Ileana Buhan, a Romanian computer scientist, has recently presented her PhD Thesis at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. She is using biometrics to protect confidential information when it is exchanged between two mobile devices. This is a very innovative approach to security. Buhan’s biometric application will generate almost unbreakable passwords from photos taken by the connected users. Here is how it works. ‘To do this, two users need to save their own photos on their PDAs. They then take photos of each other. The PDA compares the two photos and generates a security code for making a safe connection.’ But read more if you’re not convinced…

Links: ZDNet, Primidi

The Wall Street Journal reports today that “Sprint Will Kick Off a Series of Eight Football Phone-Casts”:

For the first time Thursday, a National Football League game — the Cleveland Browns vs. the Denver Broncos — will be broadcast on Sprint mobile phones as part of the wireless company’s exclusive partnership with the league. That partnership deal is valued at about $500 million over five years.

Over the next seven weeks, Sprint will phone-cast the eight games that are televised solely on the NFL Network, the league’s cable channel. For the past three seasons, the NFL has struggled to persuade major cable operators to include its channel in their basic programming packages.

With the NFL Network is available in only about 40% of American households, Sprint executives hope the NFL games can do for their company what the league’s Sunday Ticket package has done for satellite-television provider DirecTV Group. Sunday Ticket, which is exclusive to DirecTV, allows dedicated fans to see every NFL game on Sunday afternoons, and has been crucial to DirectTV’s growth.

The Presidential election held yesterday makes a new kind of history, as the tipping point away from dominance by old media. Not only has user generated content and the blogosphere emerged to often scoop the MSM, and to add competitive nuance, slant, and consensus. There is a root level change: news gathering and presentation in this election has swung to the smart mob era. For example, the Yahoo Political Dashboard gathers (mobs) information elections results in ways that makes both print and air media obsolete. Print media has no way to refresh itself every 5 minutes, much less “NOW.” Air media whizzes by in time — it is repeatable but not refreshable.

The internet will have more political history to make. I would predict that we will be have experimental online voting in 2012 and by 2016 our inalienable right to vote — which will have become genuine in many more parts of the world by then — will by exercised using our mobile device.

It is the 4th of November, 2008. Today, we are privileged to be able to witness and experience one of the most anticipated elections in the history of all democracies. As Americans head to the polls to elect their representatives to government, as well as vote on legislative issues, we are all anxiously awaiting the results.

The Smart-guide to the U.S. Election is a small collection of resources to help you keep abreast of late-breaking and live election coverage. The resources highlighted here do not necessarily reflect a particular political slant (nor the views of Smartmobs), but rather are a collection of social-media sources to help you cover the 2008 U.S. Election.

TRACKING THE ELECTION LIVE:

current - Diggs the Election: “Your Election Night Party with Digg, Twitter, and Diplo.”

Our Vote Live - Tracking the voter assistance work.

Our Vote Live is a custom site developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (”EFF”) that facilitates the documentation, sorting, and organization of election-related problems and inquiries reported by ordinary voters to the Election Protection Coalition via the toll free voter-assistance hotline 866-OUR-VOTE.

Twitter Vote Report - #votereport tracking the Election live in through the Twittersphere.

Electoral Scoreboard - Daily Kos created an electoral map to track the election results as they pour in.

Propublica’s VoteWatch - “VoteWatch culls breaking news on voting issues from around the Web, focusing in particular on states where problems (ranging from voter registration to machine malfunction to alleged fraud or suppression) are anticipated.”

CITIZEN JOURNALISM:

The UPTAKE is covering the election today by aggregating social media sources and placing an emphasis of citizen-journalists reporting the election. This Uptake is probably the most comprehensive grass-roots coverage of the U.S. election.

(Please read Howard’s previous post regarding the Uptake to see how you can participate in covering the election too!)

Video the Vote - “is a national network of citizen journalists, independent filmmakers, and media professionals working together to document voter suppression and disenfranchisement.”

VIDEO COVERAGE / LIVE STREAMING:

Qik is hosting LIVE election day coverage streaming from it’s member’s mobile phones.

Vimeo Exit Poll - is collecting videos of voters sharing their election day experiences.

The Uptake “Vote Chasers” LIVE video stream

CNN Live Video Stream of the election.

REAL-TIME MICROBLOGGING:

Election.Twitter - Updates regarding the U.S. election from Twitter users.

Twemes - Aggregated social media/content (Flickr, Del.ico.us, Twitter) focused on the following topics: #votereport , #election08 , #twitvote (Twitter Election Poll).

ONLINE CONVERSATIONS:

Seesmic - Election Perspectives - Join the Election day conversation.

Picture source: Farlane on Flickr

Last week was the documentary premier of: Connected - The Power of Six Degrees!. I found the announcement on the website of ccnr/center for complex network research. The only person seen in the video who is named is Kevin Bacon. I recognize distinguished network scientists Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Steven Strogatz — and I think Duncan Watts. These are the leading scientific theorists of the new science of networks, which describes the fundamentals of smart mobs.

In a Yahoo!Tech report routed from InfoWorld, the question is pondered: Should enterprises reconsider the cloud? It turns out that the big enterprises are taking the lead in important ways:

With support for three of the major pillars of application development and deployment — Oracle 11g, Microsoft SQL, and open source MySQL — under its belt, Amazon.com appears to be anticipating a major move by the enterprise into the cloud. . . .

Why IT is wary of the cloud: Mission-critical fears
Yet CIOs and CTOs that InfoWorld has spoken to typically describe the cloud as not ready for enterprise-class applications. So why are Oracle and Microsoft putting enterprise platforms and apps on Amazon.com’s cloud?

David Mitchell, senior vice president for IT research at Ovum, says enterprises are simply not ready to deploy mission-critical apps in the cloud. “Would you be comfortable having taxation records online in the cloud? I wouldn’t,” he says.

When it comes to security, “with the cloud model the bar goes up dramatically,” says Vince Biddlecombe, CTO of Transplace, a logistics provider for the transportation industry. “Everybody’s concerned that their data gets protected.” . . .

Thanks, Pete!

The possibilities of a ‘portable eye’

Inventor says device for blind has much broader uses.
When Peter Alan Smith pulls out his phone in a crowded Back Bay restaurant, there’s no clue that his Nokia is by far the most expensive mobile phone in the entire place. He has about $2,400 in software loaded onto the $600 device. But then it becomes apparent what’s unique about Smith’s phone: A flash goes off when he snaps a picture of the menu, and a few seconds later, his phone has translated the page of text into speech, and started reciting the options through his earpiece at a rapid clip.
Source: Scott Kirsner, The Boston Globe, October 26, 2008

Monitor shifts from print to Web-based strategy

The Christian Science Monitor plans major changes in April 2009 that are expected to make it the first newspaper with a national audience to shift from a daily print format to an online publication that is updated continuously each day. The changes at the Monitor will include enhancing the content on CSMonitor.com, starting weekly print and daily e-mail editions, and discontinuing the current daily print format.
Source: David Cook, The Christian Science Monitor, October 28, 2008

‘Second China’ offers foreign service workers first impression

Diplomats or military envoys making their first trip to China may soon have a chance to visit a Chinese office building, stop in at a traditional teahouse or hop a cab — all before they board a plane. A team of University of Florida computer engineers and scholars has used the popular online world Second Life to create a virtual Chinese city, one that hands a key to users who want to familiarize themselves with the sights and experiences they will encounter as first-time visitors.
Source: University of Florida News, October 29, 2008

Immortalizing a Piece of Yourself

Scientists around the globe may soon be studying tiny bits of George Church. The Harvard Medical School professor of genetics will be one of the first people to have stem-cell lines created from his skin cells propagated and distributed worldwide — along with a record of the cells’ donor’s identity and genetic and medical quirks.
Source: Emily Singer, Technology Review, October 31, 2008

Borderline Security

RFID chips in U.S. passport cards and some driver’s licenses are at risk of being counterfeited or tracked, researchers say.
Source: Erica Naone, Technology Review, October 31, 2008

The first wiki president? Obama adviser votes ‘yea’

Even Republicans will probably concede that Barack Obama’s campaign made good use of the Internet in the last year. Now an advisor is saying that an Obama administration would do the same, even turning to wikis to discuss topics like privacy.
Source: Stephanie Condon, CNET News in Politics and Law, October 30, 2008

Computerised agents to cope with disasters

A system which will use networks of computerised agents to cope with disaster scenarios such as outbreaks of fires, will be outlined by an ECS researcher on Guy Fawkes night. Professor Nick Jennings from the University’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) has picked Wednesday 5 November to tell an audience comprised of businesses and academia at Park Centre, Farnborough, about ALADDIN, an ambitious £5.5 million five-year research programme aimed at developing computerised agents for use in disaster recovery or terrorist attacks, which has just reached its half-way point.
Source: University of Southampton News, October 30, 2008

eMarketer makes a strong case that location based services will have a tremendous update in the years to come.

