This quick presentation stuck a chord. We are going through a phase change in regards to our relationship to our environment, namely our ability to program our world.
“If you aren’t a programmer, then you are one of the programmed… These are the stages our civilization has moved through, in successive stages of media… civilization always seems to be one stage behind [in] the medium they are using, and a new elite learns to use the technology. Programing is even big than the printing press, it’s as big as text.”
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.
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?
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.
September 7, 2007 at 12:36 pm · Filed under Technology
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.
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.
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? Read the rest of this entry »
