Games select for different brains

 

by Patrick Denker

Brain Images Predict Video Game Performance
[Via Economist's View]

A between classes quickie:

Researchers can predict your video game aptitude by imaging your brain, EurekAlert: Researchers report that they can predict “with unprecedented accuracy” how well you will do on a complex task such as a strategic video game simply by analyzing activity in a specific region of your brain.

The findings, published in the online journal PLoS ONE, offer detailed insights into the brain structures that facilitate learning, and may lead to the development of training strategies tailored to individual strengths and weaknesses.

The new approach used established brain imaging techniques in a new way. Instead of measuring how brain activity differs before and after subjects learn a complex task, the researchers analyzed background activity in the basal ganglia, a group of brain structures known to be important for procedural learning, coordinated movement and feelings of reward.

Using magnetic resonance imaging and a method known as multivoxel pattern analysis, the researchers found significant differences in patterns of a particular type of MRI signal, called T2*, in the basal ganglia of study subjects. These differences enabled researchers to predict between 55 and 68 percent of the variance (differences in performance) among the 34 people who later learned to play the game.

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I wrote yesterday about how kid’s brains may have been rewired. Now we have work that some brains are already better at games than others. I wonder what other advantages having a T2* signal gives someone?

Currently playing in iTunes: Anne Boleyn by Rick Wakeman from Treasure Chest–Journey To The Centre Of The Earth Plus

Google: Trying to force people to use a system it is not willing to provide legal support for

Ed Burnette: ‘Chrome Users Are the Latest Casualty in Google’s Crusade Against Apple’
[Via Daring Fireball]

Ed Burnette:

On paper, Google is taking a principled stand in favor of open technologies. But they’re not really. First, WebM is not truly an open technology because it almost certainly uses patents owned by MPEG-LA or its members. Right now, the patent holders are ignoring it because it’s too small to bother with. We’ve seen this tactic many times before (for example, NTP vs. RIM): bide your time until a lot of people are using the infringing software and then hit it with a massive lawsuit for maximum profit. WebM is its own patent trap, and Google refuses to indemnify users against possible claims further down the road. If they were certain it was IP-clean then why hesitate to provide that protection? Clearly they don’t want that unknown, possibly large liability on their balance sheet.

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Google is dropping the standard used by many outlets which is free from patent uncertainty to support a protocol that it owns. And if those that create the video based on Google’s promises find themselves in legal hot water, that is just too bad.

LG plus MS = not so good numbers

by Diego_3336

LG disappointed by Windows Phone 7 launch, keeping the faith
[Via Ars Technica]

LG’s marketing director James Choi has made some remarkably frank comments about Windows Phone 7, giving a clear indication that the company has not been blown away by the launch of the new platform. “From an industry perspective we had a high expectation, but from a consumer point of view the visibility is less than we expected,” he told Pocket Lint.

Choi was nothing but positive about Windows Phone 7 itself, saying that it was “absolutely perfect” for a “huge” part of the market. One particular advantage it has is that it is “very intuitive and easy to use”; he drew a contrast with Google’s Android, saying that many consumers find it “extremely complicated.” In spite of the early stumbles, it doesn’t appear that LG will be abandoning Microsoft’s platform; LG itself does not want any one platform to become dominant, with Choi saying that “being dependent on one OS is not beneficial for us.” According to Choi, this desire is mirrored by network operators, with some saying “there is too much ‘Android’ in the portfolio.”

[More]

Samsung seems to be doing okay with MS Windows Phone 7 handsets. Maybe LG just does not know how to do it?

Currently playing in iTunes: Stealing My Heart by Rolling Stones from Forty Licks (Disc 2)

Only 223 million more

Apple begins countdown to 10 billion App Store downloads
[Via AppleInsider]

As the App Store for iOS approaches its 10 billionth download, Apple has launched a countdown clock, and a new promotion that will give the person who downloads the 10 billionth application a $10,000 gift card.

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You can follow the countdown on the page Apple has set up. Should be fun.

Rumors for Apple

by yellowcloud

Rumor: Apple’s iPhone 5 to sport new A8 processor, Qualcomm baseband
[Via AppleInsider]

Apple’s forthcoming fifth-generation iPhone will sport a new, faster custom processor dubbed the A8, as well as a baseband processor from Qualcomm, according to a new report.

 

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Now if I only knew what the A8 actually did. Rumors are so much fun.

