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The Harrow Technology Report
Insight,
analysis, and commentary on the
Copyright © 2001-2005, Jeffrey R. Harrow. All rights
reserved.
The 'Star Trek' Among Us.
LISTEN To This Issue.
Quote of the Week.
How Star Trek Has Charted Our Course!
MEMS At Work.
Wireless Chips?
Insights Into The "Email Troubles."
From Out of the Ether...
You Know It's Tough When... LISTEN To This Issue.Do you prefer to let your ears do the work of keeping you in-touch with, and thinking about where technology is taking us? If so, "The Harrow Technology Report" is also available in an audio-on-demand, Web-based, MP3 version. If you have an MP3 player on your system (and most do, such as Window's Media Player, RealPlayer, etc.), clicking on the link below will either stream the file to you, or, depending on how your system is configured, it might download the file before playing it. Alternatively, if you specifically want to download the file, simply right-click on the link, and choose "Save Target As..." Also, to learn how you can listen at whatever speed is most comfortable to you, check out the FAQ at http://www.theharrowgroup.com/help.htm . So, if you wish, just click on the following link to listen to this issue! http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/20021021/20021021.mp3 .
Quote of the Week."[Software improvements are] not as sexy as hardware improvements. But one thing I have noticed is that unless there is software that uses the capacity of that hardware to do interesting things, it sits idle."
John Robb How Star Trek Has Charted Our Course!
Many times in the past, we've discussed my strong belief that science fiction, even what seems outrageous at the time, ends up having a profound effect on scientists' and engineers' thinking, and so on their work. Although these sci fi readers 'know' that the inventions in these stories aren't real, I believe that readers (and sci fi movie goers) who are constantly being exposed to future possibilities, run a "background task" that keeps them thinking about how such a device or technique just MAY be possible. And so they eventually just figure out how to 'make it so.' Stephen Hawking admits to being a Trekkie; roboticists at the famed Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) said, "...they had been motivated to pursue their work in artificial intelligence and robotics by Star Trek... It's those stories that get you thinking, 'Wouldn't it be cool to be one of the people that makes things like that REALLY possible!'" And Neil Gershenfeld, Director of the Things That Think Research Consortium at the equally famed MIT Media Lab, commented on the, "...curious connection between Star Trek and much of the work being done at the lab... The number of times that we've realized that we are inventing something here in the lab from Star Trek is spooky. One possibility I suppose is that ideas planted by watching the show are somehow subconsciously guiding the ideas we pursue..." Do you see a pattern here? As technology moves forward, these (and many more) innovative people are always looking at how to 'make it so.' For example, consider Motorola's StarTAC cell phone. It was every Trekkie's dream "toy" because it embodied the shape, portability, and most of the functionality (except for acting as a target for transporters - yet) of Star Trek's famed "Communicator." And so Motorola just 'made it so.'
Star Trek
Communicator vs. Motorola StarTAC -- Expanding far beyond this example, "Captain Kirk"
(William Shatner) and sci fi author Chip Walter have
just published a book that squarely addresses how
Star Trek has fueled advances in technology, titled
"Star Trek: I'm Working on That: A Trek from Science
Fiction to Science Fact," ISBN: 067104737X, "Shatner bares his
deep-seated trepidation vis-a-vis all things digital
in this breezy peek at the reciprocal effects that
Star Trek (and its offspring), and serious
scientific research, have exerted on one another
over the past 35 years. This book makes for
some thoughtful reading, especially in light of our
discussions of Ian Pearson's paper at
http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/ (The only things I
didn't like about the book was Shatner referring to
himself as "Bill," and the constantly
self-deprecating style that he used, making no (er)
bones that he considers himself a Luddite. While I
appreciate that this is to support the
clearly-stated caution that this isn't a deep
scientific tome, I mean come on -- we ARE talking
with Captain Kirk here, and It Just Doesn't Seem
Right!) Don't
Blink! Because the best sci fi authors are
certainly NOT blinking, as they continue to (subtly
or directly) direct current and future scientists
towards new, "outrageous" goals.
