Daniel Rourke /stream

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“When Kurzweil first started talking about the “singularity”, a conceit he borrowed from the science-fiction writer Vernor Vinge, he was dismissed as a fantasist.

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Thinking about the end of the world is something that most people try to avoid; for others, it’s a profession.

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Researchers have hitherto assumed that information supplied by the sense of sight was transmitted almost in its entirety from its entry point to higher brain areas, across which visual sensation is…

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We are living in an interface culture: wherever we are, we find touch screens, microphones, sensors, cameras; and we are constantly reminded of interfaces through their sounds.

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It used to be simpler. You woke up, and there was one newspaper you could read. It printed on pulp and delivered to your driveway. You got in your car, and…

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ADAM MAGYAR IS A computer geek, a college dropout, a self-taught photographer, a high-tech Rube Goldberg, a world traveler, and a conceptual artist of growing global acclaim.

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In this second of three posts on exaptation I am going to continue to build on reporting discussions and ideas that came out of the Durham conference. In the final post…

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The feather original evolved for regulation of temperature, but then evolved for flight. In 1942 a scientist at Raytheon was testing a magnetron, a key component of radar, and noticed that…

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From the darkness of a box in the Nevada desert, he watched as three men trudged down a dirt road in Afghanistan. The box was kept cold—precisely sixty-eight degrees—and the only…

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Influential post-industrial sound alchemists Coil once implored us to Worship the Glitch, and it’s true that errors and flaws have long been perceived as having an essentially spiritual nature: they serve…

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Polish company Better Reality, who do effects work for advertisers and Hollywood, have developed a piece of technology called Thorskan. It's designed to scan real environments then recreate them in 3D.…

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The huge cultural authority science has acquired over the past century imposes large duties on every scientist. Scientists have acquired the power to impress and intimidate every time they open their…

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The history of Artificial Intelligence,” said my computer science professor on the first day of class, “is a history of failure.” This harsh judgment summed up 50 years of trying to…

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In “Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Posthumanist Culture?” Ihab Hassan uses the metaphor of the mythological Prometheus to frame his discussion on posthumanism and positions him as a trickster with a…

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Metaphor wants to be… ‘[...] metaphors work to change people’s minds. Orators have known this since Demosthenes. [...] But there’s precious little evidence that they tell you what people think. [...]…

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Today, cyber means war. But back in the 1990s, it meant sex — at least, the kind of sex you can have in a chat room. Why did the word change,…

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Who Owns the Future?by Jaron Lanier Simon & Schuster, 2013, 396 pp. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism by Evgeny Morozov Public Affairs, 2013, 415 pp.

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Virtual Reality (VR), especially in a technologically focused discourse, is defined by a class of hardware and software, among them head-mounted displays (HMDs), navigation and pointing devices; and stereoscopic imaging. This…

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That Benjamin Palmer dropped $3,500 at Phillips auction house in New York is not surprising. The 217-year-old company, headquartered on Park Avenue, regularly sells artwork for tens — and often hundreds…

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The persistent glitchiness of HealthCare.gov, the website implementing the Affordable Care Act, has given us much time to ponder that peculiar little word, glitch. As it happens, some new research on…

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“When Kurzweil first started talking about the “singularity”, a conceit he borrowed from the science-fiction writer Vernor Vinge, he was dismissed as a fantasist.

Bookmark

Thinking about the end of the world is something that most people try to avoid; for others, it’s a profession.

Bookmark

In central London this spring, eight of the world’s greatest minds performed on a dimly lit stage in a wood-panelled theatre. An audience of hundreds watched in hushed reverence.

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We are living in an interface culture: wherever we are, we find touch screens, microphones, sensors, cameras; and we are constantly reminded of interfaces through their sounds.

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Human flight began with laundry. In 1777, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier was watching clothes drying over a fire when he noticed a shirt swept up in a billow of air; six years later,…

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In this second of three posts on exaptation I am going to continue to build on reporting discussions and ideas that came out of the Durham conference. In the final post…

Bookmark

The feather original evolved for regulation of temperature, but then evolved for flight. In 1942 a scientist at Raytheon was testing a magnetron, a key component of radar, and noticed that…

Bookmark

From the darkness of a box in the Nevada desert, he watched as three men trudged down a dirt road in Afghanistan. The box was kept cold—precisely sixty-eight degrees—and the only…

Bookmark

Polish company Better Reality, who do effects work for advertisers and Hollywood, have developed a piece of technology called Thorskan. It's designed to scan real environments then recreate them in 3D.…

Bookmark

The history of Artificial Intelligence,” said my computer science professor on the first day of class, “is a history of failure.” This harsh judgment summed up 50 years of trying to…

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During writing a paper for the 100 Year Starship Symposium, I wished to convince the starship designers that they should  acknowledge the dynamics of high-technology economy, which may be crucial for…

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Metaphor wants to be… ‘[...] metaphors work to change people’s minds. Orators have known this since Demosthenes. [...] But there’s precious little evidence that they tell you what people think. [...]…

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Today, cyber means war. But back in the 1990s, it meant sex — at least, the kind of sex you can have in a chat room. Why did the word change,…

Bookmark

Who Owns the Future?by Jaron Lanier Simon & Schuster, 2013, 396 pp. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism by Evgeny Morozov Public Affairs, 2013, 415 pp.

Bookmark

Virtual Reality (VR), especially in a technologically focused discourse, is defined by a class of hardware and software, among them head-mounted displays (HMDs), navigation and pointing devices; and stereoscopic imaging. This…

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The digital turn, and with it increased use of location-aware technologies, has yieldedinnovative image applications and posed new questions about the status and value of theimage. These applications rely on algorithmically…

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The persistent glitchiness of HealthCare.gov, the website implementing the Affordable Care Act, has given us much time to ponder that peculiar little word, glitch. As it happens, some new research on…

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One of the thrills of attending a world premiere of contemporary art music is that the success of the pieces on the program is entirely uncertain.