Tracking the California Fires

TechReview has been discussing how the National Interagency Fire Center has called on NASA to use its unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a new thermal-imaging sensor to help track the fires:

The sensor is much more sensitive in the thermal range than are the line scanners that are normally used to map fires. The new sensor can also track a fire with greater accuracy, says Everett Hinkley, the National Remote Sensing Program manager at the U.S. Forest Service and a principal investigator...

...Capturing the images in real time is a major advance. Previously, images captured by a sensor had to be put on a "thumb drive" and dropped out of the aircraft through a tube as it flew near a command station, or the aircraft had to land so that the data could be given to a colleague to perform the analysis.

Read - Tracking the California Fires

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Generation Mesh: Working at Wi-Fi Hotspots

The blog over at Institute for the Future mentions Laura Forlano's new published piece in Vodafone's Receiver, which provides a view on her ongoing dissertation research into how public Wi-Fi is reshaping work and collaboration:

Here are some excerpts:

For Generation Mesh, Starbucks – as well as independent cafés, parks and other public spaces where it is possible to access the wireless internet – is a vital site for social interaction, professional support, collaboration and, even, community. I use this term in reference to mesh networks, sometimes called ad hoc networks, which are decentralized wireless networks in which every node can both send and receive information. They are dynamic, flexible and self-organizing.....

Seeking to create an officelike atmosphere – in contrast to the prospect of working at home in their pajamas – pioneers have founded collaborative office spaces... In essence, these new, ad hoc organizational forms that rely on clustering, in a "smart mob"-like fashion, around WiFi hotspots are simulating the office environment that they lack as remote workers, telecommuters, freelancers or self-employed workers.....


Read full article at - Vodafone Receiver » #19 | Generation Mesh
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Green Mobility Futures

Jamais Cascio over at Open the Future takes a look at a green future full of photovoltaic clothes and smart walls:

What does a future world of photovoltaic material look like? How do smart walls, "Watt Torrent" power-sharing networks, and electric hyperbikes sound to you? In Metropolis' latest issue, these scenario fragments come to life -- or, at least, show up in a 2017 version of Craig's List. I wrote the piece a few months ago, and it was easily the most fun I've had building a scenario in quite some time...

I went with the Craig's List conceit because it gave me a chance to play with some different manifestations of this future, and to hint at some of what it might include. Not just in terms of solar power and materials, but little bits of plausible surreality, like carbon quota checks in apartment applications.

Read more at Green Leap Forward

Greener travel

Two posts here from Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends worth mentioning:

1) Toward greener jet fuels:

Researchers at Princeton University are currently working on two projects to reduce jet travel's role in global warming. The first one, a major project funded by the U.S. Air Force with $7.5 million, is focused on developing computational models that accurately simulate the burning of jet fuel, a complex process not well understood today. The second one, funded by NetJets, a company providing business jets, will help to develop new jet fuels with near-zero net greenhouse gas emissions.

2) The world's biodiesel potential:

Two researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M) have ranked 226 countries according to their potential to make large volumes of biodiesel at low cost. Their evaluation of the world's potential to produce biodiesel shows that Malaysia, Thailand, Colombia, Uruguay and Ghana are the developing nations most likely to attract biodiesel investment for several reasons including agricultural and political factors. The researchers have estimated that 'a grand total of 51 billion liters of biodiesel could be produced annually -- enough to meet roughly 4-5 percent of the world's existing demand for petroleum diesel.'

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Biometrics testing at Gatwick Airport

Gatwick airport is the latest UK airport to trial biometric fingerprinting technology to boost immigration security:

The BioDev pilot has been running in the airport's North Terminal since 18 September and is due to end in April next year. At present only arrivals from Sierra Leone who have been issued with biometric visas in the capital Freetown will be included in the trial....

A Home Office spokeswoman explained that Sierra Leone was chosen because the main flight into Gatwick from the country arrives at a quiet time with a low number of passengers. This makes it logistically easier for immigration staff to trial the tech.

Read full story - 'Biometrics wing their way into Gatwick' - via Roland’s Sunday Smart Trends #184

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Google Earth used to target Israel

The Guardian reports in 'Google Earth used to target Israel' how Palestinian militants are using Google Earth to help plan their attacks on the Israeli military and other targets:

Members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group aligned with the Fatah political party, say they use the popular internet mapping tool to help determine their targets for rocket strikes.

"We obtain the details from Google Earth and check them against our maps of the city centre and sensitive areas," Khaled Jaabari, the group's commander in Gaza who is known as Abu Walid, told the Guardian.

Abu Walid showed the Guardian an aerial image of the Israeli town of Sderot on his computer to demonstrate how his group searches for targets.

