![Robotics: Nano-sized Air Force of the Future? [Video]](https://dev.webpronews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/pexels-tima-miroshnichenko-5380664-80x75.jpg)
K-Team Robotics has done some amazing stuff with nano quadrotor flying vehicles. This video shows the progress they have made in coordinating and controlling these small machines. The quadrotors move like a swarm, flying in formation, including three-dimensional formations and object avoidance.
Could this be the future of the US Air Force? What if spy drones were this big? What if tools like this were used to deliver small-payload materials behind enemy lines?
On the campaign trail in Florida leading up to today’s primary, Mitt Romney let loose with some… actually pretty good singing. He led the crowd in a verse of “America, the Beautiful” at a campaign stop in The Villages, FL.
Not bad. I mean, he wasn’t doing Al Green.
Google posted to its Public Policy blog this morning to emphasize the point that they are changing their privacy policies, not their privacy controls, and to share a letter the company wrote to members of congress.
Specific members include: Cliff Steams, Joe Barton, Marsha Blackburn, G.K. Butterfield, Henry Waxman, Edward Markey, Diana DeGette and Jackie Spier.
In the blog post, Google reminds people of five points:
There are some more specifics about the control Google offers users in the letter.
In the letter, Google notes that the old policies have restricted the company’s ability to combine info within an account for web history (search history for signed in users) and YouTube. “For example, if a user is signed in and searching Google for cooking recipes, our current privacy policies wouldn’t let us recommend cooking videos when she visits YouTube based on her searches – even though she was signed into the same Google Account when using both Google Search and YouTube,” Google says in the letter.
Below is the full text of the letter:
Dear Members of Congress:
Thank you for your letter of January 26, 2012 about Google’s plans to update our privacy policies by consolidating them into one document that is publicly available on our site at www.google.com/policies/privacy/preview.
We’re pleased to answer your questions, and we welcome the opportunity to correct some of the misconceptions that have been circulated about our updated privacy policy.
Some have expressed concern about whether consumers can opt out of our updated privacy policy. We understand the question at the heart of this concern. We believe that the relevant issue is whether users have choices about how their data is collected and used. Google’s privacy policy – like that of other companies – is a document that applies to all consumers using our products and services. However, we have built meaningful privacy controls into our products, and we are committed to continue offering those choices in the future.
There are several other key points that we appreciate the chance to clarify:
There are two reasons why we’re updating our privacy policies: to make them simpler and more
understandable, and to improve the user experience across Google.
The first reason is simplicity. Google started out in 1998 as a search engine, but since then, like other technology companies, we’ve added a whole range of different services. Gmail, Google Maps, Google Apps, Blogger, Chrome, Android, YouTube, and Google+ are just a few of our many services now used by millions of people around the world.
Historically when we launched (or acquired) a new service, we added a new privacy policy, or left the existing one for that service in place. This approach eventually created a wide range of policies.
In September 2010, we took a first step toward simplifying these policies by folding a dozen service-specific notices into our main Privacy Policy. But that still left more than 70 notices. So last week we announced that we’ve re written our main Google Privacy Policy to make it much more readable, while incorporating most of our existing service specific privacy notices. This now gives users one comprehensive document that outlines our privacy commitments across our services.
Regulators globally have been calling for shorter, simpler privacy policies, and we’ve received good feedback from several agencies since last week’s announcement. For example, Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner for Ontario, Canada, who is credited with the concept of ―Privacy by Design,‖ recently said about our new Privacy Policy, ―By pulling it all together into one central location and simplifying it, it makes it much more accessible and user friendly. So I think this is a positive development.
The second reason is to create a better user experience. Generally speaking, the main Google Privacy Policy applies across Google, allowing data to be used generally to improve our services, unless it is limited by a specific restriction in the privacy notice for a particular service. Most of our privacy policies have traditionally allowed us to combine information gathered in connection with one service with information from other services when users are signed into their Google Accounts. By combining information within a user’s account we can improve their experience across Google.
For example, today we make it easy for a signed-in user to immediately add an appointment to her Calendar when a message in Gmail looks like it’s about a meeting. As a signed-in user she can also read a Google Docs document right in her Gmail, rather than having to leave Gmail to read the document. Our ability to share information for one account across services also allows signed-in users to use Google+’s sharing feature – called ―circles‖ – to send directions to family and friends without leaving Google Maps. And a signed-in user can use her Gmail address book to auto-complete an email address when she’s inviting someone to work on a Google Docs document. These are just a few examples of how we make our users’ experience seamless and easy by allowing information sharing among services when users are signed into their Google Accounts.
