August 2007
Wednesday, 29. August 2007, 12:51:21
A person's entire life from birth to death could one day be recorded by a network of intelligent sensors, according to a senior scientist.
By 2057, Martin Sadler of PC firm Hewlett Packard, said there could be at least 1m devices for every UK resident.
Predicted advances in storage and cameras coupled with decreasing costs would allow this explosion, he said. But, he warned, the amount of personal data that could be collected would lead to difficult ethical dilemmas.
"Maybe the first time you know you are pregnant is when a targeted piece of advertising comes through on your computer screen offering you some baby clothes because somehow the smart toilet, or some other aspect of your environment, leaked that information," he said.
Already we live in a world surrounded by sensors and recording devices, said Professor Sadler, director of the Trusted Systems Lab at Hewlett Packard.
Current uses include CCTV, wildlife monitoring, mobile phone cameras and GPS devices.
A 2002 study calculated there were around 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK, one for every 14 people.
Professor Sadler said: "The average Londoner may be viewed as many as 300 times a day."
The growth in the number of devices would continue to grow, he predicted.
"If you go forward 50 years, you are probably talking about one million forms of sensors per person in the UK," he said.
This was a conservative estimate, he said. "More aggressive" calculations suggest there could be 20m sensors per person.
Already some researchers at Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and MIT have developed devices that record a person's every move.
Research like this, as well as advances in sensor technology and manufacturing techniques would see a continued "slow and incremental, year-on-year" growth in the number of devices that surround and monitor people, he said.
This would result in a world where "everything we want monitored can be monitored," he said.
A lot of the applications would be "innocent and harmless", he said.
"We imagine by 2057 our motorways, rivers and coastal defences, farms, businesses, homes and neighbourhoods and bodies will all be highly instrumented," he said.
But he said there would be potential to misuse the networks and the data they collect.
"We will hit some of these scenarios when people suddenly think, 'Oh, I didn't really intend to go there'," he said.
"I'm sure there will be a lot of after the event working out what we do about some of the more invasive uses of the technology."
As a result, he said, people needed to make decisions now about the future use if the technology.
"We have some real choices that we can make over the next few years about how much we benefit from all this information... or how much it presents some sort of dark future for us."
Professor Sadler's predictions were shared by Oliver Sparrow, a scenario planner who has advised the UK government and international organisations.
He said that advances in technology and a more complete understanding of physics would lead to a new breed of devices that are "too small to see, that permeate your body, permeate the space in which we exist, record everything, know everything about you, transmit your reputation wherever you go."
Both Professor Sadler and Mr Sparrow believe that there needs to be a greater public debate about these technologies and how they are deployed.
"These kinds of things will be possible, whether we permit them, and which societies will permit them and which will not, and how this will polarise things remains completely unplottable," said Mr Sparrow.
Both were speaking at an event to mark the 50th anniversary of the British Computer Society.
Wednesday, 29. August 2007, 06:42:20
Presidential candidate Ron Paul believes that an attack on Iran is highly likely within a year and that the Bush administration is simply waiting for the right opportunity, or event on which to blame Iran, before launching the assault.
"If I were a betting man I would bet that they will attack Iran before the end of this administration, which means in the next year or so," the Congressman told the Alex Jones Show today.
"The plans have been laid just like the plans were laid to go into Iraq a long time before they did but they had to wait for the right opportunity."
"The radical Neo-Cons are still there - they may have been diminished a little bit but they're still very very influential and very very powerful and they have the President's ear so I think they're just laying the plans, waiting for the opportunity," said Paul.
" I don't think the opportunity presents itself right now, I don't think we're gonna wake up tomorrow morning and have it happen unless they can blame the Iranians for something else - of course they're setting the stage for that by declaring that their Guard unit over there is a terrorist organization, so anything now is possible and they'll blame it on the Iranians and and make that excuse."
The Presidential candidate said he had "Talked to some military people and historians who knew the region," and they they told him "it would be the most disastrous thing we could do for our own sake," jeopardizing the lives of U.S. troops in Iraq and trapping them from getting out of the Persian Gulf.
Rhetoric regarding a potential military attack on Iran has heated again over the past few days, and President Bush himself stoked the flames further today when he warned of the risk of a "nuclear holocaust" if the country was allowed to acquire nuclear capability.
In a speech Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that a diplomatic push by the world's powers to rein in Tehran's nuclear program was the only alternative to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today stated that a U.S. attack on Iran was "impossible" due to U.S. troops being tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also dismissed Sarkozy's warning, calling the French premiere "inexperienced" and labeling his comments as purely "for the consumption of his inner circles."
