Alarming New Study Finds Smartphones Ruining Our Brains at Unprecedented Speed

Any parent with a kid addicted to TikTok or Instagram is familiar with the concern that it’s ruining their brain. I’m of a certain age where I heard that refrain regularly from my Dad as I settled in each summer afternoon to watch reruns of Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, and The Partridge Family. It was the Golden Age of reruns.

But what was once hyperbole has turned into science, and the results are beyond alarming. The universal addiction to smartphones is actively ruining our brains — especially Generation Z — and at a pace that should absolutely freak everyone out.

The Financial Times recently published a devastating analysis of American personality changes using data from the Understanding America Study, and the findings should stop you cold....<<<Read More>>>...

Transmitting data by laser is being touted as the next big thing; at what cost to health?

 Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is spinning off its laser-based internet company, Taara, from its “moonshot” experimental hub, X, to provide high-bandwidth services to hard-to-reach rural areas and compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink network of satellites.

Taara originated from the concept called Loon, which aimed to provide phone and internet services across remote areas using beams of light between thousands of balloons floating on the edge of space, but was wound up in 2021 due to regulatory hurdles and technical difficulties.

However, its lasers found a second life on Taara’s towers under engineer and general manager Mahesh Krishnaswamy, Financial Times reports.  He says that the company’s technology can offer 10 to 100 times more bandwidth to end users than a typical Starlink antenna, and at a fraction of the cost, making it a competitive alternative for connecting rural areas to the internet.

The company’s technology works by firing a beam of light the width of a pencil from one terminal to another, using a system of sensors, optics and mirrors to transmit data at 20 gigabits per second over 20km, extending traditional fibre-optics networks with minimal construction and lower costs...<<<Read More>>>...

AI Created an Alien-Like Chip That Works—But No One Knows How

 A newly developed AI wireless chip has surprised scientists. This unusual project has attracted attention not only because of its efficiency, but also because of its completely unexpected structure.

Some experts have noticed a surprising similarity between the chip’s design and the images of “alien cities” created by the same neural networks.

The project was carried out by an international group of researchers, including specialists from China and India working in the United States. Their task was to force a neural network to create a design for a new wireless communication chip.

The result exceeded all expectations: the resulting design turned out to be significantly more effective than conventional engineering solutions.....<<<Read More>>>...

Smartphone use leads to hallucinations, detachment from reality, aggression in teens as young as 13: Study

Smartphones are making teenagers more aggressive, detached from reality and causing them to hallucinate, according to new research.

Scientists concluded the younger a person starts using a phone, the more likely they would be crippled by a whole host of psychological ills after surveying 10,500 teens between 13 and 17 from both the US and India for the study, by Sapien Labs.

"People don't fully appreciate that hyper-real and hyper-immersive screen experiences can blur reality at key stages of development," addiction psychologist Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, who was not part of the team who did the study, told The Post.

"Their digital world can compromise their ability to distinguish between what's real and what's not. A hallucination by any other name.

"Screen time essentially acts as a toxin that stunts both brain development and social development," Kardaras explained. "The younger a kid is when given a device, the higher the likelihood of mental health issues later on."

The teens surveyed for "The Youth Mind: Rising Aggression and Anger" were significantly worse off than older Gen Zers in Sapien Labs' database and the youngest ages were more likely to suffer aggression, anger and hallucinations compared to their older counterparts.

A staggering 37% of 13-year-olds reported experiencing aggression, compared with 27% of 17-year-olds. Frighteningly, 20% of 13-year-olds say they suffer from hallucinations, compared to 12% of 17-year-olds.

"Whereas today's 17-year-olds typically got a phone at age 11 or 12, today's 13-year-olds got their phones at age 10," the report noted....<<<Read More>>>...

Google’s quantum leap: Willow chip pushes boundaries of computing power

 In a groundbreaking development that could redefine the future of computing, Google has unveiled its latest quantum computing chip, dubbed "Willow." This state-of-the-art processor represents a monumental leap forward in the field of quantum computing, achieving feats that were previously thought to be decades away.

Willow, a 105-qubit quantum processor, has demonstrated the ability to solve a problem in just five minutes that would take the world's fastest supercomputers an astonishing 10 septillion years. This mind-boggling performance underscores the immense potential of quantum computing, which harnesses the principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations far beyond the capabilities of classical computers.

