In what was clear escalation at the highest level, Tehran, through Iran’s Supreme Leader and president, threatened the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei demanded that Riyadh gives special treatment to citizens of his country, even though he used the term “Shia”. Khamenei said that the Hajj pilgrimage this year is an opportunity that must be benefited from through “being close to the Masjid al Haram, the Prophet’s Mosque, shrines of the Imams of Guidance and the Companions [of the Prophet] in order to strengthen the value of faith and morality and submission to God the Creator.”
As for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he went further than this in the game of allocating clear-cut roles, as he said that the Hajj pilgrimage this year “is an extraordinary opportunity for defending Islamic values and if the Muslims come together, the Iranian pilgrims especially, they will thwart any enemy conspiracies and increase the unity of Muslims.” He reiterated the need to make the most of this [religious] rite in order to be free from those who attribute partners to God. Ahmadinejad concluded his comments with a clear threat to Riyadh saying that if his citizens are not treated in the right way then his country would take the appropriate steps towards Saudi Arabia!
Both statements simply mean that Iran intends to exploit the [Islamic] rite of Hajj this year because of goals and political slogans and this is contradictory to the values and teachings of the Hajj pilgrimage, as there are no sexual acts, no debauch and no arguments in the holy land and during the holy months. Moreover, this holy rite is for worship and not in any way for political exploits.
However, what’s clear to us is that Iran decided on escalation with Saudi Arabia so that it can move on and leave behind its internal crisis and the international pressure that is being put on it. Since the crisis of the last presidential elections, the Iranian regime has been practicing escalation in the media and elsewhere against Saudi Arabia in a continuous manner, as we saw how the Iranian Foreign Minister sought to drag Riyadh’s name [in the mud] in the UN, or via Iranian media, every time international pressure on Tehran regarding the nuclear file negotiations intensified.
The simplest example of this was when the Supreme Leader used the term “Shia” in a clear attempt to mobilise the followers of this sect through inciting sectarianism and this is an Iranian game par excellence that we are witnessing in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and in the Gulf countries.
There is the saying that not every time the jar falls it breaks; but the mistake committed by the Iranians today will have detrimental consequences, as the Iranian threat to exploit the Hajj season is not only incitement against the Saudis but the mistake that Tehran committed in its threat against the Hajj pilgrimage and Saudi Arabia lies in the fact that it incites religious sentiments of Muslims everywhere. Religious sentiment, which Saudi Arabia serves in the best way, is not a platform for slogans and for eliminating opponents; it is a pure place for those performing the circumambulation, those spending the night in worship and those praying to God.
Therefore, the Iranian threat against Saudi Arabia to exploit the Hajj season – unless Iran follows the right approach – means it is a clear Iranian attack on one of Islam’s religious rites and an attack on religious sentiment. This is a very dangerous matter and there will be major consequences, and the Saudis are most aware of this as they have a long history of confronting Iranian attempts to exploit sentiment towards one of the pillars of Islam, i.e. Hajj.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Makeshift Bombs Spread Beyond Afghanistan, Iraq by Thom Shanker
Improvised explosive devices, as the military calls them, have been the largest killer of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, showing up with devastating effect in Pakistan and India, but also with less notice in Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Colombia, Somalia and parts of North Africa.
Even Russian security forces have faced the devices in the republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan, although attacks in Chechnya have fallen.
“There is a robust and constant I.E.D. effort among violent extremists who are using it as their weapon of choice,” said Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, director of the Pentagon’s organization in charge of seeking ways to counter improvised explosives. “That won’t change for decades. We are in this fight for a long time.”
General Metz, who will discuss the spread of improvised bombs during testimony on Thursday before a House Armed Services subcommittee, said global I.E.D. cases outside Iraq and Afghanistan averaged about 300 per month. The count includes detonations and the discovery of intact devices. The military’s global statistics on the bombs remain classified, to prevent extremists from knowing what the United States knows. But a compilation of worldwide episodes from private-sector security consultants illustrates the threat.
Jonathan M. George, of HMS Inc., a private company that analyzes the use of improvised explosive devices and consults on countermeasures, maintains a database on cases, gathered from public documents and news reports, that military officers consider reliable enough to cite in public statements.
Mr. George said the count of improvised bombs in Afghanistan had grown from 515 in 2006 to 705 in 2007, 828 in 2008 and 955 so far this year. In Iraq, the annual figures show the count has diminished, from 4,718 in 2006 to 3,275 in 2007, 3,253 in 2008 and 1,135 so far this year.
But his compilation also tracks the larger number of I.E.D.’s that explode or are found in the rest of the world: 3,267 in 2006, 4,027 in 2007, 4,273 in 2008 and 2,121 so far in 2009.
“Recent events show that although the number of I.E.D. attacks has fallen, the number of high-casualty and high-profile attacks continue to rise,” he said.
He said that Pakistan had experienced the worst problem after a rise that began in 2007, after the Pakistani military mounted an eight-day siege to end a standoff that lasted for months with Islamic extremists holed up at the Red Mosque in Islamabad. India has the second-highest number of I.E.D.’s, and the level there remains constant, Mr. George said. Thailand is third, but the number has decreased following a peak in 2007.
Extremists are not only increasing the power of their devices but also showing a grim cleverness in the delivery systems. Raids on a Tamil Tigers base in Sri Lanka uncovered an experimental, remotely controlled boat that could be loaded with explosives to slip alongside the hull of a ship for detonation.
Other American military officers say that the improvised bombs are being studied as a military tool by some state powers.
The senior American commander in South Korea, Gen. Walter L. Sharp, said that the North Koreans were studying the weapons and their uses.
“We started to work very hard, to make sure we’re learning the lessons out of Iraq and Afghanistan with I.E.D.’s and other types of devices,” General Sharp said in Washington last month.
Then, in referring to the North Korean government, he added, “I’m pretty confident that they have learned” from observing how insurgents used devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. The American military now believes that North Korean special operations forces are training to use improvised explosives.
“I’m confident they will use those capabilities,” General Sharp said. “So we’re working very hard on that now.”
He did not elaborate on how North Korea might employ the bombs. But other American government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, described the assessments: While conflict with the North appears remote, the United States and South Koreans anticipate that if war breaks out, North Korean conventional forces will plant I.E.D.’s to maul any allied advance from south to north, and that North Korean commandos will try to infiltrate the south to plant them along major roadways to wound and kill civilians and allied troops.
Senior military officers confirm that American and South Korean forces on the peninsula are now incorporating countermeasures in updated war plans and practicing them in war games.
General Metz, who will retire from the military in the coming weeks, acknowledged that while the public had focused on the threat that the bombs posed to American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, part of his reason for describing the risk of spreading improvised bombs was to argue for continued financing for his organization’s work on countering them.
“What the American people do not realize is that this weapon of choice by violent extremists is being used for strategic purposes,” he said. “The United States cannot be beaten tactically by the I.E.D. — but strategically, these extremists hope to wear down our will.”
Even Russian security forces have faced the devices in the republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan, although attacks in Chechnya have fallen.
“There is a robust and constant I.E.D. effort among violent extremists who are using it as their weapon of choice,” said Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, director of the Pentagon’s organization in charge of seeking ways to counter improvised explosives. “That won’t change for decades. We are in this fight for a long time.”
