What Is a Covert Earpiece?

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A covert earpiece is a miniature earpiece worn by an individual while being effectively hidden from plain view. It operates as a radio accessory in times when a user does not want other people to know she or he is communicating with others using radio earbuds. Also known as an invisible earpiece or a surveillance earpiece, a covert earpiece is often worn by government agents, corporate security personnel, undercover law enforcement officers and corporate as well as government spies.

covert earpiece

While many occupations require the use of a radio headset for communication, a covert earpiece is primarily used in instances where communication is of an extremely private and sensitive nature. This is common in cases of private security details and surveillance projects. Sometimes people also use a covert earpiece to defraud businesses and others. Examples of such instances would include someone using an invisible earpiece to cheat on an exam or to defraud a casino by receiving remote information while playing a game.

On-air television personalities may also use a covert earpiece, which is not distracting to viewers, but allows the person to hear relevant feedback from producers and engineers in order to make sure a taping or live appearance flows smoothly. Individuals may also wear a covert earpiece when making a public speech. By doing so, the speaker can receive important cues or changes in a speech without the audience even being aware that communication is taking place between someone located behind the scenes and the individual delivering the speech.

Some covert earpieces are accompanied by a discreet microphone, which enables two-way communication. These are commonly used by security forces with a need for such communication, particularly during surveillance operations. These types of accessories are not only convenient because they feature hands-free operation, but also because they allow undercover security forces to blend in with crowds without having to use a visible walkie-talkie system of communication.

A covert earpiece does not contain any visible wires and is designed to fit inside the ear without being noticeable to the general public. Some devices are even designed to fit on a pair of eyeglasses while amplifying sound inside a person’s ear. An inductive wire is sometimes worn around the person’s neck, but is covered by clothing so as not to be discovered by onlookers. This wire is not connected to the covert earpiece, but connects to a separate radio device that helps modulate sound.

Children’s Letters To Santa Have Their Own Sorting Office

With December in full swing and ‘the big day’ now less than a week away, you’ll be heartened to know that a) today’s tech-savvy, smartphone wielding children still write letters to Father Christmas in the traditional manner b) that real people actually read them and c) that the children can expect a genuine reply to their letters.



The sorting office, which deals exclusively with children’s letters to Santa, is located in Belfast and is listed on the official Royal Mail address finder as being staffed by 10,000 elves, 1,000 reindeer and about 100 snowmen. The areas industry is listed as including “sleigh pulling, toy making and list checking (twice)”.

According to The Telegraph’s Sarah Rainey, around 250,000 letters, addressed to ‘reindeerland’, pass through this highly specialised sorting office every year. Morag Turnbull, who works as the Operations Manager at the Royal Mail in Edinburgh, told The Telegraph that, “The effort the children go to in writing them is wonderful (...) They cut out pictures of toys, draw pictures for Santa, attach stickers, feathers and all sorts of inventive touches. We start getting them as early as August, and we reply to as many as we can before Christmas â€" but it’s a mad, mad job.”

The letters usually have to be examined by hand, as the Royal Mail sorting machines struggle with kid handwriting, coloured craft paper and glitter. In addition, occasional parcels of food (for Santa and Rudolph, you understand), can (and frequently do), crash the system.

Perhaps the nicest part of this particular story, however, is just what the kids are asking for. In addition to predicable demands for iPads, new bikes and Disney memorabilia, many British children are apparently very selfless in nature.

A small boy named Noah, for example, sent Santa a drawing for his troubles, before asking for new work shoes for his mother and some Lego for his brother, his own request (a DVD player) was listed last of all. Many kids also ask for presents for their pets or their teddy bears and even more request something nice for their brothers and sisters as well as themselves.

A particularly moving letter came from a girl named Casey, who asked Santa Claus to name a star in honour of her granddad, who apparently died in January this year. “Can you give him a big hug and a kiss from me?” She wrote, “I don’t get to see him anymore, but this way I will be able to see him in the sky every night.”

So, the next time you find yourself suffering a bout of the ‘holiday blues’, fretting over January’s credit card bill or getting exasperated by just how busy December can be, take a deep breath and think about that little sorting office in Belfast, a place where the magic of Christmas is still very much in evidence. Think on that and smile.

Thank you for reading, have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

British Actor ‘Outed’ by Guardian Blunder

Guardian columnist Jane Czyzselska, writing for the newspaper's companion website, mistakenly 'outed' Shakespearean actor and 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' star Patrick Stewart as being gay.



In a column celebrating 'Inception' actress Ellen Page actually coming out as gay, Czyzselska wrote "some gay people, such as Sir Patrick Stewart, think Page's coming out speech is newsworthy because a high-profile and surprisingly politically aware young actress has decided not to play by the rules that so many closeted Hollywood actors are advised to follow if they are to enjoy mainstream success,"

It just so happens that the 73-year-old Shakespearean actor, best known for his roles as Professor Charles Xavier in the 'X-Men' movies and as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the TV series 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' and its companion films - isn't gay.



