Year in Review: Robots Everywhere!

So a few of us folks from Nosedive Central went to go see "Bernie Mac" Rogers's latest, Universal Robots at the manhattantheatresource last night. This is not to be confused with 31 Down radio theater's production of a different play, also calledUnivseral Robots and also based loosely on Karel Capek's 1921 play, R.U.R.

I suggest you check it out, too. (Mac's play, that is. I haven't seen 31 Down radio theater's show.)

As is the case with almost all of his plays, Mac brings a whole lot of "meat" to Universal Robots, which is one of the most dense works I've seen for the stage since...well...his play, Hail Satan. Mac doesn't just dabble in ethical, theological, spiritual, scientific, philosophical and political themes throughout; he delves into all of them.

At once.

Thoroughly.

And I mean Thor. Ough. Ly.

Mac freely adapts Capek's aforementioned play, which introduced the word "robot" to the world, but departs significantly from Capek's script. Universal Robots tells an alternate history of the 20th Century, starting with the invention of the robot and chronicling the consequences of that invention and how said invention completely and permanently changes the world's timeline, and not necessarily for the best for humanity. Ulp.

In Universal Robots, a scientist (or rather, a scientist's wife who has gone insane and believes herself to be her scientist husband, but don't worry about that) figures out a way to make automatons, which tickles the imagination of the playwright Karel Capek, who has coincidentally just staged a play about introducing automatons into the world. Since Capek has the ear of the President of Czechoslovakia, he convinces President Masaryk to mass-produce these automatons to do the work nobody wants to do.

Then things go wrong.

Well..."wrong" isn't the right word. I suppose I should really write, "Things become inevitable."

It's part science fiction, part political allegory, part thriller, part redemptive tragedy, part spiritual parable and part historical fiction run amok. And let's face it: it's also part robots taking over the world awesomeness (a lovely genre).

Mac brought an excellent cast on board for this incredibly ambitious and fascinating show. In particular, Jason Howard as the simpleton waiter named Radosh who ends up being the template for Radius, the first robot, is amazing. He makes every line he speaks sound as if it's his own, even as a robot (when he plays Radius and first gets activated, I thought: "How the hell did he do that with his voice?").

Also thoroughly believable is James Wetzel, who plays the President of Czechoslovakia. I didn't watch him and think, "Well, he's playing that role effectively." I thought: "Yes, that's the President of Czechoslovakia."

Of course, singling these two actors out may seem like a slight to the rest of the cast. I don't intend that: everyone in this show is all very good and very believable.

I really could go on and on about Capek contemplating how playwrights engage in self-marginalization, President Masaryk stuck between the rock of wanting to keep Pandora's Box shut and the hard place of scientific progress being inevitable, or wondering if it's okay for pedophiles to molest or have sex with robots designed look like children (they're technically restraining themselves from hurting real children), but I'd rather let you see it all for yourself and not ruin it.

Seriously, folks. This play is brilliant.

Universal Robots is playing until July 19 at manhattantheatresource. For reservations call 212-501-4751.

Ready to fight the robots,

James "I'll Take 'Em" Comtois

Thanx:http://jamespeak.blogspot.com/

eCoupled wireless power demonstration at CES 2009

The U.S. based company “Fulton Innovation” has developed a technology that enables wirelessly charging electrical devices. The company demonstrated a series of products powered by “eCoupled Intelligent Wireless Power” at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las-Vegas. The engineers behind “eCoupled” say that the technology, which has been under development for the past ten years, enables low-cost and efficient wireless energy supply, which can be utilized “anywhere traditional power needs exist”.

eCoupled relies on a well known principle of physics called“inductive coupling” – a process in which energy is transferred from one circuit component to another through a shared magnetic field. This kind of power transmission isn’t limited to physically connected devices, since the change in the current flow of one device is caused by the influence of the other device on the magnetic field between them. Fulton’s technology consists of an inductively coupled power circuit that dynamically seeks resonance, continuously communicating with a primary supply circuit, which monitors each device within its control range and supplies it with the determined optimal amount of power to keep it at peak efficiency.

The scientists say eCoupled overcomes the limitations of spatial rigidity, static loads and unacceptable power losses often associated with wireless systems, intelligently adapting to multiple loads – from milliwatts to kilowatts, reportedly reaching energy transfer efficiencies of approximately 98%. At the CES, the company demonstrated the wireless transmission of 1.4 kilowatts, which is the maximum power transfer achieved by eCoupled to date. The technology is currently limited to a distance of about 2 centimeters, over which power can be transmitted without interfering with other short-range signals.

