2013年3月26日 星期二

關於Cookie

這篇有一點重複但可參考


關於Cookie:你必須知道的事


在今年的中央電視台315晚會中, 對用戶網絡隱私權的侵犯行為成為被曝光的對象之一,央視通過調查曝光了易傳媒、上海傳漾、悠易互通、品友互動等多家網絡廣告公司利用瀏覽器cookie數 據跟蹤用戶的行為,同樣被點名的還有門戶網站網易。央視指出,上述公司在刻意收集用戶瀏覽網站時留下的cookie數據,並在用戶不知情的情況下擅自調用 這些cookie以達到盈利目的。
一時間“cookie”這個平時只有技術人員才關注的名詞,引起了多方關注。它看上去離我們很遠,其實很近:只要上網,就要接觸cookie。上網 時,你電腦的IP、點擊行為、輸入網站的信息等,如果網站認為有需要,便會將這些信息寫到你電腦的一個文件夾裡面。此後當你每次訪問該網站時,相關的 cookie記錄便會自動回傳到網站。網站也可以更改或清除你電腦上已經被記錄的cookie。用手機瀏覽器上網時,也會使用到cookie。
信息時代,人們享受互聯網便利的同時,也在把自己更多地暴露在別人的注意力之下。越來越多的人都在接觸cookie技術,因此有關cookie的話 題才會引起如此關注。根據中國互聯網絡信息中心(China Internet Network Information Center,簡稱CNNIC)最新發佈的《第31次中國互聯網絡發展狀況統計報告》,截至2012年底,我國網民共有5.64億,互聯網普及率佔到人口 總數的42.1%。而隨着移動互聯網的發展,這個趨勢將延續。另據CNNIC的數據,截至去年底,我國手機網民的規模為4.2億,網民中使用手機上網的用 戶佔比由上年底的69.3%提升至74.5%。
相對於互聯網的飛速發展,與之相關的隱私保護法律和行業規定顯得滯後。關於cookie,到底誰能操作、能否公開、用戶對cookie的控制權和知 情權等問題,國內的法律法規和行業約定幾乎是空白,而歐美已有相關的立法和案例。如2012年5月,歐盟法律做出明確規定,如果用cookie追蹤用戶的 使用習慣,網站必須取得使用者的“明確同意”。
那麼cookie究竟是啥?這個名為“小甜餅”的技術,最初是程序之間交流的一種數據包,在互聯網上是一種基於瀏覽器和網站的技術,主要目的是為了 讓網站記錄用戶的一些信息,以便用戶下次訪問網站時能認出他。 Cookie的出現最初是為了解決實際問題:為了網站開發人員能方便地“記住”用戶,可在用戶每次訪問時提供更方便、更有針對性的功能。就像《賤人就是矯 情》那篇科技博客里說的那樣,不會讓大老爺們看到彈力貼身衛生棉的廣告。
《打造Facebook》的作者王淮認為,cookie就是一種工具。不應該打壓這種工具本身,而是應該打壓利用這種工具的惡意行為。知名互聯網觀 察家、5G諮詢合伙人洪波也認為,從Facebook、谷歌來看,互聯網的發展正是以犧牲所謂的隱私來換取個性化和精準化的體驗,在不對用戶造成困擾的情 況下,用戶應看輕隱私問題,提升隱私容忍度。博客中國創始人方興東也指出,媒體對cookie的片面化、簡單化、妖魔化的報道,引起用戶無謂的恐慌,不利 於認清與解決問題。Cookie的有效合理使用,是互聯網的優勢所在,也是互聯網的價值,不能把cookie問題簡單化絕對化,應該防止濫用,而不是不 用。
它確實帶來了便利。自動登錄是怎麼實現的呢?當用戶第一次選擇自動登陸時,網站會在cookie里存儲一個隨機碼;下次訪問時網站會將瀏覽器上傳 cookie的隨機碼和服務器數據庫中保存的隨機碼進行比對,如果吻合則直接登錄。同時網站的“在本機上記住我”、“一個月內不再輸入”等提示、用戶設定 為自動填充的賬號和密碼;還有視頻網站在用戶退出情況下保存的觀看歷史、購物網站在用戶退出登陸情況下仍保留的購物車;網站的註冊頁面可以看到的輸入框的 下拉提示;手機訪問百度時,下拉框的歷史記錄所有這些功能都利用了cookie技術。
Cookie技術設計本身其實充分考慮了安全性,儘管當時對此並沒有任何規定。比如A網站存儲的cookie,只有A網站才可以讀取;另外 cookie也是有“保質期”的,網站可以在任何一次訪問時清理掉用戶設備上的cookie。同時cookie被限制在4k的容量內,這意味着所能存儲的 信息非常有限;cookie傳遞過程支持加密數據傳送等。
然而由於與操作系統、瀏覽器、網站和網絡這四個因素密切相關,這使cookie存在很多敞口風險。事實上通過網站的服務器端代碼、瀏覽器、網站在瀏 覽器上的腳本都可以抓取到cookie,第三方cookie查看軟件、桌面軟件如記事本、黑客使用的抓包工具通這些途徑也能看到cookie。因此這四個 因素中任何一個環節存在漏洞都可能導致cookie的不安全。
Cookie能存什麼信息是由網站決定的。如果網站願意,可以將用戶的賬號、密碼等任何文字信息存儲到cookie。因此如果網站存在缺陷,比如將 密碼直接明文存到cookie,或者允許第三方代碼訪問自己用戶的cookie,並且對第三方代碼不加以審核控制,都可能出現安全問題,更不用說如果網站 直接將擁有的cookie數據售賣。正常的網站,不但自己不會濫用cookie,還會處處考慮用戶在上網環境、操作系統、瀏覽器、網絡環境等潛在的異常情 況,並防患未然,做好相關設計以避免cookie被泄露,比如做加密傳送、有效期設置、提醒等。
2011年,國外研究人員發現IE瀏覽器存在名為cookiejacking的安全漏洞,容易導致網絡帳號和密碼泄露,最新版IE已修復該問題。像支付寶這樣對安全性要求極高的網站,則直接開發了一個瀏覽器控件,也可以實現記住用戶賬號的目的。
Cookie和網站安全性設計的前提都是:瀏覽器是安全的,是不會偷窺用戶私密數據的。如果瀏覽器存在漏洞,就可能給黑客可乘之機,獲取cookie文件。另外瀏覽器主觀偽造、利用用戶cookie,在技術上也是可行的。
由於cookie對操作系統開放, 所以第三方軟件甚至記事本也可以查看到電腦上的cookie內容。如果操作系統有漏洞或者Office軟件有漏洞等,都可能導致cookie不安全。比如密碼,雖然用“*”型代替了,但通過“星號密碼查看器”這種小軟件就可以輕鬆破解。
Cookie的另一重風險,則是隨意接入未知的Wi-Fi網絡。雖然幾率很小,但如果遇到隱藏的釣魚Wi-Fi,黑客們也會守株待兔,等着藉此抓取 用戶數據包,也包括cookie。2012年瀋陽警方和上海警方證實了釣魚Wi-Fi存在。一旦聯入,黑客在15分鐘之內就可以竊取上網用戶的個人信息和 密碼,包括網銀密碼、炒股賬號密碼等。黑客的作案場所基本在提供免費上網的地方。當然還有人為因素,如果你身邊的人使用你的電腦,有心且懂技術,更可直接 通過第三方軟件查看和分析電腦上的cookie數據。
如果真的像315晚會說的那樣,對cookie所有者而言又有什麼危害?舉個例子,如果打印文件被泄露了會有什麼後果?這要看你打印的具體內容是什 麼,以及泄露給誰了。同樣是打印文件,如果內容是商業機密,並泄露給了競爭對手,那麼後果就很嚴重了。雖然是小概率事件,但隱私和安全問題一樣,一旦發生 後果卻很嚴重。我們可以把cookie想像成是通過瀏覽器“打印”的文件。Cookie泄露會有什麼後果,關鍵在於被人看到了什麼、以及誰看到了。 然而從隱私的角度出發,或許很少有人願意不經允許地被窺視、被分析。
理論上來說,地域、性別等信息的私密程度較低;瀏覽歷史、用戶名等信息稍微敏感;如果涉及到密碼、姓名等信息則極度私密了。如果是廣告公司做精確營 銷,問題不是那麼嚴重,因為他們只知道有這麼個人,更確切說有“這麼一台電腦”,很難知道這個人究竟是誰。這如同“七成網民曾瀏覽過色情網站”和“張同學 經常瀏覽成人網站”的區別。但如果是調查公司拿到這些數據,問題就不一樣了:他們可能通過cookie找到具體個人,商業偵探也可能通過cookie的關 聯提取出來很多商業信息。
作為無法脫離互聯網的普通人,我們如何與cookie和平共處?首先使用在業界知名度高,值得信任的網站;並且不同網站要使用不同的賬號和密碼。不要提交私密信息給不信任的網站,包括姓名、身份證號、住址、公司、銀行賬號信息等。
鑒於瀏覽器是cookie的基礎,因此使用一款安全的瀏覽器非常重要,慎重使用不知名的瀏覽器。瀏覽器是否安全有哪些指標呢?除了不會亂收集數據,還應具有設置安全、隱私、防追蹤等的能力。
如果不是技術專家,最好不要“裸奔”,一定要裝安全軟件,包括可靠的殺毒軟件和安全管理軟件,同時建議使用正版操作系統和正版軟件,並及時給操作系統打補丁,減少漏洞。這樣就可以確保cookie不會在操作系統層面被泄露。
如果對安全要求高,還要定期清理cookie或者使用一些特殊設置。360、QQ電腦管家等軟件清理瀏覽器cookie。實際上IE瀏覽器可以設置 為不使用cookie,不過操作比較複雜。但包括QQ瀏覽器等都有隱私瀏覽功能或者“退出時清理”這類設置,不會使用和記錄cookie。
如果315晚會對cookie的關注,能引起人們對互聯網安全和隱私的重視,則必將促進整個互聯網行業的發展。這將促使下一個版本的瀏覽器、安全軟件可以為用戶提供更有效的保護,需求永遠是第一推動力。
羅超為互聯網從業者,SuperSofter博客(www.xiaoshejian.com)創始人。

2013年3月25日 星期一

CPU、GPU和DSP等混戰

     【日經BP社報導】從智慧手機和平板終端到個人電腦、伺服器乃至超級電腦——計算設備全都迎來了巨大變化。

       這種變化就是擺脫單純依賴CPU。利用CPU、GPU和DSP等多種處理器可以運行應用軟體,也就是「混合計算」。其目的是徹底提高計算系統的電力效率。



       對半導體廠商而言,這是一種會動搖自己地位的變化。此前各處理器的分工一直很明確,比如利用CPU驅動OS和普通應用軟體;利用GPU繪 圖;利用DSP執行數位信號處理。而現在這種分工方式可能會崩潰。原本提供其他領域產品的半導體廠商有可能突然變成競爭對手,這也許會一舉改變行業格局。

       已經開始積極行動的是CPU和GPU領域的半導體廠商。比如面向個人電腦和伺服器提供半導體的美國AMD、美國英特爾、美國輝達,以及面向 消費類產品等經營SoC及其內部IP內核的英國ARM、英國Imagination Technologies、美國高通和南韓三星電子等公司。


       這些半導體廠商正虎視眈眈地盯著異構處理器時代的霸權地位,時而為友時而為敵。為了在向異構處理器過渡的進程中擴大自家晶片的採用佔有率,紛紛積極出擊,實現混合計算的環境也由此逐步形成。(記者:竹居智久)

Testing a New Class of Speedy Computer

量子計算機將帶來速度革命

Kim Stallknecht for The New York Times
洛克希德·馬丁公司購買了一款D-Wave量子計算機,計劃把它升級到商用規模。

不列顛哥倫比亞溫哥華——我們的數字時代是由位元構建的。一個位元就是一個0和1的特定狀態,由此產生出所有現代計算機編碼。
但是現在,一家大型軍工企業即將推出一種強大的新型商用電腦,它將把計算機技術帶進量子力學的神奇亞原子世界。那是一個奇妙的微觀世界,在那裡,常識邏輯好像都不再適用。1可以是1,也可以是1和0,或者同時處於介乎二者之間的任意狀態。
這聽起來可能有些荒誕,尤其是對那些習慣於非是即否的傳統計算技術的人。但是學院研究員和微軟(Microsoft)、IBM、惠普(Hewlett-Packard)等企業的科學家的確是在開發量子計算機。
洛克希德·馬丁公司(Lockheed Martin)兩年前曾經購買了加拿大D-Wave系統公司(D-Wave Systems)的一款早期量子計算機。如今,它對這種技術已經有了足夠的信心,決定把量子計算機升級為商用型,從而成為首家經營量子計算機業務的公司。
也有人並未信服,說D-Wave公司還不能對外界的科學家證明,它已經解決了量子計算的眾多難題。
但如果新的計算機像洛克希德和D-Wave期望的那樣運轉,那麼,它將可以極大地提升哪怕是如今最強大的計算機系統的運算能力,其處理科技和商務問題的速度,會比今天快數百萬倍。
洛克希德公司的技術主管雷·約翰遜(Ray Johnson)說,公司將利用量子計算機開發和測試複雜的雷達、航天和航空器系統。這種計算機將可以完成許多任務,比如即時得出一個有幾百萬行代碼的衛 星網絡管理軟件遇到太陽黑子爆發或核爆炸衝擊波時會作何反應。這類任務用今天的技術,即使可以做到,也要幾周的時間。
“這將是一場革命,就像早期計算機革命一樣,”他說,“它會改變我們對計算機的理解。”還有很多機構會發現D-Wave量子計算機的新用途。研究癌 症的科學家認為,可以用它快速處理海量基因數據。量子計算還可能用於研究人類基因組中蛋白質的行為。這是一項比基因組測序更艱巨的工作。谷歌 (Google)的研究人員也開始與D-Wave合作,利用量子計算機識別汽車和地面標誌物,這將是管理自動駕駛交通工具的關鍵一步。
量子計算比傳統計算技術快得多,是因為亞原子粒子的神奇特性。自從第一台計算機問世以來,我們用0和1的精確狀態表達數據;而亞原子粒子則同時處於 多種狀態,量子計算利用的就是亞原子的這種特性。粒子之間不同的互動關係也可以同時並存。所有這些可能的粒子狀態可以被縮小範圍,在近乎無限多的可能性中 得出一個最佳結果,從而實現快速解決某些類型的計算問題。
D-Wave公司總部在溫哥華,已有12年的歷史。目前,公司得到了多方投資,包括亞馬遜(亞馬遜運行着世界最龐大的計算機系統之一)的創始人傑 夫·貝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)、投資銀行高盛集團(Goldman Sachs)和投資公司In-Q-Tel,一家與中央情報局(Central Intelligence Agency)等政府部門關係密切的公司。
D-Wave首席執行官維恩·布勞內爾(Vern Brownell)說:“我們現在做的,是一種平行於過去70年來的計算機技術的開發工作。”
布勞內爾於2009年來到D-Wave。2000年以前,他一直是高盛的技術主管。“那時候,我們有5萬台服務器,僅僅是為了進行模擬運算”來決定交易策略,他說,“現在的運算規模肯定比那時更大了。但是我們將可以只用一台機器,成本也低很多。”
研究人員致力於開發量子計算技術已經30多年了。但是要實現這個目標一直很困難。他們的思路是利用物質在量子狀態下的一種特性。這種狀態被稱作疊加態。在疊加態下,量子計算機的基本單位,量子位元,可以同時承載極大量的數值。
科學家有多種方法可以創造達到疊加態和另一種被稱作量子糾纏的狀態所需的條件。量子疊加和量子糾纏都是量子計算所必需的。研究人員已經做到了使磁場中的離子懸浮,捕獲光子,或者在硅中操縱磷原子。
洛克希德購買的D-Wave計算機使用的數學方法和競爭對手有所不同。在D-Wave計算機的系統裡面,由極細的超導線網構成的量子處理器被冷卻到接近絕對零度。然後,把一組數學公式加載到超導線網上,對處理器進行編程。
然後,處理器檢索幾乎無限多的可能性,判斷出構建那兩種粒子關係所需的最少能量是多少。這個被視為最佳結果的狀態,就是問題的答案。
這種方法被稱為絕熱量子計算,很可能在計算蛋白質摺疊等領域大有可為。D-Wave的設計師還說,這種方法可能還可以用來評估複雜的金融策略或龐大的物流問題。
然而,公司的科學家還沒有發表任何科學數據,證明他們的系統運算速度比傳統的二進制計算機快。植物也在利用類似的亞原子特性,在幾微秒(百萬分之一 秒)甚至幾奈秒(十億分之一秒)的瞬間,把太陽光轉化為光合能。但是對D-Wave量子計算持批評態度的人說,那根本不是量子計算,而是一種典型的熱能行 為。
John Markoff自舊金山對本文有報道貢獻。
翻譯:黃少傑


