The Bios Urn project reintroduces the human being to the natural circle of life. It is the profaine ritual of regeneration and the return to nature.
Bios is a mortuary urn made from biodegradable materials: coconut shell, compacted peat and cellulose. Inside it contains the seed of a tree. Once the urn is planted, the seed germinates and begins to grow. The seed can be changed for a different type of seed or plant more adequate to the chosen planting place, if need be. Gerard Moline 2002, Tutors Martín Azúa, Emili Padros / Definitive product Azúamoliné 2005 / Top nominee - INDEX Awards 2005 / Produced by CIRE / Distributed by Limbo Disseny
The words "laptop orchestra" might conjure up visions of zombie-like players seated at their computers—LAN party style—controlling electronic sounds that form some sort of musical performance.
The words "laptop orchestra" might conjure up visions of zombie-like players seated at their computers—LAN party style—controlling electronic sounds that form some sort of musical performance. The reality is much more exciting, according to composer, performer, and professor Dan Trueman, who co-founded the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (also known as PLOrk) in 2005 and has since led the proliferation of laptop orchestras around the globe.
What is a laptop orchestra?
According to Trueman, laptop orchestras transcend "old world" performances by offering a new way for people to make music together. They also challenge the traditional notion of what's considered a musical instrument.
Is this just a new fad for music hipsters? Trueman would say: maybe, but who cares?
A laptop orchestra is much like a "real" orchestra. A group of players gets together with the goal of playing a piece—composed ahead of time or improvised—for an audience, except that their instruments are on the computer. According to PLOrk's bio page, the group is an "ensemble of computer-based musical meta-instruments."
PLOrk is definitely not the first group of individuals to realize that synthetic sounds can be used to make music, but it's often identified as the first group to establish the concept of the laptop orchestra. For Trueman, the project began with the BoSSA, or the Bowed-Sensor-Speaker-Array—a sort of electronic version of a violin—that he built in the late '90s. The instrument combines a spherical speaker with violin-like sensors, which allows the user to physically "bow" it to create sounds.
"Crazy, but it's actually quite old fashioned in concept," Trueman told Ars. "The sound comes from the player, radiating in all directions like an acoustic instrument, and it makes you break a sweat to play."
BoSSA held Trueman's attention for a few years, but he was eventually tempted to see whether the same concept could apply to a group performance.
"There was also a teaching motivation: electronic music is typically taught in studios, where you work in isolation. I wanted to get it out of the studios, have people making music wherever and whenever and with whomever, which PLOrk facilitates," he said.
PLOrk was formed with a mishmash of students and researchers who had a wide variety of musical and technical backgrounds. "I think they like it because they can engage many of their interests simultaneously, and challenge themselves," Trueman said. "The engineers can actually apply their training in musical situations, and there is nothing like making music and messing with sound to inspire people to learn how to program."
Here come the clones
Once news about PLOrk made its way around the academic circuit, similar laptop orchestras began popping up elsewhere. Stanford has one called SLOrk. Boulder, Colorado has one called BLOrk. Seattle created one called... well, "Laptop Orchestra." Tokyo and Moscow got in on the action, too.
Though some groups are more active than others, Trueman thinks the proliferation of laptop orchestras is great. "I love what is happening with LOrks (as we call them). They are popping up all over the world, each with their own personality and set of priorities," he said. "I just hope that people continue to explore and build and make music together in all sorts of ways, and that we reach the point where computers and fiddles and guitars and drums can all hang out together and jam."
For example, a new laptop orchestra in Dublin is beginning to take on an "Irish Trad music flavor," and that others have adopted similarly unique traits. Trueman believes the reason they became popular is because laptops are easily accessible—even moreso than "real" instruments.
"Laptops are everywhere, and the notion that they could be musical 'instruments' and that we could play with one another is intriguing," he said. "It's also a great equalizer; laptops don't intimidate and imply decades of practice the way, say, violins do, so people who might otherwise think they are 'not musical' might be willing to give it a go."
"Another way to put this is that we can set the bar for entry wherever we want," he added. "We can make pieces where people of any background can be taught how to participate in just a few minutes, and then off we go, or we can try to make pieces which are much more challenging to play and require days/months/years of practice to get off the ground."
Haters will hate
Like other forms of synthetic music, the concept of the laptop orchestra has its detractors. Some come from the general public—how interesting can a concert with a bunch of nerds on laptops be, anyway?
Trueman understands this complaint and says he the process of making music is more important than finding ways to present it, but he also insists that performances aren't as boring to watch as one might think. "In most situations, if the players are really engaged, it is probably going to be interesting to take in," he said.
Other detractors include older-school musicians and instructors—such as my well-respected and well-loved high school orchestra teacher who is nothing less than a rabid traditionalist when it comes to creating music.
"Lighten up!" was Trueman's advice to such people when I shared the story with him. (Trueman himself is a seasoned violinist with a bonus focus on the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle.) "People who want to play violin will still play violin, and this doesn't replace anything. It's just a new, totally different way for people to make music together."
The appeal of a LOrk, either as a performer or a listener, is that it is different from a traditional orchestra. "I'm not in the least bit interested in having PLOrk play, say, a Beethoven Symphony," Trueman said. Instead, he hopes that his group (and others) can discover and create new music indigenous to laptops.
Besides, technology and music have a long history together—even more traditional instruments like the violin and piano were once considered high tech, too.
The most important thing to keep in mind when thinking about laptop orchestras, Trueman says, is to constantly create music with new and interesting tools. "There are so many new types of music to discover and make, music that we've never heard or imagined before, and they are often found in the unlikeliest of places. It's important to make, do, and worry about it later," he said.
"Finally, and this is actually laptop specific: listen! it's easy to make lots of sound with computers, with very little effort, so it's important to build instruments and make pieces that really engage our ears and invite us to make sound with care, not just in quantity."
New research from Cambridge University indicates that a third of people have felt overwhelmed by technology – but children still prefer face-to-face communication
New research from Cambridge University indicates that a third of people have
felt overwhelmed by technology – but children still prefer face-to-face
communication
New communications technology makes one in three people feel ‘overwhelmed’,
according to a new study from Cambridge University.
The eight-month research project, which also examined other countries, found
that while Britons overwhelmingly viewed new technology such as mobile
phones and social networks as a positive thing, 38 per cent of 10-14 year
olds felt that too much of it could be upsetting; 34 per cent of 25-34
reported feeling similarly.
Young people, however, did not say that they favoured digital communication
over face-to-face. While 65 per cent of adults said they preferred
communicating in person, the same was also true for 64 per cent of children.
Professor John Clarkson, director of the Engineering Design Centre at the
University of Cambridge and Principal Investigator of the study, said
families who had a better understanding of their use of communications
technology appeared to have a more balanced and positive relationship with
it. “There is much discussion about whether communications technology is
affecting us for the better or worse. The research has shown that
communications technology is seen by most as a positive tool but there are
examples where people are not managing usage as well as they could be.” He
added, “it is not necessarily the amount but the way in which it is used.”
Those people who felt overwhelmed by new technology were also more likely to
feel unsatisfied in other areas of their lives. Individuals who retained
control over new technology generally felt happier.
For similar stories, visit the
Computer crime
Topic Guide
It was early May when LulzSec's profile skyrocketed after a hack on the giant Sony corporation. LulzSec's name comes from Lulz, a corruption of LOL, often denoting laughter at the victim of a prank. For 50 days until it disbanded, the group's unique blend of humour, taunting and unapologetic data theft made it notorious. But knowing whether LulzSec was all about the "lulz" or if it owed more to its roots as part of Anonymous – the umbrella group of internet subculture and digital activism – was pure speculation. Until now.
Who is "Sabu"? I'm a man who believes in human rights and exposing abuse and corruption. I generally care about people and their situations. I'm into politics and I try my best to stay on top of current events.
