PhoneSecure
On 12 January, 2005, by se99jmk
I'm not generally an insecure person. I'm perfectly happy with carrying in excess of ?1000 in electronics on my person... well, maybe I should get some protection after all, and I've found it, in the form of PhoneSecure.
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Phraselator
On 12 January, 2005, by se99jmk
One step closer to the babelfish from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
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Epson fabricates 20-layer PCB using InkJet tec
On 05 November, 2004, by Dreadnought
Epson has fabricated a 200micron thick 20 layer using their own InkJet technology with a conductive ink containing silver micro-particles measuring from several nanometers to several tens of nanometers in diameter, and a newly developed insulator ink.
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PetaPixel displays, 100TB storage and more...
On 05 November, 2004, by Dreadnought
Colossal Storage is developing 14M dpi or 200Tpixels per square inch of near-non-volatile display. It is based on a ferroelectric material which gives each pixel a state retension of up to 12 hours. Display resolutions of up to 4Petapixel will be possible with this technology.
Colossal Storage is also developing a holographic media which can store 10TB on a single 3?" disc. The theory behind it can go up to 1.5Exabytes (1.5x10^1
.
They are currently looking for companies who are interresting in licensing the products.
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ZZZ Revolutions - A Tribute to The Matrix Trilogy
article written by : killdashnine released on : 28 February, 2004 | send killdashnine a private message! killdashnine's rating : ***** |
Ahh yes, finally we have come to the end of yet another key sci-fi trilogy. Matrix Revolutions is finally out and concludes the adventure as it began in 1999 with the quest for "The One" (aka "Neo").
Perhaps this movie was not the greatest of the three ... there have been wildly differing thoughts about it, particularly here on ZZZ. More than anything the last movie seemed to stir up a lot of speculation about the entire series as viewed as a whole. Last night as I sat in my car at Taco Bell waiting for a late night snack, I got to thinking about choices we make in our technology-based society and was suddenly hit by a wave of concern, inspired by this movie ... Could something like The Matrix be real? Is this world all an illusion. Hopefully not and despite what Zen Buddhists and maybe Frank Tipler say on the subject, I'm hoping that we can hang on to our so-called reality. Sometimes I worry a bit though. Are we really in control of things? Is our technology getting as out-of-control like Agent Smith?
One bad@ss Smith ... Courtesy Warner Bros.
Well, probably not, or at least not in any way that we really need to be concerned. Virtual wars are being waged all the time in cyberspace. All that time wasted playing Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat, Warcraft 3, and now games like "Kings of Chaos" ... so much virtual bloodshed, but yet it's all an illusion.
Perhaps, however, the age of the machine has begun. Maybe it starts with robot vacuum cleaners ...
... such an innocuous beginning right? Navigating about a room via ultrasound? Ahhh, it's all automatic now. The little thing gets tired out scaring the fur off of my poor cat and then recharges at it's own docking station to charge up for another round of feline terrorism.
Anybody worried yet? Well, other than the cat, I though not . . .
Recently, on a trip to Berlin, I had the opportunity to read Richard Feynman's The Meaning of It All ... a very interesting book on the thought and ponderings of one of the great Physicists of all time. A quote stuck with me, which later echoed in my head as I watched Matrix Revolutions:
(p 120)
"Now, if I look to the future, I should talk about the future development of mechanics, the possibilities that will arise because we have almost free energy when we get to controlled fusion. And in the near future the developments in biology will make problems like no one has ever seen before. The very rapid developments of biology are going to cause all kinds of very exciting problems. I haven't time to describe them, so I just refer you to Aldous Huxley's book Brave New World, which gives some indication of the type of problems that future biology will involve itself in."
Feynman goes on to say later that, "The problem of moral values and ethical judgements is one into which science cannot enter ..."
Hmmm ...
The D9 Bulldozer
Ostensibly, the D9 is of serious ZZZ interest. This is definitely a big question of ethics relevant to advances in robotics (to say the least!). Earlier this week while Roidy and I discussed our impressions of Matrix Revolutions, he sent me some links to the latest goings-on with regard to the D9.
I don't personally claim to have a good understanding of the events happening on a daily basis in the Middle East, but this is a peculiar use of technology ... The military version of this "bulldozer" is monsterous indeed, complete with a machine gun on the top!
One article indicates that these robots are remote-controlled:
"The remote-controlled D-9 bulldozer and a remote-control version of the Humvee, equipped with machine guns, were developed by the Israeli army and the Technion Institute of Technology. Both machines are U.S.- made, with Israeli modifications. "
Apparently, other remote-controlled devices such as machine guns and rocket launchers are malingering somewhere in the Mid-East as well. Well, this is nothing really new ...
