[StarTech] TechViews: Emotional Robots

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=98268

Ever heard of a robot that is emotional? Robots are supposed to be cranky rude metallic creatures that seem to have machine-like robotic and completely emotionless voices, as started to be depicted by Isaac Asimov in his novels and to the more recent movie sequels of the Transformers. But behold! What if a robot, who looks meek and harmless, having stark similarities to one of the greatest physicists of all times, Albert Einstein looks at you and frowns? Or better still, gives you a sarcastic smile?

This week in Star Tech, we will look into some of the major advances in the world of robotics and its recent trends on research and development.

Take for example the Einstein robot head at University of California — San Diego (USA), which performs asymmetric random facial movements as a part of the expression learning process. The hyper-realistic robot at the university has learned to smile and make facial expressions through a process of self-guided learning. The UC San Diego researchers used machine learning to “empower” their robot to learn to make realistic facial expressions.

“As far as we know, no other research group has used machine learning to teach a robot to make realistic facial expressions,” said Tingfan Wu, the computer science Ph.D. student from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering who presented this advance on June 6 at the IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning.

The faces of robots are increasingly realistic and the number of artificial muscles that controls them is rising. In light of this trend, UC San Diego researchers from the Machine Perception Laboratory are studying the face and head of their robotic Einstein in order to find ways to automate the process of teaching robots to make lifelike facial expressions.

This Einstein robot head has about 30 facial muscles, each moved by a tiny servo motor connected to the muscle by a string. Today, a highly trained person must manually set up these kinds of realistic robots so that the servos pull in the right combinations to make specific face expressions. In order to begin to automate this process, the UCSD researchers looked to both developmental psychology and machine learning.

Developmental psychologists speculate that infants learn to control their bodies through systematic exploratory movements, including babbling to learn to speak. Initially, these movements appear to be executed in a random manner as infants learn to control their bodies and reach for objects.

“We applied this same idea to the problem of a robot learning to make realistic facial expressions,” said Javier Movellan, the senior author on the paper presented at ICDL 2009 and the director of UCSD’s Machine Perception Laboratory.

Although their preliminary results are promising, the researchers note that some of the learned facial expressions are still awkward. One potential explanation is that their model may be too simple to describe the coupled interactions between facial muscles and skin.

Moving on to machines which understand how we feel or what our mood is, we will look into a scenario at a New York (USA) restaurant where 46 supporters have gathered to watch the Super Bowl, America’s most popular televised sporting event, the advertisements of which are valued at USD 3 million for 30 seconds! Machines are monitoring these sports fans’ every move and every breath they take.

The viewers are wearing vests with sensors that monitor their heart rate, movement, breathing and sweat. A market research company has kitted out the party-goers with these sensors to measure their emotional engagement with adverts during the highly expensive commercial breaks. Advertisers pay a fortune during the Super Bowl, so they want to be as confident as they can be that their ads are hitting home. And they are willing to pay for the knowledge. “It’s a rapidly growing market – our revenues this year are four times what they were last year,” says Carl Marci, CEO and chief scientist for the company running the experiment, Innerscope Research based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Innerscope’s approach is the latest in a wave of ever more sophisticated emotion-sensing technologies. The latest technologies could soon be built into everyday gadgets to smooth our interactions with them. In-car alarms that jolt sleepy drivers awake, satnavs (satellite navigation systems) that sense our frustration in a traffic jam and offer alternative routes, and monitors that diagnose depression from body language are all in the pipeline. Prepare for the era of emotionally aware gadgets!

The most established way to analyse a person’s feelings is through the tone of their voice. For several years, companies have been using “speech analytics” software that automatically monitors conversations between call-centre agents and customers. One supplier is NICE Systems, based in Ra’anana, Israel. It specialises in emotion-sensitive software and call-monitoring systems for companies and security organisations, and claims to have more than 24,000 customers worldwide, including the New York Police Department and Vodafone.

As well as scanning audio files for key words and phrases, such as a competitor’s name, the software measures stress levels, as indicated by voice pitch and talking speed. Computers flag up calls in which customers appear to get angry or stressed out, perhaps because they are making a fraudulent insurance claim, or simply receiving poor service.

Voice works well when the person whose feelings you are trying to gauge is expressing themselves verbally, but that’s not always the case, so several research teams are now figuring out ways of reading a person’s feelings by analysing their posture and facial expressions alone.

Using different techniques, computer programs can correctly recognise six basic emotions – disgust, happiness, sadness, anger, fear and surprise – more than 9 times out of 10, but only if the target face uses an exaggerated expression. Software can accurately judge more subtle, spontaneous facial expressions as “negative” or “positive” three-quarters of the time, but they cannot reliably spot spontaneous displays of the six specific emotions – yet. To accurately interpret complex, realistic emotions, computers will need extra cues, such as upper body posture and head motion.

