Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 202
February 21, 2014
Augmented Reality: Google Project Tango
*An Android unit with registration.
http://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/
(…)
“What is it?
“Our current prototype is a 5” phone containing customized hardware and software designed to track the full 3D motion of the device, while simultaneously creating a map of the environment. These sensors allow the phone to make over a quarter million 3D measurements every second, updating its position and orientation in real-time, combining that data into a single 3D model of the space around you.
“It runs Android and includes development APIs to provide position, orientation, and depth data to standard Android applications written in Java, C/C++, as well as the Unity Game Engine. These early prototypes, algorithms, and APIs are still in active development. So, these experimental devices are intended only for the adventurous and are not a final shipping product….”
Augmented Reality: Felix Faire, “CONTACT: Augmented Acoustics”
*Not bad for a wooden tabletop.
CONTACT: Augmented Acoustics from Felix Faire on Vimeo.
from Felix Faire 2 months ago
“CONTACT is a tangible audio interface to manipulate and visualize sounds generated from interaction with a simple wooden surface.
“Any physical contact with the table generates acoustic vibrations which are manipulated and visualized LIVE as they occur using several communicating pieces of software.
“All code will be opensource and available on github.”
Bartlett School of Architecture
Msc AAC
Tutor: Ruairi Glynn
Design Fiction: What is the role of interaction design in the world of AI?
*That’s an interesting set of questions if you consider AI to be feasible. Which I don’t.
*Of course, if people can pretend that climate change doesn’t exist, they might just as easily pretend that AI *does* exist. An animist version of Augmented Reality might become the ideal ally of a fundamentalist religion. Imagine how eagerly people would blow themselves up, if the rocks and clouds and bushes all told them that this was a great thing to do.
(…)
“The near now, the small then
“Leading up to the singularity, we still have agentive technology. That’s still going to be procedurally similar to our work now, but with additional questions to be asked, new design to be done around those agents.
“How are user goals learned: implicitly or explicitly?
“How will agents appear and interact with users? Through what channels?
“How do we manifest the agent? Audibly? Textually? Through an avatar? How do we keep them on the canny rise rather than in the uncanny valley? How do we convey the general capability of the agent?
“How do we communicate the specific agency a system has to act on behalf of the user? How do we provide controls? How do we specify the rules of what we’re OK giving over to an agent, and what we’re not?
What affordances keep the user notified of progress? Of problems? Of those items that might or might not fit into the established rules? What is shown and what is kept “backstage” until it becomes a problem?
How do users suspend an agent? Restart one?
“Is there a market for well-formed agency rules? How will that market work without becoming its own burden?
How easily will people be able to opt-out?
“I’m not sure if strong AI will obviate agentive technology. Cars didn’t entirely obviate the covered wagon. (Shouts out to my Amish readers.) If there are still agentive objects and systems here and there, we’ll still have these kinds of questions….”
Web Semantics: Cyberspace security glossary
*It’s from the Italian government in their recent document “National Strategic Framework for Cyberspace Security.” This certainly is written in some excellent, technically-aware English. The English in this Italian document is far more lucid than most English that comes out of Brussels. Who could write such a thing?
*I was intrigued to learn that “ICE” is “European Critical Infrastructure.” What times we live in these days.
http://www.sicurezzanazionale.gov.it/...
GLOSSARY OF CYBERSECURITY
AGCOM – The Communications Regulatory Authority
The two main tasks assigned to this independent Authority by Law no. 249/1997 are to ensure equitable conditions for fair market competition and to protect fundamental rights of all citizens.
APT – Advanced Persistent Threat A threat entailing a targeted attack, aimed at installing a number of malwares in the networks of the target in order to establish links necessary for remotely exfiltrating relevant information from the networks of the targeted entity.
BYOD – Bring Your Own Device A policy allowing company employees to bring their own mobile devices (laptops, smart phones, tablets, etc.) to their workplace and using them in order to have access to information and corporate applications, i.e. emails.
ccTLD – Country Code Top Level Domain The last part of the Internet domain name used by a State. It consists of two letters: “.it” for Italy.
CERT – Computer Emergency Response Team
Organization with the tasks of preventing cyber incidents and coordinating response to cyber events. Several CERTs also carry out training and information functions for ICT users.