At the company’s booth at the CES, eCoupled was demonstrated on a variety of devices. Fulton showed how a small cradle with embedded eCoupled technology could wirelessly charge any electrical device that was placed in it, such as a cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, etc. A similar device lighted up a variety of light bulbs, from the traditional incandescent bulbs to halogen, fluorescent and neon bulbs. The company also showed off its “smart” tabletop, which was embedded with eCoupled technology and was able to supply power to about anything that was put on its surface - from heating up kettles and frying pans to charging laptops and lighting up light bulbs by selectively transmitting the exact amount of electricity required by each of these devices. “We envision that this becomes ubiquitous and the standard for providing power wirelessly in a whole variety of portable and not so portable devices” – said Dave Hazlett, Director of Business Development at Fulton Innovations.

One of the core issues the company focused on during the development stage was the safety of such wireless communications. Fulton has developed a unique identification protocol, which has the ability to authenticate any eCoupled-enabled device within its range. If the “base station” does not immediately recognize the component, it won’t supply it with power. The base station can also determine whether a certain device requires power at all – for example, if a given component is fully charged, the primary power supply will stop the energy transfer.

According to Fulton, eCoupled can be applied to all products that require electric power. In fact, this technology has already been used in Alticor’s eSpring water purification systems, which use ultraviolet light technology to remove contaminants and destroy bacteria and viruses that reside in tap water. eCoupled technology helped eSpring engineers solve some of the challenges they faced at the time, including the unwanted heating of the water, caused by the ultraviolet lamp. The technology allowed for high-powered wireless energy transfer to the lamp, reducing energy consumption and ambient heat.

Fulton is currently working on a technology that will allow the base station to be incorporated inside a desktop, so that eCoupled-connected devices could be charged simply by being placed over certain spots.

TFOT previously covered other wireless power transmission technologies, such as the wireless charging pad invented by "WildCharge", and a wireless power transmission method that was developed by MIT scientists. Using this method, the scientists succeeded to light a 60 watt light bulb wirelessly from a distance of about 2 meters. You can also check out the levitating wirelessly-powered light bulbpresented this year at the Sonar Exhibition in Barcelona by artist Jeff Lieberman from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

More on eCoupled's technology can be found on Fulton Innovation's official website. You can see several video demonstrations of eCoupled's technology on the following links:

Ecoupled Wireless Power

Links:
http://www.networkworld.com/video/

http://www.computerworld.com.au/videoview/273177

Multi-Touch Running On Hacked Google Phone

Hacker Luke Hutchison has successfully brought multi-touch to the T-Mobile G1 Googlephone. The video shows that it's a rather clunky implementation right now, but as Luke points out, this is v.1.0:

This is a proof of concept, people — of course it will be optimized over time — the fact it’s not done yet doesn’t mean it can’t be or won’t be. Apple’s engineers were paid mega moola to implement their bling, I was not.

How does it work? Luke has patched the Linux kernel of the Android OS to tweak the (Synaptics) touchpad driver. As this is a software only modification, we assume that the abilities to sense multiple fingers are built in to the hardware already.

You'll also need modified applications to take advantage of the new multitouch capabilities. Luke has provided a browser, a maps application, a photo viewer plus the vector-style demo app you see in the video.

Best of all, you don't need to do any hacking yourself. There's a downloadable, pre-patched version of the firmware available, ready to be installed. Proceed with caution -- you could kill your G-1, although you'll probably be fine. Right up until you get sick of the clunky zooming and throw the phone out the window at least.

Videos:

How to "hack" an iPhone in two easy steps

Just days after its release, the iPhone is already being “hacked” so that it doesn’t need to be connected to AT&T’s phone network, and it’s so easy, anyone can do it.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog’s iPhone guru Eric Sadun reports that by simply removing an iPhone’s SIM card, and replacing it with an inactive SIM card, you’ll have a “sixth-generation iPod” that allows you to access email and web via Wi-Fi, though obviously you won’t be able to make calls.

This “hack” still works even if you don’t have an inactive SIM card to replace the original card with, though Sadun says the iPhone “complains”. Sadun’s advice is to “Buy the iPhone using prepaid, activate, cancel, enjoy.”

However, before you follow Sadun’s advice, there are a couple of issues you should be aware of.

Buying a prepaid iPhone is not straight forward, since both Apple and AT&T really are pushing consumers onto two-year plans. Pre-paid iPhones are only available to people with bad credit histories (though Sadun offers a fix for this as well).

Also, there’s some talk that each time the iPhone’s system software is updated it’ll do a check to see whether the iPhone is actually activated as a phone.

Update: Hacker Jon Lech Johansen claims to have developed an iPhone activation server program. Warning - meddle with iPhone activation at your own risk.

