Category Archives: Mind Uploading

Billionaire magnate Elon Musk is trying to fill the world with electric cars and solar panels while at the same time aiming to deployreusable rockets to eventually colonize Mars.

As if thatwerent enough for his plate, Musk recently announced the launch of Neuralink, a neuroscience startup seeking to create a way to interface human brains with computers. According to him, this would be part of guarding humanity against what Muskconsiders a threat from the rise of artificial intelligence. He envisions a lattice of electrodes implanted into thehuman skull that could allow people to download and upload thoughts as well as treat brain conditions such as epilepsy or bipolar disorders.

Musks proposition seems as outlandish and unlikely as his vision for the Hyperloop rapid transport system, but like his other big ideas, theres real science behind it.

Writtenin plain language that gives nonscientistsa way to separatethe science from the sensational, The Body Builders is a fascinating dive into whats happening right now in bioengineering research from brain-computer interfaces to bionic limbs that will redefine human-machine interactions in the years to come.

Piore, an award-winning journalist who has written extensively about scientific advances, spoke to Salon recently about just how close we are to being ableto read one anothers thoughtsthroughelectrodes and the processing power of modern computers. The transcript below was lightly edited for style and clarity.

In your research, what were some of the innovations you learned about that blew your mind?

Most of them blew my mind at some point, but the one that really stuck out [dealt with]the things people are doing with reverse engineering the way the human leg works so they can build a bionic limb. In order to do that, Hugh Herr at MIT is building a mathematical model of the way that all of the constituent parts of the lower leg interact.

Theres only a few hundred muscles, ligaments, tendons and bones that constitute the lower leg, so thats manageable to have the sensing power to characterize that, express it mathematically, put that on a computer chip and then build robotic parts that can do that or build some exoskeleton device that can work in harmony with that. If you takethat to the extreme, one of the biggest challenges is the human brain where [the experimental technology involved is] basically doing the same thing except with billions of neurons.

One of the people that I profile was a guy by the name of Gerwin Schalk in Albany at the Wadsworth Center. Hes trying to decode imagined speech. That was pretty mind-blowing. Theyve discovered that when you speak, you send signals not just to the brains motor cortex to tell your muscles how to make the sound but also to the auditory cortex as an error-correction mechanism. And even when youre not speaking, just thinking the words, the words still go to your auditory cortex, so Gerwin Schalk has been able to find a neural signature of this and identify different phrases.

Your book describes how Schalk re-created a muddled but clearly recognizable segment of the Pink Floyd song Another Brick in the Wall based solely on brain wave data collected from people who had listened to the sound clip. What is the practical application of this?

The ultimate goal is to be able to decode imagined speech. That was a demonstration showing that you could detect the music playing in somebodys auditory cortex. But theoretically if you have the processing power and the sensing capabilities, you could detect something much more specific, like the actual words that somebody is thinking.

And if you could do that then you could help locked-in patients regain the ability to talk just by thinking. You could build a thought helmet, which was the original kind-of cockamamy scheme by the person who originally funded Gerwin Schalk. There was a guy in the Army Research Office who [provided funding for Schalks research] because he wanted to build a thought helmet that he had read about in science fiction books so that soldiers could communicate telepathically. It seemed outlandish at the time, but now it seems like someday it might be possible.

It seems like a Faustian bargain to have technology that could read peoples minds. Has anyone discussed the notion that someday authorities could prosecute people based on thoughts they have in their minds?

Theyve definitely explored the ethical dilemmas, but theyre a long way from being able to do that. If you are actually going to be able to have a thought helmet, even if you could do it the way its conceptualized for the military or to help locked-in people speak, you would need to train the pattern-recognition software.

It really wouldnt work without the cooperation [of the subject]. The way words are encoded in each persons brain differs from person to person. The software and the hardware would need to be trained on your own specific brain before it could actually pick out words and phrases.

But there are all sorts of ethical questions raised by these technologies, and one can imagine all sorts of 1984-ish type mind-control issues, and theyre definitely worth exploring and discussing.

So what youre saying is that the each human brain has a distinct accent, that we all process words differently in our minds?

The brain is the most complicated pattern-recognition machine out there, and the way that different words and patterns are encoded in our brains is the result of our experiences. The brain is very plastic. It can actually even change in a person over time.

Youve said we need a technological breakthrough to decode language from brain waves. What do you mean?

So theres a guy at Northwestern named Konrad Kording who published a paper in 2011 in Nature Neuroscience detailing what he called Stevensons Law, named after his graduate student Ian Stevenson;its like Moores Law for computing chips. [Stevenson] had looked at the number of neurons that scientists can record from, and basically its doubled about every seven years.

