Monday, December 30, 2013
Wearable Tech Is Getting a Lot More Intimate
CNBC: Dr. Tom Horn & Terry Cook Are Correct. The Proteus Mark & Tattoos Will Be Widespread & Inside Humans Soon, Tracking And Identifying Them, And Will Go Mainstream Under The Pretext Of Healthcare
Forget wearable technology. It may not be too much longer before sensors are actually put inside your body.
It may sound a little bit futuristic and far-fetched, but the reality is that ingestible sensors and implantable chips are already in use and growing.
"We are going to see more sensors everywhere. It's only a matter of time before those migrate under our skin into our bodies," said Peter Eckersley, the lead technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Much like wearable devices, which can capture data about a person's activity levels, sensors inside the body can be used to collect information about what is going on inside a person's body.
"There's going to be a ubiquitous data collection. Right now, the data is coming from the phone and wearable devices, but eventually some will be within our bodies. And having that data available can mean enormous health benefits," Eckersley said.
One of the biggest health advantages of these devices is using the machines to help treat chronic illnesses, said Arna Ionescu, director of product development and user experience at Proteus Biomedical, which is working to make digital medicines.
"The thing about chronic illness it's not something that can be solved at one appointment, it's something that you have to manage and deal with every single day of your life," Ionescu said. "So we are creating tools that can go in peoples' hands and help them deal with those chronic illness."
Proteus, is working with Novartis and Otsuka Pharmaceutical--which have both also invested in the company--to make ingestible digital pills mainstream. The company has already developed ingestible sensors that are FDA approved. The goal is for drug-makers to include the sensors in medicine to collect data that enables physicians to better monitor their patients.
Some information that can be collected from these sensors include how the patient's body reacts to the drug, the patient's dose timing and other physiologic responses like heart rate, activity levels and skin temperature.
While this sort of technology may play a big role in the future of how patients are monitored, it's going to impact how drugs are brought to market more in the near-term.
Ingestible sensors can enable pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs more quickly and cost-efficiently because the devices can provide real-time data about how the medications are working.
Oracle, which has also invested in the company, is using Proteus's technology to give its clinical trial application customers the ability to access real-time data provided by these sensors to help improve clinical trial efficiency.
But with the benefits of data collected by ingestible and implantable sensors also come unprecedented risks, experts say.
"If we could have that continuous information right now, you could tell what your immune system is fighting right now and that's an exciting promise. But it's going to come with a devil's bargain. In order to obtain that data you must first agree to surrender that data," Eckersley said.
One possibility is that the insurance companies will use the data to determine whose premiums will be higher.
In the U.S. health care system, insurance companies and healthcare providers are often fighting about who pays for what. This data stream is going to become entangled in this debate and may be used by insurance companies to determine whose premiums will be higher, he said.
"The real reason people will want them is because they will want access to data about what's going on in their blood and in their immune system," Eckersley said. "But even if it cures some of those illnesses, it's going to leave us with a major privacy headache."
Making sure the data collected by implantable devices is accurate and secure will also be critical as more of these machines come on the network, said Eric Dishman, an Intel fellow and general manager of the company's health and life sciences group.
Dishman said that in a ten-year timeframe he expects one-third of the population will have either a temporary device or another more permanent connected device in their body and the data collected by these machines will need to be protected.
"Growth in this area means more devices on the network and with that means there is going to be the risk of hacking and we have to be ahead of that to keep it from happening," Dishman said. "We are going to save lives, but we need to protect that data first."
Intel is focusing on developing an end-to end solution to ensure that the data is safe and reliable as it travels from the machine inside the body to the cloud and then to a trusted physician, Dishman said.
Eckersley, though, said even protected, encrypted data still always seems to find its way into the hands of those who it isn't intended for and information collected by sensors inside our body probably won't be any different.
"Unfortunately, there just isn't much we can do in today's world to protect ourselves from corporations or governments having access to all of this information like where we go, who we meet with, what we think and what we read. In a connected world, all of this is an open book," Eckersley said. "Sensors in our bodies may just turn into the next phase of this transition."
Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230555#ixzz2ouWthmj2
Forget wearable technology. It may not be too much longer before sensors are actually put inside your body.
It may sound a little bit futuristic and far-fetched, but the reality is that ingestible sensors and implantable chips are already in use and growing.
"We are going to see more sensors everywhere. It's only a matter of time before those migrate under our skin into our bodies," said Peter Eckersley, the lead technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Much like wearable devices, which can capture data about a person's activity levels, sensors inside the body can be used to collect information about what is going on inside a person's body.
"There's going to be a ubiquitous data collection. Right now, the data is coming from the phone and wearable devices, but eventually some will be within our bodies. And having that data available can mean enormous health benefits," Eckersley said.
One of the biggest health advantages of these devices is using the machines to help treat chronic illnesses, said Arna Ionescu, director of product development and user experience at Proteus Biomedical, which is working to make digital medicines.
"The thing about chronic illness it's not something that can be solved at one appointment, it's something that you have to manage and deal with every single day of your life," Ionescu said. "So we are creating tools that can go in peoples' hands and help them deal with those chronic illness."
Proteus, is working with Novartis and Otsuka Pharmaceutical--which have both also invested in the company--to make ingestible digital pills mainstream. The company has already developed ingestible sensors that are FDA approved. The goal is for drug-makers to include the sensors in medicine to collect data that enables physicians to better monitor their patients.
Some information that can be collected from these sensors include how the patient's body reacts to the drug, the patient's dose timing and other physiologic responses like heart rate, activity levels and skin temperature.
While this sort of technology may play a big role in the future of how patients are monitored, it's going to impact how drugs are brought to market more in the near-term.
Ingestible sensors can enable pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs more quickly and cost-efficiently because the devices can provide real-time data about how the medications are working.
Oracle, which has also invested in the company, is using Proteus's technology to give its clinical trial application customers the ability to access real-time data provided by these sensors to help improve clinical trial efficiency.
But with the benefits of data collected by ingestible and implantable sensors also come unprecedented risks, experts say.
"If we could have that continuous information right now, you could tell what your immune system is fighting right now and that's an exciting promise. But it's going to come with a devil's bargain. In order to obtain that data you must first agree to surrender that data," Eckersley said.
One possibility is that the insurance companies will use the data to determine whose premiums will be higher.
In the U.S. health care system, insurance companies and healthcare providers are often fighting about who pays for what. This data stream is going to become entangled in this debate and may be used by insurance companies to determine whose premiums will be higher, he said.
"The real reason people will want them is because they will want access to data about what's going on in their blood and in their immune system," Eckersley said. "But even if it cures some of those illnesses, it's going to leave us with a major privacy headache."
Making sure the data collected by implantable devices is accurate and secure will also be critical as more of these machines come on the network, said Eric Dishman, an Intel fellow and general manager of the company's health and life sciences group.
Dishman said that in a ten-year timeframe he expects one-third of the population will have either a temporary device or another more permanent connected device in their body and the data collected by these machines will need to be protected.
"Growth in this area means more devices on the network and with that means there is going to be the risk of hacking and we have to be ahead of that to keep it from happening," Dishman said. "We are going to save lives, but we need to protect that data first."
Intel is focusing on developing an end-to end solution to ensure that the data is safe and reliable as it travels from the machine inside the body to the cloud and then to a trusted physician, Dishman said.
Eckersley, though, said even protected, encrypted data still always seems to find its way into the hands of those who it isn't intended for and information collected by sensors inside our body probably won't be any different.
"Unfortunately, there just isn't much we can do in today's world to protect ourselves from corporations or governments having access to all of this information like where we go, who we meet with, what we think and what we read. In a connected world, all of this is an open book," Eckersley said. "Sensors in our bodies may just turn into the next phase of this transition."
Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230555#ixzz2ouWthmj2
Russia’s Northern Fleet Deploys New Borey-Class Nuclear Subs
MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s two newest ballistic missile submarines arrived at their home base in the Arctic on Monday to begin active service with the Northern Fleet, the Defense Ministry said.
The Borey-class submarine Yury Dolgoruky was commissioned in January while the second of the type, the Alexander Nevsky, entered service on December 23.
