2016 Australian Census

Census night is the 9^th August 2016 and this is when all Australians will be called upon to provide details about themselves to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The census has been run every five years since 1911 and this information is used to capture population data that can be used to inform Government about policy and funding decisions. This is includes areas such as housing, transport, education, industry, hospitals and the environment. This year there are a couple of major differences in the collection and analysis of census data. This is the first year that electronic lodgement of census forms will be available. Letters should be arriving in your post box shortly to provide you with your unique login to the census website. It is still possible to lodge a paper form if that is preferred. A reminder letter will be sent to households that have not completed the census and field officers may provide a follow up visit. 

The second change to the data collection is that names and addresses will be retained for four years (as opposed to 18 months) to allow for better matching of individual information across different data sets. In previous years, name and address data was not used for data matching, which has limited the scope of statistical analysis. In this census, information will be anonymised by creating a unique key from name and address data. Access to the anonymised data will need to be approved by senior level committee. The ABS states that "Other government agencies, private agencies and direct marketing companies will not have access to personal information that you provide on the Census form. This is protected by law."   

For more information follow the links below.

http://abs.gov.au/census

http://abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/makingsense 

http://www.itnews.com.au/news/how-the-abs-plans-to-use-your-census-name-data-431194

Creating online surveys

Online surveys are a useful way of gathering information about a specific topic. There are a number of sites that offer the ability to create surveys. They can vary based on price and features. Beware sites that offer free surveys as they usually have limitations with their free offering. Most of the free sites offer a basic service which will be restricted to the number of questions you can ask or have limited flexibility in the layout of the questions. Some other restrictions can be a lack of ability to export your survey results which can severely limit the usefulness of the data collection. Paid offerings can provide analysis of the data in a graphical format as well as the ability to export your data in various formats. Some of the most popular paid sites are surveymonkey.com and surveyplanet.com. 

There is one exception to the limitation of the free offerings. Google offers a free survey building service through their Forms service. You will need a Google account to use this as it relies on the Google Docs engine to store the data. Google Forms offers a wide range of options for formatting questions that should cover most needs e.g. radio buttons, multiple choice answers, date picker. You can also add validation to your questions so you can ensure that the data entered is accurate. e.g. you can create a regular expression that can ensure that a proper email address is entered in the Email field.  Google Forms can also be used to create a printable copy for offline processing of a survey (for those who don't have access to the online form). Once you have collated your responses you also get a well formatted summary complete with graphs and summary tables.  For more information on Google forms go to https://www.google.com.au/forms/about/

Dr Watson I presume?

In computer science theory there is a test of a machine's ability to think like a human. It is called the Turing test and involves a scenario where a participant will converse with two people that are in other rooms. One of the two people is in fact a computer and the other is human. If the participant cannot tell which is not human then the machine has passed the Turing test. This test was proposed by Alan Turing in 1950, well before we had the computing power available today. It seems we may have achieved this milestone. Jill Watson was one of 9 teaching assistants helping computer science students with online questions at Georgia Tech, and to most students she was very helpful. The only difference was that she was not human but powered by IBM's Watson cognitive computing platform. Jill had actually passed the Turing test. 

Cognitive computing can be used for distilling large amounts of information and providing relevant answers to specialist questions. In an age of massive online open courses (MOOCs) where 1000's of students enroll in free courses, this augmented assisting can provide support where human abilities are not feasible nor capable. But it doesn't stop there.  Watson is helping cancer patients find the best treatment based on medical research and patient history, providing legal advice, guiding financial planners to find the best advice for their clients and helping travellers find the best destination for them based on the best deals and social, economic and cultural preferences. In the information age, cognitive computing can provide the interface between humans and the large amount of data that is available. This is why Google have been so successful with their search engine. IBM's Watson has now commoditised this ability and we will be seeing it used in many other areas that we interact with.  There is also an open source project, called NuPIC, which has an active community developing cognitive computing solutions based on streaming data (such as tweets or GPS information).  There are many possible applications, these are exciting times indeed.

http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/

http://numenta.org/

Setting up a media centre PC

I have previously written about internet streaming services such as netflix and presto, but if you don't have a suitable internet plan which allows for streaming services then you are probably limited to TV as a source of entertainment. The free-to-air stations have increased the number of channels available and the content provided so it is worth looking at ways to optimise the access to programs you are interested in. I have been using TiVo for a while but these devices are no longer sold so commercially available personal video recorders (PVRs) are limited by comparison to the features offered by the TiVo service. As a result I decided to build my own PVR, or media centre PC. I wanted to setup a system that would allow me to record shows on a regularly basis and pickup shows that I am interested in. In addition a media centre can gather all the photos and videos on my home network and make it convenient to view these in one place. There are a number of free options available if you have the time and inclination to set them up. Firstly there are some architectural concepts to be familiar with.

