Watch Daniela. She's Up To Something Big

Somebody should be watching Daniela Rus and her pals at MIT, because what they are doing is so crazy, so potentially important, people need to know about them. Not because they're dangerous, but because what they're doing might be changing the world and nobody should change the world without the world noticing.

In a nutshell, they are letting machines design themselves — guided, at least for now, by humans.

They're not teaching machines to copy themselves. No, it's bigger than that. They are building robots that can rearrange their parts when they need to do something new. Suppose, for example that you see an apple high up on a tree — too high to reach. What if you could grow extra long arms to get what you want? That's the notion here. As your goals change, your body can change too.

Step by step (I've already blogged about their magical bag-o-sand toolkit) they are creating the basic building blocks of what's called "a reconfigurable robot." And to my amazement — robot bits have learned to leap through the air!

The concept of a reconfigurable robot is simple: Make a cube that can move to sit on another cube, then another, so that it can build different shapes. Sometimes like this ...

Sometimes like that ...

And eventually, the bits can turn themselves into a chair, a support beam, a tool, or a Terminator robot that saves little boys from being killed so they can save the future world.

Snap In, Snap Off, Move

The hard part is getting the bits to do this on their own. First off, they have to learn three basics: How to snap into place, unsnap, and move.

John Romanishin, who's been building robots and competing in robot derbies since he was a baby geek, figured out how to slip an itty bitty flywheel into the cube. It looks like a miniature desk fan that rotates up to 20,000 revolutions per minute — it comes with a battery, and when the flywheel is on, the cube has momentum: it can climb, roll across the ground, crawl up another cube, even leap through the air. "Which is pretty exciting," John says, "because it allows robots to jump on top of each other and go places that they couldn't go if they were only moving directly on the structure."

It has no moving parts on its outside. The motion comes from within.

When the fans turn off, a series of magnets on all six cube surfaces allow it to snap into place wherever it is, onto the cube it's next to, which creates an enormous number of possibilities ... Just take a look.

Daniela Rus, who has a knack for finding very whizzy whiz-kids, even for MIT where the whiz population is pretty high, says her grad students John Romanishin and Kyle Gilpin are still telling the cubes what to do, sending instructions via wifi — but one day, they won't have to.

“ [They] decide how, when and where to move.

- Kyle Gilpin

Says Kyle:

In the future, we envision putting the algorithms on the modules themselves so they completely autonomously, in a distributed fashion, decide how, when and where to move, so we want to be able to take a large group of cubes and tell them, "form this shape" and give those instructions at a very high level, and then have the cubes decide on their own how to go about accomplishing that task.

I'm fantasizing now ... but here's how my dreams go. First I'm creating a self-assembling hammer, then a self-assembling car, then a self-assembling hut when I'm off hiking in the mountains, and then ... one day that cannot come too soon ... a self-assembling Robert Krulwich that can "go to work" while I spend the whole day kayaking in Long Island Sound.

As long as these thingies do our bidding, all this is good. At Daniela Rus' lab, they talk of bridges that repair themselves, tools that assemble when you need them, robots that can explore, rescue and adapt to changing conditions. Part of me, of course, doesn't completely trust an increasingly autonomous, increasingly inventive machine, but I think for the moment, the plusses way outweigh the minuses, so I say "Keep goin', Daniela!" On rainy days when I'm am desperate for an umbrella, I'll be thinking of you.

Here's the MIT press release that describes what Rus' guys are doing. Thanks to Erik Olsen for sending this my way.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/10/14/232211132/watch-daniela-she-s-up-to-something-big?ft=1&f=1007
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Report: NSA Harvests Contact Lists From Email, Facebook

The Washington Post has published new revelations about the National Security Agency's electronic snooping, indicating that the intelligence branch gathers millions of contact lists from personal email accounts and instant messaging around the world.

The new information is attributed by the Post to "senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden."

The Post reports:

"The collection program, which has not been disclosed before, intercepts e-mail address books and 'buddy lists' from instant messaging services as they move across global data links. Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on, composes a message, or synchronizes a computer or mobile device with information stored on remote servers.

Rather than targeting individual users, the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world's e-mail and instant messaging accounts. Analysis of that data enables the agency to search for hidden connections and to map relationships within a much smaller universe of foreign intelligence targets."

According to the newspaper, in a single day last year the NSA harvested 444,743 email address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers.

