Juxi's log

bought my last flight so I should be all set for Mexico now :)

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:47:25 GMT

bought my last flight so I should be all set for Mexico now :)

The forgotten Trio

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:33:00 GMT

Among the institutional changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty, some have been more present in the media and public debate than others. Three months after the Treaty entered into force, we can still read at least a couple of articles a day about the President of the European Council, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and, of course, the External Action Service that is now being designed. But with all the attention given to these new actors, one of the old ones has been slightly forgotten. In fact,with all the confusion in the media, it took quite a while for people to learn that the rotating Presidency of the Council of Ministers will still exist and work pretty much as before, with the unofficially existing 18-months Trio now being ‘officialised’ by the Treaty.

Three waves | Roll into port together | The trio is home. (Herman Van Rompuy)

What does this mean in practice, what are the advantages of the Trio and its relations with the newly established players? It might be too early to judge, but we can already get some insight from the experience of the Spanish-Belgian- Hungarian Trio. Its work has been reflected on at the launch of a report on the contribution of 14 European think-tanks to the Spanish, Belgian and Hungarian Trio Presidency of the European Union.

While, in the pre-Lisbon setting, the past, current and forthcoming Presidencies were encouraged to work together in order to ensure coherence and continuity, the fact that now this collaboration is made official (and compulsory), gives it a boost, by creating common practices. The civil servants from the three countries meet regularly, in sectoral structures and at various levels, to discuss the priorities for the 18 months. This starts about two years before the first Presidency takes office and ends after the third has finished its mandate, not before making a thorough evaluation of the Trio’ s performance. All this may sound like a normal bureaucratic procedure, a pure coordination task. Yet, it is more than that. It is an exercise that helps civil servants and politicians with different (sometimes very different) administrative and political cultures to get to know and understand each other and start thinking out of the “national” box. Thus, in order to draft a common programme, the three countries try to take on board each other’s interests, apart from their own national one, leading to a set of priorities that each of them can feel the ownership of. Moreover, these priorities that have been agreed by three Member States have a bigger weight when it comes to defining each country’s own strategic lines for he 6 months period.

The protagonists of the first official trio, Spain, Belgium and Hungary, seem to have found this exercise very useful. At the symbolic level, they decided to use the same logo design, with only the colours of the national flags changing. A common website was also created (www.eutrio.eu); however, contrary to expectations, this web address is currently used just as an alias for the Spanish Presidency website (which, in its turn, does not have a lot of references to the Trio and not in the most visible of places). At the more practical level, the Trio has drafted a single programme, instead of three different programmes as it used to be the case; however, it seems that each country still follows its own set of priorities, de facto reducing the common programme to a strategic framework, while still allowing specific Member States to take credit for certain achievements that happened to take place in their 6 months term. (Update: the Spanish Presidency is already “taking stock” of the achievements of the first third of its term, coming up with a very positive assessment. No reference to the common Trio programme and the progress in terms of that, in case you were wondering).

During the preparatory stage, the Trio had some daring ideas, such as having one country chairing one working group or/and Council formation for 18 months, while the other two countries chair others, or to have interchangeable chairs from the three countries. These arrangements would have reinforced the idea of a common programme and a common identity; but they proved to be too forward-thinking for this moment, adding up to the current post-Lisbon institutional confusion. Perhaps this is still something to think about for the next Trio (Poland, Denmark and Cyprus).

It still remains to be seen what role the rotating Presidency will carve for itself in the new interinstitutional power balance. Even though most of the visibility is taken up by Herman Van Rompuy, one has to remember that it is still the rotating Presidency that chairs the 270 Council Working Groups, the COREPER meetings, as well as nine out of ten Council formations, including the General Affairs Council (GAC), whose horizontal coordination role can prove to be very important strategically. Another key issue is how the Trio Presidencies will relate to the newly established institution- the European Council- and its growing powers, especially in the economic area. While the usual working practices of the Council are of a bottom-up nature (starting at Working Group level, then going to COREPER and only then- and only the controversial, unsolved issues- going to the level of Ministers), the increased role of the European Council might see these practices change, allowing for the possibility of a top-down approach in certain areas.

Irrespective of the way the Trio will interpret and fulfill its tasks, it is important to remember, when looking at the institutional structure of post-Lisbon EU, that the rotating Presidency is still playing an important role. Practice will show, in the following months, if the idea of an official Trio has given it more strength, coherence and continuity. And all this beyond a common logo and a programmatic set of common priorities.

