A couple of decades back, in his seminal work MegaTrends, author John Naisbitt pointed out that no technology can ever succeed without a compelling human benefit, referring to it as “high tech-high touch.”
EXTRACT:
Likewise, some technologists are discovering that many computational challenges may be better solved by interactive, online games — not brute-force supercomputing. In a recently released video of his latest TED talk, Shyam Sankar, director at Palantir Technologies, explains how a long-time biological puzzle in protein analysis was solved in a matter of days by three non-technical, non-biological amateurs playing a computer game called Foldit: Read full article.
How many people would click “despise FB” and “abandon FB” if those were offered alongside the new “promote for a fee” button?
Just in case you haven't noticed, your Facebook activity may not be reaching the FB audience you enjoyed a few months ago.
If you want to reach your previous audience, you need to click that little “promote” button and pay the fee.
My friend Richard Metzger of Dangerous Minds alerted me to a remarkable coincidence: shortly after Facebook's May launch of the “promote” option for business accounts, business users noticed an 85% reduction in their FB reach. Facebook: I Wany My Friends Back.
Like many other “stealth” revenue campaigns in social media, the “promote” revenue stream was first introduced as a marketing tool for enterprises and groups:Facebook's tempting ‘Promote' button for business (CNET).
What happens if you give a thousand Motorola Zoom tablet PCs to Ethiopian kids who have never even seen a printed word? Within five months, they'll start teaching themselves English while circumventing the security on your OS to customize settings and activate disabled hardware. Whoa.
The One Laptop Per Child project started as a way of delivering technology and resources to schools in countries with little or no education infrastructure, using inexpensive computers to improve traditional curricula. What the OLPC Project has realized over the last five or six years, though, is that teaching kids stuff is really not that valuable. Yes, knowing all your state capitols how to spell “neighborhood” properly and whatnot isn't a bad thing, but memorizing facts and procedures isn't going to inspire kids to go out and learn by teaching themselves, which is the key to a good education. Instead, OLPC is trying to figure out a way to teach kids to learn, which is what this experiment is all about.
Rather than give out laptops (they're actually Motorola Zoom tablets plus solar chargers running custom software) to kids in schools with teachers, the OLPC Project decided to try something completely different: it delivered some boxes of tablets to two villages in Ethiopia, taped shut, with no instructions whatsoever. Just like, “hey kids, here's this box, you can open it if you want, see ya!”
And he’s not alone. The Post’s own Vivek Wadhwa recently predicted that all online education would be totally free within 10 years — and that includes an education from the same elite institutions who have joined Coursera. For a really mind-blowing scenario of how it all unfolds check out the EPIC 2020 video — it lays out a realistic route for free online education by the year 2020.
Syria-US: US can no longer support the Syrian National Council (SNC) as the “visible leader” of opposition forces. US Secretary of State Clinton and other U.S. officials reportedly are fed up with infighting among the SNC leaders and have become convinced that the group does not represent the interests of all ethnic and religious groups in Syria. Ms. Clinton said there is a need for an official opposition umbrella which rejects “efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution.
Comment: More than 18 months into a rebellion of sorts, this is an astonishing admission of poor judgment and faulty political intelligence on multiple levels. It seems to have taken a year and a half for the US government to appreciate that the Syrian expatriates have no influence over the fighting in Syria. No fighting groups respond to their direction. No fighting groups depend on their dispensation of American funds.
Spokesmen for various Syrian fighting groups have been denouncing the expatriate politicians and the SNC as venal and out of touch for 18 months, openly and sometimes bitterly. The SNC has experienced repeated desertions by its most capable leaders, who also denounced its feckless venality.
The fighting will not stop in Syria because the SNC gets cut off. Even were the Free Syrian Army, which operates in Syria as one of many fighting groups, to lose its funding and supplies, fighting would continue because the rebellion appears to have been hijacked by the jihadists. They do not rely on the West or the US for support, though they will purloin it if given the opportunity.
Libya: Update. On 1 November, about 100 Libyan fighters have circled and occupied the Libyan national assembly to protest the new cabinet lineup.
Comment: Judging from the large number of documents about security in Benghazi that have been leaked or found in Benghazi, the cabinet in Tripoli does not govern Libya beyond parts of Tripoli. The fragmentation of the state actually worsened with the killing of Qadhafi.
If the news and leaked reports may be trusted, Libya has become a political fiction, like Somalia. Cyrenaica, eastern Libya, is an al Qaida base, training location and arms depot for jihadists in Syria and Mali. The rest of Libya is a mélange of competing tribal territories. Libya seems to have devolved as a nation-state – gone backwards.
A workshop on social media, surveillance, and knowledge production
Despite the promises and growth of digital social networks and the Web, social tensions and boundaries pervade our everyday “virtual” communications, shaped by a number of cultural, national and structural borders. Come help us explore the current (r)evolutions of the global Internet.
featuring
Francesca Musiani
Yahoo! Fellow, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University
“The plurality of Internet borders”
Seeta Peña Gangadharan
Senior Research Fellow, Open Technology Initiative, New America Foundation
“Internet borders and rights: Vulnerable populations, digital inclusion, and its dark sides”
David Ribes
Assistant Professor, Communication, Culture and Technology Program (CCT), Georgetown University
“Internet borders: Orphans of infrastructure?”
Friday, November 9, 2012
12:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Mortara Center for International Studies
3600 N Street, NW
A light lunch will be served.
For more information on the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, please visit our website.
By mid-2013, the Netherlands will feature glow-in-the-dark tarmac and dynamic paint that warns drivers of weather conditions.
Click on Image to Enlarge
“The Smart Highway” is a concept designed by Studio Roosegaarde and Heijmans Infrastructure. Including glow-in-the-dark roads, interactive lighting and an induction priority lane for electric vehicles, the team wants to use light, energy and road signs that automatically adapt to varying traffic conditions.
One particularly interesting feature is the luminous pathways in the road. Treated with a foto-luminizing powder, extra lighting in the dark becomes “unnecessary”, according to Studio Roosegaarde. Charging by solar technology in the day, once daylight has fled, the pathways then illuminate the contours of the road for up to ten hours.
In addition, ‘dynamic paint’ responds to changes in temperature, and then can relay traffic information to drivers. For example, if its -5C and slippery, the roads are highlighted with ice crystals.
“Research on smart transportation systems and smart roads has existed for over 30 years — call any transportation and infrastructure specialist and you’ll find out yourself,” Studio Roosegaarde communications partner Emina Sendijarevic told Wired.co.uk. “What’s lacking is the implementation of those innovations and making those innovations intuitive and valuable to the end-consumers — drivers. For this, a mentality change needs to take place within a country and its people.”
Awarded with a Best Future Concept by the Dutch Design Awards 2012, the smart highways will be in use next year.
Why supercomputers will always have limits
