So technology makes you dumb ?

...seems like. But I doubt about the larger impact. Only the aspect of the "context switching" seem to be the important factor here. Maybe the effect on kids too...

Hibernation of mice

So mice has been set in deep sleep state for 6h and have recovered without any damage. Just by using a gas.

Their temperature was reduced to 15°C instead of their normal 37°C. The need for oxygen of cells was highly reduced.... Which means one of the major drawbacks of human could fall down (a bit) in the future. At least for space travels.

Common Sense

There is a new chatbot based on AI that is going to be put online soon. The difference here is that it's supposed to have "common sense". That's probably a good idea, because at some point a machine will have to decide what is interresting information, and decide between quantity and quality. But the way it's presented here is a bit flawed :

Others admitted computers could become intelligent but said they would never develop qualities such as compassion or wisdom which were uniquely human, the result of our emotional upbringing and experience. The definition of intelligence itself began to slip through the philosophers' fingers, and the disagreements continue today.

IMO compassion is not the way of evolution. It seems to help getting humans together, but it removes the necessary balance in nature between good and evil. Letting things die is part of nature too. Otherwise evolution (unadapted species) would not work. Maybe that's the key point we'll have to deal with soon : is evolution worth ? That might be the only way to stop it (if decided so). But I'm all for it, just because it's just where we belong in nature/universe.

Ray Kurtzweil meets Mikail Gorbatchev

Nop, it's not a political-science chimera. It's just a report from Kurzweil about their meeting recently. A short but worth discussion.

Mikhail: My advice would be to have a dialogue with people, to help overcome prejudice, to build bridges of understanding.

Mikhail's fourth toast: Only monks and nuns do their thinking alone. We need to communicate our thoughts and work together.

Recovering from unconsciousness

A rather long article that shed some different light on Terry Schiavo's case (for those who never read the news, it's a woman in vegetative state that is being starved to death). Recovering from this vegetative state is sometimes quick, but it can sometimes be long. It all depends on the level of injuries (lack of oxygen in the brain). But the brain recovers gradually from the coma state to consciousness.

New Job

I don't often talk about personal matters. But this time I will, as it may have some impact on my life.

I've signed for a new job at Ateme to work on video codecs on DSP (and all the related stuff). I don't know exactly when I will start this new job (and quit the current one) but I hope it will be some time around may.

I got this job because of my involvement in Matroska, because I know quite a bit about digital video. That was also the subject of my university studies. And I'm glad I can get a job closer to what I like to work on.

That doesn't mean my involvement in Matroska will stop. There are still plenty to do. And I don't think this baby is old/mature enough to live alone in the wild world. It will need a little bit more care to make it grow and reach a stable status. Time will tell how much time I'll be able to give it in the future. So in the mean time I'll try to do as much as possible to add key features here and there.

PS: A big thank to Philog, my former employer. I've learned a lot and always enjoyed the people there.

Kurzweil interview

OK, I admit. I really like Ray Kurzweil. He has this ability to feel how the future is going to be. And he often makes very valid points on his theories. This article is quite long and covers a lot of what he's working on now. I'll be waiting for his next book in fall "singularity of the near" which is about reverse engineering the brain into computers...

Already companies need to reinvent themselves in order to succeed. There’s a shock when an industry resists changing its business model. The recording industry resisted changing its business model; they tried to keep the same business model that was around when my father was a kid. Selling an album with maybe only one or two songs that someone wants for a pretty expensive price. The bottom line is that industries have to change the structure of their business models. Very often it’s a new set of organizations that adopt a business model that’s consistent with disruptive change that displaces the old ones. But people aren’t necessarily going to keep the same jobs or careers for their whole life -- especially when we change the concept of the human life cycle.

M-TRAN robots

This is a new kind of robot build to change its shape. Its movements are also chosen using genetic algorithm for better efficiency. The interresting part is the conclusion : it has bigger potential than the (current) human body because it can evolve/grow during its lifetime to do things unpredicted at its birth... As one know, nature smiles to the ones with best adaptation skills...

Palm founders jump on AI

The 2 persons responsible for the success of the Palm PDA have created a new company (Numenta) to work on AI projects, based on knowledges of neuroscience. This is probably not the first one, but given their background and probably the money they can generate, it could give a good boost to all this nascent industry.

Capitalist Research

A survey shows that companies tries to bias research results and also try to get short-term revenues on research, rather than substantial results. It was expected but never so obviously and openly...

Scientists asking questions

It's always refreshing to see scientists being puzzled by their discoveries. That they find limits to what they can explain/understand yet.

Jon did it again !

DVD Jon ( Jon Lech Johansen) has just released a new software that will make Apple very unhappy ! You can now buy music on iTMS without using iTunes and without any DRM !

I still consider the price on the iTMS too high. But I'll probably have a look to see if there is anything rare I could not find on AllOfMp3...

Wireless Consciousness

McFadden, author of Quantum Evolution, argues that human consciousness is actually the brain's electromagnetic field interacting with its circuitry.

This idea is simple enough to make good sense. In the other end, would that mean that our consciousness disappear when we encounter very strong magnetic fields ?

"Some have been saying that if computers are powerful enough, they'll become conscious, but it hasn't happened," McFadden said. "It's time they realize there's something missing. You have to design an artificial brain using field effects."

Again, some people thinking that the human/biological way is the only way to achieve the same result.

Shakti headset

This is a machine that will stimutale regions of one's brain with electro-magnetic waves, the same way they are when one experience so-called "paranormal" experiments, like other presence, out of body experience, etc. It is based on another similar experience that took place in a room in the 80s.

What others have experienced in Room C002B depended on their cultural or religious beliefs. Some saw Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Muhammad, or the Sky Spirit. Others, with more than a passing faith in UFOs, tell of something that sounds more like a standard alien-abduction story.

That tends to fit my idea that hallucinations are usually caused by an altered state of the brain (mostly through chemicals) and thus is totally related to what is already inside our brain, ie a physical object. That would confirm that the brain is not really a metaphysical machine, but just a (complex) chemical, magnetic and electric machine.

“However, it is quite clear that the brain is also able to construct a version of reality that is quite unlike the survival-orientated ‘normal’, one. Now why on earth should it have evolved to do that and why is our culture so dead set against exploring it?”

