tagged w/ NextFest
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WIRED NextFest is said to be the premier showcase of the global innovations transforming our world. In its fifth year, WIRED's gallery of the future included unique and bold exhibits of sustainable design, next generation healthcare, interactive art and games, humanoid robotics and more.
Restaurateur and renowned chef Grant Achat is out to change the way you eat. A meal at Chicago's Alinea restaurant can consist of up to 27 courses, providing a unique dining experience that prompted Gourmet Magazine to name Alinea the Best Restaurant in America in 2006. This year, Achatz won The 2008 James Beard Foundation's Best Chef Award.
A small group of innovative chefs are melding science and haute cuisine, a mashup that's sometimes called molecular gastronomy. Achatz is one of the chefs who has introduced new kinds of technology to cooking, but he is leery of getting lumped in with the molecular gastronomists. According to Achatz, too often the gastronomists aim primary to evoke a certain emotion, while flavor is secondary. However, for Achatz induced emotion and flavor are combined. Further, "The technology allows us to get to the essence of food," Achatz says. "It allows you to be more true with flavor, not less true."
At his cooking presentation at NextFest, Achatz demonstrated why he, and not just his food, is so special. Audience members were impressed by two things about Grant's presentation. First, even though he is undeniably one of the most inventive chefs in the business, he is as unpretentious as they come. The other thing that was striking about Grant's cooking presentation was his story about an early version of a dish that had him burning leaves throughout the evening in the restaurant. Customers actually cried at the familiar smells of childhood. By engaging all the senses, Grant delivers an unexpectedly emotional experience.
This article presents a number of beautiful photographs of Grant's food preparation, three videos about Grant Achatz and Alinea restaurant (including his WIRED NextFest presentation) and a wonderful photo-gallery.WIRED NextFest is said to be the premier showcase of the global innovations... more
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When roboticist David Hanson thinks of the future, he fears that man will accidentally create a super-sentient artificial intelligence that is heartless and clinically insane.
So to save the world, he formed Hanson Robotics and built Zeno, a 17-inch robot boy, who smiles, laughs, recognizes your face and remembers your name.
Fending off the end of the world may be a heavy mantle to hang on the shoulders of a 17-inch robot that's still in prototype stage, but Hanson does call Zeno the superhero of the singularity.
"We want to be damn sure that by the time [robots] become as smart as we are, they have a conscience and compassion and that we are friends.," Hanson said. "There's no guarantee. They could be psychotic."
Zeno is himself a visitor from the future — a robot who reached consciousness in 2029, but is found by government web crawlers. From there he's put into a government academy for artificially intelligent robots, where those in charge may have nefarious motives.
"The world will need a superintelligent hero," Hanson said. "Superintelligent agents are also able to spawn technology that could destroy us all."
This narrative, crafted by Hugo award winner Tony Daniel and University of Texas performance professor Thomas Riccio, is intended to make Zeno into a character that people identify with and want to to see develop — something with the depth of a movie character or a figure from a Homerian epic.
That makes Zeno into as much of a sociological experiment as it is a technical marvel or fun toy.
"The idea is to create a cultural phenomenon and accelerate the use and humanization of the technology," Hanson said. "Robots have gotten steadily more capable but humans' expectations that robots should have minds keeps biting robot developers."
Which is to say that Hanson wants Zeno to change robots and humans.
Zeno has charmed visitors at Wired's NextFest tech celebration for the last two years, including an ongoing run in the 2008 pavilion in Chicago's Millennium park (open through Oct. 12).
Still, Zeno is clearly a work in progress, prone to hip problems, battery issues or overly long diatribes about the singularity, when a wink or smile would be more charming.
Zeno already does "know" people, and in his mind, has a knowledge container that stores a photo of the person and details about that person. The next step is getting Zeno to start making theories about the world, discarding the dumb ones and amplifying the plausible ones.
That, according to Hanson, is the essence of intelligence, and once a robot can combine that ability with the knowledge available on the internet, superintelligence won't be far off.
Hanson Robotics hopes to begin selling a mass market version of Zeno for about $300 starting sometime in 2010.When roboticist David Hanson thinks of the future, he fears that man will accidentally... more
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From September 13 - 16, 2007 more than 37000 people experienced the future at the Los Angeles Convention Center during the fourth annual WIRED NextFest.From September 13 - 16, 2007 more than 37000 people experienced the future at the Los... more
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This is by far the coolest thing ever. It is a spiral magnetic sculpture that can transform to random shapes through the response of metadata ingrained in music. Kinda reminds me of the liquid metal stuff that the T-1000 is made of from T2. =)This is by far the coolest thing ever. It is a spiral magnetic sculpture that can... more
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Cute Circuit is as design company that blends high technology and fashion. In this pod we see the blue-tooth enabled "Hug Shirt" in action.Cute Circuit is as design company that blends high technology and fashion. In this... more
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