“Project aims to let anyone print a gun in their own home, raising new concerns about the legality of homemade firearms” There really was no reason to believe people would only use this technology to print cute toys and cool components for race bikes. via Diigo http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/26/3d-printing-guns-legal-issues-us-law
“Everyone there was a “Quant.†No one cared what the underlying company represented by a given stock actually did. Apple or General Motors, CAT or IBM… Everything boiled down to a set of statistical observations that, when assembled into the proper algorithm, delivered a portfolio that beats the market.” I… Continue reading
“While MOOCs are incorporating adaptive learning routines into their software, their ambitions for data mining go well beyond tutoring. Thrun says that we’ve only seen “the tip of the iceberg.” What particularly excites him and other computer scientists about free online classes is that thanks to their unprecedented scale, they… Continue reading
The Mechanical MOOC is in full preparation of the Python programming course. As reported before the mMOOC combines several existing open courses, such as the MIT Opencourseware, Peer 2 Peer University, OpenStudy and CodeAcademy. During the preparation the learners are introduced to those other platforms. The first instalment was interesting:… Continue reading
“The idea is to design more realistic virtual characters, which, in turn, should make video games more compelling and software simulations used for training more useful. In the future, the software could drive physical robots capable of navigating the real world in a human-like manner.” Okay, the bots are not… Continue reading
“Fab labs are a global network of local labs, enabling invention by providing access to tools for digital fabrication” Bruce Sterling has some comments on Beyond the Beyond http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2012/09/the-fab-charter-draft/ via Diigo http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/charter/
“As technology evolves to make the office more obsolete, it’s going to result in massive changes–and massive opportunities.” But the process is sometimes painstakingly slow, as it conflicts with traditions, the desire for ‘real face time’ and office politics. via Diigo http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680621/unleashing-workers-is-going-to-lead-to-drastic-changes-in-how-we-work
I’m working on my final written assignment for the Gamification Course at Coursera (our professor is Kevin Werbach, The Wharton School, Univ. of Pennsylvania). One of the most inspiring comments were made during the interview by Werbach of Amy Jo Kim, an expert in game design, gamification and and ‘the… Continue reading
One of the big inspirations for the MixedRealities blog is the book Race against the machine, written by the MIT-researchers Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. These last few days I’ve read another book about globalization and exponentially growing technologies, Abundance, The Future Is Better Than You Think, by the engineer… Continue reading
Another week, another Coursera-course (via the University of Toronto): Learn to Program: The Fundamentals by Jennifer Campbell and Paul Gries: Behind every mouse click and touch-screen tap, there is a computer program that makes things happen. This course introduces the fundamental building blocks of programming and teaches you how to… Continue reading