Sources: Gizmodo, Technology Viewer, Grinding.be

Check his photo set on Flickr

… so it begins. Jerry Jalava was a hacker until a motorcycle accident last May caused him to lose a finger. He could have settled for a standard prosthetic replacement, or a “new” digit off a fresh corpse. He chose the prosthetic, but not a standard prosthetic. He wanted something more… 2GB more…

A 2GB drive is embedded in a silicone “fingertip” and features a USB interface, and has a Billix Linux distribution… and the move Freddy Got Fingered… on it. He’s a hacker… that should be enough explanation.

Not quite cyborg. Jerry’s new finger-drive isn’t permanently attached to him, which is good for when he needs to replace or upgrade the drive, so the reports of a cyborg being born are still premature. There are even doubters already calling shenanigans on the photos (they must be looking at the “visualization” pics from Yanko Design). Still, this has to be the most cyberpunk idea to come over the fiber in some time. But it also leaves an important question still unanswered: Why?

He’s a hacker… that should be enough explanation.

Sources: MSNBC, now everywhere.

‘Build-A-Bear’ but with babies. A fertility clinic in Los Angeles is giving prospective parents a chance to mod their babies via genetic manipulation. The technique, called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), allows parents and doctors to screen out potential gene-borne diseases and other “defects,” but soon could be used to increase the chance of a baby to have certain “choice” attributes like height, hair color, and even IQ.

Such genetic screening has been around forever, but in a much more natural form (discovered by Charles Darwin). It was even discovered that you could “choose” the gender/sex of your offspring with a timing method. But with the mapping of the human genome and genetic screening, it is now possible to fine-tune the looks and abilities of your children.

Master race, anyone?

Gattica, here we come! Maybe. The idea of spawning a Frankenstein-baby may be scary or exciting, but it may not catch on due to some major problems to be worked out. First off, the PGD process does not guarantee success; It only increases the odds that a child will have selected traits. Secondly, they have to use in vitro fertilization which doesn’t always work. And at $18K US per attempt, you can only afford one attempt.

Then, you have to deal with all the “eugenics” issues that will inevitably arise. An assembly-line master race may not be possible just yet.

Of course, that can all change when the machines take over…

Source: Julian Togelius’ Blog

Julian Togelius normally blogs about his work in artificial intelligence. However, on Monday 16-February-2009, he posted something that came to him completely out of the blue… or it got knocked loose from watching/reading/hearing about the currently in-progress Sweden vs. The Pirate Bay trial. It came to him in the form of a “slogan:”

NO PRIVACY WITHOUT PIRACY

Julian’s explanation:

The idea is that any method I’ve ever heard of for eradicating piracy, and indeed any conceivable method for doing so, build on also eradicating (or at least severely curtailing) privacy.

If you follow technology in the past few years, any anti-pirating tech has always come with anti-privacy issues whether it is DRM spyware or ISP wiretaps. In one simple slogan, Julian hopes to take the piracy-privacy connection to a new level, make people think more about the two, and possibly spread the word around viral-meme style.

So, is it an “All Your Base…” worthy battle cry, or something to be forgotten like Goatse and Tubgirl?

The master does it again. With another running-longer-than-planned poll now in the books, you have once again chosen William Gibson, at least his book Neuromancer, as the most significant contribution to cyberpunk. You have claimed it to be more significant than Blade Runner, even more so than the creation of the word itself. Since most of you most likely started with Neuromancer, it almost seemed like a no-brainer has to how this would come out, though Blade Runner fans still might have something to say about it.

And now, for the next poll…

NOTHING!

That’s right. We’re going to give our polling machines a break, though I do have a couple of ideas for our next poll(s) (something music based), but I want to get a couple of music reviews in before posting. In the mean time, I’ll be checking out FOX’s new series Dollhouse and letting you know if it’s cyberpunk material or not. Plus, I want to get The Gene Generation viewed and reviewed this weekend before the Daytona 500 wrecks my plans.

Source: Wired

A burning question. Wired’s Daniel Roth asks the important question of what rights robot should have when they reach human levels of sentience. Something to get the philosophers, religious fruitcakes, and robot-rights activists to talk about:

This question is starting to get debated by robot designers and toymakers. With advanced robotics becoming cheaper and more commonplace, the challenge isn’t how we learn to accept robots—but whether we should care when they’re mistreated. And if we start caring about robot ethics, might we then go one insane step further and grant them rights?

Apparently Mr. Roth has already sided with the pro-human forces, mainly because of his dislike for the animatronic Elmo dolls, and a little kool-aid from Fisher-Price’s marketing Veep Gina Sirard:

Of course, that’s what corporations, governments, slave owners, and dictators have been saying about people for centuries. They’re only toys now because the technology has not progressed to the point where robotic humanity is possible… but once it does…

THEN WHAT, MEATBOT?

