In a piece titled "More on the AI takeover," Dr. Hall outlines four classes of 'bots he could see rising up:
• Robo insectis: rote, mechanical gadgets (or thinkers) with hand-coded skills, such as Roomba or industrial robots or automated call-center systems or dictation programs."Rising up" may be the wrong way to put it, actually. What Dr. Hall is advocating is a future in which we let robots handle whatever load they can, freeing up the rest of us to live more leisurely.
• Robo habilis: Rosie the housemaid robot level intelligence, able to handle service level jobs in the real world but not a rocket scientist.
• Robo sapiens: up to and including rocket scientists, AI researchers, corporate executives, any human capability.
• Robo googolis: a collection of top R. sapiens wired together in a box running at accelerated speed, equivalent to, say, Google (the company and the search engine together).
"The key thing to remember when thinking about the economic AI takeover is that it is not something we should be trying to prevent," Dr. Hall continues. "Why shouldn't we spend our efforts deciding what needs to be done, and let the machines do it?"
Why not, indeed? What about you, dear reader? Would you be all for living in a world run by robots?
]]>The game apparently isn't quite finished yet so the multilayer backend I'm about to describe isn't in place yet. Ideally, you should be able to take your ball around the city and toss it against buildings, claiming that structure for your team. The ball has an accelerometer inside and is GPS-enabled so that it can upload impacts to a map on a server and mark your territory. That part works, but you can't score points or play a "game" par se — yet.
The ball also acts as your guide. It'll vibrate and pulse differently when you're in enemy or neutral territory, and make noises as you claim an enemy structure. Check out the video below for a demonstration.
]]>We're big fans of the excellent Gmail and its contacts database, Google Calendar, Picasso Web albums, Google Voice, YouTube, and Google Reader, and appreciate the ability to keep track of them with this new dashboard. A huge drawback is the lack of a dashboard for Google Apps accounts (where you can use your own custom domain name), which is beginning to seem like a poor stepchild to Google when it rolls out new features.
We like the idea of controlling all of our Google activities in one easy to find location. Some of our buddies are really worried about computing in the cloud, and are particularly concerned about handing over their personal data and documents to Google. Not us. How about you, readers?
]]>Along with the big rollout today, there's a bit of news: Verizon counters a belated iPhone promise with its own tethering at a semi-reasonable $30 a month, letting you use your cellphone to access the data network on your PC or other devices.
Tethering is great, but it ought to be offered for free on all 3G cellphones. I mean, aren't we paying enough?
Via Geeky Gadgets and Boy Genius Reports
]]>Bob stripped the unit down to the supply itself, a huge 100 microfarad capacitor and a (broken) meter. After hooking the thing up to a pumpkin (no effect) and an apple (blown to pieces) he turned his sites on an innocent soda can.The video takes a bit to get going, but it's worth the wait. Just skip to right near the end to get to the good stuff. ]]>
NASA is offering a first prize of $1.1 million to anyone who can create a space elevator that climbs a kilometer at an average rate of 5 meters per second. No one's done that yet, but the second-place prize of $900,000 was just won by a company called LaserMotive, whose climber shimmied up a kilometer-long cable at 2 meters per second. It's powered by a stationary laser on the ground, pointing up to a target on the craft, providing enough power for it to lift.
There's still a long way to go, though. LaserMotive and two other teams — the Kansas City Space Pirates and the University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team — are all making progress toward winning first prize. Eventually, though, somebody has to figure out how to make a cable light enough and strong enough to span that 22,000 mile distance. Insert miracle here.
Via Wired
]]>This LED lamp plugs in not to an electrical outlet, but to a phone jack. It then uses that power to light up, giving you a light you can feel guilt-free about leaving on all day. Your phone company might not love it, but whatever. They're the phone company.
]]>With the Media Chair, you get to pick the color of the chair itself as well as the color and pattern of the fabric of the seat. At least, in theory, as this is just a concept. Which I guess, in the end, gives the Sound Egg a leg up. Being real and all.
]]>That got us thinking: What the Box needs is a QuickStart Guide. If any sinister manufacturer wants to start making this gadget, feel free to use this insert. Just leave our names out of it.
]]>The device comes in white, black, sky blue, lilac silver, orange red, mocha brown, pink and violet, offers support for MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC and WAV audio formats, and has an "earSafe" function that automatically turns down the volume when a user first turns the device on. Offered in 2 gigabyte and 4 gigabyte versions, the unit will go on sale for 49,000 Korean won ($42) here.
Via Aving
]]>The T.27 is manufactured using a process called iStream, which designs the car by computer and welds it together, rather than stamping the parts out of metal sheets. Its predecessor, the T.25, weighed just 600 kilos (1,323 pounds) as it's free from all the luxuries that most modern cars are equipped with — which must mean they've skimped on the cup holders in the interior, then.
And although that looks like the Mayor of Toytown (nice sash, Mr Mayor) behind the wheels, it's actually a Government minister, Lord Drayton, sailing majestically along an autumnal road in Blighty.
Via Daily Mail
]]>They're wrong. 3D is a bold and interesting experiment, but it's not going to get traction because it's not what people want. Sure it's cool and flashy, but those glasses? Deal breaker. While others duke it out over the irrelevant title of becoming the standard in 3D, one manufacturer is leading the charge to where TVs really need to go. That would be Toshiba and its Cell Regza HDTV. The destination: real convergence.
Read on to see why I think the Cell Regza is the future of TV.
]]>The morsel found its way into the doomsday device's outdoor machinery, sparking a temperature differential that triggered an automatic shutdown sequence. I know, I know — I'm sure that ruins all the images you had of a bird navigating the LHC's 17-mile-ring like a Death Star trench run, but there it is.
The Large Hadron Collider should still get collidin' in November as planned, though it will be offline for the next few days as CERN restarts it. Unless the crumb from a worker's lunch causes the LHC to explode and destroy half the planet, that is.
The Register, via Popular Mechanics, via io9
]]>The Multipin Digital Pinball Machine offers 17 tables in one attractive cabinet. That's because it's all virtual, with the table actually housing a 32-inch LCD monitor instead of the normal workings of a pinball machine. It still has a cool mechanical plunger and clicky flipper buttons, however, so it's the next best thing to a real cabinet.
]]>Don't let its bland screen and simple design fool you, though, as it does have a few features that'll please more technically savvy elders. You've got a phone book, SMS messaging, calender, alarm clock and games inside, as well as a a built-in flashlight and an "SOS" button. The big, red panic button is located on the back of the phone and, once pressed, will dial a preset number and set off an alarm on the phone.
The big downside here is that the 6380 only works on GSM network GSM 900/1800 bands, meaning it's not for the US or Canada. The rest of the world can keep an eye out for it, though, for $75.
Geekologie, via Technabob
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