CERT-PA – Computer Emergency Response Team – Public Administration
Evolution of the CERT-SPC (see next paragraph) with a competence extended to Public Administration’s ICT and computer systems and to all its services, in addition to the interconnecting networks. It has the task of supporting and coordinating the Public Administration in preventing to, responding to, and recovering from cyber incidents.
CERT-SPC – Computer Emergency Response Team – System of Public Connectivity
The structure responsible, at thenational level, for preventing, monitoring, ensuring information sharing and analysis of the security incidents within the Public Administration SPC. It has also the mandate of ensuring the implementation of a coherent and uniform methodology for managing ICT incidents. The CERT-SPC is primary point of contact for all Local Units of Security (ULS) established for each network domain connected with the SPC.
CNA – Computer Network Attack Activities that are conducted in and through the cyberspace in order to manipulate, obstruct, deny, downgrade or destroy information stored in the ICT networks or in the computer systems, or the ICT networks or in the computer systems themselves.
CNAIPIC – National Anti-crime Computer Centre for the Protection of Critical Infrastructure
The CNAIPIC, established by Law no. 155/2005 and with a Decree of the Minister of the Interior of 9th February 2008, is set within the Service of Postal Police and Communications, which is responsible for the security and the integrity of IT communications of the Ministry of the Interior, National Authority of Public Security. The Centre, as provided for by law, is responsible for ensuring prevention and repression of cyber crimes against critical infrastructures or ICT assets of national relevance, even through partnership agreements with the structures concerned.
CND – Computer Network Defence Actions taken by using computer networks for protecting, monitoring, analyzing, detecting, and hindering non-authorized activities carried out against computer networks and IT systems.
CNE – Computer Network Exploitation Operations carried out in cyberspace in order to extract information from targeted ICT networks or computer systems. They are intelligence gathering activities, or actions preparing the execution of a cyber attack.
CNO – Computer Network Operation This term generally encompasses Computer Network Attack (CNA), Computer Network Defence (CND) and Computer Network Exploitation (CNE).
CPS – Cyber Physical System
ICT networks and computer systems supporting, managing and supervising physical assets such as civil infrastructures, aerospace, transports, health care, energy and production processes.
CSBM – Confidence and Security Building Measures
Measures aimed at preventing or resolving hostilities among States, and at avoiding their worsening by developing mutual confidence. Such measures can have formal or informal, bilateral or multilateral, military or political nature.
DoS – Denial of Service Attack aimed at making a computerized system or resource unavailable to legitimate users by saturating and overloading server’s network connections.
DDoS – Distributed Denial of Service A DoS attack launched by several compromised and infected systems (Botnets).
DF – Digital Forensics A discipline – also called computer forensics– that deals with identifying, storing, analyzing, and reporting computer finds, in order to present valid digital evidence that can be submitted in civil or criminal proceedings.
DNS – Domain Name System A classification system of domain consisting of a distributed database converting automatically a website address into a Internet Protocol numerical code (IP address), which identifies the server web hosting the site.
ENISA – European Network and Information Security Agency
An Agency of the European Union established to foster ICT security through technical counseling to national authorities and EU institutions, to facilitate the sharing of best practices as well as the emergence of a community of ICT security practitioners, and to promote the Culture of Security.
Exploit
A code using a bug or a vulnerability of a computerized system.
IC – Critical Infrastructures
Critical infrastructure is an asset or system within the EU which is essential for the maintenance of vital societal functions. The damage to a critical infrastructure, its destruction or disruption may have a significant negative impact for the security of the EU and the well-being of its citizens (Art. 2 lit. b) (Directive 2008/114/ CE).
ICE – European Critical Infrastructures
Critical structure within the EU member States whose damage or destruction can have a significant impact on at least two member states. The relevance of such an impact is assessed comprehensively, that is to say in terms of the impacts on other sectors, including the impact on other sectors related to other infrastructures (Art. 2 lit. e) (Directive 2008/114/CE).
Social Engineering
Art of manipulating the psyche of people in order to force them to carry out specific actions or disclose confidential information, such as the login credentials to computerized systems.
IoE – Internet of Everything
A network where people, objects, data and processes are connected to one another through the Internet, and where information is transformed into actions in real time, thus creating new and as today unforeseen business opportunities.
IoT – Internet of Things
A buzz word referred to the extension of the Internet to the world of objects, which become remotely accessible through the Internet and are therefore National strategic framework for cyberspace security able to communicate information about themselves connecting to other objects and users. The objective is to ensure that the Internet traces a map of the real world, giving an electronic identity to things and places in the physical environment. The potential applications of the IoT are multiple: from the industrial applications (productive processes), to logistics and info mobility, up to the energetic efficiency, remote assistance and environment protection.
