Get various views. Theyll get various stories. Stories firsthand. Stories from the president s themselves. On the record from barack obama, bill clinton, former first lady rice, host of people. But what theyll find out are some of the things that really happened in the white house when it comes to race and i remember a story one of the most in impacting stories of my life going to the Corporate Art gallery a few feet away from the white house with then First Lady Laura Bush to the visit. These desen taints of slaves from the g plantation of alabama. And ultimately im giving you a synopsis but ultimately at the end of the tour, these black women about five black women, black women who i do not believe were republicans this part of recognition that was sheep. They just embraced first lady in a huddle and just started screaming thank you jesus, at the time and as a descendent of a slave on mothers side this generation moved from a slave. It brought tears to my eyes. So there are a lot of story it is that so many people can relate to in this, and its about you and me. Its not just about black. Its about white and all of us coming together. U now if people go to booktv and type in april ryan theyre going to see this big panel that was held and author panel. What was that ms. Ryan . The panel was a Panel Discussion on race. We had professor karl butler as well he talked about criminal justice. Joy reid an author as well who wrote the book. We have mike an author himself who is writing various books and i was a moderator, and we had a serious decision, civil discussion on issues of race, and from authors who have written about us. Who have researched. Who were experts in their field, and we had a Panel Discussion, we had people from all walks of life very Diverse Group of people who actually were in the audience and asked about it asked questions, it was a great discussion. It was like the beginning of a discussion that needs to happen in this nation and were going to have booktv thank you, of tv, and politics imposed, err were going to do this again in february. I hope booktv will be there, but we had a discussion, a discussion that is needed. Were going it keep this discussion going. April ryan, from the white house and the presidency in black and white. Youre watching booktv. Television for serious readers, watch any program you see here onlionel at booktv. Org. Pleasure to welcome you all to my Microsoft Research series. Im Senior Researcher here at mikes research. I do a lot of research in Virtual Reality for a long time ive been fascinated with both to really change the way that we perceive the environment. Change the way that we think about our our body. Our experiences, and how we can actually mess with people. How we can change the way that that we experience the world. So its my great pleasure to today welcome you and to announce tara who is visiting us. Shes going to be talking to us about her new book called we have the technology that is hacking about all of the fences. Its really about what other people in the world are doing to enhance our abilities. I will put many spoilers to you. Ill leave that to kara. But i just want to give you a brief a brief biography of her. She is a journalist, and currently teaches at Uc Berkeley School of journalism. So without much further adieu heres kara. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you everybody. All right. Thank you so much for coming out to see a knew newbie author to talk about her book. This lecture is first i made it just for you. I thought since im coming to microsoft i know some people are here working in augmented virtuality that is something you would want to talk about. Wherever i give a talk there are two questions that people want to know once they see my giant head which is who are you, and how did you report this book . I thought i can do this for you and basically in two minutes and then we can get on to the good stuff. So i am a science reporter i teacher at uc berkeley. I took one year off from teaching, and i basically went through eight states and four countries by posting where i wanted to go on facebook and seeing if people would put me up which was a really cheap way of reporting, and my goal was to write about people hacking sensory and cutting edge research. But to make sure it wasnt people who were in university so i wanted to see people who were doing science and show row that effect in real world at clock makers and transhumannist and body piecers and performers and robot and perfumers and to giveout short version, i went here, here, anybody know what that is . They keep the atomic clock. I went here, and here, and here, and here thats marilyn monroe, and here and here, thats london you can see in the famous toasters theres the word tea. Here, and i smelled these things and those things and i drank that stuff and i wore those things and i met this robot and i met this thing bob that helps that robot and then this ancient computer anybody know what it is . The difference engine, first model. Because i wanted to understand this very, very modern computer which is part of clock now built as slowest computer built to last 10,000 years. I got these tattoos augmented thattage mate when you hold them