UK cops' road accident reporting going paperless

It now appears that the British police 'road accident reporting and mapping system' is to go paperless! Another step towards the digital nexus?

Officials believe that replacing paper forms with electronic ones on mobile terminals will allow faster and more accurate identification of trouble spots.

“Britain has one of the best road safety records in the world," said road safety minister Jim Fitzpatrick, "but we are determined to do everything we can to continue making our roads even safer.

"Detailed, accurate and up-to-date information is vital if we are to tackle the causes of crashes on our roads so I am delighted that this important project is getting under way.”

The new data service is referred to as CRASH, for Collision Recording And SHaring. It will be tried out by three forces from 2010 before rolling out nationally.

CRASH will see existing paper forms used by officers to record details of accidents replaced by e-forms accessed on data-capable handsets or vehicle terminals (such kit is now becoming universal in the police service). The technology will be provided by telecoms provider IPL, and managed by the National Policing Improvement Agency's Police National Computer (PNC) Services arm.

Read more at 'UK cops' road accident reporting going paperless'

-

Warning over 'surveillance state'

BBC News are one of many UK media channels picking up on the recent story about the UK's push towards the Orwellian State:

Electronic surveillance and collection of personal data are "pervasive" in British society and threaten to undermine democracy, peers have warned. The proliferation of CCTV cameras and the growth of the DNA database were two examples of threats to privacy, the Lords constitution committee said.

Those subject to unlawful surveillance should be compensated while the policy of DNA retention should be rethought. The government said CCTV and DNA were "essential crime fighting tools".

'Orwellian'

But surveillance and data collection must be proportionate, it added.

Civil liberties campaigners have warned about the risks of a "surveillance society" in which the state acquires ever-greater powers to track people's movements and retain personal data.

Controversial government plans for a database to store details of people's phone calls and e-mails were put on hold late last year after they were branded "Orwellian".

Read more at - 'Warning over 'surveillance state''

-

Globally Networked Anarchism (#Griot)

A decent post came out recently on the site MetaSecurity that discusses how web communities will continue to be an increasingly important part of the National Security picture in 2009. See Greek riots, and you'll know how networked anarchism can work. And now there is a Second Life monument for the teenager killed by Greek police.

A recent article in the Economist highlighted the way in which the anarchist movement driving the riots within Greece has been able to connect internationally using the technology tools we are increasingly familiar with, YouTube (150,000 views), Blogs and Facebook. Facebook in particular appears to be the protest connection venue of choice, for a variety of movements from Egypt to Greece. The behavioral socio-political data that is present within the architecture of the Facebook site would provide keen insight into this developing opposition phenomena if examined and exploited. The new kids on the block are also represented by Twitter (through the #griot descriptor) and Second Life. This global connectivity produced a global reaction with protests appearing in a variety of other countries. While Facebook and Twitter are currently gathering the majority of the attention, arguably the seeds of better future information portals are to be found in Second Life.

A monument to the teenager killed by Greek Police (slurl to SL venue) has been erected within Second Life by the group Second Life Left Unity. While clearly biased in its representation it contains some interesting commentary on the subject – it clearly lacks the collaborative editing of wikipedia but the content is compelling. In similar fashion demonstrations are being held in Second Life relating to the current Israeli action in Gaza where protests are being held at the Islam Online site within the virtual world.

Second Life Monument to teenager killed by Greek Police

Read original article - 'Globally Networked Anarchism (#Griot)'

-

Cloud computing: Threat or Menace?

Jamais Cascio over at Open the Future has written an insightful post on how more companies are going hot for cloud-computing:

It turned out that, like many big computer industry players, this company is making its play in the "cloud computing" field.

("Cloud computing," for those of you not up on industry jargon, refers to a "a style of computing in which resources are provided “as a service” over the Internet to users who need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure." The canonical example would be Google Docs, fully-functional office apps delivered entirely via one's web browser.)

Lots of big companies are hot for cloud computing right now, in order to sell more servers, capture more customers, or outsource more support. But there's a problem. As the company I was working with started to detail their (public) cloud computing ideas, I was struck by the degree to which cloud computing represents a technical strategy that's the very opposite of resilient, dangerously so. I'll explain why in the extended entry.

But before I do so, I should say this: A resilient cloud is certainly possible, but would mean setting aside some of the cherished elements of the cloud vision.

Read more at - 'Cloud computing: Threat or Menace'

-

The Car of the Future Promised for October

Will an electric 3-seater win the coveted X-Prize? Well, it's darn near to product roll-out time - ahead of rivals? And fancy too..

The car of the future is almost here.

