At the beginning of each year, John Brockman’s Edge poses a question to a long list (192 this year!) of thinkers and authors. The ensuing onslaught of insight is then published for us all to enjoy. This year he asks: What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation? Scientists’ greatest pleasure comes from theories that derive the solution to some deep puzzle from a small set of simple principles in a surprising way. These explanations are called “beautiful” or “elegant”. Historical examples are Kepler’s explanation of complex planetary…
Future
-
Most Topular Stories
-
Edge Question 02012
Long Views: The Long Now Blog27 Jan 2012 | 11:20 am -
Sentient Developments Podcast Rebooted
Accelerating Future20 Jan 2012 | 8:41 pmThis was sent to me by George Dvorsky: Transhumanist-themed podcast: George Dvorsky’s Sentient Developments After a three year hiatus, George Dvorsky has rekindled his futurist-themed podcast, Sentient Developments. The show serves as a counterpart to his blog of the same name and covers similar topics, often in more detail and with accompanying clips and interviews for added depth and insight. The Sentient Developments Podcast, which runs weekly, deals with a number of issues familiar to the readers of AF. As an explicitly transhumanist-themed podcast, Dvorsky deals directly with the… -
First 3D structural model of cancer-prevention molecule
KurzweilAI » News27 Jan 2012 | 5:58 amThe c-Cbl protein can switch between two shapes (credit: Hao Dou, et al./Nature)Cancer Research UK scientists have mapped the first 3D structure of a key protein that protects against the development of cancer.The team at Cancer Research UK’s Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, in Glasgow used X-ray analysis to map the structure of a protein called c-Cbl and showed that it changes shape when it is switched on.c-Cbl controls cell growth , which when unregulated causes cells to divide excessively and can lead to cancer. The protein is defective in some leukemia patients. Discovering that… -
Give Today!
The Singularity Institute Blog20 Jan 2012 | 9:16 amThis is the last week to contribute to the 2011 Singularity Institute Winter Fundraiser. Please contribute, so we can we can hire more full-time researchers to make progress formalizing and solving open problems in the mathematics, decision theory, and cognitive science of AI risk research, bringing mankind closer to a beneficial Singularity. Thank you for your support! -
The Future Isn't What It Used to Be (TL;DR version)
Open the Future17 Jan 2012 | 2:34 pmTechnology foresight has been stuck for the last 10-20 years; we need to be paying more attention to social-cultural futurism.
-
Long Views: The Long Now Blog
-
Edge Question 02012
27 Jan 2012 | 11:20 amAt the beginning of each year, John Brockman’s Edge poses a question to a long list (192 this year!) of thinkers and authors. The ensuing onslaught of insight is then published for us all to enjoy. This year he asks: What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation? Scientists’ greatest pleasure comes from theories that derive the solution to some deep puzzle from a small set of simple principles in a surprising way. These explanations are called “beautiful” or “elegant”. Historical examples are Kepler’s explanation of complex planetary… -
Jim Richardson Ticket Info
24 Jan 2012 | 4:55 pmThe Long Now Foundation’s monthly Seminars About Long-term Thinking Jim Richardson on “Heirlooms: Saving Humanity’s 10,000 Year Legacy of Food” TICKETS Wednesday February 22, 02012 at 7:30pm Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Long Now Members can reserve 2 seats, join today! • General Tickets $10 About this Seminar: Agricultural biodiversity is as much in need of defending as the world’s wildlife. Countless varieties of plants and animals were bred by the world’s peoples for talents specific to every soil, climate, and human culture. Most of them have been… -
Envisioning the Future of Technology
24 Jan 2012 | 12:39 pmLong Now Research Fellow Stuart Candy brought to our attention this visualization, which shows projections of what sorts of technologies will be available in the future, how soon, and how important they will be. It was created by London-based designer Michell Zappa, who leads a ‘technological trend bureau’ called Envisioning Technology. Their website explains that they seek to describe “where society is inexorably heading in the near future.” Our research facilitates understanding the field for those who work in technology by painting a bigger picture of where the… -
Long Now Media Update
20 Jan 2012 | 6:16 pmLISTEN (downloads tab) Lawrence Lessig’s “How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It” There is new media available from our monthly series, the Seminars About Long-term Thinking. Stewart Brand’s summaries and audio downloads or podcasts of the talks are free to the public; Long Now members can view HD video of the Seminars and comment on them. -
Clock Project Update from Jeff Bezos
19 Jan 2012 | 12:00 pmBelow is the Clock Project update by Jeff Bezos published at http://www.10000yearclock.net Quick Update and Video of the Raise Bore Milestone We just completed the 12½ foot diameter, 500 foot deep vertical shaft for the 10,000 Year Clock. We used a mining technique called raise boring. Take a look at the video – it’s an interesting operation. Instead of drilling down from the top, you pull a large diameter reamer up to the surface from the bottom using a smaller diameter pilot hole – more efficient than a top-down drill because the rubble isn’t fighting gravity. It…
-
Accelerating Future
-
Sentient Developments Podcast Rebooted
20 Jan 2012 | 8:41 pmThis was sent to me by George Dvorsky: Transhumanist-themed podcast: George Dvorsky’s Sentient Developments After a three year hiatus, George Dvorsky has rekindled his futurist-themed podcast, Sentient Developments. The show serves as a counterpart to his blog of the same name and covers similar topics, often in more detail and with accompanying clips and interviews for added depth and insight. The Sentient Developments Podcast, which runs weekly, deals with a number of issues familiar to the readers of AF. As an explicitly transhumanist-themed podcast, Dvorsky deals directly with the… -
Machine Morality Addressed in New York Times Op-Ed by Colin Allen
4 Jan 2012 | 10:21 pmFrom the New York Times Opinionator blog: A robot walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have a screwdriver.” A bad joke, indeed. But even less funny if the robot says “Give me what’s in your cash register.” The fictional theme of robots turning against humans is older than the word itself, which first appeared in the title of Karel Čapek’s 1920 play about artificial factory workers rising against their human overlords. Just 22 years later, Isaac Asimov invented the “Three Laws of Robotics” to serve as a hierarchical ethical code for the robots in his stories: first, never harm a… -
Tyler Cowen at Singularity Summit 2011
20 Dec 2011 | 4:08 am -
Peter Thiel at Singularity Summit 2011
20 Dec 2011 | 4:07 am -
Max Tegmark at Singularity Summit 2011
20 Dec 2011 | 4:04 am
-
KurzweilAI » News
-
First 3D structural model of cancer-prevention molecule
27 Jan 2012 | 5:58 amThe c-Cbl protein can switch between two shapes (credit: Hao Dou, et al./Nature)Cancer Research UK scientists have mapped the first 3D structure of a key protein that protects against the development of cancer.The team at Cancer Research UK’s Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, in Glasgow used X-ray analysis to map the structure of a protein called c-Cbl and showed that it changes shape when it is switched on.c-Cbl controls cell growth , which when unregulated causes cells to divide excessively and can lead to cancer. The protein is defective in some leukemia patients. Discovering that… -
Biologists discover rotational motion of breast cells, required to avoid malignancy
27 Jan 2012 | 4:50 amAfter five days of mitosis and CAMo, polarized breast cells have assembled into an acinar sphere with a lumen in the center (inset) (credit: Berkeley Lab)In a study that holds major implications for breast cancer research and basic cell biology, scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a rotational motion that plays a critical role in the ability of breast cells to form the spherical structures in the mammary gland known as acini.This rotation, which the researchers call “CAMo,” for coherent angular… -
Gingrich proposes Moon base by 2020
27 Jan 2012 | 4:21 amDomed lunar settlement (credit: Pat Rawlings/NASA)Newt Gingrich has called for a bold, aggressive space program that would establish a permanent base on the Moon by 2020, along with a next-generation propulsion system for taking humans to Mars, and commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism, and manufacturing.Transcript of the speech, courtesy of the National Space Society. -
‘Super Wi-Fi’ blankets first county in US
27 Jan 2012 | 1:29 amNew Hanover County, North Carolina, recently rolled out “Super Wi-Fi,” operating in the “white spaces” between 50–700Mhz, where previously only television stations were allowed to transmit, reports Technology Review Mim’s Bits blog.This could mean high-speed wireless connections for the county’s residents, and also the potential to connect to Wi-Fi towers that are miles distant (not possible with conventional Wi-Fi).However, high-power Super Wi-Fi signals (up to four watts), which can travel for miles, must give TV channels a wide berth. Low-power… -
Scientists create femtosecond atomic X-ray laser
27 Jan 2012 | 1:21 amA powerful X-ray laser pulse from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's Linac Coherent Light Source comes up from the lower-left corner (green) and hits a neon atom (center), which emit more X-rays, creating a domino effect that amplifies the laser light 200 million times. (Credit: Gregory M. Stewart/SLACj/Nature)Lawrence Livermore Lab (LLNL) scientists and international collaborators have created the shortest, purest X-ray laser pulses ever achieved, fulfilling a 45-year-old prediction and ultimately opening the door to new medicines, devices and materials.The researchers aimed…
-
The Singularity Institute Blog
-
Give Today!
