Technology and Privacy
Speech intention can be decoded from brainwaves
By cdharris at February 2, 2012 | 8:20 am | 0 Comment
UC Berkeley scientists have demonstrated a method to reconstruct words that a person may be thinking, by examining brainwaves using fMRI. The technique reported in PLoS Biology relies on gathering electrical signals directly from patients' brains, via implanted electrodes. Computer models reconstructed words/sounds from the signal patterns. Although the possible uses more...
Blog , Data Visualization , Emerging Science and Technology , Technology and Privacy
Scale wants to post weight chart to Facebook
By cdharris at September 2, 2011 | 8:47 pm | 0 Comment
My new scale at home -- a sleekly gorgeous black slab of glass -- asked me if I wanted to share my weight chart to my Facebook or Twitter friends.? Apart from that being a terrifying idea,? it also raises some interesting questions about the implications of widely sharing this kind of data online,? how wireless devices like this one will aggregate and store data, and more...
ISPs required to track all activity for a year
By cdharris at July 30, 2011 | 6:53 pm | 0 Comment
While ostensibly this bill passed in order to allow law enforcement improved ability to track child pornography activity online, it is extremely broad in scope. Essentially, internet service providers (ISPs) will now be required to keep extensive records on each customer and everything they do online, and maintain those records in a revolving annual cycle. Privacy more...
Cal-Adapt: Understanding California’s Climate Change Predictions
By cdharris at June 8, 2011 | 6:34 am | 0 Comment
UC Berkeley's Geospatial Innovation Facility -- with support from the Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) agency -- has developed a climate adaptation planning tool it is calling "Cal-Adapt" [cal-adapt.org.] The tool models climate change scenarios in a mapping format, including projections through 2099 for factors such as wildfire risk, sea-level rise more...
Cellphone Forensics
By cdharris at May 1, 2011 | 10:19 am | 0 Comment
Should police be allowed to analyze the data on your cellphone during an ordinary traffic stop? According to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) letter to the director of the Michigan State Police on April 13, that department has several forensic cellphone analyzers deployed in the field. Forensic analyzers are routinely used in police investigations to recover data more...
Visualizing Science Readers
By cdharris at December 8, 2010 | 2:25 pm | 0 Comment
Curious about what scientists might be reading?? Springer (noted publisher of more than 5 million scientific and academic titles) has launched a new analytics tool that reveals how its users and subscribers are downloading its content. There are a number of interactive visualization tools at the site,? including a world map illustrating the origin of download more...
Blog , Data Visualization , Datamining , Geolocation and Psychogeography , Media and Markets
Professor has camera surgically implanted
By cdharris at November 16, 2010 | 12:17 pm | 0 Comment
From Slashdot: NYU Professor Wafaa Bilal is having a camera surgically implanted in the back of his head. Described as an art project, the camera will take a photograph every minute for one year, and a curated selection of shots will be exhibited in a new museum opening in Qatar. Bilal will also release a live stream of images from the camera. Both NYU administrators more...
No Fun
By Rhizome.org Artwork at September 27, 2010 | 2:09 pm | 0 Comment
Reblogged from Rhizome.org:?? In "No Fun" Franco Mattes simulated his suicide in a public webcam-based chat room. Thousands of random people watched while he was hanging from the ceiling, swinging slowly, for hours. The video documentation of the performance is an unbelievable, at times very disturbing, sequence of reactions: some laugh, some are completely unmoved, more...
Billboards With Facial Recognition Tech Collect Demographic Data
By cdharris at July 19, 2010 | 6:22 pm | 0 Comment
A group of Japanese train stations are testing a new set of billboards with facial recognition technology. ?The billboards have been compared to the personalized signage in Minority Report. The stated goal of the project is to collect demographic data on people in the immediate area that are potentially exposed to the billboard's advertising. ? "The displays are part more...
Blog , Emerging Science and Technology , Media and Markets , Technology and Privacy
How the government uses psychiatric subcontractors
By Ilya Vedrashko at July 19, 2010 | 4:42 pm | 0 Comment
The Washington Post, as part of its investigation into subcontracting among the intelligence community,? released findings in the " Top Secret America" project.? It contains a list of 37 companies to which the intelligence community contracts some of its secret psychiatric-operations work.? The website of one contractor states "MeriTec Information Operations (IO) more...
Artistic License
By Rhizome.org Artwork at December 11, 2009 | 6:55 pm | 0 Comment
Produce your own customized Artistic License in a matter of minutes using your web browser. Instead of biometrics and radio frequency ID chips, Artistic License embraces freedom, collaboration, sharing, and imagination as keys to a more appealing modernity. Your Artistic License doesn't require you to look like yourself, and it does not impose factual restrictions. more...
We’re watching
By cdharris at October 18, 2008 | 1:23 pm | 0 Comment
A Canadian company has developed a technology called Eyebox2 that it says can monitor the gaze of passersby and respond to shifts in attention, even tracking multiple people at once, and even from more than 30 feet away.The company says the advertising potential is large, wherein outdoor or unconventional ad space could be sold "by the eyeball." In more...
Bioreactive Media , Blog , Data Visualization , Emerging Science and Technology , Geolocation and Psychogeography , Media and Markets , Technology and Privacy
Biometric + Digital Art at Venice Biennale
By cdharris at June 1, 2007 | 3:24 pm | 0 Comment
Didn't make it to the Venice Biennale, but if I were there, I wouldn't want to miss the installation by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer called "Pulse Room." 100 lightbulbs are connected to EKG sensors and thus are "controlled by the heartbeat of the public." The exhibit runs from June 10 - November 21 (2007) in the Palazzo Van more...
Bioreactive Media , Blog , Emerging Science and Technology , Technology and Art , Technology and Privacy
Scold Cams and Surveillance
By cdharris at April 28, 2007 | 2:01 pm | 0 Comment
Great Britain is already estimated to have installed CCTV cams at a ratio of about 1 camera for every 5 citizens.? Now some of the cameras are designed to detect certain conditions and direct the surveilled person to do an action.? Call them "scold more...
Using the GPS in your celphone for traffic reporting…
By cdharris at February 20, 2007 | 12:21 pm | 0 Comment
IntelliOne Technologies has just launched a real-world test of Need4Speed, a real-time traffic-monitoring system that tracks drivers' cell phones. From their website: 'Unlike any other solution available today, the IntelliOne Roadway Speed Measurement System produces live roadway speeds for all highways and surface streets where mobile phone coverage exists, accurate to more...
Blog , Data Visualization , Datamining , Technology and Privacy