All in all, we have seen major advancements in machines portraying emotions themselves and being able to comprehend, analyze and act accordingly to human emotions. Robots are fast becoming humans, or so it seems!

Compiled by Mahdin Mahboob

Information Sources: UCSD Website, NewScientist, stltoday.com

[StarTech] TechViews: Tools of advanced warfare (Where is the limit?)

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=95152

Before writing this article, I was having second thoughts as to how relevant this topic would be in the context of Bangladesh. But I was soon brought out of my dilemma by the fact that relevance has nothing to do with people’s interest in a certain subject. So here goes this week’s Lead News on the Star Tech page, on some of the recent advances of warfare tools the world has seen.

Imagine a scenario where, half a mile outside the enemy-held airport that is on the night’s objective, 100 U.S. Special Forces operatives stow their parachutes, regroup into squads, and prepare their attack. In the past, these soldiers wouldn’t have known where the enemy was or whether they were walking into an ambush –until the shooting started. They would have relied on printed maps with information that was likely to be several hours old when they boarded their C-130 for transport to the objective.

But this unit has advanced technology that gives it a decisive edge. Each soldier is equipped with a helmet-mounted GPS navigation receiver, a small wireless intrasquad voice and data comms system, and a wearable computer linked to an intrasquad LAN. From a flip-down display on his helmet, each soldier can scan the darkness with thermal and night-vision sensors mounted on his M-4 rifle. Each soldier navigates his computer through a track pad mounted beneath his uniform on top of his chest. For navigation and situational awareness, a soldier calls up his position on a map that automatically scrolls as he moves in any direction. The relative positions of his squad members are also displayed, as are surrounding buildings and suspected positions of enemy soldiers, updated in nearreal time via radio.

As each soldier and his squad members come within a few hundred meters of the airport buildings, they fan out. The soldiers approach the immediate objective: a structure believed to be, based on the latest intelligence data, the enemy’s sleeping quarters. One soldier takes up a position just outside the main door and swings his rifle into the doorway, surveying the scene via a camera mounted on his M-4 rifle, avoiding exposure to hostile fire.

Although this scenario may sound improbable, all this technology exists, with much of it deployed in parts by the US Defence. The development of smaller, faster, and cheaper computers, interface improvements, networks, database access, and improved software algorithms has put computing power in the hands of U.S. infantrymen and women.

Computers arrived just in time for World War II, and the military quickly adapted the room-size behemoths for ballistics predictions and code breaking. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. and its allies poured money into IT to improve their weapons. By the time the Berlin Wall came down, radars and other sensors were using computer power to process more target information; missiles relied on embedded processors for guidance and control; and complex algorithms provided fire solutions that let tanks shoot on the move. In fact, computer-controlled avionics (aeronautical electronics) are the only reason the ungainly F-117 stealth fighter can fly.

By the time the Gulf War erupted in 1991, U.S. aircraft, ships, and tanks bristled with technology that boosted the performance of their sensors, communications, fire-control systems, and munitions. Greater processing power let weapons systems fuse their own sensor data with off-board intelligence feeds for greater situational awareness. As a result, U.S. forces could engage more distant targets and detect and defeat guided missiles with jammers that cycled through thousands of jamming techniques in the few seconds it took the missiles to reach their targets.

War vehicles have also recently seen a lot of change, with emphasis on aerodynamics, durability, strength and adaptability. However, interestingly enough, cost has always remained a lower priority with exorbitant price tags to these mighty machines.

One of the latest additions to the armoured vehicle fleet of the British Army will be a category of vehicle called the tactical support vehicle (TSV). In October 2008, 400 TSVs were ordered as part of the $700m protected patrol vehicles package. The new TSVs will be used to accompany patrols, and also to transport supplies such as ammunition and water.

The three types of vehicle include the Wolfhound a heavy armoured support vehicle to support and supply the new Mastiff with heavy mine protection (force protection), the Husky a medium armoured truck to carry out support in less threatened areas and the Coyote a light armoured support vehicle to support the new Jackal 2.

The Wolfhound TSV (heavy) and the Coyote TSV (light) will be produced as one variant, which is a utility flatbed vehicle that will be used to transport combat supplies. The Husky TSV (medium) will be produced as three variants; utility vehicle, ambulance with enhanced protection and command post vehicle.

The Jackal 2 has been designed to a high specification to protect personnel against roadside explosions and mine attack. The vehicle also has a special air-bag suspension system that allows rapid movement of the vehicle across varying terrain.

The vehicle is expected to be used for reconnaissance, rapid assault, fire support and convoy protection. The vehicle will have a range of 800km and will include a 7.62mm general-purpose machine gun (GPMG) and either a .50-calibre heavy machine gun (HMG) or grenade machine gun (GMG) as the main weapon system. The gun ring weapon in this machine has a 360° sweep of fire, much higher coverage than its predecessors.

Although, the key objective of most modern war machines is to minimize the number of personnel casualties by machines doing most of the work, it also means higher precision and hence higher number of people getting killed from the ‘enemy side’. With growing concerns and calls for ‘world peace’ by global leaders, spending on warfare, ironically enough, seems to be on the rise and shows no sign of decline!

Sources: pcmag.com, army-technology.com

Compiled by Mahdin Mahboob

[StarTech] TechViews: Super Fast Processors (How much speed is enough?)

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=94177

Since the inception of the first Personal Computer (PC), scientists and researchers have always strived towards making faster, cheaper and more efficient processors. Of these factors, speed of the CPU (Central Processing Unit) or the clock-rate of the processors was always the key concern of the computer architects.

The Moore’s law, as described by Gordon E Moore, the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of Intel Corporation describes the trend as: ‘the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has increased exponentially, doubling approximately every two years.’

In recent times though, some groundbreaking innovations have taken place, which seem to be defying all laws in terms of speed.

On May this year, the Japanese company Fujitsu Ltd announced that it developed the fastest central processing unit in the world. The Tokyo-based company presented a CPU that has the ability to carry out 128 billion calculations per second.

It is for the first time since 1999 that Fujitsu received the title of the world’s fastest CPU developer. Having developed the Venus, the Japanese company managed to surpass some of the largest technology corporations in the world, including Intel Corp. and IBM Corp. in terms of speed of the central processing unit.

It was estimated that Fujitsu’s latest creation runs about 2.5 times than the previous record holder developed by Intel. With the help of miniaturisation technology, the Japanese company was able to include twice as many central circuits onto a chip as there were on previous CPU, thus having eight instead of four circuits. The chip measures 2 sq. cm.

Furthermore, the Venus saves energy, reducing the consumption of electricity by about 30 percent compared to current levels.

There are rumours that the CPU is going to be used in the next-generation supercomputer that will start operating at the end of 2010. The supercomputer will be installed at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Science (Riken) and will feature tens of thousands of such CPUs as the Venus.

Engineers believe that the current CPU will be used to help new technologies develop drugs, predicts earthquakes and design rocket engines.

Another processor worth mentioning is the Intel Core i7 processor, dubbed by Intel as its most advanced desktop processor ever. Released in November 2008, the Core i7 processor is the first member of a new family of Nehalem processor designs and is the most sophisticated ever built, with new technologies that boost performance on demand and maximize data throughput. The Core i7 processor speeds video editing, immersive games and other popular Internet and computer activities by up to 40 percent without increasing power consumption.

Broadly heralded by the computing industry as a technical marvel, the Intel Core i7 processor holds a new world record of 117 for the SPECint_base_rate2006 benchmark test that measures the performance of a processor. This is the first time ever for any single processor to exceed a score of 100 points.

“Intel has delivered the fastest desktop processor on Earth to the most demanding users on Earth, the ones who are using their PCs for video, gaming and music,” said Patrick Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group. “When you couple what is Intel’s biggest leap in chip design with other incredible innovations like Intel’s solid state drives, the Core i7 processor has redefined the computer of tomorrow.”

Tech Web sites have been extremely positive in their product reviews. Anandtech states that “Core i7 continues to fuel Intel’s beacon of performance.” “The Core i7 is everything they promised it would be,” says PC Perspective. “Nehalem is a masterpiece,” says the Lost Circuits website. The Tech Report calls it “one of the most consequential shifts in the industry.”

Intel’s unique Turbo Boost Technology accelerates performance to match a computer user’s needs and workloads. Through a sophisticated on-die power control unit and using new “power gate” transistors based on Intel’s advanced 45 nanometer, high-k metal gate manufacturing process, Turbo Boost automatically adjusts the clock speed of one or more of the four individual processing cores for single- and multi-threaded applications to boost performance, without increasing power consumption. The Core i7 also has the latest Intel power-saving technologies, allowing desktops to go into sleep states formerly reserved for Intel-based notebooks.

The Core i7 processor more than doubles the memory bandwidth of previous Intel “Extreme” platforms, speeding the transfer of computer bits and bites in and out of the processor with Intel Quickpath Technology. Designed with Intel’s Hyper-Threading Technology, the processor also allows multiple computing threads to run simultaneously, effectively enabling it to do two things at once. As a result, the Core i7 quad-core processor delivers 8-threaded performance.

The Intel Core i7 processor also offers unrivalled performance for immersive 3-D games – over 40 percent faster than previous Intel high-performance processors on both the 3DMark Vantage CPU physics and AI tests, popular industry computer benchmarks that measure gaming performance. The Extreme Edition uses 8 threads to run games with advanced artificial intelligence and physics to make games act and feel real.