ISP – Internet Service Provider A company that provides commercial internet access and other services through a telephone line such as Dialup and ISDN or broadband connections like optical fibers or DSL.
Malware
Contraction of “Malicious software”. A program injected in a computer system, generally surreptitiously, with the intention of compromising privacy, integrity or the availability of data, of the applications or of the operative systems of the target. To this general category belong, for example: viruses, worm, trojans, backdoor, spyware, dialer, hijacker, rootkit, scareware, rabbit, keylogger, logic bombs, etc.
Phishing
A cyber attack having, generally, as objective the wheedling of sensitive information (user-id, password, credit card numbers, PIN) by sending false emails to a large number of addresses. The emails are designed to convince the receivers to open an attachment or to access a false website. The phisher uses the data it gets to acquire goods, transfer money or only as a “bridge” for further attacks.
Reverse engineering
An analysis designed to understand the functioning of hardware and software products in order to reengineer them, for example, to enhance their functions or in order to use them for different and further aims with respect to the original ones.
SCADA – Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
Systems employed in the monitoring and control of plants and equipment in sectors such as traffic control (air, rail, automobile), the control of systems of fluid stransportation (aqueducts, pipelines, etc.), of the distribution of the electrical energy, managing production lines that realize industrial processes and remote environmental detection surveys.
SOC – Security Operations Center A center that provides services aimed at the security of computer systems in firms (internal SOC) or external clients. A SOC can also supply incident response services: in this case it acts as a Computer Security Incident Response Team(CSIRT), even if this function often depends on a separate entity within the firm.
TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol
A set of standard protocol developed in the second half of the’ 70s by the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), with the aim of allowing communication among different types of computers and computer networks. TCP/IP is, still today, used by the Internet.
UTM – Unified Threat Management
An integrated security product to protect from multiple threats,
consisting of a firewall, an antivirus software, and systems to filter spam and its contents.
Web defacement
An attack carried out against a website and consisting in modifying the contents of the homepage or of other pages of the website.
February 20, 2014
Web Semantics: some synonyms for the Internet of Things
*There must be other ones.
Industrial Internet (GE)
Internet of Everything (Cisco)
Web of Things (Ericsson)
Industrial Internet of Things (Echelon)
Smarter Planet (IBM)
life.augmented (ST)
Digital Life (ATT)
CPS
IoT
M2M (machine to machine)
ambient intelligence
smart dust
Augmented Reality: Google Glass etiquette
*I’m guessing these notions would have broader application with broader augmentation.
*To “Glass Out” is a nice term-of-art.
https://sites.google.com/site/glasscomms/glass-explorers
“Explorers
“Our Glass Explorer community, which consists of people from all walks of life, actively participates in shaping the future of Glass. With new technology comes new questions, and our Explorers help to answer those questions. The first Explorers were developers from Google I/O 2012 and people who told us what they would do #ifihadglass. Since then, we’ve continued to expand the Explorer Program. We’re at the start of a long journey and we’re looking to our Explorers to help us develop this new technology.
“Since the program started, our Explorers have gotten a lot of attention when they wear Glass out and about. Reactions range from the curious – “Wow! Are those the ‘Google glasses’? How do they work?” – to the suspect – “Goodness gracious do those things see into my soul?!” Luckily as the Explorer Community grows, so does their collective wisdom. We asked some long-time Explorers for their advice, and here it is:
“DO’S
“Explore the world around you. Glass puts you more in control of your technology and frees you to look up and engage with the world around you rather than look down and be distracted from it. Have a hangout with your friends, get walking directions to a fantastic new restaurant, or get an update on that delayed flight.
“Take advantage of the Glass voice commands. Glass can free your hands up to do other things like golfing, cooking, or juggling flaming torches while balancing on a beach ball (but also see Don’ts #2). This is great for looking up how many ounces in a cup while you cook, or taking a one-of-a-kind photo from your unique perspective.
“Ask for permission. Standing alone in the corner of a room staring at people while recording them through Glass is not going to win you any friends (see Don’ts #4). The Glass camera function is no different from a cell phone so behave as you would with your phone and ask permission before taking photos or videos of others.
