Neurosphere

The Human-Human Interface

Wi-Fi, Public-Private, Half-Full?


Network Infrastructure for the Neurosphere

On the whole, I’d rather be in…Champaign-Urbana?

“Wireless Philadelphia is a project that has been in development for several years, but which will not be finished until late 2006….However, the project has stirred up a hornet’s nest, and has implications for the whole of America…”What is very different about a mesh, versus a cellular network, is that we get the radios very close to where the customer is,” said Chris Rittler of Tropos Networks. “What this does is actually pretty amazing. It enables off-the-shelf devices such as laptops, PDAs and wi-fi phones to connect easily. It also really reduces the requirements on those devices.”

When Dianah Neff announced the project she faced an immediate legal and lobbying onslaught from the giant telecommunications companies, led by Verizon. Verizon lost its fight in Philadelphia but has succeeded in getting the law changed in the rest of the state. Essentially it has become almost impossible for any other community to set up its own wi-fi system.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/4491506.stm

“Under the agreements, EarthLink will build, manage and maintain a wireless network over the City’s 135 square miles at no cost to taxpayers. EarthLink will install transmittal devices on approximately 4,000 of the City’s street lamp pole arms for which it will pay the City. In addition, EarthLink will provide City residents and visitors with free hotspots in 22 locations around Philadelphia, and provide the City with 3,000 free or discounted WiFi accounts and 700 discounted T-1 accounts to be used at the City’s option.”

http://ework.phila.gov/philagov/news/prelease.asp?id=233

Diluting Google


Network Infrastructure for the Neurosphere

More on the Google wireless infrastructure – now featuring a pay tier. It dilutes the experiment of whether network growth might be directed through more immediate, organic feedback from customer demand as measured by advertising success.

“The Google-Earthlink proposal endorsed by the city on Wednesday would see the companies offering a tiered payment system, including an Earthlink service that allows paying users to connect at significantly higher speeds than those who connect to a free service supplied by Google, which will be paid for by online advertising….Experts have warned, however, that the free wireless model remains unproven, and may not offer the best solution for smaller cities and towns addressing the “digital divide” to promote economic development.”

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12178170/

Wayne’s Wireless World


Network Infrastructure for the Neurosphere

Community owned wireless has the organic potential I look for in technology development. I’m not sure wireless community networks are different in kind from community networks like the moribund Boulder Community Network tried to be for internet access or community access television tried to be on cable.

“The Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) has built a communications network using wireless networking equipment. This is essentially the same “WiFi” equipment used in homes and offices, but we put it on rooftops to connect neighbors and form a high-speed community network.”

http://www.cuwireless.net/

But maybe they are different. Check out this sister network, the Tribal Digital Village.

http://www.sctdv.net/

Global Lip Service


The World Right Now

Here’s an international effort that the Bush Administration supports. “More study” of course is also the Administration’s response to global warming, hence their lack of support for Kyoto Protocols that might actually do something about what is observed. So far, in the U.S. part of GEOSS, they’ve completed a strategic plan, and have scheduled a workshop – breathtaking progress in only 14 months.

“On February 16, 2005, 61 countries agreed to a plan that, over the next 10 years, will revolutionize the understanding of Earth and how it works. Agreement for a 10-year implementation plan for a Global Earth Observation System of Systems, known as GEOSS, was reached by member countries of the Group on Earth Observations at the Third Observation Summit held in Brussels. Nearly 40 international organizations also support the emerging global network. The GEOSS project will help all nations involved produce and manage their information in a way that benefits the environment as well as humanity by taking a pulse of the planet.”

http://www.epa.gov/geoss/

Cyworld


Wholeness and Virtual Communities

Remember how Americans used to be afraid of falling behind the Japanese?

“South Korea, perhaps more than any other country, is transforming itself through technology. About 17 million of the 48 million South Koreans belong to Cyworld, a Web-based service that is a sort of parallel universe where everyone is interconnected through home pages. The interconnectivity has changed the way and speed with which opinions are formed, about everything from fashion to politics, technology and social science experts said…Two years ago, after the opposition-led National Assembly impeached President Roh Moo Hyun, a consensus began forming on the Internet that the move was politically motivated — two hours after the vote took place, Mr. Chang said. “That quickly led to mass demonstrations,” he said. “That kind of thing had never happened in Korea before. Everyone is connected to everyone else, so issues spread very fast and kind of unpredictably.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/world/asia/02robot.html?ex=1301630400&en=d2a418720b473359&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Tip of the NeuroHat to Steve Solomon for the pointer.

Wireless Sensory Apparatus


The World Right Now

In my day job, I have been working to develop a standard application platform for interactive television, the absence of which I think is responsible for the failure so far of ITV. (www.opencable.com/ocap) Not so coincidentally, it’s based on Sun’s Java technology, which has been very successful as a cell phone application platform.

“Sun SPOT (Small Programmable Object Technology) is a new research project at Sun Labs…to make wireless sensors ready for mass commercial deployment by simplifying application development for them. Wireless sensors are inexpensive battery-powered, low-power communication devices composed of radios and exceptionally small mechanical structures that sense fields and forces in the physical world. These […] devices can be deployed throughout a physical space, providing dense sensing close to physical phenomena, processing and communicating this information, and coordinating actions with other nodes. Combining these capabilities with the system software technology that forms the Internet makes it possible to instrument the world with increasing fidelity.”

http://sig9.com/node/244

Stardust


Wholeness and Virtual Communities

Another grid computing project.

“Finding the incredibly tiny interstellar dust impacts in the Stardust Interstellar Dust Collector (SIDC) will be extremely difficult. Because dust detectors on the Ulysses and Galileo spacecraft have detected interstellar dust streaming into the solar system, we know there should be about 45 interstellar dust impacts in the SIDC. These impacts can only be found using a high-magnification microscope with a field of view smaller than a grain of salt. But the aerogel collector that we have to search enormous by comparison, about a tenth of a square meter (about a square foot) in size. The job is roughly equivalent to searching for 45 ants in an entire football field, one 5cm by 5cm (2 inch by 2 inch) square at a time!”

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Global Environmental Outlook


The World Right Now

Among the treaties leading to information in this data source are the Basel Convention, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Why isn’t there ever a Pittsburgh Convention?

“The GEO Data Portal is the authoritative source for data sets used by UNEP and its partners in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report and other integrated environment assessments. Its online database holds more than 450 different variables, as national, subregional, regional and global statistics or as geospatial data sets (maps), covering themes like Freshwater, Population, Forests, Emissions, Climate, Disasters, Health and GDP. Display them on-the-fly as maps, graphs, data tables or download the data in different formats.”

geodata.grid.unep.ch

Pangea Cinema


Wholeness and Virtual Communities

Pangea? I thought it was Gondwanaland.

“In her moving acceptance speech, TED Prize winner, Jehane Noujaim described her wish for using film to bring people together in a more meaningful way. Jehane is the award-winning filmmaker behind Control Room and Startup.com. Jehane’s wish is to create a worldwide cinema event for one day each year with programming that highlights the themes of unity, the common ties that bind us into a global culture, a film festival called “Pangea Cinema, the day the world comes together.” “Pangea” refers to the single land mass that broke up millions of years ago to create the disparate continents we know today.”

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004189.html

MicroCheap


Personal Infrastructure

Bill Gates is still ridiculing the idea, but the cheap computer is gaining steam.

“A Chinese company has claimed to have developed the nation’s first

low-cost computer priced at 125 US dollars, using an indigenous central

processing unit and the new product will hit the market in June, a

report said today…

The performance of Longmeng, or Dragon Dream, is equivalent to a 1G

Pentium III desktop, according to Zhang. It is a computer, a DVD player

and also a video game player. The computer, equipped with standard PC accessories,

is portable as it is the size of a textbook and weighs 500 grams.”

http://onlypunjab.com/fullstory2k5-insight-news-status-10-

newsID-90664.html