Category Archives: Technology

Its usual for a Hackaday scribe to read hundreds of web pages over a typical week as we traverse the world in search of the good stuff to bring you. Sometimes theyre obvious Hackaday stories but as youll all no doubt understand we often end up on wild tangents learning about stuff we never expected to be excited about. Thus it was last week that I happened upon a GQ piece charting the dwindling remains of the communes set up in rural California by hippies during the counterculture years.

With only a few ageing residents who truly embraced the back-to-the-land dream remaining, these adventurously-designed home-made houses are gently decaying into the forest. Its a disappearing world, but its also close to home for me as someone who crew up on a self-sufficiency smallholding in the 1970s. My parents may not have been hippies in the way those of everyone else in that scene at the time seemed to be, but I learned all my curiosity and hacking skills in the many opportunities presented to a small child by an unruly combination of small farm and metalworking business. Theres part of me that would build a hippy home in a Californian forest in a heartbeat, and throw myself with gusto into subsistence vegetable growing to get me through each winter.

So fresh from musing on hippy utopias and rose-tinted reminiscing, a Tweet from [Mara] struck a chord. They asked So which hacker con is going to be first to offer workshops in woodworking and horticulture?. Woodworking should be right on-message, buthorticulture?

While at first sight the idea of gardening at a hacker camp seems unlikely, I think Im right in understanding that their point lay not in the best technique for potting out the petunias, but in permaculture skills. In effect, hacking the environment to grow plants whether for food or not, and therein lies a huge range of crossover with a hacker camp, as well as with the self-sufficiency side of my upbringing and those aged hippies in California.

When your summers growing up are spent running wild and barefoot in the Oxfordshire countryside, you take for granted the things that you learn and its only later that you find its not that common to be able to milk a cow, deliver a calf, make hay, or extend the growing season and pick the right varieties to have home-grown fruit and vegetables year round in the soggy British climate. Perhaps they have a point, and should our community be applying more of its skills towards permaculture hacks and less towards technology for its own sake? Perhaps this is best expressed not in terms of going back to the land to live the life of an 18th century subsistence farmer, but going forward to it, and helping create a future where technology is an integral part of successful permaculture.

Paging through a week of Hackaday articles its pleasing to see that you, the community we cover, are as inventive as youve ever been. Hackaday articles cover a varied range of fascinating hacks that captivate us who spend our days under the sign of the Wrencher, and we hope they do for you too. But its true, not many hacker takes on permaculture come our way. Is that because not much of interest is happening in that field? We dont think so, more likely is that the really interesting projects either arent being documented online or appear in communities that dont (yet) intersect with ours. Wed like to see more agricultural robots maybe like the FarmBot in the header image, and smallholding automation. We think you might too. Should our community turn its thoughts forward to the land? As always, the comments are open.

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Going Forward To The Land: Technology For Permaculture - Hackaday

Visitors hike the Appalachian Trail in 2016 at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Contributor Jon Magnuson, reviewing "The Human Scaffold: How Not to Design Your Way Out of a Climate Crisis," notes the book's final message: Technology will not save us. (CNS/Chaz Muth)

The Human Scaffold: How Not to Design Your Way Out of a Climate Crisis

By Josh Berson

248 pages; University of California Press

$29.95

Strap yourself in for a ride. Josh Berson, an independent anthropologist, invites readers into a world that turns upside down conventional arguments about how we are to best meet the challenges of climate change in the 21st century.

His thesis takes time to unfold in five complex, interwoven chapters, but the final message is clear: Technology will not save us. Berson says we will need to adapt more wisely and swiftly to all live more lightly on the planet.

The environments we find ourselves living in are, he writes, changing our very physiology, our intellectual, and our emotional lives. That is where, he argues forcefully, we need to better place our attention and our commitments.

Josh Berson is a force of nature. He has held appointments at two Max Planck institutes and is the author of Computable Bodies: Instrumented Life and the Human Somatic Niche (2015) and The Meat Question: Animals, Humans, and the Deep History of Food (2019). Both books have become respected, cited explorations raising deep moral and ethical questions about modern diets and technology.

He is, more importantly, someone who at least intends to walk his talk. In interviews, Berson is quoted as saying his personal goal is to create a personal and satisfying lifestyle living out of two backpacks.

The "human scaffold" of the book's title refers to a conceptual template that is used as metaphor in the philosophy of evolution across scales of time, space and social complexity.

It involves the building of social and cultural structures that are strong and lasting, or ones that are precarious and fragile. It's about how we, as a human species, build foundations that allow us to move through history.

Berson is at his best and most prophetic when he explores the impact of urban noise, industrial food and chemical pollutants in these first decades of a new century how they are altering perception, values and public policies. His analysis of consumerism and our addictive accumulation of material goods is sharp and chilling. His readers will find the frequent references to Cormac McCarthy's postapocalyptic novel The Road (2006) to be no coincidence.

Berson suggests that culturally, we humans are compelled to play games with stuff.

"It is," he writes, "a big part of how we fashion ourselves as social persons, as relational beings." He goes on to say, "Today, there is too much stuff in circulation and so our games have taken on a centrifugal, destabilizing character."

He's spot-on. Take a drive across America's landscape. No better proof can be found than on a road trip across America's heartland. One drives by thousands of commercial private storage units that continue to proliferate across North America. Many of them, full of furniture, files, tools, and toys, but destined never to be visited by their owners for years. If ever.

One of Berson's intriguing references in the later chapters of his book is the use of the Japanese word "boro." The term originates from a style of textile design that means "tattered, patched."

(Unsplash/Joshua Coleman)

Berson unabashedly uses this idea to literally piece together the themes and diverse, sometimes puzzling, subjects he covers in his book. There are times the reader is unsure where he is going, what will come next. I found myself at times absolutely entranced by his writing style. In other instances, I found myself shaking my head.

An appropriate question might be raised after finishing the writer's postscript: Where is the author heading? What is his vision for a viable future and how does technology fit into his New World? In that regard, a couple of clues can be found.

