Archive for Social Networking/Web/Education

Why China makes our electronic products (it’s not just cheaper labor)

January 22, 2012 Electronics, Innovation/entrepreneurship, Singularity/Futures, Social Networking/Web/Education, Social/Ethical/Legal No comments

iPhone 4S (credit: Apple Inc.)

It’s not just that workers are cheaper abroad, according to an important article in The New York Times Saturday. Most of the components of cellphones, computers, and other electronic products are now manufactured in China (and European and other East-Asia countries), so assembling the device half-a-world away would create huge logistical challenges, the article points out.

China now has a far larger supply of qualified engineers than the U.S. And China’s factories are far bigger and can react faster than those in the U.S.   “Made in the USA.” is no longer a viable option for most electronics products. So, many companies have closed major facilities in the United States to reopen in China, and middle-class jobs are disappearing as the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need.

“Economists debate the usefulness of those and other efforts, and note that a struggling economy is sometimes transformed by unexpected developments,” say the Times writers. “The last time analysts wrung their hands about prolonged American unemployment, for instance, in the early 1980s, the Internet hardly existed. Few at the time would have guessed that a degree in graphic design was rapidly becoming a smart bet, while studying telephone repair a dead end.

“What remains unknown, however, is whether the United States will be able to leverage tomorrow’s innovations into millions of jobs.”

So it seems to get down to this: what exactly are tomorrow’s innovations — what’s the next “Internet,” what skills will be required, and how can the U.S. (and elsewhere) compete?

Blackout

January 17, 2012 Social Networking/Web/Education, Social/Ethical/Legal No comments

“Better the government shut down than Wikipedia go on strike. That would be like part of my mind going on strike. Just give them [Wikipedia] whatever they want — we don’t even need to hear what it is.” — Ray Kurzweil

Social networks, surveillance, and terrorism

January 10, 2012 Internet/Telecom, Social Networking/Web/Education, Social/Ethical/Legal, Survival/Defense No comments

(Credit: iStockphoto)

“We are creating systems of comprehensive surveillance in which a billion people are involved and those people’s lives are being lived under a kind of scrutiny which no secret police service is the 20th century could ever have aspired to achieve,” claims militant digital privacy advocate Eben Moglen, Betabeat reports.

“And all of that data is being collected and sold by people whose goal it is to make a profit selling the ability to control human beings by knowing more about themselves than they know,” he says. “You are more heavily surveilled than the KGB or Stasi or Securitate or any other secret police ever surveilled anybody… We have an enormous ecological disaster created by badly-designed social media now being used by people to control and exploit human beings in all sorts of ways.”

In September, Facebook announced a brand new type of profile called Timeline, where your whole personal history is laid out month-by-month, all the way back to your birth. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is unhappy with the way Facebook launched Timeline, and sent a letter to the FTC on Dec. 27 asking it to investigate, ZDNET reports. EPIC says Facebook went too far because it started rolling out the redesign without asking users first. Facebook would love to have everyone fill in their past, of course; it provides yet another set of data that advertisers can exploit, New Scientist reports.

But uploading our entire lives could have more long-term consequences than a few targeted ads, experts warn.

Terrorists recruiting on Facebook

According to a new study just announced by Prof. Gabriel Weimann of the University of Haifa, hackers invading databases — like the recent huge security breach of Stratfor (including defense, intelligence and police officials, The Guardian now reports) — is just the tip of the iceberg in online terrorist activity. International terrorist organizations have shifted their Internet activity focus to social networks and a number of Facebook groups are asking users to join and support Hezbollah, Hamas and other armed groups that have been included in the West’s list of declared terror organizations.

“Today, about 90% of organized terrorism on the Internet is being carried out through the social media. By using these tools, the organizations are able to be active in recruiting new friends without geographical limitations,” says Weimann.

Over the past ten years, he has been conducting a study of encoded and public Internet sites of international terror organizations, groups supporting these organizations, forums, video clips, and whatever information relating to global terrorism is running through the network.

