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Produced and hosted by Jon Gordon, Future Tense brings you the latest technology topics in daily five-minute capsules. From electronic privacy and digital democracy to spam and computer worms, Future Tense keeps you up to date on the rapidly changing world of technology.
Future Tense is heard in the United States during broadcasts of the CBC's As It Happens.
Follow Jon Gordon's daily technology blog.
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Ever wonder why so many tech products, from digital media storage cards to computer cables to camera batteries, come entombed in those hard-to-open hard plastic clamshell packages?
Reporter Steve Friess wrote about those stubborn packages in a recent story on Wired News. Friess reports that not only do the packages frustrate consumers, they can seriosly injure them as well.
A new study from Beth Israel Medical Center shows that surgeons who warm up by playing video games perform better at simulated surgery.
Surgeons who played games for 20 minutes immediately prior to performing surgical drills were faster and made fewer errors. The research involved 303 surgeons participating in a medical training course that included video games and was focused on laparoscopic surgical procedures — which use a tiny video camera and long, slender instruments inserted through small incisions.
The results supported findings from a smaller study in 2003, which showed that doctors who grew up playing video games tended to be more efficient and less error-prone in laparoscopic training drills.
A new survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that middle and working-class Americans signed up for high-speed Internet access in record numbers in the past year, apparently lured in part by a price war among phone companies.
Elizabeth Goldring is a poet and artist who's lost most of her sight as a result of diabetes. She's leading a group of scientists and engineers at MIT who are creating a machine that could help some people with severely impaired vision to see words and images.
She got the idea to create an affordable seeing machine about 10 years ago, after her doctor used a $100,000 piece of equipment called a scanning laser opthalmoscope to test her vision. The device projects images directly on the retina.
Goldring's new seeing machine works much the same way, but is smaller and can be built for about $4,000.
Microsoft, chip makers and PC companies are aiming to boost computer adoption in developing countries with a new pay-as-you-go program to lower the initial costs of buying a PC.
The FlexGo program will roll out in Brazil, India, Mexico, Russia and China over the next several months.
Guest: Ina Fried, senior writer at CNET News.com
Microsoft yesterday released a new test version of its next personal computer operating system, Windows Vista. The test release is important because it helps software and hardware companies prepare for the final launch of the replacement for Windows XP.
Microsoft recently delayed the consumer release of Vista until January, missing the all-important holiday season and dealing a blow to some hardware manufacturers who were hoping for a holiday sales boost.
The new test version of Vista needs to be relatively trouble-free to avoid further delay, according to Mary Jo Foley of Microsoft Watch.
Wired News published papers yesterday that allegedly show AT&T's role in a National Security Agency effort to spy on Internet traffic.
The internal company documents and other materials were assembled by Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician. Klein also gave internal AT&T documents earlier this year to privacy advocate Electronic Frontier Foundation, which sued the telecommunications giant challenging the Bush administration's secretive domestic surveillance program.
The papers provide a detailed account of how AT&T used "splitters" to tap into gigantic fiber-optic lines that carry Internet traffic. Klein writes that AT&T installed the splitters, which diverted light signals carrying data, into a "secret room" where the information could be analyzed.
Wired News Editor in Chief Evan Hansen says Wired decided to publish the documents after consulting with security experts who said the information couldn't be used to harm AT&T.
Just like it sounds, Congresspedia is an encyclopedia of Congress. It works like the well-known Wikipedia in that it allows citizens to contribute to biographies of lawmakers. Entries for members of Congress include basic information such as bios and contact information, but also sections about cash donors and controversies that may surround members. It's a joint project of the Center for Media & Democracy and the Sunlight Foundation, a new group that aims to connect voters with information about politicians, lobbyists, and campaign finance issues.
This week, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law released a new report that’s highly critical of Internet filtering software.
As a result of the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000, or CIPA, filters are now mandatory for public schools and libraries that receive federal funding. A federal district court later ruled CIPA unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court overturned that ruling.
The NYU report says that filters are an unreliable and inefficient means of preventing children from viewing "offensive" material,
Discuss Internet filters at Gather.
Earlier this year, six people developed breathing problems after using a German bathroom cleaning product called Magic Nano. Even though little is know about the actual ingredients of the product, the event triggered new worries about the growing number of consumer products made with nanoparticles. Tiny bits of matter that are less than 100 nanometers in size qualify as nanoparticles. Their unique properties are being used to make stain-resistant fabrics, golf clubs and tennis rackets, cosmetics, and lots more.
