Category: Science & Technology

High Tech Prison in the Netherlands

Yahoo has news and a picture of a new prison being opened this week in Lelystad.

Electronic monitoring is nothing new, nor is closed circuit television. What caught my eye though was the idea of monitoring the cells via microphone, and having a software programme analyze the sounds to determine what is going on.

Cells are equipped with microphones that relay information to the prison’s control center, where software analyzes sound volume and rhythm to alert guards when a violent confrontation between inmates may be taking place.

This means that the cells are not totally monitored via television, and that fewer guards need to be hired to monitor the cell blocks. An interesting approach to cost-cutting to be sure.

I just think that technology is never applied so cleanly to a problem, particularly when people are involved. I wonder how many glitches and issues will be found in the system within the first month. Inmates will no doubt come up with some very non-technical ways to trounce this electronic monitoring system.

CPUs? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ CPUs!

Tom’s Hardware have created two great tables – the first shows every CPU AMD has made in the last decade, and their details. The second shows every CPU Intel has made in the last decade and their details.

Invaluable if you need to see a processor’s actual specs quickly. Both are part of a larger article on how CPUs have changed over the past 10 years as well as the normal CPU comparison using today’s hottest products. If you want to get really geeky you can look at these trends and compare them to the Holy Grail we’ve all heard about – Moore’s Law.

Sony vs. The Geeks – Fight!

I’ve written earlier about DRM and music purchases – but this news story has reached epic proportions so I just wanted to write a little bit about it.

The story is all about how Sony decided to include a fairly nasty means of DRM on their latest CD releases. Specifically a ‘rootkit‘ is installed simply by inserting the CD into your computer. It quietly inserts itself as a layer in the very kernel of the operating system, forcing any access to the CD drive to be passed through it. It also changes the way the filesystem is seen by the user, hiding any files that start and end with a particular string. Hence it’s label as a rootkit. It opens up a backdoor wherein any virus written to take advantage of these ‘features’ can do so and infect a person’s computer without them knowing. Once the virus infects the computer via the SONY rootkit, well, game over man.
Continue reading Sony vs. The Geeks – Fight!

Software Bugs – Benign to Lethal

A recent Wired article on the Top 10 Worst Software Bugs in History is an interesting read, but of course I have something to add.

On the list are two medical-device related software bugs. The first is the Therac-25 bug wherein patients were inadvertently exposed to large doses of radiation resulting in at least five deaths. This is a straightforward engineering bug. It’s interesting to note the various causes included in that Wikipedia link. It warms my heart to see so many systems being examined to see if they contributed to the error.

The second one occurred relatively recently (2000). The device’s designs were not followed or understood properly and technicians ended up killing at least 8 patients through massive radiation overdoses. More on this one below.

Here are a few links to other disasters or problems caused by software bugs:

  1. USS Yorktown: a US Navy ship suffers full system shutdown when someone enters 0 for a database value on ship.
  2. 2003 Blackout in North America: part of the reason the blackout was so extensive was alarms going off weren’t displayed due to a software bug.
  3. Full scale Soviet attack: in 1979 NORAD quite literally sat stunned as it witnessed a full-scale Soviet missile attack

Continue reading Software Bugs – Benign to Lethal

Robots In The House

Mitsubishi has announced the availability of their new robot for general public purchase – wakamaru. It is designed to, well, here’s what they say:

“wakamaru” lives in accordance with his own daily schedules as well as those of its owners, and it can update these schedules based on contact with the owner.

Not only does “wakamaru” respond to actions from people like other conventional robots, but it also takes the initiative in speaking to the family based on the information he obtains from contact with the family.

“wakamaru” connects itself to the network to provide necessary information for daily life. It looks after the house while the family is absent, watches out for unusual conditions, and is convenient for the life of family members.

Marketing-speak aside, I think there’s some interesting things being said here.

  1. The robot is a he
  2. The robot “lives”

Continue reading Robots In The House

The Canadian Government vs. Spyware

The CIPPIC (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic) are interested in hearing from you … they’re soliciting stories and anecdotes from across Canada, looking for horror stories about Spware.

Apparently they want to accumulate all the nasty stories of crashed computers, stolen identies, reduced performance … well, they’re actually asking you for your own experiences with Spyware. How has it affected you? Where did you get it? Was it obviously installed or did it sneak up on you?

These are the questions they want asked.

But what is Spyware, exactly? Here is their FAQ and definition.

What do they plan on doing with all these solicited stories? They want to use them to build a case, to bring the problem to the forefront of Internet Policy discussions. They want to give you a means of having your “Spyware Screams” heard, and listened to.

As someone who often cleans up after some kind of spyware has slipped onto a friend’s computer, I hope they are able to build a solid case and that they are listened to. So if you have a story, no matter how sordid (they promise anonymity), please send them an email

On Crocs and HIV

Researchers are discovering that the immune system of crocodiles, which is known to be more robust and effective than the human immune system, may help us find a means of attacking and killing the HIV virus in humans. The immune system of crocs are able to deal with limb loss and massive skin tears because, well, crocs fight and stuff. Their immune system lets them heal up even in microbe-infested waters and muck.

Researchers have found that the immune system is capable of killing the HIV virus much more effectively than ours. In fact it is also capable of killing bacterial strains that are antibiotic-resistant.

So we know that the croc system can kick some serious microbe butt, but the trick is to figure out how to use these antibodies without having them kill their human hosts. More research needs to be done, but the findings so far are pretty interesting.

Wireless PAN – Gimme Some Skin

I’ve heard the term P.A.N. (Personal Area Network) tossed around for a few years now what with Bluetooth becoming almost ubiquitous in today’s small technical gadgets. The idea is that rather than having wires joining various electronic devices together we use the wireless technology to create a small network that is centered around our person.

That’s all fine and good, but some people don’t like the idea of allowing other people to quietly pick up these P.A.N. signals and snoop on our private data. So a new idea has surfaced:

Use our skin as the means of transmitting electric signals between devices.

Here’s an article on the company that has applied for patents on this process.

Now this just kind of freaks me out, bringing forth the spectre of the cyborg. It works, and is pretty cool in terms of geek. but man, doesn’t the idea just give you the heebie-jeebies?

IDEA Awards 2005

The IDEA Awards are designed (forgive the pun) to celebrate the glorious designs that have been dreamt up within the last year, and includes designs from all cross-sections of consumerism. They’ve posted the award recipients of 2005 (all 158), including pictures for your viewing pleasure right here.

Some highlights for me (as I don’t necessarily agree with all of them):

Now tell me that design isn’t fun!

This Makes Me Uncomfortable

Technology sure is an unfettered beast when we want it to be.

In the latest race to calm people’s qualms about travelling via airplane, a new security scanner is being considered for testing in the U.S. It’s much more effective than the X-ray machines currently in use, as it intelligently reconstructs the person’s body from the data. I can’t say much more because obviously details are not easy to come by.

You can see some sample images in this article.

Essentially proponents are saying that it will be used in lieu of a strip search, or for special cases. I say welcome to a slippery slope. We all know how that story ends.

Opponents are saying this is perverse, as the scanning of people only exposes the exterior of their bodies and not their interior, which strip searches would do. So it cannot replace strip searches. They are upset at the thought of officers at airports viewing images of naked children, or purposefully choosing the scanned people in order to obtain a free strip show.

The article finally mentions that officials are declining to say when or where these machines may be put into testing.

Yeah!