.: Kobot :.

THE MILITARIZATION OF SCIENCE AND SPACE| The basic principle underlying our current economy is "to make rich people happy and make everybody else frightened." Noam Chomsky lays particular blame for this doctrine on Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan- "Saint Alan"- who claims the economy is working well because of private entrepreneurial initiative and expanding consumer choice. Chomsky disagrees. He claims that in the last 30 years, it has been public spending on such technologies as computers, satellites, the Internet and lasers that has fed the economy. And the wealth derived from these technologies has gone primarily into the hands of corporate masters, who represent a fraction of the American people. The government has used a succession of bogeymen-the Soviets, Communist insurgents around the world, and now global terrorism-to scare taxpayers into supporting core defense programs whose technologies ultimately spin off into private hands. The current administration advocates not merely controlling space, but owning it, with a new missile-based system and satellite-guided unmanned drones. |MIT World|

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WI-FI ENABLED BICYCLE| Wireless hotspots are springing up in buildings and homes all over the world but one New York artist has literally taken the idea onto the streets, turning his bicycle into a wi-fi hub. Yury Gitman describes himself as a wireless and emerging-media artist and for his latest project has turned to cycle power to create the wireless bike. The wireless bike, or Magicbike as Mr Gitman prefers to call it, is not just a trendy alternative to the wi-fi cafe or office. It can fulfil an important function in bringing internet connectivity to areas ignored by the traditional telecommunications industry. |BBC News|

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LOCATION BASED SOCIAL SOFTWARE FOR MOBILE DEVICES| The brainchild of ITP graduates Dennis Crowley and Alex Rainert, Dodgeball.com is a New York-based city guide that aims to coordinate social interactions between mobile users, like Friendster for mobile phones. It's now available in Austin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC. Tell them where you are, and they will broadcast your location. |Smart Mobs|

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THE REIGN OF THE MAYBERRY MACHIAVELLIS| Al Gore: Our world is unconquerable because the human spirit is unconquerable, and any national strategy based on pursuing the goal of domination is doomed to fail because it generates its own opposition, and in the process, creates enemies for the would-be dominator. A policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the United States and creates recruits for Al Qaeda, it also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating the efforts of terrorists who wish harm and intimidate Americans. Unilateralism, as we have painfully seen in Iraq, is its own reward. Going it alone may satisfy a political instinct but it is dangerous to our military, even without their Commander in Chief taunting terrorists to "bring it on." |MoveOn|

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WI-FI LIFELINE FOR NEPAL'S FARMERS| Yak farmers in the mountains of Nepal are using wireless internet technology to keep in touch with their families. They are taking advantage of a wi-fi network set up in a remote region of the mountain kingdom where there are no phones or other means of communication. So far, the Nepal Wireless Networking project has hooked up five villages in the area using wireless technology. |Smart Mobs|

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HOTEL 2004 BY HAN HOOGERBRUGGE| A phenomenal interactive graphic novel by Han Hoogerbrugge, produced by Submarine, an Amsterdam-based cross-media production company. |Surfstation|

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SPACEPORT TO RISE IN CALIFORNIA'S MOJAVE DESERT| A desert airdrome in Mojave, California is on the final glide path to getting government approval for becoming an inland gateway to space. The Federal Aviation Administration's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST) is expected next month to certify that the Mojave Airport Civilian Flight Test Center as a non-federal spaceport to handle horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft. As such, Mojave Airport can offer a range of launch and landing services making it a hub for high-flying craft intended to help spark public space travel. The Mojave Airport is located approximately 100 miles north of Los Angeles, in southeastern Kern County, along the western edge of the Mojave Desert. The site is already home port for several enterprising suborbital space projects. |Slashdot|

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THE ECONOMICS OF CREATIVITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE| Tarnation a powerful autobiographical documentary by director Jonathan Caouette, has been one of the surprise hits of the Cannes Film Festival - despite costing just $218 to make. |Lessig|

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BUSH FROM A BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVE| Thich Nhat Hanh, hated by the Viet Cong for being CIA and by the CIA for being Viet Cong, might say the Bush Regime is made up of non-Bush elements, and there are Bush-like behaviors in every family, and in every mind. Martin Luther King Jr. taught that true nonviolence means "you not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." "If we could read the secret history of our enemies," Longfellow reminded us, "we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." |Alternet|