However, our privacy policies have restricted our ability to combine information within an account for two services: Web History, which is search history for signed-in users, and YouTube, the video-sharing service we acquired in 2007. (We had not updated YouTube’s original privacy policy to include Google, with the result that Google could share information with YouTube, but not vice versa.) For example, if a user is signed in and searching Google for cooking recipes, our current privacy policies wouldn’t let us recommend cooking videos when she visits YouTube based on her searches – even though she was signed into the same Google Account when using both Google Search and YouTube.
This kind of simple, intuitive experience across Google benefits our signed-in users by making things easier and letting them find useful information more quickly. Indeed, we often get suggestions from users about how to better integrate our services so that they work together more seamlessly. So our updated privacy policy makes it clear in one comprehensive document that, if a user is signed in, we may combine information she has provided from one service with information from our other services. We’ll treat that user as a single entity across all our services, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.
We hope this overview of our updated privacy policy, together with our attached answers to your specific questions, will address your concerns. However, if you would like to discuss this further, please let us know.
Sincerely,
Pablo Chavez
Director of Public Policy
Google Inc.
The Walking Dead is a massive hit from its origins in graphic novels to it’s debut on AMC as a full television series, the show is a ratings juggernaut. Now with the mid-season quickly approaching, you can watch the first three minutes of the mid-season premiere episode on youtube.
http://youtu.be/1eoyJTk5p7U
With the shocking ending of episode 2×07, episode 2×08 doesn’t slack on the drama. Fans absolutely can’t wait for the series to return and with the unveiling of this clip, the anticipation is nearly unbearable.
Are you a fan of The Walking Dead? Let us know how you feel about the unfolding drama from the past season and a half in the comments section.
In a world of iPads, Kindles, Nooks and laptops, the classic book is slipping. But, a pair of book aficionados in Toronto were willing to recruit friends and put in tireless nights of stop motion photography work to fan the low embers of book support. The result was this gorgeous video that has so far been viewed 2.5 million times on YouTube.
Winter is coming. Not only that, but so are quite a few nerdgasms as HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones is almost back for its second season.
HBO has just released the newest teaser trailer for the season, and it shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that it looks awesome. All of your favorite characters like Tyrion Lannister & Daenerys Targaryen play a part in the trailer, as do some of the show’s most hated like the wretched Joffrey. Check it out below:
The season two premiere is set to take place on April 1st, unless it’s some sort of cruel April Fools Joke.
Twitter is buzzing about the little tease:
@LauraEliz1021
Laura AI really don’t want to do anything today except watch the #GameofThrones trailer over and over again.
31 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto
@nojustiss182
Justin GillettCan we hop in a Delorean and go right to the start of season two of #gameofthrones please!!! 37 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto
@crazendarth
Asen Chowjust 1:07 min of teaser and i got so pumped up with excitement that i couldn concentrate on my sch work the whole nite. damn #gameofthrones 39 minutes ago via RockMelt · powered by @socialditto
If you haven’t seen season one, you’ve got just over two months to catch up. I would recommend it.
According to various reports, about 300 protesters were arrested on Saturday in the Occupy Oakland protests. As you might imagine, related content is flooding the social networks. There are lots of videos of police/protester clashing.
Here are some of the YouTube videos that have been going around:
While the channel is offline at the time of this writing, a UStream channel has been livestreaming the protests.
Here’s some of the current chatter going on about Occupy Oakland on Twitter (it’s pretty similar on Facebook and Google+):
@granitesentry
Granite Sentry100s arrested at #Occupy Oakland; protesters break into City Hall http://t.co/6p1wvbpe Like herding feral cats. #tcot 3 minutes ago via Tweet Button · powered by @socialditto
@jeffunderwood71
Jeff Underwood@StefanHofmeyer Is Oakland safe or out of control? Looks like the occupy movement got a bit out of hand yesterday. Is all well with you? 7 minutes ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto
@PrettyMuchRed
The Red FoxOccupy Oakland is ruining it for all the peaceful ones. 9 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto
#Occupy #Oakland Protesters Injure 3 Police Officers: youtu.be/5If0nRhv_PM via @youtube
— Summer of Justice DC (@JusticeDC2012) January 29, 2012
The tweets are rolling in like crazy. You can follow the conversation here.
Kentucky dad Adam Brown has fraternal twins that are barely 2 months old. One is a placid, easy-going boy. The other is a girl who is fussy with colic. So, like many dads, Brown makes noises at her. Baby girl calms down, even for just a bit. But, she also has a novel reaction to one sound.
