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New Findings Overturn our Understanding of How Neurons Communicate

Thanks to Bram for pointing me to this article about how new research indicates that communication in the brain is quite different than we thought. Essentially neurons may release neurotransmitters all along axons, not just within synapses. This may enable new forms of global communication or state changes within the brain, beyond the "circuit model" of neuronal signaling that has been the received view for the last 100 years. It also may open up a wide range of new drugs and discoveries in brain science.

Get the Wikipedia to Make a Web 3.0 Page

Editor's NOTE, February 27, 2007: I guess this post must have helped. The Wikipedia has reinstated a page about Web 3.0 and hopefully it will improve over time. Thanks if you helped argue the case.

Someone at Wikipedia has repeatedly deleted the Web 3.0 page and locked it -- they've done this despite the fact that there are 905,000 results in Google for "Web 3.0" and dozens of major newspaper articles on the subject all around the world, not to mention (hundreds or thousands?) of blog posts listed in Technorati on the term. Whoever is doing this claims that Web 3.0 is not defined and/or is synonymous with "Semantic Web" for which there is already a node in the Wikipedia. I disagree on several counts:

1. Web 3.0 is defined in many places. My definition may be the most practical and objective proposal: define "Web 3.0" is as the third-decade (ie. third-generation) of the Web (2010 - 2020) -- and likewise Web 2.0 would be the second decade, etc. This is more rational and objective even than the current way of defining Web 2.0. I've defined this more extensively here.
2. Web 2.0 is not a more "defined term" in fact, there are many more differing definitions of that term than Web 3.0 in fact, yet there IS a node in Wikipedia for that term!.
3. Web 3.0 is broader than just the Semantic Web (although the Semantic Web is one key enabler of it) -- thus it DOES deserve it's own Wikipedia node apart from the Semantic Web node; It is not equivalent to Semantic Web. I think Web 3.0 is an upgrade of the backend of the Web and several technologies will play a part in that.

If you are working on the Semantic Web or other emerging Web content and data technologies that go beyond Web 2.0 AJAX front-end innovation, then please post into this discussion to express why this term should exist in Wikipedia.

We are on the cusp of Web 3.0 -- the third-generation Web -- and many companies such as my own Radar Networks, are working on key pieces of the puzzle. If you or your organization are working in this area, please help by chiming in on this wikipedia node so we can overcome the very unfortunate bias that is obviously being imposed there presently.

Don't forget SFWIN: Thursday Night

Hey just a reminder -- please join us at the monthly SFWIN meetup in San Francisco tomorrow (Thursday) evening. So far, there are around 40 people RSVP'd including several VC's, demo companies, and early stage startups, and as always, good food and drinks too. Should be a good event, hope to see you there -- please RSVP here. And if you know people in the Bay Area who should come, please help spread the word! It's the first SFWIN of the year and we need to get the word out to new people.

Envisioning the Whole Digital Person

Another article of note on the subject of our evolving digital lives and what user-experience designers should be thinking about:

Our lives are becoming increasingly digitized—from the ways we communicate, to our entertainment media, to our e-commerce transactions, to our online research. As storage becomes cheaper and data pipes become faster, we are doing more and more online—and in the process, saving a record of our digital lives, whether we like it or not.

(snip...)

In the coming years, our ability to interact with the information we’re so rapidly generating will determine how successfully we can manage our digital lives. There is a great challenge at our doorsteps—a shift in the way we live with each other.

As designers of user experiences for digital products and services, we can make people’s digital lives more meaningful and less confusing. It is our responsibility to envision not only techniques for sorting, ordering, and navigating these digital information spaces, but also to devise methods of helping people feel comfortable with such interactions. To better understand and ultimately solve this information management problem, we should take a holistic view of the digital person. While our data might be scattered, people need to feel whole.

GM Grapes and Toxic Wines

This is a somewhat scary article about the hazards of genetically modified grapes and the wines they may be used to produce. The article is from the extreme anti-genetic-engineering perspective, and so I don't know how balanced it is or what the opposing view might say. But it is certainly food for thought... or thought about food anyway.