One of the most significant achievements of Willow is its ability to reduce errors exponentially as the number of qubits increases. This breakthrough, known as "below threshold," was first proposed by computer scientist Peter Shor in 1995 and has been a major obstacle in the development of practical quantum computers. By achieving this milestone, Google has effectively reversed the trend of increasing errors with more qubits, paving the way for scalable and reliable quantum systems....<<<Read More>>>...

They Are Creating Incredibly Bizarre New Technologies For The Dystopian World Of The Future.

 Many would argue that we are already living in a dystopian society, but if those that are currently running things get their way our world will soon look far more dystopian than it does now. Over the past few years, we have seen an unprecedented explosion of new technologies. Some of these technologies appear to have the potential to make life better, but others would give those in positions of power the ability to watch us, track us, monitor us and control us like never before. If you are not concerned about what we are now witnessing, that is probably because you haven’t been paying attention.

I have a number of examples that I want to share with you in this article, but I really struggled with how to organize them.

Ultimately, I decided to order them from the least creepy to the most creepy.

So let’s start with palm scanning.

Palm scanners are being deployed at Whole Foods stores all over the country, and once you are enrolled in the system you can literally pay for your groceries by just using your hand…

The palm-recognition system works by linking a user’s payment information with their unique palm print. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can also link it with your Prime account — no need to fumble in the Amazon app looking for your in-store code any longer. At Whole Foods, you just hover your palm over the reader once you’re ready to pay and the system will find your Prime account, apply any discounts, and charge the credit card you enrolled with.

A Business Insider journalist decided to give the system a try, and she described what she had to do in order to enroll…

I followed the instructions on the device, first scanning my right palm, then my left, which was optional.

The scanner then prompted me to enter my phone number. Amazon sent me a text with a link to a page asking me to verify my card details with the last four digits of my credit card number and the card’s expiry date. And that was it — it took me to my Amazon One home page, where I can see my linked phone number, Amazon account, and payment method.

That is definitely creepy, but the facial recognition systems that are now being deployed all over the globe are even creepier.

During the G20 meetings that just took place in Brazil, everyone that attended was forced “to pass a biometric validation process by scanning their faces using Serpro’s stand devices”…

Serpro, a Brazilian government data processing agency, is providing a facial recognition system that was used to facilitate the accreditation and validation of delegates to a ministerial meeting of the G20 last week.

During the meeting, which took place on February 21 and 22, attendees were made to pass a biometric validation process by scanning their faces using Serpro’s stand devices, according to a post on the G20 website. Brazil currently holds the G20 presidency, which runs till the end of this year.

Serpro’s system meets the same standard as the biometric authentication equipment deployed in some of Brazil’s airports to enable secure and seamless passenger checks without the need for the physical presentation of documents, according to the G20 announcement.

You may be thinking that since you aren’t a high ranking government official you don’t have anything to worry about.

But it is important to understand that they are setting a precedent.

If they can start getting this technology in place, it will inevitably be adopted by more and more institutions.

And then someday you may wake up and find that you can’t get a job, open a bank account or buy groceries without having your face scanned.

What will you do then?...<<<Read More>>>...

Apple’s Vision Pro goggles rewire the brain, researchers warn

 Apple’s recently released Vision Pro goggles may seem like a fun new piece of tech, but researchers are warning that they could rewire the human brain in some very unexpected ways.

The Vision Pro uses 12 cameras within its glass fascia that serve as a lens, while its LiDAR scanner uses a laser to measure the distances to various objects. It uses passthrough video, which involves cameras and sensors capturing images from the world around you and reproducing them inside the device in a synthetic environment that can be overlaid with other elements.

However, researchers have found that using the $3,500 devices, especially in the long term, can cause a lot of problems for our brains and our perception of the world around us.

We already know how virtual reality can affect us in the short term. For example, individuals who are in synthetic environments have a tendency to judge distances poorly from close up as well as at a distance. This means that those who are trying to post videos of themselves doing activities like driving or skating with these headsets on are going to end up in real trouble, potentially harming themselves and others. It can also cause object distortion, changing the sizes and shapes of objects, particularly when one moves their head...<<<Read More>>>....

How Our Technology Copies Organic Life

 I remember as a kid enjoying Superman comics and at some point, a character tried to duplicate Superman but it came out corrupted and flawed as a new villain – Bizarro.  He was like Superman but just a bit “off.”

