Jaron's World: Can Computers Recognize Faces?

In at least one way, the smartest machines can't match a baby. 08.06.2007

Jaron’s World: Computer Evolution

Most software stinks. It should learn from robots and bacteria. 06.27.2007

Jaron’s World: Virtual Horizon

VR in the real world may soon surpass the famous glove from Minority Report. 05.11.2007

Jaron's World: Shapes in Other Dimensions

Meet a 'regular' shape that lives in 4-D. 04.05.2007

Jaron's World: Sex, Drugs, and the Internet

Does anonymity breed nastiness in the online world? 03.14.2007

Jaron's World: The Meaning of Metaphor

A new theory may illuminate the nature of meaning. 02.26.2007

Jaron's World: Morphing Messages

Describing ideas so subtle they are literally beyond words. 01.10.2007

Jaron's World: Frozen in Time

Birth reveals the transitional nature of the design. 12.12.2006

Jaron's World: Digital Maoism Revisited

Is the connected generation too easily abandoning the individual for the wisdom of the crowd? 11.21.2006

Jaron's World: Raft to the Future

Does time come together like an island of boats floating on the open seas? 09.28.2006

Jaron's World: The Murder of Mystery

How Silicon Valley joined the superstitious fringe as the enemy of open inquiry. 09.01.2006

Jaron's World: Sing a Song of Evolution

Is language descended from musical mating calls? 08.01.2006

Jaron's World: Heads-Up

Why your next telephone may come mounted on a neck. 07.30.2006

Jaron's World: The Soul of The Machine

Can a random collection of data be conscious? 06.25.2006

Jaron's World: I Smell, Therefore I Think

Did odors give rise to the first words? 05.27.2006

Jaron's World

What cephalopods can teach us about language 04.02.2006

About Jaron's World

Jaron Lanier, a founding father of virtual reality research, is an eccentric computer scientist with an eye trained on technology and science—and their intersection. "Some of the most interesting scientists are finding new uses for computers in their quest to understand aspects of nature," he says.

Many of Lanier's widely varied interests appear in his column, a "story about the birth of ideas" that ranges from the origins of music to the outer realms of digital communication. Lanier was recently appointed scholar-in-residence at UC Berkeley's Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.