Gaming curfew for South Koreans [BBC Technology]

From:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8617372.stm

“

The South Korean government is introducing policies aimed at curbing the amount of time children spend playing online games.

The first involves barring online gaming access to young people of school age between 12pm and 8am.

The other policy suggests slowing down people's internet connections after they have been logged on to certain games for a long period of time.

The Culture Ministry is calling on games providers to implement the plans.

It is asking the companies to monitor the national identity numbers of their players, which includes the age of the individual.

Parents can also choose to be notified if their identity number is used online.

"The policy provides a way for parents to supervise their children's game playing," Lee Young-ah from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism told Reuters.

The Korea Herald reports that Barameui Nara, Maple Story and Mabinogi, three popular virtual worlds, will introduce the blackout later this year.

Meanwhile role playing games "Dungeon and Fighter" and "Dragon Nest" will pilot the connection slowing scheme.

A total of 19 role playing games will eventually be included - a huge proportion of the online gaming market in the country.

South Korea has sophisticated high speed broadband connections and online gaming is enormously popular.

But there has been growing concern over the amount of time its citizens spend in virtual worlds and playing online games.

A couple whose baby daughter starved while they spent up to 12 hours a day in internet cafes raising a virtual child online have made headlines around the world.

They were charged with negligent homicide and are due to be sentenced on 16 April.

“

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Virtual Reality Meets Reality, At French Conference [NY Times]

From: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/virtual-reality-meets-reality-at-french-conference/?partner=rss&emc=rss

“

Alain Jocard/Getty Images A man explores the “holocubtile”, a 3D multitouch device, during the 12th edition of the Laval Virtual.

If you really want to see into the future, you might have to go to this year’s International Conference on Virtual Reality in Laval, France. The conference, in its 12th year, is dedicated solely to virtual technologies and virtual reality.

On display this year are a number of new bizarre robots that can be controlled virtually; you can see some examples of them, as well as of other gadgetry, in the promotional video from the conference, below. There are also several augmented reality tools, meant for advertising and teaching, and some futuristic surreal experiences that remind me of scenes from Star Trek’s holodeck.

Some of the virtual reality demos are very pie-in-the-sky and probably won’t see the real world for some years to come; others are just a few years away.

One gadget that particularly stands out is the “holocubtile,” a 3-D multitouch device, designed and developed by the French touch company Immersion. The cube, above, is a complete multitouch box that allows people to manipulate a projected 3-D object by sliding their hands across different sides of the cube. Users can pan and zoom, enlarge and twist, all by touching the five sides of the device.

Although a big draw for a device like this would be in-store marketing, it could also be extremely useful in schools, allowing students to navigate far-away places and objects in a fun and interactive way.

Here’s the video:

”

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Visual tricks can make downloads seem quicker [New Scientist]

“Twiddling our thumbs while waiting for files to download is one of the great frustrations of our high-speed, technologically interconnected world. Computer scientists are unlikely to eliminate the waiting any time soon – but they've done the next best thing.

Chris Harrison at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and colleagues have shown that animated pop-up download progress bars which use visual illusions make the process seem around 10 per cent faster than it really is.

Apple already uses a a basic visual trick of this kind in its Mac OS X operating system, but Harrison's research suggests such techniques could be used to greater effect.

Previous research suggests that rhythmic stimuli can seem to create time-warping effects (PDF) and that the way we perceive motion depends on its context (PDF). With this in mind, Harrison's group generated a series of animated progress bars: some pulsated between pale and dark blue at varying speeds, and others had pale blue ripples moving either left or right, also at different rates, as the bar crept forward (see video).

They then showed different pairs of either pulsing or rippling animations to 20 volunteers, with each mocked-up download lasting exactly 5 seconds. Many participants said that progress bars which pulsated increasingly quickly made the download time seem shorter than those that pulsated increasingly slowly.

A significant number also said downloads were faster when ripples in the progress bars moved to the left rather than to the right.

Apple beater

Apple uses left-moving ripples that travel at a constant velocity for progress bars in Mac OS X. However, many of the volunteers in Harrison's study said that this type of animation appeared slower than one in which the left-moving ripples slowed down as the download neared completion.

In a second part of the study the researchers sought to quantify the time-bending effect of the visual illusions by asking the volunteers to compare a progress bar with slowing ripples with a bar that neither pulsated nor rippled. During these tests the time it took the rippling progress bar to complete the mock download was gradually lengthened, while the download time for the standard bar was left the same, until the volunteers felt that both had completed the operation in the same length of time.

