Evolutionary Politics

The State of the Nation address that our bold leader Zuma gave last week was a joke. I haven't heard a single person who was happy with it. A reiteration of ANC dogma was NOT what the thinking people of South Africa were looking for in this troubled time. I for one was hoping for something a little more concrete, not load of promises about how our government will create jobs, fix the economy and bring us all breakfast in bed, I wanted to know exactly how they planned to pull it off.

In South Africa we are all afflicted with the curse of Revolutionary Politics... as I see it, this means that the people who fought for freedom, having achieved it, have no idea what to do with it. Instead of actually working for the betterment of their country, government officials seem content to make empty promises and fill their not-so-empty pockets. This won't change until the electorate gets fed up enough to stop voting as if we were still under apartheid... until they realise that, while the ANC has done great things in the past, they don't have the capability or the motivation to lift South Africa to a more prosperous future.

It's not all the ANC's fault though, the opposition hasn't exactly covered itself in glory either. Where are the alternative plans? Where is the mass educational drive that will teach the disadvantaged masses about the real power of the vote and how democracy is supposed to work?

Still.... I suppose it's better to have a government that does nothing, rather than one that actively goes out of it's way to screw things up. As long as they keep that kid Julius muzzled, I'll be content (if not happy).

In the News:

How long till human level AI - a nice article about a survey of industry leaders, asking when they think we'll take the big step

Six-legged Robot Teaches Itself to Walk - a neat new robot ^^

Appeals Court Rules On Internet Obscenity Standard - The californian courts have set a worrying precedient with this one.

Where's Your Flying Car (and Your Jetpack)? - apparently... they're nearly here... Cool!

Fall Into A Black Hole At the Speed Of Light With New Simulator - a couple scienctists have developed a graphic simulation of what happens at the event horizon of a black hole. Nice.

Mixing Man and Machine - the world's first cyborg (now ex-cyborg) talks about artificially enchancing the human race.

Digital/Real World cross over - A huge step in Augmented reality, you HAVE TO watch this! it's a very different approach, and I'm seriously considering trying to build a similar rig. This guy is my new hero.

Brain Surgery Linked To Sensation of Spirituality - quite troubling if you're the religous sort (or maybe not... depends on how much of a control freak you think God is, i guess).

Scrapheap Transhumanism - this dude is seriously whacked... I, for one, would not have the balls to do this.

In an unrelated matter, I had an Epicly Awesome weekend... I officially have the coolest girlfriend in the world... so sorry for the rest of you guys ^^. Hope you enjoyed the post. As always: If you've got a comment post it, and if you enjoyed it... click the link on the right to follow... and tell your friends ^^

-Odd

"What do you mean I could be the president, of the United States of America? Tell me something, it's still WE, THE PEOPLE right?" -Megadeth, Peace Sells.

On Augmented Reality and how it will change our lives

There is a branch of philosophy that argues that what we experience is in fact reality…. This is debatable (every thing is, when you get right down to it), but it’s a particularly interesting viewpoint if we look forward a few years to a new technology that is emerging, Augmented Reality.

Wikipedia defines Augmented Reality (AR) as “a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery - creating a mixed reality”. Basically, you have some sort of computer overlaying digital images over the real world.

It gets really interesting when you combine these with something like this and the networking capabilities of a modern cell phone. What they all combine to do is give you a real-time, internet connected, digital overlay of everything you see, navigated by your thoughts alone.

Want to know what shops are in that mall over there? Easy. How about looking up the specs for that sweet car behind you in the traffic? All you have to do is think about it. How much do those shoes cost? How the $%^# do I get home from here? What’s the traffic like on the M1? The possibilities are virtually (no pun intended) endless. Think what it would be like to have easy and constant access to knowledge sources like Google or Wikipedia. These are all fairly basic continuations of services we already have in place, but this kind of always on AR also opens up a whole new world of weirdness.

We could have digital tattoos, for instance, a simple signal broadcast to AR devices around you tells them to overlay a given picture (or animation) over a part of your body. Why stop at tattoos? When the imaging resolution gets advanced enough (and it will), we could portray an entire appearance that is drastically different to, but indistinguishable from, ‘reality’. Soon you’ll be sharing the sidewalk or bus with elves and vampires. This technology could also have an impact on architecture; we could digitise facades for our buildings, creating epic and physically impossible views and spaces.

