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Just when you thought the over 70,000 phone apps on the market covered every single entertainment, scientific or news-spreading purpose possible, the need for new applications grows.

Last week, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a scientific convention focused on a new field: the human-environment mobile-based interactions.

Cell phones, iPods and any other portable computing device are about to become the ultimate low-budget environmental monitoring tool for researchers worldwide.

Dale Joachim, a visiting scientist at MIT’s Media Lab, organized the event, with funding from the National Science Foundation. “How do we rethink human-environment interactions in light of these mobile devices?’’

For instance, Carlos Corrada-Bravo, director of the Computer Science Program at the University of Puerto Rico, programmed his iPod Touch to record birds and frogs in remote areas of Puerto Rico and Hawaii. He modified the consumer device by adding an extra battery and an off-the-shelf microphone. A less than $20 investment allows professor Corrada-Bravo to record the sounds of the forest and study the fauna.

Richard Fletcher, a Media Lab research scientist, envisions instead a cheap low-wattage system incorporating sensors in order to detect soil moisture or pH, wired to data-storage hubs with Bluetooth radios. Field assistants will be able to collect and forward scientific data using just a cell phone.

The era of scientific expeditions with porters carrying heavy machinery deep into the forest may soon come to an end.

As fascinating as the new technological frontiers may seem, the scientific community raised some concerns, such as a potential lack of bandwidth in remote areas, battery supplies, waste of electricity, etc.

Joachim, one of the strongest supporters of this direction, does not dismiss the challenges, but believes they can be overcome. In this new “digital ecology’’ approach, millions of cell phones can interact with powerful servers and provide a never-before-seen flow of data. “Now we have a different beast,’’ Joachim said. “We have a beast with a thousand eyes.’’

On-line archives are just blossoming and increasing in number. Since the Internet became the number one source of information on the planet, new web sites telling us fascinating stories are continuously flourishing.

The latest on-line historic archive was made in the UK and features the names of over 100,000 British prisoners of war during WWII.

The details of the Brits captured by the Nazis where until now held at the National Archives in London, after being compiled by the Germans under the 1929 Geneva Convention.

The name of the web site, specialized in family trees, genealogy and census records, is Ancestry.co.uk.

Daniel Jones from Ancestry.co.uk comments: “The unwavering spirit of British Prisoners of War was astounding, with many trying to escape their captors at every opportunity in order to rejoin the war effort. This collection of records will be a way for people to find out more about the heroes in their family.”

The list includes some well-known names, such as Welsh actor Lieutenant Desmond Llewelyn, better known for playing Q in the James Bond movies. He was imprisoned from 1940 to 1945 at Oflag IX-A/Z in Rotenburg, Germany.

Other notable prisoners whose records are now online include, blue blood George Henry Hubert Lascelles. Lascelles – known as Viscount Harewood – was seventh in line to the throne when he was caught in 1944. He was sent to Colditz until the end of the war. He is now 40th in line.

Ancestry.co.uk is now offering a 14 day free trial to the service to get the general public to know more about the fascinating stories on WWII and its soldiers. The site claims to be the first-ever to open such archives to the public.

The Ancient Library of Alexandria was the largest and best-known human knowledge magnet of all times. It was built under the Ptolemaic dynasty around III century BC and destroyed under mysterious circumstances under the Roman ruling. Some say that maybe it was Julius Caesar itself who burned the library down.

The loss was of catastrophic proportions: something between 40.000 and 100.000 books have been destroyed, turning into ashes thousands of years of history, literature and world facts.

In the early Seventies the idea of reviving the old library started taking place and a specific committee was set up to discuss the project. The new Library of Alexandria was to rise exactly on the same spot where its predecessor was burned down centuries before: between the University’s campus and the seafront.

UNESCO, together with the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak gave the project full support. The Mediterranean was to be endowed with a new and great cultural center.

The library was inaugurated in 2002 and hosts approximately eight million books and features a 70.000 square meter reading room.

The rise, fall and rise again after so many centuries of the Library of Alexandria is probably the greatest, even though it is just one out of many, of the examples of the strong link that runs between humans and their culture, their heritage.

As soon as writing was invented life and its events have been registered. The supports have changed dramatically over time: rocks, wax boards, animal skins, paper…

Techniques have changed, but the aim was always that of preserving our memories.

