Cyberpunk before cyberpunk. Before the word was ever coined, John Brunner created a world so close to what we now consider to be ‘cyberpunk’ that it needed to be read to be believed. It has a computer network that virtually… and literally… permeates American society, while secret government projects try to squeeze the best minds for all their knowledge to try to monitor a society uprooted by a massive west-coast earthquake. About all that’s missing are the cybernetic implants, although there are bio-engineered people and animals that seem to behave almost human.

What you have is THEE definitive blueprint of cyberpunk, even though nobody knew it for another decade.

Synopsis: The Pacific coast finally experiences “The BIG One” that kills millions and displaces millions more leaving them with nothing to live on except welfare. Meanwhile, the rest of the nation is experiencing their own kind of “overload” as varying levels of data access has left some without a permanent residence while the “privileged” live in their own kind of haven. To help cope (or, more like, to exploit) this flux, the US Government, under control of criminal elements, began programs to identify potentially “gifted” students to cultivate their “wisdom” to further the Government’s cause.

Nicholas Kenton “Nickie” Haflinger is the product of this program. His talents were being wasted in a failed education system where intelligence made you a target of gang violence. At the novel’s start, Nickie is back at his old academy at Tarnover where he is about to undergo a form of interrogation where his memories are replayed on a data-analysis system while he is unconscious. When Nickie was awake, he was subjected to further questioning and moral arguments with Paul T. Freeman, who is another of the program’s “graduates” from a place called “The Electric Skillet.”

Between the regression flashbacks and the moral point/counterpoints, we see how Nickie managed to elude the authorities while making a living (several, actually) using the skills he learned at Tarnover… and why he ran away to begin with.

Now for the good stuff! So, how did Nickie manage to elude capture for so long? Among his skill-set is the ability to program the data-net using nothing more than a touch-tone phone (PHREAKY!). That, and a high-level access code he stole. With these tools, Nickie was able able to quickly change identities to avoid being captured by creating… wait for it…

WORMS!

That’s right, worms! Those self-propagating programs that hog bandwidth are the result of this book. Nickie programmed his worms to erase all traces of his old identity and to create new ones when needed. He also creates a “super worm” that discloses information that the government has been trying to keep secret.

Another proto-cyberpunk classic for your bookshelf. Make some space next to True Names in your library. The Shockwave Rider is a book that must be in your collection.

Sources: Yahoo! via AP, New Scientist, Loebner Prize for Artificial Intelligence, Elbot online.

Hope everyone studied for the test. Over the past weekend artificial intelligence-based “chatbots” were given the Turing test to determine who… make that “what”… had the programming to fool the judges into believing they were talking to a human and not a bot. There are three level of medals (like the olympics) that are awarded to the top bot:

So far, there have been no silver or gold winners. The bronze medal winner is the Elbot AI from Artificial Solutions. You can try Elbot for yourself, but don’t expect straight answers from this program. I tried it out myself briefly. I’m no AI expert, but we can rest easy in that a fully gold-medal Turing-bot is still a long ways off.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re not going to try it again next year…

Source: Wired, Hanson Robotics

A boy bot on a mission. Hailing from an “Inventing Academy” in the year 2027 where child robots learn to fight evil, an 18-inch tall boy robot has been sent back to present day to stop evil A.I.s from taking over the world. Apparently, John Conner has run out of reprogrammed T-800s and is reduced to sending toys back through time.

The next Terminator movie script? Nope. It’s the back story created by Hanson Robotics to introduce Zeno the RoboKind at the recent Wired magazine NextFest. The idea behind Zeno’s existence is a familiar one:

David Hanson, Hanson Robotics:

We want to be damn sure that by the time [robots] become as smart as we are, they have a conscience and compassion and that we are friends.,” Hanson said. “There’s no guarantee. They could be psychotic.”

There are other robots and projects that are trying to make living with robots easier and making our eventual mechanical successors friendlier, so Zeno may seem unnecessary. Then again, those projects don’t have the Terminator-esque back story that humans can relate to.

Living la Vida Beta. Zeno has been under development for the past couple of years, so he still has some technical issues to overcome yet before realizing his full potential. He already has the ability to “recognize” people thanks to face- and voice-recognition. Future abilities may include a WiFi connection to the Internet, and the ability to make and test theories about the world (conspiracy theorists, consider yourselves warned).

Hanson Robotics is looking to bring Zeno to market around 2010 where the full-sized (18″), fully-capable dude may sell for $1500 US. A smaller (6″), less intelligent version will be priced for $300 US.

Source: Gustavo Duarte

For the record… My day-job has me working at a document-to-data conversion company. That means we take physical paper documents, run them through various types of scanners connected to computers, and crunch the images to make files that can be indexed for searches and/or burned to optical media. Such operations are important to save possibly historical documents that could be lost over time as paper rots away.

Because you never know when you might come across gems like this…

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology newspaper, and Professor Calton Tucker specifically, has the claim of first using the term “hacker” in recorded media. This information was found via Yale University’s Dictionary of Quotations.

Colored Connotations. As you can see from the article, “hacker” has had black-hat connotations from the start, so the mainstream media really can’t be blamed for that, though white-hats have been working hard at correcting that.

What’s not mentioned is how Professor Tucker came up with the term, especially since what’s being described is considered “phreaking” (though the use of the PDP-11 is definitely war dialing).

Too soon? Or not soon enough? There’s nothing that says this is officialy the first use of “hacker;” This is the earliest recording of the term so far. There’s still old documents out there waiting to be scanned, maybe something with an earlier use of “hacker” not yet discovered. Though with a couple of the the comments suggesting that “hacker” need not be limited to computers and technology, such a discovery could complicate matters.

A few bytes for interested cyberpunk historians to “nybble” on.

Source: Slashfilm

Depending on how you feel about Hollywood’s track record with sequels, this is either the Second Coming or a sign of the Apocalypse.

Movie blog Slashfilm received an email earlier this week that the writers of Eagle Eye were now working on a Blade Runner sequel:

“I recently attended a Q&A session with one of the writers of ‘Eagle Eye’ after a free screening organized by the magazine Creative Screenwriting. During the Q&A, the writer said that he and whomever it was that helped him co-write the ‘Eagle Eye’ screenplay were in the process of writing a sequel to Blade Runner, and had already contacted the producers of the original, etc., etc. This is probably a load of empty words/wishful thinking on his part, but I for one am appalled by just the notion of a Blade Runner sequel, and thought you’d be as well, so I thought perhaps you’d like to look into this yourself and perhaps use your soapbox to get some fanboys a little pissed, as well. If not, then at least you have a scoop.”

The rumor turned out to be somewhat true, in that a sequel script is being written, but by co-writer Travis Wright, who was reprotedly working with Blade Runner co-executive producer Bud Yorkin. No word about Ridley Scott being involved as yet, and the project is being developed “outside the studio and without their involvement.”

Recipe for Disaster? One question that is not answered yet is if the sequel is going to be based on K. W. Jeter’s Blade Runner sequels. Even so, there’s still apprehension about a sequel from Slashfilm blogger Peter Sciretta:

All of this really scares the hell out of me. Blade Runner is one of the most beloved sci-fi films of all time, and it is a movie that doesn’t need a sequel. If Scott had an idea, and really believed it was worth making, then maybe MAYBE. But we certainly don’t need a sequel written by the second teir team of Eagle Eye. Lets hope to God this doesn’t happen.

Even the comments express dismay over number two. I, also, have serious reservations. But until BR2 comes out… IF it comes out… all we can do is hope for the best, or at least hope that Mr. Wright comes to his senses.