German robots stab, stab, stab

Ever read Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot”? It’s actually a book of short stories about robots and their human relationships; I read it in high school. Okay, y’know that movie a few years back with the cool computer animation about robots and Will Smith? Yeah, that one. Anyway, somewhere in the story(ies) the chief scientist behind the fictional future’s robots (Dr. Susan Calvin in the book and Dr. Alfred Lanning in the movie, though Dr. Calvin is in both as chief robopsychologist) explains the Three Laws of Robotics: a robot may not injure a human through any action or inaction, must obey any order delivered by a human unless in conflict with the first law, and must protect its own existence except in conflict with the first or second law.

So that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw this:

The German Aerospace Center is testing a robotic safety system on live human subjects. With a knife. How long before some oversized toaster is nagging me about keeping my house clean then going berserk when I forget to brush my teeth?

What’s ‘otaku’ in Mandarin?

The anime industry, a “small” corner of nerd-dom, has rumbled for a few years with rumors of the medium’s decline in Japan. This is tantamount to the decline in movie theaters among anime fans. So I was less than surprised when I read a piece by the Associated Press about China’s plan for taking over. I have noted the increase in popularity for non-Japanese manga and anime in the past few years, anything from Korean/Taiwanese/Chinese to American and French. I remember the days when anything produced outside of Japan was dismissed as ‘amateur’. Rumor has it that the main cause of anime’s decline in Japan is due to illegal Internet distribution, which pushed already thin budgets beyond the limit, though I can’t cite any sources.

Anime projects have operated on insane budgets and time crunches since the days of Osamu Tezuka (Astroboy in the early sixties), so I’m not surprised that some studios are cutting their losses. Somehow I think otaku-consumers, at least the non-Japanese sort, will wait and see about the quality of a Chinese anime before passing judgment with their dollars. But since bootlegging Western movies is such a big business in China, I wonder how they’ll react if the reverse happens with Chinese anime?

Hacker jailbreaks iPad

Well, that was quick.

Medical information systems?

Two big topics that are rolling around in the media hopper these days are health care and broadband technology. According to recent studies, the health care industry is several years behind in terms of data digitization and research. A shame, really, when one thinks of the shear amount of applications computer data analysis would have on an industry that conducts tests on nearly every patient. Expert systems alone have the potential to save untold numbers of lives. But I caught an article on SilionValley.com about the implication of remote technology and health care. Imagine if a rural patient falls prey to a mysterious neurological ailment; the kind whose nearest expert practices thousands of miles away. With remote technology, there’s no need for distance to be of issue.

I suppose this is a growth of the distance education field we’ve all witnessed in the last decade. I work in the health care field but my degree is in business with information systems, so the implication that medicine might push for greater penetration of information systems makes me a little giddy.

Book Flip Scan

A Japanese professor and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo have invented technology that scans a book as fast as the pages can be flipped. If this technology is developed to commercial release, expect the information explosion to, well, explode. More.

Check out the in-depth article at IEEE Spectrum for more details.

Welcome to Apple, China.

What would it be like if Apple ran a country? Okay, a little grandiose. Try a city. I picture uber-clean streets with stylish houses, cars and businesses that express the true individual and all look the same. And forget Vegas, if you talk about what goes on in Apple City, you will be stripped of your possessions and exiled like in some Greek history.

Welcome to Longhua, China where the Apple supplier Foxxcomm International runs a facility that its industrial workers call home. If you can get past the gate and the guards with the metal detectors and thumb print scanners, you will find a city complete with living facilities, banks, even bakeries. Yes, bakeries.

Google helped itself get hacked

Is it bad that I find so much tech security news to be amusing lately? Turns out the U. S. government actually helped China hack into Google. Sorta kinda. How did I miss this? Google created a back door to help the government with warranted searches; Chinese hackers used it to get access to Gmail accounts. Oh, the irony. Google is so huge, it makes me wonder what level of security a person might have by decentralizing their online activity. And let’s not forget, keep the ‘I’m updating from Starbucks!!‘ down to a minimum.

Google Buzz wasn’t user-tested before release

I must be one of the few people that checked out the Google Buzz application once then forgot about it. So everyone besides me has issues with email contacts made public and a few other disasters. Turns out Google didn’t really beta the app before releasing it. Congratulations everyone, you’ve just been made a volunteer beta-tester!

Open source growth

Focus.com released this nifty little graphic depicting the growth of open source in just the last few years. I was most impressed by the growth of Linux on servers: from 12.7% in 2007 to 60% in 2008. I’ve more than a passing interest in open source, but I am also interested in the number of unforeseen problems that will grow out of its growing presence in the world. Something tells me I’m not the only one.

Gmail banned in Iran, +1 streetcred

A few days ago the Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran said his country was set to ‘punch‘ the Western nations during the anniversary week of its revolution. I know he is serious, but my first thought: “Grape?”

But today the Iranian government announced that it was…banning Gmail? Poor Google, it’s having a bad week what with Apple, China and now Iran.  A new national email system will be rolled out instead, but why ban just Gmail? I assume they still have access to the myriad of other free email sites, unless they plan on banning the Internet all together.  The government also confiscated many satellite dishes and some mobile phones. Is this a move to close its electronic borders? Are they keeping the West out or the Iranians in? And what kind of Iranian protester would be dim enough to sign up for government-run email anyway?