IS group

Leadbelly vs. Robots

2011-09-16T08:06:00.000-07:00

I guess the John Henry meme was inevitable. Otherwise, having a robot run the Ironman Triathlon is a pure publicity stunt. And if there are ever dance contests for robots, this version would probably work better, too.

IS Group met in New Haven on Sep. 3, 2011

2011-09-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

The IS Group met on Saturday, September 3, 2011, in New Haven. The readings including James Gleick, The Information; Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard's Walk; Nigel Stepp and Michael T. Turvey, On strong anticipation; and China Miéville, The City & The City. It was a good meeting with an excellent turnout, spirited discussion of the readings, and the addition of some new participants, followed by Hobo With a Shotgun for the hardcore among us (thanks to Simon D. Levy for the suggestion?!).

NEXT MEETING -- TOPIC: Fiction in mind
The readings for the next meeting (date to be determined), include:

Brian Boyd, On the origin of stories: Evolution, cognition, and fiction.
(Thanks to Christina Spiesel for the suggestion!)

Lisa Zunshine, Why we read fiction: Theory of mind and the novel.

Additional reading:

Suzanne Keen, Empathy and the Novel.
(Thanks to Simon D. Levy for the suggestion.)

Future readings may include:

Brian Greene, The hidden reality: Parallel universes and the deep laws of the cosmos.
(Thanks to Gary Kopf for the suggestion!)

Olaf Sporns, Networks of the brain.

Date and location:

To be determined (see below).

Please note that I am having shoulder surgery on Friday, September 9, and may be out of work from between 1 to 6 weeks.

Be sure to check the IS Group webpage for up-to-date news on the IS Group. Also, please contribute to the IS Group Blog if you run across items of interest to the group, including, stories, books, films, games, comics, articles, etc. Click here for information on the entire IS Group Social Media Empire. Thanks!

Philip

Take your stinking clause off me ...

2011-08-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

The inimitable Geoff Pullum has just posted this Language Log piece on language-evolution themes in the latest, and apparently quite good, installation in the endless Planet of the Apes franchise. (Monkeys may be the primates with tails, but the Planet of the Apes meme has the longest long-tail temporal distribution Hollywood could hope for.) Though the film may have some amazing special effects (and apparently includes scenes, like the one shown here, filmed in the aftermath of a Yankees / Red Sox game), nothing can ever top the breathtaking final scene and hammy macho posturing of the 1968 original.

Robots you can wear: Fashion cybernetics

2011-08-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

Stephen Ebert posted an article on August 3, 2011 in HUMANS iNVENT that discusses the new age of cybernetic fashion. One example is the HAL-5 robot suit developed by Cyberdyne, a Tokyo-based company. Of particular interest is a discussion of how such suits could potentially be of assistance to the disabled and the elderly. Thanks to Howard Iger and Carol Pollard for letting us know about this.

Person Pinball, A Stop-Motion Pinball Game Using Pedestrians

2011-08-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

Person Pinball - 2011 Animation Block Party 'Outro' video, posted by Mark Frauenfelder on boingboing, Aug 2, 2011. Video link via laughing squid. This short stop-motion animation by Aaron Hughes was the outro video for the 8th Annual Animation Block Party in New York City. Thanks and a hat tip to Robert Remez for sharing this with us.

Wall Art

2011-08-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

A small selection of my photographs is on display, for the month of August, at Cafe George by Paula, 300 George Street, New Haven, during normal business hours (M-F, until 3 PM). This group of photos is part of the "Wall Art" book project that is still in development and focuses on photographs of painted buildings. The photo shown here is a detail of a piece called Demolition and Sport by Peter Busa (1914-1985). The piece was painted on the exterior of the old Minnesota Varnishes building on the east side of downtown Minneapolis in 1974 and updated in 1982. This is one of the first monumental outdoor murals in the state of Minnesota. The buildings on this location are currently part of the Valspar Coporation, the sixth largest painting and coatings company in the world. The photo was taken by Philip Rubin on October 19, 2005.

Facial Recognition System Causes Problems for Mass. Drivers

2011-07-28T14:30:00.000-07:00

Facial recognition systems are starting to appear everywhere. All of the tech giants are staking out turf, including Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft (click on each for a different recent news item). ieee spectrum has a recent (July 25, 2011) story by Robert Charette, called "Here's Looking at You, and You, and You ..." about some of the problems resulting from one of the first examples of use of such systems on a large scale. The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles is one of approximately 35 states using automated anti-terrorism facial recognition systems. One of the big problems is the false positives, and the individual's "burden" to clear his or her name when mistakes are made. Read the story to learn more.

High-stakes forensic linguistics

2011-07-28T14:09:00.001-07:00

The wonderful Language Log blog has had some excellent recent discussion of the use of forensic linguistic to determine authorship, stylistics, etc. The original entry, "High-stakes forensic linguistics," July 25, 2011, by Mark Liberman, framed the discussion around the legal battle over ownership of Facebook (also discussed by Ben Zimmer, NY Times Sunday Review, July 23, 2011, "Decoding Your E-Mail Personality"). As Mark pointed out, it was nice to see comments on the Language Log story by Ron Butters, Larry Solan, and Carole Chaski. A follow-up entry on July 27, 2011, "Authors vs. Speakers: A Tale of Two Subfields," provides some historical context related to forensic speaker identification.

Why brains get creeped out by androids

2011-07-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

And speaking of the brain, WIRED SCIENCE has a small story by Mark Brown that reports on a study thats attempt to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to help understand the "uncanny valley" effect. This is a term coined by robotics professor Masahiro Mori related to reports that as androids become more human in appearance there is a purported drop in "likeability" on the part of human observers. The study, led by Ayse Pinar Saygin of the University of California, San Diego, was an attempt to explore the underlying brain bases of this phenomenon. Check out the WIRED SCIENCE article to learn more. As usual, results like these appear to be much too preliminary to be more than speculation or amusement for the tech media and those that follow them, such as the IS Group blog and me.

Kurzweil still doesn't understand the brain

2011-07-26T13:00:00.001-07:00

PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, writing in his blog Pharyngula (Aug. 21, 2010) criticizes Ray Kurzweil and other futurists for their speculations on our ability to understand how the brain works. Kurzweil had responded to an earlier blog entry by Myers (Aug. 17, 2010) called "Ray Kurzweil does not understand the brain." (Thanks to RSC for reminding of this debate, which is related to other IS Group blog entries on the singularity, neuroscience and related matters.)

The Space Shuttle: the end of an era

2011-07-21T12:35:00.001-07:00

After 30 years, the US Space Shuttle program has ended. Here are some articles on the program:

• CBS News: Never forget the miracle and promise of space
• Neil deGrasse Tyson reflects on the space shuttle program, 1981-2011
• The end of an era: what the space shuttle means to Engadget
• NASA STST-135 Launch and Landing
• LA Times video: Final landing of NASA's space shuttle program

Image above: With space shuttle Atlantis in the background, the STS-135 astronauts are welcomed home from the final space shuttle mission. They are, from left, Mission Specialists Rex Walheim and Sandy Magnus, Pilot Doug Hurley and Commander Chris Ferguson. Image credit: NASA.

Robot Babies: Cute or Creepy?

2011-07-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

IEEE Spectrum online (July 20, 2011) has a slideshow called "Robot Babies: Cute or Creepy?" Check out the recent proliferation of robot children. Let us know which you like best. If you find any others, please add them to the list.

The image at the left shows Telenoid R1, created at Osaka University, a telepresence robot that reproduces the voice and movements of a remote operator. Spectrum says, "It looks like an overgrown fetus or Casper the Friendly Ghost, depending on whom you ask."

(Photo: Osaka University and ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communications Laboratories)

When Will We Be Transhuman?

2011-07-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

DISCOVER has an article called "When Will We Be Transhuman? Seven Conditions for Attaining Transhumanism" by Kyle Munkittrick (July 12, 2011). He lists the conditions that he feels are necessary but not sufficient for transhumanism to have been attained. These include:
* The arrival of prosthetics and implants for organs and limbs that are as good as or better than the original.
* Better brains: cognition is improved significantly using cognitive enhancing drugs, genetic engineering, or neuro-implants / prosthetic cyberbrains.
* Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) are integrated into personal, everyday behaviors.
* The average life span exceeds 120 years.
* When global births stabilize at replacement rates, assisted reproductive technologies are the preferred method of conception, and responsible child rearing is more highly valued than biological parenthood, we will be procreating as transhumans.

Check out the rest of the list here and leave comments or your thoughts on this topic.

John Ohno's zzstructure emulator

2011-07-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

John Ohno's zzstructure operating system (iX) was featured in the Hack A Day blog on July 12, 2011. John is a student member of Yale's Technology & Ethics group and is a friend. According to Hack A Day, a zzstructure is both a hypertext and operating system unlike anything we have today -- Ted Nelson has a version called ZigZag. John has posted a YouTube demo of his project and put all the code online.

The Analog Underground

2011-07-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

Ashlea Halpern has a long feature in New York magazine (Jul 11, 2011) called "The Analog Underground" that describes a new generation's growing interest in "celluloid, vinyl, ink, paper, and the click-clack-ding-slide of a typewriter." The online version (July 3, 2011) highlights the scenes and sellers related to the analog renaissance, focusing on typewriters, vinyl and turntables, and celluloid movies. Also covered are "analog imposters," retro versions of phonographs, game controllers, turntables, microphones, etc. Finally, there is a slideshow of "old souls," seven analog obsessive who "explain their allegiance to outdated technology."

(Photo: Danny Kim/New York Times Magazine; Tetra Images/Corbis)

Hydrothermal Worm Viewed Under An Electron Microscope

2011-07-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

Huffpost Green, 7/18/11, has a short feature by Dean Praetorius showing a wonderful image of a hydrothermal worm taken using an electron microscope. The small version at the left does not do justice to the original. They say: "Taken using an FEI Quanta SEM, this image is amazingly zoomed in 525 times. The real width of the field in the image is 568μm, or 568/1000 of a millimeter. It's far larger than an atom, but still among the smallest living things. The worm, as scary as it looks, is something most people will never actually get to see (or have to worry about, for that matter). Hydrothermal worms are deep sea creatures, almost as small as bacterium, and are largely found near hydrothermal vents in the ocean.

This shot was captured by Philippe Crassous and submitted to FEI's gallery. Other amazing shots taken using FEI's microscopes can be seen here."

(The full image is by FEI and Phillippe Crassous.)

123 Year Old Talking Head

2011-07-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

John Stevens writing in The Daily Mail Online, 15 July 2011, has a story called "Voice of Thomas Edison's talking doll is heard again after 123 years as scientists crack the code of mysterious metal ring." He says: For decades it lay in the bottom of a secretary's desk drawer, its purpose unknown. But now, 123 year after it was made, the secret of this bent metal ring,which was found in Thomas Edison's laboratory, has finally been uncovered. Scientists have found that the microscopic grooves on the ring make up the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' and mark the world's first attempt at a talking doll and the dawn of America's recording industry. ... But the metal ring - about 2.5 inches around and half an inch wide - was so bent and damaged that scientists couldn't play it. More than four decades later, scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, used image analysis to create a digital model of the record's surface. That model was then used to reproduce the recording as a digital file, not unlike the modern technology behind the voice that emerges from today's talking dolls."

Commenting on the story, IS regular, Gordon Ramsay, says: "There is a description of this doll in Scientific American around 1880. Interestingly enough, the first talking doll was patented by Maelzel in the 1820s, but unlike Edison's, it used a bellows and reeds, etc., to mimic the voice - so the same shift from mechanical synthesis to copy synthesis played out in dolls as well as humans (evolution repeating itself ;-) )."

Thanks and a hat tip to Robert Remez for pointing this story out to us.

Monkbot, a 16th century automaton

2011-07-18T07:39:00.000-07:00

Boingboing has re-discovered a 16th century automaton described earlier by Elizabeth King in an article called "Clockwork Prayer: A Sixteenth-Century Mechanical Monk") in Blackbird, an online journal of literature and the arts, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2002. Here is the reprinted description from the Blackbird journal:

"Driven by a key-wound spring, the monk walks in a square, striking his chest with his right arm, raising and lowering a small wooden cross and rosary in his left hand, turning and nodding his head, rolling his eyes, and mouthing silent obsequies. From time to time, he brings the cross to his lips and kisses it. After over 400 years, he remains in good working order. Tradition attributes his manufacture to one Juanelo Turriano, mechanician to Emperor Charles V. The story is told that the emperor's son King Philip II, praying at the bedside of a dying son of his own, promised a miracle for a miracle, if his child be spared. And when the child did indeed recover, Philip kept his bargain by having Turriano construct a miniature penitent homunculus."

Thanks and a hat tip to Sherwin Borsuk for bringing this to our attention.

Stux redux

2011-07-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought I'd read everything there was to read about the Stuxnet worm, Wired delivers a blockbuster piece with masterful writing and juicy technical detail. The hidden message feature is only one small tidbit in an incredibly complicated story.