First, in his chapter titled "Landscapes," Berson closes with the sentence: "We need a public conversation about what the environmental crisis demands of us not as consumers of material things but as biological beings whose first and last interface to the world is the body."

The suggestion here, it seems, is for all of us to collectively pivot and begin to reconnect to our physiology, begin to envision ways of living that are dramatically tied into the Earth's natural cycles and processes.

A couple of examples come to mind. A colleague of mine, currently living in Santa Fe, has recently signed up for training to lead "leave no trace" workshops for hikers and campers. It's interesting to extrapolate what this might mean on a broader scale. This kind of movement has wide implications for how we could choose to live in our private and communal lives.

Another example is the Swedish-based "Natural Step" movement. First introduced in the 1990s, this was a sophisticated initiative to change social policy. To shift to recycling all nonrenewable resources (minerals, precious metals); to exclusively use natural, renewable clothing; to move toward a vegetarian diet for the planet.

Obviously, this would not be an easy transition, but in the framework of Berson's thinking, an inevitable one if the human species, as we know it, is to survive and thrive in some relative balance with what's left of the planet's natural resources.

Children explore a trail at Cunningham Falls State Park June 17, 2020, in Thurmont, Maryland. (CNS/Tyler Orsburn)

A second clue to a possibly more positive unfolding future is found in Berson's concept of "foaminess" as it pertains to evolving human culture. He uses the term "semiokinetic milieu" to suggest that predictions of the future are always uncertain because life is dynamic and in continually in flux.

This is where he returns to his basic thesis: Technology doesn't exist by itself. It's changing us. We need to return to our physical selves. We will need to reconnect, appreciate, honor, and hopefully build whatever is coming, on that foundation.

One thing is certain inThe Human Scaffold. Berson's mind is on display in all its brilliance and eccentricity. Be prepared. In his opening preface, I counted a 12-line sentence. And I'm not sure where he acquired his vocabulary. One sentence reads, "an epiphytic strategy is, of necessity, sartorially parsimonious."

Nevertheless, Berson's analytical discernment of contemporary culture burying ourselves with "stuff" and mindlessly devouring the world's natural resources rings with descriptive eloquence. I'm left pondering the implications of the "human scaffold" that we are currently building for the generations that follow us. And the impact of virtual reality and social media in constructing our views and values.

A 2016 report from the United Kingdom highlighted a survey of children. It showed that actual time for youth of that age, spent outside in the sun, rain and wind, wasless than that of prisonersin that country's penal system.

Keep writing, Josh Berson. We need you.

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In adapting to climate change, technology will not save us - National Catholic Reporter

It was a balmy day in Taiwan in November 2019, and I was rummaging through the Family Mart adjoined to the Qishan Bus Station. It was my last chance for 9V batteries and spicy tuna rice balls before taking a taxi into the mountains, where many of the remaining Indigenous languages of the island are spoken, the rest having been replaced by Chinesethe language of settlers from the Asian mainland who slowly took over the arable plainsland over the last few hundred years, as well as of the current ROC regime.

The 16 Indigenous languages still spoken in Taiwan todaythe Formosan groupare tragically endangered, with three Formosan languages down to a single-digit number of speakers and a fourth rapidly encroaching. The languages are very well documentedin some areas of their grammar and very poorly in others. The available documentation is the result of efforts by community members who create resources for their languages revitalization movement and from local and foreign scholars.

The goal of my PhD dissertation project is to investigate one of the most poorly documented aspects of language. And Im going to use a secret weapon, which I bought at B&H. To record, I use a Sony PCM-M10 recorder and a Rde Videomic, which I bought in a $379 bundle marketed to aspiring YouTubers, which I am not. Thankfully, its a directional (or shotgun) microphone, which records whatever you point it at louder than sound coming from other directions. This has allowed me to record analyzable elusive data in a sawmill, during a military drill, and while surrounded by dogs. (Not at the same time, luckily!)

The gaping hole in documentary linguistics which requires such equipment is something called prosody, which is easy to feel but hard to hear. To illustrate, Im going to use a simple example from English.

You might be tempted to say English has 26 sounds, one for each letter of the alphabet. But thats not quite right: Some letters like c and k can make the same sound. Some sounds, like sh and ng, arent represented by single letters in the alphabet. And how could we forget ch? Or, of course, th? How about the rising tone at the end of a question?

In school, we generally learn about two types of speech sounds: consonants and vowels. But I promise, theres more! One layer of additional structure in our speech is stress. As Mike Myers demonstrates in View From the Top (2003)You put the wrong em-pha-sis on the wrong sy-lla-ble!in English, one specific syllable in multisyllabic words is more prominent than the others. Stress is one part of prosody, which is a large umbrella of speech phenomena that take place in larger domains like syllables and phrases, instead of smaller pieces like consonants and vowels.

But the real fun (if youre me) begins when you ask how we know a syllable is stressed in the first place. The best clue is how the word interacts with intonation, the part of prosody that investigates how languages use tonal melodies.

For example, lets say youre at work, and someone walks into the break room and utters one of the following:

Same consonants and vowels. Same context. The first is a statement informing that theres coffee. The second is a question, possibly where someone is surprised to hear that theres coffee. Aside from periods and question marks, purely the domain of writing, what exactly is the difference between the two?

The most common approach to modeling intonation is by using the building blocks H (high tone) and L (low tone). A rise can be described as LH, and a fall as HL. These and longer melodies are used for one of two purposes: 1) a pitch accent which marks a stressed syllable; or 2) a boundary tone which marks the edge of a phrase (like a comma might do in writing).

These notations can get very nuanced. The gold standard model of English intonation, Janet Pierrehumberts dissertation, counts seven distinct pitch accent melodies: our good friend L+H*, as well as H*, L*, L*+H, H*+L, H+L*, and H+!H. The asterisk * here notes which tone in the melody is aligned with the stressed syllable. Pierrehumbert also counts four boundary tones: H- and L-, which mark minor phrase boundaries (like a comma), and H% and L%, which mark major phrase boundaries (like a period). While there have been efforts to tease apart how all of these are used, its not an easy task. Was that L*+H supposed to be sarcasm, or disbelief? Sass? Are they mad at me?!