up to a certain mirror. They were unfortunately temporary. I got a lot of shots. I turned a lot of stuff that looks like this into stuff that looks like that, and i turned td these into those and that, and i did that to my laptop those keys i dont know if you can see theyre cratered, and worn off. I did that to my wrist. I did that to my couch. Along the way my students sent me this care package finally this happens and this is where we meet a giant head. Gally proof of the book finally this is happening. [laughter] so i think we did it in two minutes. So i know you havent had a chance to read the bock yet because it just came out. So ill give you a quick overview of what its about. So this is a book about Sensory Perception how you experience the world through your five senses which is taste, smell, vision, hear hadding and touch. And how you can hack them, and the starting point for this book is that there is no one reality. Right, once you get over that rest is an easy ride. What i mean is theres no one single experience of the world. Instead, whats happening is your brain is constructing and spurnes experience for you to have and what you perceive is something that is different than what everybody else perceives part is because were all genetically different. Your brain and body are different than anybody elses. Part of it is because perception is really malluable. Theres a huge amount of information and you have to filter and screen it to construct a coherent experience for yourself. And the way you attend to learn to discard rest is different. Everybody is filtering is different. Most of all, your senses are limited. We only have these five sensory portals but there are other animals that can sense more. But like sharks can sense electricity. And snakes like the fit can incense infrared. Bees can see into ultraviolet. A lot of animals like backwards, bacteria that can sense a electromagnetic field. When i started this research with this collector, and they were real mad about this. They were really frustrated, right. Why cant we see where the wear is and sunset in infrared and surpassed by stupid but the or flies so, they and other grinders like them were building implants in an effort in a bid to give themselves a new sensory experience. At the end of this talk ill show you a little bit about what they were doing, while they were kind of in extreme, therm actually part of this much Bigger Community of people working to push the boundaries of Sensory Perception. Some people that i met are doing it for medical purposes. Theyre trying to help people who have a million need. And some people are doing it to expand or enhance what we can sense. So this book is like baskinrobbins even will have a flavor that they like. Just to give you an idea of some of the things that are in this book, the chapter on vision is one of the first people on planet who ever has relearned how to see. It is about one of the first people who get a retinal implant. So its about dean lloyd born with normal vision lost as an adult a genetic disorder and then he volunteered to become wufnts first people to get the second sight two an inplant ideas his eye and wears spectacles with a camera over bridge of his nose and that translates image of two electronic impulses that stimulate receptors at the back of his eye and travels up to the brain and he perceives a form of vision that is not what he remembers from when he was a young man he doesnt see three dimensional objects or o colors. What he sees basically is flashes of lights that indicate contrast points between dark areas and light areas. But its enough that he can navigate. He can recognize object when is he was staring at me he said you cant see organic material or biologic material but he said he said i can see your yous. Your eyes are glow well we realize he was seeing reflection off of my glasses. So thats one example. I went to watch a robotic surgery which was an amazing experience and i had to got so many vaccinations. But i went to see dr. Sherry ren who was operating on a patient from across the room. The reason i wanted to do that is because i wanted to understand robotics because right now doctors who are doing tell operate od surgery have to not get touch feedback for patient and that can cause some problems. They dont know how tightly theyre pulling on a suture and takes experienced surgeon judge whats happening when theyre kind of pal mating within body which are robots so i learned at the labs at stanford working on bairvegly how to improve robotic devices to render feed tbak to a surgeon. But what i realize this was leading to is actually not for surgery but for development of a better generation of neuropros thet tick of robotic limb it is that would not only be able to mauve and controlled by thought but able to render touch feedback so that a person twails know it is how tightly theyre gripping an october so they know if something is about to fall from their grasp. One of the things that the researchers told me is that people with prosthetics want to feel a love ones hand. Touch is important. I learned about building of the 10,000 year clock is ewhich is a prohibit in the foundation in san San Francisco to reframe idea of how we think about