Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 204

February 11, 2014

East Texas open-source shade-tree car-engine multi-gizmo


*Holy cow that thing is terrifying. What a great way to maim yourself with repurposed junked car engines and a host of high-RPM salvaged mechanical attachments.

screen-shot-2014-02-10-at-3-06-46-pm

http://makezine.com/magazine/make-37/patdelany/

http://makezine.com/projects/the-multimachine-150-12-swing-metal-lathemilldrill/

“Unfortunately, Delany also had an accident while building his MultiMachine. The suspended engine block came loose and knocked him through a window, seriously injuring his back. Now he describes himself as ‘a crippled inventor guy — the kind that rides a scooter in the supermarket.’”

http://opensourcemachinetools.org


       





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Published on February 11, 2014 03:59

Augmented Reality: an interoperability demo

Via @cperey, who would know, because she is, like, Ms. AR Standards.

*It’s a press release.

http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/1960

OGC, Layar, Metaio and Wikitude invite Mobile World Congress attendees to AR Interoperability Demo

OGC Press Releases

Contact:
info@opengeospatial.org

Content:

10 February 2014 – The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) invites all mobile developers, location data providers, network operators and LBS service users to an exciting seminar and reception that will be held from 0900 to 1500 on 25 February 2014 in Barcelona, Spain at the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya (ICC) during the Mobile World Congress. The Mobile World Congress, to be held 24-27 February 2014 in Barcelona, is the world’s largest exhibition, conference and networking event for mobile operators, cell phone and device manufacturers, and providers of mobile software.

In addition to presentations by OGC representatives about location standards that maximize the value of mobile devices’ location awareness, the OGC will host the world’s first Augmented Reality (AR) Browser Interoperability Demonstration. Layar, Metaio and Wikitude, the largest AR platform providers, have cooperated to make it easy for AR content to be shared across their technology platforms. This cooperation has resulted in the development of three unreleased but fully functioning browsers from the three companies. The demonstration of AR content being used interchangeably by these browsers will take place after lunch on Tuesday Feb 25 at the ICC during the OGC mobile seminar.

The common AR interchange format that enables this AR interoperability is based on the candidate OGC ARML 2.0 Encoding Standard that Martin Lechner of Wikitude introduced into the OGC, with the goal to provide an interchange format for Augmented Reality. After it has been successfully tested in the interoperability experiment, ARML 2.0 will be reviewed by the OGC membership to become an adopted OGC standard within the next couple of months.

The companies demonstrating AR interoperability believe tomorrow’s AR market will be much more open, and thus much larger, than today’s AR market. Today, a user equipped with an AR-ready device, including sensors and appropriate output/display support, must download a proprietary application to experience content published using an AR experience authoring platform. A subset of these applications are referred to as “AR browsers.”

AR browser interoperability benefits at least these four stakeholder groups:

Content Publishers will be able to offer AR experiences with their content to larger potential audiences (e.g., all users of AR browsers that support interoperability) with equal or lower effort (costs) of preparing/producing AR browser-based experiences with their digital assets,

Developers of AR experiences will be able to choose the AR experience authoring environment they prefer or is best suited to a project without sacrificing the “basic” experience they can offer their clients’ target audiences and also be able to invest in innovation (specialize) in preparation of highly engaging and interactive experiences,

Attracted by larger total audience size and lower barrier to entry, there will be more content publishers willing to invest in AR and greater number of developers learning/perfecting AR experience design, generating higher revenues for AR authoring and content management system providers, and

End users will be able to discover and select AR experiences from a larger catalog while also choosing the AR browser they prefer.

On January 21, 2014 the AR Browser Interoperability Architecture document 1.2 was agreed upon by the AR Browser publishers participating in this process. Implementations of the architecture began in the second phase of the process – AR Browser Interoperability Proof of Concept – and this interoperability will be demonstrated publicly for the first time on 25 February.

Attendees will have an opportunity to meet the developers and discuss the opportunities that arise from standards-based integration of AR systems.

