At Facebook’s annual developer conference this April, Regina Dugan, head of the company’s experimental technologies division, said Facebook was working on «optical neuro-imaging systems» that would allow people to «type words directly from their brain». In the future they see people «being able to share thoughts independent of language: English Spanish or Mandarin», brain to
Tesla’s universal language machine
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943), the pioneer of the alternating current system, radio and remote control technology, devoted his life to the development of wireless energy transmission, based on which he put forward his ideas regarding a universal transverbal language of the future. Since these ideas coincide with contemporary propositions of «optical neuro-imaging systems» or nonverbal interface
Writing is for reading
A. Writing is for reading the looking at function is secondary It’s almost to-the-month-annually that a contribution about a topic related to «reading» or «writing» is asked. The regularity of the inquiries is convincing, and I hope to pursue the topic as an admittedly slow study of sorts. This time I would like to be
Zukunft des Lesens
1. Gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Richtung auf eine Partizipationskultur Die Rede von der Zukunft des Lesens im Rahmen des gesellschaftlichen Wandels umfasst immer eine deskriptive (beschreibende) sowie auch präskriptive (wertende) Ebene, in der das angestrebte Ziel dieses Wandels expliziert wird. Dabei sollte im Optimalfall eine möglichst umfassende, adäquate Beschreibung der beobachtbaren Entwicklungstendenzen die Grundlage für einen
A MANIFETST (sic)
In his influential article A Mathematical Theory of Communication, Claude Shannon introduced a simple probabilistic procedure for producing what he called “approximations to English”: one opens a book at random and selects a letter at random on the page. This letter is recorded. The book is then opened to another page and one reads until
Young people and technology
Two stories about young people, and especially college-age students, are circulating widely today. One script sees a generation of tweeters and texters and snapchatters, awash in self indulgence and narcissistic twaddle, most of it riddled with errors. The other script doesn’t diminish the effects of technology, but presents young people as running a ratrace that
Lernziel: Langeweile
Wie wirkt sich eine Kindheit mit Smartphone und Spielkonsolen auf die Aneignung von Sprache und Schrift aus? Wenn Kinder Probleme haben, diese elementaren Kulturtechniken zu erlernen, spricht man von Legasthenie oder Dyslexie, die sich als Barriere zwischen das Kind und die Umwelt stellen. Heute werden diese Probleme fast immer durch organische Störungen im Hirn oder
