Getting a ticket for speeding is a fear that most drivers face every day. For 16 percent of drivers this year, that fear will become a reality. Of those, only 5 percent of people will not contest their ticket, costing them an average of 150 dollars. While many drivers do get pulled over for speeding, there are others who have learned to avoid the police officer’s radar gun with a device of his or her own — The radar detector. A radar gun uses radio waves to detect distance and speed of objects based on the doppler effect. A radar detector is able to detect these waves before they catch the speeding car. A…

SOPA was a black eye for the US government. Nothing in the last few decades can compare to the complete turnaround Washington DC had to make once the people of the internet and websites across the web made their opposition to the bill known back in January, 2012. Now, the politicians and other entities have learned from their mistakes. This time, they have been able to pull off the unthinkable. They have successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of the American people. The public outrage that stopped SOPA has been replaced by solemn acceptance by some, disinterest from others, and a complete lack…

Put your tin foil hats on. It’s conspiracy theory time. Since 2010, Google has been tracking and releasing their bi-yearly Transparency Report. In it, they give details about the number of requests various governments make to the search giant for personal information. On the surface, this seems to be an excellent way for Google to maintain their position as a company that is fighting for the privacy of its users by informing them and giving them awareness that they should join the fight to keep the internet, our activities, and the data that we put online as private as possible. What if (stay with…

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) have been working on the Legged Squad Support System (LS3) for years. This creepy, “thinking” robot is designed to help troops carry equipment on terrain that is normally not suitable for vehicles. The latest advancements are demonstrated below, showing improved maneuverability, voice commands, stability controls, and recovery abilities. When it falls, it can get back up. Fortunately, it doesn’t fall very often even in difficult terrain. In this video, they demonstrate the ability…

There is no longer a need to argue that governments, the US government in particular, have been attempting to gain information about individuals through official requests to internet companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter. As the internet and social media continue to expand and the amount of information people willingly and unwillingly put only grows exponentially, the value of this data is unquestionable. Businesses want it. Other internet companies want it. Sharing has become normal in our society and that data is extremely valuable. When governments increase their interest…

Next Generation Identification. NGI. These three words and three letters are the most dangerous move the US Government has ever planned since Prohibition. It’s bigger than SOPA. It’s bigger than any privacy, detention, or body scanning debacle that the government has rolled out, and there have been plenty of them the last few years. The $1 billion project isn’t just about facial recognition according to NewScientist. It “will also add biometrics such as iris scans, DNA analysis and voice identification to the toolkit.” All of this should terrify us. The motives are (publicly) good – create…

You won’t hear much about it until after November, but regardless of which way the US government races go there is a good chance that a bill will be introduced to add a tax to broadband internet services. The FCC has been eying the prospects of adding more clout to their Connect America Fund, an effort to make broadband internet connectivity available even in remote areas of the country. Technically, it couldn’t be true tax. The Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998 prohibits that. Instead, it would be proposed as a fee to internet service providers that they could pass on to their customers if they choose….

Many of the problems that face the world currently have been solved through technology. Food can be grown, raised, processed, packaged, and shipped in efficient ways. Medicine has extended life and cured most diseases that once killed the masses. We can communicate with people anywhere in the world, travel to nearly any place in the world, and we have the ability to protect the people from most forms of natural challenges. The only problem we can’t really address is the sheer bulk. There’s simply too many people with too many needs to handle all of the problems. The technology is there. We just can’t…

The Tea Party movement was intended for Americans to harken to the revolutions of the past when tyranny and taxation reigned over the colonies. The #OccupyWallStreet movement drew awareness to the tremendous gaps between the “haves” and the “have nots” with a call for a more sensible distribution of wealth. Both have supporters and detractors of equal passions. Neither was as purely American as what the SOPA/PIPA/OPEN blackouts planned for tomorrow represent. There is distinct gray surrounding the Tea Party and #OWS. Both galvanized parts of the population but the political questions being…

The precedent has been set and it’s a very bad one. A US judge ruled that Twitter must release all of the details of Birgitta Jonsdottir’s account, as well as two others. Their links to WikiLeaks has put them under the scrutiny of the Justice Department after last year’s video of US helicopters shooting two Reuters reporters in Iraq. Speculation is that Jonsdottir is not the target but rather a piece of the case they’re currently building against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “This is a huge blow for everybody that uses social media,” said Jonsdottir. “We have to have the same civil rights online…