I would suggest that much our man-made technology attempts to emulate the amazing capabilities of life itself, but just misses the mark.  This is not to suggest that we go back to being “hunter-gatherers” but rather try to understand the uniquely organic underpinnings of life itself and align our efforts accordingly.

Can we see that our digital electronic reality including the video screen content we consume now is a completely new sensory input beyond the five we commonly acknowledge?  We might also begin to consider thought – the electrical information that somehow moves through our brain as another sense that is affected, sometimes augmented and definitely manipulated by this same digital technology. Yet all of these phenomena appear within Life itself....<<<Read More>>>...

Actors Are Already Selling Digital Clones of Themselves for $500. Are Stars Next?

 Getting digitally cloned was easier than Devin Finley expected it to be. The voice-over artist, who also works as a model and bar manager, entered a studio in Manhattan last spring and read a script from a teleprompter.

Across the room, a man with a large camera working for Hour One, a Tel Aviv–based video agency specializing in providing clients with lifelike virtual humans, filmed Finley from the waist up. Over Zoom, a director offered instructions about how much to move his hands. He was done in less than an hour.

When Finley first learned that he could license his virtual twin, he had reservations. He was skeptical that a digital double, as the nascent sub-industry calls it, could capture his personality. He also disapproved of A.I.–generated avatars eventually taking jobs from people. Then again, the situation enabled the impossible. “You can be in two places at one time,” he said, and the new income stream meant that “as you get older or you’re on vacation, your avatar is still virtually making money for you,” possibly speaking a language he has never learned, without ever aging beyond 36.

And so Finley accepted an initial payment of $500 and signed a contract giving Hour One a certain number of credits to book his twin in videos used for marketing, product tutorials, online training, employee onboarding, and more. If he was in high demand, Hour One, which lists Nvidia, Microsoft, and DreamWorks among its clients, would buy more credits from him.

“It’s a new technology—either you hate it or you love it,” Finley said. So long as the company kept its promise to keep him out of political, sexual, and malicious content, he was open to loving it....<<<Read More>>>...

The Personal Computer as a Viral Vector

Global dissemination of a zoonotic virus pandemic narrative by the WHO, government and university scientists, the media, and the general public, has enabled the trialling of a cybernosis, or disease transmitted from a computing machine to humans, amongst a new and relatively large target body. This paper presents the rationale, methodology, initial findings, and limitations of the preliminary trial, and assesses the future potential of this new field of virology.

The widescale dissemination, via government bodies (e.g., SAGE, SPI-B, CDC), NGOs (e.g., WEF, WHO, World Bank, IMF), universities, individuals, and most credible media organizations (e.g., Reuters, Guardian, New York Times, Der Spiegel, BBC), of the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic narrative brought about the anticipated largescale uptake (currently 4.9 billion people) of the new mRNA genetic modification technique.

Whilst the ‘vaccine’ programme has been highly successful (and should soon incorporate most humans above six months of age) as yet it is not universal, requiring ongoing coercive stimuli and alternative rollouts (e.g., polio, smallpox, seasonal influenza). A significant residue of unvaccinated individuals is likely to persist (also anticipated), a cohort that often correlates with narrative scepticism, and even the promulgation of a counter-narrative.

Pandemic scepticism and attendant vaccine resistance have various causes. So far, an algorithm for predicting or identifying recalcitrance or ‘free thinking’ is unavailable. However, one of the drivers of what has been termed ‘sheer bloody-mindedness’ (Hoff et al., 2009) is people turning to alternative media sites for authentic journalism (e.g., Global Research, Signs of the Times, UK Column News, Off Guardian)....<<<Read More>>>...

The ‘Race To The Bottom’ Trap: Why Companies Produce Low Quality Products

 [Collective Evolution]: “The race to the bottom refers to a competitive situation where a company, state, or nation attempts to undercut the competition’s prices by sacrificing quality standards or worker safety (often defying regulation), or reducing labour costs.”

The race to the bottom trap is a concept that can help us consider how our current societal infrastructures incentivizes companies to engage in this type of behaviour in order to continue operating ‘successfully.’ In this case we’ll define success as gaining financial wealth.

