Blogs

I was thinking about this after reading blog entries from Patrick Tucker (who's been in Japan). . .

In spite of, or perhaps because of, Matthew Broderick thinking that yelling “Learn!” at a computer will actually make it do so, WarGames is a pretty fantastic movie. Released in 1983, the science-fiction film tells the story of David Lightman, a computer hacker played by Broderick, who accidentally finds his way into a military supercomputer programmed to predict outcomes of nuclear war. Lightman gets the computer to run a nuclear war simulation, which causes an international nuclear missile scare and almost single-handedly starts World War III.

One of the most powerful opportunities for The Hunger Project (a non-profit organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger) investors is to travel to one of The Hunger Project`s Program Countries as a member of a delegation to experience the local work first hand, be a part of strategies on the ground, and return more empowered as an activist.

Scientists are studying human-systems interactions in order to design systems that are compatible with human behavioral limitations in stressful moments. This field of study is called High Velocity Human Factors (HVHF) and it seems that more developments are on the way.

Printer 3D printing technology is maturing and on the verge of radically changing the rules for what, how and where everything is made, as manufacturing literally comes home . Here's how 3D printing works today.

Behavioral economics as we know it today is not behavioral economics as it will be in five, ten, or fifty years. Right now, the field of behavioral economics is basically acting as a wake-up call to economics. Behavioral economics is saying, “Hey, traditional economics: we humans aren’t as smart as you give us credit for. People aren’t 100% rational. Let’s figure out how and why, and if we can some predictable, systematic way of modeling that irrationality, so much the better.

The word derives from the terms “behavioral” and “biometrics”. “Behavioral” refers to the way a human person behaves and “biometrics”, in an information security context, refers to technologies and methods that measure and analyze biological characteristics of the human body for authentication purposes - for example fingerprints, eye retina, DNA and voice patterns.

Every year, some 800 companies and inventors from around the world gather for "nano tech," billed as the world's largest nanotechnology product expo. I caught the action this year at the Big Site center in Tokyo. Here are my standout pics.

Talking to a number of students at a university of technology recently, I found their enthusiasm for new ideas remarkable. It extended well beyond just learning technical knowledge.

I consider myself a techno-optimist, but Watson's performance in Jeopardy's IBM Challenge has definitely exceeded my expectations. While I did predict Watson would win the competition, I didn't think it would be so dominant.