SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

Fans who attended Rock Werchter, the Belgian music festival that ended Sunday, were being tracked by Bluetooth scanners as they enjoyed the music of  Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails, Fleet Foxes, Metallica, Oasis and numerous other bands.

Researchers from the University of Ghent set up a network of 36 Bluetooth scanners at the festival site as well as on a few surrounding roads and bus stops that noted each of the 80,000 daily attendees as he or she came within 30 meters (approximately 100 feet).

The resulting data is the first time a large crowd has been tracked in a live situation, according to the researchers. They added that privacy wasn’t a concern since they only tracked MAC addresses (the unique identifier assigned by the manufacturer) and therefore cannot be linked to an individual user.

Some fans who attended the UK’s Download Festival last month encountered a different unexpected Bluetooth application. Local police and the Leicestershire Drug and Alcohol Action Team asked if they wanted to opt in to receive free informational animated messages. Among those that were sent out were friendly advisories on alcohol and drug use.

(Title lyric from the Dead Kennedys.)

Dr. Yadong Yin has figured out a way to mimic nature’s iridescent colors in a controlled manner using magnetochromatic microspheres. Butterfly wings, bird’s feathers and other naturally occurring iridescence is caused by light waves cancelling each other out in some places and reinforcing them in others, as the Economist explains. Dr. Yin does it by using a magnetic field to rearrange the microstructures of incredibly tiny iron oxide polymer beads suspended in oil.

Earlier reports noted that the bead goo was liquid, so its practical applications were limited. But now Dr. Yin has progressed to where the bead goo only has to be liquid when it’s actively changing color. This opens up possibilities for ink, textiles, environmentally safer paint, and posters that can be updated in situ – just heat it up, change the colors however you like, then let it cool and solidify again.

Personally I’m thinking of fun with nail polish and lipstick, like the receptionist in Total Recall.

(Title lyric is from A.F.I..)

Wind turbines, like those used to generate electricity in wind farms, are killing bats without even touching them. The primary theory for this tragic reality is that the change in atmospheric pressure is enough to cause hemorrhaging in the bats’ lungs.

A Boston University study in the Journal of Wildlife Management used infrared video (pictured) in its research. You can read the entire report here [pdf link].

(Title lyric by Neil Young/Crazy Horse.)

Domestic air carriers are ramping up their in-flight entertainment systems, according to the mildly obsessed  Jaunted.com. Seat-back LCD screens and complete in-flight entertainment and connectivity systems are becoming more widespread.

The theory is that passengers will be less cranky if they’re not as bored, in addition to which these systems offer new opportunities for incremental revenue.

The article is well worth checking out before booking your next flight. It gives a fairly detailed breakdown of what is available on each airline (Virgin’s is pictured),  and concludes with an informative comparison chart.

(Title lyric is from Dolly Parton.)

British supermarket Sainsbury’s is trying out a kinetic energy system at its store in Gloucester. It’s based on a series of plates embedded in the surface of the parking lot that generate power whenever a car drives over them. The system is expected to provide enough electricity to power all of the store’s registers – 30 kW an hour – without disturbing cyclists or drivers.

The parking lot generator is from UK company Highway Energy Systems. Sainsbury’s has contracted for a similar system from California-based AEST to be installed at its truck depot in Pinehurst.

Sainsbury’s said the company estimates it will recoup its costs in two years.

(Title lyric from Suede.)

Nokia let it be known that it is working on a wireless technology for recharging phones and other devices. The Palm Pre already has its Touchstone cordless dock, but Nokia takes that magnetic connection to a whole new level by eliminating the dock entirely.

The Nokia Research Centre project uses ambient electromagnetic radiation (AER), the radio wave-based technology that makes RFID tags work, and is expected to become available in 2013.

Phones would last longer between charges as well, since they could be receiving a constant trickle of power.

(Title lyric from Kylie Minogue.)

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My life is reasonably boring, I have nothing to hide, and I’m certain that I would be grateful if a CCTV camera helped capture – or better yet, deter – someone causing harm to me or someone I love. But there’s still something wrong about a society that habitually spies on its fellow humans.

The BBC is running a multi-part documentary called Who’s Watching You? and has an extensive website looking at this topic.

Early this year, the UK’s House of Lords issued an official report called Surveillance: Citizens and the State, which in part noted that nobody really knows how effective these measures are, much less whether the cost in privacy and trust in government is worthwhile.

That hasn’t prevented the unpopular UK government from proposing that it monitors all phone calls and internet usage. The government also began rolling out a national program of noting when and where all car license plates happen to be.

Already, telecoms companies log details of the times, dates, duration and locations of mobile phone calls, numbers called, website visited and addresses e-mailed under a voluntary agreement. These records are supposed to be destroyed after a year, but there are no clear guidelines for who has access to this information or what can be done with it.

The Liberal Democrat party said the government’s plans were “incompatible with a free country and a free people.”

In a 2007 study analyzing to what degree countries keep their citizens under surveillance, the United Kingdom was in the bottom five – right down there with Russia, China and Singapore. The United States was in the bottom ten, but was noted as “improving.”

(Title lyric by Elvis Costello.)

A town in Minnesota won the legal right to supply every one of its homes with fiber. The government of Monticello decided to lay its own fiber optic network, but the local phone company sued them. Bridgewater, a unit of TDS Telecom, contended that since Internet provision wasn’t a utility the project was an unfair use of government power to compete with private business.

While the legal wheels slowly turned, the telco took the opportunity to roll out its own fiber network.

Now, Monticello and other towns thinking of similar infrastructure projects are facing a completely different environment – one that has an existing fiber network already in place, and therefore one in which a municipal project is more difficult to justify.

(Title lyrics from Minnesota Strip by the Dictators.)

The Produced By conference has a great agenda. I’d like to hear Oscar-winning producer-director James Cameron discussing his upcoming 3D tentpole Avatar, especially if he will be showing any of it. Also, I’d listen to anything Gale Anne Hurd and the production team of Clint Eastwood and Rob Lorenz had to say.

But one session in particular stands out as being truly forward-looking. The New Big Bang: Participant Content and the Future of Storytelling will explore collaborative storytelling and the implications of emerging platforms. The four speakers are: Yair Landau, Founder and President, Mass Animation (and also General Partner, Jerusalem Venture Partners and former Vice Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment/President of Sony Pictures Digital); Jeff Gomez CEO, Starlight Runner Entertainment (Hasbro’s Transformers, Coca-Cola’s Happiness Factory, Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean); David Kirkpatrick, Chairman and Executive Managing Officer, Plymouth Rock Studios; and Frank Moss, Director, MIT Media Lab.

Other highlights include a stellar panel of independent producers: Lawrence Bender, Roger Corman, Norman Lear and Michael London. Mark Gordon and Lawrence Gordon will be discussing all aspects of being a producer. There’s even a selection of the best giving insights into performance/motion capture production technology.

(Title lyric by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.)