The trouble with top-level domains

I’ve been reading a little bit recently about the new top-level domains that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will begin selling at the beginning of 2012. In addition to the .XXX domain specially for porn sites, ICANN will begin selling customized top-level domains (TLD) to corporations for their own commercial use.

So, for example, the McDonald’s website, now at <mcdonalds.com> could become <mc.donalds>. Or they could put the whole name of the company as the TLD and use the second level domain as individual pages. So when McDonald’s wants to bring back the McRib again, they could tell you to simply visit <mcrib.mcdonalds> for more details (as if you really need details on the McRib…).

This whole process of the XXX TLD and customized TLDs has been ongoing for the past several months; however, as we near the date where ICANN will begin selling these domains, objections are beginning to be raised.

And like their bellwether decisions to back VHS over Betamax and Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, pornographers have raised the objections first. Among other points of consternation, the pornography companies are concerned that if their websites are all under the .XXX TLD, it will make it that much easier for oppressive governments to block traffic from their sites, since government firewalls will just be able to sweepingly block all .XXX TLDs.

Of course, this may be part of the reasoning behind ICANN’s decision to allow the .XXX TLD in the first place. Also, many oppressive regimes go beyond simple firewalls to control the message of the Internet in their countries — for more on this, I recommend Morozov’s The Net Delusion; it’s an enlightening, critical examination of the Internet’s democratizing potential.

Another problem that has been pointed out is the threat of cybersquatters — these were the people in the mid-90s who had the foresight to snatch up hot online properties like <disney.com> and sell them back to their respective namesake companies for hefty profits. And they’re back to do the same thing in the early-10′s.

Beyond the cybersquatter just looking to make some easy money (albeit with large upfront investment), I could see problems with companies fighting one another for a TLD.

Let’s say two companies want to go the route described above of having the second half of their name as the TLD (the mc.donalds example). Those two companies are Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola. Each of them want to have the .cola TLD for their new website so they can have <coca.cola> and <pepsi.cola>, respectively. And not to sound too skeptical, but I don’t see them coming to an agreement where they co-own .cola and use it in tandem.

And what about .inc? That could be one of the best TLDs to snatch up right away. You could have companies like Apple Inc. knocking down your door trying to get that digital property wrenched from your control.

Assuming, of course, they don’t simply want <app.le>.

World Usability Day 2011 in Indianapolis

Last week, I attended the 2011 World Usability Day Conference, held each year by the Usability Professionals’ Association, in Indianapolis, Indiana. The conference was quite informative with several good speakers and panels. One particular panelist that sticks out in my mind had to do with the bridge method of design, an iterative and circular process that can be applied to everything, from interface design to getting dressed in the morning.

I also presented, along with my colleague, a poster about our research lab. At my job with the Center for Media Design, more specifically Insight & Research, we have a naturalistic lab space that is a house converted into a usability lab. The object of the lab is to provide a natural setting to participants for usability testing so that they don’t feel like they are in a sterile lab environment.

Here is a blog post with the content of our poster retooled for the blog format.

And here is the poster itself, although parts may be difficult to read since I had to scale it down from a 24″ x 36″ size.

Edit: Here is another blog post, describing more of the capabilities of the usability lab.

I’m back…

…Finally!!

I had a heck of a time trying to get this blog set up properly. One little misspelling in the creation process, and I’m set back a couple-few weeks. So now all these timely blog posts I wanted to write are completely irrelevant…

Remember when Blackberry’s email service went down for several days? Well, I wanted to write an eloquent piece about how Amazon needs to go on the PR warpath and explain how their new Kindle Fire (who’s web browsing is funneled through Amazon’s servers) will never be afflicted by such an outage.

But now that those events are three or four weeks in the past, there’s really no need for me to comment on them (although the above paragraph is pretty much the gist of any post I would have made).

What I can discuss while remaining timely and relevant is the reasoning behind my new blog location and name. Regular readers of my old blog will recall that I am a graduate student with the Center for Information and Communication Sciences at Ball State University. I started my original blog as a class assignment and became very interested in maintaining a professional blog about technology beyond a class requirement. This interest coincided with the timely death of the server housing my old CICS blog. So I was thankfully able to archive all of my old posts, bring them over to the WordPress servers, and host from here.

