear to the public. "We now live in a digital world. We are digital citizens," Samson said. "We have no choice about whether or not we engage online.
"This bill has fundamentally changed how we are able to privately and securely communicate with one another, communicate with business, communicate with government and live an online life. And that's a real, profound concern."
Follow Jill Lawless on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless
The full list of agencies that can now ask for UK citizens’ browsing history, which is laid out in Schedule 4 of the Bill and was collected by Chris Yiu, is below:
- Metropolitan Police Service
- City of London Police
- Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996
- Police Service of Scotland
- Police Service of Northern Ireland
- British Transport Police
- Ministry of Defence Police
- Royal Navy Police
- Royal Military Police
- Royal Air Force Police
- Security Service
- Secret Intelligence Service
- GCHQ
- Ministry of Defence
- Department of Health
- Home Office
- Ministry of Justice
- National Crime Agency
- HM Revenue & Customs
- Department for Transport
- Department for Work and Pensions
- NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services
- Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service
- Competition and Markets Authority
- Criminal Cases Review Commission
- Department for Communities in Northern Ireland
- Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland
- Department of Justice in Northern Ireland
- Financial Conduct Authority
- Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
- Food Standards Agency
- Food Standards Scotland
- Gambling Commission
- Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority
- Health and Safety Executive
- Independent Police Complaints Commissioner
- Information Commissioner
- NHS Business Services Authority
- Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust
- Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board
- Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Regional Business Services Organisation
- Office of Communications
- Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland
- Police Investigations and Review Commissioner
- Scottish Ambulance Service Board
- Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
- Serious Fraud Office
- Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust
Hot new timepieces you cannot live without
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The President of the United States defends surveillance effort as "trade-off" for security
San Jose - California - December 19 -2013 - President Barack Obama on Friday staunchly defended the sweeping U.S. government surveillance of Americans' phone and internet activity, calling it a "modest encroachment" on privacy that was necessary to defend the United States from attack.
"Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That's not what this program is about," Obama told reporters during a visit to California's Silicon Valley. He emphasized that the secret surveillance programs were supervised by federal judges and authorized by Congress, which had been briefed on the details.
Obama's comments came after reports this week in Britain's Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post revealed that the National Security Agency and the FBI had secretly conducted surveillance of Americans' telephone and internet communications activities far beyond what had been made public.
The Post reported late on Thursday that American authorities had been tapping into the central servers of nine internet companies - including Google, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook - to gain access to emails, photographs and other documents and files that would allow analysts to track a person's movements and contacts.
Hours earlier, the Guardian reported that the NSA had been mining phone records from millions of customers of a subsidiary of Verizon Communications. The Wall Street Journal subsequently reported that the monitoring also included AT&T Inc and Sprint Nextel Corp customers, and that the agency also had cataloged credit-card transactions.
The Obama administration is likely to open a criminal investigation into the leaking of highly classified documents on the programs to the Post and Guardian, U.S. law enforcement and security officials said.
The relationship between the government's surveillance program and the internet companies remained murky on Friday.
Some of the companies named by the Post - Google, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook - denied that the government was able to tap directly into their central servers, as the newspaper reported.
Microsoft said it did not voluntarily participate in any government data collection and only complied "with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a statement saying: "We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. And if we did, we would fight it aggressively."
It is a huge gathering of information by the federal government. The argument that it protects national security is unpersuasive. The surveillance disclosures have become a subject of humor on the Internet. The Huffington Post, suggesting Obama's security policies had begun to mirror those of his much-criticized predecessor, the un-elected George W. Bush, greeted readers with a photoshop melding of their pictures with a headline: "George W. Obama."
On YOU TUBE, there was a parody of Verizon's "Can you hear me now?" commercials, with Obama's voice answering in a refrain of his 2008 campaign slogan, "Yes, we can!"
By Matt Spetalnick and Steve Holland
"Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That's not what this program is about," Obama told reporters during a visit to California's Silicon Valley. He emphasized that the secret surveillance programs were supervised by federal judges and authorized by Congress, which had been briefed on the details.
Obama's comments came after reports this week in Britain's Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post revealed that the National Security Agency and the FBI had secretly conducted surveillance of Americans' telephone and internet communications activities far beyond what had been made public.
The Post reported late on Thursday that American authorities had been tapping into the central servers of nine internet companies - including Google, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook - to gain access to emails, photographs and other documents and files that would allow analysts to track a person's movements and contacts.
Hours earlier, the Guardian reported that the NSA had been mining phone records from millions of customers of a subsidiary of Verizon Communications. The Wall Street Journal subsequently reported that the monitoring also included AT&T Inc and Sprint Nextel Corp customers, and that the agency also had cataloged credit-card transactions.
The Obama administration is likely to open a criminal investigation into the leaking of highly classified documents on the programs to the Post and Guardian, U.S. law enforcement and security officials said.
The relationship between the government's surveillance program and the internet companies remained murky on Friday.
Some of the companies named by the Post - Google, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook - denied that the government was able to tap directly into their central servers, as the newspaper reported.
Microsoft said it did not voluntarily participate in any government data collection and only complied "with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a statement saying: "We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. And if we did, we would fight it aggressively."
It is a huge gathering of information by the federal government. The argument that it protects national security is unpersuasive. The surveillance disclosures have become a subject of humor on the Internet. The Huffington Post, suggesting Obama's security policies had begun to mirror those of his much-criticized predecessor, the un-elected George W. Bush, greeted readers with a photoshop melding of their pictures with a headline: "George W. Obama."
On YOU TUBE, there was a parody of Verizon's "Can you hear me now?" commercials, with Obama's voice answering in a refrain of his 2008 campaign slogan, "Yes, we can!"
By Matt Spetalnick and Steve Holland
India wakes up to vulnerability of gmail and hotmail
New Delhi - India - August 11 - 2014 - Worried by American spying revelations, India has begun drawing up a new email policy to help secure government communications but the man responsible for drafting the rules still regularly uses Hotmail. Like many of his peers in ministries across New Delhi, IT Minister Kapil Sibal’s office recently sent an email inviting journalists to the launch of his new personal website using the free email service. Others, including senior foreign ministry officials, the information and broadcasting minister and the health ministry secretary, also use Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo instead of their government accounts.
When asked why he continued to use his Hotmail for official use, Sibal declined to comment, but a senior bureaucrat in his ministry admitted that he personally preferred Gmail because it is “just a lot easier”. “We keep moving, get different designations, go different places and with that, our emails change. You lose contacts and important emails, which you don’t need to worry about with a Gmail account,” the bureaucrat told reporters.
“To be honest, the quality of our official mail isn’t that great yet. It still needs some work,” he added on condition of anonymity. IT security expert Sunil Abraham said the use of Gmail and the like was highly risky since the American services had their servers in the US and the National Security Agency has been known to tap into their database systems. It is unclear how many state and federal public workers actively use popular email services for office, but some of the estimates are startling. “As much as 90 per cent of government officials use private email (services) for official use ... that’s because their official email is not as stable or speedy,” said Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society.
In September Sibal’s ministry announced a new “Email Policy of the Government of India” in the wake of spying allegations about the NSA revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. NSA’s tentacles not only crept into the Indian embassy in Washington and its UN office in New York, but also accessed email and chat messenger contact lists of hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens worldwide, according to media reports.
During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 email address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, The Washington Post said, according to an internal NSA presentation.
The $11 million Indian project aims to bring some five million public employees onto the government’s email domain powered by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) as early as mid-December. It is awaiting clearances and suggestions from all ministries before the proposal goes to the cabinet this month. J. Satyanarayana, secretary of the department of electronics and IT, dismissed claims that the policy was too late and was a response to the Snowden scandal. “The policy is not a reaction to any global spying revelations, it was already in the works. It is just a mere coincidence that both came around the same time,” he said.
Some cyber security experts say bringing millions aboard a centralised server could make a hacker’s job easier, with all critical government information available on a single platform. More than 11,000 Indian websites were hacked or defaced between May and August this year, with a large number of attacks on the “.in” domain whose servers are in India, the Times of India reported last month. “Making the use of a centralised government server is not the best way to proceed. Having everything on one platform makes it even more vulnerable to cyber attacks and hacking,” said Abraham. “It also brings about new worries of the NIC becoming the local snoop.” Some also predict that the ambitious policy would eventually fizzle out for lack of attention from ministers and bureaucrats, who work in government offices where stacks of yellowing files and papers are still a common sight.
“It’s sad but most of these officials don’t understand much about technology, so mastering email is something that is miles and miles away,” said Vijay Mukhi, a Mumbai-based cyber security expert. “These guys saw all the snooping news and suddenly they woke up and said ‘let’s make an email policy’. Enforcing this is not possible on a practical basis.” The IT ministry also plans to conduct workshops to teach employees about email security such as when to change passwords and user names and how to use email. “Every employee should know how, what and when critical data can be vulnerable... with most work still done on paper, it is important to know the nitty-gritty of using email,” Satyanarayana said.— AFP
When asked why he continued to use his Hotmail for official use, Sibal declined to comment, but a senior bureaucrat in his ministry admitted that he personally preferred Gmail because it is “just a lot easier”. “We keep moving, get different designations, go different places and with that, our emails change. You lose contacts and important emails, which you don’t need to worry about with a Gmail account,” the bureaucrat told reporters.
“To be honest, the quality of our official mail isn’t that great yet. It still needs some work,” he added on condition of anonymity. IT security expert Sunil Abraham said the use of Gmail and the like was highly risky since the American services had their servers in the US and the National Security Agency has been known to tap into their database systems. It is unclear how many state and federal public workers actively use popular email services for office, but some of the estimates are startling. “As much as 90 per cent of government officials use private email (services) for official use ... that’s because their official email is not as stable or speedy,” said Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society.
In September Sibal’s ministry announced a new “Email Policy of the Government of India” in the wake of spying allegations about the NSA revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. NSA’s tentacles not only crept into the Indian embassy in Washington and its UN office in New York, but also accessed email and chat messenger contact lists of hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens worldwide, according to media reports.
During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 email address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, The Washington Post said, according to an internal NSA presentation.
The $11 million Indian project aims to bring some five million public employees onto the government’s email domain powered by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) as early as mid-December. It is awaiting clearances and suggestions from all ministries before the proposal goes to the cabinet this month. J. Satyanarayana, secretary of the department of electronics and IT, dismissed claims that the policy was too late and was a response to the Snowden scandal. “The policy is not a reaction to any global spying revelations, it was already in the works. It is just a mere coincidence that both came around the same time,” he said.
Some cyber security experts say bringing millions aboard a centralised server could make a hacker’s job easier, with all critical government information available on a single platform. More than 11,000 Indian websites were hacked or defaced between May and August this year, with a large number of attacks on the “.in” domain whose servers are in India, the Times of India reported last month. “Making the use of a centralised government server is not the best way to proceed. Having everything on one platform makes it even more vulnerable to cyber attacks and hacking,” said Abraham. “It also brings about new worries of the NIC becoming the local snoop.” Some also predict that the ambitious policy would eventually fizzle out for lack of attention from ministers and bureaucrats, who work in government offices where stacks of yellowing files and papers are still a common sight.
“It’s sad but most of these officials don’t understand much about technology, so mastering email is something that is miles and miles away,” said Vijay Mukhi, a Mumbai-based cyber security expert. “These guys saw all the snooping news and suddenly they woke up and said ‘let’s make an email policy’. Enforcing this is not possible on a practical basis.” The IT ministry also plans to conduct workshops to teach employees about email security such as when to change passwords and user names and how to use email. “Every employee should know how, what and when critical data can be vulnerable... with most work still done on paper, it is important to know the nitty-gritty of using email,” Satyanarayana said.— AFP
Google warns: "We are scanning your email."
