Smart Dust: HP & Shell to deploy Central Nervous System for Earth (CeNSE) via 1T Micro-Sensors + DARPA and Honeywell

[FastTadpole]

This is the biggest project to ever fly under the radar. Global surveillance dust no matter how they frame it. Sure it can be used for good but seriously, where's the money at, where is the power at and what are these companies track record? Here's the spin..

Quote:With ’smart dust,’ a trillion sensors scattered around the globe
By Boonsri Dickinson | May 7, 2010

Kris Pister has been fiddling with smart dust since the 1990s. Originally, the idea was to deploy dust-sized sensors randomly around the environment, so the Earth could be monitored in real-time.

“It’s exciting. It’s been a long time coming,” Pister, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told CNN News. “I coined the phrase 14 years ago. So smart dust has taken a while, but it’s finally here.”

It’s here, but in a bigger and more controlled way. Enter HP Lab’s Central Nervous System for Earth (CeNSE), a plan to send out a trillion sensors around the globe.

The small matchbook sized monitors will have sensors that are similar to what is in the iPhone but are much more powerful. After the smart dust is packaged with a protecting layer, it’s not exactly the size of a dust particle. It’s more like the size of a VHS tape.

In a couple years, HP will work with Royal Dutch Shell to install 1 million of the smart dust sensors to measure rock vibrations and movements to give them a smarter way to look for oil. Currently, half the oil wells turned out to be dry, so knowing where the abundant places to drill would help.

As more companies jump on the smart dust band wagon, the more we will know about every breath of Earth’s vital signs and be able to predict its environmental hiccups. Knowing more about the natural world and being able to record them in detail will help us live smarter and more efficiently.

As the health of our Earth is put on life support, these wireless sensor networks give scientists more understanding about uncontrollable events like volcanic eruptions (as we know how frustrating that can be!).

Smart dust can fill in where microscopes and telescopes can’t: The dust motes can measure light, wind, rainfall, temperature, humidity, and other details about the environment.

The applications appear limitless. If farmers had smart dust on their land, they could save money and improve their yields. It could help monitor household appliances to save energy and monitor efficiency. It can be the ultimate traffic manager if deployed in congested urban areas.

So far, the use of the sensors has been fragmented, put in place in farms, factories, and bridges to understand how these systems operate. As the small wireless microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS) measure light, vibrations, and temperature, the intimate details about the environment will begin to unfold.

CNN reports:

The wireless devices would check to see if ecosystems are healthy, detect earthquakes more rapidly, predict traffic patterns and monitor energy use. The idea is that accidents could be prevented and energy could be saved if people knew more about the world in real time, instead of when workers check on these issues only occasionally.

Scientists must be drooling: The chance to engage in long-time monitoring of temporal, climate, or human impact will change how we understand and respond to the natural world in real-time. Here are some ways that sensors are making us smarter:

* EarthScope: 3,000 stations will unveil the mysteries of earthquakes, volcanoes, and fault systems. Several thousand sensors will be mobile and powered by sun or wind and will make its way across the U.S. over time.
* RiverNet: Solar powered sensor network set up to monitor the Hudson River to track fertilizer runoff and the entrance of pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls. Real-time monitoring of water bodies will help scientists deal with water shortages and climate change.
* Streetline: San Francisco and Los Angeles plan on installing sensors in parking spaces to help ease parking woes. The idea is to match people up to parking spaces.
* Spacecraft-on-a-chip: The tiny sensors could give early warnings of solar storms. This was so aptly inspired by the launch of Sputnik in 1957.

The time is right to deploy sensors around the world, as the size of sensors and the cost have reached a “tipping point.” Fast Company reports:

Unlike IBM, which has positioned itself as primarily a smarter city integrator, or Cisco, which has teamed up with 3M and United Technologies to handle nitty-gritty tasks while it focuses on the network, HP appears determined to fulfill its CeNSE vision from soup-to-nuts. The Shell deal not only includes sensors designed by HP Labs and fabricated by its printing group, but also HP’s own networking, storage, servers, and software products, overseen by consultants from its Enterprise Services arm (formerly EDS). “The whole world of IT is shifting into a world of plants, pipettes, and forests, and not just the back office,” said Jeff Wacker, the leader of services innovation at HP and the head of its efforts to commercialize CeNSE.

Because sensors can also pick up sound and can be equipped with cameras, critics fear people will reject it and see it as an invasion of their privacy. But the information isn’t uploaded on the Real World Web the way the Internet is wired, the data would be ushered directly to the company or organization collecting it. As the world spirals into a crisis more severe than the banking one, privacy concerns seem trivial.

There are some hurdles that remain: The smart dust needs to either be powered by battery or could be solar powered. Plus, we should use the sensors already out in the world. Why not use mobile phones? Phones are sensors in disguise: They have accelerometers, monitors, location, and cameras. Imagine what 5 billion mobile phone users could collect.

Now given the chance, would you opt into this smart dust club?

As the Read World Web grows and matures, we will live smarter.

http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/bl...dust/1673/

[h3rm35]

that's pretty creepy.
what if you happen to inhale, eat, or drink one of these?

[FastTadpole]

Check the related vids on this one. How did I miss this one.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHBWN80G0r8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQMj-v5f4m0

It's all over YouTube that it's in Chemtrails? Fear hoax? Yes it exists but is it already being dispersed?

The videos all seemed to come out around the same time suggesting a planned dispersal of information or some sort of breakthrough then it just died. I'm relatively new to this alternative research, are their any particular patterns I should be looking for? Signatures in media deployment. Do I have to take my own air samples?

Here are some threads that mention it from a year or four ago.

Bush Wants Microchipped Society
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?t...rt+Dust%22

What They Really Are
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?t...rt+Dust%22

By 2040 you will be able to upload your brain...
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?t...rt+Dust%22

Quantum Leap
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?t...rt+Dust%22

An Orwellian future in store for the internet
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?t...rt+Dust%22

I'll read them later, I be sleepy.. g'nite and happy Canada Day!

[yeti]

(07-02-2010 04:36 AM)h3rm35 Wrote:  that's pretty creepy.
what if you happen to inhale, eat, or drink one of these?

You'd need abdominal surgery:

Quote:The small matchbook sized monitors will have sensors that are similar to what is in the iPhone but are much more powerful. After the smart dust is packaged with a protecting layer, it’s not exactly the size of a dust particle. It’s more like the size of a VHS tape.

[h3rm35]

so what the hell is with calling it "dust"? Is it a Phillip Pulman reference, or are they just trying to make us paranoid?

[FastTadpole]

Here's the real force behind the technological development of Smart Dust that Smart Planet failed to mention. There are also a lot of articles about using it to explore space and other planets. It's really those tiny RFID chips that will be encased in a more durable exterior.

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/sm/cus...jtbjk.jpeg [edit: image deleted from godlikeproductions funded front site shillery and controlled opposition ]

Quote:“Smart Dust” Will Revolutionize Security Monitoring
May 6th 2010

The first steps towards building a "Central Nervous System for the Earth" are about to be taken by Hewlett-Packard (HP) according to a recent article on CNN.
See the article here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/03/smart...index.html
The concept for an easily distributable system of rice sized sensors is attributed to the thinking of UC Berkley computer scientist, Kris Pister. Pister imagined these sensors, which he named "smart dust," would eventually be sprinkled across the globe to provide real-time monitoring of everything from traffic to ecosystem health.
An HP researcher has announced plans to distribute 1 million sensors over six square miles to aid Royal Dutch Shell in oil exploration by monitoring rock vibrations and movement.
The HP sensors are about the size of a matchbook and are encased in an enclosure the size of an old VHS tape. That is bigger than a grain of rice but we all remember what the first cell phones looked like, right? http://www.oaktreeent.com/web_photos/Tel...ne_web.jpg
The article does not devote much time to the potential security monitoring applications of this technology but the possibilities are endless. Rather than waiting for a motion detection system to detect someone who has already entered a building, a company could deploy sensors (with cameras) that would observe a person's movements from the moment they walked onto the campus.
One can easily imagine what a boon this could be to the security monitoring industry. In the future, in addition to dispatching guards to investigate unusual vibrations along the fence line, the central station might also dispatch maintenance based on an alarm that tells them that the flowers need watering.

Reliant Security provides real-time security solutions to clients throughout the western United States.

Sincerely,
Matthew Cooper, CPP
VP
Reliant Security

503.452.1050
info@reliantsecurity.net

http://www.reliantsecurity.net

http://digg.com/business_finance/Smart_D...Monitoring
http://www.reliantsecurity.net/blog/smar...onitoring/

More on streetline from the original linked CNN article (ad) be sure to read the story it has a neat interactive infographic:

Quote:For example, a company called Streetline has installed 12,000 sensors on parking spots and highways in San Francisco. The sensors don't know everything that's going on at those parking spots. They are equipped with magnetometers to sense whether or not a huge metal object -- hopefully a car -- is sitting on the spot.

That data will soon be available to people who can use it to figure out where to park, said Tod Dykstra, Streetline's CEO.

It also tells the cities if the meters have expired. And then the inspectors will come pounce and give the offending car a ticket!

[NickHedge]

The article states:

"The small matchbook sized monitors will have sensors that are similar to what is in the iPhone but are much more powerful. After the smart dust is packaged with a protecting layer, it’s not exactly the size of a dust particle. It’s more like the size of a VHS tape."

I wouldn't get carried away with fear when this is the description of what they have so far. Unless they are lying of course.

The key that I picked up on in the article was that they want everyone to get over the privacy issue. That may very well be another major component of the oil spill as well. "Get over the privacy thing and let's concentrate on MOTHER EARTH! you stupid people" I can see that.

We are being bombarded so hard and fast now that most people are too confused....which is what they want.

But I haven't been hit with any VHS tapes falling from the sky lately. And the last time I checked aluminum was a primary component of what was in the chem trails. But who knows what the hell they are doing.

[Shinobi]

It makes me think of this ..

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/En...h-star.jpg

[FastTadpole]

Propaganda PR Promo phase for the PPP Product of the Plutocracy -- round #2

Quote:Sensing the Future at HP Labs
By Marc Gunther
Published November 17, 2010

Inside every Hewlett Packard laptop, and perhaps others as well, I'm told, is a tiny device -- a sensor -- known as an accelerometer. It's just what it sounds like, a way to measure acceleration. Should you accidentally drop your laptop, the sensor's job is to protect the hard drive from damage by sending a signal to park the read/write head away from the drive. Amazing, no? (Please do not test this out at home.)

I learned this today from Jeff Wacker, an HP Fellow, a researcher and a futurist, who came to Washington to talk to policy-makers and reporters about HP's work on sensors, and how they will change the way we interact with the world. Sensors will, he argued, help conserve energy, improve traffic congestion, track food-borne illnesses, even save lives. HP is working on a project called CeNSE -- the letters stand for Central Nervous System for the Earth -- which is about communicating with all the stuff around us, as well as with the planet itself.

   

CeNSE, the company says, will "revolutionize human interaction with the earth as profoundly as the Internet has revolutionized personal and business interactions." The idea behind CeNSE is also known as "the Internet of things." (See The Internet of parking spaces.) IBM with its Smarter Planet efforts and Cisco, which has its own futurist who's thinking about this interconnected world, both see the opportunity to develop the Internet of things as potentially huge.

