Beyond Google: StumbleUpon & "Social Search"

Beyond Google: StumbleUpon & "Social Search": "In a podcast I was listening to last week, legendary Web guru, Seth Godin, the author of ' Cow,' 'Small is the New Big,' and his new New York Times bestseller, 'The Dip,' made a fascinating and I believe, brilliant, observation.
When asked what companies he thought might be the next big thing beyond Google, Godin answered: 'StumbleUpon: it is social search and it's revolutionizing how we find things on the Web.'
Using search engines to locate relevant content typically means hunting through pages of results. Rather than searching for quality web sites, StumbleUpon members are taken directly to web sites matching their personal interests and preferences."

Beyond Google 2: StumbleUpon Integrates with Facebook

Beyond Google 2: StumbleUpon Integrates with Facebook: "Okay, we admit it: we're StumbleUpon addicts at the Galaxy. We use the service to find user-filtered photos, websites, and videos we think might make good feature posts on the Galaxy. But we're equally smitten with Facebook and its powerful social communications networking system.
A couple of weeks back we posted Web guru Seth Godin's comment (he's the author of ' Cow,' 'Small is the New Big,' and his new New York Times bestseller, 'The Dip') that 'StumbleUpon is social search and it's revolutionizing how we find things on the Web.'"

Beyond Google 3: Why a Semantic Web Will Be Smarter, Faster & All-Around Better

Beyond Google 3: Why a Semantic Web Will Be Smarter, Faster & All-Around Better: "Someday the entire world will likely have access to virtual “software agents” who will “roam” across the Web, making our travel arrangements, doctor's appointments and basically taking care of all the day-to-day hassles for humankind. It’s a great vision, but it will never be achieved with today's current Internet.
As much as we’ve come to know and love the current World Wide Web—we have to admit that it isn't very smart. One webpage is the same as any other. It might have a higher “ranking”, but there's no distinction based on actual meaning. That’s why many Internet wizards believe it is time for Web 3.0, or the “semantic Web”. It’s one of the hottest buzzwords in computer science today. Why? Because it promises to bring order to chaos, and make our lives simpler.
Indeed, the WWW we have now is a cloud of largely undifferentiated information, but companies like Metaweb Technologies and Radar Networks have an ultimate goal of building a semantic Web structure that would turn all that disarray into a neatly archived library. Think of it as a semantic Wikipedia—for all of the world's knowledge.
A new generation of techies is already in the early stages of developing a semantic Web ('Semantics' is the branch of linguistics concerned with meaning), which will act more like a series of connected databases, where all information resides in a structured form. Within that structure is a layer of description that adds meaning that the computer can understand. To build this smarter Web, innovators are looking for ways to get machines to do the dirty work for us."

The "Blue Brain" & Human Consciousness -Scientists Create Artificial Brain

The "Blue Brain" & Human Consciousness -Scientists Create Artificial Brain: "A network of artificial nerves is evolving right now in a Swiss supercomputer. This bizarre creation is capable of simulating a natural brain, cell-for-cell. The Swiss scientists, who created what they have dubbed 'Blue Brain', believe it will soon offer a better understanding of human consciousness. This is no sci-fi flick; it’s an actual ‘computer brain’ that may eventually have the ability to think for itself. Exciting? Scary? It could be a little of both.
The designers say that 'Blue Brain' was willful and unpredictable from day one. When it was first fed electrical impulses, strange patterns began to appear with lightning-like flashes produced by ‘cells’ that the scientists recognized from living human and animal processes. Neurons started interacting with one another until they were firing in rhythm. 'It happened entirely on its own,' says biologist Henry Markram, the project's director. 'Spontaneously.'
The project essentially has its own factory to produce artificial brains. Their computers can clone nerve cells quickly. The system allows for the production of whole series of neurons of all different types. Because in natural brains, no two cells are exactly identical, the scientists"