Mountain View - California - America - Tuesday - April 15 - 2014 - Google CEO Larry Page (pixelized above) updated Google's privacy policies to make it absolutely clear that Google scans your email. It also tweaked a few sentences that warn that all the stuff you upload to Google is considered fair game.
"Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features such as customized search results, tailored advertising and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received and when it is stored. When you upload or otherwise submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
This information comes at an interesting time. Google is being sued over e-mail scanning, in a suit from 2013, where the plaintiffs allege that Google violated wiretapping laws by scanning the content of e-mails, Ars Technica's Casey Johnston reports.
However, last month, the judge in the case did not allow the suit to go forward as a class-action suit. That put a damper on the case because individual email users would each need to pursue lawsuits, Johnston reports
The change in the privacy policy also comes on the heels of Microsoft's decision to put its "Scroogled" ad campaign on the back burner. Scroogled was Microsoft's attempt to bash Google over issues like email scanning. But thanks to a recent re-org, the guy running the Scroogled campaign no longer controls the ad budget, ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reports.
By Julie Bort | Yahoo Business Insider
Google's Larry Page goes on to say:
"Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features such as customized search results, tailored advertising and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received and when it is stored. When you upload or otherwise submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
This information comes at an interesting time. Google is being sued over e-mail scanning, in a suit from 2013, where the plaintiffs allege that Google violated wiretapping laws by scanning the content of e-mails, Ars Technica's Casey Johnston reports.
However, last month, the judge in the case did not allow the suit to go forward as a class-action suit. That put a damper on the case because individual email users would each need to pursue lawsuits, Johnston reports
The change in the privacy policy also comes on the heels of Microsoft's decision to put its "Scroogled" ad campaign on the back burner. Scroogled was Microsoft's attempt to bash Google over issues like email scanning. But thanks to a recent re-org, the guy running the Scroogled campaign no longer controls the ad budget, ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reports.
By Julie Bort | Yahoo Business Insider
Google's Larry Page goes on to say:
Dear Google users,
You may be aware of press reports alleging that Internet companies have joined a secret U.S. government program called PRISM to give the National Security Agency direct access to our servers. As Google’s CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts.
First, we have not joined any program that would give the American government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the American government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.
Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false.
Finally, this episode confirms what we have long believed—there needs to be a more transparent approach. Google has worked hard, within the confines of the current laws, to be open about the data requests we receive. We post this information on our Transparency Report whenever possible. We were the first company to do this. And, of course, we understand that the U.S. and other governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety—including sometimes by using surveillance. But the level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish.
Posted on twitbook by Larry Page, CEO and David Drummond, Chief Legal Officer
You may be aware of press reports alleging that Internet companies have joined a secret U.S. government program called PRISM to give the National Security Agency direct access to our servers. As Google’s CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts.
First, we have not joined any program that would give the American government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the American government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.
Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false.
Finally, this episode confirms what we have long believed—there needs to be a more transparent approach. Google has worked hard, within the confines of the current laws, to be open about the data requests we receive. We post this information on our Transparency Report whenever possible. We were the first company to do this. And, of course, we understand that the U.S. and other governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety—including sometimes by using surveillance. But the level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish.
Posted on twitbook by Larry Page, CEO and David Drummond, Chief Legal Officer
National Security Agency is collecting communication data from Verizon
Fort Meade - Maryland - America - August 07 - 2014 - An Obama administration official defended the policy of gathering phone records from American citizens while neither confirming nor denying a report that the National Security Agency is collecting information regarding communications by Verizon customers. Such information has been “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats,” a senior Obama administration official said. While not confirming any particulars of the report, the administration official said that data such as that described in the article “allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”
The building pictured above shows the headquarters of the National Security Agency, (NSA) which is located in Fort Meade, Maryland.
The practice was first revealed by the British newspaper The Guardian on Wednesday, which obtained and published a highly classified court order that requires the production of “telephony metadata” by the telecommunications giant. The order, marked "Top Secret" and issued by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, instructs Verizon Business Network Services, a subsidiary that provides internet and telecommunications provider for corporations, to hand over data including all calling records on an "ongoing, daily basis.” “On its face, the order reprinted in the article does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls,” the official said.
The White House, NSA, Department of Justice, and Federal Bureau of Investigation have issued no formal comment on the report or purported practices described in it. Signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, the order requires the “production of certain call detail records,” and is set to expire on the evening of July 19, 2013. The order pertains to information including the phone numbers making and receiving the call, as well as the time the call was made and how long it lasts. It does not include the “name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer,” according to the order. The order “does not require Verizon to produce telephony metadata for communications wholly originating and terminating in foreign countries,” according to the document.
The disclosure of the order, which has not been independently verified by NBC News, comes after the Obama administration has taken fire for a Justice Department subpoena of Associated Press phone records. Attorney General Eric Holder told NBC News Wednesday that he has no intention of stepping down from his job despite calls by some congressional Republicans for his resignation, citing the AP seizure.
Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, called the collection of call data as described in the Guardian report “an outrageous breach of Americans’ privacy” in a news release Thursday. “This bulk data collection is being done under interpretations of the law that have been kept secret from the public. Significant FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court opinions that determine the scope of our laws should be declassified.”
Verizon had 98.9 million wireless customers at the end of the first quarter this year, according to an earnings report released in April, as well as about 11.7 million residential and 10 million commercial lines. It is not clear whether other parts of Verizon might have received similar orders. The order explicitly prohibits any person from disclosing that the NSA or FBI Investigation has sought records under the order.
“Now that this unconstitutional surveillance effort has been revealed, the government should end it and disclose its full scope, and Congress should initiate an investigation,” Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “This disclosure also highlights the growing gap between the public’s and the government’s understandings of the many sweeping surveillance authorities enacted by Congress.” The law on which the order explicitly relies is the "business records" provision of the USA Patriot Act.
Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, both Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a March 2012 letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that most Americans would “stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted section 215 of the Patriot Act.” “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows,” the senators wrote in the letter. “This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”
Former vice president Al Gore called the practices described in the order “obscenely outrageous” in a message posted on Twitter Wednesday night. “In digital era, privacy must be a priority,” Gore wrote. “Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous.” The order is the first concrete evidence that U.S. intelligence officials are continuing a broad campaign of domestic surveillance that began under President George W. Bush and caused great controversy when it was first exposed, according to Reuters.
NBC News' Chuck Todd and Peter Alexander and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
By Matthew DeLuca and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News
No warrant, no problem: 7 ways the government can access your digital data
Washington - America - June 28 - 2014 - The government isn’t allowed to wiretap American citizens without a warrant from a judge. But there are plenty of legal ways for law enforcement, from the local sheriff to the FBI to the Internal Revenue Service, to snoop on the digital trails you create every day. Authorities can often obtain your emails and texts by going to Google or AT&T with a court order that doesn’t require showing probable cause of a crime. These powers are entirely separate from the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone records en masse, which the House of Representatives voted to end last month. Here’s a look at the 7 ways the government can access your information and the legal framework behind its power.
1. Phone records: who you called, when you called
Many cell phone carriers provide authorities with a phone’s
location and may charge a fee for doing so. Cell towers track where your
phone isat any moment; so can the GPS features in some smartphones. In response
to an inquiry by Sen. Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, Sprint
reported that it provided location data to U.S. law enforcement67,000
times in 2012. AT&T reported receiving 77,800 requests for
location data in 2012. (AT&T also said that it charges $100 to start
tracking a phone and $25 a day to keep tracking it.) Other carriers,
including T-Mobile, U.S. CellularandVerizon, didn’t specify the
number of location data requests they had received or the number of times
they’ve provided it. Internet service providers can also provide location data
that tracks users via their computer’s IP address — a unique number assigned to
each computer.
Courts have been divided for years on whether police need a warrant from a judge to get cell phone location data. Back in 2005, Judge Stephen W. Smith denied a government request for real-time access to location data, and some judges have followed his lead. But other courts have ruled that no warrant in necessary. Authorities only have to show that, under the ECPA, the data contains “specific and articulable facts” related to an investigation — again, a lesser standard than probable cause. Montana, Maine, Wisconsin, Utah and Colorado have passed laws requiring police to get a warrant for location data in most circumstances. (See the American Civil Liberties Union’s helpful breakdown of recent laws passed.) Recent court rulings have created a patchwork of rules depending on where you live and who’s requesting the data. New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruled last yearthat police needed a warrant to get real-time location data, and Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court ruled in February that authorities needed a warrant to get historical location data for significant periods of time. But those decisions apply only to state authorities in those states, not federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI.
Federal appeals courts have split on whether police can get historical location data from cell carriers without a warrant. The Fifth Circuit in New Orleans ruled last year that police don’t need a warrant, while the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled this month that they do. The rulings mean that police in the 11th Circuit — which covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida — need to get a warrant for location data, while authorities in the Fifth Circuit — Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — don’t need to do so. A similar case, U.S. v. Graham, is ongoing in the Fourth Circuit, which covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia North Carolina and South Carolina. “I do think there is a high likelihood that sometime in the next two to four years the Supreme Court will be taking up this issue, and probably sooner than later,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, an ACLU staff attorney who argued the 11th Circuit case.
Courts have been divided for years on whether police need a warrant from a judge to get cell phone location data. Back in 2005, Judge Stephen W. Smith denied a government request for real-time access to location data, and some judges have followed his lead. But other courts have ruled that no warrant in necessary. Authorities only have to show that, under the ECPA, the data contains “specific and articulable facts” related to an investigation — again, a lesser standard than probable cause. Montana, Maine, Wisconsin, Utah and Colorado have passed laws requiring police to get a warrant for location data in most circumstances. (See the American Civil Liberties Union’s helpful breakdown of recent laws passed.) Recent court rulings have created a patchwork of rules depending on where you live and who’s requesting the data. New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruled last yearthat police needed a warrant to get real-time location data, and Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court ruled in February that authorities needed a warrant to get historical location data for significant periods of time. But those decisions apply only to state authorities in those states, not federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI.
Federal appeals courts have split on whether police can get historical location data from cell carriers without a warrant. The Fifth Circuit in New Orleans ruled last year that police don’t need a warrant, while the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled this month that they do. The rulings mean that police in the 11th Circuit — which covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida — need to get a warrant for location data, while authorities in the Fifth Circuit — Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — don’t need to do so. A similar case, U.S. v. Graham, is ongoing in the Fourth Circuit, which covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia North Carolina and South Carolina. “I do think there is a high likelihood that sometime in the next two to four years the Supreme Court will be taking up this issue, and probably sooner than later,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, an ACLU staff attorney who argued the 11th Circuit case.
2. IP addresses: what computers you used
The standard for IP addresses is the same as the one for phone records: Authorities can get a court order allowing real-time access as long the court approves that the records are relevant to an investigation. They can also get historical records of IP addresses with an administrative subpoena.
Police can thank U.S. v. Forrester, a case involving two men trying to set up a drug lab in California, for the ease of access. In the 2007 case, the government successfully argued that tracking IP addresses was no different than installing a device to track every telephone number dialed by a given phone (which is legal). The FBI obtained such a court order last year authorizing it to track the IP addresses used to log into an email account reportedly belonging to Edward Snowden in real time (although Lavabit, the email provider, resisted the order).
Police can thank U.S. v. Forrester, a case involving two men trying to set up a drug lab in California, for the ease of access. In the 2007 case, the government successfully argued that tracking IP addresses was no different than installing a device to track every telephone number dialed by a given phone (which is legal). The FBI obtained such a court order last year authorizing it to track the IP addresses used to log into an email account reportedly belonging to Edward Snowden in real time (although Lavabit, the email provider, resisted the order).
