CNN news 2010-12-17 加文本

cnn news 2010-12-17

Dodging fate and a date with the slaughterhouse. From San Antonio, a reluctant bull tops our look "Across Country" this morning.

Check out the showdown. Late last week near a local meat packing company, which is probably the big reason why the bull would not go quietly. It took them more than an hour to corral the big fella.

To West Lafayette, Indiana now, lots of people could use this today. A robotic snow blower. Snow-bot is the brain child of a few Purdue University students. Prototype cost about $6,000 to build and still has a few kinks to work out like snow-clogged wheels.

Last stop, Simi Valley, California, where a new stamp of the nation's 40th president was unveiled by the U.S. Postal Service yesterday appropriately enough at the Reagan, Ronald Reagan Library with his widow former First Lady Nancy attending. The stamp goes on sale in February.

Well. Now to the end of privacy. Our series about all the ways that personal details turn up in the public domain. Today's topic, cameras. You're under watch more often than you know but you probably didn't know that.

cnn's Josh Levs shows us the way to shut down those prying eyes. I thought there wasn't a way to do that, Josh.

Well, I'm going to surprise you. Look. We all hear stories about hidden cameras that can be disguised as all sorts of things, but what few people realize is that you can actually hold a device in your hand that will show you if there is one of them near you. I visited a spy shop. Check it out.

They look like everyday objects. A lamp, a clock radio, an iPod docking station. But when you look closer, they have hidden cameras inside. Tiny, unnoticeable.

The camera lens is right here, and it's usually pointing up.

And I have no idea that there's a camera there. There's nothing about this that suggests anything is videoing me.

They can provide an extra layer of security.

The ones that tell me what they're doing with their cameras are going to be the people wanting to either keep an eye on their sitter, their nanny.

And we've all seen how hidden cameras can help the good guys in movies like "Mission Impossible."

There's a camera built right into the bridge. Whatever you see, it sees, and then it transmits it back here.

But some end up with there shouldn't be.

I recently heard one, that the guy had a pin camera that he got that's, I guess it was motion-activated, and he set it up in a gym bag and took it in, I think maybe the YMCA or something.

They're relatively affordable. These cost a few hundred bucks, and technology is making smaller and more sophisticated ones all the time. Some even broadcast their video wirelessly over the internet.

So, how can you tell if there's a hidden camera where you are? Technology can help with that, too.

This is actually a low-cost camera finder.

Private investigator Brian Curry runs a spy shop near Atlanta. He sells the cameras, but he also helps people watch out for them.

I’m seeing a big, bright red blinking dot right there. And it's telling me there's a camera on me.

Some more sophisticated detectors can even seek out wireless camera signals.

You can see it's actually scanning the frequencies in the …

So, what we're seeing here, it's picking up all these, lots of different cameras in here?

Well, yes, pulling up, that's gonna be the flower pot camera that we had on.

It's technology versus technology, potentially giving people the tools to invade your privacy, but also giving you a chance to catch them.

It is pretty amazing. You hold one of those things in your hand. There's different ways it can work. It can beep if there's a camera near you, it can vibrate if there's a camera near you, and then you can just look through it and see. And also, the more sophisticated ones can actually show you a screen of exactly what those hidden cameras are picking up.

I've got a lot more information for you about them posted at my pages at Facebook and Twitter, and we're having a conversation about it - I'm @JoshLevscnn - about your concerns about the End of Privacy, what you want to know.

So Kyra, I'll tell you, while technology is taking away privacy in far too many ways, it is also giving people ways to empower themselves and try to get some of that privacy back.

Got it. All right. Josh, thanks so much.

You got it.

Well, there are people who influence your life every day, family, your friends, maybe that chatty co-worker. But some people have an affect globally. "Time" Magazine names these global influencers as Person of the Year. You may remember Ghandi in 1930. Martin Luther King in 1963. Queen Elizabeth II, 1952. But not all Persons of the Year were heroes. Joseph Stalin was on "Time's" cover in 1942. And in 1938, Person of the Year was Adolph Hitler.

Now, tomorrow, "Time" picks someone for 2010, but their readers have already spoken. They are just polled prior to the picture and name that we'll see on "Time's" cover as Person of the Year. So, what does the online poll say? The readers' pick is Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks provocateur, who this morning, is appearing in a British courtroom after being charged with rape. So, who do you think "Time" should pick as person of the year? Head to our blog, cnn.com/kyra, and tell us what you think.