September 24, 2009 by sean.

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August 29, 2009 by sean.

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August 18, 2009 by sean.

A virtual hand to guide you to your next purchase…

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August 5, 2009 by sean.

Locative Art / Augmented Reality applications which “overlay textual information and pictures over a real-world view of your surroundings” are coming to the iPhone [via geeks. co.uk]:

A new Twitter client makes eye-popping use of the technology and though it uses several parts of the 3GS development system that haven’t “officially” been unlocked by Apple yet, iPhone app TwittAround can’t really be described in words as adequately as it can in this amazing demonstration video. Take a look:

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May 30, 2009 by sean.

At this week’s 2009 I/O conference, Google gave a demo of Google Wave, game-changing platform that could integrates the functionality of email, instant messaging, wikis, blogs and more with real-time collaborative editing, playback of each message’s evolution, real-time language translation and more. You have to see the demo for yourself to begin to understand how this works:

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February 5, 2009 by sean.

One word: wow! [via wired]:

Pattie Maes of the MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces group demonstrated a wearable computing system that turns any surface into a display screen, becoming a kind of “sixth sense” for the user. The prototype involves an ordinary web cam and battery-powered 3M projector with an attached mirror that are all connected to an internet-enabled mobile phone. The set-up, which costs less than $350, allows the user to project information from the phone onto any surface — walls, the body of another person or even your hand.

Maes showed a video of her student Pranav Mistry who she describes as the genius behind the project. Mistry wore the device on a lanyard around his neck, along with colored Magic Marker caps on four fingers, each one red, blue, green or yellow to allow the camera to distinguish the four fingers. The caps help the camera recognize his hand gestures with software that Mistry created. The gestures can be something as simple as using his fingers and thumbs to create a picture frame that tells the camera to snap a photo, which is saved to his mobile phone. When he gets back to an office, he projects the images onto a wall and begins to size them.

When he encounters someone at a party, the system calls up information about him and projects a cloud of words on the person’s body to help him remember the person or provide more information about him, such as his blog URL, the name of his company, his likes and interests. “This is a more controversial [feature],” Maes said over the audience’s laughter.

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January 26, 2009 by sean.

Bringing everything to the cloud [via xxx]:

Google is to launch a service that would enable users to access their personal computer from any internet connection, according to industry reports. But campaigners warn that it would give the online behemoth unprecedented control over individuals’ personal data.

The Google Drive, or “GDrive”, could kill off the desktop computer, which relies on a powerful hard drive. Instead a user’s personal files and operating system could be stored on Google’s own servers and accessed via the internet.

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December 18, 2008 by sean.

University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists building a “cognitive computer” [via physorg.com]:

The idea is to create a computer capable of sorting through multiple streams of changing data, to look for patterns and make logical decisions…

There’s another requirement: The finished cognitive computer should be as small as a the brain of a small mammal and use as little power as a 100-watt light bulb. It’s a major challenge. But it’s what our brains do every day…

(T)he ideal artificial brain will need to be plastic, meaning it is capable of changing as it learns from experience. The design will likely convey information using electrical impulses modeled on the spiking neurons found in mammal brains. And advances in nanotechnology should allow a small artificial brain to contain as many artificial neurons as a small mammal brain.

Posted in innovation, neuroscience, learning theory, software | No Comments »

December 17, 2008 by sean.

“(A) European endeavor called the Nepomuk Project will soon see the effort take new steps onto the PC in the form of a ‘semantic desktop‘…software that can spot meaningful connections between the files on a computer (by generating) semantic information by using ‘crawlers’ to go through a computer and annotate as many files as possible. These crawlers look through a user’s address book, for example, and search for files related to the people found in there. Nepomuk can then connect a file sent by a particular person with one related to the company that person works for.”

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November 27, 2008 by sean.

Voice navigation takes a step forward with the new Google iPhone app:

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November 2, 2008 by sean.

