Brad’s Sketchpad

Kind words about my Wired article on transponder-protected cars from Columbia Journalism Review.

In late 2003, our brand new white Honda Civic hybrid - Honky - was stolen from the street in front of our house. We still possessed all three keys, each with an immobilizer transponder chip that made it impossible to start the car without a key. The crime seemed inconceivable, and I wrote about my experience here, for Newsweek.com. 

For the next two years, I received hundreds of email responses about the story. Many messages were from fellow car theft victims, upset that their insurance companies refused reimbursement on the grounds that immobilizer chipped cars simply cannot be stolen without the proper keys.

In this month’s issue of Wired (the August issue), I have finally published my follow-up article. I hope this answers some of the questions I raised in my first story and exposes the insurance industry’s dubious faith in technology that was clearly proven vulnerable by intelligent, adaptive car thieves.

I welcome any and all feedback on this story.

Our friends Todd Lappin and Nicole Avril were in town this week, and the four of us set out for Kyoto, and then the spectacular “art island” of Naoshima, where architect Tadao Ando was given close to free reign. Photo-blogging services provided Jennifer and Telstar Logistics. My meager photography is posted here. 

In my first Plain Text from Tokyo, I take a tour through the  crowded, enticing video arcades of the Shibuya district. No quarters needed to click on this link.

In addition to my research fellowship in Japan, I’m giving a few speeches around around the country through the American Embassy’s speaking program. This week, we traveled to Fukuoka, on Kyushu Island, a city of 2.5 million that is fashioning itself as the “Silicon Valley of robotics.”

To our surprise and pleasure, we ended up meeting and having lunch with the Mayor, Yamasaki. Then I spoke on a robotics panel with distinguished Sony researcher Hiroaki Kitano, the founder of the Robocup robotic soccer tournament.

Here’s a link to a Japanese news story about my visit: http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/science/kagaku/news/20060722k0000m040027000c.html. Naturally I have no idea what it says.

 We’re having a great time - living in the Roppongi district,  meeting interesting people and exploring the city. Today we paid a visit to the University of Tokyo’s robotics lab and shook hands with Kotaro, a humanoid robot developed last year for a prototype robot exhibition.

 Before I left for Japan, I filed a column on the developing scourge of Netflix guilt. More from the Land of the Rising Sun soon.