time to build a clock to last 10,000 years without a human guardian and you can imagine the engineering problems involved in doing that. So this book has a lot of a lot of plans that deal with electronic and computers, by i also make the argument that technology isnt just gadgets. It is anything that we can built to help ourselves to augment our experience. So i make the argument that language is a technology and first chapter of this book is about search for a six. So if you went to high school in the last century like you learned forte salty, sweet, sour bitter and then along came mommy or savory so a concept in japan for 100 years but not accepted in the west until scientists covered receptors on the tongue that is within msg that makes things taste savory right. All of the people in the west learned how to taste this taste. That unleashed this search for other candidates. So i went kind of on a quest all around to taste candidates, and if anybody comes to town hall tonight i will give that talk and talk about how language affect ours ability to perceive what we taste. It is about a Chemical Technology that is about perfume. Its about a group of volunteers who are working at a hospital in france who use scent as with a o recall memory. Because as i learned loss of mel is first clinical symptom of alzheimers disease. Smelling memory are very, very deeply connected in the brain. So since im here with microsoft immaterialed to show you about virtually and not this is not a technical talk but i wanted to show you one of really cool applications that i got to witness while i was reporting and just to talk to you about immersiveness about how immersive these technologies can be, and what it was like to meet you a user. So my First Experience of Virtual Technology was in 2008 when i went to Virtual Human Interaction Lab at stamford, university and First Experience he put me informs the pit. Has anybody been in a pit simulation before . So the idea is floor rolls back, and theres like a little board and you have to walk over the pit. Right . And its it is an immediate experiment in presence. How much you feel like youre in that world and test, of course, is if you react to pit as if its a real pit. I did immediately. Right. I started to do this, and jeremy said what are you doing with your arms . I said, oh, yeah, no need to balance but i was really in the pit he said people have the worst experiences in this simulation they scream. They run across the board. I had another journal whois did a story and she couldnt to it. It was too real. Right. But i got out in the middle i said what happens if i jump off . And jeremy said try it. I fell and it was amazing thats when i realized yeah, i really like it. So i remember thinking it was like falling down in like falling over the cliff in roadrunner cartoon like the same brick went by over and over, i fell you know standing up like wow, falls like this. And so when i went back to research this book, i wanted to see if Virtual Reality it changed. I researched this book between 2013 and 2015. To make the experience more realistic, and what i saw wases amazingly real. Soty ended up spending time with jeremys lab at stamford and i also went to i had this amazing experience at Berkeley Air Force base in colorado where i spent time with National Guard unit that was about to deploy to afghanistan. So they were participating in a Clinical Trial of a program called strive that stand for stress resilience in a virtual environment, and the idea was to see if they could be made more resilient to developing posttraumatic stress disorder by pretreating them by exposing them in advance to stressful decisions that they might experience while in a war zone. And this project is run by dr. Albert skip a psychologist from usc hes part of this group called institute for creative technologies, and he had spent already about a decade using virtual raiment reality to treat those deployed and come back with symptoms. So he created virtual iraq and virtual afghanistan to use to simulate stressful situations that soldiers might have encountered. Idea is sol swrers go into these virtual scenarios while theyre there with their therapist who is person who is guiding their vr simulation and then they recall memories. Therapist tell me what happened to you and therapist makes that thing happen so if they say i remember gun fire, she can make sound of gunfire if they say, i can remember a sand storm she can make there be a sand storm is i wanted to show image of courtesy of dr. Rizzo in his lab so these are some of the images from virtual iraq so they modeled all of these common scenarios this is a check point. This is a much more stressful check point with a sand storm. This is an id explosion in a market. They do a lot of them that youre in a vehicle because thats a very common situation heres one inside of a humvee. Heres one that is kind of in amber situation. Heres one of being inside a hum vow sorry a little dark. But being inside a humvee and actually being hit by an explosive, and these when hes doing this in his own lab, he doesnt only use vision and sound. He actually, he has sub woofers built into the floor which vibrate to create the vibration of the motor as well as shock of the explosion. He pumps smells into the rooming. So like diesel, garbage, sweat because smell is so e he walks through simulation carrying prop rifle doesnt do anything. But just fur the weight and for that feeling of carrying it. He was thinking about using a heat lamp, to him pick the heat of the desert. Only thing he keact figure out is taste. Maybe make everybody eat a spoonful of sand thats all he had gotten. So this experience is meant to be hyperreality so faced a thing that scares you and it stops, it stops being scary, and this idea had actually been around in Virtual Reality since the midout. There was a team led by dr. Barbra at Emory University who started using it to treat garden variety. They had don things like they had built virtual airplane and high scary bridges for people with fear of heights. And they found that it worked who could stay calm on virtual airplane could later ride a real airplane and virtual all right could get on a elevator so they have the idea of using this for vietnam war veterans and bit mid90s people who had served in the vietnam war and had posttraumatic stress disorder were considered e treatment resistant. They were hardest to treat. They hadnt been helped by anybody. Soldiers were willing to try this novel form of therapy. But there was a big difference she told me. Between using ptsd and fear of spied wheres youre afraid of being stuck in a elevator or crossing a bridge youre afraid of what might happen. When youve been to war that has already happened Worst Nightmare has happened you have to resurface an actual memory. So there werent they werent sure if it would work or how hard it would be on people who were doing it so they did their First Experience in a veteran hospital. And they incase anybody basically had a psychiatric emergency and needed immediate help they created two scenarios one was a land about strip and one was inside of a huey chopper so worried at one point in the chopper scenario move out, move out theyre so worried that people rip off the fantastically helmet and chuck it aside. They tethered it to the ceiling but it worked. Nobody threw the helmet. Nobody had psychiatric emergencies, an everybody got better when they did followup screenings everybody got. Everybody got better. So i wanted to just read you a little thing this is my favorite favorite quotes in the book about how powerful this virtual scenario was. So soldiers had detail from their memories. Somebody said they saw tanks. We didnt have tanks in it he said. Somebody said they saw the enemy. We didnt have the enemy it n it. Somebody saw water buffalo in it. They didnt have water buffalo in it. They have to dig a masquerade used funds they given him as pretend bulldozer control. So when had skip comes along later he said i want to do this with kind of a digital native generation of soldiers people who is u grew up playing video games, by then marl had realized there was a real need for dealing with ptsd. In 2004 journal of medicine published an article showing 11 of soldiers returning from afghanistan met ptsd and nearly 20 of soldiers serving in iraq depending on the branch of service. But theres a thought treating people after theyve developed symptoms isnt enough. What if i can pretreat theming and this is based on state dependent learning we did in grad school. You drink coffee while youre studying for test and coffee while youre taking the test, right, so the idea is if you induce stress while teaching people how to cope with stress later when people in the real stressful situation theyll remember how to do it. So were going to suck, going to suck less. So i want to show you thanks to him, very briefly a little bit of this, this scenario. I want to warn you it is pg13 for violence and strong languages just in case anybody might be worried about it. I want to fast forward to a part [inaudible] pardon me. Sorry get getting beach ball of death, though. Okay, here we go. Hum, we dont have any add you. Audio people should i restart it . No, yes youyou know, it was working whee tested it before. We dont have some of the technology it turns out. Hang on. Roll it back. Temperature 101 degrees. No wind, little cover. But on the southern face of hills insurgent camps but the towns population is predominantly negative towards them. First platoon will have remove Residential District about ied activity a high value individual in the area known id component supplier named ozar khan known as biscuit. Thursday platoon lost a advisor and laid u up in germany. Your videocassette frees soto as driver you need to keep the right intervalues between your humvee and one ahead of you you will be assessed how long you keep the indicator in the white. Hey, driver, everyone, keep it in the yellow. [inaudible] others together getting real no. Dont be a hater if this aint no kanye. All right. That aint racist. I aint dealing with a conscience. I aint either. I cant got no conscience. Shut it up. Button it up. Vehicle three check point alfa. So you get the idea. Inside humvee. Team leader next to you. Two guys in the back you can see that gunners leg and idea is you are replacing preeftion driver and they give you distractive task which is keep a certain distance from