phil's blog

Researchers at the University of Bath have developed a low-cost 3D printer which can create plastic objects designed on a PC.  Story here:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/06/04/reprap_machine/

In case you hadn't realised yet that joining Facebook is not the best way to protect your identity, the BBC have kindly demonstrated that even if you restrict your profile to 'friends', swathes of that info may still go walkabouts if one of those 'friends' installs (note: not just if you install) a dodgy application.  What I think is particularly impressive about the Facebook security model is that they allow any old application to be runi, with no auditing, from any server on the Net.  But it should be OK, b

HP have managed to produce a new (or perhaps old) type of semi-conductor device, called a memristor, the theory of which was originally proposed forty years ago.  One of the novel features is that it can store, or remember, the state of charge it had when the power supply was turned off.  This potentially offers new ways of making device memory.  As a BBC article suggests this may make it possible to build computers that boot up almost instantly.  The writer gets a bit carried away though when s/he adds that it

So the security services have finally officially asked to have full automated access to the Oyster travel system on the London underground:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/17/spooks_want_oyster/

For those who create, and those who make make their money from creative endeavours (surprisingly often not the same people), copyright is a contentious issue.  There are not many people who would wish to see the end of the principle  of copyright (pretty well all open sourcei licences for example rely on the principle), but there are many arguments about how long copyright should be granted.

"...the technology of the printed book has been partially replaced by a vastly more complicated and concentrated entertainment industry. Imagination no longer comes as cheaply as it did in the past. The slightest move in the virtuali landscape has to be paid for in lines of codei. If you want your avatari to wear a new golden helmet or jump in the air, gangs of underpaid software engineers somewhere in Bangalore have to get out of bed to work on your demands. "

It could be argued that most of the virtuali realityi research carried out in the last twenty years has been aimed at making William Gibson's vision in Neuromancer a reality.  Another attempt, to make the technology a mainstream consumer product, has been announced (BBC story).  The Emotiv EPOC (Flash 9 required) is (or will be?) a headset

A report of advances made on fabrics that can generate small currents from the wearers' movements.  The idea is that eventually this could be used to power electronic equipment.

I can't wait to see what happens when they put this in the washing machine.

There is perhaps a rule somewhere (or there soon will be) that all virtuali worlds are doomed to become caricatures of the real one.  At the end of the day all governments are scared that someone might be talking about them behind their backs.  It therefore should be no surprise that the US military have suddenly identified Second Life as a new  'Big Threat'.  Of course what governments really don't like is strong encryption, or rather strong encryption that they don't control.

No doubt partly regurgitated from a Nokia press release, but some interesting comments in there:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7230686.stm