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(AP) STOCKHOLM - Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661. Now it's come farther than most on the path toward getting rid of them. "I can't see why we should be printing bank notes at all anymore," says Bjoern Ulvaeus, former member of 1970's pop group ABBA, and a vocal proponent for a world without cash. The contours of such a society are starting to take shape in this high-tech nation, frustrating those who prefer coins and bills over digital money. In most Swedish cities, public buses don't accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased...

These new billboards have been popping up along 75 Central in Dallas, replacing the older "paper" billboards. They are bright but unreadable at times. Just asking.

A suspected looter in this week’s riots and his mother are being thrown out of their council home. In the first case of its kind, Daniel Sartain-Clarke, 18, and his mother have been served with an eviction notice as council bosses seek to turf them out of their £225,000 taxpayer-subsidised flat. Sartain-Clarke is charged with violent disorder and attempting to steal electronic goods from the Currys store at Clapham Junction, South London, on Monday night.

A new report published in the journal Nature describes the new machine created by Jonathan Rothberg of Ion Torrent Systems which uses semiconductors to decode DNA and takes them one step closer to being able to reach the goal of a $1000 human genome test. Their current machine consists of a silicon chip that has 1.2 million sensors consisting of miniature wells. These wells are filled with beads containing the DNA strands to be sequenced. Detectors in the well directly measure the hydrogen ions that are produced during DNA replication. Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, was the first to have...

Kill switches are changing the conduct and politics of warIN THE 1991 Gulf war Iraq’s armed forces used American-made colour photocopiers to produce their battle plans. That was a mistake. The circuitry in some of them contained concealed transmitters that revealed their position to American electronic-warfare aircraft, making bomb and missile strikes more precise. The operation, described by David Lindahl, a specialist at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, a government think-tank, highlights a secret front in high-tech warfare: turning enemy assets into liabilities. The internet and the growing complexity of electronic circuitry have made it much easier to install what...

BEIJING — If anyone wonders whether the Chinese government has tightened its grip on electronic communications since protests began engulfing the Arab world, Shakespeare may prove instructive. A Beijing entrepreneur, discussing restaurant choices with his fiancée over their cellphones last week, quoted Queen Gertrude’s response to Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The second time he said the word “protest,” her phone cut off. He spoke English, but another caller, repeating the same phrase on Monday in Chinese over a different phone, was also cut off in midsentence. A host of evidence over the past several weeks shows...

Obama health IT guru leaving his post2.4.11 | Chris Seper Health IT change in Washington. Dr. David Blumenthal, who has overseen President’s Obama’s health IT around the adoption of electronic medical records, is leaving to return to Harvard. “He’s helped bring the industry back to life when it seemed to be failing, and he gave the industry a jolt of energy it lacked,” Betty Otter-Nickerson, president of Sage Health, told Kaiser Health News. Some are concerned about the impact of changing leaders in the midst of the national EMR adoption.

Listen, it usually never occurs to me to even check if my phone is charged because I very rarely, if ever, talk to anyone on the phone. My life is entirely lived via the computer and email. I only rarely text. If I knock out more than two HB posts on the phone, I drain the battery. So there are many things in life I miss capturing on film because I just don’t have a charged-up recording device on my person. I’ve yet to find a remedy to this, but since I live in Chicago and am surrounded by so...

The problem is that we are spending so much time with contrived entertainments that we tend to become addicted to exciting electronic images. Worse, we become addicted to excitement itself, and we have difficulty distinguishing artificial images from reality. When I was a kid, I looked out the car window when my family went for a drive. The view of small towns and farms wasn’t exciting. But there was nothing else to do, so I got used to not being excited all the time. I learned about the lives of ordinary people. I learned to see the farmer in bib...

ATM hacked to make it spew cash New Zealand computer security expert Barnaby Jack has shown "hacking" into an automatic teller machine can be easy with the right software. Jack, director of security testing at Seattle-based computer security consultant IOActive Inc, hauled two ATMs on to a Las Vegas conference stage and demonstrated how, with the press of a button, an ATM could spew out all its cash. "I hope to change the way people look at devices that from the outside are seemingly impenetrable," Jack told the Black Hat computer security conference, CBS reported. The 32-year-old Aucklander - currently...

