tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21561612819257329922011-11-29T17:10:45.676-05:00News and research on the symbiosis of technology and humanity.Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-20095100762985270272010-04-22T11:45:00.006-04:002010-06-10T15:49:00.681-04:00

Avatar highlights the threats posed by an advanced, war-mongering, and artificial society to a primitive, pacific, and organic culture. Today is as good a day as any to start thinking about how your life impacts other people and the present earth, and influences our trajectory toward the future of life (and artificial life). NOTE: This post is more to spur discussion as opposed to professing my

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-34227847300947089102010-04-12T03:44:00.003-04:002010-04-12T03:48:23.783-04:00

Pretty Amazing.

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-30211168341577794062010-04-04T15:15:00.001-04:002010-04-04T15:33:09.429-04:00

In my recent post on Quora, I draw from some of Jesse Schell's points in this video as they apply to education reform in K-12. In this post, I also make references to Tara Hunt, who popularized the term "whuffie" (a universal reputation score) and Lee Sheldon, an Indiana University professor who abandoned grades for experience points.

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-35376345772141740542010-03-23T20:52:00.000-04:002010-03-23T20:52:18.085-04:00

The 2010 Paralympic Games continues to push the capabilities of - in some respects - impaired athletes while maintaining its tradition as a "fair competition." (Source: Boston.com)

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-46141639423625144352009-11-28T19:06:00.001-05:002009-11-28T19:08:08.239-05:00

(commentary to come. Enjoy!)

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-80020163357701659592009-10-15T15:43:00.112-04:002010-06-10T17:11:28.114-04:00

I've come to appreciate over the years the degree to which life's incidents are interrelated. Prior to moving to Silicon Valley, I planted the seed of semantic results, recommendations, and predictions thanks primarily to the discovery of Wolfram Alpha. After several months out here, I joined a fresh start-up, MyFit, which aims to do 3 things better than anybody out there: Calculating people's

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-19820970703972432722009-08-25T12:11:00.011-04:002009-09-16T20:20:58.075-04:00

The documentary Objectified by Gary Hustwit is the first modern film I've become aware of that comprehensively explores our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-42497807768689350132009-08-12T00:30:00.007-04:002009-09-16T20:23:01.696-04:00

...and shake it like a salt shaker. In recent history, we've made astonishing advances in three applications of genomics, one of the holy grails in understanding and manipulating lifeforms as we know it: limb regeneration in vertebrates creation of synthetic lifeforms commercial human genome sequencing In late 2006, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies discovered that we could reactivate

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-90029555293125692912009-08-07T22:35:00.007-04:002009-08-25T18:26:57.915-04:00

I love hulu and the auteurs. My friend, Jason Mueller, recently sent this to me and I thought it was, again, worth sharing. Check out Pure West for more amazing digital stories! And then there's more geekdom from my friend, Dan Lovera. Apparently you can better Understand the World of Warcraft using Super Mario Brothers. Spare time to write posts since my move to San Francisco three weeks ago has

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-29434109467536136542009-07-11T12:37:00.004-04:002009-07-11T13:52:03.977-04:00

Old one but comprehensively insightful. Some thoughts I had while reviewing this TED Talk are as follows. If technological power and pervasiveness is growing exponentially and becoming further integrated into biological functions, particularly in humans, won't that create a supremely unfair and possibly insurmountable advantage to the privileged? One might state that secondary markets will

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-72790403533345791012009-05-11T19:39:00.031-04:002009-09-16T20:29:54.779-04:00

Connie Culp's new face is an unglamorous yet significant icon for hopeful victims of deforming casualties. In 2004, Connie's face was all but completely destroyed by a gunshot. Until 2008, she underwent ongoing treatments as usual while she presumably endured much of the physical, psychological, social torment accompanied by such a tragedy. As an ideal candidate for a full face transplant, Connie

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-72099640985943957492009-04-15T12:54:00.004-04:002009-04-15T13:48:58.290-04:00

I, like many, have found myself falling short of realizing the tangible benefits - financially, socially, intellectually, emotionally, morally, and so on - of the information revolution. In part, the value I've extracted from Twitter is not sustainable although Evan and Biz have created a paradigm shift, a new market (and secondary markets). I just hope the need to make money doesn't compromise

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-56688480883673664862009-04-12T19:50:00.007-04:002009-04-12T20:57:10.531-04:00

