Stealth Wear Goes on Sale at $490

Stealth Wear Goes on Sale at $490 Posted: 12 Jul 2013 05:00 AM PDT The stealth wear project may be the solution to droning and facial technology government projects.  Or at least New York City based designer Adam Harvey thinks so.  It may sound like something straight from a science fiction book or like some sort of super-cool standard issue James Bond type of equipment, but these outfits seem to actually do the job. The countersurveillance clothing was created by Adam Harvey, a designer with the School of Visual Arts. Harvey, who underlines that his clothing serves a growing need for products that can offer privacy, recently exhibited several of his stealth wear prototypes at an art show in London. His designs make the wearer virtually invisible to technology. Among his garments are hoodies and cloaks that can reduce a person's thermal footprint, protect one's heart from X-rays and even cut out phone signals. By using metallic, reflective fabric similar to the one used for firefighters' protective equipment, Harvey created clothing that keeps the wearer hidden to any kind of surveillance attempts that use heat imaging cameras. The designer also found a way to block someone from taking unwanted pictures, which would be a very efficient technique celebrities could employ against paparazzi. More specifically, Harvey created a purse equipped with extra bright LED lights. The purse can be activated when someone is taking an unwanted picture, turning it blurry. Harvey further created a special hairstyling and makeup application guide that could prevent a camera from recognizing the person applying the guidelines. He named the technique CV Dazzle, from computer vision and dazzle, inspired by the type of camouflage used to prevent enemy radars from detecting the shape and size of a warship during the Second World War. The stealth wear prototypes have not yet been tested extensively by security  experts and many of them are still in their early concept stages, with a long way to go before being ready for mass production. Harvey said that what's more important than producing the designs is that the concept behind them could empower people to control their identity a little more. The first versions of Harvey’s stealth wear concept clothing are now available to purchase on primitivelondon but come at a hefty price: $490 for the hoodie and a whopping $2,300 for the burqa. What do you think of the stealth wear prototypes? How useful would they be to offer people the privacy they need in a world that is under growingly tighter surveillance?

EU & Japan Team Up for 100Gbps Fiber Optic Internet Posted: 12 Jul 2013 04:00 AM PDT Unhappy with your current Internet broadband speed? Well, fingers crossed for this new project to succeed: the European Union and Japan have joined forces to build 100Gbps fiber optic Internet, about 5,000 times faster than the average broadband speed in Europe – 19.7Mbps. The project is called STRAUSS and is just one of a total of six research projects that the EU and Japan have partnered for. More details about the six projects were recently unveiled by the European Commission. The partnership is aimed at finding ways to increase the efficiency of data transfer networks, given the massive online data explosion. The trend is expected to continue over the next ten years. According to a press release from the European Commission, up to 1.7 million bytes of data are generated worldwide every minute. Moreover, the volume of data traffic has already doubled since last year and is believed to grow 12 fold by 2018, but current networks are not able to keep up with this growth rate. Besides the 100Gbps fiber optic Internet project, the EU and Japan will also tackle issues such as network storage, cyber security, energy efficiency and high density data traffic, both for terrestrial and wireless networks. The six projects will receive 18 million euros in funding over the next years. Let's take a closer look at the six projects: - STRAUSS, geared at obtaining 100Gbps fiber optic Internet would do so by combining optical transceivers, packet switching technology and new controlling software. It would then have to be tested on a large scale, so don't expect to personally benefit from such data transfer speeds any time soon. - MiWEBA, aimed at boosting ultra-high speed and mobile connections by enhanced use of radio frequencies. - NECOMA, designed to enhance cyber security, especially in sensitive areas (for instance medical records) by developing new metrics. - GreenICN, aimed at ensuring efficient use of information networks energy, designed to improve network reliability, especially in post-disaster situations. - ClouT, integrating Cloud Computing and Internet of Things, so as to enable smart city operations such as traffic flow, emergencies, energy use. - FELIX, designed to set up EU-Japan research and testing platforms. The EU-Japan partnership is the latest effort to develop more efficient terrestrial and wireless data transfer networks. A team of German scientists recently achieved a record 40Gbps wireless data transmission rate, while American network equipment giant just unveiled new core router technology designed to double the Internet speed.