Semantic Web

The Semantic Web is discussed these days in San Francisco during a W3C seminar.

Apparently a lot of people don't understand why it is important, or what it is exactly. But it's just what the name suggests, the web but with a meaning. A meaning that could be usable to a computer without human intervention. The technology in itself is quite simple. But it probably takes much more time to create Semantic content rather than the traditional text. We'll see how things evolve.

A mouse with a human brain

Genetic science is progressing and pushing the limits of what people are ready to accept. This funny experiment is already considered as close to the limit.

Last week, however, the university's ethics committee approved the research, under certain conditions. Prof Henry Greely, the head of the committee, said: "If the mouse shows human-like behaviours, like improved memory or problem-solving, it's time to stop."

So when it gets really interresting, it has to be stopped :(
As expected, humans are not ready at all to share their dominance...

PDIA

As in Personal Digital Intelligent Assistant.

This AI software developped at Microsoft decides for the importance of messages you receive and can decide to contact you if a message is very important.

The 14-person group is working on software that senses the world around it and learns from experience to adjust to situations and to reason in real time.

AllOfMP3 declared legal (again)

Russian prosecutors have decided they are unable to take legal action against controversial online music provider Allofmp3.com

I'm glad the situation hasn't changed, and we can continue to buy music from the best online music shop (best business model so far).

Next Generation Computing

The article presents a few new research directions on what the future of computing will be. The interresting part is that they are all based on observation of the nature. But in the end I'm not sure the way the brain works (trinary instead of binary) is a real advantage. Computers will evolve differently than the way our brain works. Of course with enough computing power, the trinary system could be simulated with a binary system. But it may not replace all the existing binary systems. (seems like some people still consider the brain as the ultimate computing machine)

Intelligent plants

Apparently plants have a kind of intelligence, more than just growing.

The ground-hugging mayapple plans its growth two years into the future, based on computations of weather patterns. And many who visit the redwoods of the Northwest come away awed by the trees' survival for millenniums - a journey that, for some trees, precedes the Parthenon.

Open Source patch-work

Interresting article on what business can be built with Open Source Softwares, what can (should) be opened and what shouldn't. It also talks about general OSS marketing and project life (and death sometimes). But IMO it's missing an important part : design choices. You can't have a software work if A decides one day to commit code that will make it work in a way and B want to do it the other way. At least if they work on expanding the same software (ie collaboration, not fork). There needs to be an authority to decide. It also shows how OSS usually have no pre-established design (what we tried to avoid in matroska and got everybody surprised). This is usually a bunch of patches around an original design that was probably not meant for many twists in the way it works. IMO a good software (OSS or not) has to be designed and choices have to be made in advance. And this very simple aspect that is missing in the article cast a different perspective of what can be achieved with the OSS, only in an utopian (and purely anarchic) world. Successful OSS projects actually have an authority to decide choices.

My dream-portable audio player v2

I once published a wishlist of what I would like my audio player to do. In short it would allow me to play music wirelessly from my home. That means a large amount of data would be downloaded from the net. And even though it's possible with UMTS, Wifi or WiMax (yet to appear) the cost would be huge. And besides, I couldn't listen to the music I want where the wireless access is unavailable.

So the interim option would be a device in 2 parts. One small part that would have a screen, a Bluetooth 2 (stereo) connection and a few buttons. Lots of current phones would be enough. The second part would be a large HD. Last time I counted 300 or 400 GB would be enough to store all my music losslessly. And such drives already exist in 3"5 format. Even though it would be heavy to carry, it would be almost OK for everyday use. This HD would need an enclosure with Bluetooth connectivity and USB 2 or Firewire to feed it. And of course enough battery to run it. Which might be the main problem as such big drives need a lot of power to work. The Bluetooth software could be almost all handled in the HD, close to the data and the phone would just run a Java applet to access this software (music server).

An autist explain his extraordinary abilities

When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think.

I also wonder if it has anything to do with mastering quantum mechanics.

The birth of digital life ?

This is, AFAIK, the first example of what could be called digital life. A digital system (computer instructions) that replicate its own code and can mutate some of its genes (code) to evolve. I wonder if, such a system left living on a computer connected to the net could evolve to make use of the net and spread there. Without any human intervention.

On MS interroperability

A somehow funny article from an Opera chief responding to Bill Gates' recent claims and praises about interroperability of softwares. Something that MS is known to be doing very badly.

f you truly believe in interoperability, Mr Gates, here are some ways you can prove it:

Fix your document! Start by looking at the source code. Get disgusted.

What is evil

This is an interresting article on the evil we all have in us. It's weird to see that a century after Nietzsche, the evil side in us is still mostly unknown, unexplored. Probably because we basically seek pleasure and happiness. So we avoid the evil part of us as much as possible. I'm not sure if that's as healthy. It would also challenge that "love for humanity" that everyone is meant to have...

Robots as a new species

Finally someone starts thinking like me. That's the first time I read something so close to what I've been thinking for a while :

"Christians may not like it, but we must consider this the origin of an artificial species. Until now, most researchers in this field have focused only on the functionality of the machines, but we think in terms of the essence of the creatures.

Always Stay On The Right Side Of The Mind

As computers grow in computational power, we (humans) are losing our edge in logic capabilities. As predicted, the important factors in modern human society is what make us different from machines.

In a world upended by outsourcing, deluged with data, and choked with choices, the abilities that matter most are now closer in spirit to the specialties of the right hemisphere - artistry, empathy, seeing the big picture, and pursuing the transcendent.

I expect this to grow and deeply divide population between the human-like and the machine-like people. Choose you camp :)

First tests of human-animal chimeras in China

A chimera is a mix of 2 species. In this case a living individual was not created, but only the first step of mixing human and animal genes.

He concedes that these studies would lead to some medical breakthroughs. Still, they should not be done.

Apparently religious or moral values will soon stop science...

Computers start learning alone

It finally starts to happen. Computers are learning things that were not pre-programmed. It's not 100% based on free-will. But at least the programmer is not involved. And most important :

It's a very good start, and almost mysterious in the way it works

Antioxydants to slow aging

In his latest book that I still haven't read (just started), Kurzweil talks about the importance of antioxydant in the agin process.