The Post story quotes Yahoo as saying in response to NSA effort, it would begin encrypting user connections using SLL technology in January.

However, last month, The Two-Way's Eyder Peralta wrote that The New York Times and The Guardian, relying on documents from Snowden, revealed that the NSA has the keys to crack most Internet encryption methods.

"In plain English, this means that many of the tools — like , used by many banks and email providers — that people worldwide have come to believe protect them from snooping by criminals and governments are essentially worthless when it comes to the NSA."

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/15/234776676/report-nsa-harvests-contact-lists-from-email-facebook?ft=1&f=1001
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What If 'Aliens' Became a Sitcom? (Video)

12:22 PM PDT 10/10/2013 by Graeme McMillan

From the original Ridley Scott horror movie through the more action-genre hijinks of James Cameron's Aliens, quasi-arthouse leanings of Alien 3 and whatever-that-was Prometheus -- not to mention Alien: Resurrection and the Aliens Vs. Predator movies -- 20th Century Fox's Alien franchise has been through a lot of changes in its long history. However, it has never been a straight-up comedy -- until now.

Created by Dorks of Yore -- a YouTube channel featuring the work of Mad TV's Pat Kilbane and The New in Living Color's Melissa McQueen -- Aliens: The Sitcom suggests that Cameron's Aliens had been such a success in 1986 that it was spun off into primetime sitcom Hosts, with (as you'd expect) "hilarious consequences."

STORY: 'Aliens vs. Predator' Once More for Dark Horse Comics

Somewhere, someone at Fox is trying to work out if there's a way to make this work on a weekly basis (Spoiler: No). Still, at least now we have a great model for the final episode of Dads. Watch the video below:

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/THRComicCon/~3/Asy-7Xbhk1Q/story01.htm
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The New And The Next: Six-Second Comedy And A Spin On News

[unable to retrieve full-text content]This week, Ozy co-founder Carlos Watson tells NPR's Arun Rath about the latest trend in Uruguay's YouTube scene and one young woman who gained a following with her love of science.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NprProgramsATC/~3/aSogVhSaDkI/the-new-and-the-next-six-second-comedy-and-a-spin-on-news
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U.K. Piracy Fight Aims at Educating a Younger Demographic

LONDON – The fight against piracy in the U.K. has become more about persuasion and less about punishment than about trying to change behavior. And it's having to target an ever younger demographic.

That's the message from the Industry Trust, the U.K. film and TV industry body backed by everyone from the U.S. studios to retailers and TV banners, set up to look after copyright issues and fight piracy.

At a Piracy and Distribution workshop hosted by the Industry Trust during this year's BFI London Film Festival, a high profile panel of industry reps and commentators discussed the role web search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing play in pushing consumers towards pirated material, the need to educate a generation of movie and TV consumers and the hope that changing habits will reduce piracy.

According to figures presented by the Trust, 40 percent of those infringing copyright are not even aware the sites they are being led too via search engines are illegal.

Kicking off the discussion and debate, Industry Trust for IP Awareness director general Liz Bales said that over the last few years the industry body has seen a "big spike" in pirated consumption among the 11 to 12-year-old demographic.

Bales said the days of trying to scare people off from illegal downloads or buying pirated goods is less relevant as a generation grows up in a digital online age.

"What we are trying to do now is to inspire people to consume it [content] through legal providers. It's all about directing them where to go and create that kind of behavior."

Bales noted that in her eight years of overseeing the Industry Trust fight, piracy was a matter of "habitual behavior" and that concentrating on changing consumer habit via gentle persuasion rather than scare tactics was almost certainly more appropriate, especially among younger demographics.

She also noted that while often genre-led, titles such as Oscar winning The Hurt Locker directed by Kathryn Bigelow had been one of the most heavily pirated releases in 2009 because it had not been as widely distributed as the public's appetite wanted.

The panel also discussed the role of the web search engine powerhouses with Google at the heart of the debate.

"We hope the changes they made to the algorithm will begin to take effect and make an impact," Bales said.

There was also frustration in the room that the much-vaunted Digital Economy Act, a piece of British legislation that is currently languishing in the Treasury government department and has several legal sanctions and measure to combat copyright infringement in the digital age, remains shelved as the coalition government shows no appetite to enact it and make it part of the British legal landscape.

But the softly softly approach to educating children was highlighted with the debut of a short film made for the upcoming National Youth Film Festival for schools and youth groups to point them in the right direction.

It shows two Muppet-like characters talking as the older one watches Fast and Furious 6 on a laptop "that he's streaming".

The smaller, younger puppet suggests that it might be an idea to pay for the film because without the money, there would be no "awesome" special effects and bits of flying debris.

He also suggests that the "seven quid" ($11) the older puppet thinks would make no difference might pay for at least one of Vin Diesel's socks.

The humorous exchange aims to highlight that if people stop paying for content, then the content will no longer be made.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/business/~3/Vv-g6UotLuo/story01.htm
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CBGB: A Toothless CliffsNotes for the Club Where Punk Was Born

Malin Akerman as Debbie Harry and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins as Iggy Pop. Photo Credit: XLrator Media

When I told a New Yorker friend who grew up going to punk shows in Manhattan in the 1970s and ’80s that the new CBGB movie — the eponymous CBGB, out this Friday — was awful, her response was simple.

“Honestly, what did you expect?”

CBGB, the grimy Lower East Side bar that launched the careers of some of the most influential punk rockers of all time, was a crucial thread of the cultural tapestry of 1970s and ’80s New York City. After years of documentaries and tributes to the now-shuttered landmark’s legacy, there’s little question that a scripted film about its lovable yet notoriously impractical owner Hilly Kristal was bound (and even deserved!) to be made. Unfortunately for all, it was this one.

Within the punk scene it birthed, the dysfunctional squabbling of Kristal’s family — both before and after his death in 2007 — is almost as legendary as the club’s monumentally gross bathroom. Their bitter feud about the CBGB brand (and its money) became part and parcel of its legacy, even as the venue itself wasted away, transplanting in 2006 and shuttering for good in 2008. Given that the Hollywood-polished movie made with the blessing of one half of the Kristal family and the condemnation of the other, it’s unsurprising that CBGB glosses over many of those messy realities and becomes a rose-colored caricature masquerading as true story.

Co-produced by Kristal’s daughter Lisa Kristal Burgman, the film chronicles the life of CBGB proprietor, played ably enough by a doleful Alan Rickman (or an Americanized Severus Snape – it’s often hard to tell). After failing to procure a business loan from a bank in 1969, Kristal instead borrows money from his mother Bertha (Estelle Harris) to open a bar in the barren wasteland of the East Village of the ’70s, with the help of hardhatted right-hand man Merv Ferguson (Donal Logue). Using comic-style animations and goofy sound effects, the movie traces the club’s history from its bleak biker-bar beginnings to the provenance of the punk-rock revolution.

A massive carousel of cast members wheel in and out of a film that is, in essence, a Hilly Kristal character study. There’s Idaho (Freddie Rodriguez), the violinist-turned-gadfly-junkie who represents the many drug addicts Kristal employed in his kitchen; Stan (Michael Massee), the overworked downtown cop who hovers around the bar and lets Kristal off the hook for noise complaints and other minor infractions; and Taxi, the homeless tech hired to work the CBGB sound board.

There’s Lisa Kristal herself, played by Ashley Greene in (obviously) the most positive light, as the boldly able college dropout who materializes when her father fails to help with tuition and martyrs herself by attempting to turn around his business’s finances. John Holmstrom (Josh Zuckerman) and Mary Herron (Ahna O’Reilly) — respectively the co-founder and writer of Punk, the first-ever punk magazine – act as heavy-handed narrators, waxing embarrassingly philosophical about the significance of the musical underground while charging down dank downtown alleys to the tune of Richard Hell and the Voidoids with a vigor that would make Aaron Sorkin proud.

And of course, there are the soon-to-be superstars that made CBGB legendary (or was it vice versa?). Talking Heads. Blondie. Iggy Pop. Lou Reed. The Dead Boys. The Ramones. Patti Smith. A cavalcade of stars flash across the screen like expensive end-credits peppered with endearing bloopers, each appearance more kooky and recognizable than the last. (And just in case you aren’t sure, each and every one is introduced with a wholly unsubtle animated nametag.) Even the Police make an appearance in the hastily-wrapped ending. The breakneck speed at which we meet each musician, hear three fan-service lines, and then lose them in the melee of the white noise of the crowd makes for a dizzying, almost parodic celebrity laundry list.

