Pixel Logic: How the Next 10 Years Will Reinvent Your Life.

Russel Smith & Michael Foster. Huff Post Tech. 17/04/2012.

As a culture, we are living in an age of digital and cultural reinvention. The world will look back upon the two decades before and after the millennium as a fascinating time to be alive, and we get to experience it firsthand. What's driving the changes we're all experiencing? The main factor is technology. Current technology can already process our experiences faster than we can think about them. Whether we welcome it or not, it's unavoidable, and greater digital acceleration will happen.

All around us, the future is unevenly spread out in expanding digital cities, and dense pockets within these cities -- and in other parts of the world, dollops of the future have been squeezed out more sparingly, in small towns and distant regions barely on the digital map.

Fluid Identities and Connecting to the Universe Next Door

Human identities change greatly over the course of a lifetime, and the near future asks us to reinvent ourselves many more times -- with each reinvention based on a mixture of internal adaptations, individual desires, and external cultural forces.

Time travel or teleportation aren't on the near horizon, but scientists are inching closer to finding proof of life on distant planets. While the theory of living in a multiverse, where other universes exist next door (unseen) and connect to our universe isn't close to being proven, it is now in the cultural zeitgeist as a theory to consider. The TV program Fringe presented us with the challenges involved in having a funhouse mirror universe right next door, especially if your doppelganger had your face and your job. And of course, having a similar hair color, so it's easy to dye-to-match, helps when one must take over another's identity in an alternate universe.

Novelty, Fractal Patterns, and Quantum Physics

The exposure to moments of novelty will increase, until humans adapt to this ongoing pattern of hyper-contextualized-awareness. The world of hyper-meaning will become standard fare, and carrying on hyper-connected games and multi-sensory artistic experiences will become a part of one's daily life. A segment of each day could be centered around connecting to the world of fractals and going on a hyper-dimension mini-vacation, which might be similar to taking a walk inside a Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning painting.

Computers will become more sensitive to modeling and finding patterns, and quantum computing will help people make the leap to connecting seemingly unrelated fields such as: poetry, economics, biology and politics. By getting closer to the experience of serendipity in computing and farther away from predictability, the easier it will become for the human mind to increase its understanding of complex systems.

Fully Immersed in a Gaming Universe

The gaming culture has become more interactive, more realistic, and will eventually become more fully immersive. One can easily picture gamers entering a pod (perhaps in the shape of the human form), or a room devoted exclusively to the world of the game. Advances in motion technology and voice capture will refine the multiple layers, lives, and selves one can inhabit and interact with inside the game.

The early 1990s dream of virtual reality was delayed, but it has stayed on track to becoming a reality by making gaming culture mainstream culture. When the military aims to recruit young people with superior hand-eye coordination and a sharp mind, they now search for able-bodied recruits who have spent countless hours merged with a gaming console, and find just the skills and high-tech adaptability required for facing life and death in situations that call for immediate decision-making capabilities, since this is the focal point of a vast majority of games.

The Point System Paints a Bull's-eye on Your Heart

Have you been getting enough sleep lately? No? Sorry, that's going to cost you some points. Had an orange and some whole grain cereal for breakfast? Points added. We're on the verge of the health care industry meets Moneyball. And in the near future, your health statistic could be updated on a weekly or hourly basis, and payments on your monthly premium could fluctuate like the stock market.

An unhealthy lifestyle will affect the points you accumulate, and if your numbers fall below a set level, you could be dropped off the charts, as far as major health insurance providers are concerned. Forget Powerball, the real lottery system will be your ability to pay for a ticket to get in and stay in to a health care system that truly has your best interests at heart, as long as you subscribe to a heart-healthy diet.

Over the next decade, these ideas, trends and systems will increasingly affect how our society shifts and evolves.

Cyber Culture and Psychology

Cyber Culture and Psychology

By Erika Torres. Nov.20, 2011.

With the advent of new technology come new oppotunities and responsibilities. As a researcher, educator and therapist, I have become fascinated by the role that technology plays in our lives. From social media networks such as facebook and twitter, to skype and google chat. The way we communicate with others (or fail to communicate) is greatly shaped by the cyber culture we currently live in. As a therapist and future psychologist who strives to be culturally humble and aware, I am intrigued by the ways in which we can use cultural trends to enhance our daily lives and for treatment with our clients.

