THE LONGEST CAST, PART III

According to this morning's press release,

The vehicle was intended to fly beyond the international definition of space (100km or 62 miles), with a final anticipated apogee of 365,000 feet or 69.1 miles in 155 seconds. The vehicle flew on a flawless trajectory for nine seconds, reaching an altitude of 24,000 feet. At that point, an anomaly occurred. The anomaly caused a wobble in the vehicle's flight trajectory. The vehicle continued upward reaching a peak altitude of 42,000 feet. The vehicle then returned to earth, unpowered, impacting the New Mexico desert. Radar track was lost approximately 2,000 feet above the desert floor. UP Aerospace and Spaceport America personnel are continuing to search for the vehicle.

So it made it eight miles above the surface of the planet. That's not even close to space, but I can't say the failure is a huge surprise. The space age is rife with similar--and worse!--failures on the way to success. No one should take this failure as a failure of the private space effort. Success will come!

As for the Longest Cast, I do think it safe to say that no one else in the history of fly-fishing has cast a fly sixteen miles (8 up, 8 down)!

THE LONGEST CAST, PART II

Remember the trout fly that was supposed to be launched into space? The final launch date was yesterday, September 25, and though the rocket launched successfully, it suffered "an anomaly in flight causing it to 'corkscrew' at very high velocity." That is, it didn't make the altitude for space.

Click here for the latest.

My trout fly may still have gone further on a single cast than any other in history, but it didn't get where it was supposed to. As any trout fisherman will tell you, that's pretty normal.

3D PRINTING

Once upon a time, the only way to make a three-dimensional object was by hand. One could carve wood or bone, shape clay, blow glass, and pound metal into shape. Unfortunately, while such techniques are extraordinarily versatile, they are not good at making many identical duplicates of a single object. Molding and casting can make duplicates that seem identical to the human eye, but they nevertheless vary on the microscopic scale, which can be quite important if the duplicates are intended to function as interchangeable parts in complex machines. Machine tools such as lathes improve the situation enough to make interchangeable parts for relatively simple machines such as rifles, and indeed Eli Whitney's development of interchangeable parts for muskets helped create mass production and make America's westward expansion possible in the nineteenth century.

But early machine tools were human-controlled. It took a great deal of expertise to use them, and a fair amount of time to make each duplicate. In the late 1940s, John Parsons (head of a company that produced helicopter rotors) devised a way to make punch-card-operated electromechanical calculators generate templates for human-operated machine tools to follow. He then envisioned an extension of the system that would have automated machine tools follow the templates on their own. He became known as the father of numerical control technology and was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1985.

As computers developed, numerical control became quite sophisticated. It even became possible to design an object on a computer and feed the design to automated equipment to make the object; this is CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing). But the process remained expensive--"machine tools" meant drills and lathes capable of working hard metal--and it remained impossible to make hollow objects.

Both of these problems are now being addressed. "Rapid-prototyping" and "3D-printing" tools have been built from the basic idea that a thin layer of powder (plastic, metal, or ceramic) can be fused with a laser, or a thin film of liquid (plastic) can be polymerized (hardened) with a laser. A second layer can then be laid down atop the first and similarly fused or hardened. The trick is to build a machine that can produce and harden layers on demand. When such layers amount to slices through a 3D object (even ones with interior spaces), the accumulation of layers produces the object, as described in Ivan Amato, "Instant Manufacturing," Technology Review (November 2003). It is already finding much use in building prototypes (rapid prototyping) of items to be manufactured by more conventional means, as well as special items such as gears and machine parts, bone implants, and form-fitting items such as hearing aids. The equipment tends to be expensive, but the price is expected to decrease. Will it ever reach a level that the home consumer would feel able to afford? That is a very interesting question, as is the closely related question of what that consumer would use 3D printing for.

One new version of the technology is essentially an inkjet printer that can build up small shapes. Another version offers a 3D printer than can almost reproduce itself! (See Celeste Biever, "3D Printer to Churn Out Copies of Itself," New Scientist news service, March 18, 2005.) Still another version "prints" a biodegradable gel and distributes cells; the aim is to produce custom-designed tissues and organs for use in transplants. Researchers have already begun to develop techniques for "printing" skin and blood vessels, and the future should be very interesting. See Rebecca Camber, "Tailor-Made Skin from 'Ink' Printer," Manchester University (January 19, 2005), and Kate Green, "Printing Blood Vessels," Technology Review (January 20, 2006).

