Google Is Blocked in China as Party Congress Begins

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Vincent Yu/Associated PressChinese security personnel in the Great Hall of the People during the 18th Communist Party Congress in Beijing on Friday.

Traffic to Google sites fell off Friday evening in China, according toGoogle’s Transparency Report, which provides information about traffic worldwide.

All Google services, including its search engine, Gmail and Maps, were inaccessible in China on Friday night and into Saturday, the company confirmed. The block comes as the 18th Communist Party Congress, the once-in-a-decade meeting to appoint new government leadership, gets under way.

The company said it was not having any technical problems, but did not say whether it believed its sites had been blocked by the government or were the victims of hacking.

“We’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end,” said Christine Chen, a Google spokeswoman.

Despite great fanfare, China’s Party Congress takes place under wraps. Reporters are not allowed in, and in the days preceding the event, the government has imposed restrictions ranging from replacing books in bookstores to banning balloons because they could carry messages of protest.

Internet speeds have also slowed, while Chinese citizens have been satirizing the meeting online.

The block on Google sites appears to be the latest in a long pattern of increasingly sophisticated Internet censorship by the Chinese government. It comes two weeks after China blocked Web access to The New York Times, following an article about its prime minister’s family wealth.

Google has had a particularly strained relationship with China. In 2010, the company said it had been the victim of serious hacking attacks coming from China. In response, it removed its Chinese language search engine from China and began redirecting traffic to the Hong Kong version of the search engine.

YouTube, Google’s video site, has been blocked in China since 2009. And Gmail has been partially blocked at various times, beginning around the time of the Arab Spring.

how function a hybrid car

Across the Atlantic, this type of car is a real tobacco. Thanks to who? To stars like George Clooney or Leonardo DiCaprio. The French, however, the frightened sulk ostensibly unprofitable prices. However, the mechanism of double engine fulfills all aptitudes required by the consumer. And especially in this period of oil boom, the hybrid car may attract a few more looks from our fellow citizens.


Two engines under the cover
Originality of this car: the presence of two engines, one runs on gasoline (engine), the other is electric. Another detail is important, battery capable of powering the electric motor and thus to supplement, where necessary, the gasoline engine.
According to phases of driving the assembly varies. Three are possible:
- In series. Only the electric motor is running. The batteries charge to provide the "fuel" necessary. This system is required for low speed, braking and stopping. During deceleration phases, the kinetic energy resulting from movement of the vehicle, is directly sent to the batteries.

As for the gasoline engine, it is totally inactive and no carbon dioxide is emitted. A double benefit for both the planet and the wallet of the driver.
- In parallel. In this case, the electric motor is in "stand by". Only the engine turns the machine and move the vehicle. This is what happens when the driver is at constant speed on a road.
At the same time, part of the motive power provided by the fuel used to recharge the battery via a generator which is none other than the electric motor. Everything is recycled, there is no loss, contrary to a conventional car where energy escapes form of heat.
- In series and parallel. Here, the two engines are solicited to provide motive power in joint high acceleration or climbing a hill. Incidentally, the batteries continue to store for supplying the electric motor. Without this energy loop, the driver should reload its electrical vehicle.




Low CO2 emitted
Although the sale price is somewhat prohibitive for most consumers (about 16,000 dollars), the hybrid car has clear advantages.
No need to recharge the electric motor all night, closed circuit system with a generator to transmit energy to the batteries, clears the sides of the single painful electric car. The presence of the gasoline engine avoids also the risk of falling in the roads in the middle of nowhere.
This car uses less fuel, which is pretty good news at a time when the oil price flirts around $ 100. Classic cars said pump maximum fuel when idling and are constantly accelerating and braking.
Last positive, the hybrid car is more environmentally friendly because less fuel burned means less CO2 output. One way to significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

Mobile phones, smart mobs and ethical debates

November 1999. For the first time, opponents of globalization organize and make the "Battle of Seattle" a success. January 2001. The President of the Philippines, Joseph Estrada resigned after unprecedented protests. July 2003. Everywhere, multiplying bans a mere object of consumption: the mobile phone and its derivative, the camera phone. Look at a device that challenges the laws.

January 20, 2001, the President of the Philippines, Joseph Estrada, was obliged to resign. Over the previous four days, huge crowds converged on Epifanio de los Santas Avenue, also known under the name of EDSA. Quietly, but with determination, more than a million people took to the streets of the capital, demanding his departure they accuse of corruption in addition to looting for several tens of millions of dollars, resources countries. How so many people could they come together as efficiently and as a discourse coherent?

At the heart of this revolution, the mobile phone can send short text messages (SMS). "Management EDSA." "Wear black to mourn democracy." These messages, and many others, relayed portable phones, rallied the Filipino people towards EDSA. As in many countries of the world, everyone, even the poorest, can now have access to mobile technology. And this is the democratization of the laptop which is largely responsible for the departure of Estrada.

July 2003. The Korean manufacturer Samsung, one of the largest manufacturers of camera phone in the world, forbids its employees to use its own equipment in its factories and its premises. Reason: fear of industrial espionage. In fact, this new generation phone has a small lens and a digital camera. But Samsung is not alone in questioning the use of such devices. Several countries are questioning the use of camera phones in public places.

However, the ban Samsung has something special. According to the director of the Center for Bioethics, Clinical Research Institute of Montreal (IRCM), Dr. David Roy, "by prohibiting its employees employment equipment designed and manufactured in its own factories, Samsung abdicating its responsibility in will use in its customers. This decision goes against the laws and rules of our society willing that any action comes responsibility. " In it, he recalls this aspect of ethical complexity Edgar Morin said when he recalled that "the action uproots the actor [...] while voluntary action escapes almost immediately will and she fled, began to copulate with other actions by myriads and sometimes returns, disfigured and disfiguring the head of its founder. "

But for David Roy, mobile phone and more importantly, its derivative, camera phone, "are more than just gadgets for young people. The use of such devices back on the mat number of ethical issues relating to the protection of privacy, copyright laws and copyright, etc. "..

If such questions can and should be asked is that they send a clear signal that our society institutional, which has always used various means of control to restrict the use of new technology, faces a profound change in paradigm. In a society with laws and regulations "new controlling", should we consider a wide social debate that will lead us to a company called "trust", where the impossibility of restricting the opportunities offered by digital technologies and their use, only a "New Deal" would restore a balance between technology and the laws and rules governing our society?

Moreover, in several interviews after his appointment, Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada has clearly defined the major challenges that would face legislators are those related to new technologies.

On incalculable consequences

Because there will be challenges. And changes that we face with the democratization of digital technologies have said David Roy, "incalculable consequences on our lives every day."

Julius Grey, lawyer for fundamental rights, it is certain that this great social debate to take place. "You can not stop technology. Who remembers the riots in the nineteenth century when the industrial society made its appearance? They have not prevented industrialization. "

In discussing the social and legal impacts of the camera phone, Mr. Grey can not help but display a certain pessimism. "We are coming more and more into the era of Big Brother. However, if in his novel 1984, Orwell clearly the character called Big Brother, however, it is currently impossible to directly appoint a single manager. The technology itself is Big Brother. "

According to Julius Grey, the legislature can not prevent the use of digital technologies. However, like a terminally ill patient who is administering medications to delay maturity, "it is only trying to protect individual freedoms and the right to privacy that we can slow down some controversial uses of common devices as a simple mobile phone. "

Because Pandora's box is now wide open, and there will be only one choice: either a company controlled and controlling, a more tolerant society where there will inevitably redefine new standards between good and evil, between private and public.

For what concerns the most Julius Grey is the advent of a society without flavor, where political correctness reigns and where no one can afford the slightest misdemeanor, the slightest slip of the tongue lest it becomes public .

However, Philippe Le Roux, analyst firm VDL2, these technologies have not only disadvantages. "Since we can not hide almost nothing, and information is becoming more and more" free ", Joe Public and its officers, between man and woman in the world and those that inform, will have to establish a new dynamics of trust. "

More free information? With these devices allow anyone to pass quidam worldwide images of an unlawful act, event, incriminating documents, it seems to be impossible indeed to muzzle. But who will undertake to apply the new filter differentiates an urban legend true? True, these new tools allow anyone to bring a new, event and put on the garb of a journalist, but as the proverb puts it, the clothes do not make the monk. Heated debates for the next Congress FPJQ.

A simple phone? Really?

Smart mobs

Obviously, it is easy to see only black in technology, no one can deny their benefits. And it is the same for wireless communications. Howard Rheingold, the actor cons-culture of the 60s and 70s and author of virtual communities, it is unwise to see only the dark side of technology, just as it would be reckless not to praise its benefits.

In his latest essay, Smart Mobs (smart mobs), Rheingold was the first to have this vision of the possibilities offered by wireless communications and the impact these new handsets that transcend the nature of the object and its original use.

Rheingold said, the impact of wireless communication is even more important that the computer has had in our lives over the years 1980-2000. The space of a phone call, a call, sending a text message or receiving a digital camera, these new devices may change the social fabric and undermining human relations such as we know them.

There has to see the popularity of text messages (SMS) with young people to realize their profound impact. And some traders have understood. For example, a first in Canada, the chain Staples uses text messaging to reach young people and encourage them to participate in a contest. Obviously, the goal is to send them by SMS latest promotions.