20 Jan 2012 | 9:16 amThis is the last week to contribute to the 2011 Singularity Institute Winter Fundraiser. Please contribute, so we can we can hire more full-time researchers to make progress formalizing and solving open problems in the mathematics, decision theory, and cognitive science of AI risk research, bringing mankind closer to a beneficial Singularity. Thank you for your support! -
Singularity Institute Progress Report, December 2011
16 Jan 2012 | 4:35 pm“I think the Singularity Institute has some very smart people working on the most important mission on Earth, but… what exactly are they doing these days? I’m in the dark.” There’s a good reason I hear this comment so often. We haven’t done a good job of communicating our progress to our supporters. Since being appointed Executive Director of the Singularity Institute (SI) in November, I’ve been working to change that. I gave two Q&As about SI and explained our research program with a list of open problems in AI risk research. Now, I’d like… -
Paper: The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
13 Jan 2012 | 12:48 amThere is a new paper by Nick Bostrom and Eliezer Yudkowsky on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence. It will appear in the Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence: The possibility of creating thinking machines raises a host of ethical issues. These questions relate both to ensuring that such machines do not harm humans and other morally relevant beings, and to the moral status of the machines themselves. The first section discusses issues that may arise in the near future of AI. The second section outlines challenges for ensuring that AI operates safely as it approaches humans… -
Q&A #2 with Luke Muehlhauser, Singularity Institute Executive Director
13 Jan 2012 | 12:34 amSingularity Institute Activities Bugmaster asks: …what does the SIAI actually do? You don’t submit your work to rigorous scrutiny by your peers in the field… you either aren’t doing any AGI research, or are keeping it so secret that no one knows about it… and you aren’t developing any practical applications of AI, either… So, what is it that you are actually working on, other than growing the SIAI itself ? It’s a good question, and my own biggest concern right now. Donors would like to know: Where is the visible return on investment? How can I… -
Interview with Robin Powell, Singularity Institute Advocate
12 Jan 2012 | 10:39 pmLuke Muehlhauser: Robin, you’ve been donating $200 a month since August 2004. That adds up to more than $20,000, making you our 8th largest publicly listed donor! Why do you support the Singularity Institute like this? Robin Powell: I honestly believe that a beneficial Singularity is the best hope that humanity has for long-term survival. Having spent hundreds of hours researching the various people and groups that are actively working on Singularity-related issues, the Singularity Institute is the only one that I really feel has their eyes on the right ball, which is the Friendly AI…
-
Open the Future
-
The Future Isn't What It Used to Be (TL;DR version)
17 Jan 2012 | 2:34 pmTechnology foresight has been stuck for the last 10-20 years; we need to be paying more attention to social-cultural futurism. -
The Future Isn't What It Used to Be
17 Jan 2012 | 2:18 pmForesight is not about making predictions. Rather, it's a tool for identifying dynamics of change, in part by exploring the implications of those changes. This is a point I've made often enough that even I'm sick of it -- but it remains an idea that not enough people understand. It's next to useless to say "X will happen;" it's much more valuable to say "here's why X could happen." One of the trickier aspects of this formulation of foresight is the need to keep an eye on how the dynamics of change themselves are evolving. It's easy to get locked into a particular idiom of futurism, calling… -
Our tools don’t make us who we are. We make tools because of who we are.
3 Jan 2012 | 12:15 pmCyberculture legend RU Sirius, editor at the Acceler8or webzine, interviewed Joel Garreau and myself about the Prevail project. (Short summary for those who missed the earlier post: Prevail is an Arizona State University-sponsored non-profit organization looking to build collaborative knowledge about transformative technologies and culture.) In a series of back-and-forth email among the three of us, we discussed everything from the logic of transhumanism to the power of the Occupy movement. In one of his comments, Joel gives one of the best summaries of the Prevail perspective I've yet seen:… -
The Future is a Virus (my Swedish Twitter University "talk")
12 Dec 2011 | 2:33 pmNot literally, of course. But if we think about the future as something that infects us, we gain a new perspective on our world. Human civilization has a weak immune system when it comes to futures. We can sometimes recognize when something big is imminent, and act. We rely on clumsy, inefficient tools like finance, religion, even "look before you leap" to make us look forward and consider our choices. So more often than not, we're taken by surprise, shocked when something big happens "out of the blue." We haven't prepared for big changes. Our immune system needs to be strengthened. But how… -
Swedish Twitter University
7 Dec 2011 | 4:54 pmOn Monday, December 12, I'll be doing a session of Swedish Twitter University. #STU06 - Jamais Cascio: “The Foresight Immune System” If accurate predictions are impossible — and they are — why should we think about the future? In 25 tweets we’ll explore why foresight work remains important and what role it should play in our thinking about the world. Hint: it does for civilization what a vaccination does for our bodies… The concept is that I will prepare 25 tweets, each an individual thought (so not broken up over multiple entries), on my topic. There's an…
-
Next Big Future
-
Quantum Cryptography communication may not be secure for more than one use
27 Jan 2012 | 6:37 pmArxiv- Prisoners of their own device: Trojan attacks on device-independent quantum cryptography (7 pages) Device-independent cryptographic schemes aim to guarantee security to users based only on the output statistics of any components used, and without the need to verify their internal functionality. Since this would protect users against untrustworthy or incompetent manufacturers, sabotage or device degradation, this idea has excited much interest, and many device-independent schemes have been proposed. We point out here a critical weakness of device-independent quantum cryptography for… -
UK sets sights on gene therapy in embryos
27 Jan 2012 | 4:32 pmNature - Public consultation and safety assessment would pave the way for embryo manipulation to treat genetic diseases. Britain has set out a road map towards the first clinical tests of reproductive techniques that combine parents’ genes with DNA from a third party. The approach raises ethical questions, but could spare children from inheriting some rare diseases, including forms of muscular dystrophy and neurodegenerative disorders that affect around 1 in 5,000 people. These conditions are caused by defects in the mitochondria, the ‘power packs’ of the cell, which are inherited from… -
Cool Nano Loudspeakers Could Make for Better MRIs, Quantum Computers
27 Jan 2012 | 4:23 pmNIST - A team of physicists from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), the Neils Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Harvard University has developed a theory describing how to both detect weak electrical signals and cool electrical circuits using light and something very like a nanosized loudspeaker.* If demonstrated through experiment, the work could have a tremendous impact on detection of low-power radio signals, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and the developing field of quantum information science. "We envision coupling a nanomechanical membrane to an electrical circuit so that an… -
1000 times less energy to produce the microbubbles which can be used in Algae Biofuel Production
27 Jan 2012 | 4:10 pmA solution to the difficult issue of harvesting algae for use as a biofuel has been developed using microbubble technology pioneered at the University of Sheffield. The technique builds on previous research in which microbubbles were used to improve the way algae is cultivated. Algae produce an oil which can be processed to create a useful biofuel. Biofuels, made from plant material, are considered an important alternative to fossil fuels and algae, in particular, has the potential to be a very efficient biofuel producer. Until now, however, there has been no cost-effective method of… -
Cardiac muscle cells have been loaded onto a 3D silk scaffold
27 Jan 2012 | 3:48 pmDamaged human heart muscle cannot be regenerated. Scar tissue grows in place of the damaged muscle cells. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim are seeking to restore complete cardiac function with the help of artificial cardiac tissue. They have succeeded in loading cardiac muscle cells onto a three-dimensional scaffold, created using the silk produced by a tropical silkworm. It is a step down a long road towards creating a tissue for repairing damaged hearts. At the university there, coin-sized disks are being produced from the cocoon of the…
-
the Foresight Institute
-
Crowd-sourced protein design a promising path to advanced nanotechnology
24 Jan 2012 | 12:17 pmLess than four years ago we asked here whether online gamers playing Foldit could help perfect the de novo design of proteins that do not exist in nature. Four months ago we reported that Foldit players had succeeded where scientists had failed in solving the structure of an important viral enzyme. Now Scientific American reports that Foldit players have topped scientists in redesigning a protein—the challenge we suggested less than four years ago. From “Online gamers achieve first crowd-sourced redesign of protein“: Obsessive gamers’ hours at the computer have now… -
Foresight co-founder among panelists discussing role of technology in human existence
23 Jan 2012 | 11:35 amForesight Institute Co-Founder and Past President Christine Peterson was among four panelists addressing the role of technology in human existence for a Stanford University Continuing Studies series. From a report in The Stanford Daily by Marshall Watkins “Bay Area thinkers ponder ‘life’“: Christine Peterson, co-founder and president of The Foresight Institute, a public interest group seeking to educate the community on forthcoming technological advances, emphasized the increasingly prominent role that nanotechnology has come to play. Peterson noted that nanotechnology… -
Magnetic storage systems shrink from a million atoms per bit to twelve
13 Jan 2012 | 2:01 pmResearchers at I.B.M.’s Almaden Research Center have used a scanning tunneling microscope to assemble an array of 96 iron atoms into an antiferromagnetic structure that encodes one byte (eight bits) of information. As reported in the NY Times by John Markoff “New storage device is very small, at 12 atoms“: SAN JOSE, Calif. — Researchers at I.B.M. have stored and retrieved digital 1s and 0s from an array of just 12 atoms, pushing the boundaries of the magnetic storage of information to the edge of what is possible. The findings, being reported Thursday in the journal… -
Advanced nanofactories in twenty years?
