VenChar

Detecting nukes in transit: What can the newly-established DNDO do?

Just finished writing a paper with Sri and Tom Tisch - it's titled 'Nuclear Detection: Portals, fixed detectors, and NEST teams won't work on a national scale, so what's next?'. We analyze the *use* of nuclear detectors to help prevent terrorist nuclear attacks, and we conclude that fixed detector approaches (such as those currently being implemented) are unlikely to be that effective. Here's the executive summary of the paper:

Recognizing the need for detecting terrorist attempts to transport or use fissile nuclear materials, President Bush’s FY 2006 budget request includes $246 million to form a Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). [1] “The DNDO will provide a single accountable organization with dedicated responsibilities to develop the global nuclear detection architecture, and acquire, and support the deployment of the domestic detection system…” [2] How can DNDO planners deliver a global nuclear detection architecture that works?

Nuclear detection systems, as architected and deployed today, leave loopholes in the transportation network that terrorists can easily exploit by making use of light road vehicles to private jets to oil tankers [3].  Progress can be made if we face up to three fundamental facts:

1. Terrorists will most likely try to use highly enriched uranium (HEU), not plutonium: assembly of a HEU bomb does not involve technically complex detonation as with a plutonium bomb.

2. Terrorists can circumvent a network of fixed detectors: fixed detectors not only lack sufficient proximity and exposure to the vehicle in transit but also do not screen many types of vehicles.

3. R&D breakthroughs cannot change the physics of detection: passive detection of HEU will always be limited by its natural rate of radioactivity, and the attenuation of radioactivity is very sharp with distance [4]. The gamma rays and neutrons useful for detecting shielded HEU permit detection only at short distances (2-4 feet or less) and require that there is sufficient time to count a sufficient number of particles (several minutes to hours).

Recommendation: Due to fundamental physical limits, the current trend toward a fixed detector infrastructure is a dead-end. The only way shielded HEU can be effectively detected is if commercially-available detector technology, rather than being kept at fixed locations, are directly integrated into vehicles themselves. Detectors would travel with vehicles and have enough time to record radioactivity before reporting their readings to a network of check-points (in the same way E-Z pass collects highway tolls).

Our paper, 'Nuclear Detection: Portals, fixed detectors, and NEST teams won't work on a national scale, so what's next?' explores tradeoffs in detecting HEU in transit, and analyzes its technical, operational, and economic feasibility.

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[1] “R&D in the Department of Homeland Security”, AAAS, http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/06pch12.htm

[2] “Fact Sheet: Domestic Nuclear Detection Office,” http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=4474

[3] Medalia, J., 2005, “Nuclear Terrorism: A Brief Review of Threats and Responses,” CRS Report for Congress, The Library of Congress http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/43399.pdf

[4] attenuation of radioactivity with distance is subject to an inverse-square law in free-space and is exponential with shielding

Portable People Meter

Interesting NYT article on Nielsen and Arbitron and the changes brewing in TV viewership tracking.

For the past few months, Arbitron has been taking a distinctly unorthodox approach to measuring audiences. Currently the company is recruiting a couple of thousand volunteers in Houston and asking these randomly chosen men, women and children to wear a black plastic box that looks like a pager, three inches by two inches by one-half inch, whose circuitry is roughly as complex as that of a cellphone. In the radio and television industry, this little box is known as the portable people meter, or the P.P.M. In both a business and a cultural sense, it also seems to be the equivalent of a large explosive.

The Houston volunteers will clip the P.P.M.to their belts, or to any other article of clothing, and wear it all their waking hours. Before going to bed, the volunteers will be expected to dock the P.P.M. in a cradle so that overnight it can automatically send its data to a computer center in Maryland, where statisticians can download and review the information. There are still kinks to work out, but ideally the P.P.M. will tell Arbitron exactly what kind -- and exactly how much -- television and radio programming a person was exposed to during the day. Eventually the P.P.M. may also tell the technicians at Arbitron a host of other things too, like whether a P.P.M.-wearer heard any Web streaming, or supermarket Muzak, or any electronic media with audible sound that someone might encounter on a typical day.

The technology underlying the PPM (currently trialing in Houston) is interesting: they bury a unique, repeating, inaudible digital code in the audio tracks of TV and radio shows. The PPM picks that up. Arbitron is asking radio and TV stations to embed this code in their programming.

