Finns Get the Right to Universal Broadband Access

October 16, 2009

You may have read, right here at Discovery, that Finland's just passed a landmark law that gives all of its citizens (yes, even the ones who live in the middle of snow-covered forests miles from nowhere, or are sitting in saunas) the right to universal broadband (1MB) Internet access. As if that's not enough of a challenge to the country's telco providers, they're thinking of bumping that up to 10MB in the future. Obviously, someone thinks the Internet-driven knowledge economy is here to stay, at least in northern Europe. As part of my coverage for this week's Tech Podcast for PRI (the day job, as I call it), I had Cyrus Farivar call up (Skype up, actually) Suvi Linden, Finland's Minister of Communications. Here's what she had to say about the new law, and about the reasoning behind it:

By the way, I hear through the grapevine that Finland's neighbor Estonia (or E-stonia, as it likes to bill itself) is a wee bit jealous that the Finns beat them to it!

Tech Podcast: When Zombies Attack!

August 28, 2009

It's summertime, and the living is easy. Or, in the case of this week's podcast, the living dead, who are not, as they say, resting easy. Instead, in the latest example of "give-them-some-money-and-scientists-will-study-ANYTHING," we have a paper from a team at the University of Ottawa entitled: "When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection." Fair enough. Now, before you roll your eyes (into the back of your head), know this: the Ottawa crew really does feel that this research can teach us something about the spread of infectious diseases. And maybe about eating brains. Who knows? One thing I do know -- a lot of you out there in WTP land love zombies, so there was no way I was going to leave it out of episode 255. Right click here to download, or use the player below.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled podcast. On the more serious side, this week we take a look at botnets, those nasty groups of computers that are co-opted by criminals, and then spew out viruses and worms and spam. Yuck. Cyrus Farivar reports on some new research into how to stop botnets.

Unfortunately, the solution might require creating, essentially, "good guy" botnets. And that, I'm afraid, creates all kinds of ethical and legal challenges. Then, since Cyrus is across all this stuff, we keep him around to talk about some new research from a Vermont-based outfit called The U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit. Cyrus checks in with Scott Borg, chief economist there at USCCU, on a report that's just come out looking at last year's cyber-spat between Russia and Georgia. Sorry, I can't actually give you a copy of the report. Visit the website for details. Next up, the British steam-powered car that's out to break the land speed record. We hear from driver Donald Wales. they're hoping to get this sweet ride (powered by 12 boilers, mind you) up to 130MPH and beyond. Wow. Right now, the team is at Edwards Air Force Base here in the United States, fighting the heat, broken boilers and punctured tires. Get the latest on the effort here.

(UPDATE: They broke the record! More on the next tech podcast...)

What makes for a beautiful mix? Flamenco, hip-hop, and Creative Commons of course. Cody Canyon and Gnotes lay some Gnawledge on you. You have to love it when the Internet helps a plan, and a free album, come together. Did I mention the album is free? Download it here.

Remember, there are sorts of ways to follow the tech podcast: Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed.

Tech Podcast: The Ever-Stranger Case of Gary McKinnon

August 07, 2009

This is Gary McKinnon, and I've been following his strange story for the past three years. Just after September 11, 2001, McKinnon, who was an unemployed computer professional living in London, started hacking into poorly protected US government computer systems. The US government, in its grand jury indictment, alleges McKinnon illegally accessed nearly 100 different computers over a period of more than a year. The indictment also claims that McKinnon's actions caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, and left critical US computer systems vulnerable. All this, of course, just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when security was of the utmost concern. I first covered the McKinnon story in WTP 102, and then again in WTP 204. McKinnon has admitted hacking into US government systems, but he's always maintained that it was not with malicious intent. He claims he was looking for evidence of UFOs and pollution free energy systems, information on which he believes the American government is hiding. McKinnon, his family, and his lawyers have maintained through the years that Gary should be tried in the United Kingdom, as that is where he was when he was doing the hacking. The US government feels differently, arguing that the damage done was to systems and computers in the United States. For three years, US federal prosecutors have been trying to extradite McKinnon. Meanwhile, McKinnon's been fighting that extradition through every legal means as his disposal. Last year, McKinnon was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a kind of autism. His lawyers made one last appeal to the High Court, arguing that Gary might become psychotic or suicidal if forced to stand trial in the United States. Today, that court rejected that claim, and Gary moved one step closer to extradition. That's our top story for WTP 252. Right click here to download and take the podcast with you, or click on the player below.

 

We also take a look at some new technologies the US military is employing in its counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan. And we have a two-part look at the rise of Pirate Parties across the globe. We end with a look at how one young Japanese student wants to run an Obama-style Internet campaign in the upcoming elections, but is being thwarted by decades-old campaign laws.

