P.S. A Column On Things

Craig Reynolds Techobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Privacy: several items about Our Paradoxical Attitudes Toward Privacy. Like Google's attorney, I am "disappointed the court granted Viacom's overreaching demand for [YouTube] viewing history" although this case (Judge Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Records) seems to be more about Viacom going after Google's deep pockets rather than the sort of "retail harassment" of individuals the music industry has specialized in: YouTube order: Does it threaten your privacy? The shoe is on the other foot in this case: Groups Sue U.S. Government Over Mobile Phone Tracking where civil liberty advocates seek to find the extent of government surveillance of cell phone users. A lot of his passionate supporters got quite annoyed when Obama decided to go along with a sleazy deal to help the Bush administration retroactively weaken the FISA law meant to protect Americans from government surveillance: Obama Voters Protest His Switch on Telecom Immunity. In fact it got me off my duff to complain on the campaign's community blog. As mentioned here last month, Google had been violating a law of its home state. It has now stopped: Google Changes Home Page, Adding Link to Privacy Policy.

Personalized medicine: as in the item mentioned here last week, there is new excitement about advances in medical treatments produced for a single individual. Here is more along those same lines: New test could track tumors in 'real time' and New Test Could Allow “Real Time” Tracking of Cancer Tumors.

Fast-living chameleon: OK, so there is some interesting science (From a Chameleon With a Short Life, Aging Insights?) about the life-cycle of Furcifer labordi (images). But I mention it mainly to be able to cite this article: Violent sex means chameleons die young. How can you not love that headline?

Yoga genetics: the idea that yoga and other forms of meditation can relieve stress has been recognized for hundreds of years, and in the scientific world since I was a student in the 1970s. I remember learning to meditate from an article in Scientific American ("The physiology of meditation", or was it a review of "The relaxation response"?). Now there is news of what goes on at a molecular level in the cells of your body: Meditation, Yoga Might Switch Off Stress Genes and Train Your Mind, Change Your DNA. Here is the scientific paper itself (available free to all because it was published in PLOS, an open access journal): Genomic Counter-Stress Changes Induced by the Relaxation Response.

Technobits: more than half of Internet Explorer users use an obsolete version: Does Your Browser Need an Expiration Date? --- Mac OS X market share surges 32% in one year --- I have never been a fan of Flash-heavy websites, they don't navigate in the typical way, its harder to get URLs from them, and they did not get indexed properly. Now that later problem has been fixed: Google Now Crawling and Indexing Flash Content (see also: Official Google Blog: Google learns to crawl Flash) --- some research indicating its the cell phone conversation that is the real problem and is not addressed by California's new law: What might the hands-free law accomplish? --- Laugh at High Gas Prices With a 282-MPG VW --- "...positive psychological effects of psilocybin...last for more than a year...": Psilocybin Study Hints at Rebirth of Hallucinogen Research --- a coworker sent around a link to an article about box-shaped watermelons in the context of a sappy homily about thinking outside the box, then another coworker replied with this: Funny Shaped Japanese Watermelons.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Sorry I was away last week so its double helpings, even if some of this may be a little stale...

As we may think was the title of Vannevar Bush's influential 1945 article which envisioned many aspects of personal computers and the Internet. But wait, that web timeline goes back at least to 1934 to a Belgian proposal to build a network of electric telescopes: The Mundaneum Museum Honors the First Concept of the World Wide Web. A contemporary look at how tools like Bush's Memex can alter our thinking processes: Changing the way we think, not to mention the way we practice law: What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer. Speaking of those promised electronic brains: Whatever happened to artificial intelligence? More historical notes: 'Oldest' computer music unveiled. Other Internet news: Hackers hijack critical Internet organization sites and New Flavors of Web Addresses Are On the Way. Open data (Sir Tim Talks Up Linked Open Data Movement) joins open access, open source, and now, Open-source hardware?!

Space: turns out Mars has lots of water and is rich in minerals, one Phoenix staffer says "I'm absolutely gobsmacked...": Mars Phoenix "Shovel" Hits Hard White Layer Just Below Surface, Scientists ponder whether ice on Mars ever melted and Mars Lander Scrapes Icy Soil in Wonderland. Maybe an explanation for the northern lowlands: Huge Meteor Strike Explains Mars’s Shape, Reports Say. Meanwhile not on Mars: 'Super-Earth' planets discovered.

