Ben Goertzel is the CEO of Novamente LLC, an artificial intelligence research company, and so he probably has a vested interest in claiming that a ‘Manhattan Project’-style effort could produce viable general AI in less than a decade. I’m no computer scientist (nor do I play one on television), so I’ll leave the plaudits or debunkings to the more qualified – but it’s interesting to read Goertzel citing his early interest in science fiction as an inspiration in his work. [AdvancedNanotechnology]

Here’s an interesting idea – using internet mapping applications plot the progress of infectious diseases like colds and flu. Looks like it’s still very much in its infancy, but some sort of geo-tagged sickness-wiki (a sicki?*) could have interesting applications for healthcare initiatives.

[*A brief trip to Google reveals that I may have just coined my first neologism. Yay me!]

One of the biggest challenges in future explorations of other planets is the processing and collating of the data gathered. A team at the University of Glasgow is looking at the problem well ahead of time, though, and have been running simulations of smart dust motes that could act as a distributed computer network as they spread across a planet’s surface on the wind. Elsewhere in the UK, the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory are also planning ahead, developing the principles of a magnetic plasma shield that could protect spacecraft (and their occupants) from cosmic radiation.

Looks like he’s in full-on book promotion mode: Greg Bear talks to the SF Signal gang about current book Quantico, as well as some of his older classics.

The internet has enabled new methods of distribution, as well as means for users to connect with content they might never have known existed; who knows where things may go in the coming years? Pandora is a fantastic method of finding new music that you might like, based on pattern and content analysis of music you already like. It’s fantastic. But in America a recently passed, dramatic increase in licensing fees for internet radio stations will kill it, along with most other stations. Pandora’s founder has set up a means for lobbying the politicians to get their eyes open to what this means to their constituents.