Random Accesses

BRS Labs announced a video-surveillance technology called Behavioral Analytics, which leverages cognitive reasoning, and processes visual data on a level similar to the human brain.

It is impossible for humans to monitor the tens of millions of cameras deployed throughout the world, a fact long recognized by the international security community. Security video is either used for forensic analysis after an incident has occurred, or it employs a limited-capability technology known as Video Analytics – a video-motion and object-classification-based software technology that attempts to watch video streams and then sends an alarm on specific pre-programmed events. The problem is that this legacy solution generates a great number of false alarms that effectively renders it useless in the real world.

BRS Labs has created a technology it calls Behavioral Analytics. It uses cognitive reasoning, much like the human brain, to process visual data and to identify criminal and terroristic activities.

Source: http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=8144

The new version of P2P client LimeWire—now at version 5.1.1—has been in the news lately for a feature that makes it simple for even the newbiest newb to create a "darknet." Nothing here is technically ground-breaking, but LimeWire's massive install base means that millions of users now have a secure and simple way to share files with each other and no one else.

Darknets are going mainstream, something that could make it more difficult than ever for rights-holders hoping to monitor public P2P networks in order to pick off offenders. That process, already difficult enough, could get a lot harder as such tools migrate out from the geekerati.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/the-new-version-of-p2p.ars

Nothing kills innovation like having to reinvent the wheel. Imagine how dull your diet would be if you had to build a new stove and hammer out a few cooking pots every time you wanted to test a new recipe.

Until just a couple of years ago, electronics researchers testing new high-speed wireless technologies faced just this sort of problem; they had to build every test system completely from scratch.

So, CMC set out to change that in 2006 by creating a turnkey, open-source platform -- the stove, pots and kitchen utensils, if you will -- that would let wireless researchers expand their tech menus.

In just two short years, the platform -- dubbed WARP -- has whetted the appetites of heavyweights like Nokia, MIT, Toyota, NASA and Ericsson, and it's already being used to test everything from low-cost wireless Internet in rural India to futuristic "unwired" spacecraft.

Source: http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/wireless-warp-speed-18372.html

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have theorized a way to increase the speed of pulses of light that bound across chains of tiny metal particles to well past the speed of light by altering the particle shape. Application of this theory would use nanosized metal chains as building blocks for novel optoelectronic and optical devices, which would operate at higher frequencies than conventional electronic circuits. Such devices could eventually find applications in the developing area of high-speed optical computing, in which protons and light replace electrons and transistors for greater performance.

Recent developments in nanotechnology have enabled researchers to fabricate nanoparticle chains with great precision and fidelity. Penn's research team took advantage of this technological advance by utilizing metallic nanoparticles as a chain of miniature waveguides that exchange light.

Currently, the advance is theoretical. But, from a practical standpoint, the creation of a metallic nanochain would provide the combination of smaller-diameter optical components coupled with larger bandwidth, making them optimal wave guiding materials.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news138374177.html

The Semantic Web is well under way and could have an impact even greater than the Web that we all use every day, predicts Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium and senior researcher at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Berners-Lee says (in this video) that the Semantic Web, which he describes as a "web of data" in contrast to today's "web of documents," has great potential in giving a user the ability to see, understand, and manipulate data. He points to applications in medicine, in reacting to civil and health emergencies, and even in such mundane tasks as knowing where your friends are in relation to the nearest coffee shop.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18451/