EN: Wow, I just recognized that Nature has started a podcast!

EN: The Biomotion Lab which is dealing with visual perception and cognition has a cool simulation of a walking human, the BMLwalker (flash needed). The human body is reduced to the most imporantant points of the motion. You can modify some parameters and see how this effects the walking style.

The lab seems to work in the analysis of motions which aims for an automatic evaluation the mood or intention of a person. So it could become a “Big-Brother-technology”.

EN: Ourmedia is a place where you can publish, store (they say “forever”), and find all kinds of media. There are a some very cool mash-ups and I can recommend this introductive video of one of the founders. It contains some cool examples of media you can find there and broaches the topic of licences. At the moment the search function isn’t that helpful but they are working on it.

EN: A. Terracciano et al. published today in Science the article “National Character Does Not Reflect Mean Personality Trait Levels in 49 Cultures” (Science, Vol 310, Issue 5745, 96-100 , 7 October 2005). It is also a good example for selective perception.

Here’s the abstract:

Most people hold beliefs about personality characteristics typical of members of their own and others’ cultures. These perceptions of national character may be generalizations from personal experience, stereotypes with a “kernel of truth,” or inaccurate stereotypes. We obtained national character ratings of 3989 people from 49 cultures and compared them with the average personality scores of culture members assessed by observer ratings and self-reports. National character ratings were reliable but did not converge with assessed traits. Perceptions of national character thus appear to be unfounded stereotypes that may serve the function of maintaining a national identity.

DE: Wie auf heise-online berichtet besteht wieder die Gefahr der Einführung von Softwarepatenten. Diese könnte im Zuge eines Maßnahmenpacketes zur Verbesserung des gewerblichen Rechtsschutz auf EU-Ebene geschehen. Wir können also wieder die Banner rauskramen…

DE: Ich bin heute über eine kleine, aber sehr coole Bilderserie gestolpert, die den Situationisten zugeordent wird.

EN: Today I stumbled on a small but cool collection of images of situationists.

EN: Tim O’Reilly published a very informative article defining and analysing Web 2.0. But there is also criticism on Web 2.0 from another O’Reilly-weblog: François Joseph de Kermadec complains in a blog entry about lacking user-friendliness of Web applications.

DE: Dieser heise-online-Artikel berichtet über die kürzlich gegründetet Open Content Alliance (OCA), einem von Yahoo! und dem Internet Archiv gegründeten Konsortium, welches copyright freie Texte und multimediale Inhalte der Öffentlichkeit zur Verfügung stellen möchte.
EN: This heise-online article reports about the Open Content Alliance (OCA), a consortium founded by Yahoo! and the Internet Archiv. The aim is to offer copyright free texts and mulimedia content to the public.