Weak Signals RSS Feed - Forum for the Future

Darknet

Hugh Knowles — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

As predicted on this blog a while back we are starting to see projects appear that attempt to create a new internet or circumvent the restrictions being put in place by government and business. One is example is The Darknet Project (TDP).

"The goal behind the project is to create a global darknet, a decentralized web of interconnected wireless mesh networks that operate independently of each other and the conventional internet. In a wireless mesh network, individual nodes can relay data for other nodes, ensuring that the routing of data remains robust as nodes on the network are added and removed."

The idea being that the network cannot be controlled or shut down due to its decentralised nature.

More from Arstechnica http://bit.ly/rBOtgw

Farmers build DIY high speed internet connection

Hugh Knowles — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:03:38 +0000

Fed up with being "outside of the scope of economic viability" for high speed internet access a group of farmers in Lancashire are "utilising the skills, time, energy and ingenuity of the local residents and businesses" to install a "Gigabit, future-proofed, reliable, communications network to every property".

They are training up local people to do the installation and the project will be backed with a share issue for a not for profit company.

Amazing story. More information here http://bit.ly/saSYv8

The Raspberry Pi - £15 computer

Rodrigo Bautista — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:51:20 +0000

I saw a credit card sized prototype of this a while back but now the clever chaps have managed to get a functional computer down to the size of a thumb drive and costing only £15. You can programme and play HD video on it and it runs a linux operating system. You can connect up a usb keyboard and a screen.

Watch the Raspberry Pi video: http://bit.ly/ta9s1l

Want Smog free cities? Just apply Sunscreen…

Alexa Schubert — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Ok, not exactly sunscreen, but titanium dioxide (an ingredient in many sunscreens) has been shown to reduce smog so much that it is now being proposed as a coating for buildings.

“The aluminum company Alcoa has created a titanium dioxide coating for aluminum panels designed to cover buildings like a shell.” "The firm claims that 1,000 square meters of the coated panels eat up the equivalent NOx output of four cars."

China does hackerspaces

Hugh Knowles — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:00:00 +0000

And by 'does' I mean launches a programme to get 100 hackerspaces up and running in the Shanghai area. No point wasting your time with a couple eh?

"Shanghai Government Technology committee has issued a call for a proposal to build 100 community hackerspaces with government funding for equipment. The communities in resident area are going to manage the spaces and pay for the materials. Each space is required to be at least 100 square meters, more than 200 days/year open, equipped with wood lathes, metal lathes, saws and drill grinding combined machine, milling machine and other tools." more here: http://bit.ly/rB3qPF

Super size me…Birds

Alexa Schubert — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Researchers in California have followed an interesting phenomenon. Their catch and release bird research has shown over the past several decades that the average size of birds has increased noticeably. The attribute this to climate change stating:

“One is that birds could be storing more fat to survive the harsher winter storms that have become more common as the world warms. The other cause may be that climate change is affecting plant growth in a way that is leading to fatter birds.”

Metal Theft

Hugh Knowles — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 08:00:00 +0000

The combination of a poor economy and the high price of metals has led to a massive spike in theft of metals. So much so that a University Criminologist has started up a website www.metaltheft.net to track incidences.

From World Futurist Society:
"Metal theft may become one of the biggest criminal activities of the twenty-first century, warns University of Indianapolis criminologist Kevin Whiteacre. Targets may include construction sites, vehicle parts, plumbing and electrical equipment, and public infrastructure, where thieves see value not just in the manufactured goods themselves but also in their component metals.

“This has redefined theft to me,” says Whiteacre. “You’re no longer stealing a specific item for its value as an item. You’re stealing it for its constituent parts.” Whiteacre has created a Web site, Metaltheft.net, as a repository of news and research on the phenomenon."
http://bit.ly/vIDuVn

Recycled Music - Play It Again

Alexa Schubert — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

With all the sharing websites popping up lately, an unlikely sector is being represented...the music industry.

A new way to legally 'share music', Redigi, allows users to sell the hits they're tired of. So, that old Britney Spears just doesn't get the playtime it once did? Sell it to another user directly without keeping a copy for yourself. Making it convienent and legal.

Hack a weather satellite

Hugh Knowles — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Well this is pretty audacious. Someone has learnt how to take data off the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather satellites using some relatively basic electronics that are readily available. The hacker is hoping to set up an automated system to pull images off these low orbit satellites when they pass over. Maybe soon we can all have our own weather satellite images.

The geeks shall indeed inherit the earth.

More from hack a day http://bit.ly/thVdms

Supply chain transparency for local food

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Given that the industrial food system is responsible for one third of all man-made GHG emissions (War on Want Food Sovereignty Report, 2011), we can see why consumers are increasingly keen to support local and community-based agriculture. With their aims overlapping more often that not with organic agriculture, locally based food initiatives offer consumers healthier food, give a sense of place to the food system and advance local economies whilst increasing our food security.

For this to grow, it will be important for local producers to communicate their brand effectively with other producers and consumers, and for the supply chain to be transparent through all stages. Websites such as Eggzy and Food Mapper allow shoppers to locate local producers, community farming projects and allotments; and, Local Food Systems are now trialling a new scheme in the US where entrepreneurs can develop their business ideas and position it within a local supply chain.

Print a light bulb

Hugh Knowles — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A company called Nth Degree has come up with a way of printing thousands of tiny LEDs onto large flexible surfaces.

