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IBM PREDICTS FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES

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This morning, IBM Research released a report predicting five major innovations that will affect our lives profoundly by 2022. Among its predictions are:

  • Artificial Intelligence and Mental Health:   Computers will analyze patient speech and written words. Anomalies will reveal developmental disorders, mental illness, or neurological disease. Medical personnel will be able to track these conditions in real time, without having to wait for the patient to visit the clinic for a checkup. A I tracking through wearable devices will complement drug therapy and clinical treatment.
  • Superhero Vision:    Our eyes detect less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum. With hyperimaging tools and A I, though, we could ‘see’ far more than is revealed in visible light. With portable devices, we could sense hidden opportunities or threats. Our cars could ‘see’ through rain or fog, detect invisible hazards such as black ice, and tell us the distance and size of objects in our paths.
  • Macroscopes:   With machine learning and software, we could organize information about the physical world. Billions of devices within our range of vision will gather massive and complex data. This is what IBM calls the ‘macroscope’. It will enable us to read and instantly analyze the useful data all around us, while filtering out irrelevancies.
  • Medical Lab on a Chip:   By analyzing body fluids, devices you carry or wear will tell you if you need to see a physician. A single chip will handle all of the detection and analysis that currently requires a full biochemistry labs.
  • Smart Sensors that Detect Pollution:    With much more sensitive sensors, we could easily detect storage and pipeline leaks. Even the most minute and invisible leaks could be caught in real time. Sensors will report problems at the speed of light.

In previous reports, IBM predicted classrooms that learn you, touching through your phone, and computers with a sense of smell.

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TOP TRENDS IN NEW TV SETS

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With the annual Consumer Electronics Show about to end, we’ve gotten a glimpse of the near future in the market for video displays. In years past, LED and LCD displays with High Definition (HD) resolution were all the rage. They work well, but they’ve been around long enough that they almost seem passe’. Manufacturers are now producing flexible screens, OLED and QLED technology, and 4K or Ultra High Definition (UHD) resolution.

If you want your TV set to offer the best possible picture and sound, investigate displays with the following features:

4k and Ultra HD

As their names imply, 4K and Ultra HD (UHD) screens display four times the number of pixels in an HD screen. Only a few content providers offer their programming in 4K or UHD format, but more are adopting it every month.  Within two years, 4K will be standard.

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

One of the top trends in TV innovation is High Dynamic Range (HDR). Unlike 4K or UHD, which are brute-force approaches to picture sharpness, HDR does not entail simply stuffing more pixels into the display.

HDR is a new technology altogether. It offers much brighter highlights, deeper shadows, more detail and subtlety in the midrange, and a wider color gamut than conventional TV. Most observers say it improves the picture more than 4K does.

OLED and QLED

Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) and Quantum Light-Emitting Diode (QLED) displays are at the top in picture quality. They offer far better contrast and color saturation than LED, LCD, or plasma screens.

OLED screens have been far more expensive than competing types, but this is changing. Samsung and LG have learned mass-manufacturing techniques that are making their prices much more competitive.

Both LED and QLED look impressive. There may be subtle differences in picture quality, but they are so small, most of us wouldn’t notice them. Both are clearly superior to everything else.

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TRENDS IN VIDEO MARKETS

TV viewers have more options now than ever before, as the market finds new ways to meet their demands. Here are a few of the more significant trends in video distribution, and how they affect the way you watch TV and movies:

Digital Syndication

Scripted TV shows usually follow long story arcs- and they age quickly. A few solid hits, though, remain popular with the public long after they’re first aired. Studios and broadcasters earn more money from them by licensing large blocks of episodes to cable networks. Some of the more popular syndicated shows include Seinfeld, Jeopardy!, and The People’s Court.

Though a syndicated show is seldom as popular as the original series, it is profitable because the studio doesn’t face new production expense.

Syndication is not new. It has existed nearly as long as the cable TV industry. What is relatively new is digital syndication. Content providers have begun to license older shows for dedicated steaming platforms such as Netflix, DirecTV Now, and Sling TV.