Given events in places like Auschwitz, the former Yugoslavia, Guantanamo, and the World Trade Center, I often wonder if humans deserve human rights. Maybe some competition from the machines may snap the species out of narcissistic slumber. Right now is the best time to recognize robot rights… otherwise…

“It sits there looking at me, and I don’t know what it is. This case has dealt with metaphysics, with questions best left to saints and philosophers. I am neither competent, nor qualified, to answer those. I’ve got to make a ruling – to try to speak to the future. Is Data a machine? Yes. Is he the property of Starfleet? No. We’ve all been dancing around the basic issue: does Data have a soul? I don’t know that he has. I don’t know that I have! But I have got to give him the freedom to explore that question himself. It is the ruling of this court that Lieutenant Commander Data has the freedom to choose.”

- Captain Phillipa Louvois (Star Trek: The Next Generation “The Measure of a Man”)

Sources: Slashdot, Reuters

Appetite for Destruction. A Potomac, MD, US company called Robotic Technologies Inc. (RTI) has just contracted Florida-based Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. to develop engines for a new DARPA robot project. These engines will use biomass as their fuel source. Doesn’t sound like major news… unless you know that the project is called EATR: Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR(TM)).

The EATR is an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance military missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling. The system is designed to obtain its energy by foraging — engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. The patent pending robotic system can find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil and solar) when suitable.

In other words, the EATR-bots will power itself by doing something nature has been doing for millions of years: Ingest “food” by grazing (herbivore), hunting (carnivore), and/or scavenging. A PDF presentation of the project can be found/downloaded here.

Terabytes… or TERROR BITES? It’s not hard to imagine a pack of hungry, hungry robots being let loose in a densely populated area like a big city or a Midwest farm where their appetites can cause a major catastrophe, unless you program them to not eat certain targets. They can also be used in “clean-up” work such as clearing brush to prevent or control forest fires, cleaning up landfills, or even the recent turmoil in Gaza…

Then you have to figure what the kooks at PETA may try to do to “convince” the EATRs to go vegan. Maybe a spin-off like RETHA: Robots for the Ethical Treatment of Humans and Animals? And it may also lead to another question: What sauce do you use to serve a PETA member to an EATR?

Source: The Student Operated Press (SOP)

A little something to tweak your brain. One thing I like about cyberpunk is how it makes you think about how technology is taking over our lives, and what good or harm that does. Consider this little essay a subtle hint about the “harm” part.

Actually, it’s about the author’s preference of Faulkner over Hemingway; A rejection of media-for-the-masses in favor of more intellectual fare, and why this may have saved his brain from mutating into sheeple-think:

We didn`t know it then, but the age of instant gratification and horse-race criticism was aborning. From there on fiction would be adjudged by whether it was a page-turner or a beach read. The best-seller list would reflect not literary quality but marketing expertise.

So, how does this relate to cyberpunk? This op-ed piece seems to touch on two cyberpunk themes: Control over society, and access to information. You control the information, you control what the sheeple think, and therefore, you control the society. You REALLY think that all those national firewalls and “filters” going up is to combat porn and piracy?

What happens to a society that can’t think for itself?

Clarity and forward motion would become buzz words for an underlying unwillingness to embark on the adventure that Proust`s marvelous powers of observation posed, just as the Republican Southern Strategy of the 1960s was actually a buzz term for license to keep on hating and oppressing. It was assumed that Crane had tied a mass of knots that were not worth untying, whereas in fact he had pressed the language into service for a voyage, much like fitting a spaceship. The critics were licensing the public to dumb down. The marketers were supplanting the editors. Such a society was bound sooner or later to accept a George W. Bush or Dick Cheney as leaders, because it had given up its intellectual future without a whimper.
…
We have allowed taste-making apparatchiks to turn literature into a horse race in which someone has to win and someone has to lose, a fundamentally silly idea. The winners of course will be the worst books, the worst minds, and, it goes without saying, the most venal.

Still need a clue? Check this Guidespot.com post called “SHEEPLE” things we LOVE because we can’t think for ourselves.

Cyberpunk, the cure for non-functional brains. Fortunately for us, cyberpunk has managed to stay out of the mass-media spotlight enough to not be co-opted into a propaganda brain-cell killer, though not from the lack of trying. Despite Time Magazine’s best efforts in 1993, cyberpunk survived the limelight and remained mostly underground. This kept the genre vital and interesting to inspire newer generations of CP fans and artists.

So next time you feel your brain-cells being anesthetized by mass-media, reach for a cyberpunk book, movie, or CD, and reboot your brain.