David Spark catalogs some great “Twitter moments” that demonstrate some unique advantages of microblogging [via mashable]:

Being a Twitter user (@dspark) for some time now, I like many others have become evangelical about the micro-blogging tool.

I believe what makes Twitter so valuable are these moments of connectivity that simply aren’t possible through any other communications tool. I’ve had these “Twitter moments” and I set out to discover “Twitter moments” from others as well. What all the following stories have in common is a Twitter user had a question or a concern, and someone (or many people) responded. Twitter was the connective tissue that made that moment happen in a time of need.

Speaking of Twitter trends, Bruno Peeters created the following graph…

based on the twitterers I found from Belgium (over 200), my home country. Each Belgian twitterer is indicated as an ellipse, all other twitterers (over 500) are represented as a dot.

There are twitterers from Belgium using their mother tongue (Dutch or French). Others however prefer to use English. These twitterers are far more often connected to other twitterers from all over the world. Interesting enough, there are quite a few twitterers who are not connected at all to other persons on the Twitter platform. If a graph is based on friends, these persons will be missed.

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October 20, 2008 by sean.

In addition to “”(f)requent social interactions, regular exercise and maintaining a balanced diet can also reduce dementia risk.”", surfing the internet may be good for your brain [via BBC News]:

For middle-aged and older people at least, using the internet helps boost brain power, research suggests. A University of California Los Angeles team found searching the web stimulated centres in the brain that controlled decision-making and complex reasoning. The researchers say this might even help to counteract the age-related physiological changes that cause the brain to slow down.

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August 31, 2008 by sean.

Amazing talk by Sugata Mitra who planted PCs and touchpads into “wholes in the walls” in rural India where 6-13 year old children not only taught themselves how to browse the internet and run applications on CD-ROMs, but also taught themselves English to better interact with the software. Truly amazing!

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August 30, 2008 by sean.

The Future of the Internet [via netguide.co.nz]:

Imagine yourself, as an individual, being logged into a computer system that spans the globe. You were given an online identity when your birth was registered and you take it everywhere you go.

The computer system supplies you with the information you need to learn as you grow. It is aware of your needs, and responds to them, whether it’s data for school work, the location of friends and family, where to get basic requirements like food, clothing and shelter, or assistance when in trouble. It stores all of this material in order to understand and help you – it can even anticipate your needs and actions. As you age, it senses your changing priorities and habits, and can offer advice on things you’re doing that may shorten your life, not to mention things you should do that may prolong it. And it definitely understands what you consider fun.

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August 30, 2008 by sean.

Ubiquity is a new platform from Mozilla that currently integrates into Firefox as a plug-in that allows you to do some really amazing things [harder to explain that simply to see] including those featured in this short tutorial / overview:

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August 9, 2008 by sean.

HP, Yahoo and Intel are collaborating on a vareity projects that promise to expand the scope of cloud computing[via Technology Review]:

Last week, Intel, Yahoo, HP, and an international trio of research institutions announced a joint cloud-computing research initiative. The ambitious six-site project is aimed at developing an Internet-based computer infrastructure stable enough to host companies’ most critical data-processing tasks. The project also holds an unusual promise for advances in fields as diverse as climate change modeling and molecular biology… (T)o test this infrastructure, academic researchers will also run real-world, data-intensive projects that, in their own right, could yield advances in fields as varied as data mining, context-sensitive Web search, and communication in virtual-reality environments.

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August 8, 2008 by sean.

“Microsoft has studied a total of 30 billion instant messages sent by over 250 million people in June of 2006, and determined that we are in fact, all linked by only 6.6 degrees of separation” [via DailyGalaxy].

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June 29, 2008 by sean.

Yet another sign that the bionic brain will be in the cloud [via 43 Folders]:

Using your location, OmniFocus can create a custom list of actions to complete nearby. Buying groceries? OmniFocus can show you the closest grocery store and create an instant shopping list.

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November 20, 2007 by sean.

Massey scientists at the Auckland-based Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences, have created the world’s first affect-responsive virtual tutor:

Although Eve was developed for one-to-one maths teaching with eight-year-olds, she is a significant new character in the future of human computer interaction and could be a personalised virtual tutor by any name.

Linked to a child via computer, the animated character or virtual tutor can tell if the child is frustrated, angry or confused by the on-screen teaching session and can adapt the tutoring session appropriately. [via PhysOrg.com]

Posted in learning theory, software | No Comments »

November 19, 2007 by sean.

Migatti, PARC’s artificial intelligence software for mobile devices, could soon be data-mining your life:

(R)esearchers at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)… have developed software that turns a phone into a thoughtful personal assistant, one that helps people find fun things to do. The software, called Magitti, uses a combination of cues–including the time of day, a person’s location, her past behaviors, and even her text messages–to infer her interests. It then shows a helpful list of suggestions, including concerts, movies, bookstores, and restaurants [via Technology Review]

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October 14, 2007 by sean.

I recently created a YouTube playlist re: Augmented Reality content including some amazing material from Total Immersion:

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October 2, 2007 by sean.

Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica, discusses his controversial book A New Kind of Science which suggests that all complex systems emerge from recursive applications of simple rules, with Charlie Rose [starting around 14:20].

Posted in software, collective intelligence, social networks | No Comments »

September 22, 2007 by sean.

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September 3, 2007 by sean.

A few years, I worked with a group of professional artists who were working on a contract for a large consumer electronics “box” store who wanted to co-opt the “cool” of the local arts community.

What we originally planned to do was to create fun, low barrier, highly interactive art experiences for Gen Yers at some of the galleries and clubs that were looking to attract a younger crowd. Reasoning that most people who really get into music are often those who find a way to participate [even if they don’t become musicians], we set out to do something similar with visual and performance art.

Some of the events we planned included a contest where a local celebrity would (a) “seed” the beginning of an art piece or storyline that others would enhance or (b) record a digital musical track that others could transform. We also planned to create disposable sculptures on the outdoor mall downtown where passersby would be encouraged to take a minute and add or rearrange elements. We also looked at cross-pollinating works at diverse locations in an effort to expand the audience for the locations [classical music / jazz fusion at a theater, improv comedy at an ethnic art gallery, etc.]. We created a pre-Web 2.0 website that would list scheduled events, encourage visitors to rate submissions, allow community members to upload / download / discuss works in progress, etc.

The most ambitious idea included uploads of amateur screenplays under an unrestrictive Creative Commons license that would allow others to use any submission as the basis for storyboards, conceptual art, costumes, and short films where non-artists could audition for parts or act as extras. We wanted to see if we could have short films go from outline to edited film in 30 days or less. Web community members would then vote on the best submissions and the whole thing would culminate in a 2-hour film festival with awards for the highest-rated film. Amateurs were psyched at the thought of strangers building upon their work. The pros were much more cautious or even occasionally antagonistic to the concept.

What actually happened is that the artists leading the project began fighting within themselves over “creative control” [the exact thing we were trying to overcome so that newbies could find a way in] and ended up nearly getting kicked out of town. The gallery owners who were in the most financial trouble HATED the idea of non-artists participating in their world. Our project leaders later argued that the REAL problem was the lack of sophistication in the general population! What was supposed to be a series of fun, disposable events organized throughout the city became a LECTURE to berate the clueless, unwashed masses into better supporting the unappreciated geniuses struggling to survive.

What I learned from the overall experience first is that local arts communities are often NOT cool. Second,  amateurs tend to be more willing to collaborate and try new things just for fun [meaning they have little ego / reputation at stake] and that the guidance of pros / experts / would-be gurus can often be disruptive to a collaborative creative process.

