The New Aesthetic

Anonymous Analytics (AA), a mysterious group claiming to be a faction of the global hacktivist organization Anonymous, just released its second short-selling report, this time about the multi-billion dollar Chinese company Huabao International.

Entitled “Smoke and Mirrors,” it’s a comprehensive unraveling of fraud in China’s biggest flavor and fragrance provider. It accuses Huabao of lying about its suppliers and grossly overstating its profit margins to enrich the chairwoman and her proxies, to the detriment of shareholders. Since short-seller Muddy Waters released its first report in 2010, many firms have investigated fraud in public Chinese companies, making millions by publishing information that caused companies’ stock price to fall. But this is the first time a group as murky as AA has entered the fray.

The Bow Quarter complex of more than 700 apartments is the first of a handful of housing developments close to the Olympic Park chosen by military planners to host high velocity rockets aimed at preventing an airborne terrorist attack on this summer’s Games.

Ministry of Defence officials will this week inform a number of other residents within firing distance of the main stadiums that their homes have been selected to become part of London’s military lockdown. The missile units will be installed and armed with dummy rockets in time for a national Olympic security exercise starting on Wednesday. The test of the government’s £1bn security plans will run either side of the forthcoming bank holiday weekend and will see RAF Typhoon fast jets and military helicopters operating above London and the home counties.

The Star Streak missiles that are likely to be installed on top of a water tower inside the Bow Quarter complex travel at more than three times the speed of sound, have a range of 5km and use a system of three dart-like projectiles to allow multiple hits on a target. Ten soldiers will be on duty at all times to guard and operate the missiles if needed to bring down a fast-moving jet or helicopter attack.

In the middle of 2011, Mardenborough had entered an online competition on Gran Turismo 5 that offered one final shot at the real thing. Out of 90,000 other virtual racers, he made it into the top eight in Europe and won the chance to test himself against other gamers in a real car at Brands Hatch. That he had kept it to himself for so long was entirely in character for a boy who did not like to make a fuss. “At that point we had no idea what it was,” admits Steve.

Seven months later, in January this year, Mardenborough, who’d never set foot in a racing car, was at the wheel of a serious piece of kit in the Dubai 24 Hour race – and at the beginning of what appears to be a very exciting career.

A WEST Australian researcher is among the first to introduce cameras previously only used in satellites to face recognition technology, with the aim of increasing the amount of information obtained from images and the accuracy of identification.

Prof Mian says cameras taken from satellites have the capacity to go beyond the simple RGB colours and sample light at hundreds of wavelengths including the infra-red.

“The more samples we take, the more information we can get. More information helps to identify faces more accurately,” he says.

Blue Peter is running a new competition and we want YOU to get involved.

We need your help to come up with the name for an exciting new gadget that has been designed by the boffins at the BBC and the University of Southampton! The gadget is a remote control plane with a camera attached, which will be used to film large events from the sky. It may even be used to film parts of the Olympic Torch Relay this summer.