Biometrics

Police recently began using a tiny new device they hope will make a big impact on crime-fighting. The gadget, called the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, is made by South Pasadena-based Cogent Systems and is about the size of a small cell phone, said West Covina police Sgt. Bob Tolich.

Hung-Son Le, Umeå University, Sweden, has developed in his PhD dissertation the algorithms that give a computer the possibility of recognizing a face, even if only one picture is taken. The results can be used for safe and secure identity control or, on the light side, to find out to which famous persons you look alike.

"The Technocratic Age is slowly designing an every day more controlled society. The society will be dominated by an elite of persons free from traditional values (!) who will have no doubt in fulfilling their objectives by means of purged techniques with which they will influence the behavior of people and will control and watch the society in all details". "... it will become possible to exert a practically permanent watch on each citizen of the world". - Zbigniew Brzezinski, Illuminati and co-founder of Trilateral Commission

The Homeland Security Department is trying to quash criticism of its slow development of an exit piece to the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program. Robert Mocny, US-VISIT director, said this week the agency has decided a piece of the exit program will require airlines to collect biometric data of visitors leaving the country when they check in at the airport. Mocny said DHS will issue a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register by January 2008 detailing the program.

At the upcoming 40th Tokyo Motor Show (October 26 to November 11), Nissan plans to unveil its lithium-ion battery electric-powered Pivo 2 concept car. Designed for urban use, the Pivo 2 features a 360-degree revolving cabin, inherited from the first-generation Pivo (allowing the driver to always face forward while driving, even when parallel parking), and a front opening swing door similar to those first introduced in the sixties by Fiat (600 Series) and BMW.

McDonalds is experimenting with the ultimate line-buster in South Korea, where customers purchase food on their cell phones, which then ring when the order is ready. But this trial is much more an RFID effort than a traditional mobile experiment. Most of the phone's communications capabilities and its display are barely used, with customers having to download a McDonalds application into their phone.

Fortress North America is a term used during World War II which was devised to protect America and Canada from the Nazi blitzkrieg in case all the other nations failed to stop them. Since 9/11 it has been used to further integrate North America and secure the continent. If we are to integrate with Canada and Mexico why is it that we can no longer cross both borders without a long-range RFID enabled passport, thumb print and a cavity search?

Like many schools, Howell High and the Howell campus of Lansing Community College have a room set aside where students can buy pop, chips and candy. But this one is different. There's no checkout clerk. Every item in the store has an electronic device on it called a Radio Frequency Identification tag, or RFID.

NEW YORK (AP) Retiree Gene O'Brien hurried to the World Trade Center site after Sept. 11, 2001, as a volunteer helping to shuttle supplies to police and fire workers. Some days, his only ID to get into the disaster site was a tattoo on his forearm. It might not be so easy the next time disaster strikes

I have two children, a boy and a girl. When my son was born 12 years ago, the obstetrician asked within hours of his birth if I wanted to have him circumcised. This is a common practice for boys, so I didn't hesitate to say yes. Of course, it is a medical procedure, and in hindsight, I wish I'd thought about it for more than 35 seconds. Now imagine a world where the doctor had, instead, asked me if I wanted my son "chipped." Here's how that conversation might have gone: