Using a series of long life beta emitter radio isotopes and detectors in separate vessels to generate truly random binary numbers. At any given moment, a detector will detect a particle emission (1) or will not (0), and this detector can be sampled hundreds or thousands of times per second. If there are 10 vessels with 10 samples and detectors, then every time the detectors are queried one will receive a truly random number. If the detector can be interrogated 1000 times per second that would allow for a binary string 10,000 factors long per second (slice up any way that a consumer would require).
So ... turns out that a lot of other people have had this idea and are doing something about it.
RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service uses atmospheric noise to obtain truly random numbers.
Even more interesting is Hotbits: Genuine Random Numbers - Fourmilab which uses radioactive decay to obtain a random number sequence
Both of these services are available via the web, and a person or company can subscribe to them and obtain random numbers. Of course, for encryption, cryptography, gaming, gambling, and certain other activities where random number generation is mission critical, it would seem obtaining them from a 3rd party might introduce some uncertainty.
I'm envisioning motherboards and discrete systems with on-board true random number generation.
Imagine for example a tiny sample of Tritium gas, which is a radioactive isotope of Hydrogen, very safe, a beta particle emmitter, with a 12 year half life. A sample in a phial the size of a grain of rice, with a detector on each end, could obtain a continuous stream of random 1's and 0's for well over 12 years, which is far beyond the life of any computer system. Something like this would easily fit on the circuit board of even a mobile phone.
One note on the issue of half life and radioactive decay. Over time the sample will become less radioactive, and if 'no-particle-detected' = zero, then over time the average ratio of 1 (particle detected) to zero will deviate from 50/50 to some ratio where it is statistically more likely for a zero to come up than a 1. BUT - a detection even, while happening many times per second, is still not exactly an instantaneous event. The detector is 'detecting' for a very narrow window of time. So - a very small ROM and a small amount of DRAM storage should allow the randomness to be maintained for more than the life of the circuit board in the following manner. The DRAM would be used to store the detector's output from the last - few million detection events, and the ROM would have an algorithm that calculated a running average of '0' events, and a clock circuit that controlled the time span of the detector window. As the 1/0 ratio trends towards 0 being more frequent than 1, the system would expand the detection time span window duration so that the rolling average of 1's and 0's remains 50/50. At all times the actual result of any one detection event would be 50/50 to all significant digits, but over time as the sample decayed the amount of time that the system would leave the detector on would need to increase to allow for the fact that older samples emit particles less frequently.
Editorial on why I was thinking about this....
Well, I like to play a lot of games, and when I'm on the go, a game I like to play is the iPad version of RISK, which involves lots of computer generated dice roles. And I play so much that I can usually tell very early on if the random number 'seed' the game is using is favorable towards the attacker or the defender and I can modify my gameplay style to account for that. And that is sad because the dice rolls should be completely random.
This got me thinking of a circuit board sized random number generator for the iPad/tablet computers.
I also happen to be a futurist, and I think about the direction technology will unfold and how that will affect human life/culture/civilization (now don't get too excited I'm pretty pessimistic about our chances for long term survival - we could, there's no technical reason we shouldn't, but people are very myopically selfish, and poorly educated and very bad decision makers so all our actions over the last 50 years especially have all been doing nothing more than accelerating our civilization's collapse) - BUT... say we didn't all die off, say on the off chance for example, we actually bothered to stop destroying our planet, and each other. Well, while it's probably unlikely, if we did decide to stop the madness, then humanity would have a great potential to spread out to the rest of the solar system and beyond, and we could easily eliminate poverty, homelessness, famine, and improve health care enough so that death would be something much less likely than it is today. If we did so there'd be a lot of people around, since right now we do such a great job of killing each other and our population is still growing. So - I think about what to do with all those beings, the sentient minds.
There's every reason to believe that brains can be kept alive and connected to a 'matrix' like virtual reality simulator for quite some time, allowing people to live on long after their bodies give out but ultimately, even a brain will decay and stop functioning. Over a long enough timeline, if humanity is going to prosper, humans must evolve away from these organic meat-sacks and into a more robust architecture, in other words, must become sentient inorganic systems (some of you might call them machines or robots). Its easy to see several developmental paths to such an architecture, but all of them require truly random number generation. A human brain is the most complex configuration of matter in the known universe and it will take some time to model it, though the good folks at IBM are making great strides already in the nascent first steps. Once these systems start to improve themselves, there should be a pretty rapid increase in their capabilities, but if the systems are always based on pseudo-random numbers they will never make the leap to a truly dynamic, unpredictable system of sentient self aware processes.
So - while a circuit board based truly random number generator would be great for people who like to game-on-the-go, it is also a critical component of the architecture humans will one day rely upon within their own inorganic bodies.
[I know that some people of our current generation would not call an inorganic sentient being a human, but I would warrant that if Australopithecus met a modern human and had the capacity to do so, she would not call us human either. While likely a topic for another post, if humans don't succeed in committing mass global suicide, the most probably path of evolution will be a blending of organic and inorganic components, possibly powered by systems such as these, with more and more of the functions performed by our organic brains migrated over to inorganic processing subsystems until finally there is no need for any of the organic components at all. Over this whole transition, society will always call the beings in question, (at least in english) "human".]
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Friday, August 30, 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
Passcode Lock Circumvention for iOS suggestion
Unlike most of my rants this is just a sketch I want to write so I can tweet it to Apple.
Currently mobile security and BYOD are huge catchphrases that many companies are pouring tons of money and effort into.
Part of these initiatives is requiring encryption/passcode locks on mobile devices like phones and tablets.
In iOS, it's possible to access the camera without unlocking the phone but everything else is behind that iron curtain.
My proposal is thus - create a special container that sits in a DMZ - outside of the passcode lock/encryption. Any apps dropped into that DMZ container would then be accessible via a swipe from the lock screen.
A user could put "words with friends", "angry birds", or any app - including calendar, phone, email, SMS, whatever, into that container and have quick access to it.
If said user were to sign up for their corporate BYOD program, then the MDM could send a policy to the iOS device tagging certain apps as disallowed from being in the DMZ container. (the api would need to be extended to support this functionality).
If these enhancements to iOS were made, then a person would be able to drop aps they use frequently - maps, imdb, sms-messaging, etc - into this DMZ container and be able to use them without traversing the passcode lock.
In slightly related fashion, as a further enhancement - for SMS messaging - incorporate the type of functionality already available in Android to allow a user to reply to an SMS message without switching out of the application they are currently using.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Currently mobile security and BYOD are huge catchphrases that many companies are pouring tons of money and effort into.
Part of these initiatives is requiring encryption/passcode locks on mobile devices like phones and tablets.
In iOS, it's possible to access the camera without unlocking the phone but everything else is behind that iron curtain.
My proposal is thus - create a special container that sits in a DMZ - outside of the passcode lock/encryption. Any apps dropped into that DMZ container would then be accessible via a swipe from the lock screen.
A user could put "words with friends", "angry birds", or any app - including calendar, phone, email, SMS, whatever, into that container and have quick access to it.
If said user were to sign up for their corporate BYOD program, then the MDM could send a policy to the iOS device tagging certain apps as disallowed from being in the DMZ container. (the api would need to be extended to support this functionality).
If these enhancements to iOS were made, then a person would be able to drop aps they use frequently - maps, imdb, sms-messaging, etc - into this DMZ container and be able to use them without traversing the passcode lock.
In slightly related fashion, as a further enhancement - for SMS messaging - incorporate the type of functionality already available in Android to allow a user to reply to an SMS message without switching out of the application they are currently using.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Friday, August 2, 2013
3 Ideas to power internal Cybernetic Implants
I was thinking about all the great cybernetic enhancements that we will soon be able to have installed in our bodies, and while I'm strongly in favor of any cybernetic enhancements, I have often thought that the electrical power requirements are really going to be the primary limiting factor for this type of technology application.
I can imagine a day when implants along the path of the optic nerve or a sheet of stimulators laid against the back of the brain where the visual cortex is located could be used to create augmented reality visuals without having to wear Google Glasses. I can imagine similar applications of stimulators along the auditory nerves so that one could listen to music or participate in a phone conversation without there being any actual physical noise created that others could hear, or eaves drop. There are a wide range of physical and mental enhancements that are probably on the horizon, but I know that it would be pretty annoying if I had to plug a power cord into my navel every night so my implanted cybernetic enhancements would operate.
There are many possible ways to address this short coming.. here are a few ideas that I'd like to see pursued.
