Surveillance innovation

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This is quite extraordinary (and straight out of 24 or CSI). Researchers at MIT, CSAIL and Microsoft are experimenting with the recovery of speach from vibrations. In one experiment they were able to ‘recover’ speach from the vibrations of a crisp packet behind glass 15 feet away. The same tech can be applied to a glass of water or the leaves of a plant. Awesome! Somewhere I’ve got a timeline of emerging tech with Speach Recognition CCTV on it. This is far in advance of that. Any criminal or terrorist seen to be talking can potentially have their conversation intercepted via the video recording and analysis of vibrations on everyday objects around them. One for GCHQ or MI5 perhaps? (but I’m sure they’ve already listened in on this innovation).

Thanks to Nik at ITF who picked this up.

Why technology forecasting goes wrong

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Lovely set of pieces in Slate on the Future of the Future. One article in particular caught my eye, which is an analysis of 81 technology articles and press releases going back to the 1990s in which things are said about what will be true in 5-10 years. As the article points out, one especially common mistake is to confuse the invention of something with its widespread adoption and use.

The full set of articles can be found here.

The re-invention of public libraries

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It’s funny. The moment someone declares something as dead, chances are that whatever it is (vinyl records, fountain pens, paper books, watches, dumb-phones, bespoke tailoring, cinema, polaroid cameras, postcards, beer, butter, cider, cycling, Russia …) it reappears, often with renewed vim and vigour. I think public libraries are a good example.

Excellent article on this subject from the Guardian newspaper (thanks Corrina over in Sydney).