This concept also helps us pull our minds out of the idea that companies are just evil and unethical and allows us to begin seeing the bigger problem at hand a little bit more clearly. If we can truly identify any problem and the various ways the problem connects with other areas of society, we can begin solving problems at their core....<<<Read More>>>...

 

Power Is An Illusion, Control Is A Facade

[Humans Are Free]: This past year in numerous countries the public is being bombarded with lessons in power and control that have been forgotten for generations.

I think the majority of westerners in particular have long believed themselves “safe” from totalitarian government, from collectivist micro-management and from communistic cultism.

They thought we had moved beyond the nightmares of the 20th century. They thought that the “new world” was going to be more Utopian, and that freedom would grace us naturally along with technological progress. Sure, in the back of everyone’s subconscious there is the fear that the good times are an illusion and that dystopia is just behind a thin veneer of economic stability and false optimism, but most people do not really think such catastrophes will happen in their lifetime.

We are now in the midst of a deliberately over-hyped pandemic, strict national lockdowns, civil unrest, riots, aggressive tech censorship, intrusive government censorship, unprecedented corporate and treasury debt, stagflationary central bank stimulus and the collapse of massive financial bubbles.

Yet, I still don’t get the impression that many in the public really grasp the extent of the danger; they still believe that the situation is going to heal itself without any effort or much sacrifice on their part.

This is the first lesson of power: Entire societies can be easily influenced when they suffer from delusions that the bad times will be fleeting, and that governments will keep them safe no matter what.

It is a historically proven pattern that governments tend to CREATE problems instead of solving them, and this is because the power dynamic of government never changes...<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

Using A Smart Phone Can Cause Structural Differences In Your Brain

[Collective Evolution]: Children entering into the world today are being birthed into a sea of technology that their parents never grew up with.

As a result, we don’t really know the long-term consequences these technologies could have on these generations as they age.

Preliminary research, however, is already showing significant cause for concern, and one of the latest examples comes from a study published in the journal Addictive Behaviours via German researchers.

The researchers examined 48 participants using MRI imaging, and 22 of the participants had smartphone addiction (SPA), and 26 of them were non-addicts. The main findings were that individuals with SPA showed “significant lower” grey matter volume (GMA) in the insula and in certain regions of the temporal cortex compared to the individuals without smartphone addiction, known as the controls.

Secondly, right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activity was “significantly lower” in individuals with SPA compared to controls. Third, the researchers found associations between the smartphone addiction inventory (SPAI) scores and GMV as well as amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF), converged on the ACC....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

Mystery drone sightings in Colorado, Nebraska have many experts baffled

[Natural News]: Local residents in northeast Colorado and southwest Nebraska are scratching their heads in confusion about a series of ongoing mystery drone sightings that nobody seems able to explain.

Multiple counties in that particular corner of Colorado, as well as at least one abutting county in Nebraska, continue to receive calls from folks concerned about these giant flying objects, which are said to have wingspans measuring about six feet.

They always fly at night, reports indicate, and they tend to weave back and forth in grid-like patterns for hours at a time. Since everyday consumer drones are typically much smaller in size and have significantly shorter flight durations before their batteries die, these larger drones are atypical, to say the least.

While conspiracy theories abound as to the origin of these unidentified flying objects (UFOs), local officials and the federal agencies they’ve contacted are all claiming ignorance as to where these drones are coming from and who owns them...<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

Beware of those selling “technology”

[Natural News]: Technology can be thought of as the development of new tools. New tools enhance productivity and profits, and productivity improvements afford a rising standard of living for the people of a nation. Put to proper uses, technological advancement is a good thing; indeed, it is a necessary thing.

Like the invention of bricks and mortar as documented in the book of Genesis, the term technology has historically been applied to advancements in tangible instruments and machinery like those used in manufacturing. Additional examples include the printing press, the cotton gin, and the internal combustion engine. These were truly remarkable technological achievements that changed the world.

Although the identity of a technology company began to emerge in the late 1930s as IBM developed tabulation equipment capable of processing large amounts of data, the modern-day distinction did not take shape until 1956 when IBM developed the first example of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

At that time, a computer was programmed to play checkers and learn from its experience. About one year later, IBM developed the FORTRAN computer programming language. Until the early 1980s, IBM was the dominant tech company in the world and largely stood as the singular representative of the burgeoning technology investment sector....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

A Morphological Adaptation? Smartphones Now Transforming the Human Skeleton

[Waking Times]: Modern life is transforming the human skeleton. Humans are now developing a bone spike at the back of the head caused by regularly looking down at their smartphones, according to a recent study.

