Binaryjesus

captcreate:

hmmm…

obviousplant:

I added some new toy options to my local toy store

Credit for the idea for today’s comic goes to Amy, my beautiful and amazing wife.

I’ve been doing lots of comics all over the internet. Check ’em out:

The Nib

• What’s Trump Trying To Hide? NEW!

Dave Kellett’s DRIVE

• Rare Earths: Page One
• Rare Earths: Page Two
• Rare Earths: Page Three
• Rare Earths: Page Four
• Rare Earths: Page Five
• Rare Earths: Page Six
• Rare Earths: Page Seven
• Rare Earths: Page Eight
• Rare Earths: Page Nine NEW!
• Rare Earths: Page Ten  NEW!

I hope you enjoy all these comics!

💾 tonight’s comic is dedicated to you, my cyber chums

and these CYBER SOCKS are dedicated to your CYBER FEETS

Editor’s Note: Google applied for a patent for a similar spy toy not that long ago, only that one included video as well… Makes you wonder how many objects in your house are, indeed, spying on you and your children.

 

By Claire Bernish

When giving gifts this holiday season, be strongly advised certain toys will upload your child’s unique voice and personal information — to the same military and law enforcement database which helps authorities identify criminals.

Indeed, these toys — which could record any conversation occurring nearby, and also fish for specific information from unwitting children — constitute the latest in surveillance by home appliances and gadgets known collectively as the Internet of Things. And this insidious, extraneous spying has several watchdog groups sounding alarm bells in a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission.

Genesis Toys’ My Friend Cayla doll (see pic above) and i-Que robot — Internet-connected toys using voice recognition technology to interact with children — can answer questions by converting speech to text and retrieving information from Google, Wikipedia, and Weather Underground, CNN reports.

But what has the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the Consumers Union on edge is that the “toys subject young children to ongoing surveillance,” in violation of privacy and consumer protection laws — and, worse, the nature of the company Genesis Toys employs for that purpose.

“Nuance Communications,” the aforementioned groups state in a complaint to the FTC, “represents itself as a leader in voice technology, including speech recognition software and voice biometric solutions that allow a search of the company’s 60 million enrolled voiceprints for a voice match from recorded conversations to be performed within minutes. Nuance markets its technology to private and public entities and delivers its voice biometric technology to military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies.”

“Both Genesis Toys and Nuance Communications unfairly and deceptively collect, use, and disclose audio files of children’s voices without providing adequate notice or obtaining verified parental consent,” the complaint continues.

Cayla and i-Que have slightly differing companion applications, but Genesis collects users’ IP addresses and both require downloading and connection to the user’s mobile device via Bluetooth technology. As the complaint explains:

“The companion application for My Friend Cayla requests permission to access the hardware, storage, microphone, Wi-Fi connections, and Bluetooth on users’ devices, but fails to disclose to the user the significance of obtaining this permission. The i-Que companion application also requests access to the device camera, which is not necessary to the toy’s functions and is not explained or justified.”

That Richard Mack, Nuance vice president of corporate marketing and communications, reassured the public the uploaded information is not sold or used for advertising or marketing purposes should be of little comfort to consumers wary of the perfidious surveillance state. Even so, Cayla comes equipped with pro-Disney marketing propaganda in references to Disney movies and Disney theme parks — the doll says her favorite movie is Disney’s The Little Mermaid, for example — which children cannot distinguish as advertising.

Perhaps most notably, not to mention nefariously, CNN reports, “The Cayla doll also has a mobile phone app that asks children to provide personal information, like their name and their parents’ names, their favorite TV show, their favorite meal, where they go to school, their favorite toy and where they live.”

EPIC and the other watchdogs have requested an investigation into Genesis Toys and Nuance Communications by the FTC and to have Cayla and i-Que pulled from store shelves.

“The FTC should issue a recall on the dolls and halt further sales pending the resolution of the privacy and safety risks identified in the complaint,” asserted Claire Gartland, director of EPIC’s Consumer Privacy Project. “This is already happening in the European Union, where Dutch stores have pulled the toys from their shelves.”

EPIC also notes this complaint is one facet of a concerted effort to ban such privacy-invasive and surveillance-laden toys from the marketplace. Last year, Senator Edward Markey and Rep. Joe Barton were joined by Rep. Mark Kirk and Sen. Bobby Rush in introducing the Do Not Track Kids Act of 2015 (H.R. 2734) to update existing children’s online privacy law to include greater protections for kids.

Markey penned letters to Genesis and Nuance demanding immediate compliance with strictures delineated in the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

The Internet of Things has long been a cause for concern for privacy advocates and delight for surveillance hawks, as predictions the surveillance state will be willingly welcomed into people’s homes through the convenience of interconnectedness prove true time and again.

