Net for Sale

US citizens to get Internet ID. LG ties smart grid to smartphones and tablets. Trimensional has 3D scanner for iphone. Factual has web and mobile APIs. Forrester says third of users will have tablets by 2015. Vuzix makes video eyeware. Videoscape promoted by Cisco service providers. Viewdle tags photos. Google Hotpot ranks realworld locations. Hipmunk does flight search. Clever Sense has location-aware concierge AI. Dedicated AIs are more successful. Hybrid Assistive Limb is a robotic exoskeleton. Industrial robot name Little Helper. OpenStack provides open-source for clouds. OpenStudy supports social study groups. DIASPORA open-source socnet in alpha. Minimal blogging editor outputs RSS. Feed.nu converts a blog to an android app. DKIM vouches for email. Social Security expects next computer to be years behind demand. Kneber botnet hits government. MAINGATE is new mobile defense network. Amazon Web Services used for wifi hacking research. Estonia starts cyber army. Wikistrat produces geopol journals. Eagleman looks at brains and behaviors. Convergence creates revolution in biomedicine. DNA test determines physical characteristics such as hair color. There is a digital Radiation Detector. Oil Prices begin to dig deeper. High tech Horse Show announced. Gilt Groupe carries luxury brands. Thirty-five recent links.

Book Reviews:

The Master Switch, Tim Wu, 2010

A separation principle of content from transport would maintain an open internet. The author discusses the history of telecommunications and describes an open-to-closed cycle. Convergence in this context means monopoly. This results from a paradox of how US consumers chose convenience over freedom. Other factors are network effects, power of integration, economies of scale, and will to power. There are five parts for twenty-one chapters.

New Year’s Greetings

Mechanical Turk provides pool of internet beta testers. Mass High Tech has feed on startups. Google converts wave to shared spaces. Electronic authentication built into banknotes. Smart grid gets smarter. Hydrogen and oxygen produced using solar energy. Bruce Sterling discusses Wikileaks. Surveillance on police. New Year’s security trends. Software requests made by sysadmins. EditPad has online text editor. Delicious does semantic analysis. Groupon trains journalists. Local gifts shown on eBay. Wall St. computers trade on news. Numenta AI apps discussed. Pen provides biofeedback. Developer makes prosthetic tentacle. Gostai Jazz telebot. Eclipse Phase has posthuman game. New ScienceFiction.com site. New Zealand put UFO data online. The Last of the Humans 2010 second edition technothriller about the rise and fall of machine-controlled civilization on Earth was revised and expanded to eight chapters on Amazon and Scribd. Twenty-three links added. (Photo: Boeing X-45 )

Ghost Parking

 

Time to put those campfire stories to good use. If you’ve ever wondered what it all may lead to, see Cast Shadow.

Book reviews:

Design Informed: Driving Innovation with Evidence-Based Design, Brandt and others, 2010

This book is about architectural research methods which seek evidence to answer specific questions about cause-effect. In a series of a couple of dozen case studies and interviews, it characterizes the six quality attributes of hypothesis, epistemology, metrics, strength of evidence, external validation and transparency. It discusses the 2005 Latrobe hypothesis which has three parts for collaboration between architect and clients, use of both empiricism and induction, and metrics. A process of prototyping and testing is used to make buildings. Software is used for analysis and prediction. Computer models are used to find and demonstrate solutions. Compelling measurements from the realworld support the conclusions. The computer is then used to include these types of measurements in architectural designs. Actual designs are made which use the newer solution approaches. There are seven chapters.

The Artificial Ape: How Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution, Timothy Taylor, 2010