3. Emails: messages you sent months ago
Here’s where the rules get really complicated. Authorities need a warrant to get unopened emails that are less than 180 days old, but they can obtain opened email as well as unopened emails that are at least 180 days old with only a subpoena as long as they notify the customer whose email they’ve requested. The government can also get older unopened emails without notifying the customer if they get a court order that requires them to offer “specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe” the emails are “relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation” — a higher bar than a subpoena. How often does the government request emails? Google says it got 16,407 requests for data in total — including emails sent through its Gmail service — from U.S. law enforcement agencies in 2012, and an additional 10,918 requests in the first half of 2013. Microsoft, with its Outlook and Hotmail email services, says it received 11,073 requests from U.S. authorities in total in 2012, and an additional 7,014 in the first half of 2013. The company provided some customer data in 75.8 percent of the 2013 requests. (The figures don’t include requests for data from Skype, which Microsoft owns.) And Yahoo says it received12,444 such requests in the first half of 2013, providing at least some customer data in 91.6 percent of them. (The Department of Justice requires providers to wait six months before releasing data on the requests.) A coalition of technology companies, including Apple, Google and AT&T, is lobbying to change the law to require a search warrant for email and other digital data stored remotely.
In U.S. v. Warshak, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in 2010 that authorities should have gotten a search warrant for the emails of Steven Warshak, a Cincinnati businessman convicted of wire fraud in which his emails were used as evidence. The decision only applies in the Sixth Circuit, which covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, but it’s had an influence beyond those states. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have said they refuse to turn over emails without a warrant and cited the ruling. A bill introduced last year by Sens. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, and approved by the Judiciary Committee would update the ECPA and require a warrant to get all emails. A similar bill being pushed by Reps. Kevin Yoder, a Kansas Republican, and Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, known as the Email Privacy Act, secured the support of a majority of the House last month. And the Justice Department, which had objected to such a change, said last yearthat there was “no principled basis” for giving older emails less protection than newer ones.
In U.S. v. Warshak, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in 2010 that authorities should have gotten a search warrant for the emails of Steven Warshak, a Cincinnati businessman convicted of wire fraud in which his emails were used as evidence. The decision only applies in the Sixth Circuit, which covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, but it’s had an influence beyond those states. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have said they refuse to turn over emails without a warrant and cited the ruling. A bill introduced last year by Sens. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, and approved by the Judiciary Committee would update the ECPA and require a warrant to get all emails. A similar bill being pushed by Reps. Kevin Yoder, a Kansas Republican, and Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, known as the Email Privacy Act, secured the support of a majority of the House last month. And the Justice Department, which had objected to such a change, said last yearthat there was “no principled basis” for giving older emails less protection than newer ones.
4. Email drafts: drafts are different
Communicating through draft emails, à la David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, seems sneaky. But drafts are actually easier for investigators to get than recently sent emails because the law treats them differently.
The ECPA distinguishes gives stored electronic data — including draft emails that were never sent — less protection under the law. Authorities need only a court order or a subpoena to get them. The bills to update the ECPA would change that by requiring a warrant to obtain email drafts, but none of them have passed yet.
The ECPA distinguishes gives stored electronic data — including draft emails that were never sent — less protection under the law. Authorities need only a court order or a subpoena to get them. The bills to update the ECPA would change that by requiring a warrant to obtain email drafts, but none of them have passed yet.
5. Text messages: as with emails, so with texts
Investigators need only a court order or a subpoena, not a warrant, to get text messages that are at least 180 days old from a cell provider — the same standard as emails. Many carriers charge authorities a fee to provide texts and other information. Sprint charges $30 for access to a customer’s texts, according to documents obtained by the ACLU in 2012, while Verizon charges $50.
The ECPA also applies to text messages, which is why the rules are similar to those governing emails. But the ECPA doesn’t apply when it comes to reading texts or accessing other data on a physical cell phone rather than getting them from a carrier. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that police needed a warrant to search the phones of people who had been arrested. The court dismissed the Justice Department’s argument that searching a cell phone was not materially different than searching a wallet or a purse. “That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in the opinion.
The ECPA also applies to text messages, which is why the rules are similar to those governing emails. But the ECPA doesn’t apply when it comes to reading texts or accessing other data on a physical cell phone rather than getting them from a carrier. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that police needed a warrant to search the phones of people who had been arrested. The court dismissed the Justice Department’s argument that searching a cell phone was not materially different than searching a wallet or a purse. “That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in the opinion.
6. Cloud Data: documents, photos, and other stuff stored online
Authorities typically need only a court order or a subpoena to get data from Google Drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive and other services that allow users to store data on servers, or “in the cloud,” as it’s known.
The law treats cloud data the same as draft emails — authorities don’t need a warrant to get it. But files that you’ve shared with others — say, a collaboration using Google Docs — might require a warrant under the ECPA if it’s considered “communication” rather than stored data. “It actually makes no sense for the way we communicate today,” says Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel with the Center for Democracy & Technology.
The law treats cloud data the same as draft emails — authorities don’t need a warrant to get it. But files that you’ve shared with others — say, a collaboration using Google Docs — might require a warrant under the ECPA if it’s considered “communication” rather than stored data. “It actually makes no sense for the way we communicate today,” says Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel with the Center for Democracy & Technology.
7. Social Media: the new privacy frontier
When it comes to sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, the rules depend on what authorities are after. Content is treated the same way as emails — unopened content less than 180 days old requires a warrant, while opened content and content at least 180 days old does not. Authorities can get IP addresses from social networks the same way they get them from Internet service providers — with a court order showing the records are relevant to an investigation for real-time access, and with a subpoena for historical records. Twitter has reported that it received 1,494 requests for user information from U.S. authorities in 2012, and 1,735 requests in 2013. In the second half of 2013 — the most recent time period for while data is available — Twitter reported that 55 percent of the requests were from subpoenas, 7 percent through other court orders, 26 percent came through search warrants and 12 percent came through other ways. Twitter says that ”non-public information about Twitter users is not released except as lawfully required by appropriate legal process such as a subpoena, court order, or other valid legal process,” except in emergencies “involving the danger of death or serious physical injury to a person.” Facebook says it requires a warrant from a judge to disclose a user’s “messages, photos, videos, wall posts, and location information.” But it will supply basic information, such as a user’s email address or the IP addresses of the computers from which someone recently accessed an account, under a subpoena.
Courts haven’t issued a definitive ruling that distinguishes social media posts from other electronic communications. In 2012, a New York judge upheld a prosecutor’s subpoena for information from Twitter about an Occupy Wall Street protester arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was the first time a judge had allowed prosecutors to use a subpoena to get information from Twitter rather than forcing them to get a warrant. Last year, U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola in the District of Columbia modified a search warrant giving the government access to the Facebook account of Aaron Alexis, the Washington Navy Yard shooter, to limit its scope to information relevant to the investigation.
Courts haven’t issued a definitive ruling that distinguishes social media posts from other electronic communications. In 2012, a New York judge upheld a prosecutor’s subpoena for information from Twitter about an Occupy Wall Street protester arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was the first time a judge had allowed prosecutors to use a subpoena to get information from Twitter rather than forcing them to get a warrant. Last year, U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola in the District of Columbia modified a search warrant giving the government access to the Facebook account of Aaron Alexis, the Washington Navy Yard shooter, to limit its scope to information relevant to the investigation.
China controls the internet in five ways
Beijing - China - June 11 - 2014 - The Chinese Communist Party tightly controls China's Internet using five main approaches. According to the Chinese Communist Party’s own media, the Internet has become the “main battlefield of ideology.” Maintaining the upper hand in ideological warfare has always been a priority for China’s ruling regime. The Communists have taken systematic measures to control information and public opinion on the Internet.
“You could never hope to see the truth of things from the internet in China,” wrote Hong Yuning, an analyst, in a commentary for New Tang Dynasty Television, a primarily Chinese-language broadcaster. His analysis discussed the “five dark tricks” that the Party uses to manage the Internet, which are summarized below:
1. Deleting Information
The first method is to maintain control over the Internet management departments in online companies and organizations. They are required to monitor, 24/7, their comment sections, news posts, and blogs, to prevent “harmful information” from being posted. Posts deemed “harmful” (that is, unfavorable to the authorities) are then quickly censored.To bolster this process, the Chinese authorities created a new law governing Internet speech last year, saying that whoever publishes “rumors” that are forwarded over 500 times, or viewed over 5,000 times, can be found guilty of “defamation” and face prison time. The regime has punished Internet commentators using these laws, the most well-known case being that of Qin Huohuo. Qin (not his real name) was sent to prison for three years for writing posts on social media about corruption.
2. Spin doctors and commentators
While Chinese Internet censors delete comments, there are also gangs of so-called “50 cent,” or “wumao,” commentators, who make positive remarks on behalf of the government. The term comes from the Chinese word for 50 cents, because they are reported to be paid 50 Chinese cents for each post. (The amount they are really paid is not known for sure, and probably varies.) 50 cent commentators frequently fill up the comments section following controversial news articles, attempting to flood out those with critical views, or sway bystanders using groupthink psychology.
Chinese authorities have given the job an official title: “Internet public opinion manager.” There are advanced training courses and programs given to individuals in this line of work, who learn better how to manipulate public opinion and create a favorable public opinion environment for the Communist Party. Chinese media reported that there were over two million “public opinion managers” of this kind that had been certified last year. More are on the way.
3. Controlling hot topics
News items that look like they are going to go viral are a major focus for Communist Party propaganda authorities. Articles that reflect too negatively on the regime are stopped in their tracks, while the top places on major websites, such as Baidu and Sina, are often reserved for the Party’s own propaganda. The idea is to maintain an overall environment on the Internet that supports Communist Party rule, and gives the impression to the general Internet user that the Party enjoys widespread support. Hong dismissed the efficacy of the project. “It’s only fooling itself, and no one really cares.”
4. Building party cells
The Chinese Communist Party is a Leninist organization that, according to its theory of rule, seeks to penetrate every aspect of society to bolster its control. It also ensures control over Internet companies through this Party apparatus. At least nine major Internet companies have established Party Committees, which exert the Party’s direct line of political and ideological control over firms. Committees deliver the Party’s recent theoretical messages, influence or make personnel decisions, and surveil employees to ensure that they do not harbor thoughts against the regime. Web companies that contain Party cells include Baidu, Sina, and Kaixin, according to Chinese media reports.
Often, the leader of the Party Committees are high-level executives who make business decisions. The system is one of the key ways that the Communist Party can maintain control over technology companies that are not formally affiliated with the state.
5. Blocking overseas websites
An unknown number of overseas websites—thousands, or more—are blocked by China’s “Great Internet Firewall.” Among the sites that ordinary Chinese are prevented from visiting are social media like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, plus websites associated with human rights in China, Tibetan activism, the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, and dozens of news organizations.
The Epoch Times website is, of course, also blocked.
Story compiled by Lu Chen - Epoch Times
(Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
“You could never hope to see the truth of things from the internet in China,” wrote Hong Yuning, an analyst, in a commentary for New Tang Dynasty Television, a primarily Chinese-language broadcaster. His analysis discussed the “five dark tricks” that the Party uses to manage the Internet, which are summarized below:
1. Deleting Information
The first method is to maintain control over the Internet management departments in online companies and organizations. They are required to monitor, 24/7, their comment sections, news posts, and blogs, to prevent “harmful information” from being posted. Posts deemed “harmful” (that is, unfavorable to the authorities) are then quickly censored.To bolster this process, the Chinese authorities created a new law governing Internet speech last year, saying that whoever publishes “rumors” that are forwarded over 500 times, or viewed over 5,000 times, can be found guilty of “defamation” and face prison time. The regime has punished Internet commentators using these laws, the most well-known case being that of Qin Huohuo. Qin (not his real name) was sent to prison for three years for writing posts on social media about corruption.
