Technology That Goes Bump In the Night

name is Chris Polette. I'm an editor How Stuff Works, and sitting next to me as usual, although a little scarier this time is the senior writer, Jonathan Stricklin. Yeah. That's a tall order, a little scarier, just a little. Well, and today we're gonna talk to you about scary technology. It's our special Halloween episode. Yep, it's a it's both a trick and a treat. So let's let's get started.

The first one I wanted to talk about really quickly, um, just the technology that you might find in a modern haunted house, now haunted house with the kind that's run on Halloween, not the kind that actually ghost. So. Um. Here in Atlanta, which is where our headquarters are based, we have a haunted house called nether World. It's actually um pretty highly ranked in a lot of a lot of websites. I saw it as a number two haunted house in the United States at one points and coast

to coast something like that. And so they use live actors and things and and and spooky settings. But they also use a lot of really advanced technology like audio animatronics, where they have these huge audio animatronic figures that have a wide range of motions, um, that are pretty convincing, especially when you're in a dark, dark room. You know, you don't have a lot of you know, the luxury of light to show you that you're just looking at a big rubber monster that just can you know, move

its head back and forth and swing its arms or whatever. Um. But that's pretty scary stuff all on its own. UM. They also use things like pressure mats and UH and sensors so that these these animal truning figures trigger when you reach certain points of the house. So it kind of personalizes your your experience and it's you know, it's not just like running on a on a loop, which is far less convincing. UM. And of course they're always gore special effects as well. Which you know I love

and Chris hates. So uh and what's that hoverboard? And not no unsfortunately, not a hover with it. Just the sort of the scary in the sense of things we like to do to to thrill ourselves and kind of get that feeling of being in danger when in reality you know you're pretty safe. Um. Mega roller coasters. If if you know me, you know that I am a roller coaster fanatic. I love roller coasters, and so I wanted to kind of give a shout out to my

favorite roller coaster that I've ever written. Now, granted I've not written all of them, so don't write to me and tell me that, hey, what about such and such, because IBLY haven't been on that one. My favorite Millennium Force, which is at Cedar Point roller Coaster Capital, United States of America, and Millennium Force is three ft tall and when you're on it, you reach us top speed of

around ninety three miles per hour. Yeah, when you're in a little exposed roller coaster train, that's really freaking fast. Um awesome roller coaster. Two thumbs up. I wrote it maybe five times in one day. It was fantastic. I can't wait to go again. So those are those are my two starting off, just to get the fun stuff kind of ease us in before we get into the really scary tech. You got some for me, Well, I have a couple. Okay, Yeah, that's pretty scary. It's definitely

scary to Microsoft. That's true. Um, you know, just when we were talking about scary technology, I was thinking about all these kinds of things that uh yeah, maybe you wouldn't necessarily think of as scary. Yeah, by things that you know, sort of our I mean this the depending on whom you ask this day was let out the door a little early, as everyone will tell you this

to came out a little too early. My Microsoft PR people will tell you all right, but yeah, it's it's it's had some problems, it's caused some computer malfunctioning, and it got a lot of bad press early on, which still haunts it to this day. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. So yeah, you've got thank you. So you've got Vista where most people say now that the big problems that we're really plaguing this to early on or I've been taken care of. They've been addressed and and it's a

much better operating system now. But they it's still has that stigma that was attached to it back when it had all these problems, and so it's just not You still have people going in buying a new computer and saying, can I get Windows XP on this instead? Yeah, that's a big problem even since it's been discontinued, which is kind of why it's scary to Microsoft's also probably why Microsoft are you talking about Windows seven? There? You know

they're skipping right over it. That's that's all right, I got another one ready. Okay. So there's this exoskeleton, this robotic exo skeleton produced in Japan, which allows the wearer to carry ten times their normal carrying capacity. Um. So that alone is kind of scary because it makes someone ten times as strong as they were before and they can crush you like a grape, right. But what really makes it scary is it's called how h and it's

made by a company called Cyberdyne. So, for those of you who aren't familiar, how of course, is the name of the computer gone Haywire in Arthur C. Clark's two thousand one, and Cyberdyne is the name of the corporation that produced the Terminator robot and the Terminator movies. So clearly what how will eventually do is become self aware and start killing women named Sarah Connor. Yeah, so look

forward to that in the near future. They're actually already being offered for rent for a thousand dollars a month. So yeah, if you've got if you've got a grand and you need a months more of those stuff moved from one side the room to the other, you can totally look into that. That sounds like fun. All right, I got I've got one lithium iron batteries. Oh nice, I like, I like where you're going with these? Really outside of the box. Uh yeah, because I was thinking

these are fine. These are the batteries that we use to power our laptops and our iPods, I mean our generic Inn P three players and are power tools. They're they're great, they were chargeable, they're they're white compared to some of the others, you know, like lead acid, which

is heavy, like you know, lead um. They also have something called thermal runaway, which is when the chemical react and in the battery gets a little out of hand and it gets even more out of hand and it starts to heat up and you know, makes everything catch on fire, Yeah, which is kind of scary. I've had a battery overheating problem before. It is pretty scary. Yeah, I mean it's it's actually it's we're sort of semi joking about it, but it can actually cause a problem.