Two of these elements have seen a fair amount of attention in pop science, specifically from non-expert authors who like to police millennial womens speech. Uptalk is just the recurring use of H-, and vocal fry is what happens when ones L% is low enough that the larynx produces creaky voice instead of modal voice. These two intonational elements have routinely been maligned as undesirable and even physically harmful: Naomi Wolf once called vocal fry a destructive speech pattern. In reality, elements like H- and L% are neither injurious nor uncommon in intonational systems. If the use of these elements is as bad for the English language as its made out to be, then I have bad news about a few thousand other languages.

These days, analyzing a recording is easy enough. The most common software used in linguistics is called Praat, which is open source, thank goodness. Plunk in a .wav and youve got all of phonetics at your fingertips. If you can listen to your own voice on a recording without freaking out (I cant), you should try it out yourself. Heres a screenshot of Theres coffee. open in Praat:

Here, the waveform is shown on top, with the spectrogram in grayscale below. This shows all the frequencies sounding simultaneously at each point in time, with the different shades of gray showing the intensity of each frequency. Overlaid are the overall intensity (or loudness) shown with the yellow curve, the pitch in blue, and the formants (which are what make vowels sound different) in red.

On the bottom are two tiers of transcription, one with the consonants and vowels in IPA, a language-neutral way of transcribing speech sounds: [zkfi]. (Ive written the open o [] here, but I actually use [] instead because Im not a true New Yorker. Shh!) The bottom transcription shows a label for L+H*, the pitch accent aligned with the stressed first syllable of coffee. It sounds like a rise in pitch, which reaches its crest towards the end of the syllable.

Theres plenty to look at here, but what were interested in is the pitch track. Praat actually has a more complex pitch-tracking system than whats shown in the blue squiggles above, and you can manually filter out other detected frequencies. This is useful when youre an incredibly awkward individual like myself, who often accidentally talks over their interviewees. If the pitch tracker picks up your embarrassing interruptions, you can just click them away on a screen like the one shown below. Here, the pink dots are frequencies included in the final pitch track, while the rest have been filtered out.

Fig. 2: Screenshot of Praat window showing pitch tracking of Theres coffee. with declarative intonation.Screenshot: Gizmodo

With your final, non-awkward pitch track, you can use Praats smoothing tool with the default 10Hz buffer to smooth out the bumpiness. You dont want a bumpy pitch track, like how embarrassing would that be? Once the pitch track is publication-ready, you can generate an illustration in the Praat Picture window, as you can see below.

Fig. 3: Pitch track of Theres coffee. with declarative intonation.Screenshot: Gizmodo

Its smoothed. Its annotated. Our pitch track is *chefs kiss* and now we have a much better view of whats going on in our intonation. The rising tone of the L+H* pitch track is aligned with the stressed first syllable [k] of coffee, and the utterance ends on a low tone shown by the boundary tones L-L% (as every major phrase boundary is also a minor phrase boundary).

Now compare this with the question intonation.

Fig. 4: Pitch track of Theres coffee? with interrogative intonation. Screenshot: Gizmodo

Instead of a rise on the first syllable of coffee, theres a low tone, so the pitch accent is L* rather than L+H*. And at the end of the utterance theres a sharp rise, so the boundary tones are H-H% rather than L-L%.

Many of the worlds 7,000-ish languages are both endangered and poorly documented by linguists. And of the languages that do see dedicated study, prosody and intonation are often an afterthought. In grammars, a type of book that serves as an in-depth description of all aspects of a languages phonology and syntax, often based on years of field study, its not uncommon for the only mentions of prosody to be 1) which syllable in the word is stressed, and 2) an impressionistic description of the intonation on questions. (Spoiler alert: theres probably a final rise.) That is not enough.

In the past, it made sense to omit prosody and intonation from field studies, as the recording and analysis equipment was bulky and expensive. I know Im not lugging my phonograph and wax cylinders to the field! Worse yet, fieldwork often happens in noisy environments, and background noise can interfere with the analysis.

Rdes directional mic, coupled with the pitch tracking in Praat, has allowed me to meet and work with speakers where they really speak, instead of needing to bring them to a lab. While any language can be used to describe anything, languages dont exist in a vacuum, and the communities and cultures associated with a language are important context for linguistic study. This is especially so when eliciting intonation: Often, the best way to get a recording of a specific intonational contour is to be in a situation where it would naturally be used. If you want to get an English speaker to say no, there are two dogs, its going to be harder to conduct your interview in an empty recording booth than out in a dog park, for instance.

Unfortunately, the exclusion of prosody and intonation from descriptive linguistics has persisted into the current era, despite the increasing availability and utility of equipment. While there is growing interest in prosody/intonation, it is often in the form of standalone works. This has the drawback of being less-integrated with work on other aspects of phonology and syntax, even when they naturally interface with many aspects of prosody. We can only hope to see more Hs and Ls in grammars and other documentation work going forward.

The trip to Family Mart was part of my dissertation work, which sought to describe intonation in Formosan languages in terms of pitch accents and boundary tones, like Pierrehumberts model of English. I worked on as many languages as I was able to find speakers of, across four trips to the field in 2017-19, and wound up with original data on 10 languages/dialects. I managed about 20% of what I wanted to do, and wrote 800 pages about it.

Elicitation sessions involved everything from asking a native speaker to translate a word list to having them act out a dialogue or a real-world scenario that might evoke unique intonation. My favorite question to ask is do you know any really long words? which, as dumb as it sounds, will always either elicit a unique piece of data or at the very least break the ice. The longest words I found were a tie between kinamakasusususuan, the word for family in Piuma Paiwan, and maisasavusavuan, the Saaroa word for doctor; both nine syllables.