MEMS At Work.
No, this isn't a misspelled
exposé of that famous Australian band
(http://www.legacyrecordings.com/menatwork/),
nor is the first picture (below) very good (since it
was captured from a live video feed -
(http://mems.sandia.gov/scripts/memscam.asp).
But you might excuse the picture quality when you
realize that the fuzzy objects are a WORKING
gear train (a small gear in the upper-right, meshing
with a much larger gear below it) running on nothing
but electrostatic force, and whose teeth are each
the size of a single red blood cell!! This comparative
"still" photomicrograph of just the upper "small
gear" makes things all too clear: "Imagine a machine so small that it is imperceptible to the human eye. Imagine working machines with gears no bigger than a grain of pollen. Imagine these machines being batch fabricated tens of thousands at a time, at a cost of only a few pennies each. Imagine a realm where the world of design is turned upside down, and the seemingly impossible suddenly becomes easy. A place where gravity and inertia are no longer important, but the effects of atomic forces and surface science dominate. Welcome to the microdomain, a world now occupied by an explosive new technology known as MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) or, more simply, micromachines." Years-old quote from Sandia National Labs, http://www.sandia.gov/mstc/technologies/micromachines/vision.html .
Oh -- and these gears have demonstrated an endurance record of over 7 Billion revolutions! (This is the equivalent of your car engine taking five round trips -- to the moon.) Is there a practical application for this micromotor? Perhaps not yet. But "yet" is the operative word, since most initial laboratory prototypes simply prove a point, which then leads to practical inventions. And considering that elements of this machine are at the scale of living human cells, I suspect that the convergence of NBIC (Nanotechnology, Biology & medicine, Information sciences, and Cognitive sciences) might be very interesting, indeed. (For example, I wonder if doctors might be interested in a machine to filter blood at the cellular level, or perhaps to PUMP blood cells around, or...) Again, Don't Blink!
Wireless Chips?
Descending even farther down the size scale, you
may have heard of "quantum mirages." And you may
even have seen some of the striking pictures (not
illustrations) that show how a ring of atoms can act
like a cage to contain electrons. In a similar manner, innovative thinkers at IBM Research now believe that this "wireless" transmission of information at the atomic level (between two foci of an elliptical cage) might eventually enable them to bypass the wires currently needed to carry signals within a chip! (Even the tiniest wires are becoming too big in the face of Moore's Law's shrinking of transistors.) "With today's silicon chips, the tiny wires that carry information between transistors must be separated, so they don't overheat and short. As chips get smaller and faster, keeping the wires apart becomes nearly impossible. With Quantum Mirage, chips can be significantly smaller and denser, because the system can send data without wires." Which is a rather unique application of "wireless." And that is more than a little cool. Check out
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/almaden/media/image_mirage.html
for additional pictures of quantum mirages,
plus
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/wwwr_thinkresearch. Insights Into The "Email Troubles."
For the past three issues, you've been treated to either more than you want or less than you want of "The Harrow Technology Report," and/or you've received a BOGUS v-i-r-u-s alert that appeared to come from this source. Although occurring one after the other and generating VAST frustration to both you and to me, my Email provider believes (hopes!!) that this is now behind us. So I believe a brief explanation is in order both to set things straight, and to highlight just how fragile our wonderful global Internet and its Email system actually is (and that's not unusual for a complex system that grew organically without any guidelines.) 1) The first event (three issues ago, when you received four to five copies of the issue), was due to a disk that ran out of sufficient space to hold the temporary work files for the Emailing process. This was a condition that an element in the mailing program didn't check for. Disk space will no
longer be an issue. (In general though, while it
feels good to have identified and addressed this
problem, this is a classic example of why programs
have bugs -- there are a HUGE number of rather
improbable ways that a program can get into trouble,
and it's usually beyond human capabilities (or at
least economic realities) to truly identify every
possible contingency in advance.) 2)
Last issue, you probably received two copies
of that issue. Although seemingly similar to the
previous problem, this was limited to two (not five)
issues, and actually resulted from a very different
problem -- for some reason, a duplicate Email
process ran along with the intended one, with each
process doing exactly what it was supposed to do --
send out one issue to each of you. So you got two.