The author questions how humans became intelligent and whether tools and therefore technology predated humans. He proposes a set of three levels, system 3, flint tool or artificial tech arising after system 1 inanimate natural pebble, and system 2 natural biological mollusk. His style mixes data and personal anecdotes from in the field. He updates the arguments of initially proposed by Darwin regarding trial and error with newer findings and inductive reasoning to demonstrate that technology enabled human biological evolution. The human brain is three to four times larger in size than a primate’s, but smaller than it was 150k years ago. The chart spans ten million years and shows an average increase and several dips. Much of the content has been externalized by technology so the modern head may be more efficient in the social context. This is similar to body mass and coordination which used to be required to get food. Civilizations may succumb to environmental disasters since some tend to worsen due to social practice. Competition between humans was a significant selector and technological advantage allowed symbolic development. Skeuomorphs mimic previous designs using new materials. Anti-science creationism may be an artifact of human models that led to questions of causality for the artists. Infant slings were an initial tool used upon walking upright and which also encouraged brain size. Groups have their own techno-culture and their tools may seem alien to others. This included cooking bowls which led to different diets and centralized preparation like the later fast foods. The first chipped stone tool found preceded homo sapiens by almost 200,000 years. Chimps, who probably were derived from the same ape as humans about seven million years ago, also use these types, as did Tasmanian aborigines isolated from the mainland. Otzi the ice man, from 5000 years ago on the high Alps, had more complex ones like from an early assembly line.

Telling Stories: A Short Path to Writing Better Software Requirements, Ben Rinzler, 2009

The thesis is that there is an analogy between writing requirements and a story. The book is concise and readable and formalizes a requirements method. The instructions show how to illustrate dataflow and UML. There are outlines and a document template. The outline formats differentiate an Agile version from more robust. Scenarios are used to show the success and exception results of each application process. The latter word is used in several contexts such as for the requirements themselves, for the system, and for the software elements. It assumes that the review considers feasibility.

This title is a happy medium as an anecdote, however the full length treatment is full of caveats. A story is a narrative, where the requirements are more of an agreement. There are a lot of differences. The audience of designers, for example, will have an expectation that there is enough detail for them to do specifications. System analysts and testers will seek to itemize features and constraints so that they can be tracked throughout the development and validation processes. Perhaps the story explains the why’s, the requirements the what’s, and the designs do the how’s. It does list usability testing and brings up availability, for example.

In summary, marketing presentations might lean more heavily on the story side, and software on objectives. Other approaches along these lines have included object-oriented parsing of text to objects. Scenarios and scenes are also used in test descriptions, e.g. use cases. Analogies are used in technical documentation. Complementary approaches might also include user actions as problem-solving or decision trees.

Recent links (about thirty-six):

video

Diminished Reality: Impressive Video Manipulation In Real-Time (Video)
YouTube – O’Reilly Webcast: The Myths of Innovation – Remixed and Remastered
YouTube – Heribert Watzke: The brain in your gut

ai Intellitar

browser First Alpha Of Opera 11 Released, Developers Can Now Build Extensions

climate

Blotting Out Sun May Soon Be Banned : Discovery News
Flower Power: Genetic Modification Could Amply Boost Plants’ Carbon-Capture and Bioenergy Capacity: Scientific American

computer Researchers one step closer to ‘bootless’ computer – Computerworld

digital-libraries Technology Review: Blogs: Mims’s Bits: Why There Can Never Be A Competitor to Google Books

disaster

Layer 8: IBM says software helps predict natural disasters | Network World
Building a Giant Lab to Test Disasters – WSJ.com

ebooks eBook price comparisons for iBooks, Kindle and Nook – Leatherbound

holography This Rocking Lead Singer is a 3D Hologram (video) | Singularity Hub

journalism WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Chased by Turmoil – NYTimes.com

mathematics Dr Dobbs – Linear Equation Breakthrough

mobile

Glasses With HUDs Just Became A Little More Affordable | Techi.com
What is Mobile Virtualization and Why is it Important? – ReadWriteCloud
picplz for iPhone & Android – See what’s happening now
Mitek Systems

music Google India Blog: Introducing Google Music Search (India) at Labs

payments Citibank First to Test Revolutionary Credit Card System, Card 2.0

physics Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: Mass Can Be ‘Created’ Inside Graphene, Say Physicists

privacy Every email and website to be stored – Telegraph

robotics

BattleBricks: MakerLegoBot: The Lego Mindstorms NXT 3D Lego Printer
Buzzll.com: Singing Humanoids
IEEE Spectrum: Japanese Snake Robot Goes Where Humans Can’t

science

First All-Digital Science Textbook Will Be Free | Wired Science | Wired.com
publicscience.ca – Science that Protects You
E. O. Wilson, Harrison Ford Ask You to Give a Damn About Biodiversity

security Coder for CIA: Drone Targeting Software “Far From Ready”

smartgrid

IEEE 1901TM BROADBAND POWER LINE STANDARD FOR 500 Mbps COMMUNICATIONS APPROVED – IEEE Smart Grid
NIST Lays Out Spec to Turn Power Grid to Network Grid | ITworld

space

Record-breaking galaxy found at the edge of the Universe | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
NASA Ames’ Worden reveals DARPA-funded “Hundred Year Starship” program | KurzweilAI

spacecraft International Docking Standard

telescope Technology Review: Blogs: Mims’s Bits: How To Handle The World’s Largest Digital Images

