In Development: Detroit Diesel

So far American car manufacturers have been hesitant to adopt diesel for small cars. That might start to change as technology for clean diesel improves, the US continues to set high fleet standards for MPG, and the efficiency of diesel can sometimes far outdo that of petrol.

GM is planning to bring diesel into the US by having a diesel version of it's Chevrolet Cruze. It's rumored to be capable of 50 MPG and might hit showrooms in 2013.

Lines of Communication

This being more than a decade into a new century you'd think we'd have our jet packs and flying cars already. Or more importantly perhaps, weren't we all supposed to be working from home by now?

 

Telecommuting was supposed to be the future. And I see why corporate America doesn't switch over to that model (both for good and bad reasons). But one of the many drawbacks of working in an office together has to be the tendency to share news and information via word of mouth. This is good for informal chatter or tentative things you can't commit to official writing yet. But it also allows the important folks to procrastinate on making decisions. They can verbally tell a subordinate to go in one direction, and not have to take blame for switching course a few weeks or days or hours later.

 

It also means there's a plethora of emails that go unanswered. Both because people are slacking and not responding, but also because the official response that can be done in email becomes a lot more serious. It's the new memo or fax of today and while it doesn't always have to be formalized you know that, like what goes out on the internet, it will be there forever. Your words will be around and you will have to commit to what you wrote about or write a retraction email, the great shame giver.

 

But in my case it means waiting for direction and not getting it because once it's in writing it goes. And the higher ups may have their reasons for delaying, but it can be frustrating when you're dealing with an internal or external customer that expects an answer and you have to tell them your superiors are just sitting around ruminating on it rather than sending a quick yay or nay via email.

Social Networking Mistake or Clever Ploy?

There have been rumours about HP possibly adopting its own cloud infrastructure similar to the services Amazon provides (that were down not so long ago and shut down a lot of popualr sites and services). But HP has been pretty quiet on details or even admitting to developing it.

 

So when HP's interim VP of Engineering included it briefly on his public LinkedIn profile it caught a lot of attention: "Website and User/Developer Experience. Future HP "cloud" website including the public content and authenticated user content."

 

So what do we think, HP's clever way of sneaking some information into the public sphere without taking credit for it? Or bumbling pseudo-executive (let's see if he gets past interim) acting typically. I also love the executive's taking credit for job growth ("ramped from 6 to > 120 in less than one year") like hiring is something difficult to do, as well as apparently listing work experience that he hasn't even done yet. Not sure if that's typical cart before the horse executive pseudo-speak or a really interesting move from HP. Probably the former but the latter is more interesting to believe.

DARPA Thursdays: 3D Holographic Battle Planning

One of the challenges facing the military is how to effectively communicate a battle plan. If you're going to a physical place it's helpful to have as many visual aids as possible. One of the things DARPA has tried to develop along these lines is a 3D holographic display. And they've succeeded.

Not that 3D holographic display, this 3D holographic display.

It's called UPSD Urban Photonic Sandtable Display. It allows a 3D display that does not require any special glasses and allows up to 20 participants to stand around, look at it, and interact. Or interact so much as freezing, rotating, zooming, etc. Freeze and enhance! (I know mixing my Star Wars metaphors with my Star Trek quotes is just asking for it).

It can be any where from six inches to six feet and is meant to process data (possibly population or medical data) and interpret in like a 3D graph. They're working on incorporating that with previous 3D technology they've developed for mapping that is supposedly being used by troops in Afghanistan.

So what does this mean? Doesn't look too impressive admittedly at the moment but clearly the capabilities and options are there. And while now it's being developed by the military for urban missions I could see it being used by city planners and developers or by aid groups who are going into devastated areas. I can think of a wide range of applications from medical professionals looking at treatment and spread of disease or just basic medical care in a geographical area to a Dilbert-esque style marketing corporate tool who wants to see how well they can sell widgets in a city and monitor real time influence or purchase of their product to find better ways to appeal to the consumer.

The technology and the implications so jaw dropping even Nien Nunb can't keep his mouth closed.

