The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has tapped Northrop Grumman to develop binoculars that will tap the subconscious mind. The Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System program, informally called "Luke's Binoculars," combines advanced optics with electro-encephalogram electrodes that can, DARPA believes, be used to alert the wearer to a threat before the conscious mind has processed the information.

Northrop To Develop Mind-Reading Binoculars | Danger Room from Wired.com

An internal British Telecom report on a secret trial of an ISP eavesdropping and advertising technology found that the system crashed some unsuspecting users' browsers, and a small percentage of the 18,000 broadband customers under surveillance believed they'd been infected with adware.
The January 2007 report (.pdf) -- published Thursday by the whistle blowing site Wikileaks -- demonstrates the� hazards broadband customers face when an ISP tampers with raw internet traffic for its own profit. The leak comes just weeks after U.S. broadband provider Charter Communications told users it would be testing a technology similar to what's described in the BT document.

Leaked Report: ISP Secretly Added Spy Code To Web Sessions, Crashing Browsers | Threat Level from Wired.com

A study coming out tomorrow in the journal Neuron explains how this scenario is possible today, with just a small dose of the brain chemical oxytocin.

Oxytocin is a chemical associated with many of the "pleasurable" feelings you have, from basic trust, to love and orgasm. Researchers in Switzerland theorized that people playing social trust games might change their behaviors if given doses of oxytocin, since the chemical might artificially enhance their willingness to trust someone. Indeed, they were right: subjects dosed with Oxytocin were willing to trust people even after they'd been explicitly told that those people had behaved in untrustworthy ways in the past. People who had not been dosed did not trust the "untrustworthy" people.

Mad Neuroscience: The "Trust Me" Drug That Makes You Take Social Risks

Taser is demoing all kinds of gear this week� -- from shock-inducing shotgun rounds to "area denial" zappers that can fry groups of people at once.

'Peel and Stick' Tasers Electrify Riot Control | Danger Room from Wired.com

Unable to afford a proper camera crew and equipment, The Get Out Clause, an unsigned band from the city, decided to make use of the cameras seen all over British streets.

With an estimated 13 million CCTV cameras in Britain, suitable locations were not hard to come by.

They set up their equipment, drum kit and all, in eighty locations around Manchester – including on a bus – and proceeded to play to the cameras.

Afterwards they wrote to the companies or organisations involved and asked for the footage under the Freedom of Information Act.

Neat idea... shame the music isnt any better than it is... Maybe they should do film instead.

The Get Out Clause, Manchester's stars of CCTV cameras - Telegraph

For every scientific breakthrough, you can expect a new branch pseudo-science that will mirror genuine science in some distorted way. In the nineteeth century, the young branch of engineering that spawned electrical current also spawned quack "electrotherapies" that promised to heal you with the amazing powers of electricity. And phrenology (reading your personality through bumps on your head) became popular just as neuroscience and psychiatry were taking their first baby steps. What new psuedo-sciences can you expect in the twenty-first century? We've got some ideas.
...

Network Divining
Having trouble with your network connections? Does your cell phone signal drop out at random in certain parts of your house? The best way to solve your problem, according to quack science, will be with a special "network divining rod," an LED device that will start blinking if it finds a "break" in your network signals. Unhappy Google-AOL-BT-NewsCorp customers can use it to locate where exactly the problems are in the global phone-computer-media network, and then buy another device, full of network enhancing crystals, to repair the break. Expect the usual promises: "Guaranteed to work! We've got testimonials from many happy customers!"

...

EMF Focusers
Every mobile device emits a small amount of microwave radiation. While we used to believe that was dangerous, it turned out that in fact it was neutral. Based on that idea, future quacks will claim that there is actually a benefit to mobile phone radiation. After all, when people put their cell phones next to the heads, it turns out they have more to say and their vocabularies get bigger. So these quacks will start selling mobile apps that promise to "focus" cell phone radiation to certain regions of your brain that you want to develop more quickly. Want to learn another language really quickly? Get the language stimulation package. Want to inspire yourself to exercise more? Get the goal-attainment package. You don't even have to hold the mobile in a different position! The software does it all for you.

I can't wait till these things hit ebay.

Pseudo Science: The Pseudo-Sciences You're Most Likely to See in the Next 50 Years

There will be upgrades citywide, including a new, next-gen cell network and an overhaul of the subway's security system. Electronic license plate readers, both stationary and mounted on mobile police units, can already scan thousands of cars per day and instantly alert police if a suspect in their database approaches or enters the financial district. Massive vehicle barriers will be able to block off the busiest streets on a signal from HQ, even shutting down the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. An array of 3,000 cameras will turn the area into a 1.7-square-mile, open-air Panopticon. And unlike London's surveillance system, the so-called Ring of Steel, New York's cameras are supposed to do more than identify terrorists after they've struck. Assistant chief John Colgan, who commands the police department's counterterrorism bureau, hopes they'll keep the next disaster from happening. "This is about identifying and eliminating a threat, rather than dealing with the consequences," says Colgan, a compact redhead with a bushy mustache. "I'm not in the consequence-management business."

We've almost reached escape from new york.

NYC Plans a High-Tech Defense. Let's Hope it Works | Danger Room from Wired.com

Here’s another item to add to the list of science fictional ideas that are edging close to becoming a reality - in-vitro (or “vat-grown”) meat could be sat on supermarket shelves within ten years.

Animal 57?

All hail the New Flesh - in-vitro meat on sale within a decade | Blog | Futurismic

i explained that i was taking photos and it was my legal right to do so, he tried to stop me by shoulder charging me, my friend started taking photos of this, he then tried to detain us both. I refused to stand still so he grabbed my jacket and said i was breaking the law. Quickly a woman and a guy wearing BARGAIN MADNESS shirts joined in the melee and forcibly grabbed my friend and held him against his will. We were both informed that street photography was illegal in the town.

Middlesbrough cops, goons and clerks grab and detain photographer for shooting on a public street

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

Best. Quote. Ever.

Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital