InfoQ: U.S. Government Program Seeks Alternatives to Passwords

It is time we rid of passwords. Here is a story dealing with that issue:

InfoQ: U.S. Government Program Seeks Alternatives to Passwords

3D Printing - The next Industrial Revolution - without the Industry

You need a spare carburetor for your vintage car. You go to your street corner 3D print shop. They download the carburetor software from the car manufacturer. One hour later you collect your part.

It has been made by a process called additive manufacturing. The process uses the exact amount of metal needed. With machined parts, a significant amount of metal is wasted. There is no inventory, no transport and no working capital locked up. The CFO will love it. The customer will love it.

Virtually any 3D product can be made on demand.

This will turn conventions totally on their head. This will be to manufacturing what the Internet was to communications.

Some examples:

A video camera

A metal part:

Another example:

The Economist got excited about this some time ago. Check their article: http://econ.st/pqDufM

Seawater Greenhouse

Climate change, together with rising world populations and unsustainable farming practices, are causing the exhaustion of fresh water and food resources. The necessity for both is expected to exceed availability in the foreseeable future. It is the simple reality of this situation which gave rise to the idea for the Seawater Greenhouse.

The Seawater Greenhouse provides a low-cost solution by enabling year-round crop production in some of the world’s hottest and driest regions. It does this using seawater and sunlight.   The technology imitates natural processes, helping to restore the environment while significantly reducing the operating costs of greenhouse horticulture.

Check them out at:

http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/index.html

Let us talk about biochar

There is too much CO2 in the atmosphere. It is put there by combustion of coal, oil and gas and the burning and decomposition of organic matter. Hydrocarbons that have been deposited as organic matter over millions of years are combusted and hence producing greenhouse gases at a pace faster than the environment can absorb without significant damaging knock-on effects.

Photosynthesis on a large scale is a mitigating factor, but the massive destruction of virgin forests is counteracting this. If the carbon captured from the atmosphere by photosynthesis could be captured and stored, then nature would contribute to capture and man to storage. The use of bio-waste and crop residues as feed-stock for the production of biochar can represent a promising technical solution. Biochar is produced through pyrolysis, combustion with minimal oxygen. The process is carbon negative. Apart from the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) aspect, biochar has dramatic beneficial effects on soil. Because of its porosity, it acts as a sponge, providing a mechanism for slow-release of water and nutrients, as well as acting as an excellent biosphere for microorganisms that are essential for healthy soils.

In poor agrarian societies in the south, where the soils are typically poor in carbon and nutrients, the addition of biochar can make a dramatic difference. Thoughtful agro-ecology, agro forestry and intercropping where food and energy crops can be grown in an integrated fashion, can achieve multiple positive effects:

• Correct use of crops can introduce nitrogen to the soil and produce the right mineral balance
• The use of oil crops like Millettia Pinnata on poor soils can provide fuel for transport and energy
• Bio-waste and crop residues producing biochar will create a benign circle of increasing yields

Here is a schematic of biochar production:

Intelligent use of appropriate technologies and methods, working closely with the people on the ground can address many of the fundamental problems we face with desertification, malnutrition, ill-health and so on.

Cuban Memories

On a peaceful Saturday morning - sorting my hard disk, I came across a snippet of Video I made in 2007. 5 intrepid travelling boys intent on discovering Cuba. One day we rented a horse each and set out into the back country. There were no roads; hence no cars. We felt like real compesinos.

After a long ride, we arrived at a farm, and met a delightful bunch of genuine campesinos. This is what welcomed us:

Safely back in beautiful Trinidad - a UNESCO World Heritage site, we relaxed with good local food and music.

And in Cuba, you cannot avoid coming across some beautiful women. The rumours are true!

But - boys will be boys, and here is the experience the really blew us away! Right in the middle of a remote country road, we came across some guys with a steam train, and they wasted no time inviting us on board. Some of us got really excited! See for yourself!

There could be much more to tell, but life is too short. :-)

Accelerating! The Serial Hybrid with in-wheel electric motors

My dream car is a radical departure from what we have today. Well not quite.. It will have four wheels. But they will be different. This picture hints at it:

Research into these motors is advancing nicely. Here is an exploded view of one version:

Why not have the kinetic energy produced right where it is needed? In the wheel itself! Several companies are now researching in-wheel motors. The next item for discussion is the battery. Tesla already has one with a range of 300 + kilometers. But I want 1,000 +. 

Advances in battery technology have not stopped. Check this quote from some research going on at Stanford University:

In this project, researchers Stanford University will seek to develop an "All-Electron Battery", a completely new class of electrical energy storage devices for electric vehicles that has the potential to provide ultra-high energy and power densities, while enabling extremely high cycle life. The All-Electron Battery stores energy by moving electrons, rather than ions, and uses electron/hole redox instead of capacitive polarization of a double-layer. This technology uses a novel architecture that has potential for very high energy density because it decouples the two functions of capacitors: charge separation and breakdown strength. If successful, this project will develop a completely new paradigm in energy storage for electrified vehicles that could revolutionize the electric vehicle industry and establish U.S. leadership in advanced energy storage technology for electric vehicles.

But there is more! Have you heard about the Wave Disk Generator? It is a completely new engine concept and looks a bit like this:

And here is a schematic of how it works:

This combustion engine will reduce emissions by 90% compared to conventional internal combustion engines. It will be perfect for recharging the batteries in your future electric car. With a 50 liter tank this serial hybrid concept will probably give you a range of 2,000km on one tank.

This dream of a combo will not hit your stores quite yet. But when it does, cars will become cheaper to build, cheaper to run and will become the darlings of Mother Earth!

Identity - Security - Privacy

Perhaps we are not fully conscious of the transformation that has taken place from a very physical world where our interactions were direct and tactile. Speaking, catching the train to visit friends, sending a letter through the post and so on.

Not very long ago, this started to change. Today, there is still only one physical implementation of me, but I have spawned hundreds of virtual replicas, avatars, aliases, proxies, whatever. Do I control these? No, absolutely not. Even my own government is sloppy in the extreme in protecting my virtual integrity. The Norwegian Parliament is in animated discussions about the Data Storage Directive. In fact, they are conducting entirely the wrong debate.

Whilst there is clearly a need to ensure that my privacy and integrity is protected, we do need countermeasures against cynical, asocial persons who exploit vulnerable children, build drug empires that are becoming bigger than the legal economy, and misguided fanatics who believe tearing innocent civilians to shreds brings salvation.

Some simple principles may help the debate. Since there is just one of me, I need to establish a biometric connection between me and my virtual alter ego; my cyber-me. If I can fully control and manage my cyber-me, then I can permit others to access it for agreed purposes. I can opt them in to my cyber world. My government will have certain rights, but since in a democratic society I am the Master and the government and civil service just that - servants, I can require them to conform to certain rules of the game.

If the way in which I allow my cyber-me to be used is called a context, then one such could be my tax affairs, another my dealings with the social services and so on. On another plane, I could permit Amazon, eBay, Facebook or others to access my cyber-me in an agreed fashion.

Many-to-many relationships are doomed to über-complexity and potential failure. One-to-many is a good start. Since there is just one of each of us, perhaps that is the best point of departure. So, in order to build a sound identity infrastructure, say in Norway, let us start by creating an unbreakable bond between me and my cyber-me - a biometric bond. After that we can start having some fun with organisational and technical architecture!