Wednesday, 29. August 2007, 06:00:08
Now this would be very cool!!
A hi-tech suit could give humans spider-like abilities A "Spider-man" suit that enables its wearer to scale vertical walls like the comic and movie superhero could one day be a reality, according to a study.
Natural technology used by spiders and geckos could help a human climb the side of a building or hang upside down from a roof, the analysis suggests.
The findings are published in the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter.
In 2002, US research suggested this adhesion in geckos was due to very weak intermolecular forces produced by the billions of hair-like structures which are arranged in a hierarchical structure on each gecko foot.
These "van der Waals" forces arise when unbalanced electrical charges around molecules attract one another.
The cumulative attractive force of billions of gecko hairs allows the reptiles to scurry up walls and even hang upside down on polished glass.
Professor Nicola Pugno, from the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, has calculated how sufficient stickiness could be generated in the same way to support an adult human's body weight.
But the bigger the surface that needs to stick, the lower its adhesion strength. So a glove able to fit a man's hand, and covered with artificial gecko hairs, should not be as sticky as a gecko's foot.
Geckos can support hundreds of times their own body weight
Luckily, the gecko only uses a fraction of the theoretical adhesion strength available through van der Waals forces.
"Some researchers were able to measure a [theoretical] adhesion strength 200 times higher than the adhesion strength in the gecko. But between theory and practical applications there is a large gap," said Professor Pugno.
"If we are able to make a surface a little bit stronger, so that the size effect vanishes, we might be able to make a suit with the same adhesion as a gecko."
The Turin-based researcher proposes that carbon nanotubes could be used as an artificial alternative to the gecko's hairs.
Carbon nanotubes are tiny cylinders of carbon that measure just a few billionths of a metre across. They are ultra-strong and can be organised into larger fibres.
Professor Pugno also outlined three properties which a real Spiderman suit must demonstrate.
Firstly, and most obviously, it must be able to demonstrate strong adhesive properties. Secondly, the suit must be able to detach easily from a surface after it has stuck. Thirdly, the suit must, to some degree, be able to clean itself.
The latter requirement is considered important because dirt particles could get in the way, interfering with the adhesive properties of the suit.
One way to do it is to make the suit "superhydrophobic", so that it strongly repels water. As water droplets are forced away from the contact areas of the outfit, they should wash away particles of dirt.
This property could be achieved simply by altering the geometrical properties, or topology, of the surface.
"To have all these mechanisms working together is difficult, because they are in competition with one another," Professor Pugno told the BBC News website.
"But geckos and spiders provide a natural demonstration that this can be done."
He added that there were many interesting applications for adhesive suits, in areas ranging from space exploration to defence. The work could also aid the design of gloves and shoes for window cleaners working on tall skyscrapers.
But human muscles are very different to those of geckos, so people would probably suffer from muscle fatigue if they tried to stick to a wall for many hours.
Tuesday, 28. August 2007, 18:32:26
A British firm's plan to sell software that could open the iPhone to non-US networks has been put on hold following legal threats.
Last week, Belfast-based UniquePhones joined several others in claiming it had cracked the code which locked iPhone into AT&T's network.
But a middle-of-the-night phone call from AT&T's lawyers have forced the firm to rethink its plans.
It will now take legal advice to assess the ramifications, the firm said.
According to UniquePhones, it received a 3am call from a lawyer claiming to represent AT&T and warning it that selling unlocking software could constitute copyright infringement and illegal software dissemination.
"A substantial delay caused by any legal action would render the unlocking software a less valuable commodity as well as creating unforeseen security issues for the company," UniquePhones said in a statement.
Interest in the iPhone, Apple's first foray into the mobile world, has been intense since it was launched in the US in June.
On Friday it was reported that a 17-year-old US hacker had unlocked the iPhone and used it on rival T-Mobile's network.
George Hotz said that the method he used took two hours and involved both tinkering with the software and some soldering.
A website called iPhonesSimFree also claimed to have cracked the code with a software solution that it would begin selling imminently.
Analysts believe Apple may still have time to modify the iPhone to tighten its locks before the phone is launched in Europe.
Any reported cracks would have ramifications for Apple's European partners which, it is rumoured, the firm may announce at IFA 2007, a consumer electronics show being held in Berlin next week.
Tech blog Engadget thinks UniquePhone's should make their unlocking solution available to the public.
"Here's to hoping that, should UniquePhones not find themselves able to actually sell their software, at very least the unlock method they've discovered gets opened up to the public. After all, there's no reason why everyone shouldn't be able benefit from this knowledge just because one company isn't able to sell it," it said in a blog entry.