General Metz, who will discuss the spread of improvised bombs during testimony on Thursday before a House Armed Services subcommittee, said global I.E.D. cases outside Iraq and Afghanistan averaged about 300 per month. The count includes detonations and the discovery of intact devices. The military’s global statistics on the bombs remain classified, to prevent extremists from knowing what the United States knows. But a compilation of worldwide episodes from private-sector security consultants illustrates the threat.
Jonathan M. George, of HMS Inc., a private company that analyzes the use of improvised explosive devices and consults on countermeasures, maintains a database on cases, gathered from public documents and news reports, that military officers consider reliable enough to cite in public statements.
Mr. George said the count of improvised bombs in Afghanistan had grown from 515 in 2006 to 705 in 2007, 828 in 2008 and 955 so far this year. In Iraq, the annual figures show the count has diminished, from 4,718 in 2006 to 3,275 in 2007, 3,253 in 2008 and 1,135 so far this year.
But his compilation also tracks the larger number of I.E.D.’s that explode or are found in the rest of the world: 3,267 in 2006, 4,027 in 2007, 4,273 in 2008 and 2,121 so far in 2009.
“Recent events show that although the number of I.E.D. attacks has fallen, the number of high-casualty and high-profile attacks continue to rise,” he said.
He said that Pakistan had experienced the worst problem after a rise that began in 2007, after the Pakistani military mounted an eight-day siege to end a standoff that lasted for months with Islamic extremists holed up at the Red Mosque in Islamabad. India has the second-highest number of I.E.D.’s, and the level there remains constant, Mr. George said. Thailand is third, but the number has decreased following a peak in 2007.
Extremists are not only increasing the power of their devices but also showing a grim cleverness in the delivery systems. Raids on a Tamil Tigers base in Sri Lanka uncovered an experimental, remotely controlled boat that could be loaded with explosives to slip alongside the hull of a ship for detonation.
Other American military officers say that the improvised bombs are being studied as a military tool by some state powers.
The senior American commander in South Korea, Gen. Walter L. Sharp, said that the North Koreans were studying the weapons and their uses.
“We started to work very hard, to make sure we’re learning the lessons out of Iraq and Afghanistan with I.E.D.’s and other types of devices,” General Sharp said in Washington last month.
Then, in referring to the North Korean government, he added, “I’m pretty confident that they have learned” from observing how insurgents used devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. The American military now believes that North Korean special operations forces are training to use improvised explosives.
“I’m confident they will use those capabilities,” General Sharp said. “So we’re working very hard on that now.”
He did not elaborate on how North Korea might employ the bombs. But other American government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, described the assessments: While conflict with the North appears remote, the United States and South Koreans anticipate that if war breaks out, North Korean conventional forces will plant I.E.D.’s to maul any allied advance from south to north, and that North Korean commandos will try to infiltrate the south to plant them along major roadways to wound and kill civilians and allied troops.
Senior military officers confirm that American and South Korean forces on the peninsula are now incorporating countermeasures in updated war plans and practicing them in war games.
General Metz, who will retire from the military in the coming weeks, acknowledged that while the public had focused on the threat that the bombs posed to American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, part of his reason for describing the risk of spreading improvised bombs was to argue for continued financing for his organization’s work on countering them.
“What the American people do not realize is that this weapon of choice by violent extremists is being used for strategic purposes,” he said. “The United States cannot be beaten tactically by the I.E.D. — but strategically, these extremists hope to wear down our will.”
Feds’ Smart Grid Race Leaves Cybersecurity in the Dust by Kim Zetter
Amid the government-funded rush to upgrade America’s aging electric system to a smart grid comes a strange confluence of press releases this week by the White House and the University of Illinois.
Tuesday morning, President Obama, speaking at Florida Power and Light (FPL) facilities, announced $3.4 billion in grants to utility companies, municipal districts and manufacturers to spur a nationwide transition to smart-grid technologies and fund other energy-saving initiatives as part of the economic stimulus package.
FPL will receive $200 million to install 2.6 million smart meters and other technologies that promise to reduce energy costs for customers. CenterPoint Energy in Houston, Texas, gets $200 million to install 2.2 million smart meters (.pdf) and more than 550 sensors and automated switches. Baltimore Gas and Electric in Maryland is another $200-million recipient.
Strange, then, that another press release distributed Monday by the Information Trust Institute at the University of Illinois announces a grant of $18.8 million to four academic institutions to fund a five-year research project into securing the power grid. The project is supposed to make certain that the smart meters and other devices implemented by power companies can resist hackers and other attackers.
The latter grant, from the U.S. Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, provides funding to the Institute, along with Dartmouth College, the University of California at Davis in California and Washington State University for a research program called Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid.
“It reflects a strong consensus that cybersecurity and resilience will be critical to the realization of a modernized, reliable, and efficient power grid, so that it will be able to guarantee delivery of electricity to consumers and maintain critical operations, even when malicious cyber attacks occur,” reads the press release.
The only problem is, by the time the research project is completed, most of the nation will have already adopted untested and unsecured technologies.
Richard Clarke
How do we know they’re insecure?
Earlier this year IOActive, a computer security firm in Washington state, was contracted to examine the security of smart meters deployed by an unnamed utility company in the northwest. Mike Davis, an IOActive security consultant, and his fellow researchers developed a malicious worm that, in a simulated attack, was able to spread from meter to meter to take out power in more than 15,000 homes in 24 hours. Davis says IOActive submitted his findings to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS, in response to a Threat Level FOIA request, said it can’t find the report in its files.
“Given the degree of seriousness that the Obama administration is applying to cybersecurity and the smart grid, we can look forward to the kind of things happening here that happened to Brazil, where hackers successfully brought down the power,” says Richard Clarke (at right), chairman of the Good Harbor security consulting firm and former special adviser to President George W. Bush on cybersecurity.
Clarke is referring to veiled reports made last year by the CIA’s chief cybersecurity officer, Tom Donahue, that extortionists had taken down the power grid in multiple regions outside the United States. The location of those outages has never been publicly identified.
“Smart grid” refers to the transition from the current, outdated power-grid infrastructure to a more technologically advanced structure that allows expanded real-time monitoring and energy delivery that’s more efficient and cost effective for utilities and consumers. The technology promises to solve a number of problems, but it also (as the Illinois press release states) could “introduce new problems, such as increasing the vulnerability to cyber attack as power grid resources become increasingly linked to the internet.”
“The concern is that the existing technologies can’t offer [security] guarantees, and that we could even open the door to new risks if we carelessly put together new systems that don’t have resilience and security guarantees built in from the ground up,” explained Ilesanmi Adesida, dean of the College of Engineering at Illinois, in the Information Trust Institute’s press release.
So why would the federal government accelerate the adoption of insecure technologies at the same time it touts cybersecurity as one of the nation’s biggest national security concerns?
According to the Department of Energy, the government has the smart-grid security issues under control.
Spokeswoman Jen Stutsman said all the entities awarded smart-grid funds under Obama’s $3.4 billion stimulus grant were required to submit a cybersecurity plan with their proposal.
“Each application was examined by at least two interoperability and cybersecurity experts, and it was a central component to the selection criteria for each of the awards,” Stutsman said.
Stutsman wouldn’t identify the experts who reviewed the cybersecurity plans or provide details about the plans applicants submitted.
According to the grant-proposal requirements, each applicant was required to submit a summary of known cybersecurity risks (.pdf) and explain how the applicant would mitigate them. They also had to identify the cybersecurity criteria they used for selecting vendors and technologies and the cybersecurity standards or best practices they planned to follow. And they had to explain how they would adapt to new standards that might emerge — such as those being developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Stutsman, addressing why the government would urge the move to smart meters before researchers had fully examined them, said that DoE “has spent years researching cybersecurity issues” and is “constantly and on a continuing basis … putting in place policies and programs that will help us gather more information.”