Streaming of Live Sports

In 2015, the NFL licensed Yahoo to stream a live game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Buffalo Bills. Yahoo had exclusive rights to the game, and streamed it world-wide. The game was between small-market teams in an unfavorable time slot (Sunday, 9:30 a.m. EST). Still, it brought in 15.2 million unique viewers.

The game marked the first time a streaming service outbid a broadcast network for an NFL game.  Since then, FOX Sports Go and WatchESPN apps provide live streams of games from multiple markets.

Transactional Video

The conventional pay TV model is a cable or satellite subscription. You pay by the month for a large channel package.

One of the most important trends in TV now ditches the subscription model. Some providers charge small fees for each episode or small group of episodes. as little as $0.99. Google Play, Amazon Prime Video, and iTunes are among the vendors offering video on a per-episode basis. Some will offer discounts, up to 40% per episode, for purchase of a “season pass”, access to an entire season of a series.

In either case, you would pay only for the shows you watch, not for channels or channels bundles.

 Streaming Direct to Consumer

Usually, cable and broadcast TV networks offer their programming through cable or satellite systems. Some offer them through streaming platforms such as Netflix, Playstation Vue, or Sling TV.

One of the most important new trends in the business is cutting out the middleman. Content providers are increasingly likely to offer their shows directly to viewers. 20th Century Fox, ABC-Disney, and NBC Universal opened the way in 2005 by forming Hulu.

This year, the CBS Corporation launched CBS All-Access, and HBO launched HBO Now.  These are stand-alone video services that don’t require cable or satellite subscriptions.

Authentication

Authentication is likely to be the most enduring of trends in the video market. It is essential for newer platforms that enable streaming on multiple devices. If the device you want to stream with is not the one you enrolled with, how does the provider know you’re a customer?

Video services rely increasingly on authentication to identify customers and log them in. In most cases, this means you enter a user name and a four-digit code.

The advantage for you is that you’re not limited to the video services own devices, and you can more easily use your service away from home.

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RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN OVERTURNED

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We all want privacy. We have a right to it, don’t we? We want to forget our more embarrassing moments, and we want others to forget them, too.

Unfortunately, the internet’s memory is eternal. Every Facebook post we write, and every tweet we send, can come back to haunt us. Our friends, colleagues, and casual acquaintances have their own digital records of our lapses in judgement; and their audio, video, and text records can wreck our reputations. Follies we forgot about years ago can still thwart our job searches and romantic prospects.

It may be wise for us to manage our lives as if every moment outside of our homes is in the public record. After all, there is a very strong chance that it is.

But if we fail, what then? Are we doomed to relive our worst moments for the rest of our lives?

Some governments have decided to enforce digital privacy by statute. The European Union, among other entities, has embraced a ‘right to be forgotten’ rule. Under its terms, Google and other browsers will have to make certain information ‘unsearchable’ at the subject’s request. One’s embarrassing past will simply disappear from the internet. Nobody will ever find it again.

With the EU’s support, almost every expert expected other governments to adopt similar laws.

It’s not so certain now that this will be the case.

Search engines have challenged the ‘right to be forgotten’ in court. This morning, they scored one of their first major legal victories in the matter. Brazil’s highest court ruled that such laws place too heavy a burden on search engines, forcing them to become censors.

If other courts, in other states, follow suit, the ‘right to be forgotten’ may become unenforceable. The internet is international, and information can’t be confined within national boundaries.

We probably can’t rely on digital censors to protect our reputations. We may just have to assume that everything we do will become public- and act accordingly. And be careful with selfies.

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TRUMP PRESIDENCY PREDICTED BY THE SIMPSONS

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Is Donald Trump’s election to the presidency a complete surprise? It was for most journalists. It may be for you. It isn’t for Matt Groening, the brain behind The Simpsons TV series, though. He predicted a Trump presidency fifteen years ago.

In 2001, Groening and his crew produced an episode in which Bart Simpson dreams about his future as an adult. The adult Bart, who wears a ponytail, sunglasses, and a Hawaiian shirt, is the lead singer and guitarist for an unsuccessful band. The band is so desperate, the few dive bars that will hire it pay only in popcorn shrimp.

In the extremity of his financial duress, Bart seeks help from the Federal Government. He visits the White House, where his sister Lisa is “America’s first straight female president”. This implies, of course, that the first female president was… eh, never mind. While Bart and Lisa are talking in the Oval Office,  Milhouse Van Houten, the Treasury Secretary, rushes in and tells Lisa that her predecessor, Donald Trump, left the country broke.

Maybe the actual Trump presidency will leave America in better fiscal condition. But we’re not making any predictions.

 

The Simpsons was not alone in predicting Trump’s presidency. Adam Corolla, a comedian who hosts a daily radio show and a weekly podcast, predicted it eight years ago. On his radio show, Corolla said, “He’s gonna be president in eight years. You understand that, everybody?” His co-cost, Theresa Strasser, groaned at this. Corolla repeated his assertion: “He’ll be president one day. It’ll be in our lifetime.”

Corolla’s not infallible. Strasser asked him, “Will he still have Melankia, or whatever her name is?” She obviously meant Melania, Trump’s third wife.

“Oh, no, no no”, Corolla said, “because she will have passed her 38th birthday.”

 

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DNA FOR YOUR COMPUTER

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Will your next computer be built from your genetic material? Though you shouldn’t start shopping for your DNA based PC yet, organic computers may soon become the dominant means of processing data.

Most of us think of computers as mechanical, and built from silicon chips. They process data in binary form: tiny electrical charges representing ones and zeroes. Many computer scientists, though, believe that we’ve gotten nearly as much out of silicon as we ever will. It gets ever more difficult to shrink circuits further, so we may not be able to improve computers much through conventional methods.

Enter the organic computer. Leonard Adleman first demonstrated a DNA computer in 1994. He used it to encode and solve the Traveling Salesman Problem, a puzzle that had long bedeviled mathematicians: how to plot the most efficient route between 14 hypothetical cities.

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) can store massive amounts of information. It encodes data in four different sequences of molecules. We will simply call the four types C, G, A, and T. They process information through bonding between DNA pairs. Their input is single strands; their output is transformed strands.

The programming of such computers is more chemical than electronic or mechanical.

Early organic computers were difficult to work with, and unsuited for most data processing tasks. Since then, biochemists have learned how to encourage different types of organic bonds. Organic computers now can carry much more information. More recently, some computer scientists have found efficient ways to coat DNA strands with gold. From these strands, they can build much smaller circuits than they can with silicon.

With this latest development, a practical all-purpose organic computer may be on the way. We could have organic computers by 2020.

In 1994, Leonard Adleman said, “Like quantum computing, organic computing is very futuristic. Both make the point that computation doesn’t have to take place in a box that sits on our desk.”

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VOTE CAREFULLY & RESPONSIBLY

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What We Won’t Do

With one of the most contentious presidential races in history underway, it’s tempting to weigh in on the matter. I offer no endorsements, though. I have a different perspective on political responsibility.

I don’t cover election campaigns here. For this blog, I address public policies– FCC ‘net neutrality’ regulations, for example– only when they’re likely to affect our industry directly. For other publications, I write short articles satirizing politicians once in a while. I try to be even-handed in this, and I’ve mocked Mr. Trump as often as Mrs. Clinton.

The Question is Why, Not How

I will not tell you whom or what to vote for, but will comment on what moves you to vote. One of my pet peeves is the ads that nag every adult to cast a ballot. “You must vote!”, you are told. “If you don’t vote, don’t complain!” There are others of that type, the upshot of which is that you are nearly a criminal if you choose to sit out an election. All of the cool kids will be voting, and you don’t want to be one of clueless dweebs mocked by the cool kids, do you?

To hell with that! The uninformed or unmotivated voter is one of the most dangerous creatures in existence. Anyone who has to be told that an election is underway should take it as a certain sign that he/she lacks the minimum mental engagement for voting responsibly– no matter how brilliant he/she may be otherwise. There is no virtue in merely casting a ballot. Those who don’t know the issues, the backgrounds of the candidates, or much about history or economics, are ripe for manipulation by demagogues and self-dealing scoundrels. Their votes are likely to contribute to the weakening of the social order- maybe even its destruction. To vote because we were shamed into it is exceedingly irresponsible.

