The million-plus citizens of Leon, Mexico are set to become the first example of a city secured through the power of biometric identification. Iris and face scanning technologies from Global Rainmakers, Inc. will allow people to use their eyes to prove their identify, withdraw money from an ATM, get help at a hospital, and even ride the bus. GRI’s eye scanning systems aren’t more secure than others on the market, but they are faster. Large archway detectors using infrared imaging can pick out 50 people per minute, even as they hustle by at speeds up to 1.5 meters per second (3.3 mph). The first phase of the Leon iris and face scanning project has already begun. It is estimated to cost around $5 million and focuses on law enforcement agencies’ security check points. Over the next three years commercial uses will be rolled out with banks leading the charge. Check out the videos below to see GRI’s wide range of iris scanning stations in action. Whether you’re jealous or intimidated by Leon’s adoption of widespread eye identification you should pay attention to the project – similar biometric checkpoints are coming to locations near you. Some are already in place — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Researchers in the Midwest are developing microelectronic circuitry to guide the growth of axons in a brain damaged by an exploding bomb, car crash or stroke. The goal is to rewire the brain connectivity and bypass the region damaged by trauma, in order to restore normal behavior and movement — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Open sourcers have seized control of the OpenOffice project and product and declared their independence from database giant Oracle — via redwolf.newsvine.com
In a study that could eventually restore movement to humans’ paralyzed limbs, researchers at California’s Stanford University have used light to induce muscle contractions in mice. A gene derived from algae was inserted into the mice, encoding a light-sensitive protein which adhered to their nerve cell surfaces. Scientists then placed an optical cuff
lined with tiny, inwards-facing LEDs around the mice’s sciatic nerves. By penetrating those nerves with brief, high-intensity bursts of blue light, they were able to produce muscle contractions similar to those that would occur naturally. The technology is called optogenetics
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
U.S. authorities have charged more than 60 people in connection with the money-stealing Zeus Trojan program, according to the US Department of Justice — via redwolf.newsvine.com
New digital recordings of events in US history and early radio shows are at risk of being lost much faster than older ones on tape and many are already gone, according to a study on sound released Wednesday — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Cold Chisel is planning a national tour and will record a new album next year, lead singer Jimmy Barnes has confirmed — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A film set to be released for free via BitTorrent has been denied a listing in the Internet Movie Database. The Tunnel is currently in production and despite pleas from the makers, IMDb won’t allow it on their site — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Update: The Tunnel officially got their IMDB listing
Undeterred by the online destruction of ACS:Law, UK lawyers Gallant Macmillan will head off to the High Court on Monday to demand the identities of hundreds more people they claim have been detected sharing files online. While the ISP that holds the identities says it will resist the demand and ask for the hearing to be adjourned, the judge and jury of Operation Payback will pass down their verdict tomorrow, sentencing Gallant Macmillan to a DDoS attack — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Britain has recognised the Druid belief system as an official religion for the first time, thousands of years after the Celtic pagan faith emerged in Europe, the UK Charity Commission said — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Apple is known for the stringent guidelines it applies when deciding which software to allow into their App Store – BitTorrent is one of the things on their ban list — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Scientists have invented an efficient way to produce apparently safe alternatives to human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos, a long-sought step toward bypassing the moral morass surrounding one of the most promising fields in medicine.
A team of researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Boston published a series of experiments Thursday showing that synthetic biological signals can quickly reprogram ordinary skin cells into entities that appear virtually identical to embryonic stem cells. Moreover, the same strategy can then turn those cells into ones that could be used for transplants — via silentrebellion.newsvine.com
A New Zealand kebab shop owner has been convicted of assaulting his wife after the judge dismissed his claims they were performing a traditional Turkish dance as nonsense and a lie
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
In a decision that could make it easier for citizens to record police officers in Maryland, a Harford County judge ruled Monday that state police and prosecutors were wrong to arrest and charge a man for taping his own traffic stop and posting it on the Internet — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Transporting large, clunky bits of equipment has always posed a challenge. Roads and railways do not reach everywhere, and even if they did, many cumbersome and heavy constructions need to be hauled in pieces, only to be put together at the final destination. Aeroplane cargo faces even tighter restrictions on shape and size, not to mention the need for runways. Heavy-transport helicopters, such as the Mil Mi-26 or Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane, address some of these difficulties, but their payloads are limited to 20 and nine tonnes, respectively, and the huge rotors create a powerful downdraft that makes handling that payload rather tricky. So people have long been looking for other ways round the problem. Now, Skylifter, an Australian aeronautical firm, thinks it has found the perfect solution.
The company is developing a piloted dirigible capable of carrying loads of up to 150 tonnes over distances as great as 2,000km (1,240 miles) at a speed of 45 knots (83kph). This would permit the craft to transport not just hefty components, but entire buildings, to remote areas. The company envisages modules ranging from rural hospitals and disaster-relief centres to luxury airborne cruise ships — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A Florida man arrested Wednesday on drug charges told cops that a bag of cocaine found hidden inside his buttocks did not belong to him. Though the suspect did cop to ownership of a bag of marijuana hidden alongside the coke — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Looking at “Upside Dome” by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, installed inside the St. Michiel Church in Leuven, Belgium, is like seeing the underlying geometric logic of Western space bleed through from a hidden dimension.
The project was at least partially inspired, the architects write, by their recognition that the church itself actually has no dome: their intervention “takes this seemingly trivial fact as a starting point and generate[s] the missing dome in a remarkable way” — via BLDGBLOG
Most motorcycle marques can point to a single early model that set the tone for those that followed and established the brand. In BMW’s case it’s the R32. It was unveiled at the Berlin motor show in 1923, and it was a good fifty years later before BMW Motorrad shook off the R32?s iconic black-paint-and-pinstripes look. This ‘R1232’ is a very unusual custom built by a team led by Jean-Luc Dupont of the French BMW dealer Panda Moto 89. Jean-Luc is based in Villeneuve-Sur-Yonne, south east of Paris, and he’s known for creating BMW customs based on current production models — via Bike EXIF
It wasn’t so much rum, sodomy and the lash the men had to fear in the navy 200 years ago, as the ship’s surgeon heading towards them with a reassuring smile, a saw in one hand and a poison bottle in the other.
Brandy enemas, a strychnine injection, a sulphuric acid gargle, ammonia rubbed on the lips, and three and a half pints of blood taken from a man with pneumonia are all recorded as attempted cures in a century of gruesome and fascinating journals of Royal Navy ship surgeons revealed at the National Archives: all failed — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Astronomers have discovered a potentially habitable planet of similar size to Earth in orbit around a nearby star.
A team of planet hunters spotted the alien world circling a red dwarf star called Gliese 581, 20 light years away.
The planet is in the “Goldilocks zone” of space around a star where surface temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to form — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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