http://kl.am/55US

This year I was able to present at Code Camp! In my mind, Code Camp is meant to be an event where you try and to whacky things with code. So I decided to explore what the possibilities were of using Windows Azure to create Artificial life in the cloud. I ended up focusing more on the possibilities of farming out the work of calculating genetic algorithms to find optimal paths for the travelling salesman problem.

The first section gives a background on cloud computing and Windows Azure. If you are interested in an overview of Azure i recommend you watch my Remix presentation on Windows Azure instead, as I did it after this talk and had a chance to refine that section further.

The talk went well, unfortunately the video capture software I was using was eating up one of my cores on my dual core laptop which meant the calculations ran slower than they should have. I apologise for the audio quality also, I didn’t have the drivers for my laptop microphone so ended up having to use my mobile phone to record the audio.

I hope you enjoy my talk!

Artificial life in the cloud, using Windows Azure on Vimeo.

The slides are also available 20090405 Codecamp – Alife in the cloud.pptx

Timeline for the talk

• 0:00 – An overview of Windows Azure
• 22:30 – Programming with Azure
• 23:00 – Demo 1 (Hello World with ASP.Net)
• 32:20 – Azure Storage
• 35:00 – Architecting your solutions for Azure
• 46:30 – Introduction to Genetic Algorithms
• 53:00 – The travelling salesman problem
• 1:01:00 – Learnings from trying to convert a single threaded library into a distributed Azure environment
• 1:03:00 – Future work that could be done with A-Life

I’ve recently read a book titled “Lilith’s Brood” by Octavia E. Butler. It’s a fascinating story about aliens who come to earth after most of humanity has destroyed itself in a massive war. These aliens have direct control over DNA and cells and as such their entire society (buildings, spaceships, tables, etc.) is grown instead of built. This talk by Rachel Armstrong reminds me of it. She talks about her work on protocells (manufactured, sort-of-but-not-really living things) and how they can be used to grow structures that can be integrated with the architecture of buildings and cities.

Architecture that Repairs Itself
via TED

Back in 1966 Joseph Weizenbaum created “ELIZA”, a relatively simple computer program which was meant to simulate a psychotherapist. The program worked largely by rephrasing a patient’s statements as questions which were then posed back to the patient. Many subjects reported preferring ELIZA to their human therapists, and some continued to value ELIZA’s therapy even after Wiezenbaum revealed ELIZA’s workings. (You can read a transcript of ELIZA in action here.)

Things have moved on somewhat since ELIZA’s day. Maja Matarić, a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, has developed Robots that can provide advice and therapy to patients who have suffered strokes, or who suffer from Alzheimer’s. The Robot can monitor the patient’s movement as they perform a regime of physical therapy, using a combination of laser scanners and cameras, and provide encouragement and advice. But even more impressively, the robot can monitor how introverted or extroverted the patient is, and tailor the tone of their advice giving accordingly. One stroke patient reported much preferring the robot’s advice and encouragement to that of her husband . . .

Similar robots have also been developed as learning aids for autistic children, who seem to prefer the stable repetitive demonstrations and advice that a robot can provide to the subtly varying instructions of a human. But quite apart from the familiar philosophical issues that such increasingly sophisticated robots raise concerning whether a machine can think and feel, these “caring” robots also raise ethical issues. Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT, is concerned by the risk such machines will pose to “the most vulnerable populations—children and elders”. Turkle warns: “The paradox is that you can get more attachment with less, so the more simple robots can pose even greater dangers.”

Interestingly, roboticists like Matarić are now confronting what has become known as the “uncanny valley” effect. This is the problem that as a robot becomes increasingly human-like, empathy and familiarity can turn to unease and disgust – an idea that goes back (at least) to Freud’s 1919 essay “Das Unheimliche” (“The Uncanny”).

You can read about Matarić’s work, and about Turkle’s worries, here.

Related articles: Two Dogmas of Neo-Empiricism By Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh (June 2006)
Philosophy Compass

Previously, I posted Artificial Life’s BMW Sauber F1 Team Racing Contest. It seems they have an update to their prizes for the contest.

