Clicker.tv brings streaming internet video to your TV's browser; it has a web browser right?

Clicker.tv brings streaming internet video to your TV's browser; it has a web browser right?:

When Clicker launched last fall it seemed like just another me-too streaming video aggregator, but we'll have to give it another look after it's followed up its Boxee integration by showing off the HTML5-built Clicker.tv site at Google I/O today. Designed as a 'ten-foot' experience for TV screens it can be perused via mouse and keyboard or just a remote, bringing Clicker's index of video including network TV, webisodes and web-only content, plus premium sources like Amazon VOD and iTunes. It's currently in beta, but if leaning back and browsing from the couch is your thing -- or on the off chance someone launches a Google TV with Intel processor, support for all those streaming codecs we love and a QWERTY remote from Logitech tomorrow -- it could be worth bookmarking.

Clicker.tv brings streaming internet video to your TV's browser; it has a web browser right? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 May 2010 22:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Israeli Microbot Fires Pencil-Sized Rockets to Stop Bombs [Weapons]

This teeny little robot is the size of a toy truck - just 50 square inches. It'd be cute, almost, if it wasn't armed with 'dozens' of eight-inch rockets.The world's militaries have been gun-shy about letting armed robots roam around the battlefield; they're always a danger the machines will malfunction and ruin some pesky human's day. But Rafael, Israel's state-owned arms-maker, is betting that its miniature Pincher robot might be allowed into warzones as a tool for neutralizing roadside bombs.

According to Defense News' Barbara Opall-Rome each of the Pincher's micro-munitions is " a self-contained micro rocket with safety ignition, motor, warhead and safety fuse." The "pyrophoric warhead combusts once ignited to burn upon target penetration," which supposedly "eliminat[es] collateral damage often caused by traditional explosive systems."

"Instead of detona­tion, where the speed of the shockwave is ul­trasonic, we developed a special material that causes deflagration, where the speed of the shockwave is subsonic and does not cause sig­nificant damage," Rafael's Ram Fabian tells Opall-Rome.

The Pincher has a range of 100 feet, maybe. An onboard camera looks for bombs, and helps remote operators aim the pencil-missiles.

It's not Israel's first attempt at a tiny killer robot. In 2007, the Elbit corporation unveiled its 18-inch VIPeR ("Versatile, Intelligent, Portable Robot"), equipped with a "9 mm mini-Uzi." The machine never made much of a splash.

But rafael has high hopes for the Pincher. The Israel-focused military site Defense Update even suggests the ‘bot could be "used indoors to seek targets, locate and deactivate IEDs." Just make sure some kid doesn't pick it up and put it in his toybox afterward.

[Photo: Rafael via Defense Update]

The author of this post can be contacted at tips@gizmodo.com

Japanese wedding officiated by a robot “I-Fairy”

Japanese wedding officiated by a robot “I-Fairy”:





Whenever you get married, you have to plan a lot of things. One of them is who is going to officiate at the wedding.
This one couple in Tokyo decided to opt for a robot to officiate, and there is a video of “I-Fairy” in action after the jump.
The I-Fairy is made by a Japanese company Kokoro. The bride, Satoko Inoue, works for Kokoro, and groom Tomoshiro Shibato is a professor of robotics at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology.
The I-Fairy is remote controlled by one of the attendants at the 50-guest wedding. It does talk, and has 18 joints in its arms.
Some of you might find this a little creepy. I would have to say: “just wait”. I believe that once robots start doing other sacraments of the church, such as confessionals, last rites, and baptisms, then we can say whether or not we’ve gone too far.
So, is this the beginning of some new era of robot-officiated weddings? I suppose that they really need to have these in Vegas. Maybe they could be coin-operated.
Well, if you want to see this officiate at your wedding or someone that you know, just pay about $68,000 to the Kokoro company.

---

The Guy Who Flew Thousands of Passengers As a Fake Pilot [Airplanes]

The Guy Who Flew Thousands of Passengers As a Fake Pilot [Airplanes]:

This is Thomas Salme, a maintenance engineer who became a Boeing 737 pilot by flying a few nights in a flight simulator and printing a fake airliner pilot license. Amazingly enough, he flew passengers for thirteen years without any incidents.

