Cavemen Used ‘Facebook’ Already

Scientists claim to have discovered a “prehistoric version of Facebook” used by ancient tribes to communicate with each other. After analyzing over 3000 rock art images in Sweden and Russia, Mark Sapwell and his team from Cambridge University concluded that the sites functioned like an “archaic related stories version” of social networks where users shared thoughts and emotions and gave stamps of approval to other contributions – very similar to today’s Facebook like.


HERE

Join the Solutionism Revolution !

What is Next Nature?

Today, the human impact on our planet can hardly be underestimated. Climate change, synthetic biology, mass urbanization – ‘We were here’ echoes all over. Although many people have tried to improve our relationship with nature, few have asked the elementary question ‘what is nature?’.

This website will radically shift your notion of nature. Our image of nature as static, balanced and harmonic is naive and up for reconsideration. Where technology and nature are traditionally seen as opposed, they now appear to merge or even trade places.

We must no longer see ourselves as the anti-natural species that merely threatens and eliminates nature, but rather as catalysts of evolution. With our urge to design our environment we create a ‘next nature’ which is unpredictable as ever: wild software, genetic surprises, autonomous machinery and splendidly beautiful black flowers. Nature changes along with us!

HERE

Sham II: New fighting machine of Syria rebels

"As Syria's rebels work to overthrow the tank-equipped Assad regime, they've learned that it helps to have tanks of their own. They deserve bonus points for integrating video game technology. This is no exaggeration. Have a look at the opposition forces' "100 percent made in Syria" armored vehicle, the Sham II. Named for ancient Syria and assembled out of spare parts over the course of a month, the Sham II is sort of rough around the edges, but it's got impressive guts. It rides on the chassis of an old diesel car and is fully encased in light steel that's rusted from the elements. Five cameras are mounted around the tanks outside, and there's a machine gun mounted on a turning turret. Inside, it kind of looks like a man cave. A couple of flat screen TVs are mounted on opposite walls. The driver sits in front of one, controlling the vehicle with a steering wheel, and the gunner sits at the other, aiming the machine gun with a Playstation controller." VIA & VIA

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Romania: 'Hackerville', capital of global cybercrime

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Telecomix message of HOPE

Are We Becoming Cyborgs?

SINCE broadband began its inexorable spread at the start of this millenium, Internet use has expanded at a cosmic rate. Last year, the number of Internet users topped 2.4 billion — more than a third of all humans on the planet. The time spent on the screen was 16 hours per week globally — double that in high-use countries, and much of that on social media. We have changed how we interact. Are we also changing what we are?

We put that question to three people who have written extensively on the subject, and brought them together to discuss it with Serge Schmemann, the editor of this magazine. The participants: Susan Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Oxford. She has written and spoken widely on the impact of new technology on users’ brains. Maria Popova, the curator behind Brain Pickings, a Web site of “eclectic interestingness.” She is also an M.I.T. Futures of Entertainment Fellow and writes forWired and The Atlantic. Evgeny Morozov, the author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom . He is a contributing editor to The New Republic .

 here

Losing Humanity

The Case against Killer Robots

With the rapid development and proliferation of robotic weapons, machines are starting to take the place of humans on the battlefield. Some military and robotics experts have predicted that “killer robots”—fully autonomous weapons that could select and engage targets without human intervention—could be developed within 20 to 30 years. At present, military officials generally say that humans will retain some level of supervision over decisions to use lethal force, but their statements often leave open the possibility that robots could one day have the ability to make such choices on their own power. Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) believe that such revolutionary weapons would not be consistent with international humanitarian law and would increase the risk of death or injury to civilians during armed conflict. A preemptive prohibition on their development and use is needed. A relatively small community of specialists has hotly debated the benefits and dangers of fully autonomous weapons. Military personnel, scientists, ethicists, philosophers, and lawyers have contributed to the discussion.

They have evaluated autonomous weapons from a range of perspectives, including military utility, cost, politics, and the ethics of delegating life-and-death decisions to a machine. According to Philip Alston, then UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, however, “the rapid growth of these technologies, especially those with lethal capacities and those with decreased levels of human control, raise serious concerns that have been almost entirely unexamined by human rights or humanitarian actors.”[1] It is time for the broader public to consider the potential advantages and threats of fully autonomous weapons.

The primary concern of Human Rights Watch and IHRC is the impact fully autonomous weapons would have on the protection of civilians during times of war. This report analyzes whether the technology would comply with international humanitarian law and preserve other checks on the killing of civilians. It finds that fully autonomous weapons would not only be unable to meet legal standards but would also undermine essential non-legal safeguards for civilians. Our research and analysis strongly conclude that fully autonomous weapons should be banned and that governments should urgently pursue that end.

  HERE

World’s First Flying File-Sharing Drones in Action

A few days ago The Pirate Bay announced that in future parts of its site could be hosted on GPS controlled drones. To many this may have sounded like a joke, but in fact these pirate drones already exist. Project “Electronic Countermeasures” has built a swarm of five fully operational drones which prove that an “aerial Napster” or an “airborne Pirate Bay” is not as futuristic as it sounds.The Revolution will go airborne

 HERE

Robot therapy gains popularity

"You're gentle and smart. You're a good pet, aren't you?" Tomoe Wakabayashi, 92, says as she affectionately caresses her companion Paro. Paro, a seal-shaped robot, replies with a loving "Kyuuu" while wagging its tail. Wakabayashi is a resident at Lumiere, a group home for people who suffer from dementia in Kanagawa Ward, Yokohama.

She began suffering from gaps in her memory due to dementia about five years ago. She became a resident at the facility in October 2011 after she began suffering from other dementia symptoms, including violent outbursts at her family. When she first started living at the facility, she always sat alone in her room and didn't speak to other residents. At dinnertime, she insisted the facility let her go home. 

READ HERE

Comment is free: For the digital revolution, this is the Robespierre moment

Total disclosure means the onset of a new terror, a retreat to a kind of sofa government beyond freedom of information HERE

Cloned Horses Can Now Compete in the Olympics

Reversing an earlier ban, the international governing body for equestrian sports has decided that cloned horses can compete alongside their traditionally bred counterparts. "The FEI will not forbid participation of clones or their progenies in FEI competitions," the Federation Equestre Internationale said after its June meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, according to The Chronicle of the Horse. "The FEI will continue to monitor further research, especially with regard to equine welfare.” HERE

What Ancient Greeks Can Teach Us about Drones and Cyber-War

When freshmen in my humanities colloquium at Stevens Institute of Technology ask why they have to read stuff by ancient Greeks, I reply that we have much to learn from old guys like Thucydides. In his history of the Peloponnesian War, a clash between the city-states Athens and Sparta, Thucydides recounted a negotiation between Athenians and leaders of Melos, an island kingdom striving to remain neutral. MORE HERE

Invisible Mercedes

Can Artists Help Us Reboot Humanism in an Over-Connected Age?

Rhizome.org’s annual “Seven on Seven” conference isn’t really meant to have a theme beyond simply exploring the intersection of art and technology. Rhizome director Lauren Cornell plays yenta, matching various figures from the two fields who then brainstorm collaborations and build whatever prototypes can be whipped up in the very abbreviated 24-hours they actually have together (the teams first meet Friday morning, then talk, hatch an idea, and finally present on Saturday afternoon). It was notable, then, that at this year's conference — held April 14 at the New Museum — a theme did emerge organically: Quite a few of these pairs, in one way or another, were responding to a sense that the quality of mental experience was on the decline in our over-wired world. MORE

Internet and Religion

"In the great vacuum of meaning, in the silence of unspoken values, in
the vacancy of something large to stand for, something bigger than
oneself, technology – for better or worse – will shape our society.
Because values and meaning are scarce today, technology will
make our decisions for us. We’ll listen to technology because our
modern ears listen to little else. In the absence of other firm beliefs,
we’ll let technology steer. No other force is as powerful in shaping our
destiny. By imagining what technology wants we can imagine the
course of our culture." quite HARDCORE paper HERE

What century is this? Support democracy in Hungary with new Radio Free Europe broadcasts

Mark Palmer was the U.S. ambassador to Hungary from 1986 to 1990. Miklos Haraszti, a Hungarian author, was the representative on freedom of the media for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from 2004 to 2010. Charles Gati is a professorial lecturer in Russian & Eurasian studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

In recent weeks, the Hungarian government led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban has frequently attacked Western media outlets but none more than CNN for its reports on the sorry state of Hungarian democracy. Hungarians can still watch CNN, but since January the network is no longer part of the package offered by Hungary’s largest cable provider. MORE

What we learned from the 'Nightline' report on Foxconn factories

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By year’s end, Google glasses to stream info to eyeballs

When smartphones came out, it seemed like a leap in convenience to be able to carry important information on us at all times, instead of leaving it with our computers.

But soon, it may seem onerous to reach for your phone, turn it on and find the right app to get a piece of information, when you could instead just wear a pair of glasses that directly stream information to your eyeballs.

By year’s end, the New York Times reports, Google is set to release glasses that do exactly that in real time, so you won’t constantly have to reach into your purse or pocket.

The glasses, which will be Android-based, will cost about as much as a smartphone ($250-$600) and feature a 3G or 4G data connection and GPS and motion sensors. And, of course, they’ll sport a screen a few inches away from the eye.

Here are some other key features:

Central and eastern Europe make history with small satellites

University of Bucharest’s Goliat being integrated into the first P-POD.

13 February 2012
The first satellites entirely designed and built by Hungary, Poland, and Romania are now orbiting Earth after today’s successful maiden flight of ESA's small Vega launcher. HERE