The Boy Who Sees Without Eyes - Documentary

Published on Dec 19, 2013

The story of Ben Underwood, who despite being blind is able to map a detailed mental plan of his surroundings. Ben lives with his family in the suburbs of Sacramento, California where he attends his local high school. Like any other 14-year-old boy, he loves to play with his friends and chat to girls his age, with whom he seems popular.

He looks like any other boy, until he removes his $4,600, hand-crafted eyes. Ben is blind and, like other blind people, relies on some specialist equipment to survive. He uses talking computer software and a Braille machine to help with his homework.

Ben does not have a guide dog, uses no stick, and does not even use his hands to aid his mobility. Instead, he has developed something of a super sense: he is the only person in the world who navigates using clicks. As he walks, he makes a continuous clicking noise with his tongue. As these clicks echo around him, he is able to draw up a detailed mental plan of his surroundings and adjust his direction accordingly.

So accurate is his technique that he is even able to go rollerblading on the street, negotiating narrow gaps between parked cars that even sighted children might find challenging. In fact, Ben's mother, Aquanetta, inds that her son is far more attentive to the dangers of the road than his friends, always the first to move onto the pavement when a car approaches.

Ben first noticed his talent at the age of seven, when at summer camp. While it began as just a habit, Ben explains, he soon realised that it had potential benefits for navigation. He began to practise every day and developed the system to the point it is at today. It is the fact that Ben is entirely self-taught that is perhaps most astonishing and has led people to use the term 'genius' when referring to the boy.

Are We Real? - Documentary

Top 12 best chess engine of 2014

CCRL 40/40 Rating List — All engines (Quote)June 28, 2014

Ponder off, General book (up to 12 moves), 3-4-5 piece EGTB
Time control: Equivalent to 40 moves in 40 minutes on Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (2.4 GHz)
Computed on June 28, 2014 with Bayeselo based on 522'540 games

Color legend: Commercial, Free, Open source, Private.
Bold font - tested with 200 games or more. Normal font - less than 200 games

Saudi Arabia: Malicious Spyware App Identified

Software from Company That Sells Only to Governments

JUNE 27, 2014

(Washington, DC) – Saudi Arabia’s government should clarify whether it is infecting and monitoring mobile phones with surveillance malware, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi officials should also say whether and how they intend to protect the rights of those targeted to privacy and free expression.

Independent security researchers, in a June 24, 2014 report, identified surveillance software made by the Italian firm Hacking Team that appears intended to target individuals in Qatif, in eastern Saudi Arabia. Qatif has been a site of ongoing protests of various government policies since 2011, as well as government repression of peaceful dissent.

“We have documented how Saudi authorities routinely crack down on online activists who have embraced social media to call out human rights abuses,” said Cynthia Wong, senior Internetresearcher at Human Rig

hts Watch. “It seems that authorities may now be hacking into mobile phones, turning digital tools into just another way for the government to intimidate and silence independent voices.”

Security researchers at the Toronto-based research group Citizen Lab have identified a malicious, altered version of the Qatif Today (al-Qatif al-Youm) Android app, an application that provides mobile access to Arabic-language news and information related to the Eastern Province town of Qatif. This altered application, if installed on a mobile phone, infects the phone with spyware made by Hacking Team, a company that says it sells surveillance and digital intrusion tools only to governments.

The spyware enables a government to access the phone’s emails, text messages, files from applications like Facebook, Viber, Skype, or WhatsApp, contacts, and call history. It also allows authorities controlling the spyware to turn on a phone’s camera or microphone to take pictures or record conversations without the owner’s knowledge.

If Saudi authorities are using spyware to target activists’ mobile phones, it could indicate a ratcheting up of efforts to scrutinize online activism in an environment that is already hostile to the freedoms of expression and association, Human Rights Watch said. Where “standard” criminal investigations involve arrests of peaceful protesters or liberal website operators, companies that supply surveillance technologies without adequate safeguards risk complicity in rights violations.

Citizen Lab researchers were not able to confirm whether Saudi Arabia or any other government has successfully deployed Hacking Team tools in Saudi Arabia, nor who may have been specifically targeted. However, given that the spyware is embedded in a doctored version of an existing application, potential targets are likely to have an interest in current affairs related to the Qatif governorate. Citizen Lab researchers previously published additional evidence that Hacking Team may be in use in Saudi Arabia, based on presence of Hacking Team-linked servers in the country.

