InVisible

Fuminori Yamasaki, CEO iXs Research Corporation Shows a small ECO Robot KHR-1, that is sold for $1'000. He shows that it can walk, stand on it’s arms, somersault and make a cartwheel. It is used for example for battle competitions between humanoid robots. There are 100 competitors that match their robots every 6 months, so they have to make new robots every 6 months. The hardware has become very good, but nobody knows about a purpose or usage yet (unlike the car, which has a purpose and high infrastructure needs (roads, gas stations) ...

Walter Hehl, IBM Research Center Ruschlikon Gives a broad overview on the progression of computer processing power and storage and how this influences “pervasive” computing. Interesting points: “What was once private is now public”, “what was once hard to copy, is now trivial to duplicate” and “what was once easily forgotten, is now stored forever.” (Ron Rivest) IBM sees the nexus of “intelligence” in a household in the various incarnations of PlayStations, X-Boxes. Supposedly they started 5-6 years ago to design the (cell)processors that power or will power these devices. ...

Things to do at a conference: There shall be drinks and food. Preferably free. Preferably drinkable (coffee in the shape of dark water is not enough - especially if it costs CHF 1.50). I don’t mind paying for a beer or something solid to eat. But water/coffee/fruits have to be available. There shall be Wireless LAN and electricity. Collaboration at a conference is not possible without. (it seems though, that there should be wireless access - it’s just not working) ...

Das “Big Brother” Panel Die Debattierenden waren wirklich nett zueinander, sagten nicht viel neues und sind meiner Meinung nach am Thema vorbeigeschrammt. Neben dem Datensammeln im Namen der nationalen Sicherheit, das a) zur Sicherheit notig ist (Peter Regli) aber b) nicht transparent ist und deshalb gefahrlich (Matthias Leisi), dem Hacken von Krankheitsgeschichten durch WLAN lauschen vor dem Krankenhaus (Dominik Flammer). Wirklich gefahrlich scheint mir etwas ganz anderes zu sein: Das Datensammeln in grossem Stil wird durch die Firmen betrieben. Sony hat mit dem CD Debakel vorgemacht, was passieren kann, wenn Firmen um des Profit willens zu unlauteren Methoden greifen. Google ist zwar “not evil”, aber wie lange noch? Die Datensammlung, die Überwachung von uns wird freiwillig geschehen. Der Staat mit seinen Überwachungsanforderungen wird eine geringe Rolle spielen als die Firmen, die den glasernen Konsumenten mochten. ...

**Update: **The mp3 recording of the speech is online Professor, Dr., Cyberpunk (What would William Gibson say) Bruce Sterling gave a speech called “The Hacker Crackdown”, a reference to his 15 year old book about “hackers” and how the ideas and ideals have changed over time. Starting off by comparing the original motivations for “romantic computer hacker” Anonymity, Pseudonymity or a stolen identity. Took place in another space - cyberspace Hacking involved gangs. Loose, laterally organised networks, smart mobs. ...

Elmar Ledergerber, the mayor of Zurich, greets the - not to many - visitors and wishes “happy tweaking” The team behind tweakfest, explains the reasoning behind Tweakfest and what awaits us. The agenda and the goals of tweakfest look impressive. 10 things are going to be premiered, a lot of speakers. Art meets commerce. I’m probably going to blog in german for the rest of tweakfest, because the constant translation between german and english is getting difficult. ...