2. Spin doctors and commentators
While Chinese Internet censors delete comments, there are also gangs of so-called “50 cent,” or “wumao,” commentators, who make positive remarks on behalf of the government. The term comes from the Chinese word for 50 cents, because they are reported to be paid 50 Chinese cents for each post. (The amount they are really paid is not known for sure, and probably varies.) 50 cent commentators frequently fill up the comments section following controversial news articles, attempting to flood out those with critical views, or sway bystanders using groupthink psychology.
Chinese authorities have given the job an official title: “Internet public opinion manager.” There are advanced training courses and programs given to individuals in this line of work, who learn better how to manipulate public opinion and create a favorable public opinion environment for the Communist Party. Chinese media reported that there were over two million “public opinion managers” of this kind that had been certified last year. More are on the way.
3. Controlling hot topics
News items that look like they are going to go viral are a major focus for Communist Party propaganda authorities. Articles that reflect too negatively on the regime are stopped in their tracks, while the top places on major websites, such as Baidu and Sina, are often reserved for the Party’s own propaganda. The idea is to maintain an overall environment on the Internet that supports Communist Party rule, and gives the impression to the general Internet user that the Party enjoys widespread support. Hong dismissed the efficacy of the project. “It’s only fooling itself, and no one really cares.”
4. Building party cells
The Chinese Communist Party is a Leninist organization that, according to its theory of rule, seeks to penetrate every aspect of society to bolster its control. It also ensures control over Internet companies through this Party apparatus. At least nine major Internet companies have established Party Committees, which exert the Party’s direct line of political and ideological control over firms. Committees deliver the Party’s recent theoretical messages, influence or make personnel decisions, and surveil employees to ensure that they do not harbor thoughts against the regime. Web companies that contain Party cells include Baidu, Sina, and Kaixin, according to Chinese media reports.
Often, the leader of the Party Committees are high-level executives who make business decisions. The system is one of the key ways that the Communist Party can maintain control over technology companies that are not formally affiliated with the state.
5. Blocking overseas websites
An unknown number of overseas websites—thousands, or more—are blocked by China’s “Great Internet Firewall.” Among the sites that ordinary Chinese are prevented from visiting are social media like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, plus websites associated with human rights in China, Tibetan activism, the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, and dozens of news organizations.
The Epoch Times website is, of course, also blocked.
Story compiled by Lu Chen - Epoch Times
(Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
The Original Electric Car: Unplugged?
Perhaps the most notorious suppressed invention is the General Motors EV1, subject of the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? The EV1 was the world's first mass-produced electric car, with 800 of them up for lease from GM in the late '90s. GM ended the EV1 line in 1999, stating that consumers weren't happy with the limited driving range of the car's batteries, making it unprofitable to continue production. Many skeptics believe GM killed the EV1 under pressure from oil companies who stand to lose millions if high-efficiency vehicles conquer the automotive market. Informed sources report that General Motors hunted down and destroyed every last EV1 which ensured that the electric car technology would die out in favour of gas guzzling internal combustion vehicles.
The Death of the Streetcar
In 1921, there was a movie called " A Streetcar Named Desire" and the streetcar industry funded by General Motors felt the demand for 100's of new streetcars to support rapid transit across American cities. The venture netted $1 billion, causing General Motors to lose $65 million in the face of an otherwise thriving auto industry. General Motors retaliated by buying and closing hundreds of independent streetcar-producing railway companies thereby boosting the market for gas-guzzling GM buses and cars. While a recent urban movement to rescue mass transit has been underway, it is unlikely we'll ever see streetcars return to their former glory because our leaders favour internal- combustion vehicles whose motive power is gasoline.
The 99-MPG Car
The holy grail of automotive technology is the 99-mpg car. Although the technology has been available for years, automakers have deliberately withheld it from the American market. In 2000, the New York Times reported a little-known fact: a diesel-powered dynamo called the Volkswagen Lupo had driven around the world averaging higher than 99 mpg. The Lupo was sold in Europe from 1998 to 2005 but automakers prevented it from coming to market claiming Americans had no interest in fuel-efficient cars.
Free Energy
Nikola Tesla was an undisputed genius. In 1899, he figured out a way to bypass fossil-fuel-burning power plants and power lines proving that "free energy" could be harnessed using ionization in the upper atmosphere to produce electrical vibrations. J.P. Morgan who had been funding Tesla's research had a bit of buyer's remorse when he realized that free energy for all wasn't as profitable as actually charging people for every watt of energy they use. Morgan then drove another nail in free energy's coffin by chasing away other investors, ensuring Tesla's dream would die.
Miracle Cancer Cure
In 2001, Nova Scotian Rick Simpson discovered that a cancerous spot on his skin disappeared within a few days of applying an essential oil made from marijuana. Since then, Simpson and others have treated thousands of cancer patients with incredible success. Researchers in Spain have confirmed that THC, an active compound in marijuana, kills brain-tumor cells in human subjects and shows promise with breast, pancreatic and liver tumors. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it has no accepted medical use unlike Schedule II drugs (cocaine and methamphetamine) which may provide medical benefits.
Water-Powered Vehicles
The most famous water-fuelled vehicle is Stan Meyer's dune buggy which achieved 100 miles per gallon and might have become more commonplace had Meyer not succumbed to a suspicious brain aneurysm at 57. Insiders have loudly claimed that Meyer was poisoned after he refused to sell his patents or end his research. Fearing a conspiracy, his partners have all but gone underground and they have taken his famed water-powered dune buggy with them.
Chronovisor
What if you had a device that could see into the future and revisit the past? And what if you didn't need Christopher Lloyd to help you? Father Pellegrino Maria Ernetti, an Italian priest, claimed in the 1960s to have invented what he called a Chronovisor, something that allowed him to witness Christ's crucifixion. The device supposedly enabled viewers to watch any event in human history by tuning in to remnant vibrations that are caused by every action. (His team of researchers and builders included Enrico Fermi, who also worked on the first atomic bomb). On his deathbed, Fermi admitted that he had faked viewings of ancient Greece and Christ's demise, but insisted the Chronovisor, which had by then vanished, still worked. Unsurprisingly, conspiracy theorists say the Vatican is now the likely owner of the original Chronovisor.
Rife Devices
American inventor Royal Rife (his real name), in 1934, cured 14 "terminal" cancer patients and hundreds of animal cancers by aiming his "beam ray" at what he called the "cancer virus." So why isn't the Rife Ray in use today? Barry Lynes, in his 1987 book The Cancer Cure That Worked, details how Rife's invention was discredited by Morris Fishbein, the director of the American Medical Association (AMA), after his offers to buy a share of the technology were rebuffed, although this has never been proven and the AMA has denied it. A 1953 U.S. Senate special investigation concluded that Fishbein and the AMA had conspired with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to suppress various alternative cancer treatments that conflicted with the AMA's pre-determined view that "radium, x-ray therapy and surgery are the only recognized treatments for cancer."
Cloudbuster
In 1953, when severe drought threatened the blueberry harvest in the state of Maine, Dr. Wilhelm Reich, the inventor of a supposed rainmaking device called the Cloudbuster, and he was contracted to bring rain. The Bangor Daily News reported at the time that within hours of setting up the Cloudbuster, nearly � inch of rain had fallen across the area, despite no precipitation in the forecast. Curiously, it does not seem that Reich attempted this feat again and in 1954, the government put a stop to his work entirely. After Reich's conviction for selling a phone-booth-sized box that he claimed cured the common cold and impotence, in violation of FDA rules, Reich was sentenced to prison, where he soon died. The court also ordered that Reich's inventions, their parts and any writing about them be destroyed.
Over-unity Generator
A number of over-unity generators which produce more energy than they consume have surfaced in the past century. Ironically they've been more trouble than they were worth. In nearly all cases, a supposedly working prototype has been unable to make it to commercial production as a result of various corporate or government forces working against the technology. Recently, the Lutec 1000, an "electricity amplifier," has been making steady progress toward a final commercial version. Will consumers soon be able to buy it, or will it be suppressed along with many other inventions?
Cold Fusion
Billions of dollars have been spent researching how to create energy using controlled "hot fusion," a risky and unpredictable line of experimentation. Meanwhile, garage scientists and a fringe group of university researchers have been getting closer to harnessing the power of "cold fusion," which is much more stable and controllable, but far less supported by government and foundation money. In 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced that they had made a breakthrough; they had observed cold fusion in a glass jar on their lab bench. To say the reaction they received big oil and government was chilly would be an understatement. CBS's 60 Minutes described how the resulting backlash from the well-funded hot-fusion crowd sent the researchers underground and overseas, where their funding dried up within a few short years forcing them to drop their pursuit of clean energy.
Hot Fusion
Cold fusion isn't the only technology to get buried by hot-headed scientists. When two physicists who were working on the decades-long Tokamak Hot Fusion project at Los Alamos Laboratory stumbled across a cheaper, safer method of creating energy from colliding atoms, they were allegedly forced to repudiate their own discoveries or be fired; the lab feared losing the torrent of government money for Tokamak. In retaliation, the lead researchers created the Focus Fusion Society, which raises private money to fund their research outside of government interference.
Magnetofunk and Himmelkompass
Nazi scientists spent much of World War II hidden in a covert military base somewhere in the arctic, creating the Magnetofunk. This alleged invention was designed to deflect the compasses of Allied aircraft that might be searching for Point 103, as the base was known. The aircraft pilots would think they were flying in a straight line, but would gradually curve around Point 103 without ever knowing they were deceived. The Himmelkompass allowed German navigators to orient themselves to the position of the sun, rather than magnetic forces, so they could find Point 103 despite the effects of the Magnetofunk. According to Wilhelm Landig, a former SS officer, these two devices were closely guarded secrets of the Third Reich. So closely guarded were they that neither device apparently survived the collapse of Hitler's Germany.
A Safer Cigarette?
In the 1960s, the Liggett & Myers tobacco company created a product called the XA, a cigarette in which most of the stick's carcinogens had been eliminated. Dr. James Mold, Liggett's Research Director, reported in court documents in the case of "The City and County of San Francisco vs. Phillip Morris Inc " that Phillip Morris threatened to "clobber" Liggett if they did not adhere to an industry agreement never to reveal information about the negative health effects of smoking. By advertising a "safer" alternative, they would be admitting the dangers of tobacco use. The lawsuit was dismissed on a technicality and Phillip Morris never addressed the accusations. Despite their own scientists' publication of research that showed less cancer in mice exposed to smoke from the XA, Liggett & Myers issued a press release denying evidence of cancer in humans as a result of tobacco use, and the XA cigarette never saw the light of day.
T.E.N.S.
The Transcutaneous Electronic Nerve Stimulation (TENS) device was created to alleviate pain impulses from the body without the use of drugs. In 1974, Johnson & Johnson bought StimTech, one of the first companies to sell the machine, and proceeded to starve the T.E.N.S. division of money, causing it to flounder. StimTech sued, alleging that Johnson & Johnson purposely stifled the T.E.N.S. technology to protect sales of its flagship drug, Tylenol. Johnson & Johnson responded that the device never performed as well as was claimed and that it was not profitable. StimTech's founders won $170 Million, although the ruling was appealed and overturned on a technicality. The court's finding that the corporation suppressed the T.E.N.S. device was never overturned.
