Technology

Seen on the newswires:

[T]he House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved by voice vote a bill that would make the current Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Communication Commission ban on cell phone use during flight permanent.

The committee’s action comes as the European Union is moving to allow airline passengers to talk on their cell phones during flight. Some U.S. airlines are experimenting with in-flight Internet access. And some lawmakers worry that domestic airlines might try to get the cell phone ban lifted so they can charge passengers extra to sit in no-phone sections.

"I do believe this is important that we don’t make what is already a crowded and difficult environment for the traveling public and flight attendants" worse by allowing cell phone use in-flight, said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., sponsor of the Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace (HANG UP) Act.

Normally I’d make a little bit of noise and grumbling over over-regulating life, and the futility of legislating good manners.  However, with the FCC having made noises on lifting the ban of cell phone usage in the air, and with the ban having already been lifted in Europe…I’m not too terribly upset.

The potential for being stuck in the back of a sardine can on a long, transcontinental flight trying to ignore half of several cell phone conversations would almost be enough to get me to find a job which required less travel.

I hate it when others abuse their cell phones, by forgetting to silence the ringers in noise-sensitive environments, or by talking on them at inappropriate times.

So, I got a warm, fuzzy feeling when I encountered this story in the AJC:

Sloan, an Atlanta Municipal Court judge, held two men in contempt of court recently after their cellphones rang, just minutes apart, while court was in session at the downtown Atlanta courthouse. He put both men in the jury box and finished the cases on his docket before doling out identical sentences to the men: a $200 fine or 10 days in jail.

Ah, if only I could bill (and collect from) the folks who (for example) spoil movies by talking on their cell phones….

Some happy news seen on the newswires:

For years, both kinds of Web surfers have paid the same price for access. But now three of the country’s largest Internet service providers are threatening to clamp down on their most active subscribers by placing monthly limits on their online activity.

One of them, Time Warner Cable, began a trial of “Internet metering” in one Texas city early this month, asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes.

That same week, Comcast said that it would expand on a strategy it uses to manage Internet traffic: slowing down the connections of the heaviest users, so-called bandwidth hogs, at peak times.

AT&T also said Thursday that limits on heavy use were inevitable and that it was considering pricing based on data volume. “Based on current trends, total bandwidth in the AT&T network will increase by four times over the next three years,” the company said in a statement.

I was not happy when Sprint announced they would start metering my wireless modem.  But that wasn’t too bad, in the grand scheme of things, since we have unmetered broadband at home.

However, metering the home broadband line….ouch!

We’ll adapt, of course.  However, if they’re going to increase prices for bandwidth consumption, I’d like to see the quality of the pipe improved.  Or, perhaps this provides a convenient way for ISPs to do an end-run around calls for net neutrality: meter the bandwidth, but access to these special content-providers is available, at no limit, all for a low monthly fee (and exposure to favored advertisers)….

I was very happy to learn this week about what’s coming soon in iPod land.

No, I’m not talking about the iPhone 2 (although I will be shopping for a new phone, and possibly a new plan, around Labor Day…).

Instead, I’m talking about word that Pocket Informant will soon be available for iPhones and iPod Touches upgraded to 2.0 firmware.

One of the characteristics of working in an organization as dynamic as my day job is, plus taking care of a disabled spouse, is that my schedule tends to be rather chaotic.  So, I rely on a PDA (and GTD strategy) to help keep my head straight about where I’m supposed to be when, and what I’m trying to accomplish next.

However, this means that I am usually laden with gadgets — a computer or two, a cell phone, a PDA…and potentially an iPod Touch.

I don’t actually carry my iPod with me that much.  It’s a pretty gadget, and I’m gradually becoming used to the interface.  Its WiFi is definitely better than my quirky Ipaq’s, and the iPod is definitely better as a portable music/video playing device.

Unfortunately the iPod standard calendar is barely adequate for my needs, and it lacks even a simple to-do list.   Thus, my iPod is relegated to the duty of keeping me amused while on the treadmill or exercise bike in the evening.

But, if a good calendar/task application is on its way for iPod, maybe I could reduce my gadget count by at least one.

I suppose this means I should hurry up and update my GTD pages to reflect my current configuration….

