Author Archive: Brian

DeepFakes are going to be a problem…

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For almost a year, I have been assisting as a Subject Matter Expert for the Electronics Technician Association (International)’s Audio/Video Forensics Analyst examination. One of the reasons I’ve been assisting is because it will become increasingly important to have skilled professionals analyze what is “real” and what is “not real” in regards to created video.

As computers get more and more powerful, it becomes easier to generate complete 3D models of a person’s face, and it becomes easier to create a voice model of a person’s speech with only a few minutes of recorded audio. These two combined together can produce very convincing hoaxes, termed as a “deepfake”. Do you think the average Internet user that shares “everything” on Facebook could tell the difference?

Whether they are used for extortion, election manipulation, or blackmail, “deepfakes” could be the biggest threat to modern society in the years ahead. Now, more than ever, it’s very important to use logic instead of emotion, facts instead of opinions, and multiple sources instead of a single news channel, when forming your own opinion about anything.
Be sure to check out this TechRepublic article and video below on deepfakes, and the importance of skilled experts in the future to assist with the detection of these threats.

Computerized Car Navigation in 1986

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It’s easy to take for granted modern car navigation systems. After all, the functionality is built into every modern Smartphone. However, back in 1986, before the GPS system even existed, a couple of yachtsman with an idea formed a company called Etak, which made it a goal to make a navigation system with street-level detail that could be installed in an automobile.

They succeeded. Instead of using satellites, they used “dead reckoning” which compares the car’s location to a fixed spot. A modern (at the time) IBM XT computer running at 4.77 MHz with 128 kilobytes of memory got stuffed in the vehicle’s trunk. An oscilloscope-style green CRT display with buttons was mounted up on the dash, a fluxgate compass was mounted on the back windshield to keep track of magnetic north, and a pair of hall-effect sensors were mounted to the non-driven wheels of the car to count off miles, and the difference in rotational speed between the wheels kept track of corners. Map data was loaded on cassette tapes which each held about 3 1/2 megabytes of information. Users switched tapes whenever they roamed into an area not covered by the current cassette.

The system was about $1,500 and could be installed by a company that did radio and speaker installation in cars. They sold about 5,000 of them. The Etak technology lived on to the modern Internet era, where its map data was used by companies such as MapQuest and TomTom. Etak also created the fixed-map viewpoint (you in the center, the map moves around you) which is still used in all modern navigation systems.

Here’s a video of this incredible system at work: https://youtu.be/CHCCjlSWbHE?t=863 You can also read more about this technology here: https://www.fastcompany.com/…/who-needs-gps-the…

The last of a dying breed…

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I remember Kmart. Those huge circular air vents in the ceiling. The rows of endless florescent lights. The pegboard endcaps. The ancient point-of-sale systems. We’ve made a lot of progress in stores since then! Ummm, wait a second…

Rochester is home to one of the last 3 Kmarts in the state. Its appearance is not much different than how Faribault’s Kmart looked decades ago before it closed. If you’re looking to step into a time capsule back to a time when New Kids on the Block topped Casey Kasem’s American Top 40, I urge you to do it soon. After all, you won’t have too much time left to do it.

Additional video of interest: https://youtu.be/1__Qg1toSSs

Finding a Work/Life Balance

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168 hours makes one week, and many of us struggle to find the time to fit all the things we have to do and what we’d like to do in those 168 hours.

This is a powerful article and gives some great insight on how to achieve a good work and life balance. One simple way to restructure your week can be accomplished by simply changing your words from “I don’t have time for that” to “That’s not a priority for me”. Everyone seems to accept “I don’t have time for that” because we can all relate to shortage of time. However, saying “that’s not a priority for me” allows you to feel the true impact of the decisions you make.

For example, “I didn’t play with my kids this weekend because I didn’t have time.” seems to make you feel better being the busy person you are, however, restating this to “I didn’t play with my kids this weekend because it’s not a priority for me” is particularly daunting and better states the impact of your decision.

Please, “make it a priority” to give this article a read if you believe you might have problems achieving a good work/life balance. Your relationships are worth it.https://paulcunningham.me/achieving-work-life-balance-in-168-hours?fbclid=IwAR3z5knfMGXAkjKnkv9pLR9Ze-jULOTHo8TEH0kiu7AhaOBlnuEgMYSBvNM