Andy Walker's Blog: Andy Walker's Super You Notes, page 3
July 31, 2016
Super You interview on Viewpoints hosted by Todd van der Heyden on CJAD 800 AM
Catch Andy’s two-part interview with national media personality Todd van der Heyden (also a host on CTV News Channel) on his syndicated radio show Viewpoints.
Airs on CJAD in Montreal and then is carried on multiple stations across Canada.
Play now:
https://soundcloud.com/cjad-viewpoints/viewpoints-podcast-july-30-2016#t=1:01:34
Download podcast version:
https://soundcloud.com/cjad-viewpoints/viewpoints-podcast-july-30-2016
Learn more about Todd van der Heyden: Todd’s bio on CTV News Channel
July 25, 2016
A robot took my job: How automation will drive unemployment, and freedom for the masses
This Farmbot (see video) is one of the technologies that are arriving at an accelerating pace that is going to change society – and the economy – at a fundamental level.
It’s a disruptive technology that will let us fed a lot of people cheaply yet, put a lot of unskilled workers out of work…
If you are a farmer, you’ll probably be investing in this technology too. You’ll cut costs, increase yield, but you’ll also move your skillset from agriculture and into robotics business management. Your need for seasonal unskilled worker will diminish.
Farms and what else? Transportation
Drive a truck? Fly a cargo airplane? Or drive a taxi? You jobs are at risk of elimination by technology as well.
The technology for driverless vehicles and cargo aviation is here and will undergo a massive
And that worries a lot of people. While there will be significant disruption as a result of these technologies the cost of production will drop massively.
In our book Super You: How Technology is Revolutionizing What it Means to Be Human, we examine this trend in our conversation with Zoltan Istvan, who also wrote the foreword to our book Istvan is the founder of The Transhumanist Party and Presidential candidate in the 2016 U.S. federal election.
Zoltan Istvan: Transhumanist Party founder and Presidential candidateIstvan contends that there will be a need for a Universal Basic Income. (UBI) meaning that every citizen will receive a living wage from the government. Education will be free. And anyone that wants to augment their income with paid work can opt to do so.
Experiments (outside the U.S.) with this idea has had amazing results. It reduces crime, drug use, medical care (Medicaid equivalent), social services and other government funded programs that allows the UBI to be funded.
Read more about this in our book Super You on pages 313, 316-317.
July 19, 2016
Video: Artificial sight is possible for the blind: Soon it will be augmented sight for you
How long before we bypass our mobile screen and pipe augmented reality directly into the retina or human brain so we can see it without a smartphone?
The following is a blurb from Chapter 6 Franken-You: A Better Life Through Cyborg Technology of the book Super You on page 282.
This video shows a blind man getting artificial vision installed into his brain using Second Sight’s Argus II. The system that uses electrodes placed directly into the retina and wirelessly fed visual information from a camera attached to glasses. It wouldn’t be hard to pipe in any augmented reality into the visual field, including a Pokemon Go overlay directly into a human brain.
Or imagine seeing promos floating over the aisles of a Target store. Or guidance to your hotel room in an unfamiliar hotel. Or…use your imagination because it will soon be possible.
In fact this is your future, and the glasses will be optional. Eventually web-connected nanites swimming in your blood and flowing through your brain will do this for you (For nanites, see page 201-202 in Super You).
July 13, 2016
Franken-fish: Scientists bio-print an artificial stingray from rat heart cells
Can you create life on a printer? You can now.
Scientists have created hybrid-life by engineering rat heart cells on a gold skeleton to create a beast that swims like a stingray.
You could call it a “raybot”. This half animal, half machine can be guided through an obstacle course with pulse of light. Is it alive? Well it depends on what your definition of life is. The answer is complicated. If it looks like a fish and swims like a fish, it might be a artificial fish with life like tendencies.
Why do we need franken-fish?
An artificial stingray has no particular specific use as a franken-fish, but this kind of research is fundamental to engineering special-purpose creations like artificial worms that stalk and snack on cancer. Or bionic replacement body parts for people who have lost them (or damaged them) in accidents or disease. Imagine having little biobot swimmers in your body that swarm to the site of a medical emergency such as a heart attack. Sensitized robot soft tissue could operate without the need for metal components or hard-plastic exoskeletons.
The research which uses modified rat heart cells, could be used to create technologies to make replacement human hearts as well.
Read more
July 11, 2016
Do you hate me because of my eumelanin or pheomelanin levels?
Or maybe: “Blue Lives Matter”?
How about: “Sushi Eaters Lives Matter?” Or “People Who Wear Scarves Lives Matter?”
