Friday, November 14. 2008The Coming Wireless RevolutionGadgets that operate over television frequencies promise to transform the wireless landscape.
By Kate Greene
The FCC announcement essentially lets wireless take advantage of unused frequencies in between channels used by broadcast television, so-called white spaces. "The announcement that the FCC will allow white-space devices has a lot of people feeling like this is a beginning of a wireless revolution," says Anant Sahai, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. For years, researchers have been toying with radios that are smart enough to hop from one frequency to another, leaving occupied channels undisturbed--an approach known as cognitive radio. But until the FCC made its announcement, cognitive-radio research was a purely academic pursuit. "You could do all the research you wanted on it," Sahai says, "but it was still illegal." With the FCC decision, however, researchers and companies finally have the opportunity to turn prototypes into products, knowing that the gadgets could hit the market in the next couple of years. Companies including Motorola, Phillips, and Microsoft have all tested prototypes with mixed results and hope to have robust white-space devices soon. Motorola is one of the first companies to have developed a white-space radio device that meets the basic requirements of the FCC. The device is smart enough to find and operate on free frequencies in its vicinity while controlling the strength of signals to keep them from interfering with those from other devices using nearby frequencies. There are still lingering concerns over interference, however. This is one of the main reasons why white spaces have been off limits until now. Broadcast companies, which fund a huge lobby in Washington, were not keen on sharing their airwaves, and musicians were concerned that future white-space devices would interfere with performances using wireless microphones. Motorola's radio finds occupied frequencies by accessing a database of registered television stations and wireless devices within its vicinity, which it determines by using GPS. Steve Sharkey, Motorola's policy director, notes that the device has a secondary way of finding free signals that involves just "listening" to the airwaves and scoping out free space. Sharkey believes that combining both methods will provide the best results. Motorola's early tests show that there's still work to be done. During an FCC trial in October, Motorola's device, which is about the size of a suitcase and can currently only receive signals, was able to find some but not all of the allocated frequencies in its vicinity. "These aren't ready to go," admits Sharkey. "They are more developmental devices, and the idea of the test is to demonstrate the basic technologies and help the FCC understand all the interactions [between transmissions]." While eventually it may be possible to shrink down a white-space radio to the size of a cell phone, Sharkey says that Motorola is more focused on bypassing wired Internet technology by providing broadband to rural areas and providing point-to-point wireless antennas. Other companies are more reticent to talk about their white-space plans, but Jake Ward, spokesperson for the Wireless Innovation Alliance, a consortium of companies that helped convince the FCC to open up white spaces, says that these companies have a wide range of motives. For example, computer manufacturers such as Dell may want to build broadband wireless Internet cards that are faster and have more range than existing ones do. Software companies like Microsoft could be interested in building software and applications for new devices. And an Internet giant like Google may simply want to push Internet coverage to increase the number of people who see Google ads. "Each company has its own interests," Ward says, "but the underlying principle is that higher connectivity is better for everybody." Ward describes one white-space application as "mind blowing": sending high-definition television signals from one room to another within a house. "You have a TiVo, a DVD player, a cable box, and three high-definition TVs," he says. "Using a white-space device, you could beam those signals anywhere, to any TV." Of course, technical and policy challenges still remain. "Right now, a device capable of moving around to different frequencies at will is very expensive," notes UC Berkeley's Sahai. But he suspects that economies of scale will lead to affordable devices within the next couple of years. Additionally, he says, regulations need to be established to ensure that devices consistently avoid causing interference. Ultimately, however, Sahai sees no shortage of demand for the wireless spectrum. "If you build it better and faster and easy to deploy, then the applications will come," he says. Copyright Technology Review 2008. ----- Le spam mondial décapité par un journalisteBaisse du spam enregistrée par Spamcop au moment de la fermeture de McColo Corp - Source Security Fix Mardi, le nombre de spams circulant par email sur le net a baissé d’un coup. Selon IronPort, une entreprise spécialisée dans la messagerie électronique, la baisse était de 66 % environ. SpamCop, qui se focalise uniquement sur le spam, indique même une baisse de 75 % dans le monde. Derrière cette baisse subite, on trouve tout simplement la mise hors réseau d’une seule entreprise, McColo Corp, un hébergeur de sites basé à San Jose, en Californie. Mardi, Brian Kerbs, journaliste au Washington Post, où il tient un blog spécialisé dans les questions de sécurité informatique, contacte les deux fournisseurs en bande-passante de McColo, et leur fournit le dossier qu’il a constitué sur l’entreprise. Cela fait en effet plusieurs semaines que des rapports d’experts en sécurité informatique désignent McColo comme l’hébergeur de différents « botnets », des réseaux de PC dirigés à leur insu par un virus. McColo hébergeait les machines dirigeants les botnets Mega-D, Srizbi, Pushdo, Rustock et Warezov, au moins. Lesquels envoyaient sur le net des millions d’emails publicitaires ainsi que, selon le Washington Post, des emails pédophiles. Malgré tout, McColo n’était jusqu’à présent visiblement pas inquiété au niveau légal. Quand ses fournisseurs ont pris connaissance de ce qu’hébergeait McColo, ils ont vite décidé de déconnecter l’entreprise du réseau. Résultant en une baisse immédiate du spam dans le monde... « Nous les avons fait fermer, raconte Benny Ng, responsable marketing de Hurricane Electric, l’un des deux fournisseurs de McColo, cité par le Washington Post. Nous avons pris conscience de la taille du problème. [...] En une heure, nous avions coupé toutes leurs connexions chez nous. » La baisse du spam ne devrait hélas être que temporaire, le temps que les spammeurs se réorganisent. « Nous voyons déjà une remontée lente, explique Nilesh Bhandari, chez IronPort. Nous nous attendons à ce que le spam reviennent à son niveau précédent dans quelques jours, et à ce que le spam atteigne des records durant cette fin d’année. »
Baisse du spam enregistrée par Spamcop au moment de la fermeture de McColo Corp - Source Security Fix ----- Via Libération
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Science & technology
at
10:01
Defined tags for this entry: advertising, science & technology
Thursday, November 13. 2008NanoRadioAlex Zettl's tiny radios, built from nanotubes, could improve everything from cell phones to medical diagnostics By Robert F. Service
If you own a sleek iPod Nano, you've got nothing on Alex Zettl. The physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues have come up with a nanoscale radio, in which the key circuitry consists of a single carbon nanotube. Any wireless device, from cell phones to environmental sensors, could benefit from nanoradios. Smaller electronic components, such as tuners, would reduce power consumption and extend battery life. Nanoradios could also steer wireless communications into entirely new realms, including tiny devices that navigate the bloodstream to release drugs on command. Miniaturizing radios has been a goal ever since RCA began marketing its pocket-sized transistor radios in 1955. More recently, electronics manufacturers have made microscale radios, creating new products such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. About five years ago, Zettl's group decided to try to make radios even smaller, working at the molecular scale as part of an effort to create cheap wireless environmental sensors. Zettl's team set out to miniaturize individual components of a radio receiver, such as the antenna and the tuner, which selects one frequency to convert into a stream of electrical pulses that get sent to a speaker. But integrating separate nanoscale components proved difficult. About a year ago, however, Zettl and his students had a eureka moment. "We realized that, by golly, one nanotube can do it all," Zettl says. "Within a matter of days, we had a functioning radio." The first two transmissions it received were "Layla" by Derek and the Dominos and "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys song was an apt choice. Zettl's nano receiver works by translating the electromagnetic oscillations of a radio wave into the mechanical vibrations of a nanotube, which are in turn converted into a stream of electrical pulses that reproduce the original radio signal. Zettl's team anchored a nanotube to a metal electrode, which is wired to a battery. Just beyond the nanotube's free end is a second metal electrode. When a voltage is applied between the electrodes, electrons flow from the battery through the first electrode and the nanotube and then jump from the nanotube's tip across the tiny gap to the second electrode. The nanotube--now negatively charged--is able to "feel" the oscillations of a passing radio wave, which (like all electromagnetic waves) has both an electrical and a magnetic component. Those oscillations successively attract and repel the tip of the tube, making the tube vibrate in sync with the radio wave. As the tube is vibrating, electrons continue to spray out of its tip. When the tip is farther from the second electrode, as when the tube bends to one side, fewer electrons make the jump across the gap. The fluctuating electrical signal that results reproduces the audio information encoded onto the radio wave, and it can be sent to a speaker. The next step for Zettl and his colleagues is to make their nanoradios send out information in addition to receiving it. But Zettl says that won't be hard, since a transmitter is essentially a receiver run in reverse. Nano transmitters could open the door to other applications as well. For instance, Zettl suggests that nanoradios attached to tiny chemical sensors could be implanted in the blood vessels of patients with diabetes or other diseases. If the sensors detect an abnormal level of insulin or some other target compound, the transmitter could then relay the information to a detector, or perhaps even to an implanted drug reservoir that could release insulin or another therapeutic on cue. In fact, Zettl says that since his paper on the nanotube radio came out in the journal Nano Letters, he's received several calls from researchers working on radio-based drug delivery vehicles. "It's not just fantasy," he says. "It's active research going on right now." Tiny Tunes See All 10 Emerging Technologies 2008 Copyright Technology Review 2008. Personal comment: Cela ressemble furieusement à la première pierre pour les objets communiquants et autres capteurs à l'intérieur du corps humain. En route vers la transparence complète... One Account to Rule Them AllA new service combines many ways of communicating.
