Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

US Joins Google, Microsoft In "Brain Race"

Posted by samzenpus on from the get-your-smart-on dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Decades after the space race pitted the United States against Russia, a new race has emerged: the race to map the human brain. The New York Times reported Feb. 18 that the Obama administration is gearing up to announce the Brain Activity Map project, an effort to map an active human brain that could give new insight into how neurons interact with each other, providing new avenues of research for diseases such as Alzheimer's. The U.S. will apparently pit itself against a collection of European research agencies that have announced similar projects. The U.S. effort, however, will apparently involve U.S. businesses, which would naturally benefit from the high-profile nature of the effort; in theory, the latter could also apply the resulting discoveries to their own computing efforts. The Times reported that representatives from Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm met with government representatives at the California Institute of Technology to try and figure out whether or not there are sufficient computing resources to process the vast amounts of data that the experiments are expected to produce, or whether new ones would need to be built."

63 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Well we now know what Kurzweil is doing @ Google by Mageek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    n/c

  2. Ewww! by srussia · · Score: 1, Funny

    Decades after the space race pitted the United States against Russia, a new race has emerged: the race to map the human brain.

    Money quote: "One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for ... [squish] oops!"

    --
    Set your phasers on "funky"!
    1. Re:Ewww! by neonmonk · · Score: 1

      Not even a little bit funny.

  3. Re:Well we now know what Kurzweil is doing @ Googl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    n/c

    He's not commenting?

  4. Disease by leadacid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why does research always have to be done to cure diseases? Have we stopped doing research just because it would be nice to know this, because we might be able to do things we haven't dreamed of yet? 'Curing disease' is the reporting version of fighting terrorists and stopping kiddy porn - filler because you can't think of anything real to say. Surely understanding how our brains work is one of the most interesting things we can do, isn't that good enough?

    1. Re:Disease by poity · · Score: 1

      You're probably healthy, and can have your daydreams. Some people just want to live. I'm going to have to side with their priorities.

      --
      your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
    2. Re:Disease by javilon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I am not really sure this is about Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. I think this is about the run up to the singularity. There are many riches and power to be gained by the first country or entity able to reverse engineer the human brain. Now it looks feasible and nobody wants to be out of it.

      If it were about health, they would invest the same amount of resources into a cure for circulatory diseases.

      --


      When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
    3. Re:Disease by PoolOfThought · · Score: 1

      Have we stopped doing research just because it would be nice to know this, because we might be able to do things we haven't dreamed of yet?

      We who? We the people? Or we me... some dude or private group of people?

      For we the people the answer should be obvious. In the middle of budget issues a governement SHOULD need more reason to do something than "because is sounds neat". I the people don't give a shit if Obama or Reagan or Bush or whoever thinks it sounds neat. You want to say you're over budget on everything and start threatening to shut down government and its services, but then at the same time embark on some "for shits and giggles" research then you're obviously not fit for governing. I'm not saying I think these services should exist at all - I just don't want to hear you complaining about not being able to afford them but then getting involved in other pricey projects just because it's neato and all.

      However, for we the private group, then if you're self funded you're welcome (hell, encouraged even) to do something because you want to. It's your money, time, resources on the line so do with it what you will. Sure you'll still have to hear from some liberal whiner about how the money for mapping brains could have gone to cleaner cloth grocery bags, or maybe you'll hear from some excessively paranoid gun advocate regarding how you could have bought the whole population of the south an AR15 just to spite the other side, but in the end it's your money. If you want to spend it on satisfying your curiosity then go for it.

      That's not the case for the government. They don't have their own money. They do want to continue blaming the other side for shortages. Therefore they need an excuse - old people and kids are GREAT excuses. Curiosity... not so much.

      --
      My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
    4. Re:Disease by voislav98 · · Score: 2

      It's because it's the only way to get funding to do anything these days. NSF funding has been cut to the bone, but NIH is doing much better. This is why you always try to work a few magic words into your research proposal, like whichever disease is topical at the moment. If you can't, cancer is the old reliably, NIH always funds cancer.