The study resulted in a wealth of descriptive information about intonation in these languages. Some Formosan languages like Seediq and Saaroa had a pitch accent L+H* just like English, while others like Kanakanavu had a more complex pitch accent L+H*L, or just H*L as in Mantauran Rukai. Two languages, Amis and Kavalan, had glottal stops (like when British people say butter) that would show up at the end of statements but not questions. Some languages had unique intonation to show sarcasm or incredulity or to mark items in a list. And more importantly, what I found was merely the tip of a massive prosody iceberg, one that unfortunately is melting by the day.

Endangered languages are such because the language is not being transmitted to younger generations, in favor of a dominant language like English or Chinese. This means that in many communities with an endangered language, it is the elders who speak the language. Given that age is a predictor for the severity of covid-19 infections, these speakers are especially at risk. Worse yet, many communities with an endangered language have used in-person classes as a major component of their language revitalization movement. These are difficult to conduct without putting these elder speakers, who often serve as the instructor, at increased risk of infection.

Taiwans prudent covid-19 response may have spared speakers of Formosan languages from some of what other communities facing language endangerment are going through with regard to the pandemic, however, language endangerment has been an issue in Taiwan well before covid-19. Of course, the difficulty and risk of international travel caused by the pandemic has also prevented linguists from working on languages outside their own country. Remote fieldwork could be an option given the increase in recording quality seen in newer smartphones, but this wont work without pre-existing contacts, or if the technology isnt available.

When languages lose their last native speaker, any information about the language that did not make it into the available descriptions is lost to history. Of course, its not just linguists around the world who are interested in language data: Many communities choose to revive their ancestral language after losing the last native speakers, based on archival materials. There has even been a shift, following certain Indigenous communities in North America, to thinking of languages as dormant rather than dead when they lose their last speaker, both to highlight their persisting cultural importance and to leave open the possibility that the language is reawakened by the community. When these communities do reawaken their language, many will not know how previous native speakers would distinguish statements from questions, or earnestness from disbelief, given the dearth of intonation in descriptive works.

While writing this piece, I reached out to a colleague of mine, Joe Pentangelo, a fellow linguist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Macaulay Honors College, to ask how covid-19 has affected his fieldwork. Joes research concerns both endangered language documentation and the use of technology in the field. His PhD dissertation was the first use of 360 video for documentary linguistics, in which he used a Nikon Keymission 360 camera and Zoom H2N audio recorder to record interviews and organic conversations with speakers of Kanienkha (also known as Mohawk), as spoken in Akwesasne, a Kanienkeh:ka community on the St. Lawrence river, which straddles the border between New York State, Ontario, and Quebec. The resulting videos can be viewed in any number of VR headsets and show the interviews and conversations in their original context, keeping intact all of the information about how speakers are interacting with each other that may be lost in laboratory work or audio-only recordings.

The last recording trip I made up there was in December 2019, right before Christmas, Pentangelo told me. By the end of that trip, I had nearly 11 hours of immersive video, and the corpus was essentially complete. The plan was to return a few months later to screen all of the videos Id recorded, to get final approval from all of the participants to release these videos publicly, and to work with local experts to transcribe and translate the content. Unfortunately, with the outbreak of covid, it hasnt been safe to return, so the videos are not yet publicly released.

One of the goals of Joes study was to make his corpus available publicly, allowing it to be a resource for the Kaninkh:ka community rather than something primarily of interest to academics, a goal also reflected in the use of spontaneous conversations and recordings taken in situ. In Joes case, it is not only difficult to continue documenting the language, but even the bureaucracy involved in releasing the data publicly is at a standstill.

I have been able to work remotely with Dorothy Lazore and Carole Ross, two educators from Akwesasne, to transcribe and translate content from some of the videos, but covid has greatly slowed the pace of this work, too, he continued. Still, I had enough of the project done to complete my dissertation and Im grateful that Ill be able to continue this workonce its safe.

There are some aspects of Joes project that have spared it many of the difficulties faced by other language documentation projects during the pandemic: the relationship between Joe and the Kanienkha speakers he worked with already involved a fair amount of technology, and he didnt need to travel internationally to meet with speakers. Yet, the project has nearly ground to a halt just from the difficulty of basic things like moving around and meeting with people.

Despite the setbacks, more technology might be a way to mitigate the effects covid-19 has had on our ability to continue our efforts in language documentation. It may be a while yet before we can get on a plane and go interview people in an enclosed space with the confidence we had in 2019, but the steady march of language endangerment has not slowed, and documentation remains as important as ever. Hopefully some combination of tech like directional microphones and the normalization of virtual meetings will allow us to address how little we know about areas like prosody in the worlds languages, despite all of the logistical setbacks the pandemic has brought.

Ben Macaulay is a recent PhD in linguistics from The Graduate Center, CUNY, now based in Malm, Sweden. His research focuses on prosody, intonation, and endangered language documentation.

Soundcloud images: Getty.

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The Race to Document Endangered Languages, Now That We Have the Technology - Gizmodo

Way back in 2015, I interviewed several officials working at utility companies for a column I was working on for Nextgov about why we had not at the time experienced a major attack against our critical infrastructure. There were several reasons why our nation was so protected from an attack against the power grid, the water system, natural gas pipelines, transportation control networks or any other system that is considered a part of the countrys critical infrastructure. The biggest reason was because operational technology, which among other things can help to control objects like valves and pipes in the physical world, were largely both proprietary and unnetworked.

Back in 2015, attackers needed to breach a facility like a power plant through their IT network and then try and find some connection into the OT network if they hoped to influence the physical world. And even if they were able to locate one of those rare places where IT and OT meet, they would also need to be skilled in whatever proprietary system they were targeting in the OT network.

A lot has changed since then. With many of the older workers who knew how to turn wrenches and manipulate much of the aging physical infrastructure now retiring, utilities had little choice but to increasingly network their OT functions. The advantage of doing that for critical infrastructure providers is twofold. First, it lets them easily monitor and manipulate the OT network remotely. And secondly, it allows the IT staff to take over many of the functions formerly performed by all those retiring workers. And while all that was taking place, OT manufacturers were busy streamlining their products to the point where the interface of many OT technologies gradually became little different than IT devices.