Spurred by a newspaper's report that California's welfare debit cards can be used to withdraw cash in more than half the casinos in the state, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday issued an immediate ban on state-provided cash assistance at ATMs in gambling establishments. The Los Angeles Times disclosed that Electronic Benefit Transfer cards work in automated teller machines at 32 of 58 tribal casinos and 47 of 90 state-licensed poker rooms. The report also found the state Department of Social Services published a list of useable ATMs where the EBT cards that work like debit cards could be cashed. That...

Traditional bifocals could become a thing of the past with the invention of electronic glasses that automatically adjust to let their wearer view objects at different distances.The spectacles, which are due to be launched in the US this year and the UK next year, use lenses that change their strength when a small electrical current passes through them. A layer of liquid crystal sandwiched inside each lens alters its refractive properties according to the current applied, adapting the focal length according to where the wearer is looking. Traditional bifocals, which use two lenses of different strengths in front of each...

After five years of testing, the U.S. Navy is finally entering the digital age for navigation. Five years ago, the first all digital navigation system was installed, in the USS Cape St. George (a cruiser). Called the Voyage Management System (VMS), this version used 29 CDs containing the 12,000 paper nautical charts that were stored in several large filing cabinets on the Cape St. George. The current version of VMS puts all the electronic charts on one high density DVD, or a portable hard drive. The navy has been working on VMS since the 1990s, and the first thing they...

When it comes to computer technology, thin is always in. It’s indisputable that the thinner, lighter, clearer, the better when dealing with the latest computer gadget. This keyboard is the epitome of the high standards expected of the technological version of the fashion industry. It’s based on image as well, that is, image recognition technology.

U.S. Air Force is concerned about American dependence on space satellites, particularly the GPS birds. The air force believes China is developing the ability to carry out a major attack on American military satellites. Their proposed solution is to take GPS out of orbit, and make it portable. High flying aircraft, UAVs or blimps would take over satellite communications, surveillance and navigation (GPS) chores, although for smaller areas. This would make GPS, and other satellite functions, more resilient to attack. This is part of a trend in which military satellites are getting priced out of the market by cheaper manned...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq, Jan. 11, 2010 – Iraq may not be ready for PayPal, but with the help of the U.S. Army, the southern Iraqi provinces of Dhi Qar, Maysan and Al Muthanna are moving closer to a cashless system in order to deal with the mounting costs of dealing with cash. Iraqi workers finish the last steps of construction of the Al Warka Bank at Contingency Operating Base Adder's Iraq-Based Industrial Zone near Nasiriyah, Iraq, Jan. 1, 2010. Once complete, the bank will significantly aid in the transition to electronic funds transfer payments to Iraqi businessmen who...

Can you imagine how many people have physically handled your money? Do you know who has previously touched it? Did they have a flu virus or some other communicable disease that is transmitted by physical contact with an infected object? Physical paper currency is often dirty - not so much to the sight, but it is a good home for dangerous microbes. It is often kept warm by our body heat and even absorbs some body moisture - a perfect breeding ground for bad stuff. It has been well-known for decades that paper currency is a major source of disease...

WASHINGTON, March 6, 2009 – Portable electronic devices such as iPods and cell phones have provided U.S. adversaries in Iraq and Afghanistan with lethal capabilities, the Army’s chief of electronic warfare said this week. “They may be living in rough terrain and may not have all the comforts that we do, but they have the same access to technology,” said Col. Laurie Moe Buckhout, chief of the Army’s Electronic Warfare Division in the Operations, Readiness and Mobilization Directorate. She explained the Army’s efforts to increase ground electronic warfare capabilities during a March 4 “Armed with Science: Research and Applications...

2/24/2009 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNS) -- Airmen with the 43rd Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron, a unit that has almost five years of continuous deployment, clocked their 20,000th combat flight hour early Feb. 17. The 43rd EECS aircrews and the EC-130 Compass Call aircraft they fly provide communications jamming support to U.S. and coalition ground forces in Iraq. "The support we provide to the ground forces is unlike anything else in the Air Force," said Staff Sgt. Andrew Weber, a 43rd EECS airborne maintenance technician, or AMT. "I would say hopefully we've done our share in protecting those guys on the...