12 Jan 2012 | 9:12 pmThe potential of advanced nanotechnology is getting some attention from mainstream media. Late last year The Guardian web site posted a brief article on the prospects for nanofactories and atomically precise manufacturing, featuring quotes from Christine Peterson and Robert Freitas. From “Nanofactories – a future vision” by Penny Sarchet: Mimicking nature is a recurring theme in nanotechnology and molecular nanotechnology, inspired by the natural nanostructures found in our own bodies, offers many exciting potential outcomes. “Molecular nanotechnology is the expected… -
First Master's of Science in Nanomedicine degree program in US announced
6 Jan 2012 | 4:31 pmWe received this announcement of the new M.S. in Nanomedicine program from Radiological Technologies University – VT: Radiological Technologies University VT, located in South Bend, Indiana is pleased to announce the approval of the first Master’s of Science in Nanomedicine degree program in the country. The formal approval was granted today through the Indiana Commission for Postsecondary Proprietary Education. Nanomedicine is the medical application of Nanotechnology which focuses its work at the cellular level to do everything from repairing tissue, to cleaning arteries, to…
-
Soft Machines
-
Slouching towards an industrial policy
12 Jan 2012 | 4:35 pmThe UK’s Science Minister, David Willetts, gave a speech last week on “Our High Tech Future”. The headlines about it were dominated by one somewhat odd policy announcement, which I’ll come to later, but what’s more interesting is the fact that he chose (apparently at quite short notice) to give the speech at all, only weeks after the publication of a strategy for “Innovation and Research for Growth”, that was widely regarded as, at best, a retrospective attempt to give coherence to a series of rather random acts of policy. I’m tempted to… -
A little history of bionanotechnology and nanomedicine
19 Dec 2011 | 2:46 amI wrote this piece as a briefing note in connection with a study being carried out by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics about Emerging Biotechnologies. I’m not sure whether bionanotechnology or nanomedicine should be considered as emerging biotechnologies, but this is an attempt to sketch out the connections. Nanotechnology is not a single technology; instead it refers to a wide range of techniques and methods for manipulating matter on length scales from a nanometer or so – i.e. the typical size of molecules – to hundreds of nanometers, with the aim of creating new materials… -
Science in hard times
12 Dec 2011 | 9:13 amHow should the hard economic times we’re going through affect the amount of money governments spend on scientific and technological research? The answer depends on your starting point – if you think that science is an optional extra that we do if we’re prosperous, then decreasing prosperity must inevitably mean we can afford to do less science. But if you think that our prosperity depends on the science we do, then if growth is starting to stall, that’s a signal telling you to devote more resources to research. This is a huge oversimplification, of course; the link… -
Can plastic solar cells deliver?
13 Nov 2011 | 4:42 amThe promise of polymer solar cells is that they will be cheap enough and produced on a large enough scale to transform our energy economy, unlocking the sun’s potential to meet all our energy needs in a sustainable way. But there’s a long way to go from a device in a laboratory, or even a company’s demonstrator product, to an economically viable product that can be made at scale. How big is that gap, are there insuperable obstacles standing in the way, and if not, how long might it take us to get there? Some answers to these questions are now beginning to emerge, and… -
Are you a responsible nanoscientist?
17 Oct 2011 | 4:16 amThis is the pre-edited version of a piece which appeared in Nature Nanotechnology 4, 336-336 (June 2009). The published version can be viewed here (subscription required). What does it mean to be a responsible nanoscientist? In 2008, we saw the European Commission recommend a code of conduct for responsible nanosciences and nanotechnologies research (PDF). This is one of a growing number of codes of conduct being proposed for nanotechnology. Unlike other codes, such as the UK-based Responsible Nanocode, which are focused more on business and commerce, the EU code is aimed squarely at the…
-
Ultrafuture World
-
Global warming will increase drought in much of North America
15 Jan 2012 | 9:48 amWhat is now considered an unusually extreme drought conditions in North America, could be a normal state in that part of the American continent in the middle of this century because of global warming. A team of scientists from U.S. national laboratories, Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore, and U.S. Administration’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA for its acronym in English), has reached this conclusion after analyzing 19 different climate models of last generation. Examining the balance between precipitation and evapotranspiration, the authors of the new… -
The first space launch of 2012 is Chinese
9 Jan 2012 | 8:49 amChina has made the first space launch of the year and he has opened a new series of satellites dedicated to Earth observation for civil tasks. The Ziyuan-3A (ZY-3A) departed from the base of Taiyuan at 3:17 UTC on January 9, aboard a CZ-4B rocket. Although not many details of its configuration, the ZY-3, of 2,630 kg, carrying three cameras, high-resolution geologic mapping tasks. These panchromatic cameras that are accompanied by other multispectral infrared range. As the satellite advances along its polar sun-synchronous orbit, about 500 km altitude, you can see almost any area of the… -
In certain regions, deforestation can cool rather than warm
20 Dec 2011 | 9:42 amMany scientists believe that deforestation contributes greatly to global warming. But new research from Yale University shows that in fact in some northern latitudes contributes to a climate cooling locally. If trees are cut down a lot in the boreal region, above 45 degrees north latitude, yields a net cooling effect. By cutting down the trees, just releasing carbon into the atmosphere, which contributes to the greenhouse effect, but then increases the albedo of the ground if it is light in color (or is covered with snow), and therefore more sunlight reflected into space, light can no longer…
-
Ethical Technology
-
Message To Humanity: The Time is Now - The Revolution Is Coming!
27 Jan 2012 | 6:44 am“The 99% are rising up! Everywhere, people are waking up and realizing how the world works and that their rights as free human beings are slowly being taken away from them.. “ -
Andrea Kuszewski Solutions For A Creativity Crisis: A Look At Cuba’s Technological Disobedience
27 Jan 2012 | 6:15 amWhen you think of the ideal creative environment, what comes to mind? We may imagine a place where you have freedom of expression, a place that encourages breaking convention, somewhere that is abundant in resources that are readily accessible for innovative development of technology, and exposure to many different cultures for inspiration and collaboration. So as you imagine this ultimate creative playground, does Cuba come to mind? From what we know of Cuba, especially since the embargo in the 1960s, it seems like anything but the ideal creativity-inspiring environment. A Cuban-American… -
Charlie Chaplin’s Message to Humanity
27 Jan 2012 | 6:01 amRevolutionary video, includes Charlie Chaplin’s amazing speech in “The Great Dictator.” -
George Dvorsky Video-gaming Pets, the Future of Nonhuman Animals, and Cultural Uplift
27 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amI was recently interviewed by Sebastian Alvarez of Wanderlust. We covered such topics as video-gaming pets, the future of nonhuman animals, and cultural uplift. Check it out: Wanderlust: There has been a recent increase of Internet videos that depict humans enabling their pets to “play” video games on smart-phones and video game consoles. Similarly, in order to gain new insight into animal behavior, scientists have been experimenting with multimedia-enabled devices in the last decades. Today, along scientists, game designers are trying to merge human spaces with pet spaces through… -
Symphony of Science - The Greatest Show on Earth! (music video about Evolution)
27 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amA musical celebration of the wonders of biology, including evolution, natural selection, DNA, and more. Featuring David Attenborough, Richard Dawkins and Bill Nye.
-
The Technium
-
Undetectable Technology
19 Jan 2012 | 1:31 amKarl Schroeder, science fiction author of the novel Permanence, writes about the Fermi Paradox. The Fermi Paradox says that if there is an infinite universe there must be an infinite number of civilizations at advance stages that would emit evidence... -
We Are Stardust
16 Jan 2012 | 1:11 pmEvery year at year's end the intellectual impresario (and my literary agent) John Brockman asks his clients and friends a Question. For 2012 the question was WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION? About 200 of us answered,... -
A Whole Lot of Nothing
15 Jan 2012 | 1:51 amI live about 2 km from the ocean. I rode down on my bike today and just hung out on the shore to watch the waves crashing over each other. This is what it looked like on our beach... -
Making Holes in Our Heart
11 Jan 2012 | 10:36 pm[CES Image by Jaymi Heimbuch] I know the feeling. You are wandering around a huge harshly-lit hall full of tables displaying electronic stuff, new devices that all look the same but claim to be different. It is the CES... -
Sourced Quotes, 12
8 Jan 2012 | 1:52 amPeople who think the Web is killing off serendipity are not using it correctly. -- Steven Johnson, Anatomy of an Idea, December 14, 2011 If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against...
-
Sentient Developments
-
Peter Singer: Let's not send dolphins to war
24 Jan 2012 | 8:12 pmBioethicist and animal rights activist Peter Singer says that the US-Navy is putting dolphins in harm's way in the Persian Gulf and that it is a form of speciesist enslavement that needs to stop. Indeed, it's no secret that the US-Navy has trained dolphins to detect mines. And now, with tensions on the rise in the Middle East, they might be used in the conflict with Iran over its nuclear program. In response to the new sanctions, Iran is threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz--the only sear route out of the Persian Gulf, and what the US Energy Department calls "the world's most important… -
Centauri Dreams: Rethinking SETI's Targets
24 Jan 2012 | 7:15 pmGreat write-up and summary of our recent Dysonian SETI paper by Paul Gilster over at Centauri Dreams. Excerpt: In a recent paper, Robert Bradbury, Milan Ćirković (Astronomical Observatory, Belgrade) and George Dvorsky (Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies) consider whether intergalactic SETI may be an example of what they call a ‘Dysonian’ approach to SETI, one that is a ‘middle ground’ between the traditional radio-centric view (with contact implications) and the hostile reaction of SETI detractors who see no value in the enterprise whatsoever and think the money better… -
Sentient Developments Podcast: Episode 2012.01.23
22 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pmSentient Developments Podcast for the week of January 23, 2012. In this week's episode I talk about the new mathematical study which reveals that our Galaxy should have been colonized by now, why Canadians are considering a ban on prenatal gender information, the growing gender imbalance, the latest on the lab-mutated avian flu, why whales are people, health tips to avoid cognitive decline, and why the sex-chip may not be such a good idea. Tracks used in this episode: Alcest: "Autre Temps" SBTRKT: "Pharoahs" Lower Dens: "Nootropics" Podcast Feed | Subscribe via iTunes -
New mathematical study reveals that our Galaxy should have been colonized by now
21 Jan 2012 | 10:21 amA recent article in the Economist alerted me to a recent paper by Thomas Hair and Andrew Hedman that profoundly reaffirms the conundrum that is the Fermi Paradox, an observational problem that is sometimes referred to as the Great Silence. What's fascinating about the Hair and Hedman paper is that they are not cosmologists or astrobiologists, but rather mathematicians—and it is through the lens of number-cruching that they sought an answer to the question of how long it would take a civilization to colonize its local region given a specific set of parameters. And their findings are… -
Daniel Goure: "Drones don’t kill terrorists, governments do."
20 Jan 2012 | 9:15 pmIn his article, Drones and the changing nature of warfare: Stop the presses!, Daniel Goure makes the case that we should be careful in assessing the impacts of drones and robotics in modern warfare and the claim that they could impact the tendency to go to war.The availability of unmanned aerial systems in no way makes conflict more likely or more brutal. Quite the opposite, in fact, seems to be the case. The presumption that were it not for the availability of drones, the U.S. would refrain from conducting military operations against terrorists based in Pakistan is highly dubious. We have an…
-
Broader Perspective
-
Design and the disruptive startup: dynamic pivoting
22 Jan 2012 | 12:50 pmIn the mashup world of life, business, and web 2.0, spurred on by the Apple-ification of the world (iLife - as a concept not a product), one new idea is applying design to business models, and really by extension, applying design to everything.Unfortunately, this does not mean as one might think, applying aesthetic principles, conceptually and literally, to business, business models, or any life context, adding beauty to function, and thereby function to function, and questioning the right proportionality of form and function.Rather, at present applying design to business models means more… -
Terahertz information compression era
15 Jan 2012 | 10:44 pmInformation compression eras is an important area of futuretech: the progression from analog to digital and the developing friction for the next era.Analog and digital are modes of modulating information onto the electromagnetic spectrum with increasing efficacy.The next era could be characterized by the even greater effectiveness of electromagnetic spectrum control, particularly moving to multidimensional attribute modulation. Already DNA is a potential alternative encoding system with four and maybe eight combinations instead of the 1s and 0s of the digital era. Terahertz networking… -
Personal social CRM
9 Jan 2012 | 1:53 amThe new social CRM (customer relationship management) is personal social CRM. Social CRM is when businesses try to access the social network interactions of their customers for the purpose of extending business relationships. An example would be a customer tweeting something about a product, which a customer advocate notices and posts in the company’s online help forum. The company’s marketing staff is flagged and then responds by retweeting or other appropriate measures.Personal social CRM is applying these corporate social CRM principles to managing interactions within one’s own… -
Top 10 technology trends for 2012
1 Jan 2012 | 1:10 pm1. Mobile is the platform: smartphone apps & device proliferation2. Cloud computing: big data era, hadoop, noSQL, machine learning 3. Gamification of behavior and content generation4. Mobile payments and incentives (e.g.; Amex meets FourSquare)5. Life by Siri, Skyvi, etc. intelligent software assistants6. Happiness 2.0 and social intelligence: mindfulness, calming tech, and empathy building7. Social graph prominence in search (e,g.; music, games, news, shopping)8. Mobile health and quantified self-tracking devices: towards a continuous personal information climate9. Analytics, data… -
Crowdsourcing the stock market
25 Dec 2011 | 6:35 pmNew market tools are emerging that could be much better (real-time and objective) indicators of performance than the traditional methods of speculation-driven stock market price, quarterly reporting, and financial statements.These tech tools are a nice response to the perceived social economic malaise of the times, and could help to realize some of the new thinking promulgated by both theorists and activists that markets are more of a Darwinian game of the fittest rather than an invisible hand meeting favorably for all parties.The new market tools - real-time performance indicators:Prediction…
-
Andart
-
The more genders, the merrier
13 Jan 2012 | 3:33 pmSweden looked set to abandon the law making sterilization mandatory for transgendered people, until a last minute effort of the Christian Democrats managed to derail the change. In today's Svenska Dagbladet one of their ideologists, Lennart Sacrédeus, argues their position:... -
Who watches the virologists?
