Huxley Vs. Orwell: Infinite Distraction Or Government Oppression?

Latest News Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Project Summary This is an international, multi-disciplinary research project on cultural selforganisation in the origins of grammar. The project brings together members from key disciplines relevant to modelling the evolution of language: linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, and complex systems. This functionalist and cultural evolution hypothesis is clearly in radical opposition to the popular hypothesis of a genetic encoding and origin of the "language instinct". The primary aim of the Brussels AI-Laboratory in this project is to set up a number of concrete experiments in which artificial, robotic agents develop autonomously a shared communication system that has characteristics of human natural language. Funding The funding for the project will be provided by the FWO, the Flemish fund for scientific research, within the framework of the European Science Foundation program on the Origins of man, language and languages. Duration 2002-2006 (48 months) Partners

The "Big Five" IT trends of the next half decade: Mobile, social, cloud, consumerization, and big data "Much or most of these topics are in back burner mode in many companies just now seeing the glimmerings of recovery from the downturn. Much has been written lately about the speed at which technology is reshaping the business landscape today. Except that's not quite phrasing it correctly. It's more like it's leaving the traditional business world behind. There are a number of root causes: The blistering pace of external innovation, the divergent path the consumer world has taken from enterprise IT, and the throughput limitations of top-down adoption. As a result, there's a rapidly expanding gap between what the technology world is executing on and what the enterprise can deliver. At the end of the day, businesses must be able to effectively serve the markets they cater to, and doing so means using the same channels and techniques as their trading partners and customers. A tectonic technology shift "Easy", highly mobile, and "social" are the mantras of this new generation of IT.

Man Up or Man Down? Newsweek Redefines Masculinity “We’ve arrived at another crossroads,” declares Newsweek — and this one represents a crisis for masculinity. As the magazine’s current cover story asserts, “The prevailing codes of manhood have yet to adjust to the changing demands on men.” With this cover story dedicated to “rethinking” masculinity, Newsweek launches itself into a very relevant cultural conversation. “Man Up!” Writers Andrew Romano and Tony Dokoupil get right to the heart of that matter when they ask, “What’s the matter with men?” So, how do men recover? But suggesting that men should stick to some musty script of masculinity only perpetuates the problem. Well, men will certainly not recover a healthy manhood by aping crude stereotypes or cultural constructions of “Marlboro Manliness.” The authors point to a “New Macho,” a redefined masculinity that is shaped around what Newsweek sees as the new realities in both the economy and the home. The new jobs are to be found in health care and education, for example.

Khan Academy