What Will the IT Help Desk of the Future Look Like? As anybody who's spent long stretches of time on the phone with customer support knows, the help desk is one area of professional life that could use a refresh. This is true of external customer support departments, which are beginning to use social tools to augment their existing operations. It's also true of the internal IT help desk. We're already seeing clues about the future of the IT help desk today. The workforce is beginning to become more distributed and mobile, while the nature and number of devices people use day-to-day changes rapidly. This post is part of a series brought to you by GoToAssist. Mobile, But Probably Not That Social As much buzz as there's been about social CRM in the last year or two, the trend toward socially infused customer support probably has only a limited relevance to company IT departments, whose "customers" are really internal staff. That isn't to say that IT issues will necessarily be resolved face-to-face.
Supporting A Wider Range of Devices. You'll Download Physical Objects Soon, Thanks to These Kids. File-sharing site The Pirate Bay caused an Internet stir last week when it introduced a new content category called "Physibles," essentially designed to allow people to pass one another physical objects for download. The term refers to data files that are actually able to become physical objects via 3D printing technology. Before long, The Pirate Bay said in a blog post, "you will print the spare parts for your vehicles.” Some saw the announcement as an overhyped publicity stunt. Others saw a powerful revolution of how humans acquire essential goods.
But one expert Mashable spoke with this week said that 3D printing is indeed bound for the mainstream — and even sooner than The Pirate Bay might think. "I see a big future for 3D printers in personal-scale applications that will unfold over the next decade. " That big future will probably include kids like Riley Lewis and Vernon Bussler (right and left, respectively, in the accompanying photo). Riley and Vernon are eighth graders.
Robots. Computers, Laptops, Smartphones, and Cameras. Medical. The credit card that may stop, or at least hinder, on- and offline fraud. How much do you worry about your credit card information falling into the wrong hands, either due to online security breaches or a lost or stolen card? Dynamics Inc. is a company that claims to have the solution: a credit card that generates a one-time use code every time it is used, both for online and physical transactions.
The company showed off a number of credit card options here at CES, including the ability to keep a single card for multiple accounts. The secret lies in the company's innovative magnetic strip, which can be programmed in real time, and—more importantly—wiped clean just as quickly. The technology is impressive. The cards look and feel much like existing credit cards, and can be kept in your wallet and bent without harming the internal electronics. If someone steals your card, they won't be able to use it without your code unlocking the number and coding the strip. The dynamic nature of the magnetic strip opens up a number of other applications. Scientists Create Time Invisibility Cloak. You've probably seen fictional cloaks that can make people invisible, but now scientists have created a way to mask whole events in time.
A team of researchers at Cornell University have come up with a way to essentially cloak time and space to make a actions appear invisible. It’s an illusion created by light rays. "You kind of create a hole in time where an event takes place," Alexander Gaeta, director of Cornell's School of Applied and Engineering Physics, told the AP. "You just don't know that anything ever happened. " Check out the video above to learn more. SEE ALSO: Scientists Turn Brain’s Visual Memories into a Mind-Blowing Video.
Scientists Turn Brain's Visual Memories into a Mind-Blowing Video. Scientists Listen In on Thoughts. The future of war: Far-out battle tech. The Disc-Rotor program aims to develop a new type of aircraft capable of transitioning from hovering like a helicopter to flying like a plane (artist's impression). The Vulture program is developing the technology to enable an "airborne payload" to remain in the sky for more than five years at a time, performing intelligence, surveillance and communication missions (artist's impression). Tech company iRobot worked with DARPA for its "ChemBots" program. The aim was to build soft, flexible robots that could deform their bodies to move through openings smaller than themselves. DARPA also funded iRobot's research for its LANdroids program.
The aim was to give soldiers reliable communications in urban areas by creating pocket-sized robots they could scatter as they moved through an area. The robots would each act as a "node" in a wireless communications network. The ultimate goal of the Falcon program is to create a vehicle that can fly anywhere in the world in less than an hour.
Vulture Phoenix. Self-Guided Bullet Strikes Target a Mile Away. A breakthrough in precision bullet technology for small caliber firearms will make striking a target an easier task. Two researchers at Sandia's National Laboratories created a self-guided dart-like bullet able to strike a target more than a mile away. The self-guided 4-inch bullet prototype has been successfully tested in both computer simulations and field testing — where bullet speeds have reached 2,400 feet per second. The bullet differs from missile technology, in that the self-guided bullet has an optical sensor that can detect a laser beam on a target, which allows the bullet to steer toward a target. In one field test, researchers attached a tiny light-emitting diode, or LED to the bullet to tract its path and researchers found the "battery and electronics could survive the bullet's launch," Sandia Lab reported.
Check out the video above to learn more. Image courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories. Testing shows proposed 4G network interferes with 75% of GPS devices. A proposed nationwide, open-access 4G wireless broadband network has hit another snag. Testing carried out by a federal agency at the behest of the Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration, and a handful of GPS makers showed that the proposed broadband service messed with the performance of 75 percent of the GPS receivers tested. According to a draft of the report obtained by Bloomberg News, LightSquared's signals "caused harmful interference to majority [sic] of GPS receivers tested. No additional testing is required to confirm harmful interference exists. " LightSquared has planned to build a $14 billion nationwide network that it would then resell to wholesale providers (the company says it has no interest in retail). It owns a chunk of spectrum that it plans to devote to the network, but that spectrum—in the area between 1525MHz and 1660.5MHz—is uncomfortably close to that used by many GPS devices.
The full report will be presented on December 14 in Washington, DC. FCC Approves First White Spaces Database and Device. New developments from the FCC could bring us one step closer to faster, more advanced wireless networks. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced Thursday that its Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) has approved the first database for television white spaces and the first device that will be allowed to operated on these bands.
