AllThingsD » TSA

Cheezburger's $30M Gets the Taiwanese Animator Send-Up

Liz Gannes — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:31:32 +0000

As we reported earlier this week, Cheezburger, the company behind the LOLcat generator and Fail Blog, raised $30 million in a major round of venture funding.

I’m surprised this merits a send-up from everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animators–on the level of their takes on enhanced TSA security screenings or Lindsay Lohan getting out of jail–but our friends at Next Media Animation are savvy about the power of hanging on to an Internet meme or, in this case, an Internet meme sweatshop.

NMA depicts Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh as an evil stealer of memes, over-worker of cats and receiver of Internet flames. It’s pretty funny.

Foursquare's Newest Badge: For Getting Your "Baggage" Handled.

Beth Callaghan — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 00:52:54 +0000

Just in time for the busiest travel days of the year, Foursquare has released a badge for the select few who get to enjoy a TSA pat-down over the holidays–or at least for those who check in at any airport and shout, “TSA,” “grope” or, according to AboutFoursquare.com, “Don’t touch my junk, bro!”

Don't Miss the Annual GadgetFest at Churchill Club Thursday, Featuring Facebook Celeb Geeks

Kara Swisher — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:32:16 +0000

This Thursday, my All Things Digital partner, Walt Mossberg, and I are hosting–for the seventh year running–the annual “What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology” program for the Churchill Club.

This year, our guest “tech geek” celebs–drawn from the gadget-mad players of Silicon Valley–are Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Mike Schroepfer, the social networking site’s VP of Engineering (pictured here).

In fact, Sandberg was scheduled to be our guest last year but had a last-minute snafu, so Twitter co-founder and CEO Evan Williams filled in for her.

Among others, past geek celebs have included Google (GOOG) co-founder Larry Page, Yahoo (YHOO) co-founder Jerry Yang and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley.

Also along for the ride is our regular gadget freak, Greg Harper, president of HarperVision Associates and co-founder of Gadgetoff, who brings new meaning to the term. (He also packs so much hardware and software that he is on the TSA’s list.)

The evening starts at 6 pm with a buffet dinner at the Crowne Plaza Cabaña Hotel in Palo Alto, Calif. That’s followed by the program, in which each of us shows off some of our favorite innovative or just plain weird gadgets, while the others opine on the selections.

You can sign up early online or get a pricier ticket at the door.

Here’s a rather longish video from last year, which is well worth watching for the animatronic Elvis alone:

[ See post to watch video ]

D7 Tech Demo: What's in Greg Harper's Bag?

Oliver J. Chiang — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:45:45 +0000

In this session of D7, Greg Harper, president of Harpervision and co-founder of Gadgetoff, always sure to bring the novel and the wacky, will present a plethora of gadgets the technophile has collected. Harper says that in total, he brought “$20,000 [worth] of portable tech gadgets.” (Note to the Four Seasons Aviara: Increase security.) He’s known for doing these demos, at which he pulls out one interesting product after another from his cornucopia of gadgetry–to the astonishment of the crowd! Papa Harper’s got a brand new bag, and we’re about to find out what’s inside….

Session Highlights

[ See post to watch video ]

