Daily Archives: February 7, 2017

In a party line vote, the House Administration Committee voted today to kill the Election Assistance Committee, which sets federal standards for voting technology. If the bill becomes law, it could affect efforts to protect US elections from cyber attacks, further indicating that Republicans arent all that bothered by the threat of election hacking.

The Election Assistance Commission is charged with testing and certifying voting technology, and creating best practices and guidance for states on their voting systems. It was created by the Help America Vote Act, after the chaos of the 2000 election showed the need for better and more standardized electronic voting systems. The agency doesnt make rules or enforce requirements, but does certify technology. It also sets standards that states can use if they choose, and it provides grants for research into improving voting technologies. Its budget was $10 million in 2013, making it practically a rounding error in federal budget terms.

Bills that would eliminate the EAC have been introduced in previous years, but its more of a threat now with a united Republican congress and a Republican president. Its hard to imagine why Republicans would want to eliminate a small agency with such a limited budget and remit, particularly given the growing concern over foreign hacking of US elections systems. The EAC itself was hacked in 2016, and voter registration systems in multiple states were targeted by hackers. None of these incidents caused the elections to be compromised, but future attempts at hacking could be more successful without the EAC setting national standards for election security and performing tests on voting machines. And hacking isnt the only problem: according to the Brennan Center, a democracy and voting rights advocacy group, 43 states use at least some machines that are more than 10 years old.

In a statement, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, who is on the House Administration Committee, took on Donald Trump for his partys attempts to kill the agency:

It strikes me as odd that at the same time their President Donald Trump is claiming massive voter fraud, House Republicans on the House Administration Committee are advancing legislation to eliminate the very commission which helps ensure that voting systems are secure, accurate, and accessible.

We received reports that dozens of state voter registration databases were subject to Russian hacking attacks last year. Eliminating the Elections Assistance Commission means these state and local jurisdictions will be less prepared to prevent efforts to delegitimize or disrupt our elections.

The EACs chair, Tom Hicks, also cited the threat of hacking if the agency is eliminated:

Efforts to dismantle the Election Assistance Commission are seriously out of step with the current U.S. election landscape. At a time when the Department of Homeland Security has designated election systems as part of the countrys critical infrastructure, election officials face cybersecurity threats, our nations voting machinery is aging and there are accusations of election irregularities, the EAC is the only federal agency bridging the gap between federal guidance and the needs of state and local election officials.

The bill would still have to pass the House and Senate before it reaches the presidents desk, so Senate Democrats may filibuster the effort.

Originally posted here:

Republicans Aim to Kill Election Technology Standards Agency - Gizmodo

There is no doubt 3D printing is more than a temporary nourish for the world. According to some recent surveys, the worldwide 3D printing industry is now projected to reach revenues $12.8 billion by 2018 and surpass an enormous $21 billion globally by 2020.

The role of 3D cannot be undermined -- from product design in the technology industry to modeling and presentation in the real estate sector, 3D has proven its stay. Self-design, an advancement on 3D designs that allows users to create custom designs from which manufacturers can create a customer-specific product is the new trend.

Here are some ways 3D and self-design are making the world a better place.

Touchable Picture Isn't it amazing if the blind and visually weaken could feel images? 3D technology has made it achievable for the world. With the advent of cutting-edge printers, the users can print the photographs and pictures in 3D version. What's more? 3D models of even unborn babies can be created with this technology.

Owing to amazing customization features of the 3D and self-design techniques, it will be possible to design and build implants depending on the needs and requirements of the clients. It means that the technology will help to get improved body parts. Sturdier and better means of transportation

Nowadays, most transportation companies are using 3D printed parts to increase the strength and protection of the vehicles. This technology is utilized to design even planes. 3D printed components to make the plans lightweight and sturdy. When it comes to evaluating a vehicle, we always look at fuel efficiency. With 3D components, vehicles are made fuel efficient.

Comfortable plaster cast for broken bones

Traditional plaster casts are somehow uncomfortable to carry. But modern plaster cast built with 3D design are easy to wear and more hygienic. Faster medical progress

The role of 3D technology is really great in the healthcare sector. It brings various new discoveries in medicine. It saves loads of time and resources spent on surveys and researches. Owing to the advanced printers and supplementary devices, it is now easier and faster to design and craft tailor-made implants. Improve working efficiency

Various tasks related to design have become quick, simple and efficient with 3D and self-design technology. It improves the efficiency and reduces the need for manpower. Ultimately, it speeds up the production and reduces the expenses. Faster solutions

At present scenario, designs and looks of almost everything are changed very rapidly. 3D printers allow the employees to save time and let them focus on their main work. It helps to streamline the work. Creating faster and a proficient solution are easy with a smart printer.

Brian Walker, Ph.D., the co-founder, and CEO of CircutScribe says self-design will make 3D adoption rate even faster. "Due to the speed at which jobs can be completed, from the customer interaction point to the printing and manufacturing stage, a lot of previously wasted time will be cut. This means more people will adopt 3D as a way of getting things done," he said.

Improved and engaging education

The emergence of art and technology has changed the way schools offer education to the students. With the 3D and self-design technologies, students learn various subjects especially, science, technology, engineering and math with fun. Art and technology have always been interconnected, but now they are allied more than ever before to change the world.

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How 3D and Self-Design Will Change Technology - Huffington Post

The Dark Side of Technology By Peter Townsend Oxford University Press 320 pp; $50

Soon, a massive solar flare will bring the world to a halt, says Andrew Robinson.

A century and a half ago, a sunspot caused a massive solar flare. On Earth, the northern lights were visible as far south as Cuba. Morse-code telegraph cables state of the art in 1859 acted like radio antennae, sucking energy from the electrical-magnetic atmospheric storm. Their pulses of high voltage generated sparks in the telegraph offices and gave shocks to the telegraph operators, but caused no greater damage.

By 1921, however, when electrical generators and equipment had become commonplace in industrialized nations, a more modest sunspot wrought havoc. In the United States and Sweden, telegraph control buildings were incinerated by electrically generated fires. In New York, the Central Railroads signalling equipment was wrecked, and a fire burnt down at least one building. Fortunately, power grids were not yet widespread.

In 2012, a solar flare as powerful as that of 1859 crossed Earths orbit around the Sun, missing our planet by only nine days. Another such flare hitting Earth is quite likely a one-in-10 chance during the next few years, and is virtually a certainty by the end of the century. What will be its impact on our civilization?

Catastrophic, because of our now far more interconnected technology, according to the opening section of The Dark Side of Technology by Peter Townsend, a professor of experimental physics in engineering. Despite an uneven style and an unwarranted absence of any references or an index, his book is broad, thoughtful and justifiably disturbing about the perils inherent in humanitys long love affair with technologys astonishing benefits.

Less than 24 hours after another future massive solar flare, high-energy solar particles would reach Earth and knock out the sensitive electronics in satellites, maybe permanently, along with global communications, including air traffic control. On land, the burst of solar energy would disrupt power grids, with the pylons and electrical cable networks acting like enormous and efficient antennae. Larger cities would be gridlocked because they would have no lighting, including no traffic lights, a situation that would induce panic and mass attempts to escape. Fires would be inevitable; with no electrical power to pump water, many would rage out of control.

Although nothing can be done to control solar flares, technology is theoretically under our control. Efforts are being made to shift an unused satellite and to station a newly launched probe, the Deep Space Climate Observatory, away from Earth towards the Sun, to give advance warning of a big particle flux and possibly protect satellite electronics. But there are no plans by electricity companies to keep sufficient replacement parts, such as transformers, because of the variety and expense of what might be required. Townsend believes that protective energy grid measures should be funded as a priority by central governments.

He is not optimistic about the human race acting for its own good. I suspect that the truly catastrophic potential for global exploitation and destruction is primarily unrelated to technology, and related instead to the expansion of the population, as well as to self-interest and human nature. Technologies are just the enabling routes to self-destruction, not the cause.

As evidence, he cites our blinkered pursuit of technology in fashion, past and present, such as immense wigs, constraining corsets, breast implants, Botox and filler procedures. These have all been seen as desirable, despite their known risks to hygiene, the skeleton, internal organs, the skin and physical fitness. And there have always been engineers and surgeons willing to encourage such fashions in pursuit of profit. If we cannot recognize the dark side of this technology, which intimately impinges on our own health, asks Townsend, what chance is there that we shall respond with foresight or far sight to complex technological problems that lie way outside our daily experience, such as a communications satellite irradiated by a solar flare or a nuclear power plant flooded by an earthquake-induced tsunami?

Consider, too, fashions in personal computing. IT companies now encourage us to store all our data in what is euphemistically known as the cloud, rather than on our own desktop computers, arguing that the company will constantly update the storage formats for our data, thereby allowing us to avoid the inevitable problem of obsolescence.

Many computer users go along with this promise, because cloud storage is cheap, convenient and seemingly infinite. But this means that the company has access to our confidential information. Moreover, there is no guarantee that it will keep its side of the deal. It may get taken over, or it may go bankrupt. Moreover, if we stop our payments or, for that matter, die the company may render our data inaccessible, or even delete it. Perhaps cloud computing should be renamed cloud-cuckoo computing.

On the whole, advances in technology are dehumanizing. They tend to replace face-to-face contact with human-machine contact, as in social media and online purchasing. We have all seen cafes with a whole table of friends using their mobiles for talking, texting or emailing other people, observes Townsend. As I sat down to write this, Amazon proudly announced on Twitter and YouTube its first test in Cambridge, England of a delivery by drone as follows: First Prime Air delivery. Fully autonomous no human pilot. 13 minutes click to delivery.

The book is stronger on analysis of technologys dark side than on enlightened and feasible proposals for change. But in the final chapter, Radical suggestions and a grain of hope, Townsend suggests an intriguing reform of the democratic process. In the British House of Commons, rather than each political party seated together, facing the opposition, why not use technology to reduce tribalism?

On entering the chamber, MPs would present their identity cards to a random seat number generator and must then occupy their allotted seats, regardless of their party affiliation, while speaking and voting. Moreover, instead of the division bell and public vote, MPs would vote from their seats using a confidential three-button system indicating whether they were for, against or an abstainer.

This is not going to solve all political problems, says Townsend. Nevertheless, the random seating would force a very different style of debate that might be far more rational, and stop the confrontational rubbish that we currently witness.

Whether that would lead to the humanizing, or the dehumanizing, of democracy by technology is an interesting debate although not, I suspect, a debate likely to be held in Westminster as things stand.

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A flare for self-destruction: How technology is the means, not the cause, of our demise - National Post

By Ossian Shine | St Moritz, Switzerland

St Moritz, Switzerland With the Winter Olympics just a year away, Europe's broadcast rights holder is dangling a host of technological breakthroughs - from "ghost skiers" to performance patches - which it says will enhance the drama of the Pyeongchang Games.

Feb. 9 marks the one year countdown to the South Korean Games, and Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton says the sports broadcaster will spend that year continuing to test new technology as it looks to revolutionize coverage.

"Subject to all the approvals from federations and the International Olympic Committee, I'm hopeful we will be able to use some very cool technology to bring more data to the sports than ever before," Hutton told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Skiing Championships. "We've seen tests of patches which show not only heart rate and positioning of athletes, but can also show how tired an athlete is, or how much power they are using.

"These patches feed data direct to viewers, or to commentators which can make sport more understandable... more dramatic."

Hutton said he was confident the technology would mark a big leap forward for sports viewers and that he had held talks with sports federations eager to harness the data for themselves.

"Some of this data is really revolutionary, the challenge now is knowing what to do with it, how to use it to tell stories."

One of the most compelling technologies being tested is the use of "ghost skier" graphics depicting the last run, or quickest run so far, to compare with the skier on the course.

"It is not as easy as you might think... everything happens so quickly," production head Arnand Simon told Reuters.

"With the human eye it is very, very difficult to be able to tell who is doing better or who is leading. But with technology we can show many aspects from a skiers speed to their acceleration."

Hutton says the "ghost skier" could transform the viewing experience in a way similar to the world record line being beamed onto swimming races.

"It instantly puts the performance in context," he said.

Initially, the technology would have to be voluntary, Hutton said, but the Paris-based Englishman does not see that as a barrier. "We have seen cyclists asking for technology to be put on their bikes, he laughed. "Because it puts them centre stage in the story... and typically athletes like to be centre stage."

Eurosport, through parent company Discovery Communications, bought the exclusive multimedia rights to broadcasting the Olympics in some 50 countries and territories in Europe in a 1.3 billion Euros ($1.37 billion) deal which began on Jan. 1 and takes them through to the 2024 Olympic Games.

(Editing by Richard Lough)

(The Sports Xchange) - If Gisele Bundchen had her way, Tom Brady would have called it a career after winning his record fifth Super Bowl championship on Sunday.

The Atlanta Falcons were left to wonder what might have been and what will be of their future in the aftermath of their Super Bowl collapse on Sunday.

Sacramento Kings power forward DeMarcus Cousins is facing a suspension after receiving his 16th technical foul of the season on Monday against the Chicago Bulls.

The rest is here:

Broadcaster dangles new technology for Winter Olympics - Reuters

As 19th century urban living became more cramped, some women began to reinvent the domestic sphere with technology.

In 1888, a woman named Sarah Goode applied for and was granted a patent in Chicago, Illinois. Goode had just conceptualized what she called the "cabinet-bed,"a bed designed to fold out into a writing desk. Meeting the increasing demands of urban living in small spaces, Goode invented the cabinet-bed so as to occupy less space, and made generally to resemble some article of furniture when so folded.

Goode was a 19thcentury inventor who reimagined the domestic space to make city living more efficient. Yet unless youre a very specific kind of historian, youve probably never heard of her name. She doesnt appear in history books, and what she did remains largely unknown. The same goes for Mariam E. Benjamin, Sarah Boone and Ellen Elginall 19thcentury African-American women who successfully gained patents in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

In a post-Civil War America, job opportunities and social mobility for African-American citizens were highly restricted. The obstacles for African-American women were even stronger. Universities seldom accepted womenlet alone women of colorinto their programs. And most careers in science and engineering, paid or unpaid, remained closed off to them for decades to come.

Women faced similar discrimination in the patent office, as law professor Deborah Merritt notes in her article Hypatia in the Patent Office, published in The American Journal of Legal History. Restrictive state laws, poor educational systems, condescending cultural attitudes, and limited business opportunities combined to hamper the work of female inventors, Merritt writes. And in the era of Reconstruction, [r]acism and a strictly segregated society further encumbered female inventors of color.

As a result, historians can identify only four African-American women who were granted patents for their inventions between 1865, the end of the Civil War, and the turn of the 19th century. Of these, Goode was the first.

The second was schoolteacher named Mariam E. Benjamin. Benjamin was granted her patent by the District of Columbia in 1888 for something called the gong and signal chair. Benjamins chair allowed for its occupant to signal when service was needed through a crank that would simultaneously sound a gong and display a red signal (think of it as the precursor to the call button on your airplane seat, which signals for a flight attendant to assist you).

Benjamin had grand plans for her design, which she laid out in her patent paperwork. She wanted her chair to be used indining-rooms, in hotels, restaurants, steamboats, railroad-trains, theaters, the hall of the Congress of the United States, the halls of the legislatures of the various States, for the use of all deliberative bodies, and for the use of invalids in hospitals. Intending to see her invention realized,Benjamin lobbiedto have her chair adopted for use in the House of Representatives. Though a candidate, the House opted for another means to summon messengers to the floor.

Next was Sarah Boone, who received a U.S. government patent from the state of Connecticut for animprovement on the ironing board in 1892. Before her improvement, ironing boards were assembled by placing a board between two supports. Boones design, which consisted of hinged and curved ends, made it possible to iron the inside and outside seam of slim sleeves and the curved waist of womens dresses.

In her patent paperwork, Boone writes: My invention relates to an improvement in ironing-boards, the object being to produce a cheap, simple, convenient, and highly effective device, particularly adapted to be used in ironing the sleeves and bodies of ladies garments.

Ellen Elgin might be completely unknown as an inventor if not for her testimony in an 1890 Washington, D.C. periodicalThe Woman Inventor, the first publication of its kind devoted entirely to women inventors. Elgin invented a clothes wringer in 1888, which had great financial success according to the writer. But Elgin did not personally reap the profits, because she sold the rights to an agent for $18.

When asked why, Elgin replied: You know, I am black, and if it was known that a negro woman patented the invention, white ladies would not buy the wringer; I was afraid to be known because of my color in having it introduced to the market, that is the only reason.

Disenfranchised groups often participated in science and technology outside of institutions. For women, that place was the home. Yet although we utilize its many tools and amenities to make our lives easier and more comfortable, the home is not typically regarded as a hotbed of technological advancement. It lies outside our current understanding of technological changeand so, in turn, do women, like Goode, Benjamin, Boone, and Elgin, who sparked that change.

When I asked historian of technology Ruth Schwartz Cowan why domestic technology is not typically recognized as technology proper, she gave two main reasons. First, [t]he definition of what technology is has shrunk so much in the last 20 years, she says. Many of us conceptualize technology through a modernand limitedframework of automation, computerization, and digitization. So when we look to the past, we highlight the inventions that appear to have led to where we are todaywhich forces us to overlook much of the domestic technology that has made our everyday living more efficient.

The second reason, Cowan says, is that we usually associate technology with males, which is just false. For over a century, the domestic sphere has been coded as female, the domain of women, while science, engineering, and the workplace at large has been seen as the realm of men. These associations persist even today, undermining the inventive work that women have done in the domestic sphere. Goode, Benjamin, Boone and Elgin were not associated with any university or institution. Yet they invented new technology based on what they knew through their lived experiences, making domestic labor easier and more efficient.

One can only guess how many other African American women inventors are lost to history because of restricted education possibilities and multiple forms of discrimination, we may never know who they are. This does not mean, however, that women of color were not therelearning, inventing, shaping the places in which we have lived. Discrimination kept the world from recognizing them during their lifetimes, and the narrow framework by which we define technology keeps them hidden from us now.

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These Four Black Women Inventors Reimagined the Technology of the Home - Smithsonian

Jadon and Anias McDonald were born as craniopagus twins, an incredibly rare condition affecting just one in millions, and October 13 was the day their family had been waiting for. It was the day this team of doctors and nurses at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York would separate them.

The operation was risky and complicated, but the surgeons were confident.

Before they had made a single cut, they felt like they knew what to expect. Like they'd seen it before. And in some ways, they had -- virtually.

Across the country, a team of designers and engineers anxiously awaited the outcome of the surgery. Some of the members were in the operating room, as it was their work that gave the surgeons a look into Jadon and Anias' shared brain before they were anywhere near the operating room.

At 3D Systems outside Denver, traditional two-dimensional imaging like CT scans were converted into complex three-dimensional models. Some of the models became virtual files the surgeons could manipulate. Others were created by 3-D printers, models the surgeons could hold in their hands.

"We worked hand in hand with the neuroradiologists," said Katie Weimer, vice president of medical devices for 3D Systems. "We were online for hours with that team, looking at each slice of the imaging data, deciding, is this side Jadon? Is this side Anias? What's happening with this particular set of vessels?"

3-D printing is not new in the medical field. For years, it has been used for a variety of items such as splints, implants or models for other operations, like heart surgery.

3D Systems has collaborated on dozens of conjoined twins' cases over the past decade, but the McDonald boys presented a complex new challenge.

Craniopagus twins are extremely rare, occurring in only one of out of every 2.5 million births. About 40% of these twins are stillborn, and another third die within 24 hours of birth.

There are not many surgeons who have operated on craniopagus twins, but Dr. James Goodrich, at Children's Hospital at Montefiore, is a world expert on them.

For his team, the surgery started with a virtual planning session courtesy of 3D Systems.

"It takes the guess factor out," Goodrich said. "When you are doing a reconstruction like this, even when we are working on craniofacial cases, there's a lot of guessing. ... You are no longer guessing. You have firm numbers in your mind of what you need to do. I can look at the size of the vessel; I can calculate it out; I can take it out and put it back in."

The virtual look allowed the surgeons to practice their approach, knowing what cuts to make and when, with the luxury of starting all over again if they needed to. It provided a level of comfort and reassurance.

"When they approach a case like this, there is no guidebook," Weimer said. "They didn't go through medical training and learn how to separate conjoined twins, so what we're able to do with the 3-D visualization and physical printing of the models is create that guidebook. The goal for us is by the time they get into that operating room, they are effectively doing the operation for the second time."

On surgery day, Weimer was in the operating room. Throughout the 27-hour operation, the surgical team repeatedly referenced the models. Despite the details visualizations, Jadon and Anias' brains were fused even more than originally thought, and at one point, the surgeons considered stopping.

But they continued on, and when it was complete, the boys were lying on different beds for the first time. It was an experience Weimer will never forget.

"For me, it was a life-changing event," she said. "The use of the technology in the operating room, the visualizations used and referenced throughout the full 27-hour period, was really something I had not seen or experienced before. It really was a testament to how important it is to continue to evolve these technologies to get closer to the hands of the surgeons and the surgical team that uses them."

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How 3-D technology helped surgeons separate conjoined twins - CNN

Microsofts Artificial Intelligence and Research Group, a major new engineering and research division formed last year inside the Redmond company, is debutinganew technology that lets developers customizeMicrosofts speech-to-text engine for use in their own apps and online services.

Thenew Custom Speech Service is set for releasetoday asa public preview. Microsoft says itletsdevelopers upload a unique vocabulary such as alien names in Human Interacts VR game Starship Commander to produce a sophisticated language model for recognizing voice commands and other speech from users.

Its the latest in a series of cognitive services from Microsofts Artificial Intelligence and Research Group, a 5,000-person division led by Microsoft Research chief Harry Shum. The company says it has expandedfrom four to 25 cognitive services in the last two years, including 19 in preview and six that are generally available.

The company says it will bring two more cognitive services,Content ModeratorandBing Speech API, out of preview and make them generally available next month. Content Moderator analyze images and videowith technology including optical-character and objectrecognition, helping companiesfilter out unwanted content. The Bing Speech API converts audio into text, interprets the intent of the language and converts text back to speech.

Microsoft formed the group to accelerate its artificial intelligenceadvances, aiming get more of its technologies out of the labs and into itsown products as well as its services for third partydevelopers. TheAI and Research Groupalso includes MicrosoftsCortana voice-based assistant and Bing search engine.

The company is competing against rivals including Amazon, Google and others in the booming field of artificial intelligence. AI and machine learningare increasingly becoming integralparts of their cloud platforms, as well.

Microsoftsnew Custom Speech Servicealso includesan acoustic model that cancels out background noise to improvespeech recognition. Microsoft citedthe example of using Custom Speech Service at anairport kiosk where the environmental noise would otherwise make speech recognitionvery difficult.

The combination of a language model and this acoustic model in a single API that is customizable for your vocabulary is truly unique in the market, said Irving Kwong, group program manager, in an interview. In going from a private preview to a public preview, the servicewill be able to take on tens of thousands of new customers.

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Microsoft's AI group debuts customizable speech-to-text technology, rapidly expanding 'cognitive services' for ... - GeekWire