The Phoebus Cartel
Phillips, General Electric and Osram engaged in a conspiracy from 1924 to 1939 with the goal of controlling the fledgling light-bulb industry. This news according to a report published in Time magazine six years later. The alleged cartel set prices and suppressed competing technologies that would have produced longer-lasting and more efficient light bulbs. By the time the cabal dissolved, the industry-standard incandescent bulb was established as the dominant source of artificial light across Europe and North America. Not until the late 1990s did alternative compact fluorescent bulbs begin to edge into the worldwide lighting market.
The Coral Castle
How did Ed Leedskalnin build the massive Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida, out of giant chunks of coral weighing up to 30 tons each with no heavy equipment and no outside help? Theories abound including anti-gravity devices, magnetic resonance and alien technology but the answer may never be known. Leedskalnin died in 1951 without any written plans or clues as to his techniques. The centerpiece of the castle, which is now a museum open to the public is a nine-ton gate that used to move with light pressure from one finger. After the gate's bearings wore out in the 1980s, a crew of five took more than two weeks to fix it. However, they never did get it to work as effortlessly as Leedskalnin's original masterpiece.
Hemp Bio-fuel
The father of our country, George Washington, who is rumored to have said "I cannot tell a lie," was a proud supporter of the hemp seed. Hemp is often mistaken for marijuana and therefore hemp is unfairly maligned. Governmental roadblocks prevent hemp from becoming the leader in extracting ethanol allowing environmentally damaging sources such as corn to take over the ethanol industry. Despite the fact that hemp requires fewer chemicals and less water to do the same job, hemp has never caught on. Experts lay the blame at the feet of presidential candidates who kiss up to Iowa corn growers for votes.
These cars of the future will change your idea of a road trip forever
Is the reality of air-car travel finally here? Looking back over nearly 100 years of man’s attempt to create a flying car, we ponder the idea of a car-plane. Will it ever leave the ground?
1.
From the Jetsons to Blade Runner, the idea of the flying car has captivated
commuters dreaming of congestion-free journeys and complete travel freedom.
Aircar builder Terrafugia recently announced the TF-X, a new model that can
take off vertically. It will go on sale in 2015.
2. The Curtis AutoPlane is considered the world’s first flying car. It was first shown at the 1917 Pan-American Aeronautic Exposition in New York but using the word flying is strong in this context: the AutoPlane achieved nothing more impressive than hopping along the ground for a few yards.
3. This advert from 1928 was shown at The Ideal Home Show at its house of the future exhibition. It shows a design of a flying car for the year 2000. Thankfully car design has moved on since those early predictions… though sadly flying cars haven’t!
4. This is one of the first true flying cars. Only five of these curious little machines were ever built and its first flight took place in February 1937.
The Waterman Arrowbile is a tail-less, two-seat, single-engine airplane. It could fly at a maximum speed of 193 km/h, and cruise comfortably at 164 km/h and had a flying range of 560 km.
5. Cover illustration showing Giro Car from Modern Mechanix magazine, 1935, was a helicopter that you could also drive on the road. Sadly, it doesn’t appear to have left the drawing board.
6. This is the world’s first helicopter-car, built by Jess Dixon of Andalusia, Alabama, in 1940. It could fly forwards, backwards, straight up or hover in the air with power coming from a 40-hp, air-cooled motor, it could reach speeds of 160 km/h. Looks terrifying ...
7. Introduced in 1946, the Fulton FA-2 Airphibian was a car-plane that allowed you to leave the tail section and wings at your destination, giving you the freedom of driving a car normally on the road. Only four were ever built and each one was made of aluminium, with independent suspension demonstrating a vehicle that was hugely advanced for its time.
8. The Aerocar was the first of its kind - it came to prominence in 1949, with six models made, although it never entered production. James May famously drove/flew in one for an episode of Top Gear. Designed to carry two at speeds of up to 217 km/h in the air, the Aerocar could be converted from car to plane in less than five minutes. It came with a trailer, which housed the tail and wings, although this wasn't the most practical of solutions.
9. A car with wings and a propeller protruding from the radiator grille drives through Times Square, New York. The invention of A H Russell of Nutley, New Jersey.
10. This flying car was only a prototype, with two built at a cost of $1,500 back in 1946. The first car was destroyed in a low-fuel incident while flying over San Diego, California, in 1947. It had successfully stayed in the air for one hour before the crash.
11. In 1946, another car with wings took to the skies. Like the ConvAirCar, it involved strapping wings and a tail to a standard road car.
12. Retro illustration of a couple being driven in a futuristic electric car that drives on the road, flies in the air, and functions as a boat. Screen print from an advertisement by Rodabaugh, 1952
13. The star of the famous '60s musical is now owned by serial car nut Chris Evans. He bought Chitty from a friend in the U.S. for £500,000.
Evans' motor was the only working example built for the film and features a Ford Racing 3.0-litre V6, a dashboard plate from a First World War British fighter plane, a polished aluminium bonnet, red and white cedar boat deck and brass fittings lifted from Edwardian motor vehicles.
14. In the 1969 film The Bed-Sitting Room, Peter Cook flies in a Morris Minor cop car that has been turned into a flying car using a balloon. Here he is calling out to people down below to run for cover following a nuclear holocaust in London.
15. A flying car from 1971 shown at the Retromobile car show in Versailles, Paris, in 2005. It features a conventional car with a propeller on the front grille and a separate airplane tail section which can be connected and disconnected from the car at will.
16. If you live in rural France, this is the ideal transport solution: a Citroen 2CV that can fly and float. Information is scarce on this particular car, but it looks like it was a one-off publicity stunt.
17. Developed in 1973 in California, the AVE Mizar promised a revolutionary new transportation concept to beat commuter traffic. Combining a Cessna Skymaster with a modified Ford Pinto, it could fly at 12,000 feet and, once on the ground, disconnect from its airframe giving you the freedom of a car. Its designer Henry Smolinski was killed and the car destroyed when the vehicle crashed in September 1973.
18. This flying AMC Matador was created for the James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun in 1974. The car is used by villain Francisco Scaramanga to escape from Bond: he clips wings and a tail onto the Matador to turn it into an airplane. However, in reality the machine wasn’t airworthy and could only fly 500 metres so a remote control model was used for the flying scenes.
19. Spinner is the name used for the flying cars used in the sci-fi classic Blade Runner. It can be driven on the ground and take off vertically as well as hover and cruise using jet propulsion. A Spinner is on permanent exhibit at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, Washington.
20. The sole remaining prototype of Boeing’s Sky Commuter flying car project sold for £86,000 on eBay in 2008. This is the most futuristic flying car yet, with a bubble canopy and a joystick, but whether it lives up to its airplane billing is another question...
21. The Merlin 200 is a computer-controlled hover car that appeared at a show in California in 1990.
22. This prototype flying saucer, developed in the late 1980s/early 1990s, was the brainchild of Paul Moller, a scientist who has been trying to bring a flying car to market for 40 years. This circular aircraft had seating for two and was powered by eight Wankel-designed, rotary-engined fans to provide vertical take-off and landing. The fans are used to prop the vehicle above the surface by creating a cushion of air and can enable it to fly at speed up to 80 km/h across any surface.
23. A prototype of Moller’s SkyCar project shown at a show in 1991. It featured revolutionary vertical lift technology and a bubble canopy.
24. Moller’s next project, the M400 SkyCar, abandoned the idea of a disc-shaped flying car and designed a private-jet style airframe with seating for four people. Like the flying saucer, though, it was powered by rotary engines that could provide vertical lift. It had a maximum speed of 530 km/h and could fly at 36,000 feet.
25. Considering the Moller has yet to make it into production, the idea of a flying police car based on the Moller M400 is ambitious but no less cool.
26. This is the Terrafugia Transition, a flying car that was shown at the 2012 New York International Motor Show. It’s been in development from 2006 and is likely to be the first commercial flying car to win the race to the skies. You can even put an order in now for one for around $200,000, and it is likely to be ready by 2015.
27. The Haynes Aero Skyblazer is a hybrid concept flying car. Its single turbofan engine provides thrust in the air and charges up batteries to provide electric power on terra firma. It can cruise at 483 km/h and has a range of 1336 km, though judging by these basic CAD drawings it’s nothing more than a sophisticated idea.
28. If you want a LaBiche FSC-1, you have to assemble it yourself. This flying sports car costs $175,000 and can be customised as desired. This single-engined aerocar seats five and has an automated ‘hands-free’ flight system that doesn’t require a pilot’s licence.
29. It's called the AirCar and, as the name suggests, is both a car and a plane that has the potential to fly at speeds of 322 km/h and at an altitude of 25,000 feet. AirCar has four doors and five seats. Power comes from two propeller engines that produce up to 296 hp, while a conventional engine for road use produces 39 hp and gives it a ground speed of 136 km/h.
30. The Parajet Skycar is available to buy now making it the most realistic flying car if you're deadly serious on the idea. Using a parafoil for lift, it is basically a dune buggy with a parachute. This one successfully flew from London to Timbuktu with former SAS officer Neil Laughton at the helm.
He completed the 3,500 mile journey in six weeks, flying over the Straits of Gibraltar and Sahara Desert. It has a cruising altitude of about 915m and a maximum altitude of 4,500m. In car mode, it can go from 0 to 62mph in 4.5 seconds making it as quick as a hot hatch. With the help of sponsors and patron Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the team raised money for a number of charities, including an African orphanage and Alive & Kicking, an organisation that makes leather footballs.
31. Meet the flying car you can build yourself. The Samson Switchblade, currently in development, costs around $70,000 in kit form, making this one of the most cost-effective flying cars we’ve yet encountered. Don’t hold your breath, though: the manufacturers have only tested a 1/4 scale model.
The trike-based Samson has retractable wings, two seats and fixed landing gear, with power coming from a ducted fan. It can fly at 305 km/h and has a range of 555 km.
32. This flying car is being developed in Israel. About the same size as a large van, the X-Hawk would be used in search and rescue operations where a helicopter would be too dangerous. The X-Hawk is a vertical take-off and landing aircraft, that doesn’t have exposed rotors. It can fly at 250 km/h at an altitude of 12,000 ft and has a range of two hours. And looks a long, long way from production if these images are anything to go by.
33. The Maverick is a flying dune buggy with a parachute instead of wings and can carry the same load as a small Cessna. Each Maverick costs around $100,000 and can fly at 10,000 ft. It’s powered by a 2.5-litre Subaru four-pot engine, putting out 190 hp allowing the Maverick to cruise at 65 km/h. Back on land, the Maverick’s tough dune buggy body will allow it to be used off road.
34. This flying Hummer called the Transformer TX is currently in development right now by the US military and could take to the skies as soon as 2015. This is proper Area 51-type sci-fi-cum-reality tech. The US army requested that the vehicle should be able to carry a crew of four along with their equipment, take off and land vertically and cover 250 miles without refuelling. It sounds like the family car of the future. Now all we have to do is wait...
35. This is the PAL-V ONE - it's a 'two-seat hybrid car and gyroplane: a personal air and land vehicle', according to manufacturer PAL-V, and it's just made its successful maiden flight. The PAL-V is powered by a 230 hp aero-engine driving the rear wheels via a chain in car mode, or spinning the rear mounted propeller when in flight mode. The PAL-V ONE needs to be travelling at 50 km/h for wheels to part company with terra firma, giving sufficient lift to sustain level flight. Maximum speed stands at the same 180 km/h as it can reach on the ground. The ONE has been designed to fly below 4,000-feet, so there's no need for a complicated oxygen supply or cabin pressurisation either – but you do need a pilot’s licence.
36. This isn’t so much a flying car as a hovering trike, but it has wheels and can fly so it counts. It’s called the SuperSkyCycle and is a gyrocopter that can legally be driven on the road as a motorbike and flown in the air. The Super Sky Cycle has been in development since 2005, and is the brainchild of Larry Neal, a man who already produces several gyroplanes under the Buttefly Aircraft brand. It’s entirely genuine, and you can have one yourself for US $74,995.