Tech Podcast: Updates on Iran and China, Codex Sinaiticus, and Hal and the Big 5

July 16, 2009

As promised, this week's Technology Podcast is devoid of any news, or non-news as the case may be, related to Michael Jackson. Instead, WTP 250 (Right click here to download and take it with you) has a heavenly host of stories we hope you'll find intriguing. At right is a picture of a page from one of the oldest Christian bibles in the world. It's called the Codex Sinaiticus, and it was written in the 4th century AD. After it was found in a monastery in the Sinai, it's various pages and fragments were scattered to collections across the world. Now, those fragments and pages have been reunited online.  I blogged about this a while back, but now, we'll hear an update. It's an interview with the British Library's Head of Collection Care, Helen Shenton. The British Library is one of the partner institutions involved in putting the Codex online. We'll also have updates on two stories we've been following closely in recent weeks. First, the violence in post-election Iran continues, and technology continues to play a critical role. Reporter Cyrus Farivar will update us on the global geeks who are trying to keep the information flowing into and out of the country. We follow that with a look at the violence that has flared in western China, and assess the ways and means that the Chinese government is using to control the way that violence is portrayed. We speak with Xiao Qiang, founder and co-editor of the China Digitial Times. And then we end the podcast with a lovely little story of musical collaboration. The members of Hal and the Big 5 have never actually jammed together. Instead, they've traded music tracks in cyberspace, and then mixed it all together. Too cool. Listen to the podcast right here:

Remember, you can subscribe to The World's Technology Podcast via iTunes or RSS.

Tech Podcast: China Internet Surveillance Gets Personal

June 15, 2009

Oh, that cute little cuddly bunny! Surely he or she wouldn't want to control what you're allowed to see online, right? Well, this is a screenshot from a little piece of Windows software called Green Dam Youth Escort. As of July 1, every Windows PC sold in China will have to have this piece of software installed on it. According to Chinese officials, the software is designed to protect Chinese youth from "pornography and violent content" online. In the past, that's generally been a smokescreen for a major new push to curtail Internet freedom in China. As China web-watcher Rebecca McKinnon notes in this week's Technology Podcast (WTP 246): "[Green Dam Youth Escort] takes censorship down to the level of the individual computer." But already there are reports that the software is vulnerable to hack attacks.

Tech Podcast: Iran Elections Online, US Cybersecurity, and Emergency ICT in Pakistan

June 05, 2009

Fighting between the Pakistani Army and Taliban forces in the Swat Valley has created nothing short of a humanitarian disaster. More than two million people have been forced to flee their homes, becoming what the aid business calls Internally Displaced Persons, or IDPs. United Nations groups such as the World Food Program have been on the ground for weeks now, trying to get aid to where it is most needed. Those groups can't get that done without modern, secure communications. And that means two-way radios, laptops, GPS, and satellite data uplinks. And that's where people like Dane Novarlic come in. He's an emergency response coordinator for the World Food Program. He and his team go into areas affected by natural disasters and wars, and help aid groups get connected to each other, and to the rest of the world.

Technology Podcast: Google Book Search, UNESCO's World Digital Library, E-Books, Psiphon, and Yahoo's Purple Pedals

May 04, 2009

We're positively e-bookish in this week's Technology Podcast (WTP 241). First, we discuss the merits, and demerits, of Google's Book Search project, which wants nothing more of less than to digitize every book on the planet (Google's not good at thinking small, we've noticed). Needless to say, Google's little scheme has its critics, and also its competitors. UNESCO has recently launched a little digitization project of its own, called The World Digital Library. We'll give you a little peek, and a listen, to some of what the United Nations is offering up, and not just in English. All of this talk about digitization got us to thinking: do traditional paper books have a future? Or, will more and more of us migrate to e-readers like Amazon's Kindle, Sony's e-reader, or...Apple's iPhone? It's a question worthy of discussion, and so we've got an in-depth report on what lies ahead for e-publishing. You'll be shocked to learn that some people think paper will vanish as a medium for publishing in the next 50 years, which others scoff and say that our attachment to the printed page is too strong for that to happen. One question sent in by podcast listener John Kapitzky struck me as pertinent here: "Will the e-book reader I have in 30 years be capable of reading the e-book I buy today, or will I have to keep buying new e-editions of books that I like?" It's a good question for a future podcast, methinks.

Moving on, we also take a look at some very cool software designed to help folks get around Internet filtering technologies. It's called Psiphon, and its brought to you by the same people who track online censorship around the world, the OpenNet Initiative, which WTP has covered before, most recently here and here. We have an interview with one of Psiphon's engineers, Nart Villeneuve.

And we end with Yahoo's Purple Pedals project. Take a look at what happens when you outfit some purple bikes with a webcam and geo-location software, and then let them loose in the world:

Yahoo! Bike goes to Tanzania with Baisikeli from Henrik Mortensen on Vimeo.