Impervious

Sustainability issues grow as large urban centers add a million people, or or up to about 5%, per year. Social responses to acts of nature need to be tempered in order to prevent environmental disasters. Demand increases for tech solutions. Automation extends to robotics and space.

Recent links (about 23):

ai “The Age of Assistants”: The View From Inside SRI

augmented-reality “What Mountain is That?” New App Takes AR Outside the City Limits

disaster

Database | EM-DAT

International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR)

Death to Humans! Visions of the Apocalypse in Movies and Literature: Scientific American

email HOW TO: Undo “Send” in Gmail

emotion EmoRate

events Online Event Registration – Sell Tickets Online with Eventbrite

robotics IEEE Spectrum: Cyborg Fly Pilots Robot Through Obstacle Course

security David Ignatius – Pentagon’s cybersecurity plans have a Cold War chill

smartgrid IEEE Spectrum: $25 Billion European Smart Grid Market by 2020

space BBC News – Alien hunters ‘should look for artificial intelligence’

ui Make: Online : Multitouch robot swarm controller

urban

World’s Fastest-Growing Megalopolis Hides in Fog | Raw File

Reinventing the City to Combat Climate Change

visualization David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization | Video on TED.com

Book reviews:

Urban Risk Reduction: An Asian Perspective, Shaw et al, 2009

Urbanization is outpacing general population growth in Asia. Case studies are described for localities and types of environmental disaster. Urban issues range from household, community, city, region, to nation. Lifestyles create hazards which induce, or worsen natural, events. The culture can be built on safety and resilience. Action planning may require assistance of specialized agencies. Pilot cities demonstrate projects such as local resource organization, citizen empowerment, and smaller units and chain of command. Lessons are learned from disaster recovery. A management information system was useful in at least one case. The decision-making pyramid includes global, national, city, building, and individual. Environmental issues include air and water pollution, waste and sewage, noise, land use, drainage and transport congestion, slums, flood and other common issues such as disease, fire, or crime. Strategies are sensitive to survival, peace, innovation from tradition, and sustainability. The disaster management cycle has its own information and communication issues in each phase, non, before, during and after. Risk reduction involves knowledge, perception, deepening, preparedness and dissemination. Surveys measure public awareness. Frameworks are provided by Millennium Development Goal, Hyogo Framework for Action, and UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. There are eighteen chapters, two parts, twenty-four authors.

Disaster Risk Management Systems Analysis: A Guide Book, Baas, 2008

This book has a toolset for the characterization and strengthening of DRM at the international, national, province/district/municipality, community and institution layers. A framework enumerates initiatives for each of the periods for disaster risk reduction, response, and recovery. Preparedness links both development, through mitigation and prevention, and humanitarian assistance, through relief and recovery. Another framework for sustainable livelihoods indicates which households are most vulnerable. There is a list of key questions for leaders. A form is shown to document the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats across levels. There are six modules, two annexes and many figures, relational maps, and checklists. It can be downloaded as a PDF from the web.