Green: NASA's Hansen Tells Congress "Stop Burning Coal" 20 Years After His First Global Warming Warning. A bold step to restore a natural wonder: Florida's $1.75 Billion Everglades Deal Quenches Thirsty State and Florida to Buy Sugar Maker in Bid to Restore Everglades. Car talk: Honda rolls out new zero-emission car and U.S. drivers should think in gallons per mile: report.

Photos: two weeks ago I posted a link to one of these pictures without knowing the origin, mystery solved: Golden Ray photos of amazing mass migration. An amazing technological feat: CMU System Estimates Geographic Location of Photos. Be an informed consumer of digital media: Digital Forensics: How Experts Uncover Doctored Images. Lovely collection of airborne photography: Pictures From the Sky.

Robots: Robot snakes slither forward and The Flight of Dragonfly Robots.

Technobits: Clone cell cancer 'cure' hailed --- Gay Men, Straight Women Have Similar Brains --- US committee suggests their own para-athlete is "not disabled enough": A Disabled Swimmer’s Dream, a Mother’s Fight --- Get Out of Your Own Way ("Studies Show the Value of Not Overthinking a Decision") --- Chrysler Brings Web to the Road --- Intel researchers shine light on ray tracing --- Google to Unveil New Ad-Planning Tool --- AP vs. The Bloggers: A Portentous Sideshow --- dangers of malware: Probe shows kiddie porn rap was bogus and A Misconfigured Laptop, a Wrecked Life --- The 5 Creepiest Advertising Techniques of the (Near) Future --- amazing: The Lego Secret Vault: Lego Secret Vault Contains All Sets In History.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Its a tough Jobs: apparently Apple announced some new phone or something. Here is Steve Jobs WWDC Keynote (in 60 Seconds) 'cuz who has time to sit through the whole keynote like some kinda Apple fanboy? There was a lot of buzz about Steve's gaunt appearance, here is some background on his health: Why does Steve Jobs look so thin?

GPGPU: a hot topic among computer geeks is "general-purpose computation on graphics processing units" or GPGPU. Originally graphics computations were performed in software. Then the most repetitive expensive parts were moved into special hardware. Eventually this GPU hardware became more powerful than the CPU it was paired with. As they became more flexible, interest grew in using the GPU for computational tasks unrelated to graphics. There was a recent special issue of ACM Queue on GPUs. Each of the major players in the computer world seem to be pushing a different variant of a GPGPU programming system. sh and Brook were early efforts from academia and now sh became RapidMind, NVIDEA has CUDA, AMD/ATI has CTM, and Intel has Ct. Just this week Apple announced Snow Leopard, the next version of OS X. It includes its GPGPU entry called OpenCL, along with Grand Central, its multicore programming technology acquired from PA Semi.

Biomimetics: looking to nature for technology designs: Nature-inspired robots swim, crawl, and scuttle like animals and 'Herds' of wary cars could keep an eye out for thieves.

Visualization: a few random selections from the world of information visualization. Cool animated visualization of the individuals that contribute to open source software, and the files they edit: code swarm. From the amazing visualcomplexity.com: see the Mammal Supertree. It is "just" a circular tree of mammal species, showing which descended from which. You will need to zoom in quite a bit (about 2000%) to read the species names placed just inside the black circle. I used a web utility called Wordle to make a "word cloud" of my del.icio.us tags.

Technobits: cooking Martian soil: Phoenix starts to get some reward --- When Robots Live Among Us --- BMW's fascinating GINA Light Visionary Model design study --- Google To Develop ISP Throttling Detector --- 2008 Web Design Trends --- Adapting Websites to Users --- Plan your room layout in 3D using furnishings from mydeco.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Googling: this week Google announced new prototype Gmail features (Google's experimental Gmail toys) but more interesting is the way they did it by providing access to the beta test features to all users. They are opening a new campus (Google to get new space age home) on NASA's historic Moffett Field. Google is being painted as intransigent (Google Asked to Add Link to Privacy Policies) because there is no link on its famously minimalistic home page to its privacy policy as is apparently required by the California's Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003. Of course a Google search for "Google's privacy policy" yields it as the first result. I was pleased when I recently noticed that my house is now depicted on Street View, not so these folks: Town forces Google to scrap street images. Now a detailed 3d representation of Disneyworld on Google Earth: Disney World preparation 2.0 and Images: The enchantment of Google Earth.

