Google hosts a “Gapminder” tool that uses Flash technology to turn otherwise tedious or boring data into readable, interactive animations. Gapminder is a foundation based in Stockholm, Sweden. Funding has been mainly by grants from Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, and the data presented are gathered in collaboration with the United Nations Statistic Division. [...]

An interesting article appeared at Ars Technica yesterday: A new salvo has been fired in the perennial war over Wikipedia‘s accuracy. Thomas Chesney, a Lecturer in Information Systems at the Nottingham University Business School, published the results of his own Wikipedia study in the most recent edition of the online journal First Monday, and he [...]

Technology Review has an interview with Danny Hills, cofounder of Thinking Machines. In the 1980′s the company sought to develop the world’s first real artificial intelligence. They failed. Why? We look to our own minds and watch our patterns of conscious thought, reasoning, planning, and making analogies, and we think, “That’s thinking.” Actually, it’s just [...]

Recognizing natural human evolution is likely over, Popular Mecanics is carrying a story on technological trends and advancements that will build better humans. Update – New Scientist is running a similar article. Comments

Today, Wikipedia turns five years old. From their announcement: “The English Wikipedia alone now has more than 920,000 articles, with over 340,000,000 words. The millionth article is expected to appear in late February or early March. The combined Wikipedias for all languages have an estimated total of over 3,100,000 articles in some two hundred languages. [...]