To date, viewership tracking has been very unscientific and potentially highly inaccurate. Techniques like this may bring rigor to the data-gathering process and allow the old media to compete more effectively with the web. They might also, in the end, lead to a shift in how and where advertisers decide to spend their money. The underlying conceit, as articulated by Arbitron's CEO, is this:

''Media is following you not just when you consciously turn on your satellite radio in your car, or when you consciously flip open your cellphone and get some cable channel delivered to it,'' Morris told me. ''It's also coming at you when you walk through Grand Central station. It's on the floor and on the walls. It's coming at you at the malls, where the L.E.D. screens are all around you along with the piped-in music. Advertising is becoming incredibly ubiquitous, so you need measurement that is equally ubiquitous.''

The PPM can do things like register the impressions on ads that screen at movie theaters; with a GPS-additive it could track whether you walked past a particular billboard; with RFID capability built in, it could tell that you happened to pick up a copy of the New Yorker, etc. etc. It's a short step from there to tracking the correlation between ad impressions and buying behavior.

Finally, here are some numbers:

• Nielsen does about $700MM in revenues
• Nielsen's People Meter (not the experimental PPM) is in 8000 homes
• TV advertising is at $60B annually
• On a typical weeknight, about 100MM Americans watch prime-time TV
• The average household watches 8 hours of TV per day

Millimeter-wave sensors

The NYT has an article on millimeter-wave imaging technologies applied to the detection of concealed weapons. The human body has a high emissivity and emits a great deal of millimeter-wave energy (between 30 and 300 GHz)- it shows up as hot on a millimeter imaging system. By contrast, a concealed gun, for instance, has a low emissivity and a high reflectivity - it reflects the ambient energy (at the temperature of the surroundings) and shows up as cold on the scan. The temperature differential with respect to the surroundings allows for the discrimination of the weapon being carried.

The article profiles three companies (Brijot Imaging Systems, Millivision Technologies and Trex Enterprises) that appear to have working imaging systems integrated with video surveillance and software that accomplishes detection and classification in a device that's about $50K.

Interestingly, these passive detection systems have an active counterpart (involving bouncing millimeter waves off the subject in a manner analogous to radar). Understandably, there are health and privacy concerns around the active imaging systems as a result of which the passive systems are likely to get better traction.

Millivision has a nice whitepaper on the technology on their website.

Radiation detectors on buoys

The Lawrence Livermore National Labs site has an interesting write-up on trials of radiation detectors aboard buoys off the coast. The idea is to detect nuclear materials that might be carried on board boats and other vessels before they get close enough to land to be dangerous. The detectors are powered by wind- and solar-powered generators and are outfitted with wireless communications links.

Homeland security experts are evaluating a wide range of possible threats from terrorists. One of the more troubling scenarios is a small and crude nuclear device transported in and detonated from a boat located near a naval military base or a civilian shipping terminal. Thanks to a Livermore design, buoys outfitted with commercially available radiation detectors could soon play an important role by warning of the presence of nuclear materials in marine environments.

9/11 showed us that we needed to secure civilian transportation modalities (a shift away from the cold-war thinking of building missile shields, etc.). If the trials are successful, these detector systems might be deployed around busy ports to interdict and deter marine transport of nuclear materials and weapons. Apparently, proposals have already been submitted to deploy buoys with radiation detectors in the Oakland harbor.

Curious to see what the specs are on the detector system: how well detection at a distance works, how high the false positive rate is and how closely the buoys need to be spaced in order to be effective. As with any RF system, radiation has a power-law falloff (inverse-square law in this instance) with distance...

Tire pressure sensors

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) (part of the Department of Transportation) is going to mandate the installation of tire pressure sensors in vehicles starting in model year 2006. If the tire pressure falls below the recommeded level by 25% or more, the car will alert the driver to the fact. The rulemaking is motivated by the fact that underinflated tires are the cause of several accidents: it is estimated that the rule will save 120 lives and prevent 8400 injuries annually.

According to NHTSA, under-inflated tires can adversely affect fuel economy, lead to skidding and loss of control and hydroplaning on wet surfaces. It can also increase stopping distance and the likelihood of tire failures.

It will cost the auto industry on the order of $50-$70 per vehicle and save consumers about $30 due to better fuel efficiency, fewer crashes and longer tire life. According to the NYT, "The government estimates that it will cost the industry between $800 million and $1.1 billion to phase in the technology on all new vehicles from this year through 2007."

Apparently, it all started with an act of Congress in 2000 (prompted by the Firestone recalls) requiring the NHTSA to set guidelines for tire pressure monitoring systems. The agency dragged its feet for a couple of years (apparently due to the lobbying efforts of the auto industry) until safety groups sued multiple times to get the process moving and received court orders directing the NHTSA to act quickly.