It sounds futuristic -- and one would expect nothing less from Wacker, whose bio [PDF, download] says that he is a "long time professional member of the World Futurist Society" -- but, as it happens, sensors in general, and accelerometers in particular, are already part of our daily lives. HP's printers rely on a tiny accelerometer (actually, a microelectromechanical system, or MEMS) to neatly deposit ink on paper. "In every print head, there are MEMS," Wacker told me. "They are looking at how many dots are being spit out by that inkjet head to see how much ink is going on the paper." Accelerometers tell airbags when to deploy in cars. They're inside consumer electronics like Nintendo's Wii motion controller and Apple's iPhone, which is how the phone "knows" when it is being shaken or turned.

Wacker and his colleagues at HP Labs are working on sensors that are 1,000 times more sensitive than the ones in broad use today. Earlier this year, HP announced the first major deployment of these super-sensitive devices, a collaboration with Shell that will use wireless land-based sensors to pinpoint new oil and gas reserves beneath the earth. It's unfortunate (if you care about the environment) that the first use of these sensors is to discover fossil fuels, but they are intended to help Shell find oil and gas more efficiently, which may or may not be a good thing.

It's easy to imagine many more uses for these sensors. Wacker talked how the smart grid will depend on sensors, so that utility companies can cycle down home appliances when they are not in use to save energy and save their customers money. He talked about a mother coming home from the grocery store, and using a sensor to identify enzymes in produce that could signal the presence of e coli bacteria. He talked about aging baby boomers using sensors in their cell phone that would be able to monitor their cardio-vascular health, and deliver warnings during exercise when it's time to take a break. "We boomers can wear a sensor network that can monitor our arteries and our exertion and say, 'don't do that or you're going to wind up dead,'" Wacker said.

I asked Wacker what obstacles stand in the way of making HP's CeNSE vision real. It turns out that there are many. "The cost of making a sensor has been too high," he said, but they are, of course, coming down. Sensors need to be powered, either with tiny batteries or "parasitic power" which would enable them to draw energy from the sun or heat or vibration. Spectrum needs to be available so that sensors can talk to one another, and to consumer devices. Information has to be analyzed, integrated and delivered to people in a way that's useful, most likely over their mobile devices.

Pulling out his own cell phone, Wacker says: "This thing will be my radio to tune into the music of the world."

Here's a two-minute video in which Pete Hartwell of HP Labs talks about CeNSE.

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/11/17/...re-hp-labs

[psilocybin]

The enthusiasm in those who create things like this scares me. Wrapped up in the smaller aspects of something that has a much larger effect. Curiosity definitely killed the cat

[rsol]

i wouldnt worry guys.

Its HP. they should break down after a year and you will never find any replacements

[h3rm35]

Quote:utility companies can cycle down home appliances when they are not in use to save energy and save their customers money

where the fuck does a power company get the authority to cycle anything of mine down in the first place?

Quote:Sensors need to be powered, either with tiny batteries or "parasitic power" which would enable them to draw energy from the sun or heat or vibration

why "parasitic power"? why not "external" or "pre-existing power sources"? what's so negative about using something other than tiny batteries that it would be intentionally labeled "parasitic"? Bizarre.

Quote:...sensors in general, and accelerometers in particular, are already part of our daily lives. HP's printers rely on a tiny accelerometer (actually, a microelectromechanical system, or MEMS) to neatly deposit ink on paper. "In every print head, there are MEMS," Wacker told me. "They are looking at how many dots are being spit out by that inkjet head to see how much ink is going on the paper."

... then why the hell are they always wrong about how much ink I have left?

Quote:Its HP. they should break down after a year and you will never find any replacements

exactly.

Quote:The enthusiasm in those who create things like this scares me. Wrapped up in the smaller aspects of something that has a much larger effect.

I feel ya on that one

[FastTadpole]

Quote: Its HP. they should break down after a year and you will never find any replacements

Yeah and then we'll have a Trillion CeNSEors full of toxic waste floating around -- what a great green ecological solution! 1T is only the initial rollout how many are they going to deploy 10T .. 10 Quad! This would fit right in with the 1997 prediction that every fish and animal would be monitored so no one could live off-grid and enforce environmental protection on fishing and hunting.

What about birds swallowing these things, they have trouble with 6 pack hoop holders. How about all the EM pollution (see Magda Havas)? These would not be transmitters adding to the pollution cancer causing, DNA damaging spectrum that the cell phone / wireless companies have been trying to

This seems to fit right in with the tax funded national wireless internet initiative for all that has been discussed in many countries.

The parasitic deal on this .. so how much power do they draw -- still haven't been able to dig up the specs on this. I think I read they were using lithium ion batteries (not so environmentally friendly) somewhere though. The batteries also get a get a BIG green grant a tangible portion of the subsidy was part of the Recovery Fund / Banker Bailout. They draw power from movement and heat. How will this effect the ecosystem via geothermal and what types of motion will it be drawing from (animal, wave, tectonic ..)? Will it have a significant impact on geothermal heating and, if so at what threshold.

I can't seem to find out how much this costs but you know who is eventually going to be paying for this. Consumers are not going to buy this, no way we even want this. It will have to be sold to municipalities, the feds and the state/provincial governments to get any sales. We've already paid for a good chunk of it no doubt since it has been dubbed as "green" although I can't ascertain what the logic was that brought it there as its initial roll-out is intended for oil exploration.

Space exploration wasn't mentioned in the second round of promos. Wonder why -- that was actually the best app for these things IMO.

Well I sure hope these things are not self replicating or we end up with the grey goo apocalypse scenario.

[FastTadpole]

There is a link between Hewlett-Packard and Shell's CeNSE project (aka Smart Dust) and the the joint DARPA Honeywell AugCog through DARPA's 'terrorist' tracking Total Information Awareness (TIA) venture in tadndem with the DoD and Homeland Security.

From 2002 - I've quoted a similar document before in a more recent Homeland Security progress report [placeholder - I'll have to link them up later].

Here are some of the related DARPA programs from the 2002 compendium that could synergize with the Honeywell, HP and Royal Dutch Shell projects. I'll let your imagination explore the possible combinations but this technology could essentially forcefully or persuasively through the allure of augmented trans-cyber-humanism transmute the human race into a Borg Hive Collective.

But maybe it's a big bluff for the new China, India and Russia alliance like the Star Wars missile defence program was. Because that was a ruse to act as a bluff deterrent to the USSR .. right?

Cell phones and wireless internet weren't Phase I of this rollout were they?

Quote:Information Awareness
From DARPA FACT FILE: A Compendium of DARPA Programs Published April 2002

DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO) Overview

The DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO) is the focal point for DARPA’s effort to develop and demonstrate information technologies and components, and prototype closed-loop information systems. These information systems will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness useful for preemption, national-security warning, and national-security decision-making.

The most serious asymmetric threat facing the U.S. is terrorism. This threat is characterized by collections of people loosely organized in shadowy networks that are difficult to identify and define. These networks must be detected, identified, and tracked. IAO plans to develop technology that will allow understanding of the intent of terrorist networks, their plans, and potentially define opportunities for disrupting or eliminating the threats.

To effectively and efficiently carry this out, technology must be developed that will promote sharing, collaborating, and reasoning to convert nebulous data to knowledge and actionable options. IAO will accomplish this by pursuing the development of technologies, components, and applications to produce a prototype system.

Today’s intelligence infrastructure was designed for the Cold War and is well-suited to major military conflicts and strategic threats. However, our information about foreign terrorists is spotty at best – and our efforts to integrate and extend current intelligence systems is unlikely to provide sufficient coverage. Foreign terrorists do not require large numbers to cause great damage, nor must they attack us frequently to influence us: they are low-density, low- intensity combatants. Commercial information technology provides foreign terrorists with cheap, effective communications, planning data, and command and control capabilities – as good as most governments. The availability of biological and chemical weapons, in addition to novel methods of attack, pose a broad and continuing threat to the U.S.

To address today’s threat, we need to turn information technology around and use it against foreign terrorists, gathering so much information on them that we can predict and preempt attacks – or, at the very least, strike back with speed, certainty, and finality. The kind of information we need today differs significantly from what we needed during the Cold War. We will need much more information, from both “traditional” intelligence sources and many more sources in addition, and we will need to filter this information to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens and innocents world-wide. We will also need new technology for effectively managing all this information and for reducing the cost of building the many new specific systems required to capture information. Because raw data must be interpreted, we need a collection of automated and semi-automated technologies that amplify the efforts of human analysts to provide greatly improved attack prediction and preemption capabilities. Finally, we need more effective methods for sharing information between Government agencies – capabilities for rapidly assembling teams of people with the right experience and relationships by means of effective tools that support collaboration across organizational boundaries. DARPA’s Information Awareness Office was established to create component technologies to address these needs.

- pg 2 -

Example technologies of interest to IAO are:

• Collaboration and sharing over TCP/IP networks across agency boundaries;
• Large, distributed repositories with dynamic schemas that may be changed interactively by users;
• Foreign language machine translation and speech recognition;
• Biometric signatures of humans;
• Real-time learning, pattern-matching, and anomalous pattern detection;
• Human network analysis and behavior model building engines;
• Event prediction and capability development model building engines;
• Change detection; and
• Biologically inspired algorithms for agent control.

DARPA’s information awareness programs will leverage other DARPA investments in information and other relevant technologies. DARPA plans to work closely with the Intelligence Community, other agencies of the national security community, and other relevant agencies of the U.S. Government.

The Total Information Awareness (TIA) program will develop and integrate information technologies into a prototype system to detect, classify, and identify potential foreign terrorists so that we may have a better understanding of their plans, thereby increasing the probability that the U.S. can preempt adverse actions.

The TIA program will integrate technologies developed by DARPA (and elsewhere, as appropriate) into a series of increasingly powerful prototype systems that can be stress-tested in operationally relevant environments using real-time feedback to refine concepts of operation and performance requirements down to the component level. The ultimate goal is to create a counter-terrorism information system that: (i) increases the information coverage by an order-of-magnitude and can be easily scaled; (ii) provides focused warnings within an hour after a triggering event occurs or an evidence threshold is passed; (iii) can automatically cue analysts based on partial pattern matches and has patterns that cover 90 percent of all known previous foreign terrorist attacks; and (iv) supports collaboration, analytical reasoning, and information sharing so that analysts can hypothesize, test, and propose theories and mitigating strategies about possible futures so that decision-makers can effectively evaluate the impact of current or future policies.

DARPA will work in close collaboration with one or more U.S. intelligence agencies that will provide operational guidance and evaluation and will act as a technology maturation and transition partner. In the near-term, this collaboration will take place within the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command. TIA’s focus is on developing usable tools, rather than conducting demonstrations. The program intends to create fully functional, leave-behind prototypes that are reliable, easy to install, and packaged with documentation and source code (though not necessarily complete in terms of desired features) that will enable the Intelligence Community to evaluate new TIA technology through experimentation and rapidly transition it to operational use, as appropriate.

- pg 3 -

Retrieved from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/36976565/Darpa...d-Iraq-Usa

It is potentially planned to be first deployed (or was already) by this recommendation from the same 2002 report brief as above. The conjunction of CeNSE with the Honeywell DARPA projects intended for soldiers, the robust processing software algorithms, hardware and communication network infrastructure make the following projects potentially feasible for civilian surveillance and the summaries even elude to it as a fundamental capability. AugCog adds the potential for though surveillance and direct neural communication to the repertoire. Combine that with some of the DARPA technology listed below and you have the ingredients for scaleable wireless 2-way brain communication, molecular level tracking and even automated wholesale bio-cybernetic neural reconstruction.

