Author Archive
Printed Thermometers – Super Cool! (Pun Intended)
Posted by tevans in Winrar Free Download on January 31st, 2012
You might not think about it, but knowing the temperature is big business. Oh sure, thermometers and thermostats are common and widely used. But they’re fragile and difficult to use with precision on an industrial scale. And precision measurement of temperature is important in more industries than you’d think.
In many industries, supplies have to be kept very cold to ensure that nothing spoils
That’s why PST Sensors and Thinfilm Electronics have developed and begun to market an entirely new form of thermometer. The new devices will be extremely thin and flexible, able to be literally printed out on packages or boxes. The potential efficiency gains on this are huge for the food packaging and pharmaceutical industries, indeed any industry where product temperature must be carefully controlled and monitored on an individual basis. Currently the best that can be offered cost-effectively are readings on the storage environment as a whole – imprecise at best, and really only a reading of the temperature in the specific location in which the thermometer is located. Accurate readings on the individual units should result in great gains for safety and accuracy.
Even better, the devices are much cheaper than standard alcohol or mercury based thermometers – tens of times cheaper. That makes mass production and mass utilization almost a given. Though the devices have not yet gone past the prototyping stage, the technology behind them is sound and the fusion of the two companies’ specialties appears smooth. This is exactly the sort of less than glamorous but utterly effective technological improvement that is driving forward progress in efficient supply distribution and bringing “smart” technology, step by step, to even such “dumb” industries as food packing and supply storage. Gains in systemic efficiency that reduce waste are much more effective as methods of increasing sustainability than the large scale sexier projects that people like to talk about, so it’s good to see such a positive development occurring and being implemented.
Google – Busted!
Posted by tevans in Winrar Free Download on January 26th, 2012
Google makes its money through search, ostensibly, but of course the real revenue itself is provided by advertising that’s sold in a manner that correlates it with search results. That’s a powerful system – you’re targeting an advertisement to somebody you already know is looking for exactly the thing you’re advertising – and Google makes a bundle at it. But it being the internet, some ads are, shall we say, less scrupulous than others.
I tried to find a picture of one such site, but apparently Google is being particularly careful about them now. So here's Chuckie.
Obviously, for Google, it must be tough to sort out the good from the bad, but you at least assume the company is doing what it can, especially since it puts out dozens of press releases stating exactly that. And it does appear to be doing what it can to fight digital file-sharing of the illegal variety. But there is more than one way to skin an illegal website.
They receive relatively little notice in the press, but sites advertising prescription drugs for sale on the internet have blossomed. The key thing to note is that they are offering prescription drugs, but NOT asking for prescriptions. Often they are based in Mexico – when you think of Mexican drug lords, you probably think of cocaine and marijuana, but there is a massive market for more accepted (and more widely used) prescription drugs from those who have been abandoned by the US health care market (a disturbingly large segment of the population). These sites rise and fall quickly, like the bigger download sites, because they are (quite obviously) illegal. That means they need to get the word out when they find a new home, and they do that through advertising – and Google encourages them.
Such is the result of a sting operation conducted by the Federal government which netted a half a billion dollar settlement from Google to avoid disclosing the results of the sting, which clearly indicated that Google sales reps (with the knowledge and consent f upper management) were not only allowing such fraudulent sites to pass through the filters, but teaching the agents posing as drug dealers how to avoid Google blocks on such behavior. That’s a major indictment of the company and yet another in a string of recent scandals afflicting Google since Larry Page took over as CEO.
Twitter Bots – A Useful Part of a Social Network
Posted by tevans in Winrar Free Download on January 25th, 2012
If you’re a regular Twitter user, it’s likely that you’ve encountered a Twitter bot or two. A lot of the time they’ll simply re-tweet your posts based on certain criteria (matching keywords, time of post, random chance – whatever the developer chooses, really). Many of them are set to re-tweet posts about a certain city, or sport, or political ideology – things that come up regularly. The bot will usually re-tweet with the original poster’s user name to flag their attention; following the bot will then allow that user to find other posts from, users who share an interest in whatever he or she just posted. In this manner, bots can stimulate the development of like minded people into larger and more connected social networks.