    5. Re:Disease by smi.james.th · · Score: 2

      While academically, I agree with you, but generally there would need to be some point behind it before the research can be funded. Curing disease is potentially such a point.

      --
      One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
    6. Re:Disease by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why does research always have to be done to cure diseases? Have we stopped doing research just because it would be nice to know this, because we might be able to do things we haven't dreamed of yet?

      It wasn't always this way. There was a time when we DID do stuff that was just cool.

      But, then people learned that they could actually make money by being bean counters. And they told the stupid people this (undoubtedly in exchange for money). Fast-forward a few years, and now the universities are churning out bean counting MBAs because it's easier for stupid to make money that way than by being an engineer or scientist.

      Then, take the modern investor cloning vats. They're full of second- or third-generation stupid rich people who haven't had to work a day in their lives, having all their riches handed down to them by their predecessors. There are exceptions, but on the whole, there's a whole lot of money tied up in spoiled trust-fund assholes. Now, it's really easy to convince a stupid rich person that a stupid bean counter MBA is required for any endeavor to succeed (after all, they think on the same very very simple wavelength), so if someone who wants to invent something cool wants the money to do it, assuming it's more than what can be afforded by his/her normal wages, that someone will most likely need to hire a few stupid bean counter MBAs to satisfy the stupid rich investors.

      But, bean counters count beans. That's what they do, metaphorically. And counting beans quickly atrophies any imagination, hope, joy, or sense of wonder in the brain. Thus, the inventor can't use the very real possibility of amazing inventions and life-changing research to impress the stupid bean counter MBA hired to satisfy the stupid rich investors, and if the MBA is crossed at all, it'll go crying back to the investors, who will then cut funds. The trick the inventor has to do is fool the MBA into thinking there's something quantifiable to the invention. That is, that there's a bean to be counted. It could be a useless buzzword for all the MBA cares. Once THAT'S satisfied, the MBA reports back to the investor that all is well, and money continues to flow.

      Thus, the "curing diseases" rationale. Maybe it will cure diseases, maybe it won't. But I can assure you, some stupid bean counter MBA needed that phrasing to feel good about itself.

    7. Re:Disease by sjdaniels · · Score: 2

      You honestly think that a Corporation can sell the idea of doing something like research for the sake of research to shareholders?? The fact there are possible patents and heaps of money to be gained from the proposed helping map the brain, would be easier to sell to your shareholders who only care about the bottom line, as opposed to the greater good.

    8. Re:Disease by nmr_andrew · · Score: 1
      Anymore, sadly, no. If they did, the major shareholders would sue the corp for depriving them of their $DEITY guaranteed profits in the form of dividends.

      Something like Bell Labs will never again exist.

  5. Brain activity by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 4, Funny

    So I'm guessing the U.S. government and Microsoft are one of the control groups...

  6. Re:Really?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The companies will try, contractors will try to try, subcontractors will try to try to try

  7. I would bet on the Europeans coming first. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Anything involving MS would result in studies of how a virus effects the brain...

    The results of which would be bloated beyond the ability to compute.

  8. Re:Well we now know what Kurzweil is doing @ Googl by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 2

    N/C No Change
    N/C No Comment
    N/C No Charge
    N/C Not Covered
    N/C new condition
    N/C Numerical Control
    N/C No Connect (electronics)
    N/C Normally Closed Contact
    N/C Non-Consensual
    N/C Nuclear to Cytoplasmic
    N/C Newton Per Coulomb
    N/C Number of Users Per Cell Density

    "Nuclear to Cytoplasmic" sounds like Ray. I don't know what it means but that's par for the course, eh?

  9. Oink! by Animats · · Score: 1

    This sounds like a pork program. When I read about computer companies talking to the Government about there not being "enough compute resources", I think of the various supercomputer boondoggles. Here's the current job list for the Mississippi Supercomputer Center. Look at the CPU and memory usage columns. Most, if not all, of those jobs could be running on a 4-core 64-bit desktop machine. Instead, they're running some 10-year old SGI supercomputers as a batch processing service, free to Mississippi academics.

