We are quite close to having internet everywhere. I am always please to see people walking around with cell phones in hand or fussing with an iPod, because it shows just how accustomed we have become to having small portable connected devices around us at all times. These devices don’t just make calls or play music, they keep us connected and facilitate social networking, which is the lifeblood of the net. I am occasionally tickled at the phenomena of text messaging, which by all outward appearances is a technological step backwards, something like the equivalent of going from cell phones back to pagers, but bitches like textin. But the internet is dynamic and complicated in a way that doesn’t translate well to small portable devices, so having the internet everywhere is a really tough problem that has yet to see a real good solution. My PDA works in a pinch, but the technology is now about 4 years old and can only provide a stripped down, slow internet that is visually unappealing and functionally unsatisfying. I am told that iPhones are decent, but I haven’t had much experience with them so I can’t say for sure. It is probably the closest we’ve come yet, but Apple products strike me as more like a fashion accessory than a useful tool. I want an internet leatherman, not a katana. I’d like to get my hands on a Nokia N810 (attn christmas shoppers) since I don’t really care about having a phone as much as I need the internet. The N810 runs linux, and it looks like you can dig in and customize it as you see fit (once the software gets written, that is), and that seems to make it well suited to the needs of the net. At the other end […]

A representation of a mammalian neocortical column, the basic building block of the cortex. The representation shows the complexity of this part of the brain, which has now been modeled using a supercomputer. |link| Thanks Steve

Everything I Need to Know About (Real) Robots I Learned From Transformers (Wired, via AAAI) Transformers don’t care about people, period… With their blatant disregard for people, Transformers burned into my psyche the idea that robots didn’t have to depend on—or be limited in the same ways as—humans. That was the kind of robot I wanted to build. It’s a subtle but important lesson: Ballsy independent robots designed to sense, think, and act according to their own, nonhuman rules can transcend human abilities rather than pathetically imitate them. Real-life examples of this abound today: In 2001, the Deep Space 1 smart probe used an AutoNav system to choose its own path to Comet Borrelly; the Seahorse autonomous underwater vehicle from the US Navy can search unmanned for submerged mines; and in recent military demonstrations, bullet trackers like iRobot’s RedOwl can pinpoint camouflaged snipers in milliseconds. None of these robots want to be a human, hurt a human, or even ask a human for directions.

Led by Robots, Roaches Abandon Instincts They set up a cockroach arena one yard in diameter. Two six-inch-wide plastic discs were suspended over it, providing the dark shelters that cockroaches prefer to congregate in. But one disc was darker and a more likely cockroach hangout. When 16 cockroaches were placed in the arena, they naturally gravitated toward the darker disc, following what the researchers believe is an internal calculation of the amount of light and the number of other roaches, finding comfort in company. Dr. Halloy then replaced four of the cockroaches with four robots equipped with sensors to measure light and the proximity of other robots. When the robots emulated the real roaches, the group continued to seek the dark and crowded place. When the four robotic roaches were reprogrammed to prefer the lighter disc, however, the real roaches followed them about 60 percent of the time, in essence deferring their own judgment as the preference grew more popular. (The other 40 percent of the time, the robotic roaches succumbed to peer pressure and headed for the darkest place.) “It’s a cascade of imitation, so a small effect can become quite large,” said Stephen Pratt, a professor of life sciences at Arizona State University. “This one is a real step forward. They’ve developed these theories about what kinds of individual behavior rules would have to follow to generate a collective intelligence. I thought it was very gratifying they could get the roaches to do what they normally would not do.” See the special robot edition of Science this week for more info, and related articles. Thanks again to Steve for the heads up. I think that this is the right direction for robot research to go: looking at how to integrate machines into an entrenched social environments. It might […]

Paralysed man’s mind is ‘read’ Electrodes have been implanted in the brain of Eric Ramsay, who has been “locked in” – conscious but paralysed – since a car crash eight years ago. These have been recording pulses in areas of the brain involved in speech. Now, New Scientist magazine reports, they are to use the signals he generates to drive speech software. Although the data is still being analysed, researchers at Boston University believe they can correctly identify the sound Mr Ramsay’s brain is imagining some 80% of the time. In the next few weeks, a computer will start the task of translating his thoughts into sounds. Thanks Steve

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Researchers successfully simulate photosynthesis and design a better leaf University of Illinois researchers have built a better plant, one that produces more leaves and fruit without needing extra fertilizer. The researchers accomplished the feat using a computer model that mimics the process of evolution. Theirs is the first model to simulate every step of the photosynthetic process. … “The question we wanted to ask, was, ‘Can we do better than the plant, in terms of productivity?’ ” It wasn’t feasible to tackle this question with experiments on actual plants, Long said. With more than 100 proteins involved in photosynthesis, testing one protein at a time would require an enormous investment of time and money. “But now that we have the photosynthetic process ‘in silico,’ we can test all possible permutations on the supercomputer,” he said. Thanks, Dustin

Dvorak on the Google Phone And let’s not overlook both the power of the Mac mystique and the loyalty of BlackBerry users. Google has no such mavens. People like Google but only use the various Google products because they are the best of breed. There are no Google fanboys. There are no Google addicts. I cannot see that ever changing.

Robot Consumers, Grow Up! The problem is that, especially for Americans, this is about the only way to make robots palatable: Americans see them as jokes, or fantastical beings that should do everything for us but never be fully trusted. Thanks Bill. addendum: The article also links to self-described robot psychiatrist Dr Joanne Pransky, who among other things spoke out against the robot suicide commercial during the last Super Bowl.

From Sterling’s new short story Interoperation, a tie for my favorite quote: Seeding the world with computers was like sprinkling it with the fairy dust of pure madness. The whole secret of the network revolution was that it connected everybody, and it therefore caused everybody to do everybody else’s jobs.