Archive for July, 2006

cold water on hot technology

Monday, July 31st, 2006

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

The Mystery of the Missing Car - Solved?

Sunday, July 30th, 2006

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.

Naoshima, island of art, island of nature

Saturday, July 29th, 2006

Ando's Oval hotel 

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

the arcades of Japan

Friday, July 28th, 2006

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.

Fukuoka

Friday, July 28th, 2006

mayor.JPG

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.

a thrilling first week in Japan

Saturday, July 15th, 2006

 100_0511.jpg 

 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.

waiting in the netflix queue

Wednesday, July 12th, 2006

netflix.jpg 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.