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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.
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The Open Source Digital Voting Foundation is spearheading a project to build new voting machines to replace proprietary systems currently in place. The group is in the second year of a an eight-year plan to produce a publicly-owned, open source election system. OSDV has turned loose its first batch of software code for technical review.
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The SenseCam is a specialized digital camera that's been percolating in the labs of Microsoft Research U.K for about five years now. It's designed to be worn around the neck on a lanyard. The device takes still images throughout the day, when motion is sensed or when people come into view, as often as every 30 seconds.
The camera can be used for everything from a scrapbooking tool to a medical device for patients with impaired memories. Microsoft has been able to produced only about 500 SenseCams, so it's decided to license its technology to ramp up production.
U.K. company Vicon will begin selling the cameras, under the name Vicon Revue, to researchers this year and to the general public in 2010.
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Our disparate gadgets will be able to chat with greater ease when Wi-Fi Direct arrives next year.
Guest: Glenn Fleishman, freelance tech reporter
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We love MP3s even though they sound inferior to CDs. We can't get by without our mobile phones even though they've tended to sound worse than land lines. We're watching more TV shows and movies on our little computer screens, even as our big TVs sit idle in the next room. It's the Good Enough Revolution.
Guest: Robert Capps, Wired
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Google is sending 100,000 preview invitations today for Wave, its real-time communications product that combines e-mail, instant messaging, document collaboration and social networking.
Guest: Frederic Lardinois, ReadWriteWeb
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In Wired magazine, Nicholas Thompson writes about system known as Dead Hand. It was designed by Soviet scientists in the mid 1980s to automatically retaliate against a nuclear strike from the U.S.
Thompson's new book on the cold war is The Hawk and the Dove.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plan to electronically track thousands of pieces of trash discarded by people in Seattle and New York, in part to give people a greater sense of their impact on the environment.
NASA and the University of Colorado Boulder are working to build a version of the Internet for communications in space.
Guest: Adrian Hooke, NASA
Windows 7 goes on sale to the public this coming October and, based on reviews of various test versions, it's sleeker and better performing than its predecessor, Vista.
But even as the company puts the final touches on Windows 7 some top engineers and executives are working on a replacement operating system that would relegate the aging Windows to computer history museums.
Guest: Mary-Jo Foley, ZDNet
Scientists working for U.S. intelligence have come up with some nifty ways to steal and communicate secrets over the years - from ball point pens that conceal tiny cameras to a freeze-dried rat with a hollow abdomen to hide information.
These days, of course, the spy game of covert communications is played out digitally, on computers, mobile phones, and the Internet.
Guest: H. Keith Melton, co-author of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs from Communism to Al Qaeda
Charity is not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, blogs and other social media. Mashable.com, which covers the world of social media, is hoping to change that. Mashable's Summer of Social Good project - which runs through August - is attempting to light a fire under social media users by encouraging them to donate money to four charities: The Humane Society, Oxfam America, Livestrong and the World Wildlife Federation.
A new service unveiled yesterday will track policy changes imposed by popular Internet sites such as Facebook, eBay and Google.
Today, we have an early review of Google Wave by Rafe Needleman, editor of CNET Webware.com.
A company called The Extraordinaries is creating applications designed to allow users to do some good while they fiddle with their smart phones.
The idea is to allow non-profits and other organizations to tap into the power of their memberships and support networks -- enlisting people to perform tasks on their phones. Those tasks might range from classifying photographs to translating documents. A rough beta version is available for the iPhone, with a more complete version due later this year.
The Extraordinaries recently grabbed second place in the NetSquared competition for creative use of technology by non-profits.
The Obama administration has launched Data.gov, a much-anticipated site where citizens can download raw data from federal agencies. The idea is to encourage programmers and others to make new applications and mashups based on information from such agencies as the National Weather Service, the Census Bureau, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Center for Health Statistics.
The research division of General Electric says it's developed a holographic data storage technology that will enable 500 gigabytes of data to fit on a single disc. GE plans to license to the technology to other companies that would make the discs and players -- and hopes products based on the technology will be available by 2012.