Ecological Engineering: Principles and Practices, Patrick C. Kangas, 2004

Humans stress natural ecosystems through simplification of species and metabolic shifts. Research in emergent ecosystems includes agriculture, urban, and coastal or estuarine. Since prediction is limited, engineering epistemology requires building improvement based on design and test. Future directions include ecological nanotech, terraforming, biosensors, ecosensors, universal pollution treatment, and aquaculture. Technoecosystems maintain a balance between living and hardware systems. Since the laboratory includes the environment, the hacker code of ethics applies to ecological engineering. Treatment reduces costs of pollution. Ecological economics adds measures of emergy or embodied energy, natural capital, sustainability, carrying capacity and many types of ecosystem services to improve life-support value. Sold waste management discusses landfills, composting, and industrial ecology. The energy value of the waste is the same as that used to make the product. Wetlands are used for wastewater treatment by spiraling. An identical decay equation for decomposition evolved in parallel, linking design intuitions for both biodegradation in ecology and wastewater engineering. Restoration ecology connects to succession and is explained for salt marshes, artificial reefs, and educational exhibits. Microcosmology includes living models and replication issues. Soil bioengineering is shown for urban imperviousness, stormwater management bioretention and agricultural erosion control. This realm includes beavers, coastal vegetation and self-building machines. Biodiversity is increased by exotic species. The food web describes feeding interactions. The series of multiple states in catastrophe theory is used to explain invasion. Control theory ranges from machine analogies to biotech. Circuit symbols are used for ecosystem models. H T Odum coined a lot of the names of new ecosystems. Principles include energy signature, self-organization and preadaptation. There are nine chapters

Building Safer Cities: The Future of Disaster Risk, edited by Kreimer et al, 2003

Actual and new types of disasters are discussed, e.g. due to rapid urbanization or climate change. Impact and preparedness affect several geographic scales of security, environmental and human, including economics. politics, and society. There are several major worldviews. The main concerns are globalization, environment, social vulnerability, and protecting infrastructure. The various methods of balancing costs of risks include privatization, government taxation and globalization. Africa often suffers export losses, which leads to tens of thousands of youth mortalities, when other countries have disasters. Hazard reduction involves robust design, flexible and adaptable systems, reversal of vulnerability trends, and societal preparedness. Coastal zone classifications include protect, retreat and accommodate. Resilience measures how much disturbance can be absorbed, and the capability for self-reorganization. Regional analysis, management and action are required for flooding. Study approaches include scenarios and consequences. The fact that life support networks, e.g. utilities, affect eachother as external technological causes has not been taken into account traditionally. Critical infrastructure includes telecom, power, energy, storage, transportation, water, financial, emergency services, and government. Buildings can be retrofit using new tech for earthquakes risk. These were papers for a conference of international financial institutions. There are four parts, twenty chapters, twenty-six authors. They may develop literacy for the terminology. Most chapters have conclusions or recommendations. The web had PDFs and Google books has full content.

Counting Heads, David Marusek, 2005

This novel is a scifi cyberpunk mystery. There are three parts, forty-five chapters, and an epilogue. Chapters are numbered, e.g. up to 1.3 or 2.29. Part 3 adds days of the week to the titles up to Friday 3.13. It begins in first person for part 1 which was originally a short story. The year is 2092. There are a pair of main characters. Tech includes nanotech, clones, robotic insects, friendly AIs, wearable valet processors. holopresence conferences, and high velocity surface travel. HomCom is the initial antagonist. There is a realistic world. The rest of the parts are told in third person after forty years have passed. The point of view changes among several main characters. The antagonist may be an AI. A glossary would be appropriate. The title refers to heads for which the body can be replaced. A sequel was published, Mind Over Ship.

Lightning Bug

The stimulus has lit up some new testing territory if nothing else since change yields information which probably reboots IT. Past examples include fallout from introduction of the satellite or the internet. The smart grid is a new metaphor to answer the question “Is the planet better off yet?”.

Can initially sketch some outlines around the new field. If the grid is the computer, it can predict its own behaviors, however issues concerning timeliness of buffered sensor data yield anomalies and incorrect responses; autonomous is not always accurate. Complexity may fall somewhere between investment and weather systems. There are some scenarios when Poor Ingrid’s AI is a short-timer because local sources, e.g. solar power coatings, and netzero eliminate the need for distribution or an energy service provider. Popular engineering may become fashionable as public learns to improve energy usage amid concerns about scale of state surveillance. A new economic model is sought if electricity becomes a form of currency; probably can’t rule out an open-source Enron that drives the tax Pinkertons berserker. Other risks are that it periodically generates the wrong outcomes, i.e. increased carbon emissions, higher prices, shortages, monopolies or reflexive official shutdowns.

While the grid is supported, evaluation methods from other industries can be integrated. There is some second-order load for the measurement itself.

Also see wiki topic for more about clean energy, smart meters and buildings, storage, economics, vendors, electric autos, regulations, standards, advantages, constraints, risks, and measures.

Image: notepad.