So why “Tech Eolaí?” Well, I wanted a name that stayed with the idea of my old blog as an information and communication scientist. But I didn’t want to use cliché terms like… well… “scientist.” Or “guru.” Or “knowledgtician” … actually that might have worked. Nevertheless, I started thinking about my own heritage (largely, but not exclusively, Irish), and I thought about words that translated to “scientist.”

And that’s how I came across “eolaí,” pronounced “ole-ee” or “yole-ee.” It is a Gaelic word that translates to guide, scientist, and (in certain contexts) knowledgtician. So obviously, the tech eolaí is someone that is knowledgable in the field of technology and can act as a guide in this ever-changing field.

So come back often, add me to your RSS feed, find me via the myriad social networking channels, and I’ll do whatever I can to act as your eolaí in the fast-paced world of technology.

New Blog, New Name…

…But pretty much the same type content.

Hello all. This blog is a continuation of my old blog, Thoughts of an ICT Scientist. Normally, since I’m a studious blogger that knows to provide links and citations, I would give you a link to my aforementioned old blog. However, the server housing said blog is dying a slow, painful death and it would take you upward of 5 minutes to load everything properly.

So instead, I’ve imported all of my old posts for your reading pleasure.

Some of the hyperlinks within the archived posts that linked to other archived posts might still need updating (which I will do over the next couple days), so hang in there if you’re constantly being directed to a crappy, slow-loading tech blog.

Just a couple quick updates

This isn’t really going to be a post of any new ground-breaking revelations, just a couple updates to posts I did recently. They’re topics I am greatly interested in, so I wanted to keep my dozens of faithful readers and spambots up to date.

I talked about the beginnings of the cyberwar with LulzSec at the forefront. Well, since that writing, they’ve done more destruction than I care to recap here but most salient, is that they have officially joined forces with Anonymous (you remember Anonymous and WikiLeaks, right?) and have declared open war against “all governments, banks, and fat cats.” I don’t want to say “I toldja so,” so I won’t.

Also, I wrote recently about the growing necessity of biometrics due to the rapid dissemination of personal info especially via social networking sites. Well, after I wrote that, James Gleick (author of The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood) wrote a similar piece about how easily available such information is. However, he didn’t make the same link as I did, in terms of biometrics. Still interesting and coming from a more well-known author than myself.

That’s it. And remember to bookmark this blog as your one-stop-shop for all news relavent to my interests.

Edit: updated a link with better history of LulzSec’s exploits

There really ISN’T an app for that… yet

So I like technology. It’s probably obvious if you’ve read any of my other posts here, but one thing you may not know about me is that I am a voracious cyclist. I prefer to bicycle just about anywhere I can go. And the next major move that I make to go to school for a PhD, I am going to attempt to live entirely car-less (it’s rather difficult to do that in Muncie, IN).

Given my love for technology and my extra-intense-love for bicycling, it’s only fitting that I combine the two.

So I have iMapMyRide, an iPhone app that is specially designed to track one’s bicycle ride via GPS. You can also do all sorts of fun things, like calculate average speed, calories burned, and of course the obligatory ability to post your route to Twitter.

However, as an urban cyclist, I don’t usually have much of a need for knowing my route after the fact. If I’m unsure of where I’m going, I want the ability to plan a route.

Now there are plenty of iPhone apps out there aimed at cyclists, however, none of them can do exactly what I want them to do.

Essentially what there needs to be is a Google Maps for cyclists.

In Google Maps for the iPhone, I can plan a route to drive, a route to walk, even a route for public transportation (which is kind of odd, since the route is already pre-determined with public transportation). However, the best routes to drive or walk are often unsuitable for cycling.

Thus, my unfulfilled need for an app that knows the best roads for cycling, acknowledges that cyclists shouldn’t be going the wrong way up one-way roads, and will avoid sidewalks at all costs (which are ideals that all cyclists should live by).

The closest thing I’ve been able to find is this app, but it looks like it only works in the UK. So if you’re an American, a cyclist, and you love programming in Cocoa, please use this idea and let me beta test it for you.

Technology = Biology?

In my last post, I discussed a research technique for what to do when you have the answer but need a question. Continuing with the theme of research, I thought I’d share some preliminary research I am doing for the Digital Policy Institute (an organization in which I am a research associate).

As part of my duties of helping a couple professors write a chapter for an upcoming book, I’ve been looking at The Nature of Technology: What it is and How it Evolves by W. Brian Arthur. Specifically, I’ve been looking at chapter 9, which, for those reading along at home, can be found between pages 167 and 189.