Both submarines will operate from the Northern Fleet’s main nuclear submarine base at Gadzhiyevo, Murmansk Region, the ministry said.
The Borey is Russia’s first post-Soviet ballistic missile submarine class and will form the mainstay of the strategic submarine fleet, replacing aging Typhoon, Delta-3 and Delta-4 class boats. Russia ultimately expects eight Borey-class submarines to enter service by 2020.
The third vessel in the class, the Vladimir Monomakh, is awaiting manufacturer’s acceptance trials.
The new Borey-class boats, with a length of nearly two football fields, can carry sixteen Bulava missiles, each fitted with up to ten independently-targetable nuclear warheads.
Bulava, however, is yet to be declared fully operational, following a problem with a test-firing earlier this year, a Defense Ministry high command source told RIA Novosti in November. The Borey class boats are likely to be restricted to carrying out secondary roles until the weapon is declared ready, the source said at that time.
Ballistic missile submarines comprise one leg of Russia’s strategic nuclear triad along with land-based ICBMs and the bomber force.
Credit to RIA Novosti
The Economic Miracle That Wasn't
The noise in the jobless claims data over the past few months has been unprecedented and yet the impressive jump lower in recent weeks has been trumpeted as the all-clear for Tapering and as a signal that the recovery is 'real' this time. Except, thanks to a huge 'glitch' in Florida's new CONNECT unemployment claims website, the data is completely FUBAR...
The story so far...
Florida’s ongoing claims for unemployment benefits plummeted to the lowest level in six years from mid-October to early December. The average of 20,000 fewer weekly claims from the prior nine weeks represents a plunge of 18 percent, the sharpest decline in 15 years.Yet rather than herald an improving job market, chalk up Florida’s shrinking claims numbers instead to the troubled debut of the state’s unemployment claims website, CONNECT.
And echoing Obamacare's SNAFU...
Since its October launch, the $63 million website has been plagued by glitches, sowing confusion and despair among many of the 235,000 claimants who fileevery other week to help pay for essentials like food and rent.Difficulties in logging on or navigating CONNECT haveprecluded thousands from collecting.
With significant implications...
“I’m about to be thrown out on the street,” said Allen Schwalb of Seminole, who was laid off from a warehouse job in October but as of this week had yet to receive any benefits despite many attempts to file. “The state now owes me $1,400 for eight weeks of unemployment. I don’t know what I will do if I don’t receive it soon.”...Upon going live Oct. 15, the CONNECT site struggled anyway.Unemployment offices were packed with those who said they couldn’t log on. Phone lines were jammed. Calls were dropped. Frustration grew.
To which the government first denied...
“Some of the press stories about CONNECT have been incomplete and focused on a narrative that is more likely to grab readers than to accurately report facts,” Panuccio told the Senate’s Commerce and Tourism Committee on Nov. 4.
Then admitted...
By December, however, Panuccio conceded all was not going well. The project was no longer meeting expectations. He posted messages on the DEO’s websiteacknowledging difficulties.
Which means, simply, the data is useless and the people who need it the most are not getting it...
“The drop in claims is so dramatic and so precisely coincides with the launching of CONNECT that there can be no other explanation,” Greenfield said. “This is having an effect on a huge group of people. We’re very disappointed in the length of time it’s taken to get these people their benefits.”...Florida is notoriously tight-fisted when it comes to unemployment benefits, which makes CONNECT’s failings even more glaring.“Florida in the last few years has made it virtually impossible to access benefits,” said Maurice Emsellem, a staff director with the National Employment Law Project. “The digital divide is a reality, so why on earth would you require to register online? It’s not fair access.”
But it's going to get worse...
Florida is one of six states that provides job-seekers fewer than 26 weeks of coverage. Now offering 19 weeks, Florida will drop to 16 weeks starting in January. Under Florida law, the lower the unemployment rate (which has fallen to 6.4 percent), the fewer weeks of compensation an unemployed person receives.Once federal unemployment compensations expire,coverage for Ewing and 73,000 other Floridians is immediately eliminated.
