A New York University professor has an eye in the back of his head after undergoing a surgical procedure to install a camera in his skull, part of an art exhibition commissioned by a new museum in Qatar.
“I am going about my daily life as I did before the procedure, but I ask for a period of rest before I am going to give any interviews,” Professor Wafaa Bilal said in a statement issued Tuesday through a spokeswoman, Mahdis Keshavarz.
The surgery was performed in the U.S., according to Keshavarz. She declined to specify the hospital or doctor, saying Bilal preferred not to disclose that information until after he has healed. She also declined to specify the precise date of Bilal’s surgery, though as recently as Friday evening she said the procedure had not yet been performed.
The thumbnail-size camera implanted in his head will automatically snap one photograph per minute for an entire year, as The Wall Street Journal reported last week. Bilal, an assistant professor in the photography and imaging department of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, intends to activate the camera on Dec. 15.
The project, titled “The 3rd I,” was commissioned by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Bilal plans to broadcast a live stream of images from the camera to monitors at the exhibit in Qatar, scheduled to open Dec. 30.
Last week Bilal launched a website connected to the project. Whether a live feed of pictures from his head-camera will also appear on his website remains unclear. (more)
A number of suspicious women in the Gulf state of Qatar are spying on their husbands by using readily available hi-tech devices.
The women are trapping their husbands by handing spy devices, like miniature cameras fitted in pens and cigarette lighters, as gifts, The Peninsula newspaper reported.
Some wives who are not able to make their husbands accept such gifts slyly place the devices in their cars, the report said.
The paper said that it interviewed “a number of women who said their friends or colleagues admitted to spying or having spied on their husbands as they suspected they were cheating on them.” (more) (eBay Spy Central) (sing-a-long)
The conversations of Bulgarian army generals and top officers have been secretly wiretapped.
The scandal broke out after
a spy cam hidden in a watch was found in one of the rooms of Sofia Shipka hotel, owned by the Ministry of Defense. The military prosecution has already been alerted about the attempted espionage and its experts are now working to find out if secret records had been made and who might have used them.
The computer surveillance system installed in room 222 of the Shipka hotel has been receiving information from 69 spy cameras installed in different recreation centers of the Bulgarian army across the country, while most of the military clubs in Bulgaria have been wiretapped under the pretext of higher security.
“I admit ordering the watch with the spy cam in it, but the gadget has never been used,” said Nikolay Markov, former security officer at the Recreation Centers Department with the Ministry of Defense. (more)
A former director of Colombia’s central intelligence agency, under investigation in an eavesdropping and illegal surveillance scandal has been granted political asylum in Panama.
Maria del Pilar Hurtado a lawyer headed the Department of Administrative Security (DAS) in Colombia, from August 2007 2008. She is one of four former directors of the agency in charge of the Colombian intelligence services, being investigated for their roles in a scheme of eavesdropping and illegal surveillance of judges, opposition politicians, journalists and human rights workers. (more)
Ever wonder what a real spy does? Do they really drive a car like James Bond, have really cool gadgets, and make narrow escapes around every corner? Now’s your chance to find out!
The International Spy Museum announces a new student podcast in which student’s questions from across the nation will be accepted and possibly selected for this exclusive podcast interview with a real spy. (more)
