Technology

'In the Water, a Supercomputer and a Population of Dolphins'

By Alexis C. Madrigal

"The dolphins are there to program the computer acoustically with ultrasonic sound waves from their sophisticated sonar systems."


Yesterday, I mentioned that Navy researchers had a white whale on their hands who tried to imitate human speech. And along the way, I noted that the art and architecture collective Ant Farm had advocated the creation of dolphin embassies to facilitate cross-species communication. 

Well, the Media Burn video archive sent over this little clip of Ant Farmer Doug Michels, the architect of the embassy idea. It reminded me that Michel's ultimate plan was a dolphin habitat IN SPACE. The dream was called Bluestar and it is about the most awesomely crazy idea I've ever heard. A ring of laboratories and places to think would surround a sphere of water that contained a population of dolphins who programmed a supercomputer with "their sophisticated sonar systems." 

The clip itself is a mishmash of an old Japanese TV show and then a demo video for the Bluestar concept. You will love it. It's as if everything that has ever appeared on BoingBoing got put through an extruder and then lovingly rolled into a delicious contentball.