Firstly, Arthur describes the “collective of technology,” which consists of “all technologies that have ever existed, past and present” (p. 167). Arthur’s central thesis to the chapter, and even the entire book, is that the collective of technology “evolves by a process of self-creation: new elements (technologies) are constructed from ones that already exist, and these offer themselves as possible building-block elements for the construction of still further elements” (p. 167).

In other words, technology builds upon itself and (with obvious human intervention) is essentially self-replicating.

Arthur’s thesis statement can, at first, seem a little far-fetched. However, he does a stupendous job of explaining exactly what he means: “Any solution to a human need – any novel means to a purpose – can only be made manifest in the physical world using methods and components that already exist in that world. Novel technologies are therefore brought into being – made possible – from some set of existing ones. Always” (p. 168).

In the same vein, Arthur discusses the idea of technology being autopoietic, or “self-creating” or “self-bringing-forth” (p. 170). He continues, that “every novel technology is created from existing ones, and therefore that every technology stands upon a pyramid of others that made it possible in a succession that goes back to the earliest phenomena that humans captured” (p. 170). I love the imagery of the pyramid of technology, nevertheless…

When thought of in these terms, Arthur’s thesis statement goes from being a little far-fetched to seemingly obvious. And Arthur explains this quite well, starting with the very first technologies used by humans (stone, wood, etc.) and explains how different combinations lead to fire, metallurgy, weapons, agriculture, harnessing of energy, science, electronics, etc. ad infinitum.

Harking back to the image of the pyramid, Arthur also brings to mind the idea of a nodal map for technology (which are becoming more and more popular in illustrating the connections of social networking websites, or even the Internet as a whole). The basic idea is that each technology (Arthur refers to them as “elements”) is represented by a single point/node. Each of these nodes is linked to its parent nodes (the technologies that preceded it) and its children nodes (the technologies that succeeded it) (p. 177).

The final main point I want to discuss here is Arthur’s idea of different steps that each technology follows (p. 178):
1) the technology is created
2) the technology becomes available to replace previously existing technologies
3) the technology creates new opportunities/niches that it can fill
4) the technology becomes eligible to serve as a component of a future, yet-to-be-created technology

The steps above are not all of the steps Arthur lays out (I would have to explain a lot more of the chapter for every step to make sense), although the basic idea is still there: that these steps set up the idea that technology is not only evolutionary but algorithmic. The more that is built, the more that can subsequently be built, and from there, even more can built, and so on. As Arthur says “there is no reason that such evolution, once in motion, should end” (p. 181).

This final conclusion is great. It brings to mind Ray Kurzweil, who has discussed at great length the algorithmic (i.e., exponential) evolution of not only technology but also biology, industry, and eventually biotechnology. Kurzweil is also a big fan of the exponential growth idea, but he characterizes it as an exponential growth that has been occurring on this planet since it was formed roughly 4.6 billion years ago.

So if you have the chance, I highly recommend flipping through The Nature of Technology, and if you like that, check out Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near. Both are very good, very interesting, and will no doubt leave you scratching your head as you contemplate all of human existence and its achievements.

Happy reading.

The Jeopardy trick: a way to find what you’re actually researching

As part of my capstone class with the Center for Information and Communication Sciences, we’ve been examining Howard S. Becker’s Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You’re Doing It. Before I go any further, I just have to say that if you are a researcher by trade, this is a book that you should look into. It’s not a how-to of different research techniques, rather it’s a compendium of tricks and tips for any researcher, from amateur to professional.

For our assignment, each person in the class (all five of us) have examined a trick from the book, summarized it in a nice little handout, and presented it to the class. My technique is called, by Becker, “Nine Wagner” and, if you’re following along at home, can be found on page 121.

The basic idea of this trick is that it is based on an old parlor trick called “Nein! Wagner!” In this game, one player thinks of a phrase that could be the answer to a question (in this case “Nein! Wagner!”). The other players are supposed to come up with a question that would make sense with the answer. For example, the other player could then ask “Is this piece written by Mozart?” To which the answer is “Nein! Wagner!”

I, however, call this method the Jeopardy Trick, since, like the Alex Trebek gameshow classic of the same name, you have the answer but need to find the question.

