PERSONAL PRIVACY - Microchipping Humans?!

WTF - We already have problem with our personal data and the internet, and now we are looking into a technology that may be abused by government and outlaws?

"Microchipping humans wields great promise, but does it pose greater risk?" PBS NewsHour 1/30/2019

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  An intense debate is underway over the benefits and drawbacks of using microchips, typically relied upon to identify ranch animals and pets, on humans.  Advantages include fast communication of critical patient data to medical teams, seamless payment, and automatically opened doors.  But skeptics warn of dire implications for privacy and ethics.  Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

ROBOTS TODAY - What's New Atlas

I know you've seen a robot walk, but have you ever seen one do a backflip?

ART - From the Techie Side

RIZE Spinning Ferrofluid Sculpture


Estimated availability Feb 2017 from Ferroflow Store

TECHNOLOGY - Google's Gesture Control

"How Google's gesture control technology could revolutionize the way we use devices" by Conner Forrest, TechRepublic 6/3/2015

Soli, Google's new gesture technology, would allow users to interact with their devices without ever touching the device itself. Here's how it's poised to make an impact.

It seems like pop culture is obsessed with the idea of interacting with technology without actually touching a device to do so.  Movies such as Minority Report and Iron Man are the frontrunners in this -- the idea that the future of technology will be decidedly "hands-off."

That future could be coming sooner than we think.  Last week, at its annual I/O developer conference, Google announced Soli, a project that would allow users to interact with their devices using hand gestures performed near the device, without requiring contact with the device.

"Project Soli is the technical underpinning of human interactions with wearables, mobile devices as well as the Internet of Things," a Google ATAP (Advanced Technology and Projects) spokesperson said.

Soli was born out of Google's ATAP group.  It's a fingernail-sized chip that uses radar to read hand gestures and convert them to actions on the device.

So if a user was to touch his or her thumb to their forefinger, Soli would read that as a button being pressed.  Or, the user slides his or her forefinger back and forth on the pad of their thumb, that could operate a slider to adjust volume.

Unlike cameras, which are used in other motion sensing technologies, radar has a high positional accuracy, and thus works better in this context than cameras would.  It's able to pick up on slight movements better.

"Radar is a technology which transmits a radio wave towards a target, and then the receiver of the radar intercepts the reflected energy from that target," lead research engineer Jaime Lien said in a video about Soli. (below)

The radar waves bounce off of your hand and back to the receiver, allowing it to interpret changes in the shape or movement of your hand.  Radar is also important to the project, according to Soli team lead Ivan Poupyrev, because it can work through materials or be embedded into objects.

The technology is vaguely reminiscent of the theremin musical instrument developed in the 1920s by Léon Theremin, but much more intricate.  In the Soli video, Poupyrev mentioned that the technology could be used interact with "wearables, Internet of Things, and other computing devices."

The potential for Soli in wearables is perhaps the most obvious use case so far.  Small screens make it difficult to select certain apps or features, and being able to perform gestures next to the device might make navigation easier and intuitive.

According to 451 analyst Ryan Martin, it is important that a company like Google gets involved in this space because a project like Soli is important to the wearable and IoT ecosystems as a whole and it's important that it "be approached from a technology perspective, not a product perspective."

There are companies that focus solely on gesture-based interactions, but that can be risky and volatile as it will likely just be integrated as a feature.  Martin said that wrist-based wearables are actually less efficient if users actually have to touch them, and Soli could be a step forward in making them more efficient and usable.

Other potential use cases could be within connected cars or in the augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) spaces.  Imagine your Oculus Rift or Gear VR could support virtualized "hands" as another input without a third-party accessory.  Although, Martin said, it would probably work better as a complement to another input such as voice or touch.

Using Soli as an input tool is the glaring use case for now, but the project could provide value as an output technology as well.

"I think the killer application, or use case, long-term is going to be how to take this technology and have it be scanning around to provide context and enable automation that might not even necessitate gesture-based interaction, it might just happen," Martin said.

Gillette is one of many companies whose factories utilize high-speed cameras to analyze manufacturing processes and equipment to better understand when maintenance or repair is needed.  Soli could provide a similar service to advanced manufacturing facilities by consistently reading the machines and documenting their performance.

Time to market will depend on user experience.  As a device feature, Soli needs to be reliable and consistent or it will be detrimental to the partner brand or OEM that integrates it.

"Once the technology is able to meet that end, I think that's when we'll start to see it baked into products, but right now it's definitely in its development phase," Martin said.

According to the Google ATAP spokesperson, the company will be releasing a hardware and software development kit to developers soon.  If you want more information about Project Soli, you can contact the team at projectsoli@google.com.

WORLD WIDE WEB - 25th Birthday

"25 years on, still adapting to life tangled up in the Web" PBS NewsHour 3/12/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  The World Wide Web turns 25 years old today.  The date marks the publication of a paper that originally laid out the concept, which eventually led to the vast system of Internet sites we now use.