It's a narrative we hear all too often - failure of big government, deny, deny, deny, small admission... but any good headline is clung to and any naysayer shrugged off as meaningless, racist, or a doomsayer...
Saturday, December 28, 2013
New Bomber Can Nuke US Military Bases, Brags Chinese State Media
Chinese state media is once again bragging about Beijing’s military prowess, touting the fact that China’s new H-6K strategic bomber can attack U.S. military bases in South Korea as well as the Japanese mainland using long range nuclear cruise missiles.
Image: H-6K strategic bomber (YouTube).
The report features on the prominent pro-Communist Party news website Want China Times.
“With a range of between 1,500 and 2,000 kilometers, the CJ-10 meets the requirements of the PLA Air Force to possess the capability to launch strategic missile attacks against US military facilities and those of its allies in the Western Pacific,” states the report.
The article also lauds the fact that the H-6K can target the Japanese mainland without even leaving Chinese airspace, in addition to Russian cities in the far east, all major cities in India, as well as Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, “in a potential war against Southeast Asian neighbors over territories in the South China Sea.”
“An H-6K taking off from the air base of the PLA’s 10th air division in Anqing, Anhui province, would be able to strike at all US military bases in South Korea,” states the report, noting that “the long-range cruise missile has become a crucial part of China’s nuclear arsenal.”
This is just the latest example of aggressive and bellicose rhetoric emerging out of China.
Earlier this month, a PLA military website bragged that China’s first aircraft carrier combat task force was close to rivaling the U.S. Navy.
In November, Chinese state-run media released a map showing the locations of major U.S. cities and how they would be impacted by a nuclear attack launched from the PLA’s strategic submarine force.
China’s moon landing program was also used as a reminder of Beijing’s growing offensive capabilities, with one state media report even discussing plans to turn the moon into a Star Wars-style “death star” from which the PLA could launch missiles against any target on Earth.
A display to promote China’s Jade Rabbit Moon rover also included a background photograph of a mushroom cloud over Europe, a startling detail which some have interpreted as an indication that Beijing’s space program is a cover for the militarization of space.
China is currently embroiled in a territorial dispute with Japan over the Senkaku Islands, tensions that were heightened earlier today when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited a shrine seen by critics as a symbol of Tokyo’s wartime aggression.
Credit to Infowars
Image: H-6K strategic bomber (YouTube).
The report features on the prominent pro-Communist Party news website Want China Times.
“With a range of between 1,500 and 2,000 kilometers, the CJ-10 meets the requirements of the PLA Air Force to possess the capability to launch strategic missile attacks against US military facilities and those of its allies in the Western Pacific,” states the report.
The article also lauds the fact that the H-6K can target the Japanese mainland without even leaving Chinese airspace, in addition to Russian cities in the far east, all major cities in India, as well as Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, “in a potential war against Southeast Asian neighbors over territories in the South China Sea.”
“An H-6K taking off from the air base of the PLA’s 10th air division in Anqing, Anhui province, would be able to strike at all US military bases in South Korea,” states the report, noting that “the long-range cruise missile has become a crucial part of China’s nuclear arsenal.”
This is just the latest example of aggressive and bellicose rhetoric emerging out of China.
Earlier this month, a PLA military website bragged that China’s first aircraft carrier combat task force was close to rivaling the U.S. Navy.
In November, Chinese state-run media released a map showing the locations of major U.S. cities and how they would be impacted by a nuclear attack launched from the PLA’s strategic submarine force.
China’s moon landing program was also used as a reminder of Beijing’s growing offensive capabilities, with one state media report even discussing plans to turn the moon into a Star Wars-style “death star” from which the PLA could launch missiles against any target on Earth.
A display to promote China’s Jade Rabbit Moon rover also included a background photograph of a mushroom cloud over Europe, a startling detail which some have interpreted as an indication that Beijing’s space program is a cover for the militarization of space.
China is currently embroiled in a territorial dispute with Japan over the Senkaku Islands, tensions that were heightened earlier today when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited a shrine seen by critics as a symbol of Tokyo’s wartime aggression.
Credit to Infowars
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