Andragy

RIP Marie Colvin

2012-02-23T13:47:00.001+11:00

"Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction, and death. ... It means trying to find the truth in a sandstorm of propaganda when armies, tribes or terrorists clash. ...

"Many of you here must have asked yourselves — or be asking yourselves now — is it worth the cost in lives, heartbreak, loss? Can we really make a difference?

"I faced that question when I was injured. In fact one paper ran a headline saying, 'has Marie Colvin gone too far this time?' My answer then, and now, was that it is worth it. ...

"We go to remote war zones to report what is happening. The public have a right to know what our government, and our armed forces, are doing in our name. Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians."

Marie Colvin, from 2010 Memorial to Fallen Colleagues

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Christchurch - one year on

2012-02-23T13:35:00.001+11:00

One year on since the devastating Christchurch earthquake, 2011 Feb 22. Although family still live there, I left Christchurch as a child. Still, I want to join, even in this abstracted way, the memorial service for a shattered but unbroken city.

Take a moment to send good wishes to the citizens of Christchurch who are still suffering the effects of the earthquake and the continuing aftershocks. Rebuilding is a difficult and daily challenge to the spirit. Touching stories from the memorial service of people who felt too raw to relive the events but were nonetheless drawn to spend time with the people they had been with on the day of the earthquake.

There are studies that show communities really do grow stronger and happier in the years after a great trauma, perhaps we do value the important things in life just that much more and feel the need to connect and share with others. But as an expatriate, with nostalgic memories, NZ seems like Narnia under the Ice Queen, where Christchurch is now always afternoon but never tea-time.

Best wishes, Christchurch.

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geek management for non geeks

2012-02-23T13:34:00.001+11:00

*I just found this old email I sent to all the organisations that I tech supported. Did it help?*

Dear CEO, Manager, Board,

The right questions are not technical ones. Don't be blinded by complicated answers.

Most organisations make decisions based on ''it needs fixing urgently!" and "we can't afford it". You are trapped into maintaining a hotchpotch of devices. Decisions to make a mass purchase and change are scary but can be cost effective in longer term.

Question: How much is it going to cost over the next x years. Consider purchase price, installation, maintenance and upgrading or troubleshooting. How much staff time is spent/saved/wasted on this?

Question: How long will this last for? Try to have a cyclical plan. ie. This year new computers and internet connection. Next year new printer and other peripherals - unless none of the old things work with the new things. Don't buy software just before changing hardware. Avoid purchasing something soon to be obsolete OR something that's just come out. Let other people iron the bugs out and post their solutions on forums for you.

Question: Who will we call on to install, maintain and troubleshoot? If something happens to our first choice (something usually does), who is second and third choice? How easy are they to contact? How quickly can they respond? How expensive? Sometimes you have to rule out a fabulously good and inexpensive IT setup because it is dependent on one person. You have no backup.

Question: What are our backups and redundancies? Who is your tech backup? Where is your data backed up? What if the internet isn't available? What if this thing or that thing breaks? What if there's a fire? What if everything is stolen?

Some information:

Average business total IT spend 5% to 15% of budget. (hard to get solid figures) Average non-profit IT spend? 2% to 10%.

Training is rarely included. Training actually fixes most hardware and software problems ahead of time.

Average device life: 3 to 5 years
Average software life: 2 to 4 year

Rephrase that.

Average device life: 3 years for business
3 years plus 2 more years of rebooting while standing on one leg and gluing antennae to your head for a non-profit
Average software life: 2 years for business
2 years plus 2 more years of reinstalling and downgrading while logging on as long gone staffers and losing all your files again if you're a non-profit.

The reality? Staff in non-profits are cheaper than almost anything else, therefore staff time is constantly wasted on old IT.

--
Andra

I still agree that training is the most affordable and achievable solution to most problems and would now suggest using the '5 Whys' as well. The kick ass image at the top of the post is from Geek Girl Con.

"GeekGirlCon is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting awareness of and celebrating the contribution and involvement of women in all aspects of the sciences, science fiction, comics, gaming and related Geek culture through conventions and events that emphasize both the historic and ongoing contribution and influence of women in this culture."

