Cognitive Labs

What's this? Sounds like a new kind of shopping mall business opportunity along with lasik and quick-botox. Actually, it is the title of a book by the enigmatic Philip K. Dick, once of Berkeley, and long deceased. Posthumously, he has been responsible for numerous popular works of media including Total Recall, the Arnold Schwarzenegger film that was made from We Can Remember it for You Wholesale. Another one was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which was tinsel-ized as Blade Runner the dystopic view of genetic engineering run afoul.

End of digression...what about memories...there's something about pictures that are so important to people. In Blade Runner the replicants' most prized possession were clutches of snap shots...not even real memories. What does this tell us...stay tuned.

Cognitive impairment and sharpness to be treated with similar preparations? then try brainspeed.

From the Guardian..A new entry may soon be added to school-pupils' jotter full of excuses: "Sorry sir, I forgot to take my mind pills." A new generation of "smart pills" known as nootropics which could make people think sharper and remember things better could be available in chemists within a decade, education specialists at a Bristol University meeting heard this week.

The drugs include prescription-only medications normally used to treat Alzheimer's disease and dementia in older people which some studies have suggested also improve memory and thinking processes in fit adults....

Do you think it's worth going into the deep freeze today...in order to be thawed and revived later, when human technology has advanced? What kind of world do you think it would be? I am of the optimistic persuasion.

here's the video at Yahoo. It's from ABC News in case they move the link.

Oh yeah, they also froze their dogs and cats. It's the same facility that houses .400 hitter Ted Williams of the Red Sox.

News from MyDNA.com...--don't forget to take your test.

Here is a tag page of exports from de lic ous

Top Five Game Central Games yesterday:

1. xxMAN
2. Letter Rip
3. Mars Mission
4. Sodoku
5. Cubitsu

(ranked by number of players)

Give it a try!

A new study following over 6,000 people shows a clear relationship between reaction time, memory, and cognitive decline. Slower reaction times and poorer memory associated with greater risk of dying in young and old people...
--
CogLabs Newswire: Slower reaction times and poorer memory are associated with a greater risk of dying in young and old people, a new study shows. The finding in younger subjects is especially surprising, given that prior research linking higher mortality with poorer cognitive function in the elderly was attributed to degeneration of the brain due to aging.

"These results suggest that reaction time is not merely an indicator of age-related physiological deteriorations but rather an indicator of the brain's more basic information processing ability, suggesting that slower and more variable processing skills are a risk factor for mortality in themselves...
>>read more


from: Medical Study News 1.23.06

A new Solitaire game is available at Game Central from Cognitive Labs. Register here. Try the game now!

news highlight...from the Observer. Alzheimer's is a devastating disease for which there is no cure. But drugs can help to delay the onset of the memory loss and personality changes which come with the condition. These drugs have lifted treatment out of the dark ages, transforming the possibilities for doctors to offer patients and carers relief against a bleak future. Now, as we report today, the government's licensing body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), has concluded, following a 10-month investigation, that they should be prescribed on the NHS for people in the earlier stages of the disease....

MyDNA Media, part of Revolution Health, and Cognitive Labs are collaborating on a memory test you can take at myDNA.com. Revolution is a holding company established by Steve Case of AOL fame.

MyDNA is a fascinating site that provides not only general health information but also is focused on using the knowledge gained from the human genome to create a better future for all of us through predictive programs. It is part of Revolution Health, which you can read about here in Information Week.

A leader has emerged in the mac vs. PC challenge! But we are going to suspend your disbelief (or is it the other way around?) for a while longer. But soon, the data will speak to us. If you use a mac or ibook or PC/laptop by all means, take the test, it may be your last chance to quantitatively weigh in on this topic. As a side effect, you will also get a read of your own cognitive speed

Who is it? What computer is indeed the fastest?? Try at cognitivelabs.com

How about some Asteroids?.....