In January 2009, AMD launched its ‘fastest desktop processors ever’. They announced two new quad-core Phenom II processors at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, USA. The Phenom II processors, pack 8MB of cache and are positioned squarely in the consumer desktop market. They also run at up to 3GHz, though AMD has demonstrated an over-clocked Phenom II processor running up to 4GHz just on air cooling.

Even though the Phenom II processors represent the fastest processors ever released by AMD, they flounder when pitted against Intel’s fastest Core i7. Benchmarks show the Intel processor coming out about 22% faster, though the AMD system delivers better “performance per watt” figures.

Although the majority of PC users around the world are not high end users, who do not require top speed, it is also a matter of prestige of the processor manufacturing companies to be the proud owners of the fastest processors. The war is on!

Information Source: infoniac.com, intel.com, fiercecio.com and wikipedia.

Compiled by Mahdin Mahboob

[StarTech] TechViews: Budget 2009-10 (What’s in for IT, telecom and science?)

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=93173

On June 11, Finance Minister AMA Muhith unveiled the proposed budget for fiscal 2009-2010. In addition to the pressure of having to meet demands of different key sectors with limited resources and great expectations, the minister also had to take into account the demands of the people from ICT industry, and anyone and everyone remotely or directly connected to it.

The promise of a digital Bangladesh by the year 2021 made the expectations even higher from this year’s budget. In this issue of StarTech, we have looked into the pros and cons of the proposed budget and what experts are thinking about it.

The proposed budget for fiscal 2009-10 aims at making technology accessible to all and this was sharply reflected by the allocation of Tk 563 crore in ICT and telecommunication sectors, which is a giant leap from the Tk 265 crore in the revised budget for fiscal 2008-09. The allocation includes Tk 142 crore in Annual Developed Programme for science and ICT ministry, Tk 221 crore for post and telecommunication ministry, a special allocation of Tk 100 crore for ICT development and Tk 200 crore for equity and entrepreneurship fund for ICT promotion.

The finance minister also said that automated system would be introduced in the administration, educational institutions, land and health sectors and tax administration phase by the phase within a few years. If successfully implemented, an automated system would increase transparency and reduce corruption and hence fulfill the government’s pledge of a digital Bangladesh.

The commitment to connect the country with the second submarine cable for providing internet service to more people is likely to give ICT a major boost.

“We have to use information and communication technology extensively for accelerated development. Therefore, we are moving ahead with a dream of establishing digital Bangladesh by 2021. The transition to digitisation process will, on one hand, help accelerate production and on the other hand, facilitate curbing corruption,” said Muhith. The minister was also hopeful that the employment in ICT sector will rank second only to textile sector by 2021.

Mustafa Jabbar, president of Bangladesh Computer Samity, has termed the proposed budget a milestone — a great achievement of Bangladesh for being able to leap from the ‘Agricultural Age’ to the ‘Digital Age’, bypassing the ‘Industrial Age’. He was particularly impressed by the government’s massive plans for power sector, the current state of which many consider to be the single largest obstacle to bringing about digital Bangladesh. The finance minister informed the government’s decision to increase power generation by 950 MW this year and 2810 MW more by 2013 under different public and private initiatives. Jabbar appreciated the decision of withdrawing tax from internet usage at educational institutions but failed to understand why it did not apply for home users. The increased taxes on monitor, printer, toner and refill have also worried him and he suggested that they should immediately be withdrawn.

The proposed tax on mobile handsets and non withdrawal of tax on SIM cards is likely to hinder the growth of the fast growing telecommunications industry in Bangladesh, fear industry people and experts. In the proposed budget, a whopping 25 percent customs duty has been imposed on the import value of each set, scrapping the existing flat import duty of Tk 300 on each set. Bangladesh Mobile Phone Importers’ Association (BMPIA) has opposed the new duty structure saying they will have to pay at least Tk 800 for import of each low-priced handset. This decision will make a new handset and connection more expensive and perhaps deter first time buyers availing this service, people who need it the most.

Habibullah N Karim, president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, has welcomed the allocation of Taka 500 crore for ICT development but hoped to see the allocation of more Tk 500 crore in the revised budget.

“We are happy to see that the finance minister has rightfully emphasised the use of indigenous software and IT enabled services for the sustainable development of this sector. We also hope that the government will undertake all possible e-government projects in line with the action plan given in the ICT Policy 2009,” says Karim.

Although highly applauded by ICT people, Prof Haseena Khan of the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Dhaka has described the proposed budget by saying “Our frustration stems from the fact that to our policymakers ICT is the only science and technology worth pursuing” and like to see specific allocations in the biotechnology research sector in the revised budget. She said it was high time to grow this promising technology which could improve the quality of human life by leaps and bounds.

