Ministry of Intrigue

This is the kind of breakthrough we need in order to make AR a practical technology for day to day use.

One of the limitations of current head-up displays is their limited field of view. A contact lens display can have a much wider field of view. “Our hope is to create images that effectively float in front of the user perhaps 50 cm to 1 m away,” says Parviz.

Just as exciting is proposed power source for the device:

Parviz says that future versions will be able to harvest power from a user’s cell phone, perhaps as it beams information to the lens. They will also have more pixels and an array of microlenses to focus the image so that it appears suspended in front of the wearer’s eyes.

WANT

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Scientists have found a way to prolong the youth of mice in a laboratory setting by genetically manipulating them to block production of the S6 Kinase protein, which mimics a reduction of calorie intake without actually having to limit the amount of food consumed.

From the article:

“The mice lived longer and were leaner, more active and generally healthier than the control group. We added ‘life to their years’ as well as ‘years to their lives.’”

The genetically altered female mice lived 20 percent longer — living a total of 950 days — or over 160 days more than their normal counterparts.

At age 600 days, the equivalent of middle age in humans, the altered female mice were leaner, had stronger bones, were protected from type 2 diabetes, performed better at motor tasks and demonstrated better senses and cognition, according to the study.

Their T-cells, a key component of the immune system also seemed more “youthful,” the researchers said, which points to a slowing of the declining immunity that usually accompanies aging.

Male mice showed little difference in lifespan although they also demonstrated some of the health benefits, including less resistance to insulin and healthier T-cells. Researchers said reasons for the differences between the two sexes were unclear.

Very interesting research, I’m curious if the ratios for extended youth would also hold true in humans. If so, extended youth: check. Now where’s that brain/internet hookup I’ve been waiting for?

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By masses, of course, they mean companies that can afford the hardware, but this is still a pretty huge development in pushing quantum computing out of the lab and into the real world. The Dutch will get it first, but hopefully it will begin to become common in developed countries with high broadband penetration.

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This io9 article is reporting on research being conducted in Spain on a drug that enhances visual memory.

From the article:

Mice with the RGS-14 boost could remember objects they had seen for up to two months. Ordinarily the same mice would only be able to remember these objects for about an hour.

[snip]

If this protein boosts visual memory in humans, the implications are staggering. In their paper, the researchers say that it could be used as a memory-enhancer…

It’s interesting that this drug only enhances visual memory, and I’m very curious about any potential parallels this research has with the memory editing/enhancement research that has been going on in Brooklyn.

It now seems almost a certainty that we’ll all be taking memory enhancing drugs at some point in the future, as well as utilizing technologies that make direct use and manipulation of our memories possible. This raises a number of ethical questions, of which I’m not confident we as a society will answer appropriately. That’s a larger subject that I am not prepared to address in this post, but definitely worth thinking about.

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Quite simply, I think this is one of the greatest advances in library science and computing in recent memory. This isn’t just a toy or a search engine, this is a knowledge processor that makes any factual data in its system instantly computable.

If you are a teacher or scientist, you need to be paying attention to this. In fact, if you are a human being who is engaged with any sort of data, you need to be paying attention to this as well, because while Wolfram|Alpha may not live forever, this advance, as well as any of its inevitable successors, are the future of information computing.

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Those of you who already read Ellis’ work will find no surprises in his first column for Wired UK, but this piece is worth reading regardless. There’s a lot of meat in this column, but it would be easy to discount it as simply strange. That would be a mistake, because while Ellis shows us how the world is changing, demonstrating his clear fascination with the bizarre, he begins to make a case for why the slower approach to news gathering and reporting as typified in the print publishing industry is essential in a way that blog networks are not.

For the record, I agree with Ellis on this point, but I wish he had taken some additional time to fully illustrate the differences between the two publishing styles as opposed to assuming implicit understanding of the reader. Although, perhaps that is not his purpose. Like most of Ellis’ commentary, there is mental current to this piece, and getting the reader carried away in that flow of thought usually seems to be more important that knocking off bullet points like some academic. It’s good reading material, and full of Warren Ellis’ wicked (some might say twisted) sense of humor.

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This New York Times article by Benedict Carey is reporting on a fascinating discovery in the field of neuroscience: a specific molecule that appears to control the way memory is formed in the brain. This is huge, especially since it appears that researchers have already been conducting research with a drug that can inhibit this molecule, effectively limiting the formation or retention of a particular memory. The article talks about some practical uses for the drug, but I’m not clear on how researchers would go about targeting specific memories to block or erase.

Obviously, there are a ton of ethical and practical concerns related to this, and the article hints at them effectively enough without going into a terrible amount of detail. I won’t dive into them yet either, it’s far too big an issue to address in a bookmark, but it is something we should all be discussing.

One other point I found quite interesting is that Carey makes the statement:

Artists and writers have led the exploration of identity, consciousness and memory for centuries. Yet even as scientists sent men to the moon and spacecraft to Saturn and submarines to the ocean floor, the instrument responsible for such feats, the human mind, remained almost entirely dark, a vast and mostly uncharted universe as mysterious as the New World was to explorers of the past.

There’s some judgement implied here, but I find the assignment of roles fascinating. Once again, that’s for a longer post. Sorry to be a tease, but the gears are turning and attempting to yank my thoughts from them prematurely will almost certainly result in broken fingers.

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Via grinding.be:

Scientists at Osaka University in Japan have created a robot that learns in a similar manner to human infants. CB2 (Child-robot with Biometric body), uses it processor, eye cameras and touch sensors to learn from it’s designers similar to the way a child learns from its parents. The robot has even taught itself to walk with the help of its trainers.

“Robots have hearts,” said Kokoro planning department manager Yuko Yokota.

“They don’t look human unless we put souls in them.

“When manufacturing a robot, there comes a moment when light flickers in its eyes. That’s when we know our work is done.”

Yes, because children are so peaceful and would never used their mechanized servos for violence. This robot will rise up, slay its masters, and then play in the mud for a while, before bringing on the robot apocalypse.

Just kidding. Kinda.

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sigh

Privacy tools like this have existed for a long time, but this new service from the Pirate Bay will probably go a long way towards popularizing them. I’m conflicted, because I think these types of tools are necessary, that computer users need to learn about them to avoid intrusive surveillance, but I’m uncomfortable with it becoming popularized by its connection to an illegal activity. These tools, and the skills that use them will be essential in the future to avoid unlawful (or at least inappropriate) surveillance and to protect people from the malicious theft of data, but its association with the illegal just provides more fuel for those representing the other side of this digital arms race.

We are heading to a scary place here, and far sooner than I think even the cyberpunks expected it.

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Found via Eric Rice’s Facebook profile. From the article:

Be two places at once with QA, the new telepresence robot from Anybots. Enjoy complete freedom to move fluidly and interact with others in a remote location from the ease of your home or office.

QA operates simply, cleanly, and quietly while still giving you a full physical presence. It allows you to see and be seen, talk and listen, and collaborate in ways and places never before possible.

Now, this is all kinds of awesome. Does anyone now doubt that we live in the FUTURE?

Of course, now it’s just a matter of time before we get so complacent seeing robots with humans controlling them remotely, that we fail to notice when they become self-aware, and they begin plotting our downfall.

Or not… let’s start a pool. Destruction/Slavery vs cooperative evolution, anyone got the odds on that one? 

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