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HOW DISASTER RELIEF EVOLVES

In just twelve years, our tools for coping with natural disaster have improved dramatically. Compare what was available in 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with what we have now.

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Why does information technology matter?

Snapchat, new and unfamiliar to most of us in 2005, has seen heavy use for live storm updates since Hurricane Harvey made landfall. Thousands of Texans have used the app to report power outages and post updates about their immediate surroundings. Some users call on it to inform relatives that they’re safe. Snapchat’s Map section highlights areas of heaviest use, continually updating data about areas needing emergency relief.

Snap said that its usage skyrocketed over the weekend, with nearly 300,000 posts on its Harvey Our Stories page.

Facebook has also been essential to the relief effort. With Facebook Live, users mark themselves “safe” or post video pleas for aid.

How does FEMA use social media?

Official agencies also rely on social media for more effective response. FEMA, for example, hires temporary staff to scan the internet for relevant information. These “social listeners” aggregate Facebook, Snapchat, and other social media posts. With this data, FEMA hones its relief efforts. The agency then sends crews to observe affected areas. From their reports, FEMA directs “the right information to the right people”.

Information technology also helps in directing the aid to where it’s needed. Without modern tools, effective logistics can be nearly impossible. In an emergency, it is largely based on sheer guesswork. After Hurricane Katrina, some relief agencies had thousands of tarps and blankets piled up in one place- far from where they were needed. With updated real-time information, this mistake could have been prevented.

With the social media tools available now, relief agencies can disperse supplies much more efficiently. Aid goes where it’s needed. As the situation evolves, so does the data tracking it.  Aid workers can adjust continually to changing circumstance.

What has changed since 2005?

Twelve years ago, FEMA waited for assessments before providing aid. That doesn’t work well, though, and FEMA knows it. Its current policy is to act quickly. It moves as much supply and personnel as possible, as quickly as possible. If it has more than it needs, it can scale back.

Without dramatic advances in information technology since 2005, this more nimble FEMA would never have emerged.

 

(For timely information, you need a strong internet connection. Talk to us. We can help.)

 

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CONSCIENCE & THE MACHINE

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Conscience and Emerging Technology

We want to believe that technical development is unalloyed blessing. As our tools  get better, out lives get better. What could possible go wrong? Why should any new technology trouble anyone’s conscience.

In fact, many of our the most prominent voices in politics and the press predict the imminent arrival of a secular Eden. Mankind’s third great technological leap, they say,  is already on our doorstep. It will bring universal prosperity. With abundant food, water, clean energy, and leisure for all, there will be nothing to fight over. Peace will reign over the whole Earth. The long-promised Utopia, the pundits say, at last is at hand.

Is this too simplistic, though? Should we avoid some types of innovation? Should technological development ever trouble conscience? Should we worry that our quest for better living will pave the road to Hell?

Some analysts argue that emerging technologies bring new temptations. Conscience should not make us cowards, afraid of any new tool or technique. But many emerging technologies entail thorny ethical questions. Driverless cars, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and gene-editing could be horribly destructive if used in the wrong way.

Here, we will examine the ethical dilemmas presented by just two emerging technologies: virtual reality and facial mapping.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality:  

Since the invention of the printing press, pornographers have been quick to exploit every innovation in information technology. Virtual Reality, combined with sensors attached to the user’s body, could create an immersive experience nearly indistinguishable from actual sex. VR lovers would be physically perfect, always available when wanted, and never present when unwanted. Will most of us prefer VR  mates to flawed flesh-and-blood lovers? Will we stop mating? If we do, does the human race have a future?

VR experiences in general, offering realism conventional movies couldn’t match, could become extremely addictive. Will millions of people refuse to leave their VR environments to address problems in the relatively boring and colorless real world?

Information Technologies:  

When I was a small child, I often heard people say, “The camera doesn’t lie.” It wasn’t true then, and it’s even less true now. We can lie far more effectively with cameras than without them. Every improvement in information technology can augment deception.

With Face2Face, a digital facial capture and mapping tool, a couple of wags overlaid real-time facial mapping over source video of Donald Trump, making him seem to say hilariously preposterous things– not that he’s incapable of doing so on his own.