Don't call WolframAlpha a search engine, says its creator, mathematician and physicist Steven Wolfram. Call it a "computational knowledge engine."
Guest: Frederic Lardinois, Read/Write Web
Who will report the local news when newspapers cut staff or close altogether?
On today's show I talk with Mark Glaser of MediaShift, a PBS blog that covers the new media industry, about the new crop of local watchdog sites staffed in part by former newspaper reporters.
Machinima -- a portmanteau of the words "machine" and "cinema" - is the topic of a two day conference underway at Stanford University.
Here are some places to watch/ learn about Machinima:
Machinima.com
Machinima.org
Machinima in Second Life
Myndflame
Callous Productions
In what appears to be the first project of its kind, utility company Pacific Gas & Electric is seeking approval from California regulators to buy power from a company that plans to generate electricity from a solar power plant in space. Solaren Corporation could be selling power from its planned solar power installation by 2016.
Later this year Taser International is expected to begin selling a recording system that police officers strap to their heads. Officers would decide when it makes sense to begin recording an incident. When a scene has been captured the camera transfers the encrypted digital recording to police headquarters.
One of the most talked-about features in Google Voice is voice mail transcription. To get a sense of how well the machine transcription works, we asked listeners to leave messages at our Google Voice number. Here are some of the results:
Transcription for above:
the following taxes taken from and onion info graphics called tornados safety and spring is tornado season the national weather service recommend taking these following safety measures in the event of the twenty eight oh light down in a bit if you are already lying in a ditch do not attempt to set up the most important thing you can do is stay calm this will be difficult since you are almost certainly going to die twenty does spoke easily firing if you wanna shots in the air is usually enough to scare them off hey little little for a while strap yourself to the roof of your house enraged i haven't hey present tornados before they happen make sure that one memorial fair front's do not convert with cool dry ones if during a tornados the only safe places in my loving arts i'm here baby hey if atone eight oh strikes you're home is even your basement could be dangers so constructive basement for your basement and finally if you spot a tornado always remember to point at it and yelled tornado and then run like hell
Transcription for above:
our reading but you know do flynn the past of most resistance and it's fundamentally flood core the name of almost any learning program to help us become what we are not hey if you don't have national town with numbers you still force to spend time in that area area to attain a degree if you're not very impressed attic you get a sense to a course designed to and few sympathy into your personality from the cradel to the cubicle we devote more time to our shortcomings then to our strengths it's been has been a reading from strings finder two point oh part-time ralf goodbye two two four thank you
Transcription for above:
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Transcription for above:
hi i just thought i'd read you the first amendment harrisville making a large back and if that was kind of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or bridging freedom of speech or a price for the rest of the people to use we have several expedition the government's for regressive griffin says hope google voice works out for you
Other stories mentioned today:
Conficker FAQ (F-Secure.com)
The evolution of an extraordinary globe-spanning worm (lastwatchdog.com)
In 2007 Google bought a company called GrandCentral, then appeared to ignore its new toy.
GrandCentral allowed consumers to sign up for a new, free phone number. Users could then choose to have the number ring to their cell phone, work number, or home phone, or all of them simultaneously. Users could easily record calls, and listen to their voice mail on the GrandCentral Web site.
Google put no marketing muscle behind GrandCentral and in fact closed down the service to new users. Turns out, though, that Google was quietly remaking GrandCentral into Google Voice, which should be available to the public in a matter of weeks.
Google Voice includes some important new features: It automatically transcribes voice mail messages into text; delivers SMS messages into a users' inboxes; and allows people to make cheap international calls.
Guest: Dwight Silverman
Ever notice how fast kids kids seem to learn intricate video games? There's a school of thought that says there's something about the nature of games that help kids learn effectively -- perhaps more so than in traditional school-based learning. There's a new public school opening soon in New York City that aims to use game design principles to create immersive, game-like learning experiences for students. Quest to Learn is a grade six through 12 school that will open its doors in the fall.