By Erica Naone
Unifying communications tools is hardly a new idea. Over the years, several popular instant-messaging clients have been developed to let users from one network chat with those from others. And as cell-phone use has grown, companies like Grand Central (now owned by Google) and Ribbit (now owned by BT) have focused on bringing together multiple phone numbers. The idea has proved especially popular in the business world, with companies such as IBM building products that combine a variety of communications tools--voice mail, IM, Web conferencing--with business applications like Lotus Notes. VoxOx continues this trend but offers a more exhaustive list of services. It allows users to send e-mail and instant messages, send text messages, host video conferences, make phone calls, post messages to social networks, and even share files--all from the same place. Rebecca Swensen, a research analyst with IDC, says that the product is interesting and ambitious. She cautions that "they're still working out the kinks in terms of how to make it easy to use." Swensen also questions whether consumers will be willing to put in the effort required to configure a service like this. Although ultimately, the service might make one's life a little easier, she says, it's a fairly big commitment to start using a new service, and to get all contacts loaded in and sorted out. Michael Faught, chief financial officer with VoxOx, says that the service is, initially at least, aimed at younger users who "are confronted with this chaotic world of many kinds of communication tools." Faught sees social networks as compounding the problem and says that there's no simple, efficient solution. A preview release of VoxOx was launched last week and can be downloaded for free for both Windows and Mac computers. After signing up for an account, a user is given a free VoxOx phone number and configures the rest of the service by providing usernames and passwords for compatible IM, e-mail, and social-networking accounts. VoxOx pulls in these contacts, allowing the user to scroll through a composite list and select whom to talk to and how. In some ways, VoxOx functions like a powerful instant-messaging application. Whether messages are sent as texts, instant messages, or e-mails, the conversation pops up onscreen like an IM. A user gets two free hours of calling time within the United States and Canada when she signs up, and has the option to pay for more minutes or earn them by watching ads. VoxOx can afford to hand out phone numbers for free because it is owned by TelCentris, a communications company with existing infrastructure, says CEO Bryan Hertz. The center of the company's technology, Hertz adds, is a hub that includes support for a wide variety of communications protocols, which can be extended to include many more. "For every type of communications protocol that's an open standard, we either support it already or are integrating it into the platform," he says. Hertz believes that the real power of the service is its ability to unify different mediums--for example, when a VoxOx user creates a three-way conference call, adding one person on a mobile phone and another on a VoIP call. However, the company acknowledges that there are bugs to be worked out. Some users have reported problems making and receiving calls, while others have posted requests on the company's forums for support for Linux and Facebook Chat. Hertz says that the company is now focused on responding to this feedback and plans to introduce more features and support soon. The company also plans to launch a version of the application for business users in early 2009. Copyright Technology Review 2008. ----- Related Links:
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Science & technology
at
10:38
Defined tags for this entry: communication, culture & society, science & technology, social, ubiquitous
Google Flu Trends: Tracking Flu across the U.S.
