Monthly Archives: September 2015

Narrative automation

This one comes via the PhD. Design list, courtesy of Don Norman, Narrative Science, corporate style. Give us your big data and we will churn out a story for you, using Quill narrative automation software.

“While advances in data visualization and data science are helpful, they don’t take us the last mile. Data visualizations are often complex, requiring expert-level analysis and explanation. Quill immediately adds value to data by identifying the most relevant information and relaying it through professional, conversational language. The result? Intelligent narratives that efficiently communicate the insights buried in Big Data that people can comprehend, act on and trust.”

All available at Narrative Science…

Plants as intelligent beings?

The article, The Intelligent Plant, was published in The New Yorker december 23, 2013. The author, Michael Pollan, offers us a brief survey of an emerging field devoted to the understanding of plants: “…The hypothesis that intelligent behavior in plants may be an emergent property of cells exchanging signals in a network might sound far-fetched, yet the way that intelligence emerges from a network of neurons may not be very different. Most neuroscientists would agree that, while brains considered as a whole function as centralized command centers for most animals, within the brain there doesn’t appear to be any command post; rather, one finds a leaderless network. That sense we get when we think about what might govern a plant—that there is no there there, no wizard behind the curtain pulling the levers—may apply equally well to our brains…”