Think for yourself. Don’t vote, or form your political philosophy, based on statements by celebrities. Avoid being swayed by ‘social proof’, the consensus of Facebook or Twitter mobs. Don’t fall for candidates merely because they seem hip, attractive, trendy, or ‘cool’. This is how we got saddled with…  eh, never mind. I’m not mentioning any names here.

Preparation

Inform yourself. Vote only if you understand the candidates and the issues thoroughly. This means knowing more than what candidates say about a prepared list of topics. It means knowing their backgrounds, and knowing a fair amount about history, economics, and literature. Avoid multiculturalist or conspiratorial takes on these subjects. If your sources are Howard Zinn, Paul Krugman, Michael Savage, Noam Chomsky, Alex Jones, or- heaven help us– Amy Schumer or Samantha Bee, then you need better sources.

Nobody should enter a polling place undecided. A vote should never be determined by a coin toss. Anyone who hasn’t made up his/her mind before election day hasn’t weighed the issues properly. Impulsiveness and civic responsibility don’t mix. Activity is productive only when directed by reason, and random activity is usually useless at best, if not downright destructive. When we don’t know what we’re doing, it’s often best to do nothing.

This is especially true in the political arena.

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THE DAY THE INTERNET DIED

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Is It Impossible?

The event had long been predicted. Most of us scoffed at the alarms, though, thinking they were merely the paranoid mutterings of conspiracy theorists, or cynical self-promotion by merchants hoping to profit from mass  hysteria.

The internet couldn’t possibly fail. A few websites might be vulnerable to hacking and malware, but the backbone of the internet was decentralized, robust, and thoroughly secure. We could always count on it. The dreaded day of Electronic Apocalypse would never arrive.

The Fateful Day Arrives

On Friday, October 21, 2016, the alarmists were proven right. The first wave of attacks began early in the day: about 7:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. This was in the midst of “rush hour” for internet use in America, with tens of millions casually reading the news, tweeting, and reviewing their Facebook pages. Some of the most heavily trafficked web sites and internet services in the world were knocked offline, including Netflix, Reddit, Etsy, Twitter, Spotify, AirBnB, the New York Times, Sound Cloud, PayPal, and the PlayStation Network. By about 9:00 a.m. EST, the affected services were operating again. They had apparently succeeded in repelling the attacks.

The day was not over, though, and the hackers were not finished. A second wave of attacks began just before noon EST. Yet a third wave began just after 3:00 pm.

The internet outages were especially severe and prolonged on the U.S. East Coast, where most of the affected servers were located. Widespread severe outages also afflicted California, the Desert Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, some Gulf Coast states, and parts of Europe. Asia, Africa, and Latin America saw very few outages.

What Caused the Outages?

Friday’s attacks on the internet were distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults of Dyn, an internet performance management firm that provides Domain Name System (DNS) services. Dyn described the raids as “a very sophisticated and complex attack”.

A DNS service is, in essence, an address book for the internet. Reading the web addresses we see on our browser tabs, the DNS service finds, and connects us with, the corresponding servers so we can receive the content we request.

A DDoS attack overloads a server with fake service requests, consuming its memory and bandwidth, so it has little to none left for legitimate requests. To the web surfer, it appears that requested pages are busy. The hackers prolong the outage with automatic repetition of their requests. Even innocent surfers can aggravate it by refreshing their requests from unresponsive pages.

The source of Friday’s attacks was a botnet (artificial intelligence application) called Mirai. The botnet army took control of, and then launched its attacks from, a host of lightly secured webcams, fitness monitors, location devices, DVRs, routers, and even baby monitors. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a critical point of vulnerability.

Could it Happen Again?

In the wake of Friday’s attack, many web analysts have said that we might see similar attacks disrupting the upcoming election. An Election Day internet failure, though, is unlikely to affect the presidential race much. Control of polling places and balloting is too decentralized. Internet failure could affect down-ballot races, though.

The threat of further internet outages won’t fade away soon. It could persist for months or years, even if the culprits in Friday’s attacks are caught and punished quickly. The source code for the Mirai botnet has been released to the public.

