From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Sun Nov 10 2002 - 03:07:33 MST
On Sat, 9 Nov 2002, Hal Finney wrote:
> In A Deepness in the Sky, the localizers are very advanced, dust-mode
> sized, and play a big part in the many layers of deception which
> create such tension.
The localizing function of motes in ADITS was only a small part of their
functionality. It was the ability to do I/O to uninstrumented people, to
navigate (kinda, sorta) in the environment and to use the cloud as a large
distributed computer additionally to the localizer and surveillance sensor
capabilities that gave Pham an angle over the Emergents, as he first get
them hooked on the tech, and then exploited a backdoor he himself
installed as he comissioned the localizer batch.
> The big new tech in Fast Times is augmented reality, overlaying
> computer imagery on top of audiovisual or even tactile sensations.
> The localizers help in two ways. First, they form a positional
> reference, which helps the computer to keep track of your position and
The FCC has still not allowed uncrippled digital pulse radio operation.
IIRC they make their further moves dependant on how it will prove itself
in deployment. I don't know what the situation in the EU is, it is
probably even worse than that. Digital pulse radio is a critical component
for low-power high-bandwidth time of flight mutual triangulation, traffic
routing through the cell, and an effective realtime radar capable of
tracking birds and large insects in flight. While it is possible to
extract positioning information from signal strength and multipath, a
relativistic ping is an elementary capability of a ultrawideband radio
running at uW budget and excelling at pulsed operation.
> orientation, so that the artificial graphics stay in synch with
> reality. And second, they provide additional imagery, so for example
While people say OLED based head up display prototypes are in the works,
we have been waiting for this all the way since the Private Eye. It has
taken about a decade so far, and there's still no hints of actual
affordable products, despite existance of companies like
http://www.microopticalcorp.com/
> you can set walls to be transparent, and you can then see what is on
> the other side of them. The images for stuff which isn't visible from
> your perspective comes from the localizers.
>
> I was amazed to see how far along the hardware and software is for
> this technology. It seems very clear that with another 20-30 years of
> progress we will easily be able to have the capability Vinge requires
> for his localizer net.
Including the ability to do nontrivial crunch, and synthesize audio and
video, and to do limited scale navigation, in a disposable package that is
barely visible? Given that this is more than half way to utility fog, that
strikes me as somewhat overoptimistic. Unless you assume advent of
nontrivial molecular manufacturing on that time frame...
> Most of the slashdot commentary related to privacy concerns, which is
> legitimate and not addressed much by Vinge. Universal localizers could
> bring us closer to Brin's transparency, or to Orwellian surveillance.
> In Vinge's hands they just make everything more convenient. I guess he
> basically trusts society not to do anything too stupid with them.
Well, you're a cypherpunk, so you know that level of trust is completely
unwarranted. In fact Vinge himself in ADITS gives a very clear warning of
which kind of society profits most from ubiquitous surveillance in the
face of the Emergents. So far, technology empowerment vastly favours the
feds.
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