“eMarketer estimates there will be over 63 million location-based service users worldwide this year, and 486 million in 2012″

Upon reading this article, think about how location based services could help increase the uptake of a “Smart Mob” culture and strengthen the foundation for broader mobile-activism.

Mobile Location-Based Services on the Move - eMarketer

The European market for smart fabrics and interactive textiles (SFIT) represents about 300 million euro today and is growing at a yearly rate of about 20%. These smart textiles are used in ‘clothes that monitor your heart, measure the chemical composition of your body fluids or keep track of you and your local environment promise to revolutionize healthcare and emergency response.’ This is why the European Union has been funding several technological projects under the SFIT cluster umbrella for a grand total of 66 million euro. But read more…

Links: ZDNet, Primidi

Be a Vote Chaser with The UpTake:
Protect the Vote With Your Camera Phone - Here’s How

Do you have a video-enabled camera phone (iPhone, Nokia N95, etc.)? Here’s how you can help protect the vote on election day! Join The UpTake and the “Video the Vote” coalition’s effort to make sure every vote counts. Reports of voter intimidation and disfranchisement are already coming in from around the country. Remedial actions need to be taken immediately, so time is of the essence. Live streaming video from your cell phone is the most effective way to protect the vote.

Here’s how you can add your phone to our network of eyes and ears across the country now through Election Day, in just 15 minutes.

GETTING SET UP:
Sign up with Video The Vote, so you can get alerts about voter protection in your community: http://videothevote.org/

See if you have a compatible phone here: http://qik.com/info/supported_phones

The iPhone and iPhone 3G are both supported but they will need to be jailbroken. (That sounds bad, but it’s not. It’s a relatively simple procedure that’s easy to reverse after Election Day.)

Instructions on how to jailbreak: http://www.iclarified.com/entries/index.php?caid=2&scid=11&seid=2 Choose which tutorial fits your operating system and iPhone version.

Then follow these instructions from Qik: http://qik.com/blog/206/qik-announces-iphone-3G-support

Signup with Qik: http://qik.com/sign_up You will receive a text message on the your phone that will install and activate Qik on your phone. Qik is a standalone application on your phone. It’s very easy to use and will walk you through the settings. If you need help call (877) 745-7459 or email support@qik.com.

Make sure you are signed into Qik.com. Go to the following link and click on “Attend this Event”. It’s near the middle of the left hand column. http://qik.com/event/537/vote-chasers-voting-coverage-with-the-uptake/day/4

Immediately email live@theuptake.org with a link to your Qik page and where you will be located on Election day. Qik pages are always: http://qik.com/USERNAMEHERE

Spread the word to others with camera phones!

REPORTING AN INCIDENT:
Use Qik on your phone to live stream any voter intimidation or any other questionable election-related activity. Your footage will be archived on Qik for our editors to distribute. Make sure all your streams are set to PUBLIC within the Qik settings.

After any incident, email as soon as possible live@theuptake.org with your Qik username and a description of what happened (where, who, how, why, etc)

Contact jason.barnett@theuptake.org if you have any questions related to election day live streaming voter protection.

Our editors will grab your footage to use for wider distribution, either raw or as part of an edited report at http://www.theuptake.org. You will be fully credited so make sure you put any information that needs to be cited in your email to live@theuptake.org (full name, your own site, etc).

We are also looking for taped pieces through and immediately after election day. If you are interested in submitting a taped piece please contact mike.mcintee@theuptake.org with the subject line: ELECTION DAY VIDEOS followed by your location.

Thanks for helping to protect the integrity of our elections.

Sincerely,
Jason, Chris, Chuck, Noah, Mike, Jennifer, Suzanne, Leif, and the entire UpTake crew
http://www.theuptake.org