Passengers leaning their head against the window will “hear” adverts “coming from inside the user’s head”, urging them to download the Sky Go app.
Andy Trotman
Sky Deutschland has developed technology to transfer adverts from train windows directly and silently into commuters’ heads.
Passengers leaning their head against the window will “hear” adverts “coming from inside the user’s head”, urging them to download the Sky Go app.
The proposal involves using bone conduction technology, which is used in hearing aids, headphones and Google’s Glass headset, to pass sound to the inner ear via vibrations through the skull.
A video for the Talking Window campaign released by Sky Deutschland and ad agency BBDO Germany states: “Tired commuters often rest their heads against windows. Suddenly a voice inside their head is talking to them. No one else can hear this message.”
The voice comes from a Sky-branded transmitter made by Audiva that is attached to the train window.
BBDO spokesman Ulf Brychcy told the BBC: “If our customer Sky Deutschland agrees, we will start with the new medium as quickly as possible.
“Some people don’t like advertising in general. But this is really a new technology. [It might] not only be used for advertising, but also for music, entertainment, mass transport information, weather reports and so on.”
Sky Deutschland said it had not made a decision on whether to launch the campaign.
(Clockwise from left) Christine Lagarde, a protester from the 2012 meeting in Virginia, Henry Kissinger, George Osborne and David Petraeus Photo: AP/Reuters
16.53 Well, as to be expected from the world’s most secretive conference, we have learnt nothing from today. The closest we managed to get was half-a-mile from the Watford hotel where the rich and powerful are gathered. We’ll therefore be wrapping it up here, but we leave you with this thought from Lord Healey:
“Lots of the stuff written about Bilderberg is a load of crap. Some people described it as a secret Communist organisation. Others said it was a secret American organisation. But it was balls.”
15.45 Martin Taylor, a former secretary general of the Bilderbergs and businessman, who has been going on and off for the last 20 years, and is attending this year, spoke to the Telegraph’s Tom Rowley about the history of the conference.
“Bilderberg grew up in the early Fifties out of a feeling that if European leaders in all fields had been closer to their American counterparts before the Second World War, some trouble might have been avoided.
Sean Hannity: I’ve Never Heard of the Bilderberg Group
“That was at a time when people didn’t cross the Atlantic very often. It was a kind of Cold War council. People got together once a year, sometimes twice, but it was usually once. The numbers originally were about 60 or 70, it is now about 120. You got people from Europe and the US. It has now been rather enlarged.”
15.37 Security is tight, people are being checked in a field, hundreds of yards away from the hotel:
15.32 Speaking to the Telegraph earlier this week, Lord Healey of Riddleden, who attended the first Bilderberg meeting in 1954 and sat on the steering committee for 40 years, said:
“Lots of the stuff written about it is a load of crap. Those who weren’t invited were very jealous. Some people described it as a secret Communist organisation. Others said it was a secret American organisation. But it was balls.”
Lord Healey, who served as chancellor to Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, added: “I found it the most useful of all the meetings I attended regularly. The Bilderberg was the best because the level of the people attending regularly was so much higher.”
15.15 American news channel CNBC is reporting that police have anti-terrorism traffic regulations and a no-fly zone in place, so worried are they that Henry Kissinger and his pals with be the subject of attacks.
14.43 More on Alex Jones, who has been the centre of many controversies. He has previously accused the US government of being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, and the filming of fake Moon landings to hide NASA’s secret technology.
The outspoken Texan locked horns with Piers Morgan earlier this year after arguing on his show that taking away people’s guns would lead to government tyranny.
He has told an ever-growing group of conspirists gathered today that the Bilderberg Group wants to exterminate 80 per cent of the world population and replace them with robots who will be their slaves.
14.11 That’s nice, a Bilderberg welcoming committee:
14.01 Our reporter, Matthew Holehouse, who is as close to the hotel as press are allowed to get, has said a well-known pastor-like US conspiracy theoriest has arrived on the scene. Alex Jones told the crowd of Americans gathered that he is there to “expose the puppet-masters for what they are to the world”.
He said he wanted the attendees to be put on trial for crimes against humanity. We’re not entirely convinced The Hague would find in his favour.
“It is very, very sinister,” warns Jones.
“Not everybody who goes to Bilderberg, from my research, is a scoundrel or a villain. But there are definitely villains who are there who are basically trying to organise government and business.”
Alex Jones and the scrum
14.00 Bilderberg, which formed in 1954, is making an attempt to change its reputation as one of the most clandestine and controversial meetings in the world; it is the first time the guest list and its limited agenda have been publicly released and journalists are allowed near the grounds.
13.00 David Icke, the world’s most famous conspiracy theorist, is set to come on Saturday – the third day of the conference and we hear he’s expected to bring a big crowd. He has written on his blog about the “proof” that the annual meetings dictate government policy.
12.36 Our reporter Matthew Holehouse is half a mile away from the hotel in a pen with other 50 other reporters. He says it is they are surrounded by a high steel fence that looks like the edge of a prison.
About 40 cars have gone in so far. Every time someone drives in with their luxury car, the crowds shout and heckle.
There are lots of elderly Americans, people wandering around with cameras and a man dressed up as a CCTV camera.
12.23 The cloak of secrecy surrounding the meetings, which ban journalists from attending, has fuelled conspiracy theories that so-called Bilderbergers are planning global domination and world unification.
People have been banned for booking into the hotel this week and reporters are being kept in a pen a long distance away from the entrance to the hotel.
12.14 Michael Meacher, Labour’s former Environment Minister, told our reporter Matthew Holehouse that the institution is shadowy and the public needs to know what is going on.
Michael Meacher addresses reporter in a field in Watford
When asked if it was a shadow government, Meacher replied, “You’re putting it into rather colourful language. I wouldn’t go that far but a gathering like this has that aura about it. It is a shadow organisation that the rest of us do not have access to.
“Most of them are multi-millionaires and billionaires. The idea they have a charity is a distortion.
“The people here are the leaders of the biggest banks, multi-nationals, EU commissioners, and a smattering of politicians from Europe and America. If you wanted to find a group which represented the western governance structure you would come up with a list like this.They are meeting here in secrecy with no transparency or accountability.
12.07 Delegates for the private conference of top politicians and businesspeople from around the world have started to arrive at the hotel in cars with blacked-out windows. Doesn’t look much like they’re up for a stop and chat.
We have a handy agenda and guest list. Some of the country’s politicians have managed to clear four days out of their busy schedules for the event, including:
George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
Kenneth Clarke, Cabinet Minister
John Kerr, Independent Member, House of Lords
Ed Balls is a confirmed guest of the Bilderberg Group
12:04 Good afternoon and welcome to our liveblog. We will be covering the mysterious goings-on of the annual Bilderberg Group meeting which starts today and is being held in the UK for the first time … in a hotel in Watford.
A photo shared on Facebook of police involved in a hostage training scenario at buildings that are scheduled to be demolished at Ida Yarbourgh Apartments in Albany March 21, 2013. Albany police said they’re reviewing training procedures after complaints about the proximity of tear gas and the release of fake ammunition to apartments that are still occupied.
Police training exercise draws criticism
Residents of Ida Yarbrough describe explosions and gunfire; chief apologizes
Police Chief Steven Krokoff says his department was “insensitive” when it conducted a training exercise that involved police firing blank ammunition and using flash grenades near occupied apartments at the Ida J. Yarbrough Homes.
The chief said the department will review how it conducts “neighborhood-based training” after Thursday’s operation drew criticism from residents who said they were frightened by a chaotic scene that seemed real to them.
Krokoff released a statement as photos of the incident spread on Facebook. The pictures showed armed officers in tactical gear as well as fake blood and spent shell casings that were left behind at part of the public housing complex that is now deserted and slated for demolition.
Police said they went door-to-door before the training to notify residents, but many were caught off guard when the teams descended Thursday morning reportedly shooting fake bullets and throwing flash grenades and tear gas into the vacant building during the exercise.
“We wake up to the sound the next morning of literally small bombs,” said an Ida Yarbrough resident and state worker, who spoke only on condition she not be identified. “All you could hear was ‘pop, pop, pop’ of an assault rifle, police screaming ‘clear!’ I really thought I was in the middle of a war zone — and I have a four-year-old.”
The empty apartments used for the training are in front of a parking lot and steps away from two other buildings that are still filled with tenants.
Bernie Bryan, president of the Albany chapter of the NAACP, visited the complex Sunday afternoon and found that the door at one of the units — No. 165 — was still open, with spent shell casings still littering the floor inside. A gooey substance that appeared to be fake blood stained the sidewalk outside.
A resident also approached a reporter Sunday and opened his hand to show two shell casings he said he found lying outside one of the apartments that morning.
Bryan wondered why the police couldn’t have chosen one of the vacant buildings that sits farther away across a muddy courtyard where heavy equipment is stationed awaiting the demolition project.
“The folks in this neighborhood might not have the financial means, but are entitled to the same respect,” Bryan said, adding, “Whoever made the decision to do this was asleep at the switch.”
Contacted Sunday about the incident, Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings said “I don’t think it was necessary to do it the way it was done. The training is necessary, but obviously there should be information that should be shared.” When told about the open apartment with shell casings inside, Jennings said he would send someone over immediately to clean up the apartment and lock the door.
Police said the training consisted of hostage rescues and involved simulated ammunition and injuries. Similar training has been done before in other unoccupied facilities in the city, the chief said.
“I certainly did not mean to offend the very people that we are training to protect,” Krokoff said in a statement issued Saturday. “In retrospect, it was insensitive to conduct this type of training in the vicinity of occupied residences. We will review how we conduct our neighborhood-based training in the future and include the community in evaluating its appropriateness.” The chief couldn’t be reached for further comment Sunday.
Albany Common Council member Barbara Smith, who represents Ida Yarbrough in the Fourth Ward, said that she’s never heard of training occurring so close to a residential area. “What I have been made aware of I find disturbing,” said Smith. She said she will raise the matter for further discussion among the entire council.
The apartments are vacant because they are slated to be demolished as part of a $11.8 million project that will replace 129 low-rise units with 80 newer, more efficient apartments. The project is being paid for through the sale of federal low-income housing tax credits and the state’s Low-Income Housing Trust Fund.
A protest of the police’s training has been scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday at the corner of Livingston Avenue and North Pearl Street.
“You can’t just take poor people and say ‘You’re going to do this and do that with them,’ ” said Ira McKinley, a local documentary film maker who is orchestrating the event. “We’re organizing to formulate our own citizen action group. We’re going to educate our communities.”
WASHINGTON, March 5, 2013 — Spurred by the Newtown massacre, Maryland is poised to pass one of the strictest gun control laws in the country.
If Maryland does pass the legislation and Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley does sign the bill, as is expected, one of the largest gun manufacturers in the country Beretta USA is considering a move elsewhere, taking with it approximately 400 jobs. Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has already put out the welcome mat for any gun manufacturers looking to move.
Berettaclaims that the law that would forbid 10-bullet magazines would make the manufacture of their 9mm 13-bullet magazine illegal in Maryland. Beretta says it moved one of its factories to Virginia the last time Maryland tightened its laws.
Such talk, however, doesn’t faze the people supporting the new legislation. They see the new law as long overdue. Even before the bill passes, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence had ranked Maryland’s gun laws as the seventh strictest in the nation.
The new law, which will probably be passed this week, would also ban 45 assault-type weapons, set up licensing and fingerprinting of gun buyers, and ban sales to anyone who has been committed to a mental hospital.
Passions run high on both sides as was evident at the gun control rally last Friday in historic Annapolis. The 2,000 people at the anti-gun rally, who came to hear the governor and other pro gun-control advocates speak before heading off to lobby their delegates afterwards, chanted “Save Lives Now.”
One woman, a wife of an Eastern Shore hunter, Joyce Scharch explained her support for the bill saying, “Assault weapons are the wrong weapons in the wrong hands.”
Quaker Mosie Harrington of Hyattsville, Md. said that more people had been killed with guns in the U.S. than in all the wars since the Revolutionary War.
Art Cizek, Easton, Md., said he was at the rally for all the Newtowners. “Every life is important. We believe we now have a legacy to transform the country.”
His sentiments were echoed by a pastor who said, “If not now, when? If not here, where? If not us, who?”
Others waved signs that read “The only thing this teacher packs is lunch,” “Arms are for hugging, not death,” and “If driving requires a license, then so does owning a gun.”
A recent poll of Marylanders found that 62% are in favor of stricter gun laws in Maryland and that 85% support the tough licensing and fingerprinting of gun buyers.
Pro-gun Advocates Look to Supreme Court
Meanwhile down the block, behind police lines, about 60 people showed up to protest the gun control rally. A quiet group, they tried to engage people on the way to the rally in a discussion about their pro-gun stance.
In conversations with them, it became apparent that there are degrees of passion about owning guns from the young man who strongly insisted that guns were necessary for citizens to protect themselves from the government taking over like Hitler did in Germany to the man who had a written statement arguing against the new legislation point by point, using the Constitution to make his case.
Ray Givens of Hancock, Md. said the passage of the law will be good in one sense since it will “wake up the Second Amendment Democrats to what is going on in the state.” He also saw it as the beginning of the end of Gov. O’Malley’s plans to run for president in 2016 and will end the chances of Attorney General Doug Gansler to be the next Maryland governor.
Gary T. Raynor, Federalsburg, Md., believed the law will pass, but the battle is far from over and will end up before the Supreme Court where it will, like the other laws, both federal and state, be struck down. He explained, “The gun control people may end up being sorry they ever started this fight.” And, yes, he knows that it will take years before the Justices will hear the case, but he is patient, believing his side will ultimately prevail in the courts.
As for the question of assault weapons being so easily available, they all defended owning them to protect their families. And they questioned whether it was an assault weapon that the Newtown shooter used, except on his mother, insisting it was an automatic handgun. They are waiting for the final police report to be released, vindicating their theory.
Even if Maryland passes its new, stricter gun laws, it is still adjacent to states that have no such laws, making guns easy to acquire across state lines and still being located on the I-95 corridor or what New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls the Iron Highway to the Northeast.
A 7-year-old boy Baltimore boy was suspended from school after his teacher complained that the boy chewed a breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun, the boy’s father says.
In a note that was sent to parents Friday, Park Elementary School officials told parents only that “a student used food to make an inappropriate gesture,” WBFF-TV of Baltimore reported.
The boy, Josh Welch, a second-grader, told the station he was actually trying to shape a mountain, “but it didn’t look like a mountain really, and it turned out to be a gun, kinda.”
Josh’s father, B.J. Welch, called Josh’s two-day suspension “insanity.”
“With all the potential issues that could be dealt with at school — real threats, bullies, whatever — the real issue is, it’s a pastry,” he told WBFF. “You know?”
Educators have been extra sensitive to representations of weapons in the wake of the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six educators were killed.
In January, a 5-year-old girl was suspended for making a “terroristic threat” at a kindergarten in the Mount Carmel Area, Pa., School District for saying she was going to shoot classmates and herself with her pink “Hello Kitty” bubble gun.
NBC Philadelphia: Kindergartner suspended for pink bubble gun threat
“This is a good-natured little girl,” said Robin Ficker, an attorney for the girl, who hasn’t been identified because of privacy laws. “And this shows how hysterical people who work at schools have become since Sandy Hook.”
Two powerful dairy organizations, The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), are petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to allow aspartame and other artificial sweeteners to be added to milk and other dairy products without a label.The FDA currently allows the dairy industry to use “nutritive sweeteners” including sugar and high fructose corn syrup in many of their products. Nutritive sweeteners are defined as sweeteners with calories.This petition officially seeks to amend the standard of identification for milk, cream, and 17 other dairy products like yogurt, sweetened condensed milk, sour cream, and others to provide for the use of any “safe and suitable sweetener” on the market.
They claim that aspartame and other artificial sweeteners would promote healthy eating and is good for school children.
IDFA and NMPF state that the proposed amendments would promote more healthful eating practices and reduce childhood obesity by providing for lower-calorie flavored milk products. They state that lower-calorie flavored milk would particularly benefit school children who, according to IDFA and NMPF, are more inclined to drink flavored milk than unflavored milk at school. Read More
ST. LOUIS The Transportation Security Administration is apologizing after agents at Lambert Airport in St. Louis sought to screen a 3-year-old girl in a wheelchair.
The mother of the child shot video that caused a stir in social media after it was posted online.
The incident happened Feb. 8. The girl and her family were about to fly to Disney World in Orlando, Fla. A TSA agent asked to pat down the 3-year-old and screen her wheelchair. The agent initially told the girl’s mother, Annie Schulte, it was illegal to tape the activity.
On the video, the little girl, Lucy, who has spina bifida, is seen crying.
Agents eventually decided against a pat-down.
The TSA says it regrets the incident and will address concerns with its workers.
Shock: Pupils have been banned from playing ‘the raping game’ – a playground activity that Stanford Junior School in Brighton (pictured) has stepped in to stop
One game called Rapelay sees the main character try to rape a mother and two daughters.
‘As soon as we found out this inappropriate word was being used, we spoke to the children concerned and they now no longer use it.’
Primary school children have been banned from playing a new break time game they called ‘the raping game’.
The playground activity had been named after a violent video game which depicts violent sexual assaults on a mother and two daughters.
More than a dozen boys, some as young as nine, were caught playing the ‘the raping game’ at Stanford Junior School in Brighton, East Sussex.
The school confirmed it had been taking place and headteacher Gina Hutchins said she had spoken to children about the vile name. It has now been called ‘the survival game’ following the head’s intervention.
Mrs Hutchins said: ‘As soon as we found out that this inappropriate word was being used, we spoke to the children concerned and they now no longer use it.’
The game has been played mainly by boys in Year 5 at the school for the past two to three weeks.
It involves one person being ‘on’ who has to catch others until only one is left uncaught and that person is the winner.
About 13 boys, aged nine and ten, played the game in the school playground but have since changed the title.
One concerned parent said: ‘I was horrified that my son had learnt that word.
‘He is only nine. Thankfully he did not know what it meant but it was that horrible thought he might use it elsewhere.
‘Most people assume children learn these words at home.’
The parent added she did not blame the school saying it is almost impossible to stop children bringing words into the playground.
They commended the headteacher for her swift actions in taking decisive action and stamping out the use of the word.
It is unsure what video game led to the naming of the game, but several on the market contain scenes of rape.
One game called Rapelay sees the main character try to rape a mother and two daughters.
The influence of the mass media on public perception is widely acknowledged, yet few know the incredible degree to which this occurs. Key excerpts from the rare, revealing mass media news articles below show how blatantly the media sometimes distort critical facts, omit vital stories, and work hand in hand with the military-industrial complex to keep their secrets safe and promote greedy and manipulative corporate agendas.
Once acclaimed as the watchdog of democracy and the political process, these riveting articles clearly show that the major media can no longer be trusted to side with the people over business and military interests. For ideas on how you can further educate yourself and what you can do to change all this, see the “What you can do” section below the article summaries. Together, we can make a difference.
In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. authorities seized and suppressed film shot in the bombed cities by U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams to prevent Americans from seeing the full extent of devastation wrought by the new weapons. It remained hidden until the early 1980s and has never been fully aired. “Although there are clearly huge differences with Iraq, there are also some similarities,” said Mitchell, co-author of “Hiroshima in America” and editor of Editor & Publisher. “The chief similarity is that Americans are still being kept at a distance from images of death, whether of their own soldiers or Iraqi civilians.” The Los Angeles Times released a survey of six months of media coverage of the Iraq war in six prominent U.S. newspapers and two news magazines — a period during which 559 coalition forces, the vast majority American, were killed. It found they had run almost no photographs of Americans killed in action. “So much of the media is owned by big corporations and they would much rather focus on making money than setting themselves up for criticism from the White House and Congress,” said Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent. In 1945, U.S. policymakers wanted to be able to continue to develop and test atomic and eventually nuclear weapons without an outcry of public opinion. “They succeeded but the subject is still a raw nerve.”
Note: As this highly revealing Reuters article was removed from both the New York Times and the Reuters websites, click here to view it in its entirely on one of the few alternative news websites to report it. And to go much deeper into how the devastating effects of the bomb were covered up by various entities within government, click here.
A USA TODAY reporter and editor investigating Pentagon propaganda contractors have themselves been subjected to a propaganda campaign of sorts, waged on the Internet through a series of bogus websites. Fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments. Websites were registered in their names. The timeline of the activity tracks USA TODAY’s reporting on the military’s “information operations” program, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan — campaigns that have been criticized even within the Pentagon as ineffective and poorly monitored. For example, Internet domain registries show the website TomVandenBrook.com was created Jan. 7 — just days after Pentagon reporter Tom Vanden Brook first contacted Pentagon contractors involved in the program. Two weeks after his editor Ray Locker’s byline appeared on a story, someone created a similar site, RayLocker.com, through the same company. If the websites were created using federal funds, it could violate federal law prohibiting the production of propaganda for domestic consumption. Some postings … accused them of being sponsored by the Taliban. “They disputed nothing factual in the story about information operations,” Vanden Brook said.
Note: For more on a proposed amendment to a U.S. bill which would make it legal to use propaganda and lie to the American public, click here.
Intel has confirmed it will be selling a set-top box direct to the public later this year, along with a streaming TV service designed to watch you while you’re watching it.
The device will come from Intel Media, a new group populated with staff nicked from Netflix/Apple/Google and so forth. Subscribers will get live and catch-up TV as well as on-demand content – all delivered direct from Intel over their broadband connections. It’s a move which will put Chipzilla firmly into US living room, and no doubt ignite a host of privacy concerns from those who want to watch without being watched.
The announcement, made during an interview at the AllThingsD conference in California, isn’t a great surprise; rumours of an Intel play have been swirling around for the last year and sure enough Erik Huggers (VP at Intel Media) admitted that the company has been working on the device, and associated service, for the last 12 months. He didn’t say what the service will be called, but did say that the US isn’t ready for entirely à la carte options and that Intel will be selling bundles of content – though we’ll have to wait to see what they comprise.
More controversial is the plan to use a camera on the box to look outward, to identify the faces staring at the goggle box… telescreen-stylie. Intel will use that to present personalised options and targeted advertising, in a process which seems immediately creepy but might make sense to anyone who has tuned in to NetFlix to be told “Because you watched Power Rangers Ninja Storm…” We’re used to being watched while we’re web surfing, and those using Google Docs know the composition process contributes to their profile, but being watched on camera might be a step too far for some.
Huggers points out that the camera will have a physical shutter on the front, which can be closed, and that having the box recognise the viewers is simply easier than maintaining separate accounts, but Intel accepts that there’s a public-relations challenge ahead.
Intel will be embracing the H.265 codec, recently developed and just approved by the ITU, which should provide better video over less bandwidth, but will make getting support across devices a challenge.
Huggers made much of his experience at the BBC: “I built this thing called iPlayer in the UK, and we made that service available to more than 650 devices”, citing the broad platform support as essential to the success of iPlayer (which he describes as “catch-up TV done properly”) and promising that Intel’s service will also get broad support.
Whether the Android and iOS clients will feature the watching-you-watching-them tech, patented by Intel last year, we don’t know, but the entry of Intel into the market is significant not only to shake up on-demand TV but also to ensure a future for the chip manufacturer as a provider of on-demand television – a business safe from the ARM-based competitors.
Aftermath News 