  10. Envy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is just a poor copy of the European Union project to model the brain. This is an investment of a milliard euros over some years that has the goal to understand the human brain by building a working simulation of equivalent size in information and complexity terms.

  11. Re:google... by KGIII · · Score: 1

    I wonder if people will troll the "street view" cars of their brain? /might be high

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  12. 10 million times more data than DNA by peter303 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There are 13 billion bits of information in a human DNA sequence. A brain has a trillion cells of several dozen types that may touch 10,000 other cells. You are talking about a 100 quadrillion edge graph there.

    1. Re:10 million times more data than DNA by lobiusmoop · · Score: 5, Informative

      Where do you get 13 billion from? From Human Genome Wikipedia page:

      3.3 billion base-pairs recorded at 2 bits per pair would equal 786 megabytes of raw data. This is comparable to a fully data loaded CD.

      You seem to be a factor of 2 out.

      --
      "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
  13. So... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    Anybody fancy a guess as to how many (more) brains will be produced by unskilled labor before the first one is simulated?

    1. Re:So... by MozeeToby · · Score: 1

      Well... according to wiki the global birth rate is about 2% of the global population. So 200,000,000 per year... say 10 years... 2 billions? But then, I imagine that at least some of that activity will be skilled. :)

    2. Re:So... by p1esk · · Score: 1

      The first simulated one can be easily replicated. Also, even if there will be no effort to improve it architecturally, it will double its thinking speed every couple of years due to Moore's Law.

  14. Re:Really?? by cffrost · · Score: 1

    "to try and figure out"
    Why don't they skip the try part and just figure out?

    This reminds me of a construct I've heard in recent years, "[Let's] see if we can't [what-have-you]."

    Which is easily resolved by not even attempting what-have-you.

    --
    Thank you, Edward Snowden.

    "Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
  15. This reminds me of Alpha Centauri by ddxexex · · Score: 1

    First faction to discover Secrets of the Human Brain gets a free tech!

    Stories like this one always make me want to play Alpha Centauri again. It always feels strange how much of the early technology in that game we've already discovered or probably will discover soon.

    1. Re:This reminds me of Alpha Centauri by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Stories like this one always make me want to play Alpha Centauri again.

      Me too. Then I do. Then it crashes before I finish my game, if I play anything longer than a medium one.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:This reminds me of Alpha Centauri by dhudson0001 · · Score: 2

      Apparently, it runs on both windows and mac courtesy of Gog. Definitely one of my favorite games of all time. http://www.gog.com/gamecard/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri

  16. Google Brain? by PPH · · Score: 1

    And when Apple comes out with their map, iPhone users will all go mad.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  17. Unfortunately, this will not lead to true AI by qbitslayer · · Score: 1

    True AI will appear on the world scene decades before these guys finish mapping anything and long before they even begin to understand what they have mapped. You could map a billion cortical columns but, unless you know what it is supposed to do and how it evolves during learning, you understand diddly squat. All you have is a gigantic map with no labels. The best way to understand the brain is by generating multiple hypotheses and principles that we think might lead to intelligence and writing algorithms to simulate biologically plausible models based on those principles. The principles are bound to be very few in number compared to the astronomical number of possible neural configurations that the brain can take during its lifetime or even while it is paying attention to some new patterns in its sensory space. Which of those configurations are we planning to map? The government is to be lauded for embarking on such grand projects but I think that, in this case, our tax money would be better served by taking a more sensible approach. Sorry.

    1. Re:Unfortunately, this will not lead to true AI by MozeeToby · · Score: 1

      If your "map" includes the rules that govern the evolution that goes on during learning you don't need all that other stuff. You need to understand two things that they believe, one is inarguable (IMO) and the other is highly debatable.