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INTERNET COMPANIES TURN TO GAMES OF SKILL| For United States companies locked out of the lucrative global industry in Internet gambling, there is still money to be made - as long as they don't call it gambling. So-called games of skill like Spades, 8-ball, and Solitaire are attracting more players online than ever, thanks partly to the growing pool of prize money available to winners and the tightening noose of federal regulation around online games of chance. Although revenues are small compared to those reaped by pure gambling sites, some in the industry believe that could change. "We refer to this as competitive entertainment," said Stephen J. Killeen, chief executive of WorldWinner, which runs a game site that charges tournament players and head-to-head challengers about $1.50 for every game they play, while awarding winners roughly $3.20. "The idea behind this is 'Loser buys drinks.' |NY Times (Registration required)|

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NASA AND DARPA PRESENT ROBONAUT| Robonaut is a humanoid robot designed by the Robot Systems Technology Branch at NASA's Johnson Space Center in a collaborative effort with DARPA. The Robonaut project seeks to develop and demonstrate a robotic system that can function as an EVA astronaut equivalent. Robonaut jumps generations ahead by eliminating the robotic scars (e.g., special robotic grapples and targets) and specialized robotic tools of traditional on-orbit robotics. However, it still keeps the human operator in the control loop through its telepresence control system.

Robonaut is designed to be used for "EVA" tasks, i.e., those which were not specifically designed for robots. Our challenge is to build machines that can help humans work and explore in space. Working side by side with humans, or going where the risks are too great for people, machines like Robonaut will expand our ability for construction and discovery. Central to that effort is a capability we call dexterous manipulation, embodied by an ability to use ones hand to do work, and our challenge has been to build machines with dexterity that exceeds that of a suited astronaut. The resulting robotic system called Robonaut is the product of NASA and DARPA collaboration, supporting the hard work of many JSC Engineers that are determined to meet these goals. |Metafilter|

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ONLY NUCLEAR POWER CAN HALT GLOBAL WARMING| Leading environmentalist James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis, urges a radical rethink on climate change. Global warming is now advancing so swiftly that only a massive expansion of nuclear power as the world's main energy source can prevent it overwhelming civilisation, the scientist and celebrated Green guru, Lovelock says. His call will cause huge disquiet for the environmental movement. It has long considered the 84-year-old radical thinker among its greatest heroes, and sees climate change as the most important issue facing the world, but it has always regarded opposition to nuclear power as an article of faith. Last night the leaders of both Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth rejected his call. |Independent|

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PRAISE FOR FAHRENHEIT 9/11| The film, as it turned out, is Moore's strongest since Roger and Me, his debut documentary 15 years ago which examined the damage wrought by General Motors on his home town of Flint. Whereas the Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine was hit-and-miss, self-contradictory, and more than a little sanctimonious, Fahrenheit 9/11 seldom loses sight of its target - the Bush administration - or its sense of humour. It is also, with a couple of exceptions, a triumph of editing. Indeed, Moore is arguably the most ideological and emotive editor since Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet propagandist who developed a kind of didactic montage. Juxtaposing heroes and villains, he cuts between political comedy and tragic reality with intoxicating glee. There is no information that is vitally new, nor are there any images that are more shocking than those from Abu Ghraib prison, but such is the cumulative force of the film, with its kinetic humour and insistent sentiment, that it is hard to come away from it without concluding a) that George W Bush is not fit to be president of a golf club let alone the world's most powerful nation and b) the war in Iraq was woefully misconceived. In the year of an election that could well prove close, it's the kind of film that could make a historic difference. |Guardian|