Web 2.0 is all about participation in collaborative projects, whether that be ranking user-contributed content [ala YouTube, digg or truemors], turning ON comments re: fan fiction or building loosely-connected networks of friends [Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.]. No doubt that much of the content out there is only one step above spam [”You’re an idiot LOL,” “Guess what my cat ate for dinner?”] and that much of the hype about is overblown, but the potential for using these methods to make it easier to participate in creative endeavors [rather than learning to simply appreciate the results of others] might still be vastly understated.

Posted in user-created content, learning theory, software, social networks | No Comments »

July 24, 2005 by sean.

“Game hackers have probed, tweaked and enhanced everything from Halo to The Sims 2 over the years without incurring the wrath of game makers — despite widespread click-wrap contracts prohibiting unauthorized modifications, and ambiguities in copyright law that make distributing the hacks legally uncertain.” /Wired News/

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May 21, 2005 by sean.

In Will Wright’s new game Spore, “You start off as this insignificant bit of bacteria and you grow and evolve through advantageous mutation that the user determines through an engine that Wright has designed that has different parts (depending on stage of development) that you can add on and manipulate, like size for example. As the slide states, you go from being bacteria to a galactic god.” /Cool Hunting/

“When he fantasized about Spore years ago, Will Wright admitted, ‘My own imagination was my biggest bottleneck.’ He encouraged designers with ideas for games that are far outside the box not to give up on those ideas, but instead to cultivate them and revisit them later, when the time, the team, and the technology might be right. The demonstration of the ’stellar zoo’ that is Spore might have given hope to a new generation of game designers.” /GameSpot/

“The whole concept was dependent upon this technology that did not exist, what I’m calling procedural animation. The fact that the player can create any creature, and then we figure out how it would walk and move and behave.

“We went through all the research work in that field that we could find, and we ended up having to go several years beyond it to get to where we are, to where we felt confident that we could solve this problem to the level to where we can base a product on it.” /Wired News/

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March 3, 2005 by sean.

R. Garry Shirts wrote a great article on the Ten ‘Mistakes’ Commonly Made by Persons Designing Educational Simulations and Games.

“If someone were to ask me to identify the mistakes most often made by game designers, including myself, I would, after assuring myself that the questioner understands that game design is a very personal activity and that there are no right answers, reply in the following dogmatic manner…”

Shirts is also the author of Ten Secrets of Successful Simulations:

“The most satisfying experience in training or education, no matter what the subject, is the so-called ‘Aha!’ moment, that instant when sudden, spontaneous insight cuts through the tangle of loose ends in a learner’s mind to reveal a simple, memorable truth.”

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February 4, 2005 by sean.

“(A)nyone who uses a visual medium to communicate faces the same challenges as everyone else, whether they use PowerPoint, After Effects or Maya. You could argue that using PowerPoint is theoretically harder than other design challenges, because it’s a tool you use not just to compose graphics, but also integrate them with your physical presence as you deliver them real-time to a live audience. But in any case, the problem is the same — how do we communicate effectively with other people?  According to what was said at the event, the singular answer for motion graphics designers is: tell a story.” /beyond bullets/

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January 27, 2005 by sean.

“Kids today don’t listen to music on the hi-fi or TV. They’re all into gaming and it’s by playing the latest hot video games that they discover new music and artists.” /cooltech.iafrica.com/

Posted in games and simulations, software | 1 Comment »

January 26, 2005 by sean.

Uplink is a game out of the UK about “High tech computer crime and industrial espionage on the Internet of 2010.”

I originally heard about this game via VirusFox: “And this goes for games as well. Some may or may not remember my fondness for a game by the name of Uplink. It’s a small game but it provides hours of entertainment. It might not seem like fun but if your into: computers, security, cyberpunk, etc. Do yourself a favor and buy the game.”

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January 23, 2005 by sean.

“e23 offers game material, in digital form, from Steve Jackson Games, Issaries, and other selected publishers. Surf our site for the files you want . . . and get them instantly with a credit card or PayPal.” /e23/

Posted in games and simulations, software | No Comments »