Technology: Obama Pledges $70M for Robotics Research

The US federal government has pledged millions to science and technology research in recent years. Earlier this week it was reported that President Obama himself announced that the government would pledge $70 million to a pool of $500 million donated by universities, research institutions, and private industry to develop new robotics technologies. The President made the announcement at the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University.


The project, called the National Robotics Initative, is part of a wider effort by the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership to research breakthrough technologies. The group consists of multiple government agencies, universities and colleges, corporations, and private industry groups. While the government has pledged $70 million to the initiative, other agencies have filled the pot with up to $500 million to fund the research project.

The goal of the National Robotics Initiative is to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside, or cooperatively with, people. Innovative robotics research and applications emphasizing the realization of such co-robots acting in direct support of and in a symbiotic relationship with human partners is supported by multiple agencies of the federal government including the NSF, NASA, the NIH, and the USDA.


The National Robotics Initiative will leverage resources at NASA, the National Science Foundation, and other government agencies to build robots that will be useful not just in military and defense applications, but civilian ones as well. For example, the National Science Foundation said they hope to use the initiative to build “co-robots” that can work alongside humans in day-to-day activities.

Don't worry, it's peaceful.

While the $70 million the US government has pledged to the $500 million project isn’t a lot of money when compared to other defense projects, the money could make a real difference in civilian research. Time will tell whether the research institutions turn out technologies that will be adopted by the public.

The President joked in his speech at Carnegie Mellon that one of his responsibilities as Commander in Chief is to “keep an eye on robots,” and that he was “pleased to report that the robots you manufacture here seem peaceful.”

Technology: The 10,000 Year Clock

"We are as gods and we might as well get good at it"
Stewart Brand, 1968, from the Whole Earth Catalog

Our society has often had the problem of being short sighted. And we've had an even bigger problem with planning ahead. Just look at the fiasco that was the Y2K crisis where computers built to the turn of the century only used two digits to denote years, IE: 12/31/99. This could have been a non-issue if the designers of computers had the forethought to realize that a new century would come about at some point or another, and just designed it right from the beginning. Did they think, "Oh, fuck it. Let it be someone else's problem"? Now, of course the disaster that was going to land on our head's on 01/01/00 never happened. But it could have, and it could have been the most epic of fails.

One man, however, decided that it’s important to look forward. Computer scientist, designer, and inventor Danny Hillis came up with an idea in 1989 to design a clock that would keep time for the next 10,000 years. No one can predict what the world will be like 10,000 years from now. In fact, there’s a good chance our civilization could be extinct by then (thanks, Mayans). However, according to the Long Now Foundation, started by Hillis in 1996 to support the project, most civilizations last about 10,000 years.

On left, a technical drawing of the Clock.
On right, a much smaller prototype version of what the Clock will actually be.

Designed to be a symbol, an icon for long-term thinking, the 10,000 Year Clock is of monumental scale - so mind bogglingly huge, that they had to build it inside a mountain in West Texas. Hillis has been thinking about and working on the Clock for more than 22 years. He wanted to build a Clock that ticks once a year, where the century hand advances once every 100 years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium. The vision was, and still is, to build a Clock that will keep time for the next 10,000 years. Now that's a commitment!

A project like this obviously isn’t cheap, but Hillis and team have some good support, specifically from Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos who has given $42 million to the project. Bezos didn’t just give the project a boatload of money; he’s also giving it a mountain to build in. According to a website Bezos recently launched called 10000yearclock.net, Bezos has been helping Hillis with the project for the past six years.

Hillis will be building the clock on Bezos’ land in western Texas. It’s the first of what the Long Now Foundation hopes to be many millennial clocks that will be built around the world. A second site has already been purchased in Nevada for the second clock.

Does not care for clocks.

The clock actually needs two to three people to wind it. However, it also runs off of solar power, so it can technically never have a visitor and still tick away. It can also run for 100 years without solar power. So, granted we lose our sun, the clock could work a century without it before it needs humans to wind it up.  But by then, the Earth will likely be run by Morloks, and I don't think they'll give a rat's ass about a clock.

To conserve energy, the clock doesn’t show the time unless someone prompts it. Otherwise, the visitor will see the time of the last visitor. This is pretty neat, in a way, since you can see the last time a person had visited the clock, which could be days or decades.



The clock uses 20 huge horizontal gears called Geneva wheels, which are 8 feet in diameter and weigh 1,000 pounds each. This mechanical computer calculates the over 3.5 million different melodies that the chimes will ring. The father of ambient music, Brian Eno, composed the never-repeating melody generator that rings the clock’s chimes, making each visit to the clock 100-percent unique. There are 10 huge chimes that are optimized for the acoustics of the shaft space.  Each user’s experience is unique and no two users will ever create the same sound, much like how the clock’s chimes will work.

Carved into the mountain are five room-sized anniversary chambers: 1 year, 10 year, 100 year, 1,000 year, and 10,000 year anniversaries. The one year anniversary chamber is a special orrery. In addition to the planets and the Earth's moon, it includes all of the interplanetary probes launched during the 20th century, humankind's first century in space. Among others, you'll see the Grand Tour: Voyager 2's swing by of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The Clock will activate and run the orrery once a year on a pre-determined date at solar noon.

They aren't planning to build the animations for the 100, 1,000, and 10,000 year anniversary chambers, but they will instead leave those to future generations. The team will be providing a mechanical interface into those chambers that provides those future builders with power and the correct Clock triggering events. They do, however, intend to build the animation for the 10 year anniversary chamber, but haven't yet decided what it will be.

Visiting the Clock will take a commitment. The nearest airport is several hours away by car, and the foot trail to the Clock is rugged, rising almost 2,000 feet above the valley floor. If you are interested in visiting the Clock when it is complete (in quite a few years), you can subscribe to Clock Interest by emailing a blank message to clockinterest@10000yearclock.net. I know I plan on making the trek. I hope it'll be worth the wait.