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OPENING 13 CANS OF WOOP| William Grimes writes: They are the demon spawn of Jolt Cola, a briefly popular drink that delivered a mighty wallop of caffeine in a 12-ounce can. The basic idea, to achieve espresso-grade liftoff with a cold, fizzy cola drink, was just slightly ahead of its time. In three fun-filled sessions, I drank my way through 13 energy drinks. My survey was far from exhaustive. In a quick visit to bevnet.com, a Web site that provides a brief description and tasting notes for virtually every nonalcoholic beverage on the market, I counted nearly 200 offerings, from Airborne to Yohimbe, with stops along the way at such tantalizing stations as Dark Dog, Mad Croc, Raw Dawg and Pimp Juice. Amidst this product swarm, a few common features emerged. Virtually all drinks are sold in an 8-ounce can. All contain caffeine, guarana or a combination of both. (Guarana, a berry found in the Amazon, has a stimulant effect similar to caffeine's.) Some use ginseng as well, for extra stimulation. Typically, an energy drink delivers the kick of a strong cup of coffee, which has about 80 milligrams of caffeine... |NY Times|

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"By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas." -- Kurt Vonnegut |Metafilter|

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OSX EMULATOR FOR WINDOWS, LINUX| For years, Mac users have been able to run Windows on their machines using products like Microsoft's Virtual PC. Now Windows and Linux users can do the reverse. Released last week, PearPC is the first software emulator to allow Apple Computer's OS X to run on an Intel- or AMD-based machine. Developed by Sebastian Biallas and Stefan Weyergraf, a pair of 23-year-old computer students from Aachen, Germany, PearPC re-creates in software the PowerPC architecture, the hardware used in Apple's Macs. The free, open-source software allows Intel- and AMD-based PCs to run several operating systems compatible with the PowerPC, including Mandrake Linux, BSD, Darwin and, most importantly, Apple's Mac OS X. |Wired|

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY A LOOK AHEAD| George Gilder: The U.S. now ranks eleventh internationally in residential "broadband" access. Using the FCC's silly 200-kilobit-per-second definition, some now say that 25 percent of American homes have broadband. But by the standards of Asia-where most citizens enjoy access speeds 10 times faster than our fastest links-U.S. residences have no broadband at all. U.S. businesses have far less broadband than South Korean residences. South Korea, for instance, has 40 times the per capita bandwidth of the U.S. Japan is close behind Korea, and countries from China to Italy are removing obstacles to the deployment of vDSL, fiber-to-the-home, and broadband wireless networks.

Asian broadband also proves there was no Internet "bubble." Today, Korea runs over the net between a three and five times larger share of its economy than we do. Riding the bus to work, Koreans watch television news and exchange video mail over their mobile phones. They enjoy full-motion video education and entertainment in their homes. Many of the dot-coms that failed in America due to the lack of robust broadband links are thriving in Korea. Consider that by this time next year Verizon Wireless's 38 million customers will enjoy faster Internet access via their mobile phones than through their Verizon DSL connections to their homes. Only the most severe disincentives to invest could have yielded such a result, which defies the laws of physics. The American Internet "bubble" was actually a crisis of policy... |Slashdot|

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MANNED PAUL ALLEN ROCKET TESTED IN MOJAVE DESERT| A privately developed, manned rocket ship funded by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen soared to 211,400 feet over California yesterday. It was the highest test flight yet for the reusable launch vehicle called SpaceShipOne. The private rocket is a contender for the $10 million X Prize, which will go to the first successful private effort to launch a manned craft to an altitude of 63 miles twice in the span of two weeks. |Village Voice|

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JAVA: THE SUV OF PROGRAMMING TOOLS| A project done in Java will cost 5 times as much, take twice as long, and be harder to maintain than a project done in a scripting language such as PHP or Perl. People who are serious about getting the job done on time and under budget will use tools such as Visual Basic (controlled all the machines that decoded the human genome). But the programmers and managers using Java will feel good about themselves because they are using a tool that, in theory, has a lot of power for handling problems of tremendous complexity. Just like the suburbanite who drives his SUV to the 7-11 on a paved road but feels good because in theory he could climb a 45-degree dirt slope. If a programmer is attacking a truly difficult problem he or she will generally have to use a language with systems programming and dynamic type extension capability, such as Lisp. This corresponds to the situation in which my friend, the proud owner of an original-style Hummer, got stuck in the sand on his first off-road excursion; an SUV can't handle a true off-road adventure for which a tracked vehicle is required. |XBlog|