Evolution and history: I recommend A New Step In Evolution a fascinating description (by science writer Carl Zimmer, author of Microcosm) of a experiment running since 1988 that effectively provoked and documented the evolution of a new "species" of E. coli (but see final paragraphs for caveats). One creationist criticism of evolution theory is that science has never documented the creation of a new species. Of course such events are quite rare so it took an incredibly patient researcher to finally catch evolution in the act.  In other news Peru to protect isolated tribes and "Lost" Pyramid Found Buried in Egypt.

Technobits: finally the FDA acknowledges what seemed obvious to many: Mercury teeth fillings may harm some: FDA --- Science subverted by politics --- Time Warner Cable tests metered Internet service --- IBM aims to cool chips with water --- NASA: 'Extreme programming' controls Mars Lander robot --- Motion-capture system adds costume to the drama (also) --- Sandra Day O'Connor: Game Designer --- "Sting Ray Migration -Key West Florida" (I think this is real, please help me locate the initial source, perhaps this?) --- Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium ("Underneath their sober lab coats and flannel shirts, scientists hide images of their scientific passions. Here they are revealed to all."  Revealing tattoos has always had an aspect of titillation, I have to admit it was not the geeky tattoos as much as this comely canvass in a sidebar that first caught my eye.) --- video: the dangers of tangible user interfaces.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Unfit teacher: I know quite well how disruptive autistic children can be, yet for a kindergarten teacher to force her students to "vote" a child out of her class is utterly disgusting. Next they can vote out the disabled, stupid and non-white ones: Teacher lets Morningside students vote out classmate, 5. Needing to move a disruptive student out of a mainstream classroom is one thing, the way this idiot teacher handled it is quite another. More: Our opinion: Inexcusable, Intense Support For Spurned Kindergartner and Underlying questions fester after boy's class dismissal. Coincidentally published at the same time: The Autism Rights Movement.

Biomimetic beetles: once again nature serves as inspiration for new material science: Brazilian Beetles Hold Key to Faster Computers. Beetles are one of the most plentiful and diverse lifeforms on Earth, and seem to provide a lot of ideas for engineering.  Previously noted here in 2006 "Beetle spawns new material: a super-efficient biomimetic vapor collector" and in 2007 "Brilliant Whiteness of Strange Beetle Explained forget bleach: this bug may be the key to whiter whites."

Robots: Monkeys Think, Moving Artificial Arm as Own, TU Delft robot Flame walks like a human (see these Flame videos) and Drone planes research hurricanes.

Microsoft in decline: Microsoft needs to lift its head out of the sand and Microsoft Will Shut Down Book Search Program.

Technobits: Senators: No need for paper e-voting trails, 'electronic' ones are OK --- Court Finds Dell Guilty of Fraud --- It’s Time To Rethink Copyright Law --- Hollywood's thugs attack legitimate site after it tightens security: MediaDefender Defends Revision3 SYN Attack --- Google Maps Rolls Out Spanking New Features --- TinySong ("Type in a song and make a free music link to share music with friends") --- from Ploomy: 10 Cool Websites We Recommend --- and baby makes three: Jupiter Gains New Red Spot --- Growing Ocean Acidity May Erode Coastal Ecosystems --- Stonehenge Used as Cemetery From the Beginning --- Cargo Container Homes and Offices.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Lieberman, YouTube and terrorism: Sen. Joe Lieberman belatedly discovered free speech and decided he didn't like it: Senator targets YouTube, but law not on his side. Here is blow-by-blow coverage from from the Hartford Courant: Lieberman Wants Google to Block Terrorist Videos, Google Responds to Lieberman's Call to Censor and Lieberman Responds to the Google Response.

