Includes a projected digital shadow around your body, an elevator where you can play with a butterfly, blowing virtual bubbles and a coffee table that tracks the cups on its surface.
This article is a little old now, and it's not particularly targeted for the Slashdot audience: it's an insightful analysis of Web 2.0, I think, but in large part I think it's a summary aimed at the non-Slashdot crowd in institutes of higher education to make them aware of this movement and what impact it might have on learning.
So I've seen plenty of comments on a general debate of Web 2.0 -- but regarding the actual article (*gasp*), does anyone have any thoughts on the use of Web 2.0 (however that might be defined) in higher education? Having just graduated from Amherst College, I know it's something we've been talking a lot about (how can, for example, blogs and wikis be used to further collaboration outside of class?) but it's also something we're very behind on. (I don't know how other colleges and universities are handling it, but it seems that it hasn't really been fully embraced.) How have you seen Web 2.0 technologies used at colleges and universities? How do you think they could or should be used?
I know a couple people (myself included) who experimented with using blogs to document their progress on, and solicit feedback for, their theses, and I've heard of classes using wikis or other such community websites to combine their research on a particular topic. But I'm curious what else Slashdot has run into.
I think the comments here are very interesting. One common theme seems to be the importance of ethics in, for example, determining the normative quality of our technological advancements. Such thinking is certainly important, but I don't really consider it deeply philosophical -- philosophers of ethics are often actually studying meta-ethics (the study of the practice of making normative judgements, or of what normative -- i.e. good and bad -- judgements might mean) and when they're not they are far more often studying the general principles behind good and bad judgements (does good mean creating the most pleasure?)) rather than applying rules to determine the goodness or badness of any particular situation.
Of course, other parts of philosophy (besides ethics) have been cited here -- logic is one of the obvious ones of course: as a Philosophy major interviewing at Microsoft I was frequently asked what Philosophy had to do with Computer Science and I cited philosophical logic and how Russell's logical discoveries are the basis of NAND gate chip design. But I'm also interested in the application of epistemology to AI (the cognitive science side in particular).
But I think the connection between philosophy and computer science ought to be made more generally than attempting to apply specific philosophical results to problems of computation. (I certainly don't deny that such application can and should be done -- and the McCarthy quote cited above suggests several promising lines -- but I think it should not be the only focus for philosophy's use in computer science.) My view of it (as a philosophy major about to start a job in software development) is that the methods of philosophy rather than the results will be useful to me in computer science. Much of philosophy, the actual practice of making arguments, explaining phenomena, drawing conclusions is I think very similar to computer science, which I frequently see as just the abstract description of a problem.
An example: sorting algorithms aren't just practical ways to achieve a goal, the algorithms are descriptions of what it is to sort something: sorting requires a certain number of comparisons, which it can be shown is on the order of n log n. That seems to me an instance of philosophy -- taking a phenomenon, investigating what it means abstractly and precisely. And I think (and hope) that much of real-world software development (not just the deep theory around algorithms) is the same sort of thing -- a precise and abstract description of a problem: from determining requirements from the user to writing the code for particular algorithms. Software developers may not be keeping copies of Plato or Russell on their desks for regular reference, but I think a philosophy background is a great help.
I think what you're looking for is JotSpot's new product Tracker which provides just the online, wiki spreadsheet compatibility that you describe, for exactly the problems (like constantly emailing a tracker spreadsheet around) you lament.
JotSpot might be relevant to the discussion in general, as well. They do a lot of work with wikis. Are there any other web development companies out there doing stuff like this? I hope so, but I haven't run across any others yet.
[I'm not an employee or anything; I just found out about these guys last night and it looks like they're doing cool stuff.]
But note that Steve Jobs is working hard to reduce that worry. He spent the entire time on stage talking about the Intel switch touting *Universal* Binaries. The language and focus is important -- they're not pushing developers to switch their products to x86, they're very actively, openly, loudly pushing developers to creating *Universal* Binaries. Also, the fact that the transition will be gradual, and that, again, Apple is being very clear about that, should be a further motivator to have developers check both x86 and PowerPC in that little dialog box in XCode.
And really, I can't think of any reason they wouldn't select both boxes. Are Universal Binaries much larger or something? I can't imagine that would make much of a difference, but perhaps someone out there knows for sure one way or another.