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LEAKING SELF-DOUBT| Tracing how the photos became such hot public property reveals something striking, not only about the torture scandal, but about the coalition itself. This is a story, not of investigative journalism or antiwar activists exposing imperialist America to the world, but rather of America exposing its own uncertainty for all to see. The photos appear to have come from within US military or political circles; they were effectively volunteered for public consumption by elements within the military or higher up in the Pentagon, seemingly as part of a process of internal unravelling and deep disagreement over aspects of the war. In a sense, the publication of these photos to international outrage can be seen as the externalisation of America's own self-doubt about Iraq, and about its own mission in the world. This story, it seems, did not come about as a result of journalists chasing it; rather, it was effectively handed to the media by disgruntled military men. |Metafilter|

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RESEARCHERS UNLOCK THE KEY TO UNBREAKABLE CODED MESSAGES| The Holy Grail of data transmission-practical communication of encrypted messages impervious to eavesdroppers-may finally be within reach. On Wednesday, researchers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology here announced they had developed the world's fastest quantum cryptography technology, which one day could be used to transmit sensitive diplomatic, military and financial information requiring the utmost confidentiality. Japanese, American and European companies have all been hard at work trying to produce a quantum cryptography system that could quickly send encrypted data over optical fiber cables. Encrypted information is already being transmitted over the Internet, but the new technology would allow for the encryption "key" necessary to code and decode the message to be supplied ahead of the message itself over public channels. |Asahi Shimbun|

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MEXICAN AIRFORCE FILMS UFOS| Mexican Air Force pilots filmed 11 unidentified flying objects in the skies over southern Campeche state, a spokesman for Mexico's Defense Department confirmed Tuesday. A videotape made widely available to the news media on Tuesday shows the bright objects, some sharp points of light and others like large headlights, moving rapidly in what appears to be a late-evening sky. The lights were filmed on March 5 by pilots using infrared equipment. They appeared to be flying at an altitude of about 11,500 feet, and reportedly surrounded the jet as it conducted routine anti-drug trafficking vigilance in Campeche. Only three of the objects showed up on the plane's radar. |Wired|

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GAME GIANTS IN MOBILE BATTLE| Video game giants Sony and Nintendo unveiled their rival handheld games consoles on Tuesday at E3. Sony lifted the lid on its Portable Sony PlayStation (PSP), a games console which will also play music and video. At a separate press conference Nintendo demonstrated its Dual Screen (DS) device, which it promised would "change the games industry". The mobile games market could be the next battleground with more than 100 million users expected by 2006. |BBC|

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THE UNFOLDING SAGA OF THE WEB| Dr. Stuart Feldman, IBM's resident visionary and leader of Big Blue's Internet Technology division, will co-chair WWW2004. He believes that the Internet has just staggered past its toddler phase, and is now entering young adulthood. Feldman also thinks that within the next 10 years the Web will be a platform for virtually unlimited computing and communications capacity, transforming everything from health care to entertainment, once again. |Wired|

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DJ SPOOKY RHYTHM SCIENCE|"Once you get into the flow of things, you're always haunted by the way that things could have turned out. This outcome, that conclusion. You get my drift. The uncertainty is what holds the story together, and that's what I'm going to talk about."
--Rhythm Science

The conceptual artist Paul Miller, also known as Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid, delivers a manifesto for rhythm science -- the creation of art from the flow of patterns in sound and culture, "the changing same." Taking the Dj's mix as template, he describes how the artist, navigating the innumerable ways to arrange the mix of cultural ideas and objects that bombard us, uses technology and art to create something new and expressive and endlessly variable. Technology provides the method and model; information on the web, like the elements of a mix, doesn't stay in one place. And technology is the medium, bridging the artist's consciousness and the outside world. |Lessig|

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MIT AIMS FOR THE BOTTOM LINE| "We're entering a period where we will be eating, wearing and breathing computers," said Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the Media Lab. And the Media Lab, Negroponte said, is developing the sensors, smart devices and wireless capabilities that companies like Sony will want to license for their consumer products. Negroponte was speaking Monday during an announcement of the Media Lab's new initiative, CELab, or consumer electronics lab, which will capitalize on the convergence of new technologies and consumer demand for easy-to-use devices. |Wired|