They've had laptops overheat on planes. I mean that's a that's a serious issue, you know, and in the middle of conferences. Definitely scary. I mean if you don't have anything to you know, it's an electronic device, I mean what you do, put it out, it's it's you know, not super scary, but it's not something that you want happening, especially in an environment like I don't know, like an oxygen Then yeah, okay, I got no one. Okay. Laser

eye surgery, Okay, so interest a full disclosure. Uh My wife got laser eye surgery performed upon her, and I watched the procedure and what makes it scary is the first thing they do, the doctors do and the laser eye surgery is they cut a app in your cornea and they lift the flap back and then they shoot a laser into your cornea to reshape it. And then once they're done, they put the flap back in place where it will hopefully he'll without problems and then you

have corrected vision. My wife, for example, I think she has twenty fifteen vision now, so it's actually better than But watching this happen really creepy. For one. Thing that use a device to keep your eye open that looks hauntingly familiar if you've seen the movie Clockwork Orange. Um so, yeah, definitely scary. Worth it, totally. My wife would tell you right now, totally worth it. And she she's the one

who can't handle needles or anything like that. Um but I'm still wearing glasses and she cut the laser eye surgery. So there you go. You stopped talking. Can I unplug my ears now? You can? You can? You can listen again,

it's safe. Um So Another one r I F I D radio frequency identification chips very useful, don't know, you know, you got a card in your wallet and you can, you know, go up and buy a taco a taco bell and just scan your card over the reader and you don't have to sign anything or you know, it's just done with a little chip. Or you've got a security badge and you use it to push put up against a reader. That unlocks the door and lets you

into a building. There's a video of a guy on Boing Boing of somebody implanting an r f I D chip inside himself. Wow, these are the chips that you also could use for your dog or cat, you know. Um, And people say, well, you could you know, embed your credit card number inside your hand and then you have to do a scan in your hand. You don't have to carry your wallet with you. On the other hand, some people say that this is the number of the beasts that you have to do to use to do business,

as mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Uh so, I just think of the pretty the number of dismemberments go up as people try to steal your card by plopping your hand off. Actually, yeah, I think that that's probably uh, that's that's a realistic you know, we're regardless of it. You feel about the biblical part of it that you know, that's the reasonable thing. And but my thing is what

happens if your card expires? Yeah, and even beyond that, there are devices out there that can read an r f I D chip and spoof it, which means that it can replicate the signal so that someone who has one of these devices. If they get close enough and they can detect your r F I D chip, they can replicate it and then either use it to purchase things or access buildings. You know. It's r F idea is definitely not a perfect technology by any stretch of

the imagination. That actually really is scary. Yeah, that that's an everyday scary thing because somebody could have one of the readers in their pocket and all they have to do is walk by you. They don't have to touch you, they don't have to let on. All they have to do is walk through a crowd and pick up everybody's credit card number and go shopping. So yeah, I got another one, then yeah, okay, okay. Raytheon's Silent Guardian also known as the pain ray. Now, Raytheon is the people

who invented the company that invented the microwaves. This is probably not far from that. It's kind of a milli millimeter wave. It's it's uses larger waves than microwaves. But the idea is that um, it shoots this ray that does not cause direct harm, but it stimulates the nerve endings in humans, which results in a feeling of intense pain.

People have described it as a really strong burning sensation, um like scalding water, and that uh, they can direct this from the it's actually the ray that I saw. It's not like a ray, like a ray gun. It's this enormous machine that has a sort of a satellite dish kind of device on the top of it that they the operator can use to aim at an individual. And it's an idea. It's a less than lethal weapon. That's the category falls under, so it could be used

to do things like break up a riot. You just scan it over the crowd and then from what I understand, enduring more than a second or two is unthinkable. It's just that painful, yuch, pretty scary. The storm worm, oh good one, which is a particularly uh persistent and difficult piece of malware that is going around the Internet, and it's uh usually going transfers by an email A lot

of times. It has a newsy headline that makes people want to click on it and download it to their computer thinking that it's some kind of news related thing. Actually it got its name from the first email where people really caught on was it was about a storm, about a severe storm, and people want what's going on? And they clicked on the link infected their computers. But the thing is it's being controlled. It turns computers into parts of a bot net, which exactly, and they people

