Technology
neurophilosophy | September 29, 2007Ed Boyden, leader of the Neuroengineering and Neuromedia Group at MIT, has just started a blog.
I wrote about some of Boyden's work earlier this year. His is one of several groups that have used a light-sensitive bacterial protein called channelrhodopsin to develop an "optical switch" that can activate or inhibit neurons.
neurophilosophy | September 28, 2007At Wired, filmmaker Ridley Scott discusses the forthcoming remastered final cut of Blade Runner. This classic 1982 film depicts a dystopian futuristic society based on artificial intelligence and genetic engineering, and was recently voted as the best science fiction film ever made by 60 top scientists.
The interview includes quotes about the film from various people, including this one, in which Craig Venter, the billionaire geneticist who has just had his genome published, gives his views on cognitive enhancement:
The movie has an underlying assumption that I just don't relate to: that…
sciencetolife | September 20, 2007
I am not a big video game fan but I can appreciate the technological expertise it takes to make a good, realistic-looking game. This article in Popular Science breaks down the top 10 challenges game-makers of today are facing to develop the next generation of cutting-edge video games. Here is the breakdown:
1.Processing power-if a computer can't keep up with the instructions the game issues, the image stutters, ruining the experience.
2.Water-having the processing power to create realistic water movements/viscosity.
3.Human faces-trying to re-create the subtlest and most familiar aspects of…
neurophilosophy | September 20, 2007In this article from Wired, Sharon Weinberger discusses "mind-reading" technology that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hopes to use to identify terrorists.
The DHS is interested in Semantic Stimuli Response Measurements Technology (SSRM TEK), which has been developed at the Psychotechnology Research Institute in Moscow.
SSRM Tek is a software package which can, according to those who developed it, measure peoples' responses to subliminal messages presented to them in a computer game. Terrorists' responses to scrambled images (of, say Osama bin Laden or the World Trade Center) are…
retrospectacle | September 18, 2007There's a discussion I was clued into recently, taking place over at a spiked, a reporting website, which describes it self thusly:
spiked is an independent online phenomenon dedicated to raising the horizons of humanity by waging a culture war of words against misanthropy, priggishness, prejudice, luddism, illiberalism and irrationalism in all their ancient and modern forms. spiked is endorsed by free-thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, and hated by the narrow-minded such as Torquemada and Stalin. Or it would be, if they were lucky enough to be around to read it.
I'm not quite…
neurophilosophy | September 17, 2007The Wakeda-Docomo Face robot 2 (WD-2), developed by mechanical engineer Atsuo Takanishi and his colleagues of Waseda University in Japan, can make and switch between various facial expressions, all of which are very realistic.
The robot consists of an elastic mask whose morphing is controlled by 17 shafts, each of which is driven by a motorized pulley and slide screw. The shape of the mask can be modified according to data of human faces collected by a 3D scanner. Photographs of faces can also be projected onto the mask.
Watch the WD-2 face robot in action here and here.
neurophilosophy | September 15, 2007
but I prefer holding a book in my hands to reading from a computer screen.
We already have the technology that will enable us to carry whole libraries in our pockets. Next month, for example, Amazon will launch Kindle, an electronic book reader, and Google will begin charging users for full access to the digital books in its database. Soon, we'll have electronic tablet devices with enough memory to store hundreds of books.
To get an idea of what it might be like to read an electronic book, take a look at the latest issue of Blogger & Podcaster magazine. Click on the image of the cover…
drorzel | September 13, 2007So, for the last several months, I've had a loaner tablet PC from our ITS department, that I used when teaching in the Winter and Spring terms. It's a Toshiba, and a few years old, but it worked pretty well for what I was doing.
Since I've got some book money coming in, I'm looking to buy one for myself. I can do some product research on my own, but I'm sure there are people reading this who have strong opinions on the subject, so: If I'm looking to buy a tablet PC, what should I get? It needs to be a Windows machine, so please don't tell me about wonderful products from Apple, if they exist.
neurophilosophy | September 12, 2007
Taking its lead from the (Product) Red AIDS fund-raising campaign, the Alzheimer's Association has chosen purple as its signature colour.