Now they have a total of 15 prizes, details as follows or www.botme.com/bmwf1race for more info,

1st: Replica of the BMW Sauber F1 racecar’s steering wheel

2nd: Official BMW Sauber F1 Team signed driver overalls from Robert Kubica

3rd: Original BMW Sauber F1 wet rain tire rim

4th: Original engine cover air exhaust of the BMW Sauber F1 racecar

5th: Original engine cover air exhaust of the BMW Sauber F1 racecar

6th: Original rear wing end plate of the BMW Sauber F1 racecar

7th-8th: Original BMW Sauber F1 Team fireproof underwear signed by team drivers

9th-10th: Original BMW Sauber F1 Team visors signed by team drivers

11th-15th: Official 1:4 miniature of the BMW Sauber F1 racecar’s steering wheels

The game company – Artificial Life has also extended the contest to Nov 30, 2009 so that they can allow more coming participant to race for the attractive prizes!

So what are you waiting for? Download the game now on iTunes and play for the attractive prizes as listed above!

Check out BMW Sauber F1 Team Racing on iTunes for $1.99!

Criag Venter is on the verge of creating synthetic life
Ted Talks

[...] … I do not really believe that we shall succeed in creating life artificially; but after having reached the moon and landed a spaceship or two on Mars, I realize that this disbelief of mine means very little. But computers are totally different from brains, whose function is not primarily to compute but to guide and balance an organism and help it to stay alive. It is for this reason that the first step of nature toward an intelligent mind was the creation of life, and I think that should we artificially create an intelligent mind, we would have to follow the same path. [...], Karl Popper – Popper, K. R. and Eccles, J. C. (1983), The Self and its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism, Routledge & Kegan Paul plc, London.

On Bilateral Monopolies: [...] Mary has the world’s only apple, worth fifty cents to her. John is the world’s only customer for the apple, worth a dollar to him. Mary has a monopoly on selling apples, John has a monopoly (technically, a monopsony, a buying monopoly) on buying apples. Economists describe such a situation as bilateral monopoly. What happens? Mary announces that her price is ninety cents, and if John will not pay it, she will eat the apple herself. If John believes her, he pays. Ninety cents for an apple he values at a dollar is not much of a deal but better than no apple. If, however, John announces that his maximum price is sixty cents and Mary believes him, the same logic holds. Mary accepts his price, and he gets most of the benefit from the trade. This is not a fixed-sum game. If John buys the apple from Mary, the sum of their gains is fifty cents, with the division determined by the price. If they fail to reach an agreement, the summed gain is zero. Each is using the threat of the zero outcome to try to force a fifty cent outcome as favorable to himself as possible. How successful each is depends in part on how convincingly he can commit himself, how well he can persuade the other that if he doesn’t get his way the deal will fall through. Every parent is familiar with a different example of the same game. A small child wants to get her way and will throw a tantrum if she doesn’t. The tantrum itself does her no good, since if she throws it you will refuse to do what she wants and send her to bed without dessert. But since the tantrum imposes substantial costs on you as well as on her, especially if it happens in the middle of your dinner party, it may be a sufficiently effective threat to get her at least part of what she wants. Prospective parents resolve never to give in to such threats and think they will succeed. They are wrong. You may have thought out the logic of bilateral monopoly better than your child, but she has hundreds of millions of years of evolution on her side, during which offspring who succeeded in making parents do what they want, and thus getting a larger share of parental resources devoted to them, were more likely to survive to pass on their genes to the next generation of offspring. Her commitment strategy is hardwired into her; if you call her bluff, you will frequently find that it is not a bluff. If you win more than half the games and only rarely end up with a bargaining breakdown and a tantrum, consider yourself lucky.

Herman Kahn, a writer who specialized in thinking and writing about unfashionable topics such as thermonuclear war, came up with yet another variant of the game: the Doomsday Machine. The idea was for the United States to bury lots of very dirty thermonuclear weapons under the Rocky Mountains, enough so that if they went off, their fallout would kill everyone on earth. The bombs would be attached to a fancy Geiger counter rigged to set them off if it sensed the fallout from a Russian nuclear attack. Once the Russians know we have a Doomsday Machine we are safe from attack and can safely scrap the rest of our nuclear arsenal. The idea provided the central plot device for the movie Doctor Strangelove. The Russians build a Doomsday Machine but imprudently postpone the announcement they are waiting for the premier’s birthday until just after an American Air Force officer has launched a unilateral nuclear attack on his own initiative. The mad scientist villain was presumably intended as a parody of Kahn. Kahn described a Doomsday Machine not because he thought we should build one but because he thought we already had. So had the Russians. Our nuclear arsenal and theirs were Doomsday Machines with human triggers. Once the Russians have attacked, retaliating does us no good just as, once you have finally told your daughter that she is going to bed, throwing a tantrum does her no good. But our military, knowing that the enemy has just killed most of their friends and relations, will retaliate anyway, and the knowledge that they will retaliate is a good reason for the Russians not to attack, just as the knowledge that your daughter will throw a tantrum is a good reason to let her stay up until the party is over. Fortunately, the real-world Doomsday Machines worked, with the result that neither was ever used.