It turns out that traditional flu surveillance systems take 1-2 weeks to collect and release surveillance data, but Google search queries can be automatically counted, and geographically located, very quickly. By releasing, and then visualizing [google.org] the aggregated search data to the public, the resulting influenza estimates may enable public health officials and health professionals to better respond to seasonal epidemics and pandemics. See also Who is Sick - Sickness Map. Via kottke.org and Flowing Data. ----- Related Links:Personal comment: En dehors de l'intérêt relatif de cette application, cela donne surtout une idée de ce que Google fait (ou peut faire) avec ses données et requêtes.
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Culture & society, Science & technology
at
09:58
Defined tags for this entry: culture & society, data, monitoring, science & technology, surveillance
Monday, November 10. 2008Gesture recognition with 3D reconstruction cameraMgestyk is about to propose a gesture recognition kit that will includes a 3D camera, a dedicated software/driver for XP/Vista (still in beta) and few examples to use the set within common applications and games. The price is announced to be expected "within the range of a high-end webcam". Related Links:3D Printer for rapid prototypingMCor Technology will propose a new 3D printer based on classic A4/letter paper. This should lower the cost for producing 3D objects. The printer should be available on Q1 of 2009. Related Links:
Posted by Christian Babski
in Science & technology
at
10:30
Defined tags for this entry: hardware, science & technology
Friday, November 07. 2008Opening the CloudOpen-source cloud-computing tools could give companies greater flexibility.
By Erica Naone
Cloud-computing platforms such as Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Microsoft's Azure Services Platform, and Google App Engine have given many businesses flexible access to computing resources, ushering in an era in which, among other things, startups can operate with much lower infrastructure costs. Instead of having to buy or rent hardware, users can pay for only the processing power that they actually use and are free to use more or less as their needs change. However, relying on cloud computing comes with drawbacks, including privacy, security, and reliability concerns. So there is now growing interest in open-source cloud-computing tools, for which the source code is freely available. These tools could let companies build and customize their own computing clouds to work alongside more powerful commercial solutions. One open-source software-infrastructure project, called Eucalyptus, imitates the experience of using EC2 but lets users run programs on their own resources and provides a detailed view of what would otherwise be the black box of cloud-computing services. Another open-source cloud-computing project is the University of Chicago's Globus Nimbus, which is widely recognized as having pioneered the field. And a European cloud-computing initiative coordinated by IBM, called RESERVOIR, features several open-source components, including OpenNebula, a tool for managing the virtual machines within a cloud. Even some companies, such as Enomaly and 10gen, are developing open-source cloud-computing tools. Rich Wolski, a professor in the computer-science department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who directs the Eucalyptus project, says that his focus is on developing a platform that is easy to use, maintain, and modify. "We actually started from first principles to build something that looks like a cloud," he says. "As a result, we believe that our thing is more malleable. We can modify it, we can see inside it, we can install it and maintain it in a cloud environment in a more natural way." Reuven Cohen, founder and chief technologist of Enomaly, explains that an open-source cloud provides useful flexibility for academics and large companies. For example, he says, a company might want to run most of its computing in a commercial cloud such as that provided by Amazon but use the same software to process sensitive data on its own machines, for added security. Alternatively, a user might want to run software on his or her own resources most of the time, but have the option to expand to a commercial service in times of high demand. In both cases, an open-source cloud-computing interface can offer that flexibility, serving as a complement to the commercial service rather than a replacement. Indeed, Wolski says that Eucalyptus isn't meant to be an EC2 killer (for one thing, it's not designed to scale to the same size). However, he believes that the project can make a productive contribution by offering a simple way to customize programs for use in the cloud. Wolski says that it's easier to assess a program's performance when it's possible to see how it operates both at the interface and from within a cloud. Wolski says that Eucalyptus will also imitate Amazon's popular Simple Storage Surface, which allows users to access storage space on demand, as well as its Elastic IP addresses, which keeps the address of Web resources the same, even if the physical location changes. Ignacio Llorente, a professor in the distributed systems architecture group at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, in Spain, who works on OpenNebula, says that Eucalyptus's main advantage is that it uses the popular EC2 interface. However, he adds that "the open-source interface is only one part of the solution. Their back-end [the system's internal management of physical resources and virtual machines] is too basic. A complete cloud solution requires other components." Llorente says that Eucalyptus is just one example of a growing ecosystem of open-source cloud-computing components. Wolski expects many of Eucalyptus's users to be academics interested in studying cloud-computing infrastructure. Although he doubts that such a platform would be used as a distributed system for ordinary computer users, he doesn't discount the possibility. "You can argue it both ways," he notes. But Wolski says that he thinks some open-source cloud-computing tool will become important in the future. "If it's not Eucalyptus, I suspect [it will be] something else," he says. "There will be an open-source thing that everyone gets excited about and runs in their environment." Copyright Technology Review 2008 Related Links:
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Science & technology
at
10:28
Defined tags for this entry: research, science & technology
Thursday, November 06. 2008NanobamaHow to build a president from carbon nanotubes.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
By Katherine Bourzac
John Hart, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, has created the president-elect's likeness using vertically grown carbon nanotubes and imaged them with a scanning-electron microscope. His gallery--and instructions on how to make your own "nanobama"--are at flickr and nanobama.com. Hart says that he made the nanobamas to promote interest in nanotechnology research. Credit: John Hart It's the Web, StupidThe Internet is enabling "the greatest get-out-the-vote effort in American history."
