Nanodreadlocks More Photogenic Than Regular Dreadlocks

From nytimes.

Robots Invade Warehouse, Diligently Ship Your Online Orders

Wired reports that autonomous robots design by Kiva Systems now scurry the warehouse floors of Gap, Zappos, and Staples. The machines make the warehouses 2-4 times more efficient by cutting out substantial worker walking time. Apparently "the employees get a lot of joy, a lot of happiness out of anthropomorphizing the robots and turning them into pets." This seems to be a pretty common way of making sense of a human-robotic relationship. It helps quiet any fears (however fantastical or unconscious) of the robots. Another way is joking about possibility of a robot-human confrontation. As in the first line of the wired article:

Next time you order a new pair of skinny jeans from Gap.com, you should know that you are helping welcome in the hive-mind robot overlords of retail.

Ideas Worth Spreading

TED's (which stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design”) 25th anniversary conference takes place this week. Read confessions of a TED addict here. Or check out the weekly updated TED lectures and the 2009 TED prize winners.

Visuality Creeps Into Email Conversion

A few months ago we outlined the concept of visuality as explained by New York Times contributing writer Kevin Kelly.

Kevin Kelly discusses the modern-day Gutenberg revolution, or "how the moving image is upending the printed word." Kelly sees the proliferation of video technology (and amateur video artists) fueling our collective visual appetite. We are pervasively and resoundingly moving away from the word. We are becoming a people of the moving image, where literacy gives way to "visuality."

In my personal experience this article has provoked a critical reaction marked by disbelief. The sentiment is:

"How are we moving away from the word? That's just not possible. How could I possibly send someone a message of all photo and video and get a my message across with higher fidelity and greater succinctness than the written word? We cannot escape the word."

The article was meant to provoke a reaction, certainly. And when speculating about the coming visuality era, we are talking about an unknown point in the future so of course, it all sounds a bit like hyperbole. But already there are signs that hints of visuality are creeping into digital communication. Consider this simple email line from a friend:

It was the 17th hole of the Buick Open, where everyone parties anyway, and Kid Rock was there with overalls on and a tallboy on the ready for Daly to tee up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWsg4p-BNdI

Pretty straightforward. But the idea is that this ability opens the door for a second, visual conversation. By bringing the visual into the textual a meta-conversation develops. The process is irresistible. It's easier and easier to search for the photo or video we want. Consider this email from another friend:

Rumor is Parker could take us for a walk in the college forest!

The sentence as is and the sentence as is with visual are saying very different things. Things get a little more interesting...

"We Will Restore Science To Its Rightful Place..."

From President Obama's Inauguration Address:

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Knol: An Authoritative Alternative To Wikipedia

There are still those who remain wary of the hive mind of wikipedia:

"The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him."

- Robert McHenry, former editor-in-chief of Encyclopædia Britannica

If you are the type of person that would prefer a expertly maintained bathroom (or encyclopedia), Google has just announced that the 100,000th knol (they define a knol as "a unit of knowledge"...it's sort of like an elite meme) has just been published to the wikipedia alternative (or complement), knol. Unlike wikipedia, knol emphasizes personal expertise by highlighting the authorship of each article.

Read the wikipedia entry on knol here.

Music That Boosts Your Brain Power

Check out imusic for a sample (and an interesting explanation) of the doctor-approved music they say can work wonders for the brain.

New Mind Control Games Teach You To Use "The Force"

The good people at Neurosky have collaborated with Uncle Milton games to create a revolutionary new game called Force Trainer, out this fall (USA Today article here). The game comes with a simple headset that monitors brainwave activity. As you learn to concentrate and control your brain wave activity you gain greater control over a small ball that moves through a Star Wars themed gaming device.
The game, which will no doubt be a blast just from its novelty alone, will be one of the first mass-market games to utilize EEG technology. There's no telling where this paradigm will take us or if it will have long term effects on a child's ability to concentrate. Could the Force Trainer or something like it (a similar game by Mattel is due out) actually help distracted individuals learn to become more focused thinkers?

Mobile Devices Will Be Primary Online Connection Tool By 2020

For their internet evolution report issued in December of 2008, the Pew Internet and American Life Project asked a panel of internet analysts, media professors, and technology experts to make a series of predictions about the internet and its affect on American Life in 2020.

The findings, available here, suggest that the mobile device will quickly become the dominant form of online connection, that voice recognition and touch interfaces will become increasingly widespread, and that because of this connectivity capability, the division between personal time and work time, physical reality and virtual reality will fade away.

The panel of experts were mixed in their opinions of how the tech/internet changes will affect American Life. Will transparency and tolerance increase? Not necessarily.

It does seem that in a global 'idea economy' the 9-5 work day will transform into a much more fluid 24/7 type of work atmosphere. Having highly creative employees continually connected to work through mobile devices and virtual reality forums might allow for those important insights to come more readily (like when you in the bathtub or taking a walk). Will this come sort of work day become acceptable? How will it affect the family?

"Thought Identification" Featured On 60 Minutes

We previewed this exciting new technology in December in a post called: "Scientists Extract Images Directly From The Brain." Now the concept is receiving major network attention in a 60 minutes story.

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop

From The Onion.

Where Are The Robots?

A robot density map from the foreign policy blog. Not surprisingly Japan leads the field.
The blog references an interesting, physical interpretation of the singularity...perhaps unfortunately named given the actions of the original HAL.