Live Blog

Kara apologizes for starting up again late: “Carol Bartz just trashed my hotel room.”
Walt and Kara: Greg is sure to be funny and fun. This gadget maniac travels the world collecting the coolest.
Harper comes out to the accompaniment of the theme from “Inspector Gadget.” Apropos.
Harper: Talking really fast–Sony (SNE) camera (HDR TG5V) with GPS built-in.
Walt: Where’s my Red Sox video?
Harper: A complete media server (an MVIX, I think). Kara: It looks like a bomb. Harper: Hook it up to any device! It has many gigs! Etc.! Walt: Why don’t you just use your iPod? Harper: Says something about some headphones being custom-made for his ears…and other stuff.
His Digital SLR is the Canon (CAJ) 5D Mark 2: He likes. Also, here’s a new camera from Panasonic (PC). It goes underwater and shoots in HD. Now, this! A Casio, Exilim FC100, which shoots up to 1000 FPS–watch water drop, one drop at a time.
Now: A GPS system that automatically transmits to satellite. OK, now a water-purifying straw! Its an “Istraw” that freaking purifies your water all on its own. Amazing.
If that’s not enough for you, says Harper (insert an editorial “Uh…”), it’s a flashlight/alarm/smoke detector, from Flare Safe. Even more amazing!
“Astro” Dog Collar: It has GPS so you can keep track of your dog. That’s pretty handy. From Garmin (GRMN).
Portable radio: AM/FM/HD. Walt: I think radio sucks in general.
Harper: Now this doohickey you wear maybe/probably around your neck at the beach registers how much UV you are exposed to. Walt: If you wear this, you won’t get laid. Harper: Maybe you!
Breathalyzer/Bad Breath Monitor: Also a music/video player. It detects bad breath if you blow on it. Listen, I prefer the old fashioned method: someone awkwardly handing me a breath mint. That’s the natural way.
New Mifi!–It’s portable WiFi, from Novotel. Now back to GPS–hidden in my bag is a… drum roll… tracker! No one better steal my bag! Kara: Who? Like terrorists?
Oops, missed something. He’s the Micromachine man. Speaking of whom, he’s now showing a microcomputer of some sort.
Blu-Ray player: It grabs YouTube, Picasa directly, and plays DVD and SD cards. Walt: WiFi? Harper: No. You can take it on the road. Walt snarks about the lousy Panasonic UI. Nice one.
Sony OLED music player: Has noise cancellation–built in; it’s digital noise cancellation. Also has Slacker, which is “Tivo for music.” Walt: Slacker’s on BlackBerry too. And, do you think this will take over the market iPod dominates? Harper: Heh heh, it’s an interesting product. (Translation: No.)
A pocket-projector, the PK 101 from Optoma: Very cute. You can use it when you’re sitting on the plane on the back of the seat of the person in front of you.
And now: A Chinese knock-off of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone. Typical Chinese. But instead, it says “Welcome” upon loading. Imagine that! Look, the UI is so terribly different! It has mode-switching, which means it too has a built-in video projector. Did the Chinese steal the blueprints for the next-gen iPhone somehow?
Some funky looking mask: For diving, it’s good to up to 100-plus feet. There’s a built-in camera with HD video. Walt: And how scared were the TSA guys? Audience laughter.
Whoa! Harper has some super-spy illegal device that can automatically shut off everyone else’s cellphones. It’s like something out of “Men In Black,” but for cellphones instead of depressed housewives.
Another media server. Is he starting to repeat himself. Kara: one more crazy thing, OK?
Glasses with built-in Blutooth headset.
Kara: Thank you so much. Every year, Greg brings weirder and weirder stuff
And the “Inspector Gadget” theme plays him out. Excellent! On the nose, but just so.

Things That Are Comcastic

John Paczkowski — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:00:16 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

TSA Announces "One Hard Drive Per Child" Initiative

John Paczkowski — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:20:35 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Threat-Level Change: Hard Drives Containing TSA Data Are Not Permitted Through Airport Security Checkpoints

John Paczkowski — Tue, 08 May 2007 12:09:22 +0000

How is it that the federal government loses so many computers? Seriously, in the past few years it has lost enough laptops to start its own “One Laptop Per Child” program. From 2002 to 2005, the FBI lost 160 laptop computers, including 10 that contain highly sensitive classified information, according to an inspector general’s report, which notes that between three and four FBI laptops are lost or stolen each month.

Now comes word that the Transportation Security Administration has misplaced a hard drive containing Social Security numbers and bank account information for 100,000 TSA employees. Worse, the drive went missing from a so-called controlled area at TSA headquarters in Washington, D.C. No wonder the Department of Homeland Security (of which the TSA is a unit) scored a D on its latest Federal Computer Security Report Card.

“TSA has no evidence that an unauthorized individual is using your personal information, but we bring this incident to your attention so that you can be alert to signs of any possible misuse of your identity,” TSA Administrator Kip Hawley wrote in a letter to employees. “We apologize that your information may be subject to unauthorized access, and I deeply regret this incident.” To make amends, the TSA offered affected employees a year of credit-monitoring protection (as well as months of untold embarrassment and low morale).

But it’s going to have a much harder time making amends with the American public. “This is getting ridiculous,” the Washington Post said in an editorial today. “When it comes to safeguarding private information from the growing identity-theft industry, Uncle Sam’s track record is horrendous.”