Slashdot Mirror
Testing Technology on a Veritable Army of Children?
"The idea is to bring together children ages 10 to 15 years old from around the world at 8 or 9 centers scattered about all continents except Antarctica. The children will congregate at these centers for two days in 2005 to participate in creative technology workshops both virtually between centers and hands-on at their particular center. There will be a heavy emphasis on community building and shared information, in many ways similar to Slashdot. The entire event and all the projects it entails are designed to live on after the kids go home when the two days are up. How this will be done is as of yet uncertain, but will most definitely involve net connectivity to some extent (whether through the village kiosk's 28.8kbaud line in Cambodia or the living room broadband line in NYC). Naturally, issues such as language barriers will have to be addressed. In the particular case of the language barrier, there is talk of designing a custom written language (again, think mediaglyphs from 'Diamond Age') for children to use, build upon, and shape. What other projects are worth considering?"
This is the perfect chance for a meaningful experiment into what different people think about the same thing. Over the course of the experiment, beam a happening news story to all the participants. Then, give them options on what they think about what they read, which is automatically tabulated and broken down according to culture. For example, in another terrorist act, you'll be able to see what they think about it from different sections of the world, who supports what happened, who decries it, etc.
I do notice the anti-antarctica bias however...
Give them all gameboy advances and give them pokemon.. and then write a webpage to give the results of the games ,
and pocket the rest of the money, (j/k)
Sorry, I've got a sour taste in my mouth on this one. Last time a bunch of rich people backed a project they said would "revolutionize the world" we got the Segway..... which honestly seemed much better on South Park.
I give you.... IT
Old idea, new opportunity. Use the links to teach kids about the things that they can do to improve their community. Use the international interconnectivity to have the children learn about the different changes that are needed all around the world.
A NYC kid will be totally surprised when a kid from India is trying to better toilet facilities in his neighborhood. A kid in Djibouti will be surprised that the kid in London doesn't know everyone on his block.
The international network, and the knowledge that someone is watching their projects will both make it easier for the kids to persist and to get aid in their endeavors.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
I don't see how this is anything more than a few companies (who are mysteriously remaining nameless) to get together and try to cultivate some public interest by "making 3000 children to join hands and sing for world peace". Give me a break.
I'm sorry, but I don't see why this is deserving of the millions of dollars you're putting into it. I'd much rather see that money go towards feeding the hundreds of millions of people starving all around the world, and not to some corporate PR department trying to spin this as world-changing.
Or maybe it's just me.
I love this idea, but it's hard to comment on without a little more guidance. What's the primary goal? Is it to foster technology prowess, or to build virtual communities, or education?
I'd be most interested in novel ways to have networked PDA's share info, like a peer-to-peer system. Maybe some sort of problem solving, where each person answers part of a complex question, and the correct result emerges from all the contributions?
I remember a story (by Bruce Sterling?) about a similar type of setup, where person X would advertise "I need something" and person Y would advertise "I have something", and their PDA's would notice the match and alert X and Y. There's a lot of good potential in such a system, and we haven't seen a lot of it in the real world yet.
Good luck!
Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
How about building a system that would allow these kids to create their own 'media glyph' language to talk with each other.
Maybe you'd network a bunch machines with tablet input devices and let them go to town. Have a cooperative method for deciding on symbols and deciphering the messages...
Seems like the communication aspect of this project is the most interesting avenue for exploration... at first glance anyway...
Guvegrra?
I've been interested in designing a programming language specifically for children involving drag and drop icons representing program flow and actions.
I think this can be done very simply and provide an early and invaluable introduction to the programming thought processes. Not to mention empower these children as they will watch the computer do what they tell it to.
I always thought if it was available the children could download new program icons akin to new VB controls and make more and more elaborate programming.
Perhaps an open source experiment of this sort would be cool. Liek the stories where each group writes a sentence and passes it on. There could be a series of programs passed from group to group, where each group would add their spin by dragging and dropping.
What do you think?
This should be addressed to children in the target age range today, not the slashdot folks who have (presumably) grown up since they were that age group. What would seem neat or interesting to us based on how we remembered that time period is not necessarily the same as what would be neat or interesting to children living in the current time (or 2005) rather than the times of a decade ago.
It sounds like the whole point of the experiment may be to see what the children will do with the technology, not that what people now would have wished they could have done when they were children -- that is, it sounds like building to a set of preconceptions could be counter productive to the goals of the experiment.