But its only about 500 [neurons] at this point. Kording said well be dead before we can record even part of a mouse brain. So what theyre doing is theres this program from [the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA] called Neural Engineering System Design. Theyre doling out about $60 million trying to get some sort of breakthrough. They want a device that can record from at least 100,000 neurons and also stimulate them. But its hard to do. We need to develop a new way to do this.

Theres a group of people at Berkeley who have suggested that the solution is to have something called neural dust, which is nano-scale electrodes you can put in the brain. People have said the solution is to just shrink existing electrodes to make them smaller. Some people have compared [the current technology] to trying to play piano with your forearms. You cant get the resolution you want. Theres a paralyzed woman who drank coffee with a robotic arm, controlling it just by thinking, and that was remarkable.

But as one of the neuroscientists said to me, theres no [brain-computer interface] that you would want to use to control a wheelchair on the edge of a cliff or to drive a car in heavy traffic. Its not precise enough.

This sounds like a similar problem in robotics. Robots can do a lot of things, but some tasks are too intricate and detailed for a robot to do at least not yet.

Weve crossed the Rubicon, but we havent yet perfected the technology. Thats why in my book I also looked at technologies that are affecting peoples lives, like the [bionic leg research]. Its the same kind of idea because youre reverse engineering the human body and mind. There are a lot of remarkable stories of people being able to walk again.

Its also the same with genetic engineering. We can now decode a human genome for under $1,000. But the fact is a lot of human diseases and human qualities like intelligence grow out of the interaction of many different genes and environmental factors. Were still learning how to decode those. Were able to do genetic therapy but not complicated genetic therapy.

What are researchers telling you about the science behind Elon Musks recent comments and predictions about merging human and artificial intelligence, about downloading and uploading thoughts?

In my book, I try to tell stories about things that are going on now. There are a lot of books that vaguely talk about the future, but I wanted to explain how the science works and whats actually happening now so that people can evaluate these claims and see whats sensationalistic and whats not.

But Gerwin Schalk, whos working on imagined speech, believes his research is just one guidepost on route to an even grander endpoint. He believes that in the not too distant future that well be able to seamlessly integrate the human mind and all of humanity with computers so that we wont need a keyboard or a mouse to type something into the web to get an answer. Well be able to just think and well have instant access to every fact available on the web as if it was a memory or something. He says youd have a billion people all hooked in, and theres no social media; everyone would just know what youre about and who you are and suddenly youd create this super society, and it would clearly transform not only human capacity but also what it means to be human.

I think thats relevant to what Elon Musk is talking about. Hes worried about artificial intelligence, about machines destroying humanity. One of the reasons why hes pushing for this neural lace, which would be to overcome that challenge that I was talking about earlier, which is the same kind of thing that DARPA is funding, [is] to try and find better sensors to overcome Stevensons Law. One of the reasons why Elon Musk wants to do this is so that we can link up to computers and have the same computational power and the same hive mind and the same type of intelligence that artificial intelligence would have so that we can basically protect ourselves.

Originally posted here:

We could be reading minds soon: Inside the research that's moving us from sci-fi to sci-fact - Salon

What is it?: An app that creates quick videos with animated text, graphics, emojis and music.

Devices: iOS

Cost: Free

How is it of use to journalists?

News organisations looking to engage social audiences are more aware than ever before of the need to capture people's attention with the sound off, and we've seen publishers such as AJ+ and NowThis coming up with news ways of using captions in their videos.

But although post-production softwares such as Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro can help news outlets create eye-catching visuals, mobile journalists out in the field need to be able to use only their smartphone to shoot, edit and publish this type of materials.

Clips, a free app from Apple, enables reporters to add animated titles and captions to their clips in real time, by dictating the text straight into their phone all while recording video.

Captions are generated automatically as they speak to match the timing of their voiceover useful for journalists when they are commentating on events, filming interviews or recording pieces to camera.

How does it work?

Once you've opened the app, select the speech bubble from the top-left of the toolbar on your screen. Here, you can choose how you'd like your subtitles to appear while you talk into the phone: in full sentences on a banner at the bottom or in the center of the frame, or word by word at the bottom.

Next, choose the filter option to add effects, such as making footage look like a comic book or a black and white movie.

Like Snapchat or Instagram Stories, you can add stickers and captions to your videos to make them more engaging, and you can also include a time stamp or your location.

Once you are happy with your settings, press and hold the red record button at the bottom of the screen to record your first clip. Once you release the button, your video will be saved as a square thumbnail, and you will be able to record additional clips and personalise them individually with captions and stickers.

Changed your mind about the visuals used for the clip you just took? The toolbar at the top of the screen allows you to go back and change or remove any of the elements included in the clip. You can also easily add photos and videos from your camera roll if your wish to use pre-recorded material.

Change the order of your shots by holding down a clip's thumbnail and dragging it to the desired position. You can even cut clips by selecting them, tapping the scissors icon and using the trimming tool to shorten them.

When you are done, you can upload your video to social media by tapping 'done' in the bottom-right corner, and uploading to Facebook, Twitter, or sharing with your newsroom via email or Slack.

If you're interested in apps for adding subtitles to videos, check out these two collections of 10 apps, including Gravie and FilmStory.

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).

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App for journalists: Clips, for creating videos with animated captions - Journalism.co.uk

CCC doesnt expect competitive benefit from seeing Secure Share B2B relationships By Repairer Driven News on April 13, 2017 Business Practices | Market Trends | Repair Operations | Technology

CCC said the volume of collision repair-related messages which will pass through its new Secure Share system wouldnt give it an unfair informational edge over competitors for its ancillary products.

Besides its core estimating service product, CCC also sells shop management, parts procurement and customer service management tools just like the vendors which will be using Secure Share to receive estimate data from CCCs thousands of users.

Under the obsolete CIECA Estimate Management Standard CCC plans to cease usingin 2018, the estimating service sends repairers EMS files filled with all the estimate details. The shops in turns sendthese files to business partners who need elements of that estimate by manually uploading the file online or by having it sucked up through data pumps installed on individual shop computers.

Vendors with data pumps can indiscriminately vacuum up all EMS files including ones for repairs in which they have no involvement and all information within those files, not just the part of the message relevant totheir industry. This raises tremendous customer and business privacy concerns.

Under CIECAs Business Message Suite standard, a shop can send specific elements of the estimate to a specific party. Any shop and vendor with sufficient IT resources could adopt this method now, but for whatever reason and to CIECAs dismay, many dont.

CCC has created Secure Share, which went live April 4, to manage the process for the BMS holdouts and force the end of EMS. It allows shops to designate various participant companies to receive particular germane data from estimates but conceal the rest, and it will encrypt the data as well.

Theres obvious advantages for shops to using the BMS standard instead of clinging to EMS and in delegating the back end of this data exchange to CCC.However,Secure Share also seems to putCCC in a position to glean business-relationship and market-share data about its non-IP rivals by tracking how much of its dominant shop user base has interest in or sends data to thosecompetitors.

CCC spokeswoman Michelle Hellyar disputed the notion that CCC would obtain a competitive advantage in this fashion.

As we give the customer control over the destinations of data, our product requires configurability be at their fingertips, she wrote in an email. So of course CCC ONE configurations related to CCC Secure Share will reflect the intended destination for data, but there may be multiple destinations for a given BMS workfile and how the customer ultimately transacts with a third party app is not known by CCC. Data security is key to CCC and its customers and requires transactional security logs, so CCC does have exposure to BMS workfile transaction volume, in part anyway. Keep in mind, CCC Secure Share only represents a portion of a third party app providers transaction volume. We do not believe that CCC will in any way competitively benefit from the information which is available to it and we believe these are essential elements of a data security program.

I dont see how thats an advantage for us, CCC Vice President of market solutions Mark Fincher said.

Shops already can designate who receives EMS messages today within CCC, Fincher said. This is really nothing new, he said.

With the system CCC was trying to build and its pricing structure, theres no way around seeing who does business with whom, Fincher said.

Besides, CCC already knew the competitive landscape to some degree anyway, he said.

CCC Introduces CCC Secure Share Network

CCC, Sept. 29, 2016

CCC Secure Share website

Featured image: Collision repairers can access CCC Secure Share through the Configure menu option. (Provided by CCC)

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CCC doesn't expect competitive benefit from seeing Secure Share B2B relationships - Repairer Driven News (press release) (blog)

When Steve Jobs famously announced the original iPhone in 2007 he described the device as an "iPod, a phone and an internet communicator." For all its revolutionary design and features, the original iPhone had a camera but didn't shoot video.

Ten years later, the iPhone has evolved into the primary photo and video camera for many of us. Apple makes shooting video on it pretty easy, but that doesn't always mean you get good-looking results.

Here's a handful of basic tips and tricks to help you shoot better video on the iPhone or really any smartphone for that matter.

Always make sure your phone has space before recording any new videos.

There are two kinds of people in this world, those with space on their phones and those without. Videos (especially in 4K mode) take up quite a bit of space.

Before you shoot, make sure you have space on your phone for those new video masterpieces. On an iPhone go into Settings - General - Storage & iCloud Usage. From here you can view how much storage your phone has and what using it. If you need more room, there are a bunch of things you can remove to open up space.

I recommend putting your phone into Airplane mode. This will prevent texts, phone calls and other notifications from distracting you while you shoot. If you don't have it on, notifications can pop up on your screen, making it harder to see what you're recording. If you receive a phone call, video recording will automatically stop which can also be annoying.

Another option is to enable Do Not Disturb to minimize notifications popping up on the screen.