While the department is modernizing the electrical grid and using knowledge it already has, she said it will continue to apply new information as it becomes known. The government, she said, will continue to monitor utilities and others “to ensure that we are taking every step we can to secure the country’s electric grid.”
Himanshu Khurana, principal scientist for the Information Trust Institute’s power-grid research project, noted that many of the grants to utility companies and municipalities are for a three-year period.
“So there is still time between something being announced and everything being deployed for making sure that the technologies” are evaluated, he said.
Separate to his Institute’s research grant, Khurana belongs to a team that has been contracted by one of the utility companies that received a federal grant. His team’s job will be to help evaluate the utility company’s network and the technologies it plans to deploy and perhaps develop needed software.
“So people have reached out to cybersecurity experts and formed appropriate teams,” he said. “Now, it’s hard to provide assurance right now that everything is going to go safe. But the plan is feasible and there has been a lot of weight given to cybersecurity in the administration’s grants.”
Clarke is not so confident.
“We have no way of having any confidence that there’s any cybersecurity plans since we don’t know anything about the qualifications of the experts who examined them or the criteria they’re using to judge them,” he said. “In the absence of someone like the NSA or the cybercenter at DHS [to certify every smart-grid proposal], there’s no reason to believe they’re taking security seriously.”
More important than asking companies to submit a cybersecurity plan for future technologies, he says, is to require that utility companies and energy distributors pass an audit for their current state of security.
He says he’s spoken with auditing firms that have examined utility companies and energy distributors and found that — in every case — they were able to infiltrate the company’s production SCADA system (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) from the public internet in less than an hour.
“No grant should be given to any company that doesn’t pass an audit today with its existing system,” he said. “Paper audits are worthless. Real-world audits are what count. So if the company today has flagrantly bad performance with regard to cybersecurity, then it shouldn’t win an award for new technology until it fixes that problem.”
Tuesday morning, President Obama, speaking at Florida Power and Light (FPL) facilities, announced $3.4 billion in grants to utility companies, municipal districts and manufacturers to spur a nationwide transition to smart-grid technologies and fund other energy-saving initiatives as part of the economic stimulus package.
FPL will receive $200 million to install 2.6 million smart meters and other technologies that promise to reduce energy costs for customers. CenterPoint Energy in Houston, Texas, gets $200 million to install 2.2 million smart meters (.pdf) and more than 550 sensors and automated switches. Baltimore Gas and Electric in Maryland is another $200-million recipient.
Strange, then, that another press release distributed Monday by the Information Trust Institute at the University of Illinois announces a grant of $18.8 million to four academic institutions to fund a five-year research project into securing the power grid. The project is supposed to make certain that the smart meters and other devices implemented by power companies can resist hackers and other attackers.
The latter grant, from the U.S. Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, provides funding to the Institute, along with Dartmouth College, the University of California at Davis in California and Washington State University for a research program called Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid.
“It reflects a strong consensus that cybersecurity and resilience will be critical to the realization of a modernized, reliable, and efficient power grid, so that it will be able to guarantee delivery of electricity to consumers and maintain critical operations, even when malicious cyber attacks occur,” reads the press release.
The only problem is, by the time the research project is completed, most of the nation will have already adopted untested and unsecured technologies.
Richard Clarke
How do we know they’re insecure?
Earlier this year IOActive, a computer security firm in Washington state, was contracted to examine the security of smart meters deployed by an unnamed utility company in the northwest. Mike Davis, an IOActive security consultant, and his fellow researchers developed a malicious worm that, in a simulated attack, was able to spread from meter to meter to take out power in more than 15,000 homes in 24 hours. Davis says IOActive submitted his findings to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS, in response to a Threat Level FOIA request, said it can’t find the report in its files.
“Given the degree of seriousness that the Obama administration is applying to cybersecurity and the smart grid, we can look forward to the kind of things happening here that happened to Brazil, where hackers successfully brought down the power,” says Richard Clarke (at right), chairman of the Good Harbor security consulting firm and former special adviser to President George W. Bush on cybersecurity.
Clarke is referring to veiled reports made last year by the CIA’s chief cybersecurity officer, Tom Donahue, that extortionists had taken down the power grid in multiple regions outside the United States. The location of those outages has never been publicly identified.
“Smart grid” refers to the transition from the current, outdated power-grid infrastructure to a more technologically advanced structure that allows expanded real-time monitoring and energy delivery that’s more efficient and cost effective for utilities and consumers. The technology promises to solve a number of problems, but it also (as the Illinois press release states) could “introduce new problems, such as increasing the vulnerability to cyber attack as power grid resources become increasingly linked to the internet.”
“The concern is that the existing technologies can’t offer [security] guarantees, and that we could even open the door to new risks if we carelessly put together new systems that don’t have resilience and security guarantees built in from the ground up,” explained Ilesanmi Adesida, dean of the College of Engineering at Illinois, in the Information Trust Institute’s press release.
So why would the federal government accelerate the adoption of insecure technologies at the same time it touts cybersecurity as one of the nation’s biggest national security concerns?
According to the Department of Energy, the government has the smart-grid security issues under control.
Spokeswoman Jen Stutsman said all the entities awarded smart-grid funds under Obama’s $3.4 billion stimulus grant were required to submit a cybersecurity plan with their proposal.
“Each application was examined by at least two interoperability and cybersecurity experts, and it was a central component to the selection criteria for each of the awards,” Stutsman said.
Stutsman wouldn’t identify the experts who reviewed the cybersecurity plans or provide details about the plans applicants submitted.
According to the grant-proposal requirements, each applicant was required to submit a summary of known cybersecurity risks (.pdf) and explain how the applicant would mitigate them. They also had to identify the cybersecurity criteria they used for selecting vendors and technologies and the cybersecurity standards or best practices they planned to follow. And they had to explain how they would adapt to new standards that might emerge — such as those being developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Stutsman, addressing why the government would urge the move to smart meters before researchers had fully examined them, said that DoE “has spent years researching cybersecurity issues” and is “constantly and on a continuing basis … putting in place policies and programs that will help us gather more information.”
While the department is modernizing the electrical grid and using knowledge it already has, she said it will continue to apply new information as it becomes known. The government, she said, will continue to monitor utilities and others “to ensure that we are taking every step we can to secure the country’s electric grid.”
Himanshu Khurana, principal scientist for the Information Trust Institute’s power-grid research project, noted that many of the grants to utility companies and municipalities are for a three-year period.
“So there is still time between something being announced and everything being deployed for making sure that the technologies” are evaluated, he said.
Separate to his Institute’s research grant, Khurana belongs to a team that has been contracted by one of the utility companies that received a federal grant. His team’s job will be to help evaluate the utility company’s network and the technologies it plans to deploy and perhaps develop needed software.
“So people have reached out to cybersecurity experts and formed appropriate teams,” he said. “Now, it’s hard to provide assurance right now that everything is going to go safe. But the plan is feasible and there has been a lot of weight given to cybersecurity in the administration’s grants.”
Clarke is not so confident.
“We have no way of having any confidence that there’s any cybersecurity plans since we don’t know anything about the qualifications of the experts who examined them or the criteria they’re using to judge them,” he said. “In the absence of someone like the NSA or the cybercenter at DHS [to certify every smart-grid proposal], there’s no reason to believe they’re taking security seriously.”