Nanotubes, we hardly knew ye: for years we have heard of the potential applications of nanotube technology, and some uses have already made it into the market. Now, oops, it turns out those tiny little carbon whiskers bear more than a passing resemblance to asbestos fibers: Study Says Carbon Nanotubes as Dangerous as Asbestos and Mice Study Suggests Potential Health Risk in Tiny Carbon Fibers.

OLPC in turmoil: after being a pure open source Linux-based project since its beginning, the One Laptop Per Child project has recently embraced Microsoft: One Windows User Per Child ("Nicholas Negroponte's presentation at the MIT Media Lab on Tuesday was a crowd-pleasing performance of nearly Steve Jobs-esque proportions"). This led Walter Bender (longtime MIT colleague of Negroponte, once his student) to resign and form a new company to push the Sugar desktop software: Bender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI and Linux start-up Sugar Labs in informal talks with four laptop makers. It has also unleashed a storm of criticism of OLPC: XP on XO: Negroponte has lost his bearings and OLPC's a con - former insider and conversely: WinXP on XO laptops OK as long as Linux runs, too. At the same time, OLPC unveiled a new "two page" design: Design revamp for '$100 laptop'.

Games: A survey of the top consoles and predictions for the future: The state of the next-gen video game console. Rave review of a new nonviolent game with nontraditional gameplay: PixelJunk Eden Hands-On Impressions. Reflections on Wii Fit: Resistance Is Futile. This survey of Blu-ray players says the best one is PS3: Blu-ray wins HD war; prepare to pay, while this talks about clustering them into a supercomputer: Lockheed breaks WPA encrypted wireless network with 8 clustered SONY Playstations.

Roku: a lot of people think the Roku set-top box and its partnership with TiVo have finally gotten the "movies at home via the web" formula right: 20 Seconds, and a Movie Has Arrived, Why the Roku Netflix Player Is the First Shot of the Revolution and Netflix to Sell a Device for Instantly Watching Movies on TV Sets.

Apple: the folks at Apple say its OK that they call their device the Mighty Mouse, because they licensed the name from CBS. Trouble is, CBS didn't own the rights: Company cheesed off at Apple, CBS over Mighty Mouse mark. Here is a surprising factoid: Apple dominates the high-end PC market.

Cell phones: two notes from the wireless world: Shops secretly track customers via mobile phone and Exclusive cell phone deals called into question.

Technobits: Warming and Storms, Uncertainty and Ethics --- Scientists See Supernova in Action --- Napster MP3 store: great selection, bad interface --- 42 Awesome Business Card Designs --- Biggest Drawing in the World.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Facebook v. Google--pot calls kettle black: be it LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook or others of their social networking ilk, I've always been a little uncomfortable about trusting a third party with a comprehensive list of all my friends. Even if the current management of such sites is benign, who knows who they will sell themselves to next year. Now Facebook is very annoyed that its users may share their contact information with other sites via Google's Friend Connect. Since Google only looks at public information that Facebook offers to everyone through its API, how can there be additional privacy concerns? The real privacy risk is making your friends list public by using Facebook in the first place: Facebook's Glass Jaw, Facebook flap: Google’s side, How Google's Friend Connect works, Facebook Disconnects Google: Protecting Users... Or Itself? or as Yoda would have said: Begun, the Data Wars Have.

Games for the greater good: I am fascinated by the rise of "human computation", where humans join together to solve big problems, often attracted by the task being structured as a game. I have previously mentioned reCAPTCHA and foldit.  Now Luis von Ahn and colleagues at CMU have established a new hub for these "games with a purpose" at gwap.com, see New games are designed to make computers smarter.

Space: new digger-bot nears the Red Planet: How NASA's Phoenix Will Land on Mars and New Mars Lander Looks for Water, Old Signs of Life (be sure and watch the slick animation). Meanwhile on Earth, Google and Microsoft battle it out online for "space, the final frontier": Two New Ways to Explore the Virtual Universe, in Vivid 3-D and Peeking through Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope.

