A world of connections

The Economist has a good article on 'A world of connections' that looks at the rise in wireless interconnections and emerging ubiquitous computing:

So far the mobile phone has been getting all the attention. Around 2.8 billion are already in use, with a further 1.6m being added every day. The phones themselves are improving at a cracking pace. Yet this boom is also spilling over into other areas of wireless communications, used for linking machines, sensors and objects. “Everybody talks about the emerging markets being the big opportunity for the cellular industry in the next few years, but in the longer run there are going to be a lot more devices talking to each other,” says Paul Jacobs, the boss of Qualcomm, which makes mobile-phone chips.

This year around 10 billion microprocessors will be sold, embedded in anything from computers to coffee-makers. The vast majority of them will be able to “think” but not “talk”: they will perform specific tasks but cannot communicate. But this is now starting to change. The cost, size and power requirements of wireless functions are falling rapidly, so some unlikely candidates are now being connected to networks. For example, bridges and buildings are being monitored for structural integrity by small sensors. Farmland is being watched and irrigation systems are being switched on and off remotely.

In years to come, wireless communications will increasingly become part of the fabric of everyday life.

An informative read! (Thanks D.)

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Britain becoming a Big Brother society

Another indication from the national UK press that 'Britain becoming a Big Brother society':

Britain is in danger of "committing slow social suicide" as such Big Brother techniques as surveillance cameras and recording equipment spread into every aspect of our lives, the nation's information watchdog will warn this week.

A new report from Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, will say that the public needs to be made more aware of the "creeping encroachment" on civil liberties created by email monitoring, CCTV and computer tracking of our buying habits. It is understood that one of the concerns in Mr Thomas's report is the use of special listening devices which can be placed in lamp posts, street furniture and offices. These are already widely used in the Netherlands to combat crime and anti-social behaviour.

More than 300 of the cameras with built-in microphones have been fitted in benefit offices and city centres. The equipment can pick up aggressive tones on the basis of decibel level, pitch and speed at which words are spoken.

So - we're heading for 'slow social suicide'? ...interesting...

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The soul of the commuter

Now here is a great article worth reading in the The New Yorker called 'There and Back Again: The soul of the commuter' which deals with the role (or soul?) of the commuter and the different styles, habits, and tales of commuting!

People like to compare commutes, to complain or boast about their own and, depending on whether their pride derives from misery or efficiency, to exaggerate the length or the brevity of their trip. People who feel they have smooth, manageable commutes tend to evangelize. Those who hate the commute think of it as a core affliction, like a chronic illness. Once you raise the subject, the testimonies pour out, and, if your ears are tuned to it, you begin overhearing commute talk everywhere: mode of transport, time spent on train/interstate/treadmill/homework help, crossword-puzzle aptitude—limitless variations on a stock tale...

Seven hours is extraordinary, but four hours, increasingly, is not. Roughly one out of every six American workers commutes more than forty-five minutes, each way. People travel between counties the way they used to travel between neighborhoods.

Thanks to D. for the link!

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Space & Culture - Food Mobilities

The current Space and Culture issue is well worth checking out as it deals with food mobilities. Papers include:

Food Mobilities: Traveling, Dwelling, and Eating Cultures

Eating Difference: The Cosmopolitan Mobilities of Culinary Tourism

Follow the Thing: "West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce"

Papers can be downloaded as pdf whilst this issue remains the current one.

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Future of the Car

In this article from PopularScience on the 'Future of the Car' they look at:

One week. 1,500 miles. Less than $100 in gas money. See what happens when two road-trippers take the ultra-fuel-efficient European microcar through America's heartland via the legendary Route 66.

Well, its the Smart Car really..

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The Sell-Phone Revolution

The new 'Sell-Phone Revolution' is coming up fast. According to Business Week's report:

Advertising is about to get very personal. Marketers are taking tools that they already use to track your Internet surfing and are preparing to combine that information with cell-phone customer data that include not just the area where you live but also the street you're standing on. The aim is to target the exact person who is most likely to buy a product at the precise moment they're most likely to buy it. It's the ad industry's dream come true: a perfect personalized pitch. For privacy advocates, though, this combination of behavioral and geographic targeting is an Orwellian nightmare.

Campaigns that combine Web data with location information to target ads from nearby businesses to individuals are just a couple of years away, mobile marketers say. Already, mobile services use area codes, Zip Codes, and even Global Positioning System (GPS) data to return results for nearby businesses in response to a search for, say, coffee shops.

