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I had mixed feelings about the DARPA Robotics Grand Challenge when I first heard about it. On the one hand, it sounded really cool. On the other hand, it seemed like a recipe for a lot of smart people to spend a lot of money overfitting complicated robots to very specific tasks. My skepticism didn’t stop me from helping put together a proposal for the Challenge, though. [ 1695 more words. ]

http://hplusmagazine.com/…/slowly-clunkily-racing-toward-t…/

Wendell Wallach: Transcendence, Life Against Death, and Scientifically Inspired Visions for the Future Since time immemorial, there has been a tension between spiritual dreams of transcendence and materialistic, hedonistic, or scientific inspired hopes for improving the quality of life. Russian cosmism was born out of one man’s vision for resolving that tension. Contemporary cosmists, by any name, must determine whether their visions truly expiate greed, as well as fear of death, loss of self, and the openness to love. [ 397 more words. ]

http://hplusmagazine.com/…/moral-enhancement-and-transhuma…/

In many ways, computers are becoming invisible and will continue to do so. When we reach into our pockets and pull out our cell phones to find a place to eat or message a friend on Facebook, we are no longer consciously aware that we are interacting with a user experience that has been consciously designed for our computer or device screen—but we are. [ 3253 more words. ]

http://hplusmagazine.com/…/organic-interfaces-or-how-human…/

Earlier this month, Twitter launched a new feature called Moments, which offers a curated and frequently updated collection of tweets that the company describes as the “best of what’s happening on Twitter.” Under the headings “Today,” “News,” “Sports,” “Entertainment” and “Fun,” Moments showcases a series of text, video and photo tweets on topics ranging from the latest developments in the US presidential race to cute pets. [ 1060 more words. ]

http://hplusmagazine.com/…/twitter-moments-and-the-comebac…/