White spaces are unused spectrum between broadcast television channels. Although broadcasters argued that they needed this bandwidth for their own needs, the FCC disagreed and ruled to allow unlicensed usage of this spectrum in November 2008. Tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, have long lobbied that the FCC allow these white spaces to be used for more powerful Wi-Fi and wireless broadband. This could lead to what some have dubbed "Super Wi-Fi. " The FCC ruling [PDF] lays the foundation for a new breed of high speed wireless devices, including new forms of Wi-Fi, to come to market. Image courtesy of Karl-Martin Skontorp on Flickr. 15 Photoshopped Transformations of Celebs and Models. 30 Cutting-Edge Tech Projects From Around the World. From bike-sharing in Toronto to geothermal technologies in Reykjavik to accessible laptops in India, civic projects and startups alike are using tech to make a difference in the way everyone lives.
These efforts are making traffic easier to navigate, energy consumption a little greener, and people happier. They show that smart uses of technology will be key in solving some of the world's most pressing problems. Below we've highlighted some of the best and most interesting projects. To read more about them, click through to get the full story, and follow the series to learn about even more global efforts for change. 1. You can crowdsource almost anything these days — news, music videos, fashion advice, your love life or even your entire life. Read the full story here. 2. Governments have been harnessing consumer-facing technology to reach out to their citizens in some very interesting ways.
Read the full story here. 3. 5 Ambitious Social Good Startups Created In a Single Weekend 4. 5. 7. 9. How Occupy Wall Street Is Building Its Own Internet. Protesters at Zuccotti Park have enough resources to satisfy a small village: hot food, live entertainment, even a library. But perhaps their most effective resource comes from a nine-foot-high pole known as the "Freedom Tower", usually stationed at the southwest corner of the park and currently being redesigned to run on batteries charged by a biodiesel generator. It's free WiFi, but not as you know it. "The movement is very much catalyzed and made possible by our newfound ability to communicate with each other directly," says Isaac Wilder, who has camped at various Occupy Wall Street sites since September. "Rather than saying when you get home, 'I was at the park today,' they can say 'hey, I am at Zuccotti park.
Come join me.'" Wilder and his friend Charles Wyble are the founders of The Free Network Foundation. Their larger goal, however, is an ambitious one: creating a new kind of Internet, with an off-the-grid component just for OWS. "It's totally alpha," Wilder says. Facial monitoring: The all-telling eye. We know what you’re thinking IMAGINE browsing a website when a saucy ad for lingerie catches your eye.
You don't click on it, merely smile and go to another page. Yet it follows you, putting up more racy pictures, perhaps even the offer of a discount. Finally, irked by its persistence, you frown. “Sorry for taking up your time,” says the ad, and promptly desists from further pestering. Uses for this technology would not, of course, be confined to advertising. Advertising firms already film how people react to ads, usually in an artificial setting. Some consumer-research companies also employ goggle-mounted cameras to track eye movements so they can be sure what their subjects are looking at. This work is now moving online.
One of the companies doing such work, Realeyes, which is based in London, has been developing a system that combines eye-spying webcams with emotional analysis. As similar gimmicks become widespread, privacy concerns will invariably mount. Your face is being tracked - Intel AIM Suite (1) Looking at digital advertisements has become commonplace in malls and bus stops around the world. A growing number of those signs are now looking back at you. Intel's AIM Suite digital signs use facial detection cameras and software to determine a consumer's age and gender, and then tailors their ads. If an 23-year old woman walks by the sign, it might display an ad for a hair product. But if a 53-year old man strolls past, a BMW ad may be displayed. AIM Suite is designed to detect broad age ranges: 18 and under, 18-34, 34-59 and 60 and over. It can also determine gender -- typically by checking out the ears. But it does send data back to the advertisers, including how long a consumer engages with a particular ad and how far away they're standing from the sign.
The technology has been on the market for just three months, but advertisers have been quick to adopt it. NEXT: SceneTap. How to hide from face-detection technology. By John D. Sutter, CNN (CNN) - If you take Adam Harvey's advice, here's what you might wanna wear to a party this weekend: A funny hat, asymmetrical glasses, a tuft of hair that dangles off your nose bridge and, most likely, a black-and-white triangle taped to your cheekbone. Optional: Cubic makeup patterns all around your eyes. All of these otherworldly fashion accessories – which could leave a person looking kind of like an opulent villain from "The Hunger Games" - have a singular goal: to stop your face from being detected by cameras and computers. If you employ these techniques, Harvey, 30, hopes computers won't even know you have a face: I don’t want to be unrealistic about it.
The face appendages aim to trick face detection software by obscuring computer-readable parts of your face. Or, you could just sport a popped collar or a hoodie. One idea I’m working on is a double flip-up collar. Asymmetry also fools computers, he said, since software first looks for symmetry in a face. Facial Recognition Billboard Only Lets Women See the Full Ad. A new kind of outdoor advertisement is being trialled on Oxford Street in London’s West End. The interactive advertisement uses a high-definition camera to scan pedestrians and identify their gender before showing a specific ad. The built-in system has a 90 per cent accuracy rate in analyzing a person’s facial features and determining if they’re a male or female. The £30,000 display is set up by Plan UK, a not-for-profit organization that helps children in third-world countries.
Female passersby will be shown the full 40-second video of its ‘Because I’m a Girl’ campaign that promotes sponsoring a girl to receive proper education in a developing country. Males won’t be able to see the full ad and will be directed to Plan UK’s website instead. The purpose of this was to show men “a glimpse of what it’s like to have basic choices taken away.” The ad campaign will run for a two-week period and hopes to raise quarter of a million pounds in donations over the next four months. Plan UK.