Martin Lechner, CTO, Wikitude, explained that, “The interoperability experiment is a breakthrough for mobile AR. For the very first time, content published in one of the platforms becomes available on any participating mobile AR platform, allowing content creators to follow the “write once, run anywhere” approach. To us, the experiment is only a first step. We plan to cooperate in the future and allow more and more features of the AR Browsers to become available in an interoperable way as we move down the interoperability path.”

Peter Meier, CTO, Metaio, said, “Developers want to create relevant content for their customers and need reliable software and platforms to present it. The interoperability AR demo is a great opportunity to focus on the content. Ultimately the consumer will decide on his or her preferred browser, and this way we can allow stellar content to always be accessible.”

”Dirk Groten, CTO, Layar, added, “AR is a new medium that will change the way we look at the physical world, linking it to the digital world. In order for this medium to become ubiquitous and easy to use, it is necessary to create standards so that content publishers can rely on their creations being viewed by the largest possible group of end users, regardless of the application they use; like the web that can be browsed with multiple browsers thanks to the W3C standards. With this joint proof of concept, our companies have taken a first important step towards achieving this goal.”

George Percival, Chief Engineer, OGC, said, “This coordination of the leading AR companies and the resulting demonstration is a watershed event in the progress of open AR to become a new medium. From a geospatial perspective this marks the continued progress toward merging maps with the real world for the benefit of all.”

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international consortium of more than 470 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.


       





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Published on February 11, 2014 02:13

A List of Events Happening on The Day We Fight Back


*It kills me that both Austin and Belgrade are on this list.

*I happen to be in Turin rather than Austin or Belgrade. But it’s gonna be a busy day.

The_Day_We_Fight_Back_February_11th_2014_2014_02_06_01_42_06.1

https://thedaywefightback.org/events/

A List of Events Happening on The Day We Fight Back
Look below to find an event in your area, or check out our suggestions for local events.

Know of an event that isn’t listed? Email contact@thedaywefightback.org

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
PROTEST AGAINST MASS SURVEILLANCE
February 11th, 2014 at 4:00 PM
Details: Meet at the American Embassy (Dag Hammarskjöld avenue 24) to protest mass surveillance abuses.
Website: Link

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
CRYPTOPARTY AND THE LAUNCH OF AN UK COALITION TO END MASS SURVEILLANCE:
February 11th, 2014 at 7:00 pm
Details: Meet at Free Word Centre 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA, London
Website: Meetup page

BRIGHTON, UNITED KINGDOM
CRYPTOPARTY
February 11th, 2014 at 6:30 pm
Details: Meet at 68 Middle Street 68 Middle Street, Brighton
Website: Meetup page

SOUTHAMPTON, UNITED KINGDOM
CRYPTOPARTY
February 11th, 2014
Details: Southampton University
Website: none

SAN JOSÉ, COSTA RICA
SPEAKING EVENT
2/11/14 at 2:00 PM
Details: “En Costa Rica No se Pelea” – Ven a Barrio Escalante, 500 mts Este de la Iglesia Santa Teresita., Av 9, San José. Por motivo de “The Day We Fight Back” estamos buscando comunicar la importancia de la privacidad en nuestro país. “En Costa Rica No Se Pelea” es una charla que busca reconocer como el estado actual de nuestro entorno, donde ya un vigilancia masiva no es un cuento de hadas, sino más bien una realidad. Buscamos hacer conciencia en favor de los derechos digitales que todos deberíamos de tener y que en el último año han sido violentados. Vení y conversá con nosotros acerca de este importante tema.
Website: Facebook event

BOGOTA COLOMBIA
CRYPTOPARTY
February 11th, 2014 at 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Details: Hackbo, calle 44 # 8-50 apto 201
Website: Link

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
PROTEST AGAINST MASS SURVEILLANCE
February 11th, 2014 at 5:00 PM
Details: Meet at Humlegården, Stockholm. Learn more from @AnonswedenInfo. Website: anonsweden.se/?p=4981 and Facebook event