Capturing Your Digital Life

Nice article in Scientific American about Gordon Bell's work at Microsoft Research on the MyLifeBits project. MyLifeBits provides one perspective on the not-too-far-off future in which all our information, and even some of our memories and experiences, are recorded and made available to us (and possibly to others) for posterity. This is a good application of the Semantic Web -- additional semantics within the dataset would provide many more dimensions to visualize, explore and search within, which would help to make the content more accessible and grokkable.

Come to SFWIN this Thursday night in SF!

Just a reminder that the next SFWIN mixer is this Thursday at 6pm.

Please RSVP so we know how many people to get food and drinks for!

If you've never been to an SFWIN event before you may not know what to expect. Each SFWIN is a great opportunity to discover new potential partners, see new companies and technologies, find your next investment, or just meet and greet. We run SFWIN as a not for profit opportunity to help people connect here in the city.

Location
405 Howard Street - the Orrick Building

TICKETS
Advanced Tickets - $10
Door Tickets - $20

Please RSVP Here:
http://sfwin.wufoo.com/forms/sfwin-february-2007-event/

SPONSORS
Orrick - Orrick is a leading law firm that has created a new Emerging Companies Group for entrepreneurs, start-ups and their investors.

Demos
This events demos are zeeDive, ActiveWave, Tipoka and Siderean.

ATTENDEE LIST
http://sfwin.wufoo.com/reports/sfwin-february-2007-event-attendees/

Please contact us if you want to demo at the next event.

Very Cool Laser Graffitti Technology

Josh sent me this link. It's a video of a new technology for doing laser graffitti on the sides of buildings at night. Josh and I have been discussing how to do this for years. You could also project onto clouds. And of course with a computer to control the image you could make some very nice looking pictures, and ads...

Intelligence is in the Connections

Google's Larry Page recently gave a talk to the AAAS about how Google is looking towards a future in which they hope to implement AI on a massive scale. Larry's idea is that intelligence is a function of massive computation, not of "fancy whiteboard algorithms." In other words, in his conception the brain doesn't do anything very sophisticated, it just does a lot of massively parallel number crunching. Each processor and its program is relatively "dumb" but from the combined power of all of them working together "intelligent" behaviors emerge.

Larry's view is, in my opinion, an oversimplification that will not lead to actual AI. It's certainly correct that some activities that we call "intelligent" can be reduced to massively parallel simple array operations. Neural networks have shown that this is possible -- they excel at low level tasks like pattern learning and pattern recognition for example. But neural networks have not proved capable of higher level cognitive tasks like mathematical logic, planning, or reasoning. Neural nets are theoretically computationally equivalent to Turing Machines, but nobody (to my knowledge) has ever succeeded in building a neural net that can in practice even do what a typical PC can do today -- which is still a long way short of true AI!

Somehow our brains are capable of basic computation, pattern detection and learning, simple reasoning, and advanced cognitive processes like innovation and creativity, and more. I don't think that this richness is reducible to massively parallel supercomputing, or even a vast neural net architecture. The software -- the higher level cognitive algorithms and heuristics that the brain "runs" -- also matter. Some of these may be hard-coded into the brain itself, while others may evolve by trial-and-error, or be programmed or taught to it socially through the process of education (which takes many years at the least).

Larry's view is attractive but decades of neuroscience and cognitive science have shown conclusively that the brain is not nearly as simple as we would like it to be. In fact the human brain is far more sophisticated than any computer we know of today, even though we can think of it in simple terms. It's a highly sophisticated system comprised of simple parts -- and actually, the jury is still out on exactly how simple the parts really are -- much of the computation in the brain may be sub-neuronal, meaning that the brain may actually a much much more complex system than we think.

