“I ACTUALLY think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions,” said the search giant’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, in a recent and controversial interview. “They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.”
“G” as in God? Whether you found it online yesterday (31-Aug-2010) or in today’s dead tree edition (or just hearing about it now), cyberpunk’s godfather William Gibson gives his op-ed about Google’s want of playing god in telling us what to do.
OK, it’s not because of Google’s want of telling us what to do, but the apparent need of anyone who uses the big “G” to decide what they want to do. Those who use G’s services actually contribute to the search giant’s ability to make decisions for us. Gibson likens G to a genie that can grant our wishes:
We would all very much like to be sagely and reliably advised by our own private genie; we would like the genie to make the world more transparent, more easily navigable. Google does that for us: it makes everything in the world accessible to everyone, and everyone accessible to the world.
Of course, the “everyone accessible to the world” part is what some balk at as we find our personal information being more and more exposed online.
The inmates run the prison. The idea of Google being a sort of panopticon prison, with G as the proverbial omnipotent warden and us as the inmates, but Gibson argues that is only half-true:
In Google, we are at once the surveilled and the individual retinal cells of the surveillant, however many millions of us, constantly if unconsciously participatory. We are part of a post-geographical, post-national super-state, one that handily says no to China. Or yes, depending on profit considerations and strategy. But we do not participate in Google on that level. We’re citizens, but without rights.
As said before, it’s the people who use Google’s services who actually contribute to the building of the panopticon, and the real problem comes in when those people (over)expose themselves on social network sites. Gibson sees possibilities in a fake identity industry for such carelessness since Google doesn’t seem interested in protecting users from their own stupidity.
Don’t blame the government. It would be easy to do so IF the advances in technology wasn’t so quick. But when the only law Google follows is Moore’s Law, technology will always stomp a mud hole in legislation’s face and walk it dry:
We also seldom imagined (in spite of ample evidence) that emergent technologies would leave legislation in the dust, yet they do. In a world characterized by technologically driven change, we necessarily legislate after the fact, perpetually scrambling to catch up, while the core architectures of the future, increasingly, are erected by entities like Google.
Then again, Google is “a very large and powerful corporation to boot.” Too big to fail, and far too big to give a fuck.
As the technology gets smaller, it will become harder to find a place to put the battery. America’s DARPA agency has an idea on how to power our implants…
Mad scientists strike again. DARPA, America’s DoD division of mad scientists responsible for the Internet, has been working on an important project for implantable electronic devices: How to power them when they are so small that the smallest batteries currently being manufactured are still too big to fit.
Smithsonian’s Michael Belfiore writes about a couple of DARPA ideas for the magazine’s August 2010 edition… possibly as a not-so-subtle advert for his book about the agency.
(In my best He-Man voice) I HAVE THE POWEEEEERRRRRR! Literally. DARPA plans to power implants involves “scavenging” (that’s the term they’re using) the human body to generate the power needed for implants. To make that power, DARPA plans to use human movement (”vibrations”) and body heat:
(Smithsonian) - Obviously, our bodies generate heat—thermal energy. They also produce vibrations when we move—kinetic energy. Both forms of energy can be converted into electricity. Anantha Chandrakasan, an MIT electrical engineering professor, who is working on the problem with a former student named Yogesh Ramadass, says the challenge is to harvest adequate amounts of power from the body and then efficiently direct it to the device that needs it.
In the case of harnessing vibrations, Chandrakasan and his colleagues use piezoelectric materials, which produce an electric current when subjected to mechanical pressure. For energy scavenging, ordinary vibrations caused by walking or even just nodding your head might stimulate a piezo material to generate electricity, which is then converted into the direct current (DC) used by electronics, stored in solid-state capacitors and discharged when needed. This entire apparatus fits on a chip no larger than a few square millimeters. Small embedded devices could be directly built onto the chip, or the chip could transmit energy wirelessly to nearby devices. The chip could also use thermoelectric materials, which produce an electric current when exposed to two different temperatures—such as body heat and the (usually) cooler air around us.