1) Nuclear Battery - this is a natural and logical choice. Polonium and Plutonium both have 100 year half lives and give off quite a bit of energy for a very low volume of material. It would be feasible to take a few grams of either material, encase in a heat/radiation sink, wrap in a thermocouple and create a small RTG that would produce power for a century. This could be coupled with super-capacitor batteries so that the continuous power from the nuclear battery could charge the capacitors and the capacitors could then provide high/variable output power to the various cybernetic devices within one's body. There are some downsides to this solution though. Even though it is the only one that's been effectively proven to work subcutaneously, it is hampered by political obstacles and the public's irrational fears of nuclear technologies (irrational fears based on ignorance and capitalized upon by fear mongers, IMHO, but I'm not bitter. ;) ) But - I should also note a legitimate concern with this type of power source, namely the issue of heat dissipation. For any volumes of material that would produce sufficient amounts of power to operate high drain mechanical cybernetics, such as artificial limbs and organs, the amount of waste heat generated would be substantial, requiring an active heat dissipation system. Should there be a failure of that active cooling system, the battery might get hot enough to cause thermal tissue damage.. and since the device is located INSIDE a body, that could be cause for alarm. Therefore, a nuclear battery would be best suited for low power consumption self contained devices, like emergency locator beacons.
2) 'Blood Fuel Cell power source' - while the nuclear battery concept is already a proven reality on both the large and small scale and would need only modest changes in materials to make a viable subcutaneous long life high power version (there have been low power subcutaneous nuclear batteries used for pace makers in the past, but those have very low output), the blood battery is something I have never heard of from anyone else. I don't want to say its an original idea, I can only say I haven't heard of it from anyone else. My idea for the blood battery is pretty simple - blood has chemical energy in the form of ATP that is released using free electrons in Oxygen to handle the electron transport. Cells use this energy to drive their processes. It should be possible to create something like a fuel cell, that can extract energy from the ATP found in the blood. That energy is electrical - the oxygenation process of the body converts hydrocarbons and oxygen into electrical motive energy to drive cellular processes. Each organic cell is already a mini-fuel cell. If we create a slightly larger version and hook it to a traditional battery, then one's own blood can charge the battery, and that battery can then supply current to the various cybernetic implants in the body. This is probably my favorite approach to electrical power for implanted cybernetics. As long as you're alive and eating, you have power. So it truly becomes a part of you.
3) Mechanical Motion Capture power source - Everyone should be familiar with self-winding watches from the past, and their newer offspring the self winding electrical watch. Self winding watches today capture the motion of the movement of one's limbs, convert it to electrical energy and store it in a battery. This could be used to power internal electronics as well - bind the mechanical motion energy capture mechanisms to bones in the forearms and calves. (Radius / Ulna in the forearms, and Tibia in the lower legs), route wires from those locations to a battery pack located in the main body cavity, such that movement of the limbs is converted into electrical current that is routed to the battery pack to charge. That power pack can then supply power to any implanted tech. An upside to this type of power source is that it would encourage people to exercise more.. if only to keep their augmented reality systems powered up.
Any of these would be great options but I think I would prefer a combination of option 2 and 3... a primary power source from capturing some of the mechanical energy of moving one's limbs, but with a secondary source - pulling chemical energy directly from the blood. I think that this would be an ideal configuration for military personnel - who would be more likely to have high energy drain devices, possibly implants with defensive or offensive capabilities. Civilian applications would most likely be in social communications, and interactive info-tainment (augmented reality, gaming) so their power consumption requirements would be lower.
Of course, there are also the health/medical applications - powering artificial inorganic limbs and organs (though I expect 3d printed or vat grown organic tissue organs and limbs will be the dominant treatment protocol of the future). Where I see this tech really shining is in situations where a person's heart stops and an AED could automatically kick start it without any user intervention.
Another area of application would be in performance enhancement - using electrical energy generated in the above manner to stimulate muscle groups more powerfully - allowing individuals to exhibit profound increases in strength and stamina.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I can imagine a day when implants along the path of the optic nerve or a sheet of stimulators laid against the back of the brain where the visual cortex is located could be used to create augmented reality visuals without having to wear Google Glasses. I can imagine similar applications of stimulators along the auditory nerves so that one could listen to music or participate in a phone conversation without there being any actual physical noise created that others could hear, or eaves drop. There are a wide range of physical and mental enhancements that are probably on the horizon, but I know that it would be pretty annoying if I had to plug a power cord into my navel every night so my implanted cybernetic enhancements would operate.
There are many possible ways to address this short coming.. here are a few ideas that I'd like to see pursued.
1) Nuclear Battery - this is a natural and logical choice. Polonium and Plutonium both have 100 year half lives and give off quite a bit of energy for a very low volume of material. It would be feasible to take a few grams of either material, encase in a heat/radiation sink, wrap in a thermocouple and create a small RTG that would produce power for a century. This could be coupled with super-capacitor batteries so that the continuous power from the nuclear battery could charge the capacitors and the capacitors could then provide high/variable output power to the various cybernetic devices within one's body. There are some downsides to this solution though. Even though it is the only one that's been effectively proven to work subcutaneously, it is hampered by political obstacles and the public's irrational fears of nuclear technologies (irrational fears based on ignorance and capitalized upon by fear mongers, IMHO, but I'm not bitter. ;) ) But - I should also note a legitimate concern with this type of power source, namely the issue of heat dissipation. For any volumes of material that would produce sufficient amounts of power to operate high drain mechanical cybernetics, such as artificial limbs and organs, the amount of waste heat generated would be substantial, requiring an active heat dissipation system. Should there be a failure of that active cooling system, the battery might get hot enough to cause thermal tissue damage.. and since the device is located INSIDE a body, that could be cause for alarm. Therefore, a nuclear battery would be best suited for low power consumption self contained devices, like emergency locator beacons.
2) 'Blood Fuel Cell power source' - while the nuclear battery concept is already a proven reality on both the large and small scale and would need only modest changes in materials to make a viable subcutaneous long life high power version (there have been low power subcutaneous nuclear batteries used for pace makers in the past, but those have very low output), the blood battery is something I have never heard of from anyone else. I don't want to say its an original idea, I can only say I haven't heard of it from anyone else. My idea for the blood battery is pretty simple - blood has chemical energy in the form of ATP that is released using free electrons in Oxygen to handle the electron transport. Cells use this energy to drive their processes. It should be possible to create something like a fuel cell, that can extract energy from the ATP found in the blood. That energy is electrical - the oxygenation process of the body converts hydrocarbons and oxygen into electrical motive energy to drive cellular processes. Each organic cell is already a mini-fuel cell. If we create a slightly larger version and hook it to a traditional battery, then one's own blood can charge the battery, and that battery can then supply current to the various cybernetic implants in the body. This is probably my favorite approach to electrical power for implanted cybernetics. As long as you're alive and eating, you have power. So it truly becomes a part of you.
3) Mechanical Motion Capture power source - Everyone should be familiar with self-winding watches from the past, and their newer offspring the self winding electrical watch. Self winding watches today capture the motion of the movement of one's limbs, convert it to electrical energy and store it in a battery. This could be used to power internal electronics as well - bind the mechanical motion energy capture mechanisms to bones in the forearms and calves. (Radius / Ulna in the forearms, and Tibia in the lower legs), route wires from those locations to a battery pack located in the main body cavity, such that movement of the limbs is converted into electrical current that is routed to the battery pack to charge. That power pack can then supply power to any implanted tech. An upside to this type of power source is that it would encourage people to exercise more.. if only to keep their augmented reality systems powered up.
Any of these would be great options but I think I would prefer a combination of option 2 and 3... a primary power source from capturing some of the mechanical energy of moving one's limbs, but with a secondary source - pulling chemical energy directly from the blood. I think that this would be an ideal configuration for military personnel - who would be more likely to have high energy drain devices, possibly implants with defensive or offensive capabilities. Civilian applications would most likely be in social communications, and interactive info-tainment (augmented reality, gaming) so their power consumption requirements would be lower.
Of course, there are also the health/medical applications - powering artificial inorganic limbs and organs (though I expect 3d printed or vat grown organic tissue organs and limbs will be the dominant treatment protocol of the future). Where I see this tech really shining is in situations where a person's heart stops and an AED could automatically kick start it without any user intervention.
Another area of application would be in performance enhancement - using electrical energy generated in the above manner to stimulate muscle groups more powerfully - allowing individuals to exhibit profound increases in strength and stamina.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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