More important than asking companies to submit a cybersecurity plan for future technologies, he says, is to require that utility companies and energy distributors pass an audit for their current state of security.
He says he’s spoken with auditing firms that have examined utility companies and energy distributors and found that — in every case — they were able to infiltrate the company’s production SCADA system (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) from the public internet in less than an hour.
“No grant should be given to any company that doesn’t pass an audit today with its existing system,” he said. “Paper audits are worthless. Real-world audits are what count. So if the company today has flagrantly bad performance with regard to cybersecurity, then it shouldn’t win an award for new technology until it fixes that problem.”
ICANN Set to Approve Web Addresses Using Non-Latin Characters by Caleb Johnson
Despite what some might say, it's not often that an opportunity comes along to change the lives of billions of people. But that's just what the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will do by changing the rules of Web addresses, shaking up the Internet like never before.
According to the Daily Mail, the ICANN board will pass a resolution this Friday that will allow entire Web addresses to be written in non-Latin alphabets. Those languages could be anything from Japanese to Arabic, or Hindi to Greek. The change means that many people around the world could more easily navigate the Web, and even create Web sites in their native tongue. Of the 1.6 billion people who use the Internet, about half are native speakers of languages that do not use the Latin alphabet. "This is the biggest change technically to the Internet since it was invented 40 years ago," said ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush at a press conference in Seoul, South Korea yesterday. If approved, the first non-Roman domain names should hit the Web sometime in mid-2010.
But why now? For years, the group has been testing a new translation system to convert multiple scripts into a single address, and it finally feels ready to put the system to use.
We don't want to count our chickens before they hatch, but this is big news, folks. It's akin to the introduction of a three-point line in basketball, or the forward pass in football. This resolution will totally change the game, so you might want to brush up your Arabic or Chinese.
According to the Daily Mail, the ICANN board will pass a resolution this Friday that will allow entire Web addresses to be written in non-Latin alphabets. Those languages could be anything from Japanese to Arabic, or Hindi to Greek. The change means that many people around the world could more easily navigate the Web, and even create Web sites in their native tongue. Of the 1.6 billion people who use the Internet, about half are native speakers of languages that do not use the Latin alphabet. "This is the biggest change technically to the Internet since it was invented 40 years ago," said ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush at a press conference in Seoul, South Korea yesterday. If approved, the first non-Roman domain names should hit the Web sometime in mid-2010.
But why now? For years, the group has been testing a new translation system to convert multiple scripts into a single address, and it finally feels ready to put the system to use.
We don't want to count our chickens before they hatch, but this is big news, folks. It's akin to the introduction of a three-point line in basketball, or the forward pass in football. This resolution will totally change the game, so you might want to brush up your Arabic or Chinese.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Net Neutrality: Net Neutrality Worst Case
The Net Neutrality argument is fairly nebulous for the average user but this image from a Reddit reader shows the effects of the law in a way everyone can understand. If you’re tired of paying tiered pricing for stuff like cable and Internet access, how would you like to pay tiered pricing for the websites you visit. Want to watch Hulu? Add $10. Need eBay, even for a month? $5, please.
While this is obviously a worst case scenario, this sort of bundling is a favorite pastime of most stream providers. For years voicemail was a privilege, not a right, and there are still grannies out there renting phones from the phone company. While month-to-month the costs might not seem like much, this sort of thing adds up to delicious profit.
Announcing Google Maps Navigation
Since 2005, millions of people have relied on Google Maps for mobile to get directions on the go. However, there's always been one problem: Once you're behind the wheel, a list of driving directions just isn't that easy to use. It doesn't tell you when your turn is coming up. And if you miss a turn? Forget it, you're on your own.
Today we're excited to announce the next step for Google Maps for mobile: Google Maps Navigation (Beta) for Android 2.0 devices.
This new feature comes with everything you'd expect to find in a GPS navigation system, like 3D views, turn-by-turn voice guidance and automatic rerouting. But unlike most navigation systems, Google Maps Navigation was built from the ground up to take advantage of your phone's Internet connection.
Here are seven features that are possible because Google Maps Navigation is connected to the Internet:
The most recent map and business data
When you use Google Maps Navigation, your phone automatically gets the most up-to-date maps and business listings from Google Maps — you never need to buy map upgrades or update your device. And this data is continuously improving, thanks to users who report maps issues and businesses who activate their listings with Google Local Business Center.
Search in plain English
Google Maps Navigation brings the speed, power and simplicity of Google search to your car. If you don't know the address you're looking for, don't worry. Simply enter the name of a business, a landmark or just about anything into the search box, and Google will find it for you. Then press "Navigate", and you're on your way.
Search by voice
Typing on a phone can be difficult, especially in the car, so with Google Maps Navigation, you can say your destination instead. Hold down the search button to activate voice search, then tell your phone what you want to do (like "Navigate to Pike Place in Seattle"), and navigation will start automatically.
Traffic view
Google Maps Navigation gets live traffic data over the Internet. A traffic indicator light in the corner of the screen glows green, yellow or red, depending on the current traffic conditions along your route. If there's a jam ahead of you, you'll know. To get more details, tap the light to zoom out to an aerial view showing traffic speeds and incidents ahead. And if the traffic doesn't look good, you can choose an alternate route.
Search along route
For those times when you're already on the road and need to find a business, Google Maps Navigation searches along your route to give you results that won't take you far from your path. You can search for a specific business by name or by type, or you can turn on popular layers, such as gas stations, restaurants or parking.
Satellite view
Google Maps Navigation uses the same satellite imagery as Google Maps on the desktop to help you get to your destination. Turn on the satellite layer for a high-resolution, 3D view of your upcoming route. Besides looking cool, satellite view can help you make sense of complicated maneuvers.
Street View
If you want to know what your next turn looks like, double-tap the map to zoom into Street View, which shows the turn as you'll see it, with your route overlaid. And since locating an address can sometimes be tricky, we'll show you a picture of your destination as you approach the end of your route, so you'll know exactly what to look for.
The first phone to have Google Maps Navigation and Android 2.0 is the Droid from Verizon. Google Maps Navigation is initially available in the United States. And like other Google Maps features, Navigation is free.
Click here to learn more and browse a gallery of product screenshots. Take Google Maps Navigation for a spin, and bring Internet-connected GPS navigation with you in your car.
Today we're excited to announce the next step for Google Maps for mobile: Google Maps Navigation (Beta) for Android 2.0 devices.
This new feature comes with everything you'd expect to find in a GPS navigation system, like 3D views, turn-by-turn voice guidance and automatic rerouting. But unlike most navigation systems, Google Maps Navigation was built from the ground up to take advantage of your phone's Internet connection.
Here are seven features that are possible because Google Maps Navigation is connected to the Internet:
The most recent map and business data
When you use Google Maps Navigation, your phone automatically gets the most up-to-date maps and business listings from Google Maps — you never need to buy map upgrades or update your device. And this data is continuously improving, thanks to users who report maps issues and businesses who activate their listings with Google Local Business Center.
Search in plain English
Google Maps Navigation brings the speed, power and simplicity of Google search to your car. If you don't know the address you're looking for, don't worry. Simply enter the name of a business, a landmark or just about anything into the search box, and Google will find it for you. Then press "Navigate", and you're on your way.