Thirteen years of back and forth from Sweden to everywhere else in Europe. Nobody noticed until a couple of months ago, when Salme was caught by the police as he was getting ready for take off. He was in the cockpit of a Boeing 737, with 101 passengers at Amsterdam's Schipol airport. He admits that it was all a crazy idea:

" I got the crackpot idea to apply as a co-pilot at a real airline so I made myself a Swedish flying permit with a logo out of regular white paper. It wasn't laminated, and looked like something I'd made at home. It was surprisingly easy. The documents look different everywhere in Europe. An Italian airline doesn't know what a Swedish licence looks like. And you can forge all the IDs you need. I'd train there for two or three hours at a time—at least 15 to 20 times over one and a half years. "

Despite putting the lives of thousands at risk, Salme only got fined a couple thousand dollars and was banned from flying for a year. Thinking twice about it, it's kind of reasonable. Despite being crazy enough to pull such a stunt, it's not entirely his fault. After all, how can a company and the flight agencies involved be so absolutely inept? How can they accept a simple printout and put a random guy in the cockpit of a passenger plane without running any background checks? A simple computer search would have probably turned out enough information to stop this from the beginning. I can imagine Frank Abagnale Jr. pulling this stunt in the 60s, but now? There are no excuses.

If anyone needs to be nailed, that's the useless authorities that make us follow all kinds of stupid security procedures to get into an airplane, but can miserably fail to check the identity and qualification of the pilots flying the plane.

Obama Caught Lip-Syncing

Staying in Control of Your Facebook Logins

Staying in Control of Your Facebook Logins:

At Facebook, we're constantly working on new ways to protect you from scams and help you keep your account and information secure. Today, we're announcing some new tools and systems designed to keep the bad guys out and keep you abreast of suspicious activity so you can quickly take action to correct it.

We've always devoted significant time and effort to security. We've built technical systems that operate behind the scenes to quickly detect and block suspicious behavior, delete phony posts and messages, and return compromised accounts to their rightful owners. Most of these systems are invisible to the average person who uses Facebook. Very few people will ever experience a security issue on Facebook, which means that most of you have probably never noticed these systems at work. Rest assured that these systems are there, though, protecting you and your friends.

Login Notifications

Over the last few weeks, we've been testing a new feature that allows you to approve the devices you commonly use to log in and then to be notified whenever your account is accessed from a device you haven't approved. This feature is now available to everyone.

To try it out, go to the Account Settings page and click on the link next to 'Account Security' at the bottom of the page. If you select the option to receive notifications for logins from new devices, when you log in, you'll be asked to name and save the various devices you use to access Facebook.

For example, you can save your home computer, your school or work computer, and your mobile phone. Once you've done this, whenever someone logs in to your account from a device not on this list, we'll ask the person to name the device.

We'll also send you an immediate email notification - and if you want, a text message - so that you're always up to speed on how your account is being accessed. This notification will provide steps on how to reset your password and remove the device, so you can quickly secure your account if it's being accessed from a device you don't recognize.

We're not aware of any other service that does this, and we encourage you to try it out.

Blocking Suspicious Logins

We've also built a new system to block suspicious logins before they happen. When we see that someone is trying to access your account from an unusual device, we'll ask the person to answer an additional verification question to prove his or her identity as the real account owner. For example, we might ask the person to enter a birth date, identify a friend in a photo or answer a security question if you've previously provided one. These questions are designed to be easy for you, and hard for a bad guy, and we've already seen some great results.

Once you've confirmed your identity, you'll have the opportunity to review recent logins on your account and reset your password if you see logins that you don't recognize.

You won't go through this flow often. We'll only ask you to prove your identity on the rare occasion that we notice something different. If you're ever asked to go through this flow, that's just Facebook's site integrity team saying 'Hi' and that we're here to help you protect your account.

We're confident that these new tools and systems will do a lot to prevent unauthorized logins and the nuisance they can cause. As always, though, the first line of defense is you. We need you to help by practicing safe behavior on Facebook and wherever you go online.

Be careful where you enter your password, and don't download suspicious-looking software. We've posted more tips and information on how to be safe on our Facebook Security Page, so check it out and 'Like' it for ongoing updates.

Lev Popov, a software engineer on Facebook's site integrity team, is keeping track of his Facebook logins."