Quote:DARPA Augmented Cognition Program

To help keep U.S. troops safer by improving the information processing capability and battlefield performance of military units operating in stressful environments, Honeywell is developing technology for the U.S. Army’s Augmented Cognition (AugCog) program. AugCog technology identifies soldiers facing information overload and prompts real-time tactical changes by allowing commanders to redirect that information and any required action to other soldiers. The portable system uses body-mounted electrocardiogram (ECG) and electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors to monitor cognitive activity in the brain and blood flow in the body. Brain pattern and heart rate data from system-equipped soldiers will be transmitted wirelessly to commanders in real-time to improve overall battlefield information management and decision-making. “In the future, technology advances will force networked soldiers to have greater information processing responsibilities than ever before,” said Bob Smith, Vice President, Advanced Technology, Honeywell Aerospace. “We are developing our augmented cognition technology to help soldiers and commanders manage the increasing barrage of data that exists on the net-centric battlefield. AugCog is going to help keep Americans safer during demanding combat missions.”

Honeywell has already developed a prototype AugCog helmet that monitors various brain states including those associated with distraction, fatigue and information overload. The system then uses that data to produce a visual readout for combat commanders showing the cognitive patterns of individual soldiers.

“This technology is going to allow commanders to redeploy soldiers who are in not in the right physical or mental state to carry out a mission,” said Smith. “Commanders will be able to identify fatigued or overstressed soldiers operating in highly intense combat situations and replace them with others who are more mission ready.”

http://www.honeywell.com/sites/aero/tech...E300F5.htm

Quote:Applications: Components of an Augmented Cognition System

At the most general level, the field of Augmented Cognition has the explicit goal of utilizing methods and designs that harness computation and explicit knowledge about human limitations to open bottlenecks and address the biases and deficits in human cognition. It proposes to do this through continual background sensing, learning, and inferences to understand trends, patterns, and situations relevant to a user’s context and goals. At its most basic level, an augmented cognition system should contain at least four components - sensors for determining user state, an inference engine or classifier to evaluate incoming sensor information, an adaptive user interface, and an underlying computational architecture to integrate these components. In reality a fully functioning system would have many more components, but these are the most critical for inclusion as an augmented cognition system. Independently, each of these components is fairly straightforward. Much of the ongoing augmented cognition research focuses on integrating these components to “close the loop,” and create computational systems that adapt to their users. The figure below illustrates components that must be considered when developing such a closed-loop AugCog system.

   

Thus, the challenge with these systems is not the sensing component (although researchers are using increasingly complex sensors). The primary challenge with these systems is accurately predicting/assessing, from the incoming sensor information, the correct state of the user and having the computer select an appropriate strategy to assist the user at that time. As discussed in the first section, humans have well documented limitations in attention, memory, learning, comprehension, sensory bandwidth, visualization abilities, qualitative judgments, serial processing and decision making. For an augmented cognition system to be successful it must identify at least one of these bottlenecks in real time and alleviate it through a performance enhancing mitigation strategy. These mitigation strategies are conveyed to the user through the adaptive interface and might involve: modality switching (between visual, auditory, & haptic), intelligent interruption, task negotiation and scheduling, and assisted context retrieval via book marking. When a user state is correctly sensed, an appropriate strategy chosen to alleviate the bottleneck, the interface adapted to carry out the strategy and the resulting sensor information indicates that the aiding has worked – only then has a system “closed the loop” and successfully augmented the user’s cognition.

Applications of Augmented Cognition

The applications of Augmented Cognition research are numerous, and although initial investments in systems that explicitly monitor cognitive state have been sponsored by military and defense agencies, there is an interest from the commercial sector to develop augmented cognition systems for non-military applications. As mentioned earlier, closely related work on methods and architectures for detecting and reasoning about a user’s workload based on such information as activity with computing systems and gaze have been studied for non-military applications such as commercial notification systems and communication. There has also been interest from civilian agencies such as NASA on the use of methods for limiting workload and and managing information overload. Hardware and software manufacturers are always eager to include technologies that make their systems easier to use, and augmented cognition systems would likely result in an increase in worker productivity with a savings of both time and money to companies that purchased these systems. In more specific cases, stressful jobs that involve constant information overload from computational sources, like air traffic control would also benefit from technology. Finally, the fields of education and training are the next likely targets for this technology once it reaches commercial viability. Education and training are moving towards an increasingly computational medium. With distance learning in high demand, educational systems will need to adapt to this new non-human teaching interaction while ensuring quality of education. Augmented Cognition technologies could be applied to educational settings and guarantee students a teaching strategy that is adapted to their style of learning. Above all other domains, this application of Augmented Cognition could have the biggest impact on society at large.

http://www.augmentedcognition.org/applications.htm

There is rumour (Inconclusive YouTube Videos like this one) that Smart Dust has already been deployed in test and live scenarios

Quote:The Human Identification at a Distance (HumanID) program is developing automated biometric identification technologies to detect, recognize, and identify humans at great distances. A biometric technology is a method for identifying an individual from his face, fingerprints, or the way he walks. These technologies will provide critical early warning support for force protection and homeland defense against terrorist, criminal, and other human-based threats. It will prevent or decrease the success rate of such attacks against DoD operational facilities and installations. The program will develop methods for fusing these biometric technologies into advanced human identification systems to enable faster, more accurate, and unconstrained identification at great distances. In FY 2001, HumanID developed a pilot force protection system to identify humans at a distance in outdoor operational DoD settings. It used specific Military Service sites as prototype models for designing demonstrations and experiments. The program also performed preliminary assessments of current and future technologies. In FY 2002, HumanID plans to develop a prototype advanced human identification system and develop methods andalgorithms for fusing biometric technologies and deriving biometric signatures. The system will be evaluated and demonstrated at a variety of force protection and homeland defense sites. HumanID will determine the critical factors that affect performance of biometric components and identify the limits of range, accuracy, and reliability. Only the most promising technologies will continue development based upon evaluation of their performance. In FY 2003, HumanID plans to extend the prototype identification system and further develop biometric fusion algorithms for up to five biometric components. The program will also conduct multi-modal fusion experiments and performance evaluations. Advanced human recognition capabilities will be demonstrated in multiple force protection and/or homeland defense environments.