A number of College and University websites have audio of lectures that take place on their campus.
For example, I run the Amherst Recording Council, which provides online audio of lectures and events from the Amherst College campus. We've recently had talks on biology, slavery, politics, economics, architecture, intellectual property, and history.
I don't see how that should affect my eligibility or suitability to vote. I've followed the election closely, I've done research on the people I can actually vote for where I live (neither Senator, whatever their names are, are up for reelection, but I know my Representative).
Which is not to say that I don't think we should teach our populace more about our government, or even that I shouldn't bother knowing the names of my senators, but it certainly doesn't make me any less qualified to vote.
Yes, they used to be the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Before that, the mapping group was known (for quite some time) as the Defense Mapping Agency, and had less of the sattelite imagery stuff integrated with the creation of maps for military or other purposes.
The stand-up of NIMA was, I believe, the combination of the Defense Mapping Agency with intelligence/imagery groups from the CIA -- the idea being that this information shouldn't be so distinct but that the two types of information are actually very similar and that there are many uses (as mentioned in the AP article) for that combination.
The name change from NIMA to National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency was, I believe, for the most part a change in name. The agency wanted to emphasize again that it was an organization dealing with intelligence, with information and that it was information of a single type, not just the amalgam of imagery and mapping.
An actual history (rather than just my reminiscences of my father's changing job titles) is available on the web:
http://www.nga.mil/StaticFiles/OCR/nga_history.pdf
The Wired article references in one place NIMA's (The National Imagery and Mapping Agency) recent SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) a pretty amazing feat (according to my father, who works for NIMA) which managed to take data to get a topographic map of most of the world in an amazingly short time. When this data is finally processed (I heard estimates of 2 years when it was taken), it should be extremely useful, but I'm not sure the resolution is sufficient for this kind of task. The factsheet (factsheet) says data will be at 30 meter resolution for most of the globe, which, though good, I can't expect is good enough in itself to fly a plane with.
Perhaps the dependence on GPS and other data makes it viable?
Slashdot Mirror
The Tangible User Interfaces class (which I was in) at the School of Information at UC Berkeley just had its final presentations. You can see press coverage (including video and pictures) here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/10/BAF214L2I2.DTL
http://www.ktvu.com/video/18261853/index.html
Includes a projected digital shadow around your body, an elevator where you can play with a butterfly, blowing virtual bubbles and a coffee table that tracks the cups on its surface.
This article is a little old now, and it's not particularly targeted for the Slashdot audience: it's an insightful analysis of Web 2.0, I think, but in large part I think it's a summary aimed at the non-Slashdot crowd in institutes of higher education to make them aware of this movement and what impact it might have on learning.
So I've seen plenty of comments on a general debate of Web 2.0 -- but regarding the actual article (*gasp*), does anyone have any thoughts on the use of Web 2.0 (however that might be defined) in higher education? Having just graduated from Amherst College, I know it's something we've been talking a lot about (how can, for example, blogs and wikis be used to further collaboration outside of class?) but it's also something we're very behind on. (I don't know how other colleges and universities are handling it, but it seems that it hasn't really been fully embraced.) How have you seen Web 2.0 technologies used at colleges and universities? How do you think they could or should be used?
I know a couple people (myself included) who experimented with using blogs to document their progress on, and solicit feedback for, their theses, and I've heard of classes using wikis or other such community websites to combine their research on a particular topic. But I'm curious what else Slashdot has run into.
I think the comments here are very interesting. One common theme seems to be the importance of ethics in, for example, determining the normative quality of our technological advancements. Such thinking is certainly important, but I don't really consider it deeply philosophical -- philosophers of ethics are often actually studying meta-ethics (the study of the practice of making normative judgements, or of what normative -- i.e. good and bad -- judgements might mean) and when they're not they are far more often studying the general principles behind good and bad judgements (does good mean creating the most pleasure?)) rather than applying rules to determine the goodness or badness of any particular situation.
Of course, other parts of philosophy (besides ethics) have been cited here -- logic is one of the obvious ones of course: as a Philosophy major interviewing at Microsoft I was frequently asked what Philosophy had to do with Computer Science and I cited philosophical logic and how Russell's logical discoveries are the basis of NAND gate chip design. But I'm also interested in the application of epistemology to AI (the cognitive science side in particular).