Apparently he's very right, because it works well on dogs too !

The GPL for biology

One of the forces of Open Source Softwares (OSS) is that sometimes (when the GPL license is used) you can't modify the code if you don't make your changes available too. Now the smae system is going to be applied to biology (and genetic) sciences.

Just like open-source software, open-source biology users own the patents to their creations, but cannot hinder others from using the original shared information to develop similar products. Any improvements of the shared methods of BIOS, the Science Commons or other open-source communities must be made public, as well as any health hazards that are discovered.

Google tells you what to write

Another weird story on Google. This time it's their AdWords service that tell customer to rewrite their site because it doesn't meet Google's requirement on grammar. Even if that's your intentions...

My hot holiday item was a pair of rather sassy women's underwear, so I was certain that the objection was to some particularly saucy ad copy. Yet I discovered that my indecency was far more shocking. I had made an error of style.

The e-mail message said my ad text "includes phrases that do not meet our grammar requirements." The offending phrase was "check em out." Google suggested replacing it with "check them out."

Mini Mac

Apple has finally unveiled its cheapest computer ever. That means a revolution for Apple that has long been targeting the yuppies. Now almost everyone can afford a Mac running OS X with the whole iLife suite for a good multimedia experience.

For 500€ this machine could very well replace my parents' computer that has less powerful hardware, is big and noisy, needs a firewall, an antivirus and an external modem to run.

I could also use one to develop with XCode (the best GUI build around gcc by far!). And that wouldn't take more space or more noise than my current 2 computers. And it would be so much faster and with a much bigger screen than my iBook 12".

So in just 2 examples it gives a good overview of how successful this little good looking machine could be. I'm not sure it will get Apple that much more PC market share, but it will help for sure. It mostly targets people with not much interrest in their PC but that want to have access to all modern technologies (they could have pu a DVD writer from the start). And only the ones with a screen, a USB keyboard and a USB mouse (hopefully Mac compatible). Otherwise the price aspect is less interresting, but not that much.

I'll probably wait until Tiger is released to buy one. That's probably in 6 months, with the future hardware upgrade/tuning (buying a 1st generation product is usually not a good idea).

Let's see if Apple is able to deliver enough machine. I think the demand will be big.

Google but free

An employee of Google has setup a proxy to the Google data. The results are the same, but don't include the lengthy description and no ads !

Brandt fully expects Google to throw legal and technical resources at him, but says he welcomes the challenge if only to clarify copyright issues. Google took people's free stuff and made a $50 billion business from it, he argues.

Very true...

When marketing fails

On the Apple switch campaign by Andrew Orlowski.

The scripts were generally excellent, but the CEO wanted something edgy, so the art director transformed ordinary people into the role of 'Twitchers'. This was guaranteed to repel customers and reinforced the impression, unfortunately confirmed by a handful of net fanatics, that to be an Apple User really means 'Loser'. Give that man an Oscar!

Happy, smiling people replaced the Twitchers within weeks, but the damage had been done

Probably more on Apple tomorrow if the low-cost Mac is announced.

Rats can recognise human languages

An interresting study on rats to recognise between Dutch and Japanese.

Rats rewarded for responding to Japanese did not respond to Dutch and rats trained to recognize Dutch did not respond the spoken Japanese.

The rats could not tell apart Japanese or Dutch played backwards.

The study shows "which abilities that humans use for language are shared with other animals, and which are uniquely human. It also suggests what sort of evolutionary precursors language might have," he added.

Gates on IP

Bill Gates is not only the richest man in this world, but also defines the strategies of Microsoft and therefore of the whole industry...

there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were.

But apparently he still lives in the previous century.

Apple finally suited...

...for its monopoly on the digital music business.

I hope Thomas Slattery gets a lot of help from everyone.

Apple gets nasty

For those Apple/Mac/iPod zealots, you might think again about your beloved company. You can often see how the angel Apple should fight the demonic Microsoft in various reports or forum posts. But Apple is no better than MS. Actually since it's doing a much smaller business, it takes less risks when doing something wrong. And that's what happens just now by suing the rumour site Think Secret (named after the Apple campaign Think Different).

The Register (Andrew Orlowski again) summarizes well the problem of this lawsuit :

It's quite another to use its corporate financial might to stop the press doing its job. Unable to find the leaker, Apple is shooting the messenger instead.

The latter represents a violation of basic journalist ethics, and if Apple's chilling effects tactic was adopted more widely a free press would no longer be possible, with users solely dependent on corporate press releases, or a corporate PR republishing service, such as Walt Mossberg. Which is exactly how Apple CEO Steve Jobs likes it.

Big head on God and evolution

This is an interresting article asking the big questions to the big heads behind the Edge site.

I tend to agree with all that is being said. It's just a pity they don't really mention what is known out of science, which could help science a lot.

The brain network

Apparently the brain is not as complex as one might think. It's just a structure, a network of cells connected to each others but in a simple manner. Studying interactions between the nodes might be as easy as studying general networks like the internet.

Is the brain good at multi-tasking ?

The brain is a multi-tasking machine. We are able to talk and move and think at the same time. But maybe we're not that good at it. And the speed of our modern technology might make it more apparent.

"I remember a visiting senior computer scientist from another country got very angry about it," says Levy. "He said programming requires focus and shouldn't be interrupted. He basically said, 'You call this the future!' "

Linus Torvalds on creating

An interresting interview of Linux' founder Linus Torvalds. I've often been inspired by the way Linux is "conducted" to work on Matroska. Just because I would like it to be as successful and interresting as developping Linux.

To invent something totally new and different just because you want to do something new and different is in my opinion, the height of stupidity and hubris.

I totally agree on the evolution side of things. And not to reinvent the wheel where it shouldn't be.

I have to continually try to explain to people that no, I don't "control" what happens in Linux. It's about having an environment that is conducive to development, not so much about any particular leader. And I think that is true in most cases, be it the "great sport coach" or the "great spiritual leader."