Do you have to be a girl/geek/adult/trekkie/gamer to attend Geek Girl Con?

"[GGC is] a convention that welcomes all ages, races, sexual orientations, genders and gender identities, creeds, physical and mental abilities, and familial statuses. We are a gathering for the trekkie, the mathlete, the gamer, the otaku, the braniac, the engineer -- a home base where all tastes of geekdom can be sampled and savored. We are GeekGirlCon."

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I don’t want to be a feminist anymore.

2012-02-17T11:49:00.001+11:00

Most of all, I am tired of knowing. Knowing that my eyes have been opened, and that what has been seen cannot be unseen. I am tired of knowing it, when I see something that is wrong. I am tired of knowing that only speaking out can change it. I am tired of knowing exactly how hard and scary it can be to do so. I am tired of knowing that if I am not careful, the fight will eat up my hope and strength, and leave me only with bitterness. I am tired of knowing that I can never turn back to not knowing. I am tired of knowing that despite my fears and exhaustion, I am a feminist.

No, I don’t want to be a feminist anymore – today.
Tomorrow? Tomorrow I think I’ll try again.

via community.feministing.com

I can relate to this post on feministing - particularly the last section above. I know I'm about to kill the conversation, but someone has to mention the elephant in the room. Surely?

Everyday, I feel that I explore a different excuse for why not to open my mouth. I wonder what I am trying to change or achieve. And then I feel guilty for letting things slide. In the end, I am proud that I choose to speak up but I'm still searching for the best way to do it.

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We love Cubelets

2012-02-11T08:53:00.001+11:00

One of the coolest advances in recent years has been the consumerization of robotics. Whether it’s the Roomba or the Pleo, we’ve seen robots go from only being in movies and auto factories to becoming devices that can both help and entertain us. It’s an important trend in technology, and it’s all made possible because of the simplification of robotics and, more importantly, the simplification of how we interact with these products. Cubelets are a great example of this and they are something that I’m excited to get my hands on.

via geek.com

Cubelets are a robotic construction kit out of Carnegie Mellon's Computational Design Lab's roBlocks project. We ordered a set after seeing prototypes at Maker Faire Bay 2011. They finally arrived late 2011 after we'd forgotten all about them. There were no instructions at all. It was wonderful!!!

Our whole family explored the blocks and were rewarded by all sorts of actions and interactions. Something always worked. Often in a very surprising fashion. We shared our discoveries. Since then the cubelets have sat on the living room table and everyone who comes to the house plays with them. They are incredibly tactile and satisfying. Show anyone a simple critter or how one block works and they immediately create something new.

Sal Cangeloso from Geek.com is right that the consumerization of robotics is one of the coolest things in years. Even though on the whole, robotics is reaching out to SMEs and service industries rather than providing home robots, the democratization of technology means that as more robots are made, more robots become cheaper.

But I find that the coolest thing about cubelets is the user experience. They are easy and tactile. Anyone can use an ipad. Anyone can use a cubelet. As some forms of robotics (and augmented realities) embrace really simple and satisfying user experiences, then I foresee a rich environment for amazing technological growth.

btw... watch the ad 8)

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The Robot State | Technology, Culture and Gender

2012-02-09T05:03:00.001+11:00

Automated Life After Death

Posted on February 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

GRUMPY CUSTOMER: Adam Robertson, 24, has been left $900 out of pocket after a company he bought a tablet computer from shut down following the death of the owner. ANDREW GORRIE/Fairfax NZ

It strikes me that this is a very cyborg/robot kind of story. Our automated lives continue after death. Who has the power to turn off your systems? What impact will your proxies and extensions have on the lives of other people. There are a growing number of online executor businesses like legacy locker (tech crunch article about). The focus is largely on social sites, photos and emails, as described in the Time.com special “Tools for Managing Your Online Life after Death” . This doesn’t take into account the trend towards independent single operator online businesses or even small startups. How do you shut turn the shopping cart off? What other cloud based services don’t die?

