Infotechia

laughingsquid: Personal and Family Survival, 1966

Thu, 17 May 2012 09:53:00 -0400

Personal and Family Survival, 1966

"Social media enable people to be their best selves: honest, open, fallible, funny, and connected,..."

Wed, 16 May 2012 09:49:24 -0400

“Social media enable people to be their best
selves: honest, open, fallible, funny, and connected, but too many
people and organizations are still trying their best to imitate
automatons. Your organization, reputation, logo and staff are living,
breathing entities that need to be out in the world to be effective.”

- http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/the_new_professional.html

What would Bruce Willis do?

Tue, 15 May 2012 23:19:57 -0400

From a new study by Unisys, the three highest priorities for Americans when it comes to security issues in the presidential campaign are:

Protecting government computer systems against hackers and criminals (74 percent)
Protecting our electric power grid, water utilities and transportation systems against computer or terrorist attacks (73 percent)
Homeland security issues such as terrorism (68 percent)

See Threat Level for more…

"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."

Sun, 06 May 2012 10:03:00 -0400

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

- Simone Weil (via stoweboyd)

Neme Collection: Machine-to-machine communication reaching tipping point - report

Sat, 05 May 2012 06:58:21 -0400

Neme Collection: Machine-to-machine communication reaching tipping point - report:

See on Scoop.it - Web of Things

Services from healthcare to energy will change over the next decade as machine-to-machine communication facilitates more sophisticated automation.

The shift will be led by a combination of improved network communication, smaller and lower cost embedded…

"Although women now make up the majority of college graduates, the number of female computer science..."

Fri, 04 May 2012 20:57:07 -0400

“Although women now make up the majority of college graduates, the number of female computer science grads has dropped precipitously over the past 25 years—from nearly 40 percent in the mid-1980s to 18 percent in 2009. As a result, only 2 in 10 programmers are women.”

- Attracting More Women to Computer Science Requires Shattering the ‘Brogrammer’ Culture - Education - GOOD (via infoneer-pulse)

"But I want to end with a plug for the brain. I don’t think one can digitize everything. Human memory..."

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:51:58 -0400

“But I want to end with a plug for the brain. I don’t think one can digitize everything. Human memory and judgement have always played a central role in the history of information and I expect they will continue to be crucial to our ability to do creative work that builds on the massive accumulation of information that we have.”

- - Ann Blair, Information hoarders

Ultrathin and lightweight organic solar cells with high...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:40:55 -0400

Ultrathin and lightweight organic solar cells with high flexibility

The only way that solar power is ever going to contribute an appreciable amount of energy to the betterment (and cheaperment) of society is if we plaster solar panels on everything, everywhere, all the time. And we might just be able to do it now, with this new generation of panels that are thinner than a strand of human hair by a factor of 20.

Thin doesn’t just mean lightweight (although these panels are very lightweight), it also means flexible. At 1.9 micrometers thick, the plastic foil cells are, for all practical purposes, elastic. So, you can layer them onto clothing, for example, and not only will you not be able to feel any additional weight, but the panels will be able to flex and crumple right along with the fabric without damaging anything.

Beyond applications requiring flexibility, solar cells that don’t take up any space and don’t weigh anything become an obvious thing to stick on to all sorts of surfaces just because you can. Back of a cellphone? Sure! Roof of your car? Sounds good! Bottom of your swimming pool? Why not!

The current generation of these cells can only convert 4.2% of sunlight into electricity (which is terrible, to be honest), but by the time commercial availability rolls around in five years or so, our hope is that that number will get bumped up enough to make it worthwhile to start putting this stuff on everything.

[via] [paper] [photo credit: Kaltenbrunner etal.]

Iran expected to permanently cut off Internet by August

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:41:48 -0400

Iran expected to permanently cut off Internet by August:

infoneer-pulse:

Millions of Internet users in Iran could soon be permanently cut off from the Web, social networks, and e-mail.

In a statement released last week, Reza Taghipour, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology, announced it plans to establish a national intranet within five months in an effort to create a “clean Internet,” according to an International Business Times report. “All Internet Service Providers (ISP) should only present National Internet by August,” Taghipour said in the statement.

» via CNET

"It was only later that I realized the value of being bored was actually pretty high. Being bored is..."

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:14:07 -0400

“It was only later that I realized the value of being bored was actually pretty high. Being bored is a kind of diagnostic for the gap between what you might be interested in and your current environment. But now it is an act of significant discipline to say, “I’m going to stare out the window. I’m going to schedule some time to stare out the window.” The endless gratification offered up by our devices means that the experience of reading in particular now becomes something we have to choose to do.”

- Clay Shirky - How Will We Read (via bijan)

"Terrorists have not [yet] used the Internet to launch a full-scale cyberattack, but we cannot..."

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:54:07 -0400

“

Terrorists have not [yet] used the Internet to launch a full-scale cyberattack, but we cannot underestimate their intent. Our companies are targeted for insider information, and our universities and national laboratories are targeted for their research and development. Our ability to work internationally is absolutely essential in order to address the cyber arena.  

We have strategically placed agents with our counterparts in countries like Romania, the Ukraine, Estonia and the like, where much of the activity takes place. Down the road, if a country steals those secrets that will enable that country to overwhelm us in the field of battle someplace, that is something that is a threat and ultimately may be a more serious threat.

”

- FBI director Robert Mueller

The Industrialization of Data Theft: Verizon's Staggering New Data

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 10:00:05 -0400

The Industrialization of Data Theft: Verizon's Staggering New Data:

infoneer-pulse:

The job of stealing your personal data is now a fully-fledged industry - in some regards, one that is becoming terrifyingly legitimized. Earlier this month, security experts with Verizon gave reporters at the RSA Conference an advance look at detailed forensics data, compiled with the assistance of the world’s law enforcement agencies including the U.S. Secret Service. That data indicated that industrialized data center incursion has become mechanized, is happening regularly, and has the goal of compiling a more comprehensive “big database” about your personal transactions than Facebook or Citicorp ever dreamed.