37. This is the Terrafugia TF-X, a future flying car that can take off and land vertically thanks to twin rotor blades. The TF-X can seat four people and, once airborne, it can fly at 320 km/h. It is expected that the TF-X will be easier to fly than a small airplane or helicopter, thanks to fly-by-wire controls and ‘intelligent’ systems that do the majority of the work. In fact, it will be so easy you won’t even need a pilot’s licence to use.
2. The Curtis AutoPlane is considered the world’s first flying car. It was first shown at the 1917 Pan-American Aeronautic Exposition in New York but using the word flying is strong in this context: the AutoPlane achieved nothing more impressive than hopping along the ground for a few yards.
3. This advert from 1928 was shown at The Ideal Home Show at its house of the future exhibition. It shows a design of a flying car for the year 2000. Thankfully car design has moved on since those early predictions… though sadly flying cars haven’t!
4. This is one of the first true flying cars. Only five of these curious little machines were ever built and its first flight took place in February 1937.
The Waterman Arrowbile is a tail-less, two-seat, single-engine airplane. It could fly at a maximum speed of 193 km/h, and cruise comfortably at 164 km/h and had a flying range of 560 km.
5. Cover illustration showing Giro Car from Modern Mechanix magazine, 1935, was a helicopter that you could also drive on the road. Sadly, it doesn’t appear to have left the drawing board.
6. This is the world’s first helicopter-car, built by Jess Dixon of Andalusia, Alabama, in 1940. It could fly forwards, backwards, straight up or hover in the air with power coming from a 40-hp, air-cooled motor, it could reach speeds of 160 km/h. Looks terrifying ...
7. Introduced in 1946, the Fulton FA-2 Airphibian was a car-plane that allowed you to leave the tail section and wings at your destination, giving you the freedom of driving a car normally on the road. Only four were ever built and each one was made of aluminium, with independent suspension demonstrating a vehicle that was hugely advanced for its time.
8. The Aerocar was the first of its kind - it came to prominence in 1949, with six models made, although it never entered production. James May famously drove/flew in one for an episode of Top Gear. Designed to carry two at speeds of up to 217 km/h in the air, the Aerocar could be converted from car to plane in less than five minutes. It came with a trailer, which housed the tail and wings, although this wasn't the most practical of solutions.
9. A car with wings and a propeller protruding from the radiator grille drives through Times Square, New York. The invention of A H Russell of Nutley, New Jersey.
10. This flying car was only a prototype, with two built at a cost of $1,500 back in 1946. The first car was destroyed in a low-fuel incident while flying over San Diego, California, in 1947. It had successfully stayed in the air for one hour before the crash.
11. In 1946, another car with wings took to the skies. Like the ConvAirCar, it involved strapping wings and a tail to a standard road car.
12. Retro illustration of a couple being driven in a futuristic electric car that drives on the road, flies in the air, and functions as a boat. Screen print from an advertisement by Rodabaugh, 1952
13. The star of the famous '60s musical is now owned by serial car nut Chris Evans. He bought Chitty from a friend in the U.S. for £500,000.
Evans' motor was the only working example built for the film and features a Ford Racing 3.0-litre V6, a dashboard plate from a First World War British fighter plane, a polished aluminium bonnet, red and white cedar boat deck and brass fittings lifted from Edwardian motor vehicles.
14. In the 1969 film The Bed-Sitting Room, Peter Cook flies in a Morris Minor cop car that has been turned into a flying car using a balloon. Here he is calling out to people down below to run for cover following a nuclear holocaust in London.
15. A flying car from 1971 shown at the Retromobile car show in Versailles, Paris, in 2005. It features a conventional car with a propeller on the front grille and a separate airplane tail section which can be connected and disconnected from the car at will.
16. If you live in rural France, this is the ideal transport solution: a Citroen 2CV that can fly and float. Information is scarce on this particular car, but it looks like it was a one-off publicity stunt.
17. Developed in 1973 in California, the AVE Mizar promised a revolutionary new transportation concept to beat commuter traffic. Combining a Cessna Skymaster with a modified Ford Pinto, it could fly at 12,000 feet and, once on the ground, disconnect from its airframe giving you the freedom of a car. Its designer Henry Smolinski was killed and the car destroyed when the vehicle crashed in September 1973.
18. This flying AMC Matador was created for the James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun in 1974. The car is used by villain Francisco Scaramanga to escape from Bond: he clips wings and a tail onto the Matador to turn it into an airplane. However, in reality the machine wasn’t airworthy and could only fly 500 metres so a remote control model was used for the flying scenes.
19. Spinner is the name used for the flying cars used in the sci-fi classic Blade Runner. It can be driven on the ground and take off vertically as well as hover and cruise using jet propulsion. A Spinner is on permanent exhibit at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, Washington.
20. The sole remaining prototype of Boeing’s Sky Commuter flying car project sold for £86,000 on eBay in 2008. This is the most futuristic flying car yet, with a bubble canopy and a joystick, but whether it lives up to its airplane billing is another question...
21. The Merlin 200 is a computer-controlled hover car that appeared at a show in California in 1990.
22. This prototype flying saucer, developed in the late 1980s/early 1990s, was the brainchild of Paul Moller, a scientist who has been trying to bring a flying car to market for 40 years. This circular aircraft had seating for two and was powered by eight Wankel-designed, rotary-engined fans to provide vertical take-off and landing. The fans are used to prop the vehicle above the surface by creating a cushion of air and can enable it to fly at speed up to 80 km/h across any surface.
23. A prototype of Moller’s SkyCar project shown at a show in 1991. It featured revolutionary vertical lift technology and a bubble canopy.
24. Moller’s next project, the M400 SkyCar, abandoned the idea of a disc-shaped flying car and designed a private-jet style airframe with seating for four people. Like the flying saucer, though, it was powered by rotary engines that could provide vertical lift. It had a maximum speed of 530 km/h and could fly at 36,000 feet.
25. Considering the Moller has yet to make it into production, the idea of a flying police car based on the Moller M400 is ambitious but no less cool.
26. This is the Terrafugia Transition, a flying car that was shown at the 2012 New York International Motor Show. It’s been in development from 2006 and is likely to be the first commercial flying car to win the race to the skies. You can even put an order in now for one for around $200,000, and it is likely to be ready by 2015.
27. The Haynes Aero Skyblazer is a hybrid concept flying car. Its single turbofan engine provides thrust in the air and charges up batteries to provide electric power on terra firma. It can cruise at 483 km/h and has a range of 1336 km, though judging by these basic CAD drawings it’s nothing more than a sophisticated idea.
28. If you want a LaBiche FSC-1, you have to assemble it yourself. This flying sports car costs $175,000 and can be customised as desired. This single-engined aerocar seats five and has an automated ‘hands-free’ flight system that doesn’t require a pilot’s licence.
29. It's called the AirCar and, as the name suggests, is both a car and a plane that has the potential to fly at speeds of 322 km/h and at an altitude of 25,000 feet. AirCar has four doors and five seats. Power comes from two propeller engines that produce up to 296 hp, while a conventional engine for road use produces 39 hp and gives it a ground speed of 136 km/h.
30. The Parajet Skycar is available to buy now making it the most realistic flying car if you're deadly serious on the idea. Using a parafoil for lift, it is basically a dune buggy with a parachute. This one successfully flew from London to Timbuktu with former SAS officer Neil Laughton at the helm.
He completed the 3,500 mile journey in six weeks, flying over the Straits of Gibraltar and Sahara Desert. It has a cruising altitude of about 915m and a maximum altitude of 4,500m. In car mode, it can go from 0 to 62mph in 4.5 seconds making it as quick as a hot hatch. With the help of sponsors and patron Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the team raised money for a number of charities, including an African orphanage and Alive & Kicking, an organisation that makes leather footballs.
31. Meet the flying car you can build yourself. The Samson Switchblade, currently in development, costs around $70,000 in kit form, making this one of the most cost-effective flying cars we’ve yet encountered. Don’t hold your breath, though: the manufacturers have only tested a 1/4 scale model.
The trike-based Samson has retractable wings, two seats and fixed landing gear, with power coming from a ducted fan. It can fly at 305 km/h and has a range of 555 km.
32. This flying car is being developed in Israel. About the same size as a large van, the X-Hawk would be used in search and rescue operations where a helicopter would be too dangerous. The X-Hawk is a vertical take-off and landing aircraft, that doesn’t have exposed rotors. It can fly at 250 km/h at an altitude of 12,000 ft and has a range of two hours. And looks a long, long way from production if these images are anything to go by.
33. The Maverick is a flying dune buggy with a parachute instead of wings and can carry the same load as a small Cessna. Each Maverick costs around $100,000 and can fly at 10,000 ft. It’s powered by a 2.5-litre Subaru four-pot engine, putting out 190 hp allowing the Maverick to cruise at 65 km/h. Back on land, the Maverick’s tough dune buggy body will allow it to be used off road.
34. This flying Hummer called the Transformer TX is currently in development right now by the US military and could take to the skies as soon as 2015. This is proper Area 51-type sci-fi-cum-reality tech. The US army requested that the vehicle should be able to carry a crew of four along with their equipment, take off and land vertically and cover 250 miles without refuelling. It sounds like the family car of the future. Now all we have to do is wait...
35. This is the PAL-V ONE - it's a 'two-seat hybrid car and gyroplane: a personal air and land vehicle', according to manufacturer PAL-V, and it's just made its successful maiden flight. The PAL-V is powered by a 230 hp aero-engine driving the rear wheels via a chain in car mode, or spinning the rear mounted propeller when in flight mode. The PAL-V ONE needs to be travelling at 50 km/h for wheels to part company with terra firma, giving sufficient lift to sustain level flight. Maximum speed stands at the same 180 km/h as it can reach on the ground. The ONE has been designed to fly below 4,000-feet, so there's no need for a complicated oxygen supply or cabin pressurisation either – but you do need a pilot’s licence.
36. This isn’t so much a flying car as a hovering trike, but it has wheels and can fly so it counts. It’s called the SuperSkyCycle and is a gyrocopter that can legally be driven on the road as a motorbike and flown in the air. The Super Sky Cycle has been in development since 2005, and is the brainchild of Larry Neal, a man who already produces several gyroplanes under the Buttefly Aircraft brand. It’s entirely genuine, and you can have one yourself for US $74,995.
37. This is the Terrafugia TF-X, a future flying car that can take off and land vertically thanks to twin rotor blades. The TF-X can seat four people and, once airborne, it can fly at 320 km/h. It is expected that the TF-X will be easier to fly than a small airplane or helicopter, thanks to fly-by-wire controls and ‘intelligent’ systems that do the majority of the work. In fact, it will be so easy you won’t even need a pilot’s licence to use.
Facebook buttons we would "like"
Toronto - Canada - December 17 - 2014 - What's not to like about Facebook? Plenty of things. For years, users have been clicking the "thumbs up" icon to show their appreciation for everything from vacation photos to engagement announcements. But what happens when one come across items that are not so likeable? Facebook engineer Dan Muriello recently announced that the global social media site is experimenting with a new "sympathize" button to provide an alternative to the iconic "like" button. Think about it. Users could use this option for melancholy posts about break-ups and love triangles, deaths of people nobody knows and other personal tragedies. The "sympathize" button would also work well when users see a status update about an epic hangover when you want to say, "I've been there, man." It may be some time before this new feature pops up on your screen but, in the meantime, here are some additional new tools Facebook software engineers might want to consider.
The "dislike" button.
Realistically, the much-discussed "dislike" button will never actually appear on Facebook although it's nice to dream. We know the potential for cyber-bullying would be atrocious, but wouldn't we love to have the option to give an enthusiastic "thumbs down" to yet another Rob Ford video?
The "seriously" button.
This button would be reserved for all those ignorant, racist and homophobic outbursts that make one cringe and wonder how one is even "friends" with this buffoon. Also appropriate to use on any overtly suggestive bathing suit photos and lengthy status updates full of hashtags.
The "OMG, if I ever see another picture of this freakin' baby, I'm going to lose my mind" button.
This one is self-explanatory. Lately, my news feed looks like a never-ending photo stream of offspring and it needs to stop. One or two snapshots of your newborn are lovely but posting a fresh 50-photo album every time the little ankle-biter masters a new facial expression is completely gratuitous and over-the-top.
The "nobody cares" button.
This button would be a special feature designed for those users who do not seem to understand that over-sharing the daily minutia of your failed, mundane life isn't appropriate on Facebook because that's why your God gave us Twitter. We're looking at you people who post multiple status updates whining about your genital herpes flare-up or your flu symptoms and your subsequent Buckley's Mixture intake in excruciating detail.
The "vomit face" button.
Sometimes nothing can encapsulate your feelings of total disgust like an "I'm about to vomit" emoticon in putrid green. This icon would be best suited for all those obnoxious brags, cheesy couple "selfies", overly emotional song lyrics or anything having to to with Kim Kardashian or Donald Trump.
Article by Jessica Napier
Edited slightly by the editorial staff at Jamesworks
Follow Jessica Napier on Twitter @MetroSheSays
Used by permission
The "dislike" button.
Realistically, the much-discussed "dislike" button will never actually appear on Facebook although it's nice to dream. We know the potential for cyber-bullying would be atrocious, but wouldn't we love to have the option to give an enthusiastic "thumbs down" to yet another Rob Ford video?
The "seriously" button.
This button would be reserved for all those ignorant, racist and homophobic outbursts that make one cringe and wonder how one is even "friends" with this buffoon. Also appropriate to use on any overtly suggestive bathing suit photos and lengthy status updates full of hashtags.
The "OMG, if I ever see another picture of this freakin' baby, I'm going to lose my mind" button.
This one is self-explanatory. Lately, my news feed looks like a never-ending photo stream of offspring and it needs to stop. One or two snapshots of your newborn are lovely but posting a fresh 50-photo album every time the little ankle-biter masters a new facial expression is completely gratuitous and over-the-top.
The "nobody cares" button.
This button would be a special feature designed for those users who do not seem to understand that over-sharing the daily minutia of your failed, mundane life isn't appropriate on Facebook because that's why your God gave us Twitter. We're looking at you people who post multiple status updates whining about your genital herpes flare-up or your flu symptoms and your subsequent Buckley's Mixture intake in excruciating detail.
The "vomit face" button.
Sometimes nothing can encapsulate your feelings of total disgust like an "I'm about to vomit" emoticon in putrid green. This icon would be best suited for all those obnoxious brags, cheesy couple "selfies", overly emotional song lyrics or anything having to to with Kim Kardashian or Donald Trump.
Article by Jessica Napier
Edited slightly by the editorial staff at Jamesworks
Follow Jessica Napier on Twitter @MetroSheSays
Used by permission
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Facebook user visiting Australia falls into the ocean
Sydney - Australia - December 18 - 2013 - A tourist in Australia had to be rescued by police after plunging off a pier while browsing Facebook on her phone, officials said Wednesday. The woman was walking along St Kilda's pier, pictured above, in Melbourne on Monday night when she became distracted by her Facebook feed and plummeted head-first into the chilly Port Phillip Bay, Victoria state police said.
A witness called for help and police rushed to the woman's aid. They found her flailing around in the water, about 20 metres (65 feet) from the pier.
"She was still out in the water lying on her back in a floating position because she told us later that she couldn't swim," Senior Constable Dean Kelly of the state water police told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "She still had her mobile phone in her hand and initially she apologized and said sorry."
The woman was taken to a hospital for treatment. The woman, who was visiting Australia from Taiwan, was taken to a hospital for treatment. Mr Kelly added: "With Facebook, or social media in general as far as we're concerned, if you're anywhere near the water just pay attention. Especially if you can't swim." Victoria police added that there was no need for a lost property report because the woman kept hold of her mobile phone throughout the entire ordeal.
A witness called for help and police rushed to the woman's aid. They found her flailing around in the water, about 20 metres (65 feet) from the pier.
"She was still out in the water lying on her back in a floating position because she told us later that she couldn't swim," Senior Constable Dean Kelly of the state water police told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "She still had her mobile phone in her hand and initially she apologized and said sorry."
The woman was taken to a hospital for treatment. The woman, who was visiting Australia from Taiwan, was taken to a hospital for treatment. Mr Kelly added: "With Facebook, or social media in general as far as we're concerned, if you're anywhere near the water just pay attention. Especially if you can't swim." Victoria police added that there was no need for a lost property report because the woman kept hold of her mobile phone throughout the entire ordeal.
Worst business decisions of all time
Think you’re having a bad day? At least you didn’t miss out on $200 billion. They may have seemed like good calls at the time, but the 10 business decisions that follow ended up costing at least a trillion dollars. What can we learn from these epic missteps which afflicted industries ranging from high-tech and automotive to soft drinks and showbiz?
Xerox shares technology with Apple
Xerox shares technology with Apple
The move: In 1979, Xerox Corporation agreed to let Steve Jobs tour its Palo Alto Research Centre in exchange for a $1 million investment. What caught the Apple CEO’s eye at PARC? Oh, just the cornerstones of personal computing: the graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse-style pointing device, among other innovations. Xerox had already incorporated these features into the "Alto", pictured above. The "Alto" is still widely considered to be the world’s first PC although Xerox had not yet brought the device to market. Steve Jobs saw the potential of the technology and Apple acquired the rights to the Alto GUI. Five years later, the Apple Macintosh was born.
The fallout: There's no way to know how the PC market would have played out if Jobs hadn’t been granted a sneak peek at PARC, or if Xerox hadn’t sold its GUI, or if Xerox had pursued the PC market. But it’s safe to say that Xerox could have had a sizeable piece of the PC pie, which is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year in hardware alone.
The lesson : Vision often trumps innovation.
20th Century Fox signs over Star Wars merchandising to George Lucas
The fallout: There's no way to know how the PC market would have played out if Jobs hadn’t been granted a sneak peek at PARC, or if Xerox hadn’t sold its GUI, or if Xerox had pursued the PC market. But it’s safe to say that Xerox could have had a sizeable piece of the PC pie, which is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year in hardware alone.
The lesson : Vision often trumps innovation.
20th Century Fox signs over Star Wars merchandising to George Lucas
The move : Screenwriter George Lucas was in line for a raise when 1973’s “American Graffiti” became a surprise box-office hit. But instead of asking 20th Century Fox to boost the $150,000 he was being paid to pen “Star Wars,” Lucas opted for all the licensing and merchandising rights relating to the nascent franchise.
The fallout : The Star Wars movies have grossed more than $4 billion at the box office. But the franchise’s total revenue which includes toys, books, DVDs, video games and other licensed merchandise, is around $27 billion. No wonder Disney just bought Lucasfilm for $4.06 billion, and that Lucas himself — pictured above as a 2006 Hasbro action figure — is worth $200 million more than that.
The lesson : A piece of the action beats a raise any day.
Mercedez-Benz merges with Chrysler
The fallout : The Star Wars movies have grossed more than $4 billion at the box office. But the franchise’s total revenue which includes toys, books, DVDs, video games and other licensed merchandise, is around $27 billion. No wonder Disney just bought Lucasfilm for $4.06 billion, and that Lucas himself — pictured above as a 2006 Hasbro action figure — is worth $200 million more than that.
The lesson : A piece of the action beats a raise any day.
Mercedez-Benz merges with Chrysler
The move: When Germany’s Daimler-Benz AG and Detroit-based Chrysler Corp. swapped $38 billion worth of stock in 1998 to form DaimlerChrysler, the so-called 'merger of equals' was heralded as a 'perfect fit” by Daimler-Benz chairman Juergen E. Schrempp.
But it turned out to be far from perfect with shareholder lawsuits and executive resignations a sign of bad things to come.
The fallout : Less than a decade after the merger, the combined company’s Chrysler division was reporting annual losses topping $1 billion.
In 2006, it announced plans to lay off 13,000 employees and close a major assembly plant, ostensibly to cut costs, return to profitability and attract a buyer. This strategy was successful — if losing more than $20 billion can be called that — when Mercedes sold Chrysler to New York’s Cerberus Capital Management for $7 billion in 2007. The top brass involved are pictured at the Stuttgart press conference where the deal was announced.
Two years later, Chrysler declared bankruptcy.
The lesson : S-Classes and PT Cruisers don’t mix.
AOL merges with Time Warner
But it turned out to be far from perfect with shareholder lawsuits and executive resignations a sign of bad things to come.
The fallout : Less than a decade after the merger, the combined company’s Chrysler division was reporting annual losses topping $1 billion.
In 2006, it announced plans to lay off 13,000 employees and close a major assembly plant, ostensibly to cut costs, return to profitability and attract a buyer. This strategy was successful — if losing more than $20 billion can be called that — when Mercedes sold Chrysler to New York’s Cerberus Capital Management for $7 billion in 2007. The top brass involved are pictured at the Stuttgart press conference where the deal was announced.
Two years later, Chrysler declared bankruptcy.
The lesson : S-Classes and PT Cruisers don’t mix.
AOL merges with Time Warner
The move : The 2000 merger of Internet portal America Online and media giant Time-Warner is the epitome of “it seemed like a good idea at the time.” America On Line with its $108 billion in stock inflated by the dot-com bubble, swallowed similarly valued Time-Warner in a $164-billion all-stock deal. Then the bubble burst. Yahoo!, Google and MSN rose to prominence and write-off records started shattering.
The fallout : In 2002, AOL Time Warner reported a one-time write-off of $99 billion. It was the largest corporate loss in history with the firm’s market cap bottoming out at $48 billion which was $171 billion less than at the time of the merger. Mercifully, Time Warner spun off AOL as an independent company in 2009 — and all things considered, both are doing better because of it.
The lesson : Never build on a bubble.
The introduction of New Coke
The fallout : In 2002, AOL Time Warner reported a one-time write-off of $99 billion. It was the largest corporate loss in history with the firm’s market cap bottoming out at $48 billion which was $171 billion less than at the time of the merger. Mercifully, Time Warner spun off AOL as an independent company in 2009 — and all things considered, both are doing better because of it.
The lesson : Never build on a bubble.
The introduction of New Coke
The move : After using more or less the same recipe for nearly a century, the 1985 introduction of Coca-Cola’s new formula was an epic marketing fail until it led to one of the greatest marketing comebacks in history.
The fallout : Millions of loyal drinkers lambasted New Coke with the company going so far as to hire a psychiatrist to listen in on distraught phone calls from all the complainers. The media blasted the beverage and comedians mocked it. Even Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, a long-time Coke drinker, called New Coke “a sign of American capitalist decadence.” Meanwhile, rival Pepsi experienced the largest monthly sales spurt in its history. It got so bad that after just 77 days the original recipe was reintroduced with much fanfare as Coca-Cola Classic. Sales soared fuelling conspiracy theories that New Coke was nothing more than a publicity stunt aimed at re-energizing the original beverage. In 1992, New Coke was renamed Coke II and in 2009 the drink was discontinued altogether.
