mobrec

So
I found this interview with Robert Pirsig to be very interesting. I guess I also never realized how semi-autobiographical Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance really was for him.

technorati tags: pirsig, interview, zen, books

So
It seems the UK version of the high tech passport has failed the first hurtle — a writer at the Guardian and a tech expert managed to crack the passport security with relative ease. Seem those who hatched the security scheme made the rather naive mistake of going to great lengths to secure the communications between the RFID reader and the passport, but used information that is available on the printed passport as the 'key' to unlocking that communication. Just dumb.

Fatally, however, the ICAO suggested that the key needed to access the data on the chips should be comprised of, in the following order, the passport number, the holder's date of birth and the passport expiry date, all of which are contained on the printed page of the passport on a “machine readable zone.” When an immigration official swipes the passport through a reader, this feeds in the key, which allows a microchip reader to communicate with the RFID chip. The data this contains, including the holder's picture, is then displayed on the official's screen. The assumption at this stage is that this document is as authentic as it is super-secure. And, as we shall see later, this could be highly significant.

technorati tags: passport, security, encryption, rfid

So
Quick note to mention that Inside Aperture now has podcasts available. Here is the link directly to the podcasts on the iTunes Store (don't worry, they are free). I've got the first one downloading now...

technorati tags: aperture, podcast, photograhy, tutorial

So
The BBC has an interesting article on the promise of wireless power — that is the ability to not have to hitch up to a powercord to recharge an otherwise wireless device. Sounds interesting but makes me wonder about adding even more electronic smog into our personal environments.

The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.

Although the team has not built and tested a system, computer models and mathematics suggest it will work.

“There are so many autonomous devices such as cell phones and laptops that have emerged in the last few years,” said Assistant Professor Marin Soljacic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the researchers behind the work.

“We started thinking, 'it would be really convenient if you didn't have to recharge these things'.

“And because we're physicists we asked, 'what kind of physical phenomenon can we use to do this wireless energy transfer?'.”

technorati tags: wireless, power, physics, electricity

So
The fine folks over at 30boxes have recently released a calendar widget that you can mash with any feed that has date related data. So, for example, you could add a flickr feed to it to have new photos from the feed mapped onto the calendar. It seems to work flawlessly and you don't even have to be a 30boxes user to take advantage of the widget.

technorati tags: 30boxes, calendar, widget, mashup

So
I would be completely remiss if I didn't at least mention that today is World Usability Day 2006. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to the local event, hosted by LexisNexus in Dayton.

I have been a champion of software usability in my own small way over the years and take great pride in having introduced HCI concepts and usability testing to previous and current development projects.

technorati tags: usability, worldusabilityday

So
I thought that this posting had some interesting musings on OpenDoc in particular and what makes a technology succeed or fail in general.

technorati tags: opendoc, software, development, ideas

So
I followed the simple instructions found in Frederick Giasson's blog on Semantic Web Enabling blogging software. As I use Wordpress for this site, it was a simple matter to drop in the two required files and activate the plugin. The second step is to setup the blog to pingthesemanticweb so that the newly minted semantic data can be found.

Painless and straightforward. Now I can contribute my banal content to the semantic web. Now what is your excuse?

technorati tags: semanticweb, blogging, pingthesemanticweb, plugins, wordpress

So
A summary article over on Psychology Matters asserts that Believing You Can Get Smarter Makes You Smarter. This seems somewhat intuitive as in most things, believing that you can accomplish something is the first step to accomplishing it.

technorati tags: psychology, education, intelligence, achievement

So
O'Reilly has recently spun up a new site that presents tips and techniques for Apple's Aperture digital photo manipulation software. I just recently started with Aperture and have found quite a bit of informative stuff on the site. If you are new to Aperture or just want to learn more, have a look at the Top Ten Aperture Features from the same site.

technorati tags: photography, aperture, apple, oreilly, reference