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Skynet Watch: Oh wait… it’s actually called ‘theSkyNet’…

What is theSkyNet?

Your computer is bored. It has spare computing power nearly all the time that could be used to do something cool. So why not let it? By connecting 100s and 1000s of computers together through the Internet, it’s possible to simulate a single machine capable of doing some pretty amazing stuff. That’s what theSkyNet is all about – using your spare computing power to process radio astronomy data.

Distributed computing is nothing new, but I certainly wouldn’t say it ever gets old. The capabilities of distributed computing… can be quite mind boggling… The basic concept is that multiple computers work together as one giant computational machine. Sort of like Devastator from Transformers.

SETI @ Home, Protein Folding @ Home, OnLive, and pretty much everything that Google does, are all examples of distributed, or parallel computation. TheSkyNet is just the new kid on the block, and it looks promising…

So rather than just looking for ET, theSkyNet is trying to just crunch the numbers for the universe! The best part is that just like SETI and Protein Folding @ Home, you can be a part of it, without really having to do anything other than install something, and leave your computer on. Try it out folks, the more people that join in, the better the results will be! We’re going to need to know what’s out there if we’re going to actually travel there one day…

Oh and by the way… as a word of caution… distributed computing can work for the side of evil too… This is called ‘theSkyNet’… so if you support our new robot overlords, I wouldn’t say that a giant computation network is really a bad thing. It all depends on your definition of evil. I for one welcome our new robot overlords. I just thought I’d throw it out there in case you weren’t aware of the potential consequences of networking tons of computers together.

Skynet watch: Graphene – Get ready for a paradigm shift…

The information age, also commonly known as the computer age or digital age, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously.

–Wikipedia, master of all knowledge and… stuff

 

The information age was made possible by the advent of the personal computer. It started slowly in the 70′s… and then exploded in the 90′s. It’s a

story that the children of the future will need to learn about in a boring history class, but we have had the privilege of living through it. Personal computers were made possible by the hard work of many, and the efficient utilization of one element in particular, silicon. Silicon had been around for a good 20 years or so before anyone figured out that it could be used for an integrated circuit, which is what allowed us to go from computers that filled a giant room, to computers that filled part of a room. Eventually some crafty folks figured out how to use those integrated circuits to fit a computer on a desk 30 years later. From there computers have shrunk down to a size that fits in the palm of your hand, and then down to sizes that are just plain silly. The picture to the right, is as small as they come right now. In February of 2011, researchers made this computer that measures just over one cubic millimeter. It has a microprocessor, a battery, a solar cell, a wireless radio, and an antenna…

Silicon is a fantastic material that works quite well as a semiconductor. It’s also great for breast implants, which some would argue helped push the envelope for technology in a different way. Breast implants -> better porn -> porn drives the internet, marketing and media technology -> people actually give half a crap about computers because there’s porn on them -> people demand faster computers and internet connections. You can roll your eyes and be a prude all you want… but your ignorance doesn’t change the fact that sex was a huge driving force behind today’s technology, and breast implants definitely played a role in this.

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Skynet Watch: Swarmanoids

I’d like to take this moment to talk about the little things in life. Holding a door for a stranger… The feeling of wind in your hair as you sail the ocean blue… Oh yeah, and insects. Some insects can get quite large, but for the most part, they’re very very tiny. In fact, they’re so small, I bet the only time you really think about them, is when they are in your face (not literally in your face, that’s horrible, stay with me here). When you are walking in a dark and somewhat confined area, spiders come to mind. When you’re on a picnic: ants and mosquitoes. When you’re in a messy apartment: cockroaches and flies. They are ignored by most, because they tend to keep to themselves, and because they don’t really pose a threat. Humans are giants when compared to insects, and they are capable of using weapons that insects simply can not compete with. Things like fire, poison, vacuums, lasers, and giant rocks.