For more background see the NTHSA announcement and the rulemaking. Interesting story because it illustrates the dynamics of rule-making (conflicting interests of safety groups, Congress and the auto industry), the time-scales for the passage of rules in this industry (~4 years), the process for mainstreamization of new technology (tire-monitoring systems are already in place in 2-4 MM luxury vehicles today and the adoption of this technology will be accelerated by this ruling) and because it illustrates the reactive nature of such efforts (it took a well-publicized system failure to spur decisive action).

APIs and innovation

I had written a while back about Skype's API. I found out recently that someone's developed an answering machine application using the API:

SAM is a simple voice answering machine for Skype® users.

When you are away from your PC and there is no one to answer your incoming Skype calls, SAM will pick up the call, play a greeting message and the "all-time clasic beep" so that the calling party will leave a voice recorded message.

It looks a little rough around the edges right now, but I still think it's a great example of how opening up APIs, done well, can fuel user-driven innovation. Apropos of this, also see the recent Google AdWords API announcement:

Google's free AdWords API service lets developers engineer computer programs that interact directly with the AdWords server. With the applications created, advertisers and third parties can more efficiently - and creatively - manage their large AdWords accounts and campaigns.

From the Google Blog:

The AdWords API beta program is an open invitation to developers to explore new concepts (and then write great software) for managing Google AdWords advertising campaigns. Large advertisers can use it for their complex ad management needs, like tying product margins to optimized keyword bids.Third parties can use the API to build new interfaces to manage their client accounts. Best of all, an API enables the creation of all sorts of unanticipated ideas.

Prisoners of context

One of the elements of my job that I love is the ability to connect and talk with some of the top executives in the technology field.  While I like to think its my cheerful personality that allows that to happen, I know that in reality its driven by my role as a VC.

I have had a chance in the last few months to talk to quite a few senior software execs from a variety of software application companies.  A constant theme appears:

• The software business has changed irrevocably and has matured
• The glory days of growth are over
• Technology does not matter; its all about maintenance revenues and consolidation
• No white space remains in the software landscape

Hearing all their lamentations reminds me of an episode from my salad days when I had a real job.  I was at Microsoft in the mid 90's and was lucky enough to be one of a few microsofties invited to have dinner with Bill Gates and Mike Maples (they had a program in which they selected 30 odd employees every month to have dinner with the big cheeses.)   After dinner, Bill and Mike would run a 30 minute question and answer session.  I asked Bill that day if he was starting out his career in the 90's and he wanted to create a big company what would he do?  Bill earnestly said (and I felt he was being very honest) that the big opportunities in technology was done and that he would do something in Biotech.  He felt then (this is 1993) that the software industry has matured and there was not going to be much growth anymore.  Mike Maples also agreed.  Obviously in retrospect they were wrong.  They missed the Internet.  They missed BEA, Siebel, Veritas, Verisign and other countless B2B software companies that created billions in value. 

The moral of the story is that even very smart people can be blinded by the context of their environment.  To most senior software execs, they are living in a tough environment of long sales cycles, even longer implementation cycles, impossible to non-existent upgrade capability and a 3-5x services budget to implement their license software.  And they are right - that market is DEAD!!!! Customers don't want that anymore. 

What they are not realizing is that the new opportunity is exactly to sell and make software in a manner that has shorter sales cycles, very fast implementation time-lines, easy to upgrade and easy to maintain software, and a small amount of services.  The new software companies will do exactly that and they will eat the legacy players alive as history has shown many times.

Photoluminescence spectroscopy for explosives detection

University of Florida researchers have discovered a way to use photoluminescence spectroscopy to detect explosives from a distance. The basic idea is to shine a laser at the object and look at the spectrum of radiation emitted by the object. TNT and other explosives (including plastic explosives and nitroglycerin) have a common and specific well-defined signature corresponding to the presence of two nitro groups.

The development provides instantaneous results, gives no false positives, can be used remotely and is portable -- attributes [Professor Hummel] says will make it indispensable at all levels of law enforcement, from local police to homeland security. “ If I see a ship approaching, I’d like to know if it’s packed with explosives,” Schau said. It’s in the field of remote detection that this is exciting. This really looks like it may give us a leg up on that.” Sample collection for explosives is familiar to anyone who has recently passed through an airport: a swab brushed across an object, such as a suitcase, clothing or even a person, or puffs of air blasted across a filter that can trap tiny amounts of airborne explosives. The advantage of photoluminescence-based explosive detection is that it can be remotely applied, and requires neither time-consuming and expensive machines nor trained dogs, said Hummel, who has applied for a patent on the technique.