Nowhere to hide??

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Cosmopolitan paradoxes

Cosmopolitan paradoxes:

Migration and emergent systems of transnational rights

Mediterranean Mobilities Network, CeMoRe

www.medmobilities.net

29 June 2007, 10:30-16:30

@ the Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster University

DISCUSSANTS

Professor John Solomos, Department of Sociology, City University

SPEAKERS

Professor Lydia Morris, Department of Sociology, University of Essex

‘Managing contradiction: Civic stratification and migrant rights in Europe’

Dr Liza Schuster, Department of Sociology, City University

‘The realities of the New Asylum paradigm’

Dr Eleni Hatzidimitriadou, European Centre for the Study of Migration and Social Care, University of Kent

‘Matters of agency and social transformation for migrant women from Mediterranean countries’

Dr Gabriella Lazaridis, Department of Sociology, University of Leicester

‘Social capital, agency and pathways to inclusion: The case of Albanian migrant women in Greece’

VENUE AND FEES

The workshop will be held in the Institute for Advanced Studies at Lancaster University on 29 June. The workshop will run from 10:30am to 16:30pm with a complimentary lunch at 12:30 pm. There are a limited number of places so please book soon to avoid disappointment.

The cost will be £30 (£10 for postgraduate student attendance) to include all meeting costs, a meal and tea/coffee. The workshop has been scheduled to allow participants to travel to, and from Lancaster on the same day. If required, overnight accommodation is available at cost on campus. Please contact Pennie Drinkall if you would like to attend at p.drinkall@lancaster.ac.uk

ORGANISERS: Rodanthi Tzanelli r.tzanelli@kent.ac.uk

Javier Caletrio j.caletrio@lancaster.ac.uk

Co-sponsored by the IAS – Institute for Advanced Studies (Incubation Programme) http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/ias/index.htm

and CeMoRe – Centre for Mobilities Research http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/sociology/cemore

Google's free in-home wireless broadband service

Another innovative service offering from the hooded-monks at Google. This time they are offering free in-home wireless broadband service. This is how it works - from the toilet!

For years, data carriers have confronted the "last hundred yards" problem for delivering data from local networks into individual homes. Now Google has successfully devised a "last hundred smelly yards" solution that takes advantage of preexisting plumbing and sewage systems and their related hydraulic data-transmission capabilities. "There's actually a thriving little underground community that's been studying this exact solution for a long time," says Page. "And today our Toilet ISP team is pleased to be leading the way through the sewers, up out of your toilet and - splat - right onto your PC."

Users who sign up online for the TiSP system will receive a full home self-installation kit, which includes a spindle of fiber-optic cable, a TiSP wireless router, installation CD and setup guide. Home installation is a simple matter of GFlushing™ the fiber-optic cable down to the nearest TiSP Access Node, then plugging the other end into the network port of your Google-provided TiSP wireless router. Within sixty minutes, the Access Node's crack team of Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (PHDs) should have your internet connection up and running.

So - another creative use of toilet communications...just be careful not to soil the link...

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Metaverse - The Internet in 2016

This C/Net news article - Meet the metaverse, your new digital home - looks at how the Internet in 2016 will be an 'all-encompassing digital playground where people will be immersed in an always-on flood of digital information, whether wandering through physical spaces or diving into virtual worlds':

That was the general picture painted in a draft report obtained by CNET News.com that summarizes the conclusions of several dozen pundits who met at the first Metaverse Roadmap Summit last May to prognosticate the "pathway to the 3D Web."

Within 10 years, the report suggests, people may wear glasses that record everything around them. They will likely see little distinction between their real-world social lives and their interactions in digital, 3D virtual worlds. And they'll increasingly turn to services like an enhanced Google Earth that are able to present data on what's happening anywhere, at any time, as it unfolds.

"This ubiquitous cloud of information is like electricity to children of the 20th century: essentially universal, expected and conspicuous only in its absence."

--Metaverse Roadmap draft report

The report, compiled by the Accelerating Studies Foundation--a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering change in information gathering and communications--offers the first comprehensive look at the predictions of leaders from academia, video game companies, virtual-world publishers, geospatial engineering departments and the media who gathered for two days at SRI International in Palo Alto, Calif.

The Metaverse roadmap is a project well-worth following IMHO...