What Can You Do?

First, make sure you have a strongly-encrypted internet service, such as HughesNet. Change your passwords often for all connected devices, including webcams, DVRs, and fitness monitors. Be careful about sharing passwords or electronic devices. Every day, be careful when logging into your computer.

If you’re unsure, ask your internet service provider what it’s doing to thwart similar attacks. If there’s any good news in this episode, it’s that the FCC says providers have it in their power to prevent DDoS failures. They just need a few system upgrades. And now, of course, ISPs are aware of the need for tighter security. Friday’s outages were a loud wake-up call.

With vigilance, we can prevent the next great day of internet failure. It will require effort and close attention, but we can do it.

The enclosed map is by Level 3. It provides equipment and services for internet carriers.

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VUDU FREE-TO-VIEWER AD-SUPPORTED TV

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As if cable and satellite TV systems weren’t under extreme competitive pressure already, now Wal-Mart is breathing down their necks. The nation’s largest retailer owns VUDU, a streaming video platform that is rolling out an ad-supported free-to-the-viewer movie service.

VUDU currently charges $3.99 for a 1080p movie download. Through its new “Movies On Us” feature, the downloads will be free to the viewer, provided he’s willing to sit through commercials

The first of the ad-supported movie downloads include True Grit (the 2010 remake starring Jeff Bridges), and School of Rock, starring Jack Black. VUDU is promoting both titles heavily.

For any movie title, VUDU will offer the choice of renting it, buying it, or streaming the “Free with Ads” version. Some of the rental and purchase options are available in 4K or Ultra HD.

Jeremy Verba, VUDU’s general manager, said, “This new service provides value for customers who want movies and TV for free, when and how they wish to watch, without sacrificing quality.”

The streaming video market is getting ever more crowded. Last year, Dish Network launched Sling TV, a multichannel streaming VOD service. AT&T has signed carriage contracts for more then 100 channels for its DirecTV Now platform, to be launched by the year’s end. Turner Networks has been working on its own streaming VOD (video on demand) platform, FilmStruck. It’s unveiling has been delayed until November, though, because of a series of technical glitches. Comcast has conducted consumer tests of its TV everywhere VOD service. PlayStation Vue, originally a gaming platform, has has moved into streaming TV.

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RICE UNIVERSITY TESTS 1 TB RADIO WiFi

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Guglielmo Marconi would be proud. The pioneer of commercial radio would certainly approve the use of his discovery to transmit the word’s first non-laser wireless data system transmitting at 1 terabit per second (1 TB/S). This is 20,000 times the speed of the fastest current 4G LTE WiFi networks, and about 20 times the speed of the fastest wired business data services. At 1 TB/S, a signal could stream 200,000 HD movies at the same time.

The need for massive increases in data speed is obvious. A study conducted by Cisco Systems a few months ago found that mobile internet traffic grew by 74% globally in 2015, and smart phone use increased by 43%. For the year, video was 55% of all mobile data traffic.

The growing demand for data led the National Science Foundation to spend more than $60 million over the last five years in radio spectrum research. On Tuesday, the NSF gave a substantial grant to Rice University for testing of a pulsed radio data transfer method.

The researchers at Rice University, Edward Knightly and Aydin Babakhani, plan to depart from the carrier-wave modulation techniques that have been standard in radio communication for over a hundred years. Babakhani says that a pulsed wave system is probably the only non-laser WiFi platform that can perform at rates of in the range of 1 TB/S per channel.

Knightly said, “Instead of having signals that bounce off walls and are highly scattered throughout the environment, we (will)… only have line of sight. The benefit is (we)… blast all the bandwidth and all the information directly to a device with laser-sharp focus, and no one else will be able to intercept that signal because any receiver… offline… won’t detect it. So we’re focusing like a laser but we’re using radio. The challenge is to steer that beam to the right place at the right time, and to follow users as they move.”

We don’t know when 1 TB radio WiFi will be available to us. Several technical hurdles remain. If the Rice research team can overcome them quickly, we may see a consumer version within three years. When it does, we’ll report it here.

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