1/20th of a second - or 50 milliseconds, is the amount of time people decide if they like, or dislike, a website, and surf away,according to Canadian researchers, it was announced today in Reuters. That's even less time than it takes to blink (don't worry - no ad there. Don't you hate in-text contextual links? 1. they are annoying and 2. they are never relevant) even faster than the time it takes, if you follow Malcolm Gladwell's theory - to grok something new. 50 milliseconds is faster than almost anyone can submit an answer and get a response on a Cognitive Labs test.

That's why we let people 'vote' on whether they like the generic registration process on our site. The answer, on a scale of 1-5, is 4.4 - telling us that we are doing pretty well in that department, though of course we want to get to a five.

How does the brain convert images into coherent pictures? Sorting the input of our perceptory organs is a little like solving one of the Cognitive Labs picture puzzles using the swap and sort algorithm or maybe, Rubik's Cube.

How does the brain go about it?

Now researchers from John Hopkins have published some very interesting results.

More new evidence exercise can ward off Alzheimer's was announced this week, as a result of a study of more than 1,700 people that generated statistically significant results to what seems, on the face of it, to be common sense. So, now is the time to get moving. On our hikes and walks we often see people who are taking this to heart by enjoying 5-7 mile walks. Where are the hiking trails? many of our urban areas have relatively pristine experiences nearby: the Santa Cruz Mtns has numerous walking trails almost from the start of the hills to the Ocean; the Santa Monica Mtns have a number of excellent trails as well in a slightly more arid environment. What's your favorite?

Faster brains. There is a new Rubik's Cube champion...according to CNET
SAN FRANCISCO--Think of the things you could do in 11 seconds. Maybe you could walk to the fridge to get a soda. You could change CDs, or possibly put on a T-shirt. But when you think about it, it's a pretty short period of time.

Don't tell that to Leyan Lo. On Saturday, at the International Rubik's Cube competition held at the Exploratorium here, Lo took just 11.13 seconds to set the world record for solving of one of the iconic red, white, blue, green and yellow cubes.




Lo's record came at the very beginning of a long day in which dozens of "cubers" squared off in bids to become the best at one or more of a series of different categories of Rubik's Cube competitions. Among them were the standard 3x3x3, the 3x3x3 blindfolded, the 3x3x3 one-handed and the 4x4x4 (The numbers refer to the number of rows and columns the cube has).

And by day's end, Lo had established himself as perhaps the most accomplished of all the competitors, having finished second in the 3x3x3, first in the 3x3x3 blindfolded and 3x3x3 one-handed, and second in the 4x4x4.

But it was his world record that had everyone on hand buzzing all day, even if Lo himself tried to play it down.

"It was a lucky solve," he said. "It was kind of cool. You get good cases and bad cases all the time."

He explained that the solution he'd chosen--based on algorithms he'd memorized for solving the cube as it was presented to him--ended up not requiring a final step that normally would have added two or three seconds to his time.

But others weren't so sanguine about what they saw Saturday.

"It's great," said Tyson Mao, a student at Caltech and the organizer of the event. "I mean, it's great that people have opportunities to push the limits of Rubik's Cube solving. The world record has dropped so much recently because people have been putting in so much time."

Renewed popularity
Indeed, for a puzzle that is now 25 years old, it has gone through some serious peaks and valleys. After years in the 1980s as a worldwide phenomenon, Rubik's Cube dropped off the puzzle map in the '90s. But thanks to a growing number of competitions around the world and clubs like the one at Caltech, it is going through a major resurgence.
Click here to Play

Video: A puzzle gone wild
Rubik's Cube competition brings the quickest solvers in the world to San Francisco

Part of the credit, naturally, goes to the Internet, and to its ability to spread the gospel of top-rank cube solving. The mecca for the Rubik's Cube community, said many on hand Saturday, is SpeedCubing.com.

And to see Saturday's competitors, some just little children and others in their thirties and forties, it's easy to see that one reason the cube is back is that it is appealing across all generations.

"It's addictive. I'm very addicted," said 15-year-old Shotaro "Macky" Makisumi, considered by many the best cuber in the world today. "It's something you can improve yourself on. There's a time to show (how you're doing), and it's almost a competition against yourself instead of others. It's a chance to perfect something."

