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"A brain-to-brain interface (BTBI) enabled a real-time transfer of behaviorally meaningful sensorimotor information between the brains of two rats. In this BTBI, an "encoder" rat performed sensorimotor tasks that required it to select from two choices of tactile or visual stimuli. While the encoder rat performed the task, samples of its cortical activity were transmitted to matching cortical areas of a "decoder" rat using intracortical microstimulation (ICMS). The decoder rat learned to make similar behavioral selections, guided solely by the information provided by the encoder rat's brain. These results demonstrated that a complex system was formed by coupling the animals' brains, suggesting that BTBIs can enable dyads or networks of animal's brains to exchange, process, and store information and, hence, serve as the basis for studies of novel types of social interaction and for biological computing devices."

Facebook's pending initial public offering gives credence to the argument that personal data is the oil of the digital age. The company was built on a formula common to the technology industry: offer people a service, collect information about them as they use that service and use that information to sell advertising.

It's not just about Big Data. For the big players in enterprise technology algorithms, it's about finding big patterns beyond the data itself. The explosion of online life and cheap computer hardware have made it possible to store immense amounts of unstructured information, like e-mails or Internet clickstreams, then search the stored information to find some trend that can be exploited. The real trick is to do this cost-effectively. Companies doing this at a large scale look for similarities between one field and another, hoping for a common means of analysis.

There is no proverbial silver bullet to creating a safer city, but analytics technology is assisting law enforcement agencies all over the world to sort through information - part of the 2.5 quintillion bytes of data we create and consume every day - to get ahead of crime. Having access to all that information is an invaluable resource for law enforcement agencies, but it can also be pretty paralyzing. After all, only a fraction of the bits and bytes can actually be relevant, right? But how do you know and, more importantly, how do you find and act on it?

People who constantly reach into a pocket to check a smartphone for bits of information will soon have another option: a pair of Google-made glasses that will be able to stream information to the wearer's eyeballs in real time. According to several Google employees familiar with the project who asked not to be named, the glasses will go on sale to the public by the end of the year. These people said they are expected "to cost around the price of current smartphones," or $250 to $600.

In the past few years, digital technologies have revolutionized everything from the way we work to the way we educate, inform and entertain ourselves. In fact, millions of engaged citizens are using the Web to connect and collaborate around shared concerns and opportunities in their communities and in international forums and institutions. Now, as Canada readies itself to host the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT2012) in Montreal this October, we have a unique opportunity to mobilize large numbers of connected citizens to participate in a global, online conversation designed to elicit new ideas and innovations that could help address some of the world's most urgent challenges.

CAVE2™, the next-generation large-scale virtual-reality environment, is a hybrid system that combines the benefits of both scalable-resolution display walls and virtual-reality systems to create a seamless 2D/3D environment that supports both information-rich analysis as well as virtual-reality simulation exploration at a resolution matching human visual acuity.

chronological and thematic studies on the history of information and media

January 22, 1939 Assistant Professor Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr. Department of Anthropology Chapman Hall 227B Marshall College Dr. Jones: As chairman of the Committee on Promotion and Tenure, I regret to inform you that your recent application for tenure has been denied by a vote of 6 to 1. Following past policies and procedures, proceedings from the committee's deliberations that were pertinent to our decision have been summarized below according to the assessment criteria.

"The power of modern smartphones is one of the technological wonders of our age. These devices carry a suite of sensors capable of monitoring the environment in detail, powerful data processors and the ability to transmit and receive information at high rates.  So it's no surprise that smartphones are increasingly targeted by malware designed to exploit this newfound power. Examples include software that listens for spoken credit card numbers or uses the on-board accelerometers to monitor credit card details entered as keystrokes.

"Passwords control your life. From accessing work email and stock prices on the go to checking a grocery store shopping list, passwords have become the primary source of identifying who you are. They are arguably more important than your driver's license. But with that ubiquity comes risk - this tiny, yet powerful device contains enough information to expose your financial or health records and other personal details. From an enterprise perspective, the risks are just as great, if not greater."

The WikiMedia Foundation has added a new extension to MediaWiki, the foundation for Wikipedia, that adds geographic data for individual wiki articles. Aimed primarily at mobile users, GeoData will make finding information about your present location easy and fun. According to WikiMedia, GeoData aims to codify the common practice of adding geographic data to articles.

It's impossible to grasp the consequences or outcomes of new technology, especially when that technology is developed by a twenty-something hacker. That much was already clear in January 2010, when Mark Zuckerberg told TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington that Facebook isn't just a place to connect with your friends. It was a place to be more public than ever before. "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time," he said. "But we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner's mind and what would we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it."

"THE cassette tape is about to make a comeback, in a big way. From the updates posted by Facebook's 1 billion users to the medical images shared by healthcare organisations worldwide and the rise of high-definition video streaming, the need for something to store huge tranches of data is greater than ever. And while hard drives have traditionally been the workhorse of large storage operations, a new wave of ultra-dense tape drives that pack in information at much higher densities, while using less energy, is set to replace them."

Note: this would make a good blog post Minimalist posters explain complex philosophical concepts with basic shapes When it comes to explaining philosophy, sometimes less is more - and we think this arresting collection of minimalist posters encompasses that idea perfectly. The illustrations you see featured below are from a a series entitled "Philographics," and were created by London-based graphic designer Genís Carreras. Using basic colors, simple geometric design, and concise definitions, Carreras manages to cram impressive amounts of information - on philosophical doctrines as diverse as hedonism, determinism, and existentialism - into a surprisingly simple and accessible package. We've included a sample of the collection below, but you'll find the series in its entirety, along with plenty more examples of Carreras' work, over on his website. The posters are also available for purchase via society6.

One of the enabling technologies for a quantum internet is the ability to store and retrieve quantum information in a reliable and repeatable way.  One of the more promising ways to do this involves photons and tiny clouds of rubidium gas. Rubidium atoms have an interesting property in that a magnetic field causes their electronic energy levels to split, creating a multitude of new levels. Switching the field off, returns the atoms to their normal state.

Medical researchers around the world will from Friday have access to information on half a million Britons, with the release of the globe's largest collection of human health data.

Search is a lot about discovery-the basic human need to learn and broaden your horizons. But searching still requires a lot of hard work by you, the user. So today I'm really excited to launch the Knowledge Graph, which will help you discover new information quickly and easily. 

(Brian- I was as part of the WBI alumni network informed of and asked to submit to the call for papers for this conference. Please review -I think your work would fit in here - let me know what you think- kdv)    Annually organized by Wuhan University of Technology (China), Yamaguchi University (Japan), the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo ( Brazil ) and the Brabant Center of Entrepreneurship (BCE),  the International Conference on Innovation and Management has proven to be a high-profile event for leading international scholars in the area of management and innovation. 

Data doesn't invade people's lives. Lack of control over how it's used does. What's really driving so-called big data isn't the volume of information. It turns out big data doesn't have to be all that big. Rather, it's about a reconsideration of the fundamental economics of analyzing data. For decades, there's been a fundamental tension between three attributes of databases. You can have the data fast; you can have it big; or you can have it varied. The catch is, you can't have all three at once. O'Reilly Radar (http://s.tt/1kHKE)