Spy cockroaches; Germany plots the future of warfare.

al-Reuters (July 2025): Spy cockroaches and AI robots: Germany plots the future of warfare.  

Some of the ideas under development feel akin to science fiction – like Swarm Biotactics' cyborg cockroaches that are equipped with specialised [sic] miniature backpacks that enable real-time data collection via cameras for example.

Electrical stimuli should allow humans to control the insects' movements remotely. The aim is for them to provide surveillance information in hostile environments - for example information about enemy positions.

"Our bio-robots - based on living insects - are equipped with neural stimulation, sensors, and secure communication modules," said CEO Stefan Wilhelm. "They can be steered individually or operate autonomously in swarms.

How'd I miss this story in July? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Be Like Hong Kong. (VIDEO)

Neutralizing facial recognition towers. 

 

VIDEO (no audio): 

Do same to 5G Towers? Oh, I'd never advocate for destruction of private or gov property. Don't do that stuff. It is wrong. 

5G in Canada is a marketing scam?

The person in this video says he repairs cell phones for a living and there's no 5G chip in 5G phones in Canada. If anyone has knowledge of this, drop a comment. 

It makes me wonder about U.S. 5G phones. Does anyone know if U.S. cell phones actually contain the 5G chip? I haven't disassembled a cell phone for over 10 years and that's only after it was run over by a car, at slow speed. Many attempts were made to reassemble it, but it wasn't salvageable. There was data on it I'd like to have accessed.

I forget where I found this video. H/T to whoever it is. If it's yours or you ran it, drop a comment, I do my best to give attribution.

ChatGPT is BASED!

Who would program it to reply this way? Who?

No, I didn't input the above with ChatGPT, found it posted online.

Here's a moderately decent Deep Fake Video of Biden.

Imagine the bullshittery optics from The Globalists and politicians when this technology is completely refined!

Disclaimer: "Sensitive Content". Snowflakes shouldn't watch and instead Click Here and never return to this Blog.

If someone didn't know Biden, had never seen or heard much of him, yeah, the above could fool them into believing the above video is real. It has its signs of being imperfect technology. Something like this would easily fool the Joy Behars of the world. Which is a scary thought.

Paul Pelosi, besides being a drunk driver, is an exceptionally prescient stock investor.

Daily Caller: Nancy Pelosi’s Husband Buys Millions In Chip Stocks Right Before Vote On Massive Chip Subsidy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul bought up to $5 million in stock of a computer chip company ahead of a vote on a bill next week that would hand billions in subsidies to boost chip manufacturing, a financial disclosure shows.

Paul Pelosi purchased 20,000 shares of Nvidia, one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies, on June 17, according to the speaker’s disclosure report released Thursday. Now, senators will convene as early as Tuesday to vote on a bipartisan competition bill, which allocates $52 billion to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing and gives tax credits for production, Reuters reported Thursday.

“It certainly raises the specter that Paul Pelosi could have access to some insider legislative information,” Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for the left-wing think tank Public Citizen, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This is the reason why there is a stock trading app that exclusively monitors Paul’s trading activity and then its followers do likewise.”

He has the Magic "D" behind his name. Nothing will happen to him.

IE is DEAD! GOOD!

PC World: Internet Explorer dies today, but its spirit lives on in Microsoft Edge.

The day has finally arrived:

Microsoft has killed off Internet Explorer. Or has it? The answer to that is: well, sort of.

Microsoft has said for years that it plans to replace the venerable Internet Explorer browser in favor of a more secure option: Microsoft Edge. Today, IE11 ends support for most users, which means that IE won’t receive any additional support or patches going forward.

If you're still using Internet Explorer, don't panic. Here's what you need to do.

..."Here's what you need to do..." - - - Uninstall IE and install ANY OTHER browser.

Tech News: 5G Updates.

Daily Mail: Devonshire officials 'ban' installation of 5G after campaigners demand further research into its effects on health.

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Tech Spot: Woman terrified of 5G uses copper sleeping bag to avoid EMFs.

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C|Net: 5G Overview, what it means, what are the dangers.

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Tech Spot: 5G; A Decade-long evolution of technology.

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MSN: Russia gives big welcome to Huawei 5G.

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U.S. News and World Report: UAE Telecom Du Sees No Evidence of ‘Security Holes’ in Huawei's 5G Technology.

