Brains Don't Lie

Source: Gladek, Eva. Discover, 12 Sept 2006

Summary
This article describes new research being done at Temple University by researchers Scott Faro and Feroze Mohamed to develop a novel lie detection system. Instead of the current standard for lie detection, the polygraph machine, which measures changes in physical characteristics such as heart rate, body temperature and perspiration, Faro and Mohamed, "are going straight to the source," by detecting changes in brain activity while lying.

Their experiment consisted of having 6 out of 11 volunteers fire a gun and then asking them all to state that they did not fire the gun while having a functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine scan their brain activity. This would mean that five people were telling the truth while the other six were lying.

They noticed increased areas of brain activity in the liars and up to twice as much activity in general. They are not yet able to pinpoint a lie from the truth, but they do know that lying requires more brain activity than telling the truth because the brain has to supress its natural response to a question and create another one. They also know that it would be very difficult to cheat an fMRI lie detection system or for an fMRI lie detection system to generate false positives as polygraph tests do up to 25% of the time. They hope to continue their research and develop a far more sophisticated and accurate method of lie detection.

Nintendo Wii

What a mad system. Games (new and old: you can download classic games from all previous Nintendo platforms), Internet, Photos, Video, The Wii Remote.

At $250 including Wii Sports, the remote, the nunchuck controller and the console, this system is quite a bargain.

I've found the most information from Engagdet: Live at Nintendo's NYC Wii press conference

Blogged with Flock

The trouble with YouTube; Internet video

Source: The Economist. London: Sep 2, 2006.Vol.380, Iss. 8493; pg. 61

Vocab
provenance - place of origin; derivation.

Many firms will be cautious about letting an automatic system--such as, say, Google's AdSense--place their ads next to user-generated clips of unknown provenance and with potentially embarrassing contents.

Summary

It attracts lots of viewers, but can "user-generated" video make money?

This is the opening line of the article and a succinct summary of the article itself. The article shares a critical analysis of the burgeoning business of video websites such as YouTube, Google Video, MySpace, Guba, Veoh and Metacafe.

The business model of such video websites is still unknown. Some, like YouTube and Guba, have experimented with various advertising models to generate revenue. Guba is also selling and renting videos as well as showing free user-generated content. This type of business model sets online video sites, "on a collision course with DVD-rental outfits, such as Netflix, which are moving towards the delivery of films via the internet, rather than as discs sent through the post."

Lastly, the article mentions that the goal of many new online video websites is not to become independent companies and go public, but rather to garner enough interest from large media companies such as Sony and the News Corporation (both of which have made multi-million dollar deals with online video websites) and sell, sell, sell.

i++

Well... i++ probably won't be up by the end of this weekend. There are a few other things that I need to get straightened out before that can happen. One of those things is getting Ubuntu up and running on my machine. It's been somewhat of a challenge setting up the machine - Windows seems to be ruining the partition tables, making it difficult to get advanced partitioning going on - but, Ubuntu (Dapper Drake) will be happening soon.

Actually, it will be happening now.

[this computer will shut down in 5... 4...]

Action

Today, I met a guy by the name of, Action. He was all about action. I think in an earlier post... maybe from the beginning of this year or even earlier, I talked about a game called i++. Well, that game is going to happen. It will be on the Internet soon. Probably by the end of this coming weekend.

I will post my progress on the game here.

Be aware. (a.k.a. beware)

Starting something new

I'm going to start something new. I have the GRE coming up soon and I'd like to really get "in shape" for it.

What I am going to do is start going to sleep a bit earlier, waking up earlier and reading "high-quality" news and journal articles online each morning before work.

After reading these articles, I'll post a short reflection on what I've read here in this blog.

The sources of my reading will come from the links to the right (which will soon be updated). I am thinking of a science source, such as Discover or Scientific American; an economics/politics source, such as The Economist; and news: BBC.

I've already been reading these different sources, but only on occaision. I'd really like to stick with it for a serious amount of time to strengthen my vocabulary and increase my reading speed and comprehension. I'd also like to get more into reading and would really enjoy reading from the sources listed above.

Knowledge is power.