All of that is an inevitable shift in moving critical infrastructure forward, but it comes with risks. Opening up the OT network to the IT staff and remote management also potentially exposes it up to attackers.

Just last week, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a warning about ongoing attacks being made against water treatment plants. The alert pointed out several previously undisclosed attacks made against treatment plants around the country. While most of the attacks cited in the alert involved ransomware, there have also been more serious threats launched against critical infrastructure that probably would not have been possible back in 2015.

But today, its a different world. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reiterated that point during an interview with the USA Today newspaper last week, citing an incident where hackers tried to release poison into the water supply of Oldsmar, Florida.

Attackers infiltrated the OT network of a water treatment plant and attempted to change the levels of sodium hydroxide being added into processed drinking water. At low levels, sodium hydroxide can remove heavy metals from the water supply. At high levels, it can be fatal, causing severe chemical burns to anyone who drinks it or even comes in contact with contaminated water. Thankfully, in the Florida case, the extra chemicals were detected and no poisoned water reached the public.

The Gartner cybersecurity firm wrote in their blog that incidents like the Florida water treatment plant attack should be a wakeup call for better OT security. Sadly, the firm also predicts that without serious change, we are likely to see injuries or even fatalities stemming from this kind of an attack by 2025.

The attack on the Oldsmar water treatment facility shows that security attacks on operational technology are not just made up in Hollywood anymore, the Gartner blog states. The world has seen real incidents where events originating in the digital world had an impact on the physical world.

And its not just utilities that should be worried. Many of the worlds largest data centers are packed with both IT and OT devices. They could not run without air conditioning, electricity and other physical infrastructure, much of which runs as part of an OT network.

Honeywell studied this issue as part of a report entitled Rethinking Data Centers as Resilient, Sustainable Facilities. To gather data for the report, researchers surveyed facility managers across the data center sector in the United States, China, Germany and Saudi Arabia. When asked about their biggest fears, those managers cited OT cybersecurity as their third most pressing concern, with 72% saying it was a serious issue at their data centers.

It is crucial to reduce unscheduled downtime in data centers as much as possible, said Manish Sharma, vice president and chief technology product officer of Honeywell Building Technologies. Giving data center operators better insight and control of their building and OT systemsand treating them with the same importance as the critical IT systems can help to better identify efficiencies, reduce potential outages and optimize security, fire and safety procedures.

Utility operators should take the same track that data center managers have been following and will begin to put more emphasis on OT cybersecurity. Back in 2015, the threat to critical infrastructure was minimal, almost non-existent. Today, successful OT attacks are already happening. And without rapid changes in the way OT cybersecurity is prioritized and handled, there is little stopping those attacks from escalating. Its a race against time at this point, and the attackers seem to be at least a couple of steps ahead of the OT security meant to constrain them.

John Breeden II is an award-winning journalist and reviewer with over 20 years of experience covering technology. He is the CEO of the Tech Writers Bureau, a group that creates technological thought leadership content for organizations of all sizes. Twitter: @LabGuys

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Operational Technology in the Crosshairs - Nextgov

The Made Smarter Adoption Programme in the North West, a collaboration between UK government and industry designed to support the increased use of digital technologies, has worked with dozens of SMEs across the entire supply chain from farm to fork to capitalize on the multitude of benefits that digitalisation offers.

These include: cheese and yogurt makers; salad, fruit and potato growers; bakers, confectioners, and dessert manufacturers; breweries; health and nutrition producers; as well as businesses making baby food, black pudding, flavorings, and pet food.

Through impartial technology advice and match funding on technology projects, digital transformation workshops to help manufacturers take their first steps, a leadership program, digital technology internships, and skills development, it is helping businesses in the sector increase productivity, achieve sustainable growth, and create new high value jobs.

Digital transformation has also proven to be critical to food and drink manufacturers of all sizes over the last 18 months, with the combined impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, Brexit, and the drive towards net zero.

Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses, in Preston, has been wrestling with supply chain disruption during the pandemic.

Matthew Hall, commercial director, said investing in software systems enabled the business to be more flexible and agile.

As an artisan producer we are about innovation, its in our DNA, Hall said.

That includes the manufacturing process which can be labor intensive but adds value to that finished product, but then there are other auxiliary processes which are labor intensive but dont add value.

Working with Made Smarter we identified the solution lay with planning and systems, and we looked to increase and integrate that robust process control across our departments. That enabled greater transparency of information and allowed us to be more agile, to have that information at our fingertips and be able to react to changing customer demands.

Some food and drink manufacturers have benefited from the Made Smarter Leadership Programme, designed to equip SME managers and directors with the strategic view and the skills needed to successfully pursue smarter manufacturing.

Made Smarter, which has supported hundreds of businesses to deliver an additional 176m in gross value added, is now hoping to reach more SMEs across the entire food and drink supply chain and has produced a free guide to help demystify digitalization and drive technology adoption.

The document includes topics such as how to get started with digital technologies, infrastructure management, increasing control, reducing waste and boosting sustainability, enhancing traceability, and how to hit new trends.

Alain Dilworth, North West adoption programme manager at Made Smarter, said, While the North West is home to some of the food industrys biggest names such as Nestle, Heinz, and Kelloggs, it is also brimming with innovative small and medium sized enterprises across the entire supply chain, working hard to ensure we continue to enjoy our favorite food and drink from farm to fork.

The triple challenge of the pandemic, Brexit and the net zero agenda, have created a perfect storm for the food and drink industry, impacting SMEs more than most. But despite these pressures, many of these businesses have shown resilience and determination to keep up with the fast-moving industry and are working with Made Smarter on their digital transformation.

From using robotics and process control technologies to improve sustainability and automating data collection points to create a line of traceability, technologies are not only helping producers overcome challenges, but also unlock a whole host of opportunities.

To help demystify digitalization and help SMEs to their first step, we have produced some crucial guidance as well as explained why implementing digital tools is such a priority in this sector.