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA
PROTEST AGAINST MASS SURVEILLANCE
February 11th, 2014 at 6:00 PM
Details: Meet at the ATT Building, 611 Folsom St.. (at 2nd St, near Montgomery BART), San Francisco, CA. This is the site of Room 641A, the telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency in a massive, unconstitutional, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications. Guerrilla Projections and Video by the SF Projection Dept. Speakers include Mark Klein, former AT&T technician and whistleblower.
Website: Facebook event

LOS ANGELES, CA, USA
SPEAKING EVENT
February 11th, 2014 at 7:30 PM
Details: Come to 613 South Grand Ave, Los Angeles, California for an evening event at Casey’s Irish Pub. Restore The Fourth Los Angeles will participate by hosting an event featuring the Tenth Amendment Center and ACLU of Southern California and legislators speaking about unconstitutional domestic surveillance. Learn how you can empower yourself against the NSA. They will be discussing pending legislation against bulk data collection, such as the USA Freedom Act (Federal) and the Fourth Amendment Protection Act (California).
Website: Facebook event

AUSTIN, TX, USA
STREET THEATRE AND LIGHT ART
February 11th, 2014 at 12 PM
Details: At noon, Restore the Fourth will be engaging the people of Austin by performing street theater! Dress up like an NSA agent and pretend to record our fellow Austinites just like the real National Security Agency does every day in a less visible form. Later in the evening, we need your help to make the longest message in Austin Overpass Light Brigade’s history. More details on the message, meeting time, and location to come – sign up at the Facebook event page for updates.
Website: Facebook event

CHICAGO, IL, USA
PROTEST AGAINST MASS SURVEILLANCE AND DINNER
February 11th, 2014 at 12 PM
Details: Meet on Daley Plaza at 5pm on February 11th. Following a few short speeches the group will leave Daley Plaza promptly at 5:30, marching through the Loop to raise awareness of the NSA’s violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of all Americans. We’ll end at Timothy O’Toole’s Pup (Ontario & Fairbanks) at 6:30 to hang out, talk about future ideas for RT4 Chicago, and give those who choose not to brave the winter weather a chance to participate.
Website: Facebook event

BLUFFDALE, UT, USA
PROTEST AND HIGHWAY CLEANUP
February 11th, 2014 at 11:00 AM
Details: Come out to the Utah Data Center at N 11600 W Bluffdale, UT 84065. Restore the Fourth will meet a little south of the data center and do a cleanup/march to the gate. EFF’s Parker Higgins will be there to document the event for the EFF blog and speak about surveillance issues.
Website: Reddit and Facebook event

LEWISVILLE, TEXAS, USA
PROTEST AGAINST MASS SURVEILLANCE
February 10th, 2014 at 8 PM
Details: The NTLB North Texas Light Brigade will be holding a protest at 812 S. Stemmons Fwy, Lewisville, Texas 75057
Website: Facebook event

CARROLLTON, TX, USA
PROTEST AGAINST MASS SURVEILLANCE
February 11th, 2014 at 12 PM
Details: Come out and show Big Brother what it looks like when the people get mad. Bring signs and banners in the spirit of this struggle.
Website: Facebook event

ST. PAUL, MN, USA
PROTEST AGAINST MASS SURVEILLANCE
February 11th, 2014 at 2:30 PM
Details: Gather at the Minnesota State Capitol to air grievances, hear from speakers, and coordinate where we go from here as Minnesotans.
Website: Facebook event

BELGRADE, SERBIA
PRIVACY HACKATON
February 11th, 2014
Details: The Belgrade Hacklab will organise a privacy hackaton together with ISOC Belgrade Chapter.
Website: none

GRAZ, AUSTRIA
CRYPTOPARTY
February 11th, 2014 at 7:00 PM
Details: See https://cryptoparty.at/graz

KARLSRUHE, GERMANY
SURVEILLANCE SALON
February 11th, 2014 at 6:30 PM
Details: Discuss strategies to take on mass surveillance at this meetup and salon at Alter Schlachthof 15, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
Website: Facebook event


       





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Published on February 11, 2014 00:17

February 10, 2014

Architecture Fiction: Chupan Chupai

CHUPAN CHUPAI from Factory Fifteen on Vimeo.

