Mind Reading

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/06/medicalresearch

"The software matched their observed brain activity with the predicted activity from the decoder. When using a set of 120 images, the software got it right nine out of 10 times. With 1,000 images, the accuracy was eight out of 10. For 120 images, if the software were to simply make random predictions, its success rate would be just 0.8%.

The team estimate that if they used 1bn images (roughly the number on Google) it would have a success rate of 20%. With that many images, Gallant said, the software is close to doing true image reconstruction - working out what you are seeing from scratch. "There is no reason we shouldn't be able to solve this problem ... That's what we are working on now."

Gallant said it might be possible in future to apply the technology to visual memories or dreams"

These researchers are talking about a practical, realistic, path towards actual reading of minds via technology. In fact they have demonstrated an early version of that already. In another part of the article the scientists make an estimate of 30 to 50 years for how they expect it to take this technology to mature. Want to bet their estimate is too conservative? I'd guess the real time is half their estimate, if not less.

Towards practical augmented reality...

Hmm, lets take this technology...

Showcased at CeBIT, the Otello search engine simply uses images as input; in other words, handset owners just snap a picture of anything -- a landmark, DVD case, unidentified flying object, etc. -- and Otello then "returns information relevant to the picture to the mobile phone."

...and let it mature for another five years, now combine it with a similarly refined and expanded version of this sort of technology...

Apparently consisting of a "a single-chip computer and a couple of infrared sensors," the system, dubbed the Kome Kami Switch (or Temple Switch), lets you perform basic tasks like skipping tracks on an iPod with the blink of an eye, and is supposedly fine-tuned enough to be able to distinguish natural blinking from a deliberate wink

...mount both into a refined, and less dorky looking, set of video display glasses

...and you get the ability to look at an object, blink, and have data about it streaming into your display glasses. Combine this with some data overlaid from google maps, widgets, RSS feeds, access to the computing cloud and natural language search...and we've got true mobile computing, true augmented reality, true intelligence enhancement. Throw on a microphone and a video camera and this thing would be a lifelogging device and memory aid as well. I first imagined such a system about 8 years ago and it felt a long ways away back then. Now it feels like it is coming within the next 5 years, perhaps more like 2 or 3 years. I can't wait to get my hands on this when its commercially available.

edit : About an hour after this post I came across this article describing a prototype "smart goggles" system being demonstrated. Interesting times we're headed for.

Virtual Actors coming soon....

So, we're now to the point where a consumer-grade graphics card for under $500 can render a virtually photo-realistic moving 3d model of a human in realtime.




Can we be that far from virtual actors appearing in live action movies? You can start to imagine "live action" movies being made entirely on computer as this "virtual model" technology improves and is integrated with improving AI. The implications of this for gaming are obvious as well, which I posted about in my other blog.

The state of superconductors

Its been awhile since my last posting. News on accelerating technology & science seems to have slowed down a bit compared to February.
However, this article did spark my interest. It gives a good high level overview of the current state of superconductors. It notes that progress has been slower than expected since the late 80's when high temperature superconductors were first discovered. Yet, as the article points out, this technology has been moving into the commercial world lately in the form of high capacity power lines, compact electric motors for ships, magnetic levitation for maglev trains, etc. This is actually pretty impressive progress considering high temperature superconductors were only in the lab two decades ago.

The 'new age' of super materials

The article ends with a hint that more breakthroughs in superconducting are on the way.

"There has been a crescendo of research, while at the same time the first commercial HTSC products are rolling out of factories. According to Dr Yurek, this is a sign that the new age promised by Ronald Reagan is finally here. "I think we're on a launching pad here and we're now ready to take off," he said. "