Bringing Dogs Back from the Dead

In an experiment that recalls the Stephen King horror story Pet Semetary, scientists at the Pittsburgh-based Safar Center for Resuscitation Research have successfully brought dogs back to life that had been clinically dead for three hours.

In the procedure, blood was drained from the body and replaced with an ice-cold saline solution. The dogs were then revived with an electric shock. Upon examination, the resurrected dogs appeared to be perfectly healthy.

The caveat here (and in these cases, there is always a caveat) is that the bodies were in perfect condition before the procedure; no trauma, no disease and no decomposition. Even if the procedure were perfected to the point where it could be used on humans -- and the Safar Center hopes to begin human trials in the near future -- it could only be used in specific situations.

While the project remains in its early stages, some who have followed it believe that it could become a life-saving tool in as little as 10 years.

Sources: News.com.au, Minding the Planet

Blogging Live 8

If you can't make one of this weekend's Live 8 concerts, you can read bloggers' takes on them. Technorati is aggregating blogs that are covering the concerts as well as the cause behind them: debt and poverty relief for Africa, and the upcoming G8 summit in Edinburgh, Scotland. Similarly, Flickr has a Live 8 group photo pool, and the blog Global Voices Online has a post summarizing the observations from many African bloggers on the events. Wired has a summary (and critique) of the technical and marketing activity surrounding Live 8.

The ONE Blog covers a variety of topics related to the ONE Campaign for African aid. And if you plan on attending the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia, check the Greater Philadelphia segment of About.com, which features news about parking, the location of portable bathrooms and general information about the city.

Live 8

Americans Take Shorter Trips More Frequently

As Americans prepare to hit the road for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday weekend, the American Highway User Alliance has found that we are travelling more often for recreation, but taking shorter trips. That's because more of us are pressed for time, and forego longer vacations.

Source: CNN.com

Are We Entering an Innovation "Dark Age"?

On the surface, it seems like a silly question. Advances and disruptive technologies are all around us, and Moore's Law appears to be holding fast. However, one researcher claims that, far from being in a golden age, we are actually entering an innovation dark age.

Jonathan Huebner, a physicist at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California, based his analysis on the number of key innovations in relation to world population growth. Using that figure, Huebner determined that innovation peaked in 1873 and has been declining ever since. When analyzing the number of US patents in a similar manner, he determined that US innovation peaked in 1915.

Huebner bases his contrarian view on the fact that many promised innovations have been slow in reaching the marketplace. "I wondered if there was a reason for this," he says. "Perhaps there is a limit to what technology can achieve."

Assuming that Huebner is correct -- and there are many who would say he isn't -- the next step is to determine why innovation is slowing. Have we indeed exhausted the capabilities of our knowledge and resources? Or are economic, political, regulatory or social barriers in place?

Sources: Eurekalert, GeniusNow

Can Social Networks Make Political Decisions?

According to theories of group wisdom like those outlined in The Wisdom of Crowds and other sources, groups make better decisions more consistently than even subject-matter experts. But how to harness that wisdom?

Two researchers from University of California Santa Cruz believe they can capture collective wisdom in algorithms that can be used to make political decisions that are truly democratic. Marko Rodriguez and Daniel Steinbock outline in a paper how "trust relationships" that members of a computer-based social network create with one another can be measured, and therefore used to gauge group preference. And the larger the group, the more accurately that the decisions it makes will reflect its opinions.

Source: Futurismic

US Unprepared for Possible Flu Pandemic

The US is woefully unprepared for a flu pandemic if one were to hit today, according to the health advocacy group Trust for America's Health. The group projects that nearly 67 million Americans could contract a flu virus, and that over half a million could die.

Among the problems the group notes are the lack of vaccines and antiviral medications such as Tamiflu, a shortage of available hospital beds, and no real preparedness for disruptions to the food supply, the economy, homeland security, and overall daily life. They recommend that the President create a body with the power to reach across agencies and plan massive emergency efforts -- thereby giving pandemic prevention the same government priority as anti-terrorism.

Concerns remain for a possible widespread outbreak of the avian flu. The World Health Organization estimates that, if such a pandemic were to emerge, as much as one quarter of the world's population could be affected. Countries such as Great Britain are making pandemic preparation a priority, but they have concerns of their own -- namely, that people from countries that are poorly prepared will try to illegally enter countries with better preparation.

RELATED: The Flu Wiki has been established as an information resource "to help local communities prepare for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic." The goal is to help local communities gather and share information that might be hard to disseminate otherwise, and to discuss possible problems and solutions before they get out of control.

Sources: FuturePundit, WorldChanging

A Robotic Breast Exam

Remember... before you heard it in Jay Leno's monologue, you heard it here first!

Seriously, though, Michigan State University's Department of Surgery has developed a robotic breast examiner. The device, shaped like a human arm and hand, allows a clinician who may be many miles away from the patient to "feel" the breast to detect lumps or other abnormalities. The robot and its operator are connected through the Interent.

The robot can be used in remote regions without good access to specialists, or even in more populated areas that may be experiencing a clinician shortage.

UPDATE: Indeed, this subject turned up in Jay Leno's monologues of 7/8 and 7/11.

Source: The Engineer Online

"Casual Gaming" Makes Its Mark

When people think of video games, they usually envision adolescent boys playing violent shoot-'em-ups, or hardcore gamers for whom the games are a huge part of their lives. In the midst of this comes "casual gaming," appealing to people who just want something to mess around with for a few minutes at a time.

Instead of pushing the technology envelope, the new breed of casual games are decidedly primitive, often a throwback to the two-dimensional games of the '80's. They're designed to be simple to play, and to be played on small platforms such as cell phones or PDAs.

One factor that sets casual gaming apart from the rest of the industry is cost. Casual games cost a only a fraction to develop compared with more sophisticated games, and are downloadable for only a few dollars each. Another distinguishing factor is the audience base; it's not kids who are gobbling up these games, but adults, most old enough to remember Pac-Man and the first generation of arcade video games. Also, women make up a large percentage of casual game buyers and players.

RELATED: Russell Beattie believes that the mobile gaming market may be a bubble that's about to burst. Between the glut of mobile games, a possible shift to more complex graphics and multiplayer games, and potential loss of consumer interest, he cautions that the current market cannot be sustained.

Sources: New York Times, Techdirt

South Korea Takes the RFID Plunge

The South Korean government is sinking $800 million into R&D for radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, believing the business opportunities to be as great as those of cell phones. South Korea hopes to become a leader in RFID technology by 2010.

The funding will cover RFID tag production, as well as further research. South Korea has been aggressively testing RFID technology for tracking airline luggage, monitoring and quarintining imported beef, and managing military ordnance.

Source: ZDNet Australia

Record Labels (Finally) Embrace File Sharing

Despite their legal efforts to halt illegal file sharing, the record industry appears to be finally accepting the inevitable: file sharing is here to stay. Last year, 5 billion songs were downloaded through free swapping services, dwarfing the number that were purchased and downloaded legally. To that end, record labels are exploring new peer-to-peer technologies that would allow them to offer downloadable songs legally, make money, and give audiences the service they're looking for.

One emerging P2P technology, Peer Impact, will require users to purchase songs for download, but will give them credit for songs that they share with others in the network (thought they can only share songs that they purchase from the service). Another service, Snocap (founded by Napster creator Shaun Fanning) will track songs being downloaded, watch for attempts at illegal downloads, and allow labels to assign different privileges for each song. If a band encourages its fans to record and trade its songs, their tracks might be downloadable for free or for an extremely low cost.

Still, the question remains: why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? Clearly there's a demand for downloading songs, but will music lovers abandon their free services in favor of paid ones? The threat of lawsuits doesn't seem to be a deterrent; will these new services be an incentive?

UPDATE: No less a figure than Hillary Rosen, the former CEO of the RIAA who led the legal fight against Napster and other file-sharing services, concedes that online music downloads and P2P are a foregone conclusion. Writing in the Huffington Post blog, she effectively recants her previous strategies, saying, "The entertainment industry has no choice right now but to speed up its licensing activity and risk-taking and the tech industry should start caring that they are not helping their customers when the easiest way to get entertainment content is to also accept spyware, viruses, and bad files in the process. Sure there are some promising things happening, but they are not being embraced nearly fast enough." Pity... if she and the RIAA had had this attitude several years ago, the recording industry might have been able to get out ahead of the illegal file-sharing services and be in a stronger position today.

Source: CNN.com

Treknologies

Just because it's Monday morning doesn't mean it's too early to start planing for that next trip. The Treknologies blog catalogs and reviews the latest cool travel gadgets that you shouldn't leave home without. Whether you travel for business, are planning your summer vacation or are into extreme outdoor adventures, Treknologies probably lists a device that's just what you're looking for.

Source: Futurismic

Broadcast TV Advertising On the Decline

So far this year, the broadcast TV networks have earned less in preseason ad buying than last year. Media observers such as Jeff Jarvis believe that this is not just an isolated decline, but a critical tipping point in which advertisers are beginning to seriously question the value of network TV advertising, and are shifting their priorities (and budgets) to online and digital media. The decline of key demographics and the mass audience in general, the ability of TV viewers to "zap" commercials, the growing popularity of cable, and increased use of the Internet and other media all factor into this decline.

The interesting question is not so much how advertisers will respond (simple: they'll go where the eyeballs are), but how network TV will respond. Will networks take more risks in an attempt to attract more viewers, or play it safe? Will they cut production budgets to the bone (which in all likelihood would mean more reality shows), or roll the dice on a few really big projects? If the media observers are correct and this is the beginning of a long-term trend, the broadcast networks have to make some crucial moves over the next few years. And as audience share dwindles, the margin for error grows ever smaller.

Sources: Media Post, BuzzMachine

The Mobile Handset Market Isn't Shrinking... It's Evolving

Mike Masnick of TheFeature believes that, counter to reports that the market for handset devices is reaching saturation and declining, the market is actually increasing. The difference, he believes, is in profit -- that is, the growth is in cheaper units and in upselling to those looking to replace or upgrade what they already have. Masnick compares the handheld device market to the PC market, which continues to grow as the cost of PCs falls... and believes that this is good news for innovators in this space.

The market for handsets isn't "declining," it's just going through it's expected phases of growth. If the average price of handsets didn't decline over the next five years, that would be much more worrisome, as it would be a sign that something seriously problematic had happened in the market. For companies in the space, however, it's important to view this as an opportunity. First, as an opportunity to reach new markets that previously could not afford to take part in mobile connectivity. Second, and more importantly, it's an opportunity to come up with new and innovative uses that take advantage of just how inexpensive the equipment is becoming. That even means going beyond the concept of the "handset" to recognizing that a cheap device with connectivity can be useful for many different things, from gaming devices to security cameras to completely new concepts we haven't even thought about yet. The only thing that's really in decline are the barriers to new opportunities for the market.

A related article in TheFeature is an interview with John Poisson of the Fours Initiative, who believes that we've only begun to scratch the surface of the potential for camera phones and MMS. The industry still has technical and business hurdles to overcome, but once they're resolved, Poisson believes that picture sharing through camera phones could revolutionize the way we understand both photography and digital content.

Connected Teens

Very little in this article from the LA Times will surprise those who follow communication trends, especially among young people. But it makes several key points quite nicely, including:

• Increasingly, teens are connected 24/7 to family and friends via Internet and cell phone. "Millennials" (those born after 1982) are using technology to reconnect smaller groups into larger ones in a way never before possible. Some have hundreds of people on their "buddy lists."
  


• Teens value instant communication, favoring IM and text messaging over e-mail.


• The average teen spends only 53 minutes on the Internet per day, but might spend much more time text messaging.


• Growing reliance on electronic communication may be priming teens to meet, interact with and express emotions to people in wholly different ways. How this will affect them as they grow up and move into the wider (non-electronic) world remains to be seen.


• One semiconductor manufacturer estimates that 15-year-old girls are now the top consumers of computer chips.


• Teens multitask at a rate that stuns their elders (despite recent research suggesting that multitasking impairs concentration and cognition).


• Although technology makes it possible to communicate with people from all over the world, teens are most likely to interact electronically with those relatively close by.

Source: Smart Mobs

"Pod Slurping" the Latest Security Threat

Security-conscious companies and users have known about the potential threats from unsecured USB ports for some time. Now, the practice of "pod slurping" has caught the attention of Gartner analysts and bloggers who cover security issues.

Pod slurping is a simple and effective way to steal data off of unsecured PCs. Anyone with an iPod or any other USB device that can hold data (thumb drive, digital camera, PDA, smart phone) can simply connect it to a PC or laptop and do a simple data transfer. With unsecured Bluetooth connections, the process is even simpler; the thief doesn't even have to touch the device. One blogger has noted that a janitor working after hours, largely unsupervised, could easily pod slurp unsuspected.

Some security specialists recommend that companies ban iPods and similar storage devices from the workplace. Aside from treating employees like criminals, such a policy wouldn't deter a truly determined data thief. A better solution would be to secure USB ports, lock down Bluetooth connections, and disable Windows XP Plug and Play. Even then, the proliferation of gadgets will help keep the bad guys one step ahead.

Sources: Yahoo! TechWeb, I4U Future Tech News

Sabbaticals: The Hottest New Benefit?

Ever wanted to travel the world, remodel your house, finish that advanced degree, volunteer to work in a developing country or write that novel, but never had the time? Your employer may give you the opportunity.

Sabbaticals may become a new employee benefit, as they are relatively inexpensive for employers (especially if the sabbatical is without pay) and appreciated by employees looking for greater work-life balance. It also helps employers avoid the alternative: having a restless employee quit.

Executives have been negotiating sabbaticals ranging from three months to a year for some time, and the trend is trickling down to other professionals.

Source: Herman Trend Alert

Enjoy a Heapin' Helpin' of Nanofood

When nanotechnology experts and food processing professionals meet, will the result be nanofood?

A conference in the Netherlands may help answer that question. Researchers are studying to possibility of applying nanotechnology to foods, namely embedding edible nanoparticles in foods that would travel to specific areas of the body and release nutrients. They are also exploring the possibility that nanomachines -- which would not be eaten -- could help better ensure food quality and freshness.

The concerns of the researchers are not just technical. Most emphasize that long before nanofoods reach the marketplace (which might be years from now), the industry will need to conduct public relations efforts to assure the public that nanofoods are safe.

These and other ideas were discussed at the Nano4Food conference held last week.

Source: Food Production Daily

Soy Foods May Lower Fertility

Couples wanting to conceive might want to lay off the tofu and other forms of soy protein. A study conducted by King's College London has found that a compound in soy-based foods mimics estrogen, which weakens sperm, thereby reducing male fertility.

The study found that soy foods affected women as well as men, as they can weaken sperm that are inside a female on their way to fertilize an egg.

Although more research is needed, the findings are significant, especially since more foods these days contain soy ingredients. The researchers who conducted the study suggested that couples wanting to get pregnant might consider reducing their soy intake around the time of ovulation.

Source: CNN.com

What's Behind the Rash of Data Thefts?

Nearly every day brings another report of a data compromise at a bank or other institution that handles confidential information. All tolled, nearly 50 million accounts of one type or another have been put at risk of identity theft since the beginning of the year. So what's behind this apparent rise in incidents?

For one, institutions are making data thefts public more so than they used to, whether because of their own practices or because of laws requiring them to do so. Institutions are also facing a new breed of professional hacker motivated by financial gain rather than mere mischief-making. Generally lax security measures also play a role (as is the case of data being stolen from loose tapes and laptops) -- a situation some believe won't be rectified until class-action lawsuits begin showing up in court.

I might add one other element, which is that the news media have, over the past few years, become more aware of IT-related issues, including identity theft. They've stopped treating the Internet as a novelty and realize it's a big part of mainstream, daily life. This, combined with tech-savvy websites and bloggers who make IT info easily accessible, help fuel awareness. And where there's awareness, problems such as security breaches are more likely to make the headlines.

Source: Washington Post

The Onion in 2056

The satirical newspaper/website The Onion has some fun with the future in its issue for June 22-29, 2056. Among the choice headlines:

• 117-Aerocar Pileup Clogs Troposphere for Hours
• Million Robot March Attended By Exactly 1,000,000 Robots
• Remainder of Ross Ice Shelf Now in Smithsonian Freezer
• Report: 40 Percent of American High-School Students Mind-Reading at Sixth-Grade Level

WARNING: Some material may not be office- or family-friendly.

Skyhook Launches Wi-Fi Location Service

Skyhook Wireless has announced the launch of its Wi-Fi Location Service (WFS), an alternative to GPS that maps a client's location by triangulating against 802.11 access points.

Skyhook promotes its service as more effective than GPS in congested urban areas, where tall, tightly packed buildings can block GPS signals. Among its potential uses, according to Skyhook, are E911 location, enhanced driving directions, and asset tracking when coupled with RFID tags.

Skyhook has mapped 25 major US cities, and plans to increase its coverage to 100 US cities and select European cities by year's end.

Source: CNet

In US Homes, Broadband Overtakes Dialup

In the first quarter of this year, more US households had broadband Internet connections than did dial-up connections for the first time ever. Aside from the inherent benefits of high-speed Internet connections, lower prices and aggressive marketing campaigns by phone and cable companies are contributing to the growth in household broadband.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Ultra-Cheap PCs a Threat to Microsoft?

The Indian-built Mobilis PC may herald a new generation of extremely inexpensive computers that sell for at little as $200 and forego Windows in favor of Linux and other free/low-cost/low-resource OSs. The Mobilis is a fully featured PC -- with office software, and the ability to play movies and music -- but is small (with a 7.4 inch LCD screen) and uses flash memory instead of a hard drive.

The first Mobilis computers will be available in a few months. No word on when they will be available outside of India.

Sources: Argentina Indymedia, EMERGIC.org

A Physical Wikipedia

The idea is not entirely new (one could argue that :CueCat was an abortive first attempt), but thanks to the growth of Wikipedia and other open-source information resources, it's more practical than ever: "tag" the physical world so that users of mobile devices can learn more about their surroundings.

The essential ingredients are mobile devices, a database such as Wikipedia, and some kind of technology to link the two together. That link might be a low-tech construct such as Yellow Arrow, or something like ShotCode, a technology that allows camera phones to "read" bar codes that link back to related URLs.

Mobile Weblog has an example of how all this might work:

You're in London and are standing in a pleasant, sunny street in Camden Town. City life is going on around you and you fancy the idea of knowing a little more about where you are right now.

Using your phone, as if it was a PC mouse, you uncover snippets of information from the world around you. You click on an old house in the road and a wealth of digital information comes onto your phone screen. Some contain video and audio links.

You learn that the house is on the site of one lived in by Charles Dickens' wife after their separation. You're interested in Dickens so you poll the area and find that there's actually a tour of Dickens' Camden Town that afternoon.

Out of curiosity, you look up how much this kind of house would be worth, what local rates and taxes are. And you read a review of a local citizen's view of schools in the area.

Moving on you see a tree, which looks unusual and casually click on it to reveal its genus. Then you click on car you like the look of, to find out how much it would cost second hand (2003 model), where you might be able to find one and what the gas consumption is like.

Sources: Mobile Weblog, unmediated

US Workers Turn Down Tech Jobs

More and more programming jobs are outsourced from the US... but that may not hurt the US workforce as much as feared, since many new entrants are staying away from programming and other "techie" jobs.

Gartner predicts that the US tech workforce will shrink by 15% by 2010, mainly due to lack of job openings or better opportunities elsewhere. Many young people are opting for jobs with more strategic roles that are perceived as more interesting, more lucrative, and more secure than hardcore programming jobs.

"If you're only interested in deep coding and you want to remain in your cubicle all day, there are a shrinking number of jobs for you," said Diane Morello of Gartner. "Employers are starting to want versatilists - people who have deep experience with enterprise-wide applications and can parlay it into some larger cross-company projects out there." Those who counsel young people at the beginning of their careers urge them to develop skills in addition to programming, namely in marketing, consulting, finance and languages.

Source: AP (Excite)

Less Trust in Media Than Ever

The recent revelation of the identity of "Deep Throat" reopened examination of the Watergate era... and with it, one of modern journalism's crowning moments. That retrospective (as did coverage of the 30th anniversary of Nixon's resignation last summer) underscored how far the media have fallen since that peak.

A recent Gallup poll found that trust in media -- particularly newspapers and television -- is at an all-time low. The graph below shows a general decline since the early '70s. After a rebound in the '90s, trust has been flat or declining since 2000 at least.

A lot of factors play into this decline of trust. Much of it has to do with our growing cultural cynicism; we just don't trust big institutions of any type anymore. Overheated political rhetoric plays a role as well, as does the sense that news media have abandoned objectivity in favor of agendas. Recent incidents of sloppy reporting (notably CBS and "memogate") and falling for hoaxes have fed into this as well.

To top it all off, the news media are preoccupied with celebrity news and gossip to the point where they drop the ball on news that matters. Anyone who hasn't been living on Mars for the past six months has witnessed the saturation coverage of the Michael Jackson trial whether they wanted to or not. Yet how many are familiar with the Downing St. memo? Of those who are, how many had to actively hunt down information on it?

What can media do to improve its credibility? It's hard to say... and hard to know if they really even want to. Only when the trust issue begins to hurt their bottom line will they take a good, hard look at it.

Source: Pomo Blog

Make the Senators Follow the Money

State-machine.org provides a dynamic visualization of how members of the US Senate follow different sources of campaign funding. A clever (and fun) graphical interface lets you select and manipulate different sources, and shows which ones certain Senators gravitate toward.

The site is powered by data from opensecrets, which compiles data on political campaign contributions.

Source: We make money not art

New Blog: First Draft Tech

Some recent posts here that focus on older technologies gave me the idea of creating a special blog just for discussing them. Hence, a new blog, First Draft Tech, which covers vintage, obscure, obsolete and anachronistic technologies and trends. While FutureWire will continue to look forward, First Draft will look backward.

I invite you to check out this new blog (and subscribe to its RSS feed), which will at first contain many archived posts from FutureWire, yet will gradually take on an identity of its own. Like all blogs, it's a work in progress, so any thoughts and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

High-Tech Reminiscence Therapy

One consequence of an aging population is the inevitable increase in the number of cases of age-related memory-loss disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Reminiscence therapy is aimed at helping afflicted people communicate better with caregivers and loved ones, taking advantage of the fact that long-term memory is more durable than short-term memory; dementia patients are often better able to recall what they were doing 40 years ago than 40 minutes ago. By providing patients with images and sounds that recall the past, therapists can unlock memories and create an avenue to communication.

A UK-developed multimedia touch-screen tool called the Computer Interactive Reminiscence and Conversation Aid (CIRCA) assists in such therapy. The easy-to-use tool gives patients control over the therapy by allowing them to select pictures, video clips and sounds that can jog memories. CIRCA is designed to be used in conjunction with a therapist, but its design team is developing a version that patients can use alone.

Already, CIRCA has registered some impressive successes:

One 56-year-old woman, cared for at home by her husband, watched a clip of Elvis Presley. She took her husband's hand and started swinging it in time to the music.

At one point, her husband Richard said, she moved in closer to him and rubbed noses with him. Richard told the researchers he thought it was her attempt to show him that "she remembered".

Another headstrong 80-year-old, John, tried the system after his nursing home carers found it a struggle to get him to join in group or planned reminiscing sessions. Giving control over to him me