This problem, too, has now been addressed. 3) Last week, between issues, you likely received an Email ostensibly coming from this source, with a title of "Failed to clean v-i-r-u-s file Sample.exe". As I mentioned in the note I sent out once I found this was happening, this did NOT originate from me, and in fact it did NOT contain the payload file it indicated. Based on our best
analysis, it appears that a combination of events
allowed this to happen. First, some subscriber to
this Report was apparently infected with a "The worm uses these email address for the To: and the From: addresses [of the "infecting" Emails that it's preparing to send to everyone you've had Email contact with.]. Thus, mail sent from the infected computer will appear to have been sent by the people whose addresses have been found by N-i-m-d-a, not by the person whose computer is infected." Which is what happened. Normally, this would not have sent the message to YOU, since the subscriber list is never sent out as a part of the message that reaches you. In this case, however, this v-i-r-u-s-generated-message found its way through an unintentional back door in my Email provider's Email system (which has since been slammed shut!), and triggered the message to be sent to each of you by the Email software. Note though, that because this Email system never forwards attachments, the infected "attachment" that was originally part of the message from the first infected computer, was never actually sent to you. (The good news is that you only received ONE copy of that nasty message, so the previous 'fixes' have apparently worked!)
Take Aways. · Even with great care, there will always be "missed things" when it comes to programming. Until we turn programming from it current "black art" into a "science" where every contingency in the program and within the system it's operating in can be checked and handled correctly, bugs will continue to be a fact of virtual life. · Good anti-v-i-r-u-s protection on EVERY computer is really not optional. These nasty bugs are getting so sophisticated that the mere act of previewing an infected Email message can mean you're infected, and will then unknowingly infect your friends and associates. · Get, use, and keep current, an anti-v-i-r-u-s system that not only checks incoming Emails, but also filters your OUTGOING Emails to catch any potential threat coming out of your system.
·
Finally, while desktop publishing to
the Internet is a wonderful thing, there were a few
advantages to nice, simple, snail-mail
publications... In the same vein, reader "Nigel" points out: "In 2, 5 or 10 year's time, imagine how difficult it will be to solve these sorts of problems. The level of complexity of modern software is completely mind-boggling, its connectivity is awesome. And yet it all appears quite brittle. There seems to be an underlying theme that as things become more complicated, the methods of failure become more diverse and harder to understand and track down. Even though Moore's Law may cause complexity to increase, maybe there is another law which prevents this law from continuing forever. Maybe there is a Law of Brittleness? A law which states that as systems become more complex, the chance of catastrophic failure increase at a greater rate... And of course as things get faster and further beyond direct human control, when things go wrong, they go wrong very fast, and in ways that humans can't readily comprehend." It has certainly recently felt that way to me. Hopefully, THIS issue has found its way to you safe, and sound, and singly! J
From Out of the Ether...
