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From Here To Singularity

"The time from here to Singularity depends sensitively on the particulars of what we humans do during the next decade (and even the next few years)."

Archive for Technology

Stanford’s model helicopters teach themselves to fly

helicopter-stanford

Now this sounds to me like >narrow< ai, of a sort, but it is certainly generalizing, learning type behaviour. The helicopter monitors the activity of an expert helicopter pilot, and then, compensating for environmental differences (wind etc), performs the same maneuvers itself.

Stanford computer scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that enables robotic helicopters to teach themselves to fly difficult stunts by watching other helicopters perform the same maneuvers.
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The True Power of Users on User Run Sites

Welcome to the world of community based, collaborative content.

One of the big stories of 2006’s reiteration of the online landscape has been the development of business models leveraging user created content and communities. You create a site that allows others to upload and post their content, you share that with the world, throw in some kind of monetizing plan (show ads on content, charge a membership fee, or whatever) and voila, instant money making.

Flickr and Digg are perfect examples of this new layer of interactivity and commerce, which has been dubbed ‘web 2.0’ – the new version of the old. Flickr is a photo sharing web site, which goes beyond simple hosting and management of pictures, to develop real communities and photo sharing opportunities. On one’s flickr home page a section displays recent photos from your friends and online acquaintances (including the ones you met through the site), and another displays randomly chosen recent pictures from the entire user base.

Digg is a collaborative news site, where users upload and rate links to sites elsewhere on the web, and, base

We are still discovering what that means to the whole scheme of things. In the old world, you made something, you sold it, you called all the shots. But what happens when your customers are not only purchasing your product, but providing it to you?

Digg Users Are Showing the True Power of Users on User Run Sites

Stories were getting deleted and user accounts were being banned all because of a stupid HD-DVD copyright Hex code that can be used to unlock HD-DVD. Digg claimed that they could be sued and what not for it so they decided to censor all of the stories that had to deal with the key. The whole thing is just bull, you can’t copyright a sequence of numbers and letters.

Rebekka is a single mom and art student living in Iceland. She’s an artist and tragaperra internetcasinos descargas internetpremios pagina internetnet casinosvideo poker webcasino costa bravaruleta europea paginas internetla ruleta rusaapuestas onlinejuego online ruletafruit slotscasino slots downloadonline gewinn spielcasino net pokercasino spiele kostenlos spielen,casino spiele spielen,casino spielenroulette gewinnecasino no deposit bonusechtes kasinospielerfolgreich roulette spielen,roulette online spielen,roulette spielenbeste casino onlinenew casino onlineonline casino playinternet spielbankcasino club netdeutsche online casinoadvanced video pokeronline slots,eve online rig slots,online video slotseve online rig slotskeno downloadrealistisches internet casinoswiss casino onlineunbegrenztes freispielslotmaschine online spielenblack jack online spielencasino bonus codecasino on linebestes online casinoparty casino bonusfunny games roulette,games roulette,games roulette online spielenkasino spiele mit echtem geldspiel rauminternet roulettevirtual casinolasseters online casinofaires spielenroulette gamegames roulette spielestrip roulettecasino online texasbeste online kasinos a talented one at that. She does amazing things with her camera. Recently she discovered that a gallery Only-Dreemin had been ripping her off. They’d sold thousands of dollars worth of her images and when she caught them and tried to make them give her the money that they stole from her they refused. So Rebekka did what anyone with a following on the internet might do and she posted about her frustration and plight on her flickrstream. And her story resonated loudly with the flickr community. Her story made the front page of digg and by days end she had 100,000 views on this particular photograph with hundreds of supportive comments.

Flickr = Censorship on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Wheelchair Controlled by sub vocalized speech

One step closer to mind reading – this wheel chair interprets sub-vocalized speech – in other words, your stream of internal self-talk, and turns it into movement.

I can see how this would be useful. I can also see how thinking “that pillock on my left is really annoying me.” might turn you to face them.

“Digital Physics” – Your cognitive artifacts come to life.

This interesting post discusses the user interface of this month’s new overpriced bauble from Apple (No, I’m not jealous – much.) Representational physics (Dubbed “Digital” Physics by the author) is a an ever more immersive part of the digital user interface. Part of this is certainly resulting in improved experience, but part of the drive is IMO just “feature” competition, bored programmers doing cute stuff, and marketing wonks let loose in product design.

iphone home

For people who play video games, Digital Physics is old news. For the rest of us, the Digital Physics experience is new. The traditional Windows desktop of the nineties never delivered life-like experiences. Instead, users where forced to learn to interact with computers by learning new gestures, via mice and keyboard. The modern interface from Apple changed that paradigm somewhat, by introducing digital interfaces that responded to mouse clicks. iPhone takes this experience to a whole new level, letting us interact with digital information using our hands.

I am not convinced that this is the paradigm shift that Apple boys are all calling it. Representational Physics (The article calls this “Digital Physics” which misses the real point IMO.) has been around as long as tools have – after all, what is a tool but a way of translating one intention into a different action? And, what makes selecting an item from your iphone playlist any different from choosing the floor to go to in an elevator?
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Convergence – ie ‘Our Inevitable Digital Future?’

Nice quick summary of the current status quo of virtual/real world convergence, though I still think that people take ‘Second Life’ far too seriously, and the google earth/MS Earth tools aren’t showing the potential to have make any substantive changes to our existence yet. (No time to really comment right now, hopefully I will come back to this. I really need to add a link blog to this site.)

Life is becoming more digital and digital is becoming more alive. On one hand we have the rapid rise of Second Life and other virtual worlds. On the other we are beginning to annotate our planet with digital information, via technologies like Google Earth. In both cases digital information is breaking geographical boundaries and overcoming the limitations imposed by our physical world. Flying in second life has the same affect as linking a Wikipedia entry to the Grand Canyon as rendered in Google Earth.

Information is being unleashed and re-shuffled. We are beginning to look at information from literally a 1000 foot view. And everything is becoming increasingly more connected. This is both very exciting and a bit unnerving. We are accelerating into our digital future from all directions – pushing digital towards life and pushing life towards digital.

Digital Life vs Life Digital: Our Inevitable Digital Future

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