Testing a New Class of Speedy Computer

Kim Stallknecht for The New York Times
Lockheed Martin brought a version of D-Wave’s quantum computer and plans to upgrade it to commercial scale.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Our digital age is all about bits, those precise ones and zeros that are the stuff of modern computer code.
But a powerful new type of computer that is about to be commercially deployed by a major American military contractor is taking computing into the strange, subatomic realm of quantum mechanics. In that infinitesimal neighborhood, common sense logic no longer seems to apply. A one can be a one, or it can be a one and a zero and everything in between — all at the same time.
It sounds preposterous, particularly to those familiar with the yes/no world of conventional computing. But academic researchers and scientists at companies like Microsoft, I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard have been working to develop quantum computers.
Now, Lockheed Martin — which bought an early version of such a computer from the Canadian company D-Wave Systems two years ago — is confident enough in the technology to upgrade it to commercial scale, becoming the first company to use quantum computing as part of its business.
Skeptics say that D-Wave has yet to prove to outside scientists that it has solved the myriad challenges involved in quantum computation.
But if it performs as Lockheed and D-Wave expect, the design could be used to supercharge even the most powerful systems, solving some science and business problems millions of times faster than can be done today.
Ray Johnson, Lockheed’s chief technical officer, said his company would use the quantum computer to create and test complex radar, space and aircraft systems. It could be possible, for example, to tell instantly how the millions of lines of software running a network of satellites would react to a solar burst or a pulse from a nuclear explosion — something that can now take weeks, if ever, to determine.
“This is a revolution not unlike the early days of computing,” he said. “It is a transformation in the way computers are thought about.” Many others could find applications for D-Wave’s computers. Cancer researchers see a potential to move rapidly through vast amounts of genetic data. The technology could also be used to determine the behavior of proteins in the human genome, a bigger and tougher problem than sequencing the genome. Researchers at Google have worked with D-Wave on using quantum computers to recognize cars and landmarks, a critical step in managing self-driving vehicles.
Quantum computing is so much faster than traditional computing because of the unusual properties of particles at the smallest level. Instead of the precision of ones and zeros that have been used to represent data since the earliest days of computers, quantum computing relies on the fact that subatomic particles inhabit a range of states. Different relationships among the particles may coexist, as well. Those probable states can be narrowed to determine an optimal outcome among a near-infinitude of possibilities, which allows certain types of problems to be solved rapidly.
D-Wave, a 12-year-old company based in Vancouver, has received investments from Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, which operates one of the world’s largest computer systems, as well as from the investment bank Goldman Sachs and from In-Q-Tel, an investment firm with close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and other government agencies.
“What we’re doing is a parallel development to the kind of computing we’ve had for the past 70 years,” said Vern Brownell, D-Wave’s chief executive.
Mr. Brownell, who joined D-Wave in 2009, was until 2000 the chief technical officer at Goldman Sachs. “In those days, we had 50,000 servers just doing simulations” to figure out trading strategies, he said. “I’m sure there is a lot more than that now, but we’ll be able to do that with one machine, for far less money.”
Quantum computing has been a goal of researchers for more than three decades, but it has proved remarkably difficult to achieve. The idea has been to exploit a property of matter in a quantum state known as superposition, which makes it possible for the basic elements of a quantum computer, known as qubits, to hold a vast array of values simultaneously.
There are a variety of ways scientists create the conditions needed to achieve superposition as well as a second quantum state known as entanglement, which are both necessary for quantum computing. Researchers have suspended ions in magnetic fields, trapped photons or manipulated phosphorus atoms in silicon.
The D-Wave computer that Lockheed has bought uses a different mathematical approach than competing efforts. In the D-Wave system, a quantum computing processor, made from a lattice of tiny superconducting wires, is chilled close to absolute zero. It is then programmed by loading a set of mathematical equations into the lattice.
The processor then moves through a near-infinity of possibilities to determine the lowest energy required to form those relationships. That state, seen as the optimal outcome, is the answer.
The approach, which is known as adiabatic quantum computing, has been shown to have promise in applications like calculating protein folding, and D-Wave’s designers said it could potentially be used to evaluate complicated financial strategies or vast logistics problems.
However, the company’s scientists have not yet published scientific data showing that the system computes faster than today’s conventional binary computers. While similar subatomic properties are used by plants to turn sunlight into photosynthetic energy in a few million-billionths of a second, critics of D-Wave’s method say it is not quantum computing at all, but a form of standard thermal behavior.
John Markoff contributed reporting from San Francisco.

Are Your Doctor’s Hands Clean? This Wristband Knows




Why It Matters Millions of people get infections from hospital care each year in the U.S. Many cases arise from improper hand hygiene among hospital workers.
一本醫學科普中討論美國醫生動手 術前沒洗手現象是很平常的.






Are Your Doctor’s Hands Clean? This Wristband Knows


An RFID-reading, motion-sensing wristband buzzes to tell health-care workers if they are washing their hands properly.
By Susan Young on March 25, 2013














Why It Matters Millions of people get infections from hospital care each year in the U.S. Many cases arise from improper hand hygiene among hospital workers.




Hygiene helper: This prototype of an IntelligentM wristband can tell hospitals how long a worker spends washing up.
A startup called IntelligentM wants to make hospitals healthier by encouraging workers to clean their hands properly. Its solution is a bracelet that vibrates when the wearer has scrubbed sufficiently, giving employees a way to check their habits and letting employers know who is and isn’t doing things right.
Some 100,000 people a year in the United States alone die because of infections that arise from hospital visits, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a lot of these infections occur because doctors, nurses, and technicians don’t wash well enough. The problem has garnered more attention lately, in part because Medicare and other payers have stopped reimbursing hospitals for expenses related to treating hospital-acquired infections.
Currently, compliance with hand-washing standards is monitored mostly by supposedly secret observers who watch hospital employees as they work. “People are aware that they are being monitored and change their behavior based on that fact,” says Polly Trexler, associate director of hospital epidemiology and infection control at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. But this type of monitoring is labor intensive and typically happens only during the day, says Trexler.
Worse, studies find that hospital works meet proper standards around half the time or less. IntelligentM is just one of many companies trying to address this problem with technology; other solutions include dispensers that measure the amount of liquid used, chemical sensors that sniff out the presence of soap or sanitizer, and RFID-based systems that know the location of each cleaning station and whether a hospital worker has been there.
“Everybody is trying to solve the same problem,” says Brent Nibarger, chief client officer of BioVigil, a company developing a chemical-sensing monitor that can detect soap and alcohol-based sanitizers on workers’ hands. The challenge is to develop a cost-effective system that’s suited to the pace of clinical work and is not too complex to set up or use, he says.
IntelligentM’s wristband reads RFID tags on hand-washing and sanitizing stations. An accelerometer can detect how long an employee spends washing; the wristband buzzes once if it’s done correctly and three times if it’s not.
“Over the last two years, we have developed a technology that allows us to alert health-care workers on the spot if they aren’t washing or sanitizing according to the [Centers for Disease Control] specifications,” says IntelligentM president Seth Freedman.
Because RFID tags are also placed outside patients’ rooms and on some equipment, Freedman says, the system alerts health-care workers to clean their hands before doing a procedure that carries a high infection risk, such as inserting a catheter.

It also collects data from the bracelets through a microUSB connection at the end of each shift, which gives hospital epidemiologists a chance to see how each employee is doing.
The RFID reader for such a system needs to be very fast, says Trexler, whose hospital has tested another RFID system and found it too slow to notice when some employees grabbed a quick squirt of sanitizer as they zoomed on to the next patient. She likes the idea that the wristband provides feedback to employees, but she wonders if the bracelet itself could interfere with good hygiene. “A lot of people wash halfway up their arm,” she says. Still, a successful system could provide a lot of valuable information, especially around the clock, she believes: “The 24/7 aspect is fantastic, and I think it is going to be very important to help drive change.”
A hospital in Sarasota, Florida, began using the IntelligentM system in December 2012, and recently the company gained two more customers in the state. Although the company’s initial focus is on health care, it is also considering using its technology in food service and in soaps that can teach kids proper hand-washing techniques.

2013年3月13日 星期三

An Energy Coup for Japan: ‘Flammable Ice’

日本能源開採新突破:「可燃冰」

Jogmec, via European Pressphoto Agency
在日本中部附近的太平洋海域,天然氣火焰從開採甲烷水合物的深海鑽井船的燃燒器中噴出。

東京——日本周二宣布從海底蘊藏的甲烷水合物中提取出天然氣。甲烷水合物有時被稱為「可燃冰」。官員和專家稱,這個突破可能是向前邁出的一步,最終目標是開發一種極具潛力、但人們仍不甚了解的能源來源。
據信這是世界上首次從海底的水合物儲層提取出天然氣。這些天然氣有望成為已探明油氣儲量的替代能源來源。這對日本來說尤為至關重要,因為日本目前是全球最大的液化天然氣進口國,而且正就應不應該再度嚴重依賴核能展開公開辯論。
專家估計,全球天然氣水合物的碳含量,至少是地球上所有其它化石燃料碳含量的兩倍,這使其有望在日本這類能源匱乏的國家改變遊戲規則。研究者們此前曾成功地從岸上的甲烷水合物儲層中提取天然氣,但未曾從海床下提取過,而據信世界大部分儲量都蘊藏在海床下。
對於海底水合物的確切性質,其可能對環境產生的影響,以及實現商業可行開採的潛力,人類仍知之甚少。
自21世紀初期以來,日本已投入數億美元勘探太平洋和日本海的甲烷水合物儲量。這項任務在福島第一核電站危機爆發後變得愈加緊迫,因為那次危機促使日本幾乎完全叫停核能發電,同時大幅增加化石燃料的進口。
日本經濟產業省稱,周二早間,地球號(Chikyu)科學鑽井船上的一個團隊對海床下300米深處的甲烷水合物儲層開始天然氣試采。自1月份以來,這艘船一直在太平洋水深1000米的一片區域進行鑽探,該區域位於日本中部渥美半島以南80公里處。
日本經濟產業省在一份聲明中稱,這一團隊使用專業設備鑽入海底甲烷水合物儲層,然後降低壓力,使甲烷和冰分離,再用管道把天然氣泵送至海面。
日本經濟產業省稱,數小時後,船尾的管道口燃起火焰,說明天然氣正被開採出來。
日本石油天然氣金屬礦產資源機構(Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National Corp.,簡稱Jogmec)是領導此次試驗開採的國有公司,該公司發言人川本高見(Takami Kawamoto,音譯)稱,「日本終於擁有了本國的能源來源。」
Jogmec稱,該團隊將繼續進行約兩周的試驗開採,隨後會分析有多少天然氣被開採出來。日本希望在大約5年後使開採技術在商業上可行。
日本經濟產業大臣茂木敏充(Toshimitsu Motegi)在東京的一次新聞發佈會上說,「這是世界上首次從海洋甲烷水合物中試驗開採天然氣,我希望我們將能夠證實穩定的天然氣開採。」他承認,開採工藝仍面臨一些技術障礙和其他問題。
不過他說,「頁岩氣曾被認為在技術上難以開採,但現在已經大規模投產。通過一個接一個地應對這些挑戰,我們有望很快就開始在日本周邊開採這些資源。」
Jogmec估計,日本南海海槽(Nankai submarine trough)周邊地區至少蘊藏了1.1萬億立方米(39萬億立方英尺)的甲烷水合物,相當於日本目前11年的天然氣總量。
日本產業技術綜合研究所(National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology)另外作出了一個粗略估計,認為日本周邊海域的甲烷水合物總儲量超過7萬億立方米,研究人員早就宣稱,這接近日本100年的天然氣需 求。
該所海洋地質學高級研究員佐藤干夫(Mikio Satoh)並未參與日本南海海槽考察。他說,「既然我們知道開採是可能的。下一步就要看日本能在多大程度上降低成本,使這項技術在經濟上可行。」
甲烷水合物是一種看上去像冰凍果子露的物質,可能在甲烷氣體被封存在海床下或地下的冰中間時形成。儘管它看上去像冰,但在遇熱時會燃燒。
專家說,在海床以及北極部分地區,天然氣水合物的儲量非常豐富。日本攜手加拿大,已成功從永久凍土中的甲烷水合物中提取出天然氣。美國的研究人員正在阿拉斯加的北坡展開類似的試驗項目。
大部分甲烷水合物儲層位於海床下的地層深處,這也是長期以來從其開採天然氣的困難所在。
在陸上試驗中,日本的研究人員曾嘗試使用熱水來加熱甲烷水合物,也曾嘗試通過降低壓力來釋放甲烷分子。日本最後決定用降壓手段,部分原因是,將熱水注入海床以下本身就需要耗費大量能源。
東京明治大學(Meiji University)的地質學教授松本良(Ryo Matsumoto)領導了針對日本天然氣水合物儲量的研究,他說,「我們一直將天然氣水合物視作潛在巨大的能源來源,但問題是:我們如何從海底採掘天然 氣?如今,我們清除了一個巨大的障礙。」
美國地質調查局(U.S. Geological Survey)的資料顯示,最近對北卡羅來納、南卡羅來納海岸的勘測顯示,那裡有大量的近海甲烷水合物儲量。加拿大、中國、挪威和美國都在勘探水合物儲量。
然而,美國地質調查局的科學家們表示,對於在海床上鑽采水合物對環境會有怎樣的影響,我們的認識依然有限,特別是這有可能向大氣釋放溫室氣體甲烷。他們呼籲進行更深入的研究和監測。
翻譯:曹莉、林蒙克


An Energy Coup for Japan: ‘Flammable Ice’

TOKYO — Japan said Tuesday that it had extracted gas from offshore deposits of methane hydrate — sometimes called “flammable ice” — a breakthrough that officials and experts said could be a step toward tapping a promising but still little-understood energy source.
The gas, whose extraction from the undersea hydrate reservoir was thought to be a world first, could provide an alternative source of energy to known oil and gas reserves. That could be crucial especially for Japan, which is the world’s biggest importer of liquefied natural gas and is engaged in a public debate about whether to resume the country’s heavy reliance on nuclear power.