The objective of the B i o - S u r v e i l l a n c e program is to develop the necessary information technologies and resulting prototype system capable of detecting a large-scale, covert release of a biological pathogen automatically and significantly earlier than with traditional approaches. The key to mitigating a biological attack is early detection. Given the availability of appropriate medications, as many as half the expected casualties could be prevented if an attack were detected only a few days earlier than if detection were delayed until after a significant number of infected individuals entered the health-care system. We are seeking to achieve this increase by monitoring non-traditional data sources, such as animal health, behavioral indicators, and pre-diagnostic medical data. Technical challenges include correlating/integrating information derived from heterogeneous data sources, development of autonomous signal detection algorithms, refinement of disease models for autonomous detection, and ensuring privacy protection. The program will leverage existing disease models and “mine” existing databases to determine the most valuable early indicators for abnormal health conditions. The program will also develop techniques to determine the best way to differentiate “normal” outbreaks of disease from deliberate bio-terrorist releases. The program will develop enhanced automated privacy protection methods to assure the anonymity of records accessed by the data monitoring software. End-to-end prototypes in two cities of military interest will be constructed for evaluation of the data sources and detection techniques. The Bio-Surveillance program will dramatically increase DoD’s ability to detect a clandestine biological warfare attack in time to respond effectively and, therefore, avoid potentially thousands of casualties. During FY 2002, the program will identify, characterize, and evaluate non-traditional data sources and detection algorithms. During FY 2003, the program will incorporate disease progression simulations and privacy protection algorithms. Technology developed under this program will be available for transition to military and civilian bio-surveillance systems.

The Common Software for Autonomous Robotics component supported by the Software for Distributed Robotics (SDR) program is developing software technologies for large groups of extremely small and highly

resource-constrained micro-robots. The coordinated action of many robots achieves a collective goal, while allowing the operator to task and query the ensemble of robots as a group, rather than as individuals. The payoff will be distributed “swarm” systems of robots that robustly perform important military tasks, such as area surveillance and mine clearing. SDR has already transitioned task allocation, reusable components and energy- conserving protocols to the Army Research Laboratory’s Robotic Collaborative Tech Alliance, the Future Combat Systems - Communications program, and Urbot, being developed by the Unmanned Ground Vehicle/Systems Joint Program Office and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. In FY 2001, the program evaluated networking protocols for distributed robot control that are more energy efficient than conventional implementations. It also demonstrated software for coordinating the operation of more than 10 robotic devices in a collective task. In FY 2002, SDR will integrate the energy-conserving network protocols, natural, implicit communications modes, and user interfaces on more than 50 robots. In FY 2003, SDR will demonstrate accelerated mobility and reconnaissance and shared representations to support collaborative communication between humans and robotic systems.

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The goal of the Radio-Frequency Lightwave Integrated Circuits program is to produce photonic technology that will enable development of high performance radio frequency components that can route, control, and process analog radio frequency signals in the very broad, but militarily crucial range of 0.5 to 50 gigahertz. Applications include antenna remoting, antenna beam-forming (scanning, null scanning and multifunctional-shared apertures), signal synthesis, frequency conversion and channelization, as well as very wideband remote processing. High performance radio frequency systems are critical to a wide range of advanced military radar, electronic warfare, and secure communication applications, but they are currently restricted to deployment on large weapons platforms due to the size, weight and power characteristics of electronics-based radio frequency components. The Radio- Frequency Lightwave Integrated Circuits program will develop smaller, lighter, yet higher performance photonics- based radio frequency components capable of operating over a much broader range of radio frequencies, while also providing the form factors required by the small and rapidly mobile weapons platforms of the future. In FY 2001, the program identified key applications for integrated radio frequency photonic modules, producing initial prototypes and demonstrating methods to evaluate their performance. In FY 2002, the program is integrating recently developed emitters, waveguides, detectors, and integrated circuits to produce radio frequency photonic component prototypes. In FY 2003, the program will: (i) complete the design and fabrication of radio frequency photonic prototypes; (ii) construct test-beds capable of producing realistic systems demands for the demonstration and evaluation of radio frequency lightwave integrated circuit components and assemblies; and (iii) measure and analyze the operational impact of the photonic domain for advanced radio frequency signal transmission, conditioning and processing.

The Intelligent RF Front End program will demonstrate the benefits of Digital Control of Analog Circuits, enabling a new generation of Intelligent Microsystems with functionalities not achievable with today’s conventional integrated circuit technologies. This program will demonstrate analog/radio frequency electronic components that have the ability to self-assess and adapt in real-time (sub-microseconds) by self-tuning their impedance-matched networks, thereby extending the operational performance of analog components to the intrinsic semiconductor device limits. This technology will result in a new generation of analog, microwave, and millimeter wave components with greater than a factor-of-150 improvement in power-bandwidth and linearity-efficiency products, enabling real-time system adaptability and reconfigurability to rapidly changing battlefield scenarios and mission requirements. In FY 2002, the program will demonstrate real-time active self-assessment and monitoring of radio frequency/analog functions using nano-complementary metal oxide semiconductor digital and mixed signal technologies to achieve stability, signal agility, and multifunctionality. In FY 2003, the program will develop techniques and algorithms to monitor active device status, demonstrate MEMS tunable device optimization (less than one microsecond, 10-to-one tuning ratio), and fabricate tunable MEMS control integrated circuits and self- assessment control integrated circuits.

