All Things That Rise | 2009 August

AI Digest: 8/12/09. Augmented Reality = Search

By Giovanni Rodriguez ⋅ August 12, 2009 ⋅ 7 comments

Daily links on AI, IA and the place where social tech meets the two. Today: harvesting robots; robots in the army; “augmented reality” as a form of search.

Can Groups Make Good Decisions? Read this First.

By Giovanni Rodriguez ⋅ August 11, 2009 ⋅ 9 comments

Interesting post in PsyBlog, looking at a 1985 study which found that groups have a tough time making good decisions…. Sounds counterintuitive, notes PsyBlog — why would anyone hold black and not share information known only to them? But to me, the study forces another good question. What does this mean for online collaboration, the thing that drives so many enterprise 2.0 projects?

AI Digest: 8/11/09. Augmented Reality and Smartphones

By Giovanni Rodriguez ⋅ August 11, 2009 ⋅ 8 comments

Daily links on AI, IA and the place where social tech meets the two. Today: augmented reality and smartphones; robots for the autistic; a common OS for robots; iRobot wins Navy contract.

My Life as an Amphibian — Part II: The Colonel of Silicon Valley

By Giovanni Rodriguez ⋅ August 10, 2009 ⋅ 15 comments

The doctor I visited in the summer of 1999 — in a non-descript medical-professional strip mall in Belmont, California — was of the latter variety. He struggled through elementary school, middle school, high school, and medical school, never understanding why he had to work so much harder than everyone else around him. He didn’t work harder on the things that most people found difficult — he was great at math, sciences, and other things that require a facility for abstraction. It was the little things — or littler things — that made life so difficult for him. Like showing up to class on time. Like remembering people’s names. Like putting on his shoes — from the same pair — in the morning. He became a famous ADD doctor — highly recommended by someone close to me and my wife — and a legend in Silicon Valley, though few of his patients will reveal his name. Not because it would expose the patients as ADD people, but because revealing would be rude. The doctor was a gentleman, the furthest thing from rude. He spoke in a hard-to-exactly-place Southern accent, appeared to wear the same suit every time you visited, sported a well-groomed beard, clean, snow-white, cut with a flair. On the right day, he looked just like Colonel Sanders. I will respect the doctor’s anonymity — kinda — and call him the Colonel. I owe him that respect. I may have been his last patient.

AI Digest: 8/10/09. Government 2.0 Meets Augmented Reality

By Giovanni Rodriguez ⋅ August 10, 2009 ⋅ 8 comments

Daily links on AI, IA and the place where social tech meets the two. Today: augmented reality in government; the rise of RFID-based robotics; robotics and the future of work; Japan’s investment in AI and robotics.

Requiem for the Paper Textbook

By Giovanni Rodriguez ⋅ August 9, 2009 ⋅ One comment

This is a refreshing take on the paper-versus-bytes debate that usually puts paper on the side of protecting jobs and the economy. And that’s because the protagonist in this story is the tax-paying public and their children, not the publishing industry that serves the public. Of course, the irony here is that the story is published in The New York Times, which continues to lose readership, revenue, and physical pages. When I picked up the Sunday edition this morning I was shocked; it was almost as light as the daily edition from years back. These are painful times, but as the Times article today suggests, there’s a bright side to the story about digital publishing that’s worth exploring. We’ve known that all along, but let’s thank the Times for the reminder.

AI Digest: 8/9/09: Investing in Augmented Reality

By Giovanni Rodriguez ⋅ August 9, 2009 ⋅ 6 comments

Daily links on AI, IA and the place where social tech meets the two. Today: robots in healthcare, medical augmented reality, and investment in augmented reality.

AIDigest: 8/8/09. Holograms You Can Touch.

By Giovanni Rodriguez ⋅ August 8, 2009 ⋅ 6 comments

Daily links on AI, IA and where social tech meets the two. Today: Reports from PopSci, ReadWriteWeb, Switched, and Wired.

Weekly Wrap: 8/3-7/2009: Matter Over Mind

By Giovanni Rodriguez ⋅ August 7, 2009 ⋅ 15 comments

I can’t help but feel like what I experienced this week — my second week writing this blog — might have been a microcosm of two larger-but-related trends: man reaching its limits, machines being deployed to do more. But a more likely explanation is that I have carefully chosen to focus on fresh information that conveniently fits my new focus of interest. But even if that were true, I believe that the mounting evidence that people are pushing themselves to their physical, intellectual and emotional limits (did I mention all the new drugs we are taking?) compels us to look closely at the narrowing interface between man and machine. That’s a big focus for this blog, and in my travels this week I realized just how important it has become. The machine is becoming more like man — everyone gets that. But the surprise for so many of us at the beginning of this century is how man is becoming more like machine. As I suggested in my Thursday rant about the pleasures of disconnecting, it’s important to distinguish between the two phenomena. For as long as we are more like man and less like machine, we will need to take better care of the body that houses us. And for now, that body does have limits.