Personally, I am intrigued by the use of technology in our daily lives. For example, how many of us text or post messages on facebook for our loved ones even when they may be in the other room? To some this may seem unusual or even unhealthy. The answer is much more complex than a simple good or bad. Technology can certainly be used to enhance communication with our significant others on a daily basis. For example, we can send a text during lunch time wishing our loved ones a good day. And, as an older sister of a young woman, texting is the best way for me to communicate with her.

At the same time, if we take this to the extreme and we only communicate with others using technology, this may become problematic. Often the lines of communication can be stunted by technology because we may be spending too much time in front of the computer or on the phone. We may have little to say to others in person or maybe distracted by a text conversation while having dinner with someone else. Where the line is drawn depends on our interpersonal skills and ability to bring balance to our lives. All in moderation!

One great example of this potential problem are the new generation of teenagers whose main mode of communication is through texting or posting messages on social media forums. On the one hand, their brains may become flexible in new ways that we have not yet been able to study. On the other, a more concerning perspective, teenagers may not be exposed to direct face-to-face communication. While, this may not be detrimental, and in fact, may have an evolutionary value within their cohort, as adults, they may lack the social skills needed to build meaningful relationships. This may have serious ramifications when applying to college, interviewing for a job and potentially finding a mate.

Thus, as therapists, when working with clients, especiallly, but not limited to the new generation, it is important that we assess their level of interpersonal skills and screen for potential problematic technology use. This will allow us to gain a better understanding of our clients’ experiences and we may be better able to serve them. This basic assessment should become an essential part of our treatment modality.

Furthermore, technology-informed therapy can be an effective way to connect with our clients. What do I mean by technology-informed therapy? Like any other form of culturally-attuned treatment, technology-informed therapy attempts to understand individuals’ relationship to technology; both the positive and harmful aspects of it.

Furthermore, technology can be used in session as a tool to create rapport and understanding for the other’s experience. By this I don’t necessarily mean we should friend your clients on facebook, text or skype with them (though some therapists are using technology to provide psychotherapy). What I am mainly referring to is using technology in session both literally and symbolically as a way to connect with our clients. For example, when I worked with teenagers, a number of my clients wanted to share youtube videos, online gaming sites, links to an interesting articles, etc. These experiences allowed us to connect in a different way and begin the conversation about interpersonal skill building. Shying away from meeting clients where they are (technologically speaking or otherwise) will inevitably lead to a poor relationship and therapeutic outcome.

I am not suggesting we make radical changes in the way we perceive the world, but, it is important to catch up with the times and become interested in the way that current cyber culture shapes our world view and those of the people we serve.

Proyecto Synapse IBM: Chips basados en el cerebro humano

neoteo.com 20/11/2011.
En el marco de lo que será su cumpleaños número 100, IBM está haciendo los preparativos para que la conmemoración sea recordada por algo adicional a su historia. El plan del proyecto Synapse junto aDARPA parece eficiente, pues lo que anuncian son sus primeros chips basados en el cerebro humano. Pero no te asustes todavía. Pues estos chips son cerebrales porque son fabricados en base al modelo cerebral humano, emulando, en la medida que se conocen, sus funciones y mecanismos en lo que podría ser los primeros pasos de la evolución informática tan esperada.

Si el superordenador Watson nos sorprendió a todos con su capacidad de razonamiento, IBM espera que sus nuevos chips directamente nos generen algún tipo de desmayo, no tanto por la potencia eventual, sino por la similitud de funcionamiento que tendrían con un cerebro humano y por su despliegue como cerebro principal de ordenadores y también de otros dispositivos más pequeños, como calculadoras, incluso. Es cierto que cerebros informáticos hemos visto bastantes, pero siempre con sus diferentes niveles de potencia y calidad, pues lo difícil en este terreno de la ingeniería es lograr una comunión entre lo físico y lo virtual de los cerebros en lo que hace al entrenamiento del mismo, ya que habitualmente se manejan límites de procesamiento (propios del modelo Von Neuman) que resultan obstáculos. Con esto por superar, IBM ha creado dos chips que tienen la propiedad no poco interesante de imitar el cerebro humano en la forma de alimentarse de datos y de procesarlos, emulando sinapsis.


El proyecto Synapse está llevado a cabo gracias al trabajo mancomunado de DARPA y de cuatro universidades más unos 20 millones de dólares en financiamiento, por lo que el impulso que se le ha dado es más que conveniente dadas las aplicaciones que podría tener un chip que haga de un ordenador algo más humano en cuanto a la forma de razonar variables. Los chips basados en el cerebro humano imitarían los procesos sinápticos que nos llevan a procesar la información del entorno circundante, pero también a los axones, que son quienes –con perdón de los neurólogos en la sala- permiten la comunicación de estos impulsos nerviosos. Es decir que estos chips le podrían dar a un ordenador la oportunidad de “sentir, percibir, interactuar y reconocer”. Cuentan con características como tener un bajo consumo de energía, manejar 256 nodos del tipo neurona y 262.144 módulos de memoria sináptica en un chip y 65.536 para un segundo modelo. Y sus funciones serán tanto analizar como recordar información, ya que las posibilidades que les da la emulación del cerebro humano son infinitas, aun en un estado del experimento con tan poca información disponible.