Jeffrey Brown looks at how it’s changed the world we live in.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  One way to do that is to look at how individual Americans think about the Internet and its impact on their lives.

The Pew Research Internet Project did that in a survey just out.  Among much else, it finds that 87 percent of American adults now use the Internet, and the number goes up to 97 percent for young adults from 18 to 29.  Ninety percent of Internet users say the Internet has been a good thing for them personally, though the number drops to 76 percent when asked if the Internet has been a good thing for society generally, with 15 percent saying it’s been bad for society.

And 53 percent of Internet users say the Internet would be, at minimum, very hard to give up.

We’re joined by three people who’ve watched the growth of the Internet from different angles.  Xeni Jardin is a journalist and editor at the Web blog Boing Boing, which covers technology and culture.  Catherine Steiner-Adair is a clinical and consulting psychologist at Harvard Medical School, and author of “The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age.”  And Daniel Weitzner teaches computer science and Internet public policy in at MIT.  From 2011 to 2012, he was U.S. deputy chief technology officer in the White House.

And welcome to all of you.

And, Daniel Weitzner, I will start with you, because you worked with Tim Berners-Lee, who — one of the main people that started all this 25 years ago.  What has — what surprises you now, sitting here 25 years later, about where we’re at?

DANIEL WEITZNER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:  Well, it does surprise me how tremendously the Internet and the Web has grown into every aspect of our lives.

I think that a lot of us who were involved in the early days of the Internet and the Web had hoped that it could really reach the whole world.  And there’s no question that Tim Berners-Lee, who — whose architecture for the World Wide Web really helped it to grow, had the ambition that it in fact cover the whole world — represent everything in the world.  But I think it’s amazing how far we have actually come in that direction.

COMPUTER GAMING - Financing 'Oculus Rift' Gaming Goggles

"Tricking the brain with transformative virtual reality" PBS Newshour 12/18/2013

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  Correspondent Paul Solman takes a look at a technology that allows adventurous users to explore the latest developments in the world of video gaming.

It's part of his ongoing coverage Making Sense of financial news.

PAUL SOLMAN (Newshour):  It was a 20-year-old named Palmer Luckey who would finally make science fiction dreams come true.

Working in his parents garage, he cobbled together a headset out of ski goggles, smartphone and tablet parts to create a just-like-real-life gaming experience.  Then, hoping to raise $250,000 to take his invention to market, he turned to the crowd-funding Web site Kickstarter.

PALMER LUCKEY, Oculus Rift:  So join the revolution.  Make a pledge.  And help up change gaming forever.

PAUL SOLMAN:  Within days, he had 10 times what he needed, as gamers went gaga over the goggles.

TECHNOLOGY - Make Using Touch Screen Feel Bumps

"New Disney technology can add texture to completely smooth touch screens" by News Desk, PBS Newshour 10/7/2013

By regulating a flow of voltage to the surface of smooth touch screen, Disney researchers in Pittsburgh discovered that they can create the sensation of texture and three-dimensional surfaces.  The technology can represent an artificial texture applied to an image, or elevation data extracted from topographical maps.  But how does a smooth surface simulate the feel of a 3D bump?

"Our brain perceives the 3D bump on a surface mostly from information that it receives via skin stretching," said Ivan Poupyrev, who directs Disney Research, Pittsburgh's Interaction Group.  "Therefore, if we can artificially stretch skin on a finger as it slides on the touch screen, the brain will be fooled into thinking an actual physical bump is on a touch screen even though the touch surface is completely smooth."

COMPUTERS - Robotics Challenge From DARPA

"The ultimate video game: teams compete in DARPA Robotics Challenge" by Elizabeth Barber, Christian Science Monitor 6/28/2013

Teams from eight countries competed in the first round of the challenge to develop a disaster response robot

Except in this game, turning on a garden hose is an enormously difficult task, requiring huge teams of scientists and decades of acquired technology.

About twenty-six teams from eight countries competed on June 17-21 in The Virtual Robotics Challenge, the first round of the DARPA Robotics Challenge, using complex software to direct virtual robots in a cloud-based simulator that looks like a 3-D video game.

The overall challenge for the teams is to develop software that can operate a DARPA-supplied humanoid robot across a low-bandwidth network, which is expected to be the only type of network available to first responders in a disaster scenario.

This first round was a software competition in which teams used software of their own design to have a simulated ATLAS robot navigate a simulated disaster zone that looked something like suburbia gone wrong.  For three days, competitors stared into computer screens in their respective far-flung labs and offices, instructing their virtual robots to complete a series of challenges, including driving a vehicle and walking over uneven ground.  Robots also had to pick up a hose, connect it to a spigot and turn it on.

“The disaster response scenario is technically very challenging,” said Russ Tedrake, a professor at MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.  “It requires the robot and human operator to simultaneously perceive and gain an understanding for a complex, new environment, and then use that information to perform difficult manipulation tasks and traverse complex terrains.”