We've seen you cast as everything from the greatest of heroes to the most evil of villains. How would you characterise yourself? It is hard for me to see myself as either. I am not trying to be a martyr. I'm not some cape-wearing hero, nor am I some supervillain trying to bring down the good guys. I'm just doing what I know how to do, and that is counter abuse.
What was your first experience with "hacktivism"? I got involved about 11 years ago when the US navy was using Vieques Island in Puerto Rico as a bombing range for exercises. There were lots of protests going on and I got involved in supporting the Puerto Rican government by disrupting communications. This whole situation was the first of its kind for the island and the people didn't expect things to go that route. Eventually, the US navy left Vieques.
How did you get involved with Anonymous? When I found out about what happened to Julian Assange, his arrest in the UK and so on, I found it absolutely absurd. So I got involved with Anonymous at that point.
What operation really inspired you and why? Earlier this year, we got wind of the Tunisians' plight. Their government was blocking access to any website that reported anti-Tunisian information, including Tunileaks, the Tunisian version of Wikileaks, and any news sites discussing them.
Tunisians came to us telling us about their desire to resist. "Disrupt the government of Tunisia," they said, and we did. We infiltrated the prime minister's site and defaced it externally. When Tunisia filtered off its internet from the world, it was the Tunisians who came online using dial-up and literally allowed us to use their connections to tunnel through to re-deface the prime minister's websites. It was the most impressive thing I've seen: a revolution coinciding both physically and online. It was the first time I had proof that what Anonymous was doing was real and it was working.
What would you like to say to people who say that you and other Antisec/Anonymous/LulzSec members are just troublemakers who have caused untold damage and loss to people for no apparent reason? Would you rather your millions of emails, passwords, dox [personal information] and credit cards be exposed to the wild to be used by nefarious dealers of private information? Or would you rather have someone expose the hole and tell you your data was exploitable and that it's time to change your passwords? I'm sure we are seen as evil for exposing Sony and others, but at the end of the day, we motivated a giant to upgrade its security.
But what about hacks that were done "for lulz"? Yes, some hacks under LulzSec were done for the lulz, but there are lessons learned from them all. In 50 days, you saw how big and small companies were handling their user data incorrectly. You saw the US federal government vulnerable to security issues that could have just as easily been exploited by foreign governments. You saw affiliates of the US government handling sensitive emails and they themselves ignored the FBI's better practice manuals about password re-use.
With the Public Broadcasting Service site, you saw the media vulnerable to fake articles. And yes, our Frontline hit [the group attacked the PBS's Frontline television programme website after perceived unfair treatment of Wikileaks] was political, but we also showed what could happen if an organisation were to hack 50 of the biggest media publications right now, online, and distribute a mass news article designed to blend in on each outlet's site. That kind of thing would cause some serious havoc. I mean, we're talking about the potential of crashing stocks or spreading damaging rumours. Everything we did had a duality: a lesson and some LOLs at the same time.
When did you realise you had hit the point of no return? I was at the point of no return when I realised that I could make a change. Operation Tunisia was it for me. Then HBGary [a security firm attacked by LulzSec]. Now Antisec is the biggest movement in years, unifying all hackers and free thinkers across Anonymous and other groups. There's no going back.
How do you describe what Antisec is about? Expose corruption. Expose censorship. Expose abuses. Assist our brothers and sisters during their operations in their own countries like the one we have going in Brazil now, Operation Brazil, which is about internet/information censorship. Expose these big multinational companies that have their hands in too much, that have too much power, and don't even take the time to secure your passwords and credit cards. And finally, discussion and education. We are not sitting idly by and letting our rights get thrashed. It's time to rise up now.
So what would an Antisec "win" look like? There is no win. There's just change and education.
The popularity of LulzSec and Anonymous has inspired many to follow in your footsteps. What words of wisdom do you have for them? Those who are with me in the fight do not have to be hackers. They can be reporters, artists, public speakers. This movement is about all of us uniting against corruption. But I don't ask anyone to take my risks. I don't want anyone to follow me down my path.
