2003
Year of the Sheep
Islamic calendar 1423-24

World Bank claims monopoly on use of Netcash
50 million HIV-positive cases worldwide
Multinational space-station Alfa completed and launched

Sales of clockwork computer exceed all forecasts
Eurovision winner trusts in satellite shepherd to locate children in virtual city
Eye-controlled software - the answer to mouse fatigue?
Discovery of endogene sequence to bring relief for the weight-challenged
Virtual art breaks down barriers - Alvar Bonk's programmed paintings turn heads

Compumedia - 29.6.2003

Sales of wind-up clockwork computer exceed all forecasts

The Namibian manufacturer NamibPow reports it is unable to keep up with demand for its wind-up computers.

NamibPow has already sold and received advance orders for upwards of 80 million units, even though the first machines designed for the consumer market only left the company's Windhoek factories six months ago. At present the assembly lines are capable of turning out approximately 12 million machines a year. The great majority of orders for the new computer have come from Third World countries.

NamibPow has announced plans for expansion at the plants in order to raise production to 30 million units annually by June 2005. CEO Joseph Mubala commented to journalists that even with this expansion programme it will be necessary for the company to distribute manufacturing licences to certain other countries. He said that licences would be granted only to nationalized companies operating in underdeveloped countries, since "the intention is not that the international corporate moguls would simply have another chance to reap profits at the cost of the developing world."

Annual output of the company's patented wind-up clockwork radio receivers in Namibia is around 19 million units, and more than 40 million more are manufactured under licensing agreements at plants throughout the Third World. NamibPow is nowadays Namibia's largest company in terms of turnover, and annual returns are outrunning even those of the entire mining industry in the country.

UNESCO last year launched an experiment developed in the late 1990s by computer guru Nicholas Negroponte, in which villagers in several African countries are being educated by geostationary orbit satellites and clockwork computer terminals. A total of 31 villages are involved in the project. The electrical energy required for satellite earth-stations is produced either with solar panels or pedal-operated generators.

StarBytes 8/2003

Eurovision winner trusts in satellite shepherd to locate children in virtual city

Helsinki, Finland

"Of course I have no doubts about allowing my kids out into the city alone. Why should I? There's no danger of their getting lost, but I do worry a bit about the traffic". Tanya Al-Fayed tosses her blonde hair and gives one of those winning smiles that wowed voters in this year's Eurovision Song Contest. I'm virtually sold on this lady.

My visit to Helsinki was to interview Tanya on her career and her upcoming U.S. tour, but we spent much more time talking about her children and their adventures in the now world-famous "Virtual City", which is of course also the title of her latest album and CD-ROM.

Tanya was eager to show me how it all works. On the wall of the living room in her attractive 2nd floor apartment is a large projector screen showing exactly the same landscape as can be seen through the bay windows. A neatly manicured garden is surrounded by a hawthorn hedge, and behind that is a street, and then a pretty yacht marina with boats, brightly-coloured marquees, and a wooden promenade.

"The virtual city tends to come up rather slowly on this system. The jetties over there aren't yet quite right somehow, and the boats, well they can be almost anything. Still, they've got the weather fixed up so that it more or less corresponds to what's going on outside, and oh yes, the most important thing is they now have the buses running on schedule..."

I wonder what on earth Tanya means, and then I see one of the blue buses in the Helsinki City Transport livery coming into view on the screen. I turn instinctively to the window, and - hey presto! - there it is, the same number and everything. When I later spoke over lunch with HCT Information Officer Kaisa Isopyörä she told me that the buses were already equipped with positioning devices several years ago, but that they were then only used for traffic census calculations.

My hostess directed the hand-held mouse pointer at the passing bus and suddenly the image on the screen changed. Now we were inside the bus, looking out. A cheerful female voice was telling us - in several languages and the English wasn't too bad, either - that "...this part of Helsinki dates back all the way to the founding of the city in the mid-16th century...". I had a sudden flash of those ghastly package tours to Spain, and the drive from the airport to the hotel. And then on we went, driving around the city while drinking our coffee on the leather sofa. The guide was babbling away nineteen to the dozen all the time. Tanya switched over to a wide-angle view from above, but we kept following the bus. By now we were miles away, right over the other side of town, when Tanya suddenly cried out: "Oh look, there they are! Can you see the kids?", and pointed at two red dots walking side-by-side in the middle distance. A quick manoeuvre with the pointer, and we had zoomed in on the figures of a boy and a girl.

