Trustworthy, reliable information available at the public library

©Mark Ollig


In a recent poll, our friends at Pew Research Center discovered something about millennials yours truly found a bit surprising.

Millennials, according to Pew, are those between the ages of 18 to 35.

They’ve grown up being as comfortable around gaming technology, online social media, and the web as us baby boomers (age 52 to 70) were with playing “Kick the Can,” “Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots,” and making sure we headed home at night when the streetlights came on.

But I digress.

What surprised me was learning 87 percent of millennials polled by Pew Research, specified the public library as a valuable source for providing them with “trustworthy and reliable information.”

I would have thought the internet alone was their preferred source, but this is not what Pew’s latest survey reveals.

Pew also reported 74 percent of boomers polled felt the same as millennials regarding the public library.

Training for a specific profession was mentioned by 55 percent of adults surveyed, as one of the useful resources found in a public library.

It’s 2017; we are living in the age of digital tools, such as smartphones, iPads, tablets, and other computing devices with internet connections.

A library’s resources were cited by adults as helpful for learning a new skill, gaining confidence in using computers and smartphones on the internet, as well as assisting in researching credible online sources.

Pew’s survey discovery of a large percentage of young folks finding confidence in obtaining dependable and reliable information from the public library – not from a random web link found on the internet – says a lot.

In fact, 85 percent of millennials polled acknowledge the people working at public libraries are helping them to research and learn new things.

With all the questionable information and content being purported as “news” or “fact” online, it is easy to become confused and even misled about social topics of the day, or what might be presented as fact or truth by folks with a hidden agenda.

In today’s much-talked-about internet “fake news” environment, it appears many young people are experiencing healthy online skepticism, and are utilizing the resources of a public library to further research and investigate content of various subject matter.

It’s reassuring, knowing they want to verify the accuracy of information they are seeing posted on their online social media networks.

Pew reports 78 percent of adults also feel public libraries assist them in obtaining trustworthy and reliable information, and support their desire for learning new things.

When surveyed as a whole, 65 percent of Americans said libraries “help them grow as people,” while 49 percent believe libraries allow them to “focus on things that matter in their lives.”

A public library provides a community with a wealth of educational and recreational materials and resources.

One advantage of visiting your local library is having experienced human expertise and guidance assisting the person researching a specific subject, or in learning a new language.

Their resources include videos, eBooks, audiobooks, and other physical media; in addition to computers, internet resources, story reading, income tax forms and information, and, of course, books on every subject.

These resources and more are available to the public through their local library.

The following websites link to city public libraries in and around my hometown:

https://www.winsted.lib.mn.us;

https://griver.org/locations/howard-lake;

https://griver.org/locations/delano;

https://griver.org/locations/cokato;

https://www.pioneerland.lib.mn.us/dassel;

https://www.carverlib.org/locations/watertown;

www.hclib.org/about/locations/maple-plain.

I encourage my readers to visit their local public library and explore the many resources they have to offer.

Follow me on Twitter at @bitsandbytes, and be sure to visit my blog at bitscolumn.blogspot.com.

(below image art license-to-use purchased by Mark Ollig)

Meet Emma, the robotic masseuse

©Mark Ollig


The next time you’re enjoying a relaxing, tension-relieving back massage, you may be thanking Emma.

The Expert Manipulative Massage Automation – also known as Emma – is a technologically-advanced robotic arm equipped with a soft, silicone, human-mimicking palm and thumb used for giving massages.

Emma is programmed for the traditional Chinese therapeutic massage called “Tuina.”

This robotic massaging system uses propriety cloud software intelligence supported by Microsoft and developed by Albert Zhang, founder of AiTreat and NovaHealth Clinic.

He and his colleagues won Microsoft’s 2016 Developer Day Start-up Challenge with the software developed and used with the Emma system.

Emma is equipped with advanced electronic sensors and diagnostic functions, which precisely measure the exact stiffness of a particular muscle or tendon.

The robotic arm’s hand palm and thumb are warmed; so you needn’t worry about any cold hands on your back.

Data collected about a patient is transmitted to a computer server located inside the internet cloud. There, an artificial intelligence (AI) software program quickly computes the exact pressure to be delivered by Emma during the massage session.

The Emma system is linked to the AI program and continuously tracks and analyzes the progress of the patient being given the robotic massage.

A performance report is generated by one of the AI programs monitoring the individual patient’s muscle condition after Emma finishes its therapeutic massage. A human therapist/physician reads and evaluates this report.

Zhang, who oversaw Emma’s development at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said this massage robotic system can also address the labor shortage and issues of quality consistency within the healthcare industry.

“Emma is designed to deliver a clinically-precise massage according to the prescription of a qualified traditional Chinese medicine physician or physiotherapist, without the fatigue faced by a human therapist,” said Zhang.

