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Your blog is smart, insightful, and always a quality read. Truly appreciated by many, surpassed by only a few.

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[UPGRADE] Better Commenting and TrackBack

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog. Now, anyone can comment on a post, not just Blogger.com members. The downside is that existing comments to posts appear to have been wiped out by the Haloscan install.

Creepy Halloween Urban Legends

There's nothing like a twisted urban legend to run a chill down your spine, and Snopes.com is perhaps the Web's premier resource for the latest and greatest in modern folklore. Check out their collection of Halloween urban legends, including recent news stories and other ghoulish tales.

Happy Halloween to all! Don't eat too much candy... and those of you who observe Daylight Saving Time, remember to turn your clocks back one hour Saturday night. Check your smoke detector batteries too!

Accuracy, Future of Phone Polls in Doubt

As the presidential election enters the homestretch, nobody seems able to make sense of incoming polling figures. One minute it's a dead heat, the next minute Bush is breaking out, and the next, Kerry's ahead. What's going on?

Some experts believe that traditional methods of polling -- particularly telephone polls -- are no longer reliable. Brian Vargus, a political science professor at Indiana University, believes that the era of telephone polling is coming to an end. "This may be the last election where you'll see such a proliferation of telephone polls," he says.

Several factors play into the decline in the reliability of telephone polling:

• More Americans rely on cell phones, and many -- especially young people -- use them as their primary phones. Cell phone numbers aren't listed, and pollsters would hesitate to call them anyway as the recipient has to pay for incoming calls.
• The prevalence of answering machines and Caller ID allows for the easy screening of calls. In many households, an incoming call from an unfamiliar number is automatically ignored.
• Many newly-registered voters are poor, and don't have phones at all. If these voters turn out in large numbers, they will invalidate much of the polling, regardless of how they vote.
  
• The response rate of telephone polls -- that is, the percentage of people who agree to participate in them -- has dropped dramatically, from as high as 80% in the 1960s to as low as 10% today. Some statisticians believe that the response rate is now too low to provide an accurate sample of opinions.

If not with phone polls, how else could pollsters gauge public opinion? Some have suggested a return to door-to-door polling and "man on the street" interviews. But in this day and age, those would likely be perceived as even more invasive than phone polling. Perhaps, as Internet access increases, pollsters could develop more scientific methods of Internet-based polling. Yet others believe that market-based predictors, in which participants buy and sell "shares" in candidates based on their potential, are the way to go.

Deadly Flu Epidemic On The Way?

Not to frighten anybody, but the head of the Russian Virology Institute is predicting a major worldwide bird-flu pandemic this season, with fatalities numbering in the billions.

" 'Up to one billion people could die around the whole world in six months,' [Dmitry] Lvov said. The expert did not give a timeframe for the epidemic, but said that it is highly probable that it will start this year. 'We are half a step away from a worldwide pandemic catastrophe.' "

Lvov believes that up to 700,000 Americans could die in such an outbreak. He is also urging Russian authorities to prepare for the epidemic by reserving hospital beds.

Lvov has not provided many further details, and the credibility of this prediction remains unclear. It's interesting that he took pains to mention American fatalities, perhaps playing into concerns over the recent flu vaccine shortage here.

Source: Minding the Planet

Baby Likes Video Games

Video games are no longer the purview of pre-teens and teens, according to an article in the New York Times. Children as young as three are embracing computer games... either playing versions designed especially for them or mastering the games of their older siblings.

The article cites research from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation stating that half of all children between the ages of 4 to 6 have played video games, and of those, one in four plays regularly. The survey also found that 14 percent of children below age 3 have played video games.

Among the things this trend reveals are:

• Children have an innate comfort level with technology, as evidenced by young children's mastery of games designed for teens and adults. The game players of today will become the workers of tomorrow... and for them, high-tech will be an expectation.
• At the very least, young game players will demand increasingly complex and challenging games as they grow up.
• Marketers are responding with computer games designed for young players.
• Video games sales are beginning to cut into sales of other toys (a trend to watch this upcoming holiday season).
• Games designed for youngster with unrefined motor skills are including innovative controls and interactivity. Some of these can be adapted for users with physical disabilities, and may lead to more intuitive computer interfaces for adults.

Map of Creativity

A UK-based group called the Next Generation Foundation has created an interactive Map of Creativity that uses an innovative Flash interface to list educational, cultural and other socially beneficial projects around the world. The interface takes a bit of getting used to (about 30 seconds), but once you getthe hang of it, you can drill around and search by category, age group and geographic location.

The NGF was founded by Kjeld Kirk, CEO of the LEGO Company.

