My augmented reality soundscape

Augmented soundscape by ronzisman

DoCoMo Shows Prototype Augmented Reality Display

On Kurzweil's blog, there was a short article on a tiny display device that clips onto an ordinary pair of glasses and provides information and navigation services on its head-up display without obscuring regular vision. The device is connected by wireless technology to a smart phone with GPS capability. The device knows the direction it's facing and provides information based on the user's location and position. The article notes that a potential use might be museum tours or tourist attractions. But whose to say it wouldn't work equally well pointed at the night sky identifying constellations and their mythic histories. The research has been developed in collaration with the Olympus Corporation.

Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery

Today's New York Times ran an article on how academia and the military, working together, were able to discover the cause of honeybee "colony collapse", which for the last few years has decimated 20 to 40 percent of the honeybee population in the U.S. It took the unique partnership of military scientists and entomologists to recognize that the collapse syndrome was the result of both a virus and fungus working in tandem. Identifying the fungus causing the problem and the conditions that it needs to grow, brings us one step closer to a positive intervention.

One of the biggest problems has been that the honeybees, when infected, leave the hive flying in all directions — and die alone — making collecting corpses for autopsies, a necessity for investigation, difficult at best.

Collective intelligence in small teams

An article appearing on Kurzweil's blog discusses a recent study by MIT researchers on the effectiveness of teams, and the make-up of those teams in solving problems. The conclusion was that small teams with the right kind of internal dynamics perform well on a wide range of assignments having potential applications for business and other organizations. The caveat, of course, is the right kind of dynamics. Groups whose members had higher levels of "social sensitivity" — the willingness of the group to let all of its members take turns and apply their skills to a given challenge — were more collectively intelligent. Groups where one person dominated were less intelligent than groups where tasks were more evenly distributed. It was also suggested that women tended to be more empathetic and helped to balance the group.

Over the summer, I was involved in a residency program where small groups (in my case 4 people) were assigned clients and projects. My group happened to be three women and me (a guy). I can attest to the fact that even though there was quite a bit of friction, the outcome was far better than any of us could have acheived individually — to an amazing extent. We all approached the project from different perspectives with our own checklists of what features were mandatory for the project's success. After initial conflict, and some agreement on direction, we each found our places and natural strengths. As it turned out my partners were quite amazing — an appreciation that wasn't initially apparent. But in truth, without a good bit of give and take — and blind trust — it could have been a disaster.

Another conclusion of the study was that a group's collective intelligence accounted for 30 to 40 percent of the variation in performance, and that individual intelligence of group members didn't necessarily determine the effectiveness of the group. Having a bunch of smart people in a group doesn’t necessarily make the group smart.

U.S. Wants to Make it Easier to Wiretap the Internet

This morning I was reading an article in the Times telling us why we should support the government, allowing them a back door to the internet to eavesdrop on private citizens at their whim. Even if I trusted the government, I would do everything I could to discourage this kind of policy. As it is, it's almost impossible to believe what i read in newspapers without considering political and corporate minipulation. It's been the decentralized nature of the internet that has allowed information from inside China and Iran to find a public forum to post a different perspective of reality than their administration's agenda would allow. With the publishing of wikileaks, Americans for the first time are seeing what is going on in Afganistan — and the federal government has gone bullshit at having these facts surface. And how did we all hear about Haliburton defrauding the American public (in Iraq) for billions of dollars without any investigation? Was it because our vice-president was CEO of that company before he took office. Torture — we don't believe in it in the U.S., right? And do we know any congressman who hasn't taken political and/or corporate contributions with no strings attached. Personally, I think we should clean house—representatives shouldn't be on the take. How can congress look after our interests, when the thrust of their job is to simply be re-elected. The internet is the only non-political channel available, and I am personally reluctant after the Bush administration to trust that the government does anything in the people's interest. Especially in light of the TARP which financed Wall Street bonuses and a Healthcare bill that still permits wholesale rape by the healthcare sector and now demands that every citizen pay for health insurance or pay a fine — all increasing the insurance industry's market at public expense. Based on these policy changes, do you really think the fed is capable of honoring privacy? Fight this proposal for all you're worth, I plan to.

Seth Rule('s)

Scanning through BusinessWeek.com, I came across a small post from an attendee of one of Seth Godin's seminars entitled Seth Godin on being indespensable. Over the course of the seminar, he delivered his secret to sucess — in four simple rules. Consider these:

1. “If there is a map or a set of rules, reject it. You will not get paid fairly if all you do is follow the rules.”

2. “What you must do is [create] generous art, gifts that change people, connect with people, lead with people, make change that matters.”

3. “Ship it.”

[This referred to the tendency we all have to talk ourselves out of doing something, instead convincing ourselves that it’s too soon/not ready/not a good time/we’ll be laughed out of town if we try it now, clearly we should delay. The idea of shipping something that might not be perfect isn’t just creatively liberating, it’s really the only way to exist in a world where if you don’t launch your great idea, you’ll miss your moment altogether.]

4. “Treat the platform as an opportunity to give gifts and make change, not something to survive to get to tomorrow.”

I thought they were good guidelines.

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