the car in front of you. So what it does kind of lulls you into this boring desert driving scenario until it reaches a point where you have to make an ethical decision in that. Sorry this is very small. But im going to try to scroll to where the part happens where you have to make a decision about what to do. [silence] may be more driving. Driver pull over now. What are we stopping here for . This isnt vehicle one, this is vehicle two. Why are we stopping, over o . Somebody in the road. Stand by, over. Rodger, out. Holy crap. Oh, crap is he dead . Hey, see what weve got out there. Holy mother of god. Look at him. Is he still twitching . Is he dead . Shut up hes alive. Did you see that . Jesus, sweet jesus. Holy crap sorry, so basically whats going to happen from that point on is people in the car are going to argue about what you should do in this scenario should you get out and get help or should you wait for an antibomb squad to arrive to see if this is some kind of trap so they argue about it for a while and virtual advisor pops up and he offers the soldier paves about how to get through this situation. So you can see like that is actually a pretty disturbing video and it was the least disturbing of the ones that i saw. And theyre meant to molds these kind of ethical situations that you might get in where not just whether or not something bad happens to you but things that have to do with matters of conscience, what should you have assisted somebody else . So thats an idea of this very kind of hard core military use of Virtual Reality. Also very briefly i wanted to tell you something about a Virtual Reality lab that is going on. So i went back to jeremy in the lab at stanford which five years after the first time i had gotten there changed. It used to be a helmet and computer and that was pretty much it. So they molded it so sub woofer in the floor and extreme movement, tracking, and predecision so they were still doing a variation on same thing is when they study the effect which is named after the greek sea god who can shipshape and idea is they make tweaks to your avatar and then they see how affects your behavior in real life. So former students like niki and jest sew fox found people who were made taller in the Virtual World later celebritied more attractive dating partners from that website. They found that people who were made shorter lied about their height. They found that people exercise more when an avatar that looked like them was shown exercising and then losing weight. Jesse fox also found women who spent more time in avatars of themselves, dressed in really racy scanty clothing scored higher on tests of acceptance that a woman sexually assaulted did something to provoke the attack so their group is really interested in this idea what happens in the Virtual World happens in real world. So for example when i went back, one of the thing they did was put me in a virtual shower with instructions it was like wash your rights hand. Wash your left hand as i did it i can see this of avatar of mysf who was standing in front of a plate of coal. And as i washed my body, the coal float off the plate and she would eat it and look at me leak that and cough into the crook of her arm. Right and then this went on forever. I background them to take me out it was so excruciating. In the experiment they would have you wash your hands had and measure how much hot water you used and idea was to see if that made you more sensitive to wasting energy. And indeed people who were in the virtual experience used less hot water than people who had a different kind of experience, there was another one that they put me in where they have me chop down a virtual tree with a controller that sort of mimic on a hill top surrounded by this canopy of virtual tree and saw, and tree would fall and birds would stop sing and it was just so sad. Right, and then in the experiment afterwards what would happen is one of the experimenters would knock over a glass of water and ask you to help clean up, afterwards they would count how many paper napkins you would use as measure of you being more conservative about paper. And so when i went to this lab they had just begun a new generation of research where they were not only kind of interested in the prosocial behavior but theyre interested in the concept of flexibility which is wearing bodies that arent like the human body. So i just wanted to read to you very quickly from the body that they put me in, and the experiment that they were doing at that time. So cody is lab manager there so dark and quiet and hes strapping devices on to my appendages and infrared marks around my wrist and the kind kids we are and fibs efixed to markers on my spine on just helmet and then got down on all fours and flipped it on. Im a cow. Im a cow in a lovely pasture and in front of me is another a picture of the avatar wearing helmet while crawling it is hard to see my body as a cow. My cow self is adorable. A pint sized brown and white call of with a fat body on legs. I lift my right hoof and cow double does the same. I get the layout of the field and they use term body transfer to describe shifting your conscienceness to next representation and as cow copies my movements thats what were