Tuesday, 28. August 2007, 17:54:51
A human rights group in the US is suing Yahoo for alleged complicity in rights abuses and acts of torture in China.
The World Organization for Human Rights says Yahoo's sharing of information with the Chinese government has led to the arrests of writers and dissidents.
One journalist cited in the case was tracked down and jailed for 10 years for subversion after Yahoo passed on his e-mail and IP address to officials.
Yahoo insists it must comply with local laws in areas where it operates.
But it acknowledges that providing Chinese officials with information has enabled them to make arrests.
In a statement, Yahoo said it supported privacy and free expression and added that it was working with other technology companies to find a way to address human rights concerns.
De-listed sites
The human rights group has brought the case in San Francisco on behalf of the journalist, Shi Tao, and another named Wang Xiaoning.
The men's defence lawyer said Yahoo should have asked the Chinese government why it wanted information about the two men before handing it over. He said Yahoo had failed to live up to its ethical responsibilities.
The BBC's David Willis in California says the case has prompted debate about the responsibility of US internet companies to protect the anonymity of users in the countries in which they operate.
Strict laws exist in China to regulate the internet. Shi Tao was jailed for posting comments critical of government corruption on the web.
Yahoo is not the only internet company accused of collaborating with Chinese authorities. Rivals Google freely admit to blocking politically sensitive items on their China website.
Whole websites - including media sources - are eliminated from Yahoo and Google in China.
De-listed sites are skipped over when the search engine trawls the web for results.
The internet firms argue it is better to offer Chinese users some information than none at all.
Saturday, 25. August 2007, 03:48:31
Astronomers have found an enormous void in space that measures nearly a billion light-years across.
It is empty of both normal matter - such as galaxies and stars - and the mysterious "dark matter" that cannot be seen directly with telescopes.
The "hole" is located in the direction of the Eridanus constellation and has been identified in data from a survey of the sky made at radio wavelengths.
The discovery will be reported in a paper in the Astrophysical Journal.
Previous sky surveys that have traced the large-scale structure of the nearby Universe have long shown, for example, how the clustering of galaxies is strung into vast filaments and sheets that are separated by great gaps.
But the void discovered by a University of Minnesota team is about 1,000 times the volume of what would be expected in typical cosmic gaps.
"It's hard even for astronomers to picture how big these things are," conceded Minnesota's Professor Lawrence Rudnick.
"If you were to travel at the speed of light, it would take you several years to get to the nearest stars in our own Milky Way galaxy; but if you were to go to this hole and enter one side, you'd have to travel for a billion years before you would get to the other side," he said.
The void is roughly 6-10 billion light-years away and takes a sizeable chunk out of the visible Universe in its direction.
The team used data from the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory's VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) to make its discovery. The VLA - which stands for Very Large Array - is a collection of 27 radio telescopes in New Mexico.
The finding is said to fit neatly with observations of the Universe's "oldest light" - the famous Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, the study of which has earned several scientists the Nobel Prize.
This is the radiation that comes from just 380,000 years after the Big Bang when the Universe had cooled to such a degree that hydrogen atoms could exist. Before that time, scientists say, the Universe would have been so hot that matter and light would have been "coupled" - the cosmos would have been opaque
Today, this light shines at microwave wavelengths at a frigid -270C; and observations of the CMB made by Nasa's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotopy Probe show a particular "cold spot" in the direction of the newly identified void.
The explanation for this may lie in the enigmatic "dark energy" that scientists know so little about but which is said to be accelerating the expansion of the Universe.
Light particles passing through the void would be expected to lose a little more energy than those passing through space cluttered with matter - if dark energy is stretching the Universe apart at a faster and faster rate.
Scientists refer to this as the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect and a corresponding "warm spot" in the CMB associated with an area of space dominated by a supercluster of galaxies was identified some years ago.
"In essence, this latest study gives us a very elegant demonstration of the existence of dark energy in a way which is very convincing," commented Professor Carlos Frenk, the director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University, UK.
"We keep getting evidence for dark energy, this component of the Universe which is so dominant, and yet we still have only a tiny glimmer of what it could be."
The reason the void exists is not known. "That's going to be a challenge for people that work on the development of structure in the Universe. It's a very hot topic in the cosmology right now," said Professor Rudnick.
Saturday, 25. August 2007, 03:40:43
Experts have found a way to trigger an out-of-body experience in volunteers. The experiments, described in the Science journal, offer a scientific explanation for a phenomenon experienced by one in 10 people.
Two teams used virtual reality goggles to con the brain into thinking the body was located elsewhere.
The visual illusion plus the feel of their real bodies being touched made volunteers sense that they had moved outside of their physical bodies.