      The inarguable proposition is that being able to run a human equivalent brain on computer hardware will provide amazing benefits. It doesn't matter that you don't know how it works, what matters is that you've got a brain running on silicon; silicon that will be twice as fast a year from now and four times faster in two years and 8 in three. Look at it this way. Imagine you could map Intel's entire R&D department into supercomputers that could run them at 2x real time. In a year they could do twice as much work as the actual brains they are designed off of and all the sudden Intel is a year ahead of everyone else in the field. The first thing they're going to upgrade is the supercomputers that run their R&D department meaning that next year they will get 4 years of R&D accomplished. Obviously there are a ton of questions there, and obviously no one at this point is talking about mapping actual brains into the hardware, but that is the essential idea. Once you have a mind, any mind, running on hardware that improves exponentially the exponential curve is going to get even steeper. Even if they had to start with a blank slate and it took 20 years equivalent of run time to produce a productive AI, eventually computing power will catch up and make that 20 years pass fast enough that it is useful.

      The second part that they believe is much more questionable. Basically, they think that putting a whole crap ton of neurons together, applying the basic rules that govern how they operate and change over time, will give you a thinking mind. There's some argument to be made that that is the case; after all, the exact layout of everyone neuron in the human brain isn't mapped out a head of time. Heck, there are people who have half their brain removed as an infant that live full, healthy, normal lives. The capacity of the human brain to recover from dramatic injury in early development lends some credence to the idea that there isn't anything much special about the human brain other than it's ratio of neurons to I/O ports.

  18. Re:Well we now know what Kurzweil is doing @ Googl by istartedi · · Score: 2

    I dare you to set C to zero.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  19. I bet this race is about patent by dinther · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No doubt the processes discovered in the brains inner workings will be patented and I will no longer be allowed to think unless I pay a license fee.

    1. Re:I bet this race is about patent by vik · · Score: 1

      My fears exactly.

    2. Re:I bet this race is about patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Fortunately you're not exercising that capability now, so you're well prepared to save on that fee

    3. Re:I bet this race is about patent by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Uh, when the brain's inner workings are figured out, you'll do whatever your robot overlord tells you to do. If the guy who figures it all out is nice you might be allowed to live - unless it is as a pet you won't be of any actual use to him, just like everybody else.

  20. my bet by crutchy · · Score: 1

    Regarding project to map human brain, I predict that a number of university papers and a heap of data will be generated, and that some spinoff technologies, and then eventually the government will realize they can't afford it and reduce and eventually stop funding altogether.

    Why does the government have to waste millions of dollars to create some spinoff tech? Fucked if I know; because it is packed with bureaucratic public service morons trying desperately to justify their pay.

    Private companies spend their R&D money much more efficiently than the government could ever possibly hope to achieve.
    Companies put R&D money into emerging markets with projected consumer demand. While there may conceivably be demand for mapping the human brain, it is speculative at best. What do they hope to achieve? These kinds of airy-fairy projects always have abstract and intangible objectives like "to better understand how the brain works", with no clear practical or market objective from the outset. It's just one of those financial black holes designed to suck in money and without any means to measure success (because of a lack of a clear goal that can even be measured). Medical R&D is normally incremental. Even if the brain mapping project were "successful" (whatever that means) the medical tech industry would have to spend time (probably years) disseminating whatever information comes out of it to make something marketable from it. Government money would be better spent on fiscally responsible programs like debt reduction, and private investment would be better spent on the normal incremental R&D process with clear market objectives from the outset.

    Even the moon race was a waste of money measured in terms of return on investment.

    1. Re:my bet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Never underestimate Moon Shots. without the Manhattan project, we probably would have never got the fission reactor, and our knowledge of nuclear technology would not be where it is right now. Without the space program, we wouldn't have satellites, the GPS network, a global communication network, Geospatial imaging, and more goodies then I can fit here. The human Genome project was a fed funded project and it revolutionized Genetics and made gene therapy possible.

      The mapping of the Human brain will finally let us understand what makes the human brain tick, which will allow us to do great things with degenerative illnesses, Brain machine interfaces, augmentation, Mental Illness, Artificial Intelligence, and other thinks we can't even fathom yet.

      If you seriously think government funded research projects are bad, go back to your Amish colony, and not bother using any technology developed in the last 60 years.