Experts estimate that the carbon found in gas hydrates worldwide totals at least twice the amount of carbon in all of the earth’s other fossil fuels, making it a potential game-changer for energy-poor countries like Japan. Researchers had previously successfully extracted gas from on-shore methane hydrate reservoirs, but not from beneath the seabed, where much of the world’s deposits are thought to lie.
The exact properties of undersea hydrates and how they might affect the environment are still poorly understood, however, as is the potential for making extraction commercially viable.
Japan has invested hundreds of millions of dollars since the early 2000s to explore offshore methane hydrate reserves in both the Pacific and the Sea of Japan. That task has become all the more pressing after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, which has all but halted Japan’s nuclear energy program and caused a sharp increase in the country’s fossil fuel imports.
The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said a team aboard the scientific drilling ship Chikyu had started a trial extraction of gas from a layer of methane hydrates about 300 meters, or 1,000 feet, below the seabed Tuesday morning. The ship has been drilling since January in an area of the Pacific about 1,000 meters deep and 80 kilometers, or 50 miles, south of the Atsumi Peninsula in central Japan.
With specialized equipment, the team drilled into and then lowered the pressure in the undersea methane hydrate reserve, causing the methane and ice to separate. It then piped the natural gas to the surface, the ministry said in a statement.
Hours later, a flare on the ship’s stern showed that gas was being produced, the ministry said.
“Japan could finally have an energy source to call its own,” said Takami Kawamoto, a spokesman for the Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National Corp., or Jogmec, the state-run company leading the trial extraction.
The team will continue the trial extraction for about two weeks before analyzing how much gas has been produced, Jogmec said. Japan hopes to make the extraction technology commercially viable in about five years.
“This is the world’s first trial production of gas from oceanic methane hydrates, and I hope we will be able to confirm stable gas production,” Toshimitsu Motegi, the Japanese trade minister, said at a news conference in Tokyo. He acknowledged that the extraction process would still face technical hurdles and other problems.
Still, “shale gas was considered technologically difficult to extract but is now produced on a large scale,” he said. “By tackling these challenges one by one, we could soon start tapping the resources that surround Japan.”
Jogmec estimates that the surrounding area in the Nankai submarine trough holds at least 1.1 trillion cubic meters, or 39 trillion cubic feet, of methane hydrate, enough to meet 11 years’ worth of gas imports to Japan.
A separate, rough estimate by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has put the total amount of methane hydrate in the waters surrounding Japan at more than 7 trillion cubic meters, or what researchers have long said is closer to 100 years’ worth of Japan’s natural gas needs.
“Now we know that extraction is possible,” said Mikio Satoh, a senior researcher in marine geology at the institute who was not involved in the Nankai trough expedition. “The next step is to see how far Japan can get costs down to make the technology economically viable.”
Methane hydrate is a sherbet-like substance that can form when methane gas is trapped in ice below the seabed or underground. Though it looks like ice, it burns when it is heated.
Experts say there are abundant deposits of gas hydrates in the seabed and in some Arctic regions. Japan, together with Canada, has already succeeded in extracting gas from methane hydrate trapped in permafrost soil. U.S. researchers are carrying out similar test projects on the North Slope of Alaska.
The difficulty had long been how to extract gas from the methane hydrate far below the seabed, where much of the deposits lie.
In onshore tests, Japanese researchers explored using hot water to warm the methane hydrate, and tried lowering pressure to free the methane molecules. Japan decided to use depressurization, partly because pumping warm water under the seabed would itself require a lot of energy.
“Gas hydrates have always been seen as a potentially vast energy source, but the question was, How do we extract gas from under the ocean?” said Ryo Matsumoto, a professor in geology at Meiji University in Tokyo who has led research into Japan’s hydrate deposits. “Now we’ve cleared one big hurdle.”
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, recent mapping off the North Carolina and South Carolina coasts shows large offshore accumulations of methane hydrates. Canada, China, Norway and the United States are also exploring hydrate deposits.
Scientists at the U.S.G.S. note, however, that there is still a limited understanding of how drilling for hydrates might affect the environment, particularly the possible release of methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, and are calling for continued research and monitoring.



2013年3月12日 星期二

設計實驗室



蘋果程式能否改善人的行為?
作者:英國《金融時報》專欄作家 蒂姆•哈福德


人人都在談論一款新的iPhone應用——Mailbox。只需一些簡單的手勢,就能實現將郵件歸檔、延遲處理、或發送至“待處理”列表等功能。Mailbox用戶可以快速高亮整個收件箱,命令這些郵件“明天”再次投遞。如果你用iPhone手機,你可能已經在排隊等待使用這個程式了。

Mailbox有趣之處在於,它基本上就是經過重新設計的Gmail前端。與Gmail相比,Mailbox新增的實際功能很少,但卻有很強的導向作用,使我們能夠很容易地以合適的方式來處理郵件。“合適”這個詞比較有趣:我對如何處理郵件有非常明確的想法,Mailbox也是如此——在這一點上,它與大部分不那麼“自作主張”的郵件用戶端不同。大部分郵件用戶端允許用戶“按照自己喜歡的方式使用”用戶端處理郵件。

現代軟體令人驚歎,因為軟體設計師旨在使複雜的工具易於使用的各種嘗試在迅速發展。嘗試的結果參差不齊,但有些非常不錯。最佳軟體的創造方式也令人驚歎:它們是優秀設計和不斷實驗有效結合的產物。設計大師通過頭腦風暴產生思路,實驗者通過實驗驗證哪些思路可行。事實上,在晶片技術不斷發展的支援下,這一過程進行得如此成功,以至於當有人說到“技術”,我們的第一反應是電腦和手機,而非飛機、疫苗、或核反應爐。