Personal aircraft: looking like some 1940s pulp sci-fi fantasy, new amazingly small flying machines: Swiss man soars above Alps with jet-powered wing (videos) and GEN H-4 Helicopter To Take Flight in Leonardo da Vinci's Hometown.

Technobits: lies and the lying liars who tell them: Comcast Restricted Bandwidth To BitTorrent Users 24/7, Study Charges --- Verizon goes Linux, shuns Google's Android: Verizon Wireless, Mozilla Join LiMo Foundation --- Stolen Laptop Helps Turn Tables on Suspects --- 5 Tools for Keyword Brainstorming --- when image search by keyword just doesn't cut it: Picitup Visual Image Search --- Google celebrated the birth of the laser on May 16, 1960 --- crazy raspberry Ants swarm over Houston area, fouling electronics --- will the EPA be forced to act on global warming to save its habitat?: Polar Bear Is Made a Protected Species --- belated NYT article about the Maker Faire --- better living through container design: easy pb&j --- sorry, this is off topic for TB: my wife just made this website for our family's music teacher Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Orchestra and this is just here to nudge up it Page Rank.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Internet Archive vs. FBI's NSL: we are lucky there are American heroes like Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive. Faced with a secret "nation security letter" he fought it in court, challenging the constitutionality of the program, causing the FBI to reconsider and back down: Internet Archive Challenges F.B.I.’s Secret Records Demand and FBI rescinds secret order for Internet Archive records.

Music and money: two big wins for big media companies: What the ASCAP music decision means for consumers and TorrentSpy ordered to pay $110m. The TorrentSpy case is especially interesting, that is a lot of money considering that the company did not sell, host or distribute copyrighted material. All they do is provide links to other sites. Who is next, the yellow pages?  Google?

Maker Faire: this third annual event has almost doubled in size each year. From the crowds and lack of parking they may need a new venue next year. For those who didn't make it to this year's delightful event, several collections of photos: Thousands Gather to Make Their Own Fair, Lights, Rockets, Robots Take Center Stage at Maker's Faire, Maker Faire unboxed and Maker Faire more popular than ever.

Technobits: Google to Verizon: Don't shirk open access responsibilities --- New Software Allows ISPs and P2P Users to Get Along Without Getting Too Cozy --- those swell guys in Redmond are at it again: Microsoft May Build a Copyright Cop Into Every Zune --- On Variety's 10 Innovators to Watch: Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen, the people behind flOw and Cloud --- series of free textbooks on electricity and electronics by Tony R. Kuphaldt: Lessons In Electric Circuits --- Airline Emissions: Even Worse Than You Think --- Robotic wheelchair docks like a spaceship --- possible interaction of acetaminophen and the MMR vaccine, and a connection to autism? --- the hodge-podge creature has hodge-podge DNA: Platypus Genome --- I've spent a little time playing the beta of foldit a unique human-based computation project developed by some friends at UW: Computer Game's High Score Could Earn The Nobel Prize In Medicine --- microscopic beauty: Each Grain of Sand a Tiny Work of Art.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Music: there was good news and bad news in the "RIAA v. Howell" case. U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake reversed his earlier ruling: Judge Says Music Sharing Doesn't Necessarily Equal Infringement, Judge rejects claim RIAA previously won and More on the RIAA's latest loss. OK so merely making files available to share, the default functionality of Kazaa, is not a crime. Thank goodness for a return to sanity. But the judge also ruled that the download of such files by the authorized minions of the RIAA proved infringement: Despite Blogosphere Reports, RIAA Retains Legal Muscle Under Howell Decision. So the RIAA is stealing from itself, with its own explicit authorization, and yet the lawsuit targets the Howells?! It could easily be the case that, absent the RIAA's own mischief, no one ever would have downloaded those songs from the Howell's PC. Another downside of DRM: say you sell "permanent" licenses to DRM-encumbered media files, does that imply a long term burden of support? What happens if you get bored with your broken business model?: Betrayed MSN Music Customers Deserve More from Microsoft.

Biotech: research and clinical use of genetic therapies have been hobbled by fears of abuse of genetic testing results, a positive step was taken in congress this week: House approves anti-genetic discrimination bill. Good news for staying ahead of future flu pandemics: Researchers Make Human Flu Antibodies at Record Speed. Perils of careless globalization and insufficient oversight: Heparin Contamination May Have Been Deliberate, F.D.A. Says.