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SITUATED SOFTWARE |Clay Shirky: I teach at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), where the student population is about evenly divided between technologists who care about aesthetics and artists who aren't afraid of machines, which makes it a pretty good place to see the future. Part of the future I believe I'm seeing is a change in the software ecosystem which, for the moment, I'm calling situated software. This is software designed in and for a particular social situation or context. This way of making software is in contrast with what I'll call the Web School (the paradigm I learned to program in), where scalability, generality, and completeness were the key virtues. |Shirky.com|

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NY TIMES COVERAGE OF PAC-MANHATTAN| This story has made its way from Matt Slaybaugh's Slashdot post to the NY Times. Pac-Manhattan, a real-world version of the 1980's video game played on the streets of New York is the latest example of a so-called "big game": a contest that uses wireless devices like cellphones and global positioning beacons to track players as they move through the urban grid, turning cities into vast game boards. Big games, with some players online and others pounding the pavement, have been staged in the last year in Minneapolis, Las Vegas and London. Frank Lantz, who teaches a class on the subject in N.Y.U.'s Interactive Telecommunications Program and whose students designed Pac-Manhattan, said the games are a somewhat whimsical response to the convergence of digital and physical space. Because millions of people conduct important aspects of their lives, including shopping, banking and communicating, online, Professor Lantz said, "online spaces are becoming a new form of public space." At the same time, he said, wireless technologies like cellphones, global positioning systems and personal digital assistants have added a virtual component to the physical world. Big games, he said, take place in the overlap between the two. For players, the allure of big games is based on a less theoretical premise: bigger games equal more fun. |NY Times|

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DID YOU SEE THE GORILLA? | Working with Christopher Chabris at Harvard University, Simons came up with another demonstration that has now become a classic, based on a videotape of a handful of people playing basketball. They played the tape to subjects and asked them to count the passes made by one of the teams. Around half failed to spot a woman dressed in a gorilla suit who walked slowly across the scene for nine seconds, even though this hairy interloper had passed between the players and stopped to face the camera and thump her chest. However, if people were simply asked to view the tape, they noticed the gorilla easily. The effect is so striking that some of them refused to accept they were looking at the same tape and thought that it was a different version of the video, one edited to include the ape. |Jim Gilliam|

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THE BIONIC RUNNING SHOE| "What we have, basically, is the first footwear product that can change its characteristics in real time," said Christian DiBenedetto, who led the Adidas group that created the shoe, of its ability to adapt its cushioning as the wearer runs. Adidas, the 83-year-old German sporting-goods maker, is about to turn that fantasy into biomechanical reality in the form of a running shoe for men and women. Sleek and lightweight despite its battery-powered sensor, microprocessor and electric motor, the shoe, named 1, is expected to be in stores by December and will cost $250. |Slashdot|

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GAME MAKER'S HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT| Nintendo, the biggest seller of video-game consoles 15 years ago, once again faces a tough street fight against Sony, the upstart that stole much of the video-game business with its PlayStation. This time, the fight is over handheld video-game machines, and if Nintendo loses, it could be in trouble. The battle will take place next week at the E3 video-game conference, the industry's biggest trade show. Nintendo is expected to give peeks at its next-generation handheld system -- code-named the DS - while Sony will release more information about its PSP. Both companies will be vying for the hearts and minds of gamers and - more importantly - software developers. |Lost Remote|

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FCC WIRELESS TASK FORCE| The U.S Federal Communications Commission is forming a "wireless access task force to speed deployment of broadband services in the United States"the EE Times reports. "The task force will review U.S. spectrum management policies and regulations and develop recommendations for stimulating the growth of wireless Internet service providers. The group also plans a series of public hearings beginning on May 19 and extending through August to gather industry comments. It plans to report its findings and recommendations to the FCC by October." |Smart Mobs|

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CLUB ZERO-G: A GRAPHIC NOVEL| Teaming with Canadian independent comic artist Steph Dumais, Douglas Rushkoff has delivered a mind-altering journey into a universe where consensus reality is up for grabs. The story follows Zeke, a gangly, unpopular, 19-year-old college student-a townie who also happens to attend the elite college in his community-who has discovered a terrific new club where he is accepted and popular. There's only one catch: everyone at the club is dreaming. It only exists in the shared dream consciousness of its participants. If at all. |Disinformation|