Videos:

How to Hack iPhone 1.1.2 and 1.1.3 with ZiPhone

More Mobile Videos at 5min.com

how to hack 2.0.2, 2.0.1, 2.0.0 with winpwn2.5 pt1 of 2

thanx:http://tech.blorge.com/

more:http://www.iphonehacks.com/2007/07/hack-the-iphone.html

Cyber criminals find new victims on Facebook and MySpace

Cyber crime has been in existence for as long as the Internet existed. Basically, as soon as people see a new way of conning people, they latch on to it. But, because most of us are used to the threat from phishing emails, and respond accordingly, binning the attempted con immediately, criminals are looking elsewhere for their victims.

There cannot be an Internet-connected person left alive who hasn’t received some form of scam, normally via an email asking for your bank details or trying to persuade you to click on a bogus website. Luckily, most people are now educated and aware enough not to fall for such scams.

This has lead cyber criminals to look elsewhere for their potential targets, and social networks such as Facebook seem to be the new platform for their virtual mugging attempts. The Sydney Morning Herald reports the experience of Karina Wells, who found herself almost fooled by a request from a friend.

On Friday, Wells received a message from a friend on Facebook asking her for $500. This friend was supposedly stranded in Nigeria and needed the money to buy a ticket home. After several messages back and forth, Wells realized not all was as it seems because her friend was using Americanisms such as cellphone rather than mobile.

Realizing she was dealing with someone who had hijacked her friend’s account and was phishing for money and her bank details, she obtained all the details she could about the scammer before passing their details on to Facebook and the authorities.

Wells’ friend likely had his account hacked or inadvertently revealed his login details by way of a computer virus, but once the account was compromised it allowed the scammer to use personal details against the victims friends in an attempt at gaining their trust and persuading them to hand over money.

And Facebook can be used by scammers in other ways too. A simple and seemingly innocuous message can be sent to a list of friends containing a link or video which when clicked on takes the user to a dodgy website. And Facebook isn’t alone, with MySpace users absolutely bombarded with spam emails and phishing attempts.

Criminals, including those of the cyber variety, will always try and stay one step ahead of the law and law-abiding citizens knowledge of criminal activity. With less and less of us being caught out by email, and spam catching software becoming more intelligent, those nice Nigerian con artists have migrated to social networks. I wonder how many friends they have?

Videos:

Death on Facebook

MySpace Death

Teen's death prompts Facebook fight-Global Winnipeg-01/03/08

thanx:http://tech.blorge.com/

Underground internet black market flourishes

Symantec has recently released a document titled Report On The Underground Economy, detailing a global marketplace facilitating the trade in stolen goods and offering fraudulent services. Symantec estimates that the total values of goods and services offered in this online community is in the millions of dollars, much of it offered by individuals.

The Symantec STAR team, a global contingent of security engineers, threat analysts, and researchers, gathered the data for the report during the one-year period between July 2007 and June 2008. The STAR (Security Technology and Response) team is responsible for providing all of the context which underlies Symantec’s security offerings worldwide.

The data was gathered by surveying the servers that support the underground economy. The Star team determined that the value of all the goods and services offered in the underground Internet economy was approximately $276 million during the reporting period, based on the prices of offered items.

The variety of items on offer was astonishing, but there were some categories that stand out from the rest based on the quantities offered. The largest of these is credit card information, which accounted for over 30 percent of the total on-offer value. Based upon the credit limits of the cards for which information is available, the overall value of this card information was over $5 billion. There are so many numbers available that they are sold in bulk, with bonus information offered on large quantity purchases.

The second largest category is in a similar vein: stolen financial account information, primarily simple consumer bank account data. This information comprised about 20 percent of the underground goods available, and was worth approximately $1.7 billion over the year covered by the report. According to the report, it is possible for thieves to draw the cash out of one of these compromised accounts in as little as fifteen minutes.

It is astonishing that so much obviously illegal information is available so openly. How is it possible for these individuals and groups to operate so openly and still avoid detection and how can we stop them? Stephen Trilling, vice president of Symantec STAR, answers this way: “As evidenced by the report on the underground economy, today’s cybercriminals are thriving off of information they are gathering without permission from consumers and businesses. As these individuals and groups continue to devise new tools and techniques to defraud legitimate users around the globe, protection and mitigation against such attacks must become an international priority.”

thanx:
http://tech.blorge.com/

Should a Web site be held accountable for statutory rape?

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Making It Easy to Read Your Surroundings

Making It Easy to Read Your Surroundings [ PhotoShop ] pool pictures ...









more:http://www.worth1000.com/contest.asp?contest_id=19500&display=photoshop&page=5000#entries

Barack Obama Memorabilia

Barack Obama's historic victory has Americans seeking Obama autographs, trading cards, books and other items. One website collects the most popular Obama items on eBay and puts them in one central location.












more:http://www.obamaautographs.com/

Videos: