Tag Archives: internet

The Second Machine Age?

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Steel robotic android hands holding blue digital earth I have been reading a book recently called The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by MIT researchers Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. In this book, the authors project a future where mankind will work alongside increasingly sophisticated computers and machinery to create a better world. They tell a compelling story about the history of the industrial age leading up to the current technological age and describe our current time as the second machine age.

Others, however, are not so optimistic about our technological trajectory and where it is leading us economically. In 2003, economist Tyler Cowen wrote a book titled Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation in which he argues that technology has been and will continue dividing workers into two classes. Those workers that are proficient with such technology as computers and robotics will thrive, but those who are not will find themselves unemployed or underemployed. In the author’s defense, he does lay out strategies that can help the latter class to join in the prosperity.

My purpose for this blog post is to start a dialogue and hear your thoughts on the pace of technology changes and how they will affect our future and our economic system. Will technology lead us into a bright future or drive us into perennial unemployment?

The Second Half of the Chessboard

In their book, Brynjolfsson and McAfee refer to another publication, The Age of Spiritual Machines. The author, Ray Kurzweil, draws an analogy between the old story of the emperor and the inventor, and our current technology advancement. In the story, the inventor of chess negotiates with the emperor for payment for this new marvel. He asks only one grain of rice that doubles on each square of the chessboard. The emperor readily agrees, thinking that the inventor is indeed a humble man. By the time they reach thirty-two squares, he is up to 4 billion grains of rice. After that, they reach the second half of the chessboard where things get really interesting and will eventually reach 64 quintillion grains of rice.

This story is based on exponential increase, and the analogy is that we are just now entering the second half of the chessboard. If you thought that the pace of technology advancement was furious in the past, hang on for a wild ride in the future.

Thoughts

The questions still remain—will we benefit from technology or will we be run over by it? Will we be driving the bus or be passengers? I believe that it is up to us and how prepared we are. It is going to take work and constant learning to be in the driver’s seat. What do you think? Are you optimistic or are you worried? Can you keep up? Let me know your thoughts by replying to this post. I hope that we can start a conversation and figure this out together.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

 

The Beginning of the End of the World Wide Web?

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Outline map of world overlaid with razor wireI wrote a blog post recently on the fallout of the revelations about the US National Security Agency (NSA) spying last year. One of my concerns at the time was the balkanization of the Internet. Balkanization is the process of drawing national borders around the Internet, much the same as physical borders. We would no longer have the World Wide Web, instead it would be broken up into the Web of Germany, the Web of Japan, the Web of Chile, and so on. This would be done to protect a nation from activity such as spying on another nation. National Internet traffic would stay within country boundaries and a strong national firewall would be constructed for traffic that had to move across the border. I have been reading stories the past week that have confirmed my fears: nations are slowly moving toward just such a model.

Germany

A recent article out of the UK reveals that Germany is floating plans for a European communications network meant to bypass the US and prevent spying by the NSA and the British counterpart, the GCHQ. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is quoted as saying:

“Above all we’ll talk about European providers that offer security to our citizens, so that one shouldn’t have to send e-mails and other information across the Atlantic, rather one could build up a communications network inside Europe.”

The Germans are particularly incensed by revelations last year that the Chancellor’s cell phone was monitored from the US Embassy in Berlin. This is just the beginning of a proposal, but it feels like the beginning of walls being built.

Brazil

According to a recent article in IEEE Spectrum, Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff is pushing legislation: “… to force Internet companies such as Google and Facebook to store local data within the country’s borders. She also wants to build submarine cables that don’t route through the United States, set up domestic Internet exchange points, and create an encrypted national e-mail service.” Now, those are not just switches and routers that would be directed inward but national cables would be off limits, too. In other words, Brazilian traffic could only flow over Brazilian cables.

China

The Great Firewall of China already exists; it restricts Chinese citizens’ access to the full Internet. There are censorship mechanisms in place to ensure that information going in and out of China meets government standards. The same filters are already in place in Russia although not to the same extent. India is also looking for ways to close the borders of the Internet. All of these efforts counter one of the basic premises of the Internet—the fact that it is open and accessible to all.

My Thoughts

I agree with a recent open letter to President Obama from Peter Singer and Ian Wallace of the Brookings Institute. They state in the letter:

“The sooner that we can articulate a clear, robust case for a U.S. vision for the future of the Internet, the better. And that needs to be one that, while acknowledging the natural shift away from U.S. control, makes both the pragmatic and principled arguments for preserving the values that have made the Internet such a successful driver of positive global economic, political and social change.”

The Internet is not US-centric, although history and some countries would suggest otherwise. It must remain an open exchange without borders, without censorship, and without state oversight. The whole metaphor of the “cloud” transcends borders and allows the Internet to operate efficiently and openly. Advancements in networking technology have allowed us to operate across the globe and I believe that it would be a giant step backwards to erect artificial barriers where they don’t belong.

Are you concerned about a splintering of the Internet? Let me know your thoughts.

 

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

 

Personal Health Monitoring

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Doctor working at the hospital and using a smart phoneA number of years ago, I had an idea for a health monitoring device that would be embedded in your door frame. The idea was that you would go out the door in the morning and, as you passed over the threshold, you would be scanned and your vital statistics would be recorded and sent to you via e-mail. If anything were really amiss, the same e-mail would also go to your physician.

I think I was on to something but my vision has been surpassed by devices currently being developed and coming on to the market. Now, you have constant monitoring and constant feedback. It is no longer a single snapshot like my doorframe idea. In this post I would like to focus on technology that will help you get fit, stay fit, and be healthy.

Imec

Imec is a research firm based in Belgium. They are working on developing and commercializing nanotechnology that can be used in health monitoring. They are developing systems on a chip that will help you track your blood characteristics and transfer that information to an intuitive user interface on your smart phone. If you are concerned with the results, you can then share that information with your physician at the touch of a button. They are expanding their research and products to develop a body area network. This may well be the next evolution of the wide area network (WAN) and the local area network (LAN). Watch a great video showcasing their research.

Moticon

Moticon is a German firm that has developed a product that gathers information about your step, your gait, and your foot temperature via sensors in a shoe insole. The information can then be transferred via Bluetooth to a smartphone for analysis. While this is primarily targeted towards people recovering from a leg injury it can be helpful in monitoring stressors and body alignment for athletes, particularly runners.

Nuubo

Nuubo is a Spanish firm selling a small wearable device that provides a running electro cardiogram to help monitor your heart rhythms and other vitals. The data can be collected and assessed remotely via a smartphone or tablet. This is a great product for cardiac patients being treated off-site for heart conditions such as arrhythmia. It is also a great tool for athletes and trainers so they can understand the implications of peak and sustained performance.

Google Smart Contact Lens

Google is developing a contact lens that would monitor glucose level via tears. Once released as a product, this would be a welcome relief to those with diabetes that now monitor their blood sugar via a pin prick, sometimes multiple times a day. This is a great development and a unique use of technology to ease discomfort to those affected.

Climbax

Climbax is a new product out of the UK that is designed for monitoring performance of rock and ice climbers. These same products have been available for cyclists and runners for years but are new for climbers. The device consists of a pair of bracelets with embedded sensors. The bracelets are sealed to be impervious to water or chalk. When the climb is over, the athletes can then upload their climb to the Climbax website and store and analyze their performance. This will help them to adjust their methods and improve their climbing ability in the future. This product is just launching and is relying on Kickstarter funds to take the company into sustainable manufacturing.

Lumo Lift

Lumo Lift is a product from Lumo BodyTech that monitors your steps, mileage, and calories burned but even more importantly, it monitors your posture and gives you a gentle reminder, via vibration, if you slouch. It is a small, discreet monitor worn against your body via a magnetic clasp on your clothes that connects to a smartphone app. I like the steps and calorie monitoring, but I would hope that you would only need to be reminded about your posture for a limited time until it becomes second nature to stand and sit up straight. This product is just being introduced in a limited run.

My Thoughts

This is a very exciting time in personal health monitoring. Some of the products being introduced seem like technology in search of an application, but overall the new products appear to be thoughtful in the way they address a genuine need. Such products can be used by athletes and concerned consumers, but they can also be used as part of a remote monitoring solution for health care patients. I believe that the proliferation of new devices is due to new and lower cost sensors and also to inexpensive Bluetooth and cloud technologies for storing this new information. Once the data is collected, however, we are still going to need smart analysts and smart application designers who can synthesize the data and make it useable to effect new and healthier behavior.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

Is The Network Really Neutral?

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shutterstock_47033419There has been a lot of noise lately about net neutrality in the United States, but I have been wondering: how about neutrality on the rest of our planet? We become focused on our problems, or potential problems, and often forget that we are not the only players in this game. The Internet is not used or owned exclusively by the US but also by the rest of the world, including China and Third World countries. How do they view net neutrality or are we making much ado about nothing?

Definition

This is the best definition that I have found for net neutrality:

“Simply put, net neutrality is a network design paradigm that argues for broadband network providers to be completely detached from what information is sent over their networks. In essence, it argues that no bit of information should be prioritized over another. This principle implies that an information network such as the Internet is most efficient and useful to the public when it is less focused on a particular audience and instead attentive to multiple users.”

Just as the telegraph network of the 1800s and the telephone and electrical networks of the 1900s were and are neutral, the argument is raised that the Internet should follow suit.

What Is Different in 2014?

The term “net neutrality” was coined over ten years ago and is based on the early operating principle of the Internet that the network would be open equally to all. In December 2010, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tried to codify that accepted policy by creating the “Open Internet Order”. The flaw was that they were using the same playbook developed to regulate telephone companies. Internet providers, however, are classified as “information carriers,” not “communication carriers”. Verizon challenged this order in 2011 and the courts finally threw out the Open Internet Order this month, based on the fact that the FCC did not have jurisdiction to create that order. Suddenly, the term net neutrality is back in vogue and back in tweets.

Is The Rest of the World Open?

I was curious as to whether the rest of the world enjoys open Internet, regulated Internet, or tiered Internet. Tiered Internet is the doomsday scenario when Internet service providers charge customers and content providers a premium for higher bandwidth applications. This is the fear of the absence of regulated open Internet. In researching this question I came across a lot of theories and conjectures at both ends of the spectrum, but not a lot of straight answers. Just as the United States is trying to get a handle on how free the Internet should be, other countries are asking similar questions. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which is an arm of the United Nations, held a conference in December 2012 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. At that conference, there was an attempt to float an international telecommunications treaty, but unlike many smaller countries, the US, Canada, and the UK refused to sign the treaty. This was a failed attempt to give more regulatory power over the Internet to the United Nations through the ITU. The next conference will take place in October this year in Busan, South Korea; it is assumed that a similar vote will come up again.

My Thoughts

It is not only the United States that is struggling with how or whether to regulate the Internet, the same scene is being played out on the international stage. The European Union is talking about it, China is talking about it, and South American countries are talking about it as well. They all are struggling to understand how to protect themselves from corporate interests or even from their neighbors, while ensuring that the citizens continue to enjoy unfettered access. My take is that Internet 3.0 will require a sizable investment in infrastructure, and if we want to continue to enjoy increasing access and options, we have to be talking about where those funds will be coming from.

Do you have an opinion on the current net neutrality debate? Let me know.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

Cyber-Terrorism: Real or Imagined?

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In a recent report on National Public Radio (NPR), the reporter reminisced about the big power outage in the Northeast ten years ago this week. While that outage was brought about by a weak line in Ohio, experts wonder if we don’t have a more imminent threat posed by cyber criminals hacking into the power grid and triggering outages.

History

In reality, there are three different power grids in the US, shown in map form on geni.org. The Western Interconnection, the Eastern Interconnection, and the Texas Interconnection can supply power to each other, but they also have fail-safe mechanisms as well. Despite the separation, each of them is still very much vulnerable to a breach of their computer systems. This was first highlighted during the Year 2000 or “Y2K” issue where there was concern that incorrect date entries could cause local or widespread outages. The problem at that time was mitigated but did bring to light other vulnerabilities.

Computer Use In Power Generation

When coal-fired plants, hydroelectric facilities, and nuclear facilities were first built, the use of computers was minimal because frankly, they were simple and added little to no value. A large number of operators were needed to monitor switches and relays to keep the facility running. Later, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) allowed facilities to monitor, collect, and process data from one central location instead of having multiple operators monitoring each switch and each piece of equipment.

Internet

With the spread of the Internet, a power plant could now take the SCADA concept one step further and monitor everything REMOTELY. Since everything is now connected to everything else, why not consolidate all of the data collected by the SCADA systems and process it at one time and in one place? Big data meets big power. But, there’s the risk. To do this, you need to have many computers and many controllers all connected to some form of the Internet, be it public or private. Hackers or cyber criminals also have access to that same Internet and, potentially, to your computers and controllers. Whether they access your systems for notoriety or for political purposes, the threat of bringing down parts of the power grid is very real.

Thoughts

As noted in the NPR report, there is legislation in the works to order public utilities to mount a counteroffensive, but the utilities object to these measures. Power companies are already working to thwart any potential threat that may arise, but it is really going to take a partnership between power distribution engineers and computer experts. They each know their specialty, and together they can develop measures to prevent attacks or, at least, monitor and deal with threats.

Do you think the threat of cyber attacks on the electrical grid is real? Should power companies take their equipment off of the Internet to prevent attacks? Can we find a middle ground between attack readiness and returning to the time of manual operators? Let me know your thoughts.

 

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT topics that keep him up at night.