The Engineered Bio-Molecular Nano-Devices/Systems program will develop platform technologies to enable the creation of hybrid (organic-inorganic) nano-scale devices/systems for optical/infrared sensing, high-speed molecular sensing/readout, and bio-computing. These platforms will enable direct conversion of biological signals into digital information that can be stored or transferred (wirelessly) for further processing. Examples include a molecular readout system for DNA computing, ultra-fast bio-sensing with molecular level accuracy, and single photon sensing for imaging at low-light intensities. In FY 2003, the program will produce a platform for high- speed, direct molecular readout system for DNA computing. The readout process for DNA computing is currently very time-consuming and tedious, requiring several bio-chemical steps. The proposed system will completely eliminate these protocols and demonstrate (high-speed) direct digital conversion of DNA base-pair information.

The Bio-Computation program is exploring and developing computational methods and models at the bio- molecular and cellular levels for a variety of DoD and national security applications. The program is developing powerful, synthetic computations that can be implemented in bio-substrates, and computer-aided analytical and modeling tools that predict and control cellular processes and systems of living cells. The DoD applications of the program include: (i) the ability to predict cellular-level effects of chemical and biological agents and the underlying pathogenic processes; (ii) the effect of stress on cell functions (such as circadian rhythms) that affect warfighter performance; and (iii) mechanisms for controlling these effects. In FY 2001, we developed the initial architecture for cell modeling and simulations. In FY 2002, the program is: (i) developing scalable, DNA-based computing and storage; (ii) investigating self-assembly of engineered DNA nano-structures; (iii) developing computational models that capture the behavior of mechanisms in living cells underlying pathogenesis and rhythms that are common to many organisms; and (iv) releasing the first version of cell modeling and simulation tools. In FY 2003, the program will demonstrate the effectiveness of modeling in predicting cellular dynamics, and will identify key intra-cell mechanisms that might be potential targets of interventions in bio-defense contexts. We will also demonstrate applications of DNA-based computing, including design of nano-structures that can potentially enable highly reliable crystallography and layouts for molecular electronics.

The Bio-Magnetic Interfacing Concepts program will explore and demonstrate the utility of nanoscale magnetics as a portable, robust, and highly sensitive transduction mechanism for monitoring and controlling biological activity at the cellular and, ultimately, single molecule level. Living cells and tissues exhibit an extraordinary range of functionalities, including highly selective biochemical sensing (even in chemically noisy environments), protein synthesis, information processing, and color change. Recent developments in biotechnology offer the promise of exploiting these functionalities for sensing, diagnostic, therapeutic, and other DoD and commercial applications. However, exploitation of these functionalities in devices that can be taken out of a laboratory environment will require the development of biochemical signal transduction mechanisms that are robust, portable, and highly reliable in noisy environments. A transduction mechanism based on a bio-magnetic interface would meet these requirements and offers solutions to outstanding technical issues that continue to keep many innovative developments in biotechnology from being fielded for DoD use. For example, there are currently no hand-held biosensor devices that provide the level of sensitivity, specificity, and quantitative analysis that can be achieved using much more cumbersome (and fragile) laboratory biodetection systems. The Bio-Magnetic Interfacing Concepts program is beginning in FY 2002. Efforts during the first year are focusing on developing novel techniques for labeling cells and molecules with a well-defined magnetic moment, and novel magnetic sensor designs for detecting and quantifying magnetically labeled cells and biomolecules in a fluid environment. These efforts will continue in FY 2003 with the following goals: (i) selectively impart a well-defined magnetic moment to a wide variety of biological and chemical agents; (ii) quantifiably detect low levels of magnetically labeled biological and chemical agents; and (iii) demonstrate the use of magnetic actuation to switch on-and-off intracellular activity, such as protein synthesis, pigment change, or apoptosis (cell suicide response).

Compact portable power sources capable of generating power in the range of a few hundred milliwatts to one watt are critical to providing power for untethered sensors and other chip-scale microsystems. The objective of the MEMS Micro Power Generation program is to replace today’s technologies that rely on primary and rechargeable batteries, which severely limit mission endurance and capabilities, by extending microelectronic machine technology to develop micro-power generators based on mechanical actuation and thermal-electric power generation. Operating with traditional fuels, these micro-power generators will be capable of generating sustained power in the desired range for use with remote, field-deployed microsensors and microactuators. The MEMS micro-power generation program is focused on power needs of less than one watt. DARPA has another program, Palm Power, developing battery replacement technologies that provide 20 watts of power. In FY 2002, the program is demonstrating: capabilities in fuel processing; energy conversion to electricity; thermal and exhaust management; and MEMS micro-heat engines utilizing micro-power sources. In FY 2003, the program will demonstrate integration of various power-generation components with microsensors and microactuators. It will also demonstrate stand-alone, remotely distributed microsensors and actuators with built-in power supply and wireless communication.

The goal of the Nano Mechanical Array Signal Processors program is to create arrays of precision, nano- mechanical structures for radio frequency signal processing that will greatly reduce the size and power consumption of various communication systems, including UHF radios, communicators, Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, and massive wireless communication networks. These new microsystem chips will provide the warfighter and unmanned reconnaissance vehicles with geolocation, communications, and extended awareness capabilities. In FY 2002, the Nano Mechanical Array Signal Processors program is demonstrating fabrication techniques to control surface morphology, geometry, and material properties at the sub-micron scale, demonstrating temperature stability and electrical tenability of individual nano-resonators suitable for UHF communication, and initiating development of nano-mechanical array signal processors that will enable ultra-miniaturized (wristwatch or hearing-aid size) and ultra-low-power UHF communicators/GPS receivers. In FY 2003, the program will demonstrate several alternatives to achieving uniform arrays of up to 1024 nano-resonators with geometrical control and material uniformity at plus- or-minus 20 percent before trimming, and to plus-or-minus one percent after trimming and tuning. We will also demonstrate interconnect and isolation (multiplexed, serial, or random access) of individual resonators. This will lead to the ultimate goal of integrating a uniform array of resonators to replace analog frequency-domain signal processing complementary metal oxide semiconductor circuits, while achieving 100 times reduction in size and power consumption, and 10 times improvement in spectral performance.