doing. Welcome to the pasture youre a short breed of cats and suitable for dairy and beef production. Momentarily jarring to be told im suitable and roll with it and walk over and eat. I do my best to position myself over some hay. My cow double does the same. The voice takes off mind blowing steps about how much weight three pounds a day to bulk up to 600 pounds. I wonder whether i should mind chewing although no one requested it. Now i walk over to a water trough. My cow double and i look to the left. In the real i can see a cattle hovering in midair in real world its a wooden dow held by a lab assistant. Normally he would have jammed me with it lightly and assume the cow coming at me while it within the into any side this is a touch they explain. Which is another way to produce body transfer. Today it is floating so i stand over water trough as voice tells me i need to drink up to 30 gallons a day. Turn to your left until you see the voice 200 days and reached your target weight to time you to go to the slaughterhouse. I was nots expecting this. The wave of sadness and horror that hit me with slaughterhouse the feeling of being trapped. Guilt and responsibility i feel for my cow avatar who i feel is me but i simultaneously feel is younger and more innocent and a vegetarian its remarkably heavy for being in this virtual life for a u few minutes. Part of me that is a cow dutifully walks to the pension. Part of the person is idealing. Its startling even me and anger born of nervousness this is brutal. I shout at no one in particular. Simulation tells me to face the avatar adorable as ever. Here you will await slaughterhouse truck says the voice. Floor begins to vibrate hear grinding of approaching towers in a truck backing up pap rush of real fear as it shakes noisily around me. I scan my head from side to side wondering where truck will appear. What will happen had then . But it doesnt. The experiment is over. My god you guys, with i hear myself muttering in relief as they release from the helmet. So after that experiment that lab went on to do things that were even more unleak the human body. They thought you can be sympathetic but its a mammal so they put me in with coral which is really business zero and idea of this simulation is that youre coral o in an ocean that is warmed by Carbon Dioxide emissions and you watch yourself wither and ocean die around you, at this point i was like what is going on with simulations why do we have to watch ourselves die . These are very intense. So they gave me one that was very sweet i wanted to leave you on this note, although i can also show you biohack percent but on this note because i thought it was really a moment when i think it clicked about how immersive these environments can be. So before i leave they took me through one more dem know to demonstrate lush world and how easy it is to adapt to the dream. Theres no experiment here just a grassy backyard of italian villa done near a fountain. A world and wooden roof beams done in detail with smokes in a elevator. A fire in the heart, trees sway carrying updraft of fluff enormous blue butter flies. Im struck how comfortable it is to be here. I want to walk through open doors. I expect the world to unfold endlessly florcht me. I start looking for the flaws. Finds this isnt a real place. It is perhaps too pretty. Its extreme to give it a stagily theme park quality. Bright colors of plywood and paint. I find myself wishing they had rendered a parking garage with a dinginess of ordinary life and then slight tug holding my helmet cable tries to prevent me from walking into real world walls as i ramble through imaginary land landscape. I think how pleasant it would be to roam or watch a dramatic story unfold or just rest. I dropped down on all fours to appear at the blade of grass to pick it up up close but they dont. I go to the fountain and gaze into the water sparkling in the afternoon breeze. This is where the offnote hit me. I have no reflection. Sometimes moment this breaks is moment that they prove how it is to you. While im internality debating how much virtual water looks like real water this is how thing hads look. Patiently holding in the dark empty studio. Im still caught up in the dream that im on my knees head cast down, arms outstretched looking at a fountain that isnt there. Thats it. Did you guys want to see biohackers . Okay. This is the grossest part im going to warn you. So i told you we went on search for taste, there was a sixth seasons. A lot of biohackers start with imlangting a magnet some call that your blood sacrifice to the gods and build things that interact with a magnet. In the book i kind of go on a quest to figure out exactly what is happening. People scared they can get a sensation through this by the question is what is it . Is it true, reception or somethinged with fact that it is actually in their hand or touching nerves and information. So i wont spoil the book thats the last chapter uhuh but i will introduce you to the system. Hes the founder of the grind house. Grind house is actually his house thats his basement. And when had i got there he was implanted with kercadia incased in silicon it is in real life if size of a deck of cards. This is it in tims arms