How would my dream tablet look like?

I wake up to the subtle ambient sound played from my tablet. It's different everyday. The tablet monitors my body movements during the night and it learns how long my REM/NREM sleep stages least and wake me up in the most optimal time (Sleep Cycle App). When I get up my tablet has already downloaded articles and news that are relevant to my research and personal interests (Mendeley or Papers), plus blogs, feeds and info that might be interesting for me (YourVersion, or rather some intelligent RSS system that learns my information-sucking habits). During breakfast I  scan through available info and choose which topics I want to explore more, saving them for later (Instapaper) and marking articles that are particularly interesting. On the way to work I get my e-mails, check calendar for daily goals, and look at social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube) which are clouded into one app. I quickly and silently dictate some short replies (using something similar to Google Speech Recognition on Android). 

When I get to work, longer journal and magazine articles are already downloaded to my device and integrated with my references database (Mendeley), with keywords and tags extracted, and with a visual representation of words frequency (Wordle). Reading is fully tactile with ability to make notes and comments on articles text (Skim). If I have any idea, bookmark or snapshot I want to make, I switch between applications and connect any info to my notebook database in the cloud (Evernote). Screen is easy for eyes, non-reflective, low-power consuming and with good contrast (next generation E-Ink). If you look close on the device, this tablet has 64GB drive, a 5-7 days on single battery charge, WiFi, 3G, GPS, low-weight, 3D microphone, accelerometer, headphone socket and front camera for making smooth video conferences (Skype). On my way back from work I listen to free music from the app that maps my musical preferences and habits (Last.fm) and allows me to listen everything for free (Spotify).

Consuming media, browsing, creating, communicating - everything is effortless and intuitive with my dream tablet, with multi-touch, Text 2.0 with eye-tracking, voice recognition and algorithms that constantly learn and map my behavior to create the better interface for me.

And what is certain - my dream tablet is closer than you think ;-)

Remove Universities, Tax People Outside Cities (and Other Extreme Ideas For 2010)

The new issue of Wired features a great collection of short radical manifestos from different authors for new policies in 2010 Britain. However, they are so extremely great, that they could be easily applied anywhere else. I strongly recommend you to read all of them, but below I made a review of my favorite ones.

1. Tax People Who Live Outside Cities, because it's not sustainable - rural households have much higher CO2 emission per person (larger houses, more cars per houshold, etc.). If we tax cigarettes to reflect the harm, we should also tax lifestyles that are damaging health of our planet (by PD Smith).
2. Turn Cities Into Self-Sufficient and Carbon Neutral Jungles, with eliminating using cars (walking, cycling and public transport is sufficient to move in the cities) and applying genetically modified (GM) crops everywhere, with making vertical farms on buildings (thick plantings of trees would absorb CO2 and extra luminescence genes would remove the requirement for city lights). Office building should be turned to high-tech beehives, shopping malls into bazaars and majority of buildings refurbished using bioarchitectural solutions, without building a new ones to save space and decrease the carbon footprint (by Paul McAuley).
3. Promote Another Credit Crunch, our economy is based too much on financial services, which consume themselves. Let is collapse. (by John Lanchester).
4. Slash Universities and Go Virtual, because it's too expensive and irrational to maintain the current system of higher education. Only 99 universities in England and Wales cost £8 billion of UK public money. Students graduate with an average debt of £20,000. To cut the costs we should revise and eliminate the pointless, non-vocational courses, make as much as we can online based, create more options for skill trainings. National service should be restored to promote social cohesion and civicmindedness in youngsters to get them out of negative circulation - we don't need university for this (by Glen Newey).
5. Recycle dead and introduce them back into the food production :-) (by Dinos Chapman).

[photo credits: Wired]

Record Your Unconscious Mind with 'The Psychosqope'

A device that every respected psychodynamic therapist dreamt about has now became a reality.

A device that is an answer to Freud's and Jung's search for unconscious diagnosis emerged from the calculation power of the vacuum lamp.

The Psychosqope - a machine for recording the unconscious mind.

The Psychosqope consists of two parts - the Vacuum-Sonic Unconsciousness Sampler (VSUS) and the Subprojective Nonperception Test (SNT).

The VSUS is highly advanced device designed to detect Rorschach Waves' emitted by any unconscious mind/monad. Rorschach Waves were normally difficult to read, due to interference with electrical brain waves and some external frequencies. However, by using combination of subsonic reading of sound waves generated by unconscious monad and combing it with the calculation power of vaccum lamp processor, the VSUS is able to extract Rorschach Waves from the spectral chaos of energy and combine this information into a meaningful diagnosis.


The VSUS is used only with specially designed Subprojective Nonperception Test (SNT). SNT is heavily based on the Rorschach Test and Alcohol Stimulation Theory. SNT can't be described here due to make sure it doesn't leak into the collective unconsciousness, biasing the results of the diagnosis.


The Psychosqope has been fully attested to apply in psychological diagnosis and research.


The first global presentation of 'The Psychosqope' will take place in this year Steampunk Conference 'Nordcon' by its creator - Psychomechanikus Piveq.

[photo credit: geek on acid]