Hi Ray,
I will be attending a gathering of National Federation of the Blind leaders in Daytona, Florida, on the evening before the Blind Driver Challenge event early on Saturday, Jan. 29 before the start of the Rolex 24 Race.
This high-profile event will be the first public demonstration of a blind person driving a vehicle without any form of guidance provided by another person. Obviously… read more
Source: Galileo Was Wrong conference website — September 23, 2010
Motherboard | Ray Kurzweil tells us about his vision of the Singularity — a point around 2045 when computers will acquire full-blown artificial intelligence and technology will infuse itself with biology. His theories have all sorts of supporters, detractors, and critics, but do you even remember what life was like before three-year-olds had cell phones and you actually had to remember facts instead of relying on the internet?
That
Related:
Motherboard: Exploring the Culture of Technology website
Source: The Onion — August 31, 2005
Executives at Google announced Monday Google Purge, the latest step in their expansion effort: a far-reaching plan to destroy all the information it is unable to index.
“A year ago, Google offered to scan every book on the planet for its Google Print project. Now, they are promising to burn the rest,” John Battelle wrote in his widely read “Searchblog.” “Thanks to Google Purge, you’ll never have to worry… read more
Source: The Providence Phoenix — February 9, 2010 | Jonathan Donaldson
Yeasayer have created a decadent, densely produced mess of a second album. Like other bands trying to do art rock in 2010, they confront us with the irony that their world of genre-melding futurism (a/k/a Brooklyn) can sound dated from the moment you get off the plane.
This aside, Odd Blood is a sprawling trip through Yeasayer’s uniquely rhythmic takes on rock and roll, art rock, R&B, electronic,… read more
This is pretty clever. Brought to you courtesy of AlpineKat via YouTube who writes: “Images came from Particle Physics UK, Space.com, the Institute of Physics, NASA, Symmetry, Marvel, Einstein Online, and Physics World. Stock footage is CERN’s. They’ll have a lot of data to sort — 15 million GB per year, actually. Want to get involved and donate your computer’s downtime? Visit
Those University of Utah engineers who built wireless networks that see through walls are now taking it a step further: detecting if surgery patients, adults with sleep apnea, and babies at risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) have stopped breathing.
This thing freaks me out a bit. Think what Homeland Security could do with it. The idea of being surrounded by tiny microwave ovens… read more
Source: American Scientist — February 2008
In Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science, Margaret A. Boden’s goal, she says, is to show how cognitive scientists have tried to find computational or informational answers to frequently asked questions about the mind — “what it is, what it does, how it works, how it evolved, and how it’s even possible.”
How do our brains generate consciousness? Are animals or newborn babies conscious? Can machines… read more
The anthropomorphization of computer graphics has been a classiccase of exponential growth powered by technology, art, commerceand culture. Funding for military and aerospace applications likenuclear weapons design, weather prediction and flight simulationpaid for much of the initial heavy lifting required to build thefoundation of the computer graphics industry during the 1960′s andearly 1970′s.
As the sophistication of graphics software marched forward andthe cost of computing slid downward, the annual… read more
“The Federal Communications Commission’s new ‘net neutrality’ rules, passed on a partisan 3-2 vote [Monday, Dec. 20], represent a huge win for a slick lobbying campaign run by liberal activist groups and foundations,” says Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund. “The losers are likely to be consumers who will see innovation and investment chilled by regulations that treat the Internet like a public utility.
“There’s little evidence… read more
China Telecom is reportedly launching mobile services in the U.K., the first time a Chinese telecom operator has launched MVNO services outside China (an MVNO is a mobile operator that sells services directly to its customers but does not own any of the infrastructure), according to China Tech News.
The service will target Chinese residents and visitors in the UK, starting in the first quarter of 2012.… read more
Source: Yorkshire Evening Post — April 29, 2010 | Duncan Seaman
“I don’t think it was a conscious decision to change any of our sounds, more that we have progressed as a band,” explains bass player Walter Gervers of Foals’ new album Total Life Forever. “Our tastes have changed. What we were trying to create was a record with more space and more freedom than the first time.”
The album’s title track was inspired by Raymond Kurzweil, the… read more