“Chupan Chupai is a short film installation that combines environment design and cinema in an exhibition format. The project was developed for the ‘Future Perfect’ exhibition as part of the 2013 Architecture Triennale in Lisbon, Portugal and was presented by DAZED as part of the Visionaries series.”

dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/artic...

SYNOPSIS

“In a near future heavily influenced by the imminent boom of the Indian subcontinent, an emerging technology and economic superpower a new digital city has developed. The film follows a group of young children as they play a game of hide and seek (Chupan Chupai) in the bustling streets of this smart city. Through their play the children discover how to hack the city, opening up a cavernous network of hidden and forgotten spaces, behind the scenes of everyday streets.

“The narrative of piece focuses on how the children interact with their built environment, we explore the smart city through the device of the classic children’s game. The design of the future city fuses technology and built matter as one programmable environment. Using gestures and signs as a language, the project takes the concept of gesture based control to the level where we can interact and control all elements of the built environment, creating a symbiosis between technology and the city. The film splits the physical architecture of the city into two categories; the synthesised lived in city, and its organic wild undergrowth.

“The project was shot on location in India and uses a mixture of animation and visual effects to embellish the design of the city and locations that are pictured.”

Based on a short story by Tim Maly
Directed by FACTORY FIFTEEN
Produced by Liam Young
Filmed on location in India by
Jonathan Gales
Paul Nicholls
Liam Young
Tushar Prakash
Indian Producer – Tushar Prakash
Composer – Mark Sayfritz
Sound Design – Ana Roman
Fixer – Harry Singh
CAST
Maya – Noshine Banu
Aya – Shahine Banu
Amit – Mustaraf Khan
Guardian to cast – Rafique Mohammad (Pamna)
Post- Production by Factory Fifteen
VFX / 3D ARTISTS / COMPOSITING
Jonathan Gales
Paul Nicholls
Arkin Esref
Alexey Marfin
Matt Townsend
Chris Glew
TRACKING
Tom Carter
Kibwe Tavares
INTERNS
Mond Qu
Alessandro Mimiola
SPECIAL THANKS
Manisha Prakash
Ian Forber-Pratt
Foster Care India
Claire Pepper
Ravi Amaratunga
Lisbon Architecture Trienale 2013
# vimeo.com/84978203


       





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Published on February 10, 2014 10:21

Spime Watch: way, way beyond the Internet of Things

*The post-internet of post-things, I reckon. Quantum computing, intelligent mists, smart dust, claytronics, utility fogs, aw c’mon who can’t like that stuff.

http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/beyond-the-internet-of-things-the-amazing-tech-that-s-coming-next-1222471

Forget connected toasters, we want to control matter

By Duncan Geere February 9th

(…)

“As the Internet of Things dives down this path, we’ll see individual devices getting both smaller and more numerous. The result will be what Texas Instruments’ Gene Frantz and Dave Freeman described in a white paper in 2012 as “an intelligent mist of technology that surrounds us to make our lives automatically safer and more comfortable”.

” “Eventually there will be trillions of these devices, the equivalent of thousands for every man, woman and child on earth,” they wrote. “The intelligent swarm will be ubiquitous, helping to keep our bodies healthy, our buildings comfortable, our cities efficient, and above all minimise waste of precious natural resources.”
We can equip these trillions of networked nodes with different components to create new types of matter that we can manipulate with instructions from computers.

“Imagine a cloud of fog that suddenly solidifies at the flick of a switch, or a clay-like substance that changes its shape at will, or the ability to gather data from every square millimetre of an alien planet. For decades, nanotechnologists have fantasised about these possibilities, but now we’re actually starting to make them happen….”


       





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Published on February 10, 2014 08:33

Spime Watch: Echelon Inc, the IzoT platform and the Industrial Internet of Things

*Here comes another major player, with its own notion, the “IIoT,” carefully “segmented” from everybody else’s handwave-y, too-vague Internet of Things.

*That’s a nice website design.

not that echelon

http://iiot.echelon.com/izot-products

http://iiot.echelon.com/izot-platform

http://iiot.echelon.com/iiot-at-work

(((A press release. It has some nice IIoT engineering-speak. One may note that Echelon’s heavy-duty industrial internet of things is held together with big no-kidding wires. This seems obscurely comforting, somehow.)))