    2. Re:my bet by joss · · Score: 2

      Good job, never let historical fact mess with your ideology.

      The last sentence is a particular peach. Sometimes things are not entirely about money, is that a concept you can grasp? It's hard to compete with that, but I'll try:
      The Taj Mahal was a failure measured in terms of return on investment.
      The Mona Lisa is pretty pathetic when measured in terms of luminosity per square inch, he should have painted it white.
      Faberge eggs are pretty useless as crash helmets for chickens.

      --
      http://rareformnewmedia.com/
    3. Re: my bet by cyber-vandal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You do realise that both the Internet and WWW were created by the evil wasteful government don't you? Do you think it would be anything like as free and open if it had been created by Microsoft or Apple?

    4. Re:my bet by Mr.+Mikey · · Score: 1

      If you seriously think government funded research projects are bad, go back to your Amish colony, and not bother using any technology developed in the last 60 years.

      What. The private sector invests in tech, it's not gov or nothing. How do you conclude "armish" from this?

      Gov research is a huge waste of money. Stop taxing coporations to pay for useless gov programs and you'll get plenty of privatly funded research.

      Also, Solindra.

      Tell me: which private companies are investing in pure research, where the payoff is unknown and may well be nonexistent?

      --
      wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
    5. Re:my bet by crutchy · · Score: 1

      i'm sure you think your snide comment was intelligent, but you are a dope

      Sometimes things are not entirely about money

      that's rather obvious by the state of the us government budget... and its the problem i was trying to highlight, because it currently isn't about money but it should be. everything has a cost, and that cost must be justified. there is no such thing as a free lunch, and even seemingly inexpensive endevors have intangible costs.

      you're also trying to compare art with scientific/technological R&D, which is just stupid
      to some people the mona lisa etc are worthless because it depends on taste in art

      don't let the ideology door hit you in the ass on your way out

    6. Re:my bet by crutchy · · Score: 1

      all the companies you quote invest in things with carefully projected payoffs

      companies don't invest in things without expected payoffs because shareholders don't like it and if they piss the shareholders off they go broke

      just because you don't know what the projected payoff at the time was doesn't mean the companies you list didn't

      don't be so ignorant

    7. Re: my bet by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      That's rather misleading. There was no government policy to create an open internet. It only happened because a bunch of free-thinkers were given the task, and they had to connect a bunch of heterogeneous systems. If it had been a political issue it would have been subject to all the wasteful influences that we know well. It simply flew under the radar until the government discovered it because internet started to be installed on their computers around 1995. Heck, Al Gore tried to claim credit for the whole shebang.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    8. Re:my bet by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      I'm sure elements of the US Government are fully aware of how mapping the human brain and gaining a greater understanding of it would be useful in enhanced interrogation techniques or more accurately the forced answering of questions with the 'desired' (not necessarily the truth) answer both during and post interrogation. Big bucks will be spent by the US government and some of it for bad reasons but some of it also good ie. in terms of creating a healthier human society, the hunt for the psychopath in order to prevent the harm they cause (they are simply to unreliable to be 'trusted' any where) is also on.

      Never forget approximately 1% of the human population and approximately 15% of the prison population (think about all those victims that could be prevented) and that includes all the mostly harmless types like drug users in the prison population. There is a powerful drive on for crime prevention, as a result of the truly random nature of who ends up being victims.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    9. Re:my bet by crutchy · · Score: 1

      you're a shortsighted and ignorant socialist fool and there is nothing Amish about what i said... unless you think every business owner in the world is Amish

      of course without the manhattan project, the moon race etc the tech spinoffs would have eventually been developed with private money if there was projected demand for it... they would have taken longer (we may be still in the age of 80386 processors, or something like it) but the development would have also come at much lower cost.

      the manhattan project did speed up the pace of research (throwing more resources at it) but in fact the uranium and plutonium nuclear industry has all but lobbied much cleaner molten salt and thorium reactors out of existence

      its not that government funded research doesn't result in anything; the problem is the cost of such spinoffs far outweigh the benefits to the taxpayer (usually the taxpayer pays for spinoff products twice; first as a taxpayer and then as a consumer). if you throw enough money at something of course you can achieve great things, but everything the government spends must be invested on behalf of the tax payer (the government's shareholder). if the US government has over $16 trillion in debt over its head, do you really think rediculous ventures like mapping the human brain are sensible?

