Future Now

SUPERSTRUCT: The Community Outpost

Jane McGonigal — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:17:06 -0700

Anybody can create tools and platforms and spaces to support our Superstruct community.

Ten-Year Forecast

Timo Hannay on Web 2.0 and science

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:21:01 -0700

At a recent conference on Science in the 21st Century, I was lucky to hear Nature.com's publishing director Timo Hannay talk about Web 2.0 and the future of science. He recently gave a talk at the British Library with the provocative title "Scientific Researchers and Web 2.0: Social Not Working?" The whole piece is worth reading-- it's a good overview of Web 2.0 tools and their uses in science right now-- but he concludes on a somewhat pessimistic note:

I'm optimistic about the potential of the web to greatly improve the productivity – and joy – of doing science. I also think it can help to break down barriers between disciplines, and between science and the rest of society. That's why I've devoted my recent professional life to the pursuit of turning this into a reality.

But I'm less optimistic about the inevitability of this potential being fully realised, at least in anything less than a generational timescale. For every scientist who sees it as self-evident that they should be using these tools, or promoting open information-sharing, there are dozens who just don't see the point. For every publisher or librarian who 'gets it' there are many who don't – at least not fully and not yet.

Changing behaviours and expectations is difficult at the of best times – it is too easy to overlook the hundreds of companies that fail for every one, like Facebook or Google, that changes the landscape. In a conservative establishment like science, it's harder still. In some ways science – as an continual, collaborative, global endeavour – is the ultimate wiki. But this analogy misleads people into assuming that adoption of new tools and approaches by scientists is a foregone conclusion. It's not.

X2 Project

Science In Place is Coming to Scandinavia This Month

Anthony Townsend — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:53:28 -0700

The stars have aligned and I'll be visiting three Scandinavian countries over the next six weeks, for two events with the Academy of Finland and Swedish Incubators and Science Parks under our rapidly growing Science In Place program.

Science In Place

Judge delivers blow to RIAA's dodgy "making available" theory

Jess Hemerly — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:53:05 -0700

The crux of the RIAA's cases against music fans is the "making available" theory, meaning that they do not need to provide proof of transfer in order to claim copyright infringement, they just need to show that someone had files available to share on a P2P network. Last October, a jury in Minnesota found Jammie Thomas guilty of copyright infringement for 24 (mostly bad) songs. It was the first federal RIAA victory using this argument against a plaintiff, with a $222,000 judgment in their favor.

Technology Horizons

Horror of horrors—I am finally done with newspapers

Marina Gorbis — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:35:00 -0700

What did it? Twitter. O.k., I may be late to the game, many people I know have stopped reading newspapers a long time ago. By newspapers I mean their physical incarnations. Many of my colleagues and friends have turned to online news sites, magazines, and blogs. For me, however, these somehow didn’t provide a good substitute for the “real” thing, particularly as the “real” thing was such a big part of my morning “news with coffee” ritual. Even when I stopped reading the New York Times in the morning for news, I still read it for feature articles and deep analysis. T

Technology Horizons

SUPERSTRUCT - A Sneak Preview of The Final Threat

Jane McGonigal — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:46:14 -0700

What does the world of 2019 look like? Find out now.

The full report from the Global Extinction Awareness System is LIVE -- and you can read it here for the first time anywhere. Find out exactly why the human species may face extinction by the year 2042 – and what we can do about it.

SuperStruct Signals

Using your hands

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:59:40 -0700

Gregg Zachary in last week's New York Times wrote a terrific little piece on "a little-noticed movement in the world of professional design and engineering: a renewed appreciation for manual labor, or innovating with the aid of human hands." I talk about it at some length on my End of Cyberspace blog.

X2 Project

Energy grid limitation on the growth of alternative energy

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:33:59 -