03/05/10 PHD comic: 'Moesday'

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:01:04 GMT

Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham		www.phdcomics.com

title: "Moesday" - originally published 3/5/2010 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

robots.net - Robots: Swarming Satellites

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:25:19 GMT

nice podcast to hear also what there plans for the future are

Tags: tech swarm satellites robots

Posted by: juxileitner

Powering cube satellites

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:18:20 GMT

Tags: cubesat propulsion

Posted by: juxileitner

Concept for swarming "display blocks" Boing Boing

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:00:24 GMT

Tags: display tech augmented reality

Posted by: juxileitner

somebody told me yesterday that I lived in 4 countries in 2 years, actually i...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:12:34 GMT

somebody told me yesterday that I lived in 4 countries in 2 years, actually it is 8 in the last 4 years...

somebody told me yesterday that I lived in 4 countries in 2 years, actually i...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:12:34 GMT

somebody told me yesterday that I lived in 4 countries in 2 years, actually it is 8 in the last 4 years...

I suck, I would need a kick in the ass or be in Sicily to do some Italian

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:56:33 GMT

I suck, I would need a kick in the ass or be in Sicily to do some Italian

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:56:33 GMT

I suck, I would need a kick in the ass or be in Sicily to do some Italian

Naps Can Seriously Improve All-Day Learning Abilities - Memory - Lifehacker

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:23:44 GMT

Tags: neuroscience naps learning

Posted by: juxileitner

Serious threat to the web in Italy

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:58:53 GMT

In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We also worked with the local police to help identify the person responsible for uploading it and she was subsequently sentenced to 10 months community service by a court in Turin, as were several other classmates who were also involved. In these rare but unpleasant cases, that's where our involvement would normally end.

But in this instance, a public prosecutor in Milan decided to indict four Google employees —David Drummond, Arvind Desikan, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes (who left the company in 2008). The charges brought against them were criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. To be clear, none of the four Googlers charged had anything to do with this video. They did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of them know the people involved or were even aware of the video's existence until after it was removed.

Nevertheless, a judge in Milan today convicted 3 of the 4 defendants — David Drummond, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes — for failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. All 4 were found not guilty of criminal defamation. In essence this ruling means that employees of hosting platforms like Google Video are criminally responsible for content that users upload. We will appeal this astonishing decision because the Google employees on trial had nothing to do with the video in question. Throughout this long process, they have displayed admirable grace and fortitude. It is outrageous that they have been subjected to a trial at all.

But we are deeply troubled by this conviction for another equally important reason. It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming. European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.

These are important points of principle, which is why we and our employees will vigorously appeal this decision.

Posted by Matt Sucherman, VP and Deputy General Counsel - Europe, Middle East and Africa

Concept for swarming "display blocks"

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:58:04 GMT

Last week, I posted about Flyfire, an MIT research project to explore whether a swarm of tiny illuminated helicopters could form into a flying display screen. In a similar vein is Julia Yu Tsao's Curious Displays, her graduate thesis project last fall at Art Center College of Design. The video she made to demonstrate her vision is lovely and provocative. From the project page:

Curious Displays is a product proposal for a new platform for display technology. Instead of a fixed form factor screen, the display surface is instead broken up into hundreds of ½ inch display blocks. Each block operates independently as a self-contained unit, and has full mobility, allowing movement across any physical surface. The blocks operate independently of one another, but are aware of the position and role relative to the rest of the system. With this awareness, the blocks are able to coordinate with the other blocks to reconfigure their positioning to form larger display surfaces and forms depending on purpose and function. In this way, the blocks become a physical embodiment of digital media, and act as a vehicle for the physical manifestation of what typically exists only in the virtual space of the screen.

Curious Displays

Previously:

Swarm of tiny illuminated helicopters as flying display screen ...

PLoS ONE: Recycling Energy to Restore Impaired Ankle Function during Human Walking

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:26:40 GMT

Tags: tech human nrg

Posted by: juxileitner

Make: Online : Announcing Hackerspaces in Space, the space blimp contest

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:50:31 GMT

Tags: space tech make hacking

Posted by: juxileitner

Robot film crew knows what sports fans like - tech - 20 February 2010 - New Scientist

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:44:09 GMT

Tags: automation fun tech

Posted by: juxileitner

Devotion to Duty

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Devotion to Duty
The weird sense of duty really good sysadmins have can border on the sociopathic, but it's nice to know that it stands between the forces of darkness and your cat blog's servers.

Announcing Hackerspaces in Space, the space blimp contest

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:00:00 GMT

Here's an exciting challenge from Workshop 88, called Hackerspaces in Space. It's an inter-hackerspace challenge to send a weather balloon into space, capture some amazing data, and retrieve it. This could be a great team project for an established space, or even a good way to motivate a group of people to get together and form a space!

