Robotic Exoskeleton

This video shows a prototype robotic exoskeleton. Current prototype technology could add dexterous hands instead of hooks.

I believe this technology will be refined until soldiers are controlling robots remotely. In this manner, soldiers will be able to gain fighting experience through their whole careers instead of having it cut short by death. At this point, the video game industry will merge with the military industrial complex. Professional video game players will be offered lucrative positions in the military or in security firms.

Marvel Comics Online

Marvel comic books, from first issues to the present issues, are now available online, with unlimited access for under $60/year or $10/month. So far, the selection of titles is limited, but it seems likely that gradually, they will make all of their titles available from all history. I'm not a comic book person, but it seems to me that if you enjoy reading comic books, this is a great deal. For $10 you could do little else for a month....

Slowly, all past media is moving onto the internet, available for free or cheap access fees.

The New York Times archives are now free. Netflix has a growing selection of movies available for online viewing. I believe the time is coming soon when all historical and present media will be available online for reasonable prices, or free with advertising.

Robotic Random Access Warehouse

These robots are programmed to use warehouse space as efficiently as computers use memory. The robots instantly process online orders, and carry the contents of shelves to humans who pack boxes for shipping, so that the humans don't have to enter the floor of the warehouse. During their spare time, the robots reorganize the shelves so that the more commonly moved items are closer to the packers. The robots work in unison, according to optimized algorithms, getting all their direction from software, and thereby maximize the efficiency of the human packers.

Actually, the robots are doing the complex part; the humans are assisting the robots, not the other way around. The only thing the humans have to offer is manual dexterity. Soon, probably within a decade, this limitation of robots will surely be overcome, and the first purely robotic warehouses will come online.

Genetic algorithms improve on genetics

Here is an example of scientists using computation (super computers) to simulate breeding. Their goal was to create a more efficient metabolic pathway for photosynthesis - to make plants grow better. If they had tried to breed plants it would have taken centuries, but instead, they modeled the chemical reactions in a computer, and used an evolutionary algorithm to find better reactions. They were able to double the energy production in the space of a single research cycle.

Now, biologists can attempt to breed plants that produce more of the key enzymes discovered in this research. This is like taking a shortcut straight to the best possible outcome.

As the computation and methodology improves, the types of optimizations that can be tackled with evolutionary simulation will broaden, and the speed of technological advancement will accelerate. This sort of work is evidence that we are approaching the technological singularity.

Ubermaus

Scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have inadvertently produced a mouse with superior metabolic characteristics, through genetic manipulation. The scientists note that humans could be similarly genetically manipulated.

The mice have increased stamina, strength, longevity, sex drive, and aggressiveness....

Copyright vs. Creativity

Here is a really great TED Talk about how the internet is changing society, and the battle between free information and property. Larry Lessig makes a really great analogy between how the technology of airplanes affected trespassing laws and how the internet affects copyrighting. He says that in just the same way that common sense tells us that the benefit of transcontinental flights cannot allow land owners to sew airlines for trespassing, the benefit of remixing copyrighted material can't allow 'remixing' internet artists to be silenced or prosecuted for copyright infringement.

Larry Lessig says that both the establishment's view, that all copying is stealing, and the next generation's view, that piracy and breaking the law are acceptable, are wrong. He favors a balanced revision of the law to allow expanded fair use, particularly for amateur productions.

In my opinion, although his framing of the issue is brilliant, he's missed the core of the issue, which is that information IS free now, and there is no way to own it once you've released it. That is why the next generation rebels against the rule of law. The rule of law is outmoded now.

What we need is a new way of looking at intellectual property. In the internet age, the correct way to sell intellectual property, is to advertise that you have something, request pledges, and release it to the world when you have enough pledges that you are justly compensated for your investment in creating the intellectual property. Once you release it, it no longer belongs to you, or the people who paid you, it belongs to everyone. Greed and exposition are now antithetical. Those who create better do it for love. Those who consume better patronize or the art they love will dry up.

Distributors must understand social networking now. Release occurs in the landscape of social interaction. All distribution of information is a pyramid scheme now. When you buy information, you are buying it for your connections as well, and those who are wired in are connected to everyone.

Simplest Universal Turing Machine Proved

A twenty-year-old undergraduate student has claimed a $25,000 prize for proving that a very simple machine can be programmed to do anything that a computer can do. The machine is a cellular automaton, with a particular set of rules describing how it should use colored squares to decide how to color other squares. It changes between two states that decide how to color squares in three colors. That's all it is, and theoretically, with the right squares to start with, and peripherals, it could run Windows Vista.

As this article points out, what this means is that the simplest conditions are conducive to extraordinarily complex behavior. The universe is teaming with life.