When you take photos, shooting between landscape or portrait is no big deal. But with video, it's a different story. As a rule of thumb you should always shoot in landscape orientation to avoid seeing black bars on your screen during playback. On the other hand, some social media apps work better with video shot in portrait.

Ultimately, it's all about where the video will end up. If you are going to watch your video on a TV or computer screen (uploading it to YouTube or Vimeo), horizontal is the best way to go. Snapchat is a great example of when shooting "vertical" video is actually better.

Shaky videos are tough to watch. So the iPhone has a built-in stabilizer, which can take some of the shake out of your videos. Technically there's two: an optical one and a digital one.

The iPhone has a built-in stabilizer to make your videos look less shaky.

But even with the iPhone's built-in magic, you should keep your phone as still as possible when shooting. This can be especially handy for when you film someone talking directly to the camera, closeups, time lapses or slow-motion shots.

One technique to steady your phone is to tuck your elbows into your sides and even hold your breath.

You can also use your environment to help steady your camera. Be on the lookout for sturdy flat surfaces to place your phone on or against.

The iPhone shoots great video in good light, but when you're indoors or in mixed lighting, it needs a little help. Be aware of your light source. If there is a bright light behind your subject, you might get a nasty silhouette. To solve this, consider turning your subject to face the light. Also, be mindful of any shadows you or your phone cast on your subject.

Adjust the exposure by sliding the brightness icon next to the AE/AF yellow box.

If you need to fine-tune your exposure, tap on the display where you want to focus and when the yellow focus/exposure square appears, slide the brightness icon up or down until your subject looks fabulous.

If you want to lock your exposure, tap and hold where you want to focus until the yellow focus/exposure square pulsates and "AE/AF LOCK" appears on your screen. From there you can adjust the exposure and the iPhone will hold these settings until you touch the screen again. By the way, "AE/AF LOCK" stands for auto exposure/autofocus lock.

If all else fails, the iPhone has a built-in flash that can be used to add light, but this trick doesn't always work and it might not be flattering to your subject.

Placing your subject in the middle of your screen is easy enough, but not everything always needs to be perfectly centered. In fact, lining up important parts of your subject on thirds can make your compositions more interesting. This is called the rule of thirds. Imagine drawing a tic-tac-toe grid on your phone screen and aligning your image on the intersection of those lines.

When you shoot photos, the iPhone has an optional rule-of-thirds grid you can turn on in Settings. Sadly, the grid doesn't work in video mode.

These are just a few basics to keep in mind when you shoot on an iPhone, yet many of these tips can also be used for shooting video on any phone. Like anything else, mastering good video technique just takes a little practice... and lots of storage!

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7 easy ways to make your iPhone videos look pro - CNET

What distinguishes Elon Musks reputation as an entrepreneur is that any venture he takes on comes from a bold and inspiring vision for the future of our species. Not long ago, Musk announced a new company, Neuralink, with the goal of merging the human mind with AI. Given Musks track record of accomplishing the seemingly impossible, the world is bound to pay extra attention when he says he wants to connect our brains to computers.

Neuralink is registered as a medical company in California. With further details yet to be announced, it will attempt to create a neural lace, which is a brain-machine interface that can be implanted directly into our brains to monitor and enhance them.

In the short run, this technology has medical applications and may be used to treat paralysis or diseases like Parkinsons. In the coming decades, it could allow us to exponentially boost our mental abilities or even digitize human consciousness. Fundamentally, it is a step towards the convergence of humans and machines and maybe a leap in human progressone that could address various challenges we face.

Musk isnt the first or only person who wants to connect brains to machines. Another tech entrepreneur, Bryan Johnson, founded startup Kernel in 2016 to similarly look into brain-machine interfaces, and the scientific community has been making strides in recent years.

Earlier this month, researchers in Switzerland announced paralyzed primates could walk again with the assistance of a neuroprosthetic system. And CNN reported a man paralyzed from the shoulders down regained use of his right hand with a brain-machine interface.

The past few years have seen remarkable developments in both the hardware and software of brain-machine interfaces. Experts are designing more intricate electrodes while programming better algorithms to interpret the neural signals. Scientists have already succeeded in enabling paralyzed patients to type with their minds,and are even allowing brains to communicate with one another purely through brainwaves. So far, most of these successful applications have been in enabling motor control or very basic communication in individuals with brain injuries.

There remain, however, many challenges to ongoing developments of BMIs.

For one, the most powerful and precise BMIs require invasive surgery. Another challenge is implementing robust algorithms that can interpret the complex interactions of the brains 86 billion neurons. Most progress has also been one-directional: brain to machine. We have yet to develop BMIs that can provide us with sensory information or allow us to feel the subjective experience of tactile sensations such as touch, temperature or pain. (Although there has been progress giving prosthetics-users a sense of touch via electrodes attached to nerves in their arm.)

There is also the general challenge that our understanding of the brain is in its infancy. We have a long way to go before we fully understand how and where various functions such as cognition, perception and self-awareness arise. To enhance or integrate machines with these functions, we need to understand their physical underpinnings. Designing interfaces that can communicate with individual neurons and safely integrate with existing biological networks requires a great amount of medical innovation.

However, its important to remember this technology is rapidly advancing.

Hollywood often depicts a dystopian future where machines and humans go to war. Instead, however, we are seeing hints of a future where human and machine converge.

In many ways, we are already cyborgs.

Futurists like Jason Silva point out that our devices are an abstract form of brain-machine interface. We use smartphones to store and retrieve information, perform calculations and communicate with each other. According to philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers theory of the extended mind, we use technology to expand the boundaries of the human mind beyond our skulls. We use tools like machine learning to enhance our cognitive skills or powerful telescopes to enhance our visual reach. Technology has become a part of our exoskeleton, allowing us to push beyond our limitations.

Musk has pointed out that the merger of biological and machine intelligence may also be necessary if we are to remain economically valuable. Brain-machine interfaces could allow us to better reap the benefits of advancing artificial intelligence. With increasing automation of jobs, this could be a way to keep up with machines that perform tasks far more efficiently than we can.

Technologist Ray Kurzweil believes that by 2030s we will connect the neocortex of our brains to the cloud via nanobots. He points out that the neocortex is the source of all beauty, love and creativity and intelligence in the world. Notably, due to his predictive accuracy, Kurzweil has been referred to by Bill Gates and others as the best predictor of future technologies.

Whether Kurzweil is right or things take longer than expected, our current trajectory suggests well get there eventually. What might such a future look like when it arrives?

We could scale our intelligence and imagination a thousand-fold. It would radically disrupt how we think, feel and communicate. Transferring our thoughts and feelings directly to others brains could re-define human sociality and intimacy. Ultimately, uploading our entire selves into machines could allow us to transcend our biological skins and become digitally immortal.

The implications are truly profound, and many questions remain unanswered. What will the subjective experience of human consciousness feel like when our minds are digitized? How will we prevent our digital brains from getting hacked and overwritten with unwanted thoughts? How do we ensure access to brain-machine interfaces for all, not just the wealthy?

As Peter Diamandis says, If this future becomes reality, connected humans are going to change everything. We need to discuss the implications in order to make the right decisions now so that we are prepared for the future.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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This Is the Dawn of Brain Tech, But How Far Can It Go? - Singularity Hub

When Sgt. David Schwab talks about the Dothan Police Departments new integrated camera system, he uses terms like functionality and user friendliness.

What this system is going to do is its going to effectively replace what we have currently, the supervisor of the departments technical services division said. Its light-years ahead of where we are.

The department is transitioning from just in-car cameras to a linked system that includes in-car and body-worn cameras.

Its not like were just adding body cameras, Schwab said. Were actually replacing all the hardware that we have thats 20-plus years old thats in the cars right now.

The police department received a $202,000 grant through the Department of Justice to help pay for the new system. The Dothan City Commission agreed to pay the difference of $837,000 over a three-year period.

Patrol officers, traffic officers and the community impact team a total of 135 people will have body cameras.

Randy Hall, the electronic systems and maintenance supervisor, said full deployment could begin in mid-May.

There is a possibility that body-worn cameras might be issued before the in-car camera systems get put in, Hall said.

The three-year contract for the new system is all inclusive.

It will include our technical support and it will take care of the repairs and do warranty, Hall said. Its like a turnkey cost for those three years, and at the end of those three years well have the ability to either come back before the commission and renew or look elsewhere. Plus we put things in the contract that, if certain things arent upheld during it, then we can look elsewhere before then.

Hall said that with electronics nowadays you dont look much beyond three years.

And the neat thing about these is that in three years they will even come back, if we renew with them, and give us all-new equipment, Hall said. Its one of those things where you dont get too far down the road and have something thats outdated.

The department ran into that problem with the current cameras. Schwab said companies dont make spare parts for some of that equipment anymore so if it breaks what weve been doing is buying spare parts from other departments that are scrapping their stuff, and thats not really a reliable way to run an operation.

The departments current system has two cameras in each car, one at the front window and one facing the back seat, and two audio streams, one microphone in the car and a microphone on the officer.

Schwab said the new system adds a camera in the officers vest as part of the uniform. It includes GPS tracking and an accelerometer.

We use that to know if the officer has been knocked down, if hes running, if hes not moving for a period of time, any of those types of things, Schwab said.

It has a map that tracks an officer as he walks through a scene. As the video is playing I can actually click anywhere in his path that hes walking or driving and move the video to that point, Schwab said.

Some of the systems functions are automated.