Another indication of the blurring between digital and physical worlds, a type of augmented reality...

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Google's Health Platform

Google plans to bring its immense data storage and organization capacities to the field of medical care and patient records, incorporating personal medical records, health care-related search features, diet and exercise regimens, a localized "find a doctor" application, and other elements:

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Mayer outlined the ways in which the search giant plans to bring its immense data storage and organization capacities to the field of medical care and patient records. Google is already the starting point for a large majority of the health-related searches on the Web, she pointed out.

"If you look at health care, there's already a huge user need, people are already using Google more than any other tool on the Web to find health information," Mayer said. "And the health care industry generates a huge amount of information every year. It's a natural core competency fo us, to understand how to organize all that data."

Read full story - 'Google Says Its Health Platform Is Due In Early 2008'

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Can a Flying Car be Successful?

This is a question that has been asked by many innovators. Now, a group of MIT alums believe that they are on their way toward overcoming this problem...or so they claim:

Founded in 2006 and called Terrafugia, their startup, based in Woburn, MA, recently produced the first automated folding wing for a light sport aircraft. (A light sport aircraft is a type of airplane deemed by the Federal Aviation Administration to be easier to fly and hence more accessible than regular private planes.) The wing, however, is just the first step toward an aero-auto hybrid that the company plans to call the Transition.

This summer, the group demonstrated its folding wing at the annual AirVenture aviation festival in Oshkosh, WI. With more than 650,000 attendees, the festival is the most important event in experimental-aircraft aviation.

Read in full - 'Flying Car About to Take Off?'

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Mobile phones on planes?

This article from the BBC reports that passengers could soon be using their mobile phones on planes flying through European airspace. Is this an inevitable move?

Plans have been developed across EU countries to introduce technology which permits mobile calls without risk of interference with aircraft systems.

Regulators around Europe are calling for consultation on the potential introduction of the technology. If given the go ahead, the service would allow calls to be made when a plane is more than 3,000 metres high.

Individual airlines would need to decide if they wanted to introduce the technology, if the green light is given by national regulators.

Read full story - 'Mobile phone use backed on planes'

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Hand-held supercomputers 'on way'

BBCNews reports that it may soon be possible for the creation of tiny supercomputers which could fit in the palm of the hand:

Engineers at the University of Edinburgh studied the behaviour of wires which were 1,000 times thinner than human hair. They then created a tool which could help develop tiny microchips.

German and Italian experts also worked on the project. Their findings will be published in the journal Science. It is hoped that the discovery will eventually lead to medical advances, as well as hand-held PCs and mobile phones as powerful as laptops becoming available on the high street.

Read full story - Hand-held supercomputers 'on way'

Solving the Climate Crisis

Open the Future has a worthwhile discussion on climate change that takes a specific look at the central issues of prevention, mitigation, and remediation:

They cover three broad categories: Prevention (actions that reduce the risks of global warming or soften its eventual impact); Mitigation (actions directed at reducing the harm of global warming, and as possible reducing its sources); and Remediation (actions intended to reverse global warming and its effects). Each of these entails its own set of political, economic and environmental risks.

One of the reasons why the answers are not cut-and-dried is an aspect of global warming that, as yet, still does not receive the kind of mainstream attention it deserves: climate commitments. It turns out that, no matter what we do, we are committed to a certain amount of continued warming and climate change. Moreover, the longer we wait to start acting seriously, the more of a commitment we'll build up.

Read full article - 'Solving the Climate Crisis'

SimCity Societies

Open the Future has an interesting post on the new version of SimCity -- SimCity Societies -- which is due out in the US this month. It appears to be a much more realistic simulation of how social forces operate in a societal context. Could be a useful educational tool too?

SimCity Societies takes a different path. Rather than worry about building zones and water supplies, the new game gives the player the tools with which to build the kind of society she or he wants: agrarian, totalitarian, creative, and so forth. The challenges that one faces depend on the kind of culture that has emerged:

In addition to building up simolians (the game's currency), each city generates "social energies." These energies come in six forms: Industry, Wealth, Obedience, Knowledge, Creativity and Devotion. Different buildings give off specific energies and citizens adapt according to the city's vibe. By using this design, players can toy with various social experiments that include eco-friendly buildings, whacky Creative cities with gingerbread houses or dystopian police-states. Or players can go for it all and even try for a free-wheeling eclectic society.

Go to full post

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Cheating on the Carpool?

TechReview has a good article on a new infrared system that can tell people from decoys in an effort to catch people who sneek into carpooling lanes... are people really this desperate to go as far as costumed mannequins in passenger seats, dolls swaddled like babies--even dogs in bonnets?

A company called Vehicle Occupancy, based at Loughborough University, in Leicestershire, England, says that it has developed an infrared camera-mounted scanning system that foils 95 percent of such trickery.