Perhaps the Web as a whole is the closest analogue we have today for the brain -- with millions of nodes and connections. But today the Web is still quite a bit smaller and simpler than a human brain. The brain is also highly decentralized and it is doubtful than any centralized service could truly match its capabilities. We're not talking about a few hundred thousand linux boxes -- we're talking about hundreds of billions of parallel distributed computing elements to model all the neurons in a brain, and this number gets into the trillions if we want to model all the connections. The Web is not this big, and neither is Google.

AOL Adds 63 Million Users to OpenID ... Digg Joins Too

The folks at Read/Write Web have a great analysis of AOL's recent move to support the OpenID initiative. AOL has integrated with OpenID, adding 63 million users in a bid to make AIM handles sticky.

Digg also just announced they are joining OpenID.

OpenID is one of the technologies that I am tracking as a key enabler of Web 3.0.

'Bemes' are Defining the Blogosphere

Tom Hayes has an interesting post in which he coins the word 'beme" to mean a meme that spreads in the blogosphere.

Michael Malone's ABC News column on Thursday mentioning "bemes" has certainly produced a lot of interest.  Originally, I coined the word beme to describe a meme propagated by blogs and bloggers.  Now I can see that the turn of phrase has a much bigger potential to capture the rapidly-moving cultural touchstones of the Bubble Generation.

As you may know, "meme" was first defined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 as "a unit of cultural information" spread from one mind to another. In other words, a viral idea that eventually becomes common knowledge.

Fast forward three decades, and it seems to me that technology has turbo-charged the meme process.  Looking for the juste mot to describe a "purposeful" meme fed into the vast human network of the Internet, either by blog, email, video, phonecast, social media or other viral means, beme seems to fit the bill. 

A beme is a turbo-charged meme made possible entirely by the existence of the network affect.  A beme can be impactful because it is lurid--a photo of a panty-less Britney Spears, or humorous--a whimisical video of the band OKGO on treadmills, or gut-wrenching--the sad tirade by comedian Michael Richards.  A beme can cement an idea with the public in a way that cannot be legislated or regulated.  No legal effort by Cisco to enforce a trademark, for example, will make the public unlearn that Apple produces the iPhone.

• A meme is old media, a beme is new media.
• A meme takes off by accident, a beme by design.
• A meme can take years to surface, a beme hours.

Funny Cartoon -- Lisp, the Language of the Gods

Disclaimer: I used to code in Lisp and Scheme a long time back. Then I got interested in Java. But I don't code at all anymore. I leave that to people who are much smarter than me now :^)

Anyway this cartoon is funny -- and if you ever coded in Lisp or Scheme you'll also get the inside jokes.

You are truly an AI geek if it makes you laugh.

Web 3.0 Roundup: Radar Networks, Powerset, Metaweb and Others...

It's been a while since I posted about what my stealth venture, Radar Networks, is working on. Lately I've been seeing growing buzz in the industry around the "semantics" meme -- for example at the recent DEMO conference, several companies used the word "semantics" in their pitches. And of course there have been some fundings in this area in the last year, including Radar Networks and other companies.

Clearly the "semantic" sector is starting to heat up. As a result, I've been getting a lot of questions from reporters and VC's about how what we are doing compares to other companies such as for example, Powerset, Textdigger, and Metaweb. There was even a rumor that we had already closed our series B round! (That rumor is not true; in fact the round hasn't started yet, although I am getting very strong VC interest and we will start the round pretty soon).

In light of all this I thought it might be helpful to clarify what we are doing, how we understand what other leading players in this space are doing, and how we look at this sector.

Indexing the Decades of the Web

First of all, before we get started, there is one thing to clear up. The Semantic Web is part of what is being called "Web 3.0" by some, but it is in my opinion really just one of several converging technologies and trends that will define this coming era of the Web. I've written here about a proposed definition of Web 3.0, in more detail.

For those of you who don't like terms like Web 2.0, and Web 3.0, I also want to mention that  I agree --- we all want to avoid a rapid series of such labels or an arms-race of companies claiming to be > x.0. So I have a practical proposal: Let's use these terms to index decades since the Web began. This is objective -- we can all agree on when decades begin and end, and if we look at history each decade is characterized by various trends. 