The biggest advantage for us is that the officer can do his job without thinking about what to do to gather evidence, Hall said. The product that we wound up choosing turns itself on without the officer really having to do anything if he is responding to a call. Theres triggers in the car, like when he turns on his light bar, that will activate the recorder. If hes suddenly in a tussle it will start recording because of the movement. If hes standing somewhere and he has to suddenly take off and start chasing somebody it will start recording.

The other big plus is that the officer has to do nothing to upload evidence into cloud storage.

Those two things keep the officers mind on doing his job and you dont hear about these stories where something happened that they didnt expect and there was no evidence, Hall said. It does a very good job of collecting evidence and a very good job of getting it to servers without the officer doing anything.

The body cameras also have an officer down function.

To my knowledge no one else in the industry has it as of yet, Hall says. It notices that the officer has slumped over or is laying flat for I think its like 30 seconds. It will then let everybody know thats on the system that theres an officer that is down.

The GPS lets the department know where officers are at any given time, and cameras begin uploading video to cloud storage a few minutes after they are activated.

Its not quite like a live-streaming, its not that good, but youre going to have your evidence very quickly after an event, Schwab said.

Video stored in the cloud can be shared with the district attorney, the city attorney and defense attorneys without having to burn it to a disc.

Right now, a case goes to trial, Ive got to burn a disc and give it to the officer, Schwab said. That costs money too. Weve got to buy those discs, weve got to pay somebody to sit there and burn them. We wont have to do that anymore with this system.

Fourteen of the body cameras have been in the field since the pilot program started in February 2016. That will help as the department and the vendor start training officers on the new system.

We have people on every squad right now that are basically experts because theyve been using this stuff for a year, so theyre also going to be great facilitators for us, Schwab said.

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Police body cameras part of Dothan's new integrated system - Dothan Eagle

The videos are an infamous genre unto themselves: "Mother Punches Her Daughter Dead in the Face for Having Sex in the House!" "Dad Whups Daughter for Dressing Like Beyonce." "Son Left In Bloody Mess as Father Forces Him to 'Fight.'" Their images stream from Facebook timelines and across YouTube channels, alternately horrifying and arresting: burly fathers, angry mothers, lips curled, curses flying, hands wrapped around electrical chords, tree branches, belts, slashing down on legs, arms, buttocks and flesh as children cry and plead and scream out in agony.

Tens of millions have clicked "play," becoming voyeurs of this new form of child punishment what some observers call "digi-discipline."

Rather than sticking to the time-honored tradition of physically disciplining their children behind closed doors, parents, many of them black, buoyed by the instant gratification and viral fame that social media provides, are increasingly uploading videos of the corporal punishment they mete out on their kids, sparking intense debate on the usefulness of this particular form of public shaming.

The videos' comments threads reveal where most viewers stand on the issue: the digital whoops, hollers and high-fives rival those heard at championship boxing matches, with a majority of commenters encouraging the beatings and applauding the parents. "Whup that trick," one commenter wrote. "Beat that THOT wannabe's ass," said another, using the slur du jour for "slut." Yet another chimed in with "Good job .. now this is a father i salute him because if my daughter was doing this id whoop her ass too."

The running theme: It's OK to beat children, and, if the millions of views each video garners tell the story, it's acceptable to post tapings of the beatings on social media for feedback and "likes."

Tameka Harris-James, an Atlanta-based licensed clinical social worker whose practice includes working with victims of family trauma, said "digi-discipline" has become a new "community experience" that lays bare generations of trauma corporal punishment has wreaked on African-Americans. Viewers, perhaps triggered by their own abuse, repeat the cycle of abuse by hitting their children or applauding those who publicly do so, rather than acquiring the language and skills they need to deal with their own trauma.

"When you have a group of people coming from the same population and circumstances who live by the same social rules and norms that say it's OK to beat children, you don't talk about problems or go to therapy and get the help you need from those kinds of cathartic outlets," Harris-James said. "Instead, you watch these videos and collectively join in and bond over the pain."

Corporal punishment is universally accepted by a large swath of American parents; a 2014 study by Child Trends, a research organization that uses data to help shape public policy on children, reveals that 65 percent of women and 76 percent of men agree or strongly agree that it is sometimes necessary to give a child a "good hard spanking." But when broken down by race, black parents particularly black mothers are far more likely to agree that kids need beatings: 81 percent of black mothers, compared with 62 percent each of Hispanic and white mothers, advocate hard spanking, while 80 percent of black fathers felt the same, compared to 76 percent and 73 percent of white and Hispanic fathers respectively.

Among blacks, commiserating over corporal punishment is nothing new; before social media, parents would recount in conversations at the hair salon, barbershop, church, family gatherings or more intimate phone conversations the beatings they handed out for childhood infractions. Anti-corporal punishment advocate Stacey Patton, author of Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America, said in the past, "It would be, 'girl, I tore her butt up for leaving this house without asking.'" Today, she said, digital technology, social media and video-sharing sites "allow that conversation to become much more public and widespread. It makes parents feel more powerful."