Are you afraid of being caught? There is no fear in my heart. I've passed the point of no return. I only hope that if I am stopped, the movement continues on the right path without me.
Samantha Murphy is a freelance writer based in Pennsylvania
Profile
Anonymous is a leaderless organisation. Among its typical strategies are website defacement, "sql injections" to extract information about files within a server, and email/fax bombing by constant barrage with the group's demands. Messages are signed: "We Are Anonymous. We Are Legion. We Do Not Forgive. We Do Not Forget. Expect Us."
G.E. Plans to Build Largest Solar Panel Plant in U.S.
SAN FRANCISCO — In a move that could shake up the American solar industry, General Electric plans to announce on Thursday that it will build the nation’s largest photovoltaic panel factory, with the goal of becoming a major player in the market.
“For the past five years, we’ve been investing extremely heavily in solar,” said Victor Abate, vice president for G.E.’s renewable energy business. “Going to scale is the next move.”
The plant, whose location has not been determined, will employ 400 workers and create 600 related jobs, according to G.E. The factory would annually produce solar panels that would generate 400 megawatts of energy, the company said, and would begin manufacturing thin-film photovoltaic panels made of a material called cadmium telluride in 2013. While less efficient than conventional solar panels, thin-film photovoltaics can be produced at a lower cost and have proven attractive to developers and utilities building large-scale power plants.
G.E. has signed agreements to supply solar panels to generate 100 megawatts of electric power to customers, including a deal for panels generating 60 megawatts with NextEra Energy Resources.
G.E., a manufacturing giant, operates in a range of energy businesses, from nuclear power plants to natural gas turbines. It has been aggressively expanding its energy portfolio, particularly through acquisitions.
Mr. Abate said G.E. had completed its purchase of PrimeStar Solar, the Arvada, Colo., company that made the thin-film photovoltaic panels. G.E. said the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory recently certified that a PrimeStar solar panels manufactured at its factory in Colorado had set a 12.8 percent efficiency record for cadmium telluride technology. Conventional solar panels typically are 16 to 20 percent efficient at converting sunlight into electricity.
“We believe we’ll be a cost leader, a technology leader and we’re excited about our position in a 75-gigawatt solar market over next five years,” said Mr. Abate.
The global conglomerate’s entry into the highly competitive photovoltaic market is likely to prove a significant challenge to First Solar, the thin-film market leader and the dominant manufacturer of cadmium telluride panels.
Also at risk are start-ups like Abound Solar, a Colorado company that in December obtained a $400 million federal loan guarantee to build factories to manufacture cadmium telluride panels.
G.E.’s initial panel manufacturing capacity will be a fraction of the more than 2,300 megawatts of capacity that First Solar, based in Tempe, Ariz., plans to have online by the end of 2011.
But Mr. Abate said that G.E.’s solar effort would parallel the rise of its wind energy business.
“It’s a $6 billion platform and it was a couple of hundred million dollars in ’02,” he said of the company’s wind division. “When you look at G.E., we’re very good at scale. In ’05, we were building 10 turbines a week. By ’08, we were doing 13 a day.”
But as with its wind business, G.E. will face competition from low-cost, government-subsidized Chinese manufacturers.
The United States government has offered a range of subsidies to help American solar panel makers, including loan guarantees for new factories. G.E. said it was not applying for a loan guarantee but was exploring applying for state and federal manufacturing tax credits.
Prices for conventional silicon-based solar modules have plummeted 50 percent in recent years and are expected to continue to fall, in large part because of the rapid expansion of Chinese manufacturing capacity. That has put particular pressure on thin-film companies to increase the efficiency of their panels and maintain a technological edge.
Mr. Abate said G.E. would focus on improving the 12.8 percent efficiency of its panels as well as lowering costs.
“We see our way to much higher efficiencies than that,” he said. “We probably can cut costs 50 percent over the next several years.”
Google Makes $900 Million Stalking-Horse Bid For Nortel Patents
The patent system is busted. Tech rivals are throwing lawsuits at each other to shoot down competitive products instead of trying to win with innovative products. And Google’s had enough of being pushed around.
