Hello, I am Robert G. Male. Welcome to TechStop™. Here you will find links that I think are of interest. Furthermore these are links that I want to keep track of because they have given me either ideas or some other form of inspiration for my writing. Links are listed in order lowest to highest both in the date they are given and the order in which they appear (meaning: read them from the bottom up for a certain day's list). Some of these sites may require you to sign up for free. Without further ado, the links...

September 12, 2010

• This is a look at the potential of massive cities or metropolises including social, economic, and political. It speaks of how this is the future. There are links to projects, some of which are in the works for green cities and other kinds that are in surprising places (at this point in history anyway). It covers the wealth gap between the cities and the country side, the way the cities exert influence on and against the governments under which they were created. There are matters of efficiency, connectivity (both technological such as wired and wireless infrastructure, and cultural--spiritual as well depending on the society), and security. Cities align into groups such as alliances and federations to even greater influence harkening back to "trading and military powerhouse of the late Middle Ages, the Hanseatic League along the Baltic Sea." These groups can wield powers separate from their home nations removing the meanings of state and national lines, have private police forces in sections or even overall. They even "send delegates en masse to conferences and fairs where they can attract foreign investment." {Ref#13 - HFK/Th}

August 26, 2010

• This video shows something that appears to be the epitome of spiffy. It could be the basis of living spaces in the short term future or the accommodations of a spacecraft in any future time period. This is maybe a little more geeky sharing than story fodder, but the application of such space saving function can, as indicated by the designer responsible for this, evoke a different mood depending on the audience. This is a matter of does it lend a warm and efficient feeling to the inhabitants, affecting their mood which in turn affects the reader, or does it feel cold and cramped creating that sort of feel.

August 12, 2010

• This immediately draws comparison with the movie Minority Report as the software is expected to pinpoint terrorists before they strike using things they say and even what they don't say along with and using connections between people, events and ideas. This could be tasked to provide a lot of the necessary language, ontologies, grammar and such required for a semantic web that can assemble its information after the fact without programmers putting much of the intelligence within the data sources themselves. What's most interesting is synthesising information that isn't directly there, the predictive part of it. This presents so many implications across many disciplines beyond just thwarting evil.

  That first article further presents interesting avenues of thought regarding the perceived connection between Google and the CIA and--this is covered more in the second article--how corporations could leverage this, and all sorts of conspiracy ideas involving governments and countries' economies. As commenters to the first article mention, and the second as well, then comes the push and pull as people game the system and the system is tweaked by both sides in a perpetual complication spiral like many other arms races before them. Note also the immediate and wholly inaccurate jump that no one will ever consider secondary checking or looking for evidence to back up the predictions.

  Here is even a third article showcasing an existing implementation of such "predictive analytics"... ‘Minority Report’ technology used by police to predict crimes

  Quote of Interest:The company examines when and where these events happened (“spatial and temporal analysis”) and the tone of the document (“sentiment analysis”). Then it applies some artificial-intelligence algorithms to tease out connections between the players.

July 29, 2010

• Battlefield recreations would be a great inclusion. They could be watched in augmented reality at any time. Live shows could still be special events, though some might happen less often because of this. Once only battles could be staged in spots that would be disruptive to do too often, or done more virtually using data from the location to aid in green screen recreations so that these old battles could take place in modern settings. Just such a project is detailed at The Great Civil War Augmented Reality Project

July 15, 2010

• This article has sat in the queue for a while now, don't let the header fool you this is not QR codes or other augmented reality that requires a computer or camera. This is a video display built into the magazine. This is the future. The end of the article is correct, cost and power are prohibitive in this case, but how long will that remain the case? Particularly power? As far as advertising goes, having it come on when it is looked at, whenever, with no extra effort or gadgetry, or no way to turn it off aside from abandoning viewing the object on which the screen is embedded or attached is a very powerful thing. What is most exciting about this is not ads in magazines, but that this will fuel something more satisfying and sci-fi than the current tablet computers. I can't help but think of the sheet of paper with video and controls from that one episode of "Journeyman".

July 8, 2010

• This kind of research is interesting for sci-fi work as fiction and reality come ever closer. Sometimes though, reality comes up with items that are more interesting than their fiction counterparts. It is one thing to know that a particular portion of armour is damaged and use that as a protective/strategic measure, but to also take that damage (its kinetic energy) and gain benefit from it is significant. Also note that these sensors can also determine the calibre of bullet, which also has it's strategic importance. Exciting research.

June 17, 2010

• It's easy to dismiss those fixated children dying of dehydration or starvation or exhaustion playing video games until the drop. Pretty much the same for abhorrent parents letting a real child die while tending to an in-game child. What though of normal or more moderate tech addiction or just the annoying insatiable need to connect? This article covers the connection between instinctive habits that are beneficial in that context and the way it has been turned into a modern craving of more and more information or connection from the online world. The crux of the matter is the idea that the human brain is more easily stimulated than satisfied. The chase or the journey really is more important than the destination here.

June 3, 2010

• This is an article about the ability to save lives by GPS and tweets whether it is during a disaster or terrorism or crime. This is a good example of the utility of ubiquitous computing. Twitter itself is only important to the equation currently--unless of course it becomes permanent and integrated into the fabric of the Internet. The recent integration of location to tweets brings more use to this safety concept. The downfall of course is the need to have a device with GPS capability and in most cases the person to be conscious and coherent. Also take into consideration the misuses of this use of technology.

May 6, 2010

No Entries in May 2010

• There will be no new entries here until June. I have behind the scenes work to deal with. Sorry for the inconvenience.

April 29, 2010

• This is another step toward science fiction becoming reality. Thought projectors may be the first thought to comes to many, but that is an overt application and perhaps should be only a tip of the iceberg. More subtle devices and uses are the order of the day. Memory units, life blogging are only output uses. The next step to consider is reversing the process, then not only are the videos stored but returnable to the brain adding security, but also opening up new challenges in hacking. Don't forget at this point taking any video and feeding it to the brain as a memory (and not messing around with optic and auditory nerve implants).

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