By Daniel Lang

Boston Dynamics isn’t just in the business of creating groundbreaking new robots. They’re also in the business of building the stuff of our nightmares. The Google owned company is responsible for creating mechanical terrors such as the Cheetah, which can run faster than any human. Then there’s the PETMAN, a humanoid robot that lumbers around like Frankenstein’s monster. They’re also responsible for the Spot Mini, a machine with five limbs; and the LS3, a pack mule robot designed for the military.

Now Boston Dynamics has introduced a wheeled robot called Handle, which appears to be able to pick up more weight with its arms than any of their previous creations. It’s also capable of feats that you would have never guessed that a bipedal wheeled machine could ever do.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xvqQeoA8c?feature=oembed&w=777&h=437]

Coming soon to a robot rebellion near you.

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By Daniel Lang

If someone walks into a hospital and claims that they’re being tracked, and that they need to have a tracking device removed, there’s a pretty good chance that they’re going to be sent to a mental institution instead. However, according to a doctor who wished to remain anonymous to protect his patient, that very situation occurred last October and it didn’t end how you might expect.

The patient in question was a 28-year-old woman who claimed that she had a GPS tracking device planted in her body. Normally a patient like that would be regarded as crazy, but this woman appeared totally sane, and she had an incision mark on her side. So the doctor decided to check her out anyway. The medical staff at the hospital were stunned when they finally gave her an X-ray.

Embedded in the right side of her flank is a small metallic object only a little bit larger than a grain of rice. But it’s there. It’s unequivocally there. She has a tracker in her. And no one was speaking for like five seconds — and in a busy ER that’s saying something.

It turns out that it wasn’t a GPS device, but an RFID chip. “It’s used to tag cats and dogs. And someone had tagged her like an animal, like she was somebody’s pet that they owned.”

In a way, that makes it even creepier than a GPS device. RFID chips have a very short range. To be useful for tracking someone’s position, they would have to be kept confined in an area where the right equipment is in place to send or receive signals from the chip. The doctor would later discover that this woman was a victim of sex trafficking.

Science fiction has been warning about the potential of tracking devices for years, but usually in reference to how the government might use this technology. It just goes to show that the way humans use technology in the real world is often stranger (and creepier) than fiction.

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By Daniel Lang

If there was only one truism of the modern world, it would be that no computer is safe from hacking. No matter what you do to protect your information and electronic devices, there’s a way for nefarious people to get to them. It’s only a matter of effort, resources, and ingenuity.

As for your smartphone, scientists have discovered a crafty new method for hacking them. Inside pretty much every smartphone is an accelerometer, which is used to detect motion in three dimensions. It turns out that a certain type of accelerometer, called a capacitive MEMS accelerometer, can be hacked with sound waves. According to Kevin Fu, a computer scientists from the University of Michigan, “It’s like the opera singer who hits the note to break a wine glass, only in our case, we can spell out words… You can think of it as a musical virus.”

This hacking method wouldn’t require any sophisticated equipment. In one experiment the researchers hacked an accelerometer with a $5 speaker, and in another they hacked a phone with its own internal speaker. Though you may think that the accelerometer in your phone doesn’t do anything too important, in certain applications it’s critical. One of the researchers revealed that “If a phone app used the accelerometer to start your car when you physically shake your phone, then you could intentionally spoof the accelerometer’s output data to make the phone app think the phone is being shaken.”

And it’s not just smartphones that have accelerometers. These things can be found in medical devices, industrial equipment, satellites, vehicles and airbags, and they’re even embedded in buildings. Kevin Fu’s team was able to hack 15 out 20 of the accelerometers they tested, which were made by five different manufacturers.

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By Daniel Lang

The world is changing faster than ever before, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t being acclimated to it. It’s truly a testament to the ability of humans to adapt to just about any circumstance. We have more food, wealth, and life-saving technologies than anyone in our history. We have a nearly unlimited stream of entertainment and information. Yet we take it all for granted.

Because we’re so acclimated to this world, we often forget how strange it is compared to previous eras. Sometimes we forget to stop and appreciate just how freaking bonkers it all is. If you don’t believe me, I’ve collected five news stories to prove it. They’re not necessarily relevant to each other in any way, but if you told someone 30 years ago that the following stories would someday come true, they’d probably think that you were pitching some bizarre sci-fi novel.

3D Printing

You’ve definitely heard about this technology already. 3D printing has been in the news countless times over the past few years. However, that doesn’t mean that it is old hat. It seems as if every year 3D printing is used to create something that no one had considered before.

The fact that we live in a world where a novice can print out his own gun parts is freaky enough, but now it’s believed that 3D printers can create camera lenses as small as a grain of salt. This could be used to create billions of tiny sensors that could be scattered throughout the world; a concept known as “smartdust.” Alternatively, 3D printers can also be used to build objects as large a house in 24 hours.

Lab-Grown Meat

For all of human history, meat was something you raised and produce was something you grew. Not anymore. Since 2013, scientists from around the world have successfully grown meat from cultured animal cells on multiple occasions. In fact, just this week a startup from San Francisco managed to create the first lab-grown chicken strips. The people behind these projects believe that lab-grown meat will become a normal staple in grocery stores in the very near future, because growing meat in this fashion is a lot less resource intensive, and the taste is almost indistinguishable from natural products.

Acceptance of Government Surveillance

Between Edward Snowden and the Vault 7 Wikileaks, the public is finally aware of how invasive the government’s spying really is. We know that the government is tracking and recording every word that we say and write over the Internet and over our phones, and we know that the government can spy on us through countless electronic devices in our homes.

But that isn’t the freaky part. What’s strange is how we’ve come to accept it. There are no riots or protests in the streets because of this. No one is being arrested and thrown in jail for something that is clearly illegal. Privacy died, and it’s like no one noticed. What would have outraged everyone a few generations ago, is now met with a shrug.

Santa Muerte

This is the only entry on this list that doesn’t have something to do with technology, but I can’t help but find this story to be a totally unexpected development.

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By Daniel Lang

At this point, the idea that cell phone radiation can be harmful to your health is kind of an open secret. It’s a secret in the sense that the media and the cell phone companies don’t talk about it very much. It’s also never been scientifically proven that cell phone signals can hurt you. At the same time, however, most cell phone user manuals warn you not to keep these devices too close to your body. Clearly the cell phone companies think that their devices may be dangerous.

But the cell phone companies aren’t alone. The government also refuses to talk about the dangers of cell phones while quietly admitting that there may be a problem. In fact, it was recently found that the California Department of Public Health had hidden a document drafted years ago, that contained concerns about cellphone radiation from health officials.

It was released this week after Joel Moskowitz, who is the director of the Center for Family and Community Health at UC Berkeley, sued the state in order to have the document published. Though the document is dated April 2014, Moskowitz says that it was actually created seven years ago and periodically updated from time to time. The document has “Draft and Not for Public Release” stamped across the pages.

The document says that cell phone use may increase brain cancer risks, and that “cellphone EMFs can affect nearby cells and tissues.” It also recommends keeping the cell phone away from your body by using headsets and texting, and turning the phone off when it’s in your pocket. The document warns that cell phone radiation “can pass deeper into a child’s brain than an adult’s,” and recommends that parents limit their children’s use of cell phones. Why the Department of Public Health has hidden this document is a mystery.

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By Daniel Lang

It’s quite frankly amazing that the socialist government running Venezuela is still standing. That country is a testament to the ability of humans to put up with unimaginable poverty and tyranny without flipping their lids and lynching their leaders.

But alas, socialist governments can only last so long, even when their subjects aren’t actively trying to overthrow them. At a certain point these types of governments simply run out of money, which is what it appears is going to happen in Venezuela.

The Venezuelan government only has $10.5 billion left in foreign reserves, which the government has been using in recent years to pay outstanding debts. In 2015 Venezuela had twice that amount, and it had over $30 billion six years ago. And what’s left of this nation’s reserves is expected to rapidly diminish in the months ahead. Venezuela will have to pay $2.1 billion by this April, and a total of $7.2 billion by the end of the year. Only about $7.7 billion worth of their gold reserves are left after the government had to send some of their bullion to Switzerland last year.

And unlike most countries, Venezuela can’t simply accumulate more debt and inflate their currency. They can’t kick the can down the road anymore. The currency is already practically worthless, and they’ve been struggling to pay their debts for several years. Inflation is expected to increase by 1,660% this year and another 2,880% next year. Unless the price of oil goes up again in the next year or so, then it appears that the Maduro regime will have to default on its debts, which will likely lead to a collapse of the government.

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By Daniel Lang

When President Trump was running for office, he ran on a platform that promised to bring jobs back to America; in particular, jobs from the manufacturing sector that had been siphoned off overseas. In light of that, it’s a shame that the Trump administration has since taken a hostile stance towards recreational marijuana. That’s because the growing marijuana industry could create a ton of jobs.

According to data published by New Frontier Data and highlighted by a recent article from High Times, the marijuana industry could wind up creating 300,000 new jobs by the year 2020. That would be more jobs than are expected to be created by the manufacturing sector. It’s also more jobs than are expected to be generated by utilities or the government. These statistics are based on current growth in the marijuana sector, and don’t include states that are likely to legalize marijuana in the near future. They also consider the possibility of a slow down in the growth of the marijuana industry.

Marijuana sales are expected to grow to the tune of $13.3 billion by the year 2020, $11.2 billion of which will be recreational sales. In addition, this financial growth could help support the economy during the next recession. According to Giadha Aguirre De Carcerthe, founder of New Frontier Data, “While we see a potential drop in total number of U.S. jobs created in 2017, as reported by Kiplinger, as well as an overall expected drop in GDP growth, the cannabis industry continues to be a positive contributing factor to growth at a time of potential decline.”

Someone needs to give the Trump administration a reality check. If Trump really wants to rescue the American economy, he needs to back off of the pot issue. Hopefully the rumors that Jeff Sessions is going to respect states rights on this issue will turn out to be true.

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By Daniel Lang

In February of 2016, hackers managed to gain access to the Bangladesh Central Bank. They proceeded to issue about three dozen requests to withdraw money from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York amounting to $951 million. By sheer luck, the Federal Reserve managed to stop the transaction after only $101 million had been sent ($20 million was later recovered). To date, the culprits of this heist haven’t been caught.

However, federal prosecutors think they have an idea who was responsible. They’re building a case that points the finger at unknown individuals in North Korea, as well as several Chinese middlemen who they think helped North Korea orchestrate the heist. Though the U.S. seems to think that the North Korean government was involved, there may not be any charges against any specific North Korean officials. If true, this would mark the first time that a nation state has tried to rob a central bank of another country outside of war.

On the other hand, some of the federal officials who are working on the case think that someone else is involved. They suspect that the hackers modified the code that was used by the Sony hackers in 2014, to make it look like North Korea committed the theft.

I don’t think either situation would be too surprising. That’s the problem with North Korea. That country has such a weird and awful reputation, that you can’t put anything past them.

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