We are apparently now in a situation where modern technology is changing the way people behave, people talk, people react, people think, and people remember. And you encounter this not only in a theoretical way, but when you meet people, when suddenly people start forgetting things, when suddenly people depend on their gadgets, and other stuff, to remember certain things. This is the beginning, its just an experience. But if you think about it and you think about your own behavior, you suddenly realize that something fundamental is going on. There is one comment on Edge which I love, which is in Daniel Dennett’s response to the 2007 annual question, in which he said that we have a population explosion of ideas, but not enough brains to cover them.

Edge In Frankfurt: THE AGE OF THE INFORMAVORE— A Talk with Frank Schirrmacher

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Created by Anca Trandafirescu, with the assistance of Le Nguyen, Hot Air is an inflatable, inhabitable monument commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism in Romania. The monument takes the shape of the fallen head of a giant statue, lit from within. We’ve seen a few iterations of this floating around the internet before, but we’re happy to announce the inflatable has reached its intended site of Timisoara, Romania. Upon return, it will be shown again at the University of Michigan, where Trandafirescu teaches.

Hot Air: An inflatable, inhabitable monument – Core77

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Dietrich Dörner, emeritierter Leiter des Instituts für Theoretische Psychologie der Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, spricht mit Technology Review über den Kern des Menschen – und inwieweit er sich technisch abbilden lässt.

Technology Review: Herr Professor Dörner, was ist eine Seele?

Dietrich Dörner: Kurze Antwort: ein Lebensprinzip, so Aristoteles. Ein Lebensprinzip ist ein System von Regeln, Steuerungen und Überwachungen, die einen Körper lebendig machen. Konkreter: Es wird gemeldet: “Es fehlt Energie”, “Es fehlt Wasser”. Aufgrund dieser Meldungen – wir nennen sie Hunger und Durst – setzt sich der Körper in Bewegung und versucht, Nahrung und Getränke zu finden. Das ist die motivationale Seite. Es gibt noch viel mehr Motive und auch andere Steuerungen.

Technology Review | 29.10.09 | Letzte Fragen: “Kann man eine Seele simulieren?”

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“A chaotic cloud of sound hangs over the stage, while the instrumentalists of the orchestra practice their different roles in anticipation of the beginning of the rehearsal. As the Maestro raises his hand there is a moment of silence. The magic then commences – from the hundred instruments comes one clear, unified and powerful sound. Led by the silent Maestro, each individual musician plays in perfect harmony working towards the shared goal – a magnificent performance”. The “Maestro programs” were founded on the belief that, in the orchestra as in the work place, music has the power to create community and reinforce shared values. Music embodies knowledge and innovation, individual effort and collective achievement, and offers a work-environment that is full of opportunities for excellence and self-actualization – same as any successful business.

Itay Talgam and the “Maestro Progarm”

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The Knight Commission sees new thinking about news and information as a necessary step to sustaining democracy in the digital age. It thus follows in the footsteps of the 1940s Hutchins Commission and the Kerner and Carnegie Commissions of the 1960s.But in the digital age, the stakes are even higher. Technological, economic and behavioral changes are dramatically altering how Americans communicate. Communications systems no longer run along the lines of local communities, and the gap in access to digital tools and skills is wide and troubling.The Commission seeks to start a national discussion – leading to real action. Its aims are to maximize the availability and flow of credible local information; to enhance access and capacity to use the new tools of knowledge and exchange; and to encourage people to engage with information and each other within their geographic communities.

Background | The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy

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Forget about the hybrid auto — Shai Agassi says it’s electric cars or bust if we want to impact emissions. His company, Better Place, has a radical plan to take entire countries oil-free by 2020.

Shai Agassi’s bold plan for electric cars | Video on TED.com

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The Media Grid is a computational grid platform that provides digital media delivery, storage and processing (compute) services for a new generation of networked applications. Built using Internet and Web standards, the Media Grid combines Quality of Service (QoS) and broadcast features with distributed parallel processing capabilities. Together these features create a unique software development platform designed specifically for networked applications that produce and consume massive quantities of digital media. The Media Grid is powered by service providers (such as rendering farms, clusters, high-performance computer systems, computational grids, and similar systems) that furnish on-demand services to Media Grid clients (users).START SLIDE SHOWAs an open and extensible software development and delivery platform the Media Grid is designed to enable a wide range of applications not possible with the traditional Internet and World Wide Web. Applications enabled by the Media Grid include: Immersive Education; on-demand digital cinema and interactive movies; distributed film and movie rendering; truly immersive multiplayer games and virtual reality; real-time visualization of complex data (weather, medical, engineering, and so forth); telepresence and telemedicine (remote surgery, medical imaging, drug design, etc.); vehicle and aircraft design and simulation; and similar high-performance media applications.

Media Grid : Home Page

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This does not necessarily make human cloning desirable; there are complicated issues to consider. Initial mammalian cloning experiments, with sheep and other species, have produced many sickly offspring that die quickly. Could it ever be ethical to conduct research that produces sick babies in the hope of figuring out how to make healthy clones? And clones might be treated as inferiors, rendering them unhappy.

Gregg Easterbrook: Embrace Human Cloning

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Her favorite number is 54. Against taboos and stereotypes with emotion and humour…

Artists — Pipilotti Rist — Biography — Hauser & Wirth

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Im Jahr 2050 werden Schätzungen zufolge an die zehn Milliarden Menschen auf der Erde leben, über zwei Drittel davon in Städten. Überall auf der Welt explodieren die Ballungszentren zu neuen Megacities. Der Mensch wird zum homo urbanicus, dessen Hoffnungen – und allzu oft Enttäuschungen – so eng wie nie zuvor an die „große Stadt“ geknüpft sind …

ARS Electronica | Center

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