Why Handset Subsidies Are Bad Deals Posted: 12 Jul 2013 03:00 AM PDT Let’s be honest – some of us would not have the best smartphone in the world (you tell me what that is) if it weren’t for the subsidized plan that telcos offer their subscribers. In some parts of the world, prepaid plans are the norm, and postpaid plans are considered a luxury. With the handset subsidies that telcos make, however, postpaid plans do make more sense and as such, have become more popular. Or am I wrong? I am just an average consumer who takes time to go over plans, subsidies, discounts, and all that stuff. According to an authority in these things, though, handset subsidies are bad deals. In general. The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) carried out a study that might very well turn it into a Santa killer. The study took into consideration the overall cost of two different setups. One, handset subsidies, or as they prefer to call it, phone plus contract bundle. Two, separate contract and phone. (The second setup basically being that you buy your own phone.) The study discovered that in some countries, subscribers have no option to buy their own phone if they want a contract with a telco. That is, they always have to buy the bundled deal. In other countries, those two options exist, and it is in t The OECD study points out that in countries where those two options are offered, the chances are that the consumer is getting the bad end of the deal. This is because of the fact that the bundled option ends up costing the user more than if he had bought his phone separately. In short, the contract is priced so as to cover the “subsidized” handset! France and the United States were pinpointed as such countries, where handset subsidies with contracts end up $10 to $20 more expensive per month. That surely adds up over the months, especially with a 2-year contract! So, have you checked your contract lately? You might want to give it a think before getting your new “subsidized” phone! Pebble Smartwatch: 1 Million Apps Sold & 257K Units Pre Ordered

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 02:00 AM PDT Smartwatch start-up company Pebble revealed today for the first time that it has received 190,000 pre-orders for its wearable technology through its own web store, following on from the enormously successful Kickstarter campaign it ran last year. That means it collectively closed in around 275,000 pre-orders total for the smartwatch, which is impressive early traction for a device that did not have a proven market niche to trade in. Pebble co-founder Eric Migicovsky explained the company wanted to reveal the total order volume now as a follow-up to its Best Buy availability announcement, in order to provide some context around the challenges that the startup has faced in terms of shipping product to backers. Response at Best Buy has also been very good, Migicovsky has said, though the team is not yet ready to focus on specific numbers. The Pebble has sold out at many of Best Buy's retail locations already.  For the first six to ten months following the close of the Kickstarter campaign, the focus for Pebble was exclusively on shipping. The startup is getting to a point where it can change its focus to start working towards accomplishing its longer term goals as a company. Part of that includes meeting demand and making sure everyone who pre-ordered receives their device, which should happen over the next year, Migicovsky says. But developers are the other big priority that Pebble is now turning its attention to.  "Our focus as a company is now shifting to supporting third-party developers," Migicovsky says. The company has seen over 1 million watch apps downloaded to Pebble devices, as measured by installs made through its iOS and Android apps. There's already an active online community around the Pebble Software Development Kit, and Migicovsky says that fostering that will be where the startup shifts spending and development efforts.  "This means our developer tools will get better, we'll be focusing on how developers can get their tools out to users," he said. "It's in our best interest,  as well as in the interest of developers to share this these stories." So now that Pebble has come good on getting into the market, it will focus on these two goals to help build the smartwatch into a lasting, robust platform to trade from. Of course, those 275,000 pre-orders, whilst this figure is impressive on its own, might not look so stupendous, should Apple release an iWatch as it appears to be preparing to do. But this cannot be quantified as it is still an unknown speculation (despite rumours and patents) and Pebble are doing their best to solidify their current market positioning, this is the best thing the startup can do right now.