Today in a blog post, Google has announced that it’s going to help fend off attacks on both itself and ecosystems of projects like Android and Chrome by bidding on the Nortel patent portfolio — a trove of 6,000 valuable patents that relate to a variety of technologies including wireless, 4G, internet, and more. Which, should Google win them, would be a strong deterrent for any other companies thinking of suing Google or one of its partners.
Google hasn’t won anything yet — there’s still going to be an auction planned for June when other companies will be able to bid above the $900 million stalking-horse bid.
In its blog post, Google explains that it’s a relatively young company, and that it simply hasn’t been around long enough to build out a patent portfolio as broad as some of its competitors. It also says that it’s still fighting for major patent reform.
Google has been involved in quite a bit of patent litigation lately, and Android has been a big target in particular. Last March Apple sued HTC, alleging over 20 patent infringements. Microsoft has gone after Motorola and even Barnes & Noble for its Android-based Nook eReader. And there’s also the huge Oracle suit, which alleges that Google is infringing on seven Java patents with Android.
From the post:
Today, Nortel selected our bid as the “stalking-horse bid,” which is the starting point against which others will bid prior to the auction. If successful, we hope this portfolio will not only create a disincentive for others to sue Google, but also help us, our partners and the open source community—which is integrally involved in projects like Android and Chrome—continue to innovate. In the absence of meaningful reform, we believe it’s the best long-term solution for Google, our users and our partners.
Can a Country Get 90 Percent of Its Power From Renewables?
SEDER BOQER, Israel — Renewable energy is often intermittent and unreliable, but with the right storage technology, it can become a substitute for baseline power.
A paper that will soon come out from the National Solar Energy Center in Israel hypothesizes that the country — which now only gets a tiny fraction of its power from solar — could conceivably boost the total to 90 percent with things like vanadium-redox flow batteries and pumped hydro storage, according to David Faiman, the director of the center and chair of the department of solar energy and environmental physics at Ben-Gurion University here.
The paper is based on an hour-by-hour analysis of the country’s electricity consumption in 2006. Faiman’s group studied the baseline power, intermediate baseline and spinning reserves. Solar plants, without storage, could only generate around 3 percent to 4 percent of the country’s power without being forced to dump large amounts of solar power.
If one were willing to dump up to 20 percent of the solar power generated because of transmission and distribution levels, the total could rise to 20 percent, he said. The 20 percent figure matches the estimates of other researchers in other parts of the world on how much renewables could become part of the energy mix.
If you build a really large solar plant, you have a really large problem of getting it to the grid,” he said.
But add storage to allow a utility to deliver in the evening the solar power that was generated during the morning and afternoon, and — through the magic of storage — the figure zooms dramatically. The country gets an inordinate amount of sun, and areas like the Negev Desert in the south still sport quite a bit of open space. Plus, some of the intellectual property for concentrating photovoltaic, or PV, comes from the region.
“PV alone could provide 90 percent of Israel’s electricity needs with the appropriate storage,” he said. “Israel shouldn’t build more coal plants. and it shouldn’t even think of building nuclear plants.”
The remaining 10 percent could be provided by gas-burning power plants: Most of the power would be needed at night. The country’s current goal is to get 10 percent of its power from renewables by 2020. Power costs around half a shekel, or 15 cents, a kilowatt-hour and feed-in tariffs have recently dipped below 2 shekels.
So which storage technologies does he like? Pumped hydro is the first idea. Many regions of the country are relatively flat, but underground cisterns exist. Water could be pumped to the surface and then released into them. Gravity Power and Escovale Consultancy Services have touted similar subterranean ideas.
He’s also a fan of vanadium-redox batteries, which are large tanks with flowing electrolytes. Unlike sodium-sulfur batteries, vanadium-flow batteries don’t need to be heated to high temperatures. The batteries also resist corrosion, he said. Compressed air he’s not so enthusiastic about in this scenario.
Any storage technology in this scenario would have to be capable of delivering power rapidly. It takes around 15 minutes at a minimum to get a natural gas plant moving.
Mindful Consumerism of the Day: Read a Book you buy in an Independent Bookstore.
Independent Bookstores: out of business within 5 years.
Do we want our children to grow up in a world without bookstores?
I talked with my lifelong Buddhist friend David Bolduc, founder of the BoulderBookstore. The Boulder Bookstore is one of those Hollywood-movie-ready independent bookstores we all love to love, but generally, these days, fail to “support.”
When’s the last time I bought a book there? A year ago? I’ve probably bought a few magazines, too, in that time. But three or four purchases over 12 months does not a viable retail business make.
I put “support” in quotes, because we used to call it “shop at.” Now, these days, I do most of my reading online—and my hour at night reading (I have a sizable library left over from my booknerd youth) has been replaced by working on my laptop, and netflix streaming. I probably read a book a year (for pleasure, that is), just so I can remember what it feels like to be unplugged and relaxed up on a couch with tea, my dog and I curled beneath the warm light of a lamp.
And those of us who do buy books have the insulting audacity to walk into bookstores around the country, browse, enjoy the expensive retail space, and…then scan the barcode and buy online at Amazon or somesuch at 30% off the cover price. It’s akin to shoplifting—like walking into a cafe or restaurant with your own coffee or lunch so you can use the free wifi/enjoy the ambiance.
Here’s what David said: in five years, he’d have to close up shop if something doesn’t change.
And the Boulder Bookstore’s among the top 10 strongest independent bookstores in the country, with a populace that talks the talk about why it’s better business to shop local. Knowing David as I do, I asked him, “Are you being doom n’gloom, or serious?” Serious, he assured me, and asked me when I’d last bought something in the bookstore.
So here’s the deal: bookstores will have to evolve. Sell book packages (and coursepacks to students) at a discount. Like, right now, I’m taking a Buddhist class at my local Shambhala Center. There’s probably 12 books involved. Package ‘em all together, sell ‘em at a bulk discount, I’d buy them digitally or physically, and a cut goes to the Bookstore. This would work great for book clubs, I’d think, too. Hopefully Steve Jobs in all his brilliance will take a moment to save the bookstores he and Amazon are so successfully putting out of business.
Bookstores will have to message: support local, independent. Or they’ll meet the fate of even such gargantuan corps as Borders, which recently bankrupted. My fave bookstore/cafe in the world, Trident Café & Booksellers, supports its used bookstore with its cafe profits—it’s been years since the bookstore held its own (and I’m writing this at Café Aion, named after the former used bookstore that used to occupy the premises). I talked with the huge, successful, diversified CU Bookstore, and they said their non-textbook, general interest book section is 1/4 the size it used to be only a few years ago.
But, for now, there’s one easy way to protect these bastions of community, knowledge and fun: go buy an effing book and read it and talk about it and pass it on or lend it out, as humans have been doing for generations upon generations. If it’s eco-printed, all the better. I’m gonna go down and buy me a Tintin, or the Mark Twain bio within 48 hours of writing this. That’s my vow. You?
Or maybe I’ll just buy whatever happens to catch my eye. For that’s the magic of the Bookstore: unlike the Kindle, it introduces you to reading outside of your existing envelope. It opens and lights us up, anew.
The New York Times already had a credit card processing system for selling home delivery. It already had a database management system for keeping track of Web site registrants. What did they spend the $40-50 million on? A monster database server to keep track of which readers downloaded how many articles? They should already have been tracking some of that for ad targeting. In any case, a rack of database servers shouldn’t cost $40 million.
I'm guessing that some of it involved user testing. The NY Times keeps trying to claim that it was its own users who told them this was the paywall they "wanted." But, still, between a ton of research, a bunch of programmers, some equipment... I'm having trouble figuring out how $40 million could have been wasted on this. Any help?
The patent system is busted. Tech rivals are throwing lawsuits at each other to shoot down competitive products instead of trying to win with 