      when you're holding on by your fingernails you don't go waving your arms around

    10. Re:my bet by crutchy · · Score: 1

      if defense contractors are the "elements of the US government" that you speak of, then i agree
      the public servents signing the checks on behalf of the government probably have no idea

    11. Re:my bet by TheInternetGuy · · Score: 3, Funny

      Faberge eggs are pretty useless as crash helmets for chickens.

      [Citation needed]

      --
      If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
    12. Re: my bet by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      From your previous post: "government research is a huge waste of money". The Internet and the WWW came from government research and have transformed the world dramatically.

    13. Re:my bet by Forty+Two+Tenfold · · Score: 1

      without the Manhattan project, we probably would have never got the fission reactor

      That's utter bullshit as the idea of the reactor predates MP by a decade and working ones by a few years.

      I see you act by the Party slogan.

      'Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'

      --
      Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
  21. Religion? by Nethead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Could this become a cure for religion? I mean, if we know exactly how the brain works there is going to be a lot fewer gaps for God to hide in.

    --
    -- I have a private email server in my basement.
    1. Re:Religion? by pacov · · Score: 3, Funny

      Amen, Brother!

    2. Re:Religion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      lol just because something is known doesn't mean the vast majority of America will accept it. *Cough* evolution *cough*. Heck most of them still think hell exists in the middle of the earth, and babies can be conceived without gonads touching...

  22. In a near future: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "U$A patents human brain."

  23. Re:Years from now by MozeeToby · · Score: 1

    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [to Igor] Now that brain that you gave me. Was it Hans Delbruck's?
    Igor: [pause, then] No.
    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Ah! Very good. Would you mind telling me whose brain I DID put in?
    Igor: Then you won't be angry?
    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: I will NOT be angry.
    Igor: Abby someone.
    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [pause, then] Abby someone. Abby who?
    Igor: Abby... Normal.
    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [pause, then] Abby Normal?
    Igor: I'm almost sure that was the name.
    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [chuckles, then] Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain 27 zetaflop internet connected supercomputer!?

    In all seriousness, there are some real ethical issues that need to be considered before we go around booting up real live functioning consciousnesses inside. We really are creating Frankenstein's monster here, pulling life out of thin air. We need to decide, as a society, just what rights and responsibilities those minds have before we make it easy enough to create a thinking entity that any teenager can do it in his mom's basement with a couple hundred dollars in computer hardware.

  24. Re:People are dumber than they were 1000 years ago by guruevi · · Score: 1

    Even if it breaks even or a net loss, it is a way better investment than the billions spent on "defense".

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  25. A little detail by Micru · · Score: 1

    They forgot to mention who are they competing against: http://www.humanbrainproject.eu/introduction.html

  26. Re:Years from now by Hartree · · Score: 1

    "Randian philosophy to pick the best brain"

    I could kinda see James Randi coming to that same choice.

  27. Can some patent stuff from the this and make every by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    Can some patent stuff from the this and make everyone pay a fee? have some kind of SCO like lawsuits?

  28. Re:I'm sorry, but you're wrong. by crutchy · · Score: 2

    i'm sure if we spend a few trillion more dollars we can go to mars and get all sorts of spinoffs from that too

    money + R&D will always = spinoffs

    the question is, how much money are you willing to spend for said spinoffs?

  29. Re:Well we now know what Kurzweil is doing @ Googl by RaceProUK · · Score: 2

    I dare you to set C to zero.

    OK.

    *boom*

    --
    No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
  30. Real Motive by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    If the White House is involved, their motive would be more effective means of torture or the direct extraction of memories from the minds of those that are a threat to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. If that seems outlandish, remember the only thing that really prevented 24/7 non-warranted surveillance was not morality nor the rule of law, merely ROI and effective data storage and retrieval.