Well, this sounds ominous (from the Guardian):

From next week, Virgin Media will send letters to thousands of households where music is either being downloaded or illegally shared. Many of the recipients are likely to be the unsuspecting parents of teenagers who hoard free downloads offered by file-sharing services. Research shows the majority of them are unaware their children are breaking the law.[...]

Virgin has stopped short of threatening any of its 3.5 million subscribers with disconnection, saying it first wants to “educate” customers during a 10-week trial campaign. Their letters will, however, be accompanied by a stern written warning from the BPI, which will threaten both disconnection and a court appearance for those who continue to download illegally.

I of course don’t condone theft of intellectual property (especially now that the entertainment industry has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century), but surely someone will soon notice that the means of detecting illegal file-sharing is hardly foolproof.

I suppose it could be worse.  They could be imposing 5GB download caps, like those of us with Sprint cell modems are preparing to live with.

Judging by this article in the Independent, I smell another round of debate coming regarding cell phones and health:

A giant study, which surveyed more than 13,000 children, found that using the handsets just two or three times a day was enough to raise the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships by the time they reached school age. And it adds that the likelihood is even greater if the children themselves used the phones before the age of seven.[...]

They found that mothers who did use the handsets were 54 per cent more likely to have children with behavioural problems and that the likelihood increased with the amount of potential exposure to the radiation. And when the children also later used the phones they were, overall, 80 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties with behaviour. They were 25 per cent more at risk from emotional problems, 34 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties relating to their peers, 35 per cent more likely to be hyperactive, and 49 per cent more prone to problems with conduct.

The scientists say that the results were “unexpected”, and that they knew of no biological mechanisms that could cause them. But when they tried to explain them by accounting for other possible causes – such as smoking during pregnancy, family psychiatric history or socio-economic status – they found that, far from disappearing, the association with mobile phone use got even stronger.

You know, we’ve had a bumper crop of baby bumps in my office this spring.  I’m reminded of just how many ladies in the office will chat on their cell phones while walking outside at lunch…or of the guys in the office whose young children will call them on the cell phone when picked up from day care….

I have a rule of not blogging directly about the things I do at the day job, and of maintaining as much separation between “online life” and “work” as is practical. However, I’m going to venture pretty deep into the boundary between the two for a moment.

At the office, I’m considered a power user. I have a bit of a hacker’s mindset, and a bit of a reputation of finding workarounds in the face of resource limitations through official IT channels.

So, it is in that context that I’ll openly wish that a certain few folks check out this article at Info World:

Here’s a sobering statistic: Eighty percent of enterprise IT functions are being duplicated by folks outside of the IT department, says Hank Marquis, director of ITSM (IT systems management) consulting at Enterprise Management Associates. In other words, for every 10 people doing IT work as part of their jobs, you’ve got another eight “shadow IT” staffers doing it on their own.

You probably know them. They’re the ones who installed their own Wi-Fi network in the break room and distribute homemade number-crunching apps to their coworkers on e-mail. They’re hacking their iPhones right now to work with your company’s mail servers. In short, they’re walking, talking IT governance nightmares.

But they could be your biggest assets, if you use them wisely.

No, I haven’t installed a guerrilla wireless access point on corporate property, and I have no desire to check corporate email on my phone. But otherwise, it’s nice to see someone else advocate accepting some of us corporate non-IT folks as not being complete idiots who need to be protected from ourselves.

(Although, from my informal IT roles…I can see how IT and network support folks could have such a bias.)

Once again, news seems to synchronize.

First, in my reading pile was an interesting blog post at Wired on a possible new way to monitor hurricane strength:

An MIT engineer has a radical idea for determining just how strong a hurricane is: Analyze the sound of its roar, recorded by hydrophones 800 meters under the surface, to calculate the speed of its winds.[...]

In a paper accepted by Geophysical Research Letters, Nicholas Makris, director of MIT’s Laboratory for Undersea Remote Sensing, describes how new analysis of Hurricane Gert’s fortuitous 1999 passage over a hydrophone provides the first real-world proof that his theory could work under real conditions.

That “gift from God” provided Makris with his first field recording of a hurricane’s oceanic acoustic signature. Comparing his theoretical model with actual sound and wind data measured by an aircraft allowed Makris to calculate the acoustic signatures of various wind speeds. In effect, dropping hydrophones in front of advancing hurricanes could create a low-cost hurricane measurement system.

For additional coolness, you may want to visit the post at Wired. There’s an embedded sound player at the site which permits you to listen to a sample of what a storm sounds like underwater.