The phenomenon is called an external occipital protuberance: a lump on the back of the head believed to be caused by the body reacting to smartphone use by growing new bone layers on the back of the skull...read more>>>...

China’s rare earth minerals export ban will collapse the telecom industry and all “green” power, including solar and wind turbines

[Natural News]: In potential retaliation against President Trump’s tariffs and other trade war tactics, China could be on the verge of banning all rare earth mineral exports to the United States, which would immediately cripple a number of critical tech industries.

Among the five “nuclear” options that Zero Hedge says China currently has at its disposal to fight back, the most impactful would appear to be a rare earths embargo – which means no more smartphones, laptop computers, solar panels, electric car batteries, or wind turbines, among other “cutting-edge” products. Rare earth minerals, in case you don’t know, are a necessary component in the manufacture of many high-tech products that millions of people today rely on for “survival.”

And since China currently supplies around 80 percent of them to the U.S. market, an export ban would significantly decrease the supply of these products while massively increasing their cost, if not create unprecedented shortages...read more>>>...

Japanese researchers develop a micro-electromechanical energy harvester that runs on ambient energy

[Natural News]: Even as internet of things devices grow ever smaller, they continue to require more power. But most of these smart devices are too small to fit batteries and power cords might restrict them. This led Japanese researchers to refine an existing tool which could collect electromechanical energy from its surroundings.

Their new energy harvester is called a micro-electronic mechanical system (MEMS). It could harness mechanical vibrations and other sources of ambient energy, turning them into electrical power for microelectronic devices.

The Tokyo Institute of Technology research team further improved upon existing designs for MEMS. Their innovative take on the energy-harvesting system displayed higher compatibility with many more types of electronic devices, including those that featured miniaturized sensors.

A standard MEMS energy harvester gathers ambient energy with the help of a built-in electret. The electrical counterpart of a permanent magnet, an electret holds a stable charge of electric power, thanks to the arrangement of its internal structure. In addition to the electret, the MEMS also features a tunable capacitor and a moving electrode that responds to ambient forces. When an ambient force acts upon the electrode, it prompts the charges of the capacitor to start moving around. The ensuing movement of charges generates enough electricity to power increasingly Star Trek-ish smart devices....read more>>...

Human Brains Re-wired in Tech Age, Big Tech Capitalizes on “Hypersensitized” Dopamine Systems

[David Icke]: “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works…”

Facebook has been spotlighted for its censorship of Alex Jones and Infowars, but there is another angle to Big Tech tyranny.

Depression and suicide are at record rates in the west. While there are many driving factors behind this trend, one of them appears to be worsening addictions to tech.

Human development has this far driven us toward interaction with others. We needed to connect with and learn from each other. We need to reproduce.

What happens when our technology becomes more “rewarding” than anything else?

In Japan, where cultural norms allow for rapid adoption of new technology, a population crisis is emerging as young people are no longer having relationships.

The Independent reports: “Some men claimed they “find women scary” as a poll found that around 31% of people aged 18 to 34 from the island nation say they are virgins.”
One Japanese woman said, “I think a lot of men just cannot be bothered. They can watch porn on the internet and get sexual satisfaction that way.”

We are literally becoming addicted to our technology and the distraction that it brings. Every time we see the glowing red indicator on our Facebook page, our brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine.

Dopamine is a central part of the reward center in the brain. It tells us, “Ok, this act (eating food, sex, achieving a goal) brought pleasure, do it again”. ...read more>>>...

Eliminate online passwords altogether because they'll never be secure, Microsoft's cybersecurity chief says

[David Icke]: Passwords should be ditched and replaced with biometric logins because they don't sufficiently protect people, according to the top cybersecurity official at Microsoft.

Bret Arsenault told US broadcaster CNBC that 90 per cent of the tech giant's 135,000 employees now logged in without a password, instead using methods like facial and fingerprint recognition.

He said: 'Hackers don't break in, they log in…we still a see lot of attempts of people trying to password spray.' Password spraying is a method where hackers try to access large numbers of accounts at once by using common passwords.

'The best way to protect against the password spray is just to eliminate passwords', Arsenault, Microsoft's chief information security officer, said...read more>>...