“Use screen lock. Glass screen lock works like your smartphone’s screen lock: it passcode-protects your device to help prevent others from using it. If you ever lose your device or have it stolen by a budding online resale entrepreneur, you can turn off Glassware and perform a remote wipe (e.g. factory reset) of the device, removing all your information from the device. All you need to do is go to your MyGlass page on your browser, or the MyGlass App on your phone.
“Be an active and vocal member of the Glass Explorer Community. The Explorer Program was created in order to have a place where our Explorers can give feedback, share content and communicate with the Glass team. It’s been hugely successful over the past year and this is due to our wonderful group of Explorers. They are constantly sharing their worlds with us and with each other, allowing us to hear and work on all the great feedback and stories our Explorers give us (and, wow, do they give us a lot!).
“DON’TS:
“Glass-out. Glass was built for short bursts of information and interactions that allow you to quickly get back to doing the other things you love. If you find yourself staring off into the prism for long periods of time you’re probably looking pretty weird to the people around you. So don’t read War and Peace on Glass. Things like that are better done on bigger screens.
“Rock Glass while doing high-impact sports. Glass is a piece of technology, so use common sense. Water skiing, bull riding or cage fighting with Glass are probably not good ideas.
“Wear it and expect to be ignored. Let’s face it, you’re gonna get some questions…”
Joris Laarman 3DPrinter prints metal in air
*I’d suggest checking out that Core77 post, because this video looks like design-fiction, and it isn’t.
“As its name suggests, MX3D-Metal can print lines of steel, stainless steel, aluminum, bronze or copper ‘in mid-air.’
Musica Globalista: Pussy Riot getting walloped by Cossacks
*Hey, not only are those the Cossacks, recently revived as Russian security forces, but it looks like they’re using the legendary Cossack “knout.”
*Not a lot of music in this music video.
The Architecture Fiction of Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet
*It’s great that @nk_m took the trouble to commission and distribute some speculative architectural renderings of various groovy notions of a future Paris when she becomes Mayor.
*Better yet, there are lots of them, and they’re really trippy-looking.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/02/paris-subway-remodels/?cid=co18880364
(…)
“In a city whose sewers attract tourists, it’s no surprise that a mayoral candidate is proposing to turn abandoned subway stations into art galleries, nightclubs, restaurants, and pools.
“Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, a center-right candidate for mayor of Paris and former environment minister, has unveiled a series of plans to turn the legendary “ghost stations” of the Paris Metro into underground oases.
“She’s enlisted the help of architects Manal Rachdi of OXO Associates and Nicolas Laisné to create renderings of the stations, repurposed as sleek spaces to display art, open restaurants, or create parks.
” “To swim in the metro seems like a crazy dream, but it could soon come true,” OXO Architects says in a statement. “Turning a former metro station into a swimming pool or a gymnasium could be a way to compensate for the lack of sports and leisure facilities in some areas…”
(((NK_M coverage just isn’t complete without some digital pics of @nk_m cannily exploiting social media in her campaign efforts. For years, she’s been my favorite French politician — probably because she’s so easy to watch.)))
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nk_m/
Olafur Eliasson in residence at MIT
*What a good idea.
“Olafur Eliasson at MIT for 2014 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT
Award includes artist residency, public events, $100,000 prize and gala
“The Council for the Arts at MIT is pleased to announce that Olafur Eliasson, recipient of the 2014 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT, will be at MIT March 12-14 to accept the prestigious honor. In addition to receiving the $100,000 prize and attending public programs and a gala, the artist will undertake a brief residency, interacting with MIT students, faculty, and staff in a range of academic disciplines on campus.
“Renowned for large-scale public art projects and architectural works, Eliasson teamed with engineer Frederik Ottesen to create Little Sun, a portable solar-powered LED lamp designed to bring clean, affordable light to the 1.6 billion people worldwide who have no access to electricity. But Little Sun is more than just a lamp — it’s also a social business enterprise, a vast global network bringing together people, places, and resources toward the common goal of more equitably distributing the world’s power, both literally and figuratively.
“The artist’s activities on campus will center on discussions of sustainable development, community engagement, design, product engineering, and social entrepreneurship in developing economies. He will engage with the MIT Energy Initiative (MITei), a multidisciplinary, Institute-wide research program working to find secure, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable energy sources; the MIT D-Lab (Development through Dialogue, Design and Dissemination); the Sloan School of Management; the MIT Center for Civic Media; and the MIT Museum, among others….”
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