Archive for June, 2009

ISU = International Space University

SU = Singularity University

Click below for Part I. It begins after close to 9 minutes of music and is an hour in length including the music.

Click below for Part II. It is 30 minutes in length.

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This inspiring article shows how far we came in 30 years…just think what’ll happen in the next 30!!!!

child with walkman instead of ipod

When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week. more>>>

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An unusual new academic institution called Singularity University, run by a well-known entrepreneur and a futurist known for his claims that computers will soon outsmart human beings, welcomed its first class of students last night. But first the new students posed for a class picture and had a “spit party,” where they submitted saliva samples to have their DNA sequenced.

Click here for the entire article titled “An Unusual Attempt to Shape a High-Tech Future, Singularity U. Gets Underway” found in “The Wired Campus”.

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Click HERE to check out the spread.

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This is a great poll on H+ Cafe started by Peer Infinity: How does transhumanism affect your life today?

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solid-state quantum processor

A team led by Yale University researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, taking another step toward the ultimate dream of building a quantum computer.

They also used the two-qubit superconducting chip to successfully run elementary algorithms, such as a simple search, demonstrating quantum information processing with a solid-state device for the first time. Their findings will appear in Nature’s advanced online publication June 28.
“Our processor can perform only a few very simple quantum tasks, which have been demonstrated before with single nuclei, atoms and photons,” said Robert Schoelkopf, the William A. Norton Professor of Applied Physics & Physics at Yale. “But this is the first time they’ve been possible in an all-electronic device that looks and feels much more like a regular microprocessor.” more>>>

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With the official launch of the inaugural summer session of Singularity University just days away, Keith Keiner sat down with the University’s Executive Director Salim Ismail to get an inside look at this exciting event (see video interview at the end of Keith’s post on the Singularity Hub).

Click here for Keith Keiner’s post.

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H+ Cafe chatroom at bottom of viewing portal just click on it and it will pop up with the chatroom.

that’s at hpluscafe.com tonight and every Wednesday evening all evening.

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Recently appointed Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) President Michael Vassar, a hardcore proponent of science and reason, emphasizes the importance of “human rationality” when discussing the future, making clear that SIAI is an “analytical think tank and research organization, not an advocacy group”. Vassar says he’s apprehensive about a “possible decrease in the quality of debate as the [Singularity] goes mainstream” and that he would find a public backlash against intelligent debate of a Singularity “odd”.

Click here to enjoy the candid and insightful interview.

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Jamais Cascio talks about Mobile Intelligence (”Your Brain’s Future, Mobilized”). This is about the Augmented Future: augmented awareness, augmented society, augmented environments… He sketches 3 possible futures: participatory, interconnected and leapfrog – all with different features and also why it is matters to be aware of this.

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This STAIF 2007 presentation by Dr. Richard Obousy describes an advanced space-propulsion concept based on modifying the local cosmological constant to facilitate an expansion/contraction of spacetime around a spacecraft to create an exotic form of field-propulsion. This idea is analogous to the Alcubierre bubble, but differs entirely in the approach, utilizing the physics of higher dimensional quantum field theory, instead of general relativity.


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If a ‘miracle’ is defined as something wonderful then I would guess that this counts:

Click HERE to read about Terry Wallis, who woke up after 19 years in a vegetative state!

Visit HERE to view his official website

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From Engadget:

World's smallest vga display

You’re looking at a full-color LCD with a resolution of 600 x 480 pixels (more than your iPhone’s 480 x 320) that measures just over a quarter of an inch, diagonally–the world’s smallest. Each individual pixel measures 2.9 x 8.7 µm (that’s micro); for reference, the thickness of a human hair is around 100 µm.

But why? Kopin, the company that created the prototype, has the ultimate goal of creating a display with a resulotion of 2048 x 2048 (4.2 million dots) that’s smaller than a postage stamp–that’s more resolution than a typical high-def widescreen monitor or television. They’re hoping to use these ultra-high res, tiny displays to make sharp, high-end electronic viewfinders in HD video and still cameras, similar to the one already used in Panasonic’s Micro Four Thirds G1 (which uses 1.4 million dots).

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From Live Science:

Examples of same-sex behavior can be found in almost all species in the animal kingdom — from worms to frogs to birds — making the practice nearly universal among animals, according to a new review of research on the topic.

“It’s clear that same-sex sexual behavior extends far beyond the well-known examples that dominate both the scientific and popular literature: for example, bonobos, dolphins, penguins and fruit flies,” said Nathan Bailey, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Riverside. more>>>


Same-Sex Interactions among Animals

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