8 Jan 2012 | 4:21 pmAnother practical ethics blog, Experimenting with oversight with more bite? I blog about the issue of whether there is a need for some mandatory international oversight of potentially dangerous biotechnology. It is a tricky issue, and my view is that... -
Ethics and function approximation
3 Jan 2012 | 12:12 pm(This started as a post on the Extropians list) On 2012-01-01 12:55, Stefano Vaj wrote: > I do think that utilitarian ethical systems can be consistent, that is > that they need not be intrinsically contradictory, but certainly most of... -
The future of identity
29 Dec 2011 | 3:07 pmThe Future of Identity, a report by me and Nick Bostrom commissioned for the UK Office for Science. We are not dealing with a very far future (just the next 15 years or so), so the challenges to identity are... -
Talks for today: why we might want more people and less smart protocols
29 Dec 2011 | 2:38 pmI just remembered today that my colleague Toby Ord a while ago gave an excellent talk about the question whether there is overpopulation or underpopulation in the world, and the talk is online. Very worth watching. Another talk I enjoyed...
-
Futurismic
-
Hang All The Critics: Towards Useful Video Game Writing
18 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amThe Problem It does not take a genius to realise that the world of video game reviewing is completely and utterly fucked. Their reputations sullied by an endless cavalcade of scandal and stupidity, video game reviewers routinely find themselves in the impossible position of having to balance the financial requirements of their publishers with the (frequently unreasonable) expectations of their audience, all the while striving to be completely objective, irreproachably fair, amusingly articulate and uncommonly insightful. Frankly, nobody could satisfy all of these demands at once… -
Out of Destruction, Transformation?
11 Jan 2012 | 1:21 pmMost of my recent columns have been about change, from climate change to twitter. Well, this is a start-of-the-year post, and it seems appropriate to take on change in a big way as the year changes. (more…) Follow Futurismic on Twitter for more nuggets of near-future fun and weirdness! -
Better Writing Through Writing About Writing
21 Dec 2011 | 9:00 amMy life is fairly crammed, and writing time is hard to come by. Today I got one of those precious blocks of time in which I could write for several hours almost without interruption, yet as I fired up the computer, I felt not excited about the prospect, but worried and on edge. I also felt a little unsure: I had several projects I could be working on and was waffling on which one to choose. (more…) Follow Futurismic on Twitter for more nuggets of near-future fun and weirdness! -
A chat with Eric Drexler
8 Dec 2011 | 10:59 amNot over coffee and cakes, sadly, but you take what you can get in this crazy world, AMIRITEZ? So when I got the chance to email Eric Drexler – yup, the nanotech guy – with some follow-up questions responding to his inaugural lecture at Oxford Martin College last month, I jumped in with both feet… and you can see the results over H+ Magazine, who very kindly ran the piece despite a bout of rather unprofessional behaviour on my part, for which I publicly extend further apologies. (No big story, beyond yours truly acting like a precious and short-tempered dick. Who’d… -
Skyrim and the Quest for Meaning
7 Dec 2011 | 10:00 amLithium I’m old enough to remember when video games were comparatively simple things. For example, I remember the side-scrolling video game adaptation of Robocop (1988). Relatively short, Robocop had you shooting and jumping your way from one side of the world to another. Once you got to the end of one world, you moved to another, and then another… and then the worlds started repeating themselves in slightly different colours. These games were simple to understand: you immediately knew what you were expected to do and what constituted victory. Nearly twenty-five years on, video game…
-
Overcoming Bias
-
Far Idealism Hypocrisy
27 Jan 2012 | 7:15 amNot everything fits this story, but an awful lot does: we are more idealistic in far mode, which helps us hypocritically hold others to higher standards than we hold ourselves: In 6 studies, we found that advice is more idealistic than choice in decisions that trade off idealistic and pragmatic considerations. We propose that because advisers are more psychologically distant from the choosers’ decision problem, they construe the dilemma at a higher construal level than do choosers. … Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that compared with choosers, advisers weigh idealistic considerations more… -
Who Talks Politics?
26 Jan 2012 | 8:10 amUsing data from a nationally representative survey of registered voters conducted around the 2008 U.S. presidential election … [we find that] people discussed politics as frequently as (or more frequently than) other topics such as family, work, sports, and entertainment with frequent discussion partners. … The frequency with which a topic is discussed is strongly and positively associated with reported agreement on that topic among these same discussion partners, … because people avoid discussing politics when they anticipate disagreement. (more) Political talk is quite different… -
Who Wants Kid $ Insure?
25 Jan 2012 | 10:00 amFinancial inequality seems to be shaping up as a central issue in the US presidential campaign. (Other sorts of inequality, not so much.) Many note that such inequality has increased in recent decades. But let me repeat my anti-trend-tracking matra: if what matters is the efficiency of our institutions, trends are irrelevant unless they reveal such inefficiencies. So are the institutions that influence our financial inequality inefficient? Probably the simplest and strongest argument is insurance market failure: being risk-averse, we want to insure against variations in our distant future… -
Virtual Office Design
23 Jan 2012 | 7:00 pmImagine that you have an office job (as most of you do). Full of meetings, memos, reports, proposals, phone and email ping pong, informal gossip in the hall or over lunch, etc. Now imagine that you work in a virtual office. That is, while you are actually lying at home in your VR pod (or being an em brain in a data center), you experience yourself as sharing a virtual office complex with your work colleagues. Sitting at your desk working at your computer, talking in a meeting, chatting with a neighbor in his doorway, or perhaps walking the cubicles to feel the buzz. OK, now ask yourself: how… -
Sex Ratio & Violence
23 Jan 2012 | 3:50 pmAfter some prodding by TGGP, I tried to dig into data studies on the relation between violence and sex ratios. Alas this seems to be one of those areas where results are all across the map: More men make more violence: here, here, More men make less violence: here, here, here. Mixed results: here, here. I quit, and tentatively conclude the evidence is unclear.
-
speculist.com
-
Do-it-Yourself Life Extension — FastForward Radio
24 Jan 2012 | 9:36 pmHey, want to live longer? Our friend Christine Peterson joins us to discuss how people are taking achieving a longer and healthier life into their own hands. The second Personalized Life Extension Conference is coming to the South San Francisco Conference Center March 31- April 1 2012. This looks like a tremendous follow-up to the 2010 event, with a program focused on anti-aging strategies and tactics for a long, healthy life. A jam-packed agenda will cover myriad important topics, including Food wars: Paleo, Mediterranean, vegan, raw? To supplement or not to supplement? Does a DNA test… -
The Exercise Pill — FastForward Radio
18 Jan 2012 | 11:54 amPhil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon continue to delve into the shocking truth about what’s happening in the world. This week they examine further evidence that things are simply not as they seem… A pill that emulates the effects of exercise? A quieter and less damaging approach to wind power? SOPA is dead (or is it?) A 16 acre farm on a single reidential lot? Do you see a trend? If you don’t, be sure to tune in — we have many more examples. Wednesday January 18, 7 PM PST 10 PM EST -
Personalized Life Extension Conference
16 Jan 2012 | 2:22 pmHey, want to live longer? The second Personalized Life Extension Conference is coming to the South San Francisco Conference Center March 31- April 1 2012. This looks like a tremendous follow-up to the 2010 event, with a program focused on anti-aging strategies and tactics for a long, healthy life. A jam-packed agenda will cover myriad important topics, including Food wars: Paleo, Mediterranean, vegan, raw? To supplement or not to supplement? Does a DNA test give actionable results? Can too much exercise hurt lifespan? The event boasts a terrific lineup of speakers, including World Transformed… -
The Shocking Truth — FastForward Radio
11 Jan 2012 | 3:12 pmPhil and Stephen respond to a challenge from our good friend Maria Konnavolenko, who writes: We, as well as the leaders of transhumanism all over the world, have a challenge to deal with. It is the development of a convincing advertising, agitprop content that attracts attention to our topic. We also must impel people to act in favor of radical life extension. We need video-blogs, scientific and popular science lectures, movies, ads and virus videos. We hardly have anything, and anyway if there’s something then it’s rather low quality… The number of supporters is growing, but… -
FastForward Radio — 10 Things to Look Forward to in 2012 — and Beyond
4 Jan 2012 | 5:41 pmHappy New Year! Phil and Stephen talk about exoskeletons for parapalegics, newly discovered lost worlds, tapping into the fountain of youth, and other exciting possibilities opening up in the year 2012 — and beyond. Listen to internet radio with The Speculist on Blog Talk Radio Here’s the full list of things to look forward to: 12 (Drummers Drumming*) Exoskeletons 11 (Pipers Piping) Get Appy 10 (Lords a Leaping) Thin TV 9 (Ladies Dancing) SpaceX to Visit Space Station 8 (Maids a Milking) Fountain of Youth for Mice? 7 (Swans a Swimming) Solar Grid Parity / Building a Better Sun…
-
PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories
-
Scientists rediscover self-healing silicone mechanism from the 1950s
28 Jan 2012 | 7:40 am(PhysOrg.com) -- Research in self-healing organic polymers has grown recently, but one simple self-healing mechanism from more than 60 years ago has been nearly forgotten until now. Using this mechanism, which is called “siloxane equilibration,” scientists have demonstrated that silicone rubber that has been cut in half with a razor blade can completely repair itself through heat-activated reversible bonding. The self-healing mechanism could have applications in a variety of areas, such as for designing self-healing surfaces of vehicles and countertops. -
NVIDIA dresses up CUDA parallel computing platform
28 Jan 2012 | 6:50 am(PhysOrg.com) -- This week’s NVIDIA announcement of a dressed up version of its CUDA parallel computing platform is targeted as a good news message for engineers, biologists, chemists, physicists, geophysicists, and other researchers on fast-track computations using GPUs. The new version features an LLVM (low-level virtual machine)-based CUDA compiler, new imaging and signal processing functions added to the NVIDIA Performance Primitives library and a redesigned Visual Profiler with automated performance analysis and expert guidance. NVIDIA says the new enhancements are ways to advance… -
Common brain receptor in eyes may link epilepsy, cataracts and antidepressants
28 Jan 2012 | 6:15 amResearchers from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) and Columbia University have discovered that the most common receptor for the major neurotransmitter in the brain is also present in the lens of the eye, a finding that may help explain links between cataracts, epilepsy and use of a number of widely prescribed antiepileptic and antidepressant drugs. The research appears online in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. -
'We care about every worker': Apple CEO
28 Jan 2012 | 6:10 amApple chief executive Tim Cook has responded to media reports alleging harsh working conditions in China for manufacturing employees of the popular gadget-maker. -
NASA sees a weakening Cyclone Funso's 'closed eye'
28 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amPowerful Cyclone Funso's eye has been clear in NASA satellite imagery over the last several days until NASA's Aqua satellite noticed it had "closed" and become filled with high clouds on January 27.