“行為學設計”正成為一個流行詞,這或許並不讓人驚訝。英國華威商學院(Warwick Business School)行為學教授尼克•蔡特(Nick Chater)認為,將基礎科學研究和用戶導向的設計思路相結合,將產生很大影響。心理學和經濟學領域的行為學家正在進行大量人類行為研究,而設計師具備相應的技能和經驗,能夠將這些思想轉變為產品和服務,從而讓我們的生活變得更快樂、或更安全。

英國華威商學院與英國設計委員會(Design Council)合辦的行為學設計實驗室(Behavioural Design Lab)是一個行為學家與設計師嘗試合作的新場所。另外一個這樣的場所,是一些經濟學家和行為學家在美國麻塞諸塞州共同創辦的Ideas42設計實驗室(這個名字源自道格拉斯•亞當斯(Douglas Adams),他曾說,42是一切問題的終極答案,因為42ASCII碼表中代表通配符*。這個名字的寓意在於:在找到有用的答案之前,我們必須提出更好的問題。)

全球發展中心(Center for Global Development Center for Global Development)發表了一篇新的政策論文,由Ideas42的索加托•達塔(Saugato Datta)和森德希爾•穆萊納桑(Sendhil Mullainathan)合寫。論文以肥料的使用為例,對行為學設計進行說明。非洲農民的肥料使用量遠低於人們的預期,產量也非常低。之所以出現這種情況,比較自然的幾種解釋是:農民買不起肥料(解決方法:補貼),或肥料的作用可能不像農學家以為的那麼大(解決方法:農學家應不再插手),或農民不理解使用肥料的好處(解決方法:教育)。

但行為經濟學指出了另一種可能性,即:農民想使用肥料,但人性的弱點導致他們往往禁不住誘惑、把錢揮霍掉,到需要用錢的時候卻拿不出錢來買肥料。解決問題的一條可能思路是,提供承諾儲蓄帳戶,讓農民能夠將錢“鎖”起來。這個辦法在馬拉維試行的時候,農民們欣然簽訂了協議。於是肥料使用量大大增加。為肥料免費送貨提供補貼的辦法也非常湊效,效果遠好於提供相應價值的價格折扣。

這些都是從設計出發解決問題的例子,讓我們能很容易地完成我們希望是正確的事情。為肥料免費送貨提供的補貼是一項有想法的政策,正如Mailbox當然也是一個有想法的Gmail介面。從設計出發的思維方式能夠產生立竿見影的效果,將這種思維方式與願意實驗、學習和調試的謙遜態度結合在一起,會產生很大的影響。

譯者/王慧玲

2013年3月9日 星期六

Nest’s Smarter Home


http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/511086/how-nests-control-freaks-reinvented-the-thermostat/

