Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryTechnology

COSM-2021-audiece-174A3275
Distinguished guests at COSM 2021
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News
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May 26, 2023
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Technology
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Tackling the Big Questions with Carver Mead

Mead said that COSM attendees argued in good faith in order to reach the truth
News
May 26, 2023
1
Technology

Dr. Carver Mead, Professor Emeritus and California Institute of Technology and recipient of the prestigious 2022 Kyoto Prize for Advanced Technology, gave the closing remarks for last year’s COSM conference. “We’ve tackled the big questions,” Mead said. Mead noted that in a system where free information is bountiful, our adversaries will try to set us at odds against each other. “That’s the one thing that can cripple us,” he said. “Is when we get at odds with each other. This COSM has been a wonderful example of us arguing over things not because we have a fixed idea and we don’t want to change because of some preconceived notion, but because we want to get to the truth.” You can Read More ›

neurotechnology-and-neuromodulation-conceptual-illustration-stockpack-adobe-stock
Neurotechnology and Neuromodulation - Conceptual Illustration
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News
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May 26, 2023
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Technology
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Neuralink All Set for Human Trials

What could go wrong?
News
May 26, 2023
2
Technology

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s bio-engineering company that launched in 2016, received approval from the FDA to begin human experiments with its brain implant technology. The company has struggled for years to gain such approval, and up to this point, has been investigated on occasion for potential dangers the implants might pose. Musk, however, is optimistic about the technology, and thinks it may have the potential to heal a range of disorders and illnesses including autism, depression, and schizophrenia. However, the organization is being “probed” by various governmental agencies. According to a Reuters report, The Department of Transportation is separately probing whether Neuralink illegally transported dangerous pathogens on chips removed from monkey brains without proper containment measures. Neuralink is also under investigation by the U.S. Department Read More ›

emotional-glitchy-tetris-pattern-pixelated-photoluminescence-scifi-otherworldly-realistic-stockpack-adobe-stock
emotional glitchy tetris pattern pixelated Photoluminescence SciFi Otherworldly Realistic
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News
Date
May 26, 2023
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Arts & Culture, Technology
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Before the iPhone, There Was Tetris

What was the precursor for the widespread tech addiction we see today, particularly in young people?
News
May 26, 2023
2
Arts & Culture, Technology

What was the precursor for the widespread tech addiction we see today, particularly in young people? Many say it was the iPhone. Peter Tonguette, however, thinks that the game Tetris started the screentime avalanche. Tonguette reviewed the new Apple TV+ film Tetris, which covers the story of the classic game’s development, acquisition, and subsequent popularity in the early nineties. He writes, One might assume this changeover coincided with the rise of smartphones and social media, but a new movie shows that it happened as early as the summer vacation of 1989. During that fateful interregnum between school years, kids were introduced to something that prefigured the electronic devices of the 21st century: a battery-powered, 8-bit handheld videogame device whose two Read More ›

computer-microchips-and-processors-on-electronic-circuit-board-abstract-technology-microelectronics-concept-background-macro-shot-shallow-focus-stockpack-adobe-stock
Computer Microchips and Processors on Electronic circuit board. Abstract technology microelectronics concept background. Macro shot, shallow focus.
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
May 22, 2023
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Technology
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The Microservices Controversy from a Software Management Perspective

As projects get bigger, so do the reasons for having a microservice architecture
Jonathan Bartlett
May 22, 2023
6
Technology

A new report by Amazon has caused a bit of a stir on the Internet. In it, the Amazon Prime video team reported that changing their architecture from a microservice architecture to a monolithic architecture resulted in a 90% cost savings.  While the report itself was very mild (its only claim was that this architecture helped in this specific situation), it has caused the people who disliked the microservice trend to make some noise of their own. Here, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what I see as the benefits of the microservice approach from a software development management perspective. If you are not familiar with microservice architectures, you can find out more information in my book, Cloud Read More ›

manhattan-project-development-of-nuclear-weapons-history-of-science-of-the-20th-century-art-collage-with-a-nuclear-explosion-stockpack-adobe-stock
Manhattan project, development of nuclear weapons, history of science of the 20th century. Art collage with a nuclear explosion
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post
Author
Peter Biles
Date
May 20, 2023
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Arts & Culture, Technology
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“I Can Perform This Miracle”

The new "Oppenheimer" trailer gives a chilling hint of the atom bomb race
Peter Biles
May 20, 2023
1
Arts & Culture, Technology

Christopher Nolan, director of The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and Interstellar, is breaking ground in the historical film genre with his upcoming film Oppenheimer starring Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, and Emily Blunt. The film, currently slated for release in July, has a chilling new trailer that gives a larger sense of the movie’s scope, and the profound moral dilemma at the heart of the creation of the atomic bomb. J. Robert Oppenheimer was the theoretical physicist largely responsible for the develop of the bomb in World War II. The new trailer emphasizes the United States’ fierce “arms race” with Germany. In the trailer, Oppenheimer says, “We’re in a race against the Nazis. And I know what it means Read More ›

a-glacial-rivers-from-above-aerial-photograph-of-the-river-streams-from-icelandic-glaciers-beautiful-art-of-the-mother-nature-created-in-iceland-wallpaper-background-high-quality-photo-stockpack-adobe-stock
A glacial rivers from above. Aerial photograph of the river streams from Icelandic glaciers. Beautiful art of the Mother nature created in Iceland. Wallpaper background high quality photo
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Author
News
Date
May 17, 2023
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Technology
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The Solution for Tech Addiction