For a final example, consider someone who is big, strong, and likes to get his own way. He adopts a policy of beating up anyone who does things he doesn’t like, such as paying attention to a girl he is dating or expressing insufficient deference to his views on baseball. He commits himself to that policy by persuading himself that only sissies let themselves get pushed around and that not doing what he wants counts as pushing him around. Beating someone up is costly; he might get hurt and he might end up in jail. But as long as everyone knows he is committed to that strategy, other people don’t cross him and he doesn’t have to beat them up. Think of the bully as a Doomsday Machine on an individual level. His strategy works as long as only one person is playing it. One day he sits down at a bar and starts discussing baseball with a stranger also big, strong, and committed to the same strategy. The stranger fails to show adequate deference to his opinions. When it is over, one of the two is lying dead on the floor, and the other is standing there with a broken beer bottle in his hand and a dazed expression on his face, wondering what happens next. The Doomsday Machine just went off. With only one bully the strategy is profitable: Other people do what you want and you never have to carry through on your commitment. With lots of bullies it is unprofitable: You frequently get into fights and soon end up either dead or in jail. As long as the number of bullies is low enough so that the gain of usually getting what you want is larger than the cost of occasionally having to pay for it, the strategy is profitable and the number of people adopting it increases. Equilibrium is reached when gain and loss just balance, making each of the alternative strategies, bully or pushover, equally attractive. The analysis becomes more complicated if we add additional strategies, but the logic of the situation remains the same.

This particular example of bilateral monopoly is relevant to one of the central disputes over criminal law in general and the death penalty in particular: Do penalties deter? One reason to think they might not is that the sort of crime I have just described, a barroom brawl ending in a killing more generally, a crime of passion seems to be an irrational act, one the perpetrator regrets as soon as it happens. How then can it be deterred by punishment? The economist’s answer is that the brawl was not chosen rationally but the strategy that led to it was. The higher the penalty for such acts, the less profitable the bully strategy. The result will be fewer bullies, fewer barroom brawls, and fewer “irrational” killings. How much deterrence that implies is an empirical question, but thinking through the logic of bilateral monopoly shows us why crimes of passion are not necessarily undeterrable. [...]

in Chapter 8, David D. Friedman, “Law’s Order: What Economics Has to Do With Law and Why it Matters“, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2000.

Note – Further reading should include David D. Friedman’s “Price Theory and Hidden Order“. Also, a more extensive treatment could be found on “Game Theory and the Law“, by Douglas G. Baird, Robert H. Gertner and Randal C. Picker, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Berinteraksi dengan teknologi sekarang ini tampaknya lebih menyenangkan dan memberikan nuansa hidup yang lebih segar. Buktinya seorang anak tahan berlama-lama bermain di depan komputer ketimbang bermain dengan teman sebayanya – Hal ini senada dengan pernyataan Jean Piaget, seorang psikolog yang menyatakan hasrat ingin tahu anak-anak lebih tinggi. Sehingga wajar kedekatan dengan teknologi semacam komputer yang responsif menjadi tebangun – Atau seorang yang cukup dewasa tidak jenuh menatap komputer di hadapannya sambil tertawa layaknya bergurau dengan teman di dunia nyata. Bahkan memberikan nama untuk teknologi tersebut, seperti halnya yang dilakukan oleh teman saya. Suatu hari ia datang dengan wajah sedih, ia katakan “Lupita sakit, gw terlalu sering pake download”, “Cabelita juga, semlem dia meladak”. Saya tidak tahu kemana sebenarnya arah pembicaraan saat itu. Siapa itu Lupita? Manusia kok sakit karena dipakai download, lalu Cabelita meledak? Rasanya istilah ini tidak tepat untuk menggambarkan kondisi manusia. Ternyata setalah lebih lanjut perbincangan terjadi, Lupita adalah sebuah nama khusus yang ia berikan untuk Laptopnya dan Cabelita adalah kabel yang menghubungkan Laptop ke sumber arus listrik.