There's a lot of stuff out there on this conflict ... Some really cool pictures abound. Plus there are many claims on both sides of the fence as to the ethics and morality of this situation. What is right? What is wrong? Israel claims that these are used for legitimate military purposes. Is Caterpillar to blame for it all (well, I'd tend to think not when the bulldozers are modded after production!). Whatever the case, it seems that there'll never be peace in the Middle East in our lifetimes. The thing that bothers me though is that all this technology seems strikingly similar to the machines of Terminator 3 and The Matrix. All this fighting over Zion ... whether in the Matrix or in reality. Sheesh!
Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons (EMPs)?
I remember a movie called "Until the End of the World" in which a nuclear bomb was set off in the upper atmosphere of Earth which consequently knocked out our entire satellite communication systems planet-wide. Scary stuff, huh, but not realistic?
Well, EMPs are potential and have catastrophic consequences in real-life:
"Collectors, such as long runs of cable, house wiring, conduit, large antennas, overhead power and telephone lines, railroad tracks, etc., gather this energy in the form of a strong current and voltage surge. All solid state electronics is vulnerable to this energy surge. The equipment does not have to be attached directly to the collector in order to be damaged. It's possible for a collector to gather in the order of a joule of energy from a one megaton, high altitude explosion. The fact that a small fraction of a joule can cause permanent damage to electronic devices, shows that the EMP threat is a serious one. The damage to equipment could include some or all of the automobile ignition systems, telephone and radio communications, airline communications, navigational aids, & computers. Our power grid throughout the United States will most probably fail. Therefore, about 95% of our radio stations will lose transmission."
Well, to take out Sentinels or the Pentagon, you'd have to have a pretty massive emf blast ... something on the order of a high-power microwave e-bomb ...
An interesting article on the subject seems to indicate this method of warfare would be particularly straightforward to produce. In reality:
"Commercial computer equipment is particularly vulnerable to EMP effects, as it is largely built up of high density Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) devices, which are very sensitive to exposure to high voltage transients. What is significant about MOS devices is that very little energy is required to permanently wound or destroy them, any voltage in typically in excess of tens of Volts can produce an effect termed gate breakdown which effectively destroys the device. Even if the pulse is not powerful enough to produce thermal damage, the power supply in the equipment will readily supply enough energy to complete the destructive process. Wounded devices may still function, but their reliability will be seriously impaired. Shielding electronics by equipment chassis provides only limited protection, as any cables running in and out of the equipment will behave very much like antennae, in effect guiding the high voltage transients into the equipment. "
This is a particuarly good effect if you're trying to defend Zion from the machines ...
When you think of the big picture, it's thought-provoking to say the least. Twenty or thirty years down the road, will AIs show up to "put the smack down" on us inefficient humans? Or as in the movie AI are we going to string up robots as a sick and depraved kind of circus sideshow?
So was that Agent Smith whispering to the poor people in the Middle East as their homes were demolished remotely ... "Do you hear that. It's the sound of inevitibility, it's the sound of your death" ... or was it us?
Bah, I suppose that I've read too many Greg Egan novels over the years so that I readily accept the possibility of technologically-based transcendence. I tend to think that at some point there will be no perceptible difference between a living being and a machine (read Rudy Rucker's wares series, all that talk about the "Meatbops"). Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute has suggested that when we meet aliens, they may be machines:
"In the next hundred, two hundred years we may invent thinking machines and unlike us, we?re stuck with this Darwinian evolution which is slow and unpredictable, machines aren?t stuck with that and they could improve themselves as individuals, quickly make improved models of themselves and I?m sure within a very short period of time, dominate the planet. Assuming that this process has taken place elsewhere I think it?s actually most likely that if we meet the aliens they won?t be soft squishy, grey versions of ourselves, but they?ll be some sort of artificial entity, some sort of thinking machine, if you will."
Well, the machines we create are in our own image, when it really comes down to it. If we create an AI, then it's likely that unless we've done a poor parenting job or somehow sabotaged the poor thing (e.g. HAL 9000), then there will be the same kinds of emotions and struggles that we already have.
Evolution has gone digital I think ... I have to leave off with a section of Matrix Reloaded which just about sums this all up:
"Neo: But we control these machines, they don't control us.
Councillor Hamann: Of course not, how could they? The idea's pure nonsense, but... it does make one wonder just... what is control?
Neo: If we wanted, we could shut these machines down.
Councillor Hamann: Of course... that's it. You hit it! That's control, isn't it? If we wanted, we could smash them to bits. Although if we did, we'd have to consider what would happen to our lights, our heat, our air.
Neo: So we need machines and they need us."
Ahhh, Man vs. Machine ... the newest form of conflict in literature, and ironically, now in real life in Robot Gladiators:
"There are NO restrictions for the human. There is NO limit to the force and violence the human uses to defeat the machine. There is NO need for mercy. And the emotionless robot opponent will show none in kind."
I have no idea what these people are thinking ...
Sure, day to day life is a struggle with a computer, a car, or a toaster oven. But with this kind of weirdness coming out, I think I'll feel much safer nestled in pink goo in the Matrix, thanks very much!
Issue Image!
Here's a sneak preview pic from an upcomming article, maybe next issue. -roid