In terms of research, this trick is more useful for the budding, amateur researcher. Oftentimes, when a new researcher must interview someone for data collection, they are unsure of what questions to ask, and the questions they do ask lead participants to give disjointed, irrelevant answers that seem to not help the researcher toward his or her endgoal. With this data, the now confused researcher employs the Jeopardy Trick and tries to formulate questions that this data could answer.

According to Becker, this trick generally makes his students unhappy since it reveals to them that their data does indeed serve no purpose, and they have to go back to the drawing board and reformulate their research questions, interview questions, or even overall scope.

However, Becker encourages you to not get discouraged if you come to this same conclusion, since you’ve now figured out, through investigation, what you’re not looking for. This leads to the aforementioned reformulation of your research.

Becker terms this reformulation as “conceptual construction,” the process of finding out what you are not interested in (in terms of your research), which, thus, leads to you determining what you are interested in and what you need to do to properly research it.

Personally, I’ve never used this technique (of course, I did just learn it); however, having conducted more than a few interviews with research participants, I could definitely see how it could be useful (especially, when I think back to my undergraduate thesis when I didn’t really know what I was doing when it came to research).

At any rate, I highly recommend Tricks of the Trade. It’s not the most elegantly flowing read ever; however, the index is good, and you can always easily find new tricks for research that might you help you out sooner than you think.

Living the cyberwar as we speak?

So somewhat breaking news… an anonymous group of hackers (calling themselves LulzSec) have, as of this writing, just a few hours ago announced their successful hacking of a security firm closely associated with the FBI.

They announced their hack on Twitter and linked to a story of bribery and corruption among whitehat hackers.

I wrote not too long ago about how I believe the online battle between Anonymous and several online payment firms over Wikileaks is the first major test of the Internet.

However, I think this attack notches us up from “a major test of the Internet” to “the beginnings of a cyberwar.” The tweets posted by LulzSec are downright brazen. They not only notified everybody of what they plan to do 45 minutes beforehand, but they also exposed 700 MB of stolen emails (which themselves, exposed what LulzSec claims to be a secret FBI plan to take control of the Libyan network).

Something tells me that the FBI won’t take this lying down. I can very much see the FBI coming after LulzSec (I’m actually surprised their website is still up and running).

Although I doubt that no matter how hard the FBI hits back at LulzSec, this won’t stop. The cyberwar is a no-win situation; like the War on Drugs or the War on Terror. Take out one drug ring, another pops up. Take out one terrorist cell, another takes its place. Take out one hacking ring, another will surely appear. The enemy is elusive, geographically dispersed, and without formal organization and leadership. Guerilla warfare. There is no final victory.

The cyberwar is just now starting… and I don’t see it going away anytime soon.

The (soon-to-be much needed) rise of biometrics

I’ve been thinking about biometrics lately. For those that don’t know, biometrics is a method of being able to identify someone based solely on physical features. Hollywood and the media seems to always portray it as a government agent using a retina or hand scan to gain access to a secret facility.

However, while it’s a technology being embraced by government and industry alike, it’s also a technology that is becoming much more accessible to consumers and is being integrated into several products, such as HP’s line of laptops that use a fingerprint scanner for logging in and other password-related activities.

One area that I think biometrics has a huge future in is personal data security. And this future is largely a product of the widespread adoption of the Internet, most notably social networks (but also blogs and personal websites to a lesser extent).

I say this because on social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, the user is encouraged to divulge all sorts of seemingly benign information about themselves, such as schools attended and when, pets’ names, and personal hobbies. Additionally, the user’s family members are also noted as such in the list of friends.

Where this becomes a problem is when these very pieces of information are used as identity confirmation when applying for bank loans, paying bills online or over the phone, and for basic password recovery questions.

It doesn’t help the bank to ask for someone’s mother’s maiden name on an loan application if anyone can view that same person’s mother’s Facebook page and see, not only her maiden name, but where she works, what she does for fun, and what she ate for breakfast this morning.

Thus, the need for biometrics. Instead of using these now easily attainable, basic facts about someone to prove his/her identity, biometrics will increasingly be used.

And it could be all sorts biometric identification used. For transactions over the phone, voiceprint identification could be used. If it’s something online, users could be identified through the fingerprint scanner built into their computer or maybe facial recognition via their webcam.

Regardless, I think biometrics have a very bright future in this area, and you can thank Mark Zuckerberg and Biz Stone for that future.