Trail Life USA is a way to get guys off their phones and into the wilderness
News
May 17, 2023
2
Technology

In a recent Mind Matters podcast episode, host Robert J. Marks spoke with Kent Marks, former Boy Scout guide who now works with Trail Life USA. In the wake of Boy Scouts’ precipitous decline over the last decade, Trail Life offers boys the chance to get outside and go on wilderness adventures. This is a huge opportunity to help young men get off the screens and into the beauty of creation. Speaking about the gravity of the problem, Robert said, The impact of social media has just been terrible. Teenage suicides are up, depression rates are up. I think a third of all girls involved in social media have body image problems. And that’s terrible. These are the symptoms of Read More ›

metaverse-technology-concept-stockpack-adobe-stock
Metaverse technology concept
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News
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May 16, 2023
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Technology
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Sorry Mark, but the Metaverse Failed

The metaverse was supposed to change everything. Now it feels like an old fantasy project
News
May 16, 2023
3
Technology

The metaverse was supposed to change everything. That was the claim, at least. A couple of years ago it was very much the talk of the town in Silicon Valley and became Mark Zuckerberg’s choice darling, but it now seems that Big Tech’s affair with virtual reality was short-lived, or at least will need to be shelved for the foreseeable future. Why? What happened? Well, a couple of things. First of all, the economy slowed down, COVID hit, and later, executives wanted workers to return to the office for work. The metaverse was supposed to be a way to achieve total remote work, but apparently, not every company is interested in that setup. Combined with major layoffs at Zuckerberg’s Meta, Read More ›

daydreaming
Young woman relaxing at winter sea beach. Traveler resting by blue mountain
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News
Date
April 7, 2023
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Technology
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In Defense of Daydreaming

Andrew McDiarmid encourages people to set aside their devices and embrace the discomfort of silence
News
April 7, 2023
3
Technology

At the end of the day, do you ever feel like you’ve ingested so much information but have thought and contemplated so little? When do we take the time to simply be quiet and think? Discovery Institute’s Andrew McDiarmid encourages people to set aside their devices and embrace the discomfort of silence in a piece from The Epoch Times. He writes, A recent study reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests that the act of “just thinking” can be more rewarding than we might realize. The authors of the paper acknowledge that the ability to engage in internal thoughts without external stimulation is a unique characteristic in humans, yet we regularly underappreciate the benefits of doing so. This constant feed of Read More ›

clock
Business times concept people walking overlay with time clock
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News
Date
March 29, 2023
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Technology
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It’s About Time

The cliche phrase "time is money" needs to be subverted by better metaphors, according to Odell
News
March 29, 2023
2
Technology

Artist and writer Jenny Odell, author of the new book Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, was recently interviewed by Wired. Odell’s 2019 book is called How to Do Nothing. In the interview, Odell discussed how the invention of the clock has altered the way people think about time, labor, and productivity. The cliche phrase “time is money” needs to be subverted by better metaphors, according to Odell, ones that emphasize meaning instead of mere activity. When she was asked how she avoided productivity “burnout” in her own writing life, Odell responded, If you’re not thinking of time as money, the other thing that you could be trying to find is meaning. That’s ultimately what I want out Read More ›

computer chip
Artificial intelligence. Microchip connections, electric pulses and binary codes.
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
March 20, 2023
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Technology
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The Raspberry Pi Phenomenon

A Raspberry Pi is a full computer that is not much larger than a credit card, but still packs enough power to be usable as a desktop computer
Jonathan Bartlett
March 20, 2023
5
Technology

For the uninitiated, the Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer that runs the Linux operating system. It can be either operated as a desktop computer or as an embedded system (i.e., a custom electronic device), or both. Historically, computer systems were either general-purpose computers or embedded systems. General-purpose computers required too much hardware, too many chips, and too much power to work inside an electronic device. However, as manufacturers packed more and more functionality into less and less space using less and less power, eventually it became possible to have a computer that was small, cheap, powerful, and not especially power-hungry. The Raspberry Pi came about right as this was happening. A Raspberry Pi is a full computer that is not much Read More ›

world of cyber
Cyber ​​relationships on the Internet. Connected people. People and microchips. Cybernetic society. Alone in the net.
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News
Date
March 2, 2023
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Technology
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The Technological Society We Live In

In today's world, we think we can solve everything through technique. How's that going for us?
News
March 2, 2023
2
Technology

In a blog post this week from Salvo, Joshua Pauling cites the influential thinker Jacques Ellul on the development of a “technological society” in Western culture. Pauling writes, Even in the mid-20th century, Ellul, a French philosopher and theologian, saw technique and efficiency coming to consume every aspect of life and society. As he defined it in The Technological Society (originally entitled La Technique in French), technique is the “totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency in every field of human activity” (xxv). Just as the factories of the industrial world were optimized according to new standards of efficiency, now everything is measured, recorded, analyzed through a lens of efficiency, and then submitted to a technique to maximize outcomes according to Read More ›