Positive Technology Journal

Via Suicide Bots

From the Evolved Virtual Creatures website

This video shows results from a research project involving simulated Darwinian evolutions of virtual block creatures. A population of several hundred creatures is created within a supercomputer, and each creature is tested for their ability to perform a given task, such the ability to swim in a simulated water environment. Those that are most successful survive, and their virtual genes containing coded instructions for their growth, are copied, combined, and mutated to make offspring for a new population. The new creatures are again tested, and some may be improvements on their parents. As this cycle of variation and selection continues, creatures with more and more successful behaviors can emerge.

The creatures shown are results from many independent simulations in which they were selected for swimming, walking, jumping, following, and competing for control of a green cube.

Download movie from the Internet Archive

swimming

via mind hacks

have a look at this wonderful collection of mind and brain artwork, collected by the author of the Italian website PsicoCafé

Link to PsicoCafé image gallery.
Link to PsicoCafé (Italian)

Today the International Association of Virtual Reality Technologies has announced the creation of NeuroNet, defined as “a first generation network created specifically for the transmission of real-time, virtual reality (VR) and gaming data"

From the press release:

The network, called the Neuronet, will evolve into the world's first public network capable of meeting the data transmission requirements of emerging cinematic and immersive VR technologies. The Neuronet will be separate and distinct from the Internet and will be used for everything from gaming to entertainment to 'v-business', or virtual business.

The massive overcapacity of fiber optic cable left over from the dot-com era makes the new network feasible with minimal investment. Much of the infrastructure and programming utilized to facilitate the Neuronet will be outsourced to telecommunications and virtual reality innovators, but a private sector monopoly on the Neuronet itself will not serve the greater good of the global community. Competing networks have the potential to destabilize evolving virtual worlds and potentially compromise consumer safety. To that end, IAVRT was formed as an international not-for-profit organization that will, through its members, govern the Neuronet, foster its growth and guard its integrity. 
 

Sounds cool... I'll keep an eye on it

Via Textually.org  [Tokyomango]

A breathalyer from Japan.

Via Networked Performance 

Networks have become a powerful metaphor for explaining the social realities of our times. A network, defined minimally, is a system of interconnected elements or nodes, where each node represents an intersection of flows within the network. Everywhere we look there are attempts to explain all kinds of social formations in terms of networks: citizen networks, corporate networks, gamer networks, terrorist networks, learning networks, networks of production, networks of distribution... and so on. The metaphor of the network can be superimposed over just about any form of multiplicity, including non-social ones (for instance, cells in the brain can be described in terms of a network). For the purposes of this study, however, every reference to networks, unless otherwise specified, is meant to allude to technosocial assemblages in which ICT's facilitate social relations between humans unconstrained by the physical distance between them. If Cognitive Science attempted to explain individual consciousness by adopting the metaphor of the brain as a computer, with its inputs and outputs, Social Science is extending the metaphor a step further by attempting to explain the social in terms of networks-or, in this context, sets of interconnected computers/brains."

 

Continue reading Networked Proximity - Section 1 by Ulises Ali Mejias. Also see Networked Proximity - Introduction.

Via 3DPoint 

The Tokyo Ubiquitous Network Project seeks to outfit Tokyo’s high-end shopping district, the Ginza, with 10,000 RFID tags and other digital beacons. The project, led by Ken Sakamura, a professor at the University of Tokyo, will bring location-based information to people carrying prototype readers developed for the trial.

From the PC Advisor article:

“Bringing the terminal close to an RFID tag on a street lamp will pinpoint the user’s location and the system will be able to guide them to the nearest railway station, while walking past a radio beacon in front of a shop might bring up details of current special offers or a menu for a restaurant.”

From G&C website 

Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media Special issue: Gaming in the Asia-Pacific

 As a region, the Asia-Pacific is marked by diverse penetration rates of gaming, mobile and broadband technologies, subject to local cultural and socio-economic nuances. Two defining locations – Seoul (South Korea) and Tokyo (Japan) – are seen as both “mobile centres” and “gaming centres” to which the world looks towards as examples of the future-in-the-present. Unlike Japan, which pioneered the keitai (mobile) IT revolution and mobile consoles such as playstation2, South Korea – the most broadbanded country in the world – has become a centre for MMOs (online massively multiplayer) games and convergent mobile DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadband i.e. TU mobile).

Adorned with over 20,000 PC bangs (PC rooms) in Seoul alone and with professional players (Pro-leagues) making over a million US per year, locations such as South Korea have been lauded as an example of gaming as a mainstream social activity. In a period marked by convergent technologies, South Korea and Japan represent two opposing directions for gaming – Korea emphasizes online MMOs games played on stationary PCs in public spaces (PC bangs) whilst Japan pioneers the mobile (privatized) convergent devices. These two distinct examples, with histories embroiled in conflict and imperialism, clearly demonstrate the importance of locality in the uptake of specific games and game play.