In fact, Stewart has been married - to Women - three times, most recently in September of last year, when he married American jazz singer Sunny Ozell. He also has two children from a previous marriage.

The Guardian rushed to correct its mistake, adding an addendum at the bottom of the page, but Stewart didn't seem to mind a bit.

"It makes a nice change" tweeted Stewart in response to the 'outing'. "At least I didn't wake up to the Internet telling me I was dead again". At the time of writing, that post has been 'retweeted' 1,181 times.

For those who don't know, Sir Patrick Stewart is a huge supporter of LGBT rights. He vocally supports gay marriage and was even given the 2013 'Straight Ally of The Year Award' from PFLAG.

Fellow 'Star Trek' star William Shatner joined in the fun, Tweeting, "I never get that kind of coverage! I'm jealous!"

The confusion may have arisen because Sir Patrick's best friend is openly gay actor Sir Ian McKellen. If that was the case, Stewart tweeted this response: "I have, like, five or even SEVEN hetero friends and we totally drink beer and eat lots of chicken wings!" Is it just me, or is it impossible to read the above quote without hearing Captain Picard's voice in your head?

On a more serious note, Stewart has often spoken about civil rights, he once said, "From my earliest years as an actor I have always been proud of the support the creative community gives to all forms of human and civil rights,"

In fact, Patrick Stewart is no stranger to fighting the good fight, the actor has been a vocal opponent of domestic violence (working with Amnesty International) and he is also a patron for Refuge, a UK-based charity for abused Women.

... And no, he isn't dead.

Want to get the original article have a lookhere

Could we now have found possibilities of life from another planet?

A team of British scientists believe that they have discovered organisms in earth’s environment that originate from space.

As hard as that could be to believe, Professor Milton Wainwright, the team’s leader, insists that this is definitely the situation.

The team, out of the University of Sheffield, exposed the little organisms (misleadingly known as ‘bugs’ by a great deal of demanding journalists) living on a probe balloon that was sent 16.7 miles into our environment through last month’s Perseids meteor shower.

According to Professor Wainwright, the minuscule creatures couldn’t have been passed into the stratosphere on the balloon. He said, "Most people will imagine that these biological particles must have just drifted up to the stratosphere from Earth, but it’s generally accepted a particle of the volume found can't be lifted from Earth to heights of, for instance, 27km. Really the only well-known exception is by a violent volcanic explosion, none of those occurred within three years of their sampling trip."

Wainwright maintains that the only most important end is these organisms originated from space. He went on to mention that “life isn’t restricted to the planet also it nearly certainly didn’t originate here”

However, not everyone seems to be so convinced. Dr. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) project said, “I’m very skeptical. This claim has been made beforehand, and dismissed as terrestrial contamination." The team responds to this by saying they were thorough when they prepared the balloon before the experiments began.

Yet, they do acknowledge that there might be an unknown reason for those organisms to reach such altitudes. It should also be renowned that microbal organisms discovered within the 1980’s and 1990’s and called ‘extremophiles’ stunned the scientific community by living in environments that will instantly kill the majority of life on earth.

These creatures have always been observed living deep under Glacial ice and even 1900 feet below the ocean floor. In March of that year, Ronnie Glud, a biogeochemist at the Southern Danish Uni in Odense, Denmark was quoted as saying "Inside the most secluded, inhospitable places, you are able to actually have higher activity than their surroundings," which "Yow will discover microbes all over the place - they're enormously adaptable to surroundings, and stay alive wherever they are," so it seems more plausible that either the team is in error, or that this is just another case of microscopic life showing up in an unusual place.

In addition, it is not the 1st time this unique team has come under fire for stating such statements, either. Back in January of this year, astrobiologist Dr. Chandra Wickramasinghe reported that ‘fossils’ found inside a Sri Lankan meteorite were testimony of extraterrestrial life, an assertion that is widely criticized by scientific community.

Other scientists have complained that there frankly isn’t enough proof to make this type of claim, as a theory this vital would require a sizable body of proof to prove its authority.

What that claims to the reporter is that microbes can exist basically anyplace which it simply is not good science to leap to wild conclusions like aliens each time a more plausible explanation is most probably present. Science should not be subject to such wild leaps of fancy. Imagination is a good aid to science, however it isn't a science in and of by itself. Sadly, Dr. Wainwright and his group appear to be seeing what they need to observe.

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What is Formal Communication?

Formal communication is to the use of language what formal wear is to casual clothing (and no, we don’t mean that it’s uncomfortable, ill-fitting and only comes out for weddings, workdays and funerals!).

Essentially, formal communication is a type of communication that uses correct language, avoids slang entirely and keeps personal information to a minimum. If you write an email to your boss (known as ‘upward communication’ in the working world – how delightfully condescending of them!), then it is likely that you will be using formal communication.

Likewise, if you were to write a letter of complaint regarding, say, an inconsiderate neighbour or an unsatisfactory product, you would once again be using formal communication. If a lawyer writes to you, his/her letter will almost certainly be written formally.