To support the initiative, electronics manufacturer SanDisk has co-branded two products. For every purple 2GB Cruzer Micro drive and 2GB SanDisk Ultra II SD card sold, SanDisk will donate $1 to the Alzheimer's Association.
omnibrain | September 12, 2007Congratulations Russia on your great new bomb that is nicknamed the "dad of all bombs" and is four times more powerful than the U.S. "mother of all bombs."
"The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability," said Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, said in televised remarks.
However! This isn't the exciting part of this momentous discovery!Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment
The Dad of all Bombs - now with less tree killing!
We here at Omni…
omnibrain | September 11, 2007A group funded by the Royal College of art has created an ice cream dispenser named Dr. Whippy. The good doctor will dispense a prescription for ice cream if you sound sufficiently miserable. It is based on a voice-stress analysis of various answers to questions it asks. Check it out, the more miserable you are the more ice cream it dispenses:
I would have given everyone the same amount of ice cream but inserted different amounts of Prozac. But hey - thats just me!
-via boingboing-
omnibrain | September 11, 2007Head over to Mind Hacks for more MRI madness! There you will read about the many examples of all the stupid shit people brought into the room with a big freakin' magnet and ended up flying across the room (and sometimes tragically killing someone). Here at Omni Brain we figured we'd just give you the great B movie about MRI safety.
Wow is that bad!
hrynyshyn | September 7, 2007Among the axioms of the day is that we live in a time of change, and those changes are taking place at breakneck speed and accelerating. So rapid are the changes that science fiction writer William Gibson has given up trying to stay ahead of the curve. Historian-journalist Gwynne Dyer argues Gibson is dead wrong. Little of consequence has changed for the developed world for most of the 80 years, he says in a compelling essay published last month. On the other hand...
On the other hand, that status quo situation could be about to come to an end, thanks to a little trend we like to call climate…
bergman | September 6, 2007Now that I'm back in College Station, it's time to start getting applications ready for the great job search. I don't know how it is in other fields, but in math/physics, this generally involves three to four letters of recommendation, a CV, a research statement, sometimes a teaching statement and maybe an annotated bibliography. In high energy physics, we have the Theoretical Particle Physics Job Rumor Mill run by the now nonymous John Terning. In addition to listing offers and educated guesses at short lists, it also serves as a nice clearinghouse of positions. SPIRES, the APS, Physics…
neurophilosophy | September 6, 2007Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a device which can control the movements of a wheelchair when its operator thinks of specific words.
The Audeo is a human-computer interface consisting of a neckband containing sensors which detect the electrical signals sent by the brain to the muscles in the larynx. The signals are transmitted wirelessly to a computer, which decodes them and matches them to pre-programmed signals before sending them to the wheelchair.
The Audeo was developed by Michael Callahan and Thomas Coleman, who together set up a…
hrynyshyn | September 6, 2007It's easy to feel superior when we read stories like "Airline sacrifices goats to appease sky god." But are we in the Enlightened West really any better than this sort of thing:
KATHMANDU (Reuters, Sept 5) - Officials at Nepal's state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday.
Nepal Airlines, which has two Boeing aircraft, has had to suspend some services in recent weeks due the problem.
The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft Sunday at…
jlynch | September 5, 2007A few months ago I predicted this would happen. I saw the interface in action over the Summer and, boy, was I impressed. Now you can have all the fun without the phone. Pity it's only 16G though.
bergman | September 5, 2007Well, I'm back in Texas and just in time for Steve Jobs to introduce new toys I can't afford. At the risk of turning Chad's blog into an Apple advertisement, every time I pass an Apple store, it takes significant willpower to not walk out of there with a new iPhone. I find it endlessly amusing to load up my papers on the demo models -- yes, I am easily amused. A certain theorist was showing his off at Aspen, too. Well, you don't want a phone with your iPod? You can now get an iPod touch, WiFi included. 8 and 16 gigs. iPod Nano? Smaller with really tiny video. Old school iPods? 160 gigs now.…
neurophilosophy | September 5, 2007Just in time for my return to university, Mozilla has released the Firefox Campus Edition, which comes with 3 essential add-ons for students:
FoxyTunes is a personalized music aggregator which can be used to control any media player, and to collect music videos, lyrics, album covers, news and more;
StumbleUpon lets you channel surf the internet to find websites and multimedia content based on your interests; and
Zotero, an easy-to-use extension that helps you to collect, manage and cite your research sources.
Mozilla has also developed an extension called Biobar, a toolbar for browsing…