Echelon Speeds Migration to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) With its New IzoT™-Enabled Multiprotocol FT 6050 System on Chip

Support for multiple control protocols and flexible multi-drop wiring architecture lowers cost and simplifies integration of industrial devices in the IIoT

SAN JOSE, Calif., January 21, 2014 – Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON), the world’s leading control networking platform provider, announced its FT 6050 system on chip (SoC), a single-chip solution for providing reliable, cost-effective, flexible wired IP connectivity for communities of devices in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The IP-enabled, multiprotocol, multi-drop FT 6050 is part of Echelon’s IzoT™ platform for the IIoT, the next generation of the world’s most successful industrial control platform based on Echelon’s ISO-standard Free Topology (FT) architecture.

“With almost a billion devices currently connected to control networks in industrial settings, application designers are seeking an effective, safe and simple migration path to the IIoT,” said Ron Sege, chairman and CEO of Echelon. “Echelon’s IzoT platform and new FT 6050 SoC let companies build IIoT solutions that interoperate with existing devices while also supporting new IP-enabled ones—which reduces their SKU counts, broadens application support and lets them get their products to market more quickly and safely.”

The multiprotocol IzoT software running on the FT 6050 SoC provides designers a fast, low-risk path to market for IIoT products that are reliable and both backward- and forward-compatible with the full range of communications, transport and control networking standards. As an example, designers can use the IzoT-enabled FT 6050 to create and deploy building automation applications that simultaneously support BACnet®, LonWorks® and IP-enabled devices.

“Echelon’s IzoT-enabled FT 6050 chip will make it easier and more cost-effective for both existing and new industrial devices to join the burgeoning IIoT—while providing industrial-grade reliability and the maturity of proven industrial control networking protocols such as LonWorks,” said Varun Nagaraj, senior vice president and general manager, Internet of Things, Echelon Corp. “The FT 6050 is designed to provide a better wired alternative than either RS-485 or Ethernet for industrial applications that can benefit from IP enablement. Quite simply, the FT 6050 is the best chip for IP-based multi-drop wired industrial communications.”

“The IIoT is drawing attention and investment from major technology providers throughout the industry, and Echelon is positioned to provide important foundational solutions for this emerging market,” said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst of Moor Insights & Strategy. “The kind of control networking expertise that Echelon has amassed will be crucial for turning the promise of the IIoT into tangible, transformative solutions.”

Sized appropriately and built specifically for IIoT applications, the FT 6050 SoC integrates a Neuron® 4-processor core with Free Topology transceiver. Each of the four processor cores has a dedicated role: interrupt handling, lower-level protocol support, upper-level protocol support and support for the application itself. This division of processing labor, combined with the networking flexibility of FT, allows industrial developers to run the same application with or without IP enablement, and using their choice of preferred communications protocols (e.g., LonWorks, BACnet, Modbus).

FT a Superior Transport Option for Industrial IoT Wired Connectivity

Although wireless communications dominate in consumer settings, industrial environments still rely heavily on wired communications. The reasons that wired connectivity will persist in industrial environments include:

Rock-solid reliability even in harsh (noisy, dusty, wet, corrosive) environments

The ability to operate without human interaction

Convenient connectivity configurations, including multi-drop wiring

Hardened security

Within the industrial wired communications world, RS-485 and Ethernet dominate. Both these link options, however, present challenges for industrial applications, especially in moving to IP.

RS-485 has low noise immunity which compromises its reliability, is prone to wiring misconfigurations, and requires a companion processor to handle the constant interrupts from an IP network, adding to the cost of the device. Ethernet has high cost per node and is inappropriate for the unstructured and multi-drop topologies which are the most common in industrial environments.

FT offers higher reliability than RS-485, lower cost than Ethernet and more topology flexibility than either of those link options. Echelon’s FT 6050 product builds on the FT advantages with its multicore processor to make it the best available product for building and operating IP-enabled industrial applications and for enabling more devices to become part of the IIoT.

