Plug Into The Smart Grid February 25, 2009
Posted by Laurence in Augmented Reality, Energy, Grids, Technology.add a comment
Shift Happens: Facebook Is Just The Tip of the Iceberg of Change February 25, 2009
Posted by Laurence in Augmented Reality, Education.add a comment
Social networks are reaching more people more quickly than any communication technology ever has. Consider how long it takes to reach an audience of 50 million people:
- Radio – 38 years
- TV – 13 years
- Internet – 4 years
- iPod – 3 years
- Facebook – 2 years
from Did You Know 3.0
Since we’re here in Facebook land, it’s interesting to note that according to the founder
More than 175 million people use Facebook. If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world.
Social networks like Facebook are more than media, they are virtual locations, places where people gather and interact. There’s something much bigger going on here than communication. We’re interacting with each other on many levels here and we’re also interacting with increasingly sophisticated computer programs that are learning about our likes and interests. How we produce and consume media is changing. At the same time the networks expand out into mobile devices, cars and buildings, they are also reaching inward, merging with our biology. In my comments on an early YouTube version of “Did you know?”, I raised broad social questions about this. On a personal level, I suppose the big question is are you ready move beyond a strictly biological physical existence? In a decade, concerns about privacy/terms of service are gonna seem pretty easy.
Updates 03/09/09:
Here’s a long but excellent account of the history and evolution of Did You Know? from the original author.
Previously on The MJ, a link to a narrated version
IBM’s Meshverse Mandate & the Coming Boom January 14, 2009
Posted by Laurence in Uncategorized.add a comment
IBM has been mentioned frequently here because they are broadly and deeply involved in meshverse technologies. Their recent Smarter Planet initiative is providing a much needed, practical focus on how meshverse technologies are key to dealing with critical problems the planet is facing. You may have seen the TV ads but if not YouTube has them. For the most part these ads do an excellent job of distilling very complex issues into comprehensible stories. For an insider perspective, see this interview with IBM execs. IBM is also connecting the technology with current needs for change. I am in full agreement with their idea that a mandate for change is a mandate for smart. We clearly need A Smarter(Virtual) World and the notion of an instrumented, intelligent planet is what I was getting at in Sensing the Coming Boom. A mandate for change is a mandate to upgrade.
Related Links:
Metaverses, Tribes, smarter planet and you can change the world
Rebooting America? December 31, 2008
Posted by Laurence in Rhythmeering.1 comment so far
Look in the mirror: G.M. is us. That’s why we don’t just need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history. Because of the financial crisis, Barack Obama has the bipartisan support to spend $1 trillion in stimulus. But we must make certain that every bailout dollar, which we’re borrowing from our kids’ future, is spent wisely.
It has to go into training teachers, educating scientists and engineers, paying for research and building the most productivity-enhancing infrastructure — without building white elephants.
This idea of rebooting can be helpful – as long as it includes major system upgrades such as the ones John Robb recommends. Friedman doesn’t really offer an upgrade and if one reboots with the same software, the problems will keep coming back. That such a large percentage of the society has accepted constant rebooting is part of the problem. Perhaps a friend has shared their PC to Mac experience or you’ve seen the commercial
While Robb and Friedman disagree on the how, they both want to minimize the role of government. This is another notion that sounds good until you look under the hood. As Dan Shafer points out – it’s a job for government not robber barrons. More significantly, minimizing for the sake of ideology or out of fear isn’t productive. What we need to do is fine-tune the role of government, to make sure it is a harmonious participant contributing to the achievement of our goals.
What roles should the government be playing? Infrastructure is on everyone’s list but most are vague about what purpose new infrastructure should serve or are talking about replacing(not upgrading) the old. At the beginning of this year in posts on the future of manufacturing(here and on The Rhythmeering Journal) I said:
When Manufacturing 3.0 arrives on the wings of robotics and nanotechnology, man-made items will be works of art and hobby – there won’t be many of today’s manufacturing jobs here or overseas.
