Digital Humanists Call it transhumanism, post-humanism, the singularity, or Human 2.0. Whatever you call it, these users see the future. This circle contains users who actively post on cybernetics, cognitive enhancements and bodily extensions, digital communities, robotics and artificial intelligence, network theory and complexity, and other aspects of the human condition in the Digital Age. __ A few people have popped up in gchat asking if I had recommendations along these lines, so I decided to make a public circle. I haven’t seen one like it; I hope this is appreciated. It is obviously small at the moment and I’m positive that there are plenty of active people in my stream that I’ve missed. Hopefully we can make the circle grow. If you think you belong in this circle or have other recommendations, please leave a comment!

Flagging the list of +John Battelle‘s so-called “open values”, which are roughly in line with what I’ve been calling the #digitalvalues . More discussion on the philosophy of digital values here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/117828903900236363024/posts/TXUwt32fWU8 Jeffrey Sullivan originally shared this post: What Values Do You Want Your Social Media Site(s) to Share with You? It’s a fascinating question, as we wrap our lives into publicly-searchable sites. John Battelle proposes the list below in the referenced article. Are these the right values, and how well does G+ fit them so far? – No gatekeepers. The web is decentralized. Anyone can start a web site. No one has the authority (in a democracy, anyway) to stop you from putting up a shingle. – An ethos of the commons. The web developed over time under an ethos of community development, and most of its core software and protocols are royalty free or open source (or both). There wasn’t early lockdown on what was and wasn’t allowed. This created chaos, shady operators, and plenty of dirt and dark alleys. But it also allowed extraordinary value to blossom in that roiling ecosystem. – No preset rules about how data is used. If one site collects information from or about a user of its site, that site has the right to do other things with that data, assuming, again, that it’s doing things that benefit all parties concerned. – Neutrality. _No one site on the web is any more or less accessible than any other site. If it’s on the web, you can find it and visit it. – Interoperability. Sites on the web share common protocols and principles, and determine independently how to work with each other. There is no centralized authority which decides who can work with who, in what way. Or would you add or replace […]

Lots of great lessons on the #attentioneconomy in this essay by Dan Dennett, which is about the life and death of memes as a biological phenomenon. One aspect of attention economy that has gotten some push back is the idea that you can’t store attention the way you can collect and store traditional currencies. Dennett gives a similar argument in this essay: It is important to remember that there is very little inertia in culture; an art form or practice (or language or institution) can become extinct in a generation if its elements aren’t assiduously reproduced and reproduced. The argument, roughly, is that cultural trends that were previously “popular” (that is, memetically successful) may suddenly lose that popularity if it isn’t maintained and curated properly. I believe this generally supports my intuition that you can’t store attention; you can’t reap the benefits of former success in the present if the work hasn’t been done to maintain that attention along the way. Jenny Winder originally shared this post: The social cell What do debutante balls, the Japanese tea ceremony, Ponzi schemes and doubting clergy all have in common? By Daniel Dennett New Statesman – The social cell Current affairs, world politics, the arts and more from Britain’s award-winning magazine

Drew Sowersby originally shared this post: Is the awakening of #AugmentedReality within reach? “The human eye has tremendous capabilities, but it is limited in its ability to focus on objects placed very near the eye. This inability to focus on near objects has lead traditional near-eye display developers to develop complex optical solutions that make the so-called near-to-eye image source appear to be located further away than it actually is and comparable to a typical television or small monitor. Innovega has developed an alternative display architecture that is based on enhancing the human eye’s normal vision capabilities. It improves sharpness of vision in one’s real-world while enabling the wearer to view extreme detail of objects placed very near to the eye and specifically at the usual distance between traditional eyewear and the eye. In this way the wearer is able to simultaneously focus on virtual content from the eyewear and on the entire spectrum of activities in the real-world. This new iOptik approach leverages the mature technology used by contact lens suppliers and eliminates the usual bulky optics that have previously been required in the design of video eyewear products.” — http://innovega-inc.com/new-architecture.php

The differences between Asimo and PETMAN, the walking bot from Boston Dynamics, are pretty dramatic. It might be a fun exercise to reflect on what those differences are. Consider it exercise in the #philosophyofrobotics . I could write an essay on the differences between these bots, but I want to see my stream finds most salient. What differences do you notice about PETMAN and Asimo? What are the sources and consequences of those differences? If you didn’t catch it the first time around, here’s PETMAN: http://wallpapergravity.com/wallpapers2/192/192970.jpg h/t +Matt Uebel Rahmet Valentin originally shared this post: Skynet is working. Judgement day cometh.

Google understands the #attentioneconomy better than anyone. h/t +Jean Bezivin Bo Jensen originally shared this post: Strata 2012: Hal Varian, Using Google Data for Short-term Economic Forecasting I enjoyed this talk about using Google Data. Definitely worth a watch. Strata 2012: Hal Varian, “Using Google Data for Short-term Economic Forecasting”

The hand gestures are awkward, I think, and I hope ends up being one of those guesses we got horribly wrong. The idea of gestures is partly the result of thinking about information in terms of objects that need to be “handled” in some way or other; gestures are a way of making data objects tactile, in at least some sense. But I think this is a gross underestimation of the symbolic capability of the human brain. When I type at the keyboard, for instance, I am engaging with an interface that is very abstractly related to the content I am dealing with, and yet I can manipulate that interface with a high degree of dexterity, speed, and control. Language generally works by manipulating meaningful symbolic representations with incredibly fine-grained control. We can do it with our fingers, we can do it with the muscles in our throat, and we can do it with tiny squiggles of pixels transmitting light into our retina. We should be looking for ways of taking advantage of new symbolic structures, instead of making us paw at media like a bear at honey. Seriously, anyone knows anything about ASL or other signing systems should be embarrassed at the complete lack of sophistication in our gesture interfaces. It’s like we are proud of our illiteracy. These are interface problems, and hopefully neural interfaces, including retinal tracking, have a bigger impact on our interfacing with screens in the future. h/t +michael barth, left the comment in his thread: https://plus.google.com/u/0/108101284889680772496/posts/LYfbMfExqpq Peter G McDermott originally shared this post: The Evolution of Screen Technology If you look at most of the sci-fi movies from the 70’s and 80’s, they featured CRT’s still as the technology of the future. With the advent of Plasma and LCD (now OLED), we are starting […]

Derya Unutmaz originally shared this post: This video is about Man’s quest to find Artificial Intelligence.

Smartphones—extraordinarily powerful, mobile, data-network-connected computers equipped with GPS, accelerometers and all sort of other gee-whizzery—have become so ubiquitous so fast because they’re so remarkable (and because falling tech prices have quickly made them affordable). But because they’ve become so ubiquitous so fast, I think we underappreciate the revolutionary potential of a world in which powerful mini-computers are everywhere, and where every person has an unfathomable about of information available all the time. Innovations like Twitter are dazzling and useful; they may well end up the technological equivalent of a plasma globe, a shiny, technological trinket that only hinted at the social and economic potential of the concepts upon which it was based. The potential of the smartphone age is deceptive. We look around and see more people talking on phones in more places and playing Draw Something when they’re bored. This is just the beginning. In time, business models, infrastructure, legal environments, and social norms will evolve, and the world will become a very different and dramatically more productive place. Alex Schleber originally shared this post: Great #stats on technology adoption cycles from @asymco via +The Economist (which is noteworthy in and of itself, he is obviously becoming more widely noted as a mobile analyst). The rampant sub 10-year adoption of the smartphone by 50% of the market is also the likely reason why we are NOT in an unjustified mobile/tech bubble, and why paying $1B for Instagram was not a mistake. Related -> plus.google.com/112964117318166648677/posts/czadRruFzf6 The revolution to come EARLIER this week, Matt Yglesias discussed an interesting analysis of penetration rates for various modern technologies, built around the piece of data that smartphones have now achieved 50% penetrati…

Direct link: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mathematical-Model-of-the-Brain-Developed-264350.shtml h/t +Kimberly Chapman Sakis Koukouvis originally shared this post: Mathematical Model of the Brain Developed Taking complex systems such as the Internet and social networks as examples, a group of experts at the University of Cambridge was able to create a mathematical model of the brain. Though simple, their tool provides a surprisingly complete statistical account of how different regions interact. Mathematical Model of the Brain Developed | Science News Taking complex systems such as the Internet and social networks as examples, a group of experts at the University of Cambridge was able to create a mathematical model of the brain. Though simple, thei…