S is for Saturday and Sleek

Tesla Motors plans to release it's luxury electric Model S sometime in 2012. On the outside it looks a lot like you might expect for a luxury sedan. It's got the smooth curves you'd expect to see in a current model luxury sedan, not unlike the designs that are going into a new Infinity or Cadillac. Unlike Tesla's other famous model, the Roadster which was built from a Lotus skeleton, this body chassis is an original design. Given how expensive the technology for a a decent range all electric vehicle is it makes sense Tesla would be pursuing a luxury model meant to compete with the BMWs and Audis of the world.

 

But despite its very aesthetically pleasing exterior and typically plush looking interiors this remains an interesting car in that they are advertising it will be able to travel 145, 230, or 300 miles on a single 45 minute charge depending on which battery pack you purchase. As someone who fills up about every 300 miles that is getting impressively towards normal consumer use. And you don't even have to go to the gas station, you can plug in at home. Unfortunately for now this sort of thing is going to be out of reach from the typical consumer. I've seen in the mid-50s for pricing which is of course more expensive than the mid-30s you could probably spend on an otherwise similar petroleum fueled internal combustion powered sedan. But for now, the engineering is impressive. Stop by ElectroVelocity for some interesting videos on the design and technology that went into the Model S.

Computers and the Homeless

Everyone knows there's a big gap in worldwide between the have and the have nots in one area: internet access. A new study looked at that gap where you would expect to see it in an obvious way. They looked at computer and internet use in homeless populations in the Philadelphia area. The results are somewhat surprising.

 

Right now 58% of households have some kind of computer and 76% of these households have access to the internet. Of the homeless population they reported an average homeless time of 12 years. Of the 100 study participants, 47% reported computer use within the last 30 days. By far the main source of their computer use was free access at the public libraries in Philadelphia. University libraries, service organizations, churches and coffee shops rounded out the other sources where homeless were able to access the internet.

 

Users lauded the free public library services and discussed ways in which they manipulated the system for even more time on the computers than they were supposed to be allowed. Job searching made up the majority of what they used the internet for, followed by general internet surfing, word processing, social networking, and housing searches. They cited using the internet for "social connectedness" likely a good motivator for the social networking use. Their leisure use reflected what you might expect from a typical internet user: surfing the internet, reading the news, listening to music, shopping, books, movies and sports.

 

This might have been the first study to look at the homeless alone and their technology and computer use. What are the implications of this study? The homeless themselves suggested that cities and other agencies consider using the internet to disseminate information to homeless in their communities. I think it also emphasizes how important public libraries and computer and internet access there are to homeless populations or poor or transient populations in general. It also sets the bar for what information we want to pass on to these people and gives us perhaps another outlet at reaching them. Spreading health information and the possibility for social and community groups that could support these people having a stronger presence on the internet are other possibilities this study indicates might be a good push in the future.

 

Eyrich-Garg, K. (2011). Sheltered in cyberspace? Computer use among the unsheltered ‘street’ homeless Computers in Human Behavior, 27 (1), 296-303 DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.007

Now they get their own button?

Anyone stopped by Technorati lately?

What's this all about? A whole button for women bloggers and women's issues? A whole month is just never enough for these people is it.

Actually, I can't decide whether this is a cool thing, or gimicky, or patronizing...I mean it's better than Science Cheerleaders, but where is it in the spectrum? All good? Do I like them featuring women bloggers in the same way I expect to see women speakers at tech conferences? Or does it seem like an effort to save face without actually changing the way women are treated, like a corporate diversity program. If you have an opinion, tell me.

Body Scanning=Body Shame

There's a whole lot of hullaballoo about the new airport body scanners. And now it's the holidays, plenty of people will be travelling and for those who say no to the new scanners there's an even more invasive pat down. Makes me glad I don't have to fly anywhere this season.

 

 

But I have to admit, maybe people should just suck it up and walk through the scanner. You see, recently I purchased an XBox 360 Kinect. It's a device that allows games much like the Wii, but with no controller. A series of cameras and infrared sensors pick up your body and use that image so you can use your body as the remote in many new games. It's pretty fun. And now instead of the Wii elbow, I'll have Kinect-omg-I-can't-move-my-body. One of the games I got was the Kinect Your Shape fitness game. It seems pretty effective, I like the Tai Chi routines, and the cardio is seriously kicking my ass so presumably that means it has the capacity to increase my fitness. The one weird thing is unlike many of the other Kinect games that show an avatar as "you" this shows just a single-color blob for you. And let me tell you, it's pretty accurate and leaves nothing to chance. It's like you wrapped me in blue saran wrap and then filmed me moving around in that. It looks exactly like me. And unfortunately so.