Dharmendra Modha, un referente de la computación cognitiva y también jefe de proyecto de IBM Research explicó que las aplicaciones de la informática están demandando mayor capacidad y eficiencia que la arquitectura tradicional de chips no puede otorgarles. Por esta razón, un avance con el de los chips basados en el cerebro humano podría ser la evolución esperada para los ordenadores, logrando una nueva era de la informática donde las aplicaciones de ésta tengan un saborcito más a futuro. Mientras sea esa la idea y no implantarnos chips cerebrales represores conductuales que nos quiten o dirijan nuestra autonomía, apoyamos firmemente. Por ahora sólo hay dos ejemplares prototípicos que están sumidos a los diferentes test para comprobar su idoneidad, por lo que IBM no ha dejado una fecha de lanzamiento definitivo. Para completar un festejo por sus 100 años, IBM anunció que el proyecto Synapse busca desarrollar en el futuro un ordenador de 10.000 millones de neuronas y lograr 100 billones de operaciones sinápticas, algo que significaría superar la potencia del cerebro humano 10 veces. Ahora sí puedes asustarte.

Dejamos algunos vídeos en inglés al respecto del Proyecto Synapse para quien quiera adentrarse un poco más profundamente en el tema.

Social Networking’s Good and Bad Impacts on Kids

Social Networking’s Good and Bad Impacts on Kids

August 6, 2011. APA.org

Psychologists explore myths, realities and offer guidance for parents

WASHINGTON—Social media present risks and benefits to children but parents who try to secretly monitor their kids’ activities online are wasting their time, according to a presentation at the 119th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.

“While nobody can deny that Facebook has altered the landscape of social interaction, particularly among young people, we are just now starting to see solid psychological research demonstrating both the positives and the negatives,” said Larry D. Rosen, PhD, professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

In a plenary talk entitled, “Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids,” Rosen discussed potential adverse effects, including: 

• Teens who use Facebook more often show more narcissistic tendencies while young adults who have a strong Facebook presence show more signs of other psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviors, mania and aggressive tendencies.  
• Daily overuse of media and technology has a negative effect on the health of all children, preteens and teenagers by making them more prone to anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders, as well as by making them more susceptible to future health problems.
  • Facebook can be distracting and can negatively impact learning. Studies found that middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period achieved lower grades. 

Rosen said new research has also found positive influences linked to social networking, including: 

• Young adults who spend more time on Facebook are better at showing “virtual empathy” to their online friends. 
• Online social networking can help introverted adolescents learn how to socialize behind the safety of various screens, ranging from a two-inch smartphone to a 17-inch laptop. 
• Social networking can provide tools for teaching in compelling ways that engage young students.

For parents, Rosen offered guidance. “If you feel that you have to use some sort of computer program to surreptitiously monitor your child's social networking, you are wasting your time. Your child will find a workaround in a matter of minutes,” he said. “You have to start talking about appropriate technology use early and often and build trust, so that when there is a problem, whether it is being bullied or seeing a disturbing image, your child will talk to you about it.”

He encouraged parents to assess their child’s activities on social networking sites, and discuss removing inappropriate content or connections to people who appear problematic. Parents also need to pay attention to the online trends and the latest technologies, websites and applications children are using, he said.  

“Communication is the crux of parenting. You need to talk to your kids, or rather, listen to them,” Rosen said. “The ratio of parent listen to parent talk should be at least five-to-one. Talk one minute and listen for five.”

Plenary Session: 3378, 4:00 - 4:50 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 6, Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Street Level, Room 147 B.

Presentation: “Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids"
Larry D. Rosen, PhD, California State University, Dominguez Hills

Dr. Larry Rosen can be contacted at (714) 624-4333 (cell) or by email

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 154,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare.