… The next time the subject of manufacturing jobs comes up, ask people what those jobs will be like just 10 short years from now.We can’t wait until then to start dealing with the realities of Manufacturing 3.0.
…
The government needs to start informing the people and preparing for this future now.
Here’s to 2009 – the year of change. Happy New Year and thanks for stopping by!
I voted, lots of us voted November 4, 2008
Posted by Laurence in People, Politics.add a comment
Normally, at my polling location you walk in vote and walk out. Today when I arrived 5 minutes before they were supposed to open at 6:00am there were about 50 people in line. The building opened a few minutes late. I waited in line and voted 30 minutes later. The recurring comment was “I’ve never seen this many people here”. This was in a small town at a location where the population isn’t very dense. Nothing like what you see on tv, but an indication that turnout is going to be high. Go Obama!
Business Week’s CEO Guide to 3D Computing October 28, 2008
Posted by Laurence in Augmented Reality, Business.add a comment
In Business Week’s CEO Guide to 3D Computing there are many topics covered previously here in the MJ. What follows are a few which you should be able to find MJ links for by using the search box in the upper right:
No longer just the stuff of Hollywood movies and Silicon Valley video games, 3D technology is changing the way people do business everywhere. Consider Lori Coulter, a women’s swimsuit designer inside the Macy’s (M) at the Chesterfield Mall about 30 miles west of St. Louis.
Lori Coulter clients needn’t try on piles of swimsuits amid unflattering fluorescent lights in a cramped dressing room. Instead, they discreetly step into a room where the shop uses a scanner to take 140 measurements in less than a minute, then uploads them to a computer, which builds a 3D image and suggests an array of figure-flattering styles. The client chooses a style and pattern, and within as few as three days a custom-made swimsuit is ready to wear.
Lori Coulter is one of the scores of businesses that are being transformed by technology that lets you build and manipulate computerized three-dimensional models. “What we’re seeing increasingly is the greater use of computer simulations,” says Boyd Davis, a marketing director at Intel
…
A typical workstation based on two Intel Xeon processors delivers computing performance roughly equivalent to the fastest supercomputer in the world in 1993, according to Intel.
…
While some within the fashion industry are just now warming to 3D technology, Coulter built her business around it. When she was studying at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis in the late 1990s, she wrote a paper about how new technologies were revolutionizing the retail industry
Print A House(fast & affordable homes for all) September 5, 2008
Posted by Laurence in Augmented Reality, News, TVIR, Technology.add a comment
While the 3D printing services offered by Philips incubated Shapeways are helping to usher in the coming boom, they produce small objects that fit in one’s hand. Using concrete instead of plastic, Contour Crafting aims to build a house in 24 hours at 1/5th the cost. The worlds largest construction equipment manufacturer, Caterpillar has invested in the technology which comes out of research at USC I’ve been following for some years. You can see the current state of Contour Crafting for yourself
more videos and media coverage are available on the Contour Crafting media page. And yes, as long-time MJ readers and true funkateers surely know, this is filed under TVIR 
Related MJ Links
Sensing The Coming Boom June 19, 2008
Posted by Laurence in Augmented Reality, Metaverse, TVIR, Technology.1 comment so far
John Robb of Global Guerrillas has put his finger on the power of the emerging sensor cloud as well as the powerful evolving trends in personal fabrication but he doesn’t tie them together via their Chinese connection. Here on the MJ, these all converge in the coming boom and Second Life. Yes, we can say location, location, location. There are some excellent videos of Sense Networks CitySense location based service on O’Reilly. The underlying platform Macrosense
… is the world’s first platform capable of collecting and analyzing massive amounts of anonymous, aggregate location data in real-time.
At the heart of Macrosense are powerful machine learning algorithms that process time-stamped location data and metadata streams from heterogeneous sources – GPS, WiFi positioning, cell tower triangulation, RFID and other sensors – and empower companies and investors to better understand and predict human behavior on a macro scale.
This is very powerful technology so the potential is high for both abuse and empowerment. However, the bottle has been uncorked and there’s no putting it back. See also on the MJ Power to the Prosumer and Location Oriented Software
