Finally, Giesecke & Devrient contributes to Android!

Well, after some months of work, G&D has finally gone public on the project that it was developing on Android platform. As can be checked in the press release the contribution consists on code that enables any Android based phone with a microSD card slot (all of them, for the time being) to use a special microSD with a SmartCard embedded on it (check more info about the Mobile Security Card) to deploy security enhanced applications with the use of hardware Security Elements.
But this is only a start point as, it can be checked in this document, several SE may be added in the future... so if you have a good idea or want to work on that project just visit the Google Code page of the Secure Element Evaluation Kit (SEEK)!!

The social Enterprise

Before the Magic Black Box appears... a very good article on the Social Software applied to the Enterprise.

Excerpt:

"The discussion eventually brought us to an even broader question: Why should enterprises go social, and what are the compelling reasons for adoption? On the surface there are immediate benefits, but from experience we know that consumer technologies do not directly map into the enterprise. In this post, we explore the reasons for the social enterprise, look at what social technologies fit and raise various concerns related to adoption."

"As a rule, what is good for individuals is not good for companies and the other way around. This is because both are selfish and it is the tension between the two that drives capitalism. The same is true for technologies; consumer products have not traditionally been needed by companies, with the exception of communication tools."

"Apple, for instance, is known to be very secretive about its plans. Does it give them a competetive edge? Likely yes. How does the introduction of blogging and open social tools to the enterprise impact that? More leaks are likely to occur. Information has an amazing tendency to find its way forward through the human network. The challenge then, is to define a set of policies and rules that ensure that nothing classified gets out. This is not simple."

"New social tools can enable companies to be more agile and self-organizing. The have a chance to break down the walls of complex, ineffective hierarchies and to empower employees to get things done. These tools are simple, fun, engaging, and inspirational. Bringing fresh winds of change to the stale corporate mentality is a good thing and should be welcomed."

More on Thesis Sources

Patents, patents, patents!

I have been working a bit more on the patents side of my thesis. After the previous script that retrieved the data from the Wipo website on a patents query search, I have developed another script to import this data into a database. I have used a PostgreSQL DB although I have not been able to integrate it directly to Python, I have used ODBC connections instead. I guess that but the connection parameters it is suitable for any ODBC ready database.

It creates two tables. One with all the patents information and another one that relates this patents to the search terms that resulted on it. I paste here the definition of both tables:

-- Table: patents

-- DROP TABLE patents;

CREATE TABLE patents
(
p_id integer NOT NULL,
p_code character(20),
pub_dated date,
description character(512),
applicant character(1000),
intl_class character(15),
appl_number character(20),
url character(500),
abstract character(3000),
CONSTRAINT firstkey PRIMARY KEY (p_id)
)
WITH (OIDS=FALSE);
ALTER TABLE patents OWNER TO postgres;

-- Index: codeidx

-- DROP INDEX codeidx;

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX codeidx
ON patents
USING btree
(p_code);



-- Table: patent_query

-- DROP TABLE patent_query;

CREATE TABLE patent_query
(
recid integer NOT NULL,
pat_id integer,
query_terms character(256) NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT patent_query_pkey PRIMARY KEY (recid),
CONSTRAINT patent_query_pat_id_fkey FOREIGN KEY (pat_id)
REFERENCES patents (p_id) MATCH SIMPLE
ON UPDATE NO ACTION ON DELETE NO ACTION
)
WITH (OIDS=FALSE);
ALTER TABLE patent_query OWNER TO postgres;

-- Index: queryidx

-- DROP INDEX queryidx;

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX queryidx
ON patent_query
USING btree
(pat_id, query_terms);

I have uploaded the second script to the site and can be found here, along with the previous one.

FTP or SAMBA

I have at present two laptop computers at home. One, the oldest, runs Windows XP and is used basically for office applications and Internet browsing. The other, that a year old, has also XP installed, as was out-of-the-box, and Kubuntu Feisty Fawn that runs the torrent client and I use for almost everything I must do. I'm at present evaluating the possibilities to join them through the WLAN in a network where to share files and resources. As they are laptops and have no printer I haven't thought about it till now. Anyhow, I guess that the possibility to exchange files between the two laptops and make backups of information to the 250GB external HD I also have could be a great point that would pay the effort. What I'm not yet absolutely sure is if I must set up and maintain a true network system, with shares, smb clients, user accounts... or just put an ftp server to the WXP laptop through which I can transfer simply files from one computer to the other. Another option would be to set a VNC server on each computer and connect to the other if I must do anything and transfer the information always from the windows computer acting as a client to the built-in Linux ftp server... I'll think a bit on it and see what I finally decide!

... and now, the RenfeGadget!

I've finally completed the two main ideas I had in order to improve my "just-out-bed" time. The first one, the BicinGadget was released some days ago. Now I'm running the RenfeGadget, a gadget that shows the commuter trains schedule between the city center and the place where I work. It can be tuned in order to include more stations (a combo-box would be excellent!) and time configurations, it's up to you to do so and send it back to me to put it in my web space to be available for everyone.
As it's developed now it shows the trains from Pça. Catalunya to Sant Joan Despí before the 12 p.m. and from Sant Joan Despí to Pça. Catalunya after this time. The schedules start from the present time to two hours later. As the BicinGadget it can be added from your iGoogle page: Click at "Add Stuff"-> "Add from URL" and put this address in the box. Once accepted the warning of "You're adding stuff not created by Google" it will appear in your page.

Enjoy it!

Technological Darwinism

Today I've read and article on the recent achievement of a teenager with the iPhone. It seems that this guys have connected the iPhone to the forbidden networks of Orange, Movistar and Vodafone. This is not a great novelty because each day thousands of cellular phones are unlocked in order to work with any network provider and in fact, it is a feature, the unlocking mechanism, guaranteed by the GSM standards in order to boost competition. The news, for me, comes from the fact that the unlocking procedure has engaged a token I did not now yet. It is the TurboSIM. What is the TurboSIM? Well, I would say it is something like a parasite in the biologic scale. It presumably filters the Cellular Phone - SIM Interface communication in order to take profit of it and send the suitable commands to get some functionality. It would be nice to see how it works (it is announced as Open Source) and which is the very change for the market dynamics the providing of such a "revolutionary" token but it looks like by now it is impossible to get one!!

At last... BicinGadget!!

This weekend I gave a bit momentum to this project and I finished it late Sunday. It is available at http://www.domocat.com/bicingadget/bruc45.xml. If you want to see it just go to your iGoogle page, click at "Add Stuff"-> "Add from URL" and put this address in the box. Once accepted the warning of "You're adding stuff not created by Google" it will appear in your iGoogle page. In this screenshot you can see how it looks. I must say that it was easier than I thought and looks great for the effort invested!
However, the license of the publishing of the gadget is the usual Creative Commons on what I post in the blog.



Now I'm preparing the RenfeGadget!

Kubuntu

Finally I installed the Kubuntu Feisty Fawn distribution on my laptop. Everything went well but the wireless adapter. It was a Ralink 2500 chipset based card and it seems like having problems with KNetworkManager, the management tool of this version of kubuntu for networks. After tuning some issues, uninstalling KNM and installing Wifi-Radar, it works fine. This software is unbeatable, try it and you'll forget about MS.
It looks like to be a good companion in my personal projects!