Hundreds of Kiwis have been left out of pocket because an import company continued trading after the only man at its reins died.

Tech Brands Pacific’s sole shareholder and director, Brian Isaksson, died on November 4, leaving no-one in charge of the business.

The company continued to sell technology products such as iPhones and iPads on sites like pricespy.co.nz. People were buying through the shopping cart function on the website until a week ago.

via Tech Brands Pacific | Hundreds lose money after… | Stuff.co.nz.

via robotstate.wordpress.com

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RoboTigers and human-robot relations | The Robot State

2012-02-09T03:58:00.001+11:00

RoboTigers and human-robot relations

Posted on February 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

artist/engineer Kezanti from Brugge (tbc)

The Bloggess isn’t my usual source for robotics writing, so I was overjoyed to read ~~today’s~~ yesterday’s post about Robot Tigers. It’s a sublime demonstration of all the contradictory and confusing human-robot relations that exist, in reality and in fantasy. Don’t make me spell it out. Enjoy.

Victor: One day I’m going to finish my robot tigers and we will rule the world.

me: It’d be easier if you just took over the world with real tigers.

Victor: Robot tigers are scarier than real tigers.

me: No. Real tigers are scarier because they’re unpredictable.

Victor: My robot tigers have a random setting.

me: Like a shuffle function on an iPod?

Victor: Exactly.

me: That is way scarier.

Victor: Plus they could beat you at chess.

me: Well, not me specifically. I’m pretty damn good at chess.

Victor: Not as good as a robot tiger.

me: Live tigers are still scarier because they’re real and you know they hate you. With a robot tiger you understand they’re just doing their job when they kill you.

Victor: My robot tiger would be a cold, calculating killing machine – set on random – that also has an emotion chip and laughs at your pain.

me: That actually sounds scary as shit.

…more….

via robotstate.wordpress.com

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Google genders engineering

2012-01-28T10:49:00.001+11:00

Your categories:

Business & Industrial - Business Finance - Venture Capital

Internet & Telecom - Service Providers - ISPs

Jobs & Education - Education - Teaching & Classroom Resources

Science - Engineering & Technology - Robotics

Your demographics:

We infer your age and gender based on the websites you've visited.

Age: 35-44

Gender: Male

via google.com

I've checked out my Google ad preferences. Classic. If you like technology then you must be male.
If there weren't so many other examples of gender by design, this would be depressing. But I've seen magazine display racks, toy shops and clothing stores. There are so many fronts to fight this battle on.

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What scares me is feeling as though I've been coopted. As Google collects data from more and more places, where will it be ok to be female or middle aged or anything not associated with my work or public persona. I don't wan't to turn in to a stereotype. I'm tweeting #VAGINA more frequently to keep female technophilia alive. Let's encourage alternatives and defeat stereotypes.

STARTUPYOU | FAKE GRIMLOCK FTW

2012-01-25T08:41:00.001+11:00

via flickr.com

Awesome is exhausting for some of us but FAKE GRIMLOCK has tapped the motherlode and is distributing it via twitter, blog, posters and maybe even in person. Although it could be kind of scary seeing a giant metal robot dinosaur with a penchant for eating stupid humans.

FAKE GRIMLOCK is my new favorite reading (along with The Bloggess and xkcd), because what he says makes a lot of sense. It also drips with sarcasm, awesomeness and blood. Many technology luminaries (like Eric Ries, Brad Feld, Fred Wilson and CNN) have noticed that FAKE GRIMLOCK carves through all the cream and gets straight to the coffee. I'm still new over here but sometimes I think that America is all froth and foam and eff all coffee. Then I remember stuff like #Occupy and STOP SOPA.

I wish I had some of FAKE GRIMLOCK's gift for awesome communication because the tech world both fascinates and dismays me. We are changing society right here - punching code through the walls of the world. But all too often the vision is just personal or commercial success.

"STARTUP IS MAKE FIST OF CODE, PUT IT THROUGH THE WORLD. VISION IS PUT FIST IN RIGHT PLACE, BREAK WORLD IN HALF."