So how far is too far?

[FastTadpole]

Very interesting tidbits from the recent IEEE Conference from Hewlett Packard's Joe Weinman that elude to the CeNSE network - nano deployment (not the tape drive devices you've seen in the X-Ray Earth propaganda video by National Geographic (torrent); the VHS tape devices JazzRoc was referring to upthread. Special mention of China in this thread, leads to follow up on that front with the HP rep's name dropping.

Quote:2020 via time machine: networks and systems
By Joe Weinman Jun. 12, 2011

Edit Note : This is the second of a two-part series on this event. The first post can be read here.

Last week’s IEEE Technology Time Machine Symposium brought together leading academics, engineers, executives, and government officials from around the world, to engage in presentations and dialogue regarding the evolution of technology over the next decade. In yesterday’s post, I reviewed some of the insights regarding devices and technologies. Today, we’ll address networks and larger-scale systems such as smart grids.

Networks

Wireless continues to get better, with more bandwidth in more places. LTE offers a several-fold improvement over HSPA or HSPA+ in data rates as well as a ten-fold reduction in latency. However, operator executives such as Telstra CTO Dr. Hugh Bradlow and NTT Docomo VP Dr. Minoru Etoh pointed out that peak bandwidth is what customers tend to focus on, but total network capacity is the main challenge in providing an excellent customer experience: it’s nice to own a Lamborghini, but won’t get your there any faster at rush hour.

A single user may easily be able to get an HD video stream wirelessly over LTE, but Telstra studies have shown that only a few dozen end-users of a base station can do that simultaneously: due to LTE sector throughput limitations under good conditions. Moreover, this is not some temporary technology glitch or fault of underinvestment, but a challenging limit due to usable frequencies based on radio signal propagation characteristics and information theory.

This insight calls into question the approach being proposed where millions or billions of very “dumb” thin-client devices are wirelessly linked to entertainment and intelligence in the cloud. For devices, networks, and the cloud to function effectively at scale, smart trade-offs will need to be made in real time between when to render computationally challenging scenes in the cloud and send the scene over the network, and when to send raw information over the network for local rendering. Operators will also have to figure out how to manage priorities across users. Consequently, Bradlow sees intelligent traffic management as the key challenge of emerging wireless networks.

On the other hand, putting more cells with a smaller coverage radius could work, such as femtocells or even using Wi-Fi, but this means more wired networks to backhaul the traffic, reducing some of the ease-of-deployment benefits of wireless networks. Prof. Hequan Wu, former vice-chairman of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out that China Unicom’s mobile data traffic had recently grown 62 percent. In a single quarter. China Mobile’s grew 10 times its previous rate — in a single year. Mobile video is the challenge to solve, everything else is just rounding error.

For the Shanghai World Expo 2010, 10,000 mobile video cameras were installed on trucks and buses for security purposes. Consider the future hurdle of every passenger car sending or receiving several mobile video streams, as each passenger streams an on-demand movie or participates in a video conference. Moreover, Wu said that in some large Chinese cities, densities were up to 140,000 users per square kilometer.

HP’s Dr. Peter Hartwell dove into sensor networks, pointing out that the Internet of Things becomes really useful when dynamic data is used for real-time decision-making. A broad variety of sensors (temperature, humidity, power use) will all be integrated with processing and wireless connectivity into a single chip, enabling new applications, ranging from eHealth to smart grids. Hartwell pointed out that, as with cell phones, size will shrink and features will multiply. A variety of technologies are being incorporated here, such as “energy harvesting” to scavenge power from the environment, e.g., from vibration.

Putting it all together.

While the status and trends of many point technologies was addressed in depth, the consistent theme running through the conference might be said to be a more intelligent world, based on more information from more devices being used in real time to optimize the human experience while enhancing efficiency and environmental sustainability. Nokia Services EVP Dr. Tero Ojanpera stated that anonymized, real-time data from mobile devices is the “ultimate collective intelligence,” enabling everything from optical vehicular traffic routing to locating a popular restaurant to creation of accurate maps. George Arnold, national coordinator for smart grid interoperability at NIST, observed that smart grid efforts will turn the traditional approach of building capacity to meet demand on its head, focusing instead on shaping demand to fit within capacity. Light bulbs with embedded Wi-Fi chips will be able to not only report that they are on, but reduce their output when the power infrastructure is stressed. And, the smart grid approach — which Arnold observed is the use of IT and communications technologies for utilities — isn’t limited to just electricity, but is also being applied to other utilities such as water and natural gas.

Telecom Italia’s Roberto Saracco described the potential of a “mirror world,” a virtual world that is not just a play world in another galaxy or for social networking, but an exact virtual duplicate of the real-world populated with data from a variety of sensors. Such an environment might mean that by the time this conference is held in 2020, everyone will have the opportunity for face-to-face interaction—without having to physically travel to Hong Kong, or wherever, and the ability to shake hands—remotely, via haptic interfaces.

A hopeful, positive attitude was pervasive at the event, with NEC’s President Dr. Nobuhiro Endo outlining a strategy and future which is “friendlier to people, and friendlier to the planet.” Pervasive information and insight, emerging technologies, crowd-sourced intelligence, cloud-based global optimization, greener approaches, reduced power, and ease of use through natural interfaces may yet help solve some of the problems facing the world today.

Joe Weinman leads Communications, Media, and Entertainment Industry Solutions for Hewlett-Packard. The views expressed herein are his own.

http://gigaom.com/2011/06/12/2020-via-ti...d-systems/

Part one explores cheap sensors everywhere approach - with focus on Microsoft technologies, 3D Service and a move to cyber-humanism. This sounds a lot like the world Jesse Schell had described in his keynote on G4TV last year.