BAD news for opening up broad access to crime data - the
number one everyday citizen demanded government information based my
direct experience with online community forums. Note some useful
links: http://pages.e-democracy.org/Minneapolis_and_St._Paul_crime_data
"CrimeReports is contending in a current federal case that public crime
data becomes CrimeReports' own proprietary product in the form
provided on CrimeReports.com."
The bill should be amended to fund an effort modeled on the
standardization of transit scheduling/routing data -
http://www.gtfs-data-exchange.com - so that all police departments can
put out real-time feeds of various crime data (heck, Seattle even does
911 calls now - http://schrier.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/citywatch/ )
for broad reuse.
Like weather data provided by the federal government, it gets to the
people through many, often competing providers.
Mr. Kreylos, who specializes in virtual reality and 3-D graphics, had just learned that he could download some software and use the device with his computer instead. He was soon using it to create “holographic” video images that can be rotated on a computer screen. A video he posted on YouTube last week caused jaws to drop and has been watched 1.3 million times.
Philipp Robbel combined an iRobot device and the new Microsoft controller that can recognize gestures. He calls it the KinectBot.
Mr. Kreylos is part of a crowd of programmers, roboticists and tinkerers who are getting the Kinect to do things it was not really meant to do. The attraction of the device is that it is outfitted with cameras, sensors and software that let it detect movement, depth, and the shape and position of the human body.
Mehmet S. Akten uses the system to draw in 3-D.
Phi Beta Iota: Microsoft took a few days to “get it” but their “final answer” is exactly right: “Anytime there is engagement and excitement around our technology, we see that as a good thing,” said Craig Davidson, senior director for Xbox Live at Microsoft. “It’s naïve to think that any new technology that comes out won’t have a group that tinkers with it.” Kudos as well to the New York Times for a lovely piece of useful inspiring reporting.
‘ – brings to the table a completely diff erent set of analytical tools and source materials which will supplement existing theories and thus greatly enrich our understanding of jihadism.' – Dr Thomas Hegghammer, Harvard University –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
” The Jihadis' Path to Self-Destruction brings a completely different set of analytical tools and source materials to supplement existing theories, greatly enriching our understanding of jihadism.” — Thomas Hegghammer, Harvard University
I’ve found myself giving cautionary talks on the future of the Internet, or possible futures, plural – the real danger that the Internet and the World Wide Web that operates on it will become less open, perhaps become fragmented, balkanized into closed networks that no longer cooperate, filled with walled gardens with various filters and constraints, and no longer be a platform with low barriers to entry and assurance that if you connect something, anyone anywhere in the world will have access to it. The Internet would no longer be the powerful engine for innovation and communication it has been.
Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web, writes about this in Scientific American, saying that some of the web’s “successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments—totalitarian and democratic alike—are monitoring people’s online habits, endangering important human rights.”
If we, the Web’s users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want. The ill effects could extend to smartphones and pads, which are also portals to the extensive information that the Web provides.
My next scheduled talk about the future of the Internet is January 5 at noon, at Link Coworking [Austin, TX].
Phi Beta Iota: The paradigm is power is “rule by secrecy” and fragmentation. The web and all that suggests for human connectivity is its anti-thesis. 2012 appears to be the year of convergence, confrontation, and emergence.
These programs include a series of six 90-minute webinars. Those who test successfully within 15 days after the sixth webinar will be awarded a Certificate of Completion suitable for framing. The test consists of 100 true or false questions derived from the six webinars.
Enrollees whose schedule does not provide for live participation may purchase the complete package of six videos and six slide sets for $275. Those who purchase the videos and test successfully also will be awarded a certificate.
The cost of attending the six webinar series is $275. We offer a $30 per person discount for groups of three or more participants in a single registration. Attendees receive a PDF file containing the webinar slides, with web links embedded in slides, emailed to them after the webinars.
If it's a new problem, perhaps it demands a new approach. If it's an old problem, it certainly does.
Phi Beta Iota: From Gandhi to Einstein to Ackoff and Fuller, and now Tom Atlee, the point is obvious to most of us–just not to those in power who see that the lack of integrity is working for them, never mind the rest…
http://www.publicinsightnetwork.org