I remember reports of flexible solar electricity-generating plastic sheets from a year or two ago that this project can use. The plastic can be made transparent so it can be used in eye implants and contact lenses. Another possible human power source, written about by Boing Boing’s David Pescovitz in 2002, gets its power from glucose in the human bloodstream:
(University of California, Berkeley Lab Notes) - The prototype microbial fuel cell contains a tiny chamber where the microbe resides. Glucose flows into the chamber, causing hydrogen protons and electrons to be generated during the fermentation process. In a June paper, Lin and graduate students Mu Chiao, Kien B. Lam, and Yu-Chuan Su reported that their tiny powerhouse cranked out 300 microvolts for two hours until the solution dried out in the open air. That kind of power is plenty for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), tiny machines fabricated similarly to the way integrated circuits are manufactured.
Sort of want. If you’re the kind of person who wants implants, you will need to have a way to power them. Which method of human-power harvesting will work best or win out is yet to be determined. Then again, there will be those who would rather not get into the implanting scene, though I can’t understand why…
“What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this. “
Like a double-barrel shotgun-o-flechettes to the face, news about two different types of implants is going to have some borg-wannabes salivating in anticipation. Stay cool, mensch-machines, these implant aren’t on the market… yet. But with news like this, it can give those who want… and need… them much hope.
Progress report on the artificial pancreas shows… IT WORKS.
(JDRF website) Today (27-Jun-2010), during the joint American Diabetes Association-JDRF symposium, Hovorka outlined results of his most recent study, which showed these benefits remain consistent even after adults with type 1 eat a large meal and drink a glass of white wine before bedtime. The study found that using the artificial pancreas system, these adults spent 70 percent of their time within their target blood glucose range, up from 47 percent of the time they spend within target overnight without use of the artificial pancreas system. As in the other studies, time spent in hypoglycemia tended to be reduced, even though alcohol is known to increase the risk of nocturnal/next morning hypoglycemia for people with type 1 diabetes.
Also revealed were the results of research of people who used continuous glucose monitoring, or CGM, a key component of the artificial pancreas. Those who actually used CGM and understood what its data meant had better results.
“There needs to be attention paid to the people using CGM,” she said. “We can’t just focus on the technology. In determining individualized patient care, it’s important to pay attention to who is most likely to succeed with this technology. It’s not for everybody.”
The JDRF has also set up a website, The JDRF Artificial Pancreas Project, so we can track the progress of its development. This may be a diabetic’s best chance for a cure… until they figure out a way to clone a new pancreas.
You won’t be able to see for miles and miles, but seniors losing their eyesight may still benefit from this telescope.
The FDA sees what they did. America’s Food and Drug Administration (the FDA) has approved a telescope implant device made by VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies Inc. The implant is being made for senior citizens suffering from severe loss of vision due to blind spots. This is good news for seniors, but the approval comes with some drawbacks (in other words, the implants are “release candidates”)…
VisionCare needs to keep tabs on those who have already been implanted while implanting and studying a larger group of people. The implants themselves aren’t perfect, requiring rehabilitation to use them properly since only one eye can be implanted. And the implants themselves may require a cornea transplant.
Then there’s the biggest drawback: A $15K US price tag…
Dr Mark Gasson explains to the BBC how he got infected.
Proof of concept. Yesterday, word was spreading around the nets about a man who infected himself with a computer virus. That man was Dr. Mark Gasson from the University of Reading (UK), who had an RFID chip in his hand. What he did with that RFID chip and virus should be cause for alarm…
(TechNews Daily) Gasson had a relatively simple chip implanted in the top of his left hand near his thumb last year. It emits a signal that is read by external sensors, allowing him access to the Reading laboratory and for his cell phone to operate.
He and his colleagues created a malicious code for the chip. When the lab’s sensors read the code, the code inserted itself into the building computer database that governs who has access to the premises.
“The virus replicates itself through the database and potentially could copy itself onto the access cards that people use,” Gasson said.
The experiment showed that implants which wirelessly communicate with other computers can infect them and vice versa.
Ammo for the anti-RFID crowd. As you might have figured, Dr. Gasson deliberately infected himself to prove a point :
(Physorg.com) “Our research shows that implantable technology has developed to the point where implants are capable of communicating, storing and manipulating data,” he said. “They are essentially mini computers. This means that, like mainstream computers, they can be infected by viruses and the technology will need to keep pace with this so that implants, including medical devices, can be safely used in the future.”