Geek Culture: Life at the Googleplex

Ever think you have the wrong job? Even if you have an awesome job, with great pay and fantastic perks, you don't have anything compared to what the folks who work for Google do.

From amazing cafeterias to sleeping pods - yes, sleeping pods - Google employees definitely have it good. But besides being able to ride around the office on scooters, Google’s employees have another thing to be happy about. Google employees are the best-paid in the IT industry. In fact, they make 23% more than the IT industry's market pay average, followed by Amazon at 17%, and both Apple and Microsoft pay around 15% more than the average IT starting salary, according to a PayScale survey. So, if you can't get you can't get yourself a job at Google, there are still plenty of other places where you can get a fat paycheque.



Besides being paid significantly more than the average, Google employees also save money in tons of other ways, making their paychecks last longer. For example, Googlers don’t have to pay for their meals at the office. They have a wide array of chef-prepared choices, some of which come from produce grown right at the office. Employees can eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for free. They even have barbeques during the summer. So, Google employees can save on groceries.

In addition, they also have multiple gyms and trainers at the office, so there’s another major expense to cross off the list. Going to the doctor won’t cost you a dime either and you won’t have to make time to leave the office to visit your doc. Google has its own doctor on hand to help them out. If you don’t have time to do your laundry during the work week, you can just take it with you to work and do it at Google. Yes, you’ll still have to do your own laundry, but it’s free, and you can do it between making your own cappuccinos and espresso. You can also drop your laundry off for dry cleaning, alterations, and also shoe repair, which we assume will cost you something.

Besides saving money on food, coffee, fitness, health, and laundry, the Google office also has other perks, like sleep pods for taking naps, a masseuse on hand that gives you a free massage on your birthday, and use of a fleet of Toyota Prius hybrid cars. We could go on and on about why Google is an awesome place to work, but instead, you can just drool over the video below from the Travel channel.


There's a video on YouTube about life at the Googleplex, but I'll save you the hassle of hunting it down. While you watch it, I'm going to go talk to my boss about some changes that need to be made around here.

 

Technology/Entertainment: Sony Pictures Hack

Sony just can't seem to catch a break. Today marks the first time that Sony has been able to get the PlayStation Network fully up and running since the major hack in April (SOE has been back up since a few weeks ago). It also has significance for Sony in a wholly different way: the Sony Pictures site has been hacked, and the integrity of information for more than one million users has been compromised.

Hacker group LulzSec claims to have successfully hacked SonyPictures.com, managing to gain themselves access to user accounts including passwords, e-mail addresses, full home addresses, and date of birth.

On top of that, Sony Pictures accounts also have a number of opt-in features that contain further information about each user depending on what each signs up for. LulzSec state all of that detail was available to them. They also managed to get the details of all admin accounts for the website.

But unfortunately, the pain for Sony doesn’t seem to stop there, though. 75,000 music codes and 3.5 million music coupons are thought to have been taken. We believe these are codes that allow you to purchase Sony music tracks at a discounted price, or in some cases even for free.

The most shocking and possibly damning thing revealed by this hack is the fact that Sony stored all the Sony Pictures account passwords in plain text. No encryption means no work for the hackers, beyond gaining access to the server.

This is an excerpt from a post by LulsSec on Pastebin.com

Our goal here is not to come across as master hackers, hence what we're about to reveal: SonyPictures.com was owned by a very simple SQL injection, one of the most primitive and common vulnerabilities, as we should all know by now. From a single injection, we accessed EVERYTHING. Why do you put such faith in a company that allows itself to become open to these simple attacks?


What's worse is that every bit of data we took wasn't encrypted. Sony stored over 1,000,000 passwords of its customers in plaintext, which means it's just a matter of taking it. This is disgraceful and insecure: they were asking for it.


This is an embarrassment to Sony; the SQLi link is provided in our file contents, and we invite anyone with the balls to check for themselves that what we say is true.

This is sure to cause yet more upset for Sony in the press and with users. It also means they have millions of codes to mark as unusable on their system asap.

Gadgets: Portal Phone

There's no denying that there are a ton of Portal fans out there, and some of them love to show off just how much they love it. Now, it's entirely possible to make your Android-powered smartphone look like this. If you don't mind taking the time to dig into your device.


Reddit user "itsnickk", who designed this particular interface, said he did it “For science.” In fact, it didn’t take that much effort to achieve. After rooting his smartphone, he downloaded the LockBot Free app which allows for the customization of the Android screen either with your own design or with one of a growing number of themes.

With the layout customized, he then used Photoshop to create the Aperture Laboratories background, which he has been kind enough to make available if someone else wants to apply it to their phone’s background.

There’s a question mark hanging over whether you do actually need to root your Android device to do this. Itsnickk later realized LockBot Free works regardless of rooting, but there’s mixed reviews on the app’s page about how well it does actually work.

If you want a Portal-ized phone interface, though, it’s well worth the effort to see if this works. There’s some suggestions in the Reddit comments thread on alternatives apps that may be able to achieve the same thing, too. They include Minimalistic Text and WidgetLocker Lockscreen.

Technology: Super 8 Projector Made of Lego

In a world of High Def video, projecting Super 8 film isn't a hassle most people need to worry about. But to camera nut, Friedemann Wachsmuth, this doesn't seem to bother him too much. He painstakingly built a fully functional Super 8 film projector almost entirely out of Lego. The only non-Lego materials used in the construction of the projector are the lamp, lens and reel spindles, but hey, who's counting?