Recently, New York, 150 people who did not know converged at the same time to a department store in the city, the radius of the carpet. After 10 minutes of discussion, the crowd disperses and leaves behind a seller flabbergasted. Instruments behind this gathering? Internet and wireless telephony. And such spontaneous groups do not seem to want to stop, quite the contrary.

If the "smart mobs" armed with their digital tools helped bring down a government, however they can also organize a resistance movement approaching civil disobedience. In September 2000, British citizens, outraged by the increase in the price of gasoline, are organized using SMS, email and radio communications taxi drivers to block the delivery of gasoline service points and translate their grievances in the political field.

Rheingold also examines the impacts of wireless technologies and new phones highlighting their potential dangers: the invasion of privacy and individual rights, privacy and the emergence of criminal networks use without doubt these new tools.

So, a simple toy mobile phone? Surely we will return to the impact of camera phones and wireless technologies.

How to Keep Electronics Going With No Power

The Hurricane Sandy storm damage here in my Connecticut town was fairly extensive — beautiful old trees are down everywhere, 85 percent of our homes are without power, and officials are saying it will take at least 10 days to restore electricity — but at least our homes are standing. I’ve seen the photos of New York and New Jersey; in our way, we were lucky.

Still, on Twitter, a number of people have suggested that it might be interesting to hear how a tech columnist muddles through a 10-day stretch without electricity and Internet (not to mention heat or hot water).

The short answer is: Pretty much like the other seven million people whose electricity blew out with the storm. You manage.

Internet. Our town has made the public library and town hall available for charging gadgets. The library also offers free Wi-Fi, although I have yet to be able to get online there; the place is mobbed and the network is hopelessly overloaded.

For Internet, therefore, I’ve been using my phone’s tethering feature. My laptop can get online using my phone as a glorified Internet antenna, a service for which I pay Verizon $20 extra a month. And for which I’m very, very grateful right about now.

It’s a little flaky, I’ll admit. It often starts out with superspeed (says “LTE” on the menu bar); then, after five minutes, it drops down to “3G”; and after 10 minutes, it drops down to the little “o,” meaning an excruciating 1984-era, dial-up speed. If I shut down the phone and restart it, the speed comes back.

Power. The problem with using the phone as Internet, of course, is keeping it charged.

Longtime readers may recall that, two years ago, vicious windstorms knocked out our power for six days during a frigid March. When I blogged about it, many commenters expressed shock that I, Mr. Tech, did not own a generator.

Well, trust me, after that experience, I went and bought one — the Homelite HG5000 (it was about $600 at Home Depot). It’s a big, heavy, deafening, stinky, apparently dangerous contraption. (“Using a generator indoors or in your garage WILL KILL YOU IN MINUTES,” says a metal plaque on the top.)

You pour in gasoline, start it up like a lawnmower, and plug in up to six gadgets. It’s horribly designed. Just to turn it on, you have to unplug everything, turn on the fuel valve, pull out the choke loop, turn on the master switch, yank the starter, wait a few seconds, push the choke loop back in, and re-plug your appliances. And all of this seems to be explained in 4-point type on page 41,922 of the Owner’s Warnings Book; electron microscope sold separately.

But I run it for a few hours a day, in hopes of saving the food in the fridge and keeping laptops and phones charged.



As it happens, though, I have two charging devices on hand that are a good deal less stinky. One is the nPower PEG, “the world’s first kinetic energy charger for hand-held devices.” It looks like a plastic piston, about a foot long. Inside is a weight, an inductive coil and a battery. As you walk, your movements charge up the battery; from there, you can charge a USB gadget like a phone or iPad.

The company cautions that you need a lot of motion to do any real charging. You’d have to walk for 26 minutes to make a 1-minute call on the 3G cellular network. Think three-week wilderness treks, not your daily walk to work.

Still, I had a brilliant idea: I’d hang this thing from a tree during the overnight violence of the hurricane. Surely 12 hours of crazy swinging and bouncing would generate a little juice.

Unfortunately, the first step when you open the box is to charge the battery fully from a USB jack — and my power had already gone out at that point. I still did the tree-hanging thing, but it didn’t charge at all. I’ll give it a fairer test once the power comes back on.

I had better luck with the Revolve XeMini solar charger for USB gadgets ($65). It’s about the size of two decks of cards, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: a solar-chargeable backup battery with two USB jacks for recharging your gadgets. (You can also plug it straight into a power outlet or car dashboard to charge its battery.) The company says that one charge will give a smartphone about 6.5 hours of talk time.

All I know is that when our power went out, we were able to charge two phones simultaneously. The phones’ batteries were about 20 percent full and the XeMini powered them both back up to half in a couple of hours. The company points out that the XeMini is billed as a “light-assisted power,” not “solar charger,” because something this small can’t manage more than a topping off, a trickle charge. But I was glad to have it.