The Singularity is Far: A Neuroscientist's View

2011-07-14T14:08:00.000-07:00

David J. Linden, a neuroscientist, has an article in boingboing (July 14, 2011) that expresses his skepticism about the view of some, such as Ray Kurzweil, that the singularity is imminent. Linden says "Kurzweil ... argues that our understanding of biology—and of neurobiology in particular—is ... on an exponential trajectory, driven by enabling technologies. The unstated but crucial foundation of Kurzweil's scenario requires that at some point in the 2020s, a miracle will occur: If we keep accumulating data about the brain at an exponential rate (its connection maps, its activity patterns, etc.), then the long-standing mysteries of development, consciousness, perception, decision, and action will necessarily be revealed. Our understanding of brain function and our ability to measure the relevant parameters of individual brains (aided by technologies like brain nanobots) will consequently increase in an exponential manner to allow for brain-uploading to computers in the year 2039. That's where I get off the bus. I contend that our understanding of biological processes remains on a stubbornly linear trajectory. In my view the central problem here is that Kurzweil is conflating biological data collection with biological insight." Thanks to Christina Spiesel, IS Group regular, for letting us know about this article.

Steampunk articulatory synthesis

2011-07-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

An article by Rebecca Boyle in POPSCI.com, called "Moaning Mouth-Bot Learns to Croon, Is Even Creepier Than Ever," features the "enhanced" version of a talking mouth created by Hideyuki Sawada of Kagawa University in Japan. Check out its scary vocal skills. Thanks and a hat tip to Robert Remez for pointing out this article to us.

The Art of Failure 2011

2011-07-14T06:45:00.000-07:00

ieee spectrum online, July 13, 2011, has a slideshow, by Ritchie S. King, of the surprising stuff you find when chips fail.

The figure at the left shows the melted ends of gold wires from a semiconductor that look like a bonsai tree sitting atop a platform.

Image: Stefan Waginger.

Zoobotics

2011-07-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

The July 7, 2011 issue of The Economist has a long article on the next generation of animal-like robots that are about to emerge from the laboratory. In addition to the numerous dog-robots that we have seen over the past few years, they describe "shrews complete with whiskers, swimming lampreys, grasping octopuses, climbing lizards, and burrowing clams." Other examples include the Lampetra (pictured at the left), which is a robotic version of a lamprey. To read about other robotic wonders, check out this story.

Controlling a Quadrotor Using Kinect

2011-07-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

Markus Waibel, in a blog entry in ieee spectrum online, shows a new video of the Flying Machines Arena (FMA) at the ETH Zurich. This new system uses a Microsoft Kinect XBOX game controller system to provide for "more natural and intuitive interaction" when controlling their quadrocopters.

Best. Samurai. Movie. Ever.

2011-07-10T13:57:00.001-07:00

Having known about director Takashi Miike from stomach-churners like Audition (had to look away several times) and Ichi the Killer (too squeamish to even try watching it), I hesitated before renting his more recent 13 Assassins. Though the comparisons to Seven Samurai and other Kurosawa epics can't be avoided, 13 Assassins stands on its own as a thrilling, emotionally overpowering masterpiece of cinema. With a villain who makes Hannibal Lecter look like Mr. Rogers, and some delightful comic dialogue ("You Samurai are useless -- especially in large numbers!"), this film is, as the director says in the bonus-features interview, as much a drama as an action/adventure spectacle.

TWIE 68: Amphibious Ice Cream Truck

2011-07-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

Check out the TWIE 68 video at Engineering.com's This Week in Engineering (TWIE). Stories include: shark-repelling fish hooks; touch-screen steering wheel; amphibious ice cream truck; paraplegic college grad lands a job as a bionic leg tester; Chinese satellite leaves lunar orbit; and nightshirt that monitors your sleep.

23 Creepiest Robots You've Ever Seen

2011-07-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

HuffPost Comedy has posted a collection of videos of "creepy" robots and talking heads.

Topological insulators make "spintronics" possible

2011-07-07T07:06:00.000-07:00

"Quantum magic can make strange but useful semiconductors that are insulators on the inside and conductors on the surface."

Joel E. Moore, in ieee spectrum online, July 2011, describes how mathematical theory may make "spintronics" possible. "By 2006, three separate groups of mathematicians had discovered that it was possible, in theory, to produce materials that are insulators on the inside but conductors on the outside. The theorists concluded that these materials—called topological insulators because changes in their shape have no effect on their conductivity or quantum mechanical behavior—will make it simple to manipulate the quantum mechanical spin of an electron. That level of subatomic control would make it possible to use spin as the underpinning for computer logic that would outclass today’s microprocessors in both speed and fuel efficiency—or as the mechanism by which hard disks are written, read, or rewritten."

(Image: Aharon Kapitulnik and Zhanybek Alpichshev/Stanford University)

Light Painting Art Done Using Swarms of Robot Vacuum Cleaners

2011-07-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

An article in PetaPixel by Michael Zhang features light painting photographs created by students in Germany using a swarm of seven Roomba automated vacuum cleaners. Zhang says, "Each one had a different colored LED light attached to the top, making the resulting photo look like some kind of robotic Jackson Pollock painting. There’s actually an entire Flickr group dedicated to using Roombas for light painting — check it out of you have one of these robot minions serving you in your home."

Every Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monster ever, in one video

2011-07-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

boingboing has a link to a video by matbergman of every stop-motion creature created by the master, Ray Harryhausen. Check it out. Thanks to Xeni Jardin and Aaron-Stewart Ahn.

Acoustic cloak from metamaterials

2011-07-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

Devin Powell, in an article in ScienceNews, describes an "acoustic cloak" that can bend sound. The cloak is made of a metamaterial, developed by researchers at Duke University as reported in the June 24 Physical Review Letters. Using metamaterials to make a cloak that can guide sound waves was first proposed by Duke team member Steven Cummer, an electrical engineer, and a colleague in 2007 in the New Journal of Physics. Powell writes:

"To manipulate sound waves in air, Cummer's team designed and built a cloak that sits atop an object like a piece of draped carpet. By layering simple metamaterial building blocks — ordinary strips of perforated plastic — the researchers hid a triangular wooden block a couple of inches high and more than a foot long at its base. Sound waves over a range of high but audible frequencies slowed and changed direction cleanly after striking the holey plastic. Most reemerged appearing to have traveled all the way down to the flat surface beneath the block. The prototype is two-dimensional — both the speaker generating the sound and the microphone recording it must be in the same plane above the object. But Cummer believes he could make a 3-D version that would cover an entire bump on a log, not just a slice."

