I am still getting used to how to use the lifestream. I noticed that a lot of what I did during Week 2 is not reflected in the lifestream. I mentioned that in the blog I did commenting on Sian and Jen’s discussion on lifestream as chaos or curation. I am not as digital as I think I am! In addition, I ran two day long workshops (and three this week) which limited when I can get online. Enough excuses!
What I achieved was a string of twitter comments on the film shorts. I quite like twitter. It is nice to record an immediate reaction and to see other people’s immediate reaction to the film shorts. I think Twitter is an effective tool to use with blogging – directing the twitterverse to a more detailed exposition of one’s thoughts. I haven’t done this yet but Tony has been doing this very effectively.
The week’s discoveries include:
New technology
IBM’s Watson – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e22ufcqfTs&feature=player_embedded#t=149
HAL is nearly here! IBM’s Watson has natural language processing technology which will “advance the state of the art of automatic question and answering”. “It will be able to think critically”. And who are they testing it on? University professors? Nobel prize winning scientists? Nope, the US game programme Jeopardy!
Government and the internet
More nuggets about government initiatives on the internet
1) Beth Novak on open government and the internet:
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/09/21/open-government-beth-noveck-at-transparent-text/
2) US government has relaxed its grip on the internet:
It has signed a four-page “affirmation of commitments” with the net regulator Icann, giving the body autonomy for the first time.
“Internet users worldwide can now anticipate that Icann’s decisions…will be more independent and more accountable, taking into account everyone’s interests,” said Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for information society and media.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8283310.stm
Gold nugget find of the week – the ultimate lifestream
Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell has been moving data from his brain onto computers. He makes pdf files of every web-page he views. He photographs restaurant receipts, medical records, bills and correspondence.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/25/total.recall.microsoft.bell/index.html
“In sum, this mountain of data — more than 350 gigabytes worth, not including the streaming audio and video — is a replica of Bell’s biological memory. It’s actually better, he says, because, if you back up your data in enough places, this digitized “e-memory” never forgets. It’s like having a multimedia transcript of your life.”
But the ultimate lifestreaming tool he has is Microsoft’s SenseCam.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/sensecam/
SenseCam is a wearable camera (it hangs from a cord around your neck) with a fish-eye lens that videos your day to day life from the wearer’s point of view. It has a number of electronic sensors including a heat sensor which will trigger it to record.
Here is an example of someone’s day as recorded by SenseCam and reduced to 2 minutes.
#1 by John on October 8th, 2009
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Hi Silvana,
the sensecam reminds me of spyglasses (http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/spy-sunglasses-hidden-video-camera.html)- we’ve used these at our uni for teaching trades etc. – a great way to demonstrate skills. Creepy though!
John
#2 by Henry on October 19th, 2009
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Reminds me of the dog/cat-cams which some people use to track the whereabouts of their stray pets.
Maybe useful to track criminals/pedophiles on parol, I don’t know.