I was amazed at this, and I said so. Didn't Tanya feel a bit insecure about letting her 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son out alone like that?

"No, not really. I've often followed from here when they go round the city from the PC in their room. Mari is so good at it - I'm sure she could orienteer her way to the doorstep of at least four relatives in under a minute, and little Pekka is just as fast as she is. It's so much easier nowadays to find addresses, too, now that the bus company has put their positioning system in the public domain. The kids absolutely adore roaming around virtually."

"But what if they go somewhere they ought not to?" I asked her. Another of those broad smiles from Tanya. "There's really no danger of that. Before I let them go, I popped into their system and slipped GPS necklaces on them both. These new ones are pretty handy for mums and dads, because they not only have the positioning device, they also have a telephone in the same unit. The first ones we had were pretty ropey, because there was no way you could get at the kids to head them off, for instance if they started going places you weren't happy with, like down to the virtual bordellos in the South Harbour, or heading towards the Casino with your smart card. Now I'm never too worried that my flock is going to stray."

Tanya saw the children were heading for the funfair, and switched off. "Now", I asked tentatively. "About those romance rumours of you and Rudy de Capriati. What's the story?"

(Continued on p.94)

DataWeekly 1.9.2003. FOCUS: Ocular Interfaces

Eye-controlled software - the answer to mouse fatigue?

The long wait is over and Microsoft has finally unveiled its new eye-controlled WINK software plug-ins for Windows 2001. The software can be downloaded from Microsoft servers for immediate installation at a very reasonable upgrade charge of EUR 2.99. Microsoft predicts that ocular control will rapidly put mice back where they belong, as playthings for cats.

Our test-team gave the new system the once-over in three micros. Ocular control proved to be a very promising idea, but still rather rough around the edges.

The WINK control system is based on a camera - installed either in the VDU itself or in a pair of virtual reality goggles - which monitors the position of the user's eyes. The data provided by the camera allows WINK to gauge which part of the screen the users eyes are focused on. Additionally, the software is capable of recognizing certain gestures and expressions, with which the user can perform a number of basic functions. Menu selections, for example can be made by nodding, move commands by a shake of the head, and deleting can be achieved with a simple turning up of the nose. These functions work most smoothly in those programmes that have been devised specifically for use with ocular control. Traditional mouse-driven software can also be adapted for use with the eyes, when the control operates much as a mouse, and the expressions and gestures correspond to standard menu commands.

We found that virtual goggles gave the best results. This technology has in fact been around for some time in some industrial and military applications. The recognition of gestures and standard expressions, however, is more difficult than when using a built-in VDU camera.

In its advance press releases, Microsoft had claimed that ocular control would also work with the conventional mini-cams used in videotelephony. The resolution given by older analog cameras is not really sufficient for accurate tracking, however. The cursor does move across the screen, if one stares at it and concentrates, but the wobbling effects are rather disturbing. On a couple of occasions we even managed to produce the so-called "video lap" phenomenon, in which the cursor began to orbit crazily around a single point on the screen. This completely confused the system and caused it to crash. By contrast, the new DAV-003 standard digital cameras gave just as precise results as the virtual goggles used.

It must be said at the outset that ocular control places great demands on CPU performance. Only HP-Intel's new Merced II processor was fully up to the task, allowing other operations to continue unhindered. Help for slower machines has been promised in the form of add-on pattern recognition cards, but we were not able to experiment with these, so at least at this stage ocular control is not really a feasible household application.

Our team's opinions on the usefulness of ocular control varied widely. Clearly, some had a natural gift for behaving exactly as the system requires, while for others a good deal of practice was necessary, and even then the results were less than inspiring.

For example, one tester suffering from mouse-related tendosynovitis assured us that she would be taking up the new Microsoft system immediately. She gave an impressive practical demonstration of the potential speed of ocular control by playing out a traditional seven-row solitaire game according to Vegas rules in just 104 seconds. The other members of the team could only produce times over 3 minutes with the mouse, and over 5 minutes with WINK control. These poor results stemmed largely from the fact that users could not fix their gaze accurately enough, and expressions and gestures were not properly synchronized.