Aptera Motors has rolled out the first pre-production model of the 2e, an all-electric three-wheeled two-seater that gets the equivalent of 200 mpg and goes 100 miles on a charge. It's a significant milestone for the Southern California startup, which plans to put the first cars in driveways by Halloween and looks like a contender to win the $10 million Progressive Automotive X Prize.

"Everything is progressing nicely as we ramp up for full production of the 2e beginning in October," says chief marketing officer Marques McCammon. "We're still on target to build an ultra-efficient, high-mileage vehicle without sacrificing comfort and safety, and once Californians get behind the wheel this fall, we expect to change the world of commuter transportation."

In recent months, it has become clear that automakers big and small are focusing on electric vehicles as the next evolution of the automobile. If Aptera manages delivering its superstreamlined cars nine months from now, the 2e will be among the first mass-market, relatively affordable (at $25,000 to $45,000) EVs on the road.

Read more - 'The Car of the Future Promised for October'

-

Observing Earth from Space

EarthTrends has an extensive post on earth-observation satellites that monitor climatic and environmental change:

More than two thousand satellites are currently in orbit. They measure the earth's surface characteristics, ocean currents, clouds and the gaseous content of the atmosphere. One of the oldest programs is Landsat. Run by both the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Landsat is still widely used today because it provides its data to researchers free of charge.

The Landsat program—a series of satellites that continuously record information about the earth's surface—has contributed to research on an enormous variety of land-use, ecosystem and development issues.

Landsat data have been used to study mitigation of deforestation and eutrophication; prediction of the effects of climate change; quantification of urban sprawl; and early-warning and response to extreme weather, natural disasters, and vector-borne diseases.

Read more at 'Observing Earth from Space: Landsat Data and Applications'

-

Plug-In Scooter for a Zero-Emissions Commute

Short urban trips are also making manufacturers think about the role of electric plug-in scooters. Here's an interesting piece from Wired's Autopia blog:

Vectrix has unveiled a pair of electric scooters that need just three hours to charge and deliver as many as 55 miles before you've gotta plug them in.

The bikers and gearheads gathered at the Cycle World International Motorcycle Show seemed impressed by the VX-1E and VX-2 scooters that Vectrix says are just the thing for urban commuting. The company's first generation of scooters, introduced in 2007, has enjoyed some success in Europe and has been adopted by the New York Police Department and other law enforcement agencies, so you know they're tough.

"It's a perfect choice to replace cars for short urban trips," says company CEO Mike Boyle. "The shortest car trips are the most damaging in terms of global warming, air pollution and our dependence on foreign oil."

Actually, the perfect choice for short urban trips is walking, riding a bike or taking mass transit. But an electric scooter is better than driving.

Read full article - 'Plug-In That Scooter for a Zero-Emissions Commute'

-

Climate Road Trip: An Indian Movement for Change

As 2009 arrived with a bang, an Indian road trip set off in a bid for change:

As clocks ticked past midnight on December 31, signaling the start of the new year, a group of seven passionate individuals from India and around the world gathered in the eastern city of Chennai to begin an epic climate journey.

The team was embarking on a month-long road tour across India to raise awareness about local climate solutions and to empower Indian youth on one of the greatest challenges of our time: global climate change.

Representing an expanding network of youth and young professionals known as the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN), the travellers will traverse more than 3,500 kilometers through 20 cities to reach India's capital, Delhi, on February 4. They will be accompanied by a solar-powered electric band, Solar Punch, and will travel in a medley of alternatively powered vehicles, including solar plug-in Reva electric cars, a sustainably produced plant-oil powered truck, a solar-roofed jeep, and a waste vegetable oil-powered van.

The group's message is clear: climate change is real, but many of the solutions to this challenge already exist-with the greatest solution of all being the human capacity to act.

Read in full - 'Climate Road Trip: An Indian Movement for Change'

-

Local Currencies Grow During Economic Recession

New mobilities can also involve the movement of currency, especially in the move from the 'new' to the 'old': as in here, a return to local currency trading.

The gentle mountain slopes of New England isolate the Berkshires, creating a peaceful remoteness in this southern Massachusetts region. Today, the Berkshires is giving rise to a new wave of free thinking. The region's alternative to the U.S. dollar, Berkshares, is among the most successful of the country's local currencies.

Since the currency's launch two years ago, five local banks have printed more than 2 million paper notes. About 185,000 are currently in circulation, according to Susan Witt, a Berkshare co-founder.

The Berkshires is not alone. More communities are creating their own "complementary" currencies during the current economic crisis in an effort to keep wealth in their region. Witt is now fielding calls from around the world, she said, especially from the United States and United Kingdom.

"In the last four years, there has been a renewed interest in local economy, local production," said Witt, executive director of the E. F. Schumacher Society, a Massachusetts-based think tank focused on local production. "It just skyrocketed with the collapse of the global economy."