“While we believe that FT is the ideal choice for wired connectivity and the FT 6050 is the best single chip option for developing a wired IIoT device, we also recognize that developers need a range of wired and wireless options. Consequently, we have designed our IzoT platform to span multiple link choices. Echelon’s IzoT platform can be used to develop IIoT devices that can run on any processor and use any underlying communication option,” said Nagaraj. “Developers using the IzoT platform as their ubiquitous development environment can choose FT, RS-485, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or other wireless choices as appropriate for specific applications.”

About Echelon Corporation

Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON), a pioneer in developing open-standard control networking platforms, delivers all the elements necessary to design, install, monitor and control industrial-strength ‘communities of devices’ within the lighting, building automation, grid, Internet of Things, ‘maker’ and other markets worldwide. Echelon develops and sells complete systems and subsystems for target applications, plus system-on-chips (SoCs), embedded software, and commissioning and management tools for OEMs. With more than 100 million Echelon-powered devices installed worldwide, the company helps its customers easily and safely migrate existing control systems to the most modern platforms, while bringing new devices and applications into an ever-growing global Industrial Internet. Echelon helps its customers reduce operational costs, enhance satisfaction and safety, grow revenues and perform better in both established and emerging markets. More information about Echelon can be found at http://iiot.echelon.com, or www.echelon.com and at the company’s blog at blog.echelon.com.

###

Echelon and the Echelon logo are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

This press release may contain statements relating to future plans, events or performance. Such statements may involve risks and uncertainties, the risk that Echelon’s offerings by themselves or combined with other applications or offerings do not perform as designed or do not offer the expected benefits and savings; risks associated with international sales; and other risks identified in Echelon’s SEC filings. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Echelon undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

Contact:
Colleen Martell

control your past


       





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Published on February 10, 2014 06:56

Dark Patterns: user interfaces designed to trick people

*It’s great that these wicked practices have terms-of-art.

http://darkpatterns.org

Bait and Switch
Disguised Ads
Faraway Bill
Forced Continuity
Forced Disclosure
Friend Spam
Hidden Costs
Misdirection
Price Comparison Prevention
Privacy Zuckering
Roach Motel
Road Block
Sneak into Basket
Trick Questions

“What is a Dark Pattern

“Dark Patterns are User Interfaces that are designed to trick people.

“Normally when you think of “bad design”, you think of laziness or mistakes. These are known as design anti-patterns. Dark Patterns are different – they are not mistakes, they are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind.

“The purpose of this pattern library is to “name and shame” Dark Patterns and the companies that use them.

“For consumers, forewarned is fore-armed.

“For brand-owners, the bad-press associated with being named as an offender should discourage usage.

“For designers, this site provides ammunition to refuse unethical requests by our clients / bosses. (e.g. “I won’t implement opt-out defaults for the insurance upsells because that practice is considered unethical and it will get you unwanted bad press.”)

“Browse the list of dark patterns on the left of this screen.

“There’s a description for each pattern and numerous examples with screenshots.

“You can also sign up for a free account and add your examples too.”

journeymap


       





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Published on February 10, 2014 04:20

Augmented Reality: PlaceAvoider software

*Here’s an interesting form of diminished-reality technology. Because of privacy concerns (or, really, whatever) a machine-vision system acts as an always-on censor, and prevents the human user from taking embarrassing (or whatever) pictures of geo-localized bathrooms (or wherever).

*Obviously this “PlaceAvoider” system is not good to go yet, but it’s pretty interesting to see a filter built right onto one’s eyeballs.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523941/not-ok-glass/

New software lets you mark places as off-limits for wearable camera gadgets like Google Glass.

By Nic Fleming on January 28, 2014

(…)

“There simply isn’t the time to manually curate the thousands of images these devices can generate per day, and in a socially networked world that might lead to the inadvertent sharing of photos you don’t want to share,” says Apu Kapadia, who co-leads the team that developed the system. “Or those who are worried about that might just not share their life-log streams, so we’re trying to help people exploit these applications to the full by providing them with a way to share safely.”

(((This assumes that the user is in control, of course — though one rather imagines that, in practice, this complicated blacklisting would be managed by somebody else.)))

