Daily Archives: October 16, 2012

Singularity Summit 2012: the lion doesn’t sleep tonight | Gene Expression

Posted: October 16, 2012 at 4:20 pm

Last weekend I was at the Singularity Summit for a few days. There were interesting speakers, but the reality is that quite often a talk given at a conference has been given elsewhere, and there isnt going to be much value-add in the Q & A, which is often limited and constrained. No, the point of the conference is to meet interesting people, and there were some conference goers who didnt go to any talks at all, but simply milled around the lobby, talking to whoever they chanced upon.

I spent a lot of the conference talking about genomics, and answering questions about genomics, if I thought could give a precise, accurate, and competent answer (e.g., I dodged any microbiome related questions because I dont know much about that). Perhaps more curiously, in the course of talking about personal genomics issues relating to my daughters genotype came to the fore, and I would ask if my interlocutorhad seen the lion. By the end of the conference a substantial proportion of the attendees had seen the lion.

This included a polite Estonian physicist. I spent about 20 minutes talking to him and his wife about personal genomics (since he was a physicist he grokked abstract and complex explanations rather quickly), and eventually I had to show him the lion. But during the course of the whole conference he was the only one who had a counter-response: he pulled up a photo of his 5 children! Touch! Only as I was leaving did I realize that Id been talking the ear off of Jaan Tallinn, the founder of Skype . For much of the conference Tallinn stood like an impassive Nordic sentinel, engaging in discussions with half a dozen individuals in a circle (often his wife was at his side, though she often engaged people by herself). Some extremely successful and wealthy people manifest a certain reticence, rightly suspicious that others may attempt to cultivate them for personal advantage. Tallinn seems to be immune to this syndrome. His manner and affect resemble that of a graduate student. He was there to learn, listen, and was exceedingly patient even with the sort of monomaniacal personality which dominated conference attendees (I plead guilty!).

At the conference I had a press pass, but generally I just introduced myself by name. But because of the demographic I knew that many people would know me from this weblog, and that was the case (multiple times Id talk to someone for 5 minutes, and theyd finally ask if I had a blog, nervous that theyd gone false positive). An interesting encounter was with a 22 year old young man who explained that he stumbled onto my weblog while searching for content on the singularity. This surprised me, because this is primarily a weblog devoted to genetics, and my curiosity about futurism and technological change is marginal. Nevertheless, it did make me reconsider the relative paucity of information on the singularity out there on the web (or, perhaps websites discussing the singularity dont have a high Pagerank, I dont know).

I also had an interesting interaction with an individual who was at his first conference. A few times he spoke of Ray, and expressed disappointment that Ray Kurzweil had not heard of Bitcoin, which was part of his business. Though I didnt say it explicitly, I had to break it to this individual that Ray Kurzweil is not god. In fact, I told him to watch for the exits when Kurzweils time to talk came up. He would notice that many Summit volunteers and other V.I.P. types would head for the lobby. And thats exactly what happened.

There are two classes of reasons why this occurs. First, Kurzweil gives the same talks many times, and people dont want to waste their time listening to him repeat himself. Second, Kurzweils ideas are not universally accepted within the community which is most closely associated with Singularity Institute. In fact, I dont recall ever meeting a 100-proof Kurzweilian. So why is the singularity so closely associated with Ray Kurzweil in the public mind? Why not Vernor Vinge? Ultimately, its because Ray Kurzweil is not just a thinker, hes a marketer and businessman. Kurzweils personal empire is substantial, and hes a wealthy man from his previous ventures. He doesnt need the singularity movement, he has his own means of propagation and communication. People interested in the concept of the singularity may come in through Kurzweils books, articles, and talks, but if they become embedded in the hyper-rational community which has grown out of acceptance of the possibility of the singularity theyll come to understand that Kurzweil is no god or Ayn Rand, and that pluralism of opinion and assessment is the norm. I feel rather ridiculous even writing this, because Ive known people associated with the singularity movement for so many years (e.g., Michael Vassar) that I take all this as a given. But after talking to enough people, and even some of the more naive summit attendees, I thought it would be useful to lay it all out there.

