WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week’s net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
Soldiers’ kit, Snowden, US ambassador Suzi LeVine, ‘Right to be Forgotten’, more on driverless cars, a new design wind turbine, Windows 7 rules OK, SpaceShipTwo experiments and Vertu’s new Signature Touch smart phone are covered, with URLs pointing to a new federal database, MIT’s CityHome project, Google and broadband, extracting cash from spammers, NCA UK warning, and the US fines BNP Paribas more than $10 billion. It’s all in this week’s Winding Down.
So, here we go...
Shorts:
As I write the celebrations for the 70th anniversary of D-Day are underway. Sadly, it seems to be getting much more commercialized, with lots of politicians jumping on the bandwagon. However, one thing I did find that I thought readers might would be interested in a comparison of the kit carried by a soldier in 1944, and one today. It makes interesting reading, and shows that the modern soldier has much better kit than those of the Second World War had.
What the story fails to point out, though, is that modern weaponry is much more lethal than that used in 1944. I strongly suspect that the modern soldier’s kit only gives him the same relative level of protection as that of the soldier 70 years ago...
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/from-utah-beach-to-kabul-how-army-gear-changed-since-d-day/
I’m sure some of you have had occasion to discuss problems with a programmer. That being the case, I thought I’d let you into the secret world of programmer jargon. As you can see programmers are very polite people when it comes down to it!
http://imgur.com/M5wl14r
It’s a year since Edward Snowden made his first revelations about the activities of the US NSA and the UK GCHQ, and it’s perhaps worth looking at the revelations with the hindsight of that first year. ‘InfoWorld’ has a set of slides that does just that – they’re worth looking at and reflecting on.
My take on it? The security services are only doing their job! If you don’t like what they are doing, and I certainly don’t, then you need to deal with the people who set the parameters of the job – the top politicians in the countries involved. (Only very high level politicos have a say in national security.) If the security services are exceeding what they were supposed to be doing, then the failure is that of those same top politicians who didn’t oversee the work of security services properly and who ensure they are funded to do this work. The excuse of, ‘I didn’t know’ merely indicates that the politician concerned is a gullible rube who should be dismissed asap. If they did know, then they need to explain and defend their position – and take the rap if the citizens disagree.
http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/155647/there-are-no-secrets-what-edward-snowden-taught-us-about-privacy-243873?source=IFWNLE_nlt_daily_am_2014-06-06#slide1
Well, to quote Bob Dylan, “The times they are a changing”. They are indeed. On June 2nd US Ambassador Suzi LeVine was sworn in when she placed one hand on a Kindle Touch displaying the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and took the oath of office. Previously only printed constitutions have been used. Way to go!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/04/former_microsoft_spin_doctor_takes_oath_on_a_kindle/
Well, there is no shortage of people in the EU requesting information not be displayed when searches are carried out – the so-called ‘Right to be Forgotten’. Frankly, I can’t imagine why they would want to be forgotten, most people would actually like to be remembered. Still last time I looked 41,000 people had made requests.
Of course, the ‘right’ doesn’t actually mean what people think it does. First of all, it’s not automatic. Google has to review all the cases, and can refuse. If that’s the case be prepared to argue it out in court with Google’s legal eagles – which should be worth quite a lot of publicity in its own right! Also, of course, the ‘right’ only exists in the EU, the jurisdiction of the Court that made the ruling. So, presumably, although Google may have to remove the info in EU searches, it doesn’t have to do so elsewhere...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/02/12000_europeans_ask_google_to_forget_them/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/03/ico_google_right_to_be_forgotten/
Driverless cars: Intermission
Rather than writing my peroration on driverless cars this week, I thought I’d share with you part of an email on the issue sent in to Winding Down by reader Allison:
“Something that everyone seems to be missing in the driverless cars debate is that there are always going to be people who simply don’t want them. This means that there will probably never be a situation where there are only (or even a majority of) automated cars on the road, unless there’s some serious compulsion, and that doesn’t look much like a vote-winner to me.
Ultimately, there must be some desire, but most of the development seems to be ‘because it’s cool’ rather than because people actually want them. I may be wrong about public desire for driverless cars, but I would fight tooth and nail to retain my human-controlled car. In a world where a significant percentage of the population don’t even want a ‘net connection, I doubt I’m alone, either.”
More on driverless cars next week. In the meantime you might want to ponder the story at this URL:
http://www.gizmag.com/google-self-driving-car/32278/
Homework:
Looking through ‘Gizmag’ I came across an interesting looking wind turbine. Its shape is based on that of the nautilus shell, and it’s supposed to be much more efficient than a conventional wind turbine. More to the point, it operates much more quietly than conventional wind turbines. It’s in ongoing field tests at the moment, but this may be something worth keeping an eye on, if you are in the market for a domestic wind turbine.
http://www.gizmag.com/the-archimedes-liam-f1-urban-wind-turbine/32263/
Well the latest figures on desktop operating systems don’t make happy reading for Microsoft, even though most of them are Microsoft operating systems. It seems half of them are Windows 7, and another quarter of them are Windows XP. Admittedly the percentage of XP users is slowly going down, however the percentage of Windows 7 is going up a corresponding amount. This seems to indicate that rather than upgrading old XP machines to Microsoft’s shiny new Windows 8.1, users are upgrading to Windows 7. With only 6.35 per cent of the market (up from 5.88 per cent) Windows 8.1, isn’t even in the running. In fact, I suspect that most of the 8.1 increase is people who couldn’t find anywhere to buy a Windows 7 computer!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/02/microsoft_windows_7_half_way_milestone/
The space flight inclined among you might like to take a look at the article pointed to by the URL. It’s about what experiments NASA plan to run on Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo. It promises to be the first in a long line of experiments carried out in conjunction with the commercial carriers. For myself, I rather like the possibilities opened by the 3D Printer in microgravity test.
http://www.gizmag.com/spaceshiptwo-experiments-payload/32409/
For Geeks:
And so, my geeky friend, how about a smart phone that is, how shall I put it, a cut above the usual. In fact, at US$11,000 it is well above the usual price for a smart phone! It’s Vertu’s new Signature Touch smart phone. And at that price I can pretty much guarantee none of your friends will have one...
So what do you get for your money? Well there’s a Grade 5 titanium casing for a start, not to mention leather covering, and a sapphire crystal protected display, a quad code 2.3GHz processor, 2GB of RAM and 64GB of memory. As their CEO, Massimiliano Pogliani, explained, “We don’t want to sell millions of smartphones.” I predict that’s one target they will have no problems meeting!
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9712997/vertus-signature-touch-lands-6750-pricetag-luxe/
Scanner:
New federal database will track Americans’ credit ratings, and other financial information
http://washingtonexaminer.com/new-federal-database-will-track-americans-credit-ratings-other-financial-information/article/2549064
MIT’s CityHome project re-thinks small space versatility
http://www.gizmag.com/mit-cityhome/32279/
Google gets serious about rescuing broadband
http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/google-gets-serious-about-rescuing-broadband-243743?source=IFWNLE_nlt_blogs_2014-06-05
Fed-up bloke takes email spammers to court – and wins a pile of cash
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/05/man_wins_spam_busting_case_vs_john_lewis_waitrose_you_can_too/
NCA UK warns Brits to prep for upcoming cyber attack storm
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9712887/nca-uk-warns-brits-prep-upcoming-cyber-attack-storm/
U.S. reportedly set to fine BNP Paribas more than $10 billion over sanctions probe
http://fortune.com/2014/05/29/u-s-reportedly-set-to-fine-bnp-paribas-more-than-10-billion-over-sanctions-probe/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Asti, Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
8 June 2014
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