Search by voice
Typing on a phone can be difficult, especially in the car, so with Google Maps Navigation, you can say your destination instead. Hold down the search button to activate voice search, then tell your phone what you want to do (like "Navigate to Pike Place in Seattle"), and navigation will start automatically.
Traffic view
Google Maps Navigation gets live traffic data over the Internet. A traffic indicator light in the corner of the screen glows green, yellow or red, depending on the current traffic conditions along your route. If there's a jam ahead of you, you'll know. To get more details, tap the light to zoom out to an aerial view showing traffic speeds and incidents ahead. And if the traffic doesn't look good, you can choose an alternate route.
Search along route
For those times when you're already on the road and need to find a business, Google Maps Navigation searches along your route to give you results that won't take you far from your path. You can search for a specific business by name or by type, or you can turn on popular layers, such as gas stations, restaurants or parking.
Satellite view
Google Maps Navigation uses the same satellite imagery as Google Maps on the desktop to help you get to your destination. Turn on the satellite layer for a high-resolution, 3D view of your upcoming route. Besides looking cool, satellite view can help you make sense of complicated maneuvers.
Street View
If you want to know what your next turn looks like, double-tap the map to zoom into Street View, which shows the turn as you'll see it, with your route overlaid. And since locating an address can sometimes be tricky, we'll show you a picture of your destination as you approach the end of your route, so you'll know exactly what to look for.
The first phone to have Google Maps Navigation and Android 2.0 is the Droid from Verizon. Google Maps Navigation is initially available in the United States. And like other Google Maps features, Navigation is free.
Click here to learn more and browse a gallery of product screenshots. Take Google Maps Navigation for a spin, and bring Internet-connected GPS navigation with you in your car.
Iran Does What It Wants by Tariq Alhomayed
Two important news stories about Iran [surfaced] on the same day; the first was that Pakistani authorities had arrested 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] the moment they crossed onto Pakistani territory, and the second news item was the announcement that Yemeni security authorities had seized an Iranian ship carrying anti-tank shells, which Yemeni authorities believed was destined for Houthi rebels in the north. The five crew members on the Iranian ship were arrested.
As stated above, the two news items came out on the same day. Even if it was reported that the five Iranian officers had entered Pakistan by mistake, Iranian officials in the IRGC had previously threatened that Iran might pursue elements of the Jundullah organization (which claimed responsibility for the suicide operation that took place in Iran) on Pakistani territory. This raises questions about the alleged story that the IRGC had entered Pakistan by mistake!
What’s important about both news stories is that Iran is moving around in the region without being monitored or supervised. The two incidents in Pakistan and Yemen would not have been brought to light had it not been for the authorities of both countries. What if Iraqi authorities declared the degree of Iranian interference in Iraq? Or what if the Iraqi authorities disclosed documents and images revealing what the Quds Force did and is still doing [in Iraq], especially as some Iraqi officials have close ties with head of the Quds Force Qassem Suleimani and, in fact, meet with him both inside and outside of Iran and at the highest levels?
What if the Lebanese authorities revealed the magnitude of Iranian interference in their country, not only via the support of Hezbollah but through the pumping of money and weapons, and the mobilizing of leaderships and men and even through interference on the cultural level?
The problem with the Iranian regime is that it is yet to learn the harsh lesson, as for a long time, Iran has been interfering, directly and indirectly, in the region’s causes and internal affairs, and today Iran wants everyone to leave it and its affairs alone. Furthermore, they [the Iranians] are surprised at what is written about them in the media, despite that they ridicule the media and media figures to serve their own goals. The best example of this is when Tehran was alarmed by the news that was leaked about an energy meeting being held in Cairo attended by an Iranian official who spoke to an Israeli official about nuclear weapons. After all of that, Iran wants to pursue anybody who does anything on its territory, without realizing that its own illegitimate interference in other countries is what made others do the same.
The problem is that even though Iran’s actions represent a violation of international laws, it contradicts what it says in its criticism of US interference in Iraq or Afghanistan, or [what it says about] the uproar that Israel is causing in Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, and even [what it says about] Israeli talk of striking Iranian nuclear plants. Iranian interference in the affairs of regional states, whether militarily or by supporting armed groups, contributes to supporting or in fact legitimizing chaos in our region.
Has the time come for Tehran to grasp the danger of what it is doing in our region?
As stated above, the two news items came out on the same day. Even if it was reported that the five Iranian officers had entered Pakistan by mistake, Iranian officials in the IRGC had previously threatened that Iran might pursue elements of the Jundullah organization (which claimed responsibility for the suicide operation that took place in Iran) on Pakistani territory. This raises questions about the alleged story that the IRGC had entered Pakistan by mistake!
What’s important about both news stories is that Iran is moving around in the region without being monitored or supervised. The two incidents in Pakistan and Yemen would not have been brought to light had it not been for the authorities of both countries. What if Iraqi authorities declared the degree of Iranian interference in Iraq? Or what if the Iraqi authorities disclosed documents and images revealing what the Quds Force did and is still doing [in Iraq], especially as some Iraqi officials have close ties with head of the Quds Force Qassem Suleimani and, in fact, meet with him both inside and outside of Iran and at the highest levels?
What if the Lebanese authorities revealed the magnitude of Iranian interference in their country, not only via the support of Hezbollah but through the pumping of money and weapons, and the mobilizing of leaderships and men and even through interference on the cultural level?
The problem with the Iranian regime is that it is yet to learn the harsh lesson, as for a long time, Iran has been interfering, directly and indirectly, in the region’s causes and internal affairs, and today Iran wants everyone to leave it and its affairs alone. Furthermore, they [the Iranians] are surprised at what is written about them in the media, despite that they ridicule the media and media figures to serve their own goals. The best example of this is when Tehran was alarmed by the news that was leaked about an energy meeting being held in Cairo attended by an Iranian official who spoke to an Israeli official about nuclear weapons. After all of that, Iran wants to pursue anybody who does anything on its territory, without realizing that its own illegitimate interference in other countries is what made others do the same.
The problem is that even though Iran’s actions represent a violation of international laws, it contradicts what it says in its criticism of US interference in Iraq or Afghanistan, or [what it says about] the uproar that Israel is causing in Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, and even [what it says about] Israeli talk of striking Iranian nuclear plants. Iranian interference in the affairs of regional states, whether militarily or by supporting armed groups, contributes to supporting or in fact legitimizing chaos in our region.
Has the time come for Tehran to grasp the danger of what it is doing in our region?
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Counter Terrorism Gains by Michael Sheehan
In today's debates about how to proceed in Afghanistan, the relationship between counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism operations needs to be clearly understood. First and foremost, we should acknowledge that, in light of our original counter-terrorism goals, our Afghan and Pakistan policies have been remarkably effective. There is no need to panic.
We invaded Afghanistan eight years ago to prevent another terrorist attack on our nation, and we have been successful. Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacked us three times in three years: at our African embassies in August 1998; the USS Cole incident in October 2000, and finally on our homeland on Sept. 11, 2001. In the eight years following Sept. 11, they have failed to attack us on our soil. In fact, al Qaeda can count only one terrorism attack in the entire West (London, 2005), with perhaps "partial credit" for another (Madrid, 2004).
This, by any standard, is a failure on the part of al Qaeda and a testament to the effectiveness of our worldwide counter-terrorism programs. And that success is a product of aggressive intelligence operations that reach from the mountains of Afghanistan, through foreign capitals around the world, and all the way to the streets of New York City. It has been no accident; the U.S. military, the CIA, FBI, the New York Police Department, and others should be credited.