“Most of these automated attacks are almost exclusively on small businesses,” says Chris Porter, Verizon’s senior security analyst and co-author of its annual Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), whose 2012 edition was published this morning. “There’s some franchise chains, but many times it’s mom-and-pop cafés. These restaurants, retail stores, are really focused on building their business. They want to make sure when a customer comes in, they can charge him. And they’re probably less concerned about data protection.”

» via ReadWriteWeb

"Technological asymmetry has always been a feature of warfare, but no nation has ever been able to..."

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:51:47 -0400

“Technological asymmetry has always been a feature of warfare, but no nation has ever been able to prosecute a war without any physical risk to its citizens. What might the ability to launch casualty-free wars do to the political barriers that stand between peace and conflict? In today’s democracies politicians are obligated to explain, at regular intervals, why a military action requires the blood of a nation’s young people. Wars waged by machines might not encounter much skepticism in the public sphere. We just don’t know what moral constraints should apply to these new kinds of warfare. Take the ancient, but still influential, doctrine of Just War Theory, which requires that war’s destructive forces be unleashed only when absolutely necessary; war is to be pursued only as a last resort and only against combatants, never against civilians. But information warfare, warfare pursued with information technologies, distorts concepts like “necessity” and “civilian” in ways that challenge these ethical frameworks. An attack on another nation’s information infrastructure, for instance, would surely count as an act of war. But what if it reduced the risk of future bloodshed? Should we really only consider it as a last resort? The use of robots further complicates things. It’s not yet clear who should be held responsible if and when an autonomous military robot kills a civilian.”

- Cyber and Drone Attacks May Change Warfare More Than the Machine Gun - Ross Andersen - Technology - The Atlantic (via infoneer-pulse)

When is TV not TV?

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:49:29 -0400

When is TV not TV?

"There’s no doubting the cloud invasion. But the research firm Gartner believes the personal cloud..."

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:05:00 -0400

“There’s no doubting the cloud invasion. But the research firm Gartner believes the personal cloud will replace the PC as the center of our digital lives sooner than you might think: 2014.
“In this new world, the specifics of devices will become less important for the organization to worry about. Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub. Rather, the personal cloud will take on that role. Access to the cloud and the content stored or shared in the cloud will be managed and secured, rather than solely focusing on the device itself.”

But it’s not about the oft-referenced post-PC era, “but rather about a new style of personal computing that frees individuals to use computing in fundamentally new ways to improve multiple aspects of their work and personal lives.”
“People argue about, ‘Are we in a post-PC world?’. Why are we arguing? Of course we are in a post-PC world. That doesn’t mean the PC dies; that just means that the scenarios that we use them in, we stop referring to them as PCs, we refer to them as other things.”

”

- ‘Personal Cloud’ to Replace PC by 2014, Says Gartner | Cloudline | Wired.com (via myserendipities)

"Though one person may now be producing the previous results of three, she’s not being paid three..."

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:14:59 -0400

“

Though one person may now be producing the previous results of three, she’s not being paid three times as much. That’s the whole point of companies using technology and other improvements: fewer people are now needed for the same results.

But the workers who remain also tend to have much more responsibility. And they can’t just comfort themselves with the notion that their companies are more efficient than they used to be, because all of their competitors have the same new tools, and are using them to gain any advantage they can.

Cranking out widgets is one thing; deciding which widgets need cranking first, and in what quantity, is quite another — especially if you are now charged with continually improving the system, or determining whether you should even be cranking out those widgets at all.

”

- http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/business/when-office-technology-overwhelms-get-organized.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

I’m not a “curator”

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:00:06 -0400

I’m not a “curator”:

Codifying “via” links with confusing symbols is solving the wrong problem.

While I don’t take any issue with the word “curator,” I completely agree: crediting the source of discovery on the internet is, and should be, optional. Authorship, on the other hand, is a serious matter — but I don’t think anyone is contending that. Especially on a platform like Tumblr, where “reblog” credit can be baked into the theme and every post can have a content source, links are, indeed, a free commodity. Manually adding via links is a courtesy, a sign of extended politeness — like waiting that extra few seconds to hold the door open for someone.

"Such supporters of crowdfunding as Nick Tommarello say it will give businesses—from neighborhood..."

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:27:18 -0400

“Such supporters of crowdfunding as Nick Tommarello say it will give businesses—from neighborhood restaurants to high-growth tech companies—a fresh source of capital. Tommarello is co-founder of Wefunder, a site he hopes to turn into a crowdfunding platform in the event the law is changed. “If this happens, what we can do is fill that funding gap in between angel [investors] and first round venture capital,” he says.”

- Alone in a Crowd: How Crowdfunding Could Strand Startups - Businessweek (via mediafuturist)

Hackers had 'full functional control' of Nasa computers

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:00:05 -0500

Hackers had 'full functional control' of Nasa computers:

infoneer-pulse:

Hackers gained “full functional control” of key Nasa computers in 2011, the agency’s inspector general has told US lawmakers.

Paul K Martin said hackers took over Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) computers and “compromised the accounts of the most privileged JPL users”.

He said the attack, involving Chinese IP addresses, was under investigation.

» via BBC

Wikis In The Classroom: Another Crock

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 10:02:06 -0500

Wikis In The Classroom: Another Crock:

stoweboyd:

Leaving aside our natural desire to believe that social tools of whatever stripe are better than non-collaboration, I maintain that wikis are a failed experiment. [I put to one side Wikipedia, which has been enormously successful, but it is a singular example, for a wide variety of reasons.] In…