technology

The Anti-iPad

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I’m not going to beat around the bush: I despise Apple in many ways, but the most damning has to be their insistence on making all new products a closed system, in which Apple has the ultimate control over what you buy, watch, read, listen to, and consume in general. If consumption is the lowest form of choice, then Apple has put further restrictions on that already crippled platform.

My words shouldn’t be the definitive take, though. Jack Shafer, Jim Stodgill, and Cory Doctorow basically say everything I’d like to. From Stodgill’s “The iPad Isn’t a Computer, It’s a Distribution Channel”:

In this context the iPad isn’t a computing device at all. Jobs is using his knack for design and user experience to build, not a better computer, but a better distribution channel. One that is controlled, constrained, and can re-take distribution as the point of monetization. You aren’t buying a computer when you buy an iPad, you are buying a 16GB Walmart store shelf that fits on your lap – complete with all the supplier beat downs, slotting fees, and exclusive deals that go with it – and Apple got you to pay for the building.

These are just some of the philosophical issues I have with the iPad – I won’t go into my more biased dislike of OSX (or its stripped-down variants).

I was pleased to come across this device, though:

Sporting XP Home and a full physical keyboard, the Asus EeeKeyboard is probably the most effective rebuttal to the iPad I’ve seen. And the best part is that it’s just as open a system as anything else running Windows is. Do with it what you want.

I’ve gotten into adopting the Doctorow mantra: close the back with screws not glue. Let us in.

Nodes, Swarms, and the Risk Society

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Christopher Albon takes on John Arquilla and addresses “The Limits of Netwar” in Current Intelligence:

Arquilla is correct: a netwar-enabled military would be powerful. Swarms of small American units could be perfectly suited for dismantling irregular terrorist networks in Afghanistan and elsewhere. However, America will never have a netwar military. Why? One reason: the political cost of casualties.

While a network of small swarming units represents substantial capacity, it also increases the risks to individual units on the battlefield. Operating quasi-independently and at speed, netwar’s small units are vulnerable to being flanked, isolated, and overrun. The network is resilient, but individual nodes are exposed.

Albon also cites the Battle of Wanat – with an American contingent of the same  ‘small unit’ size advocated by Arquilla – as an example of how this particular conception of ‘netwar’ is in fact precisely wrong for waging war in a democracy.

That is what truly determines the US military’s ability to conduct prolonged operations in a given theater: public support. And the easiest way to undermine it is to kill lots of American soldiers, preferably all at one time. This strategy is particularly effective within the node-centric system Arquilla calls for:

The attack left nine U.S. soldiers dead and the outpost was quickly abandoned. If the Taliban’s attack had been successful, the loss of this one node would have had little detrimental effect on an Arquillan network of small units.

Still, the military already seems to be considering the idea, with exercises scheduled for this summer to determine the feasibility of a company-sized Marine landing team. Of course, then logistics become the primary problem (plus the lack of battalion C3I, etc), which in turn leads to more deaths, which of course is the whole point for the enemy.

Leaving aside the issues of media control and information handling (because I still keep the faith), how then could a node-centric strategy utilizing smaller units actually function? Obviously, one key component to coming wars is UAVs and other unmanned weapons platforms. Most of these systems are currently more mobile than needed to be effective in a node-centric system. Automated sentry guns and the like, coupled with appropriate surveillance equipment and on-call air support – manned or unmanned – would be enough to maintain a network of observation posts without risk to American lives.

Then again, perhaps it’s the concept of nodes as they currently stand that needs to be addressed. Obviously not all OPs could be replaced by drones and remote-controlled camera, but presumably some could be. The further goal of the OP; that is, contact and interaction with the native population, could just as easily be accomplished through means other than an isolated post. Albon might overstate the case for maintaining centers of gravity (“There is power in small, networked units, but there is security in massed forces and large fortress bases, both for servicemen and politicians”), but he certainly grasps the risks of not doing so.

Presenting an American war effort to the public, then, is a two-part project. One is to convince them that both the overall and the specific causes are just (why are we in Afghanistan? And why do we maintain a network of isolated observation posts)? Two is to make sure that American casualties are in line with the perceived goal of it. Perhaps nothing more than a good PR strategy is what’s needed, but I think the issues with netwar run a bit deeper.

The Hummingbird has Landed

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The A160T Hummingbird Unmanned Helicopter/Rotorcraft.

Boeing’s A160T “Hummingbird” robot rotorcraft has been cleared for liftoff.

A series of tests conducted at the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah achieved all of the necessary goals laid out for it. The Hummingbird can successfully

deliver at least 2,500 pounds of cargo from one simulated forward-operating base to another 75 nautical miles away in well under the required six hours. The simulated mission carried 1,250-pound sling loads over two 150-nautical-mile round trips, with the A160T operating autonomously on a preprogrammed mission.

A max payload of 2,500 pounds? 20,000 foot ceiling? This thing is badass.

The real question how long before garage tinkerers make rotary-wing variants of their DIY drones. At the rate they’re advancing for fixed-wing, it won’t be long at all. Just think of all the things you could do with a helicopter as opposed to a plane…

Many Happy Returns

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At the risk of sending this backup laptop to join my other in the great trash heap in the sky, I think I’m ready to make a comeback (but don’t call it that). The damage to the other one – melting – was a little too significant to make replacing the power assembly alone feasible. Here’s what the outside looked like:

So yeah, the end of an era it is. But now I have a spare up and running (though it has monitor/screen issues of its own), and hopefully can keep doing this for a while. I’ve got lots of ideas ready to go.