The researchers say their findings could have practical applications, such as helping take video games to the next level of virtuality so the players feel as if they are actually inside the game.
Clinically, surgeons might also be able to perform operations on patients thousands of miles away by controlling a robotic virtual self.
For some, out-of-body experiences or OBEs occurs spontaneously, while for others it is linked to dangerous circumstances, a near-death experience, a dream-like state or use of alcohol or drugs.
One theory is that it is down to how people perceive their own body - those unhappy or less in touch with their body are more likely to have an OBE.
But the two teams, from University College London, UK, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, believe there is a neurological explanation.
Their work suggests a disconnection between the brain circuits that process visual and touch sensory information may thus be responsible for some OBEs.
In the Swiss experiments, the researchers asked volunteers to stand in front of a camera while wearing video-display goggles.
Through these goggles, the volunteers could see a camera view of their own back - a three-dimensional "virtual own body" that appeared to be standing in front of them.
When the researchers stroked the back of the volunteer with a pen, the volunteer could see their virtual back being stroked either simultaneously or with a time lag.
The volunteers reported that the sensation seemed to be caused by the pen on their virtual back, rather than their real back, making them feel as if the virtual body was their own rather than a hologram.
Even when the camera was switched to film the back of a mannequin being stroked rather than their own back, the volunteers still reported feeling as if the virtual mannequin body was their own.
And when the researchers switched off the goggles, guided the volunteers back a few paces, and then asked them to walk back to where they had been standing, the volunteers overshot the target, returning nearer to the position of their "virtual self".
Dr Henrik Ehrsson, who led the UCL research, used a similar set-up in his tests and found volunteers had a physiological response - increased skin sweating - when they felt their virtual self was being threatened - appearing to be hit with a hammer.
Dr Ehrsson said: "This experiment suggests that the first-person visual perspective is critically important for the in-body experience. In other words, we feel that our self is located where the eyes are."
Dr Susan Blackmore, psychologist and visiting lecturer at the University of the West of England, said: "This has at last brought OBEs into the lab and tested one of the main theories of how they occur.
"Scientists have long suspected that the clue to these extraordinary, and sometimes life-changing, experiences lies in disrupting our normal illusion of being a self behind our eyes, and replacing it with a new viewpoint from above or behind."
Wednesday, 22. August 2007, 01:48:02
Liberal Democrat leaders are to mount an attack on Britain's "surveillance society'' that threatens to wreck Gordon Brown's hopes of a cross-party consensus on measures to tackle the threat of terrorism.
In a strategic break with the Prime Minister, Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, and his home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg will launch their offensive at their party conference next month.
They have decided that Mr Brown's clear support for an extension of detention without charge beyond 28 days for terrorist suspects has destroyed any hope of a cross-party deal.
But they claim they are also responding to public anxiety highlighted by the Government's Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, who has warned that Britain is in danger of "sleep-walking into a surveillance society".
Liberal Democrat leaders say Britain is one of the most spied-on nations in the world and will use the conference to launch a campaign to roll back legislation they claim has gone too far. It includes the Identity Cards Act 2006, the creation of a national identity register and proposals for wide ranging data-sharing powers across Whitehall departments.
Greater safeguards will be demanded on:
* The CCTV cameras that have sprouted up in every town and some villages, at a ratio of one for every 16 people, making Britain the most "watched" country on the planet.
* The DNA database, "the largest in the world", which has data on 140,000 innocent people, with a disproportionate number from ethnic minorities.
* The Information Commissioner, who has no power to restrict "data mining" and data processing requests by government agencies and reports to ministers rather than Parliament.
* Requests for communications traffic data by the police and other investigative authorities which topped 439,000 between January 2005 and April 2006.
* Intercept warrants, which exceeded 2,240 in the 16 months to April 2006 under laws making the UK alone among democratic nations to have warrants granted by ministers.
Doctors' leaders at the BMA have also called on the Government to halt a scheme for GPs to pass on sensitive information about their patients to an NHS database until they have more assurances that they will not breach data protection safeguards.
Mr Clegg said that the prospect of a cross-party consensus on tougher anti-terror measures was shattered when the Prime Minister decided on an extension of detention without charge for terrorist suspects before consultation had begun.
"Gordon Brown has gained considerable political advantage by striking a new tone on civil liberties, parliamentary accountability and cross-party cooperation. But our analysis has concluded that on substance, rather than tone, Brown remains wedded to an unchanged Blairite agenda,'' said Mr Clegg.
"Brown has short-circuited any objective consideration of the facts by declaring his determination to extend the period of detention without charge still further.
"And there has been no meaningful cross-party mechanism established on counter-terrorism despite all the rhetoric to the contrary from Brown himself.''
He told The Independent: "In these circumstances we have decided to make the protection of traditional British liberties and personal privacy a major line of attack in the autumn and winter. Britain needs a champion of liberty now more than ever.''
The campaign will also attack the Tory leadership of David Cameron, saying that his claims to liberalism are unravelling.
Where we are watched
* CCTV
Britain is the world's most watched nation. There are 4.2 million CCTV cameras, one for every 16 people. Campaigners say they are "inadequately regulated".
* DNA data
The UK holds 3.6 million samples, the world's biggest database, including 140,000 innocent people.
* Data Protection
Surveillance on credit cards, mobile phones and loyalty cards, and US security agencies monitoring telecommunications, require the Data Protection Act to be updated.
* Schools
Many are collecting pupils' biometric data, often without parental consent.
* ID Cards
The Identity Cards Act 2006 paved the way for the creation of a National Identity Register and proposals for sharing data within government.
* Bugging
From 1 January 2005 to 31 March 2006, there were 439,000 requests for communications traffic data and 2,243 warrants issued. UK is alone among democracies in having warrants issued by ministers.
Tuesday, 21. August 2007, 02:13:09
Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."
"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways—in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."
That first cell of synthetic life—made from the basic chemicals in DNA—may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it.
"Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."
And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.
Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life:
—A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.
—A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.
—A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.
One of the leaders in the field, Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School, predicts that within the next six months, scientists will report evidence that the first step—creating a cell membrane—is "not a big problem." Scientists are using fatty acids in that effort.
Szostak is also optimistic about the next step—getting nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, to form a working genetic system.
His idea is that once the container is made, if scientists add nucleotides in the right proportions, then Darwinian evolution could simply take over.
"We aren't smart enough to design things, we just let evolution do the hard work and then we figure out what happened," Szostak said.
In Gainesville, Fla., Steve Benner, a biological chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution is attacking that problem by going outside of natural genetics. Normal DNA consists of four bases—adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine (known as A,C,G,T)—molecules that spell out the genetic code in pairs. Benner is trying to add eight new bases to the genetic alphabet.
Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could "run amok," but there are ways of addressing it, and it will be a very long time before that is a problem.
"When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab," he said. "But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen."
Monday, 20. August 2007, 21:29:35
A new law swept through Congress by the US government before the summer recess is to give American security agencies unprecedented powers to spy on British citizens without a warrant.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was approved by Congress earlier this month to help the National Security Agency in the fight against terrorism. But it has now emerged that the bill gives the security services powers to intercept all telephone calls, internet traffic and emails made by British citizens across US-based networks.
As much of the world's telecoms networks and internet infrastructure runs through the US, the new act will give the security services huge scope for monitoring and intercepting Britons' private communications, as well as those of other foreign citizens. The new act has led to fears it will see a huge increase in the number of British citizens being extradited to the US.
'Just because it happens to pass through the US they claim they can do whatever they want,' said Tony Bunyan, director of Statewatch, the civil rights group that campaigns against state surveillance. 'Where is the EU saying, "What's going on here, we've got to protect the rights of our citizens?"'
The Dutch Liberal Democrat MEP Sophie in 't Veld has tabled a series of questions demanding answers from the EU parliament. In a statement to European politicians, In 't Veld warns the US law will 'directly apply to EU citizens and constitutes a major violation of privacy and civil liberties'.
The law has prompted a furore in the US, where it was opposed by Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But other countries seem ignorant of its consequences. 'There's been a lot of upheaval in Congress about this new act over fears Bush will use it to eavesdrop on US citizens,' In 't Veld said. 'But it can and will be used for the communications of Europeans.'
She pointed out many companies and organisations are based in the US and that the new law will give the US powers to monitor their communications. 'For example, I would like to know what sort of communications go via the UN,' In 't Veld said.
Concern over US powers to monitor foreign citizens is growing. European privacy watchdogs have expressed fears that the US authorities are to be handed powers to check the personal details of travellers entering America and store them on databases alongside details such as their sexuality and religious beliefs for up to 15 years. The watchdogs, including the Information Commissioner of England and Wales, Richard Thomas, have been scathing in their criticism of the European Commission for granting the US its demand for the new powers.
In a coded statement the Information Commissioner's office yesterday acknowledged concerns that the privacy of some four million Britons who travel to the US each year is at risk because of the new powers.
'We will continue to work alongside our European data protection colleagues to try to ensure that airline passengers' details are protected by the appropriate data protection safeguards,' a spokeswoman told The Observer.
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