Will 3D printing "emerge"? It already has a place in industry, so one can say it has already done so in one sense. But as Amato mentions, there is enormous potential in the realm of "on-demand manufacturing," personal customization (think of case-modding!), and so on, if the equipment can be brought down enough in price. If this happens, a great many products may no longer be sold in physical form, but as computerized design files. Consumers will "print" the files to obtain the physical products.

Will consumers choose to print rather than fetch? If they do, there will be negative effects on all those companies that make and distribute the objects that can now be sold in the new form. The positive effects will be on new companies that generate and distribute design files, as well as on consumers who can get products more cheaply or can get products that can no longer be found in physical form at all (such as parts for classic cars!). The net effect is what will determine the emergence of the technology as a consumer technology.

And the technology does not stop here! Nanotechnology advocates have been talking for some time now about the "nanofactory," which will be able to manufacture on demand almost anything from a basic supply of atoms and molecules. If nanofactories are even possible (and some do question their practicality), they are much further off than home 3D printers.

HACKING THE VOTING MACHINES

The latest word is that all it takes to open a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine is a hotel minibar key!

The key point (sorry!) is this:

The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine — the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus — can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet.

After discovering that a colleague had, from another source, a key just like their Diebold key, Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten, authors of a paper on how easy it is to install malicious code if you have access to the inside of the machine:

bought several keys from an office furniture key shop — they open the voting machine too. We ordered another key on eBay from a jukebox supply shop. The keys can be purchased from many online merchants.

So though e-voting seems like a good idea, we may not yet have the ideal implementation. Certainly we aren't doing a very good job of keeping unauthorized people--potential hackers and election-stealers--away from the data.

E-VOTING

E-Voting is an excellent example of an enchanting technology with acceptance problems.

The basic idea is simple enough: A ballot is like a thousand forms that we fill out on computer screens all the time. We are used to the process, and we rather like the idea that we might not have to go to a specific place to fill out the form. So why not use computers? Touch-screen or even mouse-and-keyboard machines at a polling place could replace paper ballots with the advantage of instant vote-counting. Or we could use the Internet, which would be a special boon for absentee voters--soldiers overseas, home-bound elderly, commuters who aren't home when the polls are open, and so on.

And it's not as if traditional paper ballots can't be fiddled. In the 2000 Presidential election, we learned about punched card ballots (with hanging chads), butterfly ballots, and other problems. Ballot boxes can be stuffed. Dead people can vote. Even voting machines can be rigged.

Is there any voting method that can't be rigged? The idea of e-voting is as old as the Internet, but it gained new impetus after the 2000 election. Since then a number of versions have developed. eBallot is a software approach. Diebold Election Systems offers a hardware-based system that records and tabulates votes. There are others as well.

But the old paper-based systems have some desirable features:

• Tampering with the ballot itself is detectable.
  
• Paper can be recounted.
  
• Voters can look at the paper and be sure they marked it as they intended.
  
• Paper doesn't crash.
  
• You can use paper even when the power goes out.
  

On a computer:

• Tampering may not be detectable easily at all. Numbers in memory or on disk can easily be changed. And if an unscrupulous programmer is responsible for writing the programs that record and tabulate votes, the results may not be accurate.
  
• One might argue that since computers count more accurately than humans, recounts should not be needed, but computers do make mistakes.
  
• Voters can look at the screen, but they can't be sure that what they marked is what gets recorded.
  
• Computers do crash.
  
• Computers need power.
  

The first two of these problems, says Simson Garfinkel in "The E-Vote Campaign," The Net Effect (September 3, 2003), are why many computer science professionals oppose ATM-style (direct recording or DRE) voting machines. Yet "Politicians ... have been hacking elections in America for more than 200 years. The geeks are focusing on the abilities of hackers to steal elections by reprogramming DREs because electronic attacks are what these folks understand. But if your goal is truly better elections, he says, the DREs can do more good than harm." Some experts believe DREs are the wave of the future. However, there is strong pressure for making the machines able to provide a "paper trail" that permits comparing votes cast against votes recorded and allows recounts.