The normal cost for a therapeutic consultation, acupuncture, and a 20-minute low-back pain massage would be around $150; however, by using Emma to perform the massage segment of a patient’s treatment, the cost can be reduced to $68, according to Zhang.

The NovaHealth Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic, staffed by three people, has seen its productivity increase to that equaling five people since Emma began working there.

The clinic installed Emma in a modified patient room with two massage beds. Located in-between the beds, Emma massages one patient, while a human therapist performs other treatments such as acupuncture on the second patient.

Once the human therapist completes their treatment, Emma can then perform the individually-specified deep-tissue massage therapy session for the patient.

This arrangement ensures Emma is always working on a patient, and maximizes the productivity of the clinic.

Zhang hopes Emma can become a business model example for other clinics to follow in the future.

“We are proud to have guided Mr. Albert Zhang in his vision to bring affordable healthcare solutions to the market for Singapore, which can alleviate some of the chronic pain problems which our elderly face,” said Dr. Lim Jui, chief executive officer of Nanyang Technological University.

It is anticipated Emma will be used as a low-cost treatment alternative in countries where healthcare costs are high; especially those with an aging population, where a growing demand for chronic pain management treatment is needed.

The Emma system was funded through an incubator program called AiTreat, which is supported by investments from Singapore, China, and the US; specifically, Brain Robotics Capital LP located in Boston, MA.

This joint research project was proposed by Zhang, and Dr. Goh Chye Tee, director of Nanyang Technological University’s Chinese Medicine Clinic, and director of biomedical sciences and Chinese medicine double degree program.

For more information about Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, visit its website at www.ntu.edu.sg.

Follow me on Twitter at @bitsandbytes, and check out my web blog: bitscolumn.blogspot.com.

Emma the robot at work on a patient
while NTU Alumni Calista Lim treats 
another patient.

                                                                                 












Calista Lim operating the Emma robot 
on a patient.

(Above photos used with the permission of
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)  

Bell Labs: A history of pioneering innovations

©Mark Ollig


Founded in 1925, Bell Telephone Laboratories, better known as Bell Labs, was AT&T’s research and development department.

It was originally the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory.

AT&T and Bell Labs are credited with inventing many telecommunication technologies and devices.

Let’s look back at some of them.

The telephotography machine was designed by AT&T scientists, and built by its subdivision, Western Electric, for transmitting pictures over telephone wires.

It took this predecessor of the fax (facsimile) machine 4.5 minutes to transmit one photograph 500 miles over telephone wires from a Cleveland sending station to a New York City receiving station May 19, 1924.

In 1925, Bell Labs used the telephotography machine for transmitting photographs to a few newspaper outlets over AT&T’s long-distance telephone network, using its copper telephone wires.

Photos of President Calvin Coolidge’s second inauguration in March 1925, were sent by facsimile using what was then called Picture Telegraphy, from Washington, DC to San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.

Transmitting photos over telephone wires totally changed the thinking of using telephone lines strictly for voice communications.

April 7, 1927, Bell Labs demonstrated publicly the first long-distance television transmission.

Live, moving television images of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover were transmitted over telephone lines from Washington, DC to New York City.

“I am glad to welcome television as the latest product of scientific discovery,” Hoover said during the demonstration. “It promises that where the voice has led the way over the telephone wires, the eye will ultimately follow.”

Minnesota is also a part of the Bell Labs historical timeline.

In 1941, the first installation of a coaxial cable within the telephone network was placed in service between Minneapolis and Stevens Point, WI. The length of the coaxial cable was 200 miles.

This coaxial cable was invented at Bell Labs in 1929, and I consider it the first broadband transmission medium.

In 1947, a Bell Labs’ invention – the transistor – greatly improved the way we use our computers and modern electronics.

Built as a replacement for vacuum tubes and mechanical relays, the transistor revolutionized the entire electronics world. Scientists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the transistor.

Bell Labs also put out the first concept paper on cellular network technology in 1947; however, the actual technology needed to build it did not yet exist.

The unique thing about this concept was the idea of a wireless telephone network consisting of overlapping radio cell sites supported by a call-switching infrastructure.

The geographical cellular network would “follow” telephone users while they moved throughout the network topology.

This networking arrangement would hand off voice calls from one radio cell site to another without dropping the call in progress.

The wireless cellular network design resembled interconnected honeycombs.

AT&T activated the first working commercial cellular telephone system in the US when it began service in Chicago, IL in 1983.

The solar battery cell, which converts sunlight into electricity, was invented at Bell Labs in 1954.

In 1956, AT&T completed installation of the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable called TAT-1 (trans-Atlantic No. 1). The initial cable capacity was 36 simultaneous calls.

The cost per call over the TAT-1 was $12 for the first three minutes.