CAMP STRIKER, Iraq, Nov. 21, 2008 – Navy Cmdr. Ed Fischer and Air Force 1st Lt. E.J. Wong would seem to be out of place in an Army heavy brigade combat team conducting operations in Iraq. Navy Cmdr. Ed Fischer, left, and Air Force 1st Lt. E.J. Wong inspect a Warlock-equipped Humvee. The Warlock system is a countermeasure against roadside bombs. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Evan Loyd  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Fischer, whose career field is nuclear engineering, and Wong, an air battle manager, are electronic warfare officers for the 1st Armored Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat...

td> FORWARD OPERATING BASE RUSTAMIYAH, Iraq, Nov. 5, 2008 – Selected soldiers assigned to the 10th Mountain Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team and Multinational Division Baghdad received electronic warfare training here. Army Sgt. Nicholas Hoffert applies the final additions to an antenna system during an electronic warfare class at Forward Operating Base Rustamiyah, Iraq, Oct. 29, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jeremy Todd  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Electronic warfare applies the radio frequency spectrum to defeat an enemy and save lives on the battlefield. Improvised explosive devices are the biggest threat to coalition and Iraqi forces, and...

HEIDELBERG, Germany, July 22, 2008 – Camp Victory in Iraq is nearly 2,000 miles from the nearest Army library in Europe. But troops deployed at the sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport soon will have access to a broad spectrum of library resources through an e-Branch kiosk. Movers crate an Army Europe Libraries e-Branch kiosk for shipment to Camp Victory, Iraq. The e-Branch kiosks are designed to support educational opportunities for Soldiers and deliver electronic library services and information to customers who can’t get to a brick-and-mortar library. U.S. Army photo by Amy Drayer  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image...

FORT HUACHUCA — With Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano’s signature on Senate Bill 1387 additional protection for critical electronic ranges on Fort Huachuca now requires notification of any potential impact to the fort by any building or developing property proposal close to those military facilities and allows the military the right to object. With her signature on the bill on May 12, Napolitano set into motion amendments to existing state law specifically providing an additional level of protection to military installations in Arizona. The main sponsor of the bill was State Senate President Tim Bee, whose district includes the post. Because...

Long-lasting near-infrared LEDs could be used to make cheap, flexible night-vision displays and sensors.Universal Display Corporation’s phosphorescent organic LED display can be built on a flexible plastic substrate. The company, working with researchers at the University of Southern California and Princeton University, has now made near-infrared emitting LEDs and plans to make a near-infrared version of the flexible display. The display would be invisible to the naked eye but visible through night-vision goggles for covert military operations. Credit: Julie Brown, Universal Display Corporation Researchers at the University of Southern California have designed a phosphorescent dye molecule that emits near-infrared light...

How Infinera packs dozens of optical components onto photonic integrated circuits for ultrafast optical networks. Shown here are fourteen 100-gigabit photonic integrated circuits sitting in a plastic carrier for performance testing. Credit: Emily Nathan In his lab in Sunnyvale, CA, ­David Welch, cofounder of telecom startup Infinera, holds up a rigid two-­centimeter-wide strip featuring four patterned, gold-colored rectangles. It's made of indium phosphide, a semiconductor prized for its optical properties. The chip's simple appearance belies its complex engineering and gives little hint that it could be the key to cheaply supplying the bandwidth demanded by a YouTube-addicted world. The gadget...

"The federal government gave us money for new machines but they didn't give us money for storing the machines. They didn't give us money to hire new technicians for these machines."

Diebold Election Systems Inc. expressed alarm and state election officials contacted the FBI yesterday after a former legislator received an anonymous package containing what appears to be the computer code that ran Maryland's polls in 2004. Cheryl C. Kagan, a longtime critic of Maryland's elections chief, says the fact that the computer disks were sent to her - along with an unsigned note criticizing the management of the state elections board - demonstrates that Maryland's voting system faces grave security threats. spokesman for Diebold, which manufactures the state's touch-screen voting machines, said the company is treating the software Kagan received...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretarySeptember 16, 2006 President's Radio Address       Audio      In Focus: National Security      THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. On Monday, I visited New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon to attend memorials marking the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It was an emotional day for me and for our country. On that day, we remembered those who lost their lives, and we paid tribute to those who gave their lives so that others might live. We rededicated ourselves to protecting the American people from another attack.  Radio Address 200620052004200320022001  Radio Interviews 20052004 Next week, I...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2006 -- The Defense Department is focusing efforts to ensure servicemembers stationed overseas and in the United States know their options for voting in the 2006 congressional and local elections. Sept. 3-9 is Armed Forces Voters Week. Officials caution that this is the last safe week to submit a Federal Post Card Application, or request voter registration forms and absentee ballots that meet most state deadlines. The Defense Department is responsible for ensuring the right to vote for military members and their families, and also for U.S. citizens living overseas. It accomplishes this through the Federal Voting...