Ilustrasi di atas menunjukkan betapa, di dunia semodern ini interaksi kita dengan teknologi begitu dekat, sehingga seringkali kita sulit membedakan mana itu real life atau artificial life yang diprovide oleh teknologi seperti komputer dan robot yang kini mulai menggantikan posisi manusia.

Kita beranggapan bahwa komputer sama halnya seperti manusia memiliki kemampuan berpikir, akal yang cerdas, dan mampu menyelesaikan permasalahan. Atau yang dikenal dengan taking things at interface value. Meyakini sesuatu dari apa yang nampak. Hingga akhirnya beranggapan suatu benda memiliki kemampuan berpikir, akal yang cerdas, dan kemampuan menyelesaikan permasalahan seperi halnya manusia. Padahal komputer dan robot berbeda dengan manusia.

Padahal komputer dan robot tidak memiliki perasaan, jadi walau mereka diberi nama secantik atau seindah apapun tidak akan bahagia. Kemampuan mereka menyelesaikan sebuah permasalahan pun hanya sebuah kecerdasan palsu (artificial intelligence), tidak lain output yang keluar hanya terjadi jika ada input yang dimasukkan. Itulah yang terjadi dengan komputer. Ia tidak akan mampu menjawab hal yang belum diinputkan oleh pembuatnya, manusia. Dan robot yang memang dirancang untuk melakukan suatu pekerjaan khusus, seperti misalnya, robot pembantu pekerjaan medis tidak akan bekarja jika diperintah untuk mencabut rumput. Karena input yang diberikan berbeda, kemampuannya tidak seperti manusia, conditioning.

Mengukur kecerdasan komputer semacam itu dinamakan turning test. Seperti halnya yang pernah dilakukan kepada bots bernama Julia. Ia diberikan pertanyaan-pertanyaan untuk mengetes kecerdasan yang dimiliki. Pertanyaan yang bisa dijawab menunjukkan hal tersebut telah diinput oleh programmer-nya dan hal yang tidak bisa dijawab menunjukkan keterbatsan Julia, tidak merespon jika tidak diinput hal tertentu.

Praktis, peran program komputer seperti Julia, Eliza, dan Depression membantu manusia mengatasi kesepian dan permasalahan dalam hidup. Julia, Elza, dan Depression juga telah memudahkan manusia menggantikaan peran psikolog karena tujuan dibuatnya Eliza memang membantu manusia melepaskan keluhan hidup atau yang kemudiaan disebut tension release, yang ditawarkannya dengan cara chatting. Joseph Weizenbaun, seorang psikolog yang menciptakan Eliza pertama kali bertanya, bagaimana mungkin komputer yang tidak memiliki perasaan dapat membantu melepaskan keluhan hidup manusia? Hal ini kemudian dijawab oleh Colby yang juga berkontribusi dalam pembuatan Eliza. Colby menyatakan bahwa hal yang dijawab Eliza akan senada dengan psikolog-psikolog lainnya. Meski sebenarnya komputer tidak pernah mengalami apa yang manusia alami.

Namun secerdas-cerdasnya Eliza dan Julia menyelesaikan keluhan hidup tetap saja yang berjasa atas kecerdasan palsu tersebut adalah kecerdasan asli, manusia, dalam hal ini programmer-nya. Kemampuan AI (artificial intelligence) dikembangkan dengan system yang dikenal dengan system emergent atau percepton. Dimana system tersebut mampu menyimpan data dan membuat keputusan atas sebuah permasalahan.

Kemudian teknologi tidak cepat puas dengan menerima AI (artificial intelligence) tanpa mengembangkannya, yang kemudian dikembangkan oleh para programmer adalah artificial life, dikenal dengan sebutan A-Life. Program yang mampu memvisualisasikan kehidupan manusia. Dua permainan yang terkenal dalam golongan A-Life adalah Tamagochi dan The Sims.

Awal kemunculannya, Tamagochi sangat digandrungi, setiap orang pergi membawa-bawanya kemana-mana. Orang-orang kemudian merasa memiliki Tamagochi berarti memiliki binatang peliharaan yang harus dirawat dan disayangi. Permainan di Tamagochi layaknya aktifitas pemeliharaan binatang seperti dalam kehidupan nyata. Kita harus memberikan makan yang cukup, minum yang cukup, tidur siang, dan aktifitas lainnya. Jika tidak maka hewan dalam Tamagochi tersebut bisa mati. Jika mati, maka kita harus memiliki hewan baru untuk dirawat lagi.