It is this networking effect that was recently studied (though not specifically intentionally) by researchers involved with the “Web Ecology Project,” a group which studies social networks and the way their users interact. The initial goal was to determine how @responses were generated, but in the quest to garner those responses, automated bots were used – and the researchers decided to follow up that lead with another experiment. They investigated how the addition of these bots to the social mix influenced human behaviour.
Naturally, whenever people see their own name pop up, they tend to investigate. The bots in the experiment were set to retweet certain posts and include people’s names, especially in pairs or more. This led to people discovering others who had been retweeted by the bots, and following those people. In fact, the researchers found major increases in follow rates and conversation rates through the addition of the bots. Seems common sense, but having legitimate verification of the effect and quantifiable data will be a boon to marketers and others who would take advantage of social networks.
Captchas – Defeated
Posted by tevans in Winrar Free Download on January 24th, 2012
You’ve surely seen those annoying “Captchas” before. Any time you try to sign up for a new service, you’ll run into them – squiggly, oddly shaped letters set against difficult to interpret backgrounds. The claim is that computers can’t interpret the letters and, thus only a human can unlock a Captcha (and let me tell you, half the time even a human can’t do it – I hate those things). As such, Captchas are used to defend against activities like spamming and phishing – things that are best done through large scale automation to net the numbers needed to make them profitable.
Captchas are ubiquitous
As it turns out, however, automation doesn’t necessarily mean computers.
Antigate is a company that specializes in breaking Captchas the only way that they can be broken – using human specialists. The company employs teams of dedicated humans to respond to requests for Captcha solutions in real time – essentially a virtual sweatshop, though I’m sure they wouldn’t phrase it exactly that way. They’ll even teach you how to write a program that will enable you to automatically send the requests to them, essentially automating the process even though part of the mechanism is most assuredly fully biological.
The company is just one of several offering such services, and competition must be fierce, because the price point offered is ludicrous. For a dollar – that’s one, single dollar – you’re looking at up to a thousand Captchas solved. It is difficult to believe that these automation factories are paying their workers any kind of decent wages if they are able to offer prices like that, and given that the services are offered in both English and Russian, it’s not that hard to imagine where the “factories” are physically located.
That said, it’s clear that there’s a market for such services, and so long as there is demand, there will be supply. Where there’s email, there’s spam, and so where there are Captchas… there will be Antigate.
Facebook Goes Active
Posted by tevans in Winrar Free Download on January 20th, 2012
The “Like” button on Facebook has become ubiquitous around the web, and is well known for being both an effective social communication tool and a powerful marketing data collection device. Google emulated the technique with their +1 button, which they’ve angled to expand to the entire web.
So Facebook is stepping it up a notch.
The extremely popular social network has unveiled “actions,” designed to enhance the current system with a great deal more user generated data (and, consequently, a great deal more marketing value for Facebook). Whereas currently users can only say they like something or simply leave it alone, actions will allow users to indicate whether or not they’ve read a particular book, seen a movie, or purchased a piece of clothing. But there’s more than that. The technology is open for developers to work with as they like, and there are relatively few limits. You could just as easily see a “want” or “gift” button in retailer apps attached to your Timeline once the developers get going.
Like almost all Facebook interactions, the new action buttons will broadcast to your “subscribers” and friends. However, because they expect you to do a lot of actions (just like we do a lot of actions in real life), Facebook has made sure to only stream the action updates to the “ticker” and to your own Timeline, not to their walls. This will assist with the clutter that tends to develop on Timeline (which is a relatively poorly implemented data distribution system with a lot of inherent clutter, but that’s a separate issue). For those who make purchases that they aren’t particularly interested in sharing, like a gift or “adult” items, developers can set options for invisibility to the actions (thus only submitting the data to your own records – and Facebook’s marketing machine). Taken together, this is sure to give Facebook a marketing machine rivaled only by Google.