Basic requirements are a PC, a DVB-T tuner card (which connects to your TV antenna) and obviously a TV or display for viewing the content. Media centres have a backend or server component, which handles the tv tuner hardware, electronic program guide (EPG) and recording aspects. The front-end or client components are used for displaying the tv content and interacting with the home theatre system (remote controls etc.). It is possible to combine these functions on one computer, or they can be split between two computers, or more if you want multiple front end systems for different rooms. Ideally you want a quiet PC for the client computer otherwise you will have to contend with a noisy fan whilst watching TV. There are systems you can buy which are low powered and quiet, or if you want to make your own then the raspberry Pi is a good option (http://raspberry.piaustralia.com.au/). There is media centre option that includes a remote control and the latest version of raspberry pi for $159 plus shipping. You will also need the media centre software in order to run the front and backend hardware. If you have Windows 7 you may already have Windows Media Centre included with your system. Later versions of Windows do not include this option (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-AU/windows/products/windows-media-center/get-it). This is not a problem as there are good alternatives available such as Media Portal (http://www.team-mediaportal.com/), Next PVR (http://www.nextpvr.com/) and Kodi (used to be XBMC, https://kodi.tv/). It is worth going through the setup guides provided by these sites as they can be complex, particularly downloading the extended EPG for additional information in your TV guide. One word of caution, I have found the Linux version of the Kodi front-end to have limited functionality when it comes to TV support. It may be better to stick with Windows on the front and backend to ensure compatibility with all features.

Windows 10 Forced Upgrade

If you are still running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 and don't want to upgrade to Windows 10 then you will may be surprised to find out that Microsoft are now pushing Windows 10 onto these systems automatically. Microsoft are forcing this through the Windows updates as a "Recommended" update (which most systems will install automatically). Not only is this a big change for people who are used to their current systems, it also requires 2GB of internet data to download this upgrade. If you are restricted to expensive internet access then this can be a costly upgrade. That being said if you have multiple computers on your network you can enable peer sharing of the update for the other computers on your network, which will save you having to download the upgrade multiple times. The setting can be accessed from the Update menu in Windows 10. Just make sure you select the option to share updates on your network only and not to the internet, otherwise you'll be sharing updates to the rest of the world, which can chew into your bandwidth as well (see link below for details).

Fortunately there is a way to prevent automatically upgrading to Windows 10. A utility called Never 10 is available for free from security researcher GRC.com  (https://www.grc.com/never10.htm). You only need to run this utility once to disable the automatic upgrade to Windows 10.  Despite the name you can choose to upgrade to Windows 10 at a later date if you want to move to Windows 10. Microsoft recommend upgrading as they insist that Windows 7 is getting old (10 years now) and newer devices may not be supported in the future. The reality is that it is cheaper for Microsoft to maintain security updates for 1 operating system rather than 3. Microsoft have committed to providing support for Windows 7 until 2020 so you still have time to get the most of the system until then. If you are looking at alternatives and prefer not to move to Windows 10, then take a look at Linux Mint. This is a free, open source operating system based on Linux. I will provide more details in a future article but if you want further information on this distribution take a look at https://www.linuxmint.com/.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2955491/windows/how-to-stop-windows-10-from-using-your-pcs-bandwidth-to-update-strangers-systems.html

LiFi

Imagine having a wireless connection that can travel at the speed of light. This is the promise of new technology being developed called LiFi. It uses LED lights to transmit data using the visible light spectrum. This means you can easily network any part of your house or office where you have lights installed. The technology is still under development with a prototype showing early promise. It is likely to make an impact over the next few years with smart phones and tablets probably being the first to take up the technology.

The popularity of WiFi means that in highly populated areas wireless networks can compete for bandwidth and can get congested. LiFi provides an alternative to wireless technology and so can avoid this congestion. A weakness and strength is that LiFi requires direct light exposure in order to work. This limits the range as the connection won't work through walls, but can also make it more secure if you live in a dense area and don't want your neighbour siphoning off your internet. This technology can also make it easier to connect household devices, such as toasters, fridges even coffee machines, to the internet (also known as the Internet of Things or IoT). While you may wonder about the usefulness of this trend, with the increasingly connected lifestyle we live in, it will become the norm that we can turn on the coffee machine before we get home to have the perfect coffee waiting for us when we arrive. Another potential use for LiFi is in medical areas, such as hospitals and operating theatres, where electromagnetic interference can cause problems with sensitive medical equipment. LiFi could happily co-exist as it doesn't compete with the WiFi spectrum and poses no risk to the operation of other equipment.

So if the adoption of internet connected devices continues as predicted (50 billion by 2020), there will be a great need for this sort of technology, so watch this space.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-24/li-fi-100-times-faster-than-wi-fi-at-shine-of-a-light/7194620

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/why-li-fi-light-internet-could-replace-wi-fi-in-10-years/

http://www.techworld.com/big-data/what-is-li-fi-everything-you-need-know-3632764/

DIY Home Security Camera Software

I have been playing around with open source camera software that can turn most webcams or network cameras into security cameras. The software is called iSpy and is free to use and download from ispyconnect.com. 

All the features are available in the base product but if you want to be able to access your camera stream from the internet you will need to pay a subscription, which starts at $8/month. That is not a big deal as you can use it for free on your home network to capture video and images. iSpy can use motion detection to start recording or trigger an alert to email. It can even detect license plate numbers which can be used to identify visiting vehicles. 

iSpy offers many features and as a result can be complicated to configure, but with a bit of tinkering you can fine tune it to your needs. Depending on the features of your camera, you can use it as an intercom and even control the pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ). If your camera has this option then you can enable motion tracking which will follow moving objects (within the range of the camera movement of course). You can also setup a virtual fence so only movement within a certain zone is tracked. This is useful if you are monitoring a high traffic area but only want to detect movement in a certain area (e.g. near you front door which faces a road). 

I have already mentioned license plate recognition but iSpy also has plugins for facial recognition, text overlay and detection and barcode scanning. Additional plugins can be purchased for advanced features from iplugs.eu. One thing to note is that iSpy only runs on Windows PCs. A MacOS video product is available from sighthound.com with a pro option that is chargeable.

https://www.ispyconnect.com

http://www.iplugs.eu/

https://www.sighthound.com