Of course the importance of getting humble when working with other talented people is obvious. Also the way it's important to have freedom and a good incentive to work between people. It worked very well so far... And in the same way, even though I created Matroska, I don't think I'm controlling everything. Just influencing, as much as the others.

Cognitive Freedom

An interresting article on freedom concerns that will happen when you can modify your brain and let doctors or companies (the same?) do it...

Cognitive liberty presupposes at least these three principles: cognitive privacy (what and how you think should be private unless you choose to share it); cognitive autonomy (self-determination over one's own cognition is central to free will); and cognitive choice (the capabilities of the human mind should not be limited).

It's sad that humans do not have to share what they know. A lot of knowledges have been lost along our history (and found again and again) because of that. And it will stay that way as long as we will be looking for more power than our brother (knowledge = power).

Firefox ad in NY Times

It is finally done. A paid ad for an open-source software in one of the most prestigious paper in the world. The money comes from donations to the Mozilla Foundation.

(PS: this was written using FireFox 1.0 in french with MOOX optimisations)

No Ads

I've discovered recently how to disable most advertisement (including the Google ones) on web pages on Firefox. It works just great. And the manipulation is not that complicated.

I guess this feature will be more and more popular. And commercial or press or any other websites that rely on advertisement will have harder and harder times to get people to see and click on their revenue.

Now OSNews, a free online news site, is proposing you to pay for not having ads, not being annoyed and have the site load faster. All things you can get for free from Adblock in Firefox. I find it ironic the way it's put out : "pay if you don't want us to annoy you".

Apple's future

I'm very mixed when it comes to Apple. I think they do a few good things, like OSX but are too trendy to be worth being praised.

I'm currently looking (waiting) for my next PC screen that would allow 1080p HDTV display in a reasonable space. A 20" or 23" would be the maximum size I can afford on my desk. And Apple make such screens either separately or in the latest iMac G5. But none has a video-in plug (neither HDMI). That's a serious drawback, especially from a company that claims to work hard on the digital-hub (that the PC/Mac would be). Where is TV ? Maybe the biggest multimedia activity of people with music... I think either Apple are really missing a huge opportunity here, or they are working hard on it for their next generation products. After all the other serious alternative to a computer as a digital hub is the TV + basic electronic device.

Next generation file system

I've been talking of a future wireless device that would allow me to listen to any music I own from wherever I am. The key to such a device would be to have either all my music in sync with another machine, or just parts of it as I request it using a wireless connection to download the music.

The Coda filesystem presented in this article is a good example of a working (research) system that is made for transparently keeping data up to date between servers and wireless devices, the same way you use basic files right now. So having a Coda server and a Coda client in a wireless device (like a Pocket PC with enough power to decode many audio formats) would be enough.

More on extending life

This time it's not Kurzweil but a UK scientists running the SENS project that predicts life will be extended to 1000 years (and more ?). The journalist also gives a wider view of the changes of this dramatic change. And also gives an alternative view on this. He even mentions the problem of god...

It's funny that experiments will start on animals and when it works everybody will want a better/sharper life. But for example will we still have children ? Maybe it won't be allowed because of limited resources. Death will still be a reality (through accidents) for a while (see Kurzweil for the second part of the extension). So will we work forever ? Or be allowed to stop working if we decide we won't live more than 20 years ?

iPod fashion

It's very clear that the iPod has become a trendy piece of hardware. Every fashion victim has to have one (Karl Largerfeld has hundreds of them if not thousands LOL). It shows how much you are "moving with your time" (and fuck the copyright holders ?). And the distinctive white earplugs make it easy for you to show that you are "in".

I don't have an iPod, I've had an Archos Jukebox Recorder for years. It could work as a portable HD and record in MP3 far before the iPod did, there is an open source firmware that really improve it, and best of all it was much cheaper than the iPod before it was released. But unfortunately as Apple is as bad as Microsoft, iTunes refuses to synchronise with it. I still have to sync it manually (I plan to replicate my whole MP3 collection on the Archos as soon as I replace the HD with a 80 GB version, something you can't have or do with an iPod).

The problem with fashion is that it comes and goes. Nothing you can rely on. But technology is meant to be reliable. And considering the price of an iPod (349€ to 459€, the price of a 40GB portable HD is around 80€) he price to pay for something that will be outdated or outmodded in 1 or 2 years is a lot ! In that time there will be many equivalent items to the iPod probably cheaper, with more freedom (compatible with more online shops than the expensive iTMS), more battery life, more features, etc. So any asshole who want to be "in" again will have to pay again a lot of money for something that will do the same.

The problem for Apple is that they have to be the manufacturer of the next big thing. Otherwise the iPod-mania will have lasted a few years and then everyone will be gone. The area where Apple is making money might be dead soon.

The most funny part of the story is those people who rushed to buy an iPod will have a hard-time realising that the song they bought on their iTunes can't be put in their next generation player, thanks to Apple (acting as worse as Microsoft). And that if they ripped their own CDs to AAC, they might have to reencode them because so far only Apple supports AAC, all the others are going WMA. And at that moment they will start to hate Apple for doing that to them, never warning them of anything, for this pricey hardware they bought and loved so much. Going for a monopoly has its drawback. And all the sheeps that keep on joining the boat will make this an even bigger catastrophy. Too bad sheeps always get the clue too late...

Stress & Aging

This is an interresting study that shows there is a link between stress and aging of cells. It's usually common to think that they are related but we don't know in what extent. So for the first time we have an idea of how much year a cell is aging more than a normal one.

It's also weird given that stress is kinda hard to define and it's also a purely "intellectual" thing. It's a response to cognitive stimuli, not physical ones. But it does have a deep impact on the way the cells work (or not).

So to have a better, longer, fitter life just avoid stress. Everybody knows that...

Le Coeur Et L'Esprit

For the first time in history we are getting close to answering the question of whether the heart rules the head.

I've been thinking about this for quite some time (at least since last year)... Even though I'm a very logical person, sometimes emotions are too strong to be handled. I realised the other day that it may have to do with instincts vs logic. Instincts occur when the logic process is too slow to handle the flux of information to handle. And emotions probably deal with a lot of contradiction in our thinking process, especially non-logical ones (or at least ones that don't seem logical first).