Skype API

Skype recently announced a partnership with Siemens to enable cordless phones to use Skype to dial out (in addition to using the PSTN):

Skype's free Internet telephony software works with Siemens phones via the Gigaset M34 USB adapter, an open interface adapter that is plugged into the USB connection point of a users' PC. It communicates with the phone’s base station to either make or receive a Skype call. The handset then enables users to gain cordless access to the extensive Skype features including, free Skype to Skype calling, buddy lists, the Skype Global Directory and conference calling.

Skype has also recently opened up an API enabling hardware devices and software applications to integrate with Skype's software. A couple of interesting applications called out:

Call-center and IVR solutions
Although Skype has so far been designed primarily with individual communication needs in mind, it can be used to provide business-class calling services through the Skype API. Businesses can provide Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions where the software answers the inbound Skype call and provides the user with automated choices and selections in combination with a back-end system. This could be used for ticket booking, payment, pizza ordering and many other services. The IVR system can be either fully automatic or a combination of operator/automatic usage.
For service monitoring purposes, the calls to operators can be recorded and later screened using regular audio manipulating tools on a standard PC. The information can be automatically stored and emailed.

Phone handsets
Skype provides access to its functions from software a well as hardware devices. The Skype client software can be used with any audio hardware compatible with the operating system, such as headphones and a desktop microphone, or a dedicated USB headset or even telephone-like handset. However, all of these require the user to still work with Skype software and sit behind a computer.
Users may want more freedom both in home and business environments and not to be tied to a computer. This is why Skype has joined forces with Siemens as its first Preferred Cordless Phone Provider to give users a chance to move about freely. The Siemens M34 Gigaset USB Adapter plugs into the computer’s USB port and connects to a Gigaset base station that in turn is connected to one or more cordless handsets. The handsets have access to basic Skype functions like placing and answering calls and navigating the contact list.
The Skype API gives other hardware manufacturers an opportunity to build similar solutions in their existing or upcoming products. Note that for using all these functions, a computer running Skype is still required.

Demand prediction, scan-based trading

Interesting BI example in an NYT article about Wal-Mart:

A week ahead of the storm's landfall, Linda M. Dillman, Wal-Mart's chief information officer, pressed her staff to come up with forecasts based on what had happened when Hurricane Charley struck several weeks earlier. Backed by the trillions of bytes' worth of shopper history that is stored in Wal-Mart's computer network, she felt that the company could "start predicting what's going to happen, instead of waiting for it to happen," as she put it.
The experts mined the data and found that the stores would indeed need certain products - and not just the usual flashlights. "We didn't know in the past that strawberry Pop-Tarts increase in sales, like seven times their normal sales rate, ahead of a hurricane," Ms. Dillman said in a recent interview. "And the pre-hurricane top-selling item was beer."
Thanks to those insights, trucks filled with toaster pastries and six-packs were soon speeding down Interstate 95 toward Wal-Marts in the path of Frances. Most of the products that were stocked for the storm sold quickly, the company said.

The article also mentions scan-based trading, a term with which I was unfamiliar:

Eventually, some experts say, Wal-Mart will use its technology to institute what is called scan-based trading, in which manufacturers own each product until it is sold. "Wal-Mart will never take those products onto its books," said Bruce Hudson, a retail analyst at the Meta Group, an information technology consulting firm in Stamford, Conn. "If you think of the impact of shedding $50 billion of inventory, that is huge."

Here's some more on scan-based trading:

Scan-based trading (SBT) is not so much about coordinating data as it is about shifting financial risk from seller to supplier. Not only must a vendor such as American Greetings pay for the inventory of cards that will sit on the retailers' shelves right up until the moment of sale—such vendors also must bear the burden of making sure there are no holes in the tracking of products and transactions.
The idea behind these systems is simple enough. Rather than paying for products from suppliers as they are brought into the store, the supplier retains "ownership" of products on the shelf. Sales information is sent automatically from retailer to supplier. When the supplier receives that information, an invoice for goods sold is automatically created and an order is submitted to replace the sold merchandise.
In theory, everybody is supposed to come out a winner. The retailer loses the financial risk of carrying inventory while reducing its administrative and order management costs. The supplier gets daily alerts to replenish its wares—which means more sales—and is able to gather nearly real-time data about the performance of products store by store. This data can be used by the supplier to improve forecasting, production planning and product targeting.