The Party Of John F. Kennedy By Jenni Vinson Trejo July 7, 2006 Former President Bill Clinton spoke to the Democratic Leadership Council back on December 3, 2002. Clinton has always been politically astute. Most of what he warned his party of seems to have been prophetic. He was speaking to the Democrats after the loss of the Presidency and months after 9-11 had occurred. The following are excerpts from the speech he gave. “First, I don't think you can underestimate the impact of the psychological toll of September 11th on the American people. We long to be united and...

The authors of the letters “Still must adhere to law” (Jan. 13) and “Can’t scare away Constitution” (Jan. 14) fail to understand some basic concepts. First, the president, when he conducted electronic surveillance on transmissions between people overseas and someone in United States, was exercising his legal authority as a military commander, and not as a law enforcement officer. The president has a large array of powers under the Constitution during wartime, and the intent of the surveillance was not to build a case for criminal prosecution, but to prevent attacks against the United States. It’s unfortunate that many people...

Here are the most important parts... but my blog post goes deep in to what seems to have happened here, etc. http://www.rightwinged.com/2006/01/fox_news_poll_on_electronic_su.html (from AP-Ipsos, a couple days ago) 56 percent of respondents in an AP-Ipsos poll said the government should be required to first get a court warrant to eavesdrop on the overseas calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens when those communications are believed to be tied to terrorism. Agreeing with the White House, some 42 percent of those surveyed do not believe the court approval is necessary. (from Fox News-Opinion Dynamics poll out today) By 58 percent to 36...

50 USC Sec. 1802 01/06/03 TITLE 50 - WAR AND NATIONAL DEFENSE CHAPTER 36 - FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE SUBCHAPTER I - ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE Sec. 1802. Electronic surveillance authorization without court order; certification by Attorney General; reports to Congressional committees; transmittal under seal; duties and compensation of communication common carrier; applications; jurisdiction of court -STATUTE- (a)(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that - (A)...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Secretary of State Bruce McPherson announced new requirements for electronic voting machines Wednesday and said he would create a unit in his office to test and certify the machines. "We must take these fundamental steps to guarantee public confidence in our voting process," McPherson said in a speech to the California Black Chamber of Commerce. He laid out 10 requirements that the machines must meet for use in California elections, starting in 2006, including approval by an independent testing unit certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Other requirements include providing state election officials with full information...

MANITOWOC MAN FOUND GUILTY OF EXPORTING RESTRICTED ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS TO CHINA MILWAUKEE — The United States Attorney’s Office announced yesterday that a jury in Federal Court in Milwaukee, Wis., convicted Ning Wen, 56, of Manitowoc, to nine counts of conspiring to export more than $500,000 in restricted electronic components to the People’s Republic of China. The charges also include money laundering and making false statements to the FBI. U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic stated, “The case involved the export of restricted electronic components that had a wide variety of uses including military radar and communications applications. The verdict helps insure...

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (Aug. 21, 2005) -- “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster,” was said by Sun Tzu, a Chinese general, over 2,500 years ago. Today, the same standard is being carried out by the signals intelligence gatherers of 3rd Radio Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD), and providing the necessary support to accomplish that mission is the goal of its Headquarters and Service Company. “If there are weapons or gear that needs to be moved, or an [air conditioning unit] used for creating an acclimatized environment is down and it...

After analyzing the minutes of a meeting held in Chicago between Cook County and Chicago's city officials with the board of Sequoia, that remained in charge after the take over, and that of Smartmatic [6], Ochoa noted that unknown Venezuelan investors, operating via proxy European ventures, could indeed be the controlling power behind Smartmatic. Ochoa indicated that an entry in the minutes of the meeting aforementioned describes Cook County's Commissioner Peter Silvestri [14] asking to representatives of Sequoia/Smartmatic "who owns Sequoia?" (sic). The answer came from Honorable David Orr [15]: "Smartmatic International, which is owned by a Dutch company, owns...

Of the millions of gamblers who have rushed to play Texas Hold 'Em and other fast-growing poker games online, Roger Gabriel isn't the most intimidating. The 30-year-old Newport Beach engineer started playing for money only a month ago. He lurks online at the tables for the chicken-hearted; even there, where the biggest ante is 4 cents, he can't win consistently. But Gabriel has a potentially powerful alter ego. In his spare time, he's perfecting a computer program to go online and play the game for him. His BlackShark software is still a work in progress, but Gabriel has no doubt...