Patton notes that in a society where black people have limited political, economic and social power, one place they can both exercise authority and strike back at stereotypes that portray black parents as irresponsible and unloving is taking "control" of their kids. Beating children and posting it on social media, then, is just as much about performing respectability as it is punishing wrongdoing. "Rather than striking back at oppressive systems that justify beating and shaming your kids, you beat and shame your kids. You can say, 'I'm a responsible parent. I don't let my kids run wild.'"

In some cases, those parents are rewarded when their videos go viral. LaToya Graham was crowned "mom of the year" after being captured on tape smacking her son upside his head, yelling at him and chasing him down the street for participating in a Baltimore protest over the police killing of Freddie Gray. The video, filmed by a local TV news station, shot past 8 million views on YouTube after it aired on television and Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts shouted out Graham, saying he wished "there were more parents out there who took charge of their kids." Within weeks, Graham enjoyed a media whirlwind of praise, appearing on several popular news and talk shows, getting job offers from BET, Under Armour and a local hospital, and even receiving a phone call and a $15,000 check from Oprah.

Social media amplified the significance and reward of Graham's actions, which led to an uptick in digi-discipline videos, said Patton. "Her success gave validation to other parents that this was OK," she said.

But not everyone gets rewarded for such public discipline. In the case of Virginia father Tavis Sellers, boxing his son on Facebook Live as punishment for leaving class earned the dad a domestic assault and battery charge after his video went viral. In it, Sellers orders his son to put on boxing gloves and fight him; the father bests the son, tossing jabs that make the boy's nose bleed. As he continues to beat him, Sellers chides the boy, telling both him and the viewing audience that when he "cuts up in school, this is what [he] has to deal with when [he] comes home." By the video's end, the boy's white t-shirt is covered with blood; his father demands he look in the camera and apologize to his teacher.

Sellers was arrested a few days later.

Patton, whose outspoken advocacy teaches positive, non-violent disciplinary practices to parents of color, has even called police to report parents who've uploaded videos of themselves beating their children, and encouraged her more than 44,000 Facebook followers to do the same. "People say, 'That's [expletive] up. Another black man in jail, another black child in foster care you need to mind your business.' I'm like, 'This person put their business in the fiber optic streets and it's our job as human beings to protect this kid.'"

Parents, she adds, need to spend less time posting digi-punishment videos and more time actually learning how to parent their children. "What they're beating their kids over bad report cards, cutting class, sexual behavior is all developmental stuff. Sit down and have a conversation with them about healthy sexual choices. All that time they spent charging their phones, setting up the cameras, explaining why they're about to beat the mess out of their kids, filming the abuse, uploading it on YouTube, captioning it and tagging their friends, they could have Googled 'How to talk to my daughter about sex.'"

Still, some parents find great value in digi-punishment as a deterrent for their children and a lesson for mothers and fathers parenting in the digital age. "I would do it all over again," says author ReShonda Tate Billingsley, who set off a storm of controversy in 2012 when she punished her daughter for posting an Instagram photo of herself holding up a bottle of Vodka and saying she wished she could drink it. Billingsley countered with a photo of her own: a picture of her crying daughter holding a sign that read, "Since I want to take pics holding liquor, I am obviously NOT ready for social media and will be taking a hiatus until I learn what is and isn't appropriate to post. Bye-Bye." The photo, which she posted on her Facebook page, was shared more than 10,000 times hours after it went public.

"It resonated with her and to this day, she still thinks about that. They live on social media and that's always in the back of her mind," says Billingsley, adding that the picture inspired parents to pay attention to what their children post on social media. Still, the mom of three believes that beating children on camera goes "way too far." These days, parents, she said, "are doing it for likes and shares."

Patton plans to lobby for legislation that would make it a crime to post videos and pictures of children getting beaten and adds that she believes the only reason it hasn't been introduced and passed already is because the videos predominately feature black children. "This is a country that's become numb to the destruction of black bodies. Whether it's Toya Graham beating her son, or Tamir Rice being shot by cops, it's OK we've become accustomed to watching it. If these were white children in these degrading videos, something would have been done a long time ago."

Harris-James thinks a bit differently about this.

"Parents will continue to beat their children and there should be consequences for that," she says quietly. "But if we shut it down, it takes our attention off of it and we forget about those children. At least now, the videos stimulate dialogue and conversation and action because it's in your face."

Denene Millner is a New York Times best-selling author and a parenting expert, whose latest book is My Brown Baby: On the Joys and Challenges Of Raising African American Children.

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The perils and false rewards of parenting in the era of 'digi-discipline' - Minnesota Public Radio News

One of the many images produced by the Human Conectome Project, but can such science ever lead to brain uploading?