History of Computers - Time line

More info

The Psychology of Adapting to New Technology

The Psychology of Adapting to New Technology.
By Wesley Fenlon - June 2011 - tested.com


We all have that moment with technology sooner or later: we just don’t get it. It’s a moment that will be followed by many more as the years ago by. Maybe it starts with touchscreens: we prefer buttons. Maybe it starts with Twitter: we'd rather use IRC. In our teen years, every new piece of tech is effortlessly absorbed into our daily lives. Ten years, twenty years later, it’s tough, and sometimes we stop adapting altogether.

This is a familiar story for anyone immersed in the world of technology, but there’s actually some interesting psychology behind the phenomenon. Author Daniel Wilson, who recently wrote a sci-fi novel called Robopocalypse, dug into the issue for The Wall Street Journal to rationalize his own issues with growing old and feeling like his typewriter should have a power button.

Wilson relates the difficulty in adopting new forms of technology and social media to the work of psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget observed infants interacting with their environment--shoving Cheerios and stuffing them in their mouth holes, as Wilson describes it--and called the skill sets they created for interacting with the environment schema. Schema form the basis of how we deal with the world around us, and they evolve to relate to new inputs through a process called assimilation.

This is where our issues with technology come in. Wilson established his schema for dealing with keyboards in the 1980s, where every typing device took batteries or a power cord to function. When he started using a typewriter, he couldn’t escape the nagging sensation that it needed to be plugged into something. Similarly, you probably know someone--a grandparent, mom or dad--who carries all their phone numbers around in an address book instead of putting them into their cell phone. That fits within their established schema--phones existed for decades before they could store information.

The younger we are, the better we are at assimilating new inputs from our environment. It takes more work to adapt. And if we stop adapting, we don’t just miss out on some cool new software or device. We’ll miss out on the world.

But at the moment you choose to stop growing, your world will begin to shrink. You'll be able to communicate with fewer people, especially the young. You will only see reruns. You will not understand how to pay for things. The outside world will become a frightening and unpredictable place.

Do you remember your first “Bah, humbug!” tech moment?

A classic: The Psychology of Computer Programming.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING
Gerald M. Weinberg. 1971
Review by reliablesoftware.com

Open publication - Free publishing - More ict.

Weinberg not only demonstrated that programming was more than technology, it is a social activity, but he showed how the social element related to the technical. In essence, he identified and addressed the types of fundamental questions that Rilke advised the young poet Franz Kappus to study. Such as:

• “What does it mean when we say a program is good?” I learned from Weinberg that a good program is as much a matter of cultural fit as technological merit. A designer has to understand that tradeoffs are made not only among technical factors, but among technical, social and economic constraints. Too often, I have seen engineers try to build the “perfect” product while ignoring ease of use or budget constraints.

• “How do you get programmers to work together as a team?” One programmer cannot do it all. Different people have different skills, different skills are needed at different parts of the project.

• “What is leadership all about?” How do you manage change and performance? Why do many managers manipulate programmers and tread them poorly and then wonder why they get poor results?

• “How do you find good programmers?” And just what does it mean to be a good programmer? Weinberg was one of the first to point out the stupidity of aptitude testing for programmers, and the importance of understanding individual psychology in dealing with programmers.

Weinberg confirmed my own intuition that software could have an enormous impact on society, and his discussion of programming as a social activity helped explain much of the “strange behavior” I saw around me as I began working on my first programs. For example, during one of my first projects, I saw that the inability of certain people to work together had more impact on the project’s outcome than the technological issues being debated.

Weinberg examined what a naïve programmer would consider just technical topics and demonstrated how the elements of human personality and interactions between people had just as much, if not more influence over the outcome of a computer programming project than the technical issues and debates.

By understanding the importance of questions such as these, even if not every question can be answered in every situation, my value as a programmer and designer transcends whatever today’s technology du jour happens to be. I would have to say that Weinberg’s book took years off my apprenticeship, and saved me much aggravation.

To this day, I view programming primarily as a human activity, with the technical merits secondary. This does not mean you can ignore the technical merits. What makes a programmer really great is not technical genius, but an understanding of the human context of what he or she is doing. Any programmer who creates a truly revolutionary and world-changing program understands this. Others did not, or did not care to, and their contributions are hidden behind or overwhelmed by others’ accomplishments.

It is incredible that a twenty-five year old programming text containing examples illustrated with technologies that many programmers today cannot even conceive of—I recently taught a programming class where not one of the students had any idea what a punched card or paper tape was—is still a great book.

As Weinberg says at the end of his book that if we view programming as a human activity we have some hope that computers will not bring tyranny and the enslavement of humans by other humans.

http://www.geraldmweinberg.com/Site/Programming_Psychology.html

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011 List

The EMERGING Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011 List
By C4LPT 
Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies


"This is the 5th annual Top 100 Tools for Learning list we have build based on the contributions of learning professionals worldwide."


