Goal-line Technology for soccer

Here's a reason to root for a high-scoring England-Belgium friendly this weekend: With Goal-Line Tech, Soccer Tries Kicking Its Addiction to Human Error, since if the game should end 0-0, it's not clear what we will learn about the Hawk-Eye system.

The camera system developed by the British firm Hawk-Eye Innovations could revolutionize soccer by tracking and triangulating the ball’s position, leaving no doubt when it has crossed the goal line. Although the tech will be deployed before a crowd of 90,000 at Wembley Stadium, game officials won’t use it to settle disputes. The data will be examined only by scientists during the final test before soccer’s governing body decides on July 5 whether to adopt goal-line technology.

Of the two competing systems, one uses cameras and image processing, while the other uses electromagnetism:

The two companies declined to discuss their technology in detail pending the IFAB’s decision. But Hawk-Eye, a system used widely in tennis and cricket, places 14 cameras around the pitch to triangulate the ball’s location. When the entire ball crosses the plane of the goal, a radio signal confirming the goal is sent to the ref’s watch. The downside is at least 25 percent of the ball must be visible so the cameras can make the ruling. GoalRef, a joint German-Danish project, uses a microchip in the ball and a magnetic field around the goals. Once the entire ball has crossed the line, the change in the magnetic field signals a goal.

A Very Short Review of The Hangman's Daughter

By way of the quite-nice Kindle Owners Lending Library, I recently read Oliver Potzsch's The Hangman's Daughter.

At least part of my interest in the book was that, at the time, my parents were traveling in South Germany, and Potzsch's book is set in the same area (although hundreds of years earlier in time), so it was fun to read about "Augsberg this" and "Ulm that" and "Ingolstadt the other thing".

But Potzsch's book has a lot to recommend it, even if you're not trying to find a fun murder mystery set in Bavaria.

For one thing, the central character is intriguing: Jacob Kuisl is the town hangman for the Bavarian town of Schongau.

In this time, in this part of the world, the town hangman is one part policeman, one part jailor, one part pharmacist, and one part garbageman. The townspeople routinely seek Kuisl out for all sorts of useful (but unpleasant) services, while simultaneously shunning him as low-caste.

In Potzsch's telling, Kuisl is a fascinating individual: self-aware, learned, cynical, and yet morally strong.

When the town is visited by a series of abductions and murders, the townspeople cry "Witchcraft!" and thirst for revenge, and Kuisl, together with a small set of colleagues, must conduct his own research to solve the actual crime, while trying to endure the narrow-minded prejudices of the townsfolk.

The book is rich in atmosphere, nicely paced, and great fun to read, and I really liked learning about this side of medieval life that is rarely described in this manner.

Looking for a summer vacation read? Give The Hangman's Daughter a try.

Anand-Gelfand: Anand retains his title

Today in the World Chess Championship, the format was 4 rapid games. Three of the games were draws, but Anand won the second game (with White).

I believe that this concludes the championship match, and Anand is World Champion of chess for another two years.

More data generally does in fact help

For example, when the mystery of the Pioneer Anomaly was resolved, it was due to having more data: The Mystery of the Pioneer Anomaly Solved at Last

But for their new analysis, Turyshev et. al. compiled a lot more data than had ever been analyzed before, spanning a much longer period of the Pioneers' flight times. They studied 23 years of data from Pioneer 10 instead of just 11, and 11 years of data from Pioneer 11 instead of 3. As explained in their new paper, the more complete data sets reveal that the spacecraft's anomalous acceleration did indeed seem to decrease with time. In short, the undying force had been dying after all, just like the decaying plutonium.

50 yaks to carry the gear back down

Here's a nice report from the MountainTrip team on their successful summit of Mount Everest: Back to Base Camp!.

Less than two weeks til the 2012 Euros!

The competition starts June 8th, I believe.

Let's hope that fears like these turn out to be unfounded.

An exposé by the BBC's Panorama program, broadcast in the United Kingdom on Monday night and set to be shown again in multiple countries, detailed the extent of race-related soccer hooliganism in Poland and the Ukraine, where the Euros will be jointly staged starting June 8.

Flame on!

I'm puzzled by the use of the word "discovered" in this paragraph from Kaspersky's breathless press release announcing their work on the new Flame malware:

The independent research was initiated by ITU and Kaspersky Lab after a series of incidents with another, still unknown, destructive malware program – codenamed Wiper – which deleted data on a number of computers in the Western Asia region. This particular malware is yet to be discovered, but during the analysis of these incidents, Kaspersky Lab’s experts, in coordination with ITU, came across a new type of malware, now known as Flame.

What does it mean to have "incidents" with an "unknown, destructive malware" which is "yet to be discovered"? What is discovery if it is not the observation of a malware-caused incident?

The Kaspersky "Flame FAQ" is fascinating:

there are internally used local databases with nested SQL queries, multiple methods of encryption, various compression algorithms, usage of Windows Management Instrumentation scripting, batch scripting and more.

It will be very interesting to see if any other independent researchers can confirm these findings, as they seem rather unusual on the face of it. The only other reports right now appear to be from the Budapest University of Technology at their web site: http://www.crysys.hu/