can control it. They can manipulate it to attack of our computers and other networks. Um. So that's kind of scary because it could, you know, bring about cyber war. Okay, yes, large hadron collider right now, not right now, no, right now it's offline, but the wind in the spring, it will be back online. And there are some people who

are really really scared of this machine. Now, this is a super collider that's going to fire protons that near the speed of light toward one another, smash them together and then see what happens. It's a pure science application. It's designed to let us kind of get a better understanding of our universe and possibly how it even started. Um. But some people worry that it may cause things like a black hole to appear and then it would come sing us all, or that it would create this stuff

called strangelets. So purely hypothetical, uh substance. At this point, no one's ever actually seen this stuff, but hypothetically, what this stuff would do is convert everything else that came into contact with into inert matter, so the Earth would just become a dead husk. Now, scientists will be quick to tell you. Scientists at the LHC will tell you very quickly that the likelihood of any of this happening is so close to zero that you could almost say

it's impossible. But because they're scientists, they don't say it's impossible, because that's not really what science does. They just say that it's incredibly unlikely, to the point where you shouldn't even really worry about it. But that hasn't stopped people from doing just that. You know, I shouldn't go back to this, but I'd like to point out that Microsoft pr people say Vista isn't scary. I trust the people

at the LHC. Well, maybe a little bit more. Okay, this is gonna be at a left field, all right. Blackberries Okay, Okay, people don't drive in BlackBerry or walk in BlackBerry because someone will run over you because they're on their BlackBerry. Yeah, California just outlawed texting and driving. Yeah, and it's not a scary tech, but it's scary people behavior. Okay, Well,

like cell phones. Cell phones, Yeah, we can actually go onto that too, because there's people who are worried that cell phones emit enough radiation to cause you to go sterile or get cancer. We should be quick to point out here that cell phones emit radio frequency radiation. Uh. The word radiation is kind of scary because we all associate it with things like plutonium that would cause you to get cancer and die a horrible death, or gamma rays which turn you green and make you very large

and start to smash things. But radiation doesn't necessarily mean nuclear radiation. It means that you're you're irradiating some form of energy like heat is radiation, that's infrared radiation. It's and granted, heat can be deadly if if it's intense enough, but it's not on its own gonna cause you to you know, just keel over. So uh, there's this great video on YouTube where it shows, uh, this group of people who put us I think it's like three or four cell phones in a circle and put popcorn in

the middle and the cellphones all start ringing it. Once you see the popcorns start to dance around, then it pops um. Totally fake. People not real that there was a heating element under the table. It was all kind of a little pr stunt. Uh. So, don't sit there and think that you know, if you hold your your your cell phone up to your horrible red bucker, that you're gonna have a nice tasty treat in a second, because it's not gonna happen. That just sounds wrong. Yeah,

I thought I'd go with the reference androids. Androids are scary, sort of, It depends on how real they are. If you're talking like Honda z Asimo, he's not particularly scary. When you say real, you mean how closely they resemble humans exactly. This is what what a Japanese scientist named most A hero Mori suggested in the article in a journal called Energy that he called it the Uncanny Valley.

And this is actually true for as Jonathan was pointing out, as I ran a suggestion by m yesterday, Uh true of realistic characters in computer games or movies express jumps to mind. Yes, yes, but well you know some people think Tom Hanks is scary anyway. Um, but but Morey said that the closer something resembles a human and you know that it's not really a human, the creepier it gets. Yeah, totally scary, but it's just like a you know, something's

just off. So yeah, there there are some androids that that you know, are so realistic and they have all the the servos and the things in their bodies that make them move, and they make them even more likely to have facial expressions hums, going at. Yeah, the Japanese ones in particular, but they really unsettling. But they're extremely sophistically they are and creepy. Right, you know what, I'm

getting creeped out. I think we're gonna need to wrap this up right now, all right, because I'm getting really creeped out. Yeah, let's uh, let's in this for today. But well we'll take a little break and when we come back, I'll tell you about something else that's equally creepy,

but in a non technology see at. This podcast is brought to you by Go to Meeting, the web based tool that lets you hold instant online meetings from the office, conference room, or home office with people anywhere in the world so you can do more and travel less, which means you can save money and make more money. Try go to Meeting free, does it go to meeting, dot com, slash tech stuff, So do you know what article I'm talking about here, Chris, I have an idea. Yeah, you

want to check in with it? Here, I'll give you to give me a little hint. It's the top five hotels that will scare the daylights out of you, so you can check in. Joe, makes sense, right, right? I thought you were talking about a roach motel. No, that does not make but they don't check out. Yeah, this is creepy. That definitely is creepy. Okay. This list was written by our friend and colleague, Charles Chuck Bryant, and

it's a fabulous It's really amazing. If you, if you were not creaked out by the tech stuff, read that article that will really creep you out. It's live right now on how stuff works dot com and we'll trick or treat with you again really soon. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you