List will be finalised 13 November 2011(Note: all the 2010 entries have now been removed from this list)
KEY: F = Free, C= Commercial,  D=Download, S=Server, O=Online 

2011	2010	TOOL			#  Votes
		Name	Platform	Cost
1	1	Twitter Microblogging tool	O	F	52
2	2	YouTube Video sharing site	O	F	49.5
3	3	Google Docs Office collaboration suite	O	F	42
4	16	Wikipedia Collaborative encyclopedia	O	F	30
5	6	Skype Instant messaging/VoIP	D M	F/C	30
6	25	Glogster and Eduglogster Make an interactive poster	O	F	28
7	13	Dropbox Sync files online and across computers	O	F	24
8	10	Moodle Course mgt system	S	F	23
9	9	Facebook Social networking site	O	F	22
10	12	Prezi Presentation software	O	F	21
11	5	Slideshare Hosting presentations	O	F	18
12	15	diigo Social annotation site	O	F/C	17.5
13	14	Blogger Blogging tool	O	F	16.5
14	17	Wikispaces Wiki tool	O	F/C	16
15	8	Wordpress Blogging tool	O	F	13.5
16	-	Geogebra Free mathematics software	O	F	13
17	27	Camtasia Screencasting tool	D	C	12.5
18	11	Google Search Web search tool	O	F	12
19	58	Google Maps Maps of the US. UK, etc	O	F	10.5
20	24	Audacity Sound editor and recorder	D	F	10
21	23	Evernote Note taking tool	O	F	10
22	34	Google Apps (Branded) Google application suite	O	F/C	10
23	42	SnagIt Screen capture tool	D	C	10
24	19	VoiceThread Collaborative slideshows	O	F	10
25=	17	Jing Screen captures/ casting tool	D	F/C	9.5
26	7	Google Reader RSS / Feed reader	O	F	9.5
27=	41	Google Earth Satellite and aerial imagery	D	F	8.5
28	22	Wordle Word cloud generator	O	F	8.5
29	46	Edmodo Educational micro-blogging service	O	F	8
30	61	OpenOffice Desktop office suite	O	F	7.5
31=	39	Google Sites Create web/wiki sites	O	F	7
32	31	Gmail Web-based email	O	F	7
33	30	LinkedIn Professional social network	O	F	7
34	33	PBworks Wiki tool	O	F/C	7
35	46	Picasa Photo organiser	D	F	7
36=	28	animoto Create videos from your images	O	F	6
37	20	flickr Photo storage/sharing site	O	F	6
38	75	Voki Create personalised avatars	O	F	6
39	68	Yammer Private micro-blogging platform	O	F	6
40=	-	BigBlueButton Voice conferencing	D	F	5
41	4	Delicious Social bookmarking tool	O	F	5
42	-	eFront Course Management System	S	C	5
43	37	Tweetdeck Desktop social software client	D	F	5
44	26	Wallwisher Online noticeboard	O	F	5
45	21	PowerPoint Presentation software	D	C	4.5
46=	43	Articulate Presenter/Engage/ Quizmaker	D	C	4
47	44	Google Chrome Web browser	D	F	4
48	-	iPad and apps	-	-	4
49	51	iTunes/iTunes U Music/podcast player and site	D M	F	4
50	95	Outlook Email client	D	C	4
51	60	Word Word processing software	D	C	4
52	57	Zotero Collect and manage your research	D	F	4
53	35	Elluminate Web conferencing	O	F/C	3.5
54	85	Freemind Mind mapping tool	D	F	3.5
55	70	Vimeo Video hosting site	O	F	3.5
56	61	Adobe Connect Web meeting/ conferencing	O	C	3
57	85	Android phones + apps	-	-	3
58	-	Discovery Education Teacher resources	O	F	3
59	48	Edublogs Educational blogging tool	O	F	3
60	-	Google Books Books online	O	F/C	3
61	39	iPhone/iPod Touch and apps	-	-	3
62	-	kidblog Blogs for teachers and students	O	F	3
63	61	Livebinders 3-ring binder for the web	O	F	3
64	-	Mindomo Mind mapping software	O	F	3
65	-	Paper.li Daily digest of tweets	O	F	3
66	-	ReadItLater Save pages from computer or phone	D	F	3
67	-	TED Inspirational videos	O	F	3
68	71	xtranormal Movie-making software	D	F	3
69	-	Zoho Online office suite/productivity tools	O	F	3