Four short links: 21 October 2009

Battlefield Android, DIY Leukemia Hacking, Localisation, Bus Pirates

1. Raytheon Sends Android to Battlefield -- Google's OS sees deployment. Using Android software tools, Raytheon ( RTN - news - people ) engineers built a basic application for military personnel that combines maps with a buddy list. [...] Every part of RATS is tailored for use on a battlefield. A soldier could make an unmanned plane a "buddy," for instance, and track its progress on a map using his phone. He could then access streaming video from the plane, giving him a bird's eye view of the area. Soldiers could also use the buddy list to trace the locations of other members of their squad. (via Jim Stogdill)
2. The Kanzius Machine (CBS News, video) -- inventor lost the race against leukemia, but his DIY RF therapy device is being developed "for real". (via Jim Stogdill)
3. Lost in Translation -- Will Shipley shows how to handle internationalisation and localisation. In this post I'm going to explain to you what internationalization and localization are, how Apple's tools handle them by default, and the huge flaws in Apple's approach. Then I'm going to provide you with the code and tools to do localization in a much, much easier way. Then you're going to think, 'That will never work, because of blah!' and I'm going to respond, as if I can read your mind or I've already had this argument with a dozen developers, 'It already did - I used these tools in Delicious Library and Delicious Library 2 and they've won three Apple Design Awards between them. (via migurski on Delicious)
4. The Bus Pirate -- interfaces to a heap of embedded hardware. The ‘Bus Pirate’ is a universal bus interface that talks to most chips from a PC serial terminal, eliminating a ton of early prototyping effort when working with new or unknown chips (via joshua on Delicious)

Dear DoD, the Web Itself is Social

A few weeks ago, Noah Shachtman of Wired's Danger Room blog wrote about how the, "U.S. military is strongly considering a near-total ban on Twitter, Facebook, and all other social networking sites throughout the Department of Defense." According to Wired, the DoD believes that social networks, "make it way too easy for people with bad intentions to push malicious code to unsuspecting users."

In April of this year, Mark Drapeau and Linton Wells II (previously the acting CIO of the DoD) published a thirty-five page report titled Social Software and National Security: An Initial Net Assessment which looked at the interplay between social software and national security. Combining a few of their conclusions, social software, "is an important information sharing enabler between individuals within government, between government employees and communities of interest, between researchers and government data, between the government and its citizens, and between governments of different countries" and that while, "information security concerns are non-trivial" that, "there is a point at which a mission can be hurt by strictly enforcing such draconian approaches that it keeps government from taking advantage of social tools that adversaries and other counterparties are using."

While it would be possible for the DoD to block specific social networks by denying troops access to domains such as facebook.com, myspace.com, twitter.com, among hundreds of others around the World, as Stowe Boyd said on the Department of Defense's Web 2.0 Guidance Forum, "Web 2.0 is fundamentally social, treating the individual at the center of the universe as opposed to groups or organizations, and then basing communication and information paths on social relationships between individuals."

It's my belief that even if the DoD tried to block all access to social networking sites it would be a never ending and ultimately unsuccessful battle as social is becoming a core component of the web itself. Not only are traditional social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace expanding through their own web-wide API programs, but social features are increasingly pervasive in what used to be "normal" web sites. A few examples:

The New York Times "Times People" - The New York Times launched the ability for you to sign in to nytimes.com, create a profile and follow other readers all without having to leave nytimes.com. This includes the ability to directly recommend articles that you're reading to your followers on NYT as well as see those recommendations on every page of their site.

Palm Pre and Android - Both phones have address books that are integrated and updated automatically with your contacts elsewhere. The Android is constantly in sync with your Gmail contacts and the Pre has a feature known as Synergy which combines contact information, calendars and instant messaging from data stored locally on the phone, Gmail, Facebook, AOL, and Exchange.

ShareThis and AddThis - For the past few years, bloggers and other content providers have integrated those Nascar-style widgets into their sites to provide an easy way for readers to re-share articles. While they initially focused on re-sharing via blogging services, today they support and default to services such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and AOL instant messenger.

