Summer 2011 TecMarc Nonprofit Technology Forum

Written by James Plotnik, Account Executive, TecMarc Technology Services

It is getting hot, hot, HOT in Phoenix! In fact, as I type this post, Weather Bug says it is currently 118 degrees Fahrenheit outside and there is an excessive heat warning. Be sure you’re all staying hydrated!

The heat is a perfect excuse to get together with some fellow professionals (both nonprofit and profit) in a nice air conditioned space to network and share knowledge about technology. Join us on July 7^th from 10am – 1pm at our Summer 2011 TecMarc Nonprofit Technology Forum. We will enjoy networking opportunities, lunch and there will be a drawing for fun prizes!

Topics & Speakers:

Managing Technology Change In Your Organization

Norm Duve', TecMarc Technology Services

Managed Print Services - Saving Trees

Mark Villari, Toshiba Business Solutions 

Send an email with your RSVP at tecmarcforum@marccenter.com and we will see you there!

Don’t forget to hydrate! And watch your kids around water!

Input/Output: “Will it hurt, Dave?”

Written by Josh Martin, TecMarc Technology Services

 

Ever since movies and TV shows like Star Trek and Star Wars came around, people have been obsessed with the technology Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas invented. Almost everything Gene Roddenberry imagined has come to fruition, including flip cell phones, flat screen TVs, and Tablet computers. It wouldn’t be and episode of the Next Generation if you didn’t hear, “Computer, run a level 1 diagnostic on the warp drive”, followed by a familiar beep. This technology is making its way into our homes right now, and its only matter of time before it comes to the work place.

Gene Roddenberry imagined a computer that you could simply speak to, and it would respond. He also imagined a “holo deck”, where a person could create places they might never get to visit in real life. We are now seeing in real life the natural progression of these 2 technologies. This kind of tech will change how computers and servers work, and how we conduct business, and while they are not a complete reality yet, we are close to seeing them come to fruition. It might surprise you where this technology is coming from. The 3 major companies currently developing this tech are Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. The only thing these 3 have in common is that they are the major players in the video game industry.

Nintendo announced its Wii console in early 2006. Their major selling point was motion controlled gameplay. The days of traditional joysticks are gone for Nintendo. This platform allows users to swing a baseball bat, use their hands to box, and drive a race car with a wheel, and all from the comfort of their home. It is considered a revolution in exercise while gaming, but it was also a step towards hands free and voice activated. This new technology prompted Nintendo’s competitors to invent their own joystick free devices. Sony responded with PlayStation Move, an addition to their PlayStation 3 system. The Move is very much similar to the Wii controls. The Move allows users to swing a bat, throw a Frisbee, or play the drums all on one platform. While the device has a better response time than the Wii controllers, Move is only a slight improvement.

Microsoft had a larger plan for motion controls. Microsoft wanted to take the controller out of users hands completely. Microsoft unveiled the Kinect in 2009, and released it in 2010. This device allows the user to completely control their Xbox with simple voice commands and hand gestures. This is where Star Trek becomes reality. In the last 8 months since its release, Kinect functionality has more than tripled. Programmers wrote drivers for Kinect that work on Windows and Linux, and with that have slowly been unlocking its secrets. Microsoft decided to release its Kinect SDK (Software Development Kit) for free last week to Windows 7 users. Now that people are free to explore the Kinect, it’s only a matter of time before voice activated computers become a reality. The Kinect camera tracking is a step towards the “holo deck”. The cameras can track up to four people at once, and can change perspective of what’s on the screen to match the head movements of the user. Some users have made software for the Kinect to track facial movements for animation- a process usually costing thousands of dollars (source: http://kinecthacks.net/realtime-performance-based-facial-animation). This is the root of the technology to come.

This tech has the potential to make our lives and our work easier. Would it not be nice if your network administer could simply say, “Computer, which server is down”? At your next board meeting, you could say, “Computer, please record all communications from this meeting and email me the minutes”.  Technologies like connect are going to become very popular and become very advanced over the next 5 years. While I’m certain holographic room technology is more than 10 years out, the ground work has already been laid.  Hand free computing is not a new idea; however this is the first time it’s a reality. With Microsoft releasing the SDK for free, and the amount of creativity that people have already shown without it, the limits are endless. You can expect to see platforms largely available in 4-6 years, and businesses will be the perfect model to test and improve the systems.  

Use the area below to discuss how you think hands free computing will benefit you company.

Hacking: an Epidemic for the Gaming Industry

By Christopher Jones, TecMarc Technology Services

It had only been a couple of days that I had purchased the latest Mortal Kombat game. I had gotten one chance to test out its online playability and found myself greatly enjoying it. Later in the evening, having completed everything necessary for the day, I decided to make another attempt at playing online, testing my skill against different people from around the world (although, sadly not in Australia, as the game had been banned there). Unfortunately, when I attempted to login to my Playstation Network account, the screen displayed the error, “An error has occurred. You have been signed out of Playstation Network (80710A06).” This indicated that either something was wrong with my wireless connection with the Playstation 3 (the less likely case), or that the network was down.

Turns out it was not just down; someone had hacked the network. One would have thought with a company as large as Sony was and the reputation they had for supporting quality products, they would have had a larger security. When the truth appeared, Sony immediately faced a class action lawsuit against them for allowing 77 million accounts to leak their personal information, including credit card information (http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/229402362). It was also revealed that Sony had not installed a firewall to protect this network, not only making it fully susceptible to anyone to infiltrate but also going against the government policy to use outdated security to hold personal information. In order to gain further trust, Sony had three different teams step in to aid in upgrading their security, all the while working with the FBI and Homeland Security in order to find those responsible for the hack (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6312333/sony-knew-psn-had-no-firewall-installed-expert). Eventually, Sony came back online and as an apology to their customers, offered those affected free games and three months’ worth of premium membership.

This has not been the end of this problem. In the early days of the past month, several companies have faced similar hacking attacks, including Codemasters, Nintendo, Bethesda, Epic Games, Bioware, and Sega, all of whom suffered from the hacker group known as LulzSec (http://www.betanews.com/article/Sega-the-latest-victim-in-video-game-hacking-epidemic/1308579793). The main goal and ideology behind this group is not for gaining profit from these attacks, but rather for the thrill of accomplishing the task; there is an almost sociopathic sense of knowing that what they are doing is wrong but not caring, only to gain a thrill at the expense of larger companies and their users. Within their stated manifesto also revealed the notion that they wanted to point out the flaws in as many systems as possible, perhaps hoping that these attacks will give the organizations a stronger notion of what to fix and also for users to remain on guard in changing their information elsewhere so that they could remain guarded against more malevolent hackers who could actually steal their identities. Such notions could easily be channeled into what companies refer to as “ethical hacking,” in which IT teams look for specific holes within the network they could exploit and report them their given architect; LulzSec, however, is doing this entirely unauthorized, causing the FBI to take further response on the counts of fraud and computer misuse under the Criminal Law Act and Computer Misuse Act (http://www.webcitation.org/5zdVEI7rE).  With as widespread as this group remains, it would be difficult to find each individual member.

Other companies are remaining on guard for any further attacks.

When will this end? For the past two months, it goes without saying that this has been a major upset to the gaming community. While it has been a public nuisance, it goes beg the question of how safe these various systems really are. Can these companies optimize their system to fit these growing threats? They must, or their reputation and trust of their users will falter greatly.