As for the talks, many of them, such as Steven Pinkers, would be familiar to readers of this weblog. Others, perhaps less so. Linda Avey and John Wilbanksgave complementary talks about personalized data and bringing healthcare into the 21st century. To make a long story short it seems that Aveys new firm aims to make the quantified self into a retail & wholesale business. Wilbanks made the case for grassroots and open source data sharing, both genetic and phenotypic. In fact, Avey explicitly suggested her new firm aims to be to phenotypes what her old firm, 23andMe, is to genotypes. Im a biased audience, obviously I disagree very little with any of the arguments which Avey and Wilbanks deployed (I also appreciated Linda Aveys emphasis on the fact that you own your own information). But Im also now more optimistic about the promise of this enterprise after getting a more fleshed out case. Nevertheless, I see change in this space to be a ten year project. We wont see much difference in the next few I suspect.

The two above talks seem only tangentially related to the singularity in all its cosmic significance. Other talks also exhibited the same distance, such as Pinkers talk on violence. But let me highlight two individuals who spoke more to the spirit of the Summit at its emotional heart. Laura Deming is a young woman whose passion for research really impressed me, and made me hopeful for the future of the human race. This the quest for science at its purest. No careerism, no politics, just straight up assault on an insurmountable problem. If I had to bet money, I dont think shell succeed. But at least this isnt a person who is going to expend their talents on making money on Wall Street. Im hopeful that significant successes will come out of her battles in the course of a war I suspect shell lose.

The second talk which grabbed my attention was the aforementioned Jaan Tallinns. Jaans talk was about the metaphysics of the singularity, and it was presented in a congenial cartoon form. Being a physicist it was larded with some of the basic presuppositions of modern cosmology (e.g., multi-verse), but also extended the logic in a singularitariandirection. And yet Tallinn ended his talk with a very humanistic message. I dont even know what to think of some of his propositions, but he certainly has me thinking even now. Sometimes its easy to get fixated on your own personal obsessions, and lose track of the cosmic scale.

Which goes back to the whole point of a face-to-face conference. You can ponder grand theories in the pages of a book. For that to become human you have to meet, talk, engage, eat, and drink. A conference which at its heart is about transcending humanity as we understand is interestingly very much a reflection of ancient human urges to be social, and part of a broader community.

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Singularity Summit 2012: the lion doesn’t sleep tonight | Gene Expression

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Futurist's Cheat Sheet: Artificial Intelligence

Posted: at 4:20 pm

There is no more powerful concept in futurist writings then the notion of artificial intelligence. The ability for humans to create machine-based life that thinks on its own and acts on its own has the potential to make our lives dramatically better - or worse, depending on what kind of science fiction you read. But getting there won't be easy.

Artificial intelligence has long been a pipe dream of scientists and science fiction writers. In reality, though, we are nowhere near the practical application of artificial intelligence. True artificial intelligence implies a conscious machine with subjective experiences and thoughts; self-aware, sentient (with the ability to feel) and the capacity for wisdom (sapience).

Apples Siri voice-activated personal assistant and Googles search algorithms are examples of the current state of artificial intelligence. Neither acts on its own nor perceives intentions. You can have a conversation with Siri by interacting with a collection of pre-loaded answers, but there is no intelligence behind it. Siri merely uses a set of rules to select the most appropriate canned answer to your question.

Siri and Google search are examples of what is called weak artificial intelligence - or machine intelligence not intended to match the capabilities of human beings. A weak AI engine could recognize characters, play chess or drive a car. But a machine performing intelligent actions is not necessarily acting intelligently. There is a difference between a smart machine (one that can take various inputs and act accordingly) and one that has its own cognitive capabilities. A smartphone can know many things about its surroundings, but does it know to call Mom when your fiance dumps you?

Strong AI lies on the other end of the spectrum. Strong AI presupposes that a machine can match or exceed the intelligence of a human. It can think on its own and perform intelligent calculations as well or better than a human could. Strong AI, as defined by engineering researchers and philosophers, does not currently exist. To find strong AI you need to turn to the science fiction realm of The Terminator, The Matrix or Isaac Asimovs I, Robot.

AI combines the theoretical with the philosophical before even getting into the nuts and bolts of how it can be achieved. How do you quantify the theoretical capabilities of a sentient computer when one does not yet exist?To even think about achieving artificial intelligence, one must first answer a very old and still very confusing question: exactly what is intelligence?

Humans consider themselves intelligent because they have the capacity to make sense of the world through a series of brain functions. The human mind integrates many different kinds of sensory information and performs computations to create assertions and judgments.

Take a look at the person closest to you. What do you see?

In your mind you see Dick or Jane - because your brain tells you that the person is Dick or Jane. What you are actually seeing is a variety of agents and individual components that your mind associates with Dick or Jane. Your brain makes instant, complicated computations that define what you see - and then more calculations to decide how to react to that object, perhaps to communicate with it. The neural network that is the human brain works in a complicated web to determine the world around it.

In the realm of artificial intelligence, the classic way to determine intelligent behavior is via the Turing test. Developed by early AI pioneer Alan Turing, the Turing test is designed to see if a machines capability for intelligent behavior makes it indistinguishable from that of a human: If you were having a conversation with an entity behind a curtain, could you tell if it was a machine or a human?

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Futurist Ray Kurzweil's new book predicts development of a super 'digital brain'

Posted: at 4:20 pm

Futurist Ray Kurzweil optimistically predicts much longer life expectancies, cures for cancer and heart disease, flying cars and robot butlers.

Humans will become capable of feats that now seem impossible for many of us, in our lifetime in large part due to expected advances in brain research, posits the inventor and author in his new book, "How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed," due out next month.

Key to his predictions, which he's also outlined in a series of other books including "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and "The Singularity Is Near," is the law of accelerating returns. Kurzweil suggests the pace of information technology advances will grow at an exponential pace until sometime near the end of the century.

In his new book, he predicts technology will virtually grow the human neocortex the section of the brain responsible for thinking, language, and sensory perception by directly tying into electronic resources, including the Internet.

"In another 25 years, computers will be the size of blood cells, they'll be another billion times more powerful and we'll put them inside our bodies and brains," says Kurzweil, who is speaking at Toronto's Danforth Music Hall on Thursday.

"Nanobots, little robotic computerized devices, will keep us healthy from inside by augmenting our immune system, they'll go inside our brain, interact with our biological neurons, put our brains in the cloud, on the Internet, and we'll be able to actually have direct brain connection to artificial intelligence, which will incorporate a synthetic neocortex."

While some will undoubtedly write off Kurzweil's predictions as hokum, he has an impressive list of inventions to his name and a proven capacity for visionary thinking. He's credited with inventing the first flatbed scanner, multi-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, and the first music synthesizer to mimic the sound of a grand piano among many other things.

While his track record of previous predictions has been debated he claims he's been on the mark or close the vast majority of the time, while critics suggest that's not really true he has made a number of prescient calls.

In "The Age of Spiritual Machines," which he says he wrote in the mid to late 1990s, back when nearly everyone used dial-up modems, he outlined his visions for 2009. He wrote about the widespread use of portable computers, mobile devices without keyboards, the adoption of digital music, movies and books, the implementation of facial recognition technology, and distance learning.

A transition toward a cyborg future in which society accepts becoming part human, part computer may seem beyond belief, but Kurzweil doesn't think so. He points to present-day medical treatments that already involve brain implants of electronic devices and argues similar procedures could become common among the healthy, too.

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Review: 'The Freedom of the City' is angry drama

Posted: at 9:15 am

NEW YORK (AP) Brian Friel is a master at beginning his plays at the end. Even though we know the outcome, his compassionate interpretation of events and their aftermaths often sheds light on social issues both specific and universal.

His angry and deeply moving 1973 political drama "The Freedom of the City" is about the murder of three unarmed Irish civilians by British troops after a civil rights march in Northern Ireland. Friel's ironically-titled work is based on real events that occurred in January 1972, when British soldiers killed 13 Irish citizens in similar circumstances, on what became known as Bloody Sunday.

Ciaran O'Reilly directs a talented ensemble cast of nine in the thoughtful, quite stirring production that opened Sunday night off-Broadway at the Irish Repertory Theatre. O'Reilly cleverly stages Friel's multiple narratives, making excellent use of his small stage and cast, deftly showcasing a wide array of events and locations.

The focus is on an intimate setting inside a staid town hall where the three main characters spend their final afternoon. These ordinary civilians, later wrongly deemed by the official investigation to be "terrorists," have stumbled into the town's Guild Hall to escape being tear-gassed by British paratroopers after a public rally.

Scenes of their colorful chat and innocent enjoyment of the luxuries they find in the mayor's comfortable office are juxtaposed with flashes of the ongoing violence and misinformation outside. Stark contrast is provided by untrue statements from British law enforcement personnel during the subsequent investigation into their deaths.

The impoverished, ill-fated locals include Lily Doherty, cleaning woman and mother of 11 children, (a radiant performance by Cara Seymour), and two young men: Adrian Skinner is a sarcastic petty criminal, (Joseph Sikora, edgy and raucous), and Michael, a hardworking, idealistic student, who is given an earnest, uneasy air by James Russell.

