[Prospective] Bruce Sterling's quote

in

Interesting Bruce Sterling quotes taken from this interview

NG: There seems to be a division between your work up to the mid-Eighties--usually set off Earth or in the past--and your output since then, which concentrates on the near future and the socio-cultural realities engendered by the information revolution. Was this a deliberate change in direction? What motivated it?

BS: Mostly I had a lot more information, and rather less imagination. Thanks to the Web and my work in journalism, I have tremendously good research material now. I can't go to the moons of Jupiter, but if I hear of something odd going on in Turkish Cyprus, I can easily pull some strings and go to Turkish Cyprus. Compared to Ganymede, it's a remarkably engaging place: trees, buildings, food, heroin smugglers, genocidal war crimes, it's more fantastic than one might give it credit for. And you've got to keep in mind: I'm 46 years old. Rocketing flights of world-shattering fancy tend to be a young guy's game.

[TheWorld] We are sorry you cannot access www.fvap.gov

in

Read in IHT, Pentagon blocks site for voters outside the US.

Internet service providers in at least 25 countries - including Yahoo Broadband in Japan, Wanadoo in France, BT Yahoo Broadband in Britain and Telefónica in Spain - have been denied access to the site of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, apparently to protect it from hackers. In an e-mail addressed to a person in France who had tried to access the Web site, the Federal Voting Assistance Program's Web manager, Susan Leader, wrote: “We are sorry you cannot access www.fvap.gov. Unfortunately, Wanadoo France has had its access blocked to U.S. government Web sites due to Wanadoo users constantly attempting to hack these sites. We do not expect the block to be lifted."

[Prospective] Wireless area in cities, who's gonna pay?

in

It is indeed a nice question, who is going to pay for wireless cities? Technology Review provides a good discussion of this issue.

One reason cities and towns appear eager to leap into the wireless fray is the inclination—and pressure—to serve their constituents. "Local governments very much want to be more citizen-friendly," says Joe Pisciot. (...) The wrinkle in the public-service spin on Wi-Fi is who will bear the cost for the service. The answer splits proponents into two camps, and both are problematic. On one side are those who see wireless broadband as a public amenity—a basic service that cities and towns should provide free to residents as they do, say, trash pickup. (...) In the other camp are those who eye Wi-Fi as a potential revenue generator. Proponents of this model say cities and towns could negotiate affordable residential Wi-Fi rates as part of the bundle of wireless broadband services they purchase for local government departments, such as fire, police, and schools. (...) "A town can make any argument it wants," says Frezza. "It has as much money as it can pull out of its taxpayers."

[LifeHack?] Ali G fooling techniques

in

Via Slate:

former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman (who conceded that, yes, whale feces "have got to be massive") and archconservative Patrick Buchanan (who said that Saddam Hussein "was using BLTs on the Kurds"). In one episode, Richard Kerr, a former deputy director of the CIA, found himself debating whether terrorists could drive a train into the White House.(...) How can so many supposedly media-savvy operators—even members of the intelligence community—still be so easily fooled? Don't these people have assistants with subscriptions to HBO or, at the very least, access to the outside world? These questions represent more than idle curiosity.

[Research] Workshop about designing, evaluating and using UbiComp

in

3rd UK-UbiNet Workshop: Designing, evaluating and using ubiquitous computing systems.

This workshop follows successful workshops in September 2003 and May 2004. This 3rd workshop aims to examine issues and research in the design, evaluation and use of ubiquitous computing systems. It will provide an overview of research in these areas within the UK, and support collaboration between different groups in the research community. (...)The workshop will be held over three days (afternoon of 9th to morning of 11th February 2005) at the University of Bath. The programme will consist of eight sessions covering a series of topics, based on the topics suggested above. Each session will open with an invited overview by a leading researcher in the field, followed by two selected presentations describing research projects in this area. These presentations will describe both research visions and actual experience and the sessions will be completed with a panel discussion. There will also be plenty of time for debate and networking.

[TheWorld] moving further geo-caching

in

A new game we should play! la feuille explains in his blog that he likes finding books that were previously sent to specific person by the editors (with a carefully written dedication of the author) in bookshops specialised in second-hand books.The game is simple: find those books and tell the author his gift has been sold! That could be a way to notice which are crap...

[Research] Positioning practices and mobile services

in

Alexandra Weilenmann's research agenda:

Location- and position-based services have been pointed out as one of the possible groundbreakers on the mobile market. The starting point for this project is to approach such services from a non-technological perspective, by investigating how people orient to situation, place and position as part of their everyday mobile talk-in-interaction. Using social science methods we analyze naturally occurring mobile phone conversations, and gain detailed insights in how people do positioning. Grounded in this understanding, we develop a number of guidelines for how technology should provide positioning in innovative, relevant, and perhaps fun ways. The next phase of the project is to design and implement prototypes, and evaluate these in realistic settings. The results will be of clear value to service providers, network providers, the research community and of course users of mobile technology.

[Weird] The KLF manual

in

For those of us who never quit listening to the justified ancient of mu-mu, the KLF manual is still online to remember how to behave ;)THE JUSTIFIED ANCIENTS OF MU MU REVEAL THEIR ZENARCHISTIC METHOD USE IN MAKING THE UNTHINKABLE HAPPEN (1988). This may be the agenda for any futuristic organization (start-up, electro band, ngo...) How much of this stuff could be used in PR?

[TheWorld] Swiss cows, virtual agents and government decisions

in

DO COWS improve the view? This question is seriously taken by the swiss government according to the economist. The question actually is rather how much do cows improve the view and where do they provide most value for money? One justification for the subsidy is that cows eat young trees, and fewer trees mean better vistas of the sort beloved by tourists.

To help answer these questions, Kai Nagel and his colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich, have developed computer models of the Alps and populated them with virtual tourists (or “autonomous agents” in computer-speak) that can wander the electronic landscape. The agents are programmed to behave, as far as possible, like real tourists, and to record their impressions as they go.

[Prospective] Supply and demands negotiated by autonomous agents

in

Agents of change by P. Thibodeau discusses a capitalist future in which supply and demand is negotiated on a minute-by-minute basis by autonomous agents.

Negotiation was one of the key agent capabilities tested at the conference's Trading Agent Competition. In one contest, computers ran simulations of agents assembling PCs. The agents were operating factories, managing inventories, negotiating with suppliers and buyers, and making decisions based on a range of variables, such as the risk of taking on a big order even if all the parts weren't available. If an agent made an error in judgment, the company could face financial penalties and order cancellations.