This is part one of a two-part series. Big tech can provide surveillance, we know that by now. It can provide the surveillance at as fine a level as you want — at our individual level and at minute-level precision. The cell phone and the credit card, the two indispensable parts of our daily lives, […]
The Non-Expert Inventor
As a Computer Scientist, I catch myself sometime, when looking at a wonderful innovative system at work, thinking of the details that went into it. When face-to-face with the wonderful Starship zipping around the Purdue campus delivering food, I am thinking of what software security feature does it have to avoid it being hijacked. When […]
Internet at 50 Years: Hills to Climb
Citation In this second of my two part reflection on the internet at its 50th birthday, I turn my eyes toward three challenges the medium has to solve. I then list from a bird’s eye view some of the most important solutions being investigated in academia to fix these. In customary braggadocio, I include some […]
Internet at 50 years: Celebrating Three Victories
Citation The internet had a rather unobtrusive 50th birthday on October 29, 2019, celebrated in a low-key style mainly in the quiet hallways frequented by technologists. It has come a long way from the first unintended message “lo” sent by Leonard Kleinrock and Charley Kline in UCLA to SRI in Menlo Park. Much has been […]
Short Take: Policy Issues to Beat the Autocracy of Autonomous Systems
In a previous post, I discussed, through a dystopian scenario, how autonomous systems can reduce our lives to one of hapless destiny. And in the last post, I discussed some design and development principles that we as technologists can follow that can help us avoid plunging into such dystopian scenarios. In this article, I will […]
Short Take: Beating the Autocracy of Autonomous Systems
In the previous post, I discussed through a dystopian scenario, a manifestation of how autonomous systems can reduce our lives to one of hapless destiny. I believe that we as technologists can develop technologies with some guiding principles that can help us avoid plunging into such dystopian scenarios, under most cases. I also believe that […]
Short Take: The Autocracy of Autonomous Systems
Autonomous systems are all around us. To large parts of the population, they are like the mythical creatures of yore of great power, great knowledge, and great control over us. Some in the wide world ask with growing consternation: “Are we still going to be in charge? Are we still the driver at the wheels, […]
Will We All Be Wearing Wearables?
Citation Wearable sensing devices started making their way into mainstream consumer devices in the early 2010s—Fitbits launched in 2009, Google Glass and Oculus Rift both launched prototypes in the early 2010s leading to renewed interest in augmented reality, while Pebble’s Kickstarter campaign for a smartwatch kickstarted in 2012 and raised a whopping $10.2 million, making […]
Predictive AI for Reliability and Security
Citation In the computer systems field, we use AI, or its more trendy cousin, Machine Learning for predictive reliability and security all the time. This means we take action in anticipation of failure of a computer system to make sure it continues to function reliably and securely. The question is does this translate beyond the […]
Flitting between the Virtual and the Real Worlds
Citation We increasingly live in two worlds — the virtual one of our tablets and our HoloLenses, and the real one of paper books, soccer balls, and winding trails through spring blossoms. We have gotten better flitting between these two worlds as well — poring over our laptops during the conference session and then lifting […]