In 2007, Tony Fadell believed he could see the future. He was an Apple executive who had created the iPod and was a leading figure on the team that had worked on the iPhone, which the company was about to launch. He knew people would soon form attachments to the Internet-connected computers they carried in their pockets, and he kept thinking about that as he started another major project: building an energy-efficient dream home near Lake Tahoe.
“I said, ‘How do I design this home when the primary interface to my world is the thing in my pocket?’ ” says Fadell. He baffled architects with demands that the home’s every feature, from the TV to the electricity supply, be ready for a world in which the Internet and mobile apps made many services more responsive. When it came to choosing a programmable thermostat for his expensive eco-friendly heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, Fadell blew a gasket: “They were 500 bucks a pop, and they were horrible and doing nothing and brain-dead. And I was like, ‘Wait a second, I’ll design my own.’ ”
Fadell, who soon left Apple at the age of 40, became convinced that his thermostat needed to be built like a smartphone and controlled from one. He wanted it to be smart enough to learn his routine and to program its own schedule accordingly, or to switch off automatically if he went out. A thermostat, he thought, could do that if it was really a small computer connected to the Internet. As he planned the features and design in his head, Fadell began to believe that his vision would appeal to other people too, even if their homes were more ordinary. With about 10 million thermostats sold in the United States every year, it could be a lucrative business. And because thermostats typically control half the energy used in U.S. homes, a better-designed one could significantly reduce power consumption. He sought out Matt Rogers, a precocious 27-year-old who at the time led iPhone software development, and got him to leave Apple to cofound Nest.
Fadell’s instincts turned out to be correct. Nest’s first model, a striking stainless-steel-ringed disc with a circular display, went on sale in October 2011 to widespread acclaim. The HVAC industry, a sector as unexciting as the thermostats it sold, was astonished by the fresh ideas behind the device, which learned from its owners’ behavior and could be controlled with a polished mobile app. The company released a second, more advanced thermostat in October 2012, and says sales of the two models have been brisk. The $250 product has kept owners from using 225 million kilowatt-hours of energy, the company estimates—saving around $29 million at average U.S. prices. This suggests that merely with elegant design and computing savvy, Nest might be having more impact than other Silicon Valley ventures trying to deliver on the promise of “clean tech.” Now the company is preparing to release another product. Details are scarce, but it seems that Fadell’s thermostat epiphany has launched a technological campaign that will make every part of your home more intelligent.
Reprogramming
Fadell has the energy and ready smile of a late-night talk show host, and a voice that is permanently loud. Rogers is quieter and more technically focused. The pair appear to be having enormous fun sweating the details of what is, at its core, just an on-off switch. They burst into a meeting room at Nest’s unremarkable offices in Palo Alto like two boys coming in from playing in the yard, breathless, in high spirits, and completing one another’s sentences. Between them, they have had significant roles in creating two of the most iconic technology products of recent history, the iPod and iPhone—devices notable not only because they are useful and fashionable, but because they introduced genuinely new technological ideas. ­Rogers and Fadell have done the same at Nest, delivering a product that is both easier to use and more powerful than those that came before. That approach has helped them make the thermostat, historically a product bought and installed by contractors, into something people buy for themselves in the same stores where they get gadgets like phones and tablets.
For half a century, the state of the art in home energy controls has been the programmable thermostat. The theory is that if people can schedule when their heating and cooling systems will kick in, they don’t have to waste energy by running the system at all times to be assured of comfortable temperatures when they wake up or return from work. But the HVAC industry has made programmable thermostats difficult to use, with unintuitive dials and sliders and cramped displays. Citing such “user interface issues,” the Environmental Protection Agency removed programmable thermostats from its Energy Star certification program in 2009. Studies showed that they didn’t reliably save energy; in fact, because many people end up switching their system on and off manually, programmable thermostats might cause most people to use more energy, says Kamin Whitehouse, a computer science professor at the University of Virginia. “People have a really hard time setting accurate schedules for their lives,” he says.
When faced with a problem like this, many technologists would seek technical solutions. Fadell and Rogers thought instead about simplifying the device. “We started with the basic principle that 99.9 percent of the time, the only thing that you do is turn it up or down,” Fadell says. “So what’s the simplest form? A knob or a dial.” More complex functions, such as setting a schedule, could be executed more easily through a mobile app. That freed his designers from having to accommodate the many buttons that appear on other programmable thermostats. The Nest became nothing more than a compact stainless-­steel cylinder that you can turn once it’s fixed to the wall.
Fadell and Rogers have made sure that at every stage of installing and operating a Nest thermostat, you discover that potential problems have been solved for you. When you attach the device to a wall, there’s no need to drill holes or use plastic anchors to hold any screws. Nest’s engineers reviewed every screw on the market and then invented their own, with wide-spaced threads that can bite wood or powdery drywall without making it crumble. The device powers itself by leeching electricity from the control wires that connect it to your HVAC system, a feat that makes Rogers chuckle at his engineers’ audacity. Short- and long-range infrared sensors allow the device to light up when you approach and dim when you walk away—and to figure out that it was you, not the cat, who just went out, meaning it’s time to turn down the heat. Perhaps the biggest reminder of the thermostat’s intelligence comes a few days after installation, when you reach out to adjust the temperature and find that it has preëmpted you by learning from your earlier changes. “Think of a normal thermostat. Everyone turns it up, turns it down, a couple of times a day—that’s a pattern we can infer from,” says Fadell. “Instead of changing it fifteen hundred times a year, do it 10 or 20 times and the Nest thermostat can learn from that.”
Fadell can deliver animated monologues about products that don’t meet his ideals, an aspect of his personality that was probably strengthened by years of working closely with Steve Jobs. But he also remains open to taking instruction from hard data, drawing on evidence collected from Nest thermostats, customer surveys, and a group of around 1,000 customers whose thermostats are used to test new features. For example, Nest thermostats originally adjusted themselves to an energy-conserving setting in the morning two hours after detecting that human activity in a home had stopped. They waited that long in case the owner soon returned home. But anonymous data from Nest thermostats revealed that people reliably stayed out for quite a while when they left in the morning. So the company sent a software update to all the thermostats to take that into account. Now the devices turn themselves down after just 30 minutes.
Such responsiveness to data from users isn’t a quality typically found in the HVAC industry, which is dominated by a few large companies, such as Honeywell and Venstar, that sell to distributors and dealers, not consumers. It’s an approach more commonly found in Silicon Valley companies, reflecting the fact that Nest is staffed with dozens of engineers who helped Apple build the iPod and iPhone. Rogers’s former computer science professor Yoky Matsuoka, a winner of a MacArthur genius award, leads Nest’s algorithms group. As a result, if you were drawing the Nest thermostat on a technological evolutionary tree, it would be an offshoot of the smartphone line. Rogers says, “Tear apart a Samsung smartphone—it’s going to have a lot of the same components.” In another echo of the mobile computing business, where the biggest players are locked in court battles over patents, Honeywell sued Nest for patent infringement a year ago. “They’re one of the biggest companies in the world, and they feel threatened by a 150-person startup,” says Rogers. “That’s amazing.”
Soft Power
Nest is being watched by green-tech researchers and investors who believe it may lead a new wave of technologies that can significantly reduce power use in homes, which account for about 10 percent of U.S. energy consumption. The government allocates tens of millions of dollars per year for programs that reduce energy use in residential buildings. But many home improvements, such as insulation and storm windows, cost thousands of dollars per house and deliver energy savings comparable to what a better thermostat can generate for far less money, Whitehouse says.
Nest says that a home with its product will save $173 per year in electricity and heating costs compared to a home with an unprogrammed thermostat, depending on local climate and other factors—allowing it to pay for itself in under two years. (When the device appears in Europe, the payback time will be significantly faster because energy is more expensive there.) Most savings flow from the system’s ability to detect when the house is empty and learn its owner’s preferences, but Nest also saves energy by figuring out how to minimize the use of the air conditioning’s chiller and maximize the use of the fan. It also coaches people to use less energy; when consumption falls, they’ll see a green leaf icon on the thermostat and its mobile and Web interfaces. That leaf won’t appear if the energy use fell because of a shift in the weather. And Nest moves the goalposts so people must cut usage further to keep seeing the leaf.
Nest’s ability to change how people consume energy also appeals to utilities, because the device can smooth out spikes in usage. Eventually, the thermostat’s Internet connectivity could allow utilities to introduce smarter versions of “demand response” programs, in which customers get a discount in return for letting their utility adjust their thermostat in times of extremely high usage. Reliant, a utility in AC-dependent Texas, recently started bundling a free Nest thermostat with one of its plans.
Clearly, Nest’s thoughtful engineering could be applied elsewhere in the home, and its founders acknowledge that they plan to build more than just thermostats. “We have one of the best teams in the industry,” says Rogers—meaning Silicon Valley rather than the HVAC business. “They’re here for more than just one product.”
But Nest mimics Apple’s strict secrecy. My visit was limited to the sparse lobby and a meeting room just inside the front door because, as the director of communications put it, the company was on “lockdown” while a new product was developed. When pressed, Fadell dismissed a suggestion that it would be logical to expand into “home automation,” products today mostly pitched at enthusiasts that allow home appliances and lighting to be controlled remotely. “I’m not here to impress geeks,” he says, but to make simple home technology “empowering for everyone.”
The only thing clear about Nest’s future is that the thermostat, seriously as it was taken, was only a warmup act. The iPod Fadell created at Apple was the first of a series of products that reinvented the company, says Peter Nieh, who led the venture fund Lightspeed’s investment in Nest. “[Then] there was iPhone and much more. The thermostat is the iPod. It’s the beginning.”

2013年3月4日 星期一

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