PossessedHand turns your hand into a remote controlled cyborg

2011-07-05T12:02:00.000-07:00

David Brin, in an article called "Milestones Leading up to the Good Singularity" in his Contrary Brin blog, mentions this "Creepy… but probably helpful… new teaching tool." Brin says, "Do you want to play the violin, but can't be bothered to learn how? Then strap on this electric finger stimulator called PossessedHand that makes your fingers move with no input from your own brain. Developed by scientists at Tokyo University in conjunction with Sony, the hand consists of a pair of wrist bands that deliver mild electrical stimuli directly to the muscles that control your fingers, something normally done by your own brain." Michael Trei, in DVICE, provides additional photos and discussion of the device.

Sloman, Fahlman, et al. on Metacognition

2011-06-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

I was privileged to be asked to participate in this discussion of metacognition, as part of the 2011 Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures conference. It was a pleasure to converse with people like Scott Fahlman, Aaron Sloman, Michael Anderson, and Ashok Goel, whom I'd only known through their work (going back to Fahlman's classic 1988 study of back-propagation).

On the Origin of Stories

2011-06-13T09:33:00.001-07:00

Christina Spiesel recommends On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction, by Brian Boyd. This looks like a good possibility for a future IS Group meeting.

Q&A re D-Wave's Quantum Computer

2011-06-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

Alex Knapp interviewed Professor Scott Aaronson of MIT on May 24, 2011, in Forbes on-line, regarding the recent article in Nature on the announcement of a commercial quantum computer by D-Wave. Scott provides some very useful background information and an explanation of what D-Wave actually did. Thanks and a hat tip to RSC for passing this on.

Quantum encryption

2011-06-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

An article describing a real world example of encrypted communication using quantum keys.

Science 10 June 2011:
Vol. 332 no. 6035 p. 1243
DOI: 10.1126/science.332.6035.1243-c

Quantum Conferencing

For certain critical transactions and communications, you want to be secure in the knowledge that your message cannot be stolen or compromised by a malicious hacker. Encrypting messages with keys distributed beforehand to all interested parties is the usual method to ensure security. For ultimate or unconditional security, however, one key per message or transaction is allowed, after which the key is discarded. This “one time pad” requirement can place a hefty overhead on distributing the keys and would not be particularly practical for everyday use. In quantum key distribution (QKD), the encryption keys are made up of a series of quantum bits, single photons of light, for instance, with the orthogonal polarization states encoding a logical 1 or 0. Because the bits are quantum mechanical in nature, any attempt by an eaves-dropper to measure them would compromise that effort by a telltale sign. Sasaki et al. have now demonstrated the feasibility of quantum key distribution over an optical network in and around the metropolitan Tokyo area. Meshing together six separate QKD systems, they achieve secure video conferencing, encrypted with quantum keys, over a distance of 45 km. Stable operation and interfacing to the mobile telephone network widens the possible applications of quantum security.

Followup to April's meeting

2011-04-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

Here's an article describing a project to catalog all the functional parts of the human genome.

DMZ

2011-04-13T14:24:00.000-07:00

Based on a rave review by Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing, I bought the first volume of the graphic novel DMZ and enjoyed it so much that I plan to purchase the entire series. DMZ comes from the amazing DC Vertigo imprint, which brought us the incomparable Sandman series and most of Transmetropolitan. Like our current fiction reading, DMZ takes place in a not-too-distant future dystopia -- a civil-war-ravaged Manhattan that has been abandoned by all but a half-million residents. Like Transmetropolitan, DMZ features a hard-bitten gonzo journalist who meets all sorts of interesting characters in his attempt to survive and get at the truth in a hostile, conspiracy-filled nightmare world. Perhaps we would like to read some of DMZ for our next IS meeting.

Visual object tracking with a $300 drone

2011-03-10T14:19:00.000-08:00

Haskins may be good at tracking eyes, but we're following balls (green ones, to be precise). Dramatic reduction in the cost of drone aircraft and digital video cameras, combined with the availability of powerful software platforms like OpenCV (the same technology that won the DARPA Grand Challenge race in 2005), are making this kind of research available to anyone with a few hundred dollars, a decent laptop, and the ability to program in a general-purpose language like Python.

Errol Morris: Borges, Kripke, Kuhn, ...

2011-03-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

Wittgenstein whacks you with a poker, but Kuhn throws an ashtray.

Meanwhile Error Morris just keeps kicking ass.

Batter up!

Tobii eye tracker laptop prototype

2011-03-01T12:07:00.000-08:00

Salon Science features an article called "New tracking technology knows when, where your eyes look" by Peter Svensson of the Associated Press that describes a laptop prototype by Tobii Technology Inc. Tobii eyetrackers are commonly used in academic research in areas such as psychology, vision, and marketing. For example, at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut, eyetracking is a frequently used methodology in cognitive science research related to reading, attention, and perception. The laptop prototype uses a combination of cameras and infrared light sources to help track gaze and determine where you are looking on the screen.

RoboEarth: A World Wide Web for Robots

2011-02-08T10:57:00.000-08:00

Markus Waibel describes a European project called RoboEarth. This story appeared in IEEE Spectrum on Feb. 25, 2011. The RoboEarth website describes the project as "... a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other about their behavior and their environment." The project is part of the Cognitive Systems and Robotics Initiative from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme. Waibel indicates that the project is "... building an Internet for robots: a worldwide, open-source platform that allows any robot with a network connection to generate, share, and reuse data" He continues, "... my colleagues and I believe that if robots are to move out of the factories and work alongside humans, they will need to systematically share data and build on each other's experience."

Extreme Audiophiles Take Microphones to Next Level

2011-02-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

The anechoic chamber at the Josephson Engineering facility in Santa Cruz, California, is featured in a Feb. 8, 2011 article by Matthew Schechmeister in WIRED Raw File. If you are in the New Haven, Connecticut area, and want to see an anechoic chamber in person, make arrangements to visit Haskins Laboratories and perhaps they will be able to show you their facility. Thanks and a hat tip to RSC for drawing our attention to this story. (Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com)

New Tools and Methods for Very-Large-Scale Phonetics Research

2011-01-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

The University of Pennsylvania is hosting a workshop (Jan. 28-31, 2011) on new tools and methods for Very-Large-Scale phonetics research, as part of a newly awarded NSF grant. According to their website, "The themes of the workshop include: integration of speech technology in phonetics studies (including  software to facilitate teaching and research); variation and invariance in large speech corpora; and revisiting classic phonetic and phonological problems from the perspective of corpus phonetics. A tutorial on forced alignment and the Penn Phonetics Lab Forced Aligner will also be provided prior to the workshop. Selected papers from the workshop will be published in a special issue of The Journal of Experimental Linguistics." Participants include IS regulars Elliot Saltzman, Mark Tiede and Louis Goldstein.

The Pirahã Controversy, three years later

2011-01-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

In two earlier meetings, we read material on the controversy surrounding the Pirahã language, which Dan Everett claimed had no recursion -- thereby undermining a key claim made in a(n in)famous article by Chomsky, Hauser, and Fitch.

Now (well, last summer actually) Hauser has been found guilty and put on leave by Harvard for scientific misconduct (though as usual in today's corporate-coverup university culture, nothing is really clear about the status of his case), and Everett has moved from being the Chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Illinois state to being the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University, just a few miles from our beloved Brandeis.

It makes me wonder what all the fuss was about.

Wendell Wallach blasts killer robots in the New York Times

2010-11-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

Wendell Wallach, of Yale's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, is quoted in an article in yesterday's New York Times, expressing fear about the moral hazards posed by weaponized robots. Wendell joined us last April for a discussion of his book on the topic, Moral Machines.

I for one welcome our new gun-toting robotic overlords.

Speak geek: the world of made-up language

2010-11-19T11:55:00.000-08:00

Caleb Cox, in an article in reghardware.com called "Speak geek: the world of made-up language," discusses invented languages and linguist Arika Okrent's recent book, The Land of Invented Languages. Mentioned in the article are languages such as Elvish, Klingon, John Wilkins' Analytical Language, James Cook Brown's Loglan, Esperanto, and Blissymbolics. GR, a friend of IS, says, "BTW, I have a soft spot for Wilkins; his is the only orthography based purely on semantics. Unfortunately the only fluent writer was Robert Hooke. News of his discovery of the universal joint was delayed for many years because he chose to write the original description in Wilkins' script!" Speaking of obscure languages, GR also suggests Complete Babylonian: A Teach Yourself Guide by Martin Worthington, saying "it is truly excellent and remarkably modern both in appearance and conception -- a must have for your bookshelf."

LEDs that can be implanted under your skin

2010-10-19T15:14:00.000-07:00

io9 reports on new ultra-flexible, waterproof LEDs that can be implanted under your skin. I await my glowworm future. ET phone home. I leave that rest for Simon to fill in.

Snake robot goes where humans can't

2010-10-19T14:47:00.001-07:00

In keeping with this month's IS Group science fiction reading, The Dervish House, by Ian McDonald, which features a children's toy that is a nanobot that reassembles into various forms, including a bird, a rat, and a snake, IEEE Spectrum on-line has a report called, "Japanese Snake Robot Goes Where Humans Can't." "Japanese robotics company HiBot has unveiled a nimble snake bot capable of moving inside air ducts and other narrow places where people can't, or don't want to, go." Not quite the snake of The Dervish House, but a good start. The IEEE website has a number of videos of the ACM family of robots in action.

Why the Singularity isn't going to happen

2010-10-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

"I don't believe in the singularity for the same reason I don't believe in Heaven." Thus begins Annalee Newitz's column in io9, a blog that focuses on futurism, science fiction, and technology. The article, called "Why the Singularity isn't going to happen," discusses the unpredictability of technology and its effects on us. Cory Doctorow discusses her objections in Boing Boing.

How to Set the Bullshit Filter When the Bullshit is Thick

2010-10-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

David Dobbs, in his blog Neuron Culture in Wired, comments in a piece called "How to Set the Bullshit Filter When the Bullshit is Thick" on an Atlantic profile by David H. Freedman of Dr. John Ioannidis, best known for his 2005 paper in PLoS Medicine, "Why most published research findings are false." In an earlier Times piece, Dobbs said "Ioannidis, an epidemiologist, recently concluded that most articles published by biomedical journals are flat-out wrong. The sources of error, he found, are numerous: the small size of many studies, for instance, often leads to mistakes, as does the fact that emerging disciplines, which lately abound, may employ standards and methods that are still evolving. Finally, there is bias, which Ioannidis says he believes to be ubiquitous." Dobbs provides a good overview and analysis of Ioannidis's work, its implications, and related articles. Freedman's profile of Ioannidis is called, "Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science."

Enfield on Language and Social Context

2010-10-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

Nick Enfield, of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, and Radboud University in Nijmegen, has a fascinating review of two recent books about language evolution in the 24 September 2010 issue of Science. The article, called "Without Social Context?", reviews The Evolution of Language by W. Tecumseh Fitch, and The Evolution of Human Language: Biolinguistic Perspectives, by Richard K. Larson, Viviane Déprez, and Hiroko Yamakido (eds.). In summary, Enfield says that "... an urgent prerequisite for this line of research ... is a comparative understanding of language in the dynamic context of social behavior."

IS Group meeting: Modern Warfare, Crime and Terrorism

2010-10-04T07:37:00.000-07:00

The next IS Group meeting will take place on Saturday evening, 23 October 2010. The exact time and location will be posted a few days before the meeting. The theme is Modern Warfare, Crime, and Terrorism. The readings include John Robb, Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization; Ian McDonald, The Dervish House; and Misha Glenny, McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld. Additional information can be found on the IS Group website.

Myrtus

2010-09-30T07:44:00.001-07:00

The plot thickens on the Stuxnet virus story, which parallels (though far less violently) an event that takes place in our current fiction reading. Finally, a reason to love Microsoft Windows.

2010 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

2010-09-29T08:24:00.001-07:00

The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony & Lectures webcast is scheduled to take place on Thursday, September 30, at 7:30 pm. The live webcast will begin at 7:15 pm on YouTube. Thanks to Marc Abrahams for passing on this information. Be sure to check out his Improbable Research website ("Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK"), the magazine: Annals of Improbable Research, and the newsletter: mini-AIR.

Mapping Stereotypes

2010-09-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

Check out Mapping Stereotypes, illustrations based on the geography of prejudice, on alphadesigner, the website of visual artist, graphic designer, and illustrator Yanko Tsvetkov. Thanks and a hit tip to Robert Remez.

Voice Recognition Elevator

2010-09-27T10:35:00.000-07:00

Voice Recognition Elevator is a wonderful video on haha.nu, the lifestyle blog. This clip is from Burnistoun, a comedy show from BBC Scotland, season 1, episode 1. Hysterical! Thanks and a hat tip to RER. (P.S. Load time for the haha.nu website can be long, but it is worth the wait.) (Note: A faster loading version can be found on YouTube.)

Science Blogging

2010-09-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

Now that I have returned from my summer journey to Russia, and have also dealt with some urgent work-related matters, I have a little time for IS Group blogging. Instead of writing, I have been reading other science-related blogs. There are lots out there, and many are a lot of fun. There has been a lot of Hausermania and science v. religion discussion of late, but there are also other fascinating topics to read about.

