The Wickedly Smart Web site describes a scene from The Matrix where a character learns to fly a helicopter by downloading the lesson directly to her brain. How far are we from developing this technology?

Very, very far. But the way most learning happens today is SO inefficient, that we can make a dramatic improvement - orders of magnitude improvement - with the technology we DO have, simply by applying a set of principles that have come from cognitive science, neurobiology, game design, psychology, entertainment, and learning theory.

What hurdles do we have to overcome to achieve this?

For the direct-to-brain download, the hurdle is time. Depending on who you talk to, that time could be 50 years minimum, most likely far more. But for an order of magnitude jump in learning efficiency, all we need is for more people to acknowledge that the way we've been expecting people to learn technical topics is horribly obsolete.

We're using techniques for communicating knowledge that are no different than what people were using thousands of years ago - we 'talk' at the learner either in written text or lectures. It worked in the past only because people had plenty of time for learning the one skill they'd use the rest of their life.

Today, that's absurd. If you're in the technology field, more than half of your technical knowledge becomes outdated within 18 months (or so the estimates say).

We are all constantly in a state of learning and unlearning, but we're using centuries-old methods for communicating it. The Internet doesn't help, since it's still delivering things in the same old way (mostly words pushed at you which you're supposed to passively absorb), only in far, far greater quantities.

What will you be speaking about at linux.conf.au 2007?

How to Create Passionate Users. :)

How to take what we've learned from those other domains I mentioned (game design, cognitive science, neurobiology, entertainment, etc.) and apply them to everything from product design and user documentation to building a community of users and developing t-shirts and other 'tribe items'.

What are your thoughts on Free and Open Source Software, and how does the concept of FOSS relate to your work in cognition?

The majority of FOSS efforts aren't doing a good job in two crucial areas: getting more people involved in the project (other than code contributors) and getting more end-users for the non-developer applications. Look at OpenOffice, for example - they've done a terrible job of helping their target audience - all those people working in offices using Word - learn to use the program. There are only a few people who are out there trying to hold people's hands and help them make the transition to OpenOffice, when this should have been a huge priority. When I used to go to the OpenOffice.org site (haven't been there in a while, so I hope it's improved), it felt like a place for developers, not end-users who wanted to use a non-Microsoft word processing tool!

So, I think FOSS is an area that could use some help in creating passionate users, and to me - one of the most exciting things about the approach we take is that it doesn't require a big marketing budget (or really ANY marketing budget). Anyone can apply many of these principles and make a dramatic difference. In fact, it's an advantage to not have a marketing/ad budget, because that just distracts you from what matters... all that matters is the ways in which you can help your users kick ass. We always say that a company should take the marketing staff and have them help make the user manuals more beautiful.