Virtual-Reality Expert Jaron Lanier on the Potential of Avatars - WSJ.com

See original WSJ article at Virtual-Reality Expert Jaron Lanier on the Potential of Avatars

Do brains make minds, or do minds make brains? Recent approaches to AI have begun exploring the idea that not only do minds need brains, they need bodies as well. Disembodied thought may be impossible. The linked article takes an interesting tangent on the mind-brain problem by giving a preview of how our brains might adapt to being 're-embodied' in some other form. Sure to be of interest to gamers, but perhaps also to the most philosophically-minded.

"Becoming an avatar in virtual reality, as a full-bodied human (or even nonhuman), has the potential to be vastly more interesting and important than one would expect from a technological amusement. What is really going on is the opening up of a new frontier of human potential, which can be called 'somatic cognition'—somatic meaning 'of the body.'"

The coming ubiquity of Human-Agent Collectives

Or, why (you+tech) > (you) + (tech)

See original story at New science to enable humans and computers to interact more effectively
 

"Embryonic and relatively unsophisticated examples of current human interactions with autonomous software entities include the crowd-sourcing that provides a growing element of our traffic information, user-generated content for weather reports, and our interactions with software that can find us hotels according to our preferences.

Professor Jennings says: “We are fast approaching an ‘era of ubiquity’ where each of us will become increasingly dependent on multiple smart and proactive computers that we carry with us, access at home and at work, and that are embedded into the world around us."

Google Cars Drive Themselves

Image courtesy NYTimes

See original story at NYTimes - Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic

I've posted links before to government and academic research projects working on autonomous navigation, but now apparently Google has gotten into the fray.

"The car is a project of Google, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver."

"Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, the engineers argue. They speak in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided — more than 37,000 people died in car accidents in the United States in 2008. The engineers say the technology could double the capacity of roads by allowing cars to drive more safely while closer together. Because the robot cars would eventually be less likely to crash, they could be built lighter, reducing fuel consumption. But of course, to be truly safer, the cars must be far more reliable than, say, today’s personal computers, which crash on occasion and are frequently infected.

Portable, personal augmented reality a step closer

Image courtesy BBC News at news.bbcimg.co.uk/

See original story at BBC News - Smart specs unite world and data

Very cool -- images are superimposed on the real world by projecting them directly onto the retina.

"A lightweight pair of augmented reality glasses that overlay the world with digital content, such as directions or a travel guide, has debuted in Japan.

The headset, created by Olympus and phone-maker NTT Docomo, uses augmented reality software on an attached phone."

Cars as traffic sensors

Image: Google

See original story at MIT News -- Cars as traffic sensors

A great example of how ubiquitous networked processors can function together as a single sensor network.

"Data about road and traffic conditions can come from radio stations’ helicopters, the Department of Transportation’s roadside sensors, or even, these days, updates from ordinary people with cell phones. But all of these approaches have limitations: Helicopters are costly to deploy and can observe only so many roads at once, and it could take a while for the effects of congestion to spread far enough that a road sensor will detect them."
"MIT’s CarTel project is investigating how cars themselves could be used as ubiquitous, highly reliable mobile sensors."

Gadgets to learn about you

See original story at CNET News

I've often heard people humbly say "I'm not very good at computers." My favorite response is "No, it's just that computers aren't very good at you." (The original line is from a Friends episode where Jeff Goldblum is coaching Joey on acting technique...) Anyway, the point is that our frustrations with computers are often indicators of poor design. In his book The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman makes the case that if tools are well-designed, the intuitive thing to do will be the right thing to do. Great idea, but it takes an exceptionally creative designer to implement it. The story linked describes another approach -- use machine learning so that software can adapt to the people who use it.

"Rather than teach your gadgets what to do, Intel researchers say that in the not-too-distant future they will learn about you on their own. That means where you are, how you're feeling, and what you want.

It's actually not as creepy as it sounds. Intel Chief Technology Officer and Director of Intel Labs Justin Rattner took the stage Wednesday at the annual Intel Developer Forum here to talk about the future of 'context-aware computing,' what Intel is doing about it, and how gadgets can make life easier for their owners, but in a way that the owners can control."

Emotional robot pets

See original story at Eurekalert.org

Don't you hate it when your robotic dog doesn't notice that you're annoyed at its barking? I know I do.

"Designers of robot pets are fighting a never-ending battle with consumers to provide entertaining and realistic gadgets that respond to human interaction in ever more nuanced ways, mimicking the behavior of real pet animals or even people. Researchers in Taiwan are now looking at a new design paradigm that could see the development of a robot vision module that might one-day recognize human facial expressions and respond appropriately."