January 6, 2014
Pelican Products is an American multinational company based out Torrance, California that designs and manufactures flashlights and cases. Their products are used in many industries including military, law enforcement, fire safety and entertainment. Pelican has over 1,300 employees and operates offices across the globe. The company was founded in Torrance, California in 1975 as a mail-order home business offering unique and practical products for the dive market.
Today, Pelican is known for molded plastic containers that seal with an airtight and watertight gasket. They include a barometric relief valve made of Gore-Tex to prevent pressure damage to the case, during transportation or when the air pressure in the environment changes. Pelican cases meet military standards for waterproofing, stacking, impact, and durability, and feature a lifetime guarantee.
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January 6, 2014
Tobii Technology is a Swedish high-technology company that develops and sells products for eye control and eye tracking. Founded in 2001, the company has products in several market segments such as people with communication disabilities who use Tobii’s technical devices and language tools (AAC devices) to communicate.
It also has products that are widely used for research in the academic community, and to conduct usability studies and market surveys of commercial products. Tobii also partners with others to integrate eye tracking and eye control in different industry applications and fields such as advanced driver assistance, consumer computing, and gaming.
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January 5, 2014
A format war describes competition between mutually incompatible proprietary formats that compete for the same market, typically for data storage devices and recording formats for electronic media.
It is often characterized by political and financial influence on content publishers by the developers of the technologies. Developing companies may be characterized as engaging in a format war if they actively oppose or avoid interoperable open industry technical standards in favor of their own.
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January 4, 2014
Abscam was an FBI sting operation run from the Bureau’s Long Island office in the late 1970s and early ’80s. The operation initially targeted trafficking in stolen property but was converted to a public corruption investigation. The investigation ultimately led to the conviction of a U.S. senator, six members of the House of Representatives, one member of the New Jersey State Senate, members of the Philadelphia City Council, the Mayor of Camden, New Jersey, and an inspector for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
In 1978, the FBI hired Melvin Weinberg, a convicted con artist, to help plan and conduct the operation, forming Abdul Enterprises, Ltd., as its front company for the investigation. FBI employees posed as Karim Abdul Rahman, a fictional Middle Eastern sheikh, in videotaped meetings with targeted government officials. The agents posing as Rahman offered the officials money in return for political favors such as political asylum in the U.S., involvement in an investment scheme for a high-class hotel, and help in transferring money out of his country.
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December 20, 2013
Scareware, nowadays included into the class of malware known as FraudTool, comprises several classes of ransomware or scam software with malicious payloads, usually of limited or no benefit, that are sold to consumers via certain unethical marketing practices. The selling approach uses social engineering to cause shock, anxiety, or the perception of a threat, generally directed at an unsuspecting user. Some forms of spyware and adware also use scareware tactics.
A tactic frequently used by criminals involves convincing users that a virus has infected their computer, then suggesting that they download (and pay for) fake antivirus software to remove it. Usually the virus is entirely fictional and the software is non-functional or malware itself. Another approach is to trick users into uninstalling legitimate antivirus software, or disabling their firewall.
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December 19, 2013
Ransomware comprises a class of malware which restricts access to the computer system that it infects, and demands a ransom paid to the creator of the malware in order for the restriction to be removed.
Some forms of ransomware encrypt files on the system’s hard drive (cryptoviral extortion), while some may simply lock the system and display messages intended to coax the user into paying. While initially popular in Russia, the use of ransomware scams has grown internationally.
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December 5, 2013
Personal genomics [jee‐noh-miks] (sequencing and analysis of the genome of an individual) employs several techniques, including single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis chips (typically 0.02% of the genome), or partial or full genome sequencing. Once the genotypes are known, the individual’s genotype can be compared with the published literature to determine likelihood of trait expression and disease risk.
Automated sequencers have increased the speed and reduced the cost of sequencing, making it possible to offer genetic testing to consumers. 23andMe sells mail order kits for SNP genotyping. The information is stored in a user profile and used to estimate the genetic risk of the consumer for over 240 diseases and conditions, as well as ancestry analysis.
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December 1, 2013
The Queen of Versailles is a 2012 American documentary film by Lauren Greenfield, depicting Jackie Siegel and her husband David, founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts (a timeshare company based out of Florida), and their family as they build the Versailles house, the largest and most expensive single-family house in the United States, and the crisis they face as the US economy declines.
‘Washington Post’ columnist Ezra Klein called it, ‘perhaps the single best film on the Great Recession,’ writing that one scene, in which Siegel recounts a series of transactions that allowed him to purchase at a fraction of its original value a loan on which he owes money, ‘might stand as the single most complete vignette on the mechanics of the financial crisis and the subsequent slow recovery.’
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November 27, 2013
So-called ‘reverse product placement‘ is the creation of products in real life to match those seen in a fictional setting. In 2007, 7-Eleven rebranded 11 of its American stores and one Canadian store as ‘Kwik-E-Marts,’ selling some real-life versions of products seen in episodes of the ‘The Simpsons,’ such as Buzz Cola and Krusty-O’s cereal. In 1997, Acme Communications was created as a chain of real television stations; the firm is named for the fictional Acme Corporation of Warner Brothers fame.
The fictional Willy Wonka from ‘Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory’ (1971) was licensed to name a real candy company soon after the film’s release; the brand is now controlled by Nestlé. In the 1984 cult film ‘Repo Man,’ a reverse form of product placement is used, with an exaggerated form of 1980s era generic packaging used on products prominently shown on-screen (these include ‘Beer,’ ‘Drink,’ ‘Dry Gin,’ and ‘Food – Meat Flavored’).
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November 27, 2013
Fictional brands are used in artistic works to imitate or satirize corporate brands, and/or to avoid trademark or copyright infringement.
Such a device may be required where real corporations are unwilling to license their brand names for use in the fictional work, particularly where the work holds the product in a negative light.
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November 21, 2013
A cryptocurrency is a peer-to-peer, decentralized, digital currency whose implementation relies on the principles of cryptography to validate the transactions and generation of the currency itself. They often use a proof-of-work scheme to guard against digital counterfeiting. While over 30 different cryptocurrency specifications and protocols have been defined, most are similar to and derived from the first fully implemented cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, created in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto
Most cryptocurrencies are designed to gradually introduce new units of currency, placing an ultimate cap on the total amount of currency that will ever be in circulation. This is done both to mimic the scarcity (and value) of precious metals and to avoid hyperinflation. Cryptocurrencies are also less susceptible to seizure by law enforcement than traditional currencies. Early attempts to integrate cryptography with electronic money were made by David Chaum, via DigiCash and ecash, which used cryptography to anonymize electronic money transactions.
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November 18, 2013
Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics company spun off from MIT in 1992 that is best known for the development of ‘BigDog,’ a quadruped robot designed for the US military with funding from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and ‘DI-Guy,’ software for realistic human simulation.
Early in the company’s history, it worked with the American Systems Corporation under a contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division to replace naval training videos for aircraft launch operations with interactive 3D computer simulations.
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