EU to build network of spy satellites

By David Rennie in Brussels (Filed: 15/11/2005)

The European Union is building its own network of spy satellites allowing Brussels to ensure nations and private individuals are obeying its policies, it was announced yesterday.

The multi-billion-pound system, known as "Global Monitoring for Environment and Security" (GMES), should be up and running by 2010, a commission spokesman said. Announcing the launch of a "pilot stage" for GMES, the commission stressed its "user-friendly" application in guiding relief work after disasters or providing real time images of forest fires or oil spills.

But a commission memo also acknowledged that GMES would play a key role in the "implementation, review and monitoring of EU policies", including watching for agriculture and fisheries fraud and boosting "internal security".

In addition, officials hope GMES will support the EU's first steps towards becoming a military power. It will "provide authorities with necessary elements for a European Security and Defence Policy", the commission memo said.

The commission in Brussels will identify and develop possible uses for GMES. The management of the satellites will fall to the European Space Agency (ESA), which pools the space resources of 15 EU member states, including Britain, plus Norway and Switzerland.

US politicians are already suspicious of the ESA's "Galileo" project, a 30-satellite global navigation system designed to improve on the Pentagon-controlled GPS system. The EU's invitation to China to become a major investor only increased US concern.

Gregor Kreuzhuber, the commission's spokesman for industry policy, yesterday described GMES as "a little brother for Galileo, a sort of satellite system where you can better monitor what is happening on our planet".

GMES is intended to exploit existing assets belonging to individual EU nations. National governments would retain control over their satellites, Mr Kreuzhuber pledged.

Harmonising the use of national assets in space should mean Europe does not need to launch a full set of new satellites though some EU spacecraft are expected to be needed.

With the ESA, the commission has already spent £154 million on preparatory work, and expects the whole project to cost £1.54 billion between 2006 and 2013. Funding is to come from the commission, national governments and private defence and space firms. - telegraph.co.uk

"Though the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags set to be tested and surgically implanted below the skin by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the homeless populations of New York, San Francisco, Washington DC and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania are not being used to insure killing as those in Logan's Run, they do turn the most vulnerable people in America into cattle, tagged and monitored like animals. Mandatory, compulsory and not a choice, the RFID tags are miniature radio transmitters the size of a matchstick inserted under the skin that enable police and government social programs to track and document the movements of homeless people electronically."
wiring our homeless

Could your remote control
give you happy thoughts?

Brain pacemaker lifts depression

Fitting patients with a brain pacemaker could switch off hard-to-treat depression, believe UK experts.

The technology, already used to treat Parkinson's disease, uses wires and a battery source to stimulate deep parts of the brain with electric currents.

As well as helping depressed patients who have failed on all other therapies, it might also be helpful for treating obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

The device that she used consists of a matchbox-sized, battery-powered generator that sits in the chest, much like a heart pacemaker, and produces the electric currents. - BBC


The "chip" reads brain signals

Brain chip reads man's thoughts

A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a brain chip that reads his mind.

Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001.

The pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone.

The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to decipher.

He can think his TV on and off, change channels and alter the volume thanks to the technology and software linked to devices in his home. - BBC


The live demo of the wireless control was a first

Brain waves control video game

A video game in which the character is controlled directly from a player's brain without the need for wires has been developed by researchers.

Mind Balance was demonstrated for the first time using a new wireless headset, at the MIT Media Lab Europe in Dublin last month.

The game could help researchers develop brain-computer interfaces for those with limited body movement.

But, said the team, it could find its way into future video games.

"It is absolutely a possibility," Ed Lalor, research associate at the labs, told BBC News Online.

"If we can make this new wireless device that we have developed, the Cerebus, more aesthetically pleasing, a little bit smaller, that would make the device actually easier to put on and use." BBC

Remote-Controlled Humans

LOS ANGELES - Smiling nervously, the young woman walks forward in a straight line. Suddenly, she veers to the right. She stumbles and stops, attempting to regain her balance, and continues to walk forward. And then she veers off to the left.

No, she's not intoxicated. The young lady's vestibular system, which controls her sense of movement and balance, has been thrown off-kilter by two weak electrical currents delivered just behind her ears. (Click here to see video of a remotely controlled woman.)

This sort of electrical stimulation is known as galvanic vestibular stimulation, or GVS. When a weak DC current is delivered to the mastoid behind your ear, your body responds by shifting your balance toward the anode. The stronger the current, the more powerful its pull. If it is strong enough, it not only throws you off balance but alters the course of your movement. - Forbes