Qatif has been the site of ongoing protests, especially since Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Bahrain in March 2011, despite a categorical ban on protests issued by authorities that month. On April 17, Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court sentenced a Qatif-based human rights activist, Fadhil al-Manasif, to 15 years in prison and a 15-year ban on foreign travel after he serves his prison term, largely for his role in helping international journalists cover the protests in Qatif. Saudi Shia citizens, who make up a majority of the town’s residents, face systematic discrimination in public education, government employment, and in building houses of worship in majority-Sunni Saudi Arabia.

In December 2013, Human Rights Watch released a report documenting how activists in Saudi Arabia have embraced the Internet and social media to build relationships, discuss ideas, and promote social and political reforms. Saudi authorities have arrested, prosecuted, and otherwise attempted to silenceactivists and suppress calls for change, including in Qatif.

New counterterrorism regulations promulgated in early 2014 criminalize virtually all dissident expression as “terrorism,” including acts such as “contact or correspondence with any groups [that are] hostile to the kingdom,” “making countries, committees, or international organizations antagonistic to the kingdom,” and “calling, participating, promoting, or inciting sit-ins [or] protests.”

It is unclear how intrusion tools are regulated under Saudi law and what protections for digital privacy, if any, are enforced in practice to prevent illegitimate government surveillance. Under article 17 of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism law, promulgated in January, the interior minister has the power to seize or monitor any means of communication at his discretion, and without a warrant, as long as it “is beneficial for revealing the truth.” Under article 21 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia ratified in 2009, “[n]o one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with regard to his privacy, family, home, or correspondence….”

The United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, stated in his 2013 report to the UN Human Rights Council: “Use of an amorphous concept of national security to justify invasive limitations on the enjoyment of human rights is of serious concern. Surveillance of communications must only occur under the most exceptional circumstances and exclusively under the supervision of an independent judicial authority.”

La Rue expressed specific concerns about use of intrusion spyware: “From a human rights perspective, the use of such technologies is extremely disturbing.… [The spying capability they enable] threatens not only the right to privacy [but also] procedural fairness rights with respect to the use of such evidence in legal proceedings.”

Citizen Lab and Human Rights Watch previously documented use of Hacking Team tools to target an independent, diaspora-run Ethiopian media organization. Hacking Team states that it sells exclusively to governments, and markets its products for “standard” criminal investigations, “lawful intercept,” and intelligence-gathering activities related to counterterrorism and crime.

In response to a request for comment to Citizen Lab’s June 24 report, Hacking Team responded with a statement to Human Rights Watch that points to the firm’s customer policy. According to the written policy and the firm’s statement, the company reviews potential sales for risk that its products may facilitate human rights violations and may decline a sale under certain circumstances.

Hacking Team told Human Rights Watch that it will suspend support for its products if the company believes a customer has misused the technology, and has done so in the past. However, the company has not released information about prior investigations, nor about any actions to address specific incidents. The company has also stated that it does not confirm or deny the identity of any specific customer as a matter of company policy.

Powerful spyware remains virtually unregulated at the global level. There are insufficient national controls or limits on their export to prevent sales to governments that are likely to use them to target and persecute dissidents. There is also an urgent need for oversight and mechanisms to ensure that firms selling such tools are held accountable for abuses linked to their business, Human Rights Watch said.

“Selling so-called ‘lawful intercept’ tools to governments that equate dissent with terrorism is a recipe for disaster,” Wong said. “Hacking Team should investigate possible misuse of its products in Saudi Arabia. Hacking Team and other makers of similar tools should immediately cease any support and sales to abusive governments.”

Beyoncé - Partition (Explicit Video)

Cancer Causing Foods You Probably Eat Every Day

http://naturalon.com/10-of-the-most-cancer-causing-foods/

Photo credit: bigstock

It’s probably not something you think about every day, whether or not the foods you are eating could contain carcinogens, but with almost 1.5 million people diagnosed with some type of cancer just last year, perhaps it’s time to look at what is in our foods that could be causing such a huge number of new cancer patients. Here is a list of the top 10 foods that you most likely consume every day that may contain carcinogens or be suspected of causing cancer.

1. Microwave Popcorn

Those little bags of popcorn are so convenient to just stick in the microwave, you wouldn’t think for a minute that they could be dangerous to your health, but they are. First, let’s talk about the bag itself. It’s lined with a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid ( PFOA). This is a toxin you can find in Teflon also. After being heated, this toxic chemical is known to cause infertility and cancer in lab animals. The EPA lists this chemical as a known carcinogen.