Other dairy-related companies benefiting from Made Smarter-supported technology projects are: Antonelli Bros, a manufacturer of ice cream cones, based in Irlam, invested in technology to enable data and systems integration; Lancashire Farm Dairies, a natural yogurt producer based in Rochdale, invested in an end-of-line robotic palletizer to boost productivity; Dewlay Cheesemakers, based in Garstang, invested in data and systems integration technology to enable real-time data to monitor efficiency and yields to help increase productivity; Applied Nutrition, a manufacturer of sports nutrition products, based in Kirkby, is another business able to react more readily to the Covid-19 crisis, after receiving digital investment funding support for a project. The company used a digital transformation workshop to figure out how to increase its production capacity, and solutions such as robotics and process control automation were identified; The Protein Works, a manufacturer of protein powders, snacks, supplements, and foods, based in Runcorn, has been able to capitalize on the growing global personalized-nutrition market after investing in a bespoke software solution to fully automate the process from customer order through to product dispatch; Kendal Nutricare, based in Kendal, a manufacturer of nutrition products including infant formulas and baby cereals; and The Protein Lab, a manufacturer of protein powders and supplements based in Blackpool.

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Made Smarter helping UK food and drink companies with digital technology - DairyReporter.com

Technology-enabled abuse is when someone uses technology to bully, harass, stalk, intimidate or gain control over others. Preventing this kind of abuse starts with the ability to recognize it. During National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Information Technology Services and the Office of Equity Assurance offer these tips to understand what constitutes technology-enabled abuse.

Bullying and harassment. Its not just threatening messages. Insulting or humiliating posts, including unflattering photos or videos shared without your consent, are examples of online bullying.

Coercion. Asking or pressuring you to send explicit photos and videos, or sexual and compromising messages, is an abusive and controlling act. So is sending you similar, unwanted content.

Intimidation. Abuse is about power and control. Abusers may steal or demand your account passwords, tell you who you can and cant friend/follow on social media, or look through the photos, videos, text and calls on your phone.

Monitoring and stalking. Using GPS in a car or phone, social media, smart home devices and security cameras are among the common tools abusers use to track your movements and monitor your activities.

Doxing. To isolate or embarrass you, abusers may create fake social media profiles in your name and image or use your phone or email to impersonate you and reveal private information.

If you or someone you know is experiencing technology-enabled abuse or harassment, first ensure your own safety and the safety of others. Call 911 in emergency situations.

Abuse or harassment that is a crime can be reported to the University Police Department at 304-293-3136 or to other law enforcement agencies.

Students, faculty and staff can also report abuse and harassment to the University by calling the Equity Assurance and Title IX office at 304-293-5600 or by filing a report online at: https://diversity.wvu.edu/equity-assurance/resources-and-reporting-options.

The Office of Equity Assurance and the legal system work independently, but in coordination. You may file a report with the University, law enforcement, with both or with neither. The standards for determining a violation of criminal law are different than the standard in WVUs grievance procedures. Neither the results of a criminal investigation nor the decision of law enforcement on whether to investigate determines whether a violation of the Universitys policy has occurred.

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E-News | Defend Your Data: Know the signs of technology-enabled abuse and report it when you see it - WVU ENews

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Livinguard, the Swiss-based international leader in sustainable self-disinfecting hygiene technology, announced today that its technology has been proven to kill the Delta variant of COVID 19. Tests carried out by the renowned IRSHA institute showed that the inner and outer layers of masks supercharged with Livinguard technology have an average >99 percent effectiveness with no recovery of viable viruses against the Delta variant of SARS COV-2.

These results come as positive news as communities continue battling the Delta variant outbreak, and who will be able to rely on Livinguard capabilities for their populations health and safety. It is expected that children, who have been particularly exposed to the Delta variant, will benefit the most from this breakthrough. The confirmation of Livinguard technologys efficacy against the Delta variant also comes in context of an expected rebound of COVID cases during the winter season.

Livinguard also announced today that the effectiveness of its technology could be applied to different substrates. Such capabilities come as a unique opportunity for the many industries, such as airlines, apparel companies, hospitality, healthcare, logistics or transportation. The technology offers an opportunity to help these industries to responsibly open their services with an additional layer of protection for their customers and workforce.

The data announced today add to the extensive body of evidence from researchers at the Free University Berlin and the University of Arizona proving that Livinguard technology can continuously destroy 99.9 percent of pathogens (microbes) such as viruses and bacteria, including influenza, Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, tuberculosis and E. Coli bacteria, staphylococci and salmonellae.

Speaking about the positive results received today, Sanjeev Swamy, Livinguard CEO, said The news of our technologys effectiveness against Delta is another evidence that Livinguard technology is future-proof and will emerge from the COVID pandemic as the hygiene technology of choice for sustainable self-disinfection moving forward. As consumers continue to resort to masks for specific situations, we expect Livinguard masks to become consumers preferred, sustainable, self-disinfecting facemask.

About Livinguard AG:

Livinguard is an environmentally friendly hygiene technology platform based in Cham, Switzerland. The company empowers textiles and other materials with self-disinfecting properties; it licenses its patented technologies to companies from various industries to improve the health and wellbeing of consumers. Livinguard AG operates in Switzerland, Germany, USA, Singapore, Japan, India, and South Africa.

Livinguard is a member of the World Economic Forums Innovators Community. The company sees its solutions as essential safeguards that can offer enhanced hygiene and sustainability to billions of people. Livinguard is committed to developing highly effective technologies that also minimize waste and use of resources. Livinguard views personal and planetary health as inseparable imperatives and the foundational base of everything that they do.

During the pandemic, Livinguard has donated tens of thousands of its reusable masks to frontline workers and others across the globe, including in hard-hit India. In Singapore, the Temasek Foundation has distributed millions of free Livinguard masks to that countrys residents since the start of the pandemic. And, in the U.S., Livinguard has partnered with leaders in cities such as Huntington, Indiana to provide masks to frontline and other municipal workers, as well as residents.

For information about Livinguard and its groundbreaking technologies please visit http://www.livinguard.com.