But I think the connection between philosophy and computer science ought to be made more generally than attempting to apply specific philosophical results to problems of computation. (I certainly don't deny that such application can and should be done -- and the McCarthy quote cited above suggests several promising lines -- but I think it should not be the only focus for philosophy's use in computer science.) My view of it (as a philosophy major about to start a job in software development) is that the methods of philosophy rather than the results will be useful to me in computer science. Much of philosophy, the actual practice of making arguments, explaining phenomena, drawing conclusions is I think very similar to computer science, which I frequently see as just the abstract description of a problem.
An example: sorting algorithms aren't just practical ways to achieve a goal, the algorithms are descriptions of what it is to sort something: sorting requires a certain number of comparisons, which it can be shown is on the order of n log n. That seems to me an instance of philosophy -- taking a phenomenon, investigating what it means abstractly and precisely. And I think (and hope) that much of real-world software development (not just the deep theory around algorithms) is the same sort of thing -- a precise and abstract description of a problem: from determining requirements from the user to writing the code for particular algorithms. Software developers may not be keeping copies of Plato or Russell on their desks for regular reference, but I think a philosophy background is a great help.
I think what you're looking for is JotSpot's new product Tracker which provides just the online, wiki spreadsheet compatibility that you describe, for exactly the problems (like constantly emailing a tracker spreadsheet around) you lament.
JotSpot might be relevant to the discussion in general, as well. They do a lot of work with wikis. Are there any other web development companies out there doing stuff like this? I hope so, but I haven't run across any others yet.
[I'm not an employee or anything; I just found out about these guys last night and it looks like they're doing cool stuff.]
That is a worry, no doubt about it.
But note that Steve Jobs is working hard to reduce that worry. He spent the entire time on stage talking about the Intel switch touting *Universal* Binaries. The language and focus is important -- they're not pushing developers to switch their products to x86, they're very actively, openly, loudly pushing developers to creating *Universal* Binaries. Also, the fact that the transition will be gradual, and that, again, Apple is being very clear about that, should be a further motivator to have developers check both x86 and PowerPC in that little dialog box in XCode.
And really, I can't think of any reason they wouldn't select both boxes. Are Universal Binaries much larger or something? I can't imagine that would make much of a difference, but perhaps someone out there knows for sure one way or another.
A number of College and University websites have audio of lectures that take place on their campus.
For example, I run the Amherst Recording Council, which provides online audio of lectures and events from the Amherst College campus. We've recently had talks on biology, slavery, politics, economics, architecture, intellectual property, and history.
http://www.amherst.edu/arc/
I don't know the names of either of my senators.
I don't see how that should affect my eligibility or suitability to vote. I've followed the election closely, I've done research on the people I can actually vote for where I live (neither Senator, whatever their names are, are up for reelection, but I know my Representative).
Which is not to say that I don't think we should teach our populace more about our government, or even that I shouldn't bother knowing the names of my senators, but it certainly doesn't make me any less qualified to vote.
Yes, they used to be the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Before that, the mapping group was known (for quite some time) as the Defense Mapping Agency, and had less of the sattelite imagery stuff integrated with the creation of maps for military or other purposes. The stand-up of NIMA was, I believe, the combination of the Defense Mapping Agency with intelligence/imagery groups from the CIA -- the idea being that this information shouldn't be so distinct but that the two types of information are actually very similar and that there are many uses (as mentioned in the AP article) for that combination. The name change from NIMA to National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency was, I believe, for the most part a change in name. The agency wanted to emphasize again that it was an organization dealing with intelligence, with information and that it was information of a single type, not just the amalgam of imagery and mapping. An actual history (rather than just my reminiscences of my father's changing job titles) is available on the web: http://www.nga.mil/StaticFiles/OCR/nga_history.pdf
The Wired article references in one place NIMA's (The National Imagery and Mapping Agency) recent SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) a pretty amazing feat (according to my father, who works for NIMA) which managed to take data to get a topographic map of most of the world in an amazingly short time. When this data is finally processed (I heard estimates of 2 years when it was taken), it should be extremely useful, but I'm not sure the resolution is sufficient for this kind of task. The factsheet (factsheet) says data will be at 30 meter resolution for most of the globe, which, though good, I can't expect is good enough in itself to fly a plane with.
Perhaps the dependence on GPS and other data makes it viable?