Ultracapacitor Made from Carbon Nanotubes May Be Perfect for Electric Cars

Carbon nanotubes may power ultracapacitor car - Ars Technica

I love the idea of ultracapacitors, and I hope they do provide some competition to chemical batteries.  In any case, we need something to provide portable power for our increasing technology.  Power storage is holding us back more that CPU or data storage.

Serious Threat to Shutdown Skype

Image via CrunchBase

Shock threat to shut Skype

Is it really possible that eBay messed up this bad? First, they paid way too much, and now it seems they didn't even buy the whole widget.

I can't help but wonder if this is a ploy to get Skype back into the hands of the founders who appear to have retained ownership of the core technology.

Hilarious Anti-Windows 7 Mosspuppet Video

Context: For those who are not familiar, Walt Mossberg is the primary tech columnist for the Wall Street Journal. While I think he is generally correct, some think he is biased towards Apple. He is considered very powerful due to the effect of his recommendations and columns, and I believe he has gained a reputation for a bit of arrogance.

With that context in place, enjoy the video:

There's evidently a whole slew of these puppet videos including Emperor Palpatine, among others. Funny stuff.

Unqualified Reservations: Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces

Unqualified Reservations: Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces: "no stranger to hubris"

This is an extremely well thought out discussion on user interfaces focusing on the distinction between an algorithmically processed "natural language" interface and a more specific and deterministic "control interface". The author has an impressive grasp of the subject matter.

Tesla Sedan

It looks pretty good, but I'm not sure how practical it will be, until we have an electric chargin infrastructure or chains of battery replacement shops.

More Reports Related to Cyber-Warfare

As I've mentioned before, there have been recent reports about network or cyber warfare being conducted against the US.

And more recently, articles covering some related topics have caught my eye. There have been articles discussing foreign/military-based attacks, and there have been articles about physical network damage and extortion. And more in the potentially related area of huge botnets.

As someone interested in network security in both professional and fictional manners, I have followed some of the stories. I find it curious and interesting that after years of almost complete silence about the various dangers to our technology infrastructure, suddenly there seems to be news everywhere.

I think there are three non-exclusive possibilities:

1. There is a significant increase in real threats and risks.
2. Different groups are struggling to increase the amount of government funding and attention and likely angling to increase their share of that growing pie.
3. People (and the press) have come to realize just how much of our lives have come to depend on these fragile things called computers and networks.

While I'm willing to believe things are generally becoming worse, I do not think there has been any dramatic increase in actual threats. However, the potential threats of the past may be the realized threats of the present.

Whatever other facts are in evidence, I feel confident there are groups positioning themselves to best gain from any increased attention, focus, and funding for protecting our networks. This is simply a no-brainer. Whether anything is "really" going on or not, people are greedy and power hungry.

But I think we would be foolish to completely discount the (slowly) evolving realization that we all depend of this network infrastructure for our daily and emergency needs. What if you could not access your bank account for a week? Two weeks? What if the hospital cannot access records or control the various pieces of high-tech gear? How about phones? 911?

Where it was once easy to joke about the geeks and their computers, or crack funny about the computer virus going around and disrupting productivity, it has become more serious business. A real villain might see our network infrastructure as a soft underbelly begging for attack, and I don't think it takes an imagination fed on cyberpunk science fiction to see things could go very badly.

Cyber Warfare and Cyber Security

• No quick cybersecurity fix seen
• White House may take cybersecurity role from Homeland Security
• New Military Command to Focus on Cybersecurity
• RSA 2009: NSA denies turf war over US cyber security
• Cyber Spies Breach Pentagon's Fighter Jet Project
• The Cold War Moves To Cyberspace
• Time for an Internet A-Team?

Physical Network Damage and Extortion

• Morgan Hill, CA - April 9, 2009
• AT&T increases bounty on fiber vandals to $250K
• Sabotage Suspected in Silicon Valley Cable Cut
• Cut fiber line knocks out state courts' communications
• Man cut phone and data lines demanding $10000 per month to stop

Botnets

• Conficker/Downadup Info for Scanning and Removal
• One bot-infected PC = 600000 spam messages a day
• Finjan - PC World - Recent 1.9 Million Machine Botnet
• On Macs And Malware - Security Fix - World's First Mac Botnet? Not Quite.

TUAW @SXSW: The "comics on handhelds" panel

TUAW @SXSW: The "comics on handhelds" panel

I'm not so sure that all these different formats can successfully be squeezed into the small form factors. I just don't know if it would still be a comic book, if it it squished and modified to fit on a tiny screen. It might be interesting and entertaining, but would it be a comic book? Or something new?

Does everything really need to be squeezed down to fit on these small screens? I understand the convenience of a device small enough and designed to carried with you at virtually all times. But the design choices appropriate for a device like that are not necessarily optimal for everything.

Thoughts on the State of Computer User Interfaces and Metaphors

stevenf.com - WARNING: A long, rambly exploration of the state...

I have felt the same thing. When the hardware struggled to do much of anything, the desktop metaphor was an appropriate goal for the user interface. But now, the hardware is not the limiting factor. Inertia is. People are comfortable with what has come before.

But even the desktop metaphor is strained. Does anyone work on a physical desktop that is only 15 inches in size? Most desks are much larger, but there has not been much improvement in screen size to match the physical model of the desktop metaphor.

As a geek, I look forward to real improvements and hopefully a revolutionary change in user interface.

Netbook Chips Create a Low-Power Cloud

Technology Review: Netbook Chips Create a Low-Power Cloud

I really think this is where things are headed. Rather than run a single or even a few cores at a high speed with fast mechanical disk storage, it makes more sense to have numerous processors or cores consuming very little power each along with a higher reliance on flash memory for intermediate or all long term storage.

Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies

Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies - WSJ.com

Fairy scary stuff. If black hat hackers, possibly with foreign government assistance, can disrupt even a small portion of our electrical grid, it would probably be the biggest catastrophe yet. We are completely dependent on electrical power for a functioning society.

Updates

• The Chinese deny any involvement saying the story is fiction.
• And some experts are suspicious too, so the story may have been planted by certain people in an effort to increase their share of money and control for cyber-security.

Google uncloaks once-secret server

Google uncloaks once-secret server | Business Tech - CNET News

A nice article on Google's custom servers and datacanters. It is fascinating how they work with scale and innovate beyond current "best" practices. They do what makes sense and improve things where they can. Their scale makes every fraction of a percent a big deal.

I wonder if any of the traditional server vendors will begin to offer 12v battery options. I'm sure companies like APC don;t like to read hard numbers about per-server batteries being more efficient than external UPS's.

iPhone's US web presence beats RIM and WiMo combined

iPhone's US web presence beats RIM and WiMo combined

Interesting article on the exploding use of the iPhone and iPod Touch as a mobile platform.  In their relatively short time on the market, they have already begun to dominate in mobile browsing use.

For the first time, I can begin to see how much of our Internet use will move to the smaller mobile platforms.  On the previously available devices, it did not seem realistic.  But the iPhone and iPod Touch make it look reasonable and even likely.

Print news is fading, but the content lives on

Print news is fading, but the content lives on | Outside the Lines - CNET News

More and more people get their news on the Internet.

Generally, it is fairly obvious, but it is interesting to see how the reliance on the Internet affects specific areas.  National and international news.  Tech and geek news, of course.

And as more handheld devices with actually usable Internet functionality proliferate, usage will go up for other, casual news areas.  As Internet access itself becomes ubiquitous, physical media will be less necessary and therefore less used.

How long will it be, before we al use Internet devices for news and physical media is rare?