I think it possible that we will see an increased move towards localised communities and independent trading/mobility systems as a way of emerging from crashing global markets.


Read article at - 'Local Currencies Grow During Economic Recession'

-

How California Could Affect Car Choices

It seems in some circles that the recent directive from the Obama Administration on fuel efficiency is creating alarm among automakers:

President Obama's order to the Environmental Protection Agency to review whether to grant a government waiver that could allow California to pass tougher fuel economy and emission standards for automakers than the federal government could significantly change the vehicle choices consumers have in the next decade.

If the EPA grants California a waiver, the move would allow the state to require that vehicles achieve fuel economy equivalent to 35 miles per gallon by 2017, three years earlier than mandated by a federal regulation passed in 2007. The new fleet average would be 42.5 mpg by 2020.

California also would make it tougher in some ways for the auto companies to meet the state regulation than the federal one. That's because carmakers have been preparing to meet the new federal standard with future vehicle plans that include smaller engines, electric vehicles, and hybrids. But the phase-in of the California plan starting in 2011 and accelerating to 2017, they say, could force rapid price hikes on vehicles and slam automakers already hurting from the global recession. Under the rules, the auto companies would have to invest far more in new technology.

Read in full - 'How California Could Affect Car Choices'

-

The Train in Spain Replaces the Plane

The rain in Spain falls mainly...... no, sorry, scrap that: it's now the train in Spain...

The trains in Spain are doing better than planes as a growing web of high-speed lines carrying sleek bullet trains steal hundreds of thousands of passengers from airlines and cut emissions in the process.

As the government pumps more money into the system, Spaniards are abandoning commercial airlines so quickly that domestic flights carried 20 percent fewer people last year. That's big news in a country that has long depended upon commercial aviation to connect its major population centers.

Spain has been late to the train game in part because it is larger than other European countries and its major cities are typically 300 miles apart. For that reason, Spain has long favored air travel, and it has been a boon for the nation's airlines.

But no more.

Read full article: 'The Train in Spain Replaces the Plane'

-

Santa Pod to repeat Alternative Energy Race Day

It's now official that the UK’s Santa Pod drag strip is to hold another Alternative Energy Race Day following the success of the inaugural event in 2008:

Last year’s event saw entries from Lotus, Vectrix, Bike magazine and Green Fuels UK fighting wheel to wheel with a number of small independent and club entrants on the quarter mile track. For 2008 the net is being cast even wider to include businesses, universities and individuals.

Entry for the event at the FIA approved venue is free to any eligible vehicle, with the fastest time of the day taking home the title and a trophy.

Read more at - 'Santa Pod to repeat Alternative Energy Race Day'

-

Solar and wind powered car planned by US students

News in that two Californian high school students have revealed ambitious plans to build a solar and wind-powered sportscar:

This two seater sportscar is to be powered by 212 kilowatt motor that is said to be capable of accelerating from nought to 60mph in under four seconds and to a top speed of 155mph. The car will use a solar-powered battery to get up to speed after which airflow passing over the vehicle will be used to power an onboard turbine. Generated electricity will be stored in ultra-capacitors and are combined with energy also stored in a battery that is charged by solar panels located on the roof of the car.

Read more - 'Solar and wind powered car planned by US students'

-

First mass-market electric car from a major car maker

It is being heralded as the first mass-market electric car from a major car maker.

(Mitsubishi's i-MiEV electric car Photograph: PR)

Mitsubishi has unveiled the first mass-market electric car from a mainstream car maker.

Slightly bigger than the Smart ForTwo but with a similar design, the i-MiEV — which goes on sale in the UK later this year — is based on the i, Mitsubishi's existing city car. With room for four adults, it has a top speed of 87mph and produces the equivalent of 57 horsepower. Its lithium-ion battery has a range of 100 miles and can be charged from flat to 80% in 20 minutes using Mitsubishi's bespoke high-powered charger; otherwise, a normal mains electricity socket will charge the battery from flat to full in six hours. Mitsubishi estimates that the car can travel 10,000 miles on £45 of electricity at current UK domestic prices.

Now that makes good economic sense. Next question - electricity production to support added infrastructures?

Read in full - 'first mass-market electric car from a major car maker'

-

Aeromobilities

Aeromobilities is based on the 2006 Cosmobilities conference on Air Time Spaces in Lancaster. It provides a broad introduction to the study of air travel, airspaces and aviation from the perspective of the social sciences and the humanities. The book makes a strong case for a systematic, interdisciplinary study of some of the most powerful forces that have shaped our mobile globalization.