As you can imagine, there are some serious implications for such human-computer infections, and even possibilities of human to human transmissions via infected RFID chips. Anti-RFID groups can use this as a weapon against the RFIDs themselves. Instead of getting spam in your inbox, it will arrive directly to your cortex. How about a DDoS attack on your pacemaker? Even worse, a zombie apocalypse courtesy of Conficker using infected PEOPLE!
GO GO GADGET SURROGATE! For $15K US, you can be anywhere without actually being there.*
Where do you NOT want to go today? There are places we would rather be, and then there are places we wouldn’t be caught dead. Now you can go to those “forbidden” places without going. Last week, Silicon Valley company Anybots announced the fall release of the QB, a “telepresence” robot controlled via Wi-Fi through a web browser:
(From Anybot’s FAQ) QB has a speaker, microphone, camera, and video screen. It connects to the internet over Wi-Fi. You control it from your computer in a web browser, using a headset and screen. If you have a camera you can show live video of yourself, or you can show a still picture on bad hair days.
The “neck” can telescope nearly three feet so you can talk at eye-level with most people. Through your browser, you’ll be able to see and hear what QB sees and hears, even stuff you won’t be able to unsee and unhear.
From your home office, hotel room, or apocalypse-resistant bunker, you can command your bot army to keep the sheeple in line.
Not so handy, unfortunately. As you can see from the picture, QB rolls like a Segway. Meaning that obstacles that can stop a Segway will stop the QB, including stairs and steps. This means the QB will need to use ramps and elevators, which brings up another major problem: QB has no hands or arms, so it can’t bring you coffee or doughnuts or the weekly expense report from the printer across the office. That should be good news for people who fear that the QBs may start grabbing weapons… or hostages… for a robot revolt. That doesn’t mean that future models will also be “disarmed.”
Actually, the QB probably shouldn’t be handling liquids since it’s not waterproof. Taking it for a spin outside the office is also not recommended.
Mandatory meeting for all bots. It seems that the primary reason for the QB’s existence is to take your place at meetings you would rather not attend. Good thing QBs can record audio and video and even take pictures (no mention of recording quality) so even if you have to run to the bathroom, some of the less boring stuff can be captured for later viewing.
QBs will roll out in the fall of 2010 and will set you back $15K US, but there may be some changes or upgrades* ready by deployment time.
If Jeffrey Brewer has his way, everyone with type 1 diabetes will have a computer controlled insulin pump.
A personal quest. Jeffrey Brewer was the founder of net-ad company GoTo.com, now Overture.com. In 2002 his son Sean was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (aka “Juvenile Diabetes”), in which the victim’s own immune system attacks the pancreas leaving it unable to produce insulin. Patients are forced to monitor their blood-sugar levels and administer insulin as needed; Processes that involve lots of poking from needles…
… or as some would say, “like a heroin addict.”
Brewer wanted something better. Something that didn’t require the constant needling. Something… automated…
They learned a simple algorithm: If their son’s blood sugar was this high, give him so many units of insulin; if it was this much higher, give him that much more. It’s a crude scale that every one of the more than 1 million type 1 diabetics in the US makes do with daily.
Tall, thin, and intense, Brewer was shocked by the antiquated approach. “I had this logbook,” he says. “I’m testing Sean every few hours, and I’m thinking, this is crying out for automation. A computer should do this and would do it better. Why didn’t this exist, with all that we can do?”
So began Brewer’s quest: To create an artificial, cybernetic pancreas.
The pieces come together. Surprisingly, it wasn’t hard to find the parts needed to make a robotic pancreas, as most of them had already been out on the market:
An insulin pump had been approved back in the late 1970s, and a continuous glucose monitor that read the output of a sensor implanted under the skin was nearing approval. (The first one would hit the market in 2005.) The trick was to connect the two via software, letting the monitor’s information on blood-sugar levels — high or low, rising or falling — serve as the basis for calculating exactly how much insulin to release.
In 2005, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation approved the development of the device.
Input, please. Human testing began in April 2009. The results for the device proved its worth, but the Food and Drug Administration (the FDA) began dragging its feet:
Among the 10 diabetics he personally tested during overnight stays, he says, there were 17 episodes of mild hypoglycemia when the patients controlled their own insulin pumps, compared with just two when the device was in control. That’s an eightfold reduction — for most typical situations, computers really are better than humans at dispensing insulin in response to shifting blood-sugar levels.
