Futurologist Vernor Vinge on the Singularity

Contact lenses as heads-up displays

Contact lenses to get virtual graphics New Scientist "A contact lens that harvests radio waves to power an LED is paving the way for a new kind of display. The lens is a prototype of a device that could display information beamed from a mobile device.

"Realising that display size is increasingly a constraint in mobile devices, Babak Parviz at the University of Washington, in Seattle, hit on the idea of projecting images into the eye from a contact lens.

"One of the limitations of current head-up displays is their limited field of view. A contact lens display can have a much wider field of view. 'Our hope is to create images that effectively float in front of the user perhaps 50 cm to 1 m away,' says Parviz."

Teachers obsolete?

Hybrid Education 2.0 - Inside Higher Ed: "What if you could teach a college course without a classroom or a professor, and lose nothing?  According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, there’s no 'what if' about it. Earlier in the decade, Carnegie Mellon set out to design software for independent learners taking courses through the university’s Open Learning Initiative, an effort to make courses freely available to non-enrolled learners. But rather than merely making course materials available to non-students, like MIT's famous OpenCourseware project, Carnegie Mellon wanted to design courses that would respond to the individual needs of each student. It currently has courses in 12 different subjects available on its Web site, mostly in math and science."

"Carnegie Mellon is not about to replace all its professors with computer programs. But with $4 million in private grants and perhaps more to come from the federal government, the university is currently exploring how the open-learning software could be used in conjunction with classroom education to speed up the teaching and learning process -- a prospect that some involved think could help solve overcrowding in America's community colleges and realize the Obama administration's goal of boosting graduation rates.

Japanese researcher unveils 'hummingbird robot'

Hummingbird robot "CHIBA, Japan — Japanese researchers said Monday they had developed a 'hummingbird robot' that can flutter around freely in mid-air with rapid wing movements.

"The robot, a similar size to a real hummingbird, is equipped with a micro motor and four wings that can flap 30 times per second, said Hiroshi Liu, the researcher at Chiba University east of Tokyo."

"The robot, whose development cost has topped 200 million yen (2.1 million dollars), may be used to help rescue people trapped in destroyed buildings, search for criminals or even operate as a probe vehicle on Mars, he said.

History of Darpa - 'The Department of Mad Scientists'

Book Review by Michael Belfiore NYTimes "Two years ago, in his book “Rocketeers,” Michael Belfiore celebrated the pioneers of the budding private space industry. Now he has returned to explore a frontier closer to home. The heroes of his new book, “The Department of Mad Scientists,” work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as Darpa, a secretive arm of the United States government. And the revolution they’re leading is a merger of humans with machines."

"The revolution is happening before our eyes, but we don’t recognize it, because it’s incremental. It starts with driving. Cruise control transfers regulation of your car’s speed to a computer. In some models, you can upgrade to adaptive cruise control, which monitors the surrounding traffic by radar and adjusts your speed accordingly. If you drift out of your lane, an option called lane keeping assistance gently steers you back. For extra safety, you can get extended brake assistance, which monitors traffic ahead of you, alerts you to collision threats and applies as much braking pressure as necessary."

"With each delegation of power, we become more comfortable with computers driving our cars. Soon we’ll want more... Why put down your cellphone when you can let go of the wheel instead? Reading, texting, talking and eating in the car aren’t distractions. Driving is the distraction. Let the car do it.

Cancer Drug Delays Aging in Mice

Cancer Drug Delays Aging... “In a potentially landmark study on the biology of aging and how to delay it, a drug gave elderly mice the human equivalent of thirteen extra years of life.

“Though the drug is an immune system suppressant that almost certainly won’t have the same effect in humans, the study provides compelling evidence that pharmacologically slowing the process of aging itself may be possible.

“It’s unlikely that the life extension came from merely postponing a few specific diseases,” said Jackson Laboratory gerontologist David Harrison, a leader of one of three research teams who conducted the experiment separately. “And the treatment didn’t start until the mice were the equivalent of a 60-year-old human. No other intervention has been so effective starting late in life.”

The real Frankenstein experiment

One man's mission to create a living mind inside a machine | Mail Online: "His words staggered the erudite audience gathered at a technology conference in Oxford last summer.

"Professor Henry Markram, a doctor-turned-computer engineer, announced that his team would create the world's first artificial conscious and intelligent mind by 2018.  And that is exactly what he is doing.

"On the shore of Lake Geneva, this brilliant, eccentric scientist is building an artificial mind. A Swiss - it could only be Swiss - precision- engineered mind, made of silicon, gold and copper."
What Markram's project amounts to is an audacious attempt to build a computerised copy of a brain - starting with a rat's brain, then progressing to a human brain - inside one of the world's most powerful computers.

"This, it is hoped, will bring into being a sentient mind that will be able to think, reason, express will, lay down memories and perhaps even experience love, anger, sadness, pain and joy.
'We will do it by 2018,' says the professor confidently. 'We need a lot of money, but I am getting it. There are few scientists in the world with the resources I have at my disposal.