However, in Afghanistan, we have continually moved the "goal posts" of our counter-terrorism success in the name of a counterinsurgency campaign. The initial objective of kicking out al Qaeda has now morphed into an ambitious program of "reinventing Afghanistan" as a modern state.
We have gotten ourselves bogged down into a complex insurgent war that the Taliban can sustain at some level almost indefinitely, even though they have no real prospects of actually winning.
Without transforming Afghanistan into a stable and modern state, some reason, the Taliban will return to power and provide al Qaeda a sanctuary to enable it to restore its pre-Sept. 11 operational capability.
But this assumption does not stand up to careful scrutiny.
A major reason for our post Sept. 11 counter-terrorism success has been the enormous pressure on al Qaeda's first- and second-tier leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And yes, we must be ruthless in continuing to deny al Qaeda the ability to plan, train and launch worldwide operations from a "sanctuary of impunity" they enjoyed in Afghanistan and Pakistan prior to Sept. 11.
But our success in throttling the strategic al Qaeda was achieved without pacifying Afghanistan and without occupying western Pakistan. Instead, we have used a massive intelligence operation to find and destroy al Qaeda's strategic capability there and denied them the ability to mount terrorist attacks outside of their immediate operational area.
The U.S. Army's recent "rediscovery" of its counterinsurgency doctrine was long overdue and certainly increased their effectiveness and will hasten the withdrawal from Iraq.
But in relearning counterinsurgency doctrine, the Army must recall its most fundamental principles, and not just apply its tactics and techniques. One of those principles is the critical importance of using local militia and constabulary units to do the primary fighting of local insurgents and keeping the foreign "footprint" as small as possible.
The "Sunni Awakening" in Iraq was successful largely due to the mobilization of local militia forces to fight insurgents on their own terms, in what was often nasty and brutish affairs. For those that call for a smaller U.S. presence and an increase of Afghan responsibility for the war, they should brace themselves for an ugly war. This is not a strategy of weakness, as claimed by some who reject any troop withdrawals.
In transferring security to the Afghans, the war will get more messy and brutish in the short term, and we will need to support our imperfect allies. It will call for a different type of toughness from American policymakers.
Today in Afghanistan, the U.S. Army is still the main fighting force in the country. In essence, it remains an occupational force with counterinsurgency doctrine sprinkled on top. While U.S. conventional soldiers are kicking in doors of mud homes in poor Afghan villages, it is hard to envision long-term success, no matter how many health clinics they build the next day.
Our interests in Afghanistan may require a long-term and robust presence in that country, and this article is certainly not a call for a fast drawdown at this critical time. We will require a massive economic, security and diplomatic assistance package that will guarantee the viability of the central government.
We will also need substantial conventional forces in Afghanistan to guarantee the viability of the central government, support Afghan forces in extreme situations, and to protect bases to launch counter-terrorism operations in the region.
Our intelligence programs and special operation strikes against strategic al Qaeda (not the local insurgent fighters) will remain our highest priority in the theater. And that is the recipe for a policy that aligns with our primary national security interests and will be the basis for the continued success of our global counter-terrorism strategy.
We invaded Afghanistan eight years ago to prevent another terrorist attack on our nation, and we have been successful. Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacked us three times in three years: at our African embassies in August 1998; the USS Cole incident in October 2000, and finally on our homeland on Sept. 11, 2001. In the eight years following Sept. 11, they have failed to attack us on our soil. In fact, al Qaeda can count only one terrorism attack in the entire West (London, 2005), with perhaps "partial credit" for another (Madrid, 2004).
This, by any standard, is a failure on the part of al Qaeda and a testament to the effectiveness of our worldwide counter-terrorism programs. And that success is a product of aggressive intelligence operations that reach from the mountains of Afghanistan, through foreign capitals around the world, and all the way to the streets of New York City. It has been no accident; the U.S. military, the CIA, FBI, the New York Police Department, and others should be credited.
However, in Afghanistan, we have continually moved the "goal posts" of our counter-terrorism success in the name of a counterinsurgency campaign. The initial objective of kicking out al Qaeda has now morphed into an ambitious program of "reinventing Afghanistan" as a modern state.
We have gotten ourselves bogged down into a complex insurgent war that the Taliban can sustain at some level almost indefinitely, even though they have no real prospects of actually winning.
Without transforming Afghanistan into a stable and modern state, some reason, the Taliban will return to power and provide al Qaeda a sanctuary to enable it to restore its pre-Sept. 11 operational capability.
But this assumption does not stand up to careful scrutiny.
A major reason for our post Sept. 11 counter-terrorism success has been the enormous pressure on al Qaeda's first- and second-tier leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And yes, we must be ruthless in continuing to deny al Qaeda the ability to plan, train and launch worldwide operations from a "sanctuary of impunity" they enjoyed in Afghanistan and Pakistan prior to Sept. 11.
But our success in throttling the strategic al Qaeda was achieved without pacifying Afghanistan and without occupying western Pakistan. Instead, we have used a massive intelligence operation to find and destroy al Qaeda's strategic capability there and denied them the ability to mount terrorist attacks outside of their immediate operational area.
The U.S. Army's recent "rediscovery" of its counterinsurgency doctrine was long overdue and certainly increased their effectiveness and will hasten the withdrawal from Iraq.
But in relearning counterinsurgency doctrine, the Army must recall its most fundamental principles, and not just apply its tactics and techniques. One of those principles is the critical importance of using local militia and constabulary units to do the primary fighting of local insurgents and keeping the foreign "footprint" as small as possible.
The "Sunni Awakening" in Iraq was successful largely due to the mobilization of local militia forces to fight insurgents on their own terms, in what was often nasty and brutish affairs. For those that call for a smaller U.S. presence and an increase of Afghan responsibility for the war, they should brace themselves for an ugly war. This is not a strategy of weakness, as claimed by some who reject any troop withdrawals.
In transferring security to the Afghans, the war will get more messy and brutish in the short term, and we will need to support our imperfect allies. It will call for a different type of toughness from American policymakers.
Today in Afghanistan, the U.S. Army is still the main fighting force in the country. In essence, it remains an occupational force with counterinsurgency doctrine sprinkled on top. While U.S. conventional soldiers are kicking in doors of mud homes in poor Afghan villages, it is hard to envision long-term success, no matter how many health clinics they build the next day.
Our interests in Afghanistan may require a long-term and robust presence in that country, and this article is certainly not a call for a fast drawdown at this critical time. We will require a massive economic, security and diplomatic assistance package that will guarantee the viability of the central government.
We will also need substantial conventional forces in Afghanistan to guarantee the viability of the central government, support Afghan forces in extreme situations, and to protect bases to launch counter-terrorism operations in the region.
Our intelligence programs and special operation strikes against strategic al Qaeda (not the local insurgent fighters) will remain our highest priority in the theater. And that is the recipe for a policy that aligns with our primary national security interests and will be the basis for the continued success of our global counter-terrorism strategy.
New Processor Will Feature 100 Cores by Priya Ganapati
Forget dual-core and quad-core processors: A semiconductor company promises to pack 100 cores into a processor that can be used in applications that require hefty computing punch, like video conferencing, wireless base stations and networking. By comparison, Intel’s latest chips are expected to have just eight cores.
“This is a general-purpose chip that can run off-the-shelf programs almost unmodified,” says Anant Agarwal, chief technical officer of Tilera, the company that is making the 100-core chip. “And we can do that while offering at least four times the compute performance of an Intel Nehalem-Ex, while burning a third of the power as a Nehalem.”