I think this is reasonable proposal and actually useful (and also avoids endless new x.0's being announced every year). Web 1.0 was therefore the first decade of the Web: 1990 - 2000. Web 2.0 is the second decade, 2000 - 2010. Web 3.0 is the coming third decade, 2010 - 2020 and so on. Each of these decades is (or will be) characterized by particular technology movements, themes and trends, and these indices, 1.0, 2.0, etc. are just a convenient way of referencing them. This is a useful way to discuss history, and it's not without precedent. For example, various dynasties and historical periods are also given names and this provides shorthand way of referring to those periods and their unique flavors. To see my timeline of these decades, click here.

So with that said, what is Radar Networks actually working on? First of all, Radar Networks is still in stealth, although we are planning to go beta in 2007. Until we get closer to launch what I can say without an NDA is still limited. But at least I can give some helpful hints for those who are interested. This article provides some hints, as well as what I hope is a helpful tutorial about natural language search and the Semantic Web, and how they differ. I'll also discuss how Radar Networks compares some of the key startup ventures working with semantics in various ways today (there are many other companies in this sector -- if you know of any interesting ones, please let me know in the comments; I'm starting to compile a list).

 

(click the link below to keep reading the rest of this article...)

Wow! Watch this Multi-Touch UI Demo Video

If you are interested on what computer user-interfaces are going to feel like in the future -- you must see this video of a demo of a new multi-touch computer monitor. This is amazing technology -- and the various demos themselves are interactive artworks in their own right. For more information about the researchers and projects behind this, click here. I want one of these NOW!

How the WebOS Evolves?

Here is my timeline of the past, present and future of the Web. Feel free to put this meme on your own site, but please link back to the master image at this site (the URL that the thumbnail below points to) because I'll be updating the image from time to time.

This slide illustrates my current thinking here at Radar Networks about where the Web (and we) are heading. It shows a timeline of technology leading from the prehistoric desktop era to the possible future of the WebOS...

Note that as well as mapping a possible future of the Web, here I am also proposing that the Web x.0 terminology be used to index the decades of the Web since 1990. Thus we are now in the tail end of Web 2.0 and are starting to lay the groundwork for Web 3.0, which fully arrives in 2010.

This makes sense to me. Web 2.0 was really about upgrading the "front-end" and user-experience of the Web. Much of the innovation taking place today is about starting to upgrade the "backend" of the Web and I think that will be the focus of Web 3.0 (the front-end will probably not be that different from Web 2.0, but the underlying technologies will advance significantly enabling new capabilities and features).

See also: This article I wrote redefining what the term "Web 3.0" means.

See also: A Visual Graph of the Future of Productivity

Please note: This is a work in progress and is not perfect yet. I've been tweaking the positions to get the technologies and dates right. Part of the challenge is fitting the text into the available spaces. If anyone out there has suggestions regarding where I've placed things on the timeline, or if I've left anything out that should be there, please let me know in the comments on this post and I'll try to readjust and update the image from time to time. If you would like to produce a better version of this image, please do so and send it to me for inclusion here, with the same Creative Commons license, ideally.

Congratulations to Adam Cheyer and Change.org

My friend and colleague, Adam Cheyer, from SRI, recently helped to advise and launch Change.org -- a social network for nonprofit activism. It's a great site for a great cause. It's also a great example of a special-purpose social network -- a useful social network. Congratulations to Adam and the team over there! Read the TechCrunch review here.

First Quantum Computer to be Announced Next Week

D-Wave, a company making quantum computers, claims the first quantum computer will be unveiled next week. If this really happens it could be big. Quantum computing can theoretically enable a massive increase in computing power. The question is what will it cost? If this technology is viable it also ups the ante in the encryption field -- because quantum computers can potentially crack codes that are today effectively beyond the limits of our present computing power. This could bring about a  new market for quantum crytography, such as that provided by MagiQ, which is invulnerable to being cracked by quantum computers.