To find Livinguard products please visit shop.livinguard.com.

Follow @livinguardtech on Facebook and Instagram to stay updated on how the company is working towards protecting the health and well-being of millions with the power of permanent disinfection.

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Livinguard Technology Proven to Kill >99% of COVID Delta Variant - Business Wire

For Immediate Release: October 19, 2021

Espaol

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a landmark proposal intended to improve access to and reduce the cost of hearing aid technology for millions of Americans. The agency proposed a rule to establish a new category of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. When finalized, the rule would allow hearing aids within this category to be sold directly to consumers in stores or online without a medical exam or a fitting by an audiologist. The proposed rule is designed to help increase competition in the market while also ensuring the safety and effectiveness of OTC and prescription hearing aids.

Todays action follows President Biden's July Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, which called for the FDA to take steps to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter. This effort also builds on the Biden-Harris Administrations goal of expanding access to high-quality health care and lowering medical care costs for the American public.

Reducing health care costs for everyone in America is a top priority, said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. Todays move by FDA takes us one step closer to the goal of making hearing aids more accessible and affordable for the tens of millions of people who experience mild to moderate hearing loss.

Approximately 15% of American adults (37.5 million) age 18 and over report some trouble hearing. However, despite the high prevalence and public health impact of hearing loss, only about one-fifth of people who could benefit from a hearing aid use one. The proposed rule aims to address barriers to use, including cost, access, social stigma related to hearing loss, perceived value of the devices or certain state and federal regulations.

Many hearing aids can be expensive. The rule aims to facilitate innovation and increase competition by lowering the barriers to entry for new hearing aid manufacturers. Under the proposed rule, hearing aids would be sold over the counter in more traditional brick-and-mortar retail stores or online (rather than doctors offices or specialty retail outlets) and will likely be less expensive than those currently sold giving consumers greater choice at lower prices.

The proposed rule implements a key provision of the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act, as enacted in the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017. President Bidens Executive Order on Competition included a timeline for action, and the FDA has now issued the proposed rule ahead of that schedule.

Hearing loss can be caused by aging, exposure to loud noises, certain medical conditions and other factors. Individuals with permanent hearing loss can use hearing aids to help make speech and sounds around them louder, enabling more effective communication with others.

Hearing loss has a profound impact on daily communication, social interaction and the overall health and quality of life for millions of Americans, said Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D. The FDAs proposed rule represents a significant step toward helping ensure that adults with mild to moderate hearing loss have improved access to more affordable and innovative product options. The new regulatory category will provide the public with greater control over their hearing aid purchasing decisions at stores nationwide or online without the need for a professional hearing exam, fitting adjustment or a prescription.

The proposed rule would also amend existing rules that apply to hearing aids for consistency with the new OTC category, repeal the conditions for sale for hearing aids and address state regulation of hearing aids. The OTC category, when finalized, would apply to certain air-conduction hearing aids intended for adults age 18 and older who have perceived mild to moderate hearing loss. Hearing aids for severe hearing loss or for users younger than age 18 would be prescription devices.

To ensure patient safety, the proposed rule also addresses a maximum output (volume) limit for OTC hearing aids that would prevent injuries from overamplification of sound. In addition, the proposed rule includes certain device performance and design requirements, such as distortion control limits, self-generated noise limits, latency limits (how quickly an OTC hearing aid processes, amplifies and relays a sound), the range of frequencies that the device can reproduce and how uniformly the OTC hearing aid amplifies different frequencies over its bandwidth, as well as a requirement to limit the insertion depth of the device. The proposed rule also includes labeling requirements for OTC hearing aids.

To coincide with the proposed rule, the FDA also issued an updated draft guidance, Regulatory Requirements for Hearing Aid Devices and Personal Sound Amplification Products (PSAPs). The draft guidance describes hearing aids, PSAPs, their respective intended uses and regulatory requirements that apply to both types of products. The draft guidance is intended to provide further clarification regarding the differences between PSAPs, which help people with normal hearing amplify sounds, and hearing aids and to inform consumers that PSAPs are not considered OTC alternatives for hearing aids.

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The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nations food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

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FDA Issues Landmark Proposal to Improve Access to Hearing Aid Technology for Millions of Americans - FDA.gov

WEST CHESTER, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Molecular Targeting Technologies, Inc. (MTTI) announce publication of their Spray technology in ACS Sensors, entitled Near-Infrared Fluorogenic Spray for Rapid Tumor Sensing. This article was highlighted in the American Chemical Society (ACS) Weekly PressPac*. MTTIs Drs. Brian Gray and Chris Pak are co-authors and co-inventors of this technology.

Dr. John Chan, MD, Director of Gynecologic Oncology, Sutter Cancer Research Consortium said, The accuracy of cancer surgery in detecting small volume disease is poor. This novel technology will help surgeons target cancerous lesions and decrease the operative time and number of biopsies of nonmalignant inflammatory tissues to avoid unnecessary complications.

Dr. Adrian Leong, MBBS, M Med (Surgery), Director, Alliance Healthcare commented, Curative cancer surgery requires the total removal of all cancerous tissue. It can be difficult to tell how far the tumor margins extend. The Spray technology specifically lights up cancerous tissue so it can be readily identified and removed during surgery. Successful application of this technique will be a boon to cancer surgeons."

Dr. Brian Gray, Senior Vice President of Product Development at MTTI said, Our sprayable, fast-acting, sensitive and tumor specific agent makes ovarian cancer tumors glow under near infrared light during surgery. It responds to the acidic tumor environment within minutes, letting the surgeon see more cancerous tissue, as small as 1 mm in diameter without the need for washing, making cancer debulking more precise, safer, improving outcomes and reducing recurrence.

Reflecting on the 20,000 cases of epithelial ovarian cancer diagnosed in the US annually, Dr. Chris Pak, President & CEO of MTTI indicated, This groundbreaking surgical spray builds on MTTIs innovative legacy in targeted therapeutics and diagnostics. Were pursuing its use in ovarian, oral, skin, esophageal and brain cancers, hopefully improving surgical outcomes, adding value to patients, surgeons and stakeholders.

Molecular Targeting Technologies, Inc. is a privately held, well financed, clinical stage biotech, developing targeted radiotherapeutics for rare cancers. MTTI has received an exclusive worldwide license from the National Institutes of Health to commercialize selected targeted radiopharmaceuticals covered by their Evans blue (EB) platform technology patents. MTTI is committed to building value by acquiring and translating innovative imaging, radiopharmaceutical and theranostic assets to improve human health, reduce healthcare costs and reward stakeholders. More information: http://www.mtarget.com

*https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2021/acs-presspac-october-13-2021/fluorescent-spray-lights-up-tumors-for-easy-detection-during-surgery.html

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Molecular Targeting Technologies, Inc. Announces Spray Technology That Lights Up Tumors - Business Wire

Imagine a scenario where retailers combine sensors, computer vision, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and immersive and spatial computing to deliver immersive user experiences. Or imagineautomakers using sensors to capture vehicle signals, monitor the condition of each system in the car, and notify the owner to schedule repairs before a breakdown occurs.

These scenariosare already possible. Technological innovation is happening at an unprecedented pace, and there are sevencross-industry trends that,individually and in combination, will have a seismic impact across industry sectors, according to recent research from McKinsey & Co.

These trends, below,have the potential to reshape current business models, enable new applications and services, and redefine how work is done.Security leaders will need to understand their impact to ensure the proper safeguards and protections are in place while unlocking their potential applications and benefits.

1. Next-Level Process AutomationAround half of all existing work activities could be automated by 2025, McKinsey says. Next-level process automation and virtualization includes industrial IoT (IIoT), collaborative robots, and robotic process automation (RPA). Process virtualization includes advanced simulations using digital twins and 3D/4D printing to change how products are developed. More than 50 billion devices will be connected to the IIoT by 2025, and 70% of manufacturers will be regularly using digital twins by 2022, McKinsey predicts.

2. Future of ConnectivityFaster connectivity made possible by 5G networks and the booming IoT market will enable faster connectivity across longer distances. New services will include remote patient monitoring; new business models, such asnew ways of energy delivery; and next-generation customer experiences, such as virtual reality. By 2030, McKinsey predicts either high-band or low- to mid-band 5G is expected to reach up to 80% of the global population, McKinsey predicts.

Security leaders are already dealing with the challenges of protecting IoT, and the expected uptake in adoption will complicate things even further. Data protection will continue to be a significant security concern.

3. Distributed InfrastructureCloud and edge computing adoption will continue to grow. By 2022, 70% of companies will be using hybrid-cloud and multicloud platforms as part of a distributed IT infrastructure, McKinsey says. By 2025, more than 75% of enterprise-generated data will be processed by edge or cloud computing. Software sourced by companies from cloud-service platforms, open repositories, and software-as-a-service providers will rise from 23% today to nearly 50% in 2025, McKinsey predicts.

Wide availability of IT infrastructure and services through cloud computing will vaporize on-premise IT infrastructure and commoditize IT setup and maintenance, McKinsey says. Companies could reduce complexity, save costs, and strengthen their cybersecurity defenses.

4. Next-Generation ComputingNext-generation computing is perhaps the most far-reaching trend, as it includes quantum computing and neuromorphic computing, which involves the development of application-specific integrated circuits. McKinsey predicts the value of potential of quantum-computing use cases at full scale by 2035 will be greater than $1 trillion.

Keep in mind that quantum computing will likely break the majority of modern cryptographic security algorithms. This will have a significant impact on how organizations protect information. Organizations must safeguard trade secrets and other data during the shift from current to quantum cryptography, McKinsey says.

5. Applied AIAI is still in its early stages, and companies continue to look for ways to leverage it properly. While any company can get good value from AI if its applied effectively and in a repeatable way, less than one-quarter of respondents report significant bottom-line impact, McKinsey says.

As AI matures and continues to scale, it will enable new applications by processing data to uncover detailed customer insights and automate repetitive tasks, such as filing and document preparation. It is also expected to support specialized services, such as allowing engineers to perform repairs remotely. AI can play a role in security defenses by training machines to recognize patterns and then respond to the detected pattern accordingly.

6. Future of ProgrammingMcKinsey predicts Software 2.0, where neural networks and machine learning will be used to write code and create new software. There could be as much as a 30 times reduction in the time required for software development and analytics, McKinsey estimates.

Software 2.0 will help develop and apply complicated AI models, but it will also improve current software development by standardizing and automating mundane programming tasks. By providing a more iterative and intuitive way to customize existing code, it could potentially eliminate some common programming errors.

7. Trust ArchitectureThe last trend trust architecture, such as the zero-trust security model describes a set of technologies and approaches designed for a world of increasing cyberattacks, McKinsey says. The trust architecture provide structures for verifying the trustworthiness of devices as data flows across networks, APIs, and applications.

As companies use zero-trust security measures to reduce the threat of data breaches, their cyber-risk will decrease. While zero trust may lower the operating and capital expenditures associated with cybersecurity in some cases, other areas will see cybersecurity spending increase dramatically.

Impacts Will VaryThese technology trends will affect all sectors, but the amount of disruption and technological impact will vary by industry, McKinsey notes. For example, while the shift to new trust architectures will be felt across all sectors, McKinsey's analysis suggest pharmaceuticals, healthcare, information technology, and telecommunications will experience the most disruption. In comparison, changes in trust architecture will have a limited impact in automotive and chemical industry sectors. Applied AI and next-level process automation, meantime, will have the most widespread impact, impacting multiple industries.

McKinsey examined a range of factors, such as patent filings, publications, news mentions, online search trends, private-investment amount, and the number of companies making investments, to identify technology trends that matter the most to top executives and their organizations. They may not all necessarily represent the coolest or most bleeding-edge technologies, but they are still attracting significant venture capital and are expected to have the biggest impact on the organization.

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7 Cross-Industry Technology Trends That Will Disrupt the World - Dark Reading