WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week’s net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
This week we have material on the UK government going open source, internet routing table problems, Windows desktop tools, a Windows 9 preview in the offing, browser fingerprinting, pop-up ads, future technologies that are nearly here, deleting data in Android and iOS, a thousand mini-robots, an algorithm shop, a man in the moon, and World War I cutting edge technology. Even more is available in the scanner section where we cover items on cryptology, small satellites, internet crime, an ISS docking video, the Goldilocks asteroid, and a video about printing a 3-D arm for a six year old!
That selection may be a little heavy on slide shows, which seem to be the in thing this season. On the other hand there’s plenty there to get your teeth into, which is probably just as well since there won’t be an issue next week.
There are a number of reasons for this, but the main one is that it’s a public holiday here in the UK on the Monday. This holiday normally coincides with US Labor Day, but this year it’s a week earlier than Labor Day. So I’ll wish everyone in the US a nice relaxing Labor Day now for a fortnight’s time.
The secondary problem is that my computer has developed an intermittent hardware fault over the last few months, and I’ve been unable to track it down. So, I’ve bitten the bullet and ordered a new one. Hopefully, it will arrive before Friday, and I can spend a happy holiday setting it up to run as I want it to, with all my applications properly installed.
Oh joy! Do you remember when getting a new computer was fun and something you looked forward to? Now it’s a time of dread and a hard grind... Ah well, such is life in our wired society.
Shorts:
Well, for once the UK government did something right. Last month they announced that they had formally adopted the open document format (ODF) as the standard format for government documents.
Great news, but contrary to popular opinion, it doesn’t mean that like the baker in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Hunting of the Snark’*, Microsoft will ‘softly and suddenly vanish away’. Significantly, Office 2013 supports ODF, and the move to the Cloud, enthusiastically pushed by the UK government, is likely to undermine the use of the desktop.
So what are the advantages? Well it means that once the changeover is complete, all government documents will be published in this open format, making them much easier to work with, and obviating the need to buy expensive programs or use indifferent conversion utilities. That in itself is a big gain. This means that it will be easier to use material gathered via Freedom of Information requests, because if you want to, say, format them for your blog, it will be much easier. And, with an open format, it will be easier to recover old documents in, say, 50 years’ time, even if things have moved on, because the format specification is public and will be preserved.
It’s a good move, not perfect, but much better than anyone expected.
Now then Google, how about making Google Docs work in ODF?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/23/uk_government_officially_adopts_open_document_format/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/25/the_odf_revolution_will_not_be_digitised/?page=1
The infrastructure of the internet is running into problems again, because of growth in the net. Many older devices that handle the routing of data packets have tables that are too small to hold all the information they need to route the data efficiently. While things won’t grind to a halt, they will certainly slow down if your ISP, or the site you are visiting, is using these out of date systems. You have been warned!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28786954
Are you, like me, still a mainly a desktop computer user? Using Windows? Then you should take a look at InfoWorld’s collection of 25 free tools for your machine. Some of them are a bit obvious and ho-hum, but others are genuinely useful. My faves? Paint.net and VLC Media Player, which I already use, but PicPick, File Shredder and NWINFO also look interesting.
One word of warning: before you download anything read through the commentary on slide 27 (which should have been slide 1, in my humble opinion). It tells you how to avoid getting a bunch of crapware loaded onto your computer with your desired tools...
http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/160168/top-25-free-tools-every-windows-desktop-246999
And while we are on the subject of desk top computers, the word on street is that Microsoft are planning to make a preview of ‘Threshold’, aka Windows 9, available in late September, early October. Let’s hope that it’s better than Win 8.1 – though it probably can’t be any worse.
The whole Win 8.xx fiasco is a classic case of convenience for the developers taking precedence over convenience for the users. Yes, it is very convenient for developers to be able to write a single set of code to run on all Windows variants, but not at the expense of making everyone use the same input and output devices and interfaces that they would use for tablets. Ugh!
http://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-preps-windows-threshold-preview-for-late-september/
Homework:
Some of you may have heard of a way for other people to track your web usage via a technique known as ‘browser fingerprinting’. It’s still partly in the realm of theory at the moment, but I doubt that it will remain so for very long. The theory is simple. All browsers display things in very slightly different ways, depending on which browser you are using, what machine it’s running on, how big the browser window is, what settings you are using, what video you are using, and many other factors.
This means that if someone invisibly prints a piece of standard text or a standard picture in the background, they can then analyse the picture to create a fingerprint which is usable to track the use of the browser on different web sites or different session.