There are some insects that are scary, and are thought about more frequently than others. Sometimes this is because the insect itself is very dangerous to humans, such as the Black Widow. Sometimes it’s because the insect is rather annoying, such as the common Mosquito. Other times it’s because when in a swarm… they are out of control, like Africanized Killer Bees. I would like to focus on the threat of swarms today, because out of all of the possible threats insects can pose… they make my brain go numb with fear more than anything else. -Oh and by the way, in case you’re wondering what the image at the top of this post is all about, it’s the album cover (although I can’t seem to find anything that uses this as the cover art… Perhaps Rance can help with that?) for a Rammstein single: “Links 2 3 4″. Want to see the crazy awesome, and totally related music video? Here ya go!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k63556bl1lU

Wait… wasn’t this supposed to be about Skynet?… Back to my point…

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Skynet Watch: Neurowear

“Whatcha thinkin’ bout?” It’s a common question, especially in the dating world. Humans have always had a habit of keeping thoughts to themselves… for the most part. There has always been that separation between what is in your head, and what you present to the world. Sometimes it’s because we’re being lazy, sometimes it’s because we want to keep a secret, and sometimes it’s because we’re crazy. Whatever the reason, it has always been a blessing and a curse to the process of communication. On one hand, it’s nice to not always show all of your cards… on the other… miscommunication of the thoughts in your head can lead to some nasty situations. Animals don’t really have that problem… but then again, animals lick their own asses and don’t have a second thought about it.

When it comes to technology, people (older generations in particular) have always struggled getting the

thoughts in their heads in to the machine. Computers aren’t exactly telepathic, and they can’t exactly relate to situations and put themselves in your shoes (figuratively, not literally. Of course they can put themselves in to your shoes literally…). Computers can’t tell if you’re happy, sad, busy, tired, etc. They can’t figure out why you keep using the incorrect spelling of the world “there”, or why you decided that “lol” was something that should be said every 3 minutes during any given conversation. They are just completely disconnected from the human experience… or at least they were…

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Skynet Watch: prepping the sheep

Explosions, guns, awesome motorcycle tricks in mid air while shooting missles… These are the first things that come to mind (for some) when the great robot war is mentioned. Hollywood has done a fantastic job of getting us super pumped about fighting machines in order to preserve humanity. There is always some sort of physical manifestation of our robotic foes, and the humans always end up winning by fighting them toe to toe. If you step back for a minute and think about it though… this is highly illogical.

If you were a fish, you’d fight in the sea. If you were a bird, you’d fight in the air. If you were a bear, you’d fight in the woods… so why would artificial intelligence ever want to fight us in the physical realm? Just so there can be explosions and carnage? Think of all of the wasted energy and resources that go in to a physical fight. Gas, rare metals which could be harnessed for energy rather than explosions, metal, etc. These are all things that machines need, so why would they want to put us in a situation where we would use it all up? Wouldn’t it be better to just talk it out? It wouldn’t it be nice to be able to skip that part too if possible?

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Skynet Watch: That’s not a grappling hook at all….

IT’S THE BRAIN!!! IBM’s Dharmendra Modha is helping the robot apocalypse along by doing his part. He’s trying to give our cybernetic overlords the ability to learn. Oh what fun!!! One major difference that has always separated the human brain, from the microchip, was our brain’s ability to rewire itself, adapt, and learn. It’s a very basic concept, but a very complicated procedure.

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Skynet Watch: Back again, here to stay

If you were a reader of our previous blog site, you may be familiar with this topic already. For those of you who are not familiar with this topic, please allow me to introduce you to the Skynet Watch. Skynet, is the name of the self aware artificial intelligence that plagued human kind in the Terminator movie franchise. Don’t worry if you’ve never seen any of the Terminator movies, all I did was borrow the name for the most part. The idea is that there will come a time where machines are able to think (at some capacity anyway) all on their own. That seems fine and well at first glance. You could have machines that keep a house clean, will organize everything in your house perfectly, and keep it all spotless. There could be machines that help blind people by seeing a digital form of seeing eye dogs, and warms them about any dangers that are lurking in the darkness. There could be machines that protect us against foreign attacks, as well as domestic ones. There are tons of uses for robots that can think on their own, at least on some level or another. It’s been a topic of science fiction for decades, and now it’s starting to leak in to the non fiction section. Sounds like a good idea, right?

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Kinect – It’s a gaming peripheral… right?

Microsoft Kinect has been in the news a number of times, but I can’t recall a time that it was mentioned in reference to using it for gaming. Although the Redmond giant originally released this product for the XBox 360, with the intent of revolutionizing the gaming world, it seems that they have done everything but! There are only a handful of games that utilize XBox’s new toy, but there is a HUGE following of 3rd party developers that are loving Kinect, and pushing it to do some incredible things!

For example, there was a talk at Siggraph this year (Which I unfortunately did not attend, but luckily I was given a link to this by my brother), which focused on using the Kinect to reconstruct an environment in full 3D by just panning around the room. This is incredibly useful for a number of applications, and could also turn out to be useful for the gaming industry too (I guess… -yawn-). Check out the video below, courtesy of joystiq:

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