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Internet router in space

Yes, more military communication developments. This time there may be social benefits as the US military plans to test an internet router in space, in a project that could also benefit civilian broadband satellite communications:

Cisco Systemsand Intelsat General, a subsidiary of Intelsat, are among the companies selected by the US Department of Defence for its Internet Routing In Space (IRIS) project, which aims to deliver military communications through a satellite-based router. Potential non-military benefits of the IRIS program include the ability to route IP traffic between satellites in space in much the same way packets are moved on the ground, reducing delays, saving on capacity and offering greater networking flexibility, says Lloyd Wood, space initiatives manager in the Global Defense, Space & Security division of Cisco.

To send a message from one remote terminal to another via satellite today requires the first terminal to send the data to the satellite, from where it is bounced back to an earth station for routing. The earth station re-transmits it to the satellite on a different frequency, selected depending on its destination, and the satellite bounces it back to its destination. With the router in space, the satellite can pick the channel used to send the message to its destination. By eliminating the message's round trip to the earth station, operators can increase satellite capacity and reduce transmission times between remote terminals by using fewer hops and fewer frequencies for each message.

Read the full article: US military plans to put internet router in space

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Welcome to Virtual Big Brother

BBCNews reports in Virtual Big Brother is unveiled how 'Big Brother maker Endemol is to launch a virtual world where people can take part in familiar games and shows':

Three dimensional worlds such as Second Life, which allow people to create online versions of themselves, have built up a large following. Virtual Me will allow these avatars to compete in online versions of Deal or No Deal, Fame Academy and Big Brother.

Endemol and computer game company Electronic Arts said the site would be launched "in the coming months". Bosses at the two firms said it was a concept that bridged the divide between traditional TV and video games.

More of the move towards the 'metaverse'?

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The world's first open source vehicle

Now, this is a great idea - taking open source principles and making them tangible in the physical market place. In this article - Can open source techniques be used to design a car? - describes how a car called the 'OScar' is being developed by a loose tangle of car designers, engineers and programmers - most working in their spare time:

OScar is taking shape using a single principle as its guiding light: it's an open source car. The open source idea is borrowed from the software industry that makes its code freely available under licence; the Firefox web browser and the Linux operating system being the most famous examples.

In the hard, metallic world of car design this means that instead of protecting OScar designs by use of restrictive patents, as is the norm, the design is effectively open to anyone willing to contribute. And that does mean anyone. Like a much more complicated version of Wikipedia, OScar is being argued over by volunteer car designers, 60% of whom are moonlighting from within the car industry.

Tens of thousands have signed up to the project, but in reality OScar is being driven by a core team of a few dozen, and steered by just one man. Markus Merz has for the past six years been trying to direct the design and development of a prototype car using the anarchic principles of open source. Although he is in the driving seat, decisions are based on a democratic system and everybody - including individual designers, companies, universities, and other organisations - can participate. (You can too, just by signing up at theoscarproject.org).

This project deserves keeping an eye on.

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Future of the Car

Popular Science has this visual post on the Future of the Car that explores the following:

* Visions 2027
A sedan that snaps together like Legos. A truck that stretches like spandex. Here's what PopSci predicts tomorrows hottest vehicles will look like

* Taking It to the Street
Robots, start your engines. In the Darpa Urban Challenge, cars zip down city blocks, cut through traffic, and dodge wrecks, all without a driver.

* Drive Fast, Save the World
The Tesla Roadster is faster than a Lamborghini, yet it runs on rechargeable battery packs. Meet the man who built it from scratch.

* Green-Fuel Guide
Ethanol, hydrogen, biodiesel: In 20 years, what will you be pumping into your tank?

* Is America Ready to Get Smart?
It was a classic American road trip, in a decidedly un-American ride. Forget Graceland—the golf-cart-size Smart Car was a curiosity all on its own

Definitely another must read - full post here

Eurostar promises carbon-free travel

So the much-maligned rail link the Eurostar, which speeds between London, Paris and Brussels, is announcing itself to become the world's first "carbon neutral" train operator:

The company announced yesterday that when the new Channel Tunnel Rail link is completed this November and Eurostar moves to its new terminus at St Pancras passengers will be able to travel without worrying about their carbon footprint. Where Eurostar cannot eliminate its own carbon emissions, it will buy carbon offsets, but only as a last resort and at no additional cost to passengers.