You must watch this video! (sorry for the 30-second commercial)Covered several years ago by NY Times, All Things Digital, DARPA's DEKA bionic arm is a remarkable leap in technology and just one of the breakthroughs in a $100 million Pentagon program called "Revolutionizing Prosthetics." Due to the phenomenal mechanical complexity of the hand, greater strides have been made in legs and feet. The

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-12041682311686137932009-04-10T15:32:00.005-04:002009-04-10T15:55:11.225-04:00

The virtual desktop's recent foray into the physical realm with BumpTop has merit (otherwise it probably wouldn't have made it to the TED stage), but still a few years to go. The 3D metaphor of your physical desktop takes it to some unnecessary extremes such as an overabundance of flashy gestures foreign to even the contemporary user experience - this will require a paradigm shift that is

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-88298587417081854732009-03-11T14:04:00.008-04:002009-03-11T21:36:22.171-04:00

Aimee Mullins, a 1996 Paralympic Games record-breaker, is a popular face of the next generation of prosthetics. Today, she has a dozen pairs of legs that grant her various advantages that she would not otherwise enjoy with her born legs: speed, beauty, height, and so forth. Through new innovations in prosthetics, she and other paraplegics redefine what the body can be through testament of their

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-12286956174448002392009-03-09T10:54:00.165-04:002010-06-10T16:00:18.012-04:00

Wow! Having toiled on my own start-up for the past 3 years in my hometown nestled in Upstate, NY, I've taken little time to appreciate other worldly developments of such potential magnitude as Wolfram Alpha. Ironically, Rochester has a relative abundance of academics and practitioners innovating in the related field of computational mathematics among others. Until recently, I had yet to tap into

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-12415882625097282232009-02-25T16:23:00.015-05:002009-03-10T14:57:05.532-04:00

Being one of the first users on Friendster, Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail, and still new web tools and networks, I hopefully can provide some elucidation on this topic.Below are some takeaways from the video that are common across other resources I've found. Contrary to the multi-tasking hype, it is more important that people focus while leveraging a multitude of resources at their fingertips. Every

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-72914622111257717102009-02-15T11:35:00.004-05:002009-03-03T00:19:00.823-05:00

Carnegie Mellon's Quality of Life Technology (QoLT) Center's mission to improve human independence is a novel and noble one. Pulling from the best research we have on human psychology and physiology in conjunction with mechanical and information technology, the Center is able to focus more on human involvement in a human-machine symbiosis rather than one over the other. In the Center's first

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-7706016260808992822009-02-13T00:44:00.010-05:002009-02-28T02:49:06.991-05:00

This video above says it all, rather, it says a lot. Education and the future of Technology. Ahead of the learning curve with exponential evolution. Enjoy! The video below is much older but it's just as phenomenal.

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-16250220917012553612009-02-11T15:28:00.007-05:002009-02-26T00:20:00.663-05:00

Similar technology to Google Latitude has been developed years ago, including in my Human Interface course at University of Michigan in 2006. Obviously, the combined power of Google's applications and breadth of Google's platform has finally delivered this to mass-appeal. Combined with Twitter's universally generated and distributed status updates (through RSS, SMS, Email, Web Messaging, and

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-28779151532926780402009-02-09T13:04:00.017-05:002009-02-14T11:10:58.452-05:00

I was talking with a good friend today about education and drew on the analogy of healthy relationships (particularly romantic ones) to reinforce my perspective of contemporary pedagogy. I resolved that both are a function of the following:substanceengagementtimeLike educational partners - both teachers and pupils - many partners in relationships lack the proper substance and engagement, which

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-62741856765137393632009-01-30T18:22:00.000-05:002009-02-28T02:45:46.044-05:00

I've always had a fascination with animals that have evolved to exhibit innately machine-like characteristics. In High School, I wrote a report on how electric eels built up and stored an ionic charge between organ pairs that acted as capacitors comprising 4/5 of its body, releasing an explosive voltage pulse defensively and predatorily to stun or kill surrounding life forms. I regrettably did

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-23093326077383677962008-12-15T11:24:00.008-05:002010-06-10T14:42:15.659-04:00

This message is commonsense to most, but great production nonetheless. We are undoubtedly immersed in the Information Revolution, seeded in 1952 with the sale of the first commercial computer, the Univac ; reaching consumers in 1970 with the first personal computer, the Kenbak; and ultimately taking off a decade after privately provided Internet services were provided to consumers in the 1980s.

