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NIST Advanced Technology Program Awards
An anonymous submitter writes "Look, some research money awarded to all the recent slashdot topics! Printable LCD displays and circuits, high accuracy biometric algorithms, holographic data storage, an overclockers dream, and the DMCA fights back. See all the projects listed for NIST's FY2002 funding."
Does anyone have links to the specific articles here on /.?
(Posting Anonymously purely incase someone thinks this is a troll post, it honestly isn't)
The revenue from replacing slagged hard drives pays for advances in technology so that we can all buy bigger hard drives.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Slashdot is widly seen around the web as a realable source for information. The fact that several stories on this site have been picked up by other news media outlets and have qualified for grants isnt amazing, its pretty obvious when you concider the amount of people that read this sites stories. Just some thoughts. -Geek
Content Specific Camcorder Jamming for Digital Projectors
Requested ATP funds: $2,000 K
Cinea plans a two-year project to develop and test prototype technology for distorting unauthorized recordings of digital movies without affecting human visual perception of the original version. Based on a previous feasibility study, the company will modify the timing and modulation of the light used to create the displayed image such that frame-based capture by recording devices is distorted.
Next year they will probably give a grant to the camera manufacturers to develop technology that will defeat this. Really... where does the NIST get off on taking sides in a political issue like this. Let the movie companies worry about copy protection, and don't spend my tax money on it.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Some of these might have actually got a pull from /. in getting the award. How about pulling one of these open source challenges as well? There seems to be a lot of interest for a Linux API for the Synaptic cPad for example - still it missing.
People trying to start companies, get promotions, or earn PhD's have to get inovative ideas somewhere .... and since they all read /., you figure that a couple good ideas might come from here ....
/. !!!!!
Lets face it, some people might be very mechanically inclided, but many of those people lack imagination.
Way to contribute to the advancement of man kind
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
It sounds like a good idea to fund technology that will improve our lives, but when the government uses public money to fund research that will eventually lead to large private profits by paying for the financial risk of researching the technology, it is corporate welfare.
You may like the technology, but corporate welfare is a huge drain on the treasury that only makes the rich richer, borders on socialism, and forces the taxpayer to take the fall for technology that won't work for private businesses.
More information on corporate welfare can be found here:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-9.html
http://www.citizen.org/congress/welfare/index.cfm
we have all the duplicate posts. Better marketing. I get it now.
/. editors
Something like...
1. Duplicate postings by
2. Get awards
3. ???
4. Profit!
If a and b in c, and a can create b, and a can create a, and b can create b, and b cannot create a, then a created c.
This proposal simply intends to introduce novel new methods by which content providers can their copyrights. They plan to "modify the timing and modulation of the light used to create the displayed image such that frame-based capture by recording devices is distorted," and that certainly doesn't entail the enactment of Draconian legislation like the DMCA.
Therefore, what in the blue hell does this have to do with the DMCA (at least at this point)? If anything, this will give scientists the opportunity to attempt to overcome a new set of technologies. This is the type of thing they should be doing. It's better than having them take the litigious route, trying to force the government to protect their business model, and as this merely deals with video recording of projected films, it's hardly objectionable.
From the NIST website: The ATP views R&D projects from a broader perspective - its bottom line is how the project can benefit the nation. In sharing the relatively high development risks of technologies that potentially make feasible a broad range of new commercial opportunities, the ATP fosters projects with a high payoff for the nation as a whole - in addition to a direct return to the innovators.
So how exactly does this use of our tax dollars have a "high payoff for the nation as a whole? "
Looking for something to do? The DoD and the NSF have their SBIR topics out; you can get more information here. There's always some interesting software development (and not just a few LAN/WAN) topics to check out.
The easiest way to stop someone taping a movie with their camcorder is to use an infra-red lightsource. Camcorders pick up IR - just try pointing your TV zapper at the lens and recording it!
Perhaps you could place LEDs in the projection screen in the pattern - "Don't Copy Movies" or some other message....
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
of the company that's getting money from the government to protect movies...
"Cinea, Inc. is the premier provider of security services for the Digital Cinema industry and other high-value entertainment content.
Founded by the same world class engineering team behind the highly regarded Divx(TM) encrypted DVD system, the Cinea security services are the only digital cinema security solutions developed from the ground up to meet the needs of studios and exhibitors."
Also, from the project website:
For project information:
Laurence Roth, (571) 323-0070, x1
lroth@cinea.com
ATP Project Manager
Victoria Franques, (301) 975-8630
victoria.franques@nist.gov
Perhaps these people deserve a call and some email?
" an overclockers dream"
...nooo... nooo... too hot ...
--mumble--
--toss--
--turn--
--snore--
Best Windows Freeware
I guess they couldn't get any private investment after they blew $200 million on DIVX...
I've been hearing about this every 3 to 5 years since 1985 when they were considering using it as storage modules for visual recogonition. I imagine it will be another 20 years before a marketable product will be released, if ever.
On the lighter side of things: If you break an optical storage cell in half, and stick it back in your computer, you will have all of your data, but it will be fuzzy.
While I am normally strongly opposed to the various forms of corporate welfare, e.g., subsidies, protectionist policies, etc., the ATP is one government program that I strongly support.
Firstly, unlike those other programs, aka government welfare, these funds are used to pay for the basic research that will lead to economic production, rather than inefficiency.
Secondly, this program is primarily about defraying RISK, not the COST per se (as would be the case if they were subsidizing production or what have you). What you fail to realize is that many projects are not viable for but a handful of the largest corporations because the level of risk is so high that they cannot afford to even do the research. Who wants to invest in a company, where before they can do anything or make any money, they need to invest 5m (purely for research) for, say, 5 years, with only a 10% probability of success? Would you? Very few investors are willing to incur this kind of risk, even when the potential payout is multiplies higher whatever the initial investment is. Btw, the venture capital community is generally NOT willign to for a number of reasons. There is a reason why the only successful drug producers are
Thirdly, the NIST prevents companies from engaging in total crapshots on the governmentsdollar by requiring the company to pay for 50% (and in the case of larger companies 60%) of the research.
Fourthly, there are many additional costs that the companies must pay for to commercialize the technology.
Fifthly, working for a company that received a grant from the NIST last year, I can tell you that most of awards are NOT to large companies, so the rich getting richer complaint does not hold water.
Sixthly, the successful investments will yield additional tax receipts that far exceed the grant amounts, especially when secondary beneficiaries are taken into consideration.
Seventhly, this is a meritocracy. Although it's not perfect, they select the best of the best, at least in theory. The researchers that hope to essentially live off of perpetual research do not get funded. You really have to convince them that it can and will be commercialized.
Eightly, the companies sole opportunity to really benefit comes from making it into a commercial success, i.e., they're not allowed to pocket the money.
Anyways-I support it and that's enough for now, I'm going home.
NIST does the research, and most of the time ends up selling the technology to corporations. This money they're awarding is mostly to start the research, with the idea that the money will be made back once the research can be put into a product. That way the country benefits by having better tech, and NIST doesn't completely drain taxpayer's wallets.
Sheepdot: Open Source good, Closed Source baaaaaaad!
Why does everything seem to loop back to the DMCA now?
What's this Submit thingy do?
I'd rather not have my money spent on this, thank you. It's not that it's wasted pork - it's development that actively reduces my civil liberties.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks