As with the introduction of any new technology, abuses are bound to be rampant. The article below discusses concerns over the inappropriate use of cameras imbedded in cell phones. As I am currently in Japan, I can assure you that camera phones are establishing a strong market presence. For a while I carried around a digital camera the size of a large pen, and the spy museum in Washington DC is supposed to sell cameras hidden in ties, so this problem is certainly not unique to cell phones with cameras. I wonder if the media will cover the first time a cell phone camera is used to catch a criminal in action.

Of course, the district in Japan that sells thousands of these phones also sells cell phone jammers, so if you are worried about someone taking your picture, maybe users will start creating cell phone free zones around their bodies.

“Beware the ubiquitous cell phone, because some of those equipped with cameras are in the hands of perverts bent on invading your privacy…Full Story

p.s. Anyone figured out how to disabled that clicking sound in j-phones yet?

I’ve become a big fan of my voice over IP phone service provided by Vonage, but it hasn’t been really tested until I visited Japan. Since arriving here, I have used it exclusively for voice communications and it has worked almost flawlessly. When I visited New Zealand and Australia, telecommunications back the US cost me over $1000.00 by the time I was done. Estimated cost for voice telecommunications for the Japan visit is less than $10.00. Also, I have one number that follows me no matter where I am, so it is easier for my family to reach me and I don’t have to provide detailed listings of what hotels I am staying at.

Seven animated films all dealing with the Matrix movie trilogy. If I have to explain it any further, you probably won’t be interested in this link.

I am currently on travel to Japan speaking on Cyberterrorism issues for Japanese government, business and academic organizations. The trip is sponsored by the State Department and part of their international speakers program. I’ve found the audiences to be very receptive to the topic. I was told that Japanese audiences wouldn’t ask questions, but I’ve had an hour of very topical questions following each of my presentations. This is also the first time that all of my presentations have required an interpreter, which is an interesting experience for me and certainly provides a sense of appreciation for the challenges of that job.

Walking through Tokyo is like stepping into a science fiction novel. The city just has a presence that you can’t avoid….it is everywhere. I am amazed to travel miles by subway, only to emerge to the same exact scenery every time. I’ve yet to see anyone over the age of 10 without a cell phone, yet none of mine will work in Japan due to the regulartory environment. I’ve finally branched out for Tokyo and will be spending two nights in Kyoto, which should give me a feel for an more traditional Japan city.

If you can come up with a better example of manufactured pop culture than this, I’d like to see. A shrink for a producer, two teenage Russian girls, a techno beat and lots of lesbian sexual themes. A good example of U.S. pop culture being taking to an extreme and pushed right back at us. I don’t watch MTV, but I hear it is in rotation. Tatu.ru

The U.S. military action in Iraq has stirred up computer virus writers and malicious hackers, who have apparently decided to vent by defacing websites and releasing e-mail worms that prey on people’s fears and curiosity.
Antagonists and activists based in the United States, Europe and the Middle East are engaged in their own form of war games. Some are vandalizing websites, particularly government sites, scrawling scornful cybergraffiti or urging people to “make love not war.” Full Story

I’ve been a fan of Wired Magazine since issue number 1. Many think the collection of striped magazine covers that are still displayed on one of my bookshelves should be discarded, but I won’t budge. This issue marks Wired’s 10th anniversary and there is a great recap of the past ten years and the excellent articles the magazine has produced.

“What a dull, distressing decade it promised to be. San Francisco was taking the early ’90s hard. The city had always been a boomtown, and now, in the aftermath of recession and the Gulf War, it languished in the stale atmosphere of a boomtown in distress. There had been a drought for five years, and the sidewalks were lined with sickly trees.

The old revolutionary spirit was hard to discern. Two decades after most of the flower children had vanished, their slogans were derided as antiquated wishful thinking. And things were not so fresh on the other side of the political spectrum, either. The anticommunist crusaders and free-market fundamentalists who triumphed in the age of Reagan were desperate for new battles. The Soviet Union was dead. Capitalism had won. What was left to fight about?

There was no point in looking for inspiration overseas. Europe was scratching its head over what to do with all those poor countries east of the ex-Iron Curtain, and the Japanese were still searching for the bottom after their bubble economy burst.” Full Story

Jame’s Cameron is releasing a new movie within the next month called Ghosts of the Abyss. I had an opportunity to meet Cameron at his production company Lightstorm Entertainment last month and got a once in a lifetime opportunity to see him review and comment on this film in the Lightstorm screening room. Cameron makes a habit of pushing the bounds of technology and film and this film is no different. The 3D technology in this film is very impressive. It isn’t some animated feature that has been generated in 3D, it is the representation of real actors and film sequences in three dimensions. The combination of this technolgoy IMAX will create a very unique experience. Check it out and see if it is playing near you.

As a side note, this movie has nothing to do with Cameron’s science fiction film The Abyss. Ghosts of the Abyss is about an underwater expedition to the Titantic. The Abyss, which is now over 15 years old, remains one of the best science fiction movies of all time. It is about the discovery of an unknown life-form at the bottom of the ocean and is one of the few movies that can point to a plot line where a single text message saves the world.

I had the occassion to eat and drink with Bruce Sterling several years ago, so whenever I read something like this, I can picture him delivering with the typical Sterling zest:

“Let me put this to you straight: cyberspace has
become a slum. It’s a diseased slum, festering with
Microsoft Outlook viruses. The viruses turn people into
unwilling, unwitting agents of corruption and destruction.
If you dare to use Microsoft’s web products, which are so
easily and cruelly sabotaged, then you run a gruesome,
unconscionable risk of doing horrible virus damage to your
best friends and your closest collaborators. You can give
AIDs or herpes to the people who choose to have sex with
you, but you can give Klez.E to people you don’t even
know. That is a pretty far cry from the antiseptic
Euclidean vistas of virtual reality. Cyberspace in 2002
is a high-tech low-life slum straight out of William
Gibson’s NEUROMANCER. That’s a great book, but the people
who have to live in that book are pretty damn far from
happy.” Full Speech

3DGeo Development, a Silicon Valley company, had its first scrape with trade secret theft several years ago when a visiting PetroChina employee was collared trying to hack into its computer system. Then last year a second visiting PetroChina employee was caught trying to download 3DGeo’s source code, the foundation for its proprietary seismic imaging software. Full Story