Roadblocks of gender, race and class are still huge. Sometimes technological advancement is just making bigger roadblocks. Startup philosophy, which emphasizes the individual, is often powerless before huge areas of fail. We aren't all giant robot dinosaurs and sometimes we don't share the same visions. For example, feminism is a great conversation killer, because not a lot has changed in last 50 years. Seriously - this 1991 MIT report by Ellen Spertus is still accurate. That's depressing. It's great to celebrate awesome women engineers and ceos, but important to point out the systematic obstacles women face in the tech and startup worlds.

Fake Grimlock's irresistible awesome is up against some pretty immoveable objects, but at least reading @fakegrimlock makes me feel like a raging fury in a good way.

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Brain Drain - i do it right?

2012-01-25T05:07:00.001+11:00

This is what I found when I searched for brain enema. I also got Thor, a heavy metal band from the 80s. Enough said. My brain is still clogged up with all the words I didn't write last year. Every day for the last month or three, I've tossed them around like a salad and tried to serve them up. Every day, I've ignored my healthy diet of self expression and loaded up on cheap internet carbs and stodgy domestic duties. Sweet, eh.

I hereby swear to post until I've unblocked my brain. Life is full of open tickets and I'm like an intern on the helpdesk. I'm still not certain if it's OCD or procrastination, but I can't sit and write until I've cleared my way to the desk. By then I'm mentally drained and turn on the distractions.

American bureaucracy is in a league of its own. I spent all of last week arranging a new dentist for the family and following up on asthma appointments. We've all had the first round of appointments which required 1 hour of paperwork EACH and each visit has spawned a minimum of one more visit (and in some cases 3!). I also have filled out 13 pages of school forms and still haven't updated medication and insurance details for 2 of 3 kids. And preliminary camp forms... there goes another day.

OK. I am making post-its and lists and crossing shit off, but I must start putting writing first for a while, so that I can START THINKING AGAIN. Of course, the new year period has been dogged by MY COMPUTER INSISTING THAT IT WOULD NO LONGER OPEN STUFF. Not until I'd filed, archived or trashed some things. I think that says it all.

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SOPA STRIKE SUCCESS

2012-01-21T06:52:00.001+11:00

via sopastrike.com

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Sociology 1010101010101

2012-01-18T07:40:00.001+11:00

Andra Keay - 12:38 PM - Public
Great article - describes a huge study showing that weak social ties can insert information into our online 'bubbles', reducing the echo chamber effect. However, as Mahjoo points out, the content of the new information wasn't evaluated, so really whether new information that has radical content (ie. protax if you aren't) is as effective as neutral novelty (ie. cute kitten) is still an unknown.
It's also really cool that this study covered 1.2 billion instances of link sharing from 250 million people! Massive.Edit
Howard Rheingold originally shared this post:
The End of the Echo Chamber
A study of 250 million Facebook users reveals the Web isn’t as polarized as we thought.
Online echo chambers: A study of 250 million Facebook users reveals the Web isn’t as polarized as we thought.
Today, Facebook is publishing a study that disproves some hoary conventional wisdom about the Web. According to this new research, the online echo chamber doesn’t exist. This is of particular interest...

via plus.google.com

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When I don't want to be me — TheBloggess.com

2012-01-14T14:31:00.001+11:00

via thebloggess.com

There's no one better than the Bloggess. She seems to share my interest in many strange geeky things and has no fear of using the word vagina. Frequently. I didn't post much in 2011 due to moving overseas and finishing my thesis... and starting the robot blog(s). So I'm kicking off 2012 with the sort of post I'd like to be posting, if only I'd finished building the dinosaur out of plastic spoons etc.

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What is a Robot?

2011-12-20T11:25:00.001+11:00

A dream. The common definition of a robot, as situated and embodied, is incredibly broad. Robots, or parts of them, are developed constantly and subsumed into other ‘things’ or technical assemblages. Your car is a robot. Increasingly, so is your phone.