Abdication

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The grim future of a world without net neutrality

The government won’t push for it. The existing near-monopolies have no incentive to change. So who steps up? Google, of course. Google’s plan to offer internet services at the blisteringly-fast speeds of up to 1 GB/s could finally revolutionize the American broadband network. As a bottleneck for innovation, the archaic state of internet infrastructure obviously needs improvement. South Korea leads the world in internet speeds, with a 100 Mbps fiber optic line scheduled to come online nationwide this year. The United States didn’t make the top ten – it was 18th in the world with an average speed of 3.9 Mbps.

But no one will act (even though Google’s been prodding telecom companies), and the government won’t push anyone to act.

The risks of lagging behind are comparable to net neutrality in terms of stifling new developments, which is why it may seem weird to call for more regulation. But the regulation that would help only need set a baseline for acceptable quality and service.

This kind of wide push for faster internet service works on a number of levels:

  1. It allows for new growth, research, and innovation.
  2. It keeps the U.S. on equal footing with the rest of the world.
  3. It allows us to avoid ridiculously hyperbolic nightmare scenarios like the “bandwidth caps” Mark Cuban envisions (and I won’t even begin to take apart his prediction of our computerless-future).
  4. New infrastructure work, especially as part of a comprehensive federal plan, will a) allow/mandate simultaneous rural development, always a must in the expanse of the United States, and something any corporation is loathe to take on of its own volition (the per capita subscription rate really can’t justify it, but thanks to equal representation in the Senate is a necessity nonetheless), and b) create jobs. Let’s also not forget those 93 million Americans without broadband access at all, whom Cuban’s market-based solutions have clearly left behind.

As Google is proving though, the federal government has little interest in sweeping technology improvements across the country. A Reaganesque privatization this is not. The government has merely ceded responsibility to the private sector yet again.

Just Do It Yourself

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Rapidly spreading around the internet right now is Chris Anderson’s article in Wired, “Atoms Are the New Bits.” Anderson talks about the spread of small-scale garage manufacturing, thanks to the advent, miniaturization, and drastically falling prices of 3D printers and the like. Works on the level of resilience, decentralization, sustainability… a win-win for everyone.

It’s definitely got me excited for the coming microindustrial revolution (or is it an industrial microrevolution?). I may very well need to invest in a MakerBot.

A garage renaissance is spilling over into such phenomena as the booming Maker Faires and local “hackerspaces.” Peer production, open source, crowdsourcing, user-generated content — all these digital trends have begun to play out in the world of atoms, too. The Web was just the proof of concept. Now the revolution hits the real world.

In short, atoms are the new bits.

Not everyone is quite so excited. But Joel Johnson might be the only naysayer. He does have a slight point – outsourcing some manufacturing to China is nothing new. Shlok Vaidya likes it except for the emphasis on China, and has further reading for you. John Robb loves it, of course (and is even more concerned with the business implications). Bostonist is proud of local Local Motors.

I know what I want for Christmas.

Handheld Technology and the Red Queen

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According to John Robb et al., one of the primary enablers of ‘global guerrillas’ is cheap, accessible technology. The possibilities that modern technology allow for are nearly limitless, and much of today’s problems are locked in an escalating war of symmetry.

If you’ve ever studied evolution (or possibly just read Michael Crichton’s The Lost World), you’ve probably come across the Red Queen scenario. As originally found in Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, the queen says to Alice: “It takes all the running you can do, just to stay in the same place.” As a complex system, the Red Queen definitely finds some parallels in warfare.

Need to brief from the field? There’s an app for that. Modern technology is miniaturizing and decentralizing, so that tools once in the hand of a battalion commander or higher have devolved to sub-squad levels. An individual soldier now has access not only to real-time satellite intelligence, but also has the ability to reposition those satellites. From the field.  For the cost of roughly $1 million per satellite. It’s trial-by-fire, as the military is deployed to several hotspots around the world.

Right now, much of the devolved abilities available to the average soldier come through consumer-grade products; iPods and iTouches and the like. To a certain extent, the development of specialist equipment seems redundant. But that’s where the Red Queen comes in.

The nature of warfare and arms competition means that the enemies of America are doing the same thing. Both are modernizing as fast as they can, but the technologies take very different paths. Whereas the United States, having seen the potential of these consumer devices, is now rushing to design a proprietary purpose-built system, the other team is making do with what they’ve got. We may be able to control our Predator drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan from thousands of miles away, but the neo-Taliban can “hack” them with $26 software (though as The Security Crank points out, it’s not really hacking).

That’s the difference in a nutshell: they make do with what they’ve got (Rumsfeld’s “army you have”); we’re constantly trying to forge our own path. I’m not making a judgment one way or another, but that’s the choice ahead. ‘Open-source warfare’ means that these ideas spread without any additional prompting. With off-the-shelf technology, you can go right ahead and set up a self-organizing peer-to-peer wifi network.

The neo-Taliban has been cracking and forcing cell networks offline in Afghanistan for years, and we can merely react. It’s really an open-ended question as to where this all might lead. You can’t stifle innovation at home just for the sake of denying advantages to our adversaries (besides, it’s not like they operate on the cutting edge).

We’re running as fast as we can just to stay standing.

Unintentional Amusement

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In the wake of Google’s announcement that they would cease collaborating with the PRC:

China heavily censored the news that Google would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in the country.

It’s hard to see how that doesn’t prove a point.

Further Google hijinx: a google.cn image search for Tiananmen Square, and a google.com search for Tiananmen Square. Spot the difference!

Like the Hand of God

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If you’ve ever played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, you’ll remember the AC-130 level. It’s even more accurate and realistic than I’d realized (the level could have been even less professional in tone, and still outdone the real-world scenario). It’s also something that was missing from the recent sequel.

Bonus: is Modern Warfare 2 sexist? A girls’ night in determines the answer…