The Turing Problem 100 years ago this year, the man who first conceived of the computer age was born. His name was Alan Turing. He was also a math genius, a hero of World War II and he is widely considered to be the father of artificial intelligence. But the world wasn't kind to Alan Turing. In 1952, he was arrested and convicted under a British law that prohibited "acts of gross indecency between men, in public or private." In 1936, a young Alan Turing devised a machine that would ultimately change the world. You: So? Us: So this was back when the only "computers" were people doing math by hand. Turing lived his whole life with machines. The idea that machines would become our equals was unsettling for many of Turing's peers. Alan Turing was arrested and convicted in 1952 for activities that are no longer illegal in England. Read more: Janna Levin, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines David Leavitt, The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer
Robotic Quintet Composes And Plays Its Own Music Sound Machines 2.0 is Festo's latest effort to create robotic musicians. The German engineering firm Festo has developed a self-playing robotic string quintet that will listen to a piece of music and generate new musical compositions in various musical styles effortlessly. Dubbed Sound Machines 2.0, the acoustic ensemble is made up of two violins, a viola, a cello, and a double bass, each consisting of a single string that is modulated by an electric actuator for pitch, a pneumatic cylinder that acts as a hammer to vibrate the string, and a 40 watt speaker. A new composition is generated in a two-stage process. Here’s an example of what the robots can produce: Festo is better known for projects from its Bionic Learning Network, which include amazing animal-inspired robots, such as SmartBird, the elephant trunk-inspired Bionic Handling Assistant and Robotino, AirPenguin and AquaPenguin, AirJelly and AquaJelly, AquaRay and Airacuda (these are just too cool not to mention). [Media: Festo]
预见未来的七条法则（上） 30 年前，John Nasibitt 创办了《大趋势》——一本试图预测美国未来的杂志。他预见未来的工具简单而又有效：报纸。必然不是简简单单的读，而是用尺子量。某一话题所占版面的尺寸越大，越可能成为未来的新趋势。 虽然巧妙，但这种办法已经不再适用于今日了。 科技总是会带来一些全新的、以前完全无法预料的东西。 那么你会如何去发现未来呢？ 1 寻找跨界者 我们都知道那些最好的点子，最有影响力和生命力的点子，都是可传递的。 回头看看我们能发现很多此类例子。 有时候跨界者能塑造全新的准则。 传统工业也能看到这种变化。 2 指数起飞 有些趋势是如此恒久， 摩尔定律就是一例。 其他技术领域也有自己的摩尔定律：网络、传感器、数据存储。 正是同样的洞见力促成了 YouTube 的诞生，Jawed 意识到宽带会如此便宜而又无处不在，人们观看视频的方式必然会完全不同，所以创立了 YouTube。 这一趋势也使得 Fitbit 有机会击败 Nike+。 在这个世界，指数无处不在。 3 拥抱解放 解放有两种。 另一种解放通过另一种更微妙的方式解决资源的匮乏。 未来社会会是怎样的？ 继续阅读 （下） Via Wired How Your Brain Avoids Mental Traffic Jams - Brian Fung - Health To keep from tripping over one another, different parts of your brain run at different speeds. Flickr/andrew_bisset We often like to think of our brains as a single device, the unitary executive governing the republic of our limbs and thoughts. While there's some truth to that, the reality is much more complex. In fact, not only do different parts of the brain perform different functions, but many of our basic activities -- such as quoting a song lyric or calculating a waiter's tip -- actually activate multiple regions of the brain that fire in perfect coordination with one another. When these otherwise independent parts of the brain work together, they operate in what's called a brain network: Large scale brain network research suggests that cognitive functioning is the result of interactions or communication between different brain systems distributed throughout the brain.
Finland Futures Research Centre Remee - The REM enhancing Lucid Dreaming Mask by Bitbanger Labs Like Bitbanger Labs on Facebook Remee has been selected as a finalist for the William McShane Fund, by Buckyballs & Brookstone! If you think Remee deserves to be available at Brookstone, vote here! Yes, really! To us, this is kind of a shame, sort of like being unaware of the existence of books or music. This is an easy one. There's a lot more to Lucid Dreaming than simply acknowledging that it's real and crossing your fingers. Boom. Here's some great info for people new to the concept: WNYC's Radiolab - We've been listening to Radiolab for ages, so we thought it was great when they recently released a short about someone using lucid dreaming to overcome a recurring nightmare. /r/LucidDreaming - Reddit's active, knowledgeable, helpful Lucid Dreaming community. 25,000 dreamers strong and growing! Lucidipedia - A veritable treasure trove of information about the practice of lucid dreaming. In default mode, Remee targets these long chunks of REM sleep towards the end of the sleep period.