I can't help but notice that it also seems a timely and appropriate response to Martin Gittins, who recently noted that "The horizon of our vision for technology is no longer interplanetary travel but multi-touch user interface designs." While there are certainly great reasons to improve the usability and reach of technology, we shouldn't forget that there is a huge universe out there to explore, and that you don't need to be NASA to get a glimpse of it.

Of course, weather balloon won't technically make it into outer space (more like the stratosphere), but are certainly an accessible way to get pretty far up with backyard technology. From their press release:

NAPERVILLE, Illinois - February 16, 2009 - Workshop 88, Chicago's only suburban hackerspace, has announced a new competition. Hackerspaces from around the world will participate to send weather balloons, with payloads, into near space hoping to capture pictures of the Earth's horizon. Inspired by many recent amateur weather balloon endeavors across the country, Hackerspaces in Space aims to turn this phenomenon into a full- fledged competition.
Launches will begin in June and run till the end of August. At the end of competition teams will post their results and pictures on the web where they will be judged on a variety of criteria like: retrieval time, weight of payload, and total cost of the project.

Motivated by the excitement of the challenge, or in some cases a personal vendetta, nine hacker spaces have already signed up for the challenge. So don't delay, check out the competition website for the official rules and to register. See you... in space!

Image courtesy HeatSync labs

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Infographic: buying DVDs vs pirating them

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:24:04 GMT

Infographic: buying DVDs vs pirating them

This pithy and funny chart does a superb job of explaining how the insertion of a lot of "business model" (FBI warnings, unskippable trailers, THX vanity sequences) makes buying a DVD a lot worse than pirating the same disc online. I rip all my kid's DVDs (not least because she has a tendency to scratch them to hell), and the difference between firing up a movie on a laptop and it just starting versus trying to explain to a toddler why Daddy has to spend five minutes pressing next-next-next menu-menu-menu is enormous. I think it all comes down to the stuff in the DVD-CCA spec that allows DVD creators to flag sequences as unskippable: that's such an attractive nuisance, it's bound to attract every hard-sell marketer and power-tripping fool in any media company, who will eventually colonize it with so much crapola that it comes just short of destroying the possibility that anyone will voluntarily pay for the product. (Be sure to click below for the whole thing)

If you are a pirate, this is what you get (via Making Light)

Previously:

February 19, 2010

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

February 19, 2010

Pow!

Chromakey is everywhere

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:54:16 GMT

Alan sez, "A great, but slightly disturbing, look at how pervasive green-screening has become in simply every scene in television these days. Pretty much everything you think is outdoors is faked, at least to some degree. I particularly like the faked ferry fire..."

Stargate Studios Virtual Backlot Reel 2009 (Thanks, Alan!)

Previously:

just realizing how great triple j's hottest 100 2009 are ...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:03:03 GMT

just realizing how great triple j's hottest 100 2009 are ...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:03:03 GMT

just realizing how great triple j's hottest 100 2009 are ...

VIDEO: time lapse cupola relocation video

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:30:59 GMT

- back from Security Symposium and CNR presentation

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 22:43:42 GMT

- back from Security Symposium and CNR presentation

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 22:43:42 GMT

- back from Security Symposium and CNR presentation

A Giant Leap for Humanoid Kind

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

NASA and GM are are working on an advanced humanoid robot that could soon hitch a ride into space. The next generation of explorers to walk on the moon or Mars could be called robonauts. They may perform similar scientific tasks to astronauts, but wouldn't require any of the life support equipment or shelter. The first robonaut could travel to the space station to work side by side with astronauts in the next three years, if plans at NASA come to fruition.

Blog - Google Acquires Social Search Engine Aardvark

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:00:00 GMT

The search giant is aggressively pursuing social features.

Google wants social features very badly, it seems. Damon Horowitz, CTO and co-founder of Aardvark, an interesting search startup that integrates social interaction and artificial intelligence, has today confirmed reports that the company has been acquired by Google.

The BCI X PRIZE: This Time It’s Inner Space | h+ Magazine

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:59:08 GMT

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

The Brain-Computer Interface X PRIZE will reward a team that provides vision to the blind, new bodies to disabled people...

Tags: tech bmi

Posted by: juxileitner

even more rain in Frascati :(

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:59:00 GMT

even more rain in Frascati :(

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:59:00 GMT

even more rain in Frascati :(

Solar Powered Cellular Phone Basestations

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:19:56 GMT

Technology Review - An Indian telecom company is deploying simple cell phone base stations that need as little as 50 watts of solar-provided power. It will soon announce plans to sell the equipment in Africa, expanding cell phone access to new ranks of rural villagers who live far from electricity supplies. This system will enable mobile phone service to be provided to 1.5 billion of the worlds rural poor. No electrical grid, no problem. In a few years, this could complete the penetration of the mobile to everyone and help alleviate poverty. Besides enabling basic communication, cell phones can provide enormous financial opportunities for rural people, especially if those people adopt services that provide banking and lending via cell phone. More than half of India's 1.1 billion people lack any access to basic financial services, and instead pay usurious rates to local loan sharks....