They found that, on average, a 5.61-second rippling progress bar appeared to take the same amount of time as a 5-second standard bar, and a 16.75-second-long rippling bar seemed to take as long as a 15-second-long standard bar – illusory speeding-up effects of 10.9 per cent and 10.4 per cent respectively.

A watched bar

That could matter to computer users, says Harrison. "A good number of progress bars are between 5 and 15 seconds," he says. "For longer operations, you might go on to other tasks and not look at the progress bar."

"It is not uncommon for [such] illusions to have a measured magnitude of around 10 per cent," says George Mather, a psychologist at the University of Sussex, UK.

Harrison and colleagues will present their work at the Association for Computing Machinery 2010 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Atlanta, Georgia, next week.”

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Bank's Headquarters Are So Big That You Need Robot Guides [Gizmodo]

"Turns out that there's a financial center in Madrid, Spain which is so damn big and confusing to navigate that you'll desperately need these multilingual robots to guide you around. Here's how it works—in-action video and all:

You stroll up to where the mechanical swarm is waiting, tip-tap your way through a menu on a robot's touchscreen to select your preferred language, pick a destination, and off you go.

The robots are about knee-high and zip back and forth through the Santander Group's financial complex in Madrid. They're clever enough to avoid running into people, other robots, or any of the LED panel covered columns around the complex while promptly getting you to your destination."

from: http://gizmodo.com/5512140/banks-headquarters-are-so-big-that-you-need-robot-guides

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North Korean Red Star operating system details emerge [BBC]

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8604912.stm

'North Korean software' revealed

Details of a home-grown computer operating system developed by North Korea have emerged.

It is the first time details of the software, known as Red Start and thought to have been developed in 2002, have been scrutinised or made public.

A Russian blogger who studies in North Korea said Red Star is now available for purchase in the Korean capital.

The Russian blogger, identified only as Mikhail, said Red Star could be bought in Pyongyang for around $5.

Analysis run on the operating system by the Science and Technology Policy Institute in neighbouring South Korea said it has features aimed at monitoring user activity.

It was designed "to control [North Korea's] own information security", the report said.

"Due to few applicable programmes available, Red Star will not even by easily distributed in North Korea," it added.

Web content in Korea is already heavily censored and very few North Koreans own a computer or have internet access.

Pigeon mail

The report also said that North Korea has launched a cyber-war unit that targets sites in South Korea and the US.

In July last year South Korea experienced a wave of cyber-attacks which attempted to paralyse a number of websites. US websites including the Pentagon and the White House were also targeted.

Reports suggested that the attacks might have originated in North Korea.

The operating system represents the determination of North Korea to advance its own computer technology, based on its "Juche" self-reliance philosophy.

The Red Star operating system uses a popular Korean folk song as its start-up music and numbers years using a calendar which starts counting from the birth of state founder Kim Il-sung.

It is Linux-based but is heavily influenced by Microsoft with versions of the software giant's Office programmes.

It runs only in the Korean language and takes 15 minutes to install.

It has games, an e-mail system known as Pigeon and an internet browser believed to be a copy of Mozilla's Firefox - which has the North Korean government website as a home page.

The US government has banned the uploading and downloading of open source code to residents of a handful of countries on its sanctions list, which includes North Korea.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/8604912.stm

Published: 2010/04/06 12:26:50 GMT

© BBC MMX

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Google Offer Hotline for "Suicide" Search [U.S.]

 

via @HuffPostComedy

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/technology/05google.html

‘Suicide’ Query Prompts Google to Offer Hotline

As with any omniscient being, you can ask Google anything. You just don’t know what the answer is going to be.

That changed slightly last week when the Google search engine started automatically giving a suggestion of where to call after receiving a search seemingly focused on suicide.

Among the searches that result in an icon of a red phone and the toll-free number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline are “ways to commit suicide” and “suicidal thoughts.” The information takes precedence over the linked results and is different and more prominent than an advertisement. Guidance on suicide prevention was suggested internally and was put in place on Wednesday.

This is only the second time Google has added such guidance on troubling search terms, Dr. Roni Zeiger, chief health strategist for Google, said in an interview. A few months ago, the search engine began providing a phone number for the national poison control hotline after searches like “poison emergency.”

He said the idea came from a Google user.

“A mother wrote in a suggestion to us — her daughter had swallowed something that she thought was dangerous, and she had a hard time finding poison control,” Dr. Zeiger said. “Now when you search for poison control or similar queries, we make it straightforward to find the number for poison control.”

“That got us thinking,” he said.

No search engine is a mind reader, of course, and many searches like “I want to end my life” do not elicit the suicide warning.