Shotaro certainly did his best Saturday to cement himself in the Rubik's Cube community as the best, or at least one of the best.

Researchers identified signs of cognitive impairment in asymptomatic (no evident symptoms) subjects in a recent study, which showed significant differences between performance between individuals who were APOE3/3 and APOE 4....
>>read more

We just passed our all-time highs for new users in one day (At 17:11 PST)
I came across this piece re: on demand services, referencing a new model of software development (that is on the fly, continuously learning and changing) and some of the points covered in the article we are doing here...let's be clear...some of them, not all of them, though we would like to incorporate more. Simple and scalable systems are key, where the complexity is introduced through user needs and customization, not necessarily the application itself.

Berkeley Lab Notes, from the IFTF blog

In October, five robotic vehicles drove themselves more than 130 miles across the Mojave Desert, making international headlines and marking a milestone in machine learning. Related to artificial intelligence, statistical machine learning refers to methods that enable a computer to improve its performance by analyzing previous results. Now, a group of UC Berkeley researchers hope to bring the same technology into cyberspace. The new Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed systems Laboratory (RAD Lab), funded with $7.5 million from Google, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems, is developing technology that leverages the power of statistical machine learning so that one person can create the next eBay, Amazon, or even Google, by him or herself.

"eBay has changed the world but they had to hire hundreds of really smart people to pull it off," says computer science professor David Patterson, founding director of the RAD Lab. "Wouldn't it be great if one person could create a eBay-sized system without an eBay-sized organization?"

To make this vision a reality, the RAD Lab, which falls under the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), must weave together innovations in such diverse disciplines as networking, computer architecture, systems theory, and statistics. To that end, Patterson is collaborating with a handful of UC Berkeley professors who are recognized as pioneers in those areas: Randy Katz, Scott Shenker, Ion Stoica, Armando Fox (joining Berkeley next summer), and Michael Jordan, who holds a joint position in computer science and the Department of Statistics.


In an early experiment, the RAD Lab researchers created "operator-friendly" visualizations to cross check results generated by machine learning algorithms. Analyzing real outage data provided by Ebates.com, the researchers determined that many failures could have been predicted hours in advance.

The RAD Lab calls for a new paradigm in the traditional software design and development process. The current model of software design follows a step-by-step path from the initial idea through development, testing, deployment, to ongoing operation. According to Patterson though, that "waterfall" model is obsolete. It's far too slow and hierarchical for Internet applications where the software behind Web services is constantly being tweaked, improved, and scaled up to accommodate growing numbers of users.

The RAD Lab embraces a very different approach where the operation of the Web applications and services is measured in real-time. Insights gleaned from that data is immediately fed back into the development process to improve the code. The model, Patterson explains, "shortens the 'distance' between a service's users and its developers and allows for faster innovation and bug fixing." And therein lies the rub.

"How can a single human keep track of everything, fix problems quickly, and make sure that the service never goes off the air?" Patterson says.

The answer, he says, is to automatically close the feedback loops using statistical machine learning techniques. Statistical machine learning employs pattern-finding algorithms that compare historical data and find commonalities between them. Those commonalities can then be used to generate a predictive model of what's likely to happen in the future.

"The strength of machine learning is sifting through massive amounts of data and finding insights into what's going on," Patterson says. "So we're trying to come up with statistical methods to measure and observe what's happening within Web services and notice indications of problems far enough in advance that problems can be prevented. Then, techniques taken control theory could be used to automatically help fix the things that are wrong."
We want to hear from you...

Initially, RAD Lab research will be conducted by the faculty co-founders and ten computer science graduate students. The number of collaborators is expected to grow as the research progresses. From day one though, all of the software developed within the RAD Lab will be available to the public through the Berkeley Software Distribution license, a revolutionary "open source" approach created at the University in the 1970s that enables anyone to build upon, change, and use the raw programming code free of charge.

