[via Yuvaraj] Charlie Munger on the Psychology of Human Misjudgment from a speech at Harvard University in June 1995. Read and imbibe.

Technology Review lists technologies that will change our world:

- Universal Translation
- Synthetic Biology
- Nanowires
- Bayesian Machine Learning
- T-Rays
- Distributed Storage
- RNA Interference
- Power Grid Control
- Microfluidic Optical Fibers
- Personal Genomics

An excerpt about Bayesian Learning:

Daphne Koller’s research using a once obscure branch of probability theory called Bayesian statistics is generating more excitement than skepticism. The Stanford University associate professor is creating programs that, while tackling questions such as how genes function, are also illuminating deeper truths about the long-standing computer science conundrum of uncertainty—learning patterns, finding causal relationships, and making predictions based on inevitably incomplete knowledge of the real world. Such methods promise to advance the fields of foreign-language translation, microchip manufacturing, and drug discovery, among others, sparking a surge of interest from Intel, Microsoft, Google, and other leading companies and universities.

How does an idea conceived by an 18th-century minister (Thomas Bayes) help modern computer science? Unlike older approaches to machine reasoning, in which each causal connection (“rain makes grass wet”) had to be explicitly taught, programs based on probabilistic approaches like Bayesian math can take a large body of data (“it’s raining,” “the grass is wet”) and deduce likely relationships, or “dependencies,” on their own. That’s crucial because many decisions programmers would like to automate—say, personalizing search engine results according to a user’s past queries—can’t be planned in advance; they require machines to weigh unforeseen combinations of evidence and make their best guesses. Says Intel research director David Tennenhouse, “These techniques are going to impact everything we do with computers—from user interfaces to sensor data processing to data mining.”

Koller unleashed her own Bayesian algorithms on the problem of gene regulation—a good fit, since the rate at which each gene in a cell is translated into its corresponding protein depends on signals from a myriad of proteins encoded by other genes. New biomedical technologies are providing so much data that researchers are, paradoxically, having trouble untangling all these interactions, which is slowing the search for new drugs to fight diseases from cancer to diabetes. Koller’s program combs through data on thousands of genes, testing the probability that changes in the activity of certain genes can be explained by changes in the activity of others. The program not only independently detected well-known interactions identified through years of research but also uncovered the functions of several previously mysterious regulators. “People are limited in their ability to integrate many different pieces of evidence,” says Koller. “Computers have no such limitation.”

WSJ writes:

In the hills of northeastern Cambodia, five men on motorcycles are connecting rural villages to one another, their government, medical specialists and the Internet.

Using wireless Internet technology and a storage-and-transmission device strapped to their motorcycles, the deliverymen drop off and pick up e-mail and Internet-search requests by driving near solar-powered electronic outposts along their rural route.

In Cambodia's Ratanakiri province, the technology comes from a Boston start-up called First Mile Solutions LLC. Tests in Cambodia have been successful so far, says 27-year-old First Mile founder Amir Alexander Hasson, who hopes to roll out a commercial product to other rural markets in developing countries this year.

The Internet Village Motoman project builds on a continuing project called Cambodia Schools, which runs a network of more than 200 schools. Funded by a variety of donors, including the World Bank, American Assistance for Cambodia and Japan Relief for Cambodia, the schools are equipped with a digital camera, computers and solar panels for four to eight hours of computing power daily. But only a few of the schools have the funds to link to the Internet via satellite.

That's where the Motoman project comes in. Since September, it has linked remote villages to a central satellite dish in the city of Banlung via a mobile device that stores e-mail messages and acts as an access point for Wi-Fi -- short for Wireless Fidelity -- a technology that lets laptops and other mobile devices connect to the Internet wirelessly over short distances.

Requiring little power to run -- the solar panels can power the device virtually around the clock -- the access point is linked to village computers through standard computer-network cabling. Its antenna is perched on the side of the school building and pointed at the road.

Traveling daily along five different routes throughout the province, the e-mailmen drive near the rural access points for a handoff with their onboard access point, powered by the motorcycle's battery. Back in Banlung, the deliverymen hand off their electronic mailbag to the satellite dish that relays the messages to the Internet. Named for the Hindi word for post or postal, the rural network is known as DakNet.

Costs remain a hurdle. First Mile's Village Area Networking Kit is expected to be priced at $500 to $600 when released, though that is a fraction of the cost of the electricity and communications infrastructure that would otherwise be necessary to deliver e-mail to the villages. But the biggest challenge remains simple access.

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