And there is the wrinkle that Google prides itself on giving users the exact information they are looking for. Functions like Google Suggest, which employ an algorithm to anticipate what a user is looking for based on the first words typed in the search box, can act as an unwitting guide. Under Google Suggest, for example, once you start typing in “ways to kill ...,” the function completes the sentence as “your self without pain.”

“We looked at many of the possible queries that could reflect interest in the topic,” Dr. Zeiger said about Google’s efforts. “We are starting relatively conservatively.”

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Click On - Radio4 [ListenAgain] - Prisoners & Technology, Voice synthesis & The Future of the Internet

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rt7rr

"Last broadcast today, 16:30 on BBC Radio 4.

SYNOPSIS

Simon Cox explores the different ways the digital world is changing how we live our lives. This week:

Don't do the Crime if you must be online - Is technology allowing criminals to continue their activities beyond their cell walls? Illicit mobile phone use by inmates has grown to the extent that authorities have promised to install jamming devices in all UK prisons. Meanwhile there's been a crack down on prisoners using social networking sites like Facebook. Balanced against this is the knowledge that allowing prisoners to keep social and family contacts prevents reoffending. So how has technology changed what it means to doing your time?

Lost in translation - we compare the various technologies aiming to translate foreign languages. Which is best; online tools, the latest app for your smart phone or the trusty phrasebook?

The future of the internet and how to stop it! Simon talks to Harvard Law School's Professor Jonathan Zittrain about why he believes the latest gadgets might be the undoing of the internet.

Voice synthesis - Ever wondered where the voices come from while you're hanging on the phone to a automated call handling service? Reporter Peter McManus visits one of the UK's leading designers of Synthetic voices - Edinburgh University spin out company Cereproc."

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Mark Kermode's Anti-3D Glasses

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mflow

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/social-media/7513904/Music-matters-especially-online.html

“Daniel Ek says that the new version of Spotify, which is due for release some time in the next few months, will make sharing much more integral to the experience. Next month a new service, mflow, will be launched that puts sharing at the heart of the service.

Without its community element mflow is just like the iTunes music store. You can search for tracks, listen to 30-second snippets and then pay to download them. However, the service has a Twitter-like element that allows you to follow people and for them to follow you back. You can "flow" music to your followers, which allows them to hear the entire song – not just the 30-second snippet. If they buy it you get 20 per cent of the price, which you can use to buy more music.

Once you begin following a few people on mflow your in-box soon fills up with shared tracks, each accompanied by a short message – of 140 characters, like Twitter – from the person who shared it. Pretty soon you have your own personal radio station, programmed by your friends. It’s the first internet music service I’ve come across that has no real offline equivalent. The key will be getting enough people on board to make it work.

Legal online music services are now clearly better than their illicit competitors. However, many in the industry are concerned that streaming services cannot attract the numbers of listeners required to replace lost revenue from retail. Most people would agree that 'music matters’. The industry is about to find out just how much.

Reader offer

:: The Telegraph has 1,000 invites for mFlow. Go to www.mflow.com and enter the invite code SHANER99 to download the player.”

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Flash Mobs Take Violent Turn in Philadelphia [NY Times]

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/us/25mobs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

“PHILADELPHIA — It started innocently enough seven years ago as an act of performance art where people linked through social-networking Web sites and text messaging suddenly gathered on the streets for impromptu pillow fights in New York, group disco routines in London, and even a huge snowball fight in Washington.

But these so-called flash mobs have taken a more aggressive and raucous turn here as hundreds of teenagers have been converging downtown for a ritual that is part bullying, part running of the bulls: sprinting down the block, the teenagers sometimes pause to brawl with one another, assault pedestrians or vandalize property.”

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'The Last Advertising Agency on Earth' [Saatchi & Saatchi]

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Post-Apocalyptic Future: Container Trucks Recycled Into Mobile Homes [Gizmodo]

LINK: http://gizmodo.com/5500765/your-post+apocalyptic-future-container-trucks-recycled-into-mobile-homes

Designer Aristide Antonas says, these keg apartments:

"...can be detached from their cars and can form more stable units for a certain period. A big circular window can be introduced in the vehicle's cylinder towards the car's side with the use of an enforced circular frame. This will give the form of a window open to the driver's section or to any chosen view if the keg stops in a particular way. The circular window can also serve as a projection screen surface if a special tissue is unfolded."

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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March 17, 1953: The Black Box Is Born [Wired]

From Wired: http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/03/0317warren-invents-airplane-black-box/  

“1953: After several high-profile crashes of de Havilland Comet airliners go unsolved, Australian researcher David Warren invents a device to record cockpit noise and instruments during flight.