Anyone considering upgrading to the new system can check out their own suitability for ocular control without actually downloading the plug-in, by holding their gaze tightly on a single point and nodding and turning up their nose in exaggerated fashion. For obvious reasons, we do not encourage this in a public place.

Normally, the human eye travels continuously across an area corresponding to around 2o, and hence practice is required to keep the eye fixed on a single point. The oldest member of our test-team felt that concentrated vieiwing of this type could never really be learnt properly, as the "wandering eye" function is a basic genetic trait developed in order to ease shape recognition. The Microsoft package does include a tutorial that goes some way to curing this obvious problem. A couple of hours of training appreciably improved the results gained by the team.

Microsoft's WINK will naturally stiffen competition in the control technology market. Up to now, Microsoft has been in the driving seat only in the field of mouse-driven applications, while the market leader for the electronics and optics required for ocular control is Sony.

Popular Science 11.10.2003

Discovery of endogene sequence to bring relief for the weight-challenged

A solution to the problems of the overweight may be on the horizon. Last year, in the course of the ongoing project to map the human genome, researcher discovered the genetic sequences that influence systemic obesity and the hereditary tendency towards overweightedness.

Systemic obesity is connected with numerous detailed factors in the structure of the human body. It is possible over time to influence this by means of gene manipulation, but the specific effects of different genetic sequences must first be examined in some detail. On the other hand, a tendency towards putting on excess weight (obesity is generally determined as being 20% or more above the desirable weight for one's height, build, and sex) is more open to treatment. In this instance a mutation within one section of the genome brings about a disturbance that results in the individual not experiencing a sense of having eaten sufficiently, even after a healthy meal.

The tendency towards this kind of obesity can be treated in two ways by the fruits of genetic engineering. The simpler method is to produce a medium (one commercial example is the product FatLess) which brings about the sensation of a full stomach that would otherwise be missing. The drug is related to leptin, discovered roughly a decade ago, and to the later pharmaceutical compounds phenfluramine and phentermin TO BE CONTINUED....

NEW ART 30.11.2003

Virtual art breaks down barriers - Alvar Bonk's programmed paintings turn heads in New York

Art has always put the latest technological developments to work in its name. One function of art is also to test our ability to grasp new concepts, and to push the limits of good and bad taste. Alvar Bonk's latest showing at the Intel Gallery on Reade St manages to tightrope along both of these limits simultaneously. The cult artist has come up with yet another new technique and style, which he has dubbed "the living painting".

All the "paintings" on show are high-resolution, flat VDU elements. The essential common factor is that they all derive their content from the Internet. Bonk uses visual search engines in his pictures, and they seek out pictures, audio material, and video clips from the various networks. Some of the works are programmed on a fixed loop and show a succession of the same images over and over, while others are instructed to collect new content as they go, according to certain pre-programmed parameters.

The big draw for the New York opening night audience was a piece entitled 1000 Fish. The picture resembled an aquarium, which is not really surprising, since this is where the constantly changing images were taken from. The ever-affable Bonk says that he sold around 30 copies of the work in the course of the first evening.

Other pieces to attract interest and comment included the video collages Home, The Desert Lives, and Faces of the Planet . This last concoction showed pairs of facial close-ups, changing every second, drawn randomly from the millions of mugshots available from the Net. Sounds Almost Human, on the other hand, sees Bonk experimenting with a sounded landscape and fractal technology, and was particularly popular with the younger members of the invited audience.

All the works are fitted with energy-friendly presence detectors, such that a curtain is drawn over the screen and the online connection is interrupted when there is nobody looking at the piece.Prices ranged from USD 500-1500, depending on the size and the resolution of the work. The artist has numbered all the works, and will limit the number of copies to 100 in each case.

It was amusing to watch the confusion on the faces of the normally "seen-it-all" opening night New York audience, but the overall reaction was positive, and sales were brisk.

The artist's patron is a local datacoms operator. The fulsome support Bonk has received may well be fuelled not only by a desire to further the course of art, as each painting naturally brings money into the company's coffers in the form of net connection tariffs to be paid by the eventual owner.

Hannula I. & Linturi R. 1998: 100 Phenomena.
Yritysmikrot Oy, Helsinki 1998. Copyright notices ISBN 952-9508-18-2