It’s an interesting idea, and I don’t doubt that there are people working on it in the NSA, GCHQ, and their ilk, as will be the advertising industry. On the other hand we have yet to see how robust this technique can be made to be, and how easy it is to defeat by simple user driven methods. Something to watch out for though.
If you want a more technical explanation, take a look at this URL:
http://lwn.net/Articles/605744/
You hate pop-up ads, I hate pop-up ads, all god’s chil’run hate pop-up ads. But, as the inventor of the pop-up ad explains, it was originally created with the best of intentions. In fact, pop-up ads represent a classic case of the law of unintended consequences. Originally intended as a means of dissociating the advert from the content of the web page, the pop-up spread like a flu pandemic until it created a counter business in pop-up zapping plugins...
The author of the first pop-up ad has written a mea culpa and apologized in ‘The Atlantic’. It’s a fairly lengthy piece but it contains some interesting ideas and information on the subject of using advertising to get our current ‘free’ internet, what it means, and how we might wean ourselves off it. It’s quite a long piece, but it’s worth it, so you need to settle in for a long read. Try it and see.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/advertising-is-the-internets-original-sin/376041/?single_page=true
Like to have a quick look at future technologies that are coming along nicely – nicely enough, in fact that oldies like me might even get to see them before we pop our clogs? Yes? Well then, take a look at the slide show at the URL and get a glimpse of what’s in store on the quantum front, carbon transistors, new types of fiber optics, faster and bigger memory, and, inevitably, memristors.
http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/161494/7-far-out-technologies-are-closer-you-think-248108
Got an Android device to sell? Make sure you delete the data properly. And just what is deleting the data improperly, do I hear you ask? Easy – just use the factory reset option, and your data will be hidden from your sight, though it’s still there. On the other hand a purchaser with the right app can easily read it all out, including the embarrassing selfies and other such private information, like the passwords you stored because it seemed safer.
There are apps that will wipe the data for you, but you will have to search for them yourselves, because I don’t feel competent to make a recommendation about something this serious. Oh, and by the way Apple devices aren’t much better on this front. Details at the URL in the section ‘Apple exploit’ towards the end of the article.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28790583
You need to take a look at this. It’s a video of a thousand mini robots building themselves into a shape – all using an identical program. It’s an incredible sight – on the speeded up version. The process takes hours, but fortunately, the video is speeded up to take just minutes. In real time, apparently, it’s a bit like watching paint dry!
Joking apart, this is an interesting and important move forward in this field, so I’d suggest taking a look.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28739371
For Geeks:
Here’s a little something interesting for the programmers amongst you. An online shop for algorithms. It’s called Algorithmia, and it’s currently in private beta test, so you can’t actually use it yet. When it goes public, I’ll carry the details in this rag.
It describes itself as ‘...a live, crowd-sourced algorithm API ... where state-of-the-art algorithms are always live and accessible to anyone.’ Unlike other stores selling algorithms, it carries general purpose algorithms, rather than focusing on a tiny segment. It will be interesting to see whether it will indeed live up to its claim to be ‘...a first-of-its-kind marketplace built by algorithm developers for algorithm developers...’ We could certainly use such a market place.
http://i-programmer.info/news/181/7639.html
We all knew there was a man on the moon, but now there are NASA photos to prove it! Take a look at the picture pointed to in the URL. It clearly shows a large man (or woman) and the resulting shadow. And as for NASA’s claim that it’s a piece of dirt on the lens. Pah!
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/wait-is-that-a-human-on-the-moon/376142/
Like to take a look at the state of cutting edge technology – at the outbreak of World War I? Then you need this slide show from Scientific American. I especially like the dog pulled machine gun, and the pigeon mounted camera!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/august-1914-world-war-i-breaks-out/?&WT.mc_id=SA_SP_20140811
Scanner:
Crypto Daddy Phil Zimmerman says surveillance society is doomed [I heard Phil give a talk on this topic at an ACCU Bletchley Park conference. He made a good case – AL.]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/09/technology_and_market_forces_will_defeat_surveillance_society_claims_crypto_king/
Small satellites, small launchers, big business?
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2577/1
Five reasons internet crime is worse than ever
http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/5-reasons-internet-crime-worse-ever-247649
Video of the latest cargo ship docking with the International Space Station
http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2014/08/Docking_of_ATV_Georges_Lemaitre_to_ISS
Asteroid’s dinosaur killing spree was just bad luck...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/28/goldilocks_asteroid_killed_the_dinosaurs/
For 6-year-old Alex, 3-D printing means a new arm
http://www.today.com/tech/6-year-old-alex-3-d-printing-means-new-arm-1D79972644
* See http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173165 for the full, and brilliant poem in eight fits.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Dj and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
17 August 2014
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