It’s the real history of the place, yes, but bundled into a jerky, consumer-friendly package that does everyone a disservice. To their credit, or perhaps their immense access, the filmmakers invited artists like the Dead Boys’ Cheetah Chrome to make on-screen appearances and used actual pieces of the club – the cash register, the entire bathroom, all dutifully preserved like museum artifacts they are – in the movie. But authentic props and cameos can’t stand in for a weak script, or compensate for the wholesale absence of important players in the club’s history.

Kristal’s ex-wife Karen, who technically owned CBGB and its liquor license for years and worked the door and bar, is pointedly absent from the film. (She refused to authorize her likeness after receiving none of her ex-husband’s $3.7 million fortune.) Instead, Merv takes over her role as well. Karen’s son — and Lisa’s brother — Dana is nowhere to be found for similar reasons; he’s been incredibly vocal about his objections since the film was announced.) These are typical Hollywood snags, of course, but their exclusion further narrows the perspective and reach of a film that is already hamstrung by selective memory. 

The most disappointing part of this movie, however, isn’t just its sanguine script, its clown characters or its sycophantic epilogue (everyone lives happily ever after, hooray!). It’s the fact that, after all these years of watching the Kristal family bicker over rights and estates and properties, yanking CBGB in and out of existence for four decades, this is the film the public gets about such an undeniable creative hotbed in American history.

Rather than offering us emotional depth or connection to a deeply significant, clearly heartfelt moment in music history, CBGB gives us little more than a punk CliffsNotes at a time when even Anna Wintour has already done the reading. In lieu of an honest look at the circumstances that helped give birth to punk and the complicated man who helped make it possible, we get an time-softened, nostalgia-heavy encomium about a beloved saint (who bailed junkies out of jail and gave them jobs!) designed to extract the profit that the club’s owners were unable to make — or perhaps manage — when it was open.

As Ferguson points out, shrugging, in a moment of clarity that comes close to breaking the fourth wall: “Hey, art sucks.”

These 101 minutes of palatably zany rock and roll seem custom-built to solidify the CBGB brand – which exists today only as a redundant festival and a sea of horrible T-shirts – and attempt to regain control of a moment in time that was special and far more vital precisely because it was out of control. While you’d never know it from watching the film, the club went under in 2006 because the family was once again unable to make rent. Like much of what makes the story interesting, that fact gets swept under the rug in CBGB, even though it’s the most beautifully, tragically New York epilogue of all.

Source: http://feeds.wired.com/c/35185/f/661469/s/323c819c/sc/38/l/0L0Swired0N0Cunderwire0C20A130C10A0Ccbgb0Emovie0Ereview0C/story01.htm
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Baidu Appoints Founder Of NetDragon, One Of China's Top Online ...

Baidu, China’s leading search engine, announced today that it has appointed Liu Dejian, the founder, chairman and executive director of NetDragon, an online gaming and mobile developer, to its Board of Directors. Liu also served as chairman and non-executive director of 91 Wireless, one of China’s largest app marketplaces and a former NetDragon subsidiary, before Baidu agreed to acquire it for $1.9 billion in August 2013.

Liu’s appointment signifies Baidu’s ongoing focus on its mobile strategy. The company was relatively late to monetize its mobile businesses, especially when compared to rivals like Tencent, Qihoo and Alibaba Group, but has been aggressively building its mobile assets over the past year with several acquisitions, including 91 Wireless and streaming video platform PPS.

Founded in 1999, NetDragon is now one of China’s largest online gaming and mobile platform development companies. Liu oversees NetDragon’s overall strategic development and is the chief designer on its game development team. After NetDragon bought 91 Wireless in 2008, it quickly grew into one of the top third-party smartphone app distribution platforms in China, where Google Play isn’t available.

In a statement, Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li said Liu’s “innovative leadership style and pedigree as an Internet entrepreneur will be of great value to Baidu. We are confident that he will make a significant contribution to our efforts to consolidate our leading position in China.”

October 11, 1999

May 8, 2005, NASDAQ:BIDU

Baidu is the largest Chinese language search engines. Baidu’s mission is to provide the best way for people to find information online, including Chinese language web pages, news, images and multimedia files though links provided on their website. In addition to serving individual Internet search users, Baidu also provides a platform for businesses to reach potential customers online. The company’s online marketing services include auction-based P4P and tailored solutions.

via: Baidu

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