February 14, 2010 by sean.

Hello to new and past readers!

Thanks for your patience as I prepare to revive BionicBrain after a several-month hiatus.

If you have specific items or topics you would like to see, please let me know in the comments.

Thanks again!

Posted in administration | No Comments »

October 27, 2009 by sean.

A research collaboration led by biologists and neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania has found a molecular pathway in the brain that is the cause of cognitive impairment due to sleep deprivation. Just as important, the team believes that the cognitive deficits caused by sleep deprivation, such as an inability to focus, learn or memorize, may be reversible by reducing the concentration of a specific enzyme that builds up in the hippocampus of the brain [via ScienceDigest].

Posted in psychology, science | No Comments »

October 8, 2009 by sean.

Posted in games and simulations, neuroscience, bionics, augmented cognition | No Comments »

October 7, 2009 by sean.

Mobilizy, the company from Salzburg, that brought us one of the world’s first Augmented Reality browsers, Wikitude, just released a major upgrade which crosses that significant line between technology and its effects in the ‘real’ world. Their idea was to build a virtual memorial in remembrance of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. and the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City. The result will be the ability to point their Android and iPhone application at the place where the World Trade Center once stood and witness a 3D rendering of the Twin Towers, once more. [via TechCrunch]

Posted in games and simulations, augmented cognition, mobile computing | No Comments »

October 3, 2009 by sean.

Posted in games and simulations, learning theory | No Comments »

September 24, 2009 by sean.

Posted in fun, innovation, pervasive computing, software, augmented cognition, mobile computing | No Comments »

September 13, 2009 by sean.

Social network science researchers sifting through personal records of 5,124 male and female subjects from the 1948 Framingham Heart Study the Framingham explore how relationships directly influence behavior and thus health and happinesss [via Wired].

Posted in psychology, social networks | No Comments »

September 13, 2009 by sean.

UCLA researchers explore the SCARF dynamic [status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fair treatment], how high intelligence often corresponds with low self-awareness, and how attempts to hide feelings often trigger threat responses [via Strategy+Business]:

Eisenberger’s fellow researcher Matthew Lieberman, also of UCLA, hypothesizes that human beings evolved this link between social connection and physical discomfort within the brain “because, to a mammal, being socially connected to caregivers is necessary for survival.” This study and many others now emerging have made one thing clear: The human brain is a social organ. Its physiological and neurological reactions are directly and profoundly shaped by social interaction. Indeed, as Lieberman puts it, “Most processes operating in the background when your brain is at rest are involved in thinking about other people and yourself.”

This presents enormous challenges to managers. Although a job is often regarded as a purely economic transaction, in which people exchange their labor for financial compensation, the brain experiences the workplace first and foremost as a social system. Like the experiment participants whose avatars were left out of the game, people who feel betrayed or unrecognized at work — for example, when they are reprimanded, given an assignment that seems unworthy, or told to take a pay cut — experience it as a neural impulse, as powerful and painful as a blow to the head. Most people who work in companies learn to rationalize or temper their reactions; they “suck it up,” as the common parlance puts it. But they also limit their commitment and engagement. They become purely transactional employees, reluctant to give more of themselves to the company, because the social context stands in their way.

Posted in behavioral economics, psychology, neuroscience | No Comments »

September 5, 2009 by sean.

Augmented Reality layers data on physical space to enhance our ability to see richness that is there but often hidden. Applications for marketing, gaming, education and entertainment are obvious. But can AR help us improve the planet as well? [via Mariamz]:

We move faster and faster in our cyber age, all knowing, ever-connected, always-on. Augmented reality beckons: the devices in our pockets become more powerful and our ability to connect digitally everywhere excites and exhilarates whilst pushing the odd few over the edge into internet rehab. Yet something else is happening scarily fast, something only the most obstinate dare deny.

Posted in innovation, science, pervasive computing, augmented cognition, mobile computing | 1 Comment »

September 5, 2009 by sean.

Another step closer to the bionic brain [via ScienceDaily]:

A model that replicates the functions of the human brain is feasible in 10 years according to neuroscientist Professor Henry Markram of the Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland. “I absolutely believe it is technically and biologically possible. The only uncertainty is financial. It is an extremely expensive project and not all is yet secured.”

Posted in science, neuroscience, bionics, augmented cognition | No Comments »

September 3, 2009 by sean.

Bionic medicine continues to evolve as a potential treatment or cure for paralysis, deafness, blindness, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and more [see full article in New Scientist].

For example, Eberhard Fetz’s lab at the University of Washington in Seattle is testing:

a new treatment that might one day cure paralysis, which is typically caused by a broken connection in the spinal cord. Though much work has focused on using stem cells to regrow damaged nerve fibres, some researchers believe that an electronic bypass like this is equally viable.

The idea is to implant electronic chips in the relevant regions of the brain to record neural activity. Then a decoder deciphers the neural chatter, often from thousands of neurons, to figure out what the brain wants the body to do. These messages must then be relayed - ideally wirelessly - to electrodes that deliver a pulse of electricity to stimulate the muscles into action. Such “brain chips” are already restoring hearing to the deaf and vision to the blind, and helping to stave off epileptic fits, so the idea isn’t as far-fetched as it might sound.

Posted in science, neuroscience, bionics | 1 Comment »

August 29, 2009 by sean.

Posted in fun, software, augmented cognition, mobile computing | No Comments »

August 26, 2009 by sean.

Posted in behavioral economics, psychology, learning theory | No Comments »

August 18, 2009 by sean.

A virtual hand to guide you to your next purchase…

Posted in innovation, software, augmented cognition, collective intelligence, mobile computing | No Comments »

August 18, 2009 by sean.

This brings back some late 80’s memories…

Posted in games and simulations, scifi, fun | No Comments »

August 5, 2009 by sean.

Locative Art / Augmented Reality applications which “overlay textual information and pictures over a real-world view of your surroundings” are coming to the iPhone [via geeks. co.uk]:

A new Twitter client makes eye-popping use of the technology and though it uses several parts of the 3GS development system that haven’t “officially” been unlocked by Apple yet, iPhone app TwittAround can’t really be described in words as adequately as it can in this amazing demonstration video. Take a look:

Posted in innovation, pervasive computing, software, augmented cognition | No Comments »

July 25, 2009 by sean.

Posted in fun | No Comments »

July 24, 2009 by sean.

Drew Conway has a review of the July 2009 issue of Science dedicated to Network Science [via Zero Intelligence Agents]:

The currently issue of Science magazine is entirely dedicated to networks and network science. The issue is packed with interesting articles, and is certain must-read for anyone studying or working with networks. The editors of Science have done well in capturing the breadth of disciplines and interests studying networks. One article that I will not cover in detail but recommend to all readers is Carter Butt’s “Revisiting the Foundation of Network Analysis,” where he discusses what is, and more appropriately, what is not network analysis, and how the science got here.

The article discussing network analysis and national security, in fact, is an excellent example of the wide audience for this topic; however, the thesis of the piece was rather disappointing. In “Counterterrorism’s New Tool: ‘Metanetwork’ Analysis“, we we hear from a veritable who’s-who in the national security/network analysis space. Starting with those on the technology front at Palantir Technologies (the same software we used from Project Grey Goose), to well respected practitioners in academia, business and government such as Marc Sageman, Valdis Krebs and Kathleen Carley, among many others. The article discusses where networks have helped, but also possibly hurt U.S. couterterrorism efforts, which made its focus on so called metanetwork analysis confusing.

In short, metanetworks are simple multiple layers of networks; that is, in any given space there will be a layer of social structure as well as physical (roads and waterways), infrastructure (power and communication), exchange (financial), etc. Metanetwork analysis attempts to examine this complex system as a whole in order to examine how activity on one layer can affect the others, and vice a versa. In theory, this is very appealing, however, in practice this method fails in two major ways.

Careers and research in Network Science are also increasing to the point where physicist Albert-László Barabási says, “I’m unable to keep up” [via sciencecareers.com]:

What unites the sociologists, physicists, biologists, and other scientists studying networks is the recognition that “whether they’re networks of people, computers, genes, [or] neurons, they often obey similar mathematical rules and have similar properties,” says Nicholas Christakis, a professor of sociology and of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School in Boston….

The National Science Foundation, too, has been increasing its support for network science, especially within the divisions dedicated to computer science and human social dynamics. There is also growing military support for network research, Barabási says, pointing to research programs funded by the Army, Air Force, Office of Naval Research, and Defense Threat Reduction Agency. “There’s never enough money, of course,” he says. “But we’re seeing that many agencies are discovering that this is important, and they’re putting their money where their mouth is.”

Posted in mathematics, social networks | No Comments »

July 24, 2009 by sean.

Drew Conway has a review of the July 2009 issue of Science dedicated to Network Science [via Zero Intelligence Agents]:

The currently issue of Science magazine is entirely dedicated to networks and network science. The issue is packed with interesting articles, and is certain must-read for anyone studying or working with networks. The editors of Science have done well in capturing the breadth of disciplines and interests studying networks. One article that I will not cover in detail but recommend to all readers is Carter Butt’s “Revisiting the Foundation of Network Analysis,” where he discusses what is, and more appropriately, what is not network analysis, and how the science got here.

The article discussing network analysis and national security, in fact, is an excellent example of the wide audience for this topic; however, the thesis of the piece was rather disappointing. In “Counterterrorism’s New Tool: ‘Metanetwork’ Analysis“, we we hear from a veritable who’s-who in the national security/network analysis space. Starting with those on the technology front at Palantir Technologies (the same software we used from Project Grey Goose), to well respected practitioners in academia, business and government such as Marc Sageman, Valdis Krebs and Kathleen Carley, among many others. The article discusses where networks have helped, but also possibly hurt U.S. couterterrorism efforts, which made its focus on so called metanetwork analysis confusing.

In short, metanetworks are simple multiple layers of networks; that is, in any given space there will be a layer of social structure as well as physical (roads and waterways), infrastructure (power and communication), exchange (financial), etc. Metanetwork analysis attempts to examine this complex system as a whole in order to examine how activity on one layer can affect the others, and vice a versa. In theory, this is very appealing, however, in practice this method fails in two major ways.

Careers and research in Network Science are also increasing to the point where physicist Albert-László Barabási says, “I’m unable to keep up” [via sciencecareers.com]:

What unites the sociologists, physicists, biologists, and other scientists studying networks is the recognition that “whether they’re networks of people, computers, genes, [or] neurons, they often obey similar mathematical rules and have similar properties,” says Nicholas Christakis, a professor of sociology and of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

The National Science Foundation, too, has been increasing its support for network science, especially within the divisions dedicated to computer science and human social dynamics. There is also growing military support for network research, Barabási says, pointing to research programs funded by the Army, Air Force, Office of Naval Research, and Defense Threat Reduction Agency. “There’s never enough money, of course,” he says. “But we’re seeing that many agencies are discovering that this is important, and they’re putting their money where their mouth is.”

Posted in mathematics, social networks | No Comments »

July 20, 2009 by sean.

Website of Media Destruction has an excellent article on how new media is changing the role of government with reference to William Gibson’s 2003 op-ed for the NYT:

Orwell’s projections come from the era of information broadcasting, and are not applicable to our own. Had Orwell been able to equip Big Brother with all the tools of artificial intelligence, he would still have been writing from an older paradigm, and the result could never have described our situation today, nor suggested where we might be heading.

That our own biggish brothers, in the name of national security, draw from ever wider and increasingly transparent fields of data may disturb us, but this is something that corporations, nongovernmental organizations and individuals do as well, with greater and greater frequency. The collection and management of information, at every level, is exponentially empowered by the global nature of the system itself, a system unfettered by national boundaries or, increasingly, government control.

It is becoming unprecedentedly difficult for anyone, anyone at all, to keep a secret.

In the age of the leak and the blog, of evidence extraction and link discovery, truths will either out or be outed, later if not sooner. This is something I would bring to the attention of every diplomat, politician and corporate leader: the future, eventually, will find you out. The future, wielding unimaginable tools of transparency, will have its way with you. In the end, you will be seen to have done that which you did. (Emphasis mine)

Posted in psychology, social media, scifi, mobile computing | No Comments »

July 19, 2009 by sean.

Posted in psychology, science | No Comments »

July 19, 2009 by sean.

Ze Frank talks with host Jesse Thorn about creativity, what works on the internet and why, and being a traffic whore. Plus a whole lot of other stuff, like rubbing his head on the microphone.

Posted in fun, collective intelligence | No Comments »

July 19, 2009 by sean.

Posted in social media, augmented cognition | No Comments »

July 19, 2009 by sean.

Posted in behavioral economics, psychology, work | No Comments »

May 30, 2009 by sean.

At this week’s 2009 I/O conference, Google gave a demo of Google Wave, game-changing platform that could integrates the functionality of email, instant messaging, wikis, blogs and more with real-time collaborative editing, playback of each message’s evolution, real-time language translation and more. You have to see the demo for yourself to begin to understand how this works:

Posted in innovation, pervasive computing, software | No Comments »

May 7, 2009 by sean.

Thanks to all the people who follow this blog.

When I originally started this blog a couple years ago, it was mostly as an “outboard brain” to capture ideas, notes, and comments re: augmented cognition, collective intelligence and social software. Since then, it has grown to include other topics including psychology, mathematics, games and mobile computing.

I have noticed quite a bit of recent subscriptions and greatly appreciate your support and welcome your comments.

If you have interesting stories or new items I have missed, please feel free to forward them for review.

Thanks again!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

May 6, 2009 by sean.

Researchers at Princeton discover correlations between cognitive skills, economic preferences and strategic behavior [via Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA]:

Economic analysis has so far said little about how an individual’s cognitive skills (CS) are related to the individual’s economic preferences in different choice domains, such as risk taking or saving, and how preferences in different domains are related to each other. Using a sample of 1,000 trainee truckers we report three findings.

First, there is a strong and significant relationship between an individual’s CS and preferences. Individuals with better CS are more patient, in both short- and long-run. Better CS are also associated with a greater willingness to take calculated risks.

Second, CS predict social awareness and choices in a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Subjects with better CS more accurately forecast others’ behavior and differentiate their behavior as a second mover more strongly depending on the first-mover’s choice.

Third, CS, and in particular, the ability to plan, strongly predict perseverance on the job in a setting with a substantial financial penalty for early exit.

Consistent with CS being a common factor in all of these preferences and behaviors, we find a strong pattern of correlation among them. These results, taken together with the theoretical explanation we offer for the relationships we find, suggest that higher CS systematically affect preferences and choices in ways that favor economic success.

Posted in behavioral economics, psychology | No Comments »

May 3, 2009 by sean.

Scifi legend William Gibson has “been on Twitter for a little while now. Under the nom-de-twit GreatDismal (no space). I had not much of an idea what Twitter was, when I first went there, so signed in under a flag of convenience. Still have no idea what it is, or where it’s going, but will hang on to GreatDismal for simplicity’s sake.” [via williamgibsonbooks].

Posted in scifi, pervasive computing | No Comments »

April 29, 2009 by sean.

Researchers at the University of Pannonia, Hungary demonstrate how sparrrows solve problems more quickly as a group than as individuals [via scienceblogs]:

Liker and Bokony’s sparrow experiments are the first to show that large animal groups outperform smaller ones at problem-solving tasks where they have to invent new techniques. House sparrows are a good choice for a study like this. They are very social birds that live in flocks of anywhere from a few individuals to a few hundred. They are opportunists that use their relatively large brains to find food in all sorts of new environments.

Posted in science, collective intelligence | No Comments »

April 21, 2009 by sean.

Posted in mathematics | No Comments »

April 21, 2009 by sean.

Posted in mathematics, science | No Comments »

April 20, 2009 by sean.

Posted in social media, neuroscience, augmented cognition | No Comments »

April 15, 2009 by sean.

“That may be so, however, new scientific studies across several animal species, including humans, are challenging the notion that brain size alone is a measure of intelligence. Rather, scientists now argue, it is a brain’s underlying organization and molecular activity at its synapses (the communication junctions between neurons through which nerve impulses pass) that dictate intelligence.” [via Scientific American]

Posted in neuroscience | No Comments »

April 14, 2009 by sean.

Posted in social media | No Comments »

April 1, 2009 by sean.

Posted in fun, mobile computing | No Comments »

March 31, 2009 by sean.

Some language may be offensive to some listeners. Either way, not a good idea to have the song in the second half of this video playing in the workplace.

Posted in fun | No Comments »

March 30, 2009 by sean.

New research from Brigham Young University on collaboration reveals that diverse groups are more effective problem solving even though they believe they aren’t [via Newswise]:

The experiment also revealed a fallacy in the assumptions we make about our own effectiveness in groups. The subjects in the experiment were members of different fraternities and sororities. In general, when the newcomer was from the same sorority or fraternity as the other team members, the group reported that it worked well together, but was less likely to correctly solve the problem.

In contrast, when the newcomer was a member of a rival sorority or fraternity, the opposite was true — these groups felt they worked together less effectively, yet they significantly outperformed socially homogenous groups.

“What’s really distinct about this research is that, from a self-reporting perspective, what people perceive to be beneficial turns out to be dead wrong, Liljenquist says. “The teams that felt they worked least effectively together were ironically the top performers!”

Posted in psychology, learning theory, collective intelligence | No Comments »

March 18, 2009 by sean.

Posted in psychology, learning theory | No Comments »

March 17, 2009 by sean.

Posted in mathematics | No Comments »

March 17, 2009 by sean.

Posted in social media, fun | No Comments »

March 12, 2009 by sean.

Might “God” be an evolutionary abstraction of the collective intelligence of all humanity [or at least one’s local “tribe”]?

Research at the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland suggests that human capacity for religion is based in lateral frontal lobe regions and other theory-of-mind areas, “the same recently evolved brain regions that divine the feelings and intentions of other people” [via New Scientist]:

“It’s not surprising that religious beliefs engage mainly the theory-of-mind areas, as they are about virtual beings who are treated as having essentially human mental traits, just as characters in a novel or play are,” comments Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist at the University of Oxford.

Posted in neuroscience, collective intelligence, social networks | No Comments »

March 4, 2009 by sean.

Posted in innovation, pervasive computing, augmented cognition | No Comments »

February 22, 2009 by sean.

Posted in innovation, science | No Comments »

February 19, 2009 by sean.

[via LA Times Blog]

Posted in social media, innovation | No Comments »

February 19, 2009 by sean.

“In a study published online today in Nature, researchers at Vanderbilt University report that from fMRI data alone, they could distinguish which of two images subjects were holding in their memory–even several seconds after the images were removed. The study also pinpointed, for the first time, where in the brain visual working memory is maintained.” [via Technology Review]

Posted in innovation, science, augmented cognition | No Comments »

February 18, 2009 by sean.

Could transparency of government data itself [see Recovery.gov] help boost the private Numerati [via Wired]?