 

Every single roll of fat is there to see. What in "real life" might be not so obvious thanks to clothes and layers is there right in your face. And to top it off there's some slender trainer avatar right next to you on the screen to compare yourself with. Okay, it's a decent motivator for trying to get fit. Do I really look like that? And it's sort of embarrassing. So I can see why people walking through body scans would have some qualms about it. But you know what? We don't want people bringing dangerous items on our planes intending to do us harm. And there's plenty of stuff we tolerate that is embarrassing.

 

Going to IHop and wolfing down one of their huge sampler platters is pretty embarrassing. And people do it every day. Wearing tight jeans and showing off your muffin top is pretty embarrassing. Using a public restroom is pretty embarrassing. Watching the grocery store employee scan in your soda, ritz crackers, vodka and reeses cups while you're alone on a Friday night is pretty embarrassing.

 

When the waiter at a restaurant asks us what we want we don't chew them out for invading our privacy. We don't yell at the grocery store clerk for scanning all our items. We've come to expect there will be ways in which our privacy is violated all the time. I am constantly asked to pull out my driver's license as identification which quickly tells you my age, height and weight (although it's a little inaccurate). So if this technology works, and works well, and we can all get on plane knowing we're safe I think it's worth dealing with something that's a little uncomfortable. I don't feel like this is inhibiting my liberty. They aren't telling me what video games I can buy or taking away my firearms. I'm going through an ordeal for the convenience of flight. I mean, I could grow all my own food so the grocery store clerk doesn't see everything I buy, but most of us deal with that invasion of privacy for the convenience of shopping at a place where we can get the things we want.

Technology for good and evil

Electronic devices make our lives easier and safer. They can also enable some of the more fascist elements of society easier access to the elements of monitoring and control. Sometimes I see the benefits, and sometimes I wonder if Ben Franklin didn't have it right when he said Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

 

There's the story of the college student who found an FBI GPS device on his car. Another individual, a US citizen from Yemen Abdo Alwareeth, apparently had the same thing happen.

At his home in San Rafael, he sifts through a binder of papers he's gathered trying to understand why he was targeted. The U.S. citizen from Yemen says in all his 40 years living here, he's received nothing more than a traffic ticket.

"Why I been singled out? Let them tell me, 'We are singling you out because you are an Arab and a Muslim and that's it,' " he says. "That's what I want to know."

Well yes Abdo, it's because you're an Arab and a Muslim. Or maybe more importantly because you are a Muslim. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (who you would think would be all over individual rights) said it's okay for the FBI (or I would presume any law enforcement agency) to put GPS devices on people's cars without a warrant. And we know the FBI and police departments profile. It's a thin line, and it's certainly not fair or right. We may as a society acknowledge something is wrong when African Americans are targeted by the police more often than white people or people who "look" Latino in Arizona will now be asked for their citizenship papers. But although Juan Williams was fired for making anti-Muslim comments, his biased opinion is one that has a lot of sympathy in this country. As long as it is the other who gets the closer look at airport lines, not "us", because clearly "we" are not terrorists, "they" are. I think I can be sympathetic with the fear that gets people there, but not with the biases they insist on holding.

 

At the same time, I can't be sympathetic with a Muslim American who doesn't understand why they are receiving extra scrutiny. I'm not saying it's right, but I'm saying it should be pretty clear to them what forces are at work there. But how easy to drop a GPS device on someone's car? And for now, these agencies don't even need a warrant. Presumably if I put my own GPS device on somebody else's car that would be illegal, but for now the government has a legal right to do so to anyone it pleases. And I trust the government, but do not trust the individuals who must carry out these tasks. The laws of the bureaucracy usually have the best intentions and it's overzealous crackpots like the Arizona Sherrif Joe Arpaio who are able to bend the system to fit their devious means. And what makes them any better than an actual terrorist who slips through our security? How can you separate one as having any better intentions than the other?