This issue seeks to explore the politics of game play and cultural context by focusing on the burgeoning Asia-Pacific region. Housing sites for global gaming production and consumption such as China, Japan and South Korea, the region provides a wealth of divergent examples of the role of gaming as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Drawing from micro ethnographic studies to macro political economy analysis of techno-nationalisms and trans-cultural flows of cultural capital, this issue will provide an interdisciplinary model for thinking through the politics of gaming production, representation and consumption in the region.

Topics of papers will discuss the region in terms of one of the following areas:

- Case study analysis of specific games and game play

- Is there such thing as a culturally specific aesthetic to the production and consumption of certain games?

- What is the “future” of gaming?

- Emerging and re-occurring productions of techno-nationalism in the region

- New media and experimental gaming in the region

- Convergent technologies and the impact on established modes of game play

- Gendered consumption and production of games

- Government regulations and types of game play

- Pervasive gaming and the role of co-presence

Deadline for this special issue of Games and Culture: 15th March 2007. Authors should submit all inquiries, expressions of interest and papers to Larissa Hjorth (RMIT University) larissa.hjorth [AT] rmit.edu.au.

Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media invites academics, designers and developers, and researchers interested in the growing field of game studies to submit articles, reviews, or special issues proposals to the editor. Games and Culture is an interdisciplinary publication, and therefore it welcomes submissions by those working in fields such as Communication, Anthropology, Computer Science, English, Sociology, Media Studies, Cinema/Television Studies, Education, Art History, and Visual Arts.

All submissions are peer reviewed by two or more members of the distinguished, multi-disciplinary editorial board. Games and Culture aims to have all papers go through their initial review within three months of receipt. Manuscripts should be submitted with four paper copies and electronically in Word or Word Perfect format and conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (Fifth Edition)0,000 words in length. Papers that do not conform to these guidelines will be returned to the author(s).

Via the Neuronerd 

Diigo is a social annotation service that turns the web writable allowing users to privately or publicly annotate any website they visit, thereby making a “participatory and interactive media” for its users. When you highlight a word on any page a drop down menu automatically appears (see image below) that lets you:

• search for the highlighted words on the web with any of four search engines
• search for highlighted terms in four social bookmarking systems
• do a blog search for highlighted terms
• search for your terms in the entire site you are on (Google, Yahoo, Ask site: search)
• search for inbound links to the URL you are on in four different search engines (including Technorati and Google)
• search for your highlighted terms in seven different verticals from local to TV to stocks.

Intentional motor phantom limb syndrome.

Neurology. 2006 Dec 26;67(12):2140-6

Authors: Staub F, Bogousslavsky J, Maeder P, Maeder-Ingvar M, Fornari E, Ghika J, Vingerhoets F, Assal G

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical and anatomic correlates of a previously unreported form of chronic supernumerary phantom limb, which developed only in association with motor intent directed at a hemiplegic-anesthetic upper limb. METHODS: We explored the phenomenology of the phantom illusion in the light of motor control models. Hemodynamic correlates of supernumerary phantom limb were studied with an fMRI sensorimotor paradigm consisting of finger-thumb opposition movements. RESULTS: The kinesthetic-proprioceptive illusion of a third arm was triggered by any attempt to move the paretic limb, by bimanual actions, and by motor imagery involving the nonfunctional limb. The responsible lesion destroyed the posterior part of the posterior limb of the internal capsule on the opposite side, damaging corticospinal and thalamocortical tracts. Comparison between fMRI signals performed during virtual movement of the phantom hand vs imaginary movement of the paretic hand showed increased activation in thalamus and caudate nucleus in the first condition. CONCLUSIONS: A preserved sense of agency provided by intact premotor processes translating intention into action may lead to the vivid feeling of movement in a paralyzed limb, similar to kinesthetic illusions in amputees. The interruption of thalamic afferences may explain the persistence and stability of the phantom by preventing any correction of the mismatch between expected and effective movement. The increased blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal in the basal ganglia-thalamus-cortex pathway during movement of the supernumerary hand may reflect an abnormal closed-loop functioning of the thalamocortical system underlying the phantom phenomenon.

Via the BrainBlog

The New York Times has a front-page article concerning the current state of mental-gymnastic services. From the article:

Science is not sure yet, but across the country, brain health programs are springing up, offering the possibility of a cognitive fountain of youth.

From “brain gyms” on the Internet to “brain-healthy” foods and activities at assisted living centers, the programs are aimed at baby boomers anxious about entering their golden years and at their parents trying to stave off memory loss or dementia.

“This is going to be one of the hottest topics in the next five years — it’s going to be huge,” said Nancy Ceridwyn, co-director of special projects for the American Society on Aging. “The challenge we have is it’s going to be a lot like the anti-aging industry: how much science is there behind this?”

...

Read the full article