Japanese company can print a 3D hologram of your unborn foetus | Art and design. If you have ever wanted to immortalise that first glimpse of the bleary face of your foetus on the ultrasound screen, help is at hand. Now you can capture that bewildered expression of your unborn child, peering back at you through its bath of amniotic fluid, and have it printed as a 3D hologram with which to scare your friends. "Previously, holograms were produced by shining two lights at the subject and photographing it," said a spokesman for Pioneer, the company that has developed the technology in Japan.
Shining lights and a camera into your womb is probably not to be advised, but thankfully they have now invented a new technique that translates data directly from the ultrasound scan. "The original method involved a lot of work, because it required a darkroom, knowledge of techniques, and specialised equipment," said the spokesman. "But with the device we've developed, you don't need to have the actual object. So what might you do with your holographic foetus? The digital revolution? It's all a gift to the power of the state | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free.
On Monday the US justice department admitted it knew of every phone call made by 100 Associated Press reporters in April and May last year. It had seized the details, undisclosed, from the relevant phone companies. No reason was given. The department said it "valued the freedom of the press", but – that phrase is always followed by but – it had to balance this against the public interest in security. This week also saw the boot on the other foot. Reporters at Bloomberg had access to restricted data via market tracking terminals that the firm had sold to Wall Street banks.
The banks realised that reporters could follow "searches and keystrokes in their mergers and acquisitions departments" as a result of Bloomberg's "spy in the office". Meanwhile, in Britain it was revealed that Jack Straw's notorious 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) is about as secure as a telephone book. You can scream that nothing online is secure until you are blue in the face. 20 ways to keep your internet identity safe from hackers | Technology | The Observer. We're high up in the Gherkin in the City of London and Garry Sidaway, director of security strategy at Integralis, a firm which advises government agencies, pharmaceutical and financial services multinationals, is giving my computer a security MOT.
"You don't have anti-virus software, I see," he says, a trace of mockery in his voice. "That's your first mistake. " According to Sidaway, while most of us are much more aware of the risks now ("My mum shreds her documents even if she doesn't know why," he says), we should all be raising the bar. He thinks we Britons are an overly trusting lot.
Sitting ducks for an armada of hackers, who are every bit as focused on stealing our data as we are relaxed about storing it. So what are they after, I ask? The government estimates that the total cost of cybercrime in the UK is £27bn a year. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Thinking about having one for your bank and other financial accounts, another for shopping and one for social networks. 13.
Why the Facebook and Apple empires are bound to fall | Technology | The Observer. What goes up must come down: Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook's Graph Search. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Getty Images Nothing lasts forever: if history has any lesson for us, it is this. It's a thought that comes from rereading Paul Kennedy's magisterial tome, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, in which he shows that none of the great nation-states or empires of history – Rome; imperial Spain in 1600; France in either its Bourbon or Bonapartist manifestations; the Dutch republic in 1700; Britain in its imperial glory – succeeded in maintaining its global ascendancy for long.
What has this got to do with technology? Well, it provides us with a useful way of thinking about two of the tech world's great powers. The first is Apple. If you think "hysterical" is a bit harsh, then ponder this. Then there's the social network Facebook with its billion users, which is likewise the focus of much hyperventilating comment. Actually, it's Facebook's latest attempt to become the AOL de nos jours. Even Google won't be around for ever, let alone Facebook | Technology | The Observer.
Some years ago, when the Google Books project, which aims to digitise all of the world's printed books, was getting under way, the two co-founders of Google were having a meeting with the librarian of one of the universities that had signed up for the plan. At one point in the conversation, the Google boys noticed that their collaborator had suddenly gone rather quiet. One of them asked him what was the matter. "Well", he replied, "I'm wondering what happens to all this stuff when Google no longer exists. " Recounting the conversation to me later, he said: "I've never seen two young people looking so stunned: the idea that Google might not exist one day had never crossed their minds. " And yet, of course, the librarian was right.
He had to think about the next 400 years. Compared with my librarian friend, we have the attention span of newts. At one level, all this proves is that in the technology world one can go from zero to hero is a very short time. Google and the future of search: Amit Singhal and the Knowledge Graph | Technology | The Observer. Thinking about Google over the last week, I have fallen into the typically procrastinatory habit of every so often typing the words "what is" or "what" or "wha" into the Google search box at the top right of my computer screen. Those prompts are all the omnipotent engine needs to inform me of the current instant top 10 of the virtual world's most urgent desires.
At the time of typing, this list reads, in descending order: What is the fiscal cliffWhat is my ipWhat is obamacareWhat is loveWhat is glutenWhat is instagramWhat does yolo meanWhat is the illuminatiWhat is a good credit scoreWhat is lupus It is a list that indicates anxieties, not least the ways in which we are restlessly fixated with our money, our bodies and our technology – and paranoid and confused in just about equal measure. That rate of change – of how we gather information, how we make connections and think – has been so rapid that it invites a further urgent Google question. "That's true," Brin concurred.