from ComputerWorld:
Sean Koehl, a technology evangelist with Intel Labs, said technology is emerging that will one day change the way we interact with electronic devices and with each other.
That could come as soon as five years from now when, he predicted, there will be realistic-looking three-dimensional applications.”The Internet may never go fully 3-D, but making 3-D environments broadly accessible is probably capable within five years,” noted Koehl.
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from h+ Magazine:
Data captured by the PMD would be linked over the internet into distributed software services like GPS, Google Maps, facial recognition, speech/text recognition, brainwave analysis and so on.
Would the PMD remember where you parked? Always.
Will it warn you when you are about to walk away and leave your hat and sunglasses on the bench behind you? Totally.
Will it send you birthday reminders, schedule your meetings, remind you to pick up your dry-cleaning and let you program your DVR with voice commands? Yes.
Will it find your car keys and remote control for you? Maybe.
Will it record your innermost thoughts? Probably not.
It won’t always be perfect, but it will greatly extend your normal range of memory, and over time it will become like an indispensable part of your brain.
from The Economist:
Information has gone from scarce to superabundant. That brings huge new benefits, says Kenneth Cukier—but also big headaches.
[...] Wal-Mart, a retail giant, handles more than 1m customer transactions every hour, feeding databases estimated at more than 2.5 petabytes—the equivalent of 167 times the books in America’s Library of Congress.
[...] By 2013 the amount of traffic flowing over the internet annually will reach 667 exabytes, according to Cisco, a maker of communications gear.
from h+ Magazine:
You will likely soon be able to download hardware from the web in the form of free packages of coded instructions to make… well, just about anything — from a Lego block to the jet engine of an F-16.
The impetus behind downloading DIY hardware from the web is to leverage hackerspaces (those collaborative dens of real world hacking), fab labs (fabrication laboratories), and other groups around the world to shift the burden away from “makers” (manufacturers) to a core group of package maintainers who verify hardware designs and make it easy for makers to do what they love best — making things.
from Investors.com:
“We are seeing the world moving away from the global Internet to a series of national networks,” warned Columbia Law School Professor Tim Wu at the New America Foundation on Wednesday.
[...] University of Toronto Professor Ron Deibert says China’s response to the Google controversy is key. If China closes down cyberspace to Google users, “the once-unified global Internet space will begin a process of disintegration as countries define their own sovereign clouds.”
from ronwolf.com:
According to the filmmaker Keiichi Matsuda, “Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.”
And to display some less-than-optimistic viewpoints:
from MSNBC:
Fully-rendered simulation streaming online allows scientists to collaborate
Supercomputing has helped astrophysicists create massive models of the universe, but such simulations remain out of reach for many in the United States and around the world. That could all change after a successful test allowed scientists in Portland, Ore. to watch a Chicago-based simulation of how ordinary matter and mysterious dark matter evolved in the early universe.
from Computerworld:
Augmented reality technology is getting a lot of attention these days — particularly the use of AR with smartphones. The idea is that by using certain software, you can turn your iPhone, Droid or other smartphone into a virtual heads-up display.
Aim your phone’s camera at a shop, restaurant or landmark, and information about the place, such as hours of operation, reviews or directions, appears on the device’s screen as graphics floating over the image of the place.
Dozens of developers of mobile augmented reality apps are banking on AR becoming the Next Big Thing in the mobile market. Indeed, a recent Juniper Research report predicted that annual revenues from mobile AR apps will reach $732 million by 2014, up from less than $1 million in 2009.
Also see: For when the 5 senses aren’t enough (SixthSense)
from Future Blogger:
An article by Rosabeth Moss Kanter was just published today on the Harvard Business Review website, titled On Twitter and in the Workplace, It’s Power to the Connectors. In it, she highlights the fact that there is an organizational trend moving away from the hierarchical networks of the 20th century, and towards complex, distributed, non-hierarchical structures of business organization and leadership.
She also points out that success today is based on a person’s ability to leverage power and influence within their social networks, to act as “connectors” between people and information, and in turn build social capital. [ Read On ]
From The Washington Post:
Pierce’s backup service, San Francisco-based Legacy Locker, is one of a dozen businesses that have sprung up to help denizens of the digital world grapple with the thorny issues raised after your physical being leaves behind only its virtual reality.
Internet experts and estate planners say a cybercrisis is brewing because popular Internet services have policies that, barring an order from a court, forbid accessing or transferring accounts — including recovering money — unless someone has the password.