 

The inevitable drumbeat of technology brings us closer to a future that will be determined by what kind of people we are. Technology is only a tool. Webcams can monitor hurricanes, tornadoes, weather disasters, and fires to prevent loss of life and aid in where to quickly send emergency personnel. But they can also be used by schools to spy on their students or cameras in general, as in most of London, whose goal is to keep street crime down but are everywhere monitoring the citizenry. For those of you worried about being targetted by tracking devices, you can use one of the many anti-GPS tracking devices out there. They emit a frequency in a range that should block GPS devices on your car from working. Though I suspect there's some legality issues as private citizens are not supposed to be operating jamming devices of any kind. It's kind of amusing that the FBI that was so anti-computer when Robert Mueller took over in 2001 would have progressed so far to using the tools of technology as part of this post-9/11 security frenzy. But I think in the end it's not the devices nor the government that we need to worry about. It's ourselves. We allow the hysteria and the racism and the hatred and set the moral bar for what will and will not be allowed. I know libertarians like to blame the government for encroachments on our freedoms and liberty, but in the end it's a society that sets the standard, and we are each one of us a part of that.

Diversity and Disability

It's National Disability Employment Awareness Month. I have many faults, but one of which is while I try to preach the advantages of diversity in the workplace I'm probably a lot more narrow minded than I think. I know, with my brain and my heart, that a more diverse team/group/company breeds success and innovation. But I'll admit to having the first images in my mind after the word diversity be a mix of races, ethnicity and gender and its taken a good amount of education by people whom I respect immensely to remember the disabled.

 

In some ways, they are the invisible members of our society. Overlooked and ignored, when we talk about rights we don't often think of the rights of the disabled. But if we know more diversity is better than we know it's as important to champion the rights of the disabled as it is to stand up for anyone else.

 

So I've already mentioned my general ignorance, but the other important thing for me is that I'm an engineer. I like to see technology make people's lives better. Certainly there have been social improvements in the lives of the disabled and that's what we need to take into account when we're trying to recruit a diverse staff, retain good employees, or just to have as standard commitments in the employment world. But there have also been technological improvements. The semi-obvious: improving mobility, as well as the less obvious: better treatments for chronic conditions, lighter and more flexible implant devices. Chances are we all know somebody who's life is touched by disability, whether it's an obvious physical manifestation or not. The law grants us some basic protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) but we can do better. We know the law is the low pole in the tent, that basic protections for other categories of people only work when there is a concentrated effort from society to improve itself. One person at a time.

New Camera

It was time to replace my old camera so after a little bit of research I picked up this, the Nikon Coolpix L110. My old camera was cute and small and with 6 megapixels was probably plenty for what an amateur like me needed. But I wanted something heftier, something that would fill my hands and preferably do something about my infamous shakey hand. This thing has 15 megapixels, takes AA instead of me needing to charge a special battery, and has optical zoom which the old cheapo camera didn't have.

I haven't taken very many pictures yet, and I think it's still too early to say whether it will be better or not. The anti-shakey hand is definitely great, and I'm not running into that problem anymore. But there are a lot of settings and it's hard to tell if it's giving me better quality photos as yet. Time will tell! Here, via the old camera, it is in my hot little hand(s).

TechCrunch: Women in KerfuffleTech

Time to play the blame game again. From Workplace Diva I stumbled upon this panel from TechCrunch. It's a "Women in Tech" panel. As Workplace Diva states, it's very cringe worthy. The host of the panel apparently didn't think out of three days and what I count as 60+ panels there should be one devoted to women.

I get it. There was the "I don't support affirmative action" comment from one of them, or a "people should get here on their own merit" comment, or the "only 12% of people graduating with computer science degrees are women." Those are all the same old tried and true arguments. If a woman is truly qualifed, she'll get the job/panel talk based on her merits and doesn't need to be singled out based on her gender. They don't want "token" women. I get that. Only one woman was unafraid to keep spouting an opinion contrary to the panel host. I mean, if you don't agree with the idea of a panel to begin with, why host it? Maybe they can have a panel on social networking next year and I'll host it and tell them all what a waste of time Facebook is and how I think social networking is a bunch of crap and that nobody should be spending any time on the sites to begin with so why bother with new codes. Yeah that would make sense.

