Wildspace Daily Updates Future InfocologyBrute computing force alone can’t solve the world’s problems. Data mining innovator Shyam Sankar explains why solving big problems (like catching terrorists or identifying huge hidden trends) is not a question of finding the right algorithm, but rather the right symbiotic relationship between computation and human creativity.
An advocate of human-computer symbiosis, Shyam Sankar looks for clues in big and disparate data sets.
Brute computing force alone can’t solve the world’s problems. Data mining innovator Shyam Sankar explains why solving big problems (like catching terrorists or identifying huge hidden trends) is not a question of finding the right algorithm, but rather the right symbiotic relationship between computation and human creativity.
An advocate of human-computer symbiosis, Shyam Sankar looks for clues in big and disparate data sets.
Neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert starts from a surprising premise: the brain evolved, not to think or feel, but to control movement. In this entertaining, data-rich talk he gives us a glimpse into how the brain creates the grace and agility of human motion.
Why you should listen to him (From TED):
Consider your hand. You use it to lift things, to balance yourself, to give and take, to sense the world. It has a range of interacting degrees of freedom, and it interacts with many different objects under a variety of environmental conditions. And for most of us, it all just works. At his lab in the Engineering department at Cambridge, Daniel Wolpert and his team are studying why, looking to understand the computations underlying the brain’s sensorimotor control of the body.
As he says, “I believe that to understand movement is to understand the whole brain. And therefore it’s important to remember when you are studying memory, cognition, sensory processing, they’re there for a reason, and that reason is action.” Movement is the only way we have of interacting with the world, whether foraging for food or attracting a waiter’s attention. Indeed, all communication, including speech, sign language, gestures and writing, is mediated via the motor system. Taking this viewpoint, and using computational and robotic techniques as well as virtual reality systems, Wolpert and his team research the purpose of the human brain and the way it determines future actions.
Artist Neil Harbisson was born completely color blind, but these days a device attached to his head turns color into audible frequencies. Instead of seeing a world in grayscale, Harbisson can hear a symphony of color — and yes, even listen to faces and paintings.
Neil Harbisson’s “eyeborg” allows him to hear colors, even those beyond the range of sight
Life will be much more exciting when we stop creating applications for mobile phones and we start creating applications for our own body.” (Neil Harbisson)
Hannah Fry trained as a mathematician, and completed her PhD in fluid dynamics in early 2011. After a brief period working as an aerodynamicist in the motorsport industry, she came back to UCL to work on a major interdisciplinary project in complexity science. The project spans several departments, including Mathematics and the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, and focuses on understanding global social systems — such as Trade, Migration and Security. Hannah’s research interests revolve around creating new mathematical techniques to study these systems, with recent work including studies of the London Riots and Consumer Behaviour.
Talk: Is life really that complex?
Recently scientists have begun to appreciate that many of the mechanisms inherent in our social systems have analogies in seemingly unrelated problems. The movement of a crowd, for instance, can be understood using techniques traditionally applied to the flow of a fluid, and the uptake of a new technology can be predicted using knowledge of how disease spreads.
By exploiting these analogies, a new field is emerging at the interface between social sciences and mathematics, the potential of which I hope to illustrate using a mathematical model of the London Riots. Our approach can demonstrate why certain areas of the city were at higher risk than others and help determine which policing strategies may have resulted in a swifter resolution to the unrest.
We will discuss how social modelling can provide a greater understanding of our society, and help design better systems for all: from healthcare to policing and policy.
When game designer Jane McGonigal found herself bedridden and suicidal following a severe concussion, she had a fascinating idea for how to get better. She dove into the scientific research and created the healing game, SuperBetter.
In this moving talk, McGonigal explains how a game can boost resilience — and promises to add 7.5 minutes to your life.
The recent generations have been bathed in connecting technology from birth, says futurist Don Tapscott, and as a result the world is transforming into one that is far more open and transparent. In this inspiring talk, he lists the four core principles that show how this open world can be a far better place.
Don Tapscott can see the future coming … and works to identify the new concepts we need to understand in a world transformed by the Internet
In the fall of 2011 Peter Norvig taught a class with Sebastian Thrun on artificial intelligence at Stanford attended by 175 students in situ — and over 100,000 via an interactive webcast. He shares what he learned about teaching to a global classroom.
Peter Norvig is a leading American computer scientist, expert on artificial intelligence and the Director of Research at Google Inc.
Throughout human evolution, multiple versions of humans co-existed. Could we be mid-upgrade now?
At TEDxSummit, Juan Enriquez sweeps across time and space to bring us to the present moment — and shows how technology is revealing evidence that suggests rapid evolution may be under way.
(recommended )
Hans Rosling had a question: Do some religions have a higher birth rate than others — and how does this affect global population growth? Speaking at the TEDxSummit in Doha, Qatar, he graphs data over time and across religions. With his trademark humor and sharp insight, Hans reaches a surprising conclusion on world fertility rates.
In Hans Rosling’s hands, data sings. Global trends in health and economics come to vivid life. And the big picture of global development—with some surprisingly good news—snaps into sharp focus.
We’ve been to the moon, we’ve mapped the continents, we’ve even been to the deepest point in the ocean — twice. What’s left for the next generation to explore? Biologist and explorer Nathan Wolfe suggests this answer: Almost everything. And we can start, he says, with the world of the unseeably small.
Armed with blood samples, high-tech tools and a small army of fieldworkers, Nathan Wolfe hopes to re-invent pandemic control — and reveal hidden secrets of the planet’s dominant lifeform: the virus.
How do we consume data? At TED@SXSWi, technologist JP Rangaswami muses on our relationship to information, and offers a surprising and sharp insight: we treat it like food.
With a background in economics and journalism, JP Rangaswami has been a technology innovator and chief information officer for many leading financial firms. As an advocate for open source and disruptive technologies, Rangaswami has been a leading force in the success of multiple startups, including School of Everything, Salesforce.com and Ribbit.
Information, if viewed from the point of view of food, is never a production issue. … It’s a consumption issue, and we have to start thinking about how we create diets [and] exercise.” (JP Rangaswami)
Patrice Slupowski, director of innovation at Orange France Telecom, quotes Ericsson’s CEO who predicts 50 billion connected devices by 2015. With 3 billion expected internet users, this means we will have 17 devices per connected people.
By 2015, 3 years from now we will be carrying on us sensors and other devices that produce data. What is the future of this data?
At the heart of modern cosmology is a mystery: Why does our universe appear so exquisitely tuned to create the conditions necessary for life? In this tour de force tour of some of science’s biggest new discoveries, Brian Greene shows how the mind-boggling idea of a multiverse may hold the answer to the riddle.
Brian Greene is perhaps the best-known proponent of superstring theory, the idea that minuscule strands of energy vibrating in a higher dimensional space-time create every particle and force in the universe.
As we expect more from technology, do we expect less from each other? Sherry Turkle studies how our devices and online personas are redefining human connection and communication — and asks us to think deeply about the new kinds of connection we want to have.
Sherry Turkle studies how technology is shaping our modern relationships: with others, with ourselves, with it.
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