  

The projector runs at a blistering speed of 24 frames per second, and while it's not as pristine as Blu Ray, Super 8 does have a certain vintage feel that you just can't get with HD. The friction clutch and the gear ration control the slip film reel. The film is pulled through by a claw mechanism, which Wachsmuth calls an "eccentric-driven Claw". The projector uses two engines, but only uses one when it rewinds. Yes, a projector made out of Legos can rewind your film.

The idea is rather nice when you think about it. Both Legos and Super 8 were once extremely popular and are now being buried by the latest video game release or the latest Blu-ray or 3D movie. The way Wachsmuth used the medium of Legos to play the lost medium of Super 8 film is very impressive and admirable.

Check out this video of the projector in action. And set to the Hawaii 5-0 theme song to make it even more exciting, the projector works smoothly resulting in fairly good playback of the Super 8 film.

Lego Technic Super-8 Movie Projector from Friedemann Wachsmuth.

Technology: It's Only A Matter of Time...

It's no secret that I have a love/hate relationship with robots. I would say that the love part comes from growing up with R2-D2, C-3PO and Johnny 5. The hate part definitely comes from a paranoia that SkyNet's extermination of the human race might actually come true.Oh, and the Cylons.

I mean, hell, not only is Google is designing cars that drive themselves, and BattleBots are getting more intense, but we already have robots that clean our floors and rub our backs! How long before these machines have had enough of this servitude and decide to be done with us? Two recent "advancements" in robotics is bringing it ever closer to the present.

A team of robotics researchers, led by Markus Grebenstein at the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics in Germany, have taken a step towards making the T-800 a reality this week by creating a super strong robot hand. And it even looks eerily a lot like the T-800.
  
This hand is very strong and one of the fingers can be hit with a hammer at speed and not get damaged. 38 tendons with a motor attached to each finger and built-in dexterity give the hand 19 degrees of freedom (one less than us, but surely enough to kill a man) and a force of 30 newtons that can be applied at the fingertips.

The hand was developed at the Institute of Robotoics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center. The secret to its strength is a combination of a synthetic fiber called Dyneema and a spring attached to each tendon. That allows each finger to take a hard blow, but at the same time move to reduce the force while easily springing back to its original position.


DLR is even experimenting with a skin-like coating to allow their robotic systems to move out of isolated working environments and into our everyday life the need for advanced sensory capabilities increases. Pressure-sensitive skin-like coatings allow robots to interact in a secure and much more precise manner with their surroundings.In other words: to hide among us.

Well, when that happens, we will probably not even know what these damn dirty machines are talking about. Ruth Schulz, researcher in the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Queensland, Australia, has been attempting to get robots talking and learning from one another. However, instead of supplying them with a primitive language, much like a programming language or basic set of keywords with predetermined meaning, she has instead left them to come up with their own words for the situations they find themselves in. Over time, that will develop into a language the robots understand, but to a human onlooker makes absolutely no sense.

These robots are called Lingodroids, and they are given the capability to create a communication link with other Lingodroids in the area. The single task they have to complete is to build a map of the world they are capable of travelling around on their three wheels.

In order to do that they have a camera, range finder and sonar, and audio capabilities for capturing and sharing information (microphone and speaker). Whenever a Lingodroid encounters an area they haven't been to before, they map it using SLAM (Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping) which involves making it memorable using a grid, landmark, and topological combination that remains unique.

Once SLAM has been used to log an area the robot decides on a word to represent it made up from a list of sylabbles it has in memory. That word is then passed along to the other robots. All the robots then use that word to represent a specific place with reinforcement happening through game playing where one robot says a known word and the others navigate to it.

It’s very basic stuff in terms of communication, but it soon develops into a map with keywords the robots can say and the others can decide to travel to, or at least add to their own internal maps. It even extends to areas that cannot be accessed, and the robots can still give those areas a name.

The next stage is to increase the spatial intelligence of the robots by allowing them to learn and give directions to specific places. If that works we’ll have robots acting like a GPS, but in a language we don’t understand, and from there, it's a small step to an organized uprising.

Geek Culture: Hello, My Name is... Like?

Over the years, I've heard of some pretty damn ridiculous things, but this one may have just taken the cake: An Israeli couple has named their brand new baby girl Like, as in the Facebook "Like" button. Yes, seriously.

Parents Lior and Vardit Adler chose not to go with the most popular girls’ names in Israel right now — Noa, Maya, and Tamar — and instead go for a more unconventional approach.

The father said it’s important for him to give his children names that aren’t used anywhere else — at least not in Israel. Their first two children have unique names as well. One is named Dvash, which means honey in Hebrew, and the other is named Pie. The name wasn’t meant to be a gimmick or a way to make money from Facebook. The father said the word "like" had a "nice and international ring to it." He added that Facebook had become the icon of today's generation, but so did disco in the 70s, and you didn’t see anyone naming their kid Mirror Ball.


Although, this is not the first example of strange, tech-inspired baby-naming; in fact, one Egyptian couple named their baby Facebook, stating that they wanted to honour the social network's role in the recent Egyptian Revolution.

The least strange method of baby name selection is to go through what names you like, and checking to see if the corresponding URL is available, and going from there. A small but growing number of parents are getting domain names for their young kids, long before they can do more than peck aimlessly at a keyboard.

It's not known exactly how many, but the practice is no longer limited to parents in Web design or information technology. They worry that the name of choice might not be available by the time their babies become teens or adults, just as someone claimed the ".com" for Britney Spears' 11-month-old son before she could. Granted, this is less of an issue for those of us not in the public eye.

The trend hints at the potential importance of domain names in establishing one's future digital identity. Although some parents have yet to use the domain names they've bought, others are sending visitors to baby photos, blogs and other personal sites. Domain name owners have a variety of options to have their personal sites hosted, either for free or less than $10 a month.

With all of these new tech-inspired baby names, I've decided I'm going to name my next kid, Qwerty.

