Google Now, the smart personal search assistant announced yesterday at Google I/O, has now come online. Well, the landing page for the service has come online, that is. The new site introduces the key aspects to Google Now, which arrives in Google’s next mobile operating system, Android 4.1 (aka Jelly Bean), including its ability to track flights, keep an eye on traffic and your calendar, check sports scores and weather, see suggested places nearby, and more.
The feature, accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the homescreen has already been referred to as a “Siri killer” by some Android fans because of its ability to not just assist you, but to proactively alert you to new information based on your needs. One example which Google showed off in its demo yesterday was a flight search, which would later pop up a card that appeared with flight alerts and delays as they occurred in real-time. In another example, Google learned what sports teams you liked based on your search history and could then alert you to upcoming games and scores. In another, you could see suggested places to eat or shop as you walked down the street.
However, the biggest piece to Google Now is that the information comes and finds you – not the other way around. This is a key difference between how Siri operates today and what Google is promising. Of course, you as the user are in control of the experience and can enable or disable which cards and alerts you would see. It’s opt-in, which goes a long way to dispel the potential “creepy” factor here. It’s not as if Skynet has just come online. (I think).
The idea for this type of search-without-the-search technology, if you will, has been in development for some time. In 2010, then CEO, now Chairman Eric Schmidt spoke of a “serendipity engine” as the future of Google search. “We want to give you your time back,” Schmidt said at the time. Google Instant was the first step towards that goal, but Google Now takes a giant leap. At the IFA conference in Berlin, Schmidt described the experience that is today’s Google Now, talking about how phones could spout off random facts as you walked around town, or how they could inform you of the weather, understanding the natural language of human speech. He called this idea a new age of “augmented reality,” where computers work for us.
Unfortunately, for the time being, that new age will only be available to a precious few – those who buy or can upgrade their Android-based devices to Jelly Bean. But much of what Google Now offers could be bundled into an Android or even iOS (!) app using the platforms’ push notifications feature. Hopefully that is in the works, too.
Debkafile, citing Western intelligence sources, reports Thursday, June 28, that the Republican Guard battalion commander charged with the Syrian president’s security is keeping Bashar Assad shut away in his “Unity” palace. Assad and his family may not leave the building without the commander’s permission under an order current since the second half of last week. It is not clear to whom the commander defers in this case and who in fact actually determines whether Assad can come or go.
Asked by debkafile if an element in the Republican Guard ordered the palace placed under siege to prevent the president and his family fleeing, those Western sources replied that the situation could be described as a “partial siege” which is constantly expanding. They added, in response to another question about the Syrian ruler’s freedom of movement, that neither Assad nor members of his family are able to leave the palace to go anywhere and they are aware of the restrictions placed on their movements.
"Because of the partial siege and these restrictions," said those intelligence sources, "Assad and his wife are both in very low spirits and the atmosphere inside the palace is very bleak."
The video clips showing the Syrian president and his wife Asma happily playing badminton in the palace grounds were released this week by the regime’s propaganda arm – apparently to belie the rumors spreading in Damascus about the first family’s virtual imprisonment in their own palace.
In fact, say the sources, “"Inside the palace, Assad and his family are so mistrustful of their immediate circle that food tasters are on hand in to partake in advance of all the food and drink served them.” The tasters belong to the elite unit of Syrian military intelligence. They were brought in after at least two attempts by Syrian rebel associates to sneak poisoned food into the palace. It was discovered before causing harm or even death.
"Bashar Assad won’t even drink a glass of water unless his personal food taster first swallows at least a quarter of its contents."
It is important to note, said the Western sources, that access to the Assad palace on Mt. Qaisoun on the outskirts of Damascus is gained only through two underground roads which are fortified against aerial bombardment and invisible to spies in the sky. The two roads serve the separate entrance and exit from the palace.
All vehicles using the roads, including supply trucks, belong to Syrian intelligence services. The drivers and porters unloading the vehicles – although intelligence personnel - are all closely watched at all times, starting with detailed inspections when they arrive at the entrance to one of the roads.
The rebels’ success in planting poison in one of those closely vetted supply trucks attests to their success in penetrating some of the layers of security protecting the persons of the president and his family.
TEHRAN - Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Israel will regret it if it launches a military strike on Iran.
Putin made the remarks during a meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Beit-ul-Moqaddas (Jerusalem) on Monday.
During the meeting, Putin urged Israel to learn from negative U.S. experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, Ynetnews reported.
“Look at what happened to the Americans in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I told (U.S. President Barack) Obama the same thing,” Putin stated.
He added, “There is no need to do things too quickly; one should not act without thinking first.”
“Iraq has a pro-Iranian regime after everything that has happened there. These things should be thought out ahead of time before doing something one will regret later,” the Russian president stated.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier on Monday following his meeting with Putin, “I believe that we should be doing two things now: Boosting the sanctions (on Iran) and also boosting the demands.”
The Russian president said that the two leaders “spoke in detail about the Syria issue and about the Iranian nuclear program.”
In a brief statement after meeting with Netanyahu, Putin said that their talks covered the situation in Iran and the uprising in Syria, but added that he saw negotiations as the only solution for such matters, ABC News reported.
According to AP, Israel urged the Russian president to step up pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear program, but there was no sign of any concessions from Putin.
The Christian Broadcasting Network wrote on Tuesday, “Russia will not step up pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear program despite Israel’s urgings.”