Here is a list of some of the various blogs that I usually check in on. Language Log, by Mark Liberman, Geoffrey Pullum and many others; Three-Toed Sloth, by Cosma Shalizi; Why Evolution Is True, by Jerry A. Coyne; Neuron Culture, by David Dobbs (now on Wired Science Blogs); IEEE Spectrum Tech Talk; Child's Play on Scientopia; Greg Laden's Blog; john hawks weblog (paleoanthropology, genetics, and evolution); Neuronskeptic; Open Parachute, by Ken Perrott; and The Bubble Chamber.

Some additional general sites include Big Think and ScienceBlogs. A related blog of interest is Schneier on Security, by Bruce Schneier. And, of course, I would be remiss if I did not end with some relentless self-promotion for the IS Group blog.

The End of Human Specialness

2010-08-31T19:06:00.000-07:00

Jaron Lanier is one of those people who always make me ask "What exactly does this guy do for a living" while also making me think, "Man, this guy really knows what he's talking about!" So I was delighted to see his response at the top of the list in the "What's the Big Idea?" piece in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education Review. In a nutshell: Lanier sees through all the hype surrounding "transformative" technologies like Facebook and Twitter, and he shows the overall negative effect they have on the quality of our lives as human beings.

Why We Need Vector Symbolic Architectures

2010-06-25T06:54:00.001-07:00

A couple months ago I gave a talk at Haskins about Vector Symbolic Architectures, a new approach to knowledge representation and computing that is very robust to even large amounts of noise. This blog post describes how a classical (von Neumann) computing architecture can fail from the random flipping of even a single bit. Whatever organizing principles the mind/brain is using, they can't be anything like this!

Long Compound Noun Alert

2010-06-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

When I was a grad student at Brandeis, I always enjoyed the sign that said Volen Center for Complex Systems Building -- a single noun consisting of six words. From today's Slashdot comes Chinese Internet Addiction Boot Camp Prison Break. Not only is this compound noun seven words long; it doesn't even use a preposition! The number of possible bracketings (word groupings) of such a string is 429, as determined by the Catalan number with n = 7; however, the bracketing that makes the most sense to me is

[[Chinese [[internet addiction] [boot camp]]] [prison break]]

Avatar: Best. Review. Ever.

2010-06-04T19:24:00.001-07:00

Best smackdown review yet of a disappointing movie that I couldn't even make it through.

Bukharian Jewish Music

2010-05-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

A wrenching article in last week's New Yorker describes the trial and conviction of a young Bukharian Jewish woman doctor in Forest Hills, Queens (a few miles from where I was born), for arranging the murder of her dentist husband, in connection with a horrific custody battle in which the two were involved. Toward the end of the article, the author mentions listening to the music of Ezro Malakov, the victim's uncle, who is a famous cantor in the Bukharian Jewish community. Like the author, I searched a little and found this page of Ezro Malakov's music, and like her, I found it extraordinary.

Cognitive Science vs. the Zombies

2010-04-12T17:02:00.001-07:00

Place your bets.

Moral particularism vs. scientific morality

2010-04-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

An OpenCulture.com blurb about Craig Ferguson, on the Late Late Show, interviewing Jonathan Dancy, prof of philosophy at UT-Austin, about moral particularism. In contrast to Sam Harris, at a TED conference, saying "Science can answer moral questions."

The Open Culture page heads a little tree of interesting pieces: the two videos, a written intro to moral particularism, and a rebuttal of Harris by Sean Carroll.

Boing Boing discovers Sinewave Speech

2010-03-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

Meara O'Reilly is a sound designer, instrument builder, and singer who is guest blogging at Boing Boing. On March 16, 2010 she had a nice article called "Whistling Speech" that describes some of the work over the years at Haskins Laboratories and Columbia University by Philip Rubin, Robert Remez, Jennifer Pardo, and others, on sinewave speech.

IEEE Spectrum on Cyborg Life

2010-03-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

An article by Antonio Espingardeiro, called "When Will We Become Cyborgs?", in IEEE Spectrum online ponders our cyborg future. Check it out.

Autistici . Detached Metal Voice

2010-03-02T14:21:00.000-08:00

Autistici, a UK-based composer and sound designer, is releasing a new commercial CD on March 22, 2010, called Detached Metal Voice - Early Works (Vol. I). Modisti, an interactive virtual environment for new music, describes it as "A collection of tracks exploring the raw extrusion of the human condition. Bringing together early works, Detached Metal Voice is characterized by abstract narrative exploring the anxiety of disconnected elements striving to find connection in a world digital communication. ... There is an homage to voice synthesis including excerpts taken from many of the early laboratory attempts to produce the human voice through the mode of synthesis, including work pioneered by Philip Rubin from the Haskins Laboratories, Tom Baer, and Paul Mermelstein. This synthesizer, know as ASY, was based on vocal tract models developed at Bell Laboratories in the 1960s and 1970s by Paul Mermelstein, Cecil Coker, and colleagues. In tracks such as “Babyman” Autistici illustrates a fascination in hearing machines talking about emotive subjects, emulating emotive tonal changes and yet having no real connection to the subjective emotional experience."

The Limits of Bioethics

2010-02-10T16:03:00.000-08:00

Sally Satel says that bioethicists should illuminate and not prescribe. Maybe biased, but this short article touches on where bioethics came from, places it's gone, and ways it's viewed from outside, inside and across one major internal fissure. Quick: who coined the term "bioethics?"

The Limits of Bioethics in Policy Review.

Wall Art: The Photography of Philip Rubin

2010-01-11T21:13:00.000-08:00

Wall Art: The Photography of Philip Rubin

Reception: January 21, 6:30-8:00 pm

The next art exhibit at Atticus Bookstore/Café, 1082 Chapel St., New Haven, CT, will be Wall Art, a collection of photographs created by local artist Philip Rubin. The exhibit will run from January 11 until February 21, 2010, and is viewable in the cafe during business hours.

Come join us for the reception on January 21 at 6:30pm: meet the artist, discuss the works, and enjoy wine and appetizers.

All profits from sale of photographs in this exhibit will be donated to IRIS: Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, in New Haven, Connecticut (www.irisct.org).

Cognitive Dissonance in Monkeys, revisited

2009-12-18T11:48:00.000-08:00

As a follow-up to this post on cognitive dissonance research, Louisa Egan has graciously provided a link to some new research that addresses some of the criticism.

Robots that Care

2009-11-02T15:29:00.000-08:00

Apropos the theme of our next meeting, I was delighted to see this piece in the 02 November 2009 New Yorker featuring work by Maja Mataric (who spent some time in the Computer Science Department of our beloved Brandeis University). Maja and her students are building robots to help the elderly, work with autistic children, etc. I especially enjoyed the criticism of this work by Sherry Turkle: essentially, "people should be doing this, not robots". Having spent many hours volunteering in a nursing home as a youth, I can attest to the fact that what old people need is human, not robot, companionship.