i should say he does not do this themselves. Not in their basement but they have a pierce and body marrer do this. But this is what kercadia can do. Here hes holding it charming coil up to it and you see it blink green three times to show it is receiving the charge. Power is down at this point. But here. I dont know if you can hear that well, but it was right before christmas so somebody was singing jingle bells. So what it did was it took the temperature and put that information to cell phone via bluetooth anden plays to put that in for six months it was out after three because battery expanding due to health of the charging coil first to take it out. But it was really kind of a a test, it was kind of a proof of concept to see if they can put something in human body if tim would develop infection, if there would be some other problem like silicon would breech none of that happened so they had just started building a device that they call the north star this is what north star looked like when i was there. Idea is to have inland compass in back of your hand and light up when you face north. So kind of like a de facto sort of the power of the pigeon so that is what it looked like in november of 2013. This is their first manufactured molds you can see about the size of a quarter, image, fallen image one of their member f e team members this was their final implanted version. There it is in justins hand. They put it in just before thanksgiving. This version does not have a working compass element in it they call this the light version, a proof of concept. But you can see theyre working on it. Its coming along. So thats it. Thats me, if you want to reach me i would be happy to take questions you have any. Thank you for being such a fantastic audience. [applause] any questions . Yes. What was most surprising thing to you wrote and researched for the book . Whole book man. This is a book of many, many surprises because i was like what are cool things i can go see. Biohackers are delft very surprising fact that theyve gotten that far. That theyve built these things and they havent died yet. Really surprising. Big thing amazed to know was about curing alzheimers i didnt know loss of mel is clinical symptom of alzheimers and of parkinsons disease with the fact that Factory Center of the brain is old and memory and emotion kind of developed around it. It is very, very the idea that you can give somebody a scent and have them recall a memory, it is very, very sweet french ladies that i met who worked for cosmetic company and volunteer in hospital they are doing a hack. Right, its not a cure for stimes alzheimers that is a short cut around symptoms that was really cool and no idea that existed before i started. Any other questions . Yeah. When were talking about virtual experiments and the tree, and you know feeling sympathy now for the cow, squirrel it seems that theres a lot of you know environmental or political to some of this, and you know, reminds me of, you know, the experiment and authority to shock the prisoner. Or can you comment on how Virtual Reality experimentation and ethics around politics and forming opinions based on this type of thing. Thats interesting so jeremy has a lab at stamford clearly says we are trying to do things that are prosocial theyre clear they want to do things that you know help the common good which is why they have things about environment and helping other people. They have other simulations that test whether or not if you if you baskly fly around a city like a superhire superhero more inclined to help people and colorblind more sympathetic to people who are colorblind so theyre doing it for prosocial purposes. That said, they are terrifying potential uses of this. I thought about that a lot with a military stuff too. It is heavy, moral. A method in the military stuff. I felt. I dont know if im particularly susceptible to the environment but when i went in them, i felt an emotional connection very quickly i dont know if that is the same for everybody. But to me maybe i make it feel real because i was studying this stuff so much and there to have an experience. But you know one of the big concerns that people raised was what happens when we dont realize its not real . What happens when theres more blurring between virtual and real . Particularly what happens with augmented reality device when is theyre feeding you information and youre not aware of the choice it is that the programmers of that device made about what information youre going to get. So what information does it serve you and what informs is left out . What happens when were letting a lot of our behavior be steered by Virtual Networks of other people comes up and thumbs down for our activity and like this moral force of the crowd controlling your actions. I think those are very good things to think about. I dont have i dont have answers. I kind of feel Like Technology is a, you know, people always Say Technology is a toy use a hammer for god or ill. Right . And i would feel as a reporterrer i go to observe not make any final judgment. But what had i felt was powerful thats what i took away from it. Yeah six sense clear [inaudible] yeah, great question. Okay so the idea is a sixth taste then