Now, if the goal is to develop a new class of technologies *first*, then expose the children to see if they develop mutant powers -- er, develop interesting new uses of technology, then that is a slightly different matter. Something like, oh, combining Instant Messenging with a neural network system -- give every child a PDA that is also a node on the neural network. Set it up so the children could set up rules/weights for automatically processing messages (i.e. if both Amy and Joey send me a message about the new movie, pop it up on my screen, otherwise I'm not interested in movies that Amy and Joey don't like. If Amy, Joey, and Bob like it, it must be really cool -- forward the message to Kelly, too!) Turn the nodes into a combination advanced instant messaging/USENET node. Sort of Google crossed with Instant Messenging. Every node contributes as a filter/forward/weighter of messages to the neighbor -- ideally, the entire system would start to more intelligently route messages around internally only to the people who are interested in them (i.e. don't alert me about that new article from CNN unless it also shows up on Slashdot and at least two of my friends think it is interesting). The major issue would be having a easy to use user interface that would let people easily set up the filtering/forwarding/weighting system.
"Under carefully controlled circumstances of light, temperature, pressure, and humidity, the organism will do what it damn well pleases."
perhaps they could figure out something that will make it easier for little geek boys to talk to talk to little girls! Now THAT would be ADVANCEMENT!
Seriously, I can't think of anything "earth-shaking" about the PDA's that hasn't already been done.
The new wireless games / instant messages that are on phones now are much cooler than anything I've seen on a PDA! Perhaps they could do something like the previously commented wireless P2P for operation in a crowd. Or perhaps something like the "tamagachi" pets for singles!
How 'bout some type of "universal translator" unit, kinda a cross between IRC chat and babblefish? That could bring people together (or maybe not....I'm not sure how the fish would w how to translate "workin' it & doggin' it").
Whatever the app, the way to change the future is social not necessarily technical.
Sounds like something Woz would be into. Didn't he just come out of pseudo-retirement to launch some sort of PDA-based something or other? Food for thought.
I had a penpal in Montreal when I was in 6th grade. I got the cheeziest letters outta him because his teachers screened everything and were constantly looking over his shoulder (I assume - mine was doing the same thing to me)
I think something creative would be better - I honestly don't think words are the best medium of communication, it's too easy for words to slip into cliche. Conversations of the 'how are you? I am fine. I just got a new bike. It is blue" variety are...empty.
Let the kids draw. Paint. CREATE something - give 'em a webpad with a good freehand program and a simple interface (NO CLIPART - no 'place sun with streaming rays here' button) Let 'em express themselves. It's easier for kids to become involved if words are only minimally involved. Or, do both - couple/link it with a livejournal-type diary interface. Diaries are more about the person than about who they're 'talking' too.
Jsut the perspective of an artist/musician. Take it for what you will.
Triv
I know I'm a dork for replying to my own comment, but ...
This sounds like the ideal way to conduct some sort of Turing Test. Have 1000 AI Bots thrown in the mix and randomly connect kids and bots together to chat.
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.
Its a shame with so many starving children and families around the world, that this is a topic of discussion and worse yet a matter of business!
What a bleak future we have, if these are the solutions we have to change the world.
A shame
Mark
I was just poking around on Apple's web site and found this link about a pictorial language. I don't know anything about stuff like this so I don't know if its totally ridiculous or just mostly ridiculous.
Never underestimate the power of fiber.
I have to agree that just giving people technology doesn't make them smarter. Just like so many things, previously acquired training/knowledge is essential.
:)
Kind of reminds me of the Onion article: "Kalahari Bushman puts new modem to good use"... it's about how this guy loves his new 56.6K sportster modem -- it's sharp edges are great for scraping animal skins, pounding grains into flour, collecting water...
ok, this project is really kewl ;-)
;-) i was thinking illiteracy would be a problem, but not really: can you think of a better motivator for a rural poor kid to get reading or what? good luck! look forward to reading about how it is all received on slashdot in 2005 ;-)
i read a while ago about a guy who was building wind-up flashlights, for everywhere, and things like wind-up radios and televisions for places like rural africa. no batteries! (except internal lithium rechargeable? can a capacitor handle the charge storage? i dunno.) the radio just needs a few cranks every now and then and it will pipe out broadcasts for a few hours before needing a new crank. here's a link i found.
so we have all these failed (business-wise) iridium satellites flying around and other satellite networks with a few extra bandwidths here and there that might be persuaded to have something alloted from them for this project.
so make a pda that has a handcrank, uplinks to a satellite, and is basically nothing but a glorified Instant Messenging App with some sort of Babelfish (the fish!) built in that translates whatever native language is involved into a neutral heuristic. then that xml heuristic is uplinked via satellite, downloaded to a recipient, and retranslated into whatever language the recipient is using on their pda.