The Sims juga merupakan permainan virtual semacam Tamagochi, namun The Sims lebih komplesk lagi. jika di Tamagochi aktifitas yang dilakukan merawat binatang saja di The Sims kita bisa membangun kehidupan yang lebih kompleks lagi, seperti membangun rumah, merancang bagaimana figure tetangga rumah yang kita inginkan dan lain-lain. Meski begitu artificial tetaplah artificial, dalam kehidupan di  permainan tidak ditemukan konflik yang berarti seperti kehidupan asli.  Kehidupan di permainan berjalan lurus-lurus saja sesuai settingan pemainnya, sedangkan kehidupan asli penuh liku yang menuntut manusia cerdas menyikapinya.

Sumber: Turckle, Sherry. 1995. Life On The Screen: Identity In The Age Of The Internet. New York: Touchstone.

Welcome to the new Cafe Scientifique Blog.  Here you can post questions and comments to continue the conversation that was started at the panel discussion on Sept. 24.  We will continue to use this blog for future Cafe events.   For your convenience we will be uploadingarticles  pictures and video footage from the events .

We truly thank you for your attendance and participation and we look forward to many more interesting dialogues about the world of science.

This Original Painting took 2 years to complete and is a very complicated and mind enhancing subject. To look at this work of art is to develop different theories about our world today, the future of it and beyond that. This painting will spark subconcious thinking in the viewer and will become the center piece of conversation in any room! Actual Binary Code Included. (If you buy this piece, you will be taking a piece of the Artist with it….TRULY!) (Click on Painting to Buy)

WHAT IS THE UNCANNY VALLEY?
The uncanny valley is a hypothesis that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost, but not entirely, like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The valley in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot’s lifelikeness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley)

YEAR CREATED: 2008 
“High End Gallery Art”

New York / Los Angeles / Munich / Hong Kong, September 15, 2009 /PRNewswire/ — Artificial Life, Inc., (OTC BB: ALIF), (http://www.artificial-life.com) and Starz Media, today announced the launch of Pandorum the official movie game for the upcoming horror film of the same name from Overture Films, on the iPhone and iPod touch platform, which is now available in the App Store retailing at $3.99.

This action-packed, fully animated, 3D first-person role-playing game follows the thrilling storyline from the movie. Players are put into the role of Corporal Bower who wakes up from his sleep pod on the Elysium spaceship and has no clue what has happened to him or the rest of the crew. The player must embark on a 5-mission journey to find out what has transpired on the ship and help their character, Corporal Bower, regain his memory.

While exploring the Elysium, players must use both stealth and an arsenal of weapons to deal with the mysterious and terrifying enemies that lurk around every corner. Players must also fight off Pandorum, the devastating medical condition that causes hallucinations and insanity, for which the movie was named. Throughout the game, players will experience for themselves the devastating effects of Pandorum on their iPhone!

An expansion pack for an additional charge will be available a few weeks after the initial launch of the movie and game and will include a sixth mission and an additional game mode. The expansion pack will reveal the film’s ending and some of the film’s major twists and plots. The delayed release of the expansion pack will ensure that surprise ending of the film is not spoiled, which is a ground-breaking release strategy and the first of its kind for an iPhone game that accompanies a movie debut.

Preview Video:

Game Features:

• Five intense missions, each containing two challenging action-packed levels that take players through a storyline based on the movie
• An arsenal of deadly upgradeable weapons to take on the fierce and terrifying creatures that haunt the ship
• High quality audio and realistic sound effects create a startling atmosphere, bringing players into the frightening world matching that of the movie
• Innovative gameplay and special effects let players virtually experience the effects of Pandorum just as the characters from the film do
• Real time 3D graphics recreate the detailed spaceship settings from the movie, including the storage corridors, biological laboratories, reactor room and more
• Dramatic cut scenes after each level engage players and move the plot forward
• Online movie ticket purchasing is integrated right into the game (US players only)
• Bluetooth connectivity allows players to share Add-On features and game progress with friends
• Customizable control schemes to fit different playing styles
• Global Leaderboards to compare progress against others using Facebook Connect
• An upgrade pack available for in-app purchase, offering weapon upgrades, unlimited ammo supplies, and more!

A Constantin Film/Impact Pictures Production, Pandorum is financed by Constantin Film under its joint venture deal with Impact Pictures, a Constantin Film subsidiary. Overture Films will release the film in North America on September 25, 2009. Pandorum will be released in Germany on October 1, 2009 and other global markets in the upcoming weeks. For more details about the Pandorum game, please visit: http://www.pandorumgame.com or http://www.botme.com. The game is now live in the Apple App Store and is available for purchase at: http://itunes.com/app/pandorum.

