Nano Bio Info Cogno

MRS Science as Art Images

Ivan — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:18:15 +0000

These images are beautiful. This is a unique post because it applies to one of my other sites, Screentreats a blog on high-res wallpapers.
It is nice to see the progression in quality from previous years. It would be great to see some of these images in motion.

Augmented Reality Roundup 01

Ivan — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:51:55 +0000

There were a few interesting posts related to Augmented Reality, the past few weeks I would like to share them with you.

First up METAIO an augmented reality firm which last year produced the Virtual Mini AR ad on the back of a magazine has created a LEGO AR kiosk that displays the models over the packaging. They are testing out a few of the kiosks in Europe. I can’t wait to see one. View the full story here

This video shows an example of AR coming out of the screen from Second Life.

Augmented Mixed Reality: Second Life pops out from the Screen from cristiancontini on Vimeo.

Inglobe’s ARmedia Plug-in for Google SketchUp is available for download.

Fanta has created this interesting game of AR Tennis.

Boffswana has posted this awesome AR figure. view the video then try it for yourself.

Papervision – Augmented Reality (extended) from Boffswana on Vimeo.

Special Moves had a cool AR Christmas Card that they posted here (you can view of video of the AR on the site if you don’t have a webcam.)

McCann Erickson Brazil had one as well. It is posted here.

Finally here is one from Georgia Tech’s AR Labs.

Living In an Augmented Reality blog

Wikitude!

Interview with Robert Rice, CEO of Neogence < this article is massive but chock full of great info.

Casu Marzu, yogurt, Melange, iGEM and buying Spanish from the dairy section

Ivan — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:46:16 +0000

“I am going to the store to pick up a container of Spanish. Would you like one?”

In the same way we pick up yogurt, a bacteria infested treat with probiotic benefits. We will eventually be able to purchase probiotic food laced with Synthetically engineered machines that impart us with cool new features like speaking a new language. Cognitive Enhancers exist currently but are taken in pill format and are probably not very healthy in the long run.

Just like Melange, “The Spice” from Dune that enhanced the user to the point of mutating a select few with the ability to fold space was basically worm poop.
These new abilites might be added by Sythetic Biology or Genetic Modification to foods by living organisms like L.Bulgaricus, S.Thermophilus, and bifidobacterium, bifidus regularis.

Bacteria has already been modified to fight cancer, fight cavities, combat HIV, take pictures, produce sweetners, make biofuel and do math.

Perhaps this technology might be obtainable on the black market first, like the maggot infested aphrodisiacal cheese from Sardinia Casu Marzu.

The folks that will eventually bring us this technology are being fostered currently through programs like iGEM and their knowledge is being collected at places like The Parts Registry.

iGem is a yearly competition to create synthetic bio-machines from BioBricks, or life building blocks.

The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGem) is the premiere undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition. Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own schools over the summer, they use these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells.

Broader goals of iGEM include:

To enable the systematic engineering of biology.
To promote the open and transparent development of tools for engineering biology.
And to help construct a society that can productively apply biological technology.

The new-ish field of study that is developing on the groundworkk of Genetic Modification is called Synthetic Biology.
Synthetic Biology is fundamentally about the union of Biology and Engineering, and the following video explains it in a short and concise manner.

here is a list of subfields from a survey of Synthetic Biology.

Genome Design and Construction
Applied Protein Design
Natural Product Synthesis
Creation of Standardized Biological Parts and Circuits

Additional Links

Physical Dynamic Rendering with Claytronics

Ivan — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 04:05:08 +0000

I can’t wait for this technology to mature. I’ve always envisioned a system like this for video walls.
One that would be made up of tiny pixels that would march up a wall and announce their position to each other wirelessly and then display images from a computer source. You would be able to configure them to any dimension you wished.

Justin Rattner Intel’s CTO is speaking about Claytronics at the Singularity Summit this weekend. This article discusses his prediction that the singularity will occur by 2048 and some other cool tech.