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-2468469605811852542008-12-12T20:33:00.007-05:002008-12-12T21:36:39.131-05:00

Hooray! Yet another Universities becomes a testing bed for tech industry applications (even though they had the class last semester as well).Over the next few years, application growth is projected to continue its explosive growth as techies and entrepreneurs alike develop and design niche applications. Similar to the Gold Rush of 1848 and the 2000 height of the Dot Com, the twofold

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-15731109072206270732008-12-12T15:34:00.007-05:002008-12-12T22:01:34.221-05:00

I found this interesting because I don't come across too many articles where the environment was being destroyed as a direct result of technology exploits. It begs a greater question that I reported on earlier:As technology pervades the globe, particularly web or networked-technology, who will ultimately sit at the table in making decisions about the environment? The elite who control the

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-53707081360729066482008-12-06T21:06:00.017-05:002009-02-25T17:47:04.046-05:00

Technology as space between us is a general trend, not just in Second Life. Our phones, laptops, iPods, videogame consoles, web portals and applications, and the latest-and-greatest are all becoming increasingly significant compared to the actual people around us, or on the other end of the line or 'cloud.' And the infrastructure necessary to keep us all connected by the skin of our nodes is

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-82842933555735286802008-11-30T22:26:00.018-05:002009-02-25T17:48:04.677-05:00

Between calendaring, texting, IMing, Googling, Bloggering, Facebooking, Linking (using LinkedIn), Twittering...planning, engrossing myself in either fleeting experimentation with ideological fantasies or mundane existence, and reveling in public broadcasts across the ether, I often forget to reflect on the purpose and repercussions of my actions both in the short-term and years from now. From

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-14265602465027317352008-11-02T20:08:00.010-05:002008-11-02T21:22:30.582-05:00

There have been many technological and biological advances in my lifetime that have enabled individuals to do more or regain what they had unfortunately once lost. Until the past few years, though, tapping into the human brain in a practical manner was relegated to science fiction, Saturday morning cartoons, and of course The Matrix - damn you Keanu! Similar to the way we have been able isolate

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-83736866371455282222008-10-11T22:52:00.044-04:002011-07-01T17:04:52.668-04:00

Facebook initially wasn't a novel technology - social networking sites had been around for nearly a decade when it was born out of the Harvard dorms. However, Facebook arguably became one of the most innovative web developments post dot-com when it announced it would open its site as a platform for third-party applications. A 2007 illustration of how this looks can be found at Idealog. Moreover,

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-5705892513405722212008-09-27T22:08:00.002-04:002009-02-12T00:16:49.194-05:00

I recently stumbled upon possibly one of the most innovative mass-production pilot operations since the Ford Model T in 1908. Instead of a rolling line to assemble the parts, however, we're using molds to guide the growth of structures and mechanical parts - using bamboo!Unlike plastic and metal - even natural composite - fabrication, there are few or no negative byproducts from this operation.

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-58192442211780249852008-09-02T18:21:00.027-04:002008-10-17T16:14:53.622-04:00

Almost as soon as the celebratory uproar left my mouth when Google Chrome was released today, my healthy skepticism of Google's good intentions led to jaw-dropping silence when I read the following fine print in their Terms & Conditions:11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-57944183212837033512008-08-17T12:17:00.011-04:002009-09-11T23:24:34.013-04:00

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the much anticipated TechCrunch50 Conference this past week; however, I managed to look into the presentations. A common question many of the panelists posed was whether the finalist companies were features or actual businesses irrespective of their viability or potential. On the positioning of CopyBox, Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com commented, "The danger is

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-91104545390676866932008-02-10T01:35:00.002-05:002009-02-28T01:35:08.768-05:00

Carbon nanotubes have many properties that would allow us to make significant advances in enterprise and consumer products such as electronics while significantly reducing, if not virtually eliminating, the amount of necessary materials. There is great promise in the application of carbon nanotubes not just because of its properties but because of its abundance and positive indirect effects. 

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156161281925732992.post-7200147653814164592007-12-11T19:30:00.004-05:002008-10-12T20:25:11.124-04:00

My name is Chris Bank although most people at the University of Michigan know me as "Topher" - it was sort of a social experiment that got out of hand.I graduated from UofM's Ross School of Business, and consider myself a serial entrepreneur although my entrepreneurial series has arguably just begun. Like many web innovators and evangelists, I at one point claimed I had developed the next

Chris Bankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265485988592849948noreply@blogger.com0