Chimeras

As science progresses, it becomes possible to merge species or develop parts of one into the other. This is already in use in medical research. But then there are ethical (and religious) questions arising. What is a human ? What is right and wrong to do ?

Greely and his colleagues did not conclude that such experiments should never be done. Indeed, he and many other philosophers have been wrestling with the question of why so many people believe it is wrong to breach the species barrier.

I can see the religious background to such questions. But what about the need to ban such research ?! There is no real danger of creating such hybrid animals. Or maybe because we fear we could create a beast much more powerful than humans ? Because we have sacred the human to make sure nothing can get more powerful ? All these questions will be debated more and more. Probably until science finally wins. Unless science is completely stopped and forbidden... I hope we won't see the age of labs getting burned down and scientists being slaughtered because of their work...

The Writing Computer

(registration on New York Times is free and worth it)

This article deals with computers that can write novels (Kurzweil talked about it many times). It's interresting to see an author scared by human writers being made redundant, useless (like machines replaced humans in factories).

When I called Steven Pinker, the Harvard University psychologist whose research focuses on language and cognition, he pointed out that the human brain consists of 100 trillion synapses that are subjected to a lifetime of real-world experience. While it is conceivable that computers will eventually write novels, Dr. Pinker says, "I doubt they'd be very good novels by human standards."

But when the computer will have as much and then far more "synapses" than human, and the whole books ever written in "mind", I think they could fake the human standards well, if they needed to...

Creationism

A school in Pennsylvania (USA) has decided to drop the Darwin theory and teach Creationism instead.

...the earth was made by God as described in the Book of Genesis.

A nice form of obscurantism. Don't talk about arguments that are against you, make sure only the ones in your favour are discussed.

Michael Moore's iTunes playlist

There is nothing wrong when a star publishes the music he/she likes on iTunes for anyone to know. I guess there are even some people interrested in that. So Michael Moore is almost no different. Except that music made public on iTunes is for selling purposes for Apple, and that the music is DRMed so that you can't use it the way you want...

Americans should be kept in their place and learn that sharing culture is not a right, it's a privilege the media moguls give to us.

Teleportation

Teleportation may seem like an impossible dream to many people. But it seems it may be possible one day, maybe not the way it's done in Star Trek...

This article talks about a report of the US Air Force checking all the possible teleportation alternatives. One of the possibilities reside in psychokinesis and telekinesis, called p-teleportation.

During a talk that he gave at the U.S. Capitol building, Uri caused a spoon to curve upward with no force applied, and then the spoon continued to bend after he put it back down and continued with his talk (Alexander, 1996).

Flat Fee Phone Bill

Today marks the beginning of end for phone services where people are billed based on how long they make a call for or even where in the World they call. In future, consumers and businesses will pay flat monthly fees for their phone services no matter where they are calling or for how long. Gossiptel already allows you to make unlimited calls to more than a third of the World's population for a flat monthly fee.

I wonder when the same will happen for music. But that's surely a good step in the right direction for "always-on" communications.

Stallman on Free Software

Richard Stallman (RMS) is well known is the open source/free software community. He has strong political on what freedom on software means. I mostly agree with him. Except that he's thinking about an utopia that can hardly fit the real world. That's just a good goal to target...

If the goal is to build a society of freedom, it's not sufficient to put freedom into people's hands. If they don't appreciate it, they will let it drop, lose it. If we want freedom to endure, we have to teach people to recognize its value so they will defend it.

Eminem against Bush

Very dark music & video. I quite like the atmosphere that actually feels like Bush reelected again...

Two years ago, this video would not have been approved by a single record label. A year ago it would never had the possibility of being played on television. But with the changing tide of public sentiment marked by the success of our last video for Chronic Future, an anti-war message that made it into rotation on TRL we think it might just have a chance.

John Peel died today

He was truly unique in the music world. And remained true to music.

The Peel Sessions of so many bands will remain in the history to remember this wonderful guy.

So you think you can trust Google ?

Since Google released their beta tool to search locally on your desktop, there has been concerns about privacy and what Google could do when they know more about you. Now it's about security.

Google couldn't explain why it didn't have a working email or phone contact for security alerts

Conclusion of the article :

It's good to know Google takes security as seriously as it takes privacy.

(one more from Andrew Orlowski)

JetGroove no longer worth

Apparently JetGroove had legal problems selling music. Most of the stuff they had was not available for sale, but you could still listen to a streamed version. Now even that feature is gone. All the (about) 100 tracks I selected but couldn't buy (and didn't bother listening as streamed) are now gone !

Of course it's the copyright pigs again at work. They can't stand when anyone but them can make money on music. Even if that's a service they don't even offer (underground music mostly found on shitty vynils). So the guys with the big MP3 collection behind JetGroove know what they should do : spread the music for free on P2P to piss the pigs even more !!!

JetGroove

Finally a good digital shop has emerged for electronic music ! JetGroove seems to have a lot of hard to find things in underground music, even from vynil sources. I'll try it with a vynil source to see if the digitalisation is better that if I do it myself... The price is 1$ to 1.25$ for each track in MP3 format. It's way more expensive than AllOfMp3 but that's the price for underground music...

Free publishing

Back in the good old days it was easy to publish content on the net, especially text and music. But now that the pigopolists are lobbying every possible inch of world parliaments, it's becoming harder to publish even legitimate content.

This interresting dutch study on 10 ISPs is quite impressive. It shows how the ISPs are devoted to the copyright owners or fear possible legal actions. Sometimes don't even caring about their own users. So be careful with your own content !

Live forever ?

The new book of Raymond Kurzweil will probably lead to a lot of questions on the real possibilities of "eternal" life and wether we really want that or not.

I think the 'blind' minds will find it cool and want it, while the 'lost' minds will not find it that interresting... I think that as long as I discover new things I'll be happy to live.

Kurzweil said he doesn't think such changes will detract from our humanity. "The emergence of artificial intelligence is not an alien invasion of intelligent machines coming from over the horizon to compete with us," he declared. "Rather, it is emerging from our human civilization."

Protective Patent

Sun recently said they would patent their 3D interface to protect them. They relased the code with the GPL license, which is supposed to be the most politically correct OSS license. So putting a patent on a GPL code is kinda strange.