The 100-core processor, fabricated using 40-nanometer technology, is expected to be available early next year.
In a bid to beat Moore’s law (which states number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years), chip makers are trying to either increase clock speed or add more cores to a processor. But cranking up the clock speed has its limitations, says Will Strauss, principal analyst with research and consulting firm Forward Concepts.
“You can’t just keep increasing the clock speed so the only way to expand processor power is to increase the number of cores, which is what everyone is trying to do now,” he says. “It’s the direction of the future.”
In fact, Intel’s research labs are already working on a similar idea. Last year, Intel showed a prototype of a 80-core processor. The company has promised to bring that to consumers in about five years.
Tilera, a start-up that was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, started in 2007. It says its product will be available in the next few months, which means the company, if successful, will have gone from zero to shipping a powerful chip in just about three years — a very fast time frame in the semiconductor world. That’s because it has created a chip architecture that removes the challenges present in Intel’s x86 design.
As the number of cores on a chip multiplies, a major challenge is how to connect the chip to memory without choking up the processor. That’s why Agarwal says Tilera has used a mesh network architecture. It eliminates the “on-chip bus interconnect,” a central intersection found in most multi-core CPUs through which information must flow through to get between the cores of a chip. That central interconnect presents bandwidth issues of its own, and also forces engineers to limit the number of cores on a chip to avoid information gridlock.
Instead, Tilera places a communication switch on each processor and arranges them in grid-like fashion on the chip. Because the overall bandwidth is greater than that of a central bus, and because the distance between individual cores is smaller, Tilera says it can cram in as many as 100 cores on a processor without running into bus-bandwidth congestion.
Each core has a full-featured, general-purpose processor that includes L1 and L2 caches, and a distributed L3 cache. The cores are overlaid with the mesh network, which provides extremely low-latency, high-bandwidth communications between the cores, memory and the processor’s input and output.
“If you need huge computing power, say for instance to encode and decode multiple video streams, our processor can do it at much more efficiency than Intel chip or a digital signal processor,” Agarwal says.
And unlike GPU-based computing systems, programmers can recompile and run applications and programs designed for Intel’s x86 architecture on Tilera’s processor.
“Tilera has put forth a novel approach to massively parallel programming,” Strauss says. “The 100-core processor is closer to a generic processor than anything else we have seen before.”
Don’t expect it to run Windows 7 on it though. For that, consumers will have to wait for Intel’s version in a few years.
“This is a general-purpose chip that can run off-the-shelf programs almost unmodified,” says Anant Agarwal, chief technical officer of Tilera, the company that is making the 100-core chip. “And we can do that while offering at least four times the compute performance of an Intel Nehalem-Ex, while burning a third of the power as a Nehalem.”
The 100-core processor, fabricated using 40-nanometer technology, is expected to be available early next year.
In a bid to beat Moore’s law (which states number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years), chip makers are trying to either increase clock speed or add more cores to a processor. But cranking up the clock speed has its limitations, says Will Strauss, principal analyst with research and consulting firm Forward Concepts.
“You can’t just keep increasing the clock speed so the only way to expand processor power is to increase the number of cores, which is what everyone is trying to do now,” he says. “It’s the direction of the future.”
In fact, Intel’s research labs are already working on a similar idea. Last year, Intel showed a prototype of a 80-core processor. The company has promised to bring that to consumers in about five years.
Tilera, a start-up that was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, started in 2007. It says its product will be available in the next few months, which means the company, if successful, will have gone from zero to shipping a powerful chip in just about three years — a very fast time frame in the semiconductor world. That’s because it has created a chip architecture that removes the challenges present in Intel’s x86 design.
As the number of cores on a chip multiplies, a major challenge is how to connect the chip to memory without choking up the processor. That’s why Agarwal says Tilera has used a mesh network architecture. It eliminates the “on-chip bus interconnect,” a central intersection found in most multi-core CPUs through which information must flow through to get between the cores of a chip. That central interconnect presents bandwidth issues of its own, and also forces engineers to limit the number of cores on a chip to avoid information gridlock.
Instead, Tilera places a communication switch on each processor and arranges them in grid-like fashion on the chip. Because the overall bandwidth is greater than that of a central bus, and because the distance between individual cores is smaller, Tilera says it can cram in as many as 100 cores on a processor without running into bus-bandwidth congestion.
Each core has a full-featured, general-purpose processor that includes L1 and L2 caches, and a distributed L3 cache. The cores are overlaid with the mesh network, which provides extremely low-latency, high-bandwidth communications between the cores, memory and the processor’s input and output.
“If you need huge computing power, say for instance to encode and decode multiple video streams, our processor can do it at much more efficiency than Intel chip or a digital signal processor,” Agarwal says.
And unlike GPU-based computing systems, programmers can recompile and run applications and programs designed for Intel’s x86 architecture on Tilera’s processor.
“Tilera has put forth a novel approach to massively parallel programming,” Strauss says. “The 100-core processor is closer to a generic processor than anything else we have seen before.”
Don’t expect it to run Windows 7 on it though. For that, consumers will have to wait for Intel’s version in a few years.
Google Releases Voice Light for Any Mobile Number by Ryan Singel
Mobile phone users who love their phone number but still want the cool features of Google Voice — including computer translations of voicemail messages — will get their wish Tuesday, as Google announces a light version of its innovative phone service (and a new feature for full-blown users).
Google Voice is a Swiss Army knife of cool and free phone service add-ons — including free SMSes, an online mailbox for voice messages, the ability to have one number ring all of your phone numbers simultaneously, low international rates and a customized voicemail messages for every contact. It’s not phone service per se though, since you still need a mobile phone or landline.
But using Google Voice requires users to use their Google Voice number as their main number. That’s a not-inconsiderable burden, given that some mobile phone users have thousands of contacts who know their number and don’t want the hassle of changing business cards and forcing others to update their contacts.
Google’s solution?
Create a light version that gives phone-number-huggers better voicemail. Using a mobile carrier’s call-forwarding codes, Google Voice Light will send a mobile phone’s unanswered calls to a Google-powered mailbox. When callers leave a message there, Google records and transcribes it, and saves it in an online mailbox. The roughly translated text and a link to an online recording can be sent via SMS or e-mail.
The capability will also benefit those who have migrated to Google Voice, since currently the voicemail feature only kicks in when people call the Google Voice number, which forwards the call to a user’s mobile phone. Currently, those who call the mobile phone directly leave a message using the mobile carrier’s network, but with the new system, those calls can be diverted as well.
The voice messages can be stored in perpetuity, forwarded to family or friends, and they can be saved, even if you decide to switch mobile carriers.
Google Voice is a Swiss Army knife of cool and free phone service add-ons — including free SMSes, an online mailbox for voice messages, the ability to have one number ring all of your phone numbers simultaneously, low international rates and a customized voicemail messages for every contact. It’s not phone service per se though, since you still need a mobile phone or landline.
But using Google Voice requires users to use their Google Voice number as their main number. That’s a not-inconsiderable burden, given that some mobile phone users have thousands of contacts who know their number and don’t want the hassle of changing business cards and forcing others to update their contacts.
Google’s solution?
Create a light version that gives phone-number-huggers better voicemail. Using a mobile carrier’s call-forwarding codes, Google Voice Light will send a mobile phone’s unanswered calls to a Google-powered mailbox. When callers leave a message there, Google records and transcribes it, and saves it in an online mailbox. The roughly translated text and a link to an online recording can be sent via SMS or e-mail.