Automated systems for counting passengers have a heightened appeal as many urban areas with crowded roadways contemplate occupancy-based tolls as a way to pay for new highway construction. "We are far better at looking inside the car than the human," says Tim Ballantyne, Vehicle Occupancy's director of business development. "We can see 95 percent of the people in the car, whereas a trooper sees just 65 percent." Vehicle Occupancy's system, dubbed Dtect, was tested against humans from a distance of 150 feet, with cars moving at about 50 miles per hour, Ballantyne says.

Read full article - 'Foiling Carpool-Lane Cheaters: A new infrared system can tell people from decoys'

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personal rapid transit systems running through our cities?

The Guardian reports in 'Welcome to the transport of tomorrow' on the rise of personal rapid transport (PRT) systems that are coming closer to large-scale realisation:

When Heathrow Terminal 5 opens next year, a network of up to 18 driverless pods will ferry people between the main terminal and its car parks, where each pod will be controlled by an internal computer and onboard sensor systems.

Welcome to the pioneering world of personal rapid transport (PRT) - a feasible technological solution to the chronic problem of traffic congestion, offering public transport with the privacy of a car.

Basically, a driverless four-seater vehicle (call it a podcar if you like) that automatically runs on a guideway over a dedicated network, lighter than light rail and running on a fraction of its energy, PRT has been the ambition of a select group of engineers since the late 1950s. But only now are the first networks being constructed.

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matterealities, mobilities, innovation

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
======================

matterealities, mobilities, innovation.

A growing body of studies show that in the detailed how of ‘how matter comes to matter’ (Barad 2003) the social and the material are inextricably linked. However, the very practices that join also often conceal such entanglement - in everyday practice, politics, science and design. In this interdisciplinary workshop we seek to explore a particular set of connections between 'matterealities', mobilities and innovation:

Matterealities: If social-material realities or orders are made, two questions arise: ‘How are they made?’ and ‘How could they be made ‘better’?’ Science and technology studies and ethnomethodological studies address the first, and – sometimes also the second question (e.g. through socio-technical innovation and ‘engaged’ research (Sismondo 2007). However, while these studies can powerfully draw our attention to the entanglement of the social and the material, they often struggle to escape the dualisms entrenched in our languages and epistemic practices. Non-representational philosophy and Barad’s agential realism in particular, open up new possibilities for a study of ‘intra-action’, not only by focusing on how epistemic practices and 'pre-cognitive' 'matereal' ethnomethods of embodied conduct make material agential forces ‘speak’ and matter, but also by formulating a new physical epistem-ontology. The convergence of increasingly powerful and small computing, sensor and actuator technologies with everyday materials, including the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, and the places we live, play and work in – presents a particularly rich challenge for this approach. Whereas research into socio-technical settings and practices has tended to look at human-computer interaction and 'the virtual' (cyberspace and life online), research must now also look towards the intra-actions of digital phenomena and the 'materealization' of socio-technical realities.

Mobilities: A new ‘movement-driven’ social science (Urry 2007) reveals movement, potential movement and blocked movement as constitutive of economic, social, political, environmental and material relations. Movement, momentum, and motion are also integral to epistemic practices. Moreover, they rely on and can reveal media (air, water) and infrastructural support (roads, cables, satellites, networks). Combining a focus on mobilities with studies of intra-action can make important aspects of the entanglement of the social and the material amenable to study.

Innovation: Can studies of how socio-material realities are made inform the making of ‘better’ realities? A first answer must be ‘No’, because by drawing attention to the entanglement of the social and the material, such studies show that it is difficult if not impossible to know what ‘better’ might mean, to go beyond the scale of ‘us, here and now’, let alone decide what steps would enable the matterealization of better futures (without treading loose an avalanche of unintended consequences). Yet, it is so tempting to think that ‘issues of social order and intelligibility must be understood before social problems can be intelligently addressed’ (Garfinkel 2002, p. 54) and that once such issues are better understood, social, material technical problems could be intelligently addressed. Experience from ethnomethodologically informed technology design reframes the ambition: First, by changing the way in which innovation is conceived of and achieved towards a more collaborative, iterative (pervasive and never-ending), interdisciplinary process (Suchman 1999), and second, by seeking to change the products of innovation, making technologies that support creative appropriation in the context of everyday innovation (e.g. Dourish 2001, Chalmers, PalCom). Agential realism opens up new possibilities for these approaches and provides an opportunity to widen the focus to other forms of socio-technical change.

In this workshop we bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners to fathom, formulate and shape these possibilities and opportunities.

IMPORTANT DATES
A maximum of 40 participants can be accepted. Registration takes place on a first come first served basis.