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
By David Talbot
At 9:38 this morning, the Obama campaign sent out an urgent e-mail seeking help in making one million calls to voters before 3 P.M. All you had to do was log in to his website, click on a battleground state of your choice, and obtain a call list. At 11:55 A.M., the McCain campaign did something similar but made it even easier: they simply placed the names and phone numbers of 10 Floridians into the body of an e-mail, together with a short script. These are only the most visible signs of a vast 11th-hour effort to leverage the Web to influence voters on an unprecedented scale. And it will help decide this election. "It's hard to even describe the difference it is making today. It is the greatest get-out-the-vote effort in American history, all because these guys are able to mash the old operations with technology--everything from Google Maps to online tools--to help reach voters," says Joe Trippi, who was campaign manager for Howard Dean in 2004, when he broke ground in using online campaigning tools. "It's pretty amazing. It's come a long way in four years." In similar fashion, massive shoe-leather door-knocking efforts are under way, also organized on large scale through the candidates' websites. Volunteers have been able to sign up to visit battleground states, obtaining maps, lists of people to visit, and scripts to follow. Generally, the targets are people registered with the candidate's party but who have had spotty voting records. In the past two days, Obama e-mails claimed that the online calling tools enabled 500,000 calls on Sunday alone, and 600,000 on Monday. McCain's entreaties made no numerical claims. It's likely that Obama is outgunning his opponent, having aggressively built an online network of supporters and their e-mail addresses--and having developed strategies to connect them with each other and with campaign tasks--since he became a candidate in early 2007. The McCain camp overhauled its social and Web tools several months ago. "They are doing the same stuff, but with a much smaller network. Obama has been growing virally for two years. And the first mover has a huge advantage," Trippi observes. The possibilities are many. At the simplest level, they start with voter lists and get known supporters to call them and take notes (using Web-based tools) on the outcomes. Then the campaign can revamp the lists for follow-ups as appropriate. But public databases allow myriad ways to slice and dice voter lists for more custom pitches that are made far easier via the Web. For example, the Obama campaign could, in theory, cross-reference voter lists with lists of people who hold hunting licenses, and then have hunter supporters call that group to tell them Obama won't disarm them. Or they could use demographic information from census data to make general guesses about the income bracket of the voter based on where he or she lives and make pitches about proposed tax policies. All of this becomes vastly easier on the Web: matching the right callers with the right targets, getting things done quickly, and keeping accurate records of it all. Beyond what the campaigns are offering, some nonpartisan efforts are also leveraging technology to aid in the get-out-the-vote effort. For example, Mobile Commons, a startup in New York City, is offering a way to find your polling place by simply text-messaging your home address and zip code. Let's say you live at Tech Review headquarters, One Main Street, in Cambridge, MA, 02142. You text "pp 1 Main 02142 69866" and then get out and vote. Related Links:
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fabric | rblgThis blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research. We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings. Most articles concern the intertwined fields of architecture, territory, art, interaction design, thinking and science. From time to time, we also publish documentation about our own work and research, immersed among these related resources and inspirations. This website is used by fabric | ch as archive, references and resources. It is shared with all those interested in the same topics as we are, in the hope that they will also find valuable references and content in it.
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