With Face2Face, other CGI tools, and advanced audio editing, we could convincingly put words in anyone’s mouth. We could fake almost any event involving almost any character. With such video and audio manipulation in the wrong hands, we may be unable to trust any online videos, so how will we know what’s accurate? Do we have to read source code to be sure?

More to come…

In a future post, we will explore other innovations that provoke vexing questions of conscience. Among these will be gene-editing, radical life extension, driverless cars, and artificial intelligence.

(To keep abreast of technology, you need reliable internet service. Talk to us. We can help.)

(The accompanying image is a still from the Roman Polanski movie: Macbeth.)

 

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WARRIORS WIN WITH DATA

Winning in professional sports, we’ve long been told, is a result of talent and hard work. Lately, it also requires information technology.

Nobody knows this better than the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, who’ve used advanced analytics to pull themselves up from near the league cellar in the 2009-2010 season, when they finished in 13th place in the Western Conference. Last year, the Warriors posted a blistering 67 wins in the regular season, and went on to win the World Championship. This year, they won a record 73 games in the regular season, eclipsing the previous record (72) set by the Chicago Bulls in 1996.  They have stormed through the playoffs, and are heavy favorites to win their second straight title.

The dramatic reversal of Golden State’s fortunes began in 2010, when Joe Lacob, a venture capitalist, and Peter Gruber, a Hollywood producer, bought the team. At the time, the NBA had just begun experimenting with analytics, much as professional baseball had been doing.

The team installed SportVU, a six-camera motion-sensing system, which could track each player’s movements 25 times per second. It enabled tracking and analysis of each player’s shots, passes, dribbling, defensive moves, speed, distance between players, and distance run during the game.

The Warriors were slow to figure out how to wring victories out of the data. In the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 seasons, they won fewer than half of their games, and failed to qualify for the playoffs. Eventually, though, they learned how to use the data to improve training and game strategy. For the 2013-2014 season, they won 57% of their regular season games. The following year they won 62%. In the 2014-2015 season, they won 82%, and this year they won an eye-popping 89%.

The Warriors are noted for unselfish play. The team’s use of video, electronic sensors, and analytics have been instrumental in enhancing its style and its performance on the court.. Marc Spears, a senior NBA writer for ESPN, said, “In some  shape or fashion, every team has become heavy on using tech. But the Warriors are having tremendous success with it.”

Coaches and team managers need to monitor every player’s level of fatigue and potential for injury. To get this information, they have the players wear small sensors that track their movements during practice. The monitors, worn between the shoulders under compression shirts, sense pressure on ankles and knees, and whether the players are moving at normal levels of fitness. Klay Thompson, a shooting guard, said, “Back in the day, we were just able to say, ‘He’s breathing hard; he might need to rest.’ Now they (the coaches) can actually see if you need a day of rest, or if you need to go harder.”

Golden State coaches believe brain function is as important as physical condition. With this is mind, their have players fitted with electrodes on their faces and hands. The electrodes measure neuron activity in the brain– data that’s critical in measuring physical and mental fatigue, which the players themselves might not recognize.

The team constantly explores any electronic technology that might provide a competitive advantage. This includes sleep masks that combat jet lag; smart clothing that measures breathing, heart rate, and muscle use; and head phones that improve muscle memory by transmitting electrical signals to the brain.

Golden State’s minor league team, the Santa Cruz Warriors, is often a guinea pig for new technologies, and it, too, benefits from the data. Last year, the Santa Cruz Warriors won the championship for their league.

To win in life, you also need data. If your internet service isn’t keeping up, talk to us. We can help.

(Editor’s note:  As we post this, the Golden State Warriors are ahead 3-1 in the NBA Championship Series. With one more win, they can take their second straight title.)

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IS TECHNOLOGY ACCELERATING?

It may seem to you that the pace of technological development is moving faster than your ability to keep up. Are you just imagining this?

