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V2V: Department of Transportation’s new communication system helps cars avoid crashes by talking to each other

June 11, 2012 by Amara D. Angelica

vehicle2vehicle

The University of Michigan is conducting a pilot program to test a vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications device that could help drivers avoid accidents, CNET reports.

This technology could prevent up to 81 percent of all vehicle crashes, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT).

The school’s Transportation and Research Institute is seeking 3,000 drivers in the Ann Arbor, Mich., area, and will equip their vehicles with wireless… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Electronics | Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Social/Ethical/Legal

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USC engineers build synthetic synapse with carbon nanotubes

May 2, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

Field effect transistor using carbon nanotubes to create synthetic synapse (credit: USC Viterbi School of Engineering)

Engineering researchers at the University of Southern California have built a carbon nanotube circuit that reproduces the function of a neural synapse.

“This is a necessary first step in the process,” said Professor Alice Parker, who began the complex project of looking at the possibility of developing a synthetic brain in 2006.

“We wanted to answer the question: Can you build a circuit that… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Electronics

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Uploaded e-crews for interstellar missions

December 12, 2012 by Giulio Prisco

The bright star Alpha Centauri and its surroundings

The awesome 100 Year Starship (100YSS) initiative by DARPA and NASA proposes to send people to the stars by the year 2100 — a huge challenge that will require bold, visionary, out-of-the-box thinking.

There are major challenges. “Using current propulsion technology, travel to a nearby star (such as our closest star system, Alpha Centauri, at 4.37 light years from the Sun, which also has a a planet with… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Singularity/Futures | Space

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UPDATE | The buzzer factor: did Watson have an unfair advantage?

February 18, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

Watson mechanical buzzer

Does Watson have an unfair advantage over humans because it can signal its response instantly? It seemed that way in the three “Jeopardy!” TV shows this week, especially Wednesday night, as Watson proceeded to totally own the humans.

ADDED FEBRUARY 24, 2011:

From Final Jeopardy: Man vs Machine and the Quest to Know Everything by Stephen Baker:

“After the match, Jennings and Rutter stressed that… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

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UPDATE | Kurzweil to ‘grind into smithereens’ Colbert’s understanding of world tonight, says Comedy Central

April 12, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

colbert

Tuesday night April 12, “Ray Kurzweil — inventor and subject of the documentary Transcendent Man — stops by to take everything that Stephen thinks he understands about the world and grind it into unrecognizable smithereens before his forlorn and tearful eyes,” Comedy Central’s Indecision reports.

11:00 p.m. EDT update: In related news, at #30, Kurzweil has edged out Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media

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Txting makes u stupid

February 20, 2012 by Amara D. Angelica

(Credit: Wikipedia Commons)

Yeah, you knew that already. How else to explain the zombies who text while driving or randomly jaywalking in traffic, AGKWE*?

But now there’s a reason: they have a tiny vocabulary.

Textisms

Or so says says University of Calgary linguistics researcher Joan Lee, who interviewed texters in research for her master’s thesis. Texting is associated with rigid linguistic constraints that caused students to reject many… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Social Networking/Web/Education | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Transhumanist Science, Futurist Art, Telepresence and Cosmic Visions of the Future at TransVision 2010

November 2, 2010 by Giulio Prisco

tv10max1

The transhumanist conference and community convention TransVision 2010, which took place in Milan October 22 to October 24, 2010, was very intense, informative, and scientific, as well as an entertaining tour de force in contemporary transhumanist thinking, activism, science, technology,  and innovation, and grand visionary dreams.

Over 40 talks over the three days explored the scientific, technological, cultural, artistic and social trends that could change our world… read more

Topics: Human Enhancement | Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Singularity/Futures | Social/Ethical/Legal | Space | Survival/Defense

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Transhumanist religion 2.0

July 13, 2012 by Giulio Prisco

The_material_around_SN_1987A_900

Cosmism, an emerging “religion 2.0” that is part of a radical futurist conception of the future development of humanity, can give us the positive optimism and “strenuous mood” to overcome our current problems and embark on our cosmic journey.

So say contemporary cosmists, who believe that the “manifest destiny” of our species is colonizing the universe and developing spacetime engineering and scientific “future magic” much beyond our current understanding… read more

Topics: Human Enhancement | Singularity/Futures

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Toward a Science of Consciousness: Brain, Mind, Reality

April 27, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

(Credit: Center for Consciousness Studies)

Toward a Science of Consciousness: Brain, Mind, Reality will be held May 3–7, 2011 at Stockholm University, Stockholm Sweden, keynoted by Sir Roger Penrose, speaking on “Consciousness and Physical Law.”

I attended the 2010 conference in Tucson; it was one of the most interesting and mind-expanding events I’ve ever experienced. This one should be even better.

It will feature sessions like Brain Electromagnetic Fields and… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Human Enhancement

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Yorkshire Evening Post | Title track from Foals’ new album, Total Life Forever, inspired by futurist Ray Kurzweil

April 29, 2010

foals album

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

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | Singularity/Futures

Read full article here

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Tiny bugs are controlling your mind!

August 30, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

probiotic

Before you take another probiotic cap, you may want to read this. Yet another study at McMaster University in Canada suggests that gut bacteria might be able to alter your brain chemistry and change your mood and behavior, reports Science NOW.

We reported on earlier research on gut bacteria at McMaster University and at Ohio State University. We also mentioned… read more

Topics: Biotech | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Tinkerers

November 8, 2010 by Amara D. Angelica

tinkerers

What if America lost its knack for making things?

Manufacturing is the root that all other projects sprout from … even the arts, says famed author David Brin.

His TINKERERS graphic novel, set in the year 2024, combines art with history and tech, exploring where we went wrong, and how to win back the knack.

(Hardcopies will be on sale in January.)… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics

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This is your brain on magic mushrooms

January 24, 2012 by Amara D. Angelica

psilocybin

Stoner alert: psilocybin (the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms) messes with your brain.

OK, not exactly a news flash. But that’s what researchers in the U.K. and Denmark found when they scanned the brains of 30 people tripping on psilocybin.

But here’s what’s interesting: the researchers did two different types of functional MRI (fMRI) brain scans with two groups of 15 — one scan that measured blood flow throughout the… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Thinking quantitatively about technological progress

July 11, 2011 by Anders Sandberg

Production growing exponentially (credit: Béla Nagy, Santa Fe Institute)

I have been thinking about progress a bit recently, mainly because I would like to develop a mathematical model of how brain scanning technology and computational neuroscience might develop.

Experience curves

In general, I think the most solid evidence of technological progress is Wrightean experience curves. These are well documented in economics and found everywhere: typically the cost (or time) of manufacturing… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures

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Thinking about the hardware of thinking: Can disruptive technologies help us achieve uploading?

November 30, 2010 by Suzanne Gildert

thinking_about_the_hardware_of_thinking

As we begin to run larger and more brain-like emulations, will our current methods of simulating neural networks, using general-purpose silicon processors, be enough, even in principle? As we wish to run computations faster and more efficiently, we might we need to consider if the design of the hardware that we all take for granted is optimal.

In a presentation (at Teleplace,… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Computers/Infotech/UI | Human Enhancement | Quantum

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