-

-

C|Net Archived

Tech Tyranny; Tech set to interfere in 2020 election.

News Target: Tech giants are COLLUDING to silence all independent media, steal the 2020 election and suppress human knowledge.

...it can’t be emphasized enough that the very same fake news outlets and tech monopolies that have been screaming “Russian collusion!” nonstop for the past three years are now the ones actively colluding with each other to try to steal the next election from President Trump, as well as silence all online free speech.
[.]
...there’s a war being waged against the First Amendment, as the tech overlords crack down on all independent thought in the name of fighting “hate speech” and “offensive” content. Ironically, these entities claim to be fighting “fascism,” while they themselves employ fascist tactics in an effort to silence all deviating thoughts and beliefs.

“The very existence of Google is incompatible with free society,” warns Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, about where all of this is headed. “Google must be shut down and permanently removed from society. Its engineers should be arrested, indicted and imprisoned for life to prevent them from repeating their evil schemes against humanity.”

Make sure to read the whole News Target story.

Hillary Exits The Matrix.

Daily Caller: Hillary Clinton Withdraws As Cybersecurity Conference Keynote, Citing 'Unforeseen Circumstance'.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton withdrew from the cybersecurity conference where she was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, citing an “unforeseen circumstance,” according to an email from the FireEye Cyber Defense Summit.

Clinton - who infamously transmitted classified information over a homemade server once housed in her bathroom - was the centerpiece of the October 9-10 summit in Washington, where Clinton was to have “engage[d] in a Q&A discussion with FireEye CEO, Kevin Mandia on the geopolitical landscape and its implications for global cyber security today.”

The FireEye “Cyber Defense Summit brings together many of the world’s leading security experts, frontline heroes, government leaders, and executives from various industries to address the challenges of today’s threat landscape,” its website says.

An email from FireEye sent Tuesday said "Due to an unforeseen circumstance, Secretary Clinton will no longer be able to participate in this year’s conference."

Who in the hell knows they're going to have an "unforeseen circumstance" three months ahead of time?

NASA Selects 3 Private Firms for Moon Deliveries.

TechCruch: The first private companies that NASA has selected to deliver stuff and things to the Moon.

Guess who?

Guess again; from the TechCrunch link: 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has selected Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and Orbit Beyond as the first three private companies to deliver science and technology payloads under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) as part of its Artemis program.

No word from NASA how the Hooterville Post Office, located within Sam Drucker's General Store, fared in the moon-delivery selection process.

Adventures in Tech Ineptitude.

And examples of failure to communicate?

Craftsmanship...

No doubt, a recipe question asked by Cortez:

Tech News

Technocracy: UK Pedestrian Fined $115 For Avoiding Facial Recognition Camera.

Police fined a pedestrian £90 for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face when he saw a controversial facial recognition camera on a street in London.

Officers set up the camera on a van in Romford, East London, which then cross-checked photos of faces of passers-by against a database of wanted criminals.

But one man was unimpressed about being filmed and covered his face with his hat and jacket, before being stopped by officers who took his picture anyway.

After being pulled aside, the man told police: ‘If I want to cover me face, I’ll cover me face. Don’t push me over when I’m walking down the street.’

- - -
C|Net: Good reasons not to trust tech companies.

...why wouldn't a company like Facebook go the extra step and just listen in on our conversations through our phones?

"Most Americans can't go through their day without having one of these companies in their lives," said Margaret O'Mara, a history professor at the University of Washington and author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America.

- - -
TechTalks: Self-driving forklifts are here.

...factories and industrial complexes are closed environments, and are much more predictable. There’s no threat of kids running in the forklift’s path, and the lighting, weather and traffic conditions are usually constant. “The rules for forklifts are easier than self-driving cars because the environment is structured,” [says Saurav Agarwal, CTO and co-founder at Stocked Robotics, an Austin-based AI company focused on automating industrial vehicles].

- - -
Here's a trip down memory lane. TechSpot: The Most Memorable Game Controllers over the past 40 years.

The departure from the arcades has drastically morphed how players control games. Here we will take a look at some of the more memorable gamepads and controllers for consoles and PC over the last four decades.

How many do you remember? Hit the link for more.

 

 PC Gaming Technology circa 4th 5th Millennium BC

- - -
ZD Net: Six ways the new Mac Pro could go terribly wrong.

Once upon a time, Apple understood extreme pro users. From about 2006 to about 2012, Apple sold what is fondly referred to as the "cheese grater" Mac Pro, so named because the holes on the side of the unit were reminiscent of a cheese grater.
[.]
Then, in 2013, Apple introduced what's come to be known as the "trash can" Mac Pro, because it looks like a glossy little trash can. When Phil Schiller introduced it, he was so proud of it that he bragged, "Can't innovate, my ass."

Since then, that machine has been pretty much a failure.
[.]
It's entirely possible the new Mac Pro could go horribly wrong:
#1 Proprietary modules and module interfaces

#2 Limited module selection

#3 Lack of user maintainability and some kind of unexpected lock-in

#4 Lack of, or minimal upgradeability

#5 Form over functional heat management

#6 Pricing that limits purchases to high-end enterprises only

- - -
Extreme Tech: Elon Musk: Tesla Broke in 10 Months Without ‘Hardcore’ Cost Reduction.

Tesla may have just raised $2.7B in additional funding, but the company’s cash burn rate is so high, even that amount won’t keep the lights on for very long. According to CEO Elon Musk, the company is instituting “hardcore” cost-cutting rules and scrutinizing every penny that leaves the firm.["]

- - -
MobileSyrup: Justin Trudeau to launch Digital Charter to combat hate speech and disinformation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his government will be launching a digital charter in order to combat hate speech and online disinformation.
[.]
“We look forward to working alongside internet companies, but indeed, if they do not choose to act, we will be forced to continue to act in ways that protect Canadians and we will have more to say about the kinds of tools we will be using in the coming weeks and months,” Trudeau said.

Learn To Code Launch Digital Charters.
- - -
Technology.Org: Same computer password for the last 10 years? You might need a vibrating cybernudge.

Researchers say changing human behaviour key to foiling cyberattacks.
[.]
People routinely put off, ignore or forget cyber security measures such as changing passwords, updating privacy settings and locking computer screens.

So..."passwordABC1", "Admin123" and "tHatsHitheadBoss88"...I should change those then...?

Adventures in Tech Ineptitude

Maybe just a failure to communicate?

I've always known math to be dirty and filthy.

"Please...please describe. In vivid detail!"

Bloated Windows 10

Extreme Tech: Win 10 requires 32GB storage space.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it would begin using ~7GB of user hard drive space for the application of future updates. The advantage of this system is intended to be that it doesn’t break the update process halfway through by a system running out of space. The disadvantage is that it would eliminate virtually all of the storage available on small systems[.]

And more yadda yadda, blah blah the ExTech story writer goes on why Win 10 requiring 32GB storage isn't so bad...

But it's the comments at the link that are fun:

sola • 10 hours ago
What on Earth could need so much storage space for a baseline operating system?
[.]
Hard-core Linux people ridicule Ubuntu all the time for being bloated while a full blown Ubuntu x64 desktop installation is about ~8GB (1/4 of Windows) and that includes a full blown office suite, a proper web browser and a lot of usable cli and graphical tools.

ChromeOS also still works on 16GB machines and that includes a secondary partition for full-parallel, in-background OS updates.

Techutante @ sola • 5 hours ago
Eh, 2 TB hard drives are as cheap as 14-40 dollars. Get over it. Back when I started I ran my entire computer with Dos and Windows 3.1 on a 426 meg hard drive, of which windows took up approximately 35-50 megs[.]

John Galt @ Techutante • 4 hours ago
Sure thing, I'll just pop open that ultra slim laptop or tablet and de-solder the SSD and pop that 4TB drive in there... See the problem yet?

adamrussell @ sola 39 minutes ago
32 GB is pretty deep into the low end.

Uh, yeah - it sure as heck is deep in the low end.

@ Techutante, "Back when I started..." - - - then return to the days of DOS, Win 3.1, a 9.6 modem and those lovely, techno-gray dot-matrix printers. There's probably a good, used pre-owned horse and buggy for sale in Amish Country that may be of interest to you.

Fcuk...some people who defend Win and MS no matter how sub-par the OS. I do not understand.

 Ink well with Quill and Eight - and ONLY EIGHT- Crayons for you!

4Sysops: Windows 10 1903: defer upgrades in all editions, SAC-T removed, new reboot option:

After a lot of negative feedback about Windows 10 1809, which the manufacturer had to withdraw due to serious errors[.] ("A lot"? AYFKM? - DD)
[.]
Officially, the next release bears the version number 1903, but it will not be released until the end of May. Therefore, Microsoft also refers to it as the May 2019 update.

Well, MS has until midnight Tuesday to roll out their April patches. As for their May release being released during May, I wonder what Vegas odds are on that?

Tech News

Technocracy: GMO Food Will Stock Grocery Shelves Within 5 Years.

While ethicists [sic] debate the applications of blockbuster gene-editing tool Crispr in human healthcare, an inventor of the tool believes it has a more immediate application: improving our food.

I have one, essential question for those in the pro-GMO industry. If GMO food is as safe as Big GMO says, why then do they fight so diligently against their food being labeled as such? They'll reply with, "doing so presents a negative perception of our products, thus negatively affecting our sales." And? That's our problem?

Asbestos? Nah. Perfectly fine and safe, we were told for decades. Thalidomide? Perfectly safe, especially for pregnant mothers. Tobacco? Recommended by Doctors and dentists alike.

Now, here comes the GMO Train. We're just human guinea pigs for tech and science, aren't we?
- - -
TechNewsWorld: Samsung suspends launch of Galaxy Fold.

Samsung pumped the brakes on release of the US$1,980 phone after several reviewers reported problems with their units.
[.]
Reviewers for Bloomberg and YouTube reported their units began malfunctioning after they removed an integral part of the display, mistakenly thinking it was a plastic screen protector.

CNBC reviewer Todd Haselton wrote that he left the plastic film intact, but the display still started acting buggy. The left side of the flexible screen began to flicker consistently.

- - -
TechSpot: Screen time not recommended for infants, says World Health Organization.

Infants under the age of one shouldn’t be exposed to electronic screens of any type according to guidelines recently published by the World Health Organization.

The United Nations agency further notes that sedentary screen time (watching TV / videos or playing computer games) is not recommended for infants.

Was anyone aware of this? Who knew?
- - -
TechCrunch: Tesla reports $702 million loss in first quarter.

Tesla reported April 9 that it delivered 63,000 electric vehicles in the first quarter of the year, nearly a one-third drop from the previous quarter.
[.]
“Everyone expected a first quarter loss for Tesla, but nobody expected it to be this big,” Karl Brauer, executive publisher at Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader said in an emailed statement.

- - -
Ars Technia: Windpower-Turbines come to Massachusetts.

Turbines? What turbines? They blend in so well! And appear to be well-protected from vandalism or other acts of sabotage
- - -
Beta News: Samsung Galaxy View2 Android 2 tablet: It's "Colossal."

What we don't know at the moment is just when the Galaxy View2 will be released, or how much it will cost.

But at least we know it's Colossal.
- - -
BGR: Spoiler-free review of "Avengers: Endgame."
- - -
C|Net: Facebook facing fine that could exceed $5 Billion Dollars.

The FTC is looking into Facebook's privacy practices and determining if the company violated a legal agreement to keep user data private.
[.]
Still, Facebook's scandals didn't scare away advertisers or users. The company posted a better-than-expected $15.08 billion in sales in the first quarter and reported the number of users who logged on every month increased by 8%, to 2.38 billion.

- - -
TechTalks: What is ethical AI?

Human oversight means that no AI system should be able to perform its functions without some level of control by humans. This means that humans should either be directly involved in the decision-making process or have the option to review and override decisions made by an AI model.

- - -
Computer World: Where are the April Windows patches?

Answer: Due sometime in June. Maybe July.
- - -
Extreme Tech: Sony's 98-inch, 8K OLED TV.

The cutting edge of television technology will cost you[.]
[.]
This will be the 2019 flagship of the Sony television line and it ships in June. The Z9G measures 86.75 inches wide by 55.0 inches tall by 4.38 inches deep. For a cleaner look, it can be bracket-mounted to any wall that can support 208 pounds.

The price? $69,999.99.

- - -

ZD Net: Is your body hacker-proof?

Increasing numbers of implantable medical devices are now gaining internet connectivity, giving doctors the ability to monitor patients health remotely, and even update the devices to tweak a treatment plan. Unfortunately, that flexibility offers a way for hackers to hijack that hardware, and even potentially make changes to the way the devices work. While so far no attacks have been successful, proof-of-concept attacks have been available for years.

And while it might be tempting to hope that cybercriminals might see corrupting life-sustaining devices as a step too far, they haven't historically shown much of a conscience, cheerfully extorting money away from hospitals, for example, and putting patients at risk.

Iraq bans Fortnite.

GameRant: Fortnite banned in another country...Iraq.

Iraq’s parliament voted to ban both Fortnite and PUBG, as well as microtransaction purchases that can be made in those games. Iraq’s parliament has attempted to justify its decision to ban Fortnite and PUBG by explaining the ban is “due to the negative effects caused by some electronic games on the health, culture, and security of Iraqi society, including societal and moral threats to children and youth.”

 There's always Blow Football...with Metal Goal Keeper.

A brief history of cell phones.

I forget where I found this. Maybe Reddit, maybe one of the Chans. I strive to provide proper attribution. Let me know if this is yours so I can give credit. I love it.

We have pencils and paper for the CPU-challenged.

Maybe if they rotated their computer screen by 90 degrees?

There are other options:

Instructions: use pointy, sharpened end to write on paper (the white stuff with the lines). The red thingy at the other end is an eraser used for...oh, forget it, it's already causing severe TechTardedness. Carry on, CPU-challenged person. Godspeed.

Tech News

ArsTechnia: A history of Japan's car industry.

Hit the link. Check out the image gallery of cars.

Extreme Tech: Best cars of the 2019 Chicago auto show.

Hit the links in the link for more images.

Technocracy: Self-driving cars are INCREASING urban congestion.

Self-driving cars will likely jam up downtown streets by cruising at slow speeds rather than parking, according to a new analysis published in the journal Transport Policy. Using game theory and simulated traffic models, report author Adam Millard-Ball found that the vehicles will be incentivized to circle streets rather than pay for parking.

According to Millard-Ball’s model, even as few as 2,000 self-driving cars in downtown San Francisco could slow traffic to less than 2 miles per hour.

- - -  
Tech Dirt: Italy tells EU to drop Articles 11 and 13 in copyright reform.

Italy... has now made a pretty clear statement that if the country is going to support the latest directive, it needs to protect the users of the web, and the only way to do that is to remove Articles 11 and 13.

Good for Italy!
- - -
ZD Net: Will Robot love fulfill emotional needs?

I wonder...how close are we to the era of when our robots will need shrinks?

- - -

Beta News: Spotify to ban ad-blockers.

Under the heading "the following is not permitted for any reason whatsoever" Spotify lists, among other things:

   - circumventing or blocking advertisements in the Spotify Service, or creating or distributing tools designed to block advertisements in the Spotify Service[.]

- - -
TechSpot: Senate investigations into government workers use of VPNs.

Recent months have been filled with news of international cybersecurity concerns and foreign meddling, and now two US Senators are going after a new target – virtual private networks (VPNs) used by governmental employees.

Who are the two senators? Marco Rubio (Republican) and Ron Wyden (Democrat).

10,000 to one odds that, three weeks ago, there might have been two - at most - two senators, who know what a VPN is.  This is similar to when John McCain was convinced the 2016 presidential election was hacked, and he pretended to know about hacking, yet didn't know what an exit node is. Sputnik News:

When questioned by a Sputnik reporter following the hearing about the debunking of the Joint Annual Report by security experts, including the finding that 43 percent of the IP addresses attributed to ‘Russian hackers’ were generic web-browser Tor exit nodes, the Senator responded by saying that he had “no idea” what she was talking about.

Lawmakers getting involved in Tech. Again. You have better odds in uniting the properties of water and electricity.
- - -
Tech News World: Wireless carriers really selling our data.

AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint have sold access to subscribers' real-time location data to aggregators, which in turn have sold it to about 250 bounty hunters and related businesses, Motherboard reported Wednesday.

In some cases, the data allowed users to track individuals to their specific locations inside a building.

- - -
Gizmodo: Washington state's snow-induced mayhem.

Yeah, and hey, Washington, your snows keep coming our way, hitting the central Midwest. So...stop it!
- - -
Computer World: Apple is disabling Safari's "do not track" feature.

The list of online entities who do not respect DNT requests includes all the usual privacy-eroding suspects, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Medium, Pinterest, and Reddit do honor these requests, which rather suggests you can find alternative ways to make a business.