MIT Creates Amazing UI From Levitating Orbs Anyone else see The Avengers? Just like in Iron Man 1 and 2, Tony Stark has the coolest interactive 3-D displays. He can pull a digital wire frame out of a set of blueprints or wrap an exoskeleton around his arm. Those moments aren’t just sci-fi fun; they’re full of visionary ideas to explore and manipulate objects in 3-D space. Except for one thing: How would Stark feel all of these objects to move them around? Jinha Lee, from the Tangible Media Group of the MIT Media Lab, in collaboration with Rehmi Post and Hiroshi Ishii, has been playing with the idea of manipulating real floating objects in 3-D space to create a truly tactile user interface. It’s essentially a small field in which gravity doesn’t overcome an object. “There is something fundamental behind motivations to liberate physical matter from gravity and enable control. Interviewing Lee, I realized he’s one-part scientist, one-part philosopher. As of now, the concept has been proven, and Lee is already focusing on scale.
群O言论（一）：我理解的O2O 最近O2O这个词很热，定义也很多。有人直接定义为“online to offline”, 有人定义为“线上交易线下消费体验”，有人定义为“O2O是第三产业服务类产品的电商，而B2C是第2产业工业类产品的电商”，有人定位“O2O只适合复杂的无法定义标准的产品”。在实战中，有人搞了二维码拍码，就说自己是搞O2O的，有人搞了个团购就说自己是O2O，有人搞生活服务类电商也说自己是O2O。 于是乎，天使们（他们太象苍蝇了，无时无刻不在网上指点江山激扬文字，大谈概念）纷纷定义，创业者们就扯住概念的尾巴使劲靠(不靠住天使，钱哪里来)，然后一唱一和演双簧，搞的好不热闹。 任何新概念的定义本身是很难的事情，中国先哲老子一句“道可道，非常道”就告诉我们：可以说出来的道不是绝对的道，当天下的人都知道美这个概念，就会出现丑的认识，当天下的人都知道好的时候，就会出现恶的认识。因此，万物皆如此，有和无在成长中相互依存；难和易在实践中相互依存；长和短在对比中相互依存；高和低在位置上相互依存；调和音在和声里相互依存；前和后在伴随中相互依存，（“故有无相生，难易相成，长短相较，高下相间，音声相和，前后相随”，呵呵总算翻译出来了）。 如果现在有一个问题，让你一句话说清楚O2O，估计90%以上的人会说， O2O即Online To Offline，也即将线下商务的机会与互联网结合在了一起，让互联网成为线下交易的前台。 有人说线上交易线下享受消费体验，是O2O，很多互联网巨头企业都成立了O2O部门，主要就干这事，什么类型的业务是线上交易线下享受消费体验？ 现在，我们来解析一下O2O，online和offline（这里排名不分前后）的那个通过to（二）相互依存，于是乎，在我的实战中，经常看到4种方式的O2O业务类型： 1. 2. 3. 4. 这里，我们看到三个词“交易，营销，消费体验”，这3个词都是商务行为的名字，但差异在哪里，我个人理解如下： 1. 2. 3. 以上三个商务行为，谁能告诉我，哪个行为必须在线上（虚拟世界）完成，哪个行为必须是在线下（真实世界）完成？ 先谈营销，你可以在线上进行营销企划，搞优惠，打折，促销，去年淘宝双11的线上促销不是很成功吗，还在线上模拟出线下的一个商圈；至于线下搞营销，那就海了去了，每到过节，我老婆就到商场逛街，买平时看上的那些品牌商品。 原文地址：不二博客 © 2012, LBS观察员.
``Memes, The New Replicators'' Dec. 1999 Chapter 11 from Richard Dawkins, ``The Selfish Gene'' [ First published 1976; 1989 edition: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-286092-5 (paperback) ], the best short introduction to, and the text that kicked off, the new science of MEMETICS, (and, also, the text where Dawkins coined the term `meme'). The following, key, paragraph of this chapter may perhaps serve as an abstract: Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. The notes (1), (2), ... are from the 1989 edition. Highlights ** and text in square brackets are not original. 11. So far, I have not talked much about man in particular, though I have not deliberately excluded him either. Most of what is unusual about man can be summed up in one word: `culture'. Cultural transmission is not unique to man. Song in the saddleback truly evolves by non-genetic means. Consider the idea of God. (2) Meme 20.
Futures studies Moore's law is an example of futures studies; it is a statistical collection of past and present trends with the goal of accurately extrapolating future trends. Futures studies (also called futurology and futurism) is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science. In general, it can be considered as a branch of the social sciences and parallel to the field of history. Overview[edit] Futures studies is an interdisciplinary field, studying yesterday's and today's changes, and aggregating and analyzing both lay and professional strategies and opinions with respect to tomorrow. Foresight may be the oldest term for the field. Three factors usually distinguish futures studies from the research conducted by other disciplines (although all of these disciplines overlap, to differing degrees). Probability and predictability[edit] Methodologies[edit]
IBM's Quantum Computers Could Change The World (Mostly In Very Good Ways) 101010: That's the number 42 represented in binary, which is the mathematical way today's binary computers see every single piece of information flowing through them, whether it's a stock price, the latest Adele track, or a calculation to generate an MRI of a tumor. But now IBM believes it's made progress in developing quantum computers, which don't use binary coding. It is not overstating the matter to say this really may be the ultimate answer in computing machines. First, a little background: Computers today, everything from the chip controlling your washing machine cycle to the screen you're reading this on, rely on binary math to work. Now, what if instead of simply being able to do math with ones and zeros, a computer chip could work with bits that included other numbers? That's quantum computing. Whenever it arrives, the world will change. And there are many ways this tech would touch your life on an everyday basis, as well. Next, on the lighter side, consider art.
Is this the future of Project Glass? – Cell Phones & Mobile Device Technology News & Updates Wearable technology, and computing equipment that acts more like another limb then a gadget, has gotten a lot of attention recently thanks to Google . Project Glass made a big splash not too long ago at Google’s annual developer conference when they showed several users falling on to the Moscone West in San Francisco. Google’s pretty bent on showing us the sharing possibilities with Project Glass, but it feels like in time that technology could become a ubiquitous part of our lives. Fortunately for those of us who lack a hyperactive imagination, a short film popped up recently that can help fill in the blanks. I love the world that was created in this film, and how it was all made possible by wearable tech. Instead of a television, there’s just an empty wall that the contact lenses fill in with whatever you want to watch. I reached the end of the short film and, despite the frightening turn the technology took, would gladly sign up to have that tech.
O2O进化论（一） O2O的本质，是信息化浪潮对实体经济的深入。这种深入，体现在实体经济的信息获取能力、信息传递能力、信息处理能力、信息再生能力和信息利用能力得到本质的提升。这也是第一次,实体经济信息化的需求与虚拟经济实体化的需求如此的契合呼应。 互联网，特别是移动互联网。在做为一种智能化生产工具，已经与前几次与过去信息化革命中诞生的生产工具的本质区别是，它不再是一件一件孤立分散的工具，而是一个具有庞大规模的、自上而下的、自组织的信息网络体系。 每次技术革命，都遵循着“核心理论建设”、“基础技术体系构建“、”理论与技术应用工具化“、”新型经济组织形式诞生并影响社会组织形式“这样的四步规律演进。 信息化浪潮绵延至今，从语言的使用、文字的创造、印刷术的发明到电报、电话、广播、电视的发明和普及应用，直至今日计算机应用的普及、计算机与现代通信技术的结合，每次都对当时代的社会组织形式、经济增长方式以及普通人的生活，产生了深刻的影响。 我尝试着进行一种类似wiki的博客撰写方式来写本篇连载博客。 第一期：＜走出三公里＞。 第二期：＜马甲＞。 第三期：拟定：＜新思维＞讨论移动状态下的信息组织形式以及其对传播业的影响。 第一期：走出三公里（上） 中国的互联网企业，一直是叫好不叫座。 随着移动互联网浪潮的不断深入，实体经济和互联网经济，已经到了不得不融合的地步。 对于中国的互联网经济来说，如何从3%的份额中进入这97%的市场，几乎成为了一场生死攸关的战役。 线上交易已经血流成河，在新近者拼命寻找垂直市场以安身立命的同时，线下交易，也许成为了一条不得不考虑的路线。 对于那些“把产品放进箱子里邮寄给消费者”的在线购物公司来说，线下交易，一直是个不能说的秘密。 在这样的思路下，有几家可以谈起的企业： 大众点评，不用多做介绍。 “今夜酒店特价＂ 用渠道和商品的组合来区隔消费者。 而把“服务送到移动的消费者身边”这样的思路，似乎还没有可复制的典型模式，传统上人们会认为，现在电商干的就是这样的事情。 第一期：走出三公里待续••••••• 在接下来的内容中，我们会讨论到沃尔玛的五公里死亡圈和人类活动范围对移动购物的影响。 © 2012, 董焘.