The following correspondence, for example, was easily found on the open, non-coded forum belonging to Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades: “I have a kilogram of acetone. I want to know how to make an explosive with it to blow up a military jeep.” A forum member promptly responded with descriptive instructions on how to turn the explosive liquid into a destructive tool.

A super-memory smart drug?

December 15, 2011 Biomed/Longevity, Biotech, Cognitive Science/Neuroscience, Social Networking/Web/Education No comments
Suppression of PKR

Suppression of the PKR molecule in mutant mice (right) enhances learning and memory by lowering GABA release, compared to the process in "wild type" (normal) mice (left) (credit: BCM)

Could this be the “Limitless” breakthrough we’ve been looking for?

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine  (BCM) have discovered that when the activity of PKR — a molecule normally elevated during viral infections — is inhibited in the brain, mice learn and remember dramatically better.

“The molecule PKR (the double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase) was originally described as a sensor of viral infections, but its function in the brain was totally unknown,” said Dr. Mauro Costa-Mattioli, assistant professor of neuroscience at BCM. But the activity of PKR is altered in a variety of cognitive disorders, so Costa-Mattioli and colleagues decided to take a closer look.

Super memory

“We found that when we genetically inhibited PKR, we increased the excitability of brain cells and enhanced learning and memory in a variety of behavioral tests,” said Costa-Mattioli.

For instance, they tested the mice ability to use visual cues for finding a hidden platform in a circular pool. Normal mice had to repeat the task multiple times over many days to remember the platform’s location. Mice lacking PKR learned the task after only one training session.

Memory-enhancing drug

The BCM researchers also found that this process could be mimicked by a PKR inhibitor — a small molecule that blocks PKR activity and thus acts as a “memory-enhancing drug.” The next step is to use what we have learned in mice and to try to improve brain function in people suffering from memory loss, said Costa-Mattioli.

There are roughly 6 million Americans and 35 million people world-wide with Alzheimer’s disease and more than 70 million Americans over the age of 60 who may suffer from aged-associated impairment of memory. (Not counting the millions who just want to be smarter, which would be just about everybody.)

Unfortunately, there’s a secret government conspiracy to keep this drug out of your hands. OK, I made that part up.

But note the figure above: in mice that have been genetically engineering to inhibit PKR (right), the result is to lower GABA release. We know that GABA, the brain’s major inhibitory neurotransmitter, has an anti-anxiety or calming effect, which is why tranquilizers increase GABA production. So could using the PKR inhibitor drug also lead to increased anxiety?

Also, PKR is not just elevated during viral infections. PKR is thought to be a key player in cellular response to different kinds of stress: PKR activation leads to inhibited protein synthesis and transcription of genes involved in an inflammatory response. So you get smarter, but also get sicker if you have the flu or some other stressor? Or maybe just take it when you’re not under stress?

I have an email into Dr. Costa-Mattioli find out more.

Ref.: Ping Jun Zhu et al. Suppression of PKR Promotes Network Excitability and Enhanced Cognition by Interferon-γ-Mediated Disinhibition, Cell, 2011 [DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2011.11.029]

How to learn things automatically

December 12, 2011 Cognitive Science/Neuroscience, Social Networking/Web/Education, Social/Ethical/Legal, VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics No comments
Decoded Neurofeedback

Automatic neurofeedback learning (credit: Boston University)

OK, this one’s right out of The Matrix and The Manchurian Candidate.

Imagine watching a computer screen while lying down in a brain imaging machine and automatically learning how to play the guitar or lay up hoops like Shaq O’Neal, or even how to recuperate from a disease — without any conscious knowledge.

Researchers at Boston University (BU) and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan used decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to induce visual cortex activity patterns to match a previously known target state and thereby improve performance on visual tasks.

“Adult early visual areas are sufficiently plastic to cause visual perceptual learning,” said lead author and BU neuroscientist Takeo Watanabe, director of BU’s Visual Science Laboratory.