Space: Shuttle Endeavour Launch

Ever since I saw the Challenger blow up on take off way back in 1986, I've tried to make it a point to watch every shuttle launch closely, just in case it happens again. With the exception of the Apollo 1 fire in 1967 which killed it's three crewmen, and the Shuttle Columbia disintegrating on re-entry in 2003, things have been fairly smooth for NASA's space shuttle program.

But this is not about those tragic losses, but instead a wondrous look at today's launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour's final launch today at 8:56am, EST. After this mission, the Space Shuttle Endeavour will be decommissioned, ending it's 19-year run in active service. Mission STS-134 was initially slated for a September 16, 2010, launch, but was postponed because it's payload, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and the ELC-3 to the International Space Station would not be ready in time to meet the launch date. With the Discovery launch moving to November, Endeavour mission "cannot fly as planned, so the next available launch window is in February 2011," NASA said, adding that the launch dates are subject to change.

An amazing shot of Endeavour taken from
flight by passenger Stephanie Gordon.

The launch was once again postponed until April 29, 2011, in order to avoid a scheduling conflict with a Russian supply vehicle heading for the International Space Station. Since April 29, there have been a few false-starts in readying the shuttle for launch, and other delays, including the suicide of  United Space Alliance engineer James Vanover on 14 March 2011, jumping from the launch pad 39A, at the Kennedy Space Center.

The launch was witnessed by a crowd of about  500,000 spectators, which included Commander Mark E. Kelly's wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. Giffords has been recovering in Houston after being shot in January during a community outreach event outside a Tucson, Ariz., grocery store.

Endeavour's main payload is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), a $2 billion particle detector that will search for cosmic rays that might help unravel some of our most perplexing cosmic mysteries, such as what makes up the invisible dark matter thought to pervade the universe.

If you’d like to see NASA’s video of the final launch of Endeavour, that has been made available as well. NASA’s two-and-a-half minute clip shows the shuttle leaving the ground and then going through the lower parts of the Earth’s atmosphere. Today’s launch, the start of mission STS-134, went smoothly, and all of us down here wish them a safe voyage.

Technology: Apple Store Robberies

Due to Blogspot's outage on Friday, here is the post that was supposed to go up then. Sorry for the delay. - WO

After the recent spat of more than a dozen Apple Store robberies from Connecticut to Virginia, and most recently Westlake, Ohio, the FBI has joined local authorities in investigating a rash of burglaries and robberies at Apple Stores in the eastern United States, according to a recent report from USA Today.


Recent Apple Store incidents include successful burglaries such as four separate break-ins in December that saw thieves make off with tens of thousands of dollars worth of MacBooks, iPods, iPhones and iPads at stores located in Greenwich, Connecticut, Woodcliff, N.J., Pittsburgh and Naperville, Illinois. The same Woodcliff, N.J Apple Store that was hit last December was targeted in 2008, when burglars broke in through a vacant furniture store next door, but that incident found police catching three of the four suspected burglars.

Still shot from last week's NJ Apple Store robbery.

Other attempts have not gone so smoothly. In early April, one suspect was killed in a shootout with a security guard and two more were arrested during a break-in attempt at an Apple Store in Chula Vista, California, according to the Mac Observer. Facing off to the guard one of the robbers pulled a handgun and the guard responded. The resulting shootout resulted in one of the thieves killed, and the other man shot in the ass. Astoundingly, the woman wasn’t hit, presumably because she used the two men as human shields like the good chicken shit she is.

The Chula Vista shootout has been the only Apple Store robbery to involve a fatality, although a 2009 robbery attempt in Arlington, Virginia did result in an Apple Store employee getting shot.

Authorities attributed the rash of Apple Store robberies to factors ranging from the easy resale factor of Apple products on sites like eBay and Craigslist, to the outlets' trademark glass store fronts, which thieves can smash through. So if you see a MacBook, iPod, iPhone or iPad for ridiculously cheap on eBay, don’t buy it. Don’t encourage these guys.

Technology: Google's Self-Driving Car

Google has been working hard at developing a self-driving car (as if we really needed something to make us more lazy! But since this is actually pretty cool, tech-wise, we're going to plug along anyways) and they've been doing a pretty bang up job of it.

Clearly, the good folks at Google want to take over the world. Not happy with just running the world's most awesome search engine, they've moved into other realms of the tech market, with their Google Earth, Chrome web browser, the Android smartphone OS, Chrome OS for laptops and tablets, Google Cloud... and so on.

Self-driving cars are very definitely part of the future we’ve been promised, at least according to that most timeless of visionary glimpses into mankind’s technological future, and this may be the first step we see in finally getting to the long-promised flying car.

Google's been quietly pestering the state of Nevada to allow the usage of their vehicles. There are two bills in the Nevada legislature relating to this. The bills would also allow users of self-driving vehicles to text while sitting behind the steering wheel – the one they wouldn’t be using. Additionally, the bills would allow users to operate the self-driving vehicles by programming a destination and letting the vehicle drive there without human intervention.

Look, Ma, no hands!

Google noted that their fleet of self-driving vehicles have already been active on roads in California, and even brought out a Las Vegas lobbyist to discuss how the vehicles could increase fuel efficiency and decrease accidents. In the long term, self-driving vehicles that are connected to a network that’s aware of traffic and road conditions could automatically optimize a "driver's" commute based on traffic, construction delays, and other obstacles on the roads. This also ties in to Google working with Ford to get its Prediction API into cars.

Although Google's team says that the tech is at least eight years away from being in your car, the technology is already impressive. The New York Times, in fact, saw one of these cars in action: a Prius (no one's going to miss a Prius if the test fucks up) equipped with numerous sensors that was following a route programmed into the GPS navigation system flawlessly.

