I’m sure all of you are familiar with the M.C. Escher’s surreal lithograph called “Drawing Hands”. If the artist or the artwork’s name does not ring a bell, it’s this one:
See? I told you you’ve seen it before.
This iconic lithograph was first printed in 1948.
Sixty-four years after, Shane Willis gives us this transhumanist version:
Both the original and the futuristic versions are very cool!
William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer is being adapted to the big screen. A lot of cyberpunk fans (including me) feel excited but at the same time nervous about how the movie will turn out. If there’s any novel that pretty much defines ‘cyberpunk’, it is Neuromancer, so I really hope the people behind the movie will do the book justice.
I’m quite intrigued if the movie’s aesthetics will feature future as we envision it today or if it will reflect how the future was imagined during the 80s (when the book came out). There are also rumors since July that Mark Wahlberg and Liam Neeson had been offered major roles in the movie, with Wahlberg possibly playing the main guy, Case. I am hoping that there was just a misunderstanding of some sort and that Wahlberg will be playing another character, because he is much too old and buff to be Case. Case is a 24-year old hacker, for crying out loud!
Anyway, comingsoon.net posted the movie’s teaser poster from the American Film Market (AFM) event.
Some governments and their policies regarding Internet pornography.
Australia
The Australian government has abandoned a proposed mandatory nationwide Internet filter banning child pornography, extreme violence, and detailed instructions related to crime, drugs, and terrorism. Instead of the filter, Internet service providers have agreed to block child pornography based on Interpol’s list containing 1,400 Web sites.
Anti-censorship advocates welcomed the decision but are still doubtful that blocking kiddie porn Web sites would be effective, as they believe child abuse materials are not traded on the open Web.
Egypt
Photo: Piast | Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Egypt’s Prosecutor General, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, ordered government authorities to ban Internet porn, based on a 2009 court ruling that said “freedom of expression and public rights should be restricted by maintaining the fundamentals of religion, morality and patriotism.”
According to Reuters, Mahmoud wanted the government ministries to block “corrupting pornographic pictures or scenes inconsistent with the values and traditions of the Egyptian people and the higher interests of the state.”
Some people fear that the porn ban is just the start of a crackdown on their other freedoms.
Indonesia
Indonesia intensified its online pornography ban during Ramadan earlier this year, shuttering more than a million pornographic Web sites, according to the Times of India. Previously, Research In Motion, the company that makes BlackBerry phones, was threatened by the government for not blocking porn access in its devices. The phone company complied by developing a filter for Blackberry users located in Indonesia.
Russia
Russia, meanwhile, has a newly-created register which aims to fight child pornography. The register is maintained by Roskomnadzor, the nation’s communications regulator.
Aside from child porn, Web sites that detail instructions on how to manufacture, use or procure drugs and those that describe methods on how to commit suicide are included in the blacklist.
Under the new Internet filtering law that went into effect last November 1, Web sites are given by Russian authorities three days to remove the illegal content before the sites can be blocked.
Critics of President Vladimir Putin are concerned that the law is a way for the government to suppress dissent.
As passwords become easier and easier to hack with powerful computers, researchers are now looking at new ways to secure access to things and information. Two candidates are your eye movement and your heartbeat.
It is believed that a person’s exact manner of moving his eyes around is unique, like fingerprints. Oleg Komogortsev, a computer scientist from Texas State University-San Marcus, is working on a system that will identify the way eyes flicker when looking into a camera.
In the past, researchers have found that iris scanning alone is not enough to secure a device. Intruders can still get in using printed contacts or a high-quality image of an authorized person’s eye. In the movies, sometimes there is even eye gouging involved. Adding an eye movement sensor to iris scanners can prevent these exploits.
To determine the uniqueness of a person’s eye, Komogortsev’s system takes into consideration a person’s lingering gaze over particular points on the screen as well as the movements between these points. Whether someone’s eye movement patterns stay the same as he ages is still under study.
A working prototype of Komogortsev’s system will take at least three years to be developed. Once available, the system can be improved to determine a user’s physical health or emotional well-being, not just identity.
The heartbeat ID, meanwhile, is embedded into the device and the heartbeats are measured through the fingertips when the user holds the device with both hands. Such finger sensors have already been developed so heartbeat IDs are ready for use.
University of Toronto engineer Foteini Agrafioti says, the “ECG biometrics identifies people by their cardiac rhythm. Not just their heart rate, but the actual shape of their heartbeat.” According to the engineers, the exact shape of a person’s ECG spikes is unique, even when he is excited or exercising or as he ages.
Agrafioti has created a key card that can be used for non-critical situations. For high-security uses, the ECG system can be combined with fingerprint scanners and other identity verification systems.
First, the good news.
A study presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2012 discussed an experimental device that can harness the energy from a beating heart to power a pacemaker. The device uses piezoelectricity generated from the motion of the heart. The lead author of the study is M. Amin Karami, Ph.D., a research fellow in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Currently, those who use pacemakers have to undergo surgery every 5-7 years to replace their pacemakers once the batteries run out. With the device being developed by Karami and his group, such surgeries are eliminated.
The use of piezoelectricity is promising since pacemakers only need small amounts of power to operate. Piezoelectricity can also possibly be used for other low-powered implantable cardiac devices such as defibrillators.
The energy harvester prototype developed by Karami’s team can generate more than 10 times the required power and accommodate heart rate changes. It is also not affected by cell phones, microwave ovens, and other similar devices.
Now, the bad news….
According to Jack Barnaby, director of embedded device security of IOActive, pacemakers sold since 2006 can be hacked due to software flaws of the wireless transmitters used to instruct these pacemakers. Through this vulnerability, the hacker can remotely deliver a fatal 830-volt shock to the victim. Worse, a malware can be introduced to the servers to infect multiple devices.
Barnaby did not identify any specific medical vendors but he has notified them of the problem. I hope this vulnerability gets fixed real soon since in the USA alone, more than four million pacemakers were sold in 2006-2011.
In the recent launch of EE, Britain’s first 4G mobile network, Nicole Scherzinger arrived wearing a Twitter dress.
The dress was made from 8m of French silk chiffon, with around 500 Swarovski crystals and 2000 LED lights. The lights displayed tweets sent to the Twitter account @EE and the hashtag #tweetthedress. The dress was created by CuteCircuit, a London-based group specializing in wearable technology. CuteCircuit previously outfitted Katy Perry and U2. The dress can be recharged via USB.
You can see the Twitter dress in this video:
