BTW, this “bubble” theory wasn’t arrived at, it was predicted all along. It was written up in Time Magazine, (if my memory serves me correctly) in the late 80’s. No more would we all sit in front of our TV sets at 8pm to watch The Cosby Show, and see the same news and same commercials. It was predicted back then that information would become very individualized. It even went so far as to suggest that it could defragment society so successfully that the great melting pot of information could work to keep some social groups down, feeding them advertisements that only perpetuate a particular demographics perspective and keeping them there, like liquor and cigarette ads in the projects. But most people will never know this is happening to them, so their view of the world will become quite small. I think this is especially true for the younger generations who will use their smart phones for almost everything. Smart phones generally offer up only one search engine: Google.

I am increasingly amazed at how fast information from my searches and fed back to me in a matter of moments through my Yahoo account or my Facebook, or otherwise. It actually has a creepy feeling to it and I find myself wanting to find smart ways around it.

What I do find intriguing is the virtual thumbprint of an individual’s psyche, from their search patterns. Now that is fascinating territory to me, and scary.. What can and will people, corporations, government do with that kind of information? Wait – didn’t we see this movie? Wasn’t it called The Matrix?

Alas, it comes down to checks and balances, educating the masses, keeping people aware of their own behaviors and choices. We’ve been riding the wave of the Super Information Highway, and it is doing exactly what they said it would do. Now, as individuals, we have to decide to be smarter than the machine, or be sucked down the rabbit hole. Think I’ll watch the Matrix today.

We might wish that we are provided with “unfiltered info”, but that is just impossible. If your search query matches with 300000 pages, you will not carefully study all the entries. They will be presented to you at least as a list, and you will skim through the top 100, at most. Such list would not serve to your best interests. Using the human brain metaphor, you just don’t want to overwhelm your consciousness with the raw sensory data that actually streams to you every second.

Thus, providing you with “most reasonable” guesses is not only desirable, it just happens automatically, even if the service provider doesn’t do any filtering (ie, you will use only the top 100 matches).

So, the big question is not whether we want filters there to be, but rather what the filtering algorithm should be like, and what possibility the should should have to configure it’s functionality.

The filter you described is called “confirmation bias” within the context of sociology(http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html), and this personalized filter bubble will only cement the said bias. Making democratic debate more difficult, if not impossible at all(http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sandel_the_lost_art_of_democratic_debate.html).

This product is a better user experience than reading a physical book. But it’s also a prime example of identifying a neat technology, and then finding a reason to use it in school, which is ass backwards.

Educators need to figure out what they want students to learn, and then find a technology that helps them learn it. Students could play forever with this book, but all they would learn is Al Gore’s view of how we solve our environmental problems. They would not learn contrary views, and they would not be taught to think critically about whose views they accept.

The successors to textbooks surely will be digital, but they won’t be a textbook at all.

They won’t be created by an education company that bends to politically driven agendas, a phenomenon that has been around long before last year’s Texas controversy;

“chapters” won’t reflect the perspective of just a few writers and editors, but rather the voices of thousands of scholars and educators;

in subjective areas, they won’t require students to memorize particular “facts” and viewpoints, but rather will encourage them to think for themselves, and form their own perspectives; and

they won’t impose a “one size fits all” approach to learning on a diverse group of students, with different interests, abilities and needs.

The successor to textbooks will be created by a group of passionate educators who collectively decide that no one should have “ownership” over what is taught in schools. It will leverage a curated collection of the best free content online, supplemented by some traditional textbook content in the sciences and math.

I was just thinking that there are already names for this sort of thing. We call them applications, interactive multimedia presentations, even websites. If someone put that in front of me and asked, “Do you know what this is?” I would confidently have several names for it, and book wouldn’t make the list. And I’m a huge fan of ebooks, I have two Kindles, so I don’t think it’s just that I’m biased towards bound material.

I’d really like to see some reading comprehension statistics on things like this versus more linear presentations of information too. I’m not just being critical, I’m genuinely curious about whether being able to interactively explore presented information leads to better, worse or the same retention as reading through it in the more traditional linear, guided way.

This video points out many very current issues with our lack of evolution in the education system. The section on community learning and self teaching reminds me of the ted talks by Sugata Mitra. He portrays self learning as individuals teaching themselves, but also by students teaching students with the direction of a teacher. His studies show that students learn the material faster and retain it for a longer duration when they are actively teaching each other in a communal environment. Here is a link if you are interested. http://www.ted.com/speakers/sugata_mitra.html

If we adapt to be more discriminating, within the existing sea of media, it might help us learn to master our attention spans.

Are children learning how to be discriminating on levels adults (with their ‘comprehensive education’) don’t appreciate or are children truly all at sea?

I know I can’t bear to watch “Horizon” anymore due to its repetitive nature (dumbing-down), but perhaps more information sinks in over the length of a modern “Horizon” in comparison to how much we really took in watching an old-style 1970s version. After all, if we only watch the first and final three minutes of a programme, we probably know the same as we would from watching the full show.

There may be two main functions of an educational system. One is about having a certain set of skills: the ability to multiply or list uses for a paper clip.

The other function is about developing members of a society, teaching people how to get on and interact with each other. This way people know how to use their skills to be successful. So we share stories with the next generation. We transmit culture.

I think this is a useful way to frame the decision-making process: what skills do students need now that the current system doesn’t teach well? And what social values should we be sharing with students that we aren’t now?

Students probably do need to learn more “divergent thinking” skills (problem identification, solution generation, decision-making) and implementation skills. In UK they call these “Enterprise” skills.

As far as the society side of things, I think the system is… continued here: http://www.timwoods.org/2010/12/28/the-innovation-gap-in-public-schools

When conventionally studied, we would never expect electronic games as a form of art. Yet upon further inspection, we cannot deny that modern electronic games contain many elements of what we would traditionally consider an art form. In fact, today’s top rated video games incorporates traditional forms of art, such as music, literary plots, and graphical art.

Video games are becoming so much more than what they were, and better than what other forms of contemporary entertainment has to offer. Where else can you interact with and change the plot of an epic story? Human imagination cannot be expressed more beautifully in the designs of modern games, like Flower, Fallout, and Peter Molyneux’s own Fable franchise (just to name a few good games that alliterate).

One of the largest drawbacks to computers is their ability to interact with us is limited to monitor, projectors, keyboard, mice, etc. all of which are fairly limited in use. Computers themselves know little about us and our actions. Games and experiments like this provide an opportunity for us to learn to create computer systems that CAN interact with us through voice and body language. There is also rudimentary efforts here to allow the system to learn/grow through interaction with us.

In the long run this could be revolutionary in how we interact with computers, having them be able to “talk” to us and understand our movements and actions. Think of the “aware” computers in star trek that you can just talk to and discuss problems with…

In order to reach some of those more difficult goals, steps like this need to be made. It has promise, and may lead to some surprising business applications.

I see a chance for programmers. Instead of programming all variables and conditionals, you could take your car on a trip and learn it to react in a proper way. Best driver in the country programmed into your board computer. Best teachers in the classes, better than any of us and much cheaper. All community of virtual personalities to help our disabilities. Developing this technology for games is only one step in many others to follow. It may begin as a game but I am convinced it does not end there.

The system is a full EEG, and also monitors emotional state and facial expressions. There are already a several users working on lucid dreaming – using the EPOC to pick up the dream state and then pushing stimuli (sounds and flashing lights) to the user so they know they are in the dream state and can take control.

What you describe as a statistical database of ‘pull’ brainwaves in the world is exactly what Walter Benjamin sought to achieve with his ideas on translation. He had a metaphysical concept of words (signifiers) and objects/notions (the signified). It’s been quite a while since I thought about that – I’m glad for the opportunity to ponder potential future manifestations of his vision.

The idea of using pre-defined brainwave patterns (brain) for tasks is much like assigning mouse-gestures (hand) or voice-commands (voice). It wouldn’t matter if a user mapped “monkey doing the salsa” thoughwave to “pull”. Even if the user visualized a monkey doing the salsa, the cube would pull.

This differs from the technologies where, when you think of ‘pull’, the ‘content’ of the brainwave is interpreted, as opposed to the pattern. Is that possible? Given all the languages & interpretations of ‘pull’, can that even be done? Maybe, with a statistical database of ‘pull’ brainwaves in the world! But still, that would be like a voice-recog. software listening to ‘what’ you are saying as opposed to ‘how’ you are saying something.

And the colors thing, did the headset ’see’ what color the user is thinking of? Or are colors mapped to wave patterns too? Means I still can’t show the world my concept-art?!

The program is designed to provide a much more natural way for humans to digest large palettes of information without losing their way — an idea that anyone who has analyzed giant spreadsheets may welcome. And while it has something in common with spreadsheets and many other technologies, Flake says Pivot is so new and different that it’s difficult to even picture what it does without seeing it in action.

• Face
• Fingerprint
• Palm scan
• Iris scan
• DNA

Behavioural

• Keystroke
• Signature
• Voice

Other identification methods include vain patterns or their signatures, recognizing heart beats, 3d face recognition.

Iris patterns a unique to each individual as our facial details. Currently we are in the phase where the database is been created. At present, it is used mostly in airports and hospitals however I think it will be a gradual rollout of the biometrics system.

In few years time, I think people would start using biometrics systems just beyond criminal justice system.

Handprints are also different for each individual along side of the figure prints. The machine records the vain and arteries in your hand that is another means of confirming you are who you say you are. The latest recognition tool that is in research is to identify individual by recognizing their walk pattern

Also, I think you walk a fine line around equating emergence with intelligence. I haven’t made that equation. What I have said, and what you might have misinterpreted, is: As far as we know, “intelligence” is an emergent quality and emergence appears on all levels of existence that we can perceive.Perhaps you mistakenly extended the subset to being the full set. That I haven’t said or implied. After all, how can two humans have a discussion about something that is defined as being beyond their comprehension, and thus beyond their conversational ability. It’s called thinking in the abstract which is not beyond human comprehension or conversational ability but we’re the model for intelligence (at least until we find something else that’s smart) and so to qualify as “intelligent” it will necessarily exhibit some of the signs that we do.

This is… amazing, just… wow! I am attending RPI this fall as a freshmen, and i plan on going into mechanical engineering and design. As soon as i saw this video i was literally agape and on the edge of my seat! I gave the link to all the other people going to RPI next year including Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and other Mech. Eng.
I have a Nintendo Wii, and an extra controller, so you can count on me bringing this set up to my Dorm room next year. With the interactive 2-point white-board alone i can think of either great fun or great ways to improve on how I do my work. Can this be set up to a CAD software or similar software for 3-D design?

Honestly Mr. Lee, I have so much respect for you right now. First for realizing this could be done, second for developing the software to make it happen, and last but far from least, for making the information widely distributed, the software free to everyone, and as you said, opening the field of research to such a broad range of people. You certainly deserve that standing ovation. Bravo!!!

The problem with battery technology is simply getting enough raw energy into the batteries fast enough during a “recharge” Those folks who insist that you can recharge an electric car battery in 5 minutes for a vehicle that will travel 500 miles and haul a mother, father, 3 kids, a dog, and a bunch of groceries simply don’t understand how much energy is required to make that happen.

One “cool” thing about hydrogen vehicles is that they can do exactly that: “recharge” quickly and on demand using equipment very similar to a gasoline pump and storage tanks. To “recharge” an electric automobile in a similar fashion, you would need direct access to a 10k volt electric grid substation and arcing such huge amperage into your vehicle that you wouldn’t even want to be in the vehicle when it was recharging. Yes, recharging on the order of a couple hours or more can be done with conventional 110/220 volt power circuits, but it isn’t trivial and takes a drastic change in lifestyle that many people don’t want to make.

BTW, Li-ion batteries, while in theory might be able to get to energy densities of gasoline, certainly aren’t there yet or even close. It is about 1% the energy density… and that is a pretty good accomplishment for batteries.

While battery technology has been showing a curve of improvement similar to Moore’s law, the “half life” to when improvement is seen to double the capacity is measured in decades, not months. Keep in mind, electric vehicles pre-dated the introduction of wide-spread internal combustion engines and were some of the first kind of mass-produced automobiles ever made. That’s 19th Century tech here!

As for the energy cost of producing a “gallon” of hydrogen fuel, before anybody goes off and complains about its cost, compare it to producing gasoline…. you’ll find that producing a gallon of gasoline consumes far more electricity AT THE REFINERY than it releases in terms of usable energy in an automobile.