Most Interesting New Concept, The Development Most Likely To Start A Robot War, And More Of The Best Things Of 2008!

Mind Hacks rough guide to the neuro highlights of 2008. (Above: "Best Cognitive Science Art Project.")

The Brainy Blogosphere

It seems like every new year brings an ever-greater enthusiasm for the inevitable 'best-of-the-year' lists. What better way to kick off the new year that by exploring the 2008 highlights from the brain science podcast. Or rediscover some of the best podcasts of the year at the always entertaining Radiolab.

CNET's 5 Technology Predictions For 2009

CNET's top 5 predictions for the new year include:

5  The decline of portable GPS

4  Mind control video games go commercial!!

3  Devices with Google's Android operating system will outsell the iphone

2  Bandwidth riots 

1  Biggest security breach ever

Check out the video explanations here.

Typealyzer Analyzes Blog Personality

The Typealyzer applies the Meyers-Briggs personality test to blogs.  Try it here.

The Big Business Of Memory and Cognitive Enhancement

An aging population, an economy built on ideas, increasing competition at top high schools and universities…there’s no shortage of explanations for why cognitive and memory enhancement is poised to grow into a massive industry. Who wouldn’t want to feel smarter, sharper, and more on the ball? As an already medicated society, we’re collectively making as shift from “making the sick healthy” to “protecting and enhancing the already healthy.”
Today you can look treat yourself to various natural enhancement options. Start with a nice cup of tea, as the University of Newcastle Plant Research Center has found that both black and green tea can improve memory and prevent Alzheimer’s. Still thirsty? Try a Brainiac, the hip, functional beverage enhanced with “soy phosphatidylserine (PS), ginkgo biloba, and other powerful antioxidants at the forefront of brain science.”
Once you’re thoroughly hydrated the Brain Fitness Program DVD by PBS offers a “scientifically-based set of brain exercises” to improve memory and a range of cognitive functions.
If all else fails, just go for a run or play a game of football. Among neuroscientists, physical exercise is viewed as the ultimate cognitive enhancer (certainly the most effective): “fitness training slows the age-related shrinkage of the frontal cortex, which is important for executive function. In rodents, exercise increases the number of capillaries in the brain, which should improve blood flow, and therefore the availability of energy, to neurons. Exercise may also help the brain by improving cardiovascular health, preventing heart attacks and strokes that can cause brain damage. Finally, exercise causes the release of growth factors, proteins that increase the number of connections between neurons, and the birth of neurons in the hippocampus, a brain region important for memory" (from the NYtimes).

Love, Sex, And Robots

Ever since David Levy's book hit the shelves last year, robot love (perhaps more specifically robot sex) has been a hot topic (call it the "sexy singularity"). Levy's prediction that by mid century these robot-human relationships will become commonplace, has been met with skeptical excitement and artistic reaction. Consider the current "Sex Lives of Robots" at the Museum of Sex in NYC.

From all the hoopla an obvious question has arisen: "Is it cheating to have sex with a robot?" And what if that robot is equipped with AI emotion technology (apparently some sex dolls already come with a heartbeat that accelerates throughout the sex act)? One wonders if it will be this question of sexual fidelity, ahead of all others, that will force humanity to legally consider the rights of robotic entities.

Scientists Extract Images Directly From Brain

Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed a breakthrough process of analyzing changes in a participants cerebral blood flow to reconstruct and display viewed images. This breakthrough process of extracting images directly from the brain has so far been used only with black letters on a white background. However, researchers say that as the technology improves and the computer program learns to associate nuanced cerebral states with complex mental images, we could, within, the decade learn to extract these complex images directly from patients' brains. Full story at the pink tentacle.

Free Associating With The Superbrain And The Problem Of Context Switching

Often, the most fascinating online discoveries come from meandering through the internet’s “series of tubes” without a set agenda or ultimate goal. This is web-surfing at it’s best. It’s like linking up with a massive mind and free associating until you discover something that’s worth a closer look. It was on one of these excursions that I stumbled upon the Monkey No-Climb and thought, I wish that a web browser would, like wikipedia, include a series of related links at the bottom of the page; as in: “users who viewed this page also viewed this one.” This would enable a new level of free association, leading to a higher frequency of wild, unexpected discoveries.

It’s worth noting however, that these content excursions, while stimulating, lack the feeling of enrichment that comes from thoroughly absorbing information. Something is lost in the cavalcade of media.

Edward R. Tufte, the Yale design and statistics legend and author of several superb books on information design, discusses this issue in his book, Envisioning Information. He says:

“In user interfaces for computers, a problem undermining information exchange between human and software is ‘constant context switches. By this we mean that the user is not presented with one basic display format and one uniform style of interaction, but instead, with frequent changes: a scatterplot is present; it goes away, and is replaced by a menu; the menu goes away, ,and is replaced by the scatterplot; and so on…users constantly have to adjust to a changing visual environment rather than focusing on the data. The user is also forced to remember things seen in one view so that he or she can use the other view effectively. This means that the users short-term memory is occupied with the incidentals rather than the significant issues of analysis.’

Although this explanation might not resonant as well with the younger, hyper media literate generations, it's conclusions, to the extend that they comment of human facilities of sight, hearing, and information processing, seem universal and timeless. It explains why consistent web design interfaces, like the pages of wikipedia, are so valuable.