During the first half of aviation’s history, crashes rarely came with any answers. Even if an eyewitness saw an airplane crash, little was known of the cause or what pilots might have been aware of before the crash.

In the early 1950s, the world’s first jet-powered airliner, the de Havilland Comet, crashed several times. Warren, a researcher at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories in Melbourne, Australia, believed if the pilot’s voices could be recorded, as well as instrument readings, the information could help determine the cause of a crash — and help prevent them. His device was called a “Flight Memory Unit.”

By 1957, the first prototypes of the device were produced. Early versions could record up to four hours of voice and instrument data on a steel foil. Warren believed the device would be popular and help solve the mysteries behind aviation crashes, but the device was initially rejected by the Australian aviation community for privacy issues.

Eventually, British officials accepted the idea of a flight data recorder and Warren began producing FDRs in crash- and fire-proof containers and selling them to airlines around the world. After a 1960 crash in Queensland, where the cause could not be determined, the Australian government required all commercial airplanes carry a recorder. The country became the first to require the use of the devices.

Early recorders logged basic flight conditions such as heading, altitude, airspeed, vertical accelerations and time. Today’s FDRs can record many more parameters including throttle and flight-control positions. Analyzing so many parameters allows investigators to recreate most of the pilot-controlled activity in the moments leading up to a crash. In recent years, digital reproductions of flights using FDR data have been valuable in recreating accidents and analyzing both the problems leading to the crash and the pilots’ response.

Modern FDRs, aka “black boxes,” are actually bright orange. They must withstand several tests, including fire and piercing, and the ability to withstand the pressure of being submerged to 20,000 feet below the ocean. Perhaps most impressive is their ability to withstand a 3,400-g crash-impact test. To aid in recovery, a locator-beacon signal is emitted for up to 30 days.

While early designs recorded the information onto a steel foil, modern FDRs use solid-state memory that can be downloaded almost instantly. This data can also be checked during routine maintenance inspections to monitor the performance of aircraft.

Future improvements to flight recorders include the possibility of transmitting flight data in real time to ground stations, which would eliminate the need to physically find the flight data recorder. Interest in this kind of in-flight transmission of data gained momentum after Air France flight 447 disappeared over the Atlantic in 2009 and a flight data recorder could not be found.

Source: Various

Photo: Officials transfer the TWA Flight 800 flight data recorder from saltwater into freshwater on July 25, 1996, at the Coast Guard station in East Moriches, New York.
Associated Press/US Coast Guard”

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Phishing attacks on the rise [New Statesman]

Full article: http://www.newstatesman.com/technology/2010/03/phishing-rise-spammers

“Spammers used the earthquake in Chile to spread malware, just as they had done with the Haitian earthquake a month earlier. Symantec also noted that there had been a rise in the number of spam emails using recalls by car manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda as bait.”

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Chris Petit - Content

 

from Channel4:

"Thirty years ago, Chris Petit directed Radio On, now considered a road movie cult classic which caught the zeitgeist of the Britain of the time.

Now showing in the True Stories strand, Content is described by Petit as, "an ambient 21st century road movie", a meditative essay inspired by the almost trancelike state the act of driving can bring.

With the narrative provided by Hanns Zischler, the film is variously about memories of other journeys from Texas through to Poland, the impact of modern technology and the rise of the huge impersonal factory sheds which now line roads throughout the world."

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Russian Hackers [BBC World Service Podcast]

Podcast here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p006j7qf

"Russian hackers are gaining a worrying reputation as skilled proponents of cybercrime and cyberwarfare.

Sarah Rainsford travels to Moscow to meet a 20 year old who claims to have penetrated Russian, Georgian and US government computers. S

he investigates why Russian hackers are becoming so proficient, meets students learning the arts of cyber defence and attack and asks the Russian cyberpolice what they are doing to rein in the criminals."

Behind the scenes:

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"Gloomy Octopus" and HD TV

“Gloomy octopuses (Octopus tetricus) reacted to films shown on liquid crystal high definition television (HDTV) as if they were seeing the real thing, according to a new study by Renata Pronk at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and colleagues. "They lunge forwards to attack crabs and back off from other octopuses, much as they do in the wild," says Hanlon

…Previous attempts to get octopuses to respond to videos failed, probably because they used CRT, which displays footage at a rate of 24 frames per second – too slowly for their sophisticated eyes. "The images that they see on CRT screens are incomplete and probably incoherent," says Hanlon”

From new Scientist, Full article:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18640-gloomy-octopus-is-moody-octopus.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

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Bluetooth kidnap drama

From: http://www.brandrepublic.com/DigitalPMBulletin/news/989819/Kidnapped-girl-targets-tonights-commuters-Bluetooth-drama/?DCMP=EMC-Media-PM-Bulletin

'Kidnapped' girl targets tonight's commuters in Bluetooth drama

LONDON - The world's first ever Bluetooth delivered drama is launching tonight at London Euston Station.

