MACHINIMA's Movie Moguls
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THE MAGAZINE OF TECHNOLOGY INSIDERS MACHINIMA’S MOVIE MOGULS WITHOUT ACTORS, CAMERAS, SETS, OR PROPS, A NEW GENERATION OF GEEKS IS HACKING ITS WAY INTO HOLLYWOOD volume 45 number 7 north american 07.08 UPDATE 11 ITALIAN ISOTOPES U.S. critics hope to halt nuclear waste imports. By Sally Adee 13 CRIMEWARE PAYS 14 OCEAN POWER ON THE RISE 15 MIXING MEMORIES TO SPEED SOLID-STATE DRIVES 16 A LUNAR LANDING OF SORTS 46 18 THE BIG PICTURE A dusting of detritus orbits Earth. OPINION 9 SPECTRAL LINES Paper or pixels? A look at books in a networked age. 10 FORUM External controls take over, the history of commonsense management, and our automotive editor defends his top 10. 20 REFLECTIONS Getting used to not having privacy. By Robert W. Lucky DEPARTMENTS 4 BACK STORY 6 CONTRIBUTORS 26 36 21 CAREERS How to get a mentor. By Carl Selinger CREATURES COVER STORY AND CREATORS: Kiva’s founders TOOLS & TOYS and their 36 MACHINIMA’S 22 Digitize your old LPs. robotic herd; By Tekla S. Perry The Pencil, one MOVIE MOGULS 23 Meet the winner of our clock- of our 10 favorite making contest. By Philip E. Ross tech books; Forget cameras, actors, and elaborate sets: a new generation 24 Can a database think? a character from of filmmakers relies only on bandwidth and a video game. the video game By Paul Wallich Halo 3 is now a By David Kushner 25 Amazon’s Kindle is the best of cinematic star. the bunch of e-book readers. 26 THREE 42 10 GREAT By Sherry Sontag ENGINEERS, TECH BOOKS COVER IMAGE: HUNDREDS OF 24 BOOKS PHOTO: See if your own favorites Leo Beranek, pioneer of acoustics. MATTHEW ROBOTS, ONE appear on this list of nonfiction MAHON; DIGITAL By Roger Zimmerman ILLUSTRATION: WAREHOUSE tech tomes, which deal with SANDBOX 56 THE DATA STUDIO inventions as different as the At Kiva’s robotic warehouse, Efforts to electrify Iraq have been THIS PAGE: CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: JOSHUA machines do all the heavy lifting. pencil and the bomb. stymied by insurgent attacks and DALSIMER; TIMOTHY ARCHIBALD; ROOSTER TEETH By Erico Guizzo By Steven Levy provincial infighting. By Sally Adee WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JULY 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 1 volume 45 number 7 north american 07.08 WWW.IEEE.ORG/ THEINSTITUTE AVAILABLE 8 JULY ON THE INSTITUTE ONLINE LEFT: HARSHA PRAHLAD/ SRI INTERNATIONAL; RIGHT: JASON REEKIE/ WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG POWER SOCIETY ISTOCKPHOTO AVAILABLE 1 JULY ON SPECTRUM ONLINE GETS NEW NAME IEEE’s oldest society has a new name. The IEEE Power Engineering Society BOTS SCALE is now the IEEE Power & Energy Society. The name change reflects the NEW HEIGHTS inclusion of emerging technologies. Engineers are making headway in a new challenge for robots: climbing vertical surfaces. Wall-climbing robots could aid search-and-rescue HEART HACKERS operations, secretly spy for hours, and inspect aircraft and buildings. If you have an implanted heart defibrillator, beware. There’s a risk that The 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation it may be vulnerable to hacking. Read marked the debut of a tank-type robot that uses electrostatic adhesion. about recent research, presented at Others are making bots inspired by the dry adhesive on a gecko’s feet. the IEEE Symposium on Security and In this month’s featured podcast, IEEE Spectrum’s Prachi Patel-Predd Privacy, which shows some of these reports on where wall-climbing robots are going. devices that can be hacked to release sensitive patient information. ONLINE FEATURES: ALSO ONLINE: IEEE ADDS STICKY BUSINESS: Scientists are • Webcasts E-LEARNING looking for ways to manage the • Radio Casimir effect, the quantum- • News PARTNER mechanical phenomenon that • Audio Downloads EdistaLearning offers more makes nanometer-scale MEMS • Podcasts than 45 e-learning courses on components stick together. • Jobs topics like software engineering, • Career Accelerator Forum software testing, and project management. Read about this SLIDE SHOW—MOON BUGGIES: • IEEE Xplore® Digital Library and other opportunities from the Watch engineers test out lunar rovers • Interviews IEEE Education Partners Program. at Moses Lake. • Opinions • More! IEEE SPECTRUM (ISSN 0018-9235) is published monthly by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. © 2008 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5997, U.S.A. The editorial content of IEEE Spectrum magazine does not represent official positions of the IEEE or its organizational units. Canadian Post International Publications Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 40013087. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Department, IEEE Spectrum, Box 1051, Fort Erie, ON L2A 6C7. Cable address: ITRIPLEE. Fax: +1 212 419 7570. INTERNET: [email protected]. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS-IEEE Members: $21.40 included in dues. Libraries/institutions: $205. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to IEEE Spectrum, c/o Coding Department, IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Canadian GST #125634188. Printed at W224-N3322 Duplainville Rd., Pewaukee, WI 53072-4195, U.S.A. IEEE Spectrum circulation is audited by BPA Worldwide. IEEE Spectrum is a member of American Business Media, the Magazine Publishers of America, and the Society of National Association Publications. WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG JULY 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 3 back story EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Susan Hassler, [email protected] It’s good we got to him just EXECUTIVE EDITOR Glenn Zorpette, [email protected] when we did, because Wired’s a bit MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth A. Bretz, [email protected] of a competitor of ours, although SENIOR EDITORS Harry Goldstein (Online), [email protected]; Jean Kumagai, [email protected]; Samuel K. Moore (News), the folks over there would prefer to [email protected]; Tekla S. Perry, [email protected]; Philip E. reverse the syntax. But it certainly Ross (Resources), [email protected]; would have been hard for Levy David Schneider, [email protected]; William Sweet, [email protected] to resist our invitation to write SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Steven Cherry, [email protected] on a subject even closer to his ASSOCIATE EDITORS Sally Adee, [email protected]; Erico Guizzo, heart than technology: technology [email protected]; Joshua J. Romero (Online), books. In this issue he reviews his [email protected]; Sandra Upson, [email protected] 10 favorite nonfiction titles and ASSISTANT EDITOR Willie D. Jones, [email protected] SENIOR COPY EDITOR Joseph N. Levine, [email protected] throws in three novels, just for fun. COPY EDITOR Michele Kogon, [email protected] Levy’s written five tech books EDITORIAL RESEARCHER Alan Gardner, [email protected] himself, as well as one on true EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, SPECTRUM RADIO Sharon Basco crime. He began in 1984 with ASSISTANT PRODUCER, SPECTRUM RADIO Francesco Ferorelli, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer [email protected] ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS Ramona Gordon, [email protected]; Revolution, now in an updated Nancy T. Hantman, [email protected] edition (Penguin, 2001). This INTERN Monica Heger, [email protected] was the book that acquainted the CONTRIBUTING EDITORS John Blau, Robert N. Charette, world with the notion that do-it- Peter Fairley, Alexander Hellemans, David Kushner, Robert W. Lucky, Paul McFedries, Kieron B. Murphy, yourself software design could be Carl Selinger, Seema Singh, John Voelcker a force for good as well as evil. ART & PRODUCTION His most recent book, The SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Mark Montgomery Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles He’s Got A ASSISTANT ART DIRECTORS Laura H. Azran, Brandon Palacio Commerce, Culture, and Coolness PHOTO EDITOR Randi Silberman (Simon & Schuster, 2006), DIRECTOR, PERIODICALS PRODUCTION SERVICES Peter Tuohy Little List reinforces Levy’s reputation as one EDITORIAL & WEB PRODUCTION MANAGER Roy Carubia of the savviest, most plugged-in, SENIOR ELECTRONIC LAYOUT SPECIALIST Bonnie Nani n March, while working for his and most objective connoisseurs WEB PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Jacqueline L. Parker erstwhile employer, Newsweek, as and critics of all things Apple. WEB PRODUCTION SPECIALIST Michael Spector I senior editor for technology, Steven The criticism part has won both EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Levy took home the Apple MacBook the respect and the ire of Steve Susan Hassler, Chair; Marc T. Apter, Francine D. Berman, Jan Brown, Raffaello D’Andrea, Stephen L. Diamond, Hiromichi Air to review and left it on a pile of Jobs, who once called Levy’s Fujisawa, Kenneth Y. Goldberg, Susan Hackwood, Erik Heijne, papers. He hypothesizes that his home at 11:00 p.m. and launched Charles H. House, David H. Jacobson, Christopher J. James, Ronald G. Jensen, Mary Y. Lanzerotti, Ruby B. Lee, Tak Ming wife didn’t notice the thing and into a dressing-down—only to be Mak, David A. Mindell, C. Mohan, Fritz Morgan, Andrew M. therefore threw it out, along with the informed that he was speaking not Odlyzko, Leslie D. Owens, Barry L. Shoop, Larry L. Smarr, entire pile (a hypothesis his wife dis- to Levy but to his son. “Well, you Harry L. “Nick” Tredennick III, William Weihl, Bas¸ak Yüksel putes). What an illustration of the sure sound like him,” growled Jobs, EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE Air’s famously superthin profile— before slamming down the phone. IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10016-5997 Attn: Editorial Dept. Tel: +1 212 419 7555 Fax: +1 212 419 7570 and what a story. Of course, Levy So which book has most Bureau: Palo Alto, Calif.; Tekla S. Perry +1 650 328 7570 pounced on it himself. inspired Levy? “My inspiration Responsibility for the substance of articles rests upon the authors, not the IEEE or its members.