Opting out of PRISM, the NSA's global surveillance program

As you will have no doubt have seen in the news, the National Security Agency (NSA), a US government agency, has been running a hitherto top-secret global surveillance program called PRISM, in collaboration with US technology giants Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Facebook among others (although Twitter was conspicuous by its absence from the leaked presentation slides).

Basically if you visit the website or use an application or Operating System of one of the collaborating companies, PRISM clandestinely logs your online activities. The activities of the NSA were leaked by ex-CIA operative Edward Snowden to Glenn Greenwald and hence the Guardian and the Washington Post (although the Washington Post subsequently heavily edited its story).

This article examines suggested alternative software and services according to the site PRISM Break and gives an analysis of the events. In any case, the Internet needs to be protected from governments and big corporations.

Big Green divestment call

I came across an article by Naomi Klein on The Nation magazine regarding a call for Big Green, that is the large mainstream environmental organisations, to divest in fossil fuels. According to this article, several mainstream environmental have stopped investing in fossil fuel companies, others have not. This article summarises the main points and provides a link to the original article.

Video: Civilisation types

In this lecture, theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku talks about the types of civilisation. A Type 1 civilisation would correspond to a Buck Rogers type civilisation, type 2 which would correspond to a Star Trek type civilisation, and type 3 which would correspond to a Star Wars type civilisation (specifically The Empire).

Apparently we are currently a Type 0 Civilisation, but transitioning towards a Type 1 civilisation, and according to current calculations we will reach Type 1 in approximately 100 years, but that this transition from Type 0 to Type 1 is also the most dangerous phase and that some people fear this transition. More details are in the video itself.

Video: Why batteries are primitive

This is an interesting video I found on batteries. In this video, the theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku explains why current battery technology is primitive, that today's batteries have far less energy per kilogram compared to petrol. The future possibilities look very interesting indeed - including using lots of carbon nanofibres or graphenes (a graphene sheet is a 2-dimensional layer of carbon atoms) to increase storage capacity dramatically, once nanotechnology matures of course.

Future energy sources

This article looks at future energy sources. This mainly includes sustainable energy sources which do not harm the environment, which we can use today and in the immediate future. In order to safeguard our environment and planet, the non-renewable and highly polluting fossil fuels will need to be phased out as soon as possible, they will run out one day, and nuclear fission will also need to be phased out as soon as possible as it produces radioactive waste which typically takes a very long time to decay, millions if not billions of years.

UK government reveals broadband strategy, no commitment to FTTH

Today, Jeremy Hunt, the UK Secretary of State for Culture, the Olympics, Media, and Sport, has announced the coalition government's national broadband strategy, outlined in "Britain's Superfast Broadband Future", in which "super-fast broadband" is promised, and also mentions bringing a "Digital Hub" to every community, specifically aimed at rural communities. The UK government pledges £830 million (€980 million) towards rural communities, and two-thirds and 70% of work for the rest of the country is to be carried out by the private sector.

What was omitted from the strategy was what "super-fast" means, and although FTTH has been mentioned in the strategy document, and there is also no explicit commitment to support increasing FTTH deployments and eventually having FTTH to every building. There are no targets either in the NGA (next generation access) strategy plan to reach, all that has been pleged is that the UK is to "have the best broadband network in Europe by 2015".

Science funding in the UK frozen over four years

On Wednesday 20th October, it was reported that the scientific research budget in the UK was frozen at £3.5 billion rather than cut.  Despite this welcome announcement, this still means that in real terms (after taking into account inflation) the budget is still reduced, but by less than 10% instead of the estimated 20% cut which was feared.  There is also a petition against the funding cuts (as mentioned in our previous article).  The UK is still way behind when it comes to scientific research funding, when compared to other leading nations.