Today computers are the evolution of the ancient papyrus that once filled Alexandria’s library. Producing and recording data has become technically faster and easier, flooding hard drives world round with information.

It is often difficult to understand the importance of a secure back-up of all these files, pictures and documents, of our life’s record.

Swiss DNA Bank is the ultimate tool for data recovery: a 21st century Library of Alexandria safely embedded in the Swiss Alps in a nuclear-proof shelter.

No modern Julius Caesar will break into this data storage facility!

As paperwork quickly disappears from our drawers and digital data storing becomes increasingly crucial in everyday personal and business life, not everyone realizes how important could be to know where your back-up servers are physically located.

Think about all those letters you have on your web-mail provider account.

What happens if the service disappears for one reason or the other. Where or who can you turn to to recover them?

This might not be an issue one thinks about every day, but many Aussies might have had the taught last wednesday.

On Sept. 2nd, Australia disappeared from the www for a whole hour, between 7.50 and 8.50 am local time reported the Sydney Morning Herald. Telsta, by far the country’s number one ISP, suffered from a major crash which affected home, business and mobile  internet customers.

Telstra customers could not access any international sites or Australian sites containing international links. Since Telstra’s customers also include most down under ISPs, most of the country was affected.

The problem apparently was caused by Telstra’s international gateway, which lost the ability to find the domain names of international websites.

The technical difficulty was most likely solved with the classic home-style turn-off-turn-on-the-switch procedure.

No damage done, but we should all stop and think that even though our stuff feels like it’s on our computer, it’s actually not. Thousands of miles usually separate us from our mails, documents or pictures.

A safe data storage provider should be able to indicate precisely the server’s location and be transparent on panic data recovery procedure.

September 1st 2009 is a very important day in Swiss DNA Bank’s history. It’s the day the staff finally pulled the strings on a very intensive two-years project development. Everything came together and the “put-the-web-application-on-line-button” was pushed.

The dream of creating the first data and DNA forever banking service came to life.

The idea was always to create a bank, a Swiss bank, which followed each and every security and privacy policy of our country. But what was going to be sheltered in this bank was not money or bonds. Was something much more precious and unique: it was people’s memories and DNA.

As Swiss DNA Bank’s website often states, one’s life experience, knowledge and memories are the most important asset we have. It takes a lifetime to build them.

On the other hand, our DNA trace is something that belongs only to ourselves. The health information contained are crucial not only for the carrier, but also for it’s family. Knowing your biological ancestry can help you prevent or cure many disease. But at the end of one’s life these assets are most likely going to be lost. Our children, our grandchildren and the ones that will come after them are deprived of the chance of getting to know who we where, what we’ve done and what we’ve learned.

This is where the idea of the Perpetual Financial Engine comes from.

The Perpetual Financial Engine feature is the reason why Swiss DNA Bank’s service is Forever. As of today, there is no technological support that you are sure it will be readable in even just 10 or 15 years time. Think about a floppy disc or an audio cassette.

So we figured that the solution to perpetual data storage is not technological, but financial.

The Perpetual Financial Engine, together with a long-lasting and safe structure of a Swiss bank, is the key to being able of founding tomorrow’s technological support renewal.

The user’s subscription fee is partially invested in safe assets, such as Swiss government bonds, in order to guarantee a small revenue, year after year, which allows to keep our storing facilities up to date.

When this whole picture came together, it was time to think of a safe way to store it all. The solution fort the physical storage of the servers which contain the data came from the heart of the Swiss Alps, from a former military nuclear shelter which was converted into server hosting facility.

Once Swiss DNA Bank’s servers were safe behind closed steel doors, the attention turned to on-line security.

The web-development team figured that username and password were not enough to protect such sensible data. So each Swiss DNA Bank user is provided with a Swiss DNA Card, a credit card sized one-time access code generator. The one-time access code is the third field one has to fill to enter the Swiss DNA Bank web application, an amazing tool to organize memories, pictures, documents, and any other file you can think of.

Take a look at your desk. Open some drawers randomly. Check your computer’s desktop. And what about the office’s shelves? Unless you are one of those people naturally gifted with full organizational skills, at least one of those places is a real mess.

And if you are organized, this will be your ultimate tool!