 

Currently playing in iTunes: Spinning by Transatlantic from The Whirlwind

A favorite ploy of many denialists is selective quotation and misrepresentation

Monckton’s “selective quotation and misrepresentation”
[Via Deltoid]

Mike Steketee bucks the groupthink at The Australian with an article on why it is necessary to adapt to the coming global warming. Christopher Monckton responds with a Gish gallop of 24 points where he alleges Steketee got it wrong. Steketee’s response is devasting: again and again and again he shows that Monckton misrepresented what Steketee wrote. Even Andrew “confirmation bias” Bolt, after at first being convinced that Monckton had shown Steketee to be wrong, was compelled to concede that Monckton had verballed Steketee. Though I’m sure Bolt will believe with all his heart and all his soul the next silly claim that Monckton makes.

Let me pick up on one of Monckton’s claims. I picked this one because I thought that Monckton had scored a point and I was writing something to that effect when I want back and checked what Steketee had written and discovered that Monckton had misrepresented him again. Monckton claims that Steketee stated:

1. EVEN IF GREENHOUSE-GAS EMISSIONS WERE TO STABILIZE AT LITTLE MORE THAN TODAY’S LEVELS, 2 C° OF FURTHER WARMING WILL OCCUR – FOUR TIMES THE INCREASE OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS.

Monckton then proceeds to calculate the equilibrium warming if CO2 was kept at current levels of 390 ppm. His calculations are a bit off, but it is generally agreed that there is about 0.5 of a degree of warming in the pipeline even if CO2 levels don’t increase any more.

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Read the back and forth and you will see which person is more intellectual honest with the facts and with their opponents. And, the best denilists will completely ignore these takedowns in a few months and repeat pretty much what has been debunked here.

Even when shown that their facts are wrong, that their rhetoric is false and that they have little substantial to stand on, denialists continue to inhabit their Cargo Cult World, afraid to leave it for the real world outside.

Perhaps no one is listening because no one is talking

A hard rain fallin’
[Via CEJournal]

With the recent images of parts of Queensland, Australia underwater (like the one above), the news today that 2010 was the wettest year globally on record, and by NOAA’s accounting tied for the warmest year on record, it was perhaps inevitable that Bob Dylan’s lyrics would start rattling around in my head:

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son ?
And what did you hear, my darling young one ?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
I heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’

Is anyone listening today? To this?:

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Perhaps the reason is that discussion of climate change in the media ‘fell off the cliff.‘

Total climate-related stories fell off 30%. Total network coverage of the climate meetings in Cancun – one 10 second clip! Total network coverage of the climate meetings in Copenhagen the year earlier – 32 stories lasting 98 minutes!

Coverage in 2010 dropped to levels not seen in 5 years. Instead of climate change becoming an increasing topic of discussion, it has fallen, even while denialists continue to make in roads.

I wonder why the media decided to simply drop the subject?

Why LEDs will become commonplace

What’s the problem with LEDs?
[Via Andrew Hargadon]

LED lighting is clearly a path forward. The challenge, as with all “promising but currently too expensive” new clean energy technologies is how to get from here (low volume, high costs) to there (high volume, low costs). The bulk of cost reductions typically come from economies of scale, which moves industries down the learning curve. So what brings us the larger volumes? Is it more government subsidies for research? Is it regulations or rebates that drive market demand? In a recent Technology Review article (LEDs Are Getting Ready for the Spotlight), Josie Garthwaite describes another option, which follows on my earlier post about finding new problems for old solutions.

Ask anyone these days, and they will tell you that LEDs are a more efficient light source—for the same light levels, they consume roughly 10% of the energy of an incandescent. LEDs, in essence, are a solution for problems of energy costs (and carbon output). Except that they are still too expensive for most people to justify the resulting savings:

LED light fixtures that are designed to replace screw-in incandescent bulbs still cost $40 or more for the equivalent of a 60-watt bulb and $20 for a 40-watt equivalent. LED tubes often cost as much as $50 to $100, versus as little as $2 to $10 for fluorescent counterparts. But LEDs save money over their life span because they use less electricity and last longer. A four-foot LED tube will typically require only about 15 to 25 watts of power, compared with 30 watts or more for a fluorescent tube that will last half as long.

Walmart is one of the leading customers adoption LEDs, and they acknowledge the energy efficiency of LEDs. At the same time, however, they also acknowledge that energy costs really aren’t a compelling problem across most of the U.S. As Charles Zimmerman, vice president of international design and construction, explains, Walmart is adopting LEDs across their stores, beginning where energy is most expensive—which is in Puerto Rico. LED lighting will move “from marketplace to marketplace based on the cost of energy. Eventually it will move to the U.S. and Canada, where we have the lowest electricity rates.”

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LEDs may be expensive but they will find a huge place in commercial settings. Not due to their lower energy costs but to the lower maintenance costs. Depending on the type of light, LEDs need to be replaced only 1/10 the amount of time. Considering that paying people to change lights can be a large cost, the LEDs will pay for themselves.

So, while LEDs may not be used in our homes for a while, they will become very common in many other settings. Hopefully this will bring the price down.