The capability will also benefit those who have migrated to Google Voice, since currently the voicemail feature only kicks in when people call the Google Voice number, which forwards the call to a user’s mobile phone. Currently, those who call the mobile phone directly leave a message using the mobile carrier’s network, but with the new system, those calls can be diverted as well.
The voice messages can be stored in perpetuity, forwarded to family or friends, and they can be saved, even if you decide to switch mobile carriers.
Monday, October 26, 2009
German Limits on War Facing Afghan Reality by Nicholas Kulish and Stefan Pauly contributed reporting from Berlin
Forced to confront the rising insurgency in once peaceful northern Afghanistan, the German Army is engaged in sustained and bloody ground combat for the first time since World War II.
Soldiers near the northern city of Kunduz have had to strike back against an increasingly fierce campaign by Taliban insurgents, while carrying the burden of being among the first units to break the German taboo against military combat abroad that arose after the Nazi era.
At issue are how long opposition in Germany will allow its troops to stay and fight, and whether they will be given leeway from their strict rules of engagement to pursue the kind of counterinsurgency being advocated by American generals. The question now is whether the Americans will ultimately fight one kind of war and their allies another.
For Germans, the realization that their soldiers are now engaged in ground offensives in an open-ended and escalating war requires a fundamental reconsideration of their principles.
After World War II, German society rejected using military power for anything other than self-defense, and pacifism has been a rallying cry for generations, blocking allied requests for any military support beyond humanitarian assistance.
German leaders have chipped away at the proscriptions in recent years, in particular by participating in airstrikes in the Kosovo war. Still, the legacy of the combat ban remains in the form of strict engagement rules and an ingrained shoot-last mentality that is causing significant tensions with the United States in Afghanistan.
Driven by necessity, some of the 4,250 German soldiers here, the third-largest number of troops in the NATO contingent, have already come a long way. Last Tuesday, they handed out blankets, volleyballs and flashlights as a goodwill gesture to residents of the village of Yanghareq, about 22 miles northwest of Kunduz. Barely an hour later, insurgents with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades ambushed other members of the same company.
The Germans fought back, killing one of the attackers, before the dust and disorder made it impossible to tell fleeing Taliban from civilians.
“They shoot at us and we shoot back,” said Staff Sgt. Erik S., who, according to German military rules, could not be fully identified. “People are going to fall on both sides. It’s as simple as that. It’s war.”
The sergeant added, “The word ‘war’ is growing louder in society, and the politicians can’t keep it secret anymore.”
Indeed, German politicians have refused to utter the word, trying instead to portray the mission in Afghanistan as a mix of peacekeeping and reconstruction in support of the Afghan government. But their line has grown less tenable as the insurgency has expanded rapidly in the west and north of the country, where Germany leads the regional command and provides a majority of the troops.
The Germans may not have gone to war, but now the war has come to them.
In part, NATO and German officials say, that is evidence of the political astuteness of Taliban and Qaeda leaders, who are aware of the opposition in Germany to the war. They hope to exploit it and force the withdrawal of German soldiers — splintering the NATO alliance in the process — through attacks on German personnel in Afghanistan and through video and audio threats of terrorist attacks on the home front before the German elections last month.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior American and allied commander in Afghanistan, is pressing NATO allies to contribute more troops to the war effort, even as countries like the Netherlands and Canada have begun discussing plans to pull out. Germany has held out against pleas for additional troops so far.
Ties between Germany and the United States were strained last month over a German-ordered bombing of two hijacked tanker trucks, which killed civilians as well as Taliban. Many Germans, from top politicians down to enlisted men, thought that General McChrystal was too swift to condemn the strike before a complete investigation.
Germany’s combat troops are caught in the middle. In interviews last week, soldiers from the Third Company, Mechanized Infantry Battalion 391, said they were understaffed for the increasingly complex mission here. Two men from the company were killed in June, among 36 German soldiers who have died in the Afghan war.
The soldiers expressed frustration over the second-guessing of the airstrike not only by allies, but also by their own politicians, and over the absence of support back home.
While the intensity of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan’s south has received most attention, the situation in the Germans’ part of the north has deteriorated rapidly. Soldiers said that just a year ago they could patrol in unarmored vehicles. Now there are places where they cannot move even in armored vehicles without an entire company of soldiers.
American officials have argued that an emphasis on reconstruction, peacekeeping and the avoidance of violence may have given the Taliban a foothold to return to the north.
German officers here said they had adjusted their tactics accordingly, often engaging the Taliban in firefights for hours with close air support. In July, 300 German soldiers joined the Afghan Army and National Police in an operation in Kunduz Province that killed more than 20 Taliban fighters and led to the arrests of half a dozen more.
The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called the operation “a fundamental transition out of the defensive and into the offensive.”
Germany’s military actions are controlled by a parliamentary mandate, which is up for renewal in December. The German contingent has unarmed drones and Tornado fighter jets, which are restricted to reconnaissance and are not allowed to conduct offensive operations.
German soldiers usually stay in Afghanistan for just four months, which can make it difficult to maintain continuity with their Afghan partners. The mandate also caps the number of troops in the country at 4,500.
A NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, called the mandate “a political straitjacket.”
A company of German paratroopers in the district of Chahar Darreh, where insurgent activity is particularly pronounced, fought off a series of attacks and stayed in the area, patrolling on foot and meeting with local elders for eight days and seven nights.
“The longer we were out there, the better the local population responded to us,” said Capt. Thomas K., the company’s commander. Another company relieved them for three days but then abandoned the position, where intelligence said that a bomb was waiting for the next group of German soldiers.
“Since we were there, no other company has been back,” the captain said.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Robotic Hand That Senses Touch by John Messina (Ikaros)
Developed by researchers at Lund University in Sweden and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy, the Smart Hand project has given patient, Robin af Ekenstam (see video) the sense of touch in his new prosthesis hand.
The Smart Hand is an intricate prosthesis that incorporates four motors and forty sensors designed to provide practical motion and senses to the person using it. This is the first device of its kind that sends signals back to the brain, allowing the user to have feelings in their fingers and hand.
The Smart Hand takes advantage of the phantom limb syndrome which is the sensation amputees have that their missing body part is still attached.
(Video Credit: BBC News)
By using the impulses from the brain that travel down the neurons to the site of amputation, scientists can use these signals and direct them to a mechanical device. This makes Smart Hand unique because it takes advantage of the phantom limb pathways that are available. By connecting sensors in the hand to the nerve endings in the stump of the arm, patients can feel and control the Smart Hand.
The Smart Hand project is far from creating a limb that functions as a normal hand since there are millions of nerves in a biological hand. The Smart Hand prototype represents more than 10 years of dedication and team work. Contributors from other countries include researchers in Denmark, Israel, Ireland, and Iceland.
Considering it has taken 10 years of hard work to come this far, it will take much less time to make large improvements. Whether improvements are made in the Smart Hand Project or other projects, we can expect to see substantial improvement in prosthetic work within a short amount of time.
Considering it has taken 10 years of hard work to come this far, it will take much less time to make large improvements. Whether improvements are made in the Smart Hand Project or other projects, we can expect to see substantial improvement in prosthetic work within a short amount of time.
One day those suffering from missing limbs may be able to recover at a rate beyond their expectation. Within the next decade, prostheses may be able to feel as natural as our biological part.
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