Possibly the most exciting, and dangerous, use of this technology would be it’s integration with social networking. Have you ever thought of how useful telepathy would be? To be able to simply think at someone and have them respond? Of course, there’s a darker aspect as well, stalking is already rampant on sites like facebook or myspace, and it can only get worse when we can pick out someone’s profile just by looking at them.

The benefits of this technology are too numerous for any but a Luddite to even consider boycotting it, but it will have profound effects on how we interact with each other and the physical world. It’s going to be interesting to see how people adapt.

Who knows? In a few years we might have to completely redefine what we consider as ‘Real’.

 

Aaaand in other news:

Get Naked: It’s Good for Your Brain – Here’s one to send to your girlfriends (or boyfriends) ^^

AI/Nanotech Breakthrough? Transistors That Work Like Our Brains Do – A really interesting research track, and one that (if it works) could produce the first sentient computers.

NASA Prepping Plans For Flexible Path To Mars – NASA’s coming up with a new plan to be productive during the recession.

Ursula Le Guin's Petition Against Google Books – One of my favorite authors has organized a petition against Google’s terms and conditions in their Google Books program… I’m at a loss over who to support.

Uranus and Neptune May Have "Oceans of Diamonds" – more of our solar system’s wonderful weirdness.

SETI Founder Outlines Ambitious Future Plans – the search for extraterrestrial intelligence continues

Dinosaur Feather Color Discovered – I never thought they’d be able to work this out… I’m really glad they did… SUGOI!

How Cyber War is Heating Up – the new face of warfare.

 

And there we have it… another post… and I haven’t missed a deadline yet (probably because I haven’t really set one ^^). Hope you enjoyed it, and if it’s got you thinking I hope you’ll post a comment with your thoughts. Tune in next week for more of the same.

 

-Odd

“What we have here, is a failure to communicate”

 

First Post.... Woot!

Hello world,

Those of you that know me, know that I’ve tried this blogging thing before and that I’ve failed miserably… hopefully this time will be a little more successful ^^.

The reason I’m starting this blog is that at my company (Netsurit) runs a ‘dream workshop’ where we are encouraged to come up with a list of dreams and goals and then work towards them in a structured manner. It’s really quite a cool idea, and it makes the whole corporate drag a little less 1984 and a little more Band of Brothers. Anyway, one of my dreams is to write a book (or a couple books actually, I’ve got a few ideas) but I’m suffering from ‘blank page syndrome’, and I thought that if I can just get into the habit of writing, I can pull it off…. So I’ll be publishing this on OddThoughts and the corporate intranet… hopefully around once a week.

What am I going to be rambling on about? Well…. Whatever I happen to be thinking when I sit down to write, but I should warn you I am the Lord of Geeks, so if technology, transhumanism, quantum mechanics and games of all sorts bore you… you should stop reading now ^^.

Aaaand in other news: (these are snippets, I’ll probably blog in more depth about these topics when I’ve got nothing else to ramble about).

Robotics Prof Fears Rise of Military Robots: I don’t know how many of you keep up with advances in robotics technology, but it really is getting scary (or exciting, depending on your point of view). The US army already have lots of UAV’s and it’s only a matter of time before advances in AI make autonomous robots a reality…. SkyNet anyone?

Turning Work into Play with Online Games: This is a cool idea…. Although, judging by my slow rate of leveling in WOW, I think I’ll stick with a conventional promotions model ^^.

How to Print Living Tissue: A lot of scientists have recently been talking about a longevity tipping point, where the technology to prolong our lives starts advancing faster than we actually age… would it surprise you to know that some estimates put that date at around 20-30 years from now? We might be the human race’s first immortal generation. This article is about another piece of the puzzle.

Augmented Reality To Help Mechanics Fix Vehicles: Just a new use for AR… the line between the digital world and the ‘real’ world is getting blurrier and blurrier every day. Already I think I might live more in the digital realm than I do in so called ‘real’ life… my brain certainly does it’s work there, so it’s going to be interesting to see what effect this sort of cross-over has on our lives.

Ok… that’s it for now… I think that went pretty well, don’t you? I’ll hopefully see you again next week. Same geek time, same geek place. ^^

-Odd

“Peace Sells, but who’s buying?”