How Science Makes Us

Yesterday I took part in the ABC News 24 Future Forum on "How will science shape what it means to be human?". This was chaired by Dr Norman Swan, with Peter Singer (Ethicist, Princeton University), Paul Davies (Physicist, Arizona State University), Liesl Capper-Beilby (CEO, MyCyberTwin), Kate Reynolds (Social Psychologist, ANU), Glenn Wightwick (Chief Technologist, IBM Australia), and Julio Licinio (Director, John Curtin School of Medical Research, ANU). They discussed what effect the Internet, robotics and gene therapy is having on the future of the human race. The program will be broadcast live of ABC News 24, 10pm EST, 7 June 2012 and streamed online.

The ABC built a TV set in the foyer of the John Curtin School of Medial Research. This building looks like something from science fiction normally, with swept windows and labs visible through glass walls. It looked like a move set with a stage and tiered seating assembled, along with lights and cameras. It is curious why this was done in the foyer, when there is a perfectly usable lecture theater in the building. But we did provide entertainment for the people lunching in the adjacent Vanilla Bean Cafe.

As I have been selected to ask the panel the first question:

"The Internet provides an efficient form of communication, but will it change who we are? By having all communication mediated by a computer, do we risk becoming more like a computer and less like people?".

This was my second attempt at a question, as the organizers did not like the first version which was specifically about e-learning making people less human.

Liesl Capper-Beilby answered, saying that she thought that robots would become more human, rather than people less so. I thought that a glib answer, but the questions was discussed in more depth later. I asked a follow up later about e-learning, asking if we could teach social skills to scientists and engineers to make them better communicators and leaders.

The recording was in two phases, the first was for the broadcast part of the program and the second was extra material for online streaming. The first part had an introduction from the chair, panel discussion, two recorded segments and some vetted questions from the studio audience. The second part had un-vetted audience questions.

What was interesting was how structured the process was, even though the event was being recorded and would be edited later. I have practiced being a camera operator and director for a live studio broadcast with three cameras, when learning video production at CIT. The ABC used much the same traditional approach. We were not permitted to sit down until shortly before the recording was to commence. There was a timed countdown to the second at the start and at the end. The audience could not move from their designated seats during the whole session and there were no breaks.

It seems to me that the format makes for professional looking, but dull TV. Perhaps a format like a GovCamp is needed, which is more free flowing. This could have robot cameras with no operators, so a couple of people could record multiple parallel sessions. This would require rooms specially set up for TV, but that could be done in a TEAL room (such as at the Inspire Centre where GovCamp is being held), which is like a TV studio, in that it has a large flat floor and high ceiling, allowing space for cameras and lights.

Changes to Australian eWaste Regulations

An Exposure Draft of the Product Stewardship (Televisions and Computers) Amendment Regulation 2012 and associated commentary was released on 26 April 2012. Written submissions to the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities can be made by 17 May 2012.

Background to the Amendment Regulation

The Regulations came into effect on 8 November 2011. In conjunction with the Product Stewardship Act 2011, they provide the basis for national, industry-run arrangements for the collection and recycling of televisions, computers and computer products.

Under the Regulations, companies that imported or manufactured more than a specified number of covered products in the previous financial year are ‘liable parties’. Under section 18 of the Product Stewardship Act 2011, a liable party is obliged to contribute to industry collection and recycling efforts by becoming a member of an ‘approved co-regulatory arrangement’.

Schedule 1 of the Regulations sets out the products covered by the Regulations. For each product there is a product description and a product code. The product descriptions and product codes are drawn from the Combined Australian Customs Tariff Nomenclature and Statistical Classification (commonly known as the Working Tariff) published by the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.

This use of Working Tariff product codes ensures that data from import declarations can be used to assess the number and type of covered products that are imported. This data is used to calculate annual recycling targets for industry-run co-regulatory arrangements. This is administratively efficient because it avoids two sets of reporting, but it does mean that the Regulations need to be updated from time to time to maintain consistency with the Working Tariff.

In conjunction with the Customs and Border Protection Service, the Australian Bureau of Statistics periodically updates the Working Tariff to keep it statistically relevant in the context of the changing composition of Australia’s imports. Due to changes initiated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics the Working Tariff has been amended, effective from 1 January 2012. The changes involve consolidation and removal of product codes that, due to changes in technology, only represent a small number of imports. For example, the categories for cathode ray tube televisions have been consolidated from 20 to 6.

The Amendment Regulation would update the product codes and descriptions to align with the changes to the Working Tariff, and make consequential changes to the Regulations.

One of the consequential changes is to insert ‘conversion factors’ for the new product codes. Conversion factors represent the average weight of a product within a product code, and are used to calculate recycling targets.

Appendix A summarises how conversion factors would change as a result of the Amendment Regulation.

The conversion factors in the Amendment Regulation were developed based on an assessment of products were imported under relevant product codes. The supporting research for this assessment is contained in the report Import Conversion Factors for the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme. This report is available at www.environment.gov.au/wastepolicy/publications.

The Amendment Regulation will not affect the rollout of collection and recycling services. The 30% recycling target for 2012-13 remains unchanged, as does the requirement for reasonable access to collection services to be provided in accordance with the Regulations by 31 December 2013.

It is anticipated that the product codes will change again for products imported and manufactured from 1 July 2012. The changes to apply from 1 July 2012 would address industry requests for greater discrimination within product categories to more accurately reflect the weight of those products. This will require a further set of amendments in 2012-13.

Fact sheets and other materials providing background on the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme are available at www.environment.gov.au/settlements/waste/ewaste/ ...

From: Commentary on the Exposure Draft of the Product Stewardship (Televisions and Computers) Amendment Regulation 2012, Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, 26 April 2012

Being Creative in Sydney

Last night I attended the Combined Industry Christmas Party for TV and film people at the NSW Writers Centre, in Callan Park, Sydney. This was a magical evening, a worthy topic for the films those in attendance write, direct and film. Callan Park is a the former Rozelle Hospital on a large spread of parkland overlooking a bay of Sydney Harbor. Historic former hospital buildings house the Sydney College of the Arts, the NSW Writers’ Centre, and there are proposals for a city farm.

The party was a joint event including the Australian Directors Guild (ADG), Australian Production Design Guild (APDG), Australian Guild of Screen Composers (AGSC), Australian Screen Editors Guild (ASE), Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) and Australian Screen Sound Guild (ASSG).

For a first hand account of the writer's centre, there is Jennifer Smart's Blog. My experience was confined to the party. It starts by walking down what looks like a service road, past some old buildings to the back door of a sandstone cottage. A good sign, party-wise, is a portable cold room, next to the door.

Entering past the kitchen, there is am imposing staircase (I realize that this building is much large than it looks from the entry). Amongst the period wall paneling there are Ikea style modern bookcases stacked with books and modern (but comfortable) Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs. Leading off this are offices and meeting rooms. Walking through what must have been the formal front door of the building, I see one meeting room laid out with cold food and a BBQ visible just out the door.

Out the door is a wide veranda, overlooking a garden with flowering trees and a hint of the harbor in the distance. The veranda has a table for red wine, a table for white, water and orange juice.

Then you notice the people. This is not a party for the beautiful people who are in front of the camera, it is for the creative thinkers behind the camera. They are not especially well dressed, being more Bohemia comfortable. There is something systematic and professional about the groups. This is a celebration and a festive occasion, but there are pitches bing made, proposals being discussed, business cards being stored up for future ventures.

As twilight descends part of the magic of the event becomes evident: those present are from different but mutually dependent parts of the one industry. The conversations starts by identifying which part of the industry you are from, what projects you have worked on and with whom.

As an IT professional, I am both on the periphery and at the center of the TV and film industry. Both TV and film have converted almost entirely to digital image technology, to the point where it is novelty for a chemical film to be used in a production. But the industry is still not sure what to do creatively with "convergence": the merging of still photography, print media, motion pictures, music on Internet connected platforms. The Industry is still working out an uncomfortable relationship with the web and along has come the mobile platforms of smart phones and tablet computers to create new challenges.

3D film seems almost a technological sanctuary for the creative part of the film industry. It is new technology and creates challenges in production, but is easily conceptually and creatively understood and produces a product which can be thought about and handled like2D film. But computer games and hand-held platforms challenge what a film or TV show is.

Wandering through this crowd I felt a little out of place, having forgotten to bring any business cards and not being able to name drop any film projects or directors. But then a voice said "Hello Tom" and there was Michela Ledwidge, Writer/Director/Producer and board member of ADG. Michela is from the seriously technical end of using IT for creative purposes. She was the Webmaster at the National Library of Australia in the mid 1990s. This was a period when a loose coalition of public servants, academics and IT industry people were putting the Federal Government on the Internet and the web. Michela now does the digital strategy for creative industries, including cloud services for media productions.