But that's a really week argument when you think about it for a second ! Why would you need to patent something to protect you ? Prior art exists and means that if you can prove that you have made a system using the same technique as a patent, before the patent was applied, this patent is void. How could someone attack Sun for a system that is not patented yet and that they have made public ?! That's simply impossible...

So don't believe Sun or anyone else when they tell you that it's just to protect them !

(the only worth protection needed is to find if patents exist on the subject before you release something, only companies can afford that)

Sony Japan stops DRM

The reason? According to Sony, Japanese consumers now have a far better appreciation of the issues surrounding copyright and music piracy, and the law is now tougher on those who flout it.

Hopefully that will be a general move now...

Andrew Orlowski at his best

Talking in front of the pigopolist bosses, and explaining them why they are wrong... And what could be done in the music business in the coming years. I like the insurance thing a lot :

CDs break. Hard disks crash. Phones are stolen. Sell them access to a permanent collection. You're then in the services business. That's where all computer companies want to be. A permanent fixture of everyday life.

And also the bundle importance (hence the one album per file):

The world works on bundles: a newspaper is a bundle of stories; a TV channel is a bundle of programs; a satellite channel is a bundle of TV channels; economically the world only works through bundles. The stuff you don't want pays for the stuff you do. There are sound actuarial reasons for this. It works. And artistically, we wouldn't have had The Beatles or Joy Division without the bundle.

Semantic Data

The semantic inside digital data is hard to discover for a computer. But there are technologies emerging to work out this problem. The semantic web and semantic database are good examples of what the future may allow.

Check out the first article which is an "Introduction to semantics technology" that covers the basis (maybe a bit too vague) of the technology challenge it will be.

Human/Machine analogy helps understanding aging

A quite interresting study (even though the extrapolation on the possibilities of non-ending life is very weak).

The "aha!" moment took place some years ago when we had to work with an unpredictable, dilapidated mainframe computer in Russia, and we got the impression that the complex behavior of this computer could only be described by resorting to such human concepts as character, personality, and change of mood. This observation led us to the bizarre idea that living organisms, including humans, have more of a resemblance to partially damaged machines than to new ones.

People prefer CDs

At the contrary to what many people think, most people largely prefer their CDs to MP3s (92% of DRM customers). Don't take users for fools... They know what is convenient and pricey and know how to make the difference.

Mixing stereo

An interresting study that tend to prove that ears hear differently between the left and the right. That could have an interresting impact on how sounds are place in stereo.

We were intrigued to discover that the clicks triggered more amplification in the baby's right ear, while the tones induced more amplification in the baby's left ear.

Singularity

Seems like everyone is back from vacation and at work today ! This time is the sci-fi author Bruce Sterling in Wired :

The singularity's biggest flaw isn't that it's hard to imagine, but that it flatters its human inventors. We may be on the verge of an astounding breakthrough! Or, with equal likelihood, we may be at the edge of a new dark age of plagues, mass hunger, and climate destabilization. More likely yet, we live in a dull, self-satisfied, squalid eddy in history, blundering around with no concept of progress and no sense of direction. We have no idea what we really want from our own lives or from society. And no Moore's law rising majestically on any 2-D graph is ever going make us magnificent or spiritual when we lack the will, vision, and appetite for spiritual magnificence.

Reasons for revenge

Another interresting article on how the brain works for revenge and altruistic punishment (ie reprimand people who have abused our trust or broken other social rules, even when we get no direct practical benefits in return). Of course I'm interrested in that because I have a large tendency of doing these altruistic punishments.

In the end the study is not very conclusive and only deal with things you can already imagine : it's a mix of passion and rationality...

Neurosciences will not solve it ?

I think the reason people want to believe in all of this is that they have lost religion and the little of religion that remains to them takes the form of a belief that science will explain things.

An interresting article on neurosciences, the fact that it's currently overrated and will probably stay so for a long time.

I like the comparison between poets and mathematicians. That mathematicians actually get insane while poets don't. I don't think that's true. But mathematicians have a firmer understanding of truth and rely more on what they know than what they feel. So they are more bound to become insane when what they know is constantly questioned...

But I don't agree on the way the guy seems to think it's an impossible quest (to understand the consciousness), especially since he relies more on the ones who failed to make significant progress than on the ones who do. And the 5000 years quote is highly stupid, as much as the ones who claim the discoveries are near. It's not surprising from a guy who refuses to read books that say the contrary than what he thinks...

But since we are starting building artificial intelligence and that consciousness can be implied by intelligence, we will discover things. And we may also create different kinds of consciousness.

New Scientific Method

It's not very often that science manages to find new methods to apply to a field of research. Usually you use the same old technique in various fields because it works. But sometimes it doesn't work. And this new method is trying to find out why it doesn't work. Actually it's trying to find the holes in a theory and practices in a field of research. And these holes are involved by the human factor that is using his instincts where it shouldn't, because it's faster and relies on habits that usually work. But as always one should always be careful with one's instincts ;)

Late at night

I finally took the time to transfer my latest DJ mix from the iBook to the PC and upload it on the net in Vorbis format. Here is the track listing :

• Baby Ford - Car jacker


• Baby Ford - Crease release


• GusGus - Pagus (believe)


• Headman - It rough (Chicken Lips remix)


• Captain Comatose - Comatose Captain (5-8 mix)


• Hell - Limbische System


• Italic ???


• Saint Etienne - Heart failed (T.L.S. dub)


• T. Raumschmiere - Zartbitter


• DBX - Loosing control


• Hell - Listen to the hiss (Villalobos kiss hiss mix)


• Plastikman - I don't know


• I:Cube - Bubblesphere


• The Orb - Spanish castles in space

I've listened a lot to this mix without getting bored with it. It also had some powerful effects under the influence :)

Posting

It's been a while since I posted here. Not that I don't see/read interresting things everyday. But just because I didn't think of sharing what I met... Well, I did post about philosophy and science on DogSquad, in very good debates with silenus and others.