Also, applied to the popcorn itself, is a chemical called diacetyl. Use of this chemical caused Conagra Foods to remove it from their brand of popcorn, ACT, because it was causing lung diseases in the workers at their factory.Now, let’s talk about the contents. Although every manufacturer uses slightly different ingredients, most of them use soybean oil (a GMO product) as well as various preservatives such as propyl gallate, a chemical that is causes stomach problems and skin rashes. Now they don’t actually say they are using GMO corn kernels, but that’s because the government says they don’t have to. Even if they don’t use GMO corn, you can bet they aren’t using organic corn!

Photo credit: bigstock

2. Non-organic fruits

Fruits that are non-organic are contaminated with some very dangerous pesticides such as atrazine, thiodicarb, and organophosphates, as well as high nitrogen fertilizers.

Atrazine is banned in European countries but still used here. This is a weed killer that causes severe problems in humans, especially in our reproductive capabilities.

Conventional foods are also subjected to an enormous amount of these types’ chemicals as well as hormones, to make the fruit and veggies grow bigger. Apples are probably the worst offenders with pesticides showing on more than 98 per cent of all apples tested. Fruits with a 90 per cent positive rate of pesticide residue included oranges, strawberries, and grapes.A 2009 study found that when pregnant women drank water contaminated with atrazine, their babies had reduced body weights.  Were you aware that the sewage from cities in the USA (nicely called bio solids) is used in the fields of farms in the USA as a form of fertilizer?  You will never find organic food being cultivated in composted human sewage waste!

Washing fruit does not remove 100 per cent of the residue. Pesticides are toxic chemicals to insects as well as human being

Photo credit: bigstock

3. Canned Tomatoes

Actually, most canned foods are a concern because of what the can is lined with. The lining of almost all canned foods are made with a chemical called bisphenol-A, or BPA.

Tomatoes are exceptionally dangerous due to their high acidity, which seems to cause BPA to leech from the lining of the can into the tomatoes themselves. The level of BPA can be so high in fact; you should seriously consider not feeding them to children. Due to FDA laws, there are no standards for labeling BPA so simply because a can does not say it has it does not mean that it does not contain BPA. Be safe and avoid cans. Cook fresh or buy glass bottles.A study published in May of 2013 by the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences showed that BPA actually affects the way genes work inside the brain of rats. Even the FDA agrees that there is a problem with BPA as it is supporting efforts to either replace or at the very least, to minimize the amounts found in canned foods. You know it must be bad when even the very lax FDA is concerned!

FIDE online arena launch with AceGuard Super-Strong Anti-Cheating System

FIDE online arena launch: history in the making

Tuesday the 2nd of April 2004 marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of chess as FIDE online arena entered its launch phase. It is now possible for chess players from every federation in the world to participate in official FIDE events for FIDE ratings via the Internet, allowing a very large number of people to participate in official events far more easily or for the very first time

FIDE president Kirsan Ilyuzhinov today announced the launch of the beta version of the FIDE online chess playing arena. FIDE's official Internet playing platform has been developed in co-operation with CNC. In October 2013, after the Executive Board meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, the fully operational version of FIDE online arena will be in service and available all over the world.

FIDE president said, "FIDE firmly believes that online chess offers enormous opportunities for millions of chess lovers who are unable to regularly participate in over-the-board events for a variety of reasons: professional and family commitments, problems reaching tournaments and other difficulties, etc. Now FIDE makes the virtual real with an online arena that allows players to compete in top class tournaments with official FIDE ratings. The attractiveness and ease of online chess will also draw millions of new players - in particular the young. FIDE online arena will be an important step in achieving my goal of '1 billion chess players' throughout the world."

Some features of the online arena include:
- A highly sophisticated chess anti-cheating system AceGuard. Until now, it has been impossible to award official ratings for online chess because of the difficulty in preventing cheating. Now AceGuard will be an invaluable tool in the fight against cheaters. PremiumChess company has developed this revolutionary technology.
- When the full version of FIDE online arena starts in October, every move of every game played by full arena members will be monitored and extensively analyzed by the anti-cheating system and a special team of experts, creating a fair playing venue for all. 
- While it is not possible to prevent some players from cheating, this constant highly detailed monitoring guarantees that they can be successfully identified and appropriate action taken. Every member's playing history is evaluated with a Fairness Index rating, allowing you to see quickly if an opponent is reliable or not.
- In addition, FIDE online arena offers a complete chess experience online: challenge games and tournaments, master challenge matches and simuls, free master lessons and lectures, full statistical analysis, broadcasts of major FIDE events, chat, game files, multi-lingual interface and much more - all from the comfort of your home or anywhere elsewhere you happen to be.
- So now you can enjoy all the features that FIDE online arena has to offer and very soon play in official FIDE events night or day, seven days a week.

Click on the screenshot or check out the FIDE online chess playing arena at this link.