Autism: a CNN producer's inside account of the life of a high functioning autistic: Asperger's: My life as an Earthbound alien. New research on the specific changes in brain structure caused by autism, conducted with the help of a post-mortem tissue bank: Face Processing Area of Brain Shows Anatomical Differences in Autism. This corroborates earlier fMRI studies of the fusiform gyrus in live subjects.

Fractal food: a few months back I ran across the book Making Mathematics with Needlework and got a copy for my geeky/crafty sister-in-law. One of my favorites was a crocheted shawl based on Sierpinski's triangle. I was reminded of that when I came across this recipe for Sierpinski Cookies based on the square Sierpinski carpet. That lead me looking for more and sure enough: triangular Fractal Cookies. That reminded me of seeing this a long time ago: Giant Fractal Pecan Pie, based on the Koch snowflake. It was inspired by a desire to control the ratio of pie area to crust length, so perhaps they should have tried the Hilbert curve instead. But for sheer self-similar beauty, it is hard to beat this classic natural edible fractal: the Romanesco broccoli.

Technobits: The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit --- A Google Prototype for a Precision Image Search ---  Daphne Koller receives the ACM-Infosys Award: Pursuing the Next Level of Artificial Intelligence --- from 1971's "Memristor—The Missing Circuit Element." to 2008's "The Missing Memristor Found": H.P. Reports Big Advance in Memory Chip Design --- Spam reaches 30-year anniversary --- GTA as a portrait of New York: A Strange City Called Home --- Timeline of the universe --- Geoengineered cooling of planet would have 'perilous effects' --- Orangutan goes fishing with sharpened stick --- British crossing guards get high-tech help: New cameras for lollipop patrols --- a tour de force, pure CSS illustration: CSS Homer, animated.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Open Science: I was pleased to see Scientific American run a major article on the "open source" version of academic publication: Science 2.0 -- Is Open Access Science the Future? While I sit on editorial boards of several traditional proprietary journals, I strongly endorse the concept of open access as I do the related idea of open source software.

OLPC: Windows in? Bender out! I was disappointed to hear that One Laptop Per Child's Nicholas Negroponte changed his stance from supporting an open source approach to embracing Windows. Apparently OLPC stalwart Walter Bender was even more annoyed: Top OLPC Executive Resigns After Restructuring, One Laptop Executive Per Month and OLPC Switch to Windows on XO Is 'muddled,' Developers Say.

Your friends the ISPs: another clever scheme from people too smart by half: ISPs' Error Page Ads Let Hackers Hijack Entire Web, Researcher Discloses, Major ISPs Injecting Ads, Vulnerabilities Into Entire Web and When Monetizing ISP Traffic Goes Horribly Wrong.

Apple acquisitions: Apple uncharacteristically bought some companies recently including a small chip maker, which caused big ripples in the defense contracting community: Apples Unusual Acquisition and Apple wants P.A. Semi's engineers, not its chips.

Robots: three related articles on recent legged robotics work: DARPA Pushes Machine Learning with Legged LittleDog Robot, Leggy "BigDog" Robot Set to Step Up for the Military and Brawn or Brains? Researchers Push the Limits of Legged Robots. There were items on both PBS and NPR this week about robots: Robots Industry Emerging in Pa. and Building Social Robots.

Technobits: Interference at the EPA --- Net neutrality battle returns to the U.S. Senate --- US scraps $20 million prototype of virtual fence --- FDA: Heparin supplier's Chinese factory 'unsuitable' --- T. Rex Protein "Confirms" Bird-Dinosaur Link --- UCSC computer scientists develop solutions for long-term storage of digital data --- very cool reuse of a preexisting ad hoc distributed sensor network: Laptops as Earthquake Sensors --- response to KK's idea of artists living off $100 a year from 1000 fans: The Reality of Depending on True Fans --- Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm --- more proof of my contention that the world is turning into a science fiction novel: Universal 'babelfish' could translate alien tongues.