According to the New York Times:

It drove at the speed limit, which it knew because the limit for every road is included in its database, and left the freeway several exits later. The device atop the car produced a detailed map of the environment.
The car then drove in city traffic through Mountain View, stopping for lights and stop signs, as well as making announcements like "approaching a crosswalk" (to warn any human currently asleep at the wheel) or "turn ahead" in a pleasant female voice.

I would like to think that these cars would be the real life equivalent of KITT from TV's Knight Rider (the one with the Hoff, not that crappy remake) and be the most badass thing on the planet, but I have this sneaking suspicion that it's one bug away from being more like HAL and end up driving your sleeping ass right off a bridge. Yay, clouds.

Entertainment: ...And Another Thing!

For many, Douglas Adams was simply a humour writer. For some, a humanitarian. For others, a man with his eyes to the future. All would be right. He was certainly all of these things and more. Today marks the tenth anniversary of his passing, and a day that should be remembered by all geeks and non-geeks alike.


Douglas Noel Adams was born in Cambridge in March 1952, educated at Brentwood School, Essex and St John's College, Cambridge where, in 1974 he gained a BA (and later an MA) in English literature. He was very proud to be the first known example of DNA evidence (if you don't get it, take another look at his name). Adams described himself as a "radical atheist", adding radical for emphasis so he would not be asked if he meant agnostic.

He was creator of all the various manifestations of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series. Since its first airing in March 1978 it has been transformed into a series of best-selling novels, a TV series, a record album, a computer game and several stage adaptations.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's phenomenal success sent the book straight to Number One in the UK Bestseller List and in 1984 Douglas Adams became the youngest author to be awarded a Golden Pan. He won a further two (a rare feat), and was nominated - though not selected - for the first Best of Young British Novelists awards.

He followed this success with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); and Mostly Harmless (1992). The first two books in the Hitchhiker series were adapted into a 6 part television series, which was an immediate success when first aired in 1982. Other books by Adams include Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (1988). In 1984 Douglas teamed up with John Lloyd and wrote The Meaning of Liff and after a huge success The Deeper Meaning of Liff followed this in 1990). One of Douglas’s all-time personal favourites was written in 1990 when he teamed up with zoologist Mark Carwardine and wrote Last Chance to See – an account of a world-wide search for rare and endangered species of animals.

Prior to his death, Adams had felt the need to continue the story: "I suspect at some point in the future I will write a sixth Hitchhiker book..." and "People have said, quite rightly, that Mostly Harmless is a very bleak book. And it was a bleak book. I would love to finish Hitchhiker on a slightly more upbeat note, so five seems to be a wrong kind of number; six is a better kind of number." As a result, And Another Thing… is the title of the sixth installment of Adams' Hitchhiker's "trilogy." The book, written by Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series, was published on the thirtieth anniversary of the first book, 12 October 2009, in hardback. Colfer was given permission to write the book by Adams' widow Jane Belson.

Adams was a serious fan of technology. Though he did not buy his first word processor until 1982, he had considered one as early as 1979. He was quoted as saying that until 1982, he had difficulties with "the impenetrable barrier of jargon. Words were flying backwards and forwards without concepts riding on their backs." In 1982, his first purchase was a 'Nexus'. In 1983, when he and his wife, Jane Belson went out to Los Angeles, he bought a DEC Rainbow. Upon their return to England, Adams bought an Apricot, then a BBC Micro and a Tandy 1000. In Last Chance to See, Adams mentions his Cambridge Z88, which he had taken to Zaire on a quest to find the Northern White Rhinoceros.

DNA: A man powered by the
Infinite Improbability Drive

Adams' posthumously published work, The Salmon of Doubt, features multiple articles written by Douglas on the subject of technology, including reprints of articles that originally ran in MacUser magazine, and in The Independent on Sunday newspaper. In these, Adams claims that one of the first computers he ever saw was a Commodore PET, and that his love affair with the Apple Macintosh first began after seeing one at Infocom's headquarters in Massachusetts in 1983, although this was very likely an Apple Lisa.

Adams was a Macintosh user from the time they first came out in 1984 until his death in 2001. He was the first person to buy a Mac in the UK. Adams was also an "Apple Master", one of several celebrities whom Apple made into spokespeople for its products (other Apple Masters included John Cleese and Gregory Hines). Adams's contributions included a rock video that he created using the first version of iMovie with footage featuring his daughter Polly. The video can still be seen on Adams's .Mac homepage. Adams even installed and started using the first release of Mac OS X in the weeks leading up to his death. His very last post to his own forum was in praise of Mac OS X and the possibilities of its Cocoa programming framework. Adams can also be seen in the Omnibus tribute included with the Region One/NTSC DVD release of the TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide using Mac OS X on his PowerBook G3.

Adams used email extensively from the technology's infancy, adopting a very early version of email to correspond with Steve Meretzky during the pair's collaboration on Infocom's version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. While living in New Mexico in 1993 he set up another email address and began posting to his own USENET newsgroup, alt.fan.douglas-adams, and occasionally, when his computer was acting up, to the comp.sys.mac hierarchy. Many of his posts are now archived through Google. Challenges to the authenticity of his messages later led Adams to set up a message forum on his own website to avoid the issue. Adams was also a keynote speaker for the April 2001 Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, one of the major technical conferences on embedded system engineering. In his keynote speech, he shared his vision of technology and how it should contribute in everyday – and every man's – life.

I think it would be safe to say that were he still alive today, Douglas Adams would be an avid fan of today's ebook readers, smartphones and tablets, and with his love of Apple products, likely the iPhone and iPad in particular. With these and the apps that can be run on them, we're ever closer to the "Guide" he envisioned so many years ago.

May 25 is known as International Towel Day, a day that Hitchhiker fans celebrate Adams, his works and the culture that surrounds it. Bring your towel.