Remember, WTP is on Twitter and Facebook, if you're socially inclined.

(Kindle screengrab from Wikimedia Commons)

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Technology Podcast 240: Pirate Bay Founders in the Brig, Obama's Tech Policy, and Robots, Robots, Robots!

April 21, 2009

OK, there's no messing about with Technology Podcast 240 from PRI's The World. We know what you've come here for -- robots. The BBC sent me along to the RoboBusiness 2009 Conference and Expo here in Boston recently. There were some fascinating 'bots on display, including this little number, which is called a WAM arm. There was a lot of talk at the conference about the markets that are driving robotic advances. The first is an aging world population that will need extra care, the kind of care that maybe only robots will be able to provide. The other big market driver, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the military. Robots are already seeing action in Iraq and Afganistan, and by all accounts there will be more 'bots seeing even more action in the coming years. The podcast includes an audio segment I did for The World on the conference. But you want to see the robots, don't you?

This week's podcast also includes an in-depth look at a Swedish court's decision to jail and fine the founders of a website called The Pirate Bay. We start with an explainer on what, exactly, the Pirate Bay website does and does not do, and then have analysis on the global implications of the court's decision.

And somewhere in there we also talk about President Obama's pick to be the government's Chief Information Officer. His name is Vivek Kundra, and his appointment did not come without a touch of controversy. The conversation also strays, strangely enough, into politics. Obama depended heavily on tech tools during the campaign. Now that he's in Washington, he's set up a White House blog and Twitter account. But are these technologies really making a difference when it comes to ways US citizens communicate with their leaders? We include a couple of very good clips from Phil Noble, founder of a website called Politics Online.

Technology Podcast 239: Twitter Revolution in Moldova?, Urban Pac-Man, Spies in the Electricity Grid?, Extremist Websites, A Winning Solar Oven, and GoogleLitTrips

April 13, 2009

Some weeks it is very hard to pull out one story from the Technology Podcast to feature front and center on the blog. After all, this week we run a wide tech gamut, featuring everything from writer Evgeny Morozov talking about the so-called "Twitter Revolution" in Moldova to Urban Pac-Man on the streets of Lyon, France. But for my money, the worthiest little story this week is about a solar oven, or "cooker" as the Brits would call it. It's called the Kyoto Box, and it recently took first prize for "green ideas" in a competition run by an organization called Forum for the Future. Solar ovens, which use sunlight to cook food or boil water, are not a new idea. But the Kyoto Box may be a game-changer because...well, they've kept the cost down by making it of cardboard. Yep, cardboard. We have an interview with the Kenya-based inventor of the Kyoto Box, Jon Bohmer. He tells us that he feels widespead use of the Kyoto Box would cut down on the burning of wood and other fossil fuels in resource-deprived parts of the world. Advantages: no carcinogenic wood smoke to be inhaled, or to contribute to global warming. Disadvantage: can cardboard really work as a cooker without catching on fire? Ah....listen in to find out.

There are also a couple of interesting, and potentially scary, security-related items in this week's podcast. We hear about the  growing cyber-threats to America's electricity grid, and also about how extremist groups are using US servers to host their websites.

At the end, we lighten things up a bit. Jerome Burg is a retired teacher living in northern California. For more than 35 years, he taught high school English and tried to avoid chaperoning dances by also teaching technology to the school's journalism students. Then, a few years back, he was at Google headquarters learning about Google Earth, and it hit him: why not use Google Earth's different tools to help "three-dimensionalize" great works of literature? You know, add pictures, notes, geographical details, etc. Yeah, not bad, is it? And that's how Burg came to create GoogleLitTrips was born. The site recently won the 2008 Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize for Excellence in International Education.

Oh, and just because you know you secretly just HAVE to see this...video from Urban Pac-Man in Lyon, France:

Pacman@Lyon - Pacman Urbain
by Glaboin

(Screen grab from Kyoto Energy website)

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Discovery Wide Angle: Sensor Gloves Help Light the Way for the Elderly

April 08, 2009

As Europe's population ages, more and more research, and money, is going toward finding ways to help the elderly feel better, and take care of themselves, for longer. It turns out that light and lighting can play a huge role in the health of older people. It can affect sleep quality, changes of mood and cognitive performance. And so the European Union has given more than two and half million dollars to a project called Ambient Lighting Assistance for an Ageing Population, also known as ALADIN. A group of research universities and companies across Europe are trying to find ways to help older folks' circadian rhythms stay intact. And it revolves around the bio-sensor glove you see here. For this Wide Angle podcast, I speak with Walter Ritter, a research assistant at the University of Applied Sciences Vorarlberg in Austria. He began by explaining how and why light is so important to our health:

It might also help to see a graphic representation of how it works, so here it is.
 (Photo courtesy of Edith Maier. Graphic from ALADIN website)