This video was posted on January 18. By the next morning, it had gone viral. The video was posted on Huffington Post, and shown on “Good Morning America”, and “Jimmy Kimmel Live”.
As cynical as one can get about the world, often it’s babies and kittens that make the Internet run.
Just when you thought YouTube was done tweaking the user interface of their website, YouTube decided to keep users on their toes and roll out some more updates today.
In a post from its official blog, the YouTube development team announced that they’ve upgraded the Browse page in order to give it “a fresh look-and-feel” that will hopefully guide your browsing hands and eyes to “even more great Channels on YouTube.” They’ve also created content categories in order to simplify the video browsing experience of each topic listed in the left browsing menu. For instance, if you were to click on the Entertainment tab in the left menu, you’ll find sub-categories related to Most Viewed Today, Popular Around the WEb, and some selected (presumably well-trafficked?) Channels with related Entertainment content.
For anyone in the habit of uploading videos, YouTube’s pushed an update to Video Editor. The update is mostly visual as they’ve stream-lined the look to match the rest of YouTube’s recently updated aesthetic, but they also added a new timeline feature and made the clip-trimming tool a little easier to use.
Finally, the last update of the day is with the Video Manager. Like with the Video Editor, Video Manager has been given a makeover in order to match the rest of YouTube’s design. Beyond that change, users will now see a “search history” tool and “an improved display of scheduled uploads and claimed videos.” As a response to the feedback from YouTube users, the statistics for likes and dislikes have returned (don’t expect to see those stats today, though, as the post says that this feature will be re-introduced into the wild over the next couple of days).
Now that everything should look the same over at YouTube, hopefully they can keep their hands to themselves and stop changing around their site every few weeks.
Blocked websites. Infinite copyrights. Draconian entertainment industries. Judicial targeting of “pirate” sites. Users’ loss of Internet access.
If you’ve followed the news of the metastatic Stop Online Piracy Act in the United States, you’re probably familiar with the above dystopian possibilities. But I’m not talking about SOPA or the United States.
Those descriptions were of Bill C-11, the Canadian equivalent to SOPA and PIPA in the U.S.
On the heels of SOPA’s (temporary) delay, the entertainment industry has stepped up their lobbying efforts in Canada to persuade the government to accede to their demands for highly punitive restrictions on copyrights.
Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa who has kept a trained eye on the SOPAs of the world, wrote about the demands from the music and movie industry that could be included in Bill C-11’s revision. These changes would include blocking of websites and, more frightening, extreme government responses that could result in the revocation of Internet access by users found to be “repeat infringers.” Geist noted that within the bill’s langage there is “no indication of due process or even proof of infringement.”
In other words, if the government, sitting like a puppet upon the fat cobby fingers of the entertainment industry, says you’re a repeat offender, then you’re a repeat offender. Say goodbye to your Internet. And if you don’t lose your Internet altogether, you will certainly see drastic if not crippling effects on a site like YouTube, the Fertile Crescent of viral videos, memes, parodies, remixed movie scenes, and so on.
Geist put together a revealing comparison between the claims of one media company, Viacom, and the “enabler” provisions that have been proposed in order to limit the reach of so-called pirate sites. The invective language Viacom uses in their claims to criminalize YouTube (“YouTube’s founders built an integrated media entertainment business, in the district court’s words, by ‘welcom[ing] copyright-infringing material’” and “Google’s financial advisors stated that 60 percent of YouTube’s views were ‘premium’ —i.e., copyrighted—and only 10 percent of the premium videos were licensed”) is grating and reflects the contempt that the entertainment industry has for sites like YouTube as well as a complete lack of understanding in disambiguating between “copyright infringement” and participation within the culture you live in. The purpose of uploading videos onto YouTube isn’t to circumvent the process of paying to view clips of shows or movies. The sharing of video content facilitates discussion (albeit horribly, if you’ve ever read some of the YouTube comment threads, but hey – that’s their democratic right to say stupid things) and discovery of other material that might not be otherwise accessible to users. What is to distinguish between someone uploading a segment of a movie onto YouTube that prompts discussions among other YouTube users and a library providing a free showing of a movie and then hosting a discussion of the movie afterwards? Nothing.
