Future News - US Bird Count Is On, Baby Learning Robots, Chimps get Skype, Mind Reading Headsets, MST3K Funded, Drone Registry Created, $50 million for best Transpo Idea

Listen Now to Future News 12.15.2015

It’s that time of year for the annual citizen bird count, to see how the populations of our feathered friends are faring in our fair land.  Any interested can participate in the study, now in its 116th year!  It’s the first year, however, for the brand spanking new national drone registry program, designed to keep track, sort of, of the millions of drones that will soon be in our personal airspace, sharing the zone mostly with birds and insects.  It’s a brave new world, and this a first attempt to make sure things fly well.  One can hope..  

We thought it was also interesting that a new science experiment connecting chimps via a Skype type videoconferencing system is about to be deployed, connecting chimps in a UK zoo with other chimps in Africa.  What will they say to each other?  This Peter Gabriel financed project  intends to find out.  

This week we also discuss a new AI project that replicates the way human babies learn…watch, imitate, extrapolate…perhaps AI babies should be raised with our human babies..nah..too anthropomorphic, don’t you think..Still an interestinhg approach to learning..

Remember Mystery Science Theater 3000? The Kickstarter campaign, launched by show creator and original star Joel Hodgson, raised $5,764,229 in a month. That money, plus another $425,000 raised outside of Kickstarter, is enough to shoot 14 new episodes.

And do you want to make a cool $50 million? Then enter the medium-sized city contest for solving traffic problems, and you could save the day!  Enjoy the show!

Interview - What ever happened to Wendy Sue Noah?

Listen Now to Wendy Sue Noah 

Back in the exciting early days of the Internet, Wendy Sue was a rising star of the newly minted Digerati ofWendy Sue in the early days the San Francisco Cyberculture, a generation destined to change the world with the web, computers and interactive multimedia. As a director for building the online community of Match.com, now the largest relationship site on the web, and educator for Fujitsu’s World’s Away, one of the earliest online Virtual Worlds, she was going places, helping to shape the very idea of what is now known as social media today.

But around the time of her 30th birthday, Wendy Sue felt something in her life was missing. It wasn’t a boyfriend, or money, or friends. No, it was something else, something spiritual, a deeper connecton with the divine that her exciting life was not delivering.  So she asked the universe to help her with this most important issue. And boy, did it deliver, in spades…Wendy Sue showing Martin Scorsese his fan email for the first time.

After giving an exciting demo of social virtual worlds at the world-renowned SIGGRAPH conference in LA in 1997 with Bruce Damer, who had just written the definitive book on the topic, “AVATARS!,” she met a mysterious man who wanted to build a spiritual virtual world to be called “Celestia.”  Recognizing his face from a recent dream, she felt Kalifa was the answer to her prayers for a spiritual guru.  

Shortly thereafter, she disappeared from the San Francisco cyberculture, cutting all contacts with friends family and associates. She had disappeared into the cult of Kalifa, becoming his 5th wife, bearing five children in a highly abusive and disempowering relationship with him and his multiple wife-based spiritual family.  

After a harrowing escape from this hell world, where she was keep penniless, and later homeless and childless, she has emerged with her children and psyche intact, and has recently published the memoirs of her experiences, “Real Eyes Faith.”

This is a story of the strength of human spirit in confronting serious adversity, and the transition from blind to real faith, and coming home with lessons of life that can enrich us all.  Enjoy!  

Wendy Sue today with her five children

News & Views - 50th Anniversary of Can You Pass the Acid Test? Hacker ISIS Trolling Day, Death by Rollercoaster, Fish Emotions, Secrets & Lies & a Search Engine

Listen Now to News & Views 12.08.2015

Santa Cruz was abuzz with the still living Merry Pranksters for the 50th Anniversary of the very first acid test this weekend, with some amazing parties. Quite amazing, from which we’ll be posting some video shortly.

Our callers largely shaped the scope and content of today’s news segment, as we discussed the latest plans of the hacker group, Anonymous, and their plans for an ISIS Trolling Day, a plan for a roller coaster that kills with ecstatic experience, evidence that fish may feel, a new search engine that spawned some discussion on secrets and lies, an AI lie detector, and some talk about the memes we kick around on talk radio related to religion. Enjoy!

Guest - Dr. Bruce Damer with live music by Jim Matus and Galen Brandt

Listen Now to Dr. Bruce Damer

Dr. Bruce Damer shares with us some of his experiences of late, including a major ‘schmooze cruize’ in the Carribean, Summit at Sea, with thousands of notable ‘influencers’, such as tech entrepreneur Uber CEO TravisDr. Bruce Damer photo- Reno DeCaro Kalanick and Google chairman Eric Schmidt to Martha Stewart. We also explore the highlights of an innovative tech conference we all visited in Silicon Valley recently, idtechex.com, and discuss this week’s New Tech Meetup in Santa Cruz, where Bruce will be speaking on his asteroid capture project. 

To bring some holiday cheer to this broadcast, we have Jim Matus and Galen Brandt in studio to end the show with some beautiful music, an original composition with Jim’s unique stringed instrument, the Laoutar. 

Enjoy!

Galen Brandt and Jim Matus photo - Reno DeCaro

Future News- Global Gathering on Human Genetic Bioengineering, Bugs as Drugs, Bridge Building by Army Ants, Latest Pirate TV, Driverless Racing Cars,

Listen Now to Future News 12.01.2015

Boy oh boy, from eliminating inherited diseases to creating designer babies, never before has so much been possible with human genetic bioengineering.  A big conference on the topic is now going on in Washington D.C., at the same time as the huge Paris conference on the Environment- a big week for global conferences!

We also delve a bit into the scintillating topics of the special bridge-building swarm behavior of Army Ants, and disease-curing stratagies  related to our personal microbiome in the gut.   Towards the end of this report our guest for the second hour, Dr. Bruce Damer, comes on early to comment on how the racing paradigm has indeed pushed autonomous cars forward on their evolutionary spiral into the present.  Enjoy!