Seven months after IBM delivered the world's fastest supercomputer, it's announced an even speedier one. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will use the IBM Sequoia to simulate nuclear weapons tests.
The center of America's technology industry is now feeling the full effects of the global recession, according to a new report from an organization that tracks Silicon Valley's economy.
Joint Venture Silicon Valley says the region held steady throughout 2008, but now is seeing a sharp rise in unemployment as tech companies accelerate layoffs.
A group that represents authors is urging its members to be wary of the text-to-speech feature on Amazon's updated Kindle electronic reading gadget, saying it could violate copyrights.
The Author's Guild says the Kindle 2's "Read to Me" feature presents a significant challenge to the publishing industry because it could eventually undermine the market for audio books.
Guest: Nilay Patel, Engadget
Also mentioned on the air: Amish Hackers
Google says it will help consumers track their home energy usage in a bid to lower demand and the harmful emissions that come from producing electricity.
Guest: Jesse Berst, SmartGridNews.com
What kind of smartphone would you get if users helped design it every step of the way?
Mozilla Labs is asking the public to help come up with a concept for a phone that improves on the iPhone, Blackberry, G1 and other smartphones.
Also today:
Retrevo, a search site that helps people find consumer electronics products, is acting as a matchmaker between Americans who need a government coupon for a digital television converter box and those who don't intend to use theirs.
A new non-profit venture called The University of the People will employ free academic materials that other schools have posted online, volunteer professors and student social networking in a bid to offer real college degrees. The Internet-based school will charge only modest fees, but no tuition, and will attempt to become a fully accredited school.
In some ways blogs are the opposite of newspapers. Produced by people who don't own printing presses, blogs link to other places and lend themselves to community discussion and collaboration. Digital media such as blogs are growing while newspapers and magazines contract.
So why would Josh Karp want to make a newspaper out of blog posts?
Every resident of Hawaii now has the option of going online to visit with a physician.
There's almost no waiting for a two-way Webcam appointment or text chat. The 700,000 members of the Hawaii Medical Service Association, the state's Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance provider, pay $10 for such a visit. But anyone - insured or not - can see an online doc for $45.
Dwight Silverman is on the floor at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. On today's show we discuss 3D glasses, a potential hit for down-and-out Palm, and convergence.
Delta Airlines is now offering wireless Internet service on board some flights between Washington D.C., New York and Boston. Delta says it will expand the Wi-Fi service to its entire fleet -- including planes operated by its Northwest subsidiary -- by next summer.
Earlier this year American Airlines and Virgin America began selling in-flight Wi-Fi.
A few years ago doctors removed Rob Spence's right eye. He damaged it more than 20 years ago while shooting his grandfather's gun on a trip to Ireland.
Now the 36 year-old Canadian documentary film maker is working with a team of scientists to implant a camera in his prosthetic eye. Spence plans to use the eye-cam to shoot scenes for a new film, which will examine the perils of surveillance by camera.
Here is a longer version of my interview with Spence:
Technology journalist John Brandon recently paid a visit to the Microsoft campus, where he got a peek at some of the company's research projects. He wrote about 10 of those projects on NetworkWorld.com. On today's show we discuss three: Eagle 1, a robotic receptionist, and Lucid Touch.
If you're bogged by the volume of your e-mail but don't dare walk away for fear of missing critical messages, a new Web-based program could offer some relief. AwayFind provides a custom form that senders can fill out if they really, really need to reach you.
During his campaign Barack Obama leveraged the Web, social networks, text messaging and e-mail to amass supporters and money. The question now: Will Obama use his millions of Internet friends to help him run the country and bring change to Washington?
Mobile phone company Nokia and the University of California Berkeley have released software that allows some San Francisco Bay Area drivers to use their GPS-enabled phones to better monitor traffic congestion.
The software turns AT&T and T-Mobile phones into traffic sensing devices that transmit speed and location information to traffic engineers. Drivers can tap into the information collected by other phones in the network to get commute times and find alternate routes.