Life In The Fast Lane - A Competitive
Advantage Too Significant To Ignore? --
Commenting on our recent discussion of how
technology is already, to a small extent, changing
the human form (http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/
"I found the discussion of the computer's
evolution interesting. But why does everyone assume
that the computer will ultimately evolve separate
from us? Why not jointly with us? Is it too
implausible that the day might come when machine and
man become one? With the advances of
bio-engineering and nanotechnology, I don't think it
is. - No more computers, telecommunication devices - they are bio-integrated and always available. - Full life recording - What you experience visually and aurally is recorded. Storage is more than capable of handling the load. Witness accounts are now rock solid, and can even be extracted from the dead. People have a very compelling reason to "be good". - Longer, better life - body functions are monitored and maintained (and even improved) via nano-probes. The "integrated" enjoy the protection afforded by a nano-dermal-network of super efficient solar energy collectors and force field generators capable of repelling a bullet, of containing an environment, and of insulating against extreme temperatures. What if this network also provided a powerful means of propulsion, through air or underwater (without any vehicle)? The day could easily come, that the non-integrated suffer a tremendous competitive disadvantage to the integrated. Man is poised to seize control of his own evolution (for better or for worse). I'm sure I have only touched on a -few- possibilities and -very- few ramifications (both good and bad). I guess I see our intelligence making a quantum leap to evolving exponentially along with the computers that will be bio-integrated. It should be an interesting ride. I used to think that I would not see it in my day (I'm only 35), but I'm not so sure anymore. Enjoy your articles. Keep up the great work." Serious "competitive advantage" could easily overcome peoples' reluctance to accept even invasive "accessories." Consider how, on a less personally-invasive note, the telephone was initially received in British society in 1876: Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer of the British Post Office, said, "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." He simply couldn't imagine how anything could, or would need to, replace the gaggle of messenger boys that kept information flowing between British businesses. Of course, the moment that the second British business installed a telephone, the die was cast.
I wouldn't bet against
this same thing happening again, and again... Your Feedback is Important!
I'd like to understand your interest in The Harrow Technology Report, how you make use of it, and the value you feel it provides to you, your career, and to your company. Please send your comments to me at Jeff@TheHarrowGroup.com . I look forward to hearing from you! And, if you know of other folks who might find value in "The Harrow Technology Report," I'd appreciate your letting them know that they can subscribe at http://www.theharrowgroup.com/signup.asp . Jeff Harrow
You Know It's Tough When...
Finally, lawyers are used to competition. Especially for trial lawyers, competing and winning is the name of the game. But who'd have thought that they'd now be turning to the Internet and eBay to bid against each other for the evidence they need for trial? It's a new twist on the old legal game, where, according to the July 21 Mercury News (http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3710149.htm), one attorney recently paid $2,125 for an old Navy manual that described how asbestos was used aboard ship; details that they felt would be crucial to their asbestos-related case. Another lawyer recently bid for a collection of old cigarette ads, to use them as demonstrations of how they enticed people to become smokers. I wonder when eBay will be adding an "evidence" keyword, since trolling for evidence seems likely to be a growth industry. Consider these comments from lawyers who are already taking the "evidence acquisition tack" across eBay's high seas, "[eBay is] a virtual time capsule, [holding] out a seemingly endless supply of commercial and household artifacts, historic corporate documents, maintenance manuals and product catalogs that can help asbestos lawyers pin down where clients encountered the hazardous material -- and who can be held liable. 'There is no better place to shop and buy real evidence than on eBay,' says attorney Mark Lanier." Stanford University law professor Deborah Hensler, saying "Wow!" when she was first told of this relatively new phenomenon, agreed that, "Technology is changing the dynamics of litigation." Which of course should not surprise any of us -- technology is changing almost everything. But I wonder what Perry Mason might have thought... Nevertheless, some Sunday afternoon I may have to search out what random "smoking gun" might be hiding in my attic; perhaps it could become the object of a "Price is Right" game, eBay style! J
About "The Harrow Technology Report."
"The Harrow Technology Report" explores the innovations and trends of many contemporary and emerging technologies, and then draws some less than obvious connections between them, to help us each survive and prosper in the Knowledge Age. "The Harrow Technology Report" is brought to you by Jeffrey R. Harrow, Principal of The Harrow Group. http://www.TheHarrowGroup.com . Where To Find "The Harrow Technology Report:"
Copyright (c) 2001-2005, Jeffrey R. Harrow. All
rights reserved.
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