Seymour is wondrously expressive, wearing a sweet, reflective and often mumsy demeanor. Lily offers up wry commentary as she and Skinner sip some of the mayor's fine liquor and open up a little about themselves, even doing some singing and dancing. Sikora is alternately impulsive and cynical, while Skinner's bitter flippancy seems most attuned to their possible fate. Russell radiates the uneasiness of upright Michael, who doesn't enjoy his companions' casual humor.

John C. Vennema is smug and querulous as an "objective" British tribunal judge who reaches inaccurate, clearly prejudiced conclusions. Politely condescending lectures about "the culture of poverty" are provided by Christa Scott-Reed as an American sociologist. Ciaran Byrne is appropriately outraged as a Catholic priest as politicians, the Church and media all use the trio's fate to serve their own agendas. Clark Carmichael mournfully sings a couple of ballads conveying the folk-hero status bestowed upon them.

Set designer Charlie Corcoran has effectively created the gloomy town hall, while dramatic lighting enhances each vignette and explosions outside increase the tension. "All over the world, the gulf between the rich and the poor is widening," the sociologist solemnly notes, like it was something new. Many of Friel's observations about poverty and power in this compelling work from four decades ago remain unfortunately truer than ever today.

___

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John Creighton, Seattle Port Commissioner, Announces Employer Support Freedom Award

Posted: at 9:15 am

PORT OF SEATTLE, Wash., Oct. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Last month, the Port of Seattle was one of 15 employers to receive the Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award in a ceremony in Washington, D.C., says John Creighton, Port of Seattle Commissioner. The port is the first public agency from Washington State to be provided with this award.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121012/CG92529 )

The Freedom Award is designed to recognize employers who support employees who have served in the United States Military. Since 1996, only 160 employers have received the award, says John Creighton. Port of Seattle officials note that the Freedom Award is the highest of its kind given to employers by the Defense Department.

"Receiving an award like this from the Department of Defense is a distinct honor," says John Creighton, Port of Seattle Commissioner. "Those who serve in the military should be respected and honored for the sacrifices they make in serving the country. We are committed at the Port to do all we can to support both active duty service members and veterans. I consider this award a great recognition of the sacrifices these employees make each day."

The award was provided, in part, as a recognition of the work the Port has done to help military personnel transition into civilian employment. The Port's Veterans Fellowship Program, begun in 2007, provides veteran employees with a significant amount of training and mentorship, as well as training in resume writing, interview skills and workplace etiquette. The program also provides veterans with 6-month work assignments that allow them to practice their skills in real time. According to John Creighton, Seattle has seen 26 veterans participate in this program. He hopes to see increasing participation levels in the coming years.

John Creighton has been a member of the Seattle Port Commission since 2006, and has been an active and avid supporter of the Veterans Fellowship Program during that time.

"Supporting the men and women who have given us so much for our country is just the right thing to do," he says. "The transition from active duty to civilian life can be challenging, and anything we can do to make the process run a bit more smoothly seems like a good investment."

Media Contact: Michael Linmore Linmore PR, 800-256-9168, info@linmorepr.com

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

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FreedomPop Freedom Spot Photon

Posted: at 9:15 am

By Alex Colon

The Freedom Spot Photon from FreedomPop is a 4G hotspot thatgets you online for free. There's no catch. A free plan from FreedomPop is good for 500MB of data per month, with plenty of easy opportunities to earn more. Larger, inexpensive data plans are also available, and the Photon taps into Clearwire's 4G WiMAX network with aplomb.

And at some point next year, when it switches from Clearwire to Sprint's 4G LTE network, you'll need to replace your hotspot. But as it stands, the Freedom Spot Photon is an inexpensive, innovative way to get online, and well worthy of our Editors' Choice award.

Pricing and PlansHere's how it works. There are three different plans: Free, Casual, and Premiere. With the free plan, you get 500MB of data every month. After that, extra data costs $0.02 per 1MB (which works out to $20 per 1GB). Thing is, if you play your cards right, you may earn enough extra free data that you never go over.

FreedomPop has a number of ways for you to earn additional data. For starters, you get an additional 10MB of data for every friend you refer, up to 500MB per month. You can also share or request data from friends. But really, that can only get you so far. To that end, FreedomPop has a number of offers and surveys you can participate in to earn extra data. Signing up for the Chili's email list, for instance, scored me 22MB of free data and only took a few seconds to do. I even got a coupon for free chips and queso.

