Friday, March 31, 2006
Newsweek Cover Story on Web 2.0
"The massive success of MySpace and the exemplary strategy of Flickr are milestones in a new high-tech wave reminiscent of the craziness of the early dot-com days. This rebooting owes everything to the enhanced power and pervasiveness of the Web, which has finally matured to the point where it can fulfill some of the outlandish promises that we heard in the '90s." /MSNBC.com/
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Preople
Bruce Eisner's blog turned me on to Preople, the self-proclaimed "ultimate ego booster or perhaps the ultimate ego buster."
The Future Needs Futurists
"Making future forecasting more of a formal field could be a great step toward moving some of the techniques into public policy,' said Howard Rheingold, a futurist and author. 'I'm not saying it's possible to predict the future, but grappling with what's happening today and where it's going is an important priority that seems to be ignored on the policy level." /Wired News/
Fads Are So Yesterday
"Trend-spotting has, in essence, become just another trend. Consequently, the most successful trend forecasters are repositioning themselves as something more than mere arbiters of taste. They're now social scientists with a hipster edge. That's because it's no longer enough to be aware of 'sext messaging' or video blogs or the drive-in movie revival. The real money and prestige are now bestowed on those who can translate the cultural hieroglyphics and the 'whys' behind these blips." /Los Angeles Times/
Friday, March 24, 2006
Rising Internet, Falling Crime
"Considering the mass media's obsession with crime and violence, we might be surprised to discover that violent crime has decreased steadily for the last decade in the United States. Actually the rate in 2004 for violent crime was the lowest ever recorded.viort. And incredibly it's dropped another 9% in 2005." /Future Hi/
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Will Wright on the Gamer's Mindset
"In an era of structured education and standardized testing, this generational difference might not yet be evident. But the gamers' mindset - the fact that they are learning in a totally new way - means they'll treat the world as a place for creation, not consumption. This is the true impact videogames will have on our culture." /Wired/
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Programming the Universe
MIT professor Seth Lloyd claims that "the universe is a system where the very specific details and structures in it are created when quantum bits de-cohere - choose one path out of multiple possibilities - and that this process is identical to quantum computation. That is what I mean by programming the universe." /Wired/
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Common Patterns of Moderating Interaction
Regarding Clay Shirky's recent talk at O'Reilly's Emerging Tech Conference: "At the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, we have been observing and describing common patterns of moderating interaction, from the simple (appoint a moderator) to the complex (self-policing reputation systems). In the course of this work, we have observed three things: first, there is nothing as simple as a list of different techniques or strategies that have been adopted in the real world. We intend to fix that. Second, there are a large number of techniques and strategies that have been adopted once and only once. We believe that developers will benefit from seeing these patterns explained. Third, there are an even larger number of speculative techniques or strategies that seem as if they might work, but which have never been tried. We believe that there will also be considerable value in detailing these strategies as possibilities." /O'Reilly Emerging Tech Conference/
The Google Grid of Epic 2015
The amazing Epic 2015 flash movie shows a potential and somewhat disturbing evolution of the web far beyond 2.0 /Epic2015/
Seth Godin's New e-Book on Web 2.0
Seth Godin's "new ebook (3 versions, 18 pages each, PDF format) explains how I believe some of the new Web 2.0 tools (flickr, del.icio.us, squidoo and others) combine with ideaviruses and the Purple Cow." /Flipping the Funnel/
Brain Food
"Scientists are providing hints that what you choose to consume or avoid in your daily diet can have consequences on the brain's resiliency in the face of injury or disease. Studies suggest that foods such as fish and a curry spice called curcumin, for example, can give the brain an added edge to stay healthy." /Eat Smart/
The Next Net
CNN identifies "25 companies, in five Next Net categories, whose approaches help illuminate where the Web is headed and where the opportunities lie. Most are startups, a lot of them with less than 10 full-time employees. Few are currently making money, and it's a given that many will fail. But it's equally likely that somewhere within this group lurks the next Google or Microsoft or Yahoo -- or at least something that those giants will soon pay a pretty penny to have." /CNN/
Web 2.0 Directory
"Web 2.0 Directory: Top Web 2.0 Sites: 900+ Web 2.0 sites/services/links in 50+ categories." /eConsultant/
RSS Updates via IM
immedi.at helps you to keep track of online information as it changes. It sends you an instant message whenever any RSS or Atom feed you want to monitor is updated. /immedi.at/
Recently Evolved Human Genes
"Human genes involved in metabolism, skin pigmentation, brain function and reproduction have evolved in response to recent environmental changes, according to a new study of natural selection in the human genome. Researchers at the University of Chicago (report that) newly identified genes fall into categories not previously known to be targets of selection in the human lineage, such as those involved in metabolism of carbohydrates and fatty acids." /New Scientist/
Encouraging Adoption of Social Software
"There are two ways to go about encouraging adoption of social software: fostering grassroots behaviours which develop organically from the bottom-up; or via top-down instruction. In general, the former is more desirable, as it will become self-sustaining over time - people become convinced of the tools’ usefulness, demonstrate that to colleagues, and help develop usage in an ad hoc, social way in line with their actual needs." /Many-to-Many /
Cyborg Sharks
"DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) has taken another page from science fiction writer William Gibson's book by creating a neural implant to enable engineers to remotely manipulate a shark's brain signals. This would eventually allow them to control the animal's movements and possibly decode their perceptions." /LiveScience.com/
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
NYPL Purchases William Burroughs archive
The New York Public Library announced yesterday that they purchased William Burroughs archive "which runs to 11,000 pages, includes draft versions and notes for all of Burroughs' work up to 1972, when the author sold it to a Liechtenstein-based collector." /Guardian Unlimited/
Korea's CyWorld
"Korea is 'Ground Zero' of the emerging broadband E-Society * which is more and more about 'social networking' and role playing. It's no coincidence that massively multi-player online gaming, which is sweeping across the planet, started in Korea with all the stories about obsessed gamers dying on the job from dehydration, star 'gamers' enjoying the status of pop stars and divorce cases stalled over who gets the 'virtual assets.' And the latest 'cyber' drug in Korea - and increasingly in China is called Cyworld." /CEN /
