Ecuador Implements "World's First" Countrywide Facial- and Voice-Recognition System

 ...A decade ago, implementing a sophisticated countrywide speech and face recognition system would have been a far-fetched prospect for all but a few of the world’s richest nations. But Ecuador’s embrace of the technology shows how the times have changed. According to Speech Technology Center’s CEO, Mikhail Khitrov, “we’re seeing a growing demand for these kinds of tailored voice and multi-modal biometric solutions—not just in Latin America, but in the global marketplace.” (Earlier this year the company’s U.S.-based president Alexey Khitrov told me that its biometric technology is used in more than 70 countries and that the Americas, Europe, and Asia are its key markets.)

   In the hands of a crooked government, sophisticated speech and face recognition tools would prove useful for tracking down political dissidents and building biometric databases on activists or probing investigative journalists. SpeechPro says, for that reason, it only works with “trusted law enforcement agencies.” However, the company has been accused of selling to brutal authoritarian security agencies in countries like Kazakhstan, Belarus, Thailand, and Uzbekistan. And it’s likely human rights groups will be anxious to hear that Ecuador has now been added to the list, given that the country’s authorities have a less than sparkling record when it comes to corruption, accountability, and abuse of powers....http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/12/12/surveillance_ecuador_implements_speech_technology_center_s_facial_and_voice.html

Someone dies on an EC road every two hours. Every ten minutes, someone is injured.

El Universo - Domingo, 3 de Noviembre, 2013

   Perhaps not surprising given the way people drive here. Ecuador has the second highest traffic fatality rate in South America (behind Venezuela). Someone dies on an EC road every two hours. Every ten minutes, someone is injured.

  The leading cause of traffic accidents in Ecuador is driver inexperience or recklessness (51%). Drunk driving is the second most common cause (9%). According to one study that looked at figures between 2008 and 2012, there have been an average of 4,872 deaths and more than 56,000 injuries each year.
http://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2013/11/03/nota/1669291/cada-2-horas-alguien-muere-vias-pais

Gratitude Strengthens the Heart, Mind, Body and Soul - 03/15/2013

Here is my reply to a recent question about moving to Ecuador in the future, on one of the many many Ecuador groups & forums:

  Bienvenido = Welcome "John & Jane Doe" I was a 45 yr GA. Native, trying to squeak out another 45 yrs in EC. mostly in Quito, but I got Friends and Family all over Ecuador's 3 Big C's:

   Cotacachi - Cuenca - Coast that allow me to hang out with them fairly regularly. I agree w/ the above big ft. post, "No it ain't easy, if it was easy everybody would be doing it." It's a big step not to be taken lightly.

   Do your due diligence research - good - bad & ugly, read & research any and everything you can get your hands on, absorb it like a sponge, weigh it out & shake it out.

   I have seen folks come down 2-3 times over a 2-3 yr period, and it still not work out, and go back after a year or 2....and I've seen them come in w/ the young'uns, dog and 15 check bags, never b4 been to a Latin American country nor EC and assimilate and do just fine.

   You gotta want it, and want it sooo much w/ all your heart - mind - body & soul, if you can get into that frame of mind, then all the lil pieces can usually fall into place for you.

  Everybody wants answers & responses that tells them exactly what you're going to get & expect from Living in EC, but obviously that's not possible, as the Auto Mfg's say: "your mileage may vary"

But,

 I for one am a Very Thankful-

-JourJa Boy to be living in ECUADOR: 

Why You Should Cultivate Gratitude Every Single Day

Dr. Cynthia Thaik

  Gratitude reminds you of what truly matters in life. It is all too easy to get ... 

 

...Gratitude is one of the most important foods for the soul, as it has the ability to enhance and maintain happiness and well-being, and this in turn nourishes the mind, body and spirit. Being thankful for the things you have and appreciating both the good and the bad in your life has the power to transform the way you actually live your life. 

 

  When you are constantly reminding yourself of what you have to be happy for, you will be happy. And when you're happy, you can live a longer and healthier life. In fact, a study at the University College London revealed that elderly people who were happy with their lives lived up to 20-35 percent longer than their not-so-happy counterparts. Now, that alone is something to be thankful for. The following are some reasons why gratitude is so important:
• Gratitude reminds you of what truly matters in life. It is all too easy to get caught up in day-to-day stresses and take for granted the things that are important to us. If you remind yourself each day of the things you are thankful for, you begin to focus more on the important and less on the superficial.....See More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-cynthia-thaik/gratitude-and-health_b_2829112.html

Ecuador vs. Social Network Slander 16 OCT 2013

 
By Jeff Johnston on Wednesday, October 16, 2013

  In Ecuador, if you slander or libel another person, including a government official, you’re guilty unless and until you prove yourself innocent.

  President Rafael Correa won hundreds of thousands of dollars a few years back as a result of a lawsuit against Banco Pichincha. Last year, he also won against a Guayaquil newspaper, El Universo. ....

  ...Even those inside the country can post to social networks without ever being traced. They can set up a throwaway email address with false personal info at Gmail, Yahoo! Mail or Outlook.com, then create a false account at Facebook or Twitter based on that email address.Yes, it’s against the terms of service to do that. But Facebook has over one billion users; Twitter over 500 million. It’s unlikely that either one will ever notice a fake account until someone directs them to it. And then what? Track and hand over the IP addresses used to make the defamatory remarks? Not without a court order in the United States.

