Technology is not just for humans, suggests this study that uses a dog using Skype to try to make that point, or to make some other point: “A Dog Using Skype,” Alexandre Pongrácz Rossi, Sarah Rodriguez, and Cassia Rabelo Cardoso dos Santos, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction, ACM, 2016, p. 10. […]
Tag: communications
What things might or might not mean, to unknown (maybe unknowable) observers
Stephen Wolfram offers a raft of things that might or might have meanings. Wolfram also offers thoughts on whether those meanings—if they are meanings—were intended to mean what we may think they might mean. This is part of Wolfram meandering down mean streets of thought about whether and how it’s possible to make things that […]
“Roxanne,” plus 5 percent compounded
The song “Roxanne,” by The Police, gets a five-percent speed boost every time the singers sing the word “Roxanne”, in this video: Thanks to Mason Porter for bringing this to our attention. BONUS: Earlier today, we reported a different experiment in data communications: “Data Communications via Wet Sting, or via Hungry Snail.”
Data Communications via Wet String, or via Hungry Snail
A wet string works, for sending information from one computer to another, says a new experiment. This adds to the list of low-tech ways to move data, the most lively method involving a hungry snail. The string experiment is reported on the RevK’s Rants web site, with the headline “It’s official, ADSL works over wet […]
Writing About Thinking of Speaking with the Dead
This study speaks volumes, but in an unusual way: “Electrocortical activity associated with subjective communication with the deceased,” Arnaud Delorme, Julie Beischel, Leena Michel, Mark Boccuzzi, Dean Radin, and Paul J. Mills, Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 4, 2013. (Thanks to investigator Estrella Burgos for bringing this to our attention.) The authors are at the Institute […]
Laconic Canadian narration: The case of vodka text
This York University video demonstrates a classic Canadian style of narration, carefully restraining all indicators of excitement or interest: The video is titled “York Researchers send a text message using vodka,” It pertains to research reported in a newly published study: “Tabletop Molecular Communication: Text Messages through Chemical Signals,” Nariman Farsad, Weisi Guo, Andrew W. Eckford, […]
Slobodchikoff on the imminence of cross-species chit-chatter
A mere eleven years after the inventors of Bow-Lingual were awarded the Ig Noble Peace Prize, Con Slobodchikoff, professor emeritus at Arizona State University and President and CEO of Animal Communications, Ltd., explains how near we are to having computer-aided communications with some animals. Megan Garber interviewed Slobodchikoff for The Atlantic. Here’s a bit of that interview: […]
Nonstraightforwardness – an exploration
Recent research has suggested that issuing vague or equivocal public statements can sometimes be advisable for a corporation undergoing a crisis. But previous academic work had also studied a broadly similar concept, called ‘Nonstraightforwardness’. A team of investigators lead by Susan Kline (Associate Professor and Associate Director for Undergraduate Studies at The Ohio State University) […]
Experiment: Mariachi band + beluga whale
The long history of experiments in communication between humans and whales continues: Athis Mariachi band plays music for a beluga whale: (Thanks to investigator Herman Kranz for bringing this to our attention.)
Ig-Nobel-winning spam pioneer indicted again
Sanford Wallace, who proudly and perhaps correctly claims credit for the early growth spurt of computer spam, is having yet another adventure with the legal system. Wallace likes to be called “Spamford”. He was awarded the 1997 Ig Nobel Prize in the field of communications. The Ig Nobel citation read “neither rain nor sleet nor dark […]