I say that a robot is whatever a roboticist is working on. But really, most robotics research is absorbed into other things, and what we call a robot has a lot to do with a vision. A dream of a robot that is personable and a slave to human needs. A robot has an animal or humanoid body that we can relate to socially.

via robotstate.wordpress.com

We are on the verge of changes in robot technology and development that will revolutionize what a robot is. It starts as toys, hidden technologies and transparent interfaces. It started with the Kinect, the smart phone and the cloud.

Now, you might say I’m a dreamer…. but here are some really great recent examples of the increasing democratization of robotics technology that indicate the fundamental ways the ground is shifting as we move into SME and consumer robotics.

DragonBot from MIT’s Personal Robotics Group is powered by an Android smart phone. Kombusto, the DragonBot is blended reality, living on your phone as well as in the fur. Being a cloud based robot, Kombusto can learn from other robots/interactions. (Image from IEEE Spectrum article Wed Dec 14)

Parrot AR drones, Romotivs and Sphero, utilising smart phone controllers, also open the door to cloud based robotics and crowd sourced learning for devices. Another approach is Brainlink, using smartphones – or other interfaces – to hack existing infrared controlled devices, via a bluetooth ‘brainlink’ to imbue cheap toys with extra intelligence. Brainlink is only $125, open source and eminently hackable. They also won an educational award at Maker Faire earlier this year.

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Why women have to work harder to do startups | VentureBeat

2011-12-13T08:56:00.001+11:00

via venturebeat.com

This article by Julia Hu is spot on the money. It takes money to succeed, not talents that women have proven they have. More women run successful small businesses, but anything that requires asking for funding is harder for women.

It isn't about changing women any more. It's about changing what is effectively a boys club for funding into something more flexible. Something that can see why women are underfunded, undervalued and RIPE FOR ACQUISITION.

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We are entering a new space | The Robot State

2011-12-08T08:23:00.001+11:00

We are entering a new space

Posted on December 7, 2011 | Leave a comment | Edit

I am fascinated by the changes in our situated awareness made possible by the merges in gaming and personal technology. Chris Chesher discusses the impact of gaming on sat nav systems in the journal Convergence and how we are entering a new space as we share our control systems with our game environments. I’d like to go further and suggest that our self awareness is shifting as we incorporate visual displays onto mirrored surfaces, ranging from the rapidly becoming pervasive rear view mirror/backup monitor/sat nav, to these newer technologies in R&D.

There is a qualitative shift from the ‘shopping’ style magic mirrors, which show you with different outfits, watches etc. Shopping mirrors function as a ‘paper doll’, you are selecting outfits for yourself much as you would in real life. However, the use of mirrors as channels for other information changes the space that you (in a mirror) are in. The more you switch modes the more you are changed. All the way to the complete carnival mirror changes below!

Via Pop Sci | An Augmented Reality Mirror That Alters Your Appearance

excerpt… Using a webcam hooked up to custom PC software, a pair of researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, have created an augmented reality “mirror” that morphs your facial features at will.

Unlike existing applications that overlay virtual features onto real-world video, this program doesn’t add any synthetic elements to the video feed. It creates a 3D model of the user’s face, tracks their features, and then subtly warps the video. The user can then see how they would look with a smaller nose, wider mouth, or Powerpuff Girl eyes.

Via Mashable | via Augmented Mirror of the Future Reflects You and Your World.

excerpt… The New York Times‘s R&D Lab has developed a digitally enhanced mirror that allows you to interact with personalized data during your morning routine.

Unfortunately, the mirror won’t be making its way into your local Restoration Hardware any time soon. Rather, it’s a proof of concept designed to explore “how the relationship between information and the self is evolving and how media content from the New York Times and others might play a part,” The Lab’s team explained on a page outlining the project.

via robotstate.wordpress.com

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State of the Technological World

2011-12-08T06:12:00.001+11:00

State of the Art

A snapshot of the rapidly changing world of computing, communications and technology. Related Article »

A GLOBAL INTERNET

In just four decades the Internet has spread to much of the world. Now, the shift to high-bandwidth connectivity and the global availability of supercomputing is accelerating.