Soupy Sales dead at 83

2009-10-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

Soupy Sales, comedian and radio-TV personality best known for his childrens' TV show, Lunch with Soupy Sales (later known as The Soupy Sales Show), died on Oct. 22, 2009 at the age of 83. GAWKER has a short article on their site with a brief video. We will miss Soupy, White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie, and the rest. Thanks and a hat tip to Robert Remez.

Crumb has found god

2009-10-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

Robert Crumb, famed illustrator and underground comix pioneer, has a new project: The Book of Genesis Illustrated, which covers the first 50 chapters of the bible. An article by David Colton in USA Today on Oct. 19, 2009, reviews the book and provides background information. In the article, Crumb reports that "It was hard to draw God."

"Should God just be a bright light? Should I use word balloons? Should God be a woman?" Crumb says the answer came to him in a dream.

"I ended up with the old stereotypical Charlton Heston kind of God, long beard, very masculine. I used a lot of white-out, a lot of corrections when I tried to draw God."

"I got totally sick of it by the end of it. I've come out exhausted," Crumb says.

"I may never draw again."

IS Group meeting: Music and Mind

2009-10-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

The next IS Group meeting with take place at 6pm, Saturday, 17 October 2009, at the home of Douglas Whalen in Guilford, Connecticut. The theme is Music and Mind. The Readings include Oliver Sacks. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition; and Daniel J. Levitin. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. For additional information contact Philip Rubin or Doug Whalen.

Gaia vs. Medea

2009-07-24T20:24:00.001-07:00

This article in the always enjoyable Chronicle of Higher Education Review touches on a theme from an I.S. meeting of many years ago: James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis. An interesting twist is the recent "Medea Hypothesis", which portrays life on Earth not as a self-sustaining force restoring the planet to equlibrium, but an ultimately self-destroying force that (echoing another IS theme) pushes it away from equlibrium.

Brain Control

2009-07-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

An article by Erico Guizzo, called "Monkeys Control Computer With Thought" in the July 2009 IEEE Spectrum online, describes the work of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. The work of Jose Carmena and his students, published in PLos Biology, shows how "a monkey’s brain is able to develop a motor memory for controlling a virtual device in a manner similar to the way it creates such a memory for the animal’s body." Lena Ting, a professor of biomedical engineering at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, says that the findings may "... change the whole way that people have thought about how to approach brain-machine interfaces." "Previous research," she explains, "tried to use the parts of the brain that operate real limbs to control an artificial one. The Berkeley study suggests that an artificial arm may not need to rely on brain signals related to the natural arm; the brain can assimilate the artificial device as if it were a new part of the body."

The Smart Grid

2009-07-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

IEEE Spectrum has a special report called The Smart Grid. "Taking the latest in computing and communications technology to make the electrical system more interactive, efficient, and robust is not a new idea. What’s new is that suddenly more than 10 billion federal dollars are being poured into it. But all that money will be well spent only if regulators are as inventive and intelligent as transmission and distribution engineers have been."

Brain hacking

2009-07-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

WIRED, via CNN.com /technology, reports on concerns raised by Tadayoshi Kohno of the University of Washington in a July 1, 2009 article in Neurosurgical Focus, that developments in neural engineering could pose future security risks. The article, "Neurosecurity: security and privacy for neural devices" considers what would happen if hackers focused on exploiting weaknesses in neural devices, such as the deep-brain stimulators used to treat Parkinson's and depression, or electrode systems for controlling prosthetic limbs. "It's very hard to design complex systems that don't have bugs," Kohno said. "As these medical devices start to become more and more complicated, it gets easier and easier for people to overlook a bug that could become a very serious risk. It might border on science fiction today, but so did going to the moon 50 years ago."

Where Art Meets Social Networking Sites

2009-07-08T08:26:00.000-07:00

The New York Times published an article on July 2, 2009 called "Where Art Meets Social Networking Sites" about the current art show, "Status Update" at the Gallery@Haskins at Haskins Laboratories, curated by Debbie Hesse of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and Donna Ruff. The article included comments by Debbie and Philip Rubin, CEO of Haskins, and coverage of the work by many of the artists, including Cat Balco, Matt Held, Keith Johnson, Jeremiah Teipen, Lee Walton, Rachel Perry Welty, and An Xiao. The show, which focuses on the intersection of art and emerging technologies, runs through August 1, 2009.
(photo by Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times)

Robotic Rat

2009-07-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

NewScientist Tech has an article and video about SCRATCHbot, a robot that uses its whiskers to sense the environment. The robot was developed by Tony Prescott from the University of Sheffield and Anthony Pipe from the University of Bristol. Thanks and hat tip to Richard Crane for sending us the video.

The Federation has a new name: FABBS

2009-07-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

The Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences has changes its name to the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS). FABBS promotes human potential and well-being by advancing the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior. It is a coalition of scientific societies that communicates with policy makers and the public about the importance and contributions of basic and applied research in these sciences. I (Philip Rubin) am a member of the FABBS Executive Committee.

Temporal Powers of Ten

2009-07-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

Mike Treder , in an online article on the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) website, speculates on what would happen if we try a mental exercise, similar to that created in the Charles and Ray Eames 1977 film, "Power of Ten," that focuses on time instead of space. Check it out.

Cineradiography of Singing Northern Cardinals

2009-07-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

The Suthers Laboratory at Indiana University, which is devoted to the study of the neural and physiogical bases of acoustic behavior, has a wonderful QuickTime video that shows x-ray images of a northern cardinal singing, along with a 3d polygonal model of the oropharyngeal-esophogeal cavity. Thanks and a hat tip to Mark Tiede for sending us the url.

Vanishing New York: Music Row

2009-07-08T06:16:00.000-07:00

We have received, though a circuitous route, some very sad news. Robert Remez alerted us to an entry in Jeremiah's Vanishing New York blog
that relates that Lost City has reported that Manny's Music will be vanishing from 48th Street, where it has been since 1935. Music Row is on its way out as the Times Square area continues to transform. I used to shop for guitars at Manny's and Sam Ash in the 1960s ad 1970s and will miss this concentrated world of musical instruments. Thanks to Robert for letting us know about this.

CPBN Where We Live: Status Update

2009-05-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

The Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network has a podcast of their "Where We Live" show from May 22, 2009, about the current Status Update art show at the Gallery@Haskins.
Status Update is a new exhibition presented by The Arts Council of Greater New Haven on view at Haskins Laboratories through August 1, 2009. The exhibit explores how artists are using social networking technologies like facebook and twitter to create and show new work. In the podcast, the show's curator Debbie Hesse and artist Sharon Butler talk about how social networking is changing the art world.