More from MIT Technology Review:
"The technology could allow for novel lighting designs at costs comparable to the fluorescent light bulbs and fixtures used now, says Neil Shotton, Nth Degree's president and CEO. Light could be emitted over large areas from curved surfaces of unusual shapes. The printing processes used to make the lights also make it easy to vary the color and brightness of the light emitted by a fixture. "It's a new kind of lighting," Shotton says.

Nth Degree makes its light sheets by first carving up a wafer of gallium nitride to produce millions of tiny LEDs—one four-inch wafer yields about eight million of them. The LEDs are then mixed with resin and binders, and a standard screen printer is used to deposit the resulting "ink" over a large surface."
Link: http://bit.ly/urKO1o

India and Brazil to be the leaders in e-democracy?

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

There are signs that two of the biggest democracies in the world could also be the leaders in e-democracy.

India was the first country to go completely electronic in its 2004 elections.
Brazil is ahead in edemocracy structures with innovations like online town halls and crowd-sourced legislative consulting), and its 2010 census was paperless, conducted electronically.
http://gov20.govfresh.com/themes-to-watch-in-2011-e-democracy-in-brazil/

Interestingly a Japanese futurologist Takuya Murata, also thinks China could be a leader in the future shape democratic processes. As Chinese citizens organise around issues this is better suited to an information-based society and emerging democracies. http://www.fdsd.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Paper-Three-futures-of-...

seeing your thoughts and dreams...

Joy Green — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:00:00 +0000

This is one of the most unnerving and fascinating developments in research that I have ever come across. Some scientists at UC Berkeley have managed to reconstruct images of what people are looking at by scanning their brains using fMRI. A sample video shows you what the volunteers were watching, and what the reconstruction managed - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/brain-scan-movie-scenes_n_97658...

The reconstructed images are rather blurry because they used 18 million seconds of random youtube videos as the resource (which had no overlap with what the volunteers were actually watching), and the system averaged between the most similar clips to generate the images. however they are still astoundingly accurate, especially given that the fMRI is just analysing blood flow to the different parts of the brain. The researchers hope that this technology will eventually help stroke patients by revealing mental states, dreams, hallucinations etc. The paper is avalable here: https://sites.google.com/site/gallantlabucb/publications/nishimoto-et-al...

Bosch offer to pay energy for their appliances

Hugh Knowles — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Bosch have an advert in the Independent today where they offer to pay the energy costs for 3 years if you buy one of their appliances. They say that their devices are the most energy efficient available so if you buy a dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer, fridge or freezer you might get up to £100 back.

A classic signal for a service shift. I wonder if any appliance company might eventually meet all your energy costs if you buy all devices from them.

see advert here: www.yfrog.com/nwjvwxfj

Watch the video here and get a nice little future shock http://bit.ly/osMmHw

Hugh Knowles — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:00:00 +0000

The Department of Homeland Security in the US is 'building a "prototype screening facility" that it hopes will use factors such as ethnicity, gender, breathing, and heart rate to "detect cues indicative of mal-intent."' It will use algorithms to try and predict crimes.

The DHS 'calls its "pre-crime" system Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST.'

More from CNET here: http://cnet.co/nYIuf0

Have tracked efforts at precrime technology before here: http://bit.ly/nsDfID

Crikey.

Quantum levitation

Hugh Knowles — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Waaagh. Amazing video that shows what happens when a superconductor is brought to a very low temperature and placed over a magnet. It stays locked in place - seemingly hovering above the magnet. Apparently it is "pinned within the magnetic fields causing it to levitate."

Watch the video here and get a nice little future shock http://bit.ly/osMmHw
If only it worked at room temp.

Solar Fails

Alexa Schubert — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Just as solar picks up speed in the expanding renewables market, U.S. based company Solyndra has just declared bankruptcy. Supported with a huge $535 M loan guarantee from the federal govnernment, Obama hoped this would make solar more affordable for U.S. consumers.

Unfortunately, Solyndra was "never able to get [its] manufacturing costs low enough to be competitive with solar panel manufacturers in China, as well as solar manufacturer companies here in the United States."

Solyndra declared bankruptcy in September and is under investigation by the Department of Energy. The scandal has caused a political tug of war over energy in the U.S., something to watch to see how it plays out.

The Positive Side of Budget Cuts

Alexa Schubert — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Perhaps budget cuts will spur us to a more sustainable world after all. In northern Michigan a town with shrinking population and severe budget constraints turned the community schools into a sustainable community centre. The high school, middle school, elementary school, and public library are all housed in the same building. This allows sports fields, common areas such as the gym, cafeteria, and library to be shared between all students and utilized by community members. This new approach means less heating and maintenance, and perhaps better community spirit.

New self-cleaning material

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Researchers at the University of California have developed a new compound that has the ability to break down toxic chemicals and bacteria.

Once bonded to cotton the compound creates a material that could have "potential applications in biological and chemical protective clothing for health care, food processing and farmworkers, as well as military personnel."

The project is still in its early stages and the potential for it to become widely available is limited by two factors: cost and safety. Since a by-product of the chemical reaction is the production of hydrogen peroxide and the reaction only works though exposure to light, the clothes could only be worn in the dark.

Greece: Downward economy pushes people to Local bartering

Alexa Schubert — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Hard times in Greece mean people are turning to local trading systems in lieu of structured currency.

“Part alternative currency, part barter system, part open-air market, the Volos network has grown exponentially in the past year, from 50 to 400 members.”

Users expressed a feeling of freedom when using the new grassroots system.