Related article: A High-Stakes Search Continues for Silicon’s Successor

Related article: Creating Artificial Intelligence Based on the Real Thing

A MORE CONNECTED WORLD

Cellphones are proliferating rapidly in much of the developing world. The use of smartphones and other Internet-connected devices is still low, but should rise quickly in countries like China, which will soon have the world’s largest domestic market for Internet commerce and computing.

Related article: Vast and Fertile Ground in Africa for Science to Take Root

TOWARD AN
INNOVATIVE CHINA

China is the dominant maker of computers and consumer electronics, and is readily able to adapt and improve on technology innovations made elsewhere. But innovation within the country has been limited by government controls and the relative lack of intellectual property protection.

Related article: China Aims for High-Tech Primacy

RAW MATERIALS
FOR INNOVATION

The synthesis that made Silicon Valley—the concentration of science and engineering talent and venture capital—is now beginning to proliferate in the developing world. China’s growing venture capital market is now the second largest in the world.

Related article: With a Leaner Model, Start-Ups Reach Further Afield

via nytimes.com

Remember that YouTube only started in 2005. That most businesses only used the internet for email in 2000 (if they used it at all!). That phones used to be just phones, not mobile phones let alone mobile internet devices.

As William Gibson famously said, 'the future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed.' It's worth considering the distribution of technological advances. It isn't always where you think.

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VALE Lynn Margulis 1938-2011

2011-12-07T17:27:00.001+11:00

Lynn Margulis 1938-2011
"Gaia Is A Tough Bitch"

Lynn Margulis [11.23.11]

-->

Introduction
By John Brockman

Biologist Lynn Margulis died on November 22nd. She stood out from her colleagues in that she would have extended evolutionary studies nearly four billion years back in time. Her major work was in cell evolution, in which the great event was the appearance of the eukaryotic, or nucleated, cell — the cell upon which all larger life-forms are based. Nearly forty-five years ago, she argued for its symbiotic origin: that it arose by associations of different kinds of bacteria. Her ideas were generally either ignored or ridiculed when she first proposed them; symbiosis in cell evolution is now considered one of the great scientific breakthroughs.

via edge.org

I have found Margulis' comments about culture and science to be very astute.

"If science doesn't fit in with the cultural milieu, people dismiss science, they never reject their cultural milieu! If we are involved in science of which some aspects are not commensurate with the cultural milieu, then we are told that our science is flawed. I suspect that all people have cultural concepts into which science must fit. Although I try to recognize these biases in myself, I'm sure I cannot entirely avoid them. I try to focus on the direct observational aspects of science."

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Nasa finds new planet

2011-12-06T09:15:00.001+11:00

via stuff.co.nz

I always wanted to go to another planet. I wonder what the travel time is and when Virgin will offer flights to Kepler-22b?

excerpt from "Nasa finds planet that's just about right for life" by Seth Borenstein on suff.co.nz

Nasa has found a new planet outside our solar system that's eerily similar to Earth in key aspects.

Scientists say the temperature on the surface of the planet is about a comfy 72 degrees. Its star could almost be a twin of our sun. It likely has water and land.

It was found in the middle of the habitable zone, making it the best potential target for life yet.

The discovery announced Monday was made by Nasa's Kepler planet-hunting telescope. This is the first time Kepler confirmed a planet outside our solar system in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold habitable zone.

Twice before astronomers have announced a planet found in that zone, but neither was as promising. One was later disputed; the other is on the hot edge of the zone.

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Introducing The Robot Launch Pad

2011-11-24T17:57:00.001+11:00

Since moving to Silicon Valley, I’ve been wondering how to combine my interest in human-robot culture (or making and culture hacking) with the strengths of the startup community and the robotics industry. Introducing ‘The Robot Launch Pad’!

We might not see a robot in every home yet, but the democratization of technology is occurring rapidly in robotics. As more robot platforms are developed and more sensor and hardware modules are improved, the price of a robot reduces, while the power increases. This allows more people to enter the robotics research and development cycle, developing new robots, new business models and more robot applications.