Yet a paper trail does not help much if people are casting "absentee" votes over the Internet. Here tampering may both be easier and be harder to detect. Aviel D. Rubin, "Security Considerations for Remote Electronic Voting," Communications of the ACM (December 2002), discusses the nature of the problem and available solutions. However, he says, there is currently no way to guarantee security of the system. The stakes are so high that national enemies might devote great resources to hacking a remote voting system and controlling the outcome of an election. Even a simple Distributed Denial of Service attack, such as happens all too frequently with current computer viruses and worms, could shut an election down.

In preparation for this fall's elections, many states have chosen to implement e-voting. However, according to
Patrick O'Driscoll, "Several Lawsuits Target E-Voting," USA Today (June 5, 2006), "Lawsuits have been filed in at least six states... to block the purchase or use of computerized machines. ... Most of the suits argue that the machines are vulnerable to software tampering, don't keep an easily recountable printed record and may miscount, switch or not record votes and even add phantom votes." Andrea Stone, "Analysis Finds E-Voting Machines Vulnerable," USA Today (June 27, 2006), reports that though there are no reported cases of electronic voting machines being hacked, there is a genuine risk that demands paper trails and periodic auditing, as well as removing all wireless connectivity (which can facilitate hacking). See also Keith Regan, "States Beef Up E-Voting Security After Report on Weaknesses," E-Commerce Times (May 12, 2006).

A recent study from New York University School of Law (see Marc L. Songini, "Concerns about Fraud Potential Continue to Plague Users of Electronic Voting Machines," Computerworld, July 3, 2006) reports that "half of the manual voting systems in the country have been replaced with electronic devices" and they may be vulnerable to external attack. Countermeasures are needed. Nevertheless, at least untilexternal attacks actually happen and prove successful, e-voting looks like the wave of the future. Despite debate and lawsuits, it is being adopted, security is being addressed, and standards are being developed.

NANOTECHNOLOGY

The prefix "nano" means one billionth. In "nanotechnology," it means devices built on a scale of billionths of a meter, which is the size range for viruses.

These devices have been imagined in many forms. We have mentioned "utility fog." As described by Eric Drexler in his 1986 book, Engines of Creation, they would be able to manipulate and position single atoms and molecules. For a time, enthusiasts talked of the devices as self-reproducing robots that needed only suitable programming to manufacture practically anything from dirt, air, and water, or to disassemble anything into its component atoms. Consumer goods--from steaks to cars--would be essentially free! Furthermore, nanomachines would repair wounds, destroy cancer, and rotoroot the cholesterol out of our arteries. It sounded like magic, and it stirred debate over the possibility that out-of control nanobeasties might turn everything into gray goo. But despite the enthusiasm, progress has been slow and tiny manufacturing and disassembly robots now seem unlikely. However, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute published a report in 2003 (Denis B. Buxton, et al., "Recommendations of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Nanotechnology Working Group," Circulation, 108, pp. 2737-2742) that called the medical prospects encouraging and called for increased research effort and funding. Enthusiasts such as the Foresight Institute remain optimistic.

Chuck Lenatti, in "Nanotech's First Blockbusters?" Technology Review (March 2004), reports that the effort to learn how to make tiny things is having some practical payoffs already. No one is building tiny robots of any kind, but some companies are making tiny components (such as "nanowires") from which they hope to build marketable photovoltaic cells, LEDs, flexible circuitry, electronic devices, and so on.

How long might it take to go from this sort of thing to the tiny manufacturing and disassembling robots? Most people have thought that if the step is possible at all, it will take decades. But in summer 2003, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology concluded that it could be a matter of weeks, for even simple nanomanufacturing, combined with computer-aided design and manufacturing techniques, would enable extraordinarily rapid progress. (See Mike Treder, "Molecular Nanotech: Benefits and Risks," Futurist, February 2004.) And while the benefits may seem enticing, the hazards strike some as so fearful that society should ban the development of nanotechnology. Bill Joy, "Why the future doesn't need us," Wired (April 2000), even extended the ban to robotics and genetic engineering on the grounds that these three technologies threaten to make humans an endangered species.