Google Reader - Not long ago reading blogs and other content online was a solo experience from within your desktop "feed reader." Google Reader changed this with the ability to follow other users and see what your friends are reading. In July they added the ability to group your friends and filter what you read based on what they liked. A few weeks ago they also added ability to share stories via Facebook and Twitter. Lifehacker writes in more detail about Google Reader Updates with Still More Social Features and More Google Reader "Send To" Tricks.

Google Friend Connect - Friend Connect is one of Google's projects to bring social features to the long tail of the web. It provides the ability for non-technical site owners to bring sign in, profiles, following, "comment walls", and other OpenSocial applications just by adding a few lines of HTML/JavaScript to their sites. Friend Connect is already placed on over five-million sites, is available in forty-seven different languages, and integrates with networks including Google, AOL, Twitter, and Plaxo. You can see Friend Connect on Robert Scoble's blog showing the 1,600 people who have chosen to become members of his site directly. (Not to mention that in order to block usage of Google Friend Connect, the DoD would have to block troop access to Google.com itself!)

Identity - Whether via OpenID, OAuth (Twitter), or Facebook Connect it's now simple to use an existing profile to sign into millions of different sites around the web. Well over one-billion people have accounts that are enabled with either OpenID or Facebook Connect. In many cases, it isn't just about sign in but being able to find people you know on these sites and share content you create back into a variety of social networks. I've previously written about the Anatomy of "Connect" and how it's becoming increasingly possible for any web site to integrate profiles, relationships, third-party content and activity sharing with these technologies.

Niché social networks - Whether it is a Ning community like GovLoop, a standalone network like GoodReads focused on book lovers, or Intel Communities for IT professionals, it's clear that social networks will not only be large destination sites. More traditional blogging tools such as Movable Type, TypePad, and WordPress have all added various social features themselves over the past two years. See Movable Type Motion, Top Reasons to Love The New TypePad which includes an activity stream, profiles and sharing, and BuddyPress. (Disclosure: I work for Six Apart who creates Movable Type and TypePad.)

From infrastructure technologies like OpenID and OpenSocial, to widgets like ShareThis and Friend Connect, to The New York Times itself and your phone, features and interactions that you once only found on social networks are becoming ubiquitous. While it may be convenient for the DoD's IT department to think about social networking as a list of URLs that they can block from any network, the reality is that social networking is becoming a core piece of the web itself.

Four short links: 17 August 2009

1. How Twitter Works in Theory (Kevin Marks) -- very nice summary about the conceptual properties of Twitter that let it work. Both Google and Twitter have little boxes for you to type into, but on Google you're looking for information, and expecting a machine response, whereas on Twitter you're declaring an emotion and expecting a human response. This is what leads to unintentionally ironic newspaper columns bemoaning public banality, because they miss that while you don't care what random strangers feel about their lunch, you do if its your friend on holiday in Pompeii.
2. Army To Test Wiki-Style Changes to The 7 Manuals -- In early July the Army will conduct a 90-day online test using seven existing manuals that every soldier, from private to general officer, will have the opportunity to read and modify in a “wiki”-style environment. (via timoreilly on Twitter)
3. MobWrite -- converts forms and web applications into collaborative environments. Create a simple single-user system, add one line of JavaScript, and instantly get a collaborative system. (via Simon Willison)
4. Open Data Standards Don't Apply To The Military -- It’s that last particular point that should be the most disturbing to the administration. Apparently all geospatial data being developed and utilized by the USAFA would be unusable without a sole software vendor. This causes concern over broader interoperability with other agencies and organizations, access to important national information, and archivability and retrievability. Expose of the single-source "standard" vendor lockin in US military geosoftware and geodata. (via johnmscott on Twitter)

Four short links: 24 July 2009

Copytweet, MacMarket iShare, Open Source Under Fire, and OLPC War Stories

1. Are Tweets Copyright-Protected (WIPO) -- According to an Internet posting on blogherald.com by Jonathan Bailey, every time a new communication technology emerges, it shifts the copyright landscape, and new copyright issues that do not fit existing intellectual property (IP) standards arise. With Twitter, for example, while its terms of service clearly state that tweeters own anything they post on the service, the 140-character limit to a Twitter post makes it almost impossible for the work to reach the level of creativity required for copyright protection. In the same vein, titles or short phrases usually cannot be protected since their length contributes to their lack of originality, as defined by copyright law. A roundup of the copyright issues raised by Twitter, which is a little like a roundup of the climate issues raised by ants.
2. Apple Has 90% Revenue Share Of >$1000 Computers (Ars Technica) -- wow. (via publicaddress on Twitter)
3. Open Source on the Battlefield -- Fortunately, SFC Stadtler knew how to use open source software. Using found hardware, like a laptop pulled from the trash, and wires pulled from collapsed buildings, he was able to establish a wireless network between the towers and the home base. He was able to install freely available voice-over-ip software on this recycled hardware, which turned the computer into a wireless telephone. The soldiers were now able to communicate with each other and the home base. At no cost. (via Jim Stogdill)
4. Sweet Nonsense Omelet (Ivan Krstić) -- Horror stories from the inside about the shoddy suppliers of OLPC hardware. Thinking back, there’s a hardware incident I remember particularly fondly: one of our vendors sent us a kernel driver patch which enhanced support for their component in our machine. They chose to implement the enhancement by setting up a hole which allowed any unprivileged user to take over the kernel, prompting our kernel guy to send a private e-mail to the OLPC tech team demanding that, in the future, we avoid buying hardware from companies whose programmers are, direct quote, “crack-smoking hobos”.

Four short links: 30 June 2009

Military Open Source, Social Govwork, Dietbot, and US IT Dashboard

1. Military Open Source Software Conference -- 12-13 August 2009 in Atlanta.
2. Govloop -- a "Social Network for Gov 2.0". Gov 2.0 could easily become the intersection of talk radio and social media consultant inanity. As with the Web 2.0 lunacy, when everyone who could spell wiki tried to sell one, you should cultivate the art of identifying and sidestepping the bozos, the time-wasters, and the charlatans who use buzzwords as a convenient alternative to thought. (via cheeky_geeky on Twitter)
3. Introducing the Autom -- a personal robot to help you lose weight. Developed by Initiative Automata as an offshoot from MIT researcher Cory Kidd, Autom has conversations that encourage you to record your diet and exercise. The theory is that the added benefit of interaction will help you stick with the diet longer, increasing the chance that it will stick. Trials showed Autom users stick with their "weight loss regimen" twice as long as pencil-and-paper. (via So, Where's My Robot?)
4. USA Government IT Dashboard Launches -- Vivek Kundra's latest project, a dashboard giving insight into government spending. Contractors, CIOs, projects, schedules, and data via an API. Built in Drupal!

Four short links: 5 May 2009

Spies, Community, International Success, and DNA Origami

1. Supermap -- The CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, is paying an undisclosed sum to California-based Geosemble Technologies to develop an intelligence version of the "geospatial data integration and layering technology" that the company developed for use by urban planners, real estate investors and market analysts. The technology combines overhead imagery, maps and heavy-duty data mining to create a map-based intelligence capability reminiscent of the Pentagon's former Total Information Awareness program. When the project is done - and In-Q-Tel won't say how soon that might be - CIA agents will be able to merge aerial images and electronic maps on a computer screen. Then they will be able to click on the building or other item of interest and all manner of information will pop up: who the tenants are, phone numbers, company records, links to company and organization Web sites, news reports related to the tenants or incidents at the address, property records, tax data and more. I love that Cheap Suit Susan, your local real estate agent, had the technology before the CIA. It's like learning that Lionel Hutz has a missile defense system to stop his house being TPed.
2. 7 Harsh Truths About Running Communities -- As the leader of your community, your personality sets the tone. As a result if the community behaves in ways you do not want, then you only have yourself to blame. I have seen many bloggers write about the negative comments they get on their posts. In most cases this is due to the tone they themselves strike in their writing. Although there are exceptions I believe that users will respond in the same voice you yourself set. If you are irreverent, then so will your users be. If you are rude, expect rude responses. "Social software" is an anachronism-software that doesn't let users interact has become antisocial software. Every web creator needs to know what successful communities have in common. (via Julie Starr)
3. Lingopal is Big in Japan (Lance Wiggs) -- Turns out we are biggest in Japan. We have done no marketing there - it is all organic growth as our google ad writing and PR ability is not so good in Japanese. More anecdata for my belief that, while chance favours the prepared mind (as Louis Pasteur said), we routinely use post-hoc rationalisation to explain why it was inevitable that this or that lucky SOB hit it big.
4. DNA Origami Seeds: Bottom-Up Methods for Molecular Self-Assembly (US News) -- Winfree's coworker at Caltech, Paul W. K. Rothemund, pioneered the seed-DNA technology that allows tiny "DNA origami" structures to self-assemble into nearly arbitrary shapes (such as a smiley face and a map of the Western Hemisphere). The researchers designed several different versions of a DNA origami rectangle, 95 by 75 nanometers, which served as the seeds for the growth of different types of ribbon-like DNA crystals. The seeds were combined in a test tube with other bits of DNA, called "tiles," heated, and then cooled slowly. At the lower temperature, the tiles start to stick to each other and to the origami. In this way, the DNA ribbons self-assemble, but only into forms such as ribbons with particular widths and ribbons with stripe patterns prescribed by the original seed.

Where 2.0 Preview - DARPA's TIGR Project Helps Platoons Stay Alive

A modern soldier depends as much on good intel as a reliable rifle. Gone are the days when decision-making happened at the highest levels of command and the non-coms just did what they were told. In a modern world of insurgencies and roadside bombs, the soldier on the ground needs to have as much data as they can, as quickly as they can. And when DARPA decided to try and solve the problem, their solution was TIGR, the Tactical Ground Reporting System. Sam Earp, President of Multisensor Science, works as a consultant to DARPA and Mari Maeda is the program manager at DARPA. Both will be speaking about TIGR at the O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference in May.

James Turner: Why don't you start by describing the problem that soldiers on the ground face today and how TIGR tries to help?

Mari Maeda: Okay. Well, just as you described, the problem is that in the past, the military has focused on feeding the information up the chain-of-command. The decision-makers are the colonels and generals, and so the soldiers on the ground are just collecting information so they can make big decisions. Now in Afghanistan and Iraq, really it's the patrol leaders, soldiers on the ground, lower echelon soldiers, captains, lieutenants who need to make decisions. Are they going to take this route or the other route? Should they knock on this door or that door? Has this person ever been seen before or cited before? Does he have useful information? All of those day-to-day decisions are being made at the lowest echelon and we really needed a tool to serve those low-level soldiers. And that's why TIGR was created.

JT: Can you describe a little bit about exactly what TIGR gives to the platoon level?

MM: Yes. TIGR has a map-based user interface. And so instead of having a folder full of reports telling you what happened here and who they met with, here's a patrol debrief, instead of having Word files or Power Point slides, TIGR's a map-based application where you can go and do searches by defining an area. It could be a rectangle, a circle, a polygon or a route even. And it'll pull back all of the events and people and places, information along that route or in that region. And it ranges from census collection that was done in the location, names of all of the schools, pictures of schools, videos of an attack that might've taken place. Very rich multimedia information will be returned to you for the area that you defined.

And so instead of just writing a patrol report that says this happened and hoping someone might read it, you're just really looking for geospatially relevant information for the mission at hand. If you're going to take this route and you're not familiar with this route that you're thinking of taking, you can look and see how many attacks have taken place; what kind of attacks have taken place; who's been there before. So all of that information is at your fingertips. Sam, do you have anything to add to that?

(continue reading)