It was interesting to see how in the one space on the veranda of the writer center, we had people reminiscing about making black and white film documentaries for the ABC in its early days and a group showing off their latest creative project on Apple iPhones, using 3D and gaming technology. The technology had changed, but in many ways the essence of the industry remained the same.

Challenges remain for this industry, there was at least one heated argument on the veranda about the Internet threatening the industry due to rampant pirating of films. The old hands want their intellectual property protected, while the digital natives want to develop new revenue streams on-line. This is not a debate which will be settled soon and most likely took place over drinks when the printing press and the video tape were invented.

Invention of TV and Social Media

"The Farnsworth Invention" by Aaron Sorkin is on at the New Theatre, Newtown, Sydney until 13 August 2011. Sorkin is the writer of The Social Network, exploring similar issues here with the invention of television and the effects of technology on the inventors and society.

Last night's performance looked like a preview, rather than the third night, with the actors still getting comfortable with Sorkin's dense dialogue.

The play suffers a lack of cultural context in Sydney. The story would resonate more in the Broadway production in New York, the home of the Radio City Music Hall, NBC and RCA, which are central to the story and US household names. In Australia, these are less well known. Early in the play, one of the characters dismisses John Logie Baird, as someone any "Brits" in the audience might know, but he would be better known to Australians as the inventor of the world's first practical TV system, than the characters in the play.

The story centers around the development of electronic television in the USA and the conflict between Philo Farnsworth's, a self educated inventor and David Sarnoff, President of RCA, over who invented television. Real and imagined scenes show the process of technical invention and business power politics.

Sorkin tries to do too much with in play and it could do with 30 minutes edited out. The explanation of how TV works is not well handled (I felt like there was going to be a test after the show). The explanation of how the stock-market crash of the great depression occurred is unnecessary to the story.

There are insights into today's explosive growth of the Internet in this play. At the Australian National University Research School of Computer Science and CSIRO ICT Center, I am surrounded by people inventing the future. Just about every week I am shown some new computer gadget, to which I mostly respond: "yes, but what use is it to anyone?". Most of these clever inventions will never leave the lab, but a few will change the world (such as CSIRO's wireless networking patent). It is very difficult to tell at the time which will be the successes and which will not.

TV Turning itself on

Having a problem with an SDC LCD/LED 19 Inch TV (model LTE-1920s) from Shenzhen Shunda Digital Information Co. After operating reliably for some time the TV has started turning itself on and then off. This happened after trying the PVR function which records to a USB Flash drive. The TV was a demo model bought after the CeBit Sydney 2010 exhibition. However, simialr models have been sold by Woolworth as a "Bush 19 HD LED LCD TV". Perhaps someone knows where to download a firmware upgrade?

Led Strip Lighting Around Flat Screen TVs

The Philips Ambilight LCD HDTV range have lights around the edges and on the back which claimed to reduce eye strain and make the colours look better. There are numerous online discussions of using Led Strip Lighting for a similar effect, including suggestions by Ikea with their DIODER lights. Most of these do not automatically adjust the light level and colour as Phillips claim to do. But the effect might also be useful for desktop LCD computer screens, with the lighting strips providing subtle and efficient lighting for a desk. The lighting strips are now commonly available.

Celtx screenwriting software for e-learning

Recently a friend in the mass media asked for advice on preparing documents for presentation to executive management. They asked if they should use Powerpoint or Microsoft word. But perhaps something like the Celtx free screenwriting software is needed. This might also be useful for conference presentations and e-learning.

Celtx is designed for writing plays for stage, screenplays for movies and TV, AV scripts and radio plays. It allows setting out who says what and what is seen and heard. It also allows the creation of an animated storyboard, which is used to give an idea of that the final production will be like. This is conceptually similar to an animated Powerpoint presentation: the software steps through still visuals with text and audio explaining what is happening.

Celtx has versioning and collaboration features using a central server, conceptually similar to the Integrated Content Environment (ICE) courseware tool. A seminar or lecture partly involves giving a performance, and so it might be interesting to consider how the techniques used for live performances might be applied to academia and education.

E-learning can include audio, animation or video. But much of the audiovisual material produced for education has low production values and looks clumsy when compared to professional multimedia the students will have seen. This is partly due to the limited funds and time available for producing education content. But it may also be because educators are not provided with tools or training needed for audio-visual production (I did a course at TAFE to make education videos). Perhaps tools like Celtx could be used and integrated into other e-learning tools.

