ntouk.com - Jerry Fishenden's Technology Policy blog

Grid Computing Now! has launched a new competition, "Grid computing for a greener planet". The competition invites participants "to harness the power of grid to help minimise the environmental impact of human activity".

More details are available here and here.

This is the second grid competition with which I've been involved and I'm confident that it will provoke even greater interest and participation than the original did back in 2006. Last time around the competition was not themed in this way and there were a wide diversity of entries from using grid computing for incoming asteroid tracking to combating terrorism.

The winner in 2006 was Gokop Goteng, who proposed the use of grid's processing power to crunch real time CCTV footage and biometric data to identify potential high-risk incidents. As part of his prize Gokop went on to present his solution at our annual European Research and Innovation Day in Brussels in the presence of folks such as Bill Gates.

So check out the competition rules. And if you've got some smart ideas about how to apply grid computing to one of the most pressing issues of our age, get cracking!

Technorati tags: innovation grid computing competition technology policy environment sustainability

A recent piece in a magazine I was reading about an "alleged fraudster" reminded me of how fragile our collective memory is likely to become in the digital age, unless we intentionally re-design the ways that we capture and preserve information.

The article reported how the "alleged fraudster" had forced online publications to retrospectively remove information they had published about his activities, including a genuine fraud conviction in another country.

The issue was less the specifics of this case, but the fact that the articles, as originally published, were retrospectively altered. In the "old days" it would not have been possible to have physically removed or altered every printed copy already out there in the wild: our official records could not have been modified in the way that the digital age now makes possible. Researchers would have been able to track down the original article, as well as any later updates. Now online digital records are as accurate and authentic as the changes made by the last person to edit them. Records can be edited on a whim and at a moment's notice.

Our concept of history and the historic record suddenly feels highly transient and highly vulnerable. And the problem is more widespread. What happens, for example, if you order something from an e-commerce site based on a description online at a particular moment in time, but receive something different? Yet when you try to complain, the site has been altered and no longer reflects what was there at the time you ordered. How do you prove what you originally contracted to purchase?

The digital age clearly raises profound questions about how we ensure a reliable, authentic record of the times in which we live and the information and knowledge we capture and disseminate. And bear in mind when I refer to digital bits I mean not just information as we tend to think of it, but everything from our financial information (money!) held in bank accounts through to our biometrics and our DNA.

I wrote a piece some years back about the concept of the "digital dark ages", setting out the view that unless we find better ways of handling digital bits, people in the future may well look back on this era as one about which they know remarkably little. Or (worse) that what they do apparently "know" cannot be relied upon because there is no assurance that the digital bits that have been preserved are an accurate record of what actually happened.

I'm not sure much has changed since I wrote that piece. And of course the ability to re-edit and continually refine digital information does have its upside too, as the best of Wikipedia illustrates.

But I hope before we go too much further down this road that we can get some smart minds and smart technologies together to help address the issue around authentic records. The digital age has too much of benefit to offer us for us to let it be undermined by issues like this.

Technorati tags: standards interoperability digital archives technology policy

So this blog has been nominated in the Computer Weekly blog awards ... and voting is now underway. Of course, if you enjoy reading this blog please feel free to vote for me (in the "IT Law and Governance" category). But also it's worth checking out many of the shortlisted blogs across all the categories since they represent a great selection of thought-provoking examples of what the best of the blogosphere is all about.

If you follow issues of identity and privacy in particular (which to me are the bedrock for any sustainable solution to many of the problems facing us), you might like to review:

- Tom Ilube (Garlik CEO) (IT Lifestyle category)
- Guy Bunker (Symantec) (IT Security category)
- Robin Wilton (Sun Microsystems) (IT Law and Governance category)
- Dave Birch (Consult Hyperion, Digital Identity Forum) (IT Security category)

You can start voting right now (.... and, if you're so minded, just a reminder that this blog is in the IT Law and Governance Category...).

Whatever the outcome, thanks to those of you who nominated this blog in the first place. It's appreciated.

Technorati tags: technology policy

Computer Weekly is running a piece I've written entitled 'Identity Assurance for the UK'. It looks at how we can achieve a balance between the security and public service needs of government and the privacy needs of individuals.

"Government still has a chance to regain the trust of citizens by implementing identity infrastructures that are genuinely citizen-centric, that enable the delivery of joined-up services, and that minimise and reduce the risks of data loss and identity theft."

Many thanks, as ever, to Stefan Brands and Kim Cameron, whose recent visit to the UK helped provide the inspiration ....

Technorati tags: identity ID Cards privacy security technology policy

I noticed over the weekend that my local London authority needs to provision 2,000 extra school places over coming years. Yes, you did read that right: 2,000 extra places. Set this alongside several weekends of local traffic gridlock and Tube trains too full to get onto (and at times, believe me, you wouldn't want to try anyway) and you begin to wonder what's going on.

The answer seems self-evident. The policy of so-called "brownfield" development has stuffed thousands of extra flats and apartments into the already over-heated part of the economy referred to as "London and the South East". An already busy, highly populated region has seen land that was previously used for light industry and open land for local use repurposed into residential accommodation.

The detrimental impacts are becoming clear to see.

But is anyone really surprised by this outcome? It seems fairly predictable surely that if you squeeze more and more people into the same overall area, you will soon witness more and more people moving in, bringing with them their cars, family aspirations and the need to commute to work (whether by private or public transport). And yet all around London and the South East there are still signs on nearly every vacant plot indicating that yet more flats and apartments will be built.

In my 2006 blog "Better than reality? Synthetic environments for real world people" I wrote:

Can policymakers learn from games? I think so - or, to be more formal, they can certainly learn from synthetic environments.

Programmes like Sim City seem more grounded in the real world at times than actual urban and rural decision-making. At least in Sim City you can't build new housing without investing first in other necessary infrastructure such as power stations, roads, public transport, parks and other recreational facilities, hospitals, schools and so on.

The concept of "serious games" may sound a tautology, but the UK has already has a Serious Games Institute in Coventry which runs events looking at the impact of virtual and immersive technologies upon government processes and policies.

At Microsoft we're developing the potential for simulated environments through our ESP initiative, which includes the potential for visualising outcomes, plans, and design specifications in 3D for better-informed decision making and R&D modelling.

I can't help thinking that it's long overdue for local planning to be more systematic in the way the existing evidential base is used to inform simulations of the way our neighbourhoods, communities and regions function in response to planning decisions. Technology of course won't on its own have a magic answer, but it certainly has the capability to better inform and support the decision making processes and avoid the types of foreseeable problems now impacting on London and the South East.

When even games like Sim City do a better job of showing the fall-out of simplistic planning policies (such as building residential accommodation on so-called brownfield sites without assessing the onward impacts) it's essential we have a better understanding of the role technology can play in helping us build better, more sustainable communities.

Technology is no longer something that we can use merely in support of better operational and administrative processes, but something that impacts the very art of policymaking itself.

Or, at least, it should be ...

Technorati tags: innovation creativity synthetic environments local government technology policy