This isn't a comprehensive update on Erika -- that would be the sum total of my tweets about her, since tweets capture the things that go through her head better than anything. Maybe I should consolidate them into one post and put them up here. Anyway, Erika is now six. She turned six on the day of my parents' arrival (my dad was here too for a ( Read more... )

My mom has been staying with me, Ray and Erika for the entire May, and will stay until mid-July, to spend some time with our new baby after he's born. I haven't felt so spoiled in a long time. Mom has been cooking delicious food every day, and spending time with Erika, not to mention doing a lot of the housework I used to do. Now I can spend so ( Read more... )

Anyone who uses Facebook has been occasionally or continuously annoyed by the ranking system Facebook uses to decide which posts to display to you. "Top News" posts are completely random. Often they are the ones most commented on, but some have no comments ( Read more... )

Imagine a conference so big, so sprawling, that navigating it requires you to draw multiple decision trees and redraw them on the fly as needed. Why? The conference is spread out across a convention center the size of four city blocks, several neighborhood hotels, as well as some hotels a few miles away. Just walking from one room in the conference ( Read more... )

"People as Peripherals". The title of this speech conveys unease about a future where humans are little more than input devices for our computer overlords. Not surprisingly, presenter Lee Shupp segued from gesture interfaces to brain implants, and from there to technological Singularity ( Read more... )

I often feel a need, even an urgency, for a smart phone. Usually it comes up in situations when it would be impolite, impractical or too conspicuous to break out a laptop (such as standing in line in a store -- can't type very well cradling the laptop with one arm, plus there's no WiFi), but a smartphone would be socially acceptable, especially as ( Read more... )

Will supercomputing intelligences outsmart human-level intelligence? "The Singularity: Humanity's Huge Techno Challenge" panel claimed to dissect the very core of the Singularity, if and when it will occur, and what we can expect to happen. The question was debated by Doug Lenat, founder of an artificial intelligence project CYC, Michael Vassar, ( Read more... )

One of my most anticipated SXSW 2011 panels was "Social Media is Science Fiction". What do science fiction stories tell us about how social networking and user-generated content will evolve? How it will affect us as a civilization? These topics were debated by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders of the futurist magazine io9.com, Matt Thompson ( Read more... )

If social media can be used for social good, this good can't come soon enough for Bruce Sterling, science fiction writer and a long time SXSW keynote speaker. Bruce Sterling's speech is traditionally the last SXSW session. I don't know if this is his usual habit, but for the last two years he implored 20-somethings ("some of you are younger than ( Read more... )

Gamification was high on the radar at this year's SXSW, judging by how many panels it was mentioned at. To put it simply, gamification means devising a system of points, rewards and incentives to motivate people to do certain things -- in a software application or in real life. It's funny, but 2-3 years before it became big at SXSW, this trend was ( Read more... )