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Autonomous micro helicopters

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:09:43 GMT

While doing research for the next issue of MAKE, I discovered this small company, Centeye, right here in my own Northern, VA backyard. They're developing vision chips for autonomous robotic aircraft. They have several videos on their site, showing various types of tests. Unfortunately, the videos are in WMV format only, and not on YouTube.

The video screen cap above is of a micro helicopter holding its position using only visual information from a ring of six of Centeye's ArzPro sensors, mounted in the yaw plane. No gyro is used. Other videos show obstacle avoidance behaviors and the robot fliers taking control if the operator tries to fly them into something. Cool stuff. We'll have to try and get the engineer behind this to present at a Dorkbot.

Centeye

More:

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Slashdot Science Story | Turns Out You Actually Can Be Bored To Death

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:18:28 GMT

whoa, so take care at those long presentations and meetings!

Tags: mgmt

Posted by: juxileitner

Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:06:46 GMT

wonder if we can use that to power a moon base ....
or on-board a SBSP satellite

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

He gives the example of a string of entangled ions oscillating back and forth in an electric field trap, a bit like Newton's balls. Measuring the state of the first ion injects energy into the system in the form of a phonon, a quantum of oscillation. Hotta says that performing the right kind of measurement on the last ion extracts this energy. Since this can be done at the speed of light (in principle), the phonon doesn't travel across the intermediate ions so there is no heating of these ions. The energy has been transmitted without traveling across the intervening space.

Tags: tech phy quantum entanglement nrg

Posted by: juxileitner

The view from Tranquility

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:40:16 GMT

This ESA video shows how the view will look from the Cupola, which is connected to the new Tranquility module now on its way to the ISS:

Disaster Relief 2.0: Tech Tools Help Focus Haiti Resources | Danger Room | Wired.com

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:19:01 GMT

Tags: tech 2.0

Posted by: juxileitner

Soccer ball generates & stores energy

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:57:00 GMT

Over 1.5 billion people—one quarter of the world’s population—live in areas with no access to electricity, according to a recent UN report. Capitalizing on a sport's global appeal to address this problem, a group of Harvard University students developed sOccket, a soccer ball that turns energy from a kick into electricity.

The portable energy-harvesting device captures the impact energy normally dissipated when the ball is kicked, storing it to charge lights, cell phones and batteries. It works with inductive coil technology, similar to that found in flashlights that power up when shaken. For each 15 minutes of play, it can store enough energy to power a small LED light for three hours. sOccket could eventually help ease the reliance on toxic kerosene lamps in developing nations, thereby reducing the associated health risks.

Currently in the prototyping stages, sOccket has been successfully piloted in Durban, South Africa, and the development team has plans to market a commercial version of the sOccket in Western countries as a high-end tech toy, possibly using a "buy one-give one" model, to subsidize the cost of distributing sOccket in developing nations. Being an all-in-one soccer ball, portable generator, community builder and global health tool, sOccket is another shining example of the functionall trend covered in our sister site’s latest briefing. sOccket has attracted several development funding grants and is now in the process of developing production and distribution partnerships. One to partner with or otherwise get involved in? (Related: Hippo water roller — Single-use toilet bag turns human waste into fertilizer.)

Website: www.soccket.com
Contact: soccket@ideatranslationlab.org

Spotted by: Raymond Kollau

HP Vision of a Trillion Sensors Around the World

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:15:33 GMT

SENSITIVE AND CHEAP: To achieve a thousandfold sensitivity gain, HP's new MEMS inertial sensor design uses a much larger proof mass than what's inside traditional MEMS designs. The proof mass [light blue] is a piece of silicon suspended on a spring inside the device. MEMS accelerometers use a variable capacitor to measure motion. A capacitance is formed between any two electrodes [yellow and dark blue] in proximity to each other. This is a follow up to an article that HP had developed MEMS accelerometers that are 1000 times more sensitive than conventional MEMS accelerometers IEEE Spectrum described how HP made the breakthrough MEMS accelerometers. HP changed the "proof mass" [see illustration], which is a piece of silicon suspended on a stiff silicon spring or flexion inside the MEMS device that moves when the sensor moves. Electrodes on the mass, and in an unmoving section...

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btw: flight to Catania: clear skies, stars above, great full moon, reading lu...

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:21:34 GMT

btw: flight to Catania: clear skies, stars above, great full moon, reading lunar base paper, listening to Oleander's Halo & going to my girl