In one of the largest breaches of data security to date, CitiFinancial, the consumer finance subsidiary of Citigroup, announced yesterday that a box of computer tapes containing information on 3.9 million customers was lost by United Parcel Service last month, while in transit to a credit reporting agency.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Mechanical engineers at Purdue University have new findings offering promise for modifying household refrigeration technology with small devices to cool future weapons systems and computer chips. The devices, called "micro-channel heat sinks," circulate coolant through numerous channels about three times the width of a human hair. Such devices might be attached directly to electronic components in military lasers, microwave radar and weapons systems, as well as in future computers that will generate more heat than present computers, said Issam Mudawar, a professor of mechanical engineering who is leading the research. The researchers are adapting refrigeration systems...

WASHINGTON - When the Supreme Court justices were growing up, swapping music meant exchanging vinyl records. And sharing a movie involved walking someone to the cinema. Today many of the latest hit songs and movies are a few mouse clicks away on the Internet, and those same justices are being asked to settle a multibillion-dollar dispute about how such items are shared. Entertainment companies want the court to let them sue the manufacturers of file-sharing software that allows computer users to download music and movies from each other's computers. The companies say such downloads violate copyright protections and amount to...

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin may have been telling us more than he thought when he said Thursday: "Ballistic missile defence is not where we will concentrate our efforts." Where Canada is concentrating its efforts should be worthy of both Washington and mainline media attention. Weapons of electronic intelligence and electronic warfare are where the nation of Canada holds the cutting edge. Through an intricate series of subsidiaries and sub-contractors, leading back to the blind trust running his Canadian Steamship Lines company, Prime Minister Paul Martin is still at the epicenter of that cutting edge. In the development and design...

<p>PRING, Tex. - In front of her gated apartment complex, Courtney Payne, a 9-year-old fourth grader with dark hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, exits a yellow school bus. Moments later, her movement is observed by Alan Bragg, the local police chief, standing in a windowless control room more than a mile away.</p>

Nader requests N.H. vote recount By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Telegraph Staff landrigank@telegraph-nh.com Published: Saturday, Nov. 6, 2004 CONCORD - Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader requested a hand recount of ballots in New Hampshire after getting seven-tenths of 1 percent of the vote. “We have received reports of irregularities in the vote reported on the AccuVote Diebold Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New Hampshire,’’ Nader wrote. “These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5 percent to 15 percent over what was expected. Problems in these electronic voting machines and optical scanners are being reported in...

Anyone following the sore losers know that they are claiming fraud by the GOP wherever Electronic Voting Systems (EVS) were employed. In fact, a vast right wing conspiracy is blamed. Maybe they are on to something with their data that shows "strange results" where EVS were employed, but not as they imagine. Perhaps many of the precincts using EVS are accurate for the first time. Its possible that the results can't be tampered with as before. If so, the results of this election clearly demonstrates who benefits when an accurate vote is obtained.

In the last 2 hours, Bush has fallen from 55.3 to 51.3 on the winner takes all market. On the vote share market, Bush is still up 3% on Kerry. Anyone seeing any news out there that would account for this?

At least 290 x$25 At least 280 x$20 At least 270 x$29 At least 260 x$11 At least 250 x$15 No more than 249 x$19

Market Quotes: Pres04_WTA.html Quotes current as of 13:45:02 CST, Wednesday, October 27, 2004. Symbol Bid Ask Last Low High Average DEM04_G52 0.163 0.167 0.163 0.140 0.177 0.166 DEM04_L52 0.325 0.330 0.325 0.295 0.333 0.310 REP04_L52 0.318 0.322 0.318 0.300 0.338 0.326 REP04_G52 0.193 0.197 0.195 0.193 0.250 0.206

Bush is now at 54.0, Kerry at 44.5 Yesterday, Bush was at 60.7.

Bush favored over Kerry in November vote By Robert Bellinger EE Times August 25, 2004 (12:00 PM EDT) It may be a tight race in the national polls, but the design and development community is clearly behind President George W. Bush in this year's presidential contest. By a 48 percent to 40 percent margin, respondents favor re-electing the president over electing challenger Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Our respondents offered that support despite their apparently declining faith in the vibrancy of the U.S. technology industry. Salaries are up, unemployment is down and product development starts have picked up — but...