Published in October 31st, 2008
It’s been called the “rapture of the nerds,” but such derision didn’t stop an estimated 500 enthusiasts from showing up to the Singularity Institute’s conference in San Jose, Calif., last weekend to discuss the possibility of artificial intelligence overtaking that of humans.
That’s the concept of technological singularity, popularized by author and inventor Ray Kurzweil. Talking [...]
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Published in September 23rd, 2008
“If successful, the technique could be used to improve the quality of hearing in people with cochlear implants — and one day it may even help restore hearing to those who are totally deaf.” Read the story at Better Humans.
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Published in August 23rd, 2008
Here is an article and video about Intel’s plan to deliver wireless power. Note that if we can charge a laptop using wireless tech, we can also charge robots etc.
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Published in March 24th, 2008
The Alzheimer’s Association recently reported that one out of eight baby boomers is expected to get Alzheimer’s disease, creating a total of 10 million victims. This staggering prediction underscores the need for brain health and augmentation, a new market that tech players are fortunately beginning to enter.
Just as it is possible to go to work [...]
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Published in March 13th, 2008
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is launching a four-year, $55 million project to build an atlas of genes’ activity in the brain. From the WSJ:
“Jones and his colleagues will take about a half dozen brains from recently dead people who were neurologically and psychiatrically healthy. Then they’ll divide each brain into somewhere between 500 [...]
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Published in March 7th, 2008
What do these two things have in common? According to MIT’s Technology review, a new material inspired by sea cucumbers “switches rapidly between rigid and flexible states.” This is important because “such a material may be useful in the design of implantable electrodes able to record brain activity over long stretches of time, [...]
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Published in January 26th, 2008
At this week’s Digital Life Design (DLD) conference in Germany, renowned scientists Craig Venter, Ph.D., and Richard Dawkins wowed the audience with a conversation about genes and information technology. They discussed how evolution is becoming man-made, which brings up a number of interesting issues.
“Genetics has become a branch of information technology,” Dawkins opined. There’s a [...]
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Published in January 8th, 2008
I spoke at Command College today on future tech issues. Below is a list of links for the people in the room who want to read more on the issue areas.
Command College Links 2008
Virtual Reality and Intellectual property
Club Penguin: http://play.clubpenguin.com/
FlowPlay: http://world.flowplay.com/v10/teaser.jsp
Second life (trailer): http://secondlife.com/showcase/trailercontest_2006.php
How something is built in Second Life: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Video_Tutorials#Content_creation
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mVSzh_QTE00&feature=related
DEMO
Not just a game – [...]
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Published in November 4th, 2007
The Foresight Institute is holding its Vision 2007 “unconference” this weekend. I was there yesterday and will be speaking today. So far, the conference has been amazing — talks I attended yesterday included the latest on nanotech and stem cell research, as well as a fascinating discussion on risk and longevity.
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Published in November 2nd, 2007
America’s first baby boomer, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, recently signed up for the Social Security benefits that she will start to collect in January. The new phase of life that she and her generation are entering is creating demand for new industries that affect everyone, one of which involves “brain fitness.”
Brain fitness is exactly what it sounds [...]
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Published in October 12th, 2007
Last weekend, 150 people attended the Alcor life extension conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. The main subject was cryonics, the use of technology to cool and preserve the human body with the aim of future revival. The technology, still speculative, raises many present-world issues. In 2003, a daughter of Ted Williams attempted to stop the cryonic [...]
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Published in September 26th, 2007
In California, patients must provide written consent before their blood can be tested for HIV. This is in contrast to other screening tests for cholesterol and diabetes that do not need consent. To change this so that more people get HIV tests, the CA legislature passed a bill, 682, to make HIV screening [...]
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Published in February 5th, 2007
There’s a cool article in this month’s Discover Magazine on nanoliquid developed at MIT. According to the article, “The liquid is a solution of small protein pieces that assemble into nanoscale fibers on contact, creating a gel that stops the flow of blood without clotting or pressure. As the wound heals, the gel breaks [...]
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Published in January 27th, 2007
Every once in a while a newspaper headline wakes me up before my morning coffee. This was one of them. According to the Reuter’s report, Chinese president Hu Jintao recently said “We must promote civilized running and use of the Internet and purify the Internet environment.” Wonderful. [...]
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Published in January 27th, 2007
That’s the word from Dr. John Rutledge, one of the nation’s most accomplished economists who has advised several presidents (including the current administration). He’s been spending a lot of time in China recently and has first hand knowledge of how America is doing compared to the rest of the world. His recent blog [...]
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Published in December 15th, 2006
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., caused a political firestorm recently when he said he wanted to reinstate a military draft. His radical proposal brings to light a growing theme that both political parties should consider very closely.
In a world where science provides better health and improves the prospects of longevity, death is no longer glamorous, particularly [...]
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Published in July 28th, 2006
The European Commission has taken a break from trying to re-design Microsoft’s software just long enough to get excited about DVDs. According to this report, “European Commission antitrust officials are probing the licensing strategies of two rival new generation DVD developers, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc.” Given that competition is fierce among rival [...]
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Published in June 19th, 2006
There’s a cool looking program on the Science Channel today at 2pm. According to the site, the “film will closely examine the technologies that give hope to the disabled, allowing them to push beyond their limits and realize their potential.” Robots and humans begin to merge. This is not to be confused with the [...]
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Published in February 26th, 2006
The 2006 Winter Olympics is winding down, offering an opportunity for the world community to look back on the event and reflect. Drug testing, for instance, was an ongoing element of the games, bringing about intrigue that included Italian drug testers who surprised athletes by posing as fans. This demonstrates why it’s time for the [...]
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Published in February 24th, 2006
At a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a group of biologists discussed how, in the near future, people could expect to live 100 years. A longer, healthier life is good news to most, but predictably some speakers took a negative, almost pro-death, stance.
Stanford University biologist Dr. Shripad Tuljapurkar [...]
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