Scratch another one against privacy in the name of “public safety” and “protection”: Following European Union directives, Spain will disconnect all pre-paid phone lines that aren’t registered with the owner’s personal information. Who wins here?
Apparently, escaping from Guantánamo Bay is not quite as easy as Harold and Kumar made it seem. As the NYT points out, the prison still harbors terrorists that the government claims are highly trained and resourceful—including at least one detainee that was taught how make detonators out of old SEGA cartridges. In all likelihood, the individual they were referring to was Hassan Bin Attash—a teenage detainee that human rights organisations believe was tortured before doing time in Gitmo. It’s just like stuffing an NES into a cartridge—only more scary and depressing. [NYT via DasGamer via Kotaku]
Twitter is great for grassroots organising—Obama and McCain both use it to relay biddings to acolytes. That same, real-time insta-blast networking quality would also make it a jee-golly-awesome organizing tool for terrorists, according to a draft Army intelligence report. Mix Twitter with mobile phones and you’ve got highly mobile, connected terrorists using the same tools you use to tell your friends about the zit on your butt that just won’t go away. There are three scenarios the Army is worried about, and one of them is genuinely scary.
Real-time videos that detect the most minute movements in enemy battle areas and advanced analytical systems that will efficiently sift through them are all in the works, according to DARPA documents. A $US6.7 million contract with software company Kitware revealed a DARPA project focused on rapidly indexing archived aerial surveillance. It also gave a taste of the technology our military already uses, and it sounds like something out of the Bourne Identity.
The hard-hitting investigative team at MyFox has just discovered the latest and greatest threat to national security and your children: Fisher-Price’s Little Mummy Real Loving Baby Cuddle & Coo Doll, which is sold across the country, has apparently been hijacked by Al-Qaeda to reprogram your children into followers of Allah! If you squint your ears, one of the talking doll’s catchphrases sounds like “Islam is the light.” God-fearin’ parents everywhere are horrified, or at least outside of this McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. Why hasn’t anyone been talking about the surge where we really need it, the heart of Fisher-Price??? [YouTube]
If I didn’t really, really love Lego and Technic, like many of the staff here at Gizmodo, I might very well be running in terror at the sight of this eight-legged, Theo Jansen-inspired monstrosity. It barely makes a sound as it claws its way across the floor, aside from the slight hiss of the motor that drives this thing inexorably into my nightmares. Oh, and on a related note Theo Jansen made a sick BMW commercial back in the day that certainly served as inspiration for this Lego arachnid.
