- China Hackers Hit EU Point Man and DC (Bloomberg) — wow. The extent to which EU and US government and business computer systems have been penetrated is astonishing. Stolen information is flowing out of the networks of law firms, investment banks, oil companies, drug makers, and high technology manufacturers in such significant quantities that intelligence officials now say it could cause long-term harm to U.S. and European economies. (via Gady Epstein)
- Digestible Microchips (Nature) — The sand-particle sized sensor consists of a minute silicon chip containing trace amounts of magnesium and copper. When swallowed, it generates a slight voltage in response to digestive juices, which conveys a signal to the surface of a person’s skin where a patch then relays the information to a mobile phone belonging to a healthcare-provider. (via Sara Winge)
- Quantum Mechanics Make Simple(r) — clever way to avoid the brain pain of quantum mechanics and leap straight to the “oh!”. [N]ature is described not by probabilities (which are always nonnegative), but by numbers called amplitudes that can be positive, negative, or even complex. […] In the usual “hierarchy of sciences”—with biology at the top, then chemistry, then physics, then math—quantum mechanics sits at a level between math and physics that I don’t know a good name for. Basically, quantum mechanics is the operating system that other physical theories run on as application software (with the exception of general relativity, which hasn’t yet been successfully ported to this particular OS). (via Hacker News)
- Selectively De-Animating Video — SIGGRAPH talk showing how to keep some things still in a video. Check out the teaser video with samples: ZOMG. I note that Maneesh Agrawala was involved: I’m a fan of his from Line Drive maps and 3D exploded views, but his entire paper list is worth reading. Wow. (via Greg Borenstein)
"sensors" entries
Sensors and Arduino: How to glue them together
Author Federico Lucifredi on developing sensor-enabled Arduino sketches.
Federico Lucifredi (@federico_II) is the maintainer of man(1) and also the author of the upcoming book, Sensor Interfaces for Arduino. We had a chance to sit down recently and talk about how to connect sensors to microcontrollers (in particular Arduino).
Given how many sensors there are in the wild, there’s a lot to say about sensors. Some of the key points from the full video are:
- When to look for a library to support your sensor and when to just write a few lines of code to read it. [Discussed at the 3:00 mark]
- Thinking about sensors that return non-linear responses and how that might affect your code. [4:40]
- Detecting a human presence on a door mat. [6:00]
- Using a Geiger counter to measure radiation and generate random numbers. [8:14]
- Where to look for docs and code when you start working with an unfamiliar sensor. [11:30]
Four short links: 1 August 2012
Chinese Hackers, Edible Sensors, Quantum Physics
From smartphones and continuous data comes the social MRI
Dr. Nadav Aharony used phone sensors to explore personal behaviors and community trends.
It’s clear at this point that the smartphone revolution has very little to do with the phone function in these devices. Rather, it’s the unique mix of sensors, always-on connectivity and mass consumer adoption that’s shaping business and culture.
Dr. Nadav Aharony (@nadavaha) tapped into this mix when he was working on a “social MRI” study in MIT’s Media Lab. Aharony, who recently joined us as part of our ongoing foo interview series, described his vision of the social MRI:
“If you think about it, the three things you take with you when you go out of your home are your keys, your wallet and your phone, so our phones are always with us. In aggregate, we can use the phones in many people’s pockets as a virtual imaging chamber. So, one aspect of the social MRI is this virtual imaging chamber that is collecting tens or hundreds of signals at the same time from members of the community.” [Discussed at 1:16]
Aharony’s work focused on 150 participants (about 75 families) that were given phones for 15 months. During that time, more than one million hours of “continuous sensing data” was gathered with the participants’ consent. The data was acquired and scrubbed under MIT’s ethics guidelines, and for extra measure, Aharony included his own data in the dataset.
Collecting the data was just the beginning. Parsing that information and creating experiments based on emerging signals is where the applications of a social MRI became significant.
Read more…
Editorial Radar with Mike Loukides & Mike Hendrickson
Discussion on machine learning, 3D printing, devices and JavaScript
In this first episode of "Editorial Radar," O'Reilly editors Mike Loukides and Mike Hendrickson discuss the important technologies they're tracking.
Editorial Radar with Mike Loukides & Mike Hendrickson
Discussion on machine learning, 3D printing, devices and JavaScript
In this first episode of "Editorial Radar," O'Reilly editors Mike Loukides and Mike Hendrickson discuss the important technologies they're tracking.
The Reading Glove engages senses and objects to tell a story
Karen Tanenbaum uses wearable tech and sensors to explore the boundaries of storytelling.
What if you mashed up a non-linear narrative, a tangible computing environment and a hint of a haunted house experience? You might get the Reading Glove, a novel way to experience a story.
Visualization of the Week: AntiMap
A mobile mapping app lets users capture and visualize their movements.
The DIY mapping tool AntiMap lets users capture their movements via their mobile devices, then visualize and analyze their movements.
Top Stories: December 5-9, 2011
A vote against frictionless sharing, a look at cloud security threats, and why the open sourcing of Data.gov matters.
This week on O'Reilly: Mike Loukides explained why there's little value in frictionless sharing, Jeffrey Carr examined the significant security threats attached to cloud services, and we learned why the open sourcing of Data.gov is an important milestone for open government.
Stickers as sensors
GreenGoose looks to unlock the data in everyday activities.
Put a GreenGoose sticker on an object, and just like that, you'll have an Internet-connected sensor. In this interview, GreenGoose founder Brian Krejcarek discusses stickers as sensors and the data that can be gathered from everyday activities.
Sensors, data, UI and the future of publishing
Tweets and related information from Tim O'Reilly's Silverchair Strategies 2011 presentation.
In a recent keynote address, Tim O'Reilly looked at how sensors, data and interfaces will shape information delivery.