Category Archives: Tech

The Next Generation

Posted on April 26, 2002 | Leave a comment

Washingtonpost.com has a story about what biotechnology means to being post-human. While the article gets a little dorky at times, and the comic-book references somewhat over-the-top, it manages to penetrate well past the surface of what most articles would do. (And come on, admit it, how many of us have daydreamed well into our twenties about doing the kinds of things only comic book heros can do?) They reference a lot of good material, talk to John Kurzweil and Max Moore, and use the excellent Science Magazine issue on this subject for a lot of their material.

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Posted in Brain in a jar, Just for fun, Personal, Tech, The Future

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Electronic terrorism and anti-terrorism

Posted on April 26, 2002 | Leave a comment

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the CIA is warning of possible cyber-terrorism against U.S. and Taiwanese computer systems by the Chinese Army. The United States Secret Service is considering proactive defense strategies.

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Posted in Public Policy, Tech, The Future

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Connecticut To Store Biometric Information

Posted on April 17, 2002 | Leave a comment

I just got word that when I renew my driver’s license, I will have to submit to allowing the CT DMV to store biometric information, as well as smile for facial recognition software from Viisage to be able to continue driving. With national law enforcement agencies opening up their databases to each other, survailance systems such as cameras in public places will be able to identify my face and build a general path of the places I’ve been. Recordings of sufficient quality can probably be analyzed to build the path retroactively. Hmmm.

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Posted in Law, Public Policy, Rights, Tech, The Future

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W3C Approves Web Privacy Standard

Posted on April 17, 2002 | Leave a comment

The World Wide Web Consortium has approved the Platform for Privacy Preferences, or P3P, a standard that would allow browser software to automatically compare a user’s privacy preferences with the privacy policies of a visited web site.

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Posted in Media, Public Policy, Rights, Tech, The Future

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$24.5 Million Linux Supercomputer

Posted on April 17, 2002 | Leave a comment

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (US DOE) signed a $24.5 million dollar contract with HP for a Linux supercomputer. This will be one of the top ten fastest computers in the world. Some cool features: 8.3 Trillion Floating Point Operations per Second, 1.8 Terabytes of RAM, 170 Terabytes of disk, (including a 53 TB SAN), and 1400 Intel McKinley and Madison Processors. Nice quote: ‘Today’s announcement shows how HP has worked to help accelerate the shift from proprietary platforms to open architectures, which provide increased scalability, speed and functionality at a lower cost,’ said Rich DeMillo, vice president and chief technology officer at HP. Read Details of the announcement here or here. I think this is something we’re going to see a lot more of…

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Posted in Tech, The Future

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