On The Digital Life this week, we chat about the Department of Homeland Security’s new cyber defense organization. The National Risk Management Center will be in charge of coordinating efforts to prevent hackers from targeting key US economic and other assets including the country’s power grids, energy infrastructure, and importantly, its electoral system during the midterm elections. The new organization will work closely with private companies to tackle the wide variety of cyber threats facing the nation. Join us as we discuss.

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DHS Will Shore Up Cybersecurity for America’s Infrastructure

Our special guest this week on The Digital Life is design strategist, Ben Sauer, who’s investigating the idea of secret design skills for his new book. Design is filled with cross-pollination from other fields, from writing to architecture, acting to music. From these other fields we find ways of seeking, thinking and doing that are useful to a designer. What’s your secret design skill? Join us as we discuss.

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Ben Sauer
Contribute your secret design skill

On the podcast this week, we examine facial recognition software and digital disguises. It seems like AI-driven facial recognition systems are just about everywhere—from the face-scanning technologies for law enforcement and government to everyday social media tagging. Tools like these can be used for the public good or harm. And there’s no doubt that we’re concerned about facial recognition surveillance encroaching on our personal privacy. While clothing like glasses, hats, or even masks can somewhat inhibit facial recognition, it’s not a huge surprise that disguises of a digital nature, anti-facial-recognition systems, are on the rise as well. For example, researchers at the University of Toronto have developed software to hinder facial recognition using an algorithm that slightly alters the images. And while humans can’t really tell the difference, an AI that scans a photo altered in this way, won’t be able to identify a face. Join us as we discuss.

Resources:
This Filter Makes Your Photos Indecipherable to Facial Recognition Software

This week on The Digital Life, our special guest is Christopher Janney, a pioneer in the field of sound art, merging architecture, sound, light, and interactive technology. For over 30 years, Janney has been blending music and light with the physical space in unexpected ways, including public art installations like Soundstair, which can be viewed at the Boston Museum of Science, and the playful Rainbow Cove at Logan Airport. Janney famously worked with Mikhail Baryshnikov on “Heartbeat:mb”, which used a medical sensor to monitor Baryshnikov’s heartbeat to provide the rhythmic music to his dancing. Janney is bringing his show, “Exploring the Hidden Music”, to the Boston University Dance Theater on Friday, June 8th at 8 pm. Join us as we discuss art at the intersection of music, architecture, and technology.

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“Exploring the Hidden Music” at BU

Janney Sound

On The Digital Life this week, we discuss the environmental price of technology and the growing need for sustainable design and UX. A series of research studies has detailed the increasing carbon footprint of the tech industry. The largest contributor to this carbon footprint are servers and data centers, but as more IoT devices come online, they are sure to play an increasing role. We need to reduce, reuse, and recycle our technology, over the course of the product lifecycle, and this is where sustainable UX design can have an impact. In industrial design, there are a number of environmentally friendly approaches including Design for Disassembly and Design for Remanufacturing. Can these types of ideas be applied to the design of software and the Web? In what ways can UX help reduce the carbon footprint of tech? Join us as we discuss.

Resources:
Mozilla Internet Health Report 2018

Assessing ICT global emissions footprint: Trends to 2040 & recommendations