Source: The Independent

Petition against science funding cuts

In the UK, the coalition government is planning on cutting science funding.  If you live in the UK and wish to sign the petition against the planned cuts, you can do so at http://scienceisvital.org.uk/sign-the-petition/.  You can also find more information in the same URL, and in the Science is Vital home page itself.

Video: Waste = Food (documentary)

Shown in this article is the documentary video, Waste = Food. Released in 2006 by the Dutch public broadcaster VPRO (English version in 2007), this documentary explains the Cradle to Cradle design concept created by chemist Michael Braungart, and designer-architect William McDonough. The principle of the Cradle to Cradle design concept is that instead of creating more and more landfills filled with waste and unwanted products, products can be designed and manufactured so that the waste would instead become "food" for the biosphere (our Earth) or the technosphere (the products we make).

Billed as the next industrial revolution, this design concept is not only a form of recycling, it is a really interesting design concept which could be a major change in the way products are made and built, and this concept is environmentally friendly and sustainable. This ecologically sound design concept is explained in more detail in the video itself.

OLED wallpapers could make light bulbs obsolete by 2012

Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) wallpapers require very little power to produce light, and uses 2.5 times less power compared even to energy saving light bulbs. At the same time OLED wallpapers can emit almost as much light as a flourescent lamp, if not more, whilst lasting longer than a fluorescent lamp. The OLED surfaces can be printed on walls in homes and businesses, and can even be printed onto road signs (and the lighting for the road signs can be solar powered).  OLED wallpapers can as a result make light bulbs obsolete and benefit the environment in terms of reduced energy needs and lower carbon dioxide emissions.

Videos: The innovative SixthSense device

Imagine using a gadget which lets you use any surface such as a wall or even your hand as touchscreen. The MIT Media Labs have developed such a gadget called a SixthSense device, it is an augmented reality device, and a gestural interface device in that one can use gestures to determine what gets done (such as taking a photo, viewing the time, or even dialling your mobile), and you can have images projected on almost any surface.

Pattie Maes (associate professor of the MIT Media Labs), along with PhD student Pranav Mistry who invented this device, demonstrated a prototype in a TED Conference in February 2009, a video of which is shown below:

Initial fibre optic rollout done before the Olympics start?

BT have announced that their fibre-optic broadband trials have been successful, and as a result they have announced that they will complete their roll-out of fibre-optic broadband by 2012, a year ahead of schedule and just before the start of the London Olympics.  BT plans on spending £1.5 billion (€1.68 billion) on this upgrade for 40% of all urban areas, and these roll-outs will involve both FTTP (fibre to the premises) and FTTK/FTTC (fibre to the kerb). 

Virgin Media, BT's main competitor, can already provide high speed broadband with speeds up to 50 Mb/s, and Virgin Media plan on upgrading to 150 Mb/s by 2010, two years before BT's own upgrade is complete.  And other rollouts of FTTH via the sewers (which is really cost-effective) are being done by the likes of i3 Group (formerly H2O Networks), and the i3 Group say they can minimise homes sharing a single fibre optic network at the same time, as explained in their response to the OFCOM report on Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON).

UK lagging in broadband quality

Recently a Broadband Quality Study was done, this is an annual study performed by the Saïd Business School and the University of Oviedo Applied Economics Department and sponsored by Cisco Systems . The purpose of this study was to compare broadband speeds and overall quality of service as well as broadband penetration, the measure of how much of the internet access market broadband takes up.

The UK needs Fibre to the Home

Fibre to the Home (FTTH) is an extremely fast form of broadband with typical speeds of up to 100Mb/s, but also capable of some of the fastest broadband speeds on the planet up to and including 1Gb/s or higher, even as high as 20Gb/s. Whereas in ADSL, soon to be the "new dial-up", the last kilometre between the telephone exchange and premises is copper wire, with Fibre to the Home the broadband connection is fibre optic all the way to the home or building. The FTTH penetration in the UK is negligible at the moment, and the UK is in danger of paying the price for not having FTTH installed years ago.