Neuroscientists have previously found that pictures gradually build up inside a person’s brain, appearing first as lines, edges, shapes, colors and motion in early visual areas. The brain then fills in greater detail to make a red ball appear as a red ball, for example. Researchers studied the early visual areas for their ability to cause improvements in visual performance and learning.

“However, none of these studies directly addressed the question of whether early visual areas are sufficiently plastic to cause visual perceptual learning,” said Watanabe. So they used decoded fMRI neurofeedback to induce a particular activation pattern in targeted early visual areas that corresponded to a pattern evoked by a specific visual feature in a brain region of interest. The researchers found that repetitions of the activation pattern caused long-lasting visual performance improvement on that visual feature — without the subject’s active involvement. The method could be used for improving memory or motor (muscle) skills, the researchers suggest.

But that’s where is gets a bit scary. “In theory, hypnosis or a type of automated learning is a potential outcome,” said Kawato. “However, in this study we confirmed the validity of our method only in visual perceptual learning. So we have to test if the method works in other types of learning in the future. At the same time, we have to be careful so that this method is not used in an unethical way.”

Uh, ya think?

Ref.: Kazuhisa Shibata et al., Perceptual Learning Incepted by Decoded fMRI Neurofeedback Without Stimulus Presentation, Science, 2011 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1212003]

interlife

InterLife project (credit: ESRC)

Are virtual worlds better than the real world for learning?

Here another one that weirds me out just a little. It uses virtual worlds to help students learn.

Academics at Glasgow University and elsewhere have developed 3D virtual worlds to act as informal communities that allow students to learn by interacting in shared learning activities, such as film making and photography.

“We demonstrated that you can plan activities with kids and get them working in 3D worlds with commitment, energy and emotional involvement, over a significant period of time,” project lead researcher Professor Victor Lally said.

OK, but those are things sound like fun to do. Why do they need avatars and elaborate virtual worlds — just give me a video cam and some software and get the hell out of my way! These kids are sitting there in from of monitors vegging out watching virtual worlds instead of shooting Occupy Edinburgh for YouTube.

My guess is that this is really intended as a tool to teach stuff that students have no interest in. In other words: more effective compulsory government-controlled education.

“It’s a highly engaging medium that could have a major impact in extending education and training beyond geographical locations. 3-D worlds seem to do this in a much more powerful way than many other social tools currently available on the Internet,” Lally insisted. “When appropriately configured, this virtual environment can offer safe spaces to experience new learning opportunities that seemed unfeasible only 15 years ago.”

“You can now create multiple science simulations of field trip locations, for example, using 3-D world ‘hyper-grids’ that allow participants to ‘teleport’ between a range of experiments or activities. This enables the students to share their learning through recording their activities, presenting graphs about their results, and use voting technologies to judge attitudes and opinions from others. It can offer new possibilities for designing exciting and engaging learning spaces. This kind of 3D technology could be used to simulate training environments, retail contexts, and interview situations.”

A mobile app is also in development. The research is part of the Inter-Life project in Scotland, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

OK, maybe I was wrong. For some subjects (think: math, science), hanging out in (and building) virtual worlds is a hell of a lot more fun than sitting around listening to some boring teacher drone on and on. What do you think?

The Internet, peer-reviewed

October 28, 2011 Computers/Infotech/UI, Innovation/entrepreneurship, Internet/Telecom, Social Networking/Web/Education No comments

It could be one of the most important innovations on the Internet since the browser.

Imagine an open-source, crowd-sourced, community-moderated, distributed platform for sentence-level annotation of the Web. In other words, a way to cut through the babble and restore some sanity and trust.

That’s the idea behind Hypothes.is. It will work as an overlay on top of any stable content, including news, blogs, scientific articles, books, terms of service, ballot initiatives, legislation and regulations, software code and more — without requiring participation of the underlying site.