i'm certain that would be kewl enough for these kids to take home with them after a few days, get hooked on, and use as long as the handcrank still works, the supposed lithium batteries don't bleed away, the ruggedized case survives kid-friendly drops and crunches and unfriendly monsoons and drops in streams and drainage ditches, and the satellites stay in orbit and their bandwidth backers stay interested in the program.
i think that your biggest challenge, whatever tech you implement, will be keeping them interested. it would be a shame to blow all that dough on something that stops working after a few days or the kids just plain lose interest in because of complexity or lack of compelling features.
ok, kind of ambitious, but it sounds like you have some money to burn
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I.e. whereas in English each glyph corresponds to a particular sound, in written Chinese, each glyph corresponds to a particular word (or word-part) and that word can be pronounced in any way you like; it doesn't matter.
Actually of late there has been a strong concerted effort to use pin-yin which is a very nice phonetically based system, of course some of this certainly reflects the Chinese Goverment's preference for the "Beijing" dialect.
The principle problem with a glyph based system, as you mentioned, involves the sheer number of glyphs needed to make useful words, any version likely to be implemented would probably oversimplify, for example, Would your invented language have a glyph for a willow tree?
If you are going to have a glyph based alphabet (which is almost a contradiction) then you still have to learn nearly as much as a pure-glpyh systemm, and it will recquire about the same work as learning to read an actual language. Really why not have them learn latin, with say a transcoding method for those who don't use roman letters. It does I suppose favoratism, but not nearly as much, and there are numerous other dead languages to revive if one needs a more acceptable one. Languages can be easily modified for modern terms.
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
PDAs are not spontanious enough for children in a multi-lingual environment. Too long to type your messages in, never mind translation issues.
:-) to fund future efforts!
However, I think that digital cameras, the - cheap ones mind you - could be ideal, particularly if you give the older children video cameras in addition (say 1/10 of the group gets video cameras, or you have a "camera crew" per two dozen participants).
You want to say "HI" to Wong Meng in Taipei? Turn the cam around, smile, take a picture of yourself and send it. Much easier than text entry, translation etc.
Have base station PCs, use the cameras as webcams some of the time, and still cams the rest of the time, and have the kids take them home at the end of the gig: and *continue*to*publish*pictures* as time passes - kinda like the penpal idea.
Think of it as "children's eye window on the world" - longditudinal images from the conference participants over time, plus it's going to put less load on your translation services.
And a picture is worth a thousand words.
If you do still want to build custom hardware, think like a "Compact Flash" format wireless transponder to basically squirt pictures to base-station PCs as they're taken, so the kids don't have to mess with file upload/download: point, click, put images online.
Hell, you might even end up with a commercial product at the end of it
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
sounds like a perfect project for twext texts, which parses a foreign text into chunks, then formats native language translations betwixt the lines.. integrated with lyrics and recordings, your kids can learn one another's languages, or at least English, singing one another's songs.. or something like that
A few thousand children from around the world simultaneously connected via a computer network could BE a universal translator. (Consider that one stumbling block of machine translation are specialized or technical terms, which children at this age won't be using.)*
Assuming there are a few bilingual kids in there that is. You can track the language abilities of all the kids then route messages from kid to kid until you get the desired language out the other side. This would work best with audio or video so that there could be context, and so the kids can see what is happening.
An English-speaking American would be able to see himself talking with a Thai-speaker thouugh a translator in London.
For some translations there would be many routes to take for some there would be very few. (Mono-lingual Americans might mess this up, but maybe not--they would at least get a lesson in the importance of language education).
The purpose of the communication might be to solve a problem or give directions--that way they would know when they had gotten the translation right. Or they could just share stories about things they care about (the poster who mentioned chess is on the right track, I think).
*These kids may have their own slang, but they are used to switching between the language they use with their peers and the "proper" language of their parents and teachers. Actually, having them translate their slang terms for each other would be great (though you might have a problem with obscenity at that point).
All countries have procedures for licensing Amateur Radio stations. You might even get a worldwide contest scheduled where HAM radio operators get points for contacting as many "Kid Stations" as possible in a 48-hour period. There would be plenty of HAMS worldwide who would volunteer to help in a project of this sort. Amateur Radio fosters communication and cooperation. If international morse code shorthand is used, it can transcend language barriers as well.
"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific." -- Jane Wagner
Someone please mod the above as the troll that it is. Every day someone comes up with a "new solution to change the world". Is this the solution? Is Doctors Without Borders the solution? Is the Red Cross the solution?