According to some of the world’s leading experts in technology, it’s not all in your head. Our tools and industrial processes are changing at an ever faster and faster rate. Ten years ago, you didn’t own a smart phone. Video services on mobile devices were unheard of.  Thirty years ago, very few people owned personal computers, and digital information was nearly the exclusive possession of government and business elites. Today, you carry the entire store of the world’s knowledge in your hand.

According to Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, the pace of technical innovation really is gathering speed. You may have heard of Moore’s Law. It’s named after Gordon Moore, who said in 1965 that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit would double every two years. So far, his prediction has proven to be accurate.

Kurzweil says that Moore’s Law applies to more than computer circuits. The same principle, he says, applies to technology development in general. For example, DNA sequence data has increased about ten million times since 1982, bandwidth in the internet backbone has grown by about 10 billion times since 1985, and the performance-to-price ratio for wireless devices has increased by nearly a million times since 1990. There are many more examples. A wide range of technologies increase capability by millions, even billions, of times, in just a few decades and at dramatically lower prices.

Kurzweil calls technical development an evolutionary process. As in biology, ‘natural selection’ means that advantageous development is passed on to our technological ‘offspring’. Not having to start from zero, we build on what’s been done. Our tools, like living organisms, become increasingly complex and increasingly capable. As Kurzweil put it: “Evolution applies positive feedback. The more capable methods resulting from one stage of evolutionary progress are used to create the next stage.”

Technology follows the iron law of accelerating returns. Each generation stands on the achievements of its forebears. Each generation adds its own improvements, enabling the next generation of even greater achievement.

(To get the most out of technology, you need the right information tools. Talk to us. We can help.)

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THE THIRD GREAT LEAP

Are we on the verge of the third great technological leap in human history? Some economists and inventors say we are.

The First Great Leap, about 7, 000 years ago, was the development of agriculture. The hunter-gatherer societies that had existed until then were small, unstable, and at the mercy of the elements. People had to move frequently to follow game.

With agriculture, the human race developed a degree of control over nature. In planting and harvesting crops, we could build up food surpluses. The surpluses became a foundation for credit and trade. In domesticating animals, we had predictable supplies of meat, hides, milk, eggs, and wool. With predictable food supplies, permanent dwellings became practical, and man built the first cities. As trade accelerated, we built up further surpluses, which encouraged greater division of labor and some leisure time. This fostered sophisticated religion, philosophy, entertainment, scientific inquiry, and the arts.

The Second Great Leap, the Industrial Revolution, occurred about 200 years ago. Man’s output would no longer be limited to the product of his own muscles or the muscles of his livestock. With the invention of reliable steam engines, then electrical power, man could multiply his productivity many times beyond what was possible with muscle power alone.

The Industrial Revolution multiplied wealth for the masses. An ordinary citizen in America or Western Europe now enjoys comfort, leisure, and mobility that were unavailable even to royalty two centuries ago.

The Third Great Leap is the information revolution. We are on the cusp of it now. Computer technology has come a long way in the last forty years, but still is primitive compared to what it soon will be. The internet, scarcely dreamed of a generation ago, is still in its infancy.

The third leap is the use of information for more than training and education. We are about to use encoded information routinely to manipulate physical reality. With a VR headset and a control console, someone in Spain controls an earth mover in Sweden. A surgeon operates on a patient remotely, with robots cutting more precisely than his hand. A factory manager in Phoenix controls production in Tucson, with no staff on site in the Tucson factory. He can monitor and address any problems in real time.

Some of the most important emerging technologies include virtual reality, 3D printing, gene editing, and the ‘internet of things’. Sensors will be nearly everywhere. If we want, we can have nearly constant feedback about nearly everything in our environment.

Some experts believe the Third Great Leap will multiply average productivity more than fifty times within a few decades. If this happens, nearly all of us will be much richer. We could easily pay off the national debt. We would have cheap and abundant energy. We could solve problems that seem intractable now.

We cannot know now exactly how the Third Great Leap will affect us. We can make only the vaguest of guesses. It will, no doubt, bring us many new problems as well as opportunities. At any rate, we can be sure that our lives will be very different.

(To get the HughesNet data service that’s right for you, talk to us.)