Check out Pandorum on iTunes for $3.99!

Check out Pandorum Lite free on iTunes.

“We are excited to offer horror and thriller-lovers alike an extension of Pandorum, the movie, in the form of this iPhone game. We would like to thank Starz Media and Overture for their generous support with the production and marketing of this title. We believe the timing of THIS game release is perfect as it is in sync with the theatrical release, allowing the game and movie to ride the same wave of marketing. The release of an expansion pack containing more in depth revelations about the film’s plot after the initial launch is the first of its kind in the App Store and we are very happy to share this milestone event with Starz Media and Overture,” said Eberhard Schoneburg, CEO of Artificial Life, Inc.

About Starz Media

Starz Media, LLC, is a programming production and distribution company operating worldwide. It includes the Film Roman, Anchor Bay Entertainment, and Manga Entertainment brands. Its units create animated and live-action programming – including theatrical films – and programming created under contract for other media companies. It distributes that programming, and programming acquired from outside producers, through home video retailers, theaters, broadcasters, ad supported and premium television channels, and Internet and wireless video distributors in the US and internationally. Starz Media (http://www.starzmedia.com) is a controlled subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation attributed to the Liberty Capital Group.

About Artificial Life, Inc.

Artificial Life, Inc. (OTCBB: ALIF) is a public U.S. corporation headquartered in Los Angeles, with its production center in Hong Kong and additional offices in Berlin (EMEA headquarter) and Tokyo. As a leading, full-service provider of mobile broadband 3G technology, mobile participation TV, mobile gaming, and content and business applications, Artificial Life provides 2D and 3D multi- and single- player rich-media applications for 3G, 3.5G and 4G network-enabled mobile phones. Recognized internationally for outstanding content quality and technology, Artificial Life transcends traditional modes of mobile communications and interactive gaming. For more information, please visit http://www.artificial-life.com or the company’s m-commerce portal at http://www.botme.com.

Alan Turing was a superhero. Admittedly he got a bit distracted messing around with mathematical logic, artificial intelligence and inventing the digital computer, but in-between he also developed some of the first ever theoretical ideas in artificial life, specifically his work on nonlinear dynamical systems in the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and his posthumously published and little-known explorations of “unorganised machines“, which we would nowadays recognise as neural networks. Unlike the digital computer, neither of these alternative paradigms for computation has yet been fully developed.

But Turing was also wrapped up in the highly secretive world of code-breaking, through which he helped to shorten the Second World War substantially and save thousands of lives. Wartime Britain took its secrets very seriously and this “walls have ears” attitude became so ingrained in the culture that much of Turing’s work was hidden from view for too long to become part of established history. As a consequence, few members of the general public had even heard of him, let alone realised his role in creating the 21st Century, at least until Andrew Hodges’ biography of Turing came out in the early 1980’s. Bletchley Park, the headquarters of the code-breaking effort, still unaccountably struggles to preserve what’s left of its gently rotting history in the absence of government support.

Turing was also gay, and hence became considered a security threat. He was sentenced to be chemically castrated and came under harassing scrutiny. In 1954 he apparently committed suicide. At the very least he was effectively hounded to an early death by the British government, and it is even possible that he was secretly assassinated. This is not the way to treat heroes.

But last week, thanks to a petition started by John Graham-Cumming, Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued the following official apology. It’s far too late for Alan Turing, but I’m sure it will go some way towards correcting the insult to his name. I’m sure the gay community will appreciate the sentiment too, although I imagine this is just one of a thousand hoped-for apologies as far as they’re concerned. Apologies are pretty empty things when given by someone other than those who carried out the offence, but I do think they represent a statement of intent for the future and can be held against people when they act hypocritically, so I think it is still A Good Thing and a valued correction to history. I hope it will now be followed by some positive government action to preserve our heritage at Bletchley Park, where I’ve twice had the honour to tread in Alan’s footsteps and give talks on AI.

Thanks to Ann for telling me about the petition.

[Update: September 30: Bletchley Park have just announced a grant of half a million pounds from the Heritage Lottery Fund and are applying for another 4 million. English Heritage and Milton Keynes Council have also provided almost a million for repairs. Jolly good show chaps!]

