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POPSA game for life "The challenge is to learn enough about the brain changes induced by different technologies and types of games in order to be able to guide them, enhancing functions that result in a functional and behavioral advantage for each individual. If done properly, the motivating, almost addictive, nature of these technologies, may actually prove a very valuable ally to achieve desired goals in education, medical treatment, and rehabilitation." I do agree to the point that it is up to us, humans, to pour the meaning into the availability that is technology.
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POPSThe Coming Superbrain Some more excerpts: not all humans of the industry are optimistic, "The computer designer and venture capitalist William Joy, for example, wrote a pessimistic essay in Wired in 2000 that argued that humans are more likely to destroy themselves with their technology than create a utopia assisted by superintelligent machines." And some worst fear is the Moses Syndrome being just one generation before: "Indeed, despite this high-technology heartland’s deeply held consensus about exponential progress, the worst fate of all for the Valley’s digerati would be to be the generation before the generation that lives to see the singularity; Kurzweil will probably die, along with the rest of us not too long before the ‘great dawn,’ ” said Gary Bradski, a Silicon Valley roboticist. “Life’s not fair.”
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POPSIn Africa- The cellphone is the single most transformative technology for development" "Democratic Republic of Congo, with a population of 60 million, there are just 10,000 fixed-line telephones, but more than one million mobile subscribers. In Chad, the fifth-least-developed country in Africa, usage jumped from 10,000 to 200,000 in three years. At the end of 2007 there were more than 280 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa, representing a penetration rate of 30.4%." "now they can call around and know what the prices are. They can call their relatives in town, for example, and ask how much is a bunch of bananas, so they get an idea of what the price is for their produce"
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POPSTechnology worship ""There are people on the extremes who can afford to do that. If you're extremely rich you can have an assistant, or if you live off the grid somewhere you might have little need for these technologies," he said. "But the vast majority of people have responsibilities that require them to be connected."
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POPSBiologically inspired unique design Wow, that would be the day... the idea of taking 2 concepts (e.g. biology, technology) and paralleling them is nice. The kissing borders may yield anew synthesis
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POPSTechnology Doesn’t Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds. Paul Saffo, the futurist, says he could divide the technology world into two kinds of people: engineers and natural scientists. He says the world outlook of the engineer is by nature optimistic. Every problem can be solved if you have the right tools and enough time and you pose the correct questions. Other people, who can be just as scientific, see the natural order of the world in terms of entropy, decline and death. Those people aren’t necessarily wrong. But the engineer’s point of view puts trust in human improvement. But over the course of human history, writing, printing, computing and Googling have only made it easier to think and communicate.
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POPSStar trek, tracked inside school :) Researchers at the Technology-Enhanced Learning Research Group (TEL) are designing new learning environments using interactive multi-touch desks that look and act like a large version of an Apple iPhone. The team observed how students and teachers interact in classes and how Information Communications technology (ICT) could improve collaboration. They then set about designing an interactive classroom solution called 'SynergyNet' to reflect TEL's aims of achieving active student engagement and learning by sharing, problem-solving and creating IT in schools is an exciting prospect - our system is very similar to the type of interface shown as a vision of the future in the TV series Star Trek!
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POPSMinority Report is being materialized "The inventors of the technology claim the system can distinguish between people’s memories of events they witnessed and between deeds they committed" “As we enter more fully into the era of mapping and understanding the brain, society will face an increasing number of important ethical, legal and social issues raised by these new technologies,” Mr. Greely, the Stanford bioethicist, and his colleague Judy Illes wrote last year in the American Journal of Law & Medicine." Interesting article. Raises many questions; a) the easiest one is is it valid? why easiest because it can be one day answered, at least i assume so. b) if it is valid, should we use it? where is the line of privacy? should there be a line as such? i find it fundamentally challenging the human conceptual descriptions of what is self, identity, society and its relation. Fascinating. what do you think?
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POPSA near bankruptcy due to google error... what happened was: "The media company said a single visit to the bankruptcy story in the wee hours Sunday morning, when traffic to the newspaper's site was low, pushed the item onto the list of popular articles. Google's search technology then picked up the story as breaking news, Tribune said." Scary...
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