All in all, the proposed budget for fiscal 2009-2010 has had a mixed bag of responses from people related to ICT and other scientific fields and industry. With recommendations and suggested changes from the experts and people the final budget is expected to bring about positive change in the country.

mahdin@thedailystar.net

[StarTech] TechViews: Artificial Intelligence – The way forward

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=83486

A humanoid robot newly acquired by Imperial College London will lead to a deeper understanding of human intelligence, top, researchers at Cornell adjust a double pendulum, left, and ‘Adam’ at Aberstwyth University at work.

Whenever we hear about Artificial Intelligence (AI), many of us tend to think about a world where Robots would take over the entire world, or at least try to do so, as portrayed by sci-fi novels of Isaac Asimov or Hollywood blockbusters like Terminator-2 or i-Robot! Whether robots can ever be developed to that stage where it/they might plan to ‘take over the world’ is a completely different question, but some recent discoveries in the field of AI, has indeed left us flabbergasted, to say the least!

Imperial College London, UK
The College’s Departments of Computing and Electrical and Electronic Engineering believe that iCub, a humanoid robot the size of a three year old child, will further their research into cognition, the process of knowing that includes awareness, perception, reasoning and judgement.

Researchers want to learn more about how humans use cognition to interact with their world. They believe iCub’s human-like body will help them to understand how this is done.

The iCub has mechanical joints that enable it to move its head, arms, fingers, eyes and legs similarly to the way that humans do. Professor Murray Shanahan, of the Department of Computing, says this is important because cognition is very much tied up with the way we interact with the world.

“Nature developed cognition for us in order to make us better at interacting with the physical and social world,” he explains. “If we want to understand the nature of cognition better then we really need to understand it in the context of something that moves or interacts with objects. That is where iCub can help us.”

The team will test their theories about cognition by creating a computer simulation of a brain, which will replicate how neurons in real brains communicate through short bursts of electrical energy. In people, this process helps us to interact with the physical world. For instance, the electrical signals sent by neurons control muscles that enable people to lift a cup to the mouth to sip on a drink.

The research team at Imperial will also link the computer simulation of a brain to iCub so that it can process information about its environment and send bursts of electrical energy to its motors to allow it to move its arms, head, eyes and fingers to carry out very simple tasks such as lifting a ball and moving it from one place to another.

If the researchers are successful, they will have made an important step in reproducing the way that humans use cognition to interact in their world.

In the long term, they believe their research could help develop a new generation of intelligent factory robots that have much more versatility and do a wider variety of jobs.

Cornell University, USA
If Isaac Newton had had access to a supercomputer, he’d have had it watch apples fall and let it figure out what that meant. But the computer would have needed to run an algorithm developed by Cornell researchers that can derive natural laws from observed data.

The researchers have taught a computer to find regularities in the natural world that represent natural laws — without any prior scientific knowledge on the part of the computer.

The research is described in the April 3 issue of the journal Science by Hod Lipson, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and graduate student Michael Schmidt, a specialist in computational biology.

Their process begins by taking the derivatives of every variable observed with respect to every other — a mathematical way of measuring how one quantity change as another changes. Then the computer creates equations at random using various constants and variables from the data. It tests these against the known derivatives, keeps the equations that come closest to predicting correctly, modifies them at random and tests again, repeating until it literally evolves a set of equations that accurately describe the behaviour of the real system.

Technically, the computer does not output equations, but finds “invariants” — mathematical expressions that remain true all the time, from which human insights can derive equations.

Once the invariants are found, potentially all equations describing the system are available: “All equations regarding a system must fit into and satisfy the invariants,” Schmidt said. “But of course we still need a human interpreter to take this step.”

Computers will not make scientists obsolete, the researchers conclude. Rather, they said, the computer can take over the grunt work, helping scientists focus quickly on the interesting phenomena and interpret their meaning.

Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK
The discovery of 12 new functions for genes in one of the most studied organisms in the world wouldn’t be news, except that scientists didn’t discover them. A robot named Adam designed, carried out and discovered the new gene functions.

“Our goal is to make science more efficient,” said Ross King, a professor of biology and computer science at the University of Wales and author of a new paper in this week’s issue of Science detailing Adam’s work.

“If we had computers designing and carrying out experiments we could get through many more experiments than we currently can,” said King, adding “robots don’t need to take holidays.”

The 10-year-old Adam, which is housed at Aberystwyth University in the U.K., might replace humans eventually, but it doesn’t look like one. From the outside Adam is 45 cubic meters of elongated white plastic instruments. Inside Adam sits a biological library of more than 12,000 chilled petri dishes. Each dish contains a different yeast strain with various genes removed from them. With its various mechanical tools, Adam can grab the petri dishes, remove a sample of yeast, grow it, clean it and analyze the results of the experiment.

Adam actually discovered more than 12 new gene functions. When King and his colleagues compared the functions of all the genes Adam found, they realized that some of them had previously been described. So Adam had independently confirmed those results.

Adam is still a prototype, but King’s team hopes their next robot, Eve, will help boost the search for new drugs to combat diseases such as malaria.