-
FUTUREdition
-
Volume 15, Number 1
17 Jan 2012 | 8:21 pmVolume 15, Number 1 - 1/15/12 FUTURE FACTS - FROM THINK LINKS DID YOU KNOW THAT… “If I Die” is a Facebook app that makes sure that, after you die, your social self can still send out your last wishes and post messages to your friends years after you’re gone. Recent earthquakes in Ohio and Oklahoma have been directly [...] -
Volume 14, Number 24
2 Jan 2012 | 6:13 pmVolume 14, Number 24 - 12/30/11 FUTURE FACTS - FROM THINK LINKS DID YOU KNOW THAT… New research from the Aerospace Institute of the University of Stuttgart supports the theory that water has a memory–a claim that could change our whole way of looking at the world. The type of instant download-type learning seen in The Matrix may soon [...] -
Volume 14, Number 23
18 Dec 2011 | 3:08 pmVolume 14, Number 23 - 12/15/11 FUTURE FACTS - FROM THINK LINKS DID YOU KNOW THAT… Swedbank saw over a third of its ATMs in Latvia wiped out recently due to intentionally false rumors spread on Twitter that the bank was in trouble. A pair of diamond crystals big enough for the eye to see have been placed in [...]
-
Institute For The Future
-
Snacks, Choices, and the Future of Eating
26 Jan 2012 | 12:24 amteaser: Over the past few years IFTF’s Global Food Outlook research has focused on food choices and how the values people hold, the contexts that surround them, and people’s behaviors themselves, will change in the coming decade. Most recently we have been researching a more specific subset of these questions, with a focus on snacking among American women. What will they eat that is not part of a traditional meal, and more importantly, why? Over the past few years IFTF’s Global Food Outlook Program research has focused on food choices and how the values people hold, the contexts… -
Vivian Distler, May 1965 - December 2011
25 Jan 2012 | 11:15 pmteaser: IFTF has lost a dear colleague and a bright node in its network community in December. Vivian Distler, a Director of Research and Collaborative Networks at IFTF, has passed away. Her colleagues on the Health Horizons team and across the Institute and its broader community will miss her insights, her laughter, her friendship, and her caring. IFTF has lost a dear colleague and a bright node in its network community in December. Vivian Distler, a Director of Research and Collaborative Networks at IFTF, has passed away. Her colleagues on the Health Horizons team and across the… -
Food Futures, Food Choices: Ongoing Research and Public Release
25 Jan 2012 | 8:13 pmteaser: This year Global Food Outlook will continue exploring how the complex global food web impacts everyday peoples’ experience of eating, and how everyday peoples' food choices, collectively, impact the global food web and the larger environment. In June, we will release our food futures research agenda for 2012 and 2013, this time focusing on the intersections of food and emerging technologies. This year Global Food Outlook will continue exploring how the complex global food web impacts everyday peoples’ experience of eating, and how everyday peoples' food choices,… -
The Re-working of "Work"
24 Jan 2012 | 1:27 pmteaser: The nature of work and careers is poised to change dramatically in the coming years. While there have been a number of shifts in the ways that we work over the last generation, the Institute for the Future’s research increasingly suggests that a qualitative shift, perhaps an order of magnitude greater than the outsourcing revolution, could now be taking shape. The very idea of “work” is being re-worked. Recent Press IFTF made Fast Company's list of 5 innovative nonprofits developing responses to the changing world of work Fast Company's Education Writer Anya Kamentetz… -
The Future of Science, Technology & Well-Being: A Ten-Year View
5 Dec 2011 | 5:22 pmteaser: In 2010, Health Horizons set out to research the future of science, technology, and well-being. The research was designed to inspire you to consider new possibilities, such as how technology can enable us to remake our bodies and minds; how social networks can be programmed to improve our individual and collective well-being; and how technology can provide us with high-resolution previews of the health risks and assets in our day-to-day environment. We are pleased to release publicly our 2010 Health Horizons research materials: The Future of Science, Technology,…
-
MediaFuturist
-
ifttt update: 'Google Talk channel' gets a bot upgrade
27 Jan 2012 | 6:29 pmPlease welcome bot@ifttt.com to your Google Talk contacts and edit the Google Talk channel for improved performance http://ifttt.com/channels/google_talk puts the internet to work for you. via task 578219 -
Income inequality: Who exactly are the 1%? | The Economist
26 Jan 2012 | 1:16 am"The richest 1% earn roughly half their income from wages and salaries, a quarter from self-employment and business income, and the remainder from interest, dividends, capital gains and rent. According to an analysis of tax returns by Jon Bakija of Williams College and two others, 16% of the top 1% were in medical professions and 8% were lawyers: shares that have changed little between 1979 and 2005, the latest year the authors examined (see chart). The most striking shift has been the growth of financial occupations, from just under 8% of the wealthy in 1979 to 13.9% in 2005. Their… -
Audi's Future: Self-Driving Cars, Dual HUDs, LTE
25 Jan 2012 | 3:59 amSome smart stuff by Audi, see below. Clearly, a car than can be both self-driven or driven by me, and maybe does not have a tailpipe (it would be crucial, in my view, to be fully electric rather than hybrid), and is fully connected to all kinds of digital services, will be very popular. Just think of the possibility of facilitated car-sharing using social networks - how much traffic reduction could we achieve with that? And better yet, maybe the car becomes our small private office and we don't actually drive much in it, at all;). Either way, car companies are becoming lifestyle… -
Video with some key messages from me: a penny for your thoughts (Freedom Labs): from Ego to Eco
24 Jan 2012 | 3:52 amFrom 2009 but still one of my favorite videos about my work (and nice audio / video collage) Related articles The Future of Digital - Eco NOT Ego (futureof.biz) Gerd Leonhard: Mission 2012 are Green Futures. (thefuturesagency.com) 10 Best Innovations of 2011 (futurist.com) Mission 2012: Green Futures. Plus, my first public talk on Green Business: EcoSummit Berlin March 22nd (mediafuturist.com) -
Kickstarter - Funding to Turn Passions into Businesses (Forbes)
24 Jan 2012 | 2:03 amI tend to agree with sentiment - crowd funding is becoming feasible. Nevertheless, it can be a very brutal experience for those who try it and fail, so... Beware of your expectations. Giving money is the utmost expression of giving attention, in a way, but it is also crossing a border between non-rivalrous goods and rivalrous goods. Kickstarter - Funding to Turn Passions into Businesses - Forbes "I’m a huge fan of the Kickstarter service and have backed several projects because I believe in what they are doing. The reason I’m a huge fan is they make it possible for a new company to…
-
Diary Of A Madman
-
{Follow Up} Why Entertainment Industry still has Digital all wrong - Midem 2012
12 Jan 2012 | 1:15 pmThanks to all of you that have emailed me regarding my post, I do enjoy the emails that I receive from around the world - and there were a number of questions posed that I decided to add as a supplement Blog post to the original post from yesterday......(read more) -
Why Entertainment Industry still has Digital all wrong - Midem 2012
11 Jan 2012 | 10:41 amWith Midem only two weeks away, the South of France will again, be a stage for the music industry to work itself into a frenzy to figure out the best route forward into discovering how to rescue itself from the brink of its own self-importance/ destruction....(read more) -
