annalee newitz

At the Chaos Communication Congress, a small group of hackers who love a strange computer langauge known as Dylan convinced several thousand people to voluntarily place themselves under surveillance with wearable radio frequency identification tags (RFIDs). They presented their project, called Sputnik, at the conference yesterday. The Sputnik crew placed RFID readers throughout the conference space, and anyone wearing the Sputnick RFID tags (on sale at the front desk for 10 Euros) would be tracked throughout the conference. Participants could register their RFID tag ID number online, and associate it with their name or other personal information. One of the project designers told a packed audience, "Anyone can click on your ID number via a web interface, and find out which lectures you have attended."

The RFID tags contain a transmitter, battery, and what appear to be two processors as well as two crystals (schematics will be posted on the Sputnik website soon). Best of all, the Sputnik crew set up a 3D visualization of the entire conference center, with avatars representing each person with an RFID tag. Using a large touchscreen (pictured at left), users could "look around" the 3D space, select avatars, and find out who they were and where they'd been. Essentially, the Sputnik visualization turned the entire conference into a virtual world containing real world data. As one person using the the display commented, "This is awesome!" Unfortunately, so many people hit the Sputnik website that the display was down for most of the day. But it appears to be back up today and there are more people than ever zooming around with the Sputnik RFID tags clipped to their jackets.

By the end of the conference, the Sputnik crew will know a great deal about what the typical person has done at CCC. They will also have sparked several debates about whether surveillance is ever a good thing -- even if it's done for amusement. --Annalee Newitz

First, way back in 2002, we reported on this crazy new kind of movie-making, called â€machinima,†that uses videogames and virtual worlds as platforms for creating animated films.

Blog readers, we asked for your help in compiling the ultimate fembot list to accompany Annalee Newitzs recent PopSci.com essay, and boy, did we ever receive it. After sifting through the mountain of comments and e-mails, we are prepared to make the following addendums:

We handpicked a host of lovely and powerful cyborgs to illustrate Annalee Newitz's essay on pop-culture fembots, but film and TV history has blessed us with many, many more. Who did we miss? Which 'bot in this gallery is your favorite? Next week I'd like to crown one fembot with a  People's Choice Award. Personally, I think Kelly LeBrock (Weird Science) portrayed the hottest fembot ever. What do you think? Tell us in the comments section below. 

You don´t have to be a conspiracy theorist or a criminal to be uncomfortable with the fact that your online movements are frequently tracked and recorded. Maybe you don´t want commercial Web sites using your browsing habits to inform their marketing, or perhaps you want to post an opinion to an online forum without worrying that it could be traced back to you.