Robotics is still primarily industry and enterprise level, but the time is ripe for innovative thinking around robotics uses, new business cases and robotics as a service model. Small and medium enterprises may be the next generation of robot businesses, followed by enthusiasts who can finally afford to ‘play’ with advanced common platforms. This crowdsourcing (as epitomised by the DIY Drone community) can kick start another cycle of improvements and innovations.

… So, in April 2012, the Robot Launch Pad will hold the first of a series of robotics startup weekends, focusing on an existing robotics platform and inviting participants from the start up community, as well as robotics, to build new business models under the guidance of startup mentors and investors. It’s going to be an insanely fun and inventive weekend with really practical results, great panels and a bridge between the successful software space and robotics.

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ICSR 2011 - social robotics is 'Alive'!

2011-11-24T17:55:00.001+11:00

The International Conference on Social Robotics (where I’m presenting a work-in-progress) is underway with a theme of ‘Alive’. Sandwiched between keynotes from robot designer, Dr Tomotaka Takahashi and science fiction writer, Ken Macleod, are three days of social robotics papers, presentations, panels, tutorials and a design competition. And all in beautiful Amsterdam!

Dr. Tomotaka Takahashi

Robot Designer and ProfessorTomotaka Takahashi creates, designs, and invents unique and original humanoids (Ropid, FT, Chroino, Neon). His passion for the cutting edge in robotics brings him into collaborations with other leaders in the field, researchers and corporations.

Mr. Ken MacLeod

Science Fiction Writer

Ken MacLeod is the multiple award-winning author of many science fiction novels, including the “Fall Revolution” quartet (collected in the twin omnibuses “Fractions and Divisions”), the “Engines of Light” trilogy (Cosmonaut Keep, Dark Light, and Engine City), and several stand-alone novels including “Newton’s Wake”, “Learning the World”, and the recent “The Restoration Game”. Born on the Scottish isle of Skye, he lives in Edinburgh.

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Obit Friedrich Kittler | The Robot State

2011-11-15T08:40:00.001+11:00

via robotstate.wordpress.com

Friedrich Kittler, the 'Derrida of the Digital Age', recently passed away. His work in theorising technological relations was hugely influential in cultural and new media theory. Kittler was neither a technophile, nor a technophobe but strongly and with great detail expressed the ways in which people were shaped by their technologies. From an excerpt of his obituary in the Guardian via Berkeley Center for New Media:

Kittler once wrote: “We are the subjects of gadgets and instruments of mechanical data processing.” He was entirely serious. In his extraordinary book Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (1986) he argued that “those early and seemingly harmless machines capable of storing and therefore separating sounds, sights and writing ushered in a technologising of information”.

Later technologies – the internet in particular – further extended technology’s domination over us. He told one interviewer in 2006 that the internet hardly promotes human communication: “The development of the internet has more to do with human beings becoming a reflection of their technologies … after all, it is we who adapt to the machine. The machine does not adapt to us.”

Kittler, sometimes dubbed the “Derrida of the digital age”, thus tapped into humanity’s fear of being neutralised by its own tools. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter was written in the wake of such science-fiction fantasies as William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984), Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto (1985) and the first Terminator movie in which übercyborg Arnold Schwarzenegger travelled back in time to destroy humanity. Kittler’s point was not that machines will exterminate us; rather that we are deluded to consider ourselves masters of our technological domain.

The work of recent cultural theorists like Derrida, Haraway, Latour and Kittler provides the most far sighted and yet grounded suppositions about the way in which humans and technologies operate. They have led the return to investigating the 'stuff' or material of communication and culture, balanced in a the web of social and power relations. The work of cultural theory casts a wide net over the social sciences for methodology and also over the material sciences for matter. The concern of cultural theory is very relevant for robotics.

Understanding the methodology and 'use' of cultural theory is perhaps harder to grasp. Two useful articles are Ien Ang's 'Who Needs Cultural Research?' and Raymond William's classic (but difficult) 'The Uses of Cultural Theory'.