Eurostar also said it was joining companies such as Marks & Spencer by unveiling plans to cut its carbon dioxide emissions. In Eurostar's case, the target is a 25 per cent reduction by 2012. This will be achieved by installing energy meters on trains that encourage drivers to drive more economically, fitting controls to reduce energy consumption from lighting, heating and air conditioning, sourcing more electricity from "green" energy companies and making better use of existing train capacity.

Read the full story - 'Eurostar promises carbon-free travel'

Dublin trials wireless technologies

The world’s first trials of advanced new wireless communication technologies have started in Dublin. It is stated that:

An international team of industry leaders and researchers led by Ireland’s Centre for Telecommunications Value Chain Research (CTVR) is conducting the trials. CTVR is headquartered at Trinity College Dublin.

Ireland’s Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) has granted CTVR and a number of firms a special trial license for the research which aims to identify how increasingly scarce space in the world’s radio wavebands can best be used in the interests of society and the economy. The trials involve technology placed at fixed locations and the use of a mobile test centre, which will travel around the Greater Dublin Area throughout April.

Read the full article here - 'Dublin trials wireless technologies'

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Ethanol cars may not be healthier

In a recent BBCNews post it is argued that Ethanol cars may not be healthier:

A computer model set up to simulate air quality in 2020 found that in some areas ozone levels would increase if all cars were run on bioethanol. Deaths from respiratory problems and asthma attacks would increase with such levels, the researchers reported in Environmental Science and Technology.

The EU has agreed that biofuels should be used in 10% of transport by 2020....In one simulation all vehicles were fuelled by petrol and in the other all vehicles were fuelled by E85 - a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% petrol....

..."We found that using E85 will cause at least as much health damage as gasoline, which already causes about 10,000 premature deaths annually from ozone and particulate matter,"

Now that should stop some corporate bodies from jumping on the bandwagon...

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'Smart dust' to explore planets

BBCNews reports that 'Smart dust' to explore planets in which small sensor particles could use wireless networking to form swarms:

Smart dust could be packed into the nose cones of planetary probes and then released into the atmospheres of planets, where they would be carried on the wind. For a planet like Mars, smart dust particles would each have to be the size of a grain of sand.

By applying a voltage to alter the shape of the polymer sheath surrounding the chip, dust particle could be steered towards a target, even in high winds. The polymer sheath surrounding the computer chip could be made to wrinkle or flatten out.

Wrinkling the plastic sheath would increase the drag on the particle, lifting it higher on the wind. Flattening out the sheath would cause the particle to plummet. Wireless networking would allow these particles to form swarms, and Dr Barker's team has carried out mathematical simulations to see how this would work. "We envisage that most of the particles can only talk to their nearest neighbours but a few can communicate at much longer distances.

Will these 'swarms of the future' be precursors to solar colonisation?

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Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

This has to be posted - because not only am I interested in communications but also because I'm a great lover of bees, and their ancient hive secrets - not to mention Mead. Now an explanation has been put forward on the increasing disappearance of bee colonies - interference from the electromagnetic fields generated from mobile phones. It is plausible:

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

I really recommend this article - Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

Bike Sharing in Barcelona

A new service – termed ‘Bicing’ – has just been introduced in March 2007 to Barcelona. The ‘Bicing’ scheme entitles subscribed users to use any of the 1500 available bicycles located across the city's subway and train stations . This service also has a yearly membership fee (6 euros) and provides a smart-card to enable users free use for the first 30 minutes, charging 30 cents per subsequent 30 minutes. This service is used in combination with a network of city public transports that includes energy-saving trams and environmentally friendly subways. The Bicing homepage online provides real time information on bicycle availability by station, city maps, pick-up and drop-off points, bicycle friendly roads and membership information. Since it began operating in March 2007 Bicing has already attracted over 3000 users and provides residents with alternative travel facilities for short-distance localised urban journeys.

Via Citizen-Ecosystem

The 2007 New York International Auto Show

The 2007 New York International Auto Show, which begins this weekend, had its main press day last thursday. Although there wasn’t much in the way of radical concepts unveiled, there were a few that had their North American debut after being shown at the recent Geneva Auto Show.

Of interest are GM's three new 'microcars', plus the new 'New York Taxi' - view pictures here

Also - read 'Rethinking New York City's taxis'

And 'New York hails taxis of the future'

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