"Our vision is to enable one person to invent and run the next revolutionary Internet service, operationally expressing a new business idea as a multi-million-user service over the course of a long weekend," Patterson says.

Rocketing over Crescent City and heading southeast, the 110-pound capsule carrying particles from comet Wild2 (including hints on the origin of the solar system and content of interstellar dust)will hit the atmosphere between Reno and Elko and the capsule will descend in western Utah....The re-entry speed is 29,000 MPH, faster than the returning Apollo 10 Command module which reached about 28,500 MPH in the late 60's.

The analysis phase will be open-source. You can sign up here at UC Berkeley's stardust@home site and help ID and analyze the interstellar dust...

here's the text to this release if you have any comments....please phone, email media AT cognitivelabs.com or IM us. We'll be releasing the results in about a week and sending them into the AP, LA Times, NY Times, Chronicle, engadget, and so forth...the interesting part from a 'blogging prospective' is this line -In latter 2005, the Company's software, web service, and web blogs were included in the launch of BrainSpeed™, a line of dietary supplements for brain health by Natrol, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTOL) available at retail outlets across America.
. Natrol also advertised on weblogs inc aroung the time of e3. brainspeed.blogspot also performed well in generating
support...

Cognitive Labs launches a survey that will enable computer enthusiasts everywhere to get closer to the answer to one of the world's great questions.

Mountain View, CA (PRWEB) - Jan 16, 2006 -- Cognitive Labs today launched a survey that will enable computer enthusiasts everywhere to get closer to the answer of one of the world's great questions.

Who is Faster, Mac or PC users? By deploying its reaction time assessment technology used both in clinical settings and as a healthy living assessment tool on this key problem, Cognitive Labs strives to enhance the world's knowledge. Since processors from Intel will soon become standard in a larger percentage of Macs, according to publicly disclosed information, it appeared that this longstanding question might remain unanswered.

"There is much focus on improving processor clockspeed and efficiency, at the same time, there is increasing interest in taking care of our minds and mental processes at any age," said Michael Addicott of Cognitive Labs."We thought it would be fun and also illuminating to address this question from an unbiased perspective."

Users simply visit cognitivelabs web site and the test and survey are delivered as a web service. Once they take the survey users can move on to the test dashboard and take more tests.

"Much of our work is quite serious,involving the enrollment of hundreds of thousands of people in our monitoring service, which is creating a database of cognitive performance - a snapshot of how the world thinks. It is important today because the early detection of cognitive impairment is foremost in the minds of many," said Dr. Addicott. "People are curious and want to see how they are doing. It also is important because there is increasing interest in learning about your genetic make-up and taking a proactive approach to your health, including nutrition and exercise. Cognitive Labs is ideally positioned in this information-rich future."

The Company offers numerous cognitive tests on its website, games selected by its editorial staff that exercise specific modes of interacting with a computer, such as space bar, arrow keys, and letter key, that may be well-known to PC Gamers but not to the average computer user or to individuals more familiar with set-top box type computers, as well as regular newsletters, feeds, blogs, and special content.

To track themselves over time and receive reports from Cognitive Labs, users need to sign up for Memory for Life, which now can be purchased in 5 languages and 30 currencies. Memory For Life subscribers get unlimited access to tests and games, as well as all new test and game releases. Memory For Life Pro is a portal solution that extends the capability of testing and monitoring to the enterprise and is used by researchers and clinicians.

The company also licenses tests and web services to strategic partners. In latter 2005, the Company's software, web service, and web blogs were included in the launch of BrainSpeed™, a line of dietary supplements for brain health by Natrol, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTOL) available at retail outlets across America.

About Cognitive Labs

Cognitive Labs develops and markets cognitive testing software delivered as web service on the Internet and through strategic partners. In 2005, the company's technology was highlighted at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference on the Prevention of Dementia in Washington, D.C. and at the XIIth International Psychogeriatric Association Conference in Stockholm Sweden in conjunction with the work of Stanford and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs researchers. As of January 2006, the company has records of hundreds of thousands of users.