Now you can store it all, safely and Forever.

http://www.swissdnabank.com/

Internet surfers and social network addicts: take a moment to thank Canada for fighting and winning a privacy battle for us all.

Ever took a closer look at that little box you tick before starting the “Which Famous Rock Star are You” or the “How Karmic are You” test on Facebook?

Don’t if you don’t want to feel exposed, naked and cheated on. Data exposed, naked and cheated on, that is.

Because what happens is that in exchange for vital information such as who your superhero twin is you allow “third parties”, typically the application’s (test’s) developer, to access your personal information, letting you wonder what they are going to do with it.

I’m thinking targeting the ads upon your profile, but maybe I’m just being malicious.

Being most of us users reckless and carefree about our info, Canada decided to do something about it. One year ago an Internet policy group at the University of Ottawa filed a complaint about Facebook’s privacy policies, which now resulted in Facebook having 12 months time to do something major about it.

The well-know social network will have to make significant changes to the software code it shares with third-party developers, in order to warn users about which bits of information are being disclosed and to whom exactly.

Dave Morin, senior platform manager at Facebook, sympathizes with the developers who are now facing software-changing issues.

“These changes mean that the privacy of 200 million Facebook users in Canada and around the world will be far better protected,” Jennifer Stoddart, Canada’s privacy commissioner, said in a statement.

Another important thing is that the mystery over deactivating and deleting one’s account will be unveiled. If you decide not to use the Facebook application anymore you will most likely bounce into the “deactivate account” option. This only blocks your account temporarily, leaving all your information in their Palo Alto servers. If you want to delete it, it gets more complicated. To find the right option I had to access the Help Center, type “delete” and scroll down the FAQ quite a bit. The link to delete was, in my opinion, kind of hidden. Maybe there’s another easier way but I guess I was not Internet-savvy enough to figure it out

Today personal information is like cash, only (or shall we say, plus?) without inflation: it is precious, it is hard to get, it is desirable. If you must give yours up and spill the beans about your age, lifestyle and interests, at least make it worth your while!

Unless you really need to know who your celebrity boyfriend is.

Visiting Swiss Fort Knox, Swiss DNA Bank’s storage partner

First comes a nice walk in Gstaad, one of the best-known and more exclusive skiing resorts in Switzerland.

Than comes a short and charming car ride.

Than comes a tiny iron door on the wall of the mountain next to Gstaad’s airport.

And then it’s like being in a James Bond movie. It’s a petty comparison, ok, but it gives the idea.

When Swiss DNA Bank’s officials where looking for a strong data storage partner the key world was: high standard Swiss security.

What can be more Swiss and more secure than a nuclear shelter embedded in the Swiss Alps?

Yes, Swiss Fort Knox data storage center happens to be located inside a former military nuclear shelter. Mr. Christoff Oschwald, one of the two parters which own the company, blended his IT and military background and created this unique server hosting facility.

Prior to the visit, which is privilege for customers and selected press, one must fill a request form. Than getting in is an experience in between boarding an airplane and waiting in line for an adventure Disneyland ride. Only this is for real.

A security guard, which accompanies the visitors throughout the tour, is in charge for ID checking, metal-detector inspection and weighting you. A strange but important procedure: it is the safest and fastest way to check wether you are heavier on your way out - that is, are taking something away from the facility.

Than the James Bond-like part starts: long corridors dug in the bare mountain’s rock lead the way to some times small, some times huge chambers. The servers are located at the heart of the facility and the number of half-a-meter- thick iron doors is impressive.

Swiss DNA Bank’s servers are located in the main server storage area. The environment is constantly cooled down by the water that flows from the glacier on top of the mountain, keeping the the inside temperature ideal for the machine’s well-functioning.

Swiss Fort Knox is a veteran in secure data storage providing, so together with such an infrastructure was Swiss DNA Bank’s obvious partnership choice.

If you are lucky enough to enter the facility, you’ll most likely receive the ultimate treat after the tour: a drink at the sky bar: Gstaad’s airport former control tower, which sticks out of the mountain’s side. Even the finale was really James Bond. I wanted to ask for a Martini, “shaken, not stirred”.

For further information on Swiss Fort Knox’s facility: www.swissfortknox.ch

No matter how much you paid your computer, how carefully, you store your CDs, how gentle you treat to your pen driver, sooner or later they’re going to break down, blow up or become obsolete support.

Take a regular sunday night home cinema experience: just a few years ago it was totally different. Not only because we had to wait the late Eighties for microwave popcorn, but also because our movies came in a big black box. The videotape.
Try find a VCR today to watch the kid’s first trip to Disneyland or that 1985 Back to the Future cassette. That recorder will play hard to get hiding in grandma’s cellar.

Personal information value is skyrocketing: any company today is ready to trick you into controversial terms of use to grant themselves access to your data and make it valuable B to B currency. So the key world to data storage is… professional data storage.

Surfing the web you realize that many companies are offering this kind of service. But what is it you need to look for to get good service and conditions? Here are the top features to look for in a data storage service:

Feature Set Practical features make uploading, storing, accessing and sharing your files easy. Online storage services should offer remote access, public and private file sharing, scheduled backup. All in an easy-to-use and clear layout.

Security Security is exceptionally important when storing data. Online storage services should offer encrypted file transfer and password protection. Latest technologies provide one-time-access code generator devices, more popular in e-banking than data storage. Technology is always improving, so it is important to choose the latest features available and not to compromise. Especially when it comes to your data’s privacy!

Service fees The top online storage services are not the free ones. Many big names free-of-charge services are shutting down because of the collapse of the ads market, which provided the cash to keep the services up and running. In order not to risk losing you data, it is safer to rely on a provider that charges you for the service. Hardware update is also crucial for good data maintenance. This can be done only by a company that has an steady income from its users. Advertisment is not someting you can relyon nowadays. Yahoo learned it the hard way: its GeoCities service, which provided free websites to its users, will be shut down Oct. 29th 2009 for this reason. users have been advised to move all their data on Yahoo’s pay-for service.

Ease of Use Online storage services should be user–friendly and not require a lot of instruction in order to upload and access files. Anyone should be able to learn the basic functions of the service in minutes.

Help/Support Good help and support is necessary with any service. Online storage services should provide self–help through FAQs, user manuals and tutorials. They should also provide customer support through email.

Perpetual data storage will save the world lots of tomorrow’s hassles. NASA knows why.

The first lunar explorations date back to the end of the Sixties and have of course been recorded and photographed and shown to the world.
But where are those tapes today? What crucial data are they hiding and how could we access it today? A new professional figure is recently born and it specializes in… jurassic data recovery, so to speak. One of the leading experts in the field is Dennis Wingo, head of Skycorp Inc., an aerospace engineering company based in Huntsville, Ala. His later efforts have been put into running the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. The goal is to recover and put to use as many of the original lunar landing images as possible.
Between 1966 and 1967 , the moon’s surface has been mapped inch-by-inch by the Lunar Orbiters probes with a resolution varying from one to 40 meters. Having the chance to recover these images today is of great scientific value: NASA’s goal is to compare this older data with recent one, in order to understand the number and size of meteor impacts that have occurred in the meantime and consequently calculate impact threats to Earth.
But doing this was all but easy: the images were shot on 70 mm. film that was automatically developed and scanned within the robot spacecraft. So Wingo’s work was first to find these 2-in tapes and than reconstruct the drivers to read them. These machinery was in fact mostly dumped in the ocean and is now covered in coral reef.
The task was not easy: this is half a ton refrigerator-resembling analog Ampex FR-900 reel-to-reel units we are talking about. Spare parts and components are no less than archeological findings, since these drivers have not been manufactured since 1975.
Wingo was able to obtain $250,000 from NASA to get the Ampex back from the dead. “We had to pay big bucks to get the bearings replaced, the motors rebuilt and rubber parts cast. We had to dip the motors in liquid nitrogen to get the bearings off,” he recalls. Having learned his lesson, what Wingo delivered to NASA was not the images themselves, but the raw data he was able to extract from the tapes.
“They would rather have the raw data so that someone even a thousand years from now could do their own processing,” he says.
Lots of work, lots of money and lots of time was invested in this recovery project, making it a great example of how we should treat data with respect and be sure to both update its format and save older supports for future studies and knowledge.
There is one important question to keep in mind after we snap a picture, write an e-mail, sign a document or listen to a song: will I be storing this data properly and safely afterwards? Otherwise… what’s really the point?