Multimedia (98)

Source: Associated Press

The popular video-sharing site YouTube has moved to purge terrorists training films and other videos that extremist groups might use to attract new members, an imperfect process that will rely on users to report objectionable videos.

It's sort of like the post Sept. 11 advice — if you see something, say something. It's nearly impossible to vet every video when 13 hours of new video are uploaded every few minutes.

A quick search on Google-owned YouTube on Friday, one day after the new policies were posted, turned up several videos on how to make bombs using, for instance, such household items as toilet bowl cleaner and tin foil.

In addition to barring terror training videos, the new YouTube community guidelines include bans on videos that incite others to commit violent acts, videos on activities such as how to make bombs and footage of sniper attacks. Previously, it had policies in place against showing people "getting hurt, attacked or humiliated," banning even clips OK for TV news shows.

YouTube has not identified specific videos on its site that led to the change, nor said exactly how it will choose those that are purged. YouTube does not deny that extremist groups could have used the site.

The futuristic systems, like those used by Tom Cruise in the science fiction film Minority Report [see clips at the end of this article], are being developed by scientists for Barclaycard.

The company has announced it is investing a seven-figure sum in "contactless payment" technology.

This allows customers to use everyday items they carry around with them - such as mobile phones, key fobs or even their eyes or fingerprints - to make payments.

It means shoppers will no longer have to rely on cards.

Barclaycard, which is part of Barclays, has already introduced a new-style cash machine in the United Arab Emirates enabling people to use their fingerprints to withdraw money and shoppers in the UK may soon be able to use the same technology.

Antony Jenkins, chief executive of Barclaycard, said: "It's possible we'll see an end to plastic in the next five to 10 years with new technologies to take its place emerging now. It could turn out to be one of the shortest lived payment methods in history, going from being ubiquitous to a museum piece in the same way as the video cassette."

Barclaycard also aims to have one million customers upgraded to its contactless payment system OnePulse by the end of the year. OnePulse enables people to buy items for less than £10 by touching their card against a sensor, without even having to take it out of their wallet. It can also be used as an Oyster card on London transport.

Barclaycard said people may soon be able to hover their mobile over the price label of an item in a shop, confirm their purchase and take it away without having to go to a checkout or get a receipt.

Mr Jenkins said: "If I had said to you 10 years ago that you couldn't pay with a cheque at the supermarket, you wouldn't have believed me. That is now the reality, and we see plastic cards going the same way eventually."

What is Bittorrent?

BitTorrent is a protocol designed for transferring files. It is peer-to-peer in nature, as users connect to each other directly to send and receive portions of the file. However, there is a central server (called a tracker) which coordinates the action of all such peers. The tracker only manages connections, it does not have any knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth. The key philosophy of BitTorrent is that users should upload (transmit outbound) at the same time they are downloading (receiving inbound.) In this manner, network bandwidth is utilized as efficiently as possible. BitTorrent is designed to work better as the number of people interested in a certain file increases, in contrast to other file transfer protocols.

More information

Source: BBC

Parkour, known as Le Parkour or PK for short is not something that can be easily described or explained. Actions speak louder than words and the art of movement does exactly that.

Parkour is about moving, moving in a way in which you don’t let anything stop you - moving through your environment and overcoming any obstacles that come in your path.

Originally, David Belle and his childhood friend Sebastian Foucan created Parkour from an idea that was put into David Belle's head from his father. Raymond Belle (David’s father) adapted the idea.

David always looked up to his father and his grandfather for being heroes the pair where sapeurs-pompiers (military fire service). David would always listen to tales form his grandfather and father and feel proud and very inspired and realised he had to find a similarly path.

David joined the fire service but felt to restricted by the regulations and wanted to be free. His only real love was obstacle courses.

He then left for India and achieved a black belt in Chinese Kung Fu. He also achieved a certificate of honour for his gymnastic agility, this is where Parkour was born.

So, in a nutshell, what is Parkour?

Parkour is the art of forward movement. Being able to interact with your environment, it’s being able to get to one place to another in the most efficient quickest way possible. This involves running, jumping, vaulting, and climbing obstacles in natural or urban environments to get to your destination in the quickest time.

Obstacles can be anything from a rail that is blocking your path, a set of steps that would be easier to jump down instead of run down or a large wall that would be much quicker to climb than run around. This is Parkour.