Working hard to be your one-stop-shop for the web.
Self-Healing Paint – Now For Phones
Posted by tevans in Winrar Free Download on January 18th, 2012
I drop my phone. I drop it a lot. It’s a banged up, beat up, “well loved” machine that only barely functions after about 6 months of normal use – “normal,” in my case, meaning constant typing, heavy data use (thanks, unlimited data) and repeated blows to the sides and back of the phone from dropping it, running into things, and the occasional turn as a door jam. When I had my old Kyocera 2119b, this didn’t matter – I could literally hurl that phone at a wall, pick it up, put the pieces back together, and make a phone call moments later. I had that phone for ten years; people would show off features on their latest and greatest phones, saying “oh look, it can do this, it can do that, it can do this” and so on, and I’d pick up my trust Kyocera, look them in the eye and say “Yeah? Can your phone do this?” And then hurl the damn thing full tilt into the nearest slab of concrete. Great fun.
If they could make this run Android I'd buy a lifetime supply.
But I digress. The point is, with newer phones, that’s simply not an option, and they need protection. That’s spawned an entire industry of phone cases and holders, designed to add a layer between your sensitive palm computer and the harsh world around us. But these cases quickly get scratched and beat up, making them ugly and uncomfortable. That’s why Nissan – yes, that Nissan – has unveiled a solution: self-healing phone cases.
Modeled on the car company’s self-healing car paint technology, the material is a gel-like substance which automatically morphs back into proper shape after suffering from basic scratch damage. The process can take up to a week for severe scratches but frequently “heals” in less than a day. This will keep your smart phone looking sharp and feeling fit in your hands for quite a bit longer than you’re used to – but you may still want to avoid any close encounters of the concrete wall kind.
Obama Stands Up To SOPA
Posted by tevans in Winrar Free Download on January 17th, 2012
The fight against SOPA rages on, as the bill looms before the Senate and the internet coalesces around the recognition that SOPA could well destroy every site that relies on or utilizes user generated content. That doesn’t just mean YouTube or Facebook; it means every site with commenting, every political blog, every social network, anything where people say things to each other. Basically, the internet.
Here’s another site that relies on user generated content – “We The People,” President Obama’s signature attempt to give people better access to their own government. The site operates by allowing users to submit petitions, which other users can then sign. Once they’ve garnered enough signatures within a certain timeframe, the petitions are automatically forwarded to the Obama administration for a response. Obviously, much of the time this generates a meaningless form letter response (so frequently, in fact, that one of the petitions submitted was a demand for a meaningless form letter response).
However, internet activists – in addition to deluging members of Congress with phone calls and emails – have taken advantage of “We The People” and submitted a petition to force President Obama to veto SOPA, should it pass the Senate. The petition rapidly accumulated the signatures needed for consideration, and true to his word, President Obama has responded with explicit concerns as to the repressive nature of SOPA on free speech. The President’s statement included strong words about not tampering with the DNS architecture that underlies the internet, including references to the forthcoming DNSSEC upgrades (demonstrating a surprisingly adept understanding of the technical aspects behind the internet). The administration also firmly stands behind transparency in the law, and wants any additional laws that are passed to specifically target already criminal behaviours rather than expanding definitions broadly.
It’s not quite a promise to veto, but it’s a very strong statement and a win for We The People – both the website, and the American populace.
Yes, even these guys.
3D Printing Goes Colour
Posted by tevans in Winrar Free Download on January 13th, 2012
Printing has come a long way from the old dot-matrix printers of the 70s and 80s. The addition of colour was a revolution at the time but is now so commonplace that you can print off full colour photographs by sending them from your phone (which may very well have the camera built in) to any conveniently located device. So the addition of a second colour to a line of printers might not seem like such a big deal at first blush.