But today I felt like posting because I saw something I was thinking about and never saw mentioned before : the science-fiction authors that don't meet the expectations of the coming technological revolutions... Check that article here. If I could tell stories I would write many about all the possible futures that are coming, good and bad. But unfortunately I'm not good at it. And sadly there aren't many people out there who think about the future with a wide view and a deep understanding, like Kurzweil has.

Grrrrrreed

Ghislenghien, Asuncion...
Not only greed seem to invade the world. But now it clearly kills people !

Work more or die !
Pay or die !

LittleDetroit in London

I spend this past saturday afternoon and night in London. That was about 2 years since I went in the city to buy records or go in a club ! This time it was for doing both. I fist arrived by the Eurostar, being in the 1st class ! (unfortunately the seats are not electric or you can't plug anything like in the TGV).



As I had many hours before the party was supposed to start, I went in the usual places to find new and 2nd hand records : Camden, Notting Hill Gate and Berwick Street.



After that I was quite exhausted by the heat (still less than in Paris) and by the records I had to carry in my bag (27 plus a VHS and 2 DVDs). So on the way to the meeting pub, I stopped by the Blackfriars bridge for a while to relax.



Graham (cdw on the Black Dog Forum) recognised me there because I was wearing my Matroska tee-shirt as expected :) So he joined me to discuss, check the CDs and relax. Then we finally headed to the pub.



There was quite a few people there. Not a single one that I knew, except maybe for Martin Dust who was organising the event and also recognised me from my tee-shirt ;)



The 2 DJs we saw there were very good. Their track selection was just great. Too bad the sound wasn't so good and almost noone was dancing.



Around 11pm everyone got out of the pub to join the boat where the real party was happening.



We had to wait for quite some time outside and so we could realise that it was a full moon night ! Very promising :)



The music started to play in the boat and so everybody got onboard.



Downstairs were the toilets and also the second DJ room. But unfortunately it was not allowed to dance there for "security" reasons, so I didn't go much...



Then the boat left the border and the party really started on the river Thames !



The DJs were very good even though the cartridge of the turntable would jump once in a while... One of the so many advantages of digital DJs over legacy ones ;)







The trip on the Thames was really nice. We got to see many "famous" places of London during the party. So when you didn't feel like dancing, you could still watch outside and enjoy.











I really enjoyed the music even though I was a bit tired by the whole trip. But I managed to dance pretty much of the time while Graham was sometimes relaxing ;)





Then the sun slowly came up and the party ended. Everyone seemed to have spent a good moment in an unsual place to have a party !





And then I was back to Paris with the first Eurostar...

I, robot seen

I finally saw that movie (one day before it was it in France, for more fun). I expected it to be much worse. Many ppl criticised the choice of Will Smith as the main actor, but he did very well IMO.

The movie (the story) is well balanced between what you can think of the future. The 3 laws are mostly a myth now and will never be applied as such in thinking machines (physical robots may be). But the rest is quite valid. And this issue of wether robots should take control for the safety of humanity/earth is a dense question. The answer of the movie (dunno about the original book) is quite simple and quickly chosen in the movie. Maybe another movie focused on this issue would be even more interresting !

New File System needed

One of the first thing I wanted to do with this blog was write an article on the need for a new File System for computers. This article goes in the same direction, even though it's a bit modest compared to what I have in mind.

Here are some of the requirements I have in mind :

• native 64 bits support (for almost unlimited file sizes unlike FAT32)
• portable to be used on either Windows, Linux and OSX
• open source and patent free (to be usable for free on any device)
• support symbolic link (not well supported on Windows and OS X)
• support insertion and deletion of parts without needing to rewrite to a new file (not found anywhere I know yet), a cleanup of the FS could be done during idle time to commit these changes irremediable
• support attributes/meta-data better than on OS X (UNIX commands lose such attributes)
  

Music Business

As seen previously it seems the AllOfMP3 business model for distribution is the one that make more sense (digital data cost much less to distribute). But that's only half of the music (or video) business. The other parts is selling rights.

On AOMP3 they sell you full rights music. But we know that current distributors and artists don't like that because it helps piracy. So their solution is DRM... In such a perspective (that you don't trust the average user or don't want to tolerate piracy) there should be different levels of right buyings : one-time playing, x-time playing, unlimited playback and also one listener, x-listeners (later named by an ID or belonging to a group) and unlimited listeners. This would make a complex business and a complex hardware+software solution. That's why it takes so long to emerge (since a consensus should be reached among all key players to avoid being locked in a dead world). In the end it may work. But that would be against the "culture is free for all". Which is another system that could live, but they are both exclusive. Noone knows which one will win...

Portable Music

I was about to buy the new H-340 from iRiver to be able to listen to my music from everywhere at any time I wish in good quality and with many tracks (40GB HD and support MP3, Vorbis, WMA). Unfortunately it doesn't support AAC. And I don't want to buy it knowing it may never support it (for licensing, hardware, marketing reasons). So I'll wait for something else.

The solution to my problem might come from wireless communication. Instead of embedding the music in a heavy HD, it could be downloaded directly from my home where all my music resides. Some cellphones or PDA could do that already, provided the software can be enhanced to support the nice formats (HE-AAC, Vorbis, Wavpack Lossy). And the price of such devices is about the same as the heavier H-340. But the technology is not ready yet. For good quality it would mean downloading music at about 256kbps and that my home could also offer such an upstream bandwidth (it is actually the case but that means no VBR possible or other flexibilites). The most important problem is that GPRS don't offer such a guaranteed bandwidth, WiFi hotspots are too rare yet, UMTS is not here yet, it will be hard to use when moving to other countries (roaming) and the price of bandwidth is too much (1h of music/day = 3600*32 KB = 115.200 KB of data = 1.152 Euros on iMode, 1 Euro would already be a big price). So it will be possible in the future, but not now. Once it's there most people will probably use such a feature either from their personal connection or from online radio stations... Until then (probably 2 or 3 years from now) I'll have to find the right interim solution...

I, robot

As the movie "I, Robot" is going to be released soon. There is a growing interrest in what robots could be able to do one day, and especially the brain inside these robots.

Some people try to take the defense of robots. While other critics the 3 Laws of Asimov and say these laws will break quite soon. It seems that, on each sides, scientists are trying to get people's attention on what the future could be and that we should prepare to it (as I've been thinking for months now).