• As further protection, anyone intent on defamation will use a proxy service to hide his/her IP address when posting to social networks. That adds another round of court orders in a country where Ecuador has no jurisdiction.
•  
• 

The Only Option Left
If the video camera idea is a no-go, since they’ll only monitor a portion of the population, checking ISP logs is similarly impractical. The fact is that with so many methods available to hide one’s true identity, it is very difficult to catch and accuse anyone who doesn’t want to be caught.
So it will likely remain impossible, in Ecuador at least, to sue someone for slander on social networks hosted outside of the country.

What’s left? Censorship, à la China and even developed nations such as Australia.

 The only way the Ecuadorian government will ever be able to control slander on Twitter and Facebook will be to censor Twitter and Facebook. Restricting access to social networks would invite accusations of repression of freedom of speech that the Correa government may not be able to gloss over, but other nations have shown that it can be done.

 However, a far easier course of action would be to decriminalize defamation, and let the Ecuadorians, particularly their politicians, grow a thicker skin...http://panampost.com/jeff-johnston/2013/10/16/ecuador-vs-social-network-slander/

TAME Airlines direct flights from Guayaquil GYE to New York JFK - 22 NOV 2013

  TAME Airlines announced it will begin direct flights from Guayaquil to New York beginning November 22. There will be six weekly flights between the two cities using Airbus A330 planes. On December 13, a seventh flight will be added.

TAME Ecuador to Start Guayaquil – New York JFK Service from late-November 2013

   TAME Ecuador from 22NOV13 is resuming service to the United States, with 6 weekly Guayaquil – New York JFK operation on board Airbus A330 aircraft, in all-Economy Class configuration. From 13DEC13, the airline will add 7th weekly service on this route.
EQ550 GYE1415 – 2035JFK 330 x2
EQ551 JFK2255 – 0525+1GYE 330 x2
Service increases to daily from 13DEC13
http://airlineroute.net/2013/10/31/eq-jfk-nov13/ 

"please turn off all electronic devices" when you fly ~ that will soon change.

		Dear Jack, If you're a traveler, you're probably used to hearing the instruction "please turn off all electronic devices" when you fly. But that will soon change. After a year of twisting arms at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to either show any evidence to back up the ban on electronic devices, or loosen the restrictions, I finally got word today the FAA has embraced the expanded use of portable electronic devices (like iPads, Kindles, and e-readers) on airplanes. Read more about the effort HERE. This is great news for the traveling public - and frankly, a win for common sense. The FAA announced the results of a report by a specialized rulemaking committee, which announced that expanded use of portable electronic devices would pose no risk to the traveling public. In response, the agency initiated a plan in which airlines may submit plans for the expanded use of PEDs on their flights - plans that the FAA expects can be quickly approved. Two airlines submitted such plans today, the very first day they could do so.  Despite the news, you won't have to worry about listening to another traveler's phone conversation on your flight. Today's announcement does not include the use of cell phones on flights unless they're in "airplane mode."  After speaking personally with FAA Chief Michael Huerta this morning on the status of the committee's report, I was assured the agency plans to work directly with the airline industry to quickly relax existing regulations - a process that the FAA believes could be largely completed by the end of the year. I held the FAA's feet to the fire to move quickly and responsibly and it has now delivered. I expect the airlines, as key partner stakeholders who helped produce the recommendations to relax current restrictions, to move quickly so that Americans flying for the holidays no longer face restrictions that make no sense. As I continue my work as Chairman of the Consumer Production Subcommittee, I'll keep you updated on issues that impact you, the consumer. All the best, P.S. Have you ever been the victim of a scam or abusive and predatory practices? I want to hear from you. Tell me your story on my website, HERE.

Lost City Of Pyramids Discovered In Ecuador Jungle 2013 (Amazing Video)

- Lost City Of Pyramids Discovered In Ecuador Jungle 2013 (Amazing Video) | Science and Technology- Sunday, October 27, 2013

    By Susan Duclos An ancient Ecuadorian Pyramid has been discovered, explored and below you will see the first footage, filmed in the Spring of 2013, of the lost city of pyramids, which has the website Earth 4 All asking if this is perhaps the “Pyramids Of The Anunnaki Giants.”

The reason for that question is the size of the stone hammer heads you will see below, that were scattered across the area which, as the video details puts it,  makes it “ hard not to think of the local legends of giants and a possible connection to the Anunnaki linked gold relics found not so very far away at the Tayos caves.”

Via Earth 4 All:

What really strongly points towards this habitation having housed the same race of giants is the presence of extremely oversized hammers, or at least the stone hammerheads. Assuming these were attached to hard wood handles they would be of both incredible size and weight, making their use as tools impractical for a typical Inca or indigenous Indian, these being generally slight built people of around five foot or so.

Who on Earth would make a hammer like this as a real tool? 


 


Remember also that any work would be done in the incredible heat and humidity of the Amazon jungle, how long could anyone swing such a thing before collapsing from heat exhaustion? I have been unable to match this object to anything known in Inca archaeology, and in fact there is simply nothing like it in the Ecuadorian museum of cultural history, located in Quito, that would suggest any of the known civilizations of this region.

 

 What it rather makes one think of is the legends of the ancient Anunnaki and their supposed human-alien hybrid creations used as a slave race to mine and work gold.

 

Is this more empirical evidence that the legends and myths of the Anunnaki giants are more than myths and are entirely true? Or were they simply giants, which there is much evidence of the existence of?

 

 

Watch the incredible video below and decide for yourself:

read more: ..http://earth4all.net/lost-city-of-pyramids-discovered-in-ecuador-jungle-2013-video/ 

Comment by Jour-Ja:  Let's Load up the crew and go check this site out, any takers?