As Ang explains it, culture has little to do with 'high' or 'pop' culture and everything to do with how meaning and value are produced in the world. "In other words, culture is not only very ordinary, to speak with Raymond Williams, it is also fundamentally practical and pervasive to social life, as it is inherent to how the world is made to mean, and therefore how the world is run."

"In short, the distinctive intellectual currency and social utility of cultural studies research lies in its capacity for inducing conjunctural questioning, rather than in providing positivist answers to set questions." Ang admits this makes cultural theory resemble essay writing, however good cultural theory can provide both early response to emerging situations and the most challenging approach to accepted ones. "The very notion that culture is always contested, that meaning is always negotiated and constructed in concrete contexts, can be mobilised and applied in myriad strategic contexts in partnership with other specialist knowledge producers and users. There's nothing more practical than that."

I believe that Friedrich Kittler, like Ang and Williams, was immensely practical. His understanding of the relations between technology and war extends well beyond considering the military-industrial complex and the production of machines, but to the warring discourse networks of different technologies. His work will continue to be influential for anyone studying innovation and the global economy, and of course, human-robot culture.

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2011 Loebner Prize won by Rosette

2011-10-28T07:37:00.001+11:00

The 2011 Loebner Prize competition is over and the winner is... Rosette, by Bruce Wilcox, who scored 1.5 and wins the bronze medal and $4000 USD. None of the entries fooled the judges, so no silver or gold medal was awarded. As far as we know the Minsky Loebner Prize Revocation Prize has still not been awarded either. Judges this year included Noel Sharkey, Antony Galton, Paul Marks, and Jonny O'Callaghan. This year's event was held at the University of Exeter. The rest of the 2011 results can be found on the Exeter website. Full transcripts have not been published yet but should appear on the Loebner website shortly. The I Programmer blog posted the transcript of Rosette's winning conversation. If you'd like, you can chat with Rosette yourself. Read on to see a transcript of my own chat with Rosette.

via robots.net

Timely as I'm off to a seminar on 'AI - a Legal Perspective' via Ryan Calo's Stanford Internet Law group, who seem to be the group spearheading the discussion of robot identity.

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Another cool Aussie company - first Siri hack

2011-10-23T02:00:00.001+11:00

via smh.com.au

Great company/duo from Australia, Omar Kilani and Emily Boyd with Remember the Milk. See the full write up in SMH article "Aussies First to Get Inside Siri's Head" http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/smartphone-apps/aussies-the-first-to-get-i...

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Collaborative Discovery Engine meet Water Hackathon?

2011-10-22T07:09:00.001+11:00

via hybridwisdom.com

Two great ideas I've been following recently: Hybrid Wisdom Lab's Collaborative Discovery Engine and World Bank's Water Hackathon.

I wonder if there's a future together for them? Solutions to water problems shared by water professionals using this visual social search?

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A GLOBAL INTERNET In just four decades the Internet has spread to much of the world. Now, the shift to high-bandwidth connectivity and the global availability of supercomputing is accelerating. Related article: A High-Stakes Search Continues for Silicon’s Successor Related article: Creating Artificial Intelligence Based on the Real Thing
A MORE CONNECTED WORLD Cellphones are proliferating rapidly in much of the developing world. The use of smartphones and other Internet-connected devices is still low, but should rise quickly in countries like China, which will soon have the world’s largest domestic market for Internet commerce and computing. Related article: Vast and Fertile Ground in Africa for Science to Take Root
TOWARD AN INNOVATIVE CHINA China is the dominant maker of computers and consumer electronics, and is readily able to adapt and improve on technology innovations made elsewhere. But innovation within the country has been limited by government controls and the relative lack of intellectual property protection. Related article: China Aims for High-Tech Primacy
RAW MATERIALS FOR INNOVATION The synthesis that made Silicon Valley—the concentration of science and engineering talent and venture capital—is now beginning to proliferate in the developing world. China’s growing venture capital market is now the second largest in the world. Related article: With a Leaner Model, Start-Ups Reach Further Afield

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