Weekend, January 14-15 (CogLabs Newswire)

The drug Namenda slows Alzheimer's diseasse for at least a year,
doctors report in the Archives of Neurology.

Namenda, which was approved by the FDA in 2003, had already fared well in a study that lasted about seven months. The new results come from an extension of that study.

The Alzheimer's Association estimates that 4.5 million people
in the U.S. have Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's is the most common form of
dementia in older adults. However, it's not a normal part of aging.

Alzheimer's disease affects parts of the brain involved in
memory, intelligence, judgment, language, and behavior. Its exact cause isn't
known, and no cure exists.The study was funded by Merz Pharmaceuticals GmBH, which markets Namenda in Germany.

>>read more

Arthur Jensen, (a member of the advisory board here) and perhaps the world's foremost authority on human intelligence is Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley. Dr. Jensen received his BA from UC-Berkeley and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He is coming out with a new book: Clocking the Mind : Mental Chronometry and Individual Differences (to be published in April 2006) which promises to be intriguing and instructive. As increasing parallels with silicon analogs are observed, the objective and dispassionate model of analyzing performance becomes increasingly relevant.

Open invitation:



Now is the chance to migrate to the new system. All you need to do is go here, complete your order, and you are all set. Your email address serves as your account notifier and can be used in all correspondence with us regarding your account. Since we are a web service, we do not mail out CD's to each user. Your registration and payment serves as the activation key.

For example, for users in Australia, Canada, and France --now is the opportunity to sign up with the convenient new system - pay in Australian, Canadian or US dollars, or Euros. In the event that you are not supported through this system, Paypal Pro is the back-up, also providing a means for you to contribute to cognitivelabs.com and the whole project. Those details will be provided later.

User Notice:

1/13/06 14:22
We just re-initialized the servlet....if you for a moment you could not receive a complete score for the past few minutes...

For the 1st time researchers (at the Gladstone Institute at UCSF) have successfully modeled APOE in three dimensions. APOE e4 is the gene responsible for increased cardiovascular risk as well as Alzheimer's risk...APOEe4 comes in two varieties - homo or heterogenous zygote which can amplify the risk.... read more>>

Don't forget: mac or PC?
Try it!
It's your chance to weigh in on a 21-year debate

Most people believe that stress plays a role in heart disease. A study published in the latest issue of Psychophysiology finds that large rises in blood pressure during mental stress are associated with higher levels of activity in the regions of the brain associated with experiencing negative emotions and generating physiological responses in the rest of the body. The research suggests that exaggerated activity in the cingulate cortex during mental stress may generate excessive rises in blood pressure that may place some individuals at a greater risk for heart disease

Because it's MacWorld, we are running a test to solve that age old question. What's better - a mac, or a PC? This question goes back to 1984.

Doesn't faster user performance mean a device is better? Or is it the users themselves who are better? This is the 1st clinical trial of a silicon brain that we know of...

Soon, you'll know! So start off by taking the survey! At the end of the survey, which will be in a week or so, we'll publish the results and the question will be solved !!!

If you recall last year one of the top stories in science was the report of an experiment where researchers convinced a rhesus monkey that an articifical limb or robotic arm was in fact its own appendage - and the monkey learned to manipulate the arm simply by 'thinking'.

One of the researchers is now at UC-Berkeley and hopes to tackle even greater challenges in the future, such as bringing this capability to those who have suffered strokes or are incapacitated. Think, for example, of Steven Hawking being given robotic appendages. He could then proceed without any difficulties.
Here's an article from Berkeley Lab Notes that discusses it. Where does it lead? That's up to your imagination and ingenuity.

Use a Mac? Or a PC? Who's got the faster brain? Pretty soon this will be irrelevant...stay tuned for a chance to show off.

Impairment may proceed along two different paths, both ending up in Alzheimer's Disease. The first path affects the memory and hippocampal structures; the 2nd path affects other forms of cognition and not necessarily the memory (such as attention and executive function).

