Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

Monday October 8, 2012 Daily edition   News and Blog Headlines Decentralizing education: how startups are dismantling the university A simple way to cloak objects at microwave frequencies to improve transmission The CIA and Jeff Bezos bet on quantum computing Self-braking cars will save thousands of lives The sleeping brain behaves as if it’s remembering something The most complex synthetic biology circuit yet Declassified at last: Air Force’s supersonic flying saucer schematics The future of online vs. residential education Does online education need to be free to succeed? What campuses can learn from online teaching The real reasons we don’t have AGI yet Latest News A simple way to cloak objects at microwave frequencies to improve transmission October 8, 2012   A metal object can be made invisible to to electromagnetic radiation at microwave frequencies by approximately 70 per cent with the help of ordinary plastic, Aalto University researchers have shown. In practical terms, this means that electromagnetic waves travelling, for example, between two antennas, do not detect an object located in their path, allowing the waves to travel … more… The CIA and Jeff Bezos bet on quantum computing October 8, 2012   With funding from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the CIA’s investment arm, the Canadian company D-Wave Systems is gaining momentum for its revolutionary approach to computing, Technology Review reports. D-Wave’s supercooled processor is designed to handle what software engineers call “optimization” problems, the core of conundrums such as figuring out the most efficient delivery route, or how the … more… Self-braking cars will save thousands of lives October 8, 2012   How effective are systems that warn a driver about an impending front collision, then slam on the brakes if the driver doesn’t act quickly enough? A lot, says a paper recently published in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, IEEE Spectrum Tech Talk reports. Researchers at Virginia Tech’s Center for Injury Biomechanics studied systems that rely on radar to tell the … more… The sleeping brain behaves as if it’s remembering something October 8, 2012   UCLA researchers have discovered that the activity of a brain region known to be involved in learning, memory and Alzheimer’s disease behaves as if it’s remembering something during sleep, even under anesthesia — a finding that counters conventional theories about memory consolidation during sleep. The research team simultaneously measured the activity of single neurons from multiple parts … more… The most complex synthetic biology circuit yet October 8, 2012   Christopher Voigt, an associate professor of biological engineering at MIT,.and his students have developed circuit components that don’t interfere with one another, allowing them to produce the most complex synthetic circuit ever built. The circuit integrates four sensors for different molecules. Such circuits could be used in cells to precisely monitor their environments and respond appropriately. Background: the big … more… Declassified at last: Air Force’s supersonic flying saucer schematics October 8, 2012   The National Archives has recently published never-before-seen schematics and details of a 1950s military venture, called Project 1794, which aimed to build a supersonic flying saucer, Wired Danger Room reports. In a memo dating from 1956, the results from pre-prototype testing are summarized and reveal exactly what the developers had hoped to create. The saucer was supposed to reach … more… The future of online vs. residential education October 8, 2012 In this correspondence (posted with permission), Ray Kurzweil and MIT president L. Rafael Reif discuss the future of online education and its impacts on residential education. — Ed. Hi Rafael, I enjoyed your insightful piece in today’s WSJ on the emergence and future of online education. It eloquently makes the point that online teaching is here … more… Does online education need to be free to succeed? October 8, 2012   According to venture capitalists and entrepreneurs,  technology will “disrupt” education as we know it, and maybe create a few billion-dollar companies along the way (see “The Crisis in Higher Education”), says Technology Review. According to Dow Jones VentureSource, VCs invested $217 million in digital education companies during the first half of 2012 — more than they … more… What campuses can learn from online teaching October 8, 2012   Higher education is at a crossroads not seen since the introduction of the printing press, said MIT president L. Rafael Reif* in The Wall Street Journal. “Residential education’s long-simmering financial problem is reaching a crisis point,” he said. “At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other campuses, the upheaval today is coming from the technological change posed … more… New BLOG POSTS Decentralizing education: how startups are dismantling the university October 8, 2012 by Dale J. Stephens   Dale J. Stephens leads UnCollege, the social movement changing the notion that college is the only path to success. His first book, Hacking Your Education, will be published by Penguin in 2013. Student/teacher interaction “What about student/teacher interaction? What about building a social and professional network? How can you get a job without a degree? How will you know you’re … more… The real reasons we don’t have AGI yet October 7, 2012 by Ben Goertzel   As we noted in a recent post, physicist David Deutsch said the field of “artificial general intelligence” or AGI has made “no progress whatever during the entire six decades of its existence.” We asked Dr. Ben Goertzel, who introduced the term AGI and founded the AGI conference series, to respond. — Ed. Like so many others, I’ve been … more… New EVENTS   SALT: Steven Pinker, “The Decline of Violence” Dates: Oct 8, 2012 Location: San Francisco, California more...   Future Salon LA – Transformers and Transforming Dates: Oct 14, 2012 Location: Los Angeles, California more...   164th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America Dates: Oct 22 – 26, 2012 Location: Kansas City, Missouri more...   4G World Dates: Oct 29 – Nov 1, 2012 Location: Chicago, Illinois more...   2013 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE) Dates: Jan 11 – 14, 2013 Location: Las Vegas, Nevada more... DESIGN West: The Center of the Engineering Universe Dates: Apr 22 – 25, 2013 Location: San Jose, California more...   TEDGlobal 2013: Think Again Dates: Jun 10 – 14, 2013 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland more... New VIDEOS   Like-A-Hug Latest Kurzweil Collection posts Kurzweil: Brains will extend to the cloud   Source: Computerworld — 10/3/2012 Human brains will someday extend into the cloud, futurist and computer pioneer Ray Kurzweil predicted at the DEMO conference here on Tuesday. Moreover, he said, it will become possible to selectively erase pieces of our memories, while retaining some portions of them, to be able to learn new things no matter how old the person is. “The … more… Read full article here Visit KurzweilAI.net You are currently subscribed to the KurzweilAI.net newsletter as *|EMAIL|* To unsubscribe, please click here. To change your email preferences, please click here. *|LIST:ADDRESS|*.