2012 Search: Who will find you & how?
4 Jan 2012 | 9:59 amIn 2011 Google did the unthinkable or for a lot of people, the “about time” by dropping their all new Panda algorithm that would change the old school way that it had spidered and indexed sites previously. This in part was a pre-cursor for Google+ and...(read more) -
2011 Review & 2012 Road Ahead
1 Jan 2012 | 6:54 pm2011 ended pretty much as it began, and at the same lightening speed... seems to be true what your parents and grand parents tell you, that the older you get the quicker the time passes, and this year seemed to go particularly fast, well in this bloggers...(read more) -
Innovate..Evolve..or become irrelevant (Baby Boomers vs Gen X)
4 Nov 2011 | 10:47 amThe world is a very different place than what it was 20 years ago! Nice opening statement from the ‘school of the bloody obvious’ isn’t it? Well you would think so, 20 years ago back in 1991 we were a very different breed, we had a taster of technology...(read more)
-
Time Human
-
Leonardo da Vinci Pictures
20 Jan 2012 | 5:36 pmHere are some pictures of Leonardo da Vinci: Leonardo's study of the womb His first known sketch Leo's helicopter sketch The Mona Lisa -
The Jet Engine VW Beetle
19 Jan 2012 | 1:59 pmWhat do you get when you combine a jet engine with a VW Beetle? Well, you get what Mr. Ron Patrick created -- this awesome baby! Now aside from this being to coolest Beetle you will ever see in your life, why would you want to put money into something like this if you couldn't even ride it on the street. Hehe, I got some good news for you! It's completely street legal. The only problem is you can't engage the supersonic jet engine on the road. How sad. You're more than welcome to use it's original gasoline engine though! Mr. Ron Patrick - creator of the jet engine beetle, has his PHD in… -
Benjamin Franklin Pictures
19 Jan 2012 | 1:49 pmPictures of the famous inventor Benjamin Franklin: Franklin's birthplace First postage stamp Pictures of other scientists: Albert Einstein Charles Darwin Leonardo da Vinci Nikola Tesla Edwin Hubble -
Nikola Tesla Quotes
16 Jan 2012 | 11:27 pmGreat quotes by the mad scientist Nikola Tesla: If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor. -- Nikola Tesla I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love,… -
Albert Einstein Quotes
16 Jan 2012 | 5:32 pmHere is a comprehensive list of Albert Einstein quotes: We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. -- Albert Einstein Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever. -- Albert Einstein Click here to signup for the FREE Time Human science magazine Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius --…
-
The Fourth Revolution Blog
-
I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become
28 Jan 2012 | 5:30 amThis quote from Carl Jung is powerful. And so true. Create your own way! Our personal responsibility is immense to decide on what we focus on, what we do, what we choose. Most of us choose to let ourselves being carried away by the events of life. We are not our past. We have to choose our future and this is not determined by our past. It is our personal responsibility to become what we want and we should not shy away from it. This personal responsibility is scary. It is challenging. Yet it is what makes us human beings. With the Fourth Revolution, more people than ever before have more… -
Choosing one’s destiny is like deciding to exit a train
26 Jan 2012 | 5:30 amI am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become - Carl Jung. As I was about to write this post about destiny and choice I immediately thought about putting a very conventional picture like this which road do you choose? Which is just a nice way to express this choice problem, basically expressed by the following powerpoint – management presentation type drawing: Decision point But after some thought, I realized that this is not how it happens in life. It is not like you wake up some day and face a decision, which you have to take in any case. It is far more like being… -
What can we learn from Jonathan’s Starbucks card experiment?
24 Jan 2012 | 5:30 amDid you hear about Jonathan’s starbucks card experiment? It’s quite a simple experiment with deep learning in crowdfunding. Jonathan's Starbucks card Jonathan made his starbucks card available to anyone on the internet. Anyone could buy a coffee with it. And anyone could put some money on it. Although it was not intended to be that, the experiment ended up experimenting whether people would refill the card by how much. The experiment is detailed in this post on O’Reilly: “Jonathan’s card: lessons from a social experiment”. Guess what happened? It became… -
Gong Xi Fa Cai! To celebrate the Year of the Dragon, the Fourth Revolution is free on Kindle for another 48h!!
22 Jan 2012 | 3:30 am2012 – the Fourth Revolution year of the Dragon! After the tremendous success of the first Kindle promotion of the Fourth Revolution, to celebrate this new year – the Chinese new year, the Fourth Revolution book on Kindle is free for another 48 hours only! Are you ready for the year of the Dragon? The Fourth Revolution on Amazon.com’s Kindle store The Fourth Revolution on Amazon.co.uk’s Kindle store The Fourth Revolution on Amazon.fr’s Kindle store The Fourth Revolution on Amazon.de’s Kindle store Read the Fourth Revolution book and change your life! Happy new year 2012! -
The real story of K.E.E.N.’s motivation
21 Jan 2012 | 5:30 amThe K.E.E.N. is not anymore motivated by money. She wants to have fun, to bring something to the world, to prove herself. One of the best stories I found is the story of the development of Apple’s graphing calculator. Apple's graphing calculation application Or, how two engineers, against all odds, against Apple itself, have worked hidden for a number of months in Apple’s offices, unpaid, to create a great product. What was their motivation? Let’s use Daniel Pink’s Drive book framework: Autonomy: they did what they wanted to do, deciding by themselves what they…
-
Futurist.com: Futurist Speaker Glen Hiemstra
-
Entering the new year 2012
6 Jan 2012 | 6:34 pmSo, we are back. Had a wonderful holiday in Peru visiting Machu Picchu among other places. Truly an awe inspiring place, matched only by New Zealand’s south island, and parts of the Canadian Rockies for grandeur. We here at Futurist.com continue to work on getting the new site ready to launch. Given that we have [...] To read the rest of this blog, link to sources, watch video, and browse recent blogs continue to Futurist.com -
No more blogging for you
20 Dec 2011 | 8:00 pmWith this blog we’ll be taking a short hiatus here at Futurist.com, until early in the new year of 2012. We wish everyone a wonderful holiday season. Glen Hiemstra To read the rest of this blog, link to sources, watch video, and browse recent blogs continue to Futurist.com -
15 Minutes on Future Consumer Trends
20 Dec 2011 | 7:00 pmAmong my favorite companies is REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.). I’ve been invited to work with them now and then, and this video is a 15 minute excerpt of a keynote that I provided to one of their annual leadership conferences. In this video I discuss demographics and future consumer trends, especially as they relate to [...] To read the rest of this blog, link to sources, watch video, and browse recent blogs continue to Futurist.com -
Memristors and how they may change computing
20 Dec 2011 | 4:19 pmI recently read a novelette by Bruce Sterling called Black Swan (A Cyberpunk Story). I was intrigued by what Sterling referred to as a “Memrister”. Within the context of the story, it was only clear that memristors were theoretical electronic devices with a lot of potential applications. After doing some research, I found out that [...] To read the rest of this blog, link to sources, watch video, and browse recent blogs continue to Futurist.com -
10 Top Technology Trends for 2012
20 Dec 2011 | 8:53 amMy friend and colleague Mark Anderson publishes the Strategic News Service, for many years the most accurate newsletter on technology trends. Each December he makes his top ten predictions for technology in the coming year. Among his ten predictions below (read them in full here at SNS) the two most interesting are number 1 about [...] To read the rest of this blog, link to sources, watch video, and browse recent blogs continue to Futurist.com
-
FutureTimes.net - The Future News Archive
-