Cargegie Mellon University is working on Claytronics technology. There is a wealth of information on this site: Claytronics

From the CMU site:

At the current stage of design, claytronics hardware operates from macroscale designs with devices that are much larger than the tiny modular robots that set the goals of this engineering research. Such devices are designed to test concepts for sub-millimeter scale modules and to elucidate crucial effects of the physical and electrical forces that affect nanoscale robots.

Planar catoms test the concept of motion without moving parts and the design of force effectors that create cooperative motion within ensembles of modular robots.

Electrostatic latches model a new system of binding and releasing the connection between modular robots, a connection that creates motion and transfers power and data while employing a small factor of a powerful force.

Stochastic Catoms integrate random motion with global objectives communicated in simple computer language to form predetermined patterns, using a natural force to actuate a simple device, one that cooperates with other small helium catoms to fulfill a set of unique instructions.

Giant Helium Catoms provide a larger-than-life, lighter-than-air platform to explore the relation of forces when electrostatics has a greater effect than gravity on a robotic device, an effect simulated with a modular robot designed for self-construction of macro-scale structures.

Cubes employ electrostatic latches to demonstrate the functionality of a device that could be used in a system of lattice-style self-assembly at both the macro and nano-scale.

picture of the talk on Programmable Matter at the Singularity Summit.

The Global Brain is Coming by Nova Spivack GRID 08

Ivan — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:39:24 +0000

The Global Brain meme is growing. This is a great video describing the concept of Planetary Consciousness Implosion. Nova Spivack (CEO of Twine) discusses The Singularity, The One Machine, Augmented Reality, group IQ and powered exoskeletons.

Are these technologies helping to bring about a hive consciousness?

Superstruct – Massively Multiplayer Forcasting Game

Ivan — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:05:41 +0000

Imagine yourself and your role in the year 2019.
What are you doing to prevent or survive one of the global superthreats.

Quarantine
Ravenous
Power Struggle
Outlaw Planet
Generation Exile

The Institute For The Future has created Superstruct, a Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Game (MMFG) to play out future scenarios in order to create insight into our possible futures.

Using crowdsourcing to envision future solutions is brilliant, but to make it into a game is inspired. This is just one more step towards what I believe to be a coming planetary consciousness implosion, or as others are calling it, a Social Singularity.

More on these topics:

Program that decyphers alien languages

Ivan — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:35:13 +0000

The Telegraph has an interesting article on a computer program that can identify and potentially even translate alien languages.

It is basically a pattern recognition algorithm that would compare the alien language to a database of 60 human languages. We are getting ever closer to creating a real babel fish.
I think that the new global protocol is already TCP/IP and because “language is a virus” it is only a matter of time before we infect the universe with it.

Related Stuff

Humanity Plus – PDF magazine from RU Sirius

Ivan — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:05:27 +0000

From the people who are putting together Convergence 08 ( Humanity + ) comes this new web zine in pdf format.

This issue has articles on Aubrey De Grey, Charles Stross and Paul Allen’s Institute for Brain Science.
RU Sirius is the Editor in Chief. I loved and ate up every issue of Mondo 2000 back in the day. I am looking forward to reading all of these as well. It is chock full of tranhumany and singularity goodness. yum.

H+ Magazine

official Convergence 08 site

A History of Mondo 2000

Singularity Summit 08

Ivan — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:47:17 +0000

October 25th is the date for the Singularity Summit in San Jose this year.

From the videos of the summit that they post each year, this is the one to attend.

I really wish I could attend this year.

You can follow the singularity summit feed on twitter.

Convergence 08 Nano Bio Info Cogno Unconference in Mountain View

Ivan — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:21:51 +0000

November 15-16, 2008 is the date for Convergence 08 in Mountain View, California. It is being held at the Computer History Museum. It appears to be formatted as an unconference.
Topics of discussion will be:

Neurotechnology
AGI
Synthetic biology
Human Enhancement
Space tourism
Social Software
Bioethics
NBIC startup tips
Life extension
Biotech
Privacy

There is a wiki here.