Last week I picked up the Sleep Cycle smartphone app by Maciek Drejak Labs. It uses the accelerometer in your phone to track your movements while you sleep, and uses this data to wake you up at a better time in your sleep cycle. The operating theory is that your movements during sleep are directly correlated…
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Future Robot Identity Crisis sounds like a listing for the [easyazon-link asin=”0890420254″ locale=”us”] DSM [/easyazon-link] (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) we might see included in the year 2050. Transformers and shape shifting machines are certain to be a part of our future. Researchers at MIT have created tiny robots inspired by what they call “The…
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A new group at Cambridge University has been founded to investigate the risk of a technological singularity in the future, among other things. The Center For the Study of Existential Risk was founded by professor Huw Price, cosmology and astrophysics professor Martin Rees and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn. The group will look into a number…
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What does it mean to design for the future? Historically, Architects and designers have always had their mind on the future. These architectural visions push the limits of how the city, and the buildings that comprise it should function for the individuals they serve. We’ve seen some epic failures and great successes in design, the failures…
DetailsWhat does it mean to design for the future? Historically, Architects and designers have always had their mind on the future. These architectural visions push the limits of how the city, and the buildings that comprise it should function for the individuals they serve. We’ve seen some epic failures and great successes in design, the failures…
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The simulated universe theory suggests that we may be living in a computer simulation. This means that everything you do, all of your memories, and all of our recorded history may be nothing more than bits of energy information jumping between circuits inside some enormous computer. Unlike the movie THE MATRIX that presented us with…
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When life has got you down whats the thing you go for? A bit of chocolate or ice cream? Maybe something a little more destructive? Do you immediately think of sad songs? Music has a strange ability to amplify feelings or wash them away, and sometimes you just need to wallow in some sadness. So…
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In the 1950s and 1960s, many people thought that researchers were only a few years away from developing a multipurpose [easyazon-link asin=”B0017OFRCY” locale=”us”]ROBOT[/easyazon-link] for home use. Science fiction literature was littered with examples, and the rapid advancement of computers seemed to indicate that everyone would have access to useful robots in a matter of years. However,…
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If you’ve been following the recent surge of violence between Israel and Palestine, you may have seen that the Twitter account of Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom was hacked by a hacktivism group loosely associated with Anonymous. They generally ran amuck on his account, apparently got his phone number, and will possibly be releasing…
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The ultimate time machine may be a high speed camera. Ok, so it won’t transport you back to view dinosaurs or watch Lincoln give his The Gettysburg Address. However, a high speed camera can show us moments we never see. Fractions of time so fast that without these cameras we would be forever ignorant of what just…
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The MIT Technology Review recently ran a piece about new software that allows users to “chat” with a crowd of people as if it were one person: Artificial Intelligence, Powered by Many Humans They have experimented with using this to get answers about where to eat in Los Angeles if you’re a vegan, or to find the best…
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Can we create utopia? Is it possible for technology to rid us of pain and suffering? Serious Wonder host GRAY SCOTT talks with HANK PELLISSIER about his book Invent Utopia Now, Transhumanist Suggestions for the Pre-Singularity Era. Hank Pellissier is the author of Invent Utopia Now: Transhumanist Suggestions for the Pre-Singularity Era and Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi…
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