created so were not going to create it because tongue isnt going to change. Right . And people in japan who could sense umami before people in the western world could. Their tongue is not any different than anybody elses tongue, its a perception change and i argue that the tool is language that having a word for something is what allows you to experience it. Because you can conception it and recognize that thing, i have a memory of that thing, i can convey my experience of that thing to other people. Right, so one of the big debates that is going on in taste world is it well, because we dont haa word for whatever sixth taste is maybe we miss it and it is there and we dont notice it. And the bigs big comparison so they use it problem of inventing or o color. One was big comparisons they say is in some language there arent separate records for blue or green doesnt mean people raised with those cant see blue or green but theyre a singular experience, and people who developed who grew up with language that distinguishes between them see them as two sprats things. Right so maybe a same with taste. Right maybe had that fixed taste is adjacent or like another taste but cant pick it out o as discreet or separate because we dont have a word for it so we cant compartmentalize it. No this is bogus it it was there, if it was universal languages would have built a word for it. Every language has a word for sweet and salty and bitter if it was part of the Human Experience we would have a word for it already. And really not are also but interestingly one of the great lines of reasoning is beginning on in Emotion Research because cultures have words for emotions but other culturals dont so can you experience a feeling if your culture doesnt have a word for it . Yeah. What is something you had to leave out of this book for rditing purposeses . Lets see, so one i went to see ethic of engineering because i thought that would be good for altering the body. A lot of the ethical arguments around genetic engineering i thought we have kind of res innocence in here. To be honest there were not too many other things that got left on cutting room floor. I was a facebook searching machine. Question regarding the election iraq and afghanistan feeling that youre literally there [inaudible] simulation that we watched, when i saw it at the air force base they had a very limited setup. So it was basksly you sat on a swivel chair and vibrated with a sony pair of goggles and headset but no smell and other thingses like that. I showed you stills but those were from videos so theyre videos, and right now there are six episodes that soldiers watched but skip wants to make it into a band of brothers 30 episodes to watch over a longer period of time to follow the same squad of soldiers through things happening so yeah i did not get the facultily immersive experience like you didnt today. Any research around neurophysiological changes comparing in Virtual Reality and after. Thats a god question are there changes in the brain in virtual versus real life. I dont know. I bet there are. It would make sense but unfortunately i dont know it be. One things is weve existed in a world of electronic streams and brain hasnt had time to evolve to tell difference between real life and virtual life if it looks like a snake, you treat it like a snake. Yep. Wondering especially with smell and taste those are two senses that like with the general population we havent really started like giving for lack of better words i dont go to a movie today and smell and taste things other than church where i smell infants i dont see many things like this presentation i dont get any but on the flip side saying that smell particularly was one of the most deeply in our memory. Ironic our society is focused on visual auditory stuff does that come up at all . It did. One of the people i went to see for augmented chapter was david anybody familiar with his work . The researcher he works and taste and smell and hard to do in augmented reality and his point was it is hard to render those things digitally. Chemical senses so hard to do with computer interface so sound and vision are easier to con tray computer and other senses are left out. But he has work and touch so hes doing projects like for example he has a ring project, so you wear a ring and then your romantic partner wears ring and you press where jewel face would be and it sends them a little squeeze and idea is touch at a distance. Hes worked on conveying smell through the phone where he has a little capsule where you can send a message to a friends and then their phone emit like a Bush Administration of coffee if you want to have coffee. A perfume or Something Like that. But problem is each device has to have this additional thing on it that emits a scent or, you know, can convey mechanical problem. It is hard per to do. So you know, he was basically making point these things are hard or to scale than sound and vision are which is actually what youre saying. All right is there a time time is up. Thank you so much youve been a wonderful audience. Great to be here. Thank you. [applause] right now on booktv we want to intercourse you to author named stephanie shaheem what are you writing about . I wrote a