But that’s before you consider the fact that the printer in question, the Makerbot, is not just a standard paper printer. No, it’s a 3D printer – and adding a second colour is a major breakthrough. 3D printers are just what they sound like – printers that can create just about anything you can think of (and design in the relevant programs) out of a simple plastic extrusion process. While that’s already a wild technology – think about designing a toy for your kids and then simply printing it up off the internet, or ordering a design from Amazon instead of shipping something to your door – it is enhanced substantially by the addition of a second colour.
Plus look how awesome it is.
The Makerbot is just 1700 dollars for single colour and 1900 dollars for two colours, an easy upgrade to make. That’s a very modest capital investment for a device that allows you to create an array of small products at a moment’s notice, and the plastic “ink” for the device is inexpensive, only about 50 dollars for a kilogram of any given colour. That puts it well within reach of small business and most middle class homes, with the prospect of further price reductions and future advances in technology looming brightly. When it reaches the critical mass of consumer acceptability that leads to mass production economies of scale, a 3D printer has the potential to completely remake the domestic economy.
Wearable Displays On… Display
Posted by tevans in Winrar Free Download on January 12th, 2012
It’s the future! Recent reports of wearable contact lenses with embedded LEDs that can respond to transmitted information and wireless electrical energy storage provided a glimpse of the future of wearable display technology, but while contact lenses are the ultimate goal, the idea of a wearable display is simply too tempting and – let’s face it – too awesome to wait around.
That’s why Lumus has been showing off its latest offerings in wearable display technology, the DK-32 and the PD-18-4 glasses kits. The DK-32 is a pair of glasses roughly the size and shape of standard lab safety goggles, while the PD-18-4 is the very futuristic looking monocle variant. The displays are quite advanced, enabling users to display any digital information they would like with decent apparent-screen size. The displays are even capable of 3D playback.
Lumus hasn’t made clear yet just exactly what can run on the monitors, but there’s no reason to assume they wouldn’t link through a Bluetooth connection to any given smart phone, tablet, or netbook – technology already well understood and established. The big stumbling block remaining for the lenses is interface – using a smart phone to interact with the lenses would require the user to glance down at the phone for information input, defeating the purpose of the wearable lenses by taking the user’s attention and visual focus away from the surrounding world and back to the device. It’s not hard to imagine solutions, however; point and blink technology is already in place for devices similar to that worn by Steven Hawking for manipulating data without the use of hands, and research into directly measuring electrical stimulus from the human brain proceeds apace. Even absent those devices, however, there’s no doubt that there’s a market for wearable peripherals, and a lens-based display unit is in many ways the holy grail of that industry. Expect big things from Lumus in the next few years.
Look how awesome these are.
Denial of Service – Now In Slimmed Down Sizes
Posted by tevans in Winrar Free Download on January 10th, 2012
After the Arab Spring and years of Anonymous hacks and retaliations, most everyone who follows the news is at least passingly familiar with the distributed denial of service attack, or DDoS as it is often abbreviated. This is a technique in which many computers are strung together to issue requests for service from a single website repeatedly and simultaneously. The sudden increase in demand overloads servers and shuts the site off from legitimate requests. It’s a tactic that’s been used with great effect, and is often compared to a sit-in, which is a very similar situation (during sit-ins, people crowd into a vendor and sit down and refuse to leave, denying access to genuine customers). Of course, it’s illegal to perform this action (the DDoS anyway – sit-ins remain legal despite being essentially the same thing).
Well, ok, so you can get arrested for sit-ins too
There are other ways to shut down a website though, and Qualys Security Labs has found just such a way. The proposal of one of their researchers, Sergey Shekyan, is to simply send a request – even from just a single computer – to the targeted website for a data feed (for example, by requesting a web page to load). It then holds up the read on that request by only taking small packets of information from the transmission at any given time, which forces the connection to hold open and continue to feed data to the requesting machine. That generates a similar effect to a DDoS in that it locks down resources that could be going to legitimate server requests.
The attack is a relatively recent concept and, although Shekyan has proven its efficacy, it has yet to make its way into the tool box of those who typically perform such actions. It appears that the attack can be prevented with settings changes, but until that information becomes widespread, there’s no reason to expect that it won’t be used for real.