(Note that your computer’s sound system needs a certain amount of studliness to actually hear the sound. I couldn’t hear anything through my laptop’s speakers or cheap earbuds, but a high-quality pair of headphones rendered the sound audible.)

Of course, the west coast can’t be outdone when it comes to the sounds of natural hazards. Consider this wire service story:

Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off the central Oregon Coast.

Scientists don’t know what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of magma rumbling underneath the Juan de Fuca Plate - away from the recognized earthquake faults off Oregon, said geophysicist Robert Dziak of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore.[...]

It looks like what happens before a volcanic eruption, except there are no volcanoes in the area, Dziak said.[...]

On the hydrophones, the quakes sound like low rumbling thunder and are unlike anything scientists have heard in 17 years of listening, Dziak said. Some of the quakes have also been detected by earthquake instruments on land.

The hydrophones are leftover from a network the Navy used to listen for submarines during the Cold War. They routinely detect passing ships, earthquakes on the ocean bottom and whales calling to each other.

No word yet on when the SciFi channel will commission and air one of their “SciFi Special” movies on a new Pacific Coastal megavolcano.

One of the secrets to America’s success has, I think, been its citizens’ and immigrants’ creativity.    We’ve capitalized on those talents, invited individuals of exceptional skill to immigrate here, and we’ve invested in education in an effort to bolster the skills and aid the innovations of future generations.

However, recently I, like many folks I think, have become very concerned that as a country, we might be losing our edge.

Granted, in some respects, that is not necessarily bad news, since it is a reflection of the development in other parts of the world.  Increased technological skills, coupled with semi-free trade arguably create new markets for us, which is probably a good thing.

However, I suspect that to a certain extent, our technological prowess is being dragged down by inefficiencies in our society, xenophobia, and plain ol’ resistance to change.

For example, consider the lowly light bulb.  Incandescent light bulbs have been around for over a hundred years.  And, even though more efficient CFL’s are now easily accessible and prices for LED bulbs are dropping, as a society we seem to be stuck on incandescent bulbs, perhaps because there’s too much money invested in existing incandescent infrastructure, and perhaps because Joe Average American can’t get his mind around these new-fangled twisted lightbulbs.

Consider also how foreign student enrollment in American universities has declined, presumably because of the post-9/11 bureaucratic hurdles that must be crossed to obtain a student visa, as well as the availability of competitive quality education elsewhere.   That brain-drain bodes ill for the future, I think.

I’d like to see our politicians embrace the idea of investing in the nation’s technological future. 

Such embracing should not come in the form of erecting barriers to trade or exchange of ideas.  Don’t prohibit business from going “outside” or be overprotective of existing domestic industries.  Instead, I’d like to see strategic, meaningful investment in new industries and education to support those new industries.

It’s admirable that our political leadership says it wants to fix the ills in today’s society, and ease the suffering of the nation’s disadvantaged.  However, how about daring to display some vision, and foster investment in the future?

One item that is making the rounds (judging by the number of places it appeared in my reading list) is this report at news.com on a new tactic being used by the feds to combat kiddie pr0n:

The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.

Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images.

The story continues with a discussion of the details and legalities in one particular case, concluding:

Civil libertarians warn that anyone who clicks on a hyperlink advertising something illegal—perhaps found while Web browsing or received through e-mail—could face the same fate.

When asked what would stop the FBI from expanding its hyperlink sting operation, Harvey Silverglate, a longtime criminal defense lawyer in Cambridge, Mass. and author of a forthcoming book on the Justice Department, replied: “Because the courts have been so narrow in their definition of ‘entrapment,’ and so expansive in their definition of ‘probable cause,’ there is nothing to stop the Feds from acting as you posit.”

Although I tend to side with civil liberties folks when it comes to net-related issues, I have to admit that I personally don’t mind this tactic, especially when it comes to attempting to combat consumers of material such as this. If you’re caught actively seeking such illicit material….

However, where I do get to be somewhat uncomfortable is the ways in which such a tactic could be abused. For example, while it seems perfectly kosher to pursue folks who are actively seeking kiddie pr0n, I’d hope that there would be some care taken to not even raise suspicion about folks who accidentally click a link, either due to it’s placement near other, legitimate links (or the close button, when it comes to spam messages), or because the link was disguised as something innocuous.