A game that lets users create an alternate, evolving universe and software for creating 3D worlds are among the top technology breakthroughs of 2008, according to Popular Mechanics magazine.
Guest: Popular Mechanics Senior Tech Editor Glenn Derene
Update: Here's part two of our conversation
It was cold where Glen Martin lived in New Zealand and one of the few places to stay warm was the library. There he read what he needed to become a biochemist but to take a break he read the Wright Brothers diaries and studied what it would take to build a jetpack.
It paid off at the world's biggest public airshow at Oshkosh Wisconsin in July. He unveiled the Martin Jetpack, a two-engine, gasoline powered backpack that can lift a 280-pound person and transport that person through the air.
Martin's Jetpack, for which people -- mostly in the United States -- have plunked down a $10,000 deposit, is now undergoing flight testing. It uses gasoline, can fly for a half hour, and, theoretically, can fly to 8,000 feet.
He figured a few rich people would buy one, but that most people wouldn't be interested in the concept, until 10,000 people showed up to see it in Wisconsin in July. That, he says, has changed who he thinks might buy a jetpack.
The Experimental Aircraft Association produced the following video following the demonstration in July.
If you'd like to hear more from Glenn Martin, here's the unedited (for broadcast) interview.
Todd Herman is a former talk show host who says he realized he had to do something about "spin" in the news when he "heard a national anchorman lie" to his well-educated mother. Herman, a conservative, and John Atcheson, a liberal, created a Seattle company called SpinSpotter. A downloadable add-on to Firefox (3.0 is the minimum at the moment), Spinoculars, helps detect spin or bias in online news articles.
The program uses a mixture of algorithms and human editing to highlight passages in articles that constitute spin. An advisory board of journalists and journalism academics helped create the program's standards.
SpinSpotter focuses primarily on the Web sites of CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, The New York Times, and Yahoo News, but over time, Herman hopes, the browser add-on will be an effective tool on any news Web article.
Here's an extended version of the Future Tense interview with Todd Herman. (Listen)
David Ewing Duncan writes in the latest issue of Portfolio magazine, "While we're spending hundreds of billions to bail out financial institutions, why not also bail in the future by investing more in science and technology?"
The government should pour money into things like green technology and basic infrastructure, said Duncan, who's written for the Atlantic, National Geographic, and the New York Times.
On today's show, Lem Fugitt of Robots Dreams reviews Rovio, a new domestic robot designed for remotely-controlled Web chats and friendly surveillance.
Here are some videos of Rovio in action:
As the economy worsens, funding for new technology companies has grown scarce. Venture capital firm Sequoia Ventures, which backed Google among other companies, has warned Silicon Valley firms to cut expenses and expect a protracted downturn.
New companies hunting for investors are out of luck, but established firms that have already secured venture funding are in better shape, according to Matt Marshall, founder of VentureBeat.
Reviewers this week spent some quality time with the first phone based on Google's open source operating system, Android. 
The G1, to be made by handset manufacturer HTC, goes on sale October 22nd. The G1 will operate on the T-Mobile 3G network, and is designed to run Google programs like GMail. The G1 is aiming at the consumer market.
Today's guests: Kevin Tofel, jkOnTheRun; Matt Miller, Smart Phones and Cell Phones
German scientists have developed a computer system to reconstruct millions of files on citizens and informants that were destroyed by the Stasi -- the East German secret police.
After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Stasi tore up documents from its huge operation into jigsaw puzzle-size pieces. Those documents included meticulous observations on East Germans and foreigners deemed a threat to the state. About 15 people have been working at the Berlin archive for Stasi documents, piecing together scraps by hand. But that process has only produced an average of 10 documents a day, and at that rate could take 400 years to get through 16,000 sacks of files.
A consortium of scientists says the process can be greatly speeded up and will take just five years with its new computer scanning system.
Guest: Berlin-based freelance writer Andrew Curry
