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...

February 25, 2010

• The title of this article is fairly overblown and self-important, but this is pretty neat technology. That it can work with sensors to allow for even greater variety is even better. Its easy to be sceptical of just how many people would be willing to get such tattoos beyond the people that already get them. The allure of changeability certainly will garner some greater level of converts. The ability to turn them off is a definite boon. Having explored the idea of moving advertisements myself, I question the timeline I had set out, which revolves back to who wants these as implants compared to those who can remain "pure" human and wear whatever versions of these they wish. The eye implant idea was definitely a nice touch, but again given the upgrade cycle, malfunctions, and other factors, do you really want these as implants? Watching the video begs the question, what kind of sensation is involved in the changing of the tattoo? What sensation can be created on purpose, which makes the events in that video even more provocative.

• Subtitle: Panda Case Offers Inside Look at Underworld of Chinese Hacking
  This is a look at hackers in China and something of the business side of their culture. The compartmentalised nature, the building block structure of the programs, and the satellite of marketplaces for hacker paraphernalia are said to be unique to Chinese hackers, but that is no longer exactly the case. Still, the amount of detail here is inspiring for writing projects dealing with hackers, offers a look at the culture of these people (though as said the actual work end, not necessarily the mindset and customs of the hackers themselves), and hints at how this all useful to the cultivation of government spy hackers. {Ref#12 - HFK/SSH}

• Subtitle: The Myth of the Techno-Utopia
  The gist that a free Internet will lead to democracy in dictatorships is alluring but likely a false hope. This article looks at that delving into ideas such as government monitoring (causing fear to keep people silent), blocking service and isolating groups, insinuating itself into the online worlds with propaganda (including tainting the other sides rhetoric either to weaken it or cause internal friction) and ideas such as China's 50 Cent Army that skew the usefulness of social capital. The article covers a lot more as well. {Ref#11 - HFK/SSH}

January 28, 2010

• This is the answer to a number of problem issues. It related to 1) below and is another avenue of thought to be followed. It answers one of the questions I had about private communication in the future as well as other issues such as future interfaces. It has application in man-machine interfaces whether gadgetry, vehicles, or cybernetics, as well as a powerful impact on voice recognition without actually requiring the voice, which solves the problem of how do you interact with audio or video while still working with voice recognition. {Ref#10 - HFK}

• These tiny robots are pretty exciting but not enough is said about the swarm programming and functionality, except of course the juicy tidbit about light pulses to instruct large numbers of the swarm's members. Collaboration is the key, but such tiny limited software machines will require a larger more powerful processor with a broad view of the project to delegate functions. Whenever nanotechnology and replication come up the threat of grey goo comes up, which can only be furthered by quality hive behaviour, but hindered by the overview processor.

• Muscle controlled computer systems honestly aren't that exciting any more. If a system with a camera or two can recognise gestures then this idea is already obsolete. What's interesting about this avenue of research is in the field of cybernetics and prosthetics. Similarly it could be interesting for telemetric control of robots and other human-machine representatives and surrogates. There though it again falls behind the possibilities of picking up the required signals from the brain. Still, this could be useful in an intermediate time period/setting between these methods of control.

December 10, 2009

• The most Terminator-like robot is the Petman and it is pretty impressive just like the also fairly creepy and impressively agile Big Dog (if you can find the test on ice and snow video). Little Dog actually seems a little less useful given other small robots out there with varied forms of locomotion, including the RiSE following it in this article.

The 'Adding Real-Time Information' video at the bottom is the most interesting of the bunch, with the others being important if not as exciting steps in the advancement of augmented reality and applications of it. The data handling and extrapolation are a nice touch. As well, concerns of privacy are handled by the virtualisation of traffic and pedestrians. The environmental conditions are also an added bonus.

• This is pretty impressive for an early prototype in testing. The possibilities of this "jamming" process seem quite varied beyond those illustrated, and demonstrated in the video. The ability to navigate cramped and variable shaped spaces is particularly interesting. A good use for that might be rescue after an earthquake or other building collapse.

November 26, 2009

• This article is here more because of how it nicely details things rather than what it actually says. There is maybe some probative value to a writer, tech-head, etc, but really its kind of just a stepping stone. A symposium like this, and especially extrapolating on the demonstrations that could be a part of it make for a good setting and some nice possible minor plot options.

• Sometimes it's not about the technology or the research but about the content as is the case here. These things exist separately, but now they are coming together. The technology, the gadgets might be necessary to make it work, but these are hardly new things, again it about putting the items together in a new way, a way that is only going to grow in the future.

• This research program run down is quite interesting. Gesture computing, augmented views of the world, data packaging for best results. Lots of cool things rolled into one. It almost seems as if every day that goes by it must be coming closer and closer to fruition. The possibilities of such a set up are phenomenal for the military applications, but it will also trickle down past there to the consumer market where the possibilities just explode.

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