Only on a panel of "women in tech" would they have a host who thought they didn't need that panel. Then one woman asked that they expand their definition for what a woman in tech is, mentioning entrepreneurs who don't necessarily have a STEM (that's Science Technology Engineering Math) degree. I died a little inside when another brought up the "women they know" really are interested in more to their life, a work life balance.

Well I'm sick of that crap, and while someone tried to make the counterpoint I'll make it here. Most of the dudes I work with have wives and children. Most of them even want to spend time with their families. My boss rushed me out of his office yesterday to take a call from his Grandmother. Family is important. They don't necessarily want to spend 20 hours a day in the office. Yes they like what they do or they wouldn't have been promoted into leadership positions here, but they don't neglect their families or play any harder than I do. Yet the assumption is that I will want lower pay or less responsibility simply because I have a uterus, or because I am married clearly I can't handle the reponsibility at work. If anything I think I'm better able to handle the extra responsibility. My husband works like me versus some of these guys have stay at home wives who are waiting for them to come home for dinner with the family or texting them impatiently when 5:00 rolls around. When both of you are working, and there are no children involved, it's much easier to understand why there will be days working late. But I don't get to benefit from any of my actual circumstances because I have a uterus.

And finally to the host of the panel who thinks women should only be given positions as speakers due to merit I'll assume her ignorance is because she's worked for some hippie social networking bs site. Dudes think women don't go into STEM because...it's women's fault. They assume we'd rather "work with people" because we're good at it, or would rather have babies and raise families. That the low numbers in the field are because choices we made, nothing to do with societal expectations or the men themselves. They think when we don't get promoted it's because we're not as good at that thing as they are.

And it all comes down to visibility which I have talked about again and again. If men don't see women in tech they think we either don't want to do it, or aren't capable of doing it. Showing a few "token" women at these things gives them a few more examples of people who want to do the work and they can make their own internal judgment as to whether the women are capable. But more often than not, the "token" (especially at a large conference like this) will be more than capable of standing amongst her male peers. And every time someone sees a capable woman succeeding in tech some dude at a company thinks "huh, well if that woman is okay, maybe not all women are incompetent uterus-holders, maybe i'll hire one" or "huh, that woman sounds a lot like my employee, Alice, and while I never thought Alice was real bright maybe she's okay and I'll promote her to Peon II next cycle." And maybe some high school student is watching the conference at home and thinking about what she wants to do in college: software engineering or art history? And she sees these women and thinks, well maybe I won't be all alone if I go into that field, maybe it is something women can succeed at. That doesn't mean women need their own panel, just they should be represented there. Someone should be making an effort that if 10% of people working in tech are women (probably higher given not all the men they had on were technical experts) then 10% of the panelists should be women. If you're not accomplishing that it means you're only asking the same people every year, or only asking your friends or friends' friends, and other networks of women and minorities are not even being given the opportunity. And if you had to ask 3x as many men as agreed to show up to the panel, that means you need to ask 3x as many women or minorities who you want to be there. Yes women are busy and they may say no. But men say no too. So if you want women and minorities there, you will have to ask more people than will accept.

Maybe I'm way out of line here but I just can't help thinking if people made slight efforts they'd get huge gains. Everyone on the panel seemed to agree more women working in tech meant a more diverse group and meant a better team and better product. But maybe people only say that and don't actually believe it? Actions speak louder than words.

Brave New Galaxy

Lyric Semiconductor announced it's new design for a microchip: the probability processor. Yes it sounds a little like Douglas Adams' infinite improbability drive from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

 

Lyric's new technology is part physical changes and partly different construction in how circuits process information. They claim it will yet again shrink processor size and give a speed boost. But for now the applications would have to be tested one by one and Lyric is looking at error and fraud detection and other things where it would seem most logical to be looking from a probability perspective. So is this something new and revolutionary? An impossible design? Or just normal advancements beefed up with marketing?