'Smart dust' aims to monitor everything

[The Straight Story]

Palo Alto, California (CNN) -- In the 1990s, a researcher named Kris Pister dreamed up a wild future in which people would sprinkle the Earth with countless tiny sensors, no larger than grains of rice.

These "smart dust" particles, as he called them, would monitor everything, acting like electronic nerve endings for the planet. Fitted with computing power, sensing equipment, wireless radios and long battery life, the smart dust would make observations and relay mountains of real-time data about people, cities and the natural environment.

Now, a version of Pister's smart dust fantasy is starting to become reality.

"It's exciting. It's been a long time coming," said Pister, a computing professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/03/smart.dust.sensors/index.html


-----------------------------------------------


Innovator: Tod Dykstra


(Corrects SFpark's description and Tod Dykstra's job history.)

Tod Dykstra looks out from his downtown San Francisco office window every day and sees waste. While a parking garage next door sits empty, roads are clogged with cars in search of cheaper metered spots on the street. "Thirty percent of driving in cities is made up of people who have gotten where they want to go and are looking for parking," Dykstra says. "Think about all those carbon emissions. It just doesn't seem right."

Dykstra, founder of Streetline Networks, a San Francisco company that makes traffic-control technology, wants to make it tougher to park cheaply or get away with not feeding the meter. Streetline's system lets parking authorities identify crowded streets and jack up parking-meter rates block by block. The idea is to encourage drivers to stop circling and get off the streets—either paying for a municipal garage or heading to a less crowded neighborhood. San Francisco and Los Angeles are now installing Streetline technology.

Unlike anticongestion programs in London and Singapore, which rely on cameras and in-car devices called transponders to bill drivers as they enter crowded areas, Dykstra taps streets for data. Low-power magnetic sensors about the size of a palm are embedded in roads to detect cars in parking spots or driving. Those data are wirelessly transmitted to devices on top of streetlamps or traffic-signal boxes, which send the data to parking authorities. If a street has high traffic and no parking spots, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's SFpark program plans to raise meter rates up to $6 an hour. The prices will show up on meters and the city's website.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_25/b4183036370831.htm

[Rage for Order]

1. That dovetails nicely with this other Big Brother technology

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8968984

http://www.fastcompany.com/1683302/iris-scanners-create-the-most-secure-city-in-the-world-welcomes-big-brother?partner=yahoobuzz

Iris Scanners Create the Most Secure City in the World. Welcome, Big Brother

Biometrics R&D firm Global Rainmakers Inc. (GRI) announced today that it is rolling out its iris scanning technology to create what it calls "the most secure city in the world." In a partnership with Leon -- one of the largest cities in Mexico, with a population of more than a million -- GRI will fill the city with eye-scanners. That will help law enforcement revolutionize the way we live -- not to mention marketers.

"In the future, whether it's entering your home, opening your car, entering your workspace, getting a pharmacy prescription refilled, or having your medical records pulled up, everything will come off that unique key that is your iris," says Jeff Carter, CDO of Global Rainmakers. Before coming to GRI, Carter headed a think tank partnership between Bank of America, Harvard, and MIT. "Every person, place, and thing on this planet will be connected within the next 10 years," he says.


How do you stop this thing, and where can I get off?

[The Straight Story]

3. The sad thing is, I see folks on the left & right who will cheer this on

They will map it all to $$ - like they do health care - if you smoke, overeat, etc you are costing others and we have a vested interest in your life. Some say I harp on smoking in bars, but it is not because I go to them and smoke. It is because people are telling adults where and where they cannot go. They love to limit some choice (eventually though, we will map abortion and reproductive rights to money and then the left will also want to control the body of women and how many kids they can have, like the right wants to control abortion).

Freedom is a scary thing to some folks.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Leading scientist Harry Turtledove envisions frightening alternative world where aliens win WWII

I've already poisoned the dog and am preparing to smother the children to prevent them from experiencing the horrors of this terrifying alternative development.

[The Straight Story]

4. I would have figured you had already done so

;)

[Luminous Animal]

5. As a person who lives and works in congested neighborhoods in the city of San Francisco

I think congestion parking rates is a smart move. There are parking garages in the neighborhood in which I live and the neighborhood in which I work but people will drive around and around looking for a street parking space that is 1/10-1/2 cheaper than a garage. This increases congestion and decreases safety. There is no doubt that if a driver is focused on finding a parking space, they are not focused on other cars, bicyclists or pedestrians.

Cheap on street parking space is, of course, subsidized by everyone, whether or not one ever drives to congested areas or whether one even owns a car. And I am 100% behind getting people out of their vehicles and onto mass transportation. We have a good system in San Francisco, even with the recent cuts, and the more people are compelled to use it, the more demand to maintain or enhance service.

[Rage for Order]

6. Congestion parking rates are fine

Billions of tiny sensors that monitor everything, as reported in the first link in the OP, is not, IMO

[Luminous Animal]

8. The headline has nothing to do with the technology in use described in the article.

That is, it is a bullshit headline written to grab people's attention. From the article:

"Low-power magnetic sensors about the size of a palm are embedded in roads to detect cars in parking spots or driving. Those data are wirelessly transmitted to devices on top of streetlamps or traffic-signal boxes, which send the data to parking authorities."