2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

Gordon Brown

LOS ANGELES and HONG KONG, Aug. 25, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Artificial Life, Inc., (OTCBB:ALIF – News), (http://www.artificial-life.com), today announced the launch of iSink U on the iPhone and iPod touch platform, retailing at USD 99 cents.

iSink U is based on the classic naval strategy game and is sure to rekindle many fond childhood memories of this classic gaming style. In the game, the player becomes the captain and must command a squadron of powerful ships to obliterate the enemy. Once each captain has had the chance to strategically position his armada, the battle begins! Players take turns and decide whether to move a ship, fire a weapon, or unleash a series of bombs.

Utilizing the iPhone’s multi-touch feature, iSink U allows for complex 3D camera movements, such as zooming in/out and panning. In addition to the finely-tuned 3D graphics, iSink U has an enjoyable soundtrack with realistic audio effects, which creates a unique battlefield experience and launches the classic game onto the next generation of platforms.

Main Game Features:

 + Attack system factors decision-making into the classic game
   by introducing attacks based on Action Points
 + Battle in full 3D aquatic environments with maps
   such as Tropical, Frozen Front, War Zone, and more
 + Strategically utilize a fleet of warships 
   such as the Cruiser, Battleship, Submarine, and more
 + Commence sea assault with friends by playing
   the Head 2 Head mode.
 + Unlock a hidden map after claiming victory in all levels
 + Earn all three prestigious medals
   to prove superiority as a sea commander

“iSink U is dedicated to all fans of classic naval strategy games! The game has a large nostalgia factor as this gaming style is a part of many people’s childhood memories. We are breathing new life into this classic game style by bringing it to the iPhone platform,”

said Eberhard Schoneburg, CEO of Artificial Life, Inc.

For more details about iSink U, please visit: http://www.botme.com.

The game is now live on the Apple App Store and is available for purchase at: http://www.itunes.com/app/isinku.

Check out iSink U on the iTunes App Store for $0.99.

About Artificial Life, Inc.

Artificial Life, Inc. (OTCBB:ALIF – News) is a public U.S. corporation headquartered in Los Angeles, with its production center in Hong Kong and additional offices in Berlin (EMEA headquarter) and Tokyo. As a leading, full-service provider of mobile broadband 3G technology, mobile participation TV, mobile gaming, content and business applications, Artificial Life provides 2D and 3D multi- and single-player rich-media applications for 3G, 3.5G and 4G network-enabled mobile phones. Recognized internationally for outstanding content quality and technology, Artificial Life transcends traditional modes of mobile communications and interactive gaming. For more information, please visit http://www.artificial-life.com or the company’s m-commerce portal at http://www.botme.com.

“A scientist who led a project to sequence the human genome has claimed that artificial life will be created within four months. Researcher Craig Venter said his team had cleared a critical hurdle to creating man-made organisms in a laboratory.

“Assuming we don’t make any errors, I think it should work and we should have the first synthetic species by the end of the year,” he said. Venter is already working on projects to use synthetic biology to create bacteria that transform coal into cleaner natural gas, and algae that soak up carbon dioxide and turn it into hydrocarbon fuels.”

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http://kl.am/2s8v

Experience intense racing with the BMW Sauber F1 Team Racing 09 game on the iPhone/iPod touch and race for authentic BMW Sauber F1 Team prizes!

Attractive Prizes include:

• Grand Prize: Replica of the racecar’s steering wheel

• 1st Runner-up: Signed driver overalls from the team driver

• 2nd Runner-up: Wet rain tire rim of the BMW F1 car

• More car components, memorabilia, miniatures and souvenirs to be announced soon

Here are the steps to sign up for this contest:

Step 1: Setup your in-game profile with a valid email address

Step 2: Ensure your Sync Score option under Online > Networks is set to “YES”

Step 3: Go to www.botme.com/bmwf1race (valid after game launch) to activate your email.

Step 4: Race in all 8 tracks in the Professional Mode (Quick Race or Championship) and strive for the best combined of lap times

Step 5: Check your rankings on the online Leader boards.

Mark your calendars on the week from August 24 to November 1st 2009 because this awesome game will be released in the week.

Tons of people will be downloading the game and vying for the prizes for this contest. Will you be the one to get the prizes?

Artificial Life presents iSink U – a new approach to the classic naval strategy game. Command a squadron of well-equipped and ready-to-destroy aquatic machines with an arsenal of weapons, and even more ammo!

