Approach of an Event Horizon

During my latest round of research I came across these 2 TED lectures that I believe are must see. That is, if your into Machine Intelligence and Genetics. Even so, if this sounds a little over your head, I think each genre will produce revolutions unlike anything we have see before. On the verge of endowing ourselves with gods power, the true dilemmas we will face as a human race seem years away to the sheep herds of scociety. When in fact we are possibly only a decade away from the greatest challenges we have ever faced."We are playing a dangerous experiment with this planet" and its up to us to make it Heaven or Hell. You cannot see past the event horizon, but your actions are what make it. What ever the Event Horizon may be, we are part of it. Inform your self, and free your mind. You were endowed with a self training brain, so use it!

Jeff Hawkins: Brain science is about change computing

Jeff Hawkins urges us to take a new look at the brain -- to see it not as a fast processor, but as a memory system that stores and plays back experiences to help us predict, intelligently, what will happen next.

Here is a link to a 1hr in depth explanation of the HTM model.
Computing Beyond Turing - Jeff Hawkins

Craig Venter: On the verge of creating synthetic life

"Can we create new life out of our digital universe?" asks Craig Venter. And his answer is, yes, and pretty soon. He walks the TED2008 audience through his latest research into "fourth-generation fuels" -- biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock. His talk covers the details of creating brand-new chromosomes using digital technology, the reasons why we would want to do this, and the bioethics of synthetic life.