It’s based on a new draft standard for annotating digital documents currently being developed by the Open Annotation Collaboration, a consortium that includes the Internet Archive, NISO (National Information Standards Organization), O’Reilly Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and a number of academic institutions.

“If what is published is immediately fact and logic-checked, in a detailed and highly visible way, it will necessarily put pressure upstream to the point of authorship,” says the FAQ. “In order to accomplish this we need better feedback mechanisms. Standard comments just aren’t up to the task, and neither are newer systems such as Disqus, IntenseDebate, Facebook Comments or others. While interesting, none of them fundamentally change the comment model. It’s time for a new set of tools.”

Yes, it’s been tried before, and didn’t catch on. But looking at the solid concept and the names involved, I believe they can pull it off.

I just donated to their Kickstarter fund. I recommend you do the same. (You might also want to reserve your user name.)

Singularity Summit 2011 roundup

October 19, 2011 Innovation/entrepreneurship, Singularity/Futures, Social Networking/Web/Education No comments
Ray Kurzweil

Ray Kurzweil (credit: Singularity Institute)

The tone of the Singularity Summit 2011 in New York was set by Ray Kurzweil, who presented many examples of accelerating developments, countering the arguments presented by Microsoft’s co-founder Paul Allen in a recent article, The Singularity Isn’t Near.

Robots vs. humans

James McLurkin introduced the concept of swarms of small, light, and cheap robots that communicate with each other, solve problems collaboratively, and call others for help. He wowed the audience with a demo of a flock of small wheeled robots following each other, aligning and dispersing on the podium. A single robot can be assembled with a low-cost kit and programmed with Python, he said. Practical uses aside, McLurkin believes his system can also trigger a revolution in engineering education by permitting students and hobbyists to link their individual robots and experiment with new programming and problem-solving paradigms.

Robot swarms

Robot swarms, presented by James McLurkin (credit: Singularity Institute)

Riley Crane suggested that swarms of communicating persons, can solve complex crowdsourced problems better than robots. The people must be “programmed” with suitable incentives (cash or social reputation, for example) and provided with suitable communication tools like Twitter (proven effective in humanitarian relief operations).

Sharon Bertsch McGrayne presented Bayesian reasoning as a rational method for analyzing data and making decisions.

Christof Koch discussed the search for neural correlates of consciousness. Rather than than general self-awareness, he is more interested in consciousness of something, which does not require emotions, long term memory, language, or selective attention. He suggested that consciousness should be seen as a continuum, rather than discrete. He pointed out that Tononi’s “measure” assigns a high value to fully interrelated states of consciousness that cannot be easily decomposed in parts. As an example, Koch suggested that identifying “impossible” pictures, such as a picture containing subtly wrong perspectives or impossible situations (e.g. a person levitating) may be a good criterion for consciousness.

Dan Cerutti, David Ferucci, Ken Jennings

Dan Cerutti, David Ferucci, Ken Jennings (credit: Singularity Institute)

Singularity Institute Research Fellow Eliezer Yudkowsky, and D. Scott Brown and Dileep George, co-founders of Vicarious, discussed their approach to AI. And David Ferrucci, Dan Cerutti (both from IBM) and Jeopardy! winner Ken Jennings discussed the implications of the Watson Jeopardy! victory.

Most speakers were optimistic about the eventual development of human-level (or higher) AI. Alexander Wissner-Gross suggested that the first true AI could emerge on a planetary scale from the developing system of interlocked exchanges for high-frequency financial trading, which could be seen as a developing global “brain” already operating at relativistic speeds.

The big picture

Stephen Wolfram

Stephen Wolfram (credit: Singularity Institute)

Stephen Wolfram described computational universes, from simple cellular automata rules to complex simulations, and suggested that perhaps a universe could be generated by a simple program, yet show all the complexity of our universe to observers living inside. Max Tegmark suggested that we are probably alone in the part of the universe that we can access, whose evolution and emergence to life and intelligence could then be seen as our task.

