KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News

Pic of the Week: Dubai Cruise

Pic of the Week: Dubai  Cruise
Cruising past Atlantis, Dubai October 09

How the machine is changing us

Music Vid of the Week: "Swollen" By Bent

Listen to Songs, Digital Stories and Gavin's Film Music

America 3000 Trailer

"It is 900 years after the Great Nuke and the roles of women have changed dramatically, much to the displeasure of men and mutants."

Bubba Ho-Tep Trailer

The Hidden Cost of War

globalhumour video - MAD TV: The iRack

"Night Flight" by GlobalMantra

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Jam with your PC?

Researchers at the University of Indiana in Bloomington USA are experimenting with software that can “listen” to a player and adjust accordingly – computers improvising with musicians?

This software can follow a soloist's lead, and recognize beat, rhythm, melody, harmony, tempo, and other musical elements. A soloist can now practice accompanied by virtual musicians representing other musicians.

See original article at:

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070421/bob8.asp

Virtual Worlds: The future of gaming?

Virtual Worlds 2007, the first conference devoted to understanding the future of marketing and media, kicked off March 28 – 29 in New York City. The sold-out event brought together about 600 futurists, journalists, metaverse and marketing consultants, platform and content developers, as well as representatives of Fortune 500 companies.

The environment was similar to the first Serious Games Summit, D.C., a mixture of confusion and wonder. Those inexperienced with 3D social environments like Second Life struggled to learn about the potential in virtual worlds while others heralded its future impact, noting that the millennium generation had effortlessly transitioned into digital avatars.

Read the full article here at Gamasutra

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games

Thanks to Lisa Galarneau at socialstudygames.com for this info. which I've fleshed out.

"Public Diplomacy" is essentially the art of winning hearts and minds to your side in international relations.

In May 2006, The USC Center for Public Diplomacy sent out a list of projects undertaken by finalists in their 'Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games' awards.

PeaceMaker took First Place in the First Games and Public Diplomacy Contest!
All four finalists demonstrated their games for the esteemed panelists and in house audience at the awards ceremony. The event was simulcast in Second Life, where the attendance on Annenberg Island exceeded that at USC's Davidson Center!

The awards live at Annenberg Island on Second Life.










The finalists were:

Exchanging Cultures Exchanging Cultures, a diplomatic game built inside Second Life,was created to facilitate the creating virtual communities and relationships based on the exchange of cultural items like: dances, art crafts, food receipts, architectural models, clothing, cultural routes and images of real original places for travelers and explorers.

Global Kids Island: Fostering Public Diplomacy Through Second Life Global Kids, Inc. envisioned a Public Diplomacy program within Second Life where the youth in the after-school program will spend the month learning about a global issue, experience an interactive and experiential workshop designed to educate about the issue. Their demonstration will be shown at the awards ceremony. For more information on the organization:

Hydro Hijinks
Hydro Hyjinks is a class project designed to promote discussion about international water issues and to educate players from around the world about sources of international conflict over water rights. Watch the video tour of the game at: .

Peacemaker PeaceMaker is a cross-cultural political video game simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which can be used to promote a peaceful resolution among Israelis, Palestinians and young adults worldwide. More information, please visit their website:


Also See:
Article "Promoting Peace – Virtually Speaking"
Video games foster cross-cultural understanding among the participants in an award ceremony held both online and in the real world.
Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds Project
Serious Games Initiative

How Creativity is being strangled by the Law - Lawrence Lessig

This is Lawrence Lessig's TED presentation, On "How creativity is being strangled by the law." Lawrence Lessig is Professor of Law at Stanford law school and founder of the Creative Commons Movement. See Lessig.org

Information revolution - Automaton Overture by GlobalMantra

This music is a piece from the multimedia show "Automaton". I composed the music, for which I won the Chapman Tripp Sound Designer of the Year Award. I made this video for fun, I hope you like it.
Find more videos like this on Classroom 2.0

Gavin's Remix on Remix!

This is my version of what Larry Lessig had to say about copyright and the internet, as well ideas about Remix Culture and the theories of Eisenstein. Acknowledgements to Mike Jones, Don Tapscott, Lev Manovich & Larry Lessig.

Shift Happens - Gavin's Remix

This video is actually my remix video made from a slideshow on slideshare.net originally created by Karl Fisch, acknowledgement goes to "Elephant (Dub Mix)" brilliant music by Spiral System from Zen Connection 4, see http://www.zenconnection.com.au/ Since he showed this presentation to a group of students in 2006, this has been viewed in various forms by over 5 million people.

Ray Kurzweil on "I've got a Secret" 1963

Ray Kurzweil appeared on this TV show as a very young man in 1963. His secret was that the piano piece he played had been composed by his computer. Even in 1963, he was 30 years ahead of his time! He went on to invent the first digital synthesizer with Stevie Wonder in the early 1980's.

Animation and the Eye - Winner Victoria State Science Talent Search Video 2003 Australia