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TREADATHALON: 154 MILES IN 24 HOURS| In an attempt to break the Guinness world record for the longest distance run on a treadmill in 24 hours, Christopher Bergland and Dean Karnazes are running side by side at Kiehl's Flagship Store in Manhattan (109 3rd Ave in the East Village), from April 28th at 8AM until April 29th at 8AM. In full view of the public, both men seek to break the 24 hour treadmill distance record of 153.6 miles recently attained by Edit Berces in Budapest, Hungary. The Kiehl's Treadathalon will raise funds for YouthAIDS, which has embraced the mission of stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS among 15 to 24 year-olds in over 70 countries by educating youth on healthy living and by providing life-saving health products. |Metafilter|

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NOT FOR THE ROBOPHOBIC| Robot cop polices the streets of a developing nation in this quasi-corporate video. Quicktime is required. |Metafilter|

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MICROSOFT DISTRIBUTES PRE-ALPHA VERSION OF LONGHORN| What the...Microsoft is expected to recommend that the "average" Longhorn PC feature a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today. |Slashdot|

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PAUL SAFFO ON WHAT'S NEXT| In its latest issue, BusinessWeek Magazine publishes a special report, "E-Biz Strikes Again!," which states that after transforming the book, music and travel industries, the Internet is well on its way to deeply affect six more industries, such as jewelry or real estate sales. The online version of this report includes an interview of Paul Saffo from the Institute for the Future, "Trading In A Cloud Of Electrons." In it, Saffo talks about the big changes that the Web has brought to business and culture. He also delivers some provocative thoughts about what's next. He says that services will replace physical products as business opportunities. For example, he thinks that the auto makers will give you cars for free, making money by selling you lots of services, such as a $30 chip which will transform your car into a Ferrari-class vehicle. This overview contains some selected excerpts of the interview. |Smart Mobs|

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PACMANHATTAN RELOCATES CLASSIC VIDEOGAME TO NYC STREETS| ITP's Matt Slaybaugh writes "Some classmates of mine have developed a 'large-scale urban game that utilizes the New York City grid to recreate the 1980's video game sensation Pac-Man.' One player dresses up as Pac-Man and tries to cover the full Village grid, while 4 others dressed as Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde try to catch him. Everyone reports their positions to their respective generals, who monitor progress on a central control board. I can't wait for the real-world implementation of Donkey Kong." |Slashdot|

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"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us."

Nelson Mandela Inaugural Speech, 1994

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PROTOCOL: CONTROL AFTER DECENTRALIZATION| "Protocol is a language that regulates flow, directs netspace, codes relationships, and connects life forms," NYU Professor Alex Galloway writes. "It is etiquette for autonomous agents." As a language, albeit one composed of computer code, protocol can thus become the object of critical thinking as much as any text - conveniently for Galloway, whose background is primarily in literary studies, though he has worked as a systems administrator and done some programming. "The project basically grew out of my dissatisfaction with all of the dotcom-era books about the Internet," Galloway told the Voice. "There was this idea that the Internet was at its core a kind of chaotic, uncontrollable technology. And I thought to myself, how could that be the case? Why does it work so well, why is it so bug-free, how is it able to spread globally so quickly? I thought there must be a high level of organization and control at the root of the technology, but that might just be a different kind of control than people are used to seeing." |Village Voice|

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THE LANGUAGE OF BIOMEDIA| Integrating approaches from science and media studies, Biomedia is a critical analysis of research fields that explore relationships between biologies and technologies, between genetic and computer "codes." In doing so, the book looks beyond the familiar examples of cloning, genetic engineering, and gene therapy - fields based on the centrality of DNA or genes - to emerging fields in which 'life' is often understood as "information." Focusing especially on interactions between genetic and computer codes, or between "life" and "information," Eugene Thacker shows how each kind of "body" produced -from biochip to DNA computer - demonstrates how molecular biology and computer science are interwoven to provide unique means of understanding and controlling living matter. |Rhizome.org|

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