And if you think the effects of a site like YouTube going away are limited only to cultural ramifications, you may be sorely mistaken. According to Geist’s speculation, the result of Bill C-11’s passage could likely effect preventive measures that would be detrimental to the growth of the technology sector within Canada:
Reading the Viacom claims makes it clear that applying its arguments to a SOPA-version of the Bill C-11 enabler clause (which content groups want expanded to include operating or inducing infringement) could create a huge chill in the investment and technology community in Canada. Online video sites, cloud computing sites, and other online services may look at the Bill C-11 and fear that even a lawsuit could create massive costs, scare away investors, and stifle new innovation. Indeed, a recent study by Booz & Company found this to be a very real problem, with a large majority of the angel investors and venture capitalists saying they will not put their money in digital content intermediaries if governments pass tough new rules allowing websites to be sued or fined for infringing digital content posted by users. The U.S. has dropped SOPA, but now incredibly Canada may consider the very provisions that causes investors to become skittish.
And on a final note, entertainment industry: If you truly do insist on making sure that everybody pays for every single use of every single frame or note from your precious copyrighted material, even at the expense of annihilating the global culture, consider this: if you weren’t manufacturing music and movies that are reminiscent of the feeling one gets when flocks of giant mutated pigeons drop cargo bay-sized lumps of nuclear turds upon the exposed brains of your consumers, you might actually be able to persuade a few people to see your side in all of this. But you insist on this path and, because you’re dead-set on producing mind-rotting material that only promotes the death of creativity, you’ve decided to take it out on us. You should be applauding us, though, not sniping us because you think we’re stealing your material. We’re not. Through the use of sites like YouTube, we’re actually doing our best to make your incessant drivel more entertaining for us.
And you don’t have to pay us a dime for our services.
Caroline Drucker, partner marketing manager of SoundCloud, took part in an event called IgniteNYC. According to the site, they ask the question…
5 minutes and 20 slides rotating automatically in front of NYC’s brightest geeks, what would you say? For nearly two years Ignite NYC has cultivated a vibrant community of artists, technologists, thinkers, tinkerers, and personalities to connect, develop new relationships and projects, and answer this challenge. Enlighten us, but make it quick!
Drucker discussed an issue which many deem important, but most of the solutions have been repeated and regurgitated across tech blogs around the internet – How can women become more involved in prominent roles in the world of tech?
Drucker’s perspective is simple; females in tech should start referring to themselves as women instead of girls. Her insights are pretty funny, and thought-provoking. If you’re wondering how she defines a “woman”, it’s someone who’s menstruated and paid taxes. The reason for the distinction is because the term woman is associated with maturity and power, while girl implies immaturity and less power. Simple enough.
If I can interject with my own thought, I think the problem comes from women getting gipped when it comes to age/maturity neutral descriptors. Let’s take a look…
Man – Woman
Boy – Girl
Male – Female
Guy – ummm…Girl
A guy can be anyone. There are 5 year old guys, and 90 year old guys. Yet, we equate a guy to a girl, even though we use the same term when we’re designating a female child. I think it’s time we devised a maturity neutral descriptor for women/girls. Or women could simply refer to themselves as such in the workplace; that is, after their first menstruation and tax filing.
A ukelele, a webcam and mic, all coupled with a YouTube account; these are the tools utilized by Julia Nunes. They’ve helped her reach nearly 50 million views on YouTube, with 209,777 subscribers.
When you generate this kind of buzz, one of two things can happen. You can fall into internet legend obscurity, as seen on South Park. However, sometimes the formula works and YouTube can catapult people into stardom. Nunes is hoping for the latter.
She was featured on Conan, playing a song from her debut album ‘Settle Down’, which comes out February 28th.
She’s previewed a track from her album on SoundCloud – Nothing’s That Great.
Nothing’s That Great by julianunes
If you’re unfamiliar with Nunes’ work on YouTube, here’s her Top 3 most viewed YouTube videos. Never has a ukelele sounded so good…
Remind me never to join the People’s Liberation Army of China.
Footage revealed last weekend on YouTube shows a training exercise from the PLA where soldiers pass around a live grenade to have it thrown into a hole. The soldiers then leap out of the way before it explodes. It’s a dangerous game of hot potato that I have no interest in.
The video description outlines the training exercise in more detail by saying that each soldier must take the live explosive by both hands, then hand it off to the next soldier while visibly twisting their torso. The last soldier then has to throw it into the hole and make sure it lands inside correctly.
The video description goes on to say, “As with militaries across the world, the PLA instill their soldiers with specialised skills and advanced training.” Let me know if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure no other military in the world has their soldiers playing hot potato with a live grenade as “training.”
I don’t think I need to add the disclaimer, “Don’t try this at home,” but seriously, please don’t try this at home.