Strategically take turns attacking your enemy because that’s the way true captains of the sea do battle! Victoriously cry out “iSink U” when you destroy the enemy fleet in battle! Bombs away!

This game is due for release by the 3rd quarter of 2009.

Be sure to check it out on the iTunes App Store when it is released!

Major Game Features:

• • Command a squadron of 4 boats and 1 submarine in exciting battles that won’t end until Poseidon himself surrenders the sea to your might!
  • A new attack system factors skill into this classic game by introducing decisions based on action points
  • In each round choose to move a ship, fire a primary weapon, or unleash the latest breakthrough in naval technology
  • Unique battle experience offered by the multi-touch function of the iPhone and iPod touch creates a user-friendly setting for you to zoom in, zoom out, and pan across the screen
  • Strategically command a battalion of advanced fighter ships including the Cruiser, the Battleship, and more
  • Commence sea assault on your friends using the Head 2 Head Mode
  • Claim victory in all levels to unlock a hidden map
  • Earn three prestigious medals and prove your superiority as a sea commander!

So far, then, I have stated that global cities contain, but more importantly, ‘are’ intrinsically high end technologies. That such technologies upgrade and evolve real time and that they are shaped by numerous events, decisions, territories and biomass. I have stated, too, that in contemporary times these technologies have been atomized, or sublimated into ‘n’ dimensional realms and that this matrix is infinitely complex. And that our perceptions too, are entangled to this whole processes.

I will argue then, that this complexity can be addressed, at least metaphorically speaking, through the state space theorem. State space is the set of all possible states of a dynamical system; each state of the system corresponds to a unique point in the state space.

Quoting De Landa: ‘…attempts to model the dynamic behaviors of a particular physical object [say a pendulum or a bike, to stick to relatively simple cases] the first step is to determine the degrees of freedom of such an object, or which is the number of relevant ways in which that object can change. A pendulum, for instance, can change only in its position and momentum, so it has two degrees of freedom. Of course a pendulum can be melted at high temperatures or exploded with dynamite. These are,indeed, other ways in which this object can change, they simply are not relevant from the point of view of dynamics.’

Joel Palmius, in his paper State Space Vectors: On Directionality Tools in Self- organizing Systems [2002], researches such systems, as capable of generating artificial life, from the point of view of state spaces.

But what is life?  Life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit certain biological processes such as chemical reactions or other events that results in a transformation. Living organisms are capable of growth and reproduction, some can communicate and many can adapt to their environment through changes originating internally1.  Erwin Schrödinger [1943] and others have argued that: ‘A physical characteristic of life is that it feeds on negative entropy.’ Where this negentropy can be understood in a very simplistic way, as a heat [which is nothing else than a flow of energy -matter, according to quantum physics] exchange.

So in the view of this state spaces: the territorial and de -territorialized city, not only offers a twofold perspective in terms of space -time quantities and qualities, their evolution points to a complex system of ‘n’ dimensional manifolds we assess and interact with, real time.

It is in this optic that I will go on and argue that cities are, in fact, living organisms which exhibit complex self regulated processes stemming from within different areas of themselves. They are also capable of mutation.

Amongst other great advances the arts and sciences, the Renaissance gave us perspective: When the human situated itself in the middle of the frame, we were able to see things with more clarity, or at least we stopped from feeling subjugated by an ever -angry Pantocrator, the all-powerful judge of humanity.

Bad thing was, [and I clarify again, that I am speaking on behalf of the western civilization] that instead of freeing ourselves of all those false hopes and fears, we deposited them elsewhere: In the monarchic figures, which will later become States.

Which is the new frame of mind we are to adopt in the volatile nature of our contemporary world?

Magnusson says in his work: ‘The city of God and the Global City’: ‘It is important to understand that the city can be conceived as a self-organizing system with no sovereign authority and no ultimate goal. That idea can inform a politics very different from the ones we associate with neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism.’

So how exactly can we  achieve this flow of consciousness? My answer will be through a holistic understanding of the most factors shaping our lives that we can, and that will be achievable through art.

Retaking the situationist idea, art should be of public domain, and that doesn’t means only sculptures in gardens. In these complex times, data flows should be visible and accessible to humans in order to place ourselves in the world and be aware of our decisions and their consequences. As Lev Manovich suggested in his paper ‘Learning from Prada’, this research proposal ‘considers the ‘invisible’ space of electronic data flows as substance rather than just a void, something in the need of a structure, a politics and poetics.’