University of Pittsburgh and University of California, Los Angeles imaging study establishes two forms of mild cognitive impairment.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a transitional stage between normal cognition and Alzheimer's disease, exists in two different forms, according to a study published today by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of California, Los Angeles in the Archives of Neurology.

Using a new imaging procedure that creates 3-D maps of the brain, researchers determined specific areas that had degenerated in people with MCI. Depending on the person's symptoms, more tissue was lost in the hippocampus, a brain area critical for memory and one of the earliest to change in Alzheimer's disease, indicating two different paths of progression to Alzheimer's disease. The finding could lead to better diagnosis and treatment of patients with MCI, perhaps delaying or preventing the onset of dementia.

MCI is categorized into two sub-types - currently distinguished based solely on symptoms. Those with MCI, amnesic subtype (MCI-A) have memory impairments only, while those with MCI, multiple cognitive domain subtype (MCI-MCD) have other types of mild impairments, such as in judgment or language, but also have either mild or no memory loss. Both sub-types progress to Alzheimer's disease at the same rate. Until now it was not known if the pathologies of the two types of MCI were different, or if MCI-MCD was just a more advanced form of MCI-A.

Researchers found that the hippocampus of the patients with MCI-A was 14 percent smaller than that of the healthy subjects, nearly as great as the 23 percent shrinkage seen in Alzheimer's disease. But, the hippocampus of those with MCI-MCD most resembled that of the controls, showing only 5 percent shrinkage.

Using highly accurate Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data from six patients with MCI-A, 20 with MCI-MCD and 20 with Alzheimer's disease who were seen at the University of Pittsburgh's Alzheimer Disease Research Center and 20 healthy controls, researchers created 3-D mesh reconstructions of each participant's hippocampus that allowed them to see where the hippocampus had deteriorated. This study is the first to use such modeling technology to visualize changes in the brains of people with MCI. Prior studies have only been able to measure the volume of the hippocampus and estimate atrophy through noticeable volume loss.

"These vibrant images produced by 3-D modeling have proven what we suspected - there are at least two transitional states that lead to Alzheimer's disease," said James T. Becker, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist and professor of psychiatry, neurology and psychology, at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and lead author of the study. "Now we can investigate these pathways and develop treatments that, we hope, may slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer's."

Alzheimer's disease affects as many as 10 percent of people older than 65, and delaying or preventing the onset of dementia is an important medical priority. "We can now see the pattern of brain damage in people with MCI and we can use these new types of images to monitor how different therapies may be working," said Paul M. Thompson, Ph.D., associate professor of neurology, at the University of California, Los Angeles. "By imaging the brain like this, we can explore the progression of diseases, and see if therapies are protecting the brain."

This research was conducted by the Imaging Methods and Analysis in Geriatrics Research Group. Co-authors of this study from the University of Pittsburgh were: Simon W. Davis, department of psychiatry; Carolyn Cidis Meltzer, M.D., departments of radiology and psychiatry and Oscar L. Lopez, M.D., department of neurology. Contributing from UCLA were Kiralee M. Hayashi and Arthur W. Toga, Ph.D., both of the department of neurology.

The study was funded by grants from the National Institute on Aging, National Library of Medicine, National Center for Research Resources and National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

If you recall your Astronomy 101, remember that 'heavier' gases and elements - with an atomic weight over 3 or so must be created in stars, that, is anything denser than helium, is created as a result of fusion. As the star gets increasingly dense as it moves from a red giant to a shrinking globe, heavier elements are created - even gold. At last, the density is so great that the star collapses on itself and then explodes as a supernova. The heavy elements are then distributed in nearby clouds of gas and dust, and then the whole cycle begins again.

Now scientists are investigating the role of gold in fighting Alzheimer's. Read more

Get your own zero-latency brain at cognitivelabs.com.

Zero-latency was a term invented by consultants to sell software, yet another SAP module or a bolt-on to SAP and Oracle making your organization whole and complete and solving that problematic supply chain, you know 'why are my widgets in W