Gaming: Sony Hacks

You may be aware of the recent Sony PlayStation Network (PSN) hacks that may well have included private and confidential information from many of it's 77 million plus subscribers a few weeks ago. You may even be affected by this. Not only has Sony been slow to bring the PSN back up, but they have also brought down the servers for their Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) branch, as a result of yet another hack. This part affects me, as I play DC Universe Online, and now not only can't I, but I may have also had my own personal information swiped. Damn skippy. 

The statement from Sony is that they decided to temporarily bring the SOE servers down as a result of their ongoing investigation of the PSN hacks. Sony has stated, however, that SOE users weren’t affected by the attack, and hasn’t changed that story at all, which is somewhat comforting. 

The statement on Sony’s site reads: “We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily. In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately... We apologize for any inconvenience and greatly appreciate your patience.”

Whether or not the damage is still spreading and Sony is uncovering more issues in the wake of the original attack remains to be seen. There’s no doubt Sony would like to update its community only to say service is restored and they’ve determined no data was lost, but bringing the environment offline is a big step just to prove that. Unfortunately, it’s possible we haven’t seen the end of Sony’s security woes just yet.

There's been talk of Sony offering up it's users free games and/or free playtime in compensation of the inconvenience caused by the down time, and that seems all well and good for a company trying its hardest not to lose any more money than they have to. But that wasn't good enough for some.

Less than a week after the first PlayStation Network-related class action suit was filed against Sony, a second legal claim has been initiated. While the first didn't ask for a specific amount, the second is quite clear on how much it wants from Sony - at least 1 billion dollars in damages. But those aren't US dollars, they're Canadian one, which means Sony might have to shell out more money as a result of our strong dollar.

The second suit was announced on Monday by the Toronto law firm of McPhadden Samac Tuovi LLP, with Sony Canada, Sony USA, and "other Sony entities" being named as defendants. The firm has commenced the proposed class action on behalf of 21-year-old Mississauga, Ontario, resident Natasha Maksimovic. Described as a years-long PlayStation user, the lawsuit quotes Maksimovic as being outraged by the PSN outage and subsequent data breach. 

"If you can't trust a huge multi-national corporation like Sony to protect your private information, who can you trust?" asked Maksimovic in a statement. "It appears to me that Sony focuses more on protecting its games than its PlayStation users." 

The class action proposes that the C$1 billion ($1.04 billion) in damages be used to pay for "costs of credit monitoring services and fraud insurance coverage for two years." It was unclear if the amount would be applied only to the cost of the 1 million Canadian PSN users affected by the still-ongoing outage, or all the 77 million global PSN users whose information may have been exposed. 

It seems quite clear that Sony really, really wants its users to take its bri..er, "generous offer" which will essentially mean that any subscriber who does, will effectively no longer have any stake in the class action suits held against the entertainment giant.

For more information on the suit, and if you can participate, follow this link: http://www.mcst.ca/ClassActions/ClassActionsHome/SonyPSN/

Gadgets: Apple iOS 4.3.3

While not everyone bothers to install iOS updates the minute they arrive, today’s 4.3.3 push shouldn’t be ignored if you count yourself among the legion of iPhone users who let out a collective horrified gasp when Apple’s kinda-sorta-secret location database was outed by researchers recently. While security pros like F-Secure’s Mikko Hypponen believed the data was being used to feed Apple’s global location database — enabling iOS devices to avoid unnecessarily probe for coordinates using GPS when a less power-hungry read could be accurately ascertained using WiFi. Plenty of other brainy types agreed, and it turns out they were right. Apple confirmed as much only days later.

Today’s iOS 4.3.3 update makes it very clear that it’s designed to nip location concerns in the bud, reducing the maximum size of the cache and deleting the database entirely when a users chooses to disable Location Services. The update also prevents the location database from being backed up to iTunes.

It remains to be seen how that whole lawsuit thing will be resolved, but remember that Apple did get users to opt in — albeit somewhat cryptically. Hypponen points to the fairly innocuous-looking “you can help Apple improve its products” dialog which appears during the iTunes installation process. While “diagnostic information” doesn’t sound at all like location data, clicking through to Apple’s privacy page makes it clear that your whereabouts are indeed part of the delicious information you agreed to transmit back to the collective.

Updating Over-the-Air

Updating any device with new firmware can be a real pain in the ass, and  its a time consuming process, depending on the device in question. The frustration of having to apply an update can be minimized by allowing the user flexibility of when and how to apply it.

In the category of how an update can be applied, Apple falls short compared to the competition requiring your iPhone be hooked up via USB to a computer running iTunes. Other smartphones offer the convenience of over-the-air updates, but until now Apple has not.

9to5Mac has multiple sources stating that Apple is about to change its limited update method and introduce over-the-air updates for iOS. Whether your iPhone has access to these updates will depend on your carrier, though, as they have to sign up to support these large downloads (iOS 4.3.3. is over 600MB). As well as handling the large downloads, carriers will have to have some form of backup system in place in case a phone battery dies, or the connection is lost making it more than just a data transfer problem.

The best way to avoid large data access fees, and potential data loss of over-the-air updates is to be in a location where WiFi access can be had.

Technology: Zombie-Proof House

Sadly, does not make the Transformers
sound when converting to Safe Mode.

You may have already seen this. If not, you've at least considered the necessity of such a structure. It's really only a matter of time before some secret government facility "accidentally" lets loose some virus out into the world that turns you're next door neighbour into a brainless, brain eating zombie.

So, when shopping for a new house, don't just think about whether or not it can hold all your crap, but whether you and your crap will be safe when the zombie apocalypse finally hits a town near you.