(painting by Matt Held)

Laser Probes for Brain Experiments

2009-05-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

Prachi Patel, in a May 2009 article in ieee spectrum online describes how researchers at Case Western Reserve University are using light as "what could be a more benign, efficient, and effective way to study brain circuits." He reports:

"Ordinary electrodes can damage tissue, and they need wires to connect to power sources outside the brain. The light probes ... could be made with thin, flexible optical fibers, tiny polymer microcapsules, or nanoparticle-coated flexible patches. ... Once the probes are embedded in a certain part of the brain, you could wirelessly trigger neurons by scanning a laser beam on that area. (The near-infrared light used in the experiments is good at penetrating brain tissue.)"

(Image by Colin Anderson/Getty Images.)

Technology, Humanity and the Future

2009-05-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

IEET Executive Director James Hughes has posted a video interview in which he answered some questions about technology and its impact on humanity at Convergence 08, November 15, 2008 in Mountain View, California. Thanks to J., friend of the IS Group.

New services promise online life after death

2009-05-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

A story by Mallory Simon in Cnn.com /technology relates how new companies are appearing that " ... try and fill [the] void created in your digital life after death." Examples include Legacy Locker " ...a safe, secure repository for your digital property that lets you grant access to online assets for friends and loved ones in the event of death or disability ..." and EternalSpace that " ... provides everlasting online memorials to share and preserve the treasured memories, photographs, videos and thoughts of life's most cherished moments." Thanks to An Xiao for bringing this to our attention and for her wonderful blog, That Was Zen.

Swine Flu as ambient music

2009-05-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

Swine flu has been sequenced. Stephan Zielinski has written code to translate a key gene into a piece of ambient music. He describes this in: “Swine Flu Hemagglutinin”: amino acid sequence as ambient music. Click on the graphic above to see the actual amino acid sequence. There was also an article in cnn.com about Zielinski's composition called Making music out of swine flu. Thanks and a hat tip to Alice Faber for letting us know about Zielinski's work.

Lost robot crosses city by asking directions

2009-05-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

NewScientist Tech features an article by Colin Barras that describes a wheeled robot called ACE (Autonomous City Explorer) that finds its way around a city by asking people for directions. The robot was designed by Martin Buss and his team at the Technical University of Munich. Check out the video. Thanks and a hat tip to Christina Spiesel for letting us know about this robot.

Modern Humans Ate Neanderthals

2009-05-18T12:02:00.001-07:00

Apropos one of our current readings, this article from the Guardian suggests that the disappearance of Neanderthals may be attributable to the eating habits of Homo sapiens: we ate them! Then again, if you feel as I do that archaeology is an entire discipline based on the predicate "is consistent with", you may doubt the importance of these discoveries.

Brain Gain

2009-05-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

Margaret Talbot wrote a long article called "Brain Gain" in the The New Yorker recently about the underground world of "neuroenhancing" drugs.

25 Microchips That Shook the World

2009-05-08T13:42:00.000-07:00

IEEE Spectrum Online has a Special Report called 25 Microchips That Shook the World. An article of the same name by Brian R. Santo discusses some of the all time favorites in the silicon world. Additional suggestions are provided in the comments, by luminaries in the technology world, and in a talkback section.

AVIOS Student Speech Application Contest

2009-05-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

On May 6, 2009 the Applied Voice Input/Output Society (AVIOS) announced their fourth annual student speech application contest sponsored by AT&T, Cepstral, I6Net, Loquendo, Microsoft, Opera, and Voxeo. Applications must involve speech input and/or output, but may be pure speech or multimodal. Cash and/or equipment prizes valued at over $1000 will be awarded to teams of student programmers who design and create applications judged to be robust, useful, creative, innovative, and user friendly.

The contest encourages students to develop applications using speech technologies such as automatic speech recognition and text to speech synthesis and to combine them with other modalities. This year, students may use any of a variety of platforms including AT&T Speech Mashups, Cepstral VoiceForge TTS service, CMU's RavenClaw/Olympus, Google Android, I6net VXI*, Loquendo VoxNauta Platform, LumenVox Speech Engine Standard License, Microsoft Windows and Tellme VoiceXML Platform Opera, Voxeo Prophecy, and Voxeo Tropo.

Students anywhere in the world can submit their creative and innovative applications to be judged by speech application experts. The contest also provides a forum for students to show what they can do with the power of speech applications For more information and the contest entry form, go to http://www.avios.org/.

Thanks to Patti Price for letting us know about this contest.

Synthetic Mickey Mouse

2009-04-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

An acquaintance who works for Nuance Communications (owners of Dragon Naturally Speaking and the Omnipage OCR software) claims their software synthesizes all the original vocals for the House of Mouse show on the Disney Channel. He says they found working with actors to get the lines right is just too hard... compared to editing the emotion tags in the synthesizer input strings.

On the other hand, this piece includes a list of the cast.

Clic pic for flic. Show starts about 35 sec. in.

Feelies

2009-03-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

IEEE Spectrum Online has a fascinating article called "Jacket Lets You Feel the Movies" by Willie Jones that reports on the work of Philips Research senior scientist Paul Lemmens. This research uses a motor-studded haptics jacket to study the effect of touch and vibration on movie viewers' emotional responses. This project will be featured at the 2009 World Haptics Conference in Salt Lake City.

Cut Copy Paste

2009-03-17T13:23:00.000-07:00

It's about time. iPhone 3.0 will be here some time this summer, along with "Cut Copy Paste" and a lot of other new OS features. Lots of coverage in the media. Here are some examples: LA Times Business, Blog; Engadget live from the preview event; MacRumors.com highlights of OS 3.0 Preview; MacWorld Live Update; New York Times Bits Blog; Apple iPhone 3.0 Preview. Thanks to Mark for the image.

The Big Picture: Robots

2009-03-04T10:56:00.000-08:00

The March 4, 2009 edition of boston.com's The Big Picture features some wonderful robot photos. Check them out. Thanks and a hat tip to Alice Faber for sending the URL!

Steve Darwin

2009-02-19T10:19:00.000-08:00

On the day after Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, announced at the 2009 AAAS meeting in Chicago that the 1000th Steve had been added to the list of scientists named Steve who endorse evolution. Project Steve started as a tongue-in-cheek response to Darwin-doubters -- now it is a movement. I may even change my name to Steve, and I am pretty sure that Simon's original name was Steve and that his middle initial ("R!") actually is an encrypted version of the name Steve. Shockingly, the 1000th Steve is Steven P. Darwin of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Tulane University. See the ScienceNews article "AAAS: Darwin is the 1000th Steve" for further details.