The year might not be 1984, but Big Brother plans on spying on you all the same, even if they have to push things back a bit. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security extended the deadline for the implementation of its Real ID program from 2008 to 2013. Somewhere Winston Smith breathed a sigh of relief.

Real ID is a digital identification card, which will be required in all 50 states and will effectively replace the state driver’s license. Don’t get too excited, though, it’s not going to wipe that DUI off your record. The purpose of the cards is to create a national database, cataloguing personal information on all 240 million licensed drivers. Seems just like your driver’s license, but on a national scale, right? Well, not quite. Hang on, cause here is where things get a bit totalitarian.

An imbedded barcode will make each ID scanable, purportedly to check it against the database. Never mind that it could essentially be used to keep tabs on where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing. An additional concern is that the information contained on the ID will not be encrypted … at all. Scanning it would be all it would take to make a record of your personal information. Yes ladies, that scary bouncer at the bar would no longer have work to quickly commit your address to memory. He’d already have it saved to disc. The cards may also include radio frequency identification technology as well. At the present time though, Homeland Security isn’t quite sure which sort of unsecure data collection they would rather go with.

So far there’s no getting around this either. Under the Real ID Act, which was passed by Congress in 2005, all states are required by law to implement the program. Individual states have until Oct. 7, 2007 to provide their compliance plan to the federal government. However, citing privacy concerns, several rogue states are currently drafting legislation in direct opposition to the Act and its measures. The price for keeping your information private could be costly though. The penalties for noncompliance include disallowing residents of that particular state to use other forms of identification to board planes, enter federal buildings or collect federal financial assistance.

[Via cnet]

Do you suck at taking pictures? Does your photography of normally decent looking people come out looking horrid? Well, you’re not alone. It’s a good thing that Irish company FotoNation has a new technology to cover your ass and fix your jank portraits.

FotoNation’s Face Tracker technology makes taking photos much easier with its ability to detect the location of faces and adjust the camera’s settings for the best possible picture. And if the subject is ulgy, then it throws the camera out of focus to protect your precious eyes. Okay, I lied about that last part. This technology automatically finds and focuses on faces regardless of where they are in the viewfinder, and then adjusts focus and exposure for results that may even make it look like you know what you’re doing.

So you think you need this? The upcoming Pentax Optio A30 is no slouch with 10 megapixels, anti-shake functions, and this face tracking feature. Also, Pentax has more to choose from with the Pentax Optio S7 and Optio A20 digital cameras, so you really have no excuse for your crap head shots anymore.

In the first successful experiment to meld bird and machine, a team of Chinese scientists created a partially remote controlled pigeon. The team was from the Robot Engineering Technology Research Center in China’s Shandong University of Science and Technology or, wait for it, SUCT and managed to create a abomination miracle of science that utilizes micro electrodes connected to the pigeon’s brain to control direction during flight via computer.

“The electronic signals resemble the signals generated by the brain which control body movement,” said chief scientist Su Xuecheng.

Xuecheng also believes the cy-birds will have practical uses in the future. While it’s scary to think about the implications for remote controlled birds such as destroying our nation’s breadcrumb supply, precise fecal bombing etc, it shouldn’t take much more than some exceptionally clean windows to staunch any possible threat.

[Via Wired Blogs]

Taking a cue from every other cock swinging nation on Earth, Iran’s aerospace research center shot a payload carrying rocket into space yesterday. Proving that radical Islamic dictatorships still know how to party like it’s 1967.

“Britain’s former ambassador to Iran, Sir Richard Dalton, told the BBC that, if confirmed, such a move could destabilize the Middle East: “It is a matter of concern. Iran’s potential nuclear military programme, combined with an advanced missile capability, would destabilize the region, and of course if there were a bomb that could be placed on the end of this missile, it would in breach of Iran’s obligations under the non-proliferation treaty.”

In all honesty it seems as though the Brits are overreacting. Who says the Iranians have malicious intent? Think about it, Richard Branson shot a rocket into space and they gave him a million dollars. Space racism or not, at least the price is right. Four goats and suckled virgin per ride … Allah Akbar!!!

[Via BBC]

If you’ve ever watched The Maury Povich Show, you’d know that over half of the women on there are all about getting child support payments. While they’re completely shallow (and naming their kids Camerion or Dar’Tayveus – c’mon, that’s a car and a Star Wars character, for chrissakes!), they are entitled to this money to help their child. Now, the Ontario Government agrees with them.

They have recently launched the site goodparentspay.com, a place to shame negligent parents who’ve skimped on their child support. Go ahead and browse through the fine selection of deadbeats. Based on the photos, nature has made the fuckwads obvious. Regardless, though it smacks of opportunism – there’s an election coming in the fall, doncha know – the internet seems to be the best way to communicate with the largest audience. However, is this really the best way, especially from an official government site? Or is a trip to New York’s Hotel Pennsylvania a better bet?

We all should have seen it coming. YouTube, the bastion of all things video and user-created, is now becoming a medium for extremist propaganda. Recently, some Islamic terrorist (truly an oxymoron for people who know better) groups are uploading their anti-American and anti-Western videos to YouTube for a larger audience than the marginal websites they used to be hosted on. I don’t want to go into a ton of detail here – I don’t need to repeat their messages more times than necessary - but the original article gives enough disgusting examples of hate. It’s a tough fight for YouTube, as a statement from the company states, “YouTube has clear terms and conditions which prohibit, amongst other things, hateful content. Our community has been highly effective in policing the site, and YouTube removes videos if our community flags them as inappropriate.” Basically, they’ll only do something if someone else complains first.

Therein lies the only problem with internet and free speech. On the one hand, we’re free to see six-year olds singing Phantom of the Opera or monkeys throwing feces at each other. (Note: I pulled these examples out of my ass and proceeded to look on YouTube for them; it took all of a minute and a half.) Hell, as our sister site Destructoid likes to say, you can see “also cocks” if you’re so inclined. However, this freedom is extended to those who would do harm or promote hatred. Should YouTube be formally policed? Or worse, who would police the police? (Sorry for the overly-serious tone, this is what you get when you’re recovering from teh SARS.)

[via Forbes Online]