Beware the green screen deception of television news

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 11/12/2014 - 18:48

In case you never saw the movie Wag the Dog, this brief video presentation should convince you to never believe anything you see on mainstream television news such as CNN, FOX News, ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC, etc. You have no way of knowing what, if anything, is true!

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European scientists make space history by successfully landing probe on a comet

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 11/12/2014 - 18:45

DARMSTADT, Germany (PNN) - November 12, 2014 - Scientists have landed a probe on a comet's surface for the first time in history. After a daring seven-hour descent, and despite problems with its thrusters, the Rosetta craft's probe, Philae, touched down on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

A little ingenuity renders “high capacity” magazine ban toothless

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 11/05/2014 - 15:33

DENVER, Colorado (PNN) - October 31, 2014 - When Colorado banned magazines with a capacity of 16 or more rounds back in March 2013, the ostensible justification was that doing so would limit the carnage a mass murderer could wreak when loosed on the soft targets of a "gun-free zone". That such targets can be mowed down in great numbers even without such capacity was apparently of no concern.

Lowes and other retail stores now using robots instead of human workers

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 11/05/2014 - 15:30

LOS ANGELES, Kalifornia (PNN) - October 29,2 014 - The future of shopping has arrived, and it's not human.

Not only do robots cost less than humans, they don't complain, they speak multiple languages, and most importantly, by scanning aisles they know where every item is in the store and can take you straight to it.

Earth magnetic field could flip faster than we thought

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 10/22/2014 - 19:12

BERKELEY, Kalifornia (PNN) - October 17, 2014 - The magnetic poles of the earth have switched back and forth many, many times during the 4.54 billion years that the Earth has been around. Previous research suggested that the process of reversing the poles took place over a long time period, potentially over a few thousand years. But new research shows that the reversal could actually happen much faster than that, with the magnetic North Pole migrating to the South Pole in a time span as short as a century.

Working invisibility cloak has been invented

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 10/15/2014 - 19:04

If you're a fan of Harry Potter or Star Trek, you probably already know what cloaking devices do. In the world of science fiction, they can make things disappear, just like magic. But how does cloaking work in the real world? It can often be a very complicated setup that involves a lot of math and specialized optics, but researchers at the University of Rochester have been working on simplifying that approach.

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Thorium car runs for 100 years without refueling

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 10/15/2014 - 19:03

If your car was powered by thorium, you would never need to refuel it. The vehicle would burn out long before the chemical did. The thorium would last so long, in fact, it would probably outlive you. That's why a company called Laser Power Systems has created a concept for a thorium-powered car engine. The element is radioactive, and the team uses bits of it to build a laserbeam that heats water, produces steam, and powers an energy-producing turbine.

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Security experts build inexpensive safecracker

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 10/15/2014 - 18:59

MELBOURNE, Australia (PNN) - October 14, 2014 - Thanks to a pair of Melbourne security researchers, the cost of opening safes just hit a new low. Using an arduino platform and 3-D printed parts, the pair has created a contraption that can open many combination locks, like those on ATMs and gun safes. The device costs just $150 in parts, but people shouldn’t throw out their safes just yet: it takes about four days to crack the lock.

With Anonabox you can anonymize everything you do online

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 10/15/2014 - 18:56

PRINCETON, New Jersey (PNN) - October 13, 2014 - No tool in existence protects your anonymity on the Web better than the software Tor, which encrypts Internet traffic and bounces it through random computers around the world. But for guarding anything other than Web browsing, Tor has required a mixture of finicky technical setup and software tweaks. Now routing all your traffic through Tor may be as simple as putting a portable hardware condom on your Ethernet cable.

Hundreds of Bluetooth beacons secretly track New York City passersby

Submitted by Freedomman on Wed, 10/08/2014 - 19:23

NEW YORK (PNN) - October 6, 2014 - A company has installed beacons inside hundreds of downtown New York City pay phones that ping the smart phones and tablets of New Yorkers walking by. The beacons are able to gather information about the locations of passersby, the time they passed the beacon, and what websites they visit, among other information. The beacons exchange data over Bluetooth.