The lesson : Change can be bad, but there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
* Video: SodaStream — a censored Super Bowl ad
IBM allows Microsoft to retain DOS copyright
The fallout : Millions of loyal drinkers lambasted New Coke with the company going so far as to hire a psychiatrist to listen in on distraught phone calls from all the complainers. The media blasted the beverage and comedians mocked it. Even Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, a long-time Coke drinker, called New Coke “a sign of American capitalist decadence.” Meanwhile, rival Pepsi experienced the largest monthly sales spurt in its history. It got so bad that after just 77 days the original recipe was reintroduced with much fanfare as Coca-Cola Classic. Sales soared fuelling conspiracy theories that New Coke was nothing more than a publicity stunt aimed at re-energizing the original beverage. In 1992, New Coke was renamed Coke II and in 2009 the drink was discontinued altogether.
The lesson : Change can be bad, but there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
* Video: SodaStream — a censored Super Bowl ad
IBM allows Microsoft to retain DOS copyright
The move: Turns out there are two massive mistakes in play here. The first came in 1980 when Microsoft bought the 86-DOS operating system from Seattle Computer Products for a measly $50,000. What spurred the deal? IBM, the largest high-tech company on earth at the time, had asked Microsoft to develop an OS for its new personal computer, and 86-DOS was well-suited for the job. Renamed MS-DOS, Microsoft then sold the OS to IBM for $80,000 — but retained the copyright for the platform. Which brings us to mistake No. 2 .
The fallout: When dozens of computer hardware manufacturers began cloning IBM PCs, Microsoft hit the jackpot by providing the OS for the vast majority of these copycat systems. By the time it launched the Windows platform in 1985, Microsoft was dominating the PC OS market. The company’s initial public offering created three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires among its employees. Nowadays, Microsoft is worth many billions of dollars more than Big Blue.
The lesson : Copycats are a copyright-holder’s best friend.
Ross Perot passes on Microsoft
The fallout: When dozens of computer hardware manufacturers began cloning IBM PCs, Microsoft hit the jackpot by providing the OS for the vast majority of these copycat systems. By the time it launched the Windows platform in 1985, Microsoft was dominating the PC OS market. The company’s initial public offering created three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires among its employees. Nowadays, Microsoft is worth many billions of dollars more than Big Blue.
The lesson : Copycats are a copyright-holder’s best friend.
Ross Perot passes on Microsoft
The move : A year before Microsoft’s legendary DOS dealings, Ross Perot, then CEO of Electronic Data Systems had the opportunity to invest in Microsoft to the tune of around $60 million. But Perot passed on the offer, since Bill Gates was only just 24 years old and since Microsoft had yet to enter the operating system market.
The fallout: What would Perot’s investment be worth today? Let’s put it this way: When a multimillionaire describes a decision as 'one of the biggest business mistakes I've ever made,' it’s just a question of how many zeroes to add.
The lesson : Hindsight gets worse with age.
* Video: Bill Gates explains alt+ctrl+del
Excite passes on Google
The fallout: What would Perot’s investment be worth today? Let’s put it this way: When a multimillionaire describes a decision as 'one of the biggest business mistakes I've ever made,' it’s just a question of how many zeroes to add.
The lesson : Hindsight gets worse with age.
* Video: Bill Gates explains alt+ctrl+del
Excite passes on Google
The move : At least Ross Perot can look to Excite for comfort. The former search-engine giant could have purchased Google for a mere $750,000 in 1999 — which was $250,000 less than Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had asked for when they decided their creation was cutting into their study time at Stanford University. But Excite CEO George Bell, pictured above, turned them down. He likely lives to regret it.
The fallout : Bell’s rebuff marked the beginning of a precipitous downward spiral that would see Excite merge with the @Home Network and then declare bankruptcy less than two years later. Google, on the other hand, is now worth around $200 billion.
The lesson : Hindsight gets worse with age especially when you’re bankrupt.
Decca Records passes on the Beatles
The fallout : Bell’s rebuff marked the beginning of a precipitous downward spiral that would see Excite merge with the @Home Network and then declare bankruptcy less than two years later. Google, on the other hand, is now worth around $200 billion.
The lesson : Hindsight gets worse with age especially when you’re bankrupt.
Decca Records passes on the Beatles
The move : Show business doesn’t get any worse than this. Decca wasn’t the only record company to reject the Beatles in the early 1960s. Columbia, Pye, Philips and Oriole all turned down the band before the Fab Four drove to London to audition for Decca on January 01, 1962. The Beatles performed 15 songs in slightly less than an hour. After reviewing the recordings Decca took a pass saying "guitar groups are on the way out". "'The Beatles have no future in show business", they said. Decca instead backed the Tremeloes, pictured above, apparently because their London home base would mean lower travel expenses.
The fallout : A few months later the Beatles signed with Parlophone, and went on to become the best-selling musical act of all time with more than a billion singles and albums sold. Meanwhile, The Tremeloes had a respectable run but comparing them with the Beatles is like comparing Kraft Dinner to caviar.
The lesson : Yesterday, Decca’s talent reps were in dismay. Now they need a place to hide away
Eastman Kodak shelves digital camera technology
The fallout : A few months later the Beatles signed with Parlophone, and went on to become the best-selling musical act of all time with more than a billion singles and albums sold. Meanwhile, The Tremeloes had a respectable run but comparing them with the Beatles is like comparing Kraft Dinner to caviar.
The lesson : Yesterday, Decca’s talent reps were in dismay. Now they need a place to hide away
Eastman Kodak shelves digital camera technology
The move : What happens when the world’s dominant manufacturer of photographic film invents a camera that doesn’t need film? This was the awkward position Kodak found itself in when it developed the first digital camera, pictured above, in 1975. Fearing the invention would cannibalize its multibillion-dollar film business, Kodak shelved the technology. But when digital cameras exploded in popularity in the 1990s, the company was forced to join in — with disastrous results.
The fallout: By 2005, Kodak was selling more digital cameras in the U.S. than any other firm. But it was losing millions of dollars in the process, as it failed to anticipate how quickly the devices would become low-margin products. Kodak's film business was getting hammered with the rise of camera-equipped smartphones adding to the agony. The nadir came in 2012 when Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Not exactly a “Kodak Moment”.
The lesson: Invention can be a mother of a problem.
The fallout: By 2005, Kodak was selling more digital cameras in the U.S. than any other firm. But it was losing millions of dollars in the process, as it failed to anticipate how quickly the devices would become low-margin products. Kodak's film business was getting hammered with the rise of camera-equipped smartphones adding to the agony. The nadir came in 2012 when Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Not exactly a “Kodak Moment”.
The lesson: Invention can be a mother of a problem.
Technological Nostalgia
Here are 15 household items from your childhood that new homes will never see. As technology continues to evolve all around us, household items that were once commonplace have slowly fallen out of favour. Whatever happened to electric bun warmers? Is a rotary phone compatible with the digital infrastructure we have now? Bell sends me an invoice for touch-tone service so, obviously, the rotary dial telephone is still an option. Is it?While many of yesterday's inventions have disappeared permanently, a few are still holding on. For example, vinyl record and Polaroid enthusiasts can still feed their passions with vintage equipment. Come take a trip down memory lane with us as we visit some of our favourite household blasts from the past.
Story and photos by Jennifer Noonan @ www.BobVila.com
Here are 15 household items from your childhood that new homes will never see. As technology continues to evolve all around us, household items that were once commonplace have slowly fallen out of favour. Whatever happened to electric bun warmers? Is a rotary phone compatible with the digital infrastructure we have now? Bell sends me an invoice for touch-tone service so, obviously, the rotary dial telephone is still an option. Is it?While many of yesterday's inventions have disappeared permanently, a few are still holding on. For example, vinyl record and Polaroid enthusiasts can still feed their passions with vintage equipment. Come take a trip down memory lane with us as we visit some of our favourite household blasts from the past.
Story and photos by Jennifer Noonan @ www.BobVila.com
The electric typewriter was a great advancement over the manual models and many of us used this new invention for typing important documents and business letters. With the advent of word processing software and email correspondence, the electric typewriter is now entirely obsolete.
Before cell phones, before cordless phones, before touch-tone phones, we had the rotary phone—either desk style or wall-mounted. Typically, the phone typically had a very long, twisted cord long enough to make the stretch from the fridge to the stove and back again. I t was the only phone in the entire house — and it didn't have voice mail or visual call waiting.
Old television technology involved big tubes that required a lot of space. TVs were often housed in cabinets which were intended to be a piece of furniture, not just a screen for viewing. In those days prior to remote control devices, the youngest kid in the house was usually tasked with changing the channel.
The Polaroid Instant Camera was the most popular of its kind, using self-developing film to produce finished photos in about a minute. In the age of digital cameras, “instant” means something totally different, and photography is even quicker and cheaper than a Polaroid. With sales declining, the company stopped manufacturing and selling "instant" film in 2008.
A record player was standard entertainment equipment in any house from the late 1940's to the early '80s, alongside ths ehelves of vinyl 331/3 RPM Long - Playing records. Thanks to the blur of technological advances since then, you can now keep your entire music collection on a device that fits in the palm of your hand. However, if you’re a vinyl enthusiast, you can still enjoy dropping a stylus on a beautiful portable player like this one.
Between the record player and the cassette tape was the reign of the eight-track. At first, it was a big success due to its portability since you could easily take your tapes from your car to your home. But the format was abandoned in the late 1970s, when sales began to slip in favor of cassette tapes. After all, you could not even rewind an eight-track tape!
Before YouTube and before home movies, there was the slide show projector. Pack 75 or 100 35mm slides into your projector et voila! You had your Sunday evening entertainment. We're sure you’d like to watch the not-too-enjoyable family trip to Opeongo Lodge one more time, right?
When cable television was new, the wireless technology we have today was still a dream. To change the channel, you used a device that was wired to the cable set-top box. You simply selected a position on the wheel on the right, then pressed the button corresponding to the channel you wanted. Despite the convenience, you could still argue that there was nothing good to watch on TV.
A traditional windup alarm clock is completely mechanical, driven by springs. The double-bell model has a gear-driven hammer that oscillates back and forth between the bells to wake you at the time you set it to go off. As an added benefit, the clock's monotonous tick-tick-tick might help to put you to sleep at night.
These days, doorbells are expected to be heard and not seen. They tend to be digital and wireless and run by radio transmitters. The authentic “DING-dong” of the old-school doorbell is produced when the doorbell circuit is momentarily closed by the pushing of a button. A plunger strikes one bar as the button is pushed, and the other when it is released. DING-Dong! Who’s there?
Before microwave ovens, you popped your popcorn in a pot on the stove or you had an electric popcorn maker like this one. Before too long, it's interior became perfectly seasoned. You’d be hard-pressed in these times, to enjoy better snack food than what these beauties produced.
The tension rod pole lamp was a staple in the 1970's home. It usually had three individual lamps on it, stationed at different heights and focused in different directions. With the current trend toward great rooms with 14' cathedral ceilings, it’s difficult to find a place to put a pole lamp these days.
Wood paneling, once ubiquitous, fell out of favour in the 1980's when the dated look became a homeowner’s worst nightmare. Some people painted it, while others removed it altogether and installed drywall. With updated styles, paneling is starting to come back into fashion as an accent.
Your childhood memories may not be complete without a piping hot dinner roll, fresh from the electric bun warmer on the sideboard. The ultimate uni-tasker, this once-popular small appliance soon found its place on the back burner.
Back in the day, every home had a burn barrel in the backyard for getting rid of brush, leaves, and other refuse. The practice has been banned in many provinces and in many countries. The low temperature of open fires can release toxic substances from plastics, foils, and and other household waste,—not to mention the smelly black smoke that irritates your neighbours.
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Site most recently updated March 06 - 2018
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Site most recently updated March 06 - 2018
TECHNOLOGY