200,000 casket linings on standby says undercover journalist who infiltrated security team
By Paul Joseph Watson / Infowars
An undercover journalist going by the pseudonym ‘Lee Hazledean’ has blown the whistle on astounding revelations about how he infiltrated the G4S – the company responsible for security at the London Olympics – and discovered shocking plans for the evacuation of London, 200,000 ‘casket linings’ being on standby, along with botched security procedures that leave the Games wide open to attack.
Hazledean’s interview with Tony Gosling, Bilderberg.org editor and host of BCFM’s Friday Drivetime, has gone viral on the web over the last few days. Hazledean is an undercover journalist for a television program in London and has worked with news agencies on hard-hitting subjects, but when he approached the mainstream media with his bombshell story, they showed no interest.
When Hazledean asked Channel 4 News Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies if he would run the story, Davies said he wasn’t interested and days later Channel 4 ran a puff piece about G4S which portrayed the organization as competent and trustworthy.
“I sent him an email, I called, he wasn’t interested and he said there’s a media blackout on this kind of story, that nobody would be interested in running it,” said Hazledean.
In the interview, Hazledean divulges how he merely had to fill in an application form to get a job with G4S, the private company providing security for the Olympics, that he underwent no background check whatsoever, and that his personal references were not checked.
Employees are given just two days of training to run airport-style security checkpoints which include body scanners, which Hazledean said “would be turned off completely” at peak times, meaning terrorists could just walk straight into the event with ammunition or explosives and have an excellent chance of remaining undetected.
“In fact, I was asked to be a would-be terrorist on the final training day and I was given a knife, a gun and an IED, and on all three occasions throughout the day I got through the metal detector and I also got through the x-ray machine scanner,” said Hazledean, adding that terrorists could quite easily stage a “massacre” given the lax nature of the security.
“They’re not training them properly…it’s quite open to a terrorist attack very easily and I don’t say that lightly,” said Hazledean, adding that he witnessed G4S members doing drug deals while training classes were taking place, while others were taking surveillance photos on their cellphones of supposedly secure areas. Hazledean said a lot of the security staff were poorly qualified and that many of them could barely speak English.
Hazledean also revealed how the large contingent of soldiers being brought into London for the Olympic Games included “a lot of UN troops being posted in and around London,” including American and German troops.
The whistleblower also revealed how unauthorized personnel were being handed G4S uniforms and that uniforms had been stolen.
Hazledean’s most chilling revelation was how he learned about preparations to evacuate London and how, “The security guards used for the Olympics will be at the forefront of getting the public out of London.”
“They seem quite serious about it, they’ve spent a lot of time on this,” said Hazledean, noting how G4S spent two hours talking about the evacuation of London in comparison to just half an hour talking about security screening procedures for the Olympics itself.
The whistleblower also noted how the 100,000 plus troops that would be stationed in London during the Olympics would be enough to carry out such a large scale evacuation.
Another chilling facet Hazledean learned was that 200,000 casket linings (temporary coffins) were being shipped in to London that can hold four bodies each. The whistleblower expressed his amazement at why security guards working on mundane screening procedures would need to be told such information.
The whistleblower also revealed how he was told Predator drones would be circling London in readiness for terrorist attacks, and that G4S employees were shown a video of a drone killing a group of people in Afghanistan.
Hazledean noted how G4S leaders saw the public as “the scum of the earth” and also told their employees that the police had no authority over them. He also related how one of the leaders told him that an event after the Olympics would be a “defining moment” for London but when pressed, refused to divulge what she meant.
Hazledean is not the first to blow the whistle on G4S. Earlier this month, data input clerk Sarah Hubble revealed that she was fired by G4S after complaining that G4S was cutting corners in their security preparations for the Olympics and that she herself had not been vetted.
Speaking with Infowars, Hazledean said that he had been making contingency plans for if his life was put in danger or if he became a target for the authorities in any other way after blowing the whistle on the scandal.
Asked about a meme circulating the web that conspiracy theories about a false flag attack occurring at the London Olympics are being deliberately allowed to proliferate in order to make ‘truthers’ look paranoid after nothing happens, Hazledean stressed that merely getting the story out was necessary as it could derail any planned attack.
Masum Turker claims intelligence services pinpoint Russia's Admiral Chabanenko warship in Syrian harbour as aggressor
By Gianluca Mezzofiore
A Turkish opposition leader has claimed that the F-4 Phantom fighter shot down off the Syrian coast was attacked by Russia, not the Syrian military.
Masum Turker, leader of the Democratic Left Party (DSP), told TV8 the Russian ship Admiral Chabanenko downed the Turkish jet on 22 June.
"There are two Russian warships and a Russian frigate in Latakia [Syria] harbour," Hurriyet News quoted him saying. "One of them, Admiral Chabanenko, has the technology to detect the slightest action in the air.
"The vessel that shot down our plane is Chabanenko. It is the [best] equipped vessel of the three," he said.
Turker quoted turkey's foreign ministry and the foreign intelligence services as his source.
The claim came after Turkey's prime minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan pledged to "liberate Syrians from dictatorship" after the shooting down.
He also announced that the country has changed its military rules of engagement and that any Syrian troops approaching Turkey's border would be dealt with as a military threat.
Turkey claimed the plane was shot down in international airspace with a laser or a heat-guided missle. Syria said it shot the plane down with anti-aircraft guns as it was hovering within Syrian airspace at low altitude.
The F-4 Phantom fighter was said to be unarmed and was conducting a test and training mission on the border with Syria.
Erdogan insisted that a short-term border violation "can never be a pretext for an attack", citing hundreds of Syrian violations of Turkey's border.
