Having Fun.

Conditions: Cold, Finally Clear.


Potential

With your computer, your phone, and your car all at risk from computer hackers, the next frontier is ...yourself? As medical implant technology gets more complicated, inevitably it also becomes more vulnerable.

Implantable devices, such as pacemakers, defibrillators and cochlear implants, are becoming vulnerable to "infection" with computer viruses, a researcher in England warns.

To prove his point, Mark Gasson, a scientist at the University of Reading's School of Systems Engineering, allowed himself to become "Exhibit A."

Gasson said he became the first person in the world to be infected with a computer virus after he "contaminated" a high-end radio frequency identification (RFID) computer chip -- the kind often used as a security tag in stores to prevent theft -- which he had implanted into his left hand.

The point, Gasson explained, was to draw attention to the risks involved with the use of increasingly sophisticated implantable medical device technology.
[...]

But once "infected," the chip disrupted the proper functioning of the mainframe system with which it had been communicating, and would have done the same to any other device that might have been similarly hooked up to the network, he said.

"By infecting my own implant with a computer virus, we have demonstrated how advanced these technologies are becoming and also had a glimpse at the problems of tomorrow," Gasson said.

- businessweek.com/

And what's sad is that in no way will this be seen as a deterrent to anyone. Advanced medical technology is "great". It gives doctors more scope for treatment, and it allows medical tech companies to build shiny things and charge an arm and a leg for them, if you'll pardon the expression. The inherent vulnerabilities will instead become another profit potential for anti-virus companies, keen to profit on the latest digital folly of mankind. Ahhh, capitalism.



Film Review: The Losers.

The most important ingredient a stylish action film must have is, unsurprisingly, style and action. I'm constantly surprised at how many films get that wrong. Happily, The Losers is a film that is concentrating hard on being stylish and exciting right out of the box, and damn me but I think they've pulled it off. This film is fun, well paced and enjoyable. Despite having a number of old movie cliches they have to deal with, they still manage to do something that's feels somewhat fun and fresh, due in no small part to allowing the actors time and scope to actually develop and show off their characters. Amazingly, you actually believe pretty quickly that these guys are a team.

The plot is fairly straight forward, bad guy frames a bunch of good guys, and now they're out to clear their names and get revenge. Throw in some shootouts, some double crosses, a wacky globetrotting villain, and some bonding, and you're done. Well, actually, the villain might be a little too wacky for my taste, shooting people because they dropped an umbrella went out with the eighties. But when the film does stumble, it's able to use it's old fashioned charm to get itself going again.

There is a distasteful amount of shaky cam used during some of the action scenes, which is unfortunate, but at least you can make out enough of what's happening. There's also something of a romantic subplot to take in as well. Zoe Saldana acquits herself well, when she gets half a chance. And while the ending is kind of a shameless attempt to set up a sequel, at least we had fun watching it. Four finger guns out five.


- Peace out