Offers range anywhere from 4MB of data to a whopping 2.94GB. Some of them require you to actually pay for merchandise or services, though most of them are free. All of them want your email address, however. Though paid plans are also available, this is how FreedomPop makes its money. Every offer you sign up for puts a couple of cents in FreedomPop's pockets and a few megabytes of data in your till. That's fine by me.

If you don't want to jump through hoops for your data, you may be interested in one of the paid plans. $17.99 per month gets you 2GB of data. After that, each additional 1MB costs just $0.01 (which works out to $10 per 1GB). $28.99 per month is good for 4GB of data, $34.99 for 5GB, and $59.99 for 10GB, all with the same $0.01 charge for each additional megabyte you go over. So while it may not be free, those are some pretty great prices when compared with carriers like AT&T or Verizon Wireless. They may offer faster 4G LTE, but plans start at $50 per month, and only get you 4 or 5GB of data.

Keep in mind that FreedomPop currently uses Clearwire's 4G WiMAX network, which only covers about a third of the U.S. population. Be sure to check out Clear's 4Gcoverage mapto see if service is available where you live and where you plan to travel. You'll also figure that out when you try to sign up with FreedomPopyou won't be able to join the beta if you don't live within Clear's coverage area.

You can easily chew through 500MB of data on a rainy afternoon spent watching Netflix. If you're looking to stream music or video, you're better off with an unlimited data plan from a carrier like Clear, which offers unlimited 4G data for $49.99 per month on the same network.And now that Virgin Mobile has access to that very same WiMAX network, it too is worth checking out for inexpensive, contract-free mobile broadband. You can get 2GB of 3G data for $35 per month, or 5GB for $55, all with unlimited 4G WiMAX data. Performance should be equal across the board.

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Liberty Media Corporation Announces Third Quarter Earnings Release and Conference Call

Posted: at 9:15 am

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Liberty Media Corporation (Nasdaq: LMCA, LMCB) will release its third quarter earnings on Tuesday, November 6th, at 11:45 a.m. (ET). Greg Maffei, Liberty Medias President and CEO, will host the call. During the call, Mr. Maffeiwill discuss the company's financial performance.

Please call Premiere Conferencing at (888) 602-6363 or (719) 325-2475 at least 10 minutes prior to the call. Callers will need to be on a touch-tone telephone to ask questions. The conference administrator will provide instructions on how to use the polling feature.

Replays of the conference call can be accessed through 1:45 p.m. (ET) on November 13th, by dialing (888) 203-1112 or (719) 457-0820 plus the passcode 5834108#.

In addition, the third quarter earnings conference call will be broadcast live via the Internet. All interested participants should visit the Liberty Media Corporation website at http://www.libertymedia.com/events to register for the webcast. Links to the press release and replays of the call will also be available on the Liberty Media website. The conference call and related materials will be archived on the website for one year.

About Liberty Media Corporation

Liberty Media (Nasdaq: LMCA, LMCB) owns interests in a broad range of media, communications and entertainment businesses, including its subsidiaries Atlanta National League Baseball Club, Inc. and TruePosition, Inc., its interests in Starz, LLC, SiriusXM, Live Nation Entertainment and Barnes & Noble, and minority equity investments in Time Warner Inc. and Viacom.

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Liberty Interactive Corporation Announces Third Quarter Earnings Release and Conference Call

Posted: at 9:15 am

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Liberty Interactive Corporation (Nasdaq: LINTA, LINTB, LVNTA, LVNTB) will release its third quarter earnings on Tuesday, November 6th at 11:00 a.m. (ET). Greg Maffei, Liberty Interactives President and CEO, will host the call. During the call, Mr. Maffeiwill discuss the company's financial performance.

Please call Premiere Conferencing at (888) 455-2265 or (719) 457-2703 at least 10 minutes prior to the call. Callers will need to be on a touch-tone telephone to ask questions. The conference administrator will provide instructions on how to use the polling feature.

Replays of the conference call can be accessed through 1:00 p.m. (ET) on November 13th, by dialing (888) 203-1112 or (719) 457-0820 plus the passcode 7834540#.

In addition, the third quarter earnings conference call will be broadcast live via the Internet. All interested participants should visit the Liberty Interactive Corporation website at http://www.libertyinteractive.com/events to register for the web cast. Links to the press release and replays of the call will also be available on the Liberty Interactive website. The conference call and related materials will be archived on the website for one year.