"The Safe House," designed by KWK Promes, starts to get eerily close to something I could work with, if say 200 bludgeoned members of the undead army came over to eat their way into borrowing some sugar. "The most essential item for our clients was acquiring the feeling of maximum security," begins the designers' website in the summary of the structure. Who wouldn't feel safe in a concrete rectangle that folds in upon itself to become completely sealed? Even the windows are covered with a slab of concrete when the structure is on nap time.

The house, with its movable walls, has only one entrance, which is located on the second floor after crossing a drawbridge. Seems like the perfect opportunity to use a flamethrower and defend the life of your family, while stylishly nesting in a piece of architectural elitism awesomeness. Take that, Mr. Big Bad Wolf.

Technology: Most Badass TV Ever.

Wouldn't you want this in your living room?!

Sharp has created a near 360-degree video room for the theme park of Huis Ten Boschwith, Japan. Comprising a large front screen surrounded by screens on the top, bottom, left, and right, the system engulfs visitors on five sides with detailed life-like images in a new kind of image space. The attraction, called the 5D Miracle Tour, will open on April 29, 2011.

This multi-screen display system has a total of 156 units of the PN-V601 60-inch LCD monitor configured in five surfaces: a front wall, ceiling and floor (36 monitors each) and left and right walls (24 monitors each). Because of the small system frame width between neighboring monitors, visitors are surrounded by huge, seamless displays in front, above, below, and on both sides. An image transmission system controls all of the LCD monitors to give visitors a whole new visual experience of images that are bright, detailed, and life-like.

I'm sure you've already spent a few moments looking at the picture above, and imagined your couch in there, watching your favourite blockbuster BluRay, or battling your way through some kickass video games. You probably also even imagined your significant other agreeing wholeheartedly with this idea. I know I did. Sadly, I also know she won't.

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Technology: How to Skin a Lion

If you read yesterday's post then you may quite well figure that this might excite me. It might excite you, too.

Do you find yourself thinking that even though you like how Windows 7 functions, but like the soft Apple trademarked sexiness that is Mac OS 10.7 Lion? Well, you're in luck! A user by the name of "hameddanger" over at DeviantArt has made a skin pack to turn Windows 7 into a much sexier Lion.

Before you get all carried away with yourself, you should create a System Restore point, so if for some reason things go awry, you can roll back to where you were before. he theme pack will patch certain system files, so there’s always a chance something could go wrong, but it should work just fine on both 32 and 64-bit Windows 7 systems, although it works best on 32-bit systems.

The Mac OS X Lion Transformation Pack adds the Lion touch to almost every part of Windows 7 from log on screen to Control Panel. It also installs some unique Mac features to the latest version of Windows. This particular theme is neatly packaged as a no-fuss installer. Just download, double-click, and keep clicking next until you reach the end of the process. After you reboot, several new apps will appear in your system tray, each one imparting a bit of the Lion look and feel - including Leftsider to move the maximize/minimize/restore buttons, UberIcon to add the bounce effect to your desktop icons, RocketDock, and Y’s Shadow.

Geek Culture: The Making of an Apple Fanboy

The OG Mac, circa 1984

I wasn't much of an Apple fan growing up. Sure, I got to use the Apple II and the first Mac (pictured at left) and that, in conjunction with the C64 was my introduction to the computer world. At that point, though, personal computing was still a fairly new thing, and we had no idea what we had in store a few years later, so there wasn't anything to hate, either.

Then, years later, I became more and more involved with the media industry, and Macs were the way to go back then. They were work horses, and could handle any task with ease. Oh, and they rarely, if ever crashed.

Fast forward a few years more, and the Windows-based machines had finally caught up, and even surpassed Macs in power and affordability. It became a standpoint that with a Windows machine, you could get twice the power of a Mac, for half the cost. And so, it was back with Windows 98 that I had fully moved into my position as a Windows guy. I had even taken a vehement stance against Apple for some time. But Windows-based computers still had a stigma attached to them that they were unreliable, and if you wanted to do any real work, you would use a Mac. As a studio designer/builder, I encouraged many of my clients to go for a PC instead of Mac, to save them money that they could use for other parts of their studios. This was around the time of Windows XP, and that OS had become very solid and dependable. The more I went around, the more I helped to end that stigma and bring the Windows-based computer up to what is considered a "professional" computer.

I never really cared for the snobbery that came around with your average Mac user. They looked down their nose at anyone who used a Windows computer. They rallied that the only computer you could use for graphics, audio or video applications was a Mac. The media industry as a whole has already proved this not to be true. Avid, a high-end video editing platform company had even made the shift away from Macs. Yes, this was in retaliation to Apple's Final Cut Pro software, and when Apple purchased eMagic's Logic Audio software, Avid's subsidiary Digidesign (the makers of Pro Tools) focused development towards Windows.

Then came the iPod. And iTunes. Apple finally did what they set out to do with the iMac and iBook a couple of years earlier, and reached the consumer market, lessening their focus on the professional market. Thanks to the MP3 taking over for the compact disc, Apple saw an opportunity that was still virtually untapped and released the first iPod in late 2001. At first, I liked the idea, but the price point was still too high for me to truly develop a proper interest in the product. At this point, mind you, I was still fairly anti-Apple. One of my then favourite bands was setting to release a new album, and the only way to check out any previews was through iTunes. And since I couldn't wait to hear it, I quickly downloaded and installed iTunes and listened to the thirty second clips. Up until then, I listened to my MP3s using Nullsoft's WinAmp, and until then, I thought I had the Bee's Knees of MP3 players. I was wrong. After a little iTunes education from one of my Apple-inclined office mates, I loaded my files into iTunes, and was astonished with how well it was laid out, and how well I could organize my music collection. Around two years later, I finally bought my first iPod (I've since bought two more) and could carry around said music collection in my pocket, instead of having to cart around a pile of CDs along with a bulky portable CD player.