That means that the virtual robot must feed its raw sensor data back to its operating team, which then, with the help of the robot, must interpret its surroundings and enter instructions about where to move or how to manipulate objects.  The team then continuously asks the robot to share its plan, adjusting their requests and their suggestions until the robot provides a correct answer, at which point the robot is allowed to go on autonomously.

The top nine teams received funding and an ATLAS robot to compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials in December 2013.  The trials are the second of three DARPA challenge events and will be the first time that the physical robots will compete.

The overall winner of the first round was The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a team of some 22 researchers.

“Getting in the car and driving was our biggest challenge,” said research scientist Jerry Pratt, the Florida Institute’s team leader.  “Walking — we had that nailed.”

Other winners included Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MIT, and TRACLabs.  The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which was also among the winning teams, donated its awarded funds to three runner-up teams that DARPA had not originally selected – it had chosen six teams – putting the total to nine teams that will compete in the second round.

TECHNOLOGY - Photovoltaic Glass

Photovoltaic Glass
From Corning

TECHNOLOGY - Apple Without Steve Jobs?

"What Will Happen to Innovation at Apple With Jobs Out as CEO?" PBS Newshour 8/25/2011

Excerpts from transcript

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): It was all a far cry from the days when Steve Jobs and co-founder Steve Wozniak began building their now ubiquitous brand, from scratch, in a California garage. They scored an early hit with the Apple II, the first consumer-grade computer to catch on. By the mid-1980s, the company was in a slump, and Jobs was forced out.

But he returned in 1996, and Apple began a turnaround. Still, in a rare interview in 2007, he said his work was never about creating the next big thing.

STEVE JOBS: We don't worry about stuff like that. We just try to build products that we think are really wonderful and that people might want. And sometimes we're right, and sometimes we're wrong.
----
RAY SUAREZ: Walt Mossberg, whether it's consumer electronics, entertainment, even computing, which is where it all started, this has been a big impact player, hasn't it?

WALTER MOSSBERG, The Wall Street Journal: Well, you know, Ray, I think Steve Jobs is a historic figure.

He's not only a historic figure in business, but really in America. He has not only disrupted and innovated in computers and consumer electronics for all those products we saw just now listed, but he has, in the process, shaken up and revolutionized the music industry, the movie industry, publishing industry. Even the retail industry, the Apple store chain that he built, is widely admired.

And on the side, while he was doing all that, he bought a little company called Pixar and turned it into the most successful studio in Hollywood and revolutionized animation.
----
WALTER MOSSBERG: But the devotion to product is -- goes beyond just those words. It's really a devotion to designing products for actual users. You know, a lot of computer companies -- Hewlett-Packard is a good example in what they are doing in spinning off P.C.s -- are really much more interested in selling to businesses, selling to intermediaries, like I.T. departments.

Steve Jobs calls those orifices. He's much more interested in designing something for the actual consumer, whether they're in a big company or just a family. And that -- and he's a perfectionist about it. And he's surrounded himself with other people who are just laser-focused on that.

The other thing, Ray, I think is incredibly important is, they don't just make little innovations based on market research. They take big risks and make big bets on what they think the next thing that people will want is, even if the people don't know it themselves at the time.

TECHNOLOGY - Better Wired Brains?

"Is Technology Wiring Teens to Have Better Brains?"
PBS Newshour 1/5/2011

Excerpt from transcript

MILES O'BRIEN (Newshour): It is seductive, no matter what the age, but is it efficient? Can we really multitask?

Well, yes, with a caveat.

MARCEL JUST, Carnegie Mellon University: We can do it, but at tremendous cost. You can't do two tasks as well as you can do each one separately.

MILES O'BRIEN: Neuroscientist Marcel Just is doing some groundbreaking research on the human brain at Carnegie Mellon University.

So, we pay a big penalty for doing more, two things at once?

MARCEL JUST: That's right. There's only so much brain capability at any one time, throughput. And you can divide it down as much as you want to, but the price will be even higher then.

MILES O'BRIEN: Like driving and talking on the phone. A few years ago, Just did a study on this. His conclusion? Even an idle conversation takes a 40 percent bite out of your brainpower. You might as well be drunk.

So, multitasking is not a myth, but efficient multitasking might be?

MARCEL JUST: Yes. Multitasking with no cost is a myth. I think there's no free lunch there.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY - The PC is 29

Birth of the PC

The IBM PC was announced to the world on 12 August 1981, helping drive a revolution in home and office computing.

The PC came in three versions; the cheapest of which was a $1,565 home computer.

The machine was developed by a 12-strong team headed by Don Estridge.

I owned one of these, just as you see here.

But it was a replacement for my supper-duper Tandy TRS-80 (aka Radio Shack Trash-80) with max 64kb memory, two 180kb 8" external floppy drives, B&W 80x25 monitor (no graphics), and 1200 baud external modem. WOW!

Am I dating myself?