[A]ccessible government information—particularly databases released in machine-readable formats, like RSS, XML, and KML—spawn new business and grease the wheels of the economy. “The data is the infrastructure,” in the words of Sean Gorman, the CEO of FortiusOne, a company that builds layered maps around open-source geographic information. For every spreadsheet squirreled away on a federal agency server, there are entrepreneurs like Gorman ready to turn a profit by reorganizing, parsing, and displaying it…

[O]bvious economic benefits, however, will come from innovations that pop up around freely available data itself. Robinson and three Princeton colleagues argue in a recent Yale Journal of Law and Technology article that the federal government should focus on making as much data available as RSS feeds and XML data dumps, in lieu of spending resources to display the data themselves. “Private actors,” they write, “are better suited to deliver government information to citizens and can constantly create and reshape the tools individuals use to find and leverage public data.”

Posted in mathematics, innovation, pervasive computing | No Comments »

February 18, 2009 by sean.

New research ties social isolation and brain fucntion [via Science Daily]:

Researchers found that the ventral striatum—a region of the brain associated with rewards—is much more activated in non-lonely people than in the lonely when they view pictures of people in pleasant settings. In contrast, the temporoparietal junction—a region associated with taking the perspective of another person—is much less activated among lonely than in the non-lonely when viewing pictures of people in unpleasant settings.

“Given their feelings of social isolation, lonely individuals may be left to find relative comfort in nonsocial rewards,” said John Cacioppo, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Professor in Psychology at the University. He spoke at the briefing along with Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor in Psychology and Psychiatry at the University.

The ventral striatum, which is critical to learning, is a key portion of the brain and is activated through primary rewards such as food and secondary rewards such as money. Social rewards and feelings of love also may activate the region.

Posted in neuroscience | No Comments »

February 5, 2009 by sean.

One word: wow! [via wired]:

Pattie Maes of the MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces group demonstrated a wearable computing system that turns any surface into a display screen, becoming a kind of “sixth sense” for the user. The prototype involves an ordinary web cam and battery-powered 3M projector with an attached mirror that are all connected to an internet-enabled mobile phone. The set-up, which costs less than $350, allows the user to project information from the phone onto any surface — walls, the body of another person or even your hand.

Maes showed a video of her student Pranav Mistry who she describes as the genius behind the project. Mistry wore the device on a lanyard around his neck, along with colored Magic Marker caps on four fingers, each one red, blue, green or yellow to allow the camera to distinguish the four fingers. The caps help the camera recognize his hand gestures with software that Mistry created. The gestures can be something as simple as using his fingers and thumbs to create a picture frame that tells the camera to snap a photo, which is saved to his mobile phone. When he gets back to an office, he projects the images onto a wall and begins to size them.

When he encounters someone at a party, the system calls up information about him and projects a cloud of words on the person’s body to help him remember the person or provide more information about him, such as his blog URL, the name of his company, his likes and interests. “This is a more controversial [feature],” Maes said over the audience’s laughter.

Posted in innovation, pervasive computing, software, augmented cognition, mobile computing | No Comments »

February 4, 2009 by sean.

Posted in innovation, science, learning theory, social networks | No Comments »

February 4, 2009 by sean.

Interesting article on hypothetical relationship of social and biological energy patterns [via wired]:

The human race may be caught in a biological catch-22, in which sustainable reproduction rates can only be achieved by consuming more energy.

So hypothesizes Melanie Moses, a University of New Mexico computer scientist who wonders if human societies are bound by size-dependent rules of network efficiency seen elsewhere in the biological world.

If the implications of this seem bleak, take heart: people are born to break the rules.

Moses invokes the Metabolic Theory of Energy, which explains the relationship between mammalian size, lifespans and reproduction rates — the bigger a body, the longer it lives, with fewer offspring — as a function of cardiovascular networks. As the sum length of capillaries and arteries increases, nutrient flow efficiency drops. The less efficient an animal’s networks, the more difficult it becomes to acquire the energy needed for raising a child.

Compare the size-lifespan-reproduction curve to the relationship between human economic growth and reproduction rates, and the parallels are eerie.

Posted in science, social networks | No Comments »