Future News: December 20, 2011 -January 17, 2012
21 Jan 2012 | 1:11 pmElectricity from the Air techre.vu/y14gGM The Future Looks Augmented techre.vu/ADAcWF At CES, a Preview of Tomorrow's Wearable Computers techre.vu/x9kI6K Particle-free silver ink prints small, high-performance electronics kurzweilai.net/particle-free-… Apple to announce tools, platform to ‘digitally destroy’ textbook publishing kurzweilai.net/apple-to-annou… GEODOG GPS-enabled collar lets you find your dog using your smartphone gizmag.com/geodog-gps-dog… Happy Futurism: A Lifeline for Optimists huff.to/wEJQtQ Seven Positive Trends Amidst the Doom and Gloom:… -
Future News: November 22- December 21, 2011
21 Dec 2011 | 12:42 pmLHC reports discovery of its first new particle bbc.in/rAtt9t Underwater neutrino detector will be second-largest structure ever built physorg.com/news/2011-12-u… Robots get social network of their very own (no kidding) physorg.com/news/2011-12-r… 3D Printing and the Coming Rise of Lo-Fi Things EzineArticles.com/6766849 Future War: Military satellite could stream live, ultra-zoomed in video of the Earth's surface tecca.com/news/2011/12/2… London's Futuristic New Double-Decker Bus Hits The Streets fastcodesign.com/1665662/london… Medicine: Scientists Invent Painless Dental… -
Future News: November 2011
30 Nov 2011 | 2:38 pmAnyone Out There? A New Way to Look for Alien Life ti.me/tp0diB Pentagon Regrowing Soldiers’ Muscles From Pig Cells wired.com/dangerroom/201… Stem cells join muscle, spinal cord cells in ‘human-on-a-chip’ simulation kurzweilai.net/stem-cells-joi… Free software activists to take on Google with new free search engine shar.es/o4DpW ‘Twine’ Foreshadows A Future Where All Objects Talk To The Internet techcrunch.com/2011/11/25/twi… The "Marketing Singularity" is Near. blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/11/2… VIDEO: Scientists develop ‘super’ yeast to turn pine trees… -
Future News: October 22 - November 6
6 Nov 2011 | 10:43 amThe end of an era: Internet Explorer drops below 50% of Web usage Ben Bova: 'The Grand Tour' of the future Artificial Intelligence Took America's Jobs And It's Going To Take A Lot More The Future of Human Computer Interfaces The legacy we leave should be interesting Genetic engineering technique reverses effects of aging in mice World's most powerful laser to tear apart the vacuum of space Pale-faced Mars crew lands after 520 days in isolation The forests of the future climate Research In Motion's Terrifying Vision of the Near Future Apple Charts a Course for 3-D Maps Yahoo Gives the iPad the… -
Future News: October 15 - October 22
26 Oct 2011 | 1:57 pmVIDEO: Holodesk prototype puts life in computer Sceptical climate scientists concede Earth has warmed Artificial intelligence creeps nearer via bee algorithms and crowdsourcing VIDEO: Robot plays table tennis (vs Robot, vs Human) Endless Windmills In the Ocean Powering Our Cities? It’s Not SciFi, It’s Here…At Least in the EU Reframing the transportation debate Fungi that Make Fuel Discovered IEA Sees Dire Future For Climate, Energy Without New Technology Faceboook former tech chief says software networks are the future EmTech: Get Ready for a New Human Species Kurzweil Responds: Don’t…
-
Futurist Foresight
-
Spider silk for artificial corneas and brain implants
27 Jan 2012 | 8:22 amSpider silk for artificial corneas and brain implants via Next Big Future by noreply@blogger.com (bw) on 1/27/12New Scientist - Spider silk has a big future in technologies from artificial corneas to brain implants. Weight for weight, a typical spider silk is 20 times as strong as steel and four times as tough as Kevlar. It is also extremely flexible, stretching up to 50 per cent of its length without breaking. And it’s not just the silk’s physical properties that are impressive. It elicits no immune reaction in our bodies, it is biodegradable, and it is produced at low temperatures and… -
Life beyond Earth? Underwater caves in Bahamas could give clues
27 Jan 2012 | 8:19 amLife beyond Earth? Underwater caves in Bahamas could give clues via News Extra Terrestiral Life on 1/27/12 Galveston TX (SPX) Jan 27, 2012 - Discoveries made in some underwater caves by Texas A and M University at Galveston researchers in the Bahamas could provide clues about how ocean life formed on Earth millions of years ago, and perhaps give hints of what types of marine life could be found on distant planets and moons. Tom Iliffe, professor of marine biology at the Texas A and M-Galveston campus, and graduate student Brett Gonzalez of Trabuco Canyon, Calif., examined three “blue… -
The future of autonomous cars … and planes
27 Jan 2012 | 8:17 amThe future of autonomous cars … and planes via KurzweilAI » Blog by Amara D. Angelica on 1/27/12(Credit: BMW)If you’re driving on the Autobahn right now, I advise you keep an eye out for this guy, who is apparently praying his driverless BMW doesn’t crash into something (note: this is a highway without speed limits — not reassuring).(Videos here.)Hey, BMW: why not toss in a robot driver to carry groceries and fight off the crowds at Walmart on Black Friday?So what’s next? Autonomous planes?The X-47B drone (credit: Chad Slattery/Northrop Grumman)Why as a matter of fact, yes. The… -
Gingrich proposes Moon base by 2020
27 Jan 2012 | 8:15 amGingrich proposes Moon base by 2020 via KurzweilAI » News on 1/27/12Domed lunar settlement (credit: Pat Rawlings/NASA)Newt Gingrich has called for a bold, aggressive space program that would establish a permanent base on the Moon by 2020, along with a next-generation propulsion system for taking humans to Mars, and commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism, and manufacturing.Transcript of the speech, courtesy of the National Space Society.{{ Lee Robinson Petzer - Futurist Foresight }} -
Video Friday: Dancing Robots, Sumo Robots, War Robots, and More
27 Jan 2012 | 8:14 amVideo Friday: Dancing Robots, Sumo Robots, War Robots, and More via Automaton by Evan Ackerman on 1/27/12 It’s been a little while since we’ve cleaned out our robot video backlog, so here you go, a gigantic steaming pile of awesomeness in the form of six more or less entirely random robot videos that we’ve made a special effort to choose. Just. For. You.Continue reading » {{ Lee Robinson Petzer - Futurist Foresight }}
-
Ethical Technology
-
Message To Humanity: The Time is Now - The Revolution Is Coming!
27 Jan 2012 | 6:44 am“The 99% are rising up! Everywhere, people are waking up and realizing how the world works and that their rights as free human beings are slowly being taken away from them.. “ -
Andrea Kuszewski Solutions For A Creativity Crisis: A Look At Cuba’s Technological Disobedience
27 Jan 2012 | 6:15 amWhen you think of the ideal creative environment, what comes to mind? We may imagine a place where you have freedom of expression, a place that encourages breaking convention, somewhere that is abundant in resources that are readily accessible for innovative development of technology, and exposure to many different cultures for inspiration and collaboration. So as you imagine this ultimate creative playground, does Cuba come to mind? From what we know of Cuba, especially since the embargo in the 1960s, it seems like anything but the ideal creativity-inspiring environment. A Cuban-American… -
Charlie Chaplin’s Message to Humanity
27 Jan 2012 | 6:01 amRevolutionary video, includes Charlie Chaplin’s amazing speech in “The Great Dictator.” -
George Dvorsky Video-gaming Pets, the Future of Nonhuman Animals, and Cultural Uplift
27 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amI was recently interviewed by Sebastian Alvarez of Wanderlust. We covered such topics as video-gaming pets, the future of nonhuman animals, and cultural uplift. Check it out: Wanderlust: There has been a recent increase of Internet videos that depict humans enabling their pets to “play” video games on smart-phones and video game consoles. Similarly, in order to gain new insight into animal behavior, scientists have been experimenting with multimedia-enabled devices in the last decades. Today, along scientists, game designers are trying to merge human spaces with pet spaces through… -
Symphony of Science - The Greatest Show on Earth! (music video about Evolution)
27 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amA musical celebration of the wonders of biology, including evolution, natural selection, DNA, and more. Featuring David Attenborough, Richard Dawkins and Bill Nye.