“Kapadia’s group began by acknowledging that devising algorithms that can identify sensitive pictures solely on the basis of visual content is probably impossible, since the things that people do and don’t want to share can vary widely and may be difficult to recognize. They set about designing software that users train by taking pictures of the rooms they want to blacklist. PlaceAvoider then flags new pictures taken in those rooms so the user will review them.

“The system uses an existing computer-vision algorithm called scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) to pinpoint regions of high contrast around corners and edges within the training images that are likely to stay visually constant even in varying light conditions and from different perspectives. For each of these, it produces a “numerical fingerprint” consisting of 128 separate numbers relating to properties such as color and texture, as well as its position relative to other regions of the image. Since images are sometimes blurry, PlaceAvoider also looks at more general properties such as colors and textures of walls and carpets, and takes into account the sequence in which shots are taken….”

(((This PlaceAvoider paper is written in quite an interesting machine-vision technical-ese.)))

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~kapadia/papers/placeavoider-ndss14.pdf


       





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Published on February 10, 2014 03:04

Musica Globalista: Radical Computer Music

*That’s a pleasant essay. It was fun to read. Of course I disagree with it.

http://thequietus.com/articles/14405-black-midi-algorave

The Quietus Essay

I For One Welcome Our New Robot Vocal Cords: Radical Computer Music

Robert Barry, February 6th, 2014 03:57

“How might electronic music sound in a post human future? Robert Barry enlists the help of Holly Herndon, James Bridle and Conrad Shawcross to explore radical new directions in computer music, from live programming and Algorave to the digital overloads of Black Midi”

(((While I appreciate Algorave and Black Midi as practices, they seem to me in a lot of ways LESS musically “radical” than Conlon Noncarrow taking a razor-blade to a player-piano roll fifty years ago.

(((I’m getting bored with the bog-standard hacker approach of taking some fancy system, designed and built for purpose A, and shoving the slider-bars to 11 so that it does allegedly-amazing, trangressive thing B. When you’ve seen that done for decades on end, a hundred times with a hundred different digital compositional systems, it’s just not all that amazing, fulfilling or thrilling. It gets quite same-y. Worse yet, it’s like sleeping in the back seat of the rich guy’s used car.

(((You don’t own the means of production, you didn’t build it, you don’t understand it; you’re appropriating it, then re-branding it as the product of some niche cyber-counterculture. I entirely understand the joy of that — really, believe me, I do — but why did you stop there? It’s like you scratched your initials into a Formica tabletop, while waiting for some factory mogul to scrap it and bring you another one. If that’s all you can do, how will you ever get out of your retromania trap?

(((Conlon Noncarrow wasn’t trying to hack player pianos. It wasn’t some act of hacker-aggression where he was trying to become known as Mr Piano Hacker; Noncarrow had all the political issues he wanted because he was an ardent Communist in Mexican exile. Noncarrow was trying to do something coherent and thought-through, with piano rolls as a system of composition.

(((I’m not praising Conlon Noncarrow for his music, though. I’ve tried again and again to listen to Noncarrow, and I find it intensely irritating, even horrific. His work feels much worse to my ear than 8bit, or algorave, or dubstep, or black metal, or other contemporary schools of techno-music where somebody is digitally assembling a montage of allegedly-innovative chainsaw bleeps, bonks and whoops.

(((Dubstep isn’t radical, it’s pop music: it’s harmless fun for big crowds of teens. Noncarrow’s music feels maddening. It has very simple, analog, technical means, but it provokes the sensation that something went wrong with the universe.

(((One can feed more MIDI notes faster through a digital keyboard, but what’s “radical” about that? Of course it’s a technical expansion of processing capacity, but that’s not “radical” because it’s not at the root of what music does or is.

(((Also: computers are never going to appreciate computer music, any more than New Aesthetic render ghosts will ever be actual ghosts. There’s no there there, in this post-human pretense that AIs can somehow serve musicians as a fan base; its like emptily pretending that Wagner is best appreciated by a Nietzsche Markov chain.)))


       





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Published on February 10, 2014 00:47

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