In 1963, the TAT-1 cable was used for the famous White House direct telephone hotline connection between Washington, DC and Moscow.

Modems were first used by Bell Labs in 1958, for the North American Air Defense (now called NORAD), in order to transmit digital computer data over analog signaling telephone wires.

The year 1958 also saw Bell Lab’s invention of the laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).

Today, a laser is used as the transmission carrier in fiber-optic communications networks, as a cutting tool in hospital surgeries, and for commercial industrial applications.

A 1960 Bell System technical journal described their dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) keypad for pushbutton “touch-tone” dialing, which would replace the rotary dial used in a standard telephone.

AT&T demonstrated touch-tone dialing to the public at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.

The first DTMF touch-tone keypad dialers installed in telephones for public use were in the Greensburg and Carnegie, PA telephone exchanges, in 1963.

My hometown of Winsted first provided DTMF touch-tone dialing service for the local hospital with the installation of its new digital telephone system in 1979.

In 1980, Winsted Telephone Company subscribers were able to use touch-tone telephones when the local telephone exchange made major modifications to their central dial office system by installing dual-tone multi-frequency converter equipment.

A Spanish-English voice translator was designed by Bell Labs in 1989, and publicly demonstrated in 1992.

Bell Labs was acquired in 2006, by the French company, Alcatel, which operated it until 2016.

Today, the Finnish communications and technology company, NOKIA owns Bell Labs and retains its Murray Hill, NJ headquarters.

Visit Bell Labs at www.bell-labs.com.

Follow me on Twitter at @bitsandbytes, and check out my online blog: https://bitscolumn.blogspot.com.

(Credit: Bell Labs)

(This column, originally written Oct. 8, 2007, was recently modified by the writer.)

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month

©Mark Ollig


As we enter October, we’re feeling cooler temperatures, along with seeing the autumn leaves changing into their beautiful red, orange, yellow, brown, and purple colors.

The month ends with Halloween and its lighted pumpkins, ghostly decorations, and the sights and sounds of costumed children happily trick-or-treating.

October is also when the folks at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) call our attention to National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM).

Cyber is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “of, relating to, or involving computers or computer networks (such as the internet).”

To me, cybersecurity is protection of computing devices, websites, and the internet from those attempting unauthorized acquisition of their secured and personal data.

Cybersecurity is also applicable for the prevention of intentional disruption of the internet, and its connected devices and websites.

You may find it interesting to know the word “cybersecurity” was first used in 1989, as were latte, air quotes, hypertext markup language, hot link, minidisc, bioplastic, and Generation X.

However, I digress, back to today’s topic.

The DHS NCSAM webpage recognizes the internet is woven into much of our daily lives.

Its webpage provides resources for staying vigilant against national cyber incidents, and information for protecting personal data residing on our computing devices from being compromised.

Cybercriminals will attempt illegal entry into computer systems and websites belonging to anyone; whether it’s government agencies, Fortune 500 corporations, or the businesses in our local community.

They will also target the personal computer in our home, or the wireless smartdevice we use on the go.

Every country, community, and citizen is susceptible to a cyber-attack resulting in a privacy breach of sensitive information.

The DHS suggests the following ways to protect our online information from being compromised:

• Set strong passwords, change them regularly, and don’t share them with anyone.

• Keep your computer’s operating system, browser, and other critical software optimized by installing updates.

• Maintain an open dialogue with your friends, family, and colleagues about internet safety.

• Use privacy settings and limit the amount of personal information you post online.

• Be cautious about offers online – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Other precautions include having anti-virus security software actively monitoring your computer’s interactions with online websites.

Perform scheduled backups of your computer’s data to a physical drive or storage server in the cloud. This ensures accessibility to your data in the event your computer crashes, or becomes compromised by a malicious software (malware), or computer hacker.

When not using your home computer, unplug or disconnect any physically-cabled internet connection; this will prevent an online virus, malware program, or hacker from accessing your computer’s files and personal information.

Of course, our mobile devices have wireless internet connections using cellular data, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

DHS has a separate mobile device security (MDS) program for addressing the cybersecurity issues for protecting our wireless computing devices.

Learn more about the DHS MDS Project at http://bit.ly/2wviVYz.

Remember: there is no absolute “delete button” for removing content once it’s posted on the internet.

Deleting a text comment, photo, or video you posted on a blog or social media network doesn’t mean it’s gone. Someone might have downloaded or taken a screenshot of the data and saved it. The social media site you posted on may have archived it.

The DHS suggests we ask ourselves this question before posting information viewable by the public, “Am I comfortable sharing this information with the whole world?”

To receive the regularly updated DHS cybersecurity newsletter, sign up at http://bit.ly/2xQeGdW.

Follow me on Twitter at @bitsandbytes. Also, check out my online blog at https://bitscolumn.blogspot.com.