Internet Autobahn

From Ars Technica. Emphasis mine. Whoo-hoo!

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association is holding its annual convention in Las Vegas ... and this year, super-high-speed cable service is finally moving into the limelight. Announcements from hardware providers like Motorola and Texas Instruments suggest that we're finally moving closer to the promised land of DOCSIS 3.0.

DOCSIS 3.0 offers two immediate benefits over what cable ISP subscribers are currently stuck with (DOCSIS 1.1): faster speeds and support for IPv6. The technology has the potential to bump download speeds to 160Mbps and upload speeds to 120Mbps, although that bandwidth will be divided up between households attached to a single node.

The Low Cost Cruise Missile (LCCM)

How to do-it-yourself, potentially for $5,000 a pop.

...It would not be difficult for terrorists to build their own relatively sophisticated cruise missiles using off-the-shelf components and materials.

What does he suggest can be done about this threat?

Unfortunately there's probably very little that can be done to reduce the magnitude of this potential threat.

Doubtless a country such as the USA has the technology to shoot down an LCCM -- but there's a very good chance that multiple launches from dispersed points relatively close (say 100 miles -- representing a flight time of just 12 minutes) to the intended target would likely make it impossible for a defending force to deal with all the LCCMs launched.

A small (say 5-foot long) target travelling at 500 mph, less than 200 feet above the ground while following an unknown and deliberately erratic course becomes an extremely difficult target to hit -- even if you're ready and waiting for it.

Given that, with a radioactive or biological payload, it would only require a single LCCM to reach its intended target in order to inflict a damaging blow, the capability of defending against such a strike must be considered just modest at best.

Pykrete, the Super-Secret, Super-Weapon of WWII

See this interesting article on
Pykrete, an ice blend, strengthened tremendously by mixing in wood pulp as it freezes.

...you can mold pykrete into blocks from the simplest materials and then plane it, just like wood. And it has tremendous crush resistance: a one-inch column of the stuff will support an automobile. Moreover, it takes much longer to melt than pure ice.

What would we have done with it in WWII?

Pyke envisioned ships as vast and solid as icebergs. You could make the sides of your boat tens of feet thick, hundreds if you felt like it, and bullets or torpedoes would bounce away or knock off pathetically ineffectual chunks. And when a torpedo did knock a chunk away—so? You were floating in a sea of raw repair material. Given how long it took pykrete to melt, and the minimal onboard refrigeration equipment needed to stay frozen and afloat, it would be months or years before the boats exhausted their usefulness. In battle, the ice ships could put their onboard refrigeration systems to good use by spraying super-cooled water at enemy ships, icing their hatches shut, clogging their guns, and freezing hapless sailors to death.

Walk Like a Gecko

The Independent reports that scientists have found a way to replicate the stick-to-the-ceiling ability of the gecko for use by people.

A 2mm-square segment of the tape was strong enough in one test to support a Spiderman toy - 15cm high and weighing 40g - by one hand from a glass ceiling. This means that covering the two palms of a man with the tape would enable his full weight to be supported, the scientists report in the journal Nature Materials.

A Basic Replicator?

This NYT article explores the world of 3-D printing -- using computer-driven systems to create real-world 3-D objects.

"We can do a ball in a ball in a ball," she said. "We've got really cool ball bearings."

What If SCO Is Right?

The article What If SCO Is Right? has an interesting discussion on the merits and potential outcomes of the SCO case against Linux for IP theft.

I expect that this will mostly cause FUD. Even if true, the offending parts will only set back Linux until they can be replaced or IBM buys SCO just to cheaply put this one to pasture.

Wireless Distribution

News.com reports on yet another way to bring wireless to the masses.

The answer to providing broadband for all could lie in the skies with balloons offering a new way to deliver fast internet services.

Just 18 base stations would provide total UK coverage, from densely populated towns to the remotest cottage in the Scottish Highlands.

Radio ID Chips May Track Banknotes

News.com reports on the proposed use of RFID chips in Euro currency.

Radio tags the size of a grain of sand could be embedded in the euro note if a reported deal between the European Central Bank (ECB) and Japanese electronics maker Hitachi is signed.

As I've previously stated, currency counterfeiting will continue to be a greater problem as it becomes easier and cheaper for the average person to copy money easily.

To add to the problem, businesses also find it hard to judge a note's authenticity, as current equipment cannot tell between bogus currency and old notes with worn-out security marks. Among the security features in the current euro are threads visible under ultraviolet light.

There are obvious privacy concerns.

"RFID (radio frequency identification) tags also have the ability of recording information such as details of the transactions the paper note has been involved in. It would, therefore, also prevent money-laundering, make it possible to track illegal transactions and even prevent kidnappers demanding unmarked bills," [Frost and Sullivan analyst Prianka] Chopra said.

But the article also discusses how easy it makes counting money.

Counterfeiting in the Digital Age

The Telegraph has an interesting article on how the technological advancements in printer technology and price have enabled counterfeiting to be conducted for such a low cost.

Fierce competition in the inkjet market has made digital colour printers so cheap and the print quality so high that a £100 printer can produce fake banknotes that are easily mistaken for genuine currency in dim light, it says.

This is a problem that will only get worse as the technology improves, the prices drop, and more people come into the know. As has already begun, materials besides ink and paper will be needed in currency. In addition, we may see the need to add currency verifiers to cash registers in order to verify whether currency is valid or not.

Of course, given most people's experience with trying to get a bill to be accepted in a Coke machine or change machine, we may just use plastic more. This would require a substantial change in the cost for processing sub-$1 and sub-$5 payments to make it worthwhile for the merchants. Perhaps, the government will issue its own plastic cash cards in place of / addition to paper currency [as opposed to a credit card].

I Want One for My Backyard

The BBC is showing this cool device:

A set of four glass ramps positioned in a square clearly show water travelling up each of them before it pours off the top, only to start again at the bottom of the next ramp.

It is a sight which defies logic, and has become probably the most memorable image of this year's show.

Too cool!

Laks has developed a watch with up to 128MB of built-in memory. Pretty soon, you'll be able to take the story of your life with you everywhere---medical records, tax records, budgets, pictures, everything!

Of course, I hope that you don't have to walk around with the USB cable permanently attached.

Hitachi multi-layer DVD holds 200 films

This article from ZD-Net discusses a new technology from Hitachi that may allow up to 400 hours of video or the equivalent of 200 movies on a single disk based on the use of multi-layer technology. They expect the technology to be deployable in 2007.

Hitachi has developed a DVD system with multiple layers, which allows far more information to be stored on a single disk.

Although 2007 seems like a long way off, if we look at the curve of increasing disk capacity, I'll bet that this isn't too far off. The article does not state how large the capacity of the disks are, but we can make some calculations based on today's DVDs. Today's DVD is 4.7GB for ~2 hours. This would make the new disks about 1TB in size!

The Power of Software

One of the reasons that fighting Internet theft of copyrighted material is going to be nearly impossible is due to the ability of software to encapsulate skill.

In the world outside the Internet, companies can design a product's security to keep honest people honest and to defeat the typical thief. The number of people that are able to defeat a system can be kept to a minimum for a fairly small amount of money, usually. The information to defeat said product can usually kept isolated as well. Even if the information were to leak out, the 2 previously mentioned parties would not be able to take advantage of it.

On the Internet, as long as one person can break a security "fence", he can take his knowledge encapsulate it into software and enable people with much lower skill levels to also "jump the fence". In addition, a virtually free distribution system ensures that it is quite easy and inexpensive to provide this information and ability to anyone that wants it.