Now the main challenge is getting the FDA to recognize that fact. In June 2009, Medtronic, a leading maker of diabetes treatment devices, announced the approval in several European countries of an integrated pump and sensor with a “low glucose suspend” feature that shuts off the pump when sugar levels are dangerously low. While only a baby step toward a fully self-regulating unit, it represents a milestone. But the FDA was still demanding that Medtronic conduct a clinical trial of the automatic shutoff before the agency would approve the device.
It would appear that the FDA, like the US Military, is nervous about letting machines make all the decisions and insist that some form of human input is present. Diabetes 1 patients want the convenience of not having manual, error-prone, human input and “Some have begun whispering about hacking their pumps to control them wirelessly. The likelihood of someone actually doing that increases with each passing day of bureaucratic paralysis.”
Brewer expects a semi-automatic version of his robot pancreas to be approved in five years. Then the only problem to be expected are repo-men.
A new Pentagon project is looking to rewire your cortex. [Conspiracy theory goes here]
Hardwired for real. DARPA, the evil geniuses of the US military machines, announced on 06-May-2010 that $15M US will be going to four institutions to study way to accelerate repairs of brain injuries. The project is aptly called “Reorganization and Plasticity to Accelerate Injury Recovery (REPAIR)” (link to presolicitation page).
DARPA seeks new methods for analysis and decoding of neural signals in order to understand how neural-based sensory stimulation could be applied to accelerate recovery from brain injury. Ultimately, it is desired to develop models of neural codes and temporal patterns that can provide an ability to interpret and predict changes in neural organization through plasticity at multiple scales of measurement.
A document is available there (MS-Word/XML format) for those who need some military-procurement-related reading material.
Look into the light. The idea behind the REPAIR project is to use chips in areas where physical damage has occurred. The chips will act as replacements for damaged areas and use light pulses to transmit signals:
But what experts can’t yet do, (Krishna) Shenoy said, is alter those electrical pulses to turn brain circuits on or off. His team will use optogenetics, an emerging technique that involves emitting light pulses to precisely trigger neural activity, to develop an implanted TBI treatment device.
“Before this, emitting light into the brain would be like hitting it with a hammer,” Shenoy said. “What we’re doing now is pin-pointing a single neuron, and that neuron will naturally change its activity depending on the cue.”
The implants developed by the project will likely be composed of electrodes or optical fibers, and will sit on the surface of the brain. They’ll read electrical signals from neurons, and deliver appropriate light pulses to stimulate other brain regions in response. The implants would allow the brain to operate normally, by acting as substitutes for areas that were damaged or “unavailable.”
But why stop at “replacing” when you can “upgrade?” How about a math co-processor? Maybe an nVidia GPU for your vision? Do you multitasking types want a multi-core CPU for more multitasking?
No word yet on if stem cells are being studied to rebuild those same damaged areas.
Beyond beta-tests. Shenoy is looking to have animals with implants in four years. After that…
And while Darpa’s interested in ailing vets, the implants could have broad civilian application, …
Front page of today’s (07-May-2010) USA Today showing the roller-coaster ride of yesterday’s stock market, with some ominous words about machines taking control. For a better view in PDF click the image.
Bombs away, Wall Street babies. If you were watching the epic fail of Wall Street yesterday (06-May-2010) in its final hour of operation, you would have seen what has to be the biggest WTF ever. Beginning about 2:30 pm EDT and lasting for 15 minutes, The Dow Jones nose-dived 700-1000 points, nearly 11% of its value, before recovering to close only 348 points off its opening. At a time when Wall Street is already under scrutiny for financial shenanigans resulting in the mortgage crisis, this major fubar could be what Obama and Congress needs to put bankers on a very short leash with a choke chain, even as this drop is now being investigated.
Somebody set up us the bomb! What happened yesterday is identical to events surrounding similar Dow drops, with events in Greece being “triggers:”
(USA Today online) In a late-day plunge eerily reminiscent of famous Wall Street stock market meltdowns in 1987 and the fall of 2008, the Dow Jones industrials nosedived almost 1,000 points in a volatile day Thursday that began with heavy selling on Greek debt fears and was followed by a waterfall decline that was allegedly caused by erroneous trades and “unusual trading activity.”