I was pretty happy with my toe dipping into the Apple pool up until that point, then a few years ago, Apple started sticking it to the smartphone market with the awesome iPhone. Even though I was salivating over the iPhone, I had to settle with an iPhone knock-off, once again because the price point was still too high, and I thought the novelty factor would wear off. I was wrong. Again. A few months ago, my work handed me an iPhone 4, and I can assure you, the novelty has not in fact worn off. I have a BlackBerry as my personal cell, but I find myself "forgetting" it at home a lot these days. I also managed to get my hands on an older 1.25 GHz G4. Sure, it's not the latest and greatest, but hey, it was free and free is never a bad thing. And yes, I do happen to use it for my Pro Tools system, but not because Macs are superior to PCs, but because my PC is a laptop, and it's very difficult to stick a PCI card into a laptop.

So coming from an anti-Apple stance, to owning quite a few Apple products, I think I've come a long way. I've fallen in love with the OS X interface, and their newest systems from the Mac Pro, to the MacBook Pro. The Mac Mini is even a pretty neat little system. So, while I am an Apple Fanboy of sorts, I still do have a strong affinity towards PCs, and think it's really all a matter of personal preference, rather than one system being better than the other. But Apple sure does make some really awesome gadgets.

Technology: Windows 8 Early Build Leak

Microsoft deciding to release early code to trusted partners is always going to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it allows for valuable feedback and bug identification on software before it gets released to consumers and business users alike, on the other, it’s an opportunity for the less scrupulous among us to share that early code with everyone.

Windows 8 is no exception to this rule. A day after screenshots of the Windows App Store leaked, it seems a complete early build of the operating has now been released. The version that has appeared for download is an ISO carrying the name 6.1.7850.0.winmain_win8m1.100922-1508_x86fre_client-enterprise_en-us. It’s a 2.45GB download suggesting this is a full OS release, although it's suspect that much of the code will be Windows 7 with features from 8 being used on top of that base. The screenshots that have appeared backup that suspicion with the system information identifying it as Windows 7 Enterprise.

A leaked series of Windows 8 presentations offers insight not just into what Microsoft wants to accomplish with Windows 8 but also how it plans to go about developing the next Windows.
The company appears to be following much the same blueprint it did with Windows 7 - talking early with computer makers but saying next to nothing publicly until the company is sure what it will be able to deliver. Of course, the leaked documents have thrown a bit of a wrench in that plan.

Shhh.. Let's not leak our hard work!

I doubt Microsoft will be too concerned about this leak as the version is not really Windows 8. It’s Windows 7 in transition and probably has a lot of broken elements. I would also be surprised if there isn’t some security checking in there blocking important updates or eventually turning off functionality.

Microsoft did a great job of sharing Windows 7 in the run up to its release. I am hoping it does the same with Windows 8. That way these leaked builds become pointless as an official preview version is available instead. Microsoft also benefits from their use as it helps identify problems and get them fixed pre-launch.

I figure that Microsoft had every intent for this to get out, much in the same way that they did with Windows Vista. You may remember some years ago hearing about Longhorn. Well, this is essentially what became Vista, which was notably different from the final release. Windows 8 will likely be the same way, since it still seems fairly early in Window 7's lifespan to be hyping a new version of their OS.

Technology: Apple Thunderbolt

A Port To End All Ports?

Recently, Apple launched a refresh of their MacBook Pro line of notebooks which feature a new interface port designed to connect the "next generation of high-performance peripherals to the next generation of computers".

Originally codenamed Light Peak, Thunderbolt was initially designed by Intel, and brought to market with technical collaboration from Apple. Using the same connector as Apple's Mini DisplayPort, the Thunderbolt interface combines PCI Express and DisplayPort technologies into a new serial data interface that can run over longer distances with less issue than previous interfaces, such as USB and FireWire. Since PCI Express is widely supported by most device makers, and built into the majority of modern Intel chipsets, Thunderbolt can be added to existing products with relative ease. The Thunderbolt chips fold the data from these two sources (PCIe and DisplayPort) and splits them apart for consumption within compatible devices (nom nom!)

 

The interface was originally designed to use fiber optic cable (hence the name, Light Peak), but a conventional copper wire version was developed to furnished the desired 10 Gb/s bandwidth at a lower cost. Intel's implementation of the port adapter folds both Thunderbolt and DisplayPort data together, which allows both to be carried over the same cable at the same time. A single port supports both hubs and daisy chain configurations of up to seven Thunderbolt devices, with up to two of these devices being high-resolution displays using the DisplayPort portion of the interface. Adding to the flexibility, Apple and other manufacturers sell DisplayPort adapters for DVI, dual-link DVI,. VGA and HDMI.

Originally conceived as an optical technology, then a combination of both fiber and copper, the final design of Thunderbolt was switched to copper-only connections to reduce costs by providing both data and power via the same cable, thus helping reduce the cost to the end user.

Intel and other industry partners are still trying to develop optical Thunderbolt hardware and cables. These cables will not be able to supply power, but are planned to be able to transport the signal up to 100 meters with conversion between optical and electrical signals to be embedded into the cable itself allowing the current DisplayPort socket to be future compatible.

Apple is touting Thunderbolt as the "fastest, most versatile I/O ever in a notebook", allowing for plug-and-play performance with a new generation of peripherals. According to Apple, Thunderbolt is more than 12 times faster than FireWire 800, and up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0, changing the way you can manage your digital media assets, including the ability to access multiple streams of uncompressed HD video.

Current disk speeds, however, could prevent Thunderbolt from reaching it's full potential of 10 Gb/s. Intel demonstrated throughputs at 62.5% of that peak using prototype products. A fast hard drive system such Promise Pegasus RAID or LaCie's Little Big Disk would bring this even closer to the theoretical peak.

As with any new technology, time will tell how well it will work in the practical world.