I am pretty sure that my dust isn't palm sized.

[Rage for Order]

9. Please refer to the CNN link in the OP

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/03/smart.dust.sensors/index.html

In the 1990s, a researcher named Kris Pister dreamed up a wild future in which people would sprinkle the Earth with countless tiny sensors, no larger than grains of rice.

These "smart dust" particles, as he called them, would monitor everything, acting like electronic nerve endings for the planet. Fitted with computing power, sensing equipment, wireless radios and long battery life, the smart dust would make observations and relay mountains of real-time data about people, cities and the natural environment.

The latest news comes from the computer and printing company Hewlett-Packard, which recently announced it's working on a project it calls the "Central Nervous System for the Earth." In coming years, the company plans to deploy a trillion sensors all over the planet.

The wireless devices would check to see if ecosystems are healthy, detect earthquakes more rapidly, predict traffic patterns and monitor energy use. The idea is that accidents could be prevented and energy could be saved if people knew more about the world in real time, instead of when workers check on these issues only occasionally.


The use of sensors will be very limited at first, but as is the case with all technology their use will continue to expand. Remember the days when the only thing a cell phone could do was make a phone call?

[Luminous Animal]

10. It doesn't mean that society can't excesize the power to reign in technology.

The congestion parking technology described is not "smart dust" not matter what the headline.

[Rage for Order]

11. I don't know why both links were included in the OP

The CNN link is about "smart dust" and trillions of sensors all over the planet monitoring everything, while the Business Week link is about congestion priced parking. Seems like they should be two separate OP's, but I didn't start the thread. That said, there's no doubt that companies (and governments, I'm sure) have designs on continually encroaching on our privacy until the point where we're all being monitored 24/7.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1683302/iris-scanners-create-the-most-secure-city-in-the-world-welcomes-big-brother?partner=yahoobuzz

Biometrics R&D firm Global Rainmakers Inc. (GRI) announced today that it is rolling out its iris scanning technology to create what it calls "the most secure city in the world." In a partnership with Leon -- one of the largest cities in Mexico, with a population of more than a million -- GRI will fill the city with eye-scanners. That will help law enforcement revolutionize the way we live -- not to mention marketers.

"In the future, whether it's entering your home, opening your car, entering your workspace, getting a pharmacy prescription refilled, or having your medical records pulled up, everything will come off that unique key that is your iris," says Jeff Carter, CDO of Global Rainmakers. Before coming to GRI, Carter headed a think tank partnership between Bank of America, Harvard, and MIT. "Every person, place, and thing on this planet will be connected within the next 10 years," he says.

Leon is the first step. To implement the system, the city is creating a database of irises. Criminals will automatically be enrolled, their irises scanned once convicted. Law-abiding citizens will have the option to opt-in.

When these residents catch a train or bus, or take out money from an ATM, they will scan their irises, rather than swiping a metro or bank card. Police officers will monitor these scans and track the movements of watch-listed individuals. "Fraud, which is a $50 billion problem, will be completely eradicated," says Carter. Not even the "dead eyeballs" seen in Minority Report could trick the system, he says. "If you've been convicted of a crime, in essence, this will act as a digital scarlet letter. If you're a known shoplifter, for example, you won't be able to go into a store without being flagged. For others, boarding a plane will be impossible."

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. The story in the article is terrifying.

Not only are there these machines that can perform hundreds if not thousands of calculations every minute, THEY ARE CONNECTING THESE "COMPUTERS" TOGETHER THROUGH A SERIES OF TUBES! TUBES!

[Rage for Order]

13. I think the entire world is going down said tubes

Or is that a different set of tubes?

:shrug:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. There are always people who do.

They're invariably wrong.

[Rage for Order]

15. Whatever, you're obviously wrong

Pardon me while I sit over here and await the rapture. Just wait, you'll see...sinner

[izquierdista]

7. Drat

I was hoping it was something that could be sprinkled on tea-baggers to disabuse them of their stupidity.

[MilesColtrane]

16. K. Eric Drexler's Foresight Institute is all over it.

The Foresight Institute's mission is to discover and promote the upside, and help avoid the dangers, of nanotechnology.

http://www.foresight.org/

Let's not turn the whole planet into grey goo.

[quakerboy]

17. Here's what I see

If the worst case became reality, ever present spy's, always watching.. Makes it a lot harder for republicans to be republicans. I mean, that's a whole lot more cover up they would have to do, in pretty much every aspect of their lives.

Plus, storage for that much data? Thats gonna be a problem. And sifting it for any meaningful info other than trends (ie searching for anything specific) is gonna be a royal pain.

[Hannah Bell]

18. creepy. the parking thing too.

when you have the hammer, everything = nail.

[HopeHoops]

19. They're called "RFID" chips. If you buy clothes at WalMart, you've already got them on you.

Actually, WalMart required its top 80% of suppliers to put them in ALL products by the beginning of 2008. Whether that was accomplished or not, I don't know. The clothes at least contain them. The justification for it is "taking inventory". I don't believe that's the deal. Check out the CASPIAN web site for more.