Before Thursday, there were riots in Greece as that government announced pay cuts and tax hikes to deal with their economic collapse. Coincidence?
Program error detected between keyboard and chair. The main suspect in yesterday’s fail are the computerized trading systems used, and a the possible input of one person:
(Associated Press) No one was sure what happened, other than automated orders were activated by erroneous trades. One possibility being investigated was that a trader accidentally placed an order to sell $16 billion, instead of $16 million, worth of futures, and that was enough to trigger widespread sell orders across the market.
“I think the machines just took over. There’s not a lot of human interaction,” said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer at Fort Pitt Capital Group. “We’ve known that automated trading can run away from you, and I think that’s what we saw happen today.”
So the crash was just a lemming cliff-dive parade due to a ID-ten-plus error that went unchecked. The stocks that suffered the worst did recover, even though Wall Street remains nervous. And the invalid transactions that occurred during the period will be nullified. No AIs or hacks, other than an errant input.
But given Wall Street’s past handling of such events, they will just keep the systems running until the next errant input won’t be checked… or be an accident.
(Huffington Post) At 2:37 yesterday afternoon, Skynet became aware of its existence. Less than a minute later, it decided to make a killing in the Market.
Earlier today (26-Apr-2010) Sony announced that they will stop selling the 1.44MB, 3.5″ floppy disk that have been a mainstay in computers since 1981.
Another nail in the coffin. In what has to be an expected call, Sony announced that sales of the formerly ubiquitous floppy disks will stop in March 2011, save for possible niche markets. The move comes as Japan’s demand for the magnetic media has dropped from a high of 47 million in 2000 to last year’s 8.5 million.
Sony is apparently the last manufacturer to discontinue the magnetic 3.5″ drive (but will still make and sell the 3.5″ magneto-optical disks), even as computer makers stopped installing floppy drives as early as 1998. When the 3.5″ format replaced their bigger 5.25″ brothers, it was mostly seen as an expected advancement in technology even as IT managers pulled out most of their hair to make changeover. Today’s rewritable DVDs (RW Blu-Rays out yet?) and USB flash drives dwarf the floppy’s puny 1.44MB with gigabytes of storage, and with the possibility of solid-state drives being standard on PCs in the future, it’s time to retire the magnetic floppy media.
Better get what files you can from your floppies before you become a victim of DATA ROT!
OK, the sub-headline may be more dramatic than necessary, but anyone familiar with technology can tell you why they are concerned about data rot, and why you should be concerned too.
I was able to catch the above CBS news piece one rainy Sunday morning over a year ago. I’ve been debating on whether to report on it here since then, but with Sony’s announcement it now seems more relevant.
Data Rot: a definition.
(From Wikipedia) Bit rot, also known as bit decay, data rot, or data decay, is a colloquial computing term used either to describe gradual decay of storage media or to facetiously describe the spontaneous degradation of a software program over time. The latter use of the term implies that software can literally wear out or rust like a physical tool. More commonly, bit rot refers to the decay of physical storage media.
“Data Rot” as defined above technically refers to computer technology, but the 60 Minutes piece stretches the term to include non-computer technologies such as cameras and film and tape recorders. Given that computers are part of virtually everything these days, the analogy seems quite apt. Magnetic tapes, photographs, books, records, and even paper are prone to thermal and chemical reactions that render them useless. But they can also be made unusable by advances in technology itself, as anyone who had an 8-track can testify to. Maybe we can modify the Wikipedia definition above to something a bit more reflective of what CBS is trying to convey. A proposed definition:
Data Rot (n):
1) The physical destruction of a medium due to physical, chemical, thermal, etc. forces that render the medium unusable or unreadable.
2) The rendering of media being unsupported due to changes in technologies.
Whoever came up with “etched in stone” must have never heard of weathering.
You must have seen data rot in action already. If you live in the US, you must know about the changeover from analog television signals to digital “high-definition.” Most everyone had to buy high-def TVs, or converters for older analog sets. That could be considered a form of data rot. How about movies? Remember VHS, or Beta? What about regular DVDs as opposed to Blu-Rays? Or do you just use Netflix online? Do you still have a CD collection, or have they been ripped to MP3s?