Jaan Tallinn

Jaan Tallinn (credit: Singularity Institute)

One task for the Singularity community suggested by science fiction author David Brin would be to seek a dialog with religious people. The Tower of Babel, commonly interpreted as a punishment for human hubris, could actually be seen as an encouragement to spread around the Earth and gain more experience before attempting to become gods, he suggested. Jason Silva, a filmmaker and founding producer/host for Current TV, took it a step further, suggesting we make futurism more appealing and sexy.

Optimists vs. pessimists

Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel (credit: Singularity Institute)

Macroeconomics, the roles of free markets and government programs, and innovation mechanisms played a more important role than in previous Summits, with frequent references to the social protests at Occupy Wall Street a few miles away. Skype founder Jaan Tallinn welcomed the emergence of new social movements of people interested in the long term future and the welfare of future societies. He praised one of the silent heroes of recent history, Stanislav Petrov, who by deviating from standard Soviet protocol and correctly identifying a missile attack warning as a false alarm on September 26, 1983 may have single-handedly prevented a major conflict.

After stating that there are not enough public discussions about the future, Peter Thiel defended real innovation against the current trend of letting emerging market cheaply produce products and services copied from past innovations (he referred to this concept as vertical innovation vs. horizontal globalization). He advised the many entrepreneurs at the Summit to base their businesses on compelling mission stories, both unique and doable.

John Mauldin predicted that a next big innovation wave will arise from wireless connectivity, sovereign individuals empowered to make their own decisions, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, AI, and new sources of energy, and Michael Shermer presented evidence that our world is indeed nicer than the world of our grandfathers, and that this trend will continue.

Tyler Cowen presented a less enthusiastic view in his talk (and in a following debate with Singularity Institute President Michael Vassar), suggesting that we may be in a stagnation phase.

Biomed advances

Sonia Arrison

Sonia Arrison (credit: Singularity Institute)

Sonia Arrison said medical advances could nearly double human life expectancy in the next few decades and suggested ways for society to cope with increased lifespans. Stephen Badylak gave an overview of advances in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and biological scaffolding able to help tissues to heal themselves. Dmitry Itskov described Russian plans to develop humanoid avatar bodies within this decade, followed by human brain transplants and mind uploading in a few decades.

Is Sponge Bob destroying kids’ minds — or accelerating their intelligence?

September 13, 2011 Cognitive Science/Neuroscience, Computers/Infotech/UI, Social Networking/Web/Education, Social/Ethical/Legal 69 comments

Young children who watch fast-paced, fantastical television shows may become “handicapped” in their readiness for learning, says a new University of Virginia study.

U.Va. psychologists tested 4-year-old children immediately after they had watched nine minutes of the popular show “SpongeBob SquarePants” and found that their “executive function” — the ability to pay attention, follow rules, remember what they were told, solve problems, and moderate behavior — had been severely compromised.

“At school, they have to behave properly, they need to sit at a table and eat properly, they need to be respectful, and all of that requires executive functions,” said U.Va. psychology professor Angeline Lillard.

“It is possible that the fast pacing, where characters are constantly in motion from one thing to the next, and extreme fantasy, where the characters do things that make no sense in the real world, may disrupt the child’s ability to concentrate immediately afterward. Another possibility is that children identify with unfocused and frenetic characters, and then adopt their characteristics.”

OK, here’s another possibility: schools are just too damn boring and repressive, and it’s unhealthy to keep kids immobilized like prisoners. Can teachers — who were brainwashed as children to sit quietly, follow the rules, take mind-numbing drugs if they move around, and learn to be good little quiet robots — ever keep up with kids whose minds have been sped up way beyond them?

Here’s an idea: what if we replaced schools — modeled on 19th century factories and churches — with fast-paced animated learning environments using AI-enhanced video games, robot cartoon characters, and educational social networks, so kids can grow up with the ability to handle the wildly accelerating computerized world of the future?

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