Showers. Our local Y usually opens its doors to the public during natural disasters like this one, but this time, it’s in 20 feet of water and is closed indefinitely. I learned that my son’s best friend’s house still has hot water, so yes, I’ve had a shower.

Heat. This is becoming the biggest inconvenience. Last night it was in the low 40s, and it’s supposed to get colder. We walk around in parkas and sleep under a mound of blankets. The schools have been closed all week, of course, so I’m trying to keep my kids occupied with games, DVDs on the laptop and day trips.

Tonight, I’m taking them for a weekend trip to Boston, where a dear friend has offered to supply a guest room and electricity, heat and hot water. We’re thrilled. Sometimes, the technologies a columnist and his family crave most are 100 years old.

I’m curious, what worked for you?

Control the computer by thinking

Control the computer by thinking
Who has never dreamed to control a computer by thought? Gone are the constraints represented by the mouse and keyboard, the drawbacks goodbye to typos ... Research work there.

Be implanted in the brain chip to control all the home equipment ... This scenario would be worthy of a new famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Research is conducted to ensure that this technology a reality.
The development of this research was born of advances in knowledge of the brain. Past 20 years, it has been possible to record with finesse different brain electrical activity. The principle of "brain-computer interface" (or for BCI Brain Computer Interface) is directly based on this new knowledge. This new discipline aims to develop a device to capture brain electrical activity in the form of data, which are then interpreted by a computer. In response, the machine must perform an action accordingly, giving back to the individual. This loop interactions is the premise of starting work.
Then y can imagine all kinds of medical applications in the entertainment industry: control of a wheelchair, prosthesis, use automation (that is to say, to control all the equipment of a typical home HIFI), in video games, etc..

Smart headphones
Several types of approaches are proposed to develop this technology. The first is called "non-invasive" does not require intracranial implant to function. The method is based on brain imaging techniques, in particular the electroencephalogram (EEG). When a brain area is activated, it generates an electric current to the scalp. This is detectable by a headset with microelectrodes. The difficulty in the field is that the brain never stops working. Must be able to transmit the waves that are relevant to the project in question.


The Emotiv headset EPOCtm new generation, perhaps the future of video game controllers. According to the manufacturer, it would be able to detect, through the analysis of EEG and facial expression, thirty different expressions such as tension or excitement. The game would then be able to react according to our thoughts? © Emotiv Systems

In 2006, a team of Wadsworth in New York has demonstrated that writing a text only thought was possible. For this it was necessary that the subject, with his helmet, focuses its attention on the letter that he wanted to kick a rectangle containing the alphabet. When it was highlighted, the peak of activity generated allowed the computer to transcribe the information. Typing speed was not comparable with the hands, as needed about 15 seconds to type a letter. The pause time of the helmet was also not significant, since it took about an hour for all the electrodes are in place. These results suggest nonetheless predict that the technique can work and be improved. Specific waves, such as p300, issued in situations of surprise, 300 milliseconds after an external stimulus, are also studied in experiments of the same type.

Other applications were also tested: those, for example, called "the mental image of the movement." To do this, the subject must undergo before a workout with the computer so that it recognizes the right brain peaks: he must imagine themselves to move forward, backward, right and left. This changes the amplitude of its brainwaves, which are then stored by the computer. Once the learning phase is completed, the experiment is to put the subject in a virtual environment, where it can move at will, without moving from his chair. This technology is of particular interest to game developers, who see a new videogame experience in virtual worlds like "Second Life".

The second approach is to install an electronic implant surgically directly into the brain, the aim being that the device detects nerve activity in situ and retransmit to the computer. This technique is called "invasive". This system has the advantage of being directly in the source area of ​​interest, the noise from other parts of the brain are minimized. Most of the tests were, for the moment, carried out on animals.

In humans, experience the most promising area was conducted in 2006 in the United States. The researchers introduced a chip a few millimeters in the brain of a quadriplegic at the area responsible for voluntary movements. After a few sessions calibration, the young man was able to control the pointer on the screen and check your messages without moving
. He could perform these actions while conversing, showing that the method was sensitive enough and did not require intense concentration. The device was implanted for a year before being removed due to a malfunction. The downside, however, is the cumbersome process and the risk of long-term infection that could generate.


So what about these new technologies: exciting or terrifying? These avenues of research still great hope for people with physical disabilities. Currently, non-invasive methods are gaining more and more resolution, suggesting they will eventually be preferred. If advances in brain-computer interface followed Moore's Law, saying that the computing power of computers will double every 18 months, we think that the use of mouse and keyboard duo will no longer be necessary in the years to come.