Communications - February 2009

rod, made it clear that the Internet and technology will play a prominent role in government when he recently stated, “We’ll continue to have a conversation with [the public].”

In fact, by converting the existing campaign database into a private database, the president would have a powerful link to his constituency. Some, like Trippi, believe that President Obama could eventually cultivate 20 to 30 million people and make the database a

With this iPhone application, obama supporters could organize and prioritize their contacts by key battleground states.

central tool for communicating with the public. His staff could conduct polls, solicit ideas and opinions, and hold online town hall meetings.

The upshot? Instead of addressing the public on the radio for only a few minutes every Saturday, a two-way discourse could ensue. At press conferences, “questions could come directly from citizens,” Trippi says. What’s more, online groups could discuss key issues and policies and provide immediate feedback. “The president will have the ability to bypass Congress and appeal directly to citizens in a way that has never before been possible,” Sifry explains. At the same time, however, citizens will have the ability to make their voices heard and petition for change.

Transparency will likely emerge as a key issue as well. Already, the Obama administration is exploring the possibility of putting lobbyist and campaign filings online, creating public/private communities to help streamline environmental reviews, and providing an opportunity for citizens to comment online about pending legislation. The administration’s Change.gov site has already invited the American public to offer suggestions and comments on healthcare reform. More than 3,000 people had reportedly contributed ideas during the first month the site was live.

Make no mistake, the full power of the technology is becoming apparent. By creating persistent identities for online users—a single real identity that a person uses online—it is possible to

take government to a new level. “You begin building the foundation for a robust community where there is participation; you begin to tap into the power of social networking,” Sifry explains. “Once you have a system like this in place and someone enters a comment, it’s possible to notify that individual the next time a healthcare bill or education bill comes up. It’s also possible to poll the person and ask for additional information and ideas. It creates a whole new world of interaction.”

Yet, it’s clear that a new era is unfolding. As campaigns and government become more familiar with digital tools and the technology advances, the face of politics will continue to change. Kapor believes that sophisticated analytics will help guide decisions and provide tools for more advanced clickstream and data analysis. At the same time, new tools will emerge. “Most social networking tools, including Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube, either didn’t exist or weren’t a factor four years ago,” he says. “It’s impossible to imagine what will be available by the next election cycle.”

The way Sifry sees it, there’s no turning back. “We’re going to see the Internet and information technology play a far more prominent role in politics and government moving forward,” he concludes. “Political parties, advocacy groups, and others are looking at the technology and understanding that they have to use it to make an impact. It is now a major force in politics.”

Samuel Greengard is an author and freelance writer based in West linn, or.

Neuroscience
Extracting Brain Images

Researchers at atR computational neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, have developed a brain analysis technology that can reconstruct images inside a person’s brain and display them on a computer monitor. future development of the technology could lead to the ability to read people’s dreams while they sleep, according to the researchers, whose study was published in the U.S. journal Neuron.

Led by chief researcher

yukiyasu Kamitani, a team reconstructed images seen by study participants by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. the researchers used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRi) machine to map the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as the study participants viewed different images. the participants were shown some 400 black-and-white images for 12 seconds each, and the fMRi machine monitored the changes

in their brain activity, while a computer program analyzed the data and learned how to correlate the changes in brain activity with the various images.

next, the participants viewed a different set of images, such as the individual letters in a word, and the system reconstructed and displayed what the participants were viewing based solely on their brain activity.

“these results are a breakthrough in terms of understanding brain activity,”

said Kang cheng, a researcher at the RiKen brain Science institute in Saitama, Japan. “in as little as 10 years, advances in this field of research may make it possible to read a person’s thoughts with some degree of accuracy.”

the researchers believe that their technology could have applications in the fields of art and design and might lead to new treatments for psychiatric disorders by enabling doctors to directly view a patient’s mind.