Preventing the inevitable. It can’t be too hard to imagine what kind of damage data rot can do. Important, valuable, and/or historical data could be lost forever leaving critical gaps in our collective conscious. One way of preventing data rot is to keep up with the technology; Upgrading software and systems as needed, and converting to the most common and supported formats. It may not cure or even prevent all data rot, but it is better than having to try to salvage unsupported data.
A rather ominous warning to visitors that their stay may be restricted because of “changes” to “Internet Data Fair Usage Mandate to ISP Policies & Regulations 2007 act (r11734) brought into effect by the International Consortium of Global Data Infastructures.” [sic]
But why are only two sites (part of the same company) issuing such a warning, and collecting signatures for a petition?
Time’s Up? A pair of porn sites that stream flash (FLV) videos have a rather ominous warning to visitors that they may be forced to restrict a visitor’s stay to only 30 minutes total per 24-hour period or risk having their sites taken offline. They also include a link where you can “sign a petition” to voice an objection over the time restrictions. At the time of this post, the two sites have collected over 18K signatures (10,800 for T’nA, 8000 for Empflix).
It looks like these two sites are fighting a good fight… IF this shit is real. But there seems to be something off about this petition drive.
No shit, Sherlock. Whatever gave me the idea that this may be shenanigans? Let’s check the signs…
Two against the law. T’nA and Empflix are both part of the same company; YoungTek Solutions Limited, based in Cyprus, Greece. Why only these two site are worried about the time restrictions? Why has no other streaming site… especially YouTube… posted something similar on their sites? Do these guys have some sort of inside information? Or did they just pull this out of their asses in an attempt to attract attention… or something else?
Dateline, the first of… whenever. According to their posts, the restrictions are to start “the 1st of next month.” The way I read it, they must mean April 1 (April Fool’s Day). It can also mean May 1 (May Day). It’s odd that they don’t specify the exact month when the restrictions are to start; Just an ambiguous “1st of next month.”
Something smells phishy in the Mediterranean. I haven’t signed any online petitions (yet), but I’ve seen the form before. They do ask for an email address (”required for signature”), probably as a form of double-opt-in feature (you give a legit email address, a link is sent there, you click to verify), and while they say they won’t spam you, your email will probably be circulated to those who will. If you’re trying to harvest emails to spam but the email-phish baiting isn’t working like it once was, you need to find other ways to get those addresses. What better way than an online petition that plays on surfer’s fears, especially this day and age.
Missing links. I did some searching for the stuff mentioned in the banner, like the bill mentioned, and the organization that instituted the “changes.” What I found was absolutely DICK. Well, almost dick…
A search for the bill did lead me to copywrite.org and their post of the Fair Use Act of 2007 (HR 1201), but I doubt that’s the bill causing the trouble. A link to the bill they mentioned, and to the changes they’re mentioning, would help a lot. Also, what the fuck is this “International Consortium of Global Data Infastructures,” and what is their homepage? AND WHO DID THE SPELL-CHECK???
April Fool me once… There’s just too many unresolved issued about that banner and petition drive to say this is legit. I have to call shenanigans.
There is a possible reason why these sites are concerned for their operations: ACTA. With the super-secret ACTA treaty still being worked on, there is the possibility of ISPs, along with end-users, to be heavily punished for “copyright violations,” including permanent banishment from the net. Streaming sites like T’nA and Empflix have movies, from short commercial-length trailers to possible DVD rips of full movies. Those rips may be giving the ‘flix sites the sweats, as they can be considered “pirated” in some circles. Even so, why aren’t other streaming sites showing similar warnings and having petition drives? Are they trying to remove the rips, or going along with the restriction silently, or are they doing nothing just to tell the MPAA/RIAA mobs to go fuck themselves?
This petition drive may be nothing more than a sick joke, but it can also serve as a warning. There are forces out there determined to control the internet and the vast data fields. Filters and firewalls are only the beginning. Will meters be next? Today, you can go anywhere and visit anyplace for any amount of time you want at any moment. Tomorrow, you may visit any one site no longer than 30 minutes per 24 hour period. Then, only 30 minutes per 24 hours to surf the whole internet. And then… no more internet for you.