The Hollowmen Solid

The ABC TV's new satire "The Hollowmen" got off to a solid, but not that funny start. The series is about a fictional policy development unit in parliament house, working for the prime minister. This is Australia's equivalent of "Yes Minister", if not "The West Wing". The first episode was about development of a policy on obesity. The prime minister first announced that the government was going to do something and then the policy people had to quickly respond to give the impression there was a policy.

The point of view expressed in the show is much the same as Frontline, produced by the same crew and with some of the same actors: there are those who are cynically manipulating the system with no interest except what helps them, there are those who are largely clueless as to what is happening but have the communication skills to make it appear they know, and there are experts who care and do know what to do but are kept from doing it by their lack of ability to manipulate the system.

The show explores the power relationship between the people in Parliament House: the politicians, the party staff, advisers, media, lobbyists and public servants. The message seemed to be that the only way to stay in political power is to spend your time trying to stay in power, with the result you actually have little real power.

As a former public servant I have been on the edge of this process, having very occasionally visited parliament house and a few times having to be involved with ministers offices. My experience was not that shown in the show: the people working there were sincere and did concern themselves with the public good. They did take advice from public servants. But they did have to balance this against political issues. The public servants did have a high level of frustration, but were not as naive as portrayed in the show.

Later as an ex-public servant I have been involved in the political process, helping with policy on ICT and the internet. What I found most heartening, was when an issue was the politicians were willing to work together across party lines in the public interest. They genuinely wanted to know what to do. But they then needed to temper that with what would be politically and publicly acceptable.

One activity I was involved in with which might be seen as a cynical political exercise was the 2020 summit. The critics called this a talk fest, which it was, but was still of some use.

The level of cynicism expressed in the show kept me from enjoying much of the humor. I found the plot with the manipulation of an important public health hard to believe. However, I then heard a real news report about the opposition's policy on climate change, which is that they support carbon trading but not if it increases the price of petrol. Given that the purpose of carbon trading is to reduce carbon emissions from sources such as petrol by using price signals, this makes no sense in the real world. However, in the political world a policy which would cause the deaths of millions of people in the long term makes sense if it temporarily fools the voters into thinking you are doing something.

What will likely save the show is the level of authenticity: the sets look like the corridors and meeting rooms of the real parliament house. The characters look and sound like the people working there, to the point where at a casual glance it looks like a documentary. However, this may turn into an inside joke, with only those involved in this process enjoying the joke, at the expense of themselves and their colleagues, with the rest of use just confused as to what it is all about.

ps: Perhaps it is another inside joke, but the web site for the show, demonstrates a cynical disregard for the viewer, having some flashy animation and graphics, with very little actual content. The design of the site is so bad that it probably illegal. If this is intended to be a comment on government web sites, it misses the mark, with the Prime Minister and Cabinet web site being informative and well designed.

Calculating the Ditigal Dividend

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has issued a Request for Tender for a consultant to estimate the value of spectrum being freed up by the conversion of Australian TV to digital. However, you would be hard pressed to work that out from the language of the tender, which refers to the commercial value of the potential ‘digital dividend spectrum’.

The analysis being asked for is very limited, in that it only looks at the financial return the government would receive. The consultant is not asked to look at the contribution the spectrum could make to the Australian economy or its value to the community in terms of culture, education or improved health. Radio spectrum is one of those public goods, where it can be very difficult for a commercial entity to capture all of the financial benefits of its use. As a result the government will likely no allocate the spectrum to its best use if it uses financial return as the sole criterion for selecting the use for the spectrum. The value of services to the community which might be created should also be considered.

The Department requires a Consultant to undertake a desktop analysis to estimate the commercial value of the potential ‘digital dividend spectrum’ for a specified range of scenarios.

The analysis should use relevant international and Australian comparisons of value and circumstances, particularly the relevant policy environments relating to the major services that are likely to use the spectrum. Commercial value means the amount of money buyers may pay to purchase the spectrum when it becomes available.

The successful tenderer is to also undertake a desktop analysis of the financial return to the Australian Government of maintaining existing spectrum arrangements for the broadcasting services bands assuming a continuation of the present policy settings that govern the key uses of this spectrum. The analysis should use relevant data on current and projected broadcasting industry revenue to identify trends over time and any potential financial impact on Government revenue...

From: Digital Dividend Technical Consultancy - Stage 2, Section 59.1 "The Services", Statement of Requirement, Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Request for Tender DCON/08/64, 2-Jul-2008