Source: Beverly Tang

Microsoft Develops Next-Generation PDA Interface

Microsoft is developing a new PDA interface that will allow users to access Web content more easily. As more PDA users get wireless Internet access, the problem of surfing the Web on a very small screen becomes evident. A standard web page is illegible on a PDA.

Microsoft's solution is to allow users to zoom in on content of interest through pen strokes. The user can use standard web menus and links, then enlarge pages to be readable while preserving their context.

Source: Futurismic

Political Bloggers Strike Again

Liberal bloggers have called the Bush campaign on an ad titled "Whatever It Takes." The ad itself is relatively conventional and, in its final scene, shows the President addressing an assembly of soldiers. Problem is, careful observers have noted that the soldiers in that group scene appear to have been digitally duplicated.

By now you may have heard about this on the news, and the Kerry campaign is using this as evidence that the Bush team plays fast and loose with the truth. However, it seems that the only thing Bush is guilty of here is sloppiness.

In the old days, no one would ever have given this ad a second thought. But in this superheated campaign, everything is game. Plus, the convergence of blogs and digital video recorders have given people the tools to analyze what they see on TV more closely than ever before.

Enterpreneur Uses Tech for Better Health

A must-read article from CNN.com regarding Vikram Kumar, a young MIT graduate who develops handheld technologies for developing countries. Using software developed by his startup company, clinicians in India and South Africa are able to manage thousands of patients and distribute test results... all while maintaining security and patient confidentiality. Kumar is also developing computer games for children with juvenile diabetes to help them better manage their blood sugar levels.

Study: Businesses Not Prepared for Terrorism

In this election season, voters consistently rate terrorism and homeland security as among their top concerns. However, a two-year study reveals that businesses don't appear to share those worries.

Shortly before 9/11, Ian Mitroff and Dr. Murat Alpaslan began a survey of Fortune 1000 companies to determine their preparedness for terrorist attacks and other emergencies. They followed up on the one- and two-year anniversaries of 9/11, and found that little had been done to increase levels of emergency preparedness and crisis management:

Immediately after 9/11, preparation for all kinds of crises shot up dramatically, but especially for terrorism. The reasons were just as important as the increases themselves. Most executives that we talked to reported that their companies increased their preparations because, “it was the right thing to do irrespective of costs.”

One and two years later, only a tiny fraction of companies are continuing their preparations for terrorism and other crises but “if and only if they are cost effective.” Even more disturbing, preparations for terrorism as well as all other crises spiked about one year after 9/11 and they have continued to decrease dramatically. With few exceptions, we are back to the same low levels of crisis preparation that we were prior to 9/11. [Emphasis from the original article]

Mitroff points to the Northeast power failure of August 2003 as evidence that businesses remain complacent about crisis management. However, he does credit those companies that are taking crisis planning seriously and are being proactive.

Unfortunately, this kind of head-in-the-sand thinking is all too common in the business community. Crisis management and disaster recovery don't provide immediate return on investment; therefore, they're the first expenses cut during rounds of budget tightening. Then something happens, and everyone asks the inevitable question: "Why wasn't something done to prevent this?"

Anyone who thinks about the future knows that, sooner or later, the fecal matter is going to hit the fan. Just ask the folks in Florida who have recently been battered by hurricanes...

Source: World Future Society

The Future of Cars

What kind of car will you be driving in 10 years? According to an article on MSNBC.com, politics and the economy could play a large role in determining the future of cars over the next decade.

States, particularly California, are mandating cars that emit less CO2. And since California is such a large car market, many auto manufacturers build their cars to comply with rigid California emissions standards by default. California also has tougher-than-average safety standards, such as mandates for daytime running lights.

Higher-mileage cars typically emit less CO2... so aside from being environmentally friendly, they are also mor eeconomical to drive. And if oil prices remain high, drivers will likely seek high-mileage vehicles. Auto makers may be encouraged to expand their offerings of hybrid technology, adding it to large cars, minivans and even SUVs.

The winner of the upcoming presidental race will surely have a say in car safety and emissions. President Bush has encouraged technical solutions to reduce CO2, but has not pushed hard for regulation. John Kerry, on the other hand, may be more environemtnally aggressive. However, the environment is not high on anybody's radar screen right now.

The auto industry argues that further safety and environmental regulations would increase the sticker price on cars. However, they discovered in the 1980s that consumers were willing to pay more for safer cars, as evidenced by the success of Volvo and other cars that stressed their safety features. So it may go with emissions controls and higher-mileage vehicles; consumers may see those as investments that protect the environment while also saving them money in the long run.

Sick of Boring Old Jack-o-Lanterns?

So is this guy...

If you're looking for creative pumpkin-carving ideas, check out ExtremePumpkins.com and see what some clever carvers are doing with the season's favorite gourd.

[FOLLOWUP] Cassini Relays Perplexing Titan Pix

After its successful fly-by of Saturn's moon Titan, the Cassini space probe sent back surface images, the most detailed yet seen. However, scientists don't know exactly what they're looking at yet.

The infrared photos appear to reveal some types of topography, which may be coastlines or mountains. Some features may be clouds, while others might be lakes of liquid methane. Titan is the only moon in the Solar System in the atmosphere, yet it is so cold that substances that would normally be gases on earth are liquefied.

Searches Increasingly Look for Business, Not Porn

Research from Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh have found that web users are searching more for business and e-commerce resources, and less for sex and pornography. The researchers examined Internet usage patterns and archived searches over several years.

Researchers noted that sex-related searched comprised 20 percent of all searched in 1997, as opposed to 5 percent today. By contrast, shopping-related searches increased by 86 percent in the same period.

Reasons for this shift are multiple, and may include such factors as:

• The growing acceptance of the Net as a business and productivity tool
• The general growth of e-commerce, and users' increased comfort level with shopping online
  
• The prevalence of anti-porn firewalls and strict policies against accessing adult content in the workplace
• The increase in the number of women -- who would rather shop than look at porn -- online
  
• Fears that adult websites may contain viruses or spyware
• After seven years, anyone interested in adult content has probably downloaded all the porn they can ever use anyway

The study also found that users seek immediate gratification in their searches, using about two words per search and looking at the first few sites that a search brings up. Hence, the importance of search engine placement, including paid placement.

Source: Techdirt

Blogger Takes the Day Off

Many blogs hosted by Blogger.com -- including this one -- have been dark for much of the day today. According to Blogger's status board, they have been experiencing network difficulties since midnight last night. Things seem to be better now (obviously, I'm able to post). My apologies to readers who have been inconvenienced by this outage.

Tech to Prevent SIDS

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a "Smart Shirt" for infants that has sensors to record a child's heartbeat. The shirt can be used to monitor infants for risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS); data is recorded and played back by medical technicians, much in the way that a holter monitor operates. A next-generation shirt could send alerts directly to parents or clinicians.

Elsewhere, design student Gary Cho has developed a "Caring Cot," a rocking crib that automatically rocks an infant back to sleep if he awakens. Aside from giving baby (and parents) a good night's rest, the device responds to sound, movement and temperature -- giving it the potential to alert parents if the baby is in distress.

SIDS is defined as the sudden, unexplained death of a child under the age of one.

Mobile Phone Cam Attachment Sees Through Clothes

Next time someone takes your picture with a phone cam, they may be getting more of an eyeful than you intend.

A night filter attachment for Vodaphone phone cams can apparently penetrate clothing to reveal naked bodies. The device is made by the Japanese manufacturer Yamada Denshi, and is supposedly most effective in penetrating form-fitting bikinis.

The device works because the images it produces are based on heat, not visible light. And since bodies produce heat and clothes do not, it ignores the clothes and images the bodies only.

As you might expect, the gadget is becoming a fast fave of voyeurs, especially in Japan, who swap photos through the Internet.

When I was growing up, the backs of comic books featured ads for "x-ray glasses" that offered the subtle but titillating promise of being able to see through clothes. Of course, they were just stupid cardboard things with pinholes that created an optical illusion of being able to "see through" something. But now it looks like we have the real thing, along with its consequences...

Source: Smart Mobs

[FOLLOWUP] Cassini Flies Past Titan

The good news is that the Cassini space probe orbiting Saturn made a successful fly-by of the moon Titan today. The bad news is that we have to wait until later tonight to see any images. Cassini won't start transmitting until 9:30 PM EDT, and there's a several-hour time delay on top of that. Hopefully by tomorrow morning we'll have some eye candy.

Glucose Meter + GameBoy = GlucoBoy!

In one of those fits of pure genius, a company called Guidance Interactive Healthcare has developed the GlucoBoy, a glucose meter that attaches to Nintendo GameBoy devices. The idea is to make it easier and more pleasant for children to test their glucose levels.



Technology combined with consideration for the end user. Gotta love it!

Source: bTang

Which Nigerian Spammer Are You?

Eighty percent of all Internet users say they have received spam messages informing them they are the recipients of untold riches in a bank account in Nigeria. The other 20 percent are either lying or haven't checked their e-mail in several years...

The folks at BBspot, who are always good for something funny, have an online quiz to determine which Nigerian spammer you most closely resemble.

Which Nigerian spammer are You?

License to Parent

Occasionally, there comes along a concept that's at once smart and horrifying. One of these is the idea of regulating parenthood. In the book Should Parents Be Licensed?, editor Peg Tittle has assembled essays exploring issues such as requiring prospective parents to be certified for fitness; prenatal child abuse; compulsory contraception; and who should determine the fundamental right to have children.

We witness examples of abysmal parenting on a daily basis, whether we watch a parent explode at their kids in a mall or grocery store, or hear about someone convicted of infanticide on the evening news. Cleary, there are many parents out there who have no business being around kids, and don't have the financial, emotional or intellectual resources to raise them. Children don't ask to be born, and many adults don't ask to be parents.

But doing something about it (i.e. implementing the ideas set forth in Tittle's book) cuts to the very core of individual rights and freedoms. If you don't have the right to perform the most imtimate and profound acts with your body -- make love, conceive and give birth to a child -- what rights can you possibly have? More concretely, what criteria would be used to determine parental fitness? Who would set those criteria? What would happen to a couple who conceived a child without a permit? What would happen to the child? If a woman miscarries a child because she doesn't eat properly, could she be charged with murder? Enforcing these ideas as laws would sow the seeds of a police state, with Nazi Germany as an extreme example. Ultimately, we'd have a two-tier society of those "fit" and "unfit." And if you happen to be judged "unfit," what else would you be good for?

You may be intrigued or repulsed by the positions taken in this book... but you must agree that the questions it sets forth have no simple answers. They are issues that society will have to face in the coming years, especially as we continue to debate abortion, contraception, teen sexuality and population growth.

Read more about the book in this New York Times Book Review excerpt. For more discussion on emerging parenthood issues, check out the Half Changed World blog.

Cassini Saturn Probe to Fly Past Titan

The Cassini space probe currently orbiting Saturn is scheduled to fly today to within 745 miles of the surface of Titan, the planet's largest and most intriguing moon. The probe will take infrared and radar images that are expected to give us a much clearer view of the moon's surface, which is obscured by a thick atmosphere. It is this atmosphere that causes scientists to speculate that Titan might harbor primitive life.

US Army to Use Microwave Guns

Science fiction meets reality! Next year, the U.S. Army will debut a microwave gun, which fires painful yet nonlethal and non-injuring electronic beams. It will most likely see its first use in Iraq for crowd control and to quell civil disturbances. These guns, known formally as the Active Denial System (what a name!), will be mounted on large armored vehicles already in Iraq, to be called "Sheriffs." The Army hopes to have at least several Sheriffs deployed by next fall. If the Sheriffs prove successful, they may be deployed elsewhere, such as sensitive military sites worldwide and for border patrols.

The Active Denial System may be paired with another innovative weapon, Gunslinger, that detects enemy sniper fire, automatically determines its origin, and fires back. This device, however, will be a bit more deadly.

The Rebirth of Design

Have you noticed the increased attention paid to design of consumer items these days? In retail, Target broke out from the pack by infusing everything it sells with smart, hip style. Apple's iMacs and iPods are known as much for their appearance as their functionality. And what's up with all those home makeover shows like Trading Spaces?

It seems like we've all gone design-happy these days, and an article in this month's American Demographics has some theories as to why. For one, thanks to increased attention to quality of consumer goods, many items have become commodities. If everything performs dependably, why choose Brand X over Brand Y, especially if it costs more? While consumers are oversaturated with advertising, they will gravitate toward products that look cool and appear to have some thought behind their styling (with the rationale that a well-designed product must work better than an ugly one). Products, therefore, must differentiate themselves through attractive and original design.

The article even credits our renewed interest in design to post-9/11 trauma, which forced many of us to look inward for fulfillment. Instead of traveling to exotic places, we brought the exotic into our homes. Thanks to makeover shows like Trading Spaces, we know how to add pizzaz to any living space within any budget.

One other factor I'd mention in the rebirth of design is simply the fact that whenever something that's attractive and different hits the market, it causes a sensation -- something that no marketer can ignore. For instance, in the mid-1980s, after years of boring "econo-box" cars, the Ford Taurus appeared with its rounded "jellybean" design and turned the auto industry on its ear. The Taurus' design principles have become so widely adopted that more angular cars like the Scion and the Honda Element are now considered radical. And who can forget the arrival of the colorful iMacs in the sea of white, black and beige PC boxes? The design factor alone virtually saved Apple.

The article advocates a new discipline of designographics, combining styling with demographic research. Designers must learn how people perceive design and why they will be motivated to purchase and use products with certain styling. As researchers delve into this field, they are likely to be surprised time and again by what they learn.

Lessons Learned from Indymedia Server Seizure

The details surrounding last week's seizure of hardware belonging to the independent news service Indymedia remain as murky as ever. According to an article in the UK tech publication The Inquirer, no one seems certain exactly who ordered the seizure, or exactly what was being searched for.

One thing, however, is crystal clear: the Internet is not immune to government control. The article notes that the old Internew saw "the Internet perceives censorship as damage and routes around it" didn't hold up this time. Why? The answer is surprising simple...

Forty percent of Indymedia's servers were hosted at a single location, which made disabling the network a mere matter of unplugging hardware. Where were the failover servers? Why didn't Indymedia treat this as a disaster recovery situation and bring replacement servers back online? Redundancy, then, is the key to surviving any kind of attack, whether it be natural or man-made. Especially for information services that are controversial, designing a redundant architecture and a disaster recovery plan is crucial... even when using peer-to-peer and other protocols that are supposedly decentralized.

Source: Smart Mobs

Robots Rule!

An article in Wired cites the United Nations' Annual Robotics Survey, which says that the use of robots to perform household chores will increase sevenfold by 2007. Between falling costs of robot development and production, rising labor costs and increased functionality, robots are taking on ever more diverse and complex tasks. "By the end of the decade, the study said, robots will 'not only clean our floors, mow our lawns and guard our homes but also assist old and handicapped people with sophisticated interactive equipment, carry out surgery, inspect pipes and sites that are hazardous to people, fight fire and bombs.' "

We seem to be reaching a "tipping point" concerning robots, where all of a sudden they seem practical. Part of it, as the Wired article mentioned, is driven by economics. But a lot of it also is because we're learning more about how to build better robots, and perform complex tasks mechanically. We often take our bodies for granted, forgetting how difficult it is to climb stairs, pick up and manipulate small objects, and refine eye-to-hand coordination. Instead of trying to build humanoid robots, we're learning to accepts machines for what they are, and design them accordingly.

We are also understanding that it's better to design task-specific robots that do one thing well rather than an uber-robot that can do everything. The Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner is a case in point; it vacuums, and that's all. The house of the future may contain dozens of diverse robots, each assigned a specific tasks, for which it is designed perfectly.

How Blogging is Changing Journalism, Public Relations

Anyone following FutureWire (or any resource covering media and technology) has gotten an earful/eyeful of how disruptive technologies are changing the worlds of journalism, marketing and public relations. On a recent webinar hosted by the Public Relations Society of America, Pamela Parker Caird of Jupiter Media and ClickZ, in association with unmediated, presented on how blogs and other emerging technologies are changing the public relations game. You can download the PowerPoint presentation here, or access the archived webinar here.

Bottom line: Journalists are relying more and more on blogs and RSS newsfeeds as sources of front-line information. The presentation includes an informal survey of journalists showing nearly 90% considering blogs "somewhat important" or "critically important" for daily newsgathering.

Poll: College Students Politically Energized, Support Kerry

A study of college students conducted by Harvard University finds that students today are far more politically motivated than students in the past, more vested in political parties, more likely to be registered to vote... and are leaning strongly toward John Kerry.

The poll found that Kerry holds a 13-point lead over George W. Bush among college students -- a lead that appears to have grown since the spring. Women support Kerry very strongly, whereas males are evenly split between Kerry and Bush.

But what might be most remarkable is the "sea change" that the poll finds about political attitudes. The combination of the war in Iraq, the lingering possibility of a draft, realities of a post-9/11 world, concerns about the economy and a general sense that the country is "on the wrong track" have combined to make students more politically active. Topping that off is the 2000 election, which turned the phrase "every vote counts" from a cliche to a reality. As a result of this and other studies, experts predict strong voter turnout among college students in this election.

If this holds true, it could fundamentally change the way candidates campaign. In the past, candidates largely ignored college students, focusing more on senior citizens and other groups with active voting records. But now, candidates may want (or need) to hold rallies on campuses, organizing more aggressively in colleges and even high schools. Advertising might change as well, addressing the concerns of younger voters as well as their parents and grandparents. High interest among young people would appear to be an opportunity for candidates and parties to cultivate lifelong party loyalists.

Back in my college days, political interest was pretty minimal, and I was the only one I knew who bothered to vote. But those days seem to be gone. And if this study is correct, college students could have a substantial voice in a couple of weeks.