Read this and put it on your fridge…
There are two types of melanin in humans — eumelanin and pheomelanin. In general, the more eumelanin in your skin, then the darker your skin will be. People whose bodies make more pheomelanin than eumelanin tend to have lighter skin with freckles.
I’m one of the authors of the book Super You: How technology is Revolutionizing What it Means to Be Human (click here for a free chapter or just grab 16 bucks and buy the freaking book: click here.)
And I say:
Up with lots of eumelanin and down with pheomelanin!
Wait, no – Down with lots of eumelanin and up with lots of pheomelanin!
Umm, no that’s not it.
How about, up with people who have skin!
How about this:
Don’t you wish there was a genetic signature for love, tolerance and willingness to eat delicious food with us?
Don’t you wish the world couldn’t see your eumelanin and pheomelanin levels? Because, it really doesn’t matter. Right?
And here is the funny part. Soon, you will be able to engineer this weird DNA aberration by using a pill or an injection or a nano-patch.
That’s a fact.
There is a baby doctor in LA who has the ability to adjust the pigment in your unborn baby’s skin, as well as eye color, hair straightness and gender.
How do I know? Because we interview him for our book Super You. You can buy services from him to engineer your baby’s gender for $18K. That said, you can’t buy the other traits because of a lot of controversy and drama. (We talk about that in Chapter 6.)
But, very, very soon you will be able to write a check for those things.
Soon any cosmetic surgeon will offer these Super You feature adjustments to grownups or in babies you want to conceive.
Although you might have to travel somewhere outside the U.S. to get it because it may be mired in social policy for a while in the United States. Religious and political will tend to trail science by several years and they cause delays while they fret about it and check their scriptures or case law.
Skin color choice will soon be yours
Those of you that want to be more “white” will be able to pay for that.
Those that want to be more “black” can choose that too.
Those that want to be green? Yes that will be possible too. (In Chapter 3 of our book you’ll meet Eric Sprague aka Lizardman). If you want to be zebra-striped, likely that will be possible within a decade.
Why? Because cosmetic doctors — it’s not surgery so we won’t call them surgeons any more — have a new tool called CRISPR that lets them edit your genes. Or your baby’s genes.
Very, very soon, we’ll all have the option to easily adjust a eumelanin / pheomelanin “slider” based on our mood that day. This will be possible soon. really soon. Like 5 years. And worse case 10. And worst, worst case 20. But really not because of the science but because of the public policy as I mentioned above.
Bottom line: Let’s stop hating each other, and hunting each other, because of DNA that determines our eumelanin vs. pheomelanin levels.
And while we’re at it, let’s start editing people’s mental health. That is the real untreated problem today.
-Andy Walker
Author, Super You: How technology is revolutionizing what it means to be human
Pokemon Go is the start of a future where we interact with an enhanced reality
Yes it has come to this…I am doing a national hit on CTV News Channel (Canada) tomorrow (Tues) at 720 AM EDT on — wait for it — Pokemon.
(Will post here when link is available.)
And specifically Pokemon Go which is an app where Pokemon meets your smartphone mixed with augmented reality that uses GPS to help you find virtual cute monster in the real world.
This augmented reality is just a peek at how our real world will be combined with digital created augmented reality.
I am going to warn the TV audience how nostalgic grownups staring at their cellphones are likely to get killed chasing Pikachu across their own street. Hey kids, this SUPERYOUtopia business is not all nanobots and sunshine you know.
Some people are already resisting augment reality as this Pokemon Go MEME demonstratesHeck, a Wyoming woman already found a real world dead body – a drowning victim it seems – as she sought virtual monster cuteness.
Actually we talk a bit about this kind of thing in Chapter 3 of Super You – http://superyou.link/book in terms of immersing yourself in vrtual world that is one foot in reality and one foot in an augemented world of your own making when you look like a version of you that you create for others.
Here is a short primer to Pokemon Go:
What is Pokemon Go?
Pokémon Go is a mobile game that uses your smartphone’s GPS (location) and clock (time) to detect where and when you are in the mobile game. It makes Pokémon creatures “appear” around you (you see them via your phone screen) so you can try to catch them.
What does it cost?
The app is free to download and play, though you can buy virtual tools with real money to help you find the Pokemon creatures via an in-app purchase.
What devices does it work on?
There are apps for iOS (Apple) and Android devices. Yo download them from the device’s app store
Can I customize how I look in the game?
Yes you can change the Pokemon hunter character you play and edit the character’s appearance.
Why is this game important?
It merges the real world (via your phone’s screen) with the game’s virtual world, using a technology called augmented reality. It makes it seems as though the game characters are in your real everyday life. You use your phone to see them.
Is the game a privacy risk?