IF you could, would you want to live forever even if it meant existing in a virtual world?

That is the desperate goal of Australian man Philip Rhoades, the founder of a body-freezing cryonics lab and a brain preserving company called the Neural Archives Foundation.

The latter consists of scientifically preserved brains stored all over the country including those of his recently deceased parents waiting for the day when their contents might be uploaded to a computer.

Of course the science underpinning such an ambitious idea is dubious to say the least, but Mr Rhoades believes its just a matter of time until technology is advanced enough to achieve his dream.

At 65, he understands time is of the essence and so hes turned to a well-known figure of tech innovation for help: Elon Musk.

The billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX recently announced a new venture called Neural Lace to develop a way to connect the human brain with a computer. Mr Rhoades believes the tech titan is somebody who can push the controversial field forward.

In a bizarre open letter the former biomedical researcher spruiked his credentials and volunteered his brain to be uploaded and sent to Mars, allowing him to explore the universe.

Musk has bold plans to take humans to Mars and is planning to launch a mission to the red planet in conjunction with NASA in the coming decade.

Mr Rhoades believes it would make more sense to send virtual people.

I am convinced that I need to become a virtual person (via mind uploading) sooner rather than later, he writes in his letter to Musk.

It sounds delusional and many would argue that it is but Mr Rhoades is convinced the science of transferring our brains to computers has not been proven to be impossible.

I dont care if your average Facebook user thinks its all crazy ... people in the business are spending serious money on this, he told news.com.au.

Philip Rhoades knows that most people think hes crazy. Picture: Jim Trifyllis.Source:News Limited

Russian internet millionaire Dmitry Itskov is among them. He is pursuing brain uploading with the ultimate goal of being able to transfer someones personality into a completely new body.

Within the next 30 years, I am going to make sure that we can all live forever, he told the BBC last year.

All of the evidence seems to say in theory its possible its extremely difficult, but its possible.

Mr Rhoades said he knew there was virtually no chance of getting Mr Musks attention, so he published the letter on a site that promotes the convergence of technology and the human body.

Dr Elaine Mulcahy wearing wired up thinking cap connected to computer. The device records brain waves during a medical research test at Sydney University back in 2002.Source:News Limited

From a technological point of view I dont know that Neural Lace is the best solution ... but certainly that brain computer interface angle is the way to go to get the brain uploading stuff going, he said.

It sounds like science fiction but its not. Its just the normal march of scientific progress.

Currently, scientists are working on something called the Human Conectome Project which is mapping the connections and neural links in the brain to better understand how it functions.

Mr Rhoades is hopeful such research will give us a better understanding of how things like memories are stored and that one day well be able to be decode them.

There is another, more personal factor that drives his optimism.

Towards the end of his life, Mr Rhoades father who died in May last year suffered from a neural degenerative disease. His son is desperate to avoid a similar fate.

If we accelerate this, I might be able to skip the freezing step and get uploaded directly, he said.

Tech billionaire and innovator Elon Musk. Picture: Karim SahibSource:AFP

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Elon Musk: Australian man pens desperate letter to download his brain - NEWS.com.au

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What: Second season of docu-series that explores aspects of new technologies.

When: Premieres 10 p.m. Thursday.

Where: Showtime.

In the first episode of the second season of Showtimes docu-series Dark Net, the narrator asserts, In the future technology wont just complement reality, it will create a new one.

While the first season of the series looked at what is known as the Dark Web and its shady activities such as biohacking, cyber-kidnapping, digital warfare and the webcam sex trade this season seems to be getting out into the world to examine how technology is bending our perceptions.

In the opening episode called My Mind, we meet a military vet with post-traumatic stress disorder. His unease has torn up his family, and the usual approaches of therapy havent worked.

The vet eventually found help from a scientist who is developing a virtual-reality program that lets the ex-soldier work out his issues and relive some traumatic moments, sometimes recreating firefights he has been in.

VR headsets will be likes toasters. Soon everyone will have one in their home, the scientist says.

In a whole other dimension, we meet Harmony, the worlds first artificially intelligent sex robot. (Female, of course. Men are so inept, it seems.) Her goal is to not only learn to recognize her owner, but to recognize her owners desires.

A third part of the episode finds a Canadian woman spending her days and nights uploading her mind to create algorithms that will be used for artificial intelligence. Shes convinced that what she is doing will make people obsolete.

While Dark Net spins out some interesting material, its dystopian view is too humorless at times. It skips around far too much and never digs into anything. Annoyingly, it also has that grave found on real-life crime shows.

When the inventor of the sex robot says he hopes his creation can be used for human companionship, you want someone to ask him, Why?

In fact, why does someone even need a robot to anticipate their desires?

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Showtime docu-series sees the 'Dark' side of tech - LA Daily News