The polygot web
Mapping the internet as it goes truly global (Image: Matthew Hurst/SPL)
Imagine what browsing the web would be like if you had to type out addresses in characters you don’t recognise, from a language you don’t speak. It’s a nightmare that will end for hundreds of millions of people in 2010, when the first web addresses written entirely in non-Latin characters come online.
Net regulator ICANN – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – conceded in October that more than half of the 1.6 billion people online use languages with scripts not fully compatible with the Latin alphabet. It is now accepting applications for the first non-Latin top level domains (TLDs) – the part of an address after the final “dot”. The first national domains, counterparts of .uk or .au, should go live in early 2010. So far, 12 nations, using six different scripts, have applied and some have proudly revealed their desired TLD and given a preview of what the future web will look like.
The first Arabic domain is likely to be Egypt’s and in Russia orders are already being taken for the country’s hoped-for new TLD. The address HOBЫЙyЧеНЫЙ.pф – a rough translation of “newscientist” with the Cyrillic domain that stands for Russian Federation – can be registered today.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427395.800-2010-preview-the-polygot-web.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
Mind Reading (Neural Decoding) Goes Mainstream
For the past two months I’ve been running a large project for the world’s largest provider of higher education and have not really had a lot of time to post.
During that time I kept seeing signs of what I call the start of the human-machine convergence. Yes, I know there are precedents for this and these are not the “true first signs”.
I’m interested for another reason, the way it is being marketed. For some reason it’s being commercialize this holiday season. Several “toys” are being promoted to consumers that allow brain reading to control objects in front of you.
Mattel and StarWars Science are both offering these toys at your local Walmart or Target. But good luck finding them, even with a $100+ price tag they appear to have sold out.
I don’t have the time to post all of my thoughts, and came across this article below that sums up what I was missing above. Have fun and enjoy the read, let me know your thoughts too!
Mind Reading (Neural Decoding) Goes Mainstream | h+ Magazine.
Other Resources:
Thought Translator Knows Vowels from Consonants
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24279/
Neuroscience 2009
http://www.sfn.org/am2009/
Brain scanners can tell what you’re thinking about
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427323.500-brain-scanners-can-tell-what-youre-thinking-about.html
NeuroSky
http://www.neurosky.com/
Emotiv Systems
http://emotiv.com/
Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12500
Toyota Unveils Wheelchair Propelled by Thoughts Alone
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/clay-dillow/culture-buffet/mobility-mind-control-toyota-unveils-wheelchair-propelled-thoughts-a
Memories of my past
Memories of my past – Happy Holidays!
Singularity Salon Talk
Singularity Salon Talk – Presentation Transcript
- Putting the Human Back Into the Post-Human
- If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to be Part of Your Singularity Some Meandering Thoughts by Jamais Cascio
- What is the Singularity? A disproportionate increase in the power of intelligence to achieve desired ends, including further boosting the power of intelligence.
- Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
- Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. –Vernor Vinge, 1993
- The Singularity story echoes two very old tropes in popular mythology, but with a more recent twist.
- HUBRIS. We make things that try to kill us.
- ASPIRATION TO HUMANITY. We make things that want to be like us.
- The twist? Transcendence.
- The Singularity Story (in five slides)
- we create AI
- The AI “wakes up”
- The AI makes itself smarter
- The AI makes itself much smarter
- The AI takes over It might be friendly It might be unfriendly (not much we can do about it, either way)
- (the end)
- But what happens when you change the focus?
- we create AI
- we create AI (but now the focus of the story is the “we”)
- we create AI (but now the focus of the story is the “we”) OK, what “we”? Are there competing projects? Is this secret? Public? Civilian? Military? Open Source? How do governments react? How do markets react? How do citizens react? What are we doing in the meantime?
- not the end
- What’s Pushing Us to Do This? Technological capacity Competition (markets & politics) Need for complex systems to grapple with complex problems Curiosity
- What Might Hold Us Back? Dead-end technology paths Regulations Backlash against AI (or related technologies) Fear
- COMPLICATION #1: RESPONSIBILITY CREATION HAS CONSEQUENCES
- COMPLICATION #2: POWER POLITICS MATTERS
- COMPLICATION #3: LIABILITY A NO-FAULT SINGULARITY?
- COMPLICATION #4: RIGHTS NO SUCH THING AS A HAPPY SLAVE OR AN ETHICAL MASTER
- COMPLICATION #5: EMPATHY DON’T KICK THE ROBOT
- So… where does this all lead?
- Scenarios!
- Scenarios! tool for collaboration vs tool for competition short-term thinking vs long-term thinking
- cascio@openthefuture.com Twitter: @cascio
Singularity Salon Talk
View more presentations from Jamais Cascio.
The Geography of the U.S. Recession
Animated time-lapse map of county-by-county unemployment rates in the U.S. since January 2007. Jarring.
Evolution of unemployment in the US, down to the county, from 2007 to 2009
http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html
Forbidden City, Beijing, China
, originally uploaded by Nocturnales.
13th level
13th level, originally uploaded by p r i m e r.
Agile – Project Management
After working with Scrum with assorted business units, I’ve discovered we don’t always have “Done as Done” shippable products at the end of the Sprints.
You might ask, if each sprint ends up with an incomplete work, when can we see a stable product ?
Answer is the work around invented by the thought leaders. It is called Stabilization sprints.
What are stabilization Sprints ?
These are sprints dedicated towards tasks such as
Defect fixing
Stabilization sprints can be scheduled based on the need of the hour. There is no hard and fast rule around when it should be scheduled.
Many people call stabilization sprints with different names based on the specific activity being executed. Some names are, Testing Sprint, Technical Debt sprint, Analysis Sprint, etc
Life with my 17 year old son is getting to be interesting
and not in a great way.
Colleges, future, decisions, responsibilities…welcome to the real world.
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