Clearly, something is going on here that is not covered by our list of reasons why a technology may not emerge. Perhaps we should add "Society decides that the new product or technology is too hazardous to accept." But, since the list is rooted in reasons why products or technologies have failed in the past, our new entry has never before been used. Has it? We can discuss nuclear power and other debates (over genetic engineering and cloning, for instance), but perhaps we also need to consider whether our new list entry is ever likely to be needed. That is, can society choose to block a technology?

LED LIGHTING

The history of human civilization is in part the history of human efforts to stay up later at night. We have moved from torches to oil lamps, from candles to whale oil and kerosene lanterns, from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents. Along the way we have suffered from unfortunate side effects of each technology, from a tendency to burn down the tent or fill the air with smoke, to the near extinction of whales, to strip mining, air pollution, and high electric bills. But there's a clear trend visible, for each technology gets more light out of the same amount of fuel. This is easily apparent if one but compares a 100-Watt incandescent bulb (10% efficient at turning electricity into light; the rest becomes heat) and a 23-Watt compact fluorescent light bulb (70% efficient), which produces the same amount of light. The compact fluorescent uses less energy and lasts longer, so that even though it costs more to buy, the owner saves money over the life of the bulb. The US government's Energy-Star site says, "If every household in the U.S. replaced one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL), it would prevent enough pollution to equal removing one million cars from the road."

That's impressive. But the trend is hardly over, for now electronics technology has given us the ability to make silicon emit light. The basic device is the Light-Emitting Diode, which has a theoretical efficiency about triple that of the fluorescent light (imagine the equivalent of a 100 Watt incandescent bulb running on 7 Watts!). Already, colored LEDs are replacing traffic lights; they use a tenth as much energy and last five times as long as incandescent bulbs. White-light LEDs are under development and can already be bought in various forms, including flashlights (here is a sample site). Neil Savage, in "Turning on LEDs," Technology Review (January 11, 2006), says that "If the technology can be improved so that half of all lighting is solid-state by 2025, it will cut worldwide power use by 120 gigawatts, saving $100 billion a year and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 350 megatons a year." This projection appears fairly reasonable because white-light LED technology is on track "to produce 150 lumens of illumination per watt of input power by 2012, up from just 25 lumens/watt in 2002. That’s 10 times the efficiency of an incandescent bulb and substantially more than the 50-100 lumens/watt from a fluorescent bulb."

David Talbot's "LEDs vs. the Lightbulb," Technology Review (May 2003), describes both silicon-based and organic LEDs (OLEDs), saying the latter are an important line of development that is not yet as ready for the market. Robert F. Service, "Organic LEDs Look Forward to a Bright, White Future," Science (December 16, 2005), notes that OLEDs are very promising. Janet Raloff, in "Illuminating Changes," Science News (May 20, 2006), says these lights may soon make traditional incandescent and fluorescent lights obsolete and save large amounts of energy in the process, while also reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, which is largely responsible for global warming. OLED lighting holds hope for easy (cheap) manufacture and new forms, such as flexible sheets that could be hung from walls or made part of clothing or furniture. (The same technology is also the key to flexible screens; see Michael Kenellos, "Samsung Unveils Largest Flexible LCD," CNET News.com, November 28, 2005.)

Will LED lights emerge as have compact fluorescents? Initial applications are likely to be for commercial displays and difficult-to-maintain sites (such as traffic lights). They offer distinct advantages in energy consumption and long-term costs, but their own costs will have to come down a bit before most people will be willing to stand the up-front purchase cost. But that will happen, as it did with the compact fluorescent lights. I am sure that it is only a matter of time before most people have more LED lights than incandescent lights.

Actually--they already do. All those little red and green indicator lights on appliances, computers, TVs, etc., are LEDs. So I need to adjust that prediction to: "I am sure that it is only a matter of time before most people have more LED lights bright enough to read by than incandescent lights."

Note that lighting uses a significant fraction of all the electricity generated. According to the International Energy Agency, "For the industrialized countries national lighting electricity use ranges from 5 % to 15 %, while in developing countries the value can be as high as 86 % of the total electricity use. The corresponding carbon dioxide emissions were 1775 million tonnes, of which approximately 511 million tonnes was attributable to the IEA member countries." (A tonne is a metric ton, 1000 kg, or 2200 lbs.) Improving efficiency can either make more electricity available for other uses or decrease the amount of electricity produced, and therefore also reduce carbon dioxide released and impact on global warming.