‘Aeromobilities’ by Saulo Cwerner, Sven Kesselring and John Urry, available from all good bookstores or direct from the Routledge website.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Aeromobilities, Globalization and Social Theory 1. Aeromobilities and the Global 2. Global Transfer Points: the Making of Airports in the Mobile Risk Society Part 2: The Production of Airspaces 3. >store>forward> Architectures of a Future Tense 4 Connecting the World: Analyzing Global City Networks Through Airline Flows 5. Airport Codes/Spaces 6. Air Craft: Producing UK Airspace 7. Around the World in 80 Airports Part 3: The Social Life of Air Travel 8. Airborne on Time 9. A Life in Corridors: Social Perspectives on Aeromobilities and Work in Knowledge Organizations 10. Getting into the Flow Part 4: Governing Air Travel 11. Science, Expertise, and Local Knowledge in Airport Conflicts: Towards a Cosmopolitical Approach 12. Helipads, Heliports and Urban Air Space: Governing the Contested Infrastructure of Helicopter Travel

Click to read more on 'Aeromobilities'

-

RFID Revolution: Your cars will be tagged

The Economic Times writes about government proposals in India are seeking to make it mandatory to fit RFID-enabled devices in the cars manufactured > in India:

It will be the responsibility of the car manufacturers

to ensure that all new cars have these radio-frequency identification tags. It is believed that RFID tags would help in traffic management as traffic violations by motorists could be tracked and all violations identified. Also, motorists would get charged automatically as soon as they enter a toll area.

The RFID

-based system that is proposed to enable tracking of vehicles relies on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transporters . An RFID tag is an object that can be fitted on any object for the purpose of identification using radiowaves.

“The expected increase of cars and SUVs from 2005 to 2035 is 13 times (35.8 million to 236.4 million vehicles), while two wheelers are expected to increase about 6.6 times (35.8 million to 236.4 million vehicles). This coupled with declining share of public transport is leading to severe problem of congestion , inflicting a high cost on the economy in the form of travel delays, loss of productivity and increase in road fatalities and air quality deterioration. Therefore, enabling every car with RFID would help the government track them remotely,” an official said.

Read more at - 'RFID Revolution: Your cars will be tagged'

-

The flying car

Here's the latest attempt to beat traffic congestion... it's the newest attempt to create the flying-car concept. Yet this one seems to be getting off to a flying start! (sorry....).. and is currently on its maiden voyage.

It is the ultimate off-roader and it is coming to an airstrip near you. The flying car has been talked about for almost as long as cars have existed, and now a prototype built by a small American company is finally ready to make the idea a reality.

The Terrafugia Transition is a two-seater plane that at the touch of a button converts into a road-legal car. It takes its maiden flight next month and is scheduled to hit the showrooms by next year. You can’t help but wonder whether, if Bob Nardelli and Rick Wagoner, of Chrysler and General Motors respectively, had been forward-thinking enough to fly into Washington DC in swept-wing Dodge Vipers and Cadillac Escalades instead of corporate jets when they were seeking bailout cash, they would have been showered with government money, downturn or no downturn.

Read more at - 'The Flying Car'

-

T-ray scanners – the future for airports?

Euronews has a video post on a new type of scanner that uses a terahertz or T-ray camera that scans people for hidden weapons, and which could be the future of airport security:


Watch video here at 'T-ray scanners – the future for airports?'

-

Army developing ‘synthetic telepathy’

Here we go again: more news on what the military is attempting to develop in terms of mind-interface-technology. It appears that the U.S. Army is developing a technology known as synthetic telepathy that would allow 'someone to create email or voice mail and send it by thought alone. The concept is based on reading electrical activity in the brain using an electroencephalograph, or EEG'. Well, this has been going on for a while - see 'Opening Pandora's Box' by Kingsley Dennis. The post continues here:

	View related photos

Known as synthetic telepathy, the technology is based on reading electrical activity in the brain using an electroencephalograph, or EEG. Similar technology is being marketed as a way to control video games by thought.

"I think that this will eventually become just another way of communicating," said Mike D'Zmura, from the University of California, Irvine and the lead scientist on the project...

...The first is to compose a message using, as D'Zmura puts it, "that little voice in your head."

The second part is to send that message to a particular individual or object (like a radio), also just with the power of thought. Once the message reaches the recipient, it could be read as text or as a voice mail. While the money may come from the Army and its first use could be for covert operations, D'Zmura thinks that thought-based communication will find more use in the civilian realm.

Read more at - 'Army developing ‘synthetic telepathy’'

-

Cars With Black Boxes

Euronews has a short video on how some manufacturers are beginning to add airplane-like black boxes to their cars. Brazil, for example, will make it law for all cars manufactured from summer 2009 onwards to have the black boxes fitted. Not only will they track the cars but they will also offer personalised insurance as well as automatic distress signal in the case of accident.

See video here in 'Cars follow planes with black boxes'

-