Registration will cost approximately £ 80.00. Details will be published on our website


A limited number of student bursaries are available. For information about these or an expression of interest please contact m.buscher(at)lancaster.ac.uk

Wi-fi health study

It appears that the UK government is taking another look at the effect that wireless networks have on health:

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has announced it will carry out "systematic" research into how wireless networks are being used.

The research will aim to establish average exposure to the low level radiation emitted by wi-fi access points and wireless links on computers. The HPA said it expected the results of the research to be "reassuring".

The BBC reports in 'Wi-fi health study gets go ahead'

Also, The Guardian reports in 'Wireless computer network risks to be investigated' that 'the investigation will then shift to homes, offices and schools. Officials are particularly keen to measure exposure levels in classrooms, where tens of computers may be hooked up to a wireless network at the same time.'

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Bloggers unite to go green

Worldchanging reports that on Monday's Blog-Action-Day bloggers were asked this year to spend the day typing about the environment:

UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall said people often felt overwhelmed by global environmental problems -- bloggers such as one called "Dumblittleman.com" could help with their tips on recycling household items such as blue jeans or eyeglasses.

Jeans, for instance, can be cut up and used in other clothing. Glasses can sometimes be re-used, often by people in developing nations, if handed in to a specialized recycler.

Reuters reports also in 'Thousands of bloggers unite in blitz of green tips' that

15,800 sites had signed up and were offering ideas to millions of people via blogs, or online diaries, ranging from planting more trees to how to recycle plastics.

"Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future," according to www.blogactionday.com.

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Technology To Detect Terrorists

ScienceDaily reports on new technologies that detect the 'dangerous intentions' of those people on the move:

Airport screeners, customs agents, police officers and members of the military who silently pose that question to people every day, may soon have much more than intuition to depend on to determine the answer.

Computer and behavioral scientists at the University at Buffalo are developing automated systems that track faces, voices, bodies and other biometrics against scientifically tested behavioral indicators to provide a numerical score of the likelihood that an individual may be about to commit a terrorist act.

"The goal is to identify the perpetrator in a security setting before he or she has the chance to carry out the attack," said Venu Govindaraju, Ph.D., professor of computer science and engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Govindaraju is co-principal investigator on the project with Mark G. Frank, Ph.D., associate professor of communication in the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

Read in full - 'Technology Would Help Detect Terrorists Before They Strike'

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Tokyo Motor Show

A sneak look at some of the exhibits and concept cars from this year's Tokyo motor show will reveal flashy concept cars that both try to mimic nature (such as 'the wind' in the above vehicle). There are also concept vehicles for individual mobility such as Toyota's I-Real:




Blurb - 'It looks like a roofless plush armchair that scoots about on wheels, with buttons and controls on the arms. It changes positions, straightening up for moving slowly to mingle with pedestrians, while shifting to lay back to travel faster at up to 30 kph (18.6 mph)'

See the full post here

More on Toyota's 'personal mobility vehicles' - Smartmobs writes that:

Toyota is planning to roll out the latest in its “personal mobility” vehicles at the 2007 Toyota Auto Show. The new RiN Concept monitors the driver’s mood and takes steps to keep it even-keel. It accomplishes this through seats designed to maintain good back posture, an oxygen-level conditioner, and a pinpoint humidifier. Presumably these features help eliminate subconscious, physical discomfort which could contribute to angry drivers. Another, more exciting feature is an image display that aligns with the driver’s psychological state. These image displays are conveyed within the meter cluster of the mood-training steering control.

Read more on this from 'How the Toyota PM Works'
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Hydrogen Hybrid Canal Boat

Now here is a tempting look at possible future mobile-lifestyles - back to the days of the canal boats...something I have often considered myself (as long as it came with satellite communications...).

Green Car Congress reports on how engineers at the University of Birmingham (UK) have developed a zero-emission hydrogen hybrid canal boat - 'The boat, called The Ross Barlow, is fully operational and demonstrates how a combination of magnet and fuel cell technologies could be used to power inland waterways craft'. The post continues:

The Ross Barlow was created by converting a standard maintenance boat which was donated to the University’s Protium Project by British Waterways. Engineers replaced the diesel engine with a NdFeB permanent magnet electric motor, lead-acid battery stack, metal hydride store, and 5 kW PEM fuel cell.

Schematic for the propulsion system. Click to enlarge.

The motor is designed by the Lynch motor company, and is based on a brushed 4-quadrant axial flux motor, with a power output of 10 kW (13 hp) with a maximum efficiency of 89%. The NdFeB sintered magnets for the motor were manufactured by the Hydrogen Decrepitation process (HD process).

Read in full - 'Hydrogen Hybrid Canal Boat'

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