At 5.30 pm, each Bluetooth active mobile phone in the Euston area will receive an audio file that contains a message from Sylvia, a 19 year old Slovakian girl who explains that she has been kidnapped, trafficked and is now awaiting transportation to "somewhere else".

She asks the recipient to meet her at a specific spot in the station, where she is being guarded by her captor Serge.

Once the recipient goes to that spot, Sylvia will then interact with them as part of a real-life drama.The drama has created by television and music video director Charlie Salem, who previously launched mobile soap opera.Developed by Bluetooth Proximity Marketing specialists Merlin Systems Corp, the drama aims to show consumers the effectiveness of Bluetooth marketing techniques.

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Mobile that allows bosses to snoop on staff developed

Researchers have produced a mobile phone that could be a boon for prying bosses wanting to keep tabs on the movements of their staff.

Japanese phone giant KDDI Corporation has developed technology that tracks even the tiniest movement of the user and beams the information back to HQ. It works by analysing the movement of accelerometers, found in many handsets.

Activities such as walking, climbing stairs or even cleaning can be identified, the researchers say. The company plans to sell the service to clients such as managers, foremen and employment agencies.

"Technically, I think this is an incredibly important innovation," says Philip Sugai, director of the mobile consumer lab at the International University of Japan. "For example, when applied to the issue of telemedicine, or other situations in which remotely monitoring or accessing an individual's personal movements is vital to that service. "But there will surely be negative consequences when applied to employee tracking or salesforce optimisation."

Complex behaviour

Until now, mobile phone motion sensors were capable of detecting only repetitive movements such as walking or running. The KDDI system, is able to detect more complex behaviour by using analytical software - held on a server back at base - to match patterns of common movements.

For example, the KDDI mobile phone strapped to a cleaning worker's waist can tell the difference between actions performed such as scrubbing, sweeping, walking an even emptying a rubbish bin. The aim of the new system, according to KDDI, is to enable employees to work more efficiently and managers to easily evaluate their employees' performance while away from the office.

Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8559683.stm

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.xxx domain names [from BBC Technology]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8556364.stm

“.xxx internet domain name plan resurrected

A plan to create an internet domain specifically for adult websites will be resurrected three years after it was rejected by internet regulators.

The net's governing body Icann will reconsider the .xxx scheme on 12 March. Icann had previously given the domain the go ahead in 2005, but reversed the decision two years later amidst protests from US conservative groups. An independent review recently concluded that decision was unfair and that the plan should be reconsidered. Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has now confirmed to BBC News that its board will discuss the plan at its meeting in Nairobi, Kenya and could decide to back the proposals. "If the contract is signed, we could be selling names by the end of the year," said Stuart Lawley, chairman of ICM Registry, which put forward the plans for .xxx and would sell the domain names.

'Landmark decision'

The idea for a .xxx domain was first proposed in 2001 and was approved by Icann four years later. The scheme is intended to create a silo for pornography on the internet. "Those that do want to see it can; those that don't can filter it out," explained Mr Lawley. However, the scheme is voluntary and adult sites will still be able to use other domains such as .com. In 2007, Icann overturned its original decision to allow .xxx domains to be sold amidst a firestorm of protest from conservative groups, predominately in the US, which opposed the plan on moral grounds. Recently an arbitration panel of retired judges at the International Centre for Dispute Resolution ruled that the plan should be revisited after analysing evidence about the alleged interference. "Our claim was that Icann came up with a lot of different excuses," said Mr Lawley.

The board concluded that Icann's decision to reject the .xxx plan was "not consistent with the application of neutral, objective and fair documented policy" and should be revisited. Mr Lawley described it as a "landmark" ruling. The non-binding decision will now be discussed by Icann on 12 March and a decision will be made whether to reconsider its approach to .xxx. A spokesperson for Icann said there was "no indication what action the ICANN board will take". However, it is unlikely to overturn the decision immediately without consulting other members of Icann and the internet community.

The news comes as the sex.com domain, often described as one of the most valuable internet domain names, comes up for auction. The web address is due to be sold in New York on 18 March with a starting price of $1m (£670,000).”

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