“This system is still a prototype,” explained King. “The first car wasn’t as efficient as a horse.”

Adam and Eve not only have the hardware to physically manipulate objects, they also have advanced artificial intelligence systems that let them make their own decisions and then act on those decisions, without help from their human creators.

Information Source: Imperial College London Website, Cornell Chronicle and Discovery News

Compiled by Mahdin Mahboob

[StarTech] TechViews – A new Internet?

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=77678

Guy Hoffman

According to a report published in The New York Times, there is a growing belief among engineers and security experts in USA that the only way to fix Internet security is to recreate the Internet from scratch. What a new Internet might look like is being discussed, but one possible solution would create a system in which users would relinquish their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety.

As more secure networks are created, the current Internet will continue to become an increasingly dangerous area that legitimate users will want to avoid. “Unless we’re willing to rethink today’s Internet,” says Nick McKeown, a Stanford University engineer working on building a new Internet, “we’re just waiting for a series of public catastrophes.” Last year, a malicious software program believed to have been released by a criminal organization in Eastern Europe infected more than 12 million computers after bypassing the world’s best cyberdefenses. Internet security continues to deteriorate globally and even the most heavily protected military networks have proved vulnerable. “In many respects, we are probably worse off than we were 20 years ago, because all of the money has been devoted to patching the current problem rather than investing in the redesign of our infrastructure,” says Purdue University professor Eugene Spafford, the executive director of Purdue’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security. The Stanford University Clean Slate project is developing a system that will allow a more advanced network to be established underneath the current Internet. The new network will be running on eight campus networks around the United States by the end of summer 2009.

Two decades ago a 23-year-old Cornell University graduate student brought the Internet to its knees with a simple software program that skipped from computer to computer at blinding speed, thoroughly clogging the then-tiny network in the space of a few hours.

The program was intended to be a bit of cybernetic fungus that would unobtrusively wander the net. However, a programming error turned it into a much worse phenomenon, and since then things have gotten even more worse.

Bad enough that there is a growing belief among engineers and security experts that Internet security and privacy have become so maddeningly elusive that the only way to fix the problem is to start all over again.

As a new and more secure network becomes widely adopted, the current Internet might end up as the bad neighborhood of cyberspace. You would enter at your own risk and keep an eye over your shoulder while you were there.

Last year, a malicious software program thought to have been unleashed by a criminal gang in Eastern Europe suddenly appeared after easily sidestepping the world’s best cyberdefenses. Known as Conficker, it quickly infected more than 12 million computers, ravaging everything from the computer system at a surgical ward in England to the computer networks of the French military.

Conficker remains a ticking time bomb. Conficker could be used as the world’s most powerful spam engine, perhaps to distribute software programs to trick computer users into purchasing fake antivirus protection. Or much worse. It might also be used to shut off entire sections of the Internet. But whatever happens, Conficker has demonstrated that the Internet remains highly vulnerable to a concerted attack.

“If you’re looking for a digital Pearl Harbor, we now have the Japanese ships streaming toward us on the horizon,” Rick Wesson, the chief executive of Support Intelligence, a computer consulting firm, said recently.

The Internet’s original designers never foresaw that the academic and military research network they created would one day bear the burden of carrying all the world’s communications and commerce. There was no one central control point and its designers wanted to make it possible for every network to exchange data with every other network. Little attention was given to security. Since then, there have been immense efforts to bolt on security, to little effect.

In fact, many computer security researchers view the nearly two decades of efforts to patch the existing network as a Maginot Line approach to defense, a reference to France’s series of fortifications that proved ineffective during World War II. The shortcoming in focusing on such sturdy digital walls is that once they are evaded, the attacker has access to all the protected data behind them. “Hard on the outside, with a soft chewy center,” is the way many veteran computer security researchers think of such strategies.

Information Source: The New York Times

[StarTech] TechViews – Future phones to read your voice & gesture

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=73470

According to a report by Priya Ganapati of Wired Dot Com, buttons on Cell Phones are pretty much on their way out. Five years from now, it is likely that the mobile phone you will be holding will be a smooth, sleek brick a piece of metal and plastic with a few grooves in it and little more.

Like Apple’s iPhone, it will be mostly display; unlike the iPhone, it will be much more than just a touchscreen – it will respond to voice commands and gestures as well as touch.

Specialists predict that Mobile interface design has to mimic the touch, sight, gesture and auditory feeds that we use to interact with our environment. That means speaking to your phone rather than typing, pointing with your finger instead of clicking on buttons, and gesturing instead of touching. You could listen to music, access the internet, use the camera and shop for gadgets by just telling your phone what you want to do, by waving your fingers at it, or by aiming its camera at an object you’re interested in buying.

Over the last few years, advances in display technology and processing power have turned smartphones into capable and smaller versions of computers. As a result, phones have gone beyond traditional audio communication and texting to support a wide range of multimedia and office applications.

