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Category: Commentary (page 5 of 10)

Brain + Computer = Mad Science at its Best

Mad Science at It's Best

Ever wanted a computer to interface directly with your brain? Come on, we’ve all watched science fiction flicks where the mad scientist puts something akin to a noodle-strainer outfitted with wires, resistors and other electronics on top of his head (or on the head of an unwilling victi– err, participant…), and then proceeds to interface with a machine that can control space ships, the weather, or defense systems. Well, Paul Sadja has decided it would be cool to take us there for real.

Enter the C3Vision — Cortically Coupled Computer Vision.

Image by J.J. McCullough

Paul Sajda is a Columbia University professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at the Laboratory for Intelligent Imaging and Neural Computing (who knew that even existed…?), and had this to say about his new toy:

“(The C3V) uses an electroencephalogram cap to monitor brain activity as the person wearing it is shown about 10 images per second. Machine-learning algorithms trained to detect the neurological signals that signify interest in an image are used to analyze this brain activity. By monitoring these signals, the system rapidly ranks the images in terms of how interesting they appear to the viewer. The search is then refined by retrieving other images that are similar to those with the highest rank.”

Basically, he has created a means to tap into user’s brains and, as Curt Hopkins of Read Write Web states, “realize what’s bugging them before they consciously know they’ve been bugged” — and then take action, of course.

What’s most interesting about all of this is the similarity to contextual search and social recommendation engines — and, of course, the possibility that Paul Sadja might really be The Riddler. You know… Batman Forever?

I’m just sayin’.

Your Next Computer Might Be Mad of… Brains! [Read Write Web]


An Unfortunate Victim of Timing

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In everything, balance. That’s the truth of the universe, I think. Heady stuff for a tech blog, but it has seen a proving in the circles we run in just the past few weeks. Yesterday, I posted about the rapid improvement and positive forward traction of Springpad. Unfortunately, at approximately the same time, another service that I have become particularly fond of, especially for its potential to improve the web experience as a whole, has had to close its doors. Unless something drastic happens in the next bit, it is very likely that Cliqset has closed its doors for good.

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Cliqset is – or was – a social aggregator that attempted to take the social web to another level. They were one of the first to embrace technologies like Pubsubhubbub for real-time updating, and they also were one of the forerunners to adopt the Salmon protocol, which allows for cross-network comment conversations. Cliqset showed a lot of promise, but with the juggernaut that is Facebook and the beast that is Twitter commanding people’s attention, not to mention the harshness of the world economy, the founders, Darren Bounds and Charlie Cauthen, just weren’t able to pull together another round of funding. They announced that they were leaving the company in late November, which I heard about through the “grapevine” – but there was still some hope that Cliqset might remain open. I caught up with Darren on Twitter (I’m aware of the irony) and he informed me they had closed the doors just the day before, on December 7, 2010.

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In a post on Louis Gray’s blog, Darren is quoted as follows:

“A federated social Web agenda at Cliqset is something we chose to promote,” he said. “The open standards aspect is something I believe is still the future. The roadmap to getting there is going to be a little longer than we would have liked. But where these standards can be implemented and improve efficiencies, they deliver real value.”

Hopefully, someone will be able to further what Cliqset was trying to accomplish, an open social web that can see people conversing with one another in real time, regardless of their networks of choice, where content and people are the focus, not a closed network infrastructure. Maybe it’s a bit pie in the sky what with Facebook, Google, and others each trying to be the web’s evil overlord, but it’s a hope, nonetheless.

Discuss.


The Cloud Explained — by Kids

The Cloud Explained -- by Kids | 40Tech

photo by zakwitnij

It was my birthday the other day. I turned 35. Yep, 35, and I write for a blog called 40Tech. I’m mature for my age, ok? Either way, I was feeling pretty good about myself that day. 35 years old is young, right? Well, that’s what I thought until I saw this video by Accenture that has little kids explaining cloud computing.

I now feel positively ancient.

The video, called “Cloud Computing Here and Now — Our Youngest Experts Explain the Cloud,” features a whole bunch of cute, smarty-pants little rug rats that make websites and are working on video games that feature super-spies with heads made out of cheese puffs. They were born with the internet — broadband, even — and it’s as second nature to them as hair bands are to the rest of us. I mean the music variety, by the way, not the hold up your hair type — but I digress.

Watch this video. It may make you feel like somebody’s grandparent, or even great grandparent — but it is a very clear look into the future of tech. Well, the future from the point of view of a high-end consulting company that is obviously convinced of the impending takeover of cloud computing — and trying to sell people on it — but that’s not saying they’re wrong.

Watch the video below — What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eq3Sj1GGs8&feature=player_embedded


How 10 Year Olds Explain Cloud Computing [ReadWriteWeb]


Is Google A Monopoly?

Today, 40Tech is pleased to present a guest post by Kosmo from The Soap Boxers.

google monopoly

It has been 14 short years since Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google. Since then, the company’s market value has skyrocketed to more than $150 billion and the company’s name has become a household word.

Photo by HarshLight

Like many successful companies, Google has decided to diversify rather than putting all of its eggs into the search engine basket. I personally use Google for:

  • Search engine
  • Email
  • Advertising provider
  • Website Analytics
  • RSS Reader
  • Webmaster Tools

That’s a half dozen tools that I use fairly frequently, and I’m not even a real “power user” – there are people who depend on Google products much more heavily. With Google having its hand in nearly every pie these days, have they grown into a monopoly that needs to be regulated or broken up?


They Could Put Me Out Of Business!

A friend of mine runs a successful blog and is concerned about the amount of power that Google has in the search engine space. A considerable amount of his traffic (and revenue) comes as a result of Google (as is the case for a great many bloggers). Changes in Google’s algorithms could result in his traffic being cut dramatically – costing him a considerable amount of advertising revenue.

While I can certainly empathize with my friend – since I also get a considerable chunk of traffic from Google – I happen to think that he (and others) are looking at this a bit backward. Who are the customers of Google’s search engine – the people searching, or the website owners? I see Google as the Lonely Planet guide to the internet – a travel guide to stops along the information superhighway. To take the analogy further, let’s say you own a restaurant that a popular travel guide reviews as a top choice for travelers. Suddenly, you’re booked solid and perhaps even think of opening a second location. Then, the next year, the travel guide doesn’t mention your restaurant at all – and traffic declines sharply. Can you be very upset at the publishers of the guide? Of course not – their job is to make the readers happy. Any benefit to you is incidental. It’s the same thing for Google – it’s nice if they drive traffic your way, but they don’t owe you anything.


Too Hard To Switch?

Is it too hard to switch from Google products, since they have their hand in everything? Earlier in this article, I mentioned that I use six Google products on a regular basis. How hard would it be for me to switch?

Search engine – If I wanted to switch to a different search engine, it’s pretty easy – just plug the URL of the search engine into my browser.

Email – I use Google’s mail servers for my own domain. Since these aren’t @Gmail.com addresses, I could switch by making a few changes to settings on my domain registrar’s site. I’ve done this before, and I can assure you that it’s not a very big deal. For Gmail addresses, this is more difficult, but that has always been the problem with email addresses – unless you own the domain, they generally aren’t portable. There are so many different providers of email service that it seems a bit silly to suggest that Google has undue influence in this market.

Advertising provider – I use Google’s Adsense program for the ads on my site. Google does have some competitors in this space, and I have experimented with a couple of them, and have always come back to Adsense (some of the competitors show ads that aren’t very relevant). I have a WordPress plug-in (WhoSeesAds from Ozh) insert the ad code on the fly. It would be child’s play to replace this code with something from Chitika or a different competitor.

Website Analytics – Google Analytics is one of three products that I use for analytics, and not the one that I rely on most heavily. I think it would be fair to say that I have already switched to WordPress Stats for most of my analytics.

RSS Reader – I really don’t need a lot of bells and whistles, so I don’t have much of a reason to switch to a different RSS reader. However, it seems that there is a standard called OPML that allows you to export information about your subscriptions and then import this information into a new reader.

Webmaster tools – Switching to a different provider would generally mean adding a small bit of code to my site.

In addition to being a user of these six Google products, I am also a former user of Blogger. I made the switch to WordPress back in April of 2009, at the urging of a friend who declared WordPress to be superior. I was able to easily import all of my old articles from Blogger to WordPress in a matter of minutes.


Unreasonable Barriers To Entry?

One characteristic of a monopoly is that their actions cause unreasonable barriers to entry into the market. Certainly, companies wishing to compete against Google have an uphill battle. However, it’s important to note the different between a high barrier to entry and an unreasonable one. There are many industries in which new companies face difficult barriers to entry. If I wanted to start a car company, it would be extremely expensive and quite difficult to succeed – but I can’t honestly say that Ford, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes Benz, or Porsche have a monopoly.

I even question exactly how high the barriers are. Bill Gates famously said that a kid in a garage could put him out of business. This could happen to any number of Google’s businesses as well. If someone is able to find a way to charge advertisers less than Adsense does while paying web site owners more, that would be a sustainable advantage that could be used to drive Adsense out of business. It is unlikely that any one company could completely put Google out of business, but that’s the whole point of diversification – and not the mark of a monopoly.

Kosmo Bio: Kosmo is an aspiring novelist, vehement opponent of the designated hitter, student of true crime, and plays the keyboard for The Soap Boxers – an eclectic, team-written web magazine that touches on a wide variety of topics, including why strikeouts aren’t as bad as people think.


Tron, Baby! New, Improved & Still Awesome

Tron - New, Improved, Still Awesome

Tron was one of the highlights of my youth, and it remains one of my favourite movies to this day — I even have the __ anniversary DVD. What’s not to like? It takes place in a video game for Pete’s sake! It was also one off the first movies to make serious use of 3D graphics, which adds just enough geek to make it worthy of a mention on 40Tech.

I’ve known that the sequel is coming out for several months now, and have seen a trailer or two, but this one *points below* has me ready to spend my money all willy nilly and actually looking forward to the coming of what is sure to be a 3D movie. I’m normally annoyed by the 3D craze – Justin Bieber 3D?? Come on, Seriously!?.

Check out the trailer/Daft-Punk-music-video, and note the highlighting of returning cast members. I don’t think you’ll be able to tell me that it doesn’t give you that geek-boy – geek-person – itch.