About Liberty Interactive Corporation

Liberty Interactive Corporation operates and owns interests in a broad range of digital commerce businesses. Those interests are currently attributed to two tracking stock groups: Liberty Interactive Group and Liberty Ventures Group. The Liberty Interactive Group (Nasdaq: LINTA, LINTB) is primarily focused on digital commerce and consists of Liberty Interactive Corporations subsidiaries Backcountry.com, Bodybuilding.com, Celebrate Interactive (including Evite and Liberty Advertising), CommerceHub, MotoSport, Provide Commerce, QVC, Right Start, and Liberty Interactive Corporations interests in HSN and Lockerz. The Liberty Ventures Group (Nasdaq: LVNTA, LVNTB) consists of Liberty Interactive Corporations non-consolidated assets, including interests in AOL, Expedia, Interval Leisure Group, Time Warner, Time Warner Cable, Tree.com (Lending Tree), TripAdvisor and various green energy investments.

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West's free speech stand bars blasphemy ban

Posted: at 9:12 am

TOM HENEGHAN, RELIGION EDITOR

Western opposition has made it impossible for Muslim states to obtain a ban on blasphemy, including anti-Islamic videos and cartoons that have touched off deadly riots, the Islamic world's top diplomat said.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), said his 57-nation body would not try again for United Nations support to ban insults to religion, but appealed for states to apply hate-speech laws concerning Islam.

"We could not convince them," said the Turkish head of the 57-member organisation which had tried from 1998 until 2011 to get a United Nations-backed ban on blasphemy.

"The European countries don't vote with us, the United States doesn't vote with us."

Western countries see the publication of such images and materials as a matter of free speech.

The posting of an amateurish US-made video portraying the Prophet Mohammed as a foolish womaniser and the publication of caricatures of him in France last month led to violent protests and renewed calls from the Muslim world for a global law against blasphemy.

The protests claimed some two dozen lives.

Ihsanoglu told a conference in Istanbul at the weekend that the OIC had failed to win a ban at the United Nations and would not revive its long diplomatic campaign for one.

Asked about recent media reports that the OIC wanted to resume the campaign for a blasphemy ban, he said: "I never said this and I know this will never happen."

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Lamees Dhaif, journalist from Bahrain, wins free speech award at Syracuse University

Posted: at 9:12 am

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Lamees Dhaif, a 34-year-old journalist from Bahrain, won the 2012 Tully Award for Free Speech tonight at Syracuse University.

Dhaif won the award for not backing down from violence and intimidation intended to silence her reporting. At a ceremony tonight in Syracuse, she described repeated government threats, the jailing of her family, and a hasty exile that forces her to "live out of my bags." She described watching her house burn down after pro-government forces firebombed it with Molotov cocktails. Government officials repeatedly told her to stop reporting, and she described how one member of the all-powerful royal family told her he would have her cut in half.

The award is presented annually to journalists like Lamees by the Tully Center for Free Speech in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. It is given to a journalist who has faced a significant free speech threat.

Dhaif has worked for several newspapers in Bahrain, a small country on the Persian Gulf, including Akhbar Al-Khaleej, Sadaa Al Isboua, Al-Qabas, Al-Afaaq and Al-Waqt.

She said she began her professional career in 2005. She first reported on radical Islamists and then began reporting on widespread government corruption. Both topics resulted in pressures to keep quiet but intimidation and violence started in earnest as she reported on the 2011 Arab Spring movement in Bahrain.

She was branded as an "lying witch" and quickly blacklisted from media throughout the Persian Gulf. Following the widespread government censorship, Dhaif turned to Twitter, Facebook and her blog http://lameesbahrainperceptions.blogspot.com.

Earlier, Dhaif endured several cultural and legal challenges to free speech. For instance, she was discouraged from pursuing journalism as a career unsuitable for a woman. She was told if she thought reporting was important work, she should have her brother or another male relative do it. According to a news release accompanying her award, in 2009, she was accused in a legal complaint of insulting the judiciary after she wrote a series uncovering allegations of bias against women in Bahrains family courts. Though the case was dropped, officials made it clear that they could revive the charges at any time.

In 2011, after the large-scale anti-government protests, Dhaif was again called into court for criticizing the regime, according to the release. These charges were also dropped, but the stakes were raised when the pro-government forces burned her home.

Despite these threats, she remained unbowed in her criticism of the government's attempts to suppress the protest movement. In addition to her large social media audience and reporting published on her blog, she also writes a weekly column for the Saudi newspaper Alyaum and presents a television program on the Kuwaiti television station Al-Rai. During her speech at tonight's ceremony, Dhaif showed a film she made, graphically showing the deaths of protest members who had been shot by police.

During her talk in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium on campus, Dhaif touched on several topics. Among them:

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