Casual swearing (or any kind of swearing for that matter!), colloquialisms, personal anecdotes/questions and bad spoken habits (such as using the word ‘like’ as a form of punctuation, or ‘umming and ahhing’ too often) have no place in formal communication.

People communicating formally (as opposed to formicating communally, you understand), will also tend to use longer, perhaps more academic words and terms appropriate to the theatre of communication. If you work in marketing, for example, formal communication would see you using marketing-specific terminology at a far greater rate than you ever would in social situations.

The opposite of formal communication is ‘informal communication’. Informal communication would include the way you address friends and family, using first names instead of surnames and using a lot more slang words and opinionated speech.

When communicating formally, it is usually best to keep personal opinions to a minimum and, where possible, to discuss things from a third person perspective. Thus,

“I’ve been looking at these figures all night. So much so that I think I’ve gone cross-eyed! Anyway, I think its safe to say that the product isn’t selling”

Becomes,

“After careful evaluation of the figures, it is reasonable to assume that the product isn’t selling”

No personal involvement. No anecdote. Statistical data takes a greater role than personal opinion. See?

Of course, using informal communication in certain formal situations can be beneficial. Today, many corporations are employing informal language in order to better relate to customers and staff and corporate CEOs and motivational speakers tend to use informal communication as a way of maintaining a ‘man/woman of the people’ image. 

How Does My Radio Work?

The theory behind radio technology is actually disarmingly simple.

To better demonstrate this point, here is a little experiment that practically anyone can do; first, take a fresh 9-volt battery and a small coin. Then, tune an AM radio to static (i.e. where there are no pre-existing signals coming through). If you place the battery relatively close to the antenna and tap the coin against the battery terminals, you will hear this signal relayed over the radio (it will break the static, effectively broadcasting the signal). You couldn't use this method for much more than Morse code (and probably only over a distance of a couple of centimeters), but still, it is a pretty impressive little experiment, is it not?

At its core, radio isn’t much more complex than that. But how does it actually work?

Well, basically, it all has to do with these things called ‘sine waves’. A sine wave is a radio wave that has been encoded in a specific way (this prevents it from getting confused with any other radio wave). Each sine wave operates along a different frequency, so there is no interaction between signals. Without sine waves (or any similar technology), it would be next-to impossible for us to use cell phones, AM/FM radios, walkie-talkies, TV, GPS and much more, because all the signals would interact with one another, all at the same time.

A radio, of any kind, needs a receiver. In the case of our battery experiment, for example, there is both a transmitter and a receiver. The battery/coin setup is the transmitter and the AM radio is the receiver. Radio devices that can both send and receive signals are called ‘transceivers’.

Again, this setup is actually quite simple. The transmitter encodes information (such as a TV broadcast, or a person’s voice) into a sine wave and then transmits it, via the electrons in its antenna. The receiver then captures the signal in the intended antenna (it has electrons that are coded to the same frequency as the transmitter) and then decodes it, using the radio’s internal system, so that the original information is readily available to the user.

The science behind the decoding process is a little more complex, but it isn’t really too difficult to grasp. We’ve run quite a few answers on the ‘ins and outs’ of that stuff lately, so check those out if you wish to know more. Thanks for your question. 

What are communication concepts?

Communication concepts, basically, refer to different types of communication, topics of communication and communication terms.

‘Ask Jeeves’ actually defines this term pretty well, so we’ll go with that.

“A type of communication could be interpersonal referring to a relationship between two. A topic of communication could be empathy and how well one can empathize. Terms include identity, and finding oneself”.

Thank you, Jeeves. That will be all.

Remember that scene in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life? The one where the middle age couple order a philosophical conversation from a restaurant? Well, that scene pretty much sums up the topic part. A topic of communication, quite simply, is what you talk about; it is the subject being discussed.

A type of communication could be, for example, professional communication. In this type of communication, personal information is kept to a minimum and topics are more likely to include work-related themes. A conversation on the same work-related themes that takes place with your Wife or Husband, however, will include a lot more personal data, such as opinions and information that may be unprofessional to reveal in the workplace.

For example, a conversation with your manager about a project might go something like this, “I’m concerned that this deadline is going to be difficult to meet. It might be prudent to discuss effective time management strategies with the staff in order to ensure success”

However, that same conversation, when conducted with your partner, might be closer to this, “I have no idea how I’m going to get all this stuff finished on time. I’m so tired and the staff just aren’t putting in the effort. It takes them ages to do anything”

See the difference?

Communication terms are those terms that are used in the discussion. “Effective time management strategies” for example, is a term used in our above conversation regarding oncoming deadlines. It is a term not generally used in day-to-day discussion with loved ones and friends, but is frequently used in workplace communications. As a result, it is specified as a professional terminology and used in the professional communication example, but not in the romantic communication example.

Communication is a vast and varied field of study; areas as diverse as psychology, marketing and business management devote considerable time to the study of effective communication.

The phrase ‘communication concepts’ refers to just one part of an enormous (and potentially all-encompassing) subject.