If you sign in with your Google account it gives the game full access to your Google account though it can’t use your Google wallet or change your password… HOWEVER people got upset at this and Ninetndo has been working with Google to reset this to basic persmissions red alert – https://support.pokemongo.nianticlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/222648408
Is Pokemon Go the transhumanist future?
In a weird way yes. Sort of. But just as the first computers in massive rooms in the 1960s and 1970s are nothing like what today’s computers look like, they shows the way to a new tool that enhanced being human.
What is important about Pokemon Go is that it shows primitively how you can change the look of how you want and present to the work – you are an avatar – how you want to others and interact with machine generated intelligence that aren’t there in the “real” physical world but that change your experience of it.
Pokemon Go is the beginning of a future where we interact with an enhanced reality
Yes it has come to this…I am doing a national hit on CTV News Channel (Canada) tomorrow (Tues) at 720 AM EDT on — wait for it — Pokemon.
(Will post here when link is available.)
And specifically Pokemon Go which is an app where Pokemon meets your smartphone mixed with augmented reality that uses GPS to help you find virtual cute monster in the real world.
This augmented reality is just a peek at how our real world will be combined with digital created augmented reality.
I am going to warn the TV audience how nostalgic grownups staring at their cellphones are likely to get killed chasing Pikachu across their own street. Hey kids, this SUPERYOUtopia business is not all nanobots and sunshine you know.
Some people are already resisting augment reality as this Pokemon Go MEME demonstratesHeck, a Wyoming woman already found a real world dead body – a drowning victim it seems – as she sought virtual monster cuteness.
Actually we talk a bit about this kind of thing in Chapter 3 of Super You – http://superyou.link/book in terms of immersing yourself in vrtual world that is one foot in reality and one foot in an augemented world of your own making when you look like a version of you that you create for others.
Here is a short primer to Pokemon Go:
What is Pokemon Go?
Pokémon Go is a mobile game that uses your smartphone’s GPS (location) and clock (time) to detect where and when you are in the mobile game. It makes Pokémon creatures “appear” around you (you see them via your phone screen) so you can try to catch them.
What does it cost?
The app is free to download and play, though you can buy virtual tools with real money to help you find the Pokemon creatures via an in-app purchase.
What devices does it work on?
There are apps for iOS (Apple) and Android devices. Yo download them from the device’s app store
Can I customize how I look in the game?
Yes you can change the Pokemon hunter character you play and edit the character’s appearance.
Why is this game important?
It merges the real world (via your phone’s screen) with the game’s virtual world, using a technology called augmented reality. It makes it seems as though the game characters are in your real everyday life. You use your phone to see them.
Is the game a privacy risk?
If you sign in with your Google account it gives the game full access to your Google account though it can’t use your Google wallet or change your password… expect this to change. More on this here
Is Pokemon Go the transhumanist future?
In a weird way yes. Sort of. But just as the first computers in massive rooms in the 1960s and 1970s are nothing like what today’s computers look like, they shows the way to a new tool that enhanced being human.
What is important about Pokemon Go is that it shows primitively how you can change the look of how you want and present to the work – you are an avatar – how you want to others and interact with machine generated intelligence that aren’t there in the “real” physical world but that change your experience of it.
June 28, 2016
Andy and Zuck on CTV News Channel
Is that Andy and Zuck together on TV? Yep! Well sort of.
See Super You author Andy Walker on CTV News Channel, nationally across Canada, comment on the latest tech issues this morning:
WATCH NOW: http://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=900516
including if you should cover your webcam on your computer just like Mark Zuckerberg does.
Andy joined CTV host Todd van der Heyden along with fellow tech journalist and all around awesome guy Carmi Levy.
They discussed:
Mark Zuckerberg’s webcam privacy habits
Drone races in Canada
And how to get every drop of shampoo out of the bottle using a new nano-engineered material.
Andy’s new book Super You: How Technology is Revolutionizing What it Means to Be Human is now in stores everywhere including Canada, the US, UK and Australia.
June 26, 2016
Drone and self-driving pizza delivery – latest videos!
The four videos below show how far automated delivery technology has come in a very short period of time. Pizza companies and of course Amazon are all in the game using drones and automated road vehicles.
Let’s start with drone pizza delivery
If ever there was an arena for new technology testing then it has to be with pizza companies.
Below are two videos that capture a reality that we are about to see in the next few years. Automated flying drone pizza deliveries? Yes!. Self driving pizza deliver bikes. Yes!
Driverless pizza delivery is also around the corner
You can see where automated robotic self driving vehicles will be amazing for companies that use human drivers today.
Drone pizza delivery is already happening in India
A pizza company called Francesco’s Pizzeria is delivering pizza by drone in mumbai, India.
Amazon showcases latest drone technology
And here is a sneak peak of Amazon’s developments in their drone delivery technology:
June 23, 2016
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