Recently in Technology Category

Today I was browsing through the exhibits at the conference when I stumbled upon an interesting new product called Layered Voice Analysis (LVA).

LVA is software that analyzes 129 frequency parameters found in the human voice and provides an emotional/psychological profile of the speaker. It shows, for example, when a subject is being deceptive, excited or stressed.

To illustrate LVA's capabilities, the vendor had set up a large plasma screen showing the software running alongside a clip of Bill Clinton's now famous debate with Mike Wallace on Faux News.

As Clinton was speaking, the word "Truthful" continually flashed on the screen, punctuated occasionally by "High Levels of Stress". Who said telling the truth was easy? On several occasions when Wallace interjected or responded, the word "Inaccuracy" would flash on the screen.

I'm not making this up. I only watched a couple of minutes but found the demonstration fascinating. Now when can I buy a set-top box version to attach to my TV?

Of course, for watchers of Faux News, you wouldn't need to invest in this technology. Just place a sign on top of your set that says, "Lies, Damned Lies and Lying Liars" and you'll be set.

According to USA Today, the so-called 'homeland security' business (aka the military-industrial-security complex) is now worth $59 billion a year. That's how much governments and businesses spend to 'thwart terrorosts', whatever that term means in practice. Homeland security is bigger than the motion picture and music industries.

The big winners?

• The usual lineup of military contractors: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Ericsson, etc.
  
• Accenture, a $15 billion a year services company headquartered in Bermuda.
• The biometric industry and other whiz-bang technologies with limited or unproven effectivess.
  

Are we getting any value for all these billions?

Consultant Doug Laird, who worked for the U.S. Secret Service and was Northwest Airlines' security director, criticizes the Department of Homeland Security for awarding so many contracts to large corporations.

In general, he says, the contractors oversell the security value of their goods and services. Further, he says, the government exercises inadequate oversight.

"The DHS has pretty much given them an open check to supply products and services," he says.

Often, the large corporations "have no idea about" the work that needs to be done, Laird says. "In my opinion, it's a total rip-off."

The question on everybody's lips: Has the world become any safer? 

A friend forwarded an interesting piece from Friday's New York Times concerning the recent appointment of Rev. Alvin O'Neal Jackson as senior pastor of the Park Avenue Christian Church in Manhattan.

Evidence mounts that Sony BMG knew that their new XCP copy protection scheme posed a security risk to consumers before the issue went public, but went ahead with it anyway... Or, as Ed Felten puts it:

We know already that entertainment companies want to redesign our computers in the hope (which is ultimately futile) of stopping copying. From there, it’s not so large a step to decide that users’ security simply must be sacrificed on the altar of copy protection.

Thank God at least for NY state Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Elliot Spitzer, who launched an investigation into the matter last month. This wouldn't be the first time that Sony and other recording companies came under the Spitzer microscope. In May 2004, Sony and several other companies agreed to return nearly $50 million in unclaimed royalties to thousands of unpaid artists that they couldn't bother tracking down.

Apparently the recording industry will go to extreme and even illegal lengths to protect its own profits, but not those of the artists on whom it depends. Or, in Sony BMG's own words:

Going forward, we will continue to identify new ways to meet demands for flexibility in how you and other consumers listen to music.

Can't wait for that!

I was walking to the office from the bus stop, using my BlackBerry to read this article in the Washington Post, about BlackBerry users:

Since it hit the market seven years ago, BlackBerry has accelerated the pace of business and bred a generation of workers who rely on constant e-mail updates ... The device has even spawned modern afflictions such as "BlackBerry thumb," from typing too much on the tiny keyboard, and CrackBerry addiction, for those who can't look up from it while eating, walking or even driving.

Wow, how did they know?

OK, so I'm just trying to increase my chances of being read...

But before you turn that virtual page, consider this: Sony Music wants to control your Windows or Macintosh PC and obtain your personal data without your consent, and has hatched a cunning strategy to do just that.