Technology Review Magazine from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is urging the industry and government to take a closer look at potential negative health effects of nanotechnology.
Internet security company Websense says the number of companies reporting spyware infestation has increased by just under 50 percent over the past 12 months. According to the annual Websense Web@Work survey, there are some key differences in how men and women deal with spyware in the workplace.
Popular video sites like YouTube, Google Video and VideoBomb are helping to create a new generation of amateur filmmakers. Short films, which often spread like viruses over the Internet, are grabbing an influential piece of the media landscape. While a preponderance of the videos are lighthearted, one group is encouraging young people to create short issue-oriented films with a strong message. Film Your Issue is a filmmaking competition for those 18 to 26 years old. The films are 30 to 60 seconds and focus on social concerns. Finalists will get exposure on MSNBC.com, at film-festivals, and will get a shot at an internship at Disney.
A new study by a unit of antivirus company McAfee finds that the major Internet search engines often send users to Websites that put them at risk of infection by spyware and other malicious software.
McAfee SiteAdvisor says Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask.com do little to protect users from going to dangerous sites, and in fact make a lot of money by accepting ads that lead consumers to trouble.
The riskiest search terms include "free screensavers," "song lyrics," "singers," and "digital music."
They're ditching coin-operated parking meters in places like Buffalo, Aspen, Fort Lauderdale and Grand Rapids in favor of small, calculator-sized meters that drivers place in their own cars.
In-vehicle meters are seen as more convenient for drivers. And backers say they generate more revenue for cities and reduce the cost of maintaining coin-operated meters.
Links:
Meter maker Ganis Systems
Personal parking meters on Engadget
Parking meter links page
A study by the University of Maryland's School of Engineering finds that female-name users of Internet Relay Chat are subjected to a barrage of sexually abusive language and violent verbal attacks. In the study, chatroom users with names like "Kathy" or "Irene" received 25 times more malicious messages than users with names like "Bob" or "Jack."
The world's largest computer chipmaker has unveiled a new mobile PC designed to provide affordable computing and Internet access to students and teachers in poor areas around the globe.
The $400 machine from Intel will feature built-in wireless and will be able to run Windows or Linux. Many technology companies have announced similar initiatives to close the digital divide between developed and developing nations, but none has proven successful on a large scale so far.
Today the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy announces the winner of a video game competition designed to improve global relations. The finalists include "Peacemaker," a game in which players assume Palestinian or Israeli leadership positions with the goal of creating a lasting peace.
Creating games to improve cultural understanding is serious business, but Joshua Fouts, director of the Center on Public Diplomacy at USC, says the games themselves probably won't succeed if they come off that way.
A new survey from comScore Networks pegs the size of the global Internet population at 694 million. Americans make up 14 percent of the total. comScore says 10 years ago, two out of every three Internet users lived in the U.S.
The Pentagon says it will conduct a third Grand Challenge robot race to boost research and development in autonomous vehicles for military use. The previous two Grand Challenge Races took place in the desert straddling California and Nevada. The new competition will cover 60 miles in a mock urban area, where the driverless cars and trucks must obey traffic laws, merge into traffic, and negotiate tricky situations like traffic circles and unexpected obstacles.
Also today:
Yahoo this week unveiled a new section aimed at helping consumers cope with the onslaught of new technology that’s reshaping life in the digital age. The new service, Yahoo Tech, represents the Yahoo's latest effort to grab a bigger piece of the Internet advertising market.
Hollywood droids, a robot dog, and a reliable industrial workhorse are being celebrated together as Carnegie Mellon University has named five new inductees to its Robot Hall of Fame.
Last week, Microsoft took the wraps off IE7, the long awaited update to its aging (some would say ancient) Web browser. The product is still in a testing phase, but it's not likely to change much before it's officially released next year.
New York Times technology writer David Pogue says IE7 is vastly better than the current Microsoft browser, which commands an 85 percent market share. But Pogue says it's still not as good as alternative browsers,
such as Firefox.
The SANS Institute, a non-profit computer security agency, says it expects a rapid increase in the number of security problems with the Mac operating system and the Firefox Web browser. Historically, Macs have been nearly bullet-proof compared to Windows machines, which are plagued by countless vulnerabilities that allow bad guys to destroy data and steal money. Firefox has also been much safer than Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