However, while it might be one thing for hapless adults to dismissively toss privacy concerns to the wayside, to have the voiceprints and information of children as young as three-years-old uploaded and likely stored by a company with military and law enforcement ties is a whole other animal.

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Contributed by The Free Thought Project of thefreethoughtproject.com.

The Free Thought Project is dedicated to holding those who claim authority over our lives accountable.

theeloquentpage:

New Review: The Eighth Day Brotherhood by Alice M Phillips #crime #historical #review

In Paris, 1888, the city prepares for the Exposition Universelle and the new Eiffel Tower swiftly rises on the bank of the Seine. One August morning, the sunrise reveals the embellished corpse of a young man suspended between the columns of the Pantheon, resembling a grotesque Icarus and marking the first in a macabre series of murders linked to Paris monuments. In the Latin Quarter, occult…

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Dream no.8 by Sholim

…………………………………………………

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The Catholic League's Bill Donohue can't handle the fact that The Satanic Temple's Detroit chapter wants to put up its own version of a Nativity scene outside the Michigan State Capitol building. So he's attacking them by saying they hate Christianity.

I see what you did there.

Also worth reading: This useful flowchart designed to help you deal with with greetings this holiday season.

 

 

For the humor-impaired: Here’s my take on the “War on Christmas”.

SPECIAL BULLETIN: The dark secret behind cat friendship.

Krampus Sale Ends Tuesday December 6th!

What happened to this ship?

srsfunny:

They Call Me Cuban Pete, When I Play The Maracas I Go Chick-Chicky-Boom, Chick-Chicky Boom

 

This video from 2011 inspired a 2015 documentary called Sam Klemke's Time Machine.

In 1977, Sam Klemke started obsessively documenting his entire life on film. Beginning decades before the modern obsession with selfies and status updates, we see Sam grow from an optimistic teen to a self-important 20 year old, into an obese, self-loathing 30-something and onwards into his philosophical 50s. The same year that Sam began his project, NASA launched the Voyager craft into deep space carrying the Golden Record, a portrait of humanity that would try to explain to extra terrestrials who we are.

From director Matthew Bate (Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure), Sam Klemke’s Time Machine follows two unique self-portraits as they travel in parallel – one hurtling through the infinity of space and the other stuck in the suburbs of Earth – in a freewheeling look at time, memory, mortality and what it means to be human.

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/samklemkestimemachine

Hey! I’m doing $10 pixel skull scarves this weekend to kick off the season. They’re… 69” long.

(These bad boys are normally $20!)

 

Kristie Wolfe loved The Hobbit ever since seeing the cartoon as a child, so she decided to build a hobbit house in Washington State. This fun video shows the whole process, and it's even listed on Airbnb. (more…)

You could point your coworkers to any number of articles about how many meetings are a waste of time, or you can simply say it with these socks. You can order them online from Absolute Ties for $12, and they’ll make a great present for that special white-collar someone in your life.

 

Holy shit, folks.

I’ve been doing lots of comics all over the internet. Check ’em out:

Dave Kellett’s DRIVE

• Rare Earths: Page One
• Rare Earths: Page Two
• Rare Earths: Page Three
• Rare Earths: Page Four
• Rare Earths: Page Five

The Nib

• 2016: A Trump Odyssey
• The Further Adventures of Donald Trump, Presidential Loser

I hope you enjoy all these comics!

Some folks receive an odd letter in the mail from a law firm in Canada telling them that items are shortly to be bequeathed to them from a long-lost relative. Included is an old newspaper clipping wherein my relative (yes, it really is my relative) is reported to have found an item of great significance at an archaeological dig. (more…)

Over at Make, Gareth Branwyn wrote about how to check the balance of your d20 dice:

Gamer Daniel Fisher used an old golf ball balancing trick to test the integrity of his D20 gaming dice. To set up the test, he mixed 6+ tablespoons of salt with 1/3 cup room temperature water in a small glass jar. By floating and spinning a die in the jar, he was able to see if it consistently rolled high, low, or was balanced.

Among other things, Fisher discovered that translucent dice tend to be more balanced, perhaps because you can easily see imperfections inside them (and wouldn’t buy or use them). Finding out that a number of his D20s regularly rolled low or high in the water, he cut into one to see what might be causing the imbalance. Inside, he found obvious manufacturing imperfections, chalky areas where the die may not have cured properly. Later in the video, he puts the cut die under a microscope to get a closer look inside.

ubu507:

PIANTA, Francesco
Spy
1657-58
Wood
Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice

bayazeth:

Rosary Terminal Bead with Lovers and Death’s Head, ca. 1500–1525, Made in North France or South Netherlands

creativityisblissss:

Mucha’s Moon and the Stars series. More Mucha here.