On a related subject, I was thinking about a world were not robots would try to become human or pretend to be, but humans would try to pretend to be robots... When you think this way you can clearly see that it's impossible. We are not flexible enough.

And still related to the subject, I was also thinking about the speed boost that would give electronics/AI to a human brain. But it's still a physical thing, with a maximum speed and limited resources (RAM size) so robots will have the same kind of limits that we have. Just a huge speed advantage. But they will not be able to answer all questions and take everything in perspective at once. It won't be the all-knowng-thing because of these limits. But they will appear like they are to humans because their resources will look infinite to us...

Matroska CD

It is now possible to make an exact copy of an audio CD into a single file and be able to play the file as you would from a CD. You can even store the lyrics, cover and more meta-informations in that single file.

I'm glad Matroska (and Matroska only) finally makes this reality come true. That was one of my initial goal :D

All this with open-source technology. That means it can be tweaked and improved with time. (currently working as an alpha state solution)

I also hope this will soon be popular among audio pirates. But for that we'll need to had support for MKA and various codecs in the most popular players : Windows Media Player, Winamp, RealPlayer, Quicktime.

Space for music

I did a quick estimation of all my CDs and apparently I have about 1100 of them. And probably 500 vynils or more.

Of course it's not all made of albums. There are a lot of singles. But I estimate the average duration of 40 minutes... So after a quick calculation, I would need approx 300GB of space to store my music losslessly. This is already possible with current hardware technology. The problem is to chose the codec and the container... For the container of course it has to be Matroska ;) But for the codec I think the WavPack hybrid mode would be ace. This way when you need to move data on a smaller device you only keep the lossy part (somehow transparent) of the date (100GB should be OK at 256kbps). Unfortunately it's not well supported on handled devices or much players (like DirectShow or QuickTime). Hopefully it will change soon thanks to our team :)

Matroska back on track

Yesterday I finally (almost) finished the work on the new server/website for Matroska. It was a long and hard work (UNIX configuration) but I'm glad I finally made it... At some point it reminded me the periods I work so hard on Matroska that I wouldn't think about anything else. That's a good sign I'm really back at work, with full of ideas and projects...

Perspective

While thinking about this "understanding without knowning" (which some other people call tacit knowledge) I was talking the infinite insight knowledge/understanding can give you. This has to do with harmony. When everything you know/think/understanding are going in the same "direction". This is a kind of tacit knowledge that you are right. But as it's a kind of knowledge that is hard to describe (maybe that's something that should be worked out) and therefore noone can really contradict you and maybe you are totally wrong. So one has to be very cautious with one's feelings. Even though it's usually healthier to trust them.

Milena

I watched this movie this evening. The movie in itself is so-so. But the life of this woman was quite interresting. Almost as good as my Milena when I met her (quite strange to name a baby after this woman) even though in some parts of her life I could see myself instead of Milena...

I especially liked this quote:

Those who don't know are silly, those who know and do nothing are criminals

That's sort of the philosophy behind what I'm trying to do, what I'm working on...

CD is back ?

Of course it never went away, not even vynil, not even tapes (well, it is in the western world).

But this article is interresting in many aspects. I especially like this one :

Why not just sell the last 45 seconds of Nessun Dorma - the bit everyone can hum? Or the first two lines of the National Anthem - the only words most of us can ever remember?

Then he talks about the idea of a flat-fee payment for music and then you do whatever you want... This is of course a good idea, but AllOfMP3 is having it even better : you pay for the amount of what you download, depending on the quality and length of the music. The ultimate fair deal...

New Meeting

I met Marta last evening at one of her friend's place. It was really nice (and she is very nice), both funny and interresting. I always like to meet new people, especially friendly ones. We talked about different things and watched the football game. It was a pleasure to hear her and her slovenian friend make comments in their own native language ! Maybe I'll see Marta again when she's around, or maybe not. It's not up to me anyway...

Acte Manqué

I finally didn't manage to go to the CinéMix on saturday. I felt like going, but I was on 2C-I for the last time and didn't feel like sitting for an hour passively watching a movie. So on my way to the Max Linder I got back home and just spend the evening listening to music, watching fractals and thinking... It was a weird moment, both very negative and very positive. So all in all, it was OK. (and it's so good not to be where everyone expects you) Maybe I'll go to the same CinéMix next week-end if I manage to get details on how to get there.

Thinking Machines

So, are humans only thinking machines ? Or are we capable of understanding without knowing ? (which would mean knowledge is not so important) I think we are... So machines could be ?... Only if they are built from an evolutionary process. That will keep the whole memory of the past in its "genes".

Abusive Patents

I was thinking about this patent thing... Once again a company is claiming to have a patent on a widely used thing. And some sites have already paid them for this patent... I'm not sure if it exists, but when paying for such a patent there should be a contract between the patent holder and the "infringer" stating that if he patent gets canceled (which will probably happen to this one) the patent holder has to give all the money back... That would make patent seekers more careful with what they are doing/patenting. Unfortunately I don't know if such a claim could be forced by the law. But it would be nice...

CafeShop

I finally received the Matroska t-shirts I ordered at CafeShop. I didn't have a look yet, but I hope they look good. I also have to pay a 30% import tax :'( I wish the same service would exist in Europe, and also with black shirts...

Revolutionary or Disruptive

Another article on this blog that seems very close to what I think. Like these in the comments :

It is apparent to you, me, and the readers of this blog, that MM is coming, and that it will be disruptive in the extreme, and that we, as a society, a species, and a world, are not prepared for that disruption.

So that's what I'd encourage everyone here to do - pass the word along in person to your friends to help disseminate the knowledge of what’s coming sooner than they think.

Fear of the Nanotech Arms Race

Very interresting yet scary article on how nanotechnologies could be used as weapons.
One thing is that machines (robots, computers, whatever) could design systems that would control us (like delivering drugs without asking us) without our consent. That's an enforcement of what I would call a peacful cohabitation... But since we wouldn't even realise... Maybe Matrix wasn't that far on what machines can do. But I think the human race is more dangerous than conscious (all-knowing) machines.

there'll be plenty of opportunity for both laziness and productivity