uProxy the Cure to Censorship?

Google announced at its Ideas Summit in New York that it is developing a browser extension that make it possible to bypass country-specific Internet censorship and make connections more private and safer.

"The tool, which was developed by the University of Washington and seeded by Google, is at its core a peer-to-peer personalized virtual private network (VPN) that redirects Internet traffic coming from and initial, less secure connection through a second, trusted connection, and then encrypts the pathway between two terminals.

Let's assume that Barry, who lives in a country with an Internet censorship, contacts Jim, who has a much safer, or uncensored, or unmonitored access to the Internet.

Jim agrees to act as a proxy for Barry, and as long as his browser is open, Barry's outgoing web traffic will be routed through Jim's connection. The connection between Barry and Jim is encrypted.

uProxy is a true P2P service, so there is no centralized server that governments can block. The data packets are encrypted so that they cannot be easily flagged by a malicious user (or government). "The service doesn't anonymize traffic like Tor, and isn't a file sharing tool as it only proxies traffic from web servers."

Source: uProxy

Clean water in developing countried using Converted Shipping Containers

Coca-Cola has launched a innovative project that will transform about 2,000 shipping containers into water purifying stations. Joining forces with Deka R&D, the shipping container module dubbed Ekocenter has been designed to provide isolated communities with solar powered energy efficient facilities to access safe drinking water and wireless internet technology.

"Each machine delivers approximately 850 liters (225 gallons) of safe drinking water per day using less electricity than a hair dryer (1 kWh)," says Coca-Cola.

"The ekocenters will be distributed throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and North America. By the end of 2015 it's estimated that there should be enough running to produce about 500 million liters (132 million gallons) of clean water per year. Coca-Cola will employ local partners to carry out mainttenance and checks on the Ekocenter's water purifying facilities, making sure the water is safe to drink and meets international health standards."

Source: Coca-Cola, Deka R&D

Bionic Limbs Develop a Sense of Touch!!!

 

Thirty years ago they said that cars would be flying by now so let it be no surprise that artificial limbs that flex and feel like their flesh counterparts, but also directly respond to one's thoughts and even translate sensory -- the feeling of grass beneath one's feet.

The US military has taken an special interest in the improvement of injured veterans while aggressively pushing the funding into this technology.

Just last month, the first thought-controlled robotic leg was announced by the RIC. The bionic hardware, has taken more than eight years to make, with a groundbreaking focus on targeted muscle re-innervation surgery -- that empowers the brain to move parts of the bionic limb with nerves that are rerouted to healthy muscles.