Source: io9

Sci-Fi site io9 has posted its list of movies for 2009 to watch… or avoid; Some 30 such movies expected over the next twelve months. While some are predictable blockbusters (J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, a live-action Dragonball, and the Wolverine movie), there’s a few we’ll be keeping an eye-cam out for and possibly reviewing so you can go watch… or avoid… as necessary.

Here’s what’s coming up, chronologically:

Terminator: Salvation (May 22). The latest of the series (this time sans-Schwarzenegger) looks and sounds like a big rebound from the T3 fiasco.

At least the Harvester is impressive.

Game (Sept. 4). Imagine playing your favorite FPS or shoot-em-up using REAL people and REAL weapons. For some convicts with controller chips in their heads, it becomes all-too REAL. Early reviews say it REALLY sucks, but we’ll give you our view of it… for REAL.

9 (Sept. 9). The machines have succeeded in exterminating humanity. Now, only one stands in the way of total mechanized domination… a RAG DOLL???!!!???

Believe it or don’t, this Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov production may have something to show John Conner in terms of fighting against killer robots.

The Surrogates (Sept. 25). In a world where “going out” means firing up your robot (a “surrogate”) and maneuvering it through reality like playing an FPS, Bruce Willis finally snaps from cabin fever and exclaims:

And he does just that… he goes outside… physically outside! It is based on a little-known graphic novel (I’ve got to look for it!), and has some real potential for reviews here.

Astro Boy (Oct. 23). Another classic anime get the Hollywood makeover, and a Pinocchio-esque storyline to boot. Might be worth a laugh… and a brief review… maybe.

But wait… There’s more! Not only will these movies be reviewed… maybe… but there are some from the past year, and earlier years, I and my fellow reviewers will try to review for you. I have 6 DVDs planned for viewing and reviewing, so we’ll be busy getting the best of cyberpunk cinema to you this year.

Source: Library of Congres, National Film Registry (Press Release)

We knew The Terminator was an unstoppable influence on cyberpunk, and American culture in general, and now it will have its place along side cyberpunk classics Blade Runner and Alien.

From the press release:

The Terminator (1984)

In 1984, few expected much from the upcoming film “The Terminator.” Director James Cameron, a protégé of legendary independent filmmaker Roger Corman, had made only two films previously: the modest sci-fi short “Xenogenesis” in 1978 and “Piranha Part Two: The Spawning” in 1981. However, “The Terminator” became one of the sleeper hits of 1984, blending an ingenious, thoughtful script — clearly influenced by the works of sci-fi legend Harlan Ellison — and relentless, non-stop action moved along by an outstanding synthesizer and early techno soundtrack. Most notable was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star-making performance as the mass-killing cyborg with a laconic sense of humor (”I’ll be back”). Low-budget, but made with heart, verve, imagination, and superb Stan Winston special effects, “The Terminator” remains among the finest science-fiction films in many decades.

What cyberpunk movies will be included in the future? With T1 now registered for preservation, things look good for Terminator 2: Judgment Day to join it since many consider it to be better than T1. Just don’t hold your breath for T3, k?

If you want to see the full list (some 500 movies so far), just head over to the NFR site and take a look-see at what has been selected for preservation. Quite an impressive list, not only including major films but newsreels as well. But some notable cyberpunk movies are absent… at least until next year anyway. Movies like WarGames, Tron, Sneakers (a personal favorite), and Robocop should be included. The Matrix also, though it may be a little early for it to qualify (possibly in 2010?).

There’s still plenty of cyberpunk movies yet to review, with possible gems for the Registry to save. And when next year’s selections for preservation are announced, and any cyberpunk movies get the nod, we will let you know.

Source: Associated Press (via Yahoo!)

Building germs in the garage? Why not? The computer industry started out in garages, and now future genetic engineers may come from the same location. These biohackers are currently twisting the double-helix of life in hopes of finding breakthrough cures and therapies, or at least creating mutant strains to help humanity. They don’t have the PhD’s or advanced medical knowledge, but they can find most of the info, materials, and equipment they need off the Internet. A Massachusetts company is also helping the DIY gene-twisters:

In Cambridge, Mass., a group called DIYbio is setting up a community lab where the public could use chemicals and lab equipment, including a used freezer, scored for free off Craigslist, that drops to 80 degrees below zero, the temperature needed to keep many kinds of bacteria alive.

Co-founder Mackenzie Cowell, a 24-year-old who majored in biology in college, said amateurs will probably pursue serious work such as new vaccines and super-efficient biofuels, but they might also try, for example, to use squid genes to create tattoos that glow.

Cowell said such unfettered creativity could produce important discoveries.

What’s the worst that could happen? There are critics who see this DIY attitude as an open invitation to terrorism, or at least a recipe for disaster. But given how the current system is used just to make profits, and how hacker innovation has allowed computer technology to explode to its current state, biohackers may be better than the money-driven model.