Individually, no; but the fact that enough people care to try something new to change the world for the better is a step in the right direction.
What's "bleak" is that there are people like you more willing to cry "shame" then give possible solutions a chance.
To me, what is inferred from the reference to Diamond Age is a technology that will change the children's lives, but _not_ in a conventional way. If I am correct in this, then suggestions like "send them to college" or "give them food" are entirely against the point.
The idea of the Primer in Diamond Age was simply to make little girls as "badass" as possible. One of the girls with the Primer joined a prominent illegal hacking network, for instance. The idea was to make the girls think for themselves, question authority, and in all ways get off the beaten path and transcend "society."
I don't think this is really the company's goal at all... and if it is, there's no way a PDA can accomplish this. To a child, a PDA's most interesting feature is the Snake game. It comes nowhere near an interactive, intelligent guide-to-life like the Primer.
I think that the better choice would be to give them an experience that they will not forget, that may shape some aspect of their lives. Two days is an incredibly short time for something like that, but here's an idea-- an extremely sophisticated version of laser tag on a gargantuan scale. Try thinking not of Diamond Age but of Ender's Game. See what kind of strategies 50 teams of 60 kids can come up with and make them battle each other. Maybe give them various materials/technological toys to work with, a variety of combat conditions, etc.... maybe one team would have to fight off two others from a superior defensive position. See what they try, and document it.
Each child would be working with 59 other children from various places around the world, so the cultural aspect is there. They would be learning-- not in the conventional way of "education," but in terms of critical thinking, cooperation, and problem solving. The technology is there with the laser tag system, and whatever other toys you can think of for them to use. Also, this would be damn fun.
Not sure if this is the kind of think you're looking for, but you could flesh it out if you wish.
Let them experiment in first "training" an automated universal translation system, then evolve a consensual grammar, and use it to communicate.
Build in a cheap line scanner or camera for them to scan small pictures in, apply hand-written labels to them (initially just nouns, later adjectives, finally verbs), and transmit them to a database.
They also view a database of all entered pictures and apply labels to them - so a multi-language database of labels is created, and validated by multiple users.
They also view the database of pictures and link together ones they THINK might mean the same thing. With multiple inputs this begins to line the words written in different languages, allowing translation.
Let anyone enter a correction if they think someone has mislabelled a picture - first seeing if anyone else gave an alternative label and "voting" for that, or entering their own alternative label if not or if they disagree with all the other labels.
Hand writing recognition translates their writing to the closest matching picture(s) by matching to all labels and knowledge of which language they are writing in. That should allow them to write messages that get pictures added along with the best translation so far.
See how far they can get toward developing a universal translator and using it to converse and tell stories about themselves.
You might want to bootstrap it by initializing the database with lots of pictures and having two groups get a lot of words entered. That way when you go out to many languages, they won't have to spend as much time entering pictures, and focus on the labelling of pictures in their own language.
After labelling noun objects, they could do adjectives by labelling sets of objects shown together for contrast - different colored objects, different shaped objects, etc.
Same idea for verbs - label action pictures like "Boy throws ball", "girl chases chicken".
Obviously they'll need some sort of forum to "chat" in - perhaps a simplistic 2D "world" that they can fill with pictures (as part of the labelling process) and areas where they can chat are just special rooms where 2 to 4 kids can enter at a time, each with a few lines to display the text (or graphic when no translation is available). All screens would have a picture dictionary available.
After the experiment, roll the software out to anyone with a communicating computer or hand-held (open-source Java for most of it, so any company can translate it for their device), and let it continue to evolve.
Well, that's pretty crazy, but it might work. I wonder if the original poster will see it way down here?
A zero sum game is a game that, by defination, someone is going to lose. Chess is a zero sum game. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ZESUGAM.html for more details.
/ ze rosum.html is a longer read with some more complex games. Well worth the time.
h tm
Non-zero sum games are something else altogether.
http://www.winwenger.com/part37.htm is a good read on this subject with an extremely simple zero sum game (on page 2)
http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/eco/game
If you want some deeper insight, try http://ubmail.ubalt.edu/~harsham/opre640A/partVI.
No Zen is good zen
Tracking database
PDA, accessories, shipping ($500)
Regular personal contact, otherwise the system needs to be completely self-explanatory for the children. At best, the programming will be non-trivial... actually, it would be revolutionary
Continuous (?) wireless link
In 3 years? Whew! That's ambitious.
But, you can usually cut project time by increasing project funding