The one thing that hasn’t changed, until recently, is the tiny keypad. Sure, there have been some tweaks, such as T9 predictive text input that cuts down on the time it takes to type, a QWERTY keyboard instead of a 12-key one, or the touchscreen version of a keyboard found on the iPhone. But basically, the act of telling your phone what to do still involves the use of your fingers, specially your thumbs!

Experts say the industry needs a new wave of interface technologies to transform how we relate to our phones. The traditional keypads and scroll wheels will give way to advanced speech recognition and motion sensors.

In the future, instead of a single large screen that is fragile and smudged by fingerprints, phone designers could create products with multiple touch screens.

Users could also interact with their phone by simply speaking to it using technology from companies such as Massachusetts (USA) based Vlingo.

Vlingo’s application allows users to command their phones by voice. That could enable you to speak the URLs for web pages or dictate e-mail messages!

Natural speech recognition has long been a challenging affair for human-computer interface researchers. Most devices with speech-recognition capabilities require users to speak commands in an artificially clear way. They also tend to have high error rates, leading to unpopularity.

Unlike conventional voice-recognition technologies, which require specific applications built to recognize selected language commands, Vlingo uses a more open-ended approach.

User voice commands are captured as audio files and transferred over the wireless connection to a server, where they’re processed. The technology personalizes itself for each individual user, recognizing and training itself based on the individual user’s speech patterns.

“If you say Boston and it shows up as Austin you can correct it on screen,” says Vlingo CEO Dave Grannan. “And when you make the correction you are training the system.”

This new technology would also mean there is absolutely no need to memorize a list of commands or change the way you speak!

Information Source: Wired.Com

[StarTech] TechViews – The 21st century elections

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=68746

Welcome to the 21st Century! For the first time in the history of the United States, majority of the campaign money came through the internet, not from major corporate houses. US president-elect Barack Husein Obama had collected the majority of his campaign money from small $5, $10 and $20 contributions made by thousands of people all across the country, specially the young, the first time voters.

Bangladesh too is feeling the election fever as the 9th Parliamentary Election closes in. This time, the vote is all about new and innovative uses of technology, to attract the 32 percent first time voters and another 25 percent of young second time voters. That would young people are now 57 percent of the total voters in the country, for many of whom, internet and cell phones are best means for communication.

The political parties in Bangladesh, previously depending heavily on extremely loud use of microphones, flooding the walls with posters and writings, and bishaal jonoshobhas alone, have been quick to adopt the recent trends and have started some very innovative and effective means of campaigning using modern technologies.

We at StarTech have tried to find out some of the more interesting publicity measures and news coverage mechanism which are new in this election:

• SMS and email publicity: Many candidates are collecting the cell phone numbers and email addresses of voters of individuals residing in their constituencies and sending them individual emails and text messages, asking for their valuable votes!
• Facebook: Fanpages and groups have been set up in Facebook, the most popular online social networking site in Bangladesh, for both the two major political parties and some others.
• Party Websites: BNP, Awami League and Jamaat have all put up a fresh look on their websites, complete with election manifestos and election and campaign updates. (No website, however, of Jatiya Party was found after some quick google search)
• Special Election Pages: Major national newspapers, including The Daily Star and New Age have put up special pages for the upcoming elections, including interactive constituency maps, details about political parties and candidates, expert opinions on different issues, and a range of other features.

So, on the Election Day, do not, by any means, waste your vote!

Just remember one thing, if you do not vote, you cannot complain afterwards!

[StarTech] TechViews – Microwave Remote Sensing (Prediction and monitoring of disasters in Bangladesh)

http://thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=67694

Satellite Image of Bangladesh (taken in October 2001, by Google Earth ) showing the low elevation and the main rivers, top left, and standard beam mode RADARSAT-1 images (25m resolution) acquired on October, 21, 2001 and May 7, 2008 following Cyclone Nargis.

Microwave remote sensing technologies have been successfully used in different disaster management and risk assessment schemes in different countries of the world for quite some time now. Bangladesh, because of its unique geographical location, is prone to natural disasters such as flash floods, cyclones and storm surges, tornadoes, drought, hailstorm and lightning, erosion, landslide and earthquake. These disasters cost a huge loss in lives and property. Proper monitoring and accurate forecast can save many lives and huge amount of money. It is high time that microwave remote sensing technologies, which provide a much better alternative to existing technologies in use, are used more extensively than they are being done now.

The microwaves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum and their wavelengths range from 1 mm to 1m. The range of frequencies this covers is between 3000 to 30,000 MHz (3-30 GHz). The microwaves exhibit unique capabilities in remote sensing and they have a number of stand-alone applications. The fact that microwave observational facility works equally well in all weathers as well as in both day and night time helps in using microwave sensors for different land based, atmospheric and oceanography applications including disaster management. Remote sensing technologies, being used by different countries including the neighbouring country of India, provide a much better alternative compared to existing technologies in use.

Microwaves are specially suited for Remote Sensing because of several reasons: they can penetrate clouds, they are independent of the sun as a source and can hence be used in day as well as night and lastly, they can penetrate deeper into vegetation compared to optical waves. Furthermore, microwaves are capable of penetrating into the ground itself.

The potential of using satellite based microwave observations of soil moisture to improve flood predictability is a concept that is being explored in different parts of the world today. Remote sensing observations could add skill to predictions of flood peak timing and magnitude. The inundated land surface conditions displayed are a detectable precursor to subsequent downstream flooding. The use of remotely sensed passive microwave observations improves the forecasting skill for regional scale flooding. In Bangladesh, where flooding is a regular problem because of its unique geographical location, microwave remote sensing maybe a good tool to accurately forecast flooding patterns and hence would help the government to take steps accordingly.

Microwave remote sensing also helps to monitor and forecast other natural disasters common to Bangladesh including cyclones, earthquakes, landslide, erosion and droughts. The process uses active and passive sensors placed in satellites, aeroplanes or helicopters to achieve this task.

Bangladesh is located in the low-lying Ganges-Brahmaputra River Delta or Ganges Delta. This unique geographical location makes the country subject to many forms of natural disasters on a frequent basis, and the nine major types are listed below:

The table below shows the major types of natural disasters in Bangladesh and the areas they usually affect and the impact they cause. This was found in a research published in the Bangladesh State of the Environment Report 2001.

The following images of Yangon, Myanmar, taken using the RADARSAT before and after Cyclone Nargis (which also partially affected the southernmost coast of Bangladesh) show microwave satellite images of the city [12]:

The following image shows the trackchart of that cyclone recorded using the AMSR-E. The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer – EOS (AMSR-E) is a one of the six sensors (passive microwave radiometer) aboard the Aqua Satellite which was launched by NASA in 2002.

It is quite evident that it is high time Bangladesh uses microwave remote sensing technologies more to accurately monitor and forecast natural disasters (including cyclones, earthquakes, floods, etc.) and take steps accordingly.

The use of Microwave Remote Sensing will provide a faster, more reliable and timely methodology for prediction and monitoring of natural disasters which will help in saving men and materials and lives of the common people of Bangladesh. It is suggested that the steps are taken immediately to initiate work in use of Microwave Remote Sensing for this purpose.

Information Source: Paper titled ‘Microwave Remote Sensing for Prediction and Monitoring of Disasters in Bangladesh’ [Mahdin Mahboob, Prof O P N Calla]  published in the InCMARS-2008 (Indian Conference on Microwave Antenna Propagation and Remote Sensing) held in the International Centre for Radio Science, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India between 9-11 December, 2008

[StarTech] TechViews – Computers that understand how you feel

http://thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=60012

Technological marvels continue to amaze us everyday and this news is no exception! A navigation system able to provide fast emergency services while at the same time taking into consideration human stress; this is an example of a complete new type of dialogue system developed by a PhD candidate at the University of Twente (Netherlands), Trung Bui. His dialogue system recognizes the user’s emotions and is then able to react to them.

Dialogue systems are basically computer systems which communicate with humans and which are used especially for information provision such as in the speaking computer that provides important travel information. Normally, these computers do not take human emotions into account even though this is an important component of human interaction. The problem with human emotions is that they are often difficult to interpret, and that is especially true for a computer, which basically is, nothing more than a machine!

Raising one’s voice can, for example, indicate enthusiasm but it can also be a sign of anger. Therefore, we require extra information to be sure which of the two emotions is present. Human beings are trained to combine various types of information (which may sometimes be quite vague) and still be able to draw the correct conclusions. Dealing with uncertainties is however difficult to program into computer software.

Bui developed a dialogue system that, unlike others, could take emotions into account. To do this, he used a mathematical technique developed in the 1960s for controlling factory processes called Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP).

He demonstrated that this technique was suitable for integrating the user’s emotions into a dialogue system because it could deal with uncertainties. The method performs better than existing systems as long as it is tested with small-scale dialogue problems.

However, for larger problems the method requires too much calculating power. That is why Bui developed a hybrid strategy which combines the Dynamic Decision Network (DDN) technique with POMDP. In contrast to the latter, the DDN-POMDPs split dialogue systems into two levels. They make a choice between looking far ahead and seeing whether the necessary calculating power is actually available.

To illustrate the effectiveness of the DDN-POMDP, Bui had applied it to a navigation system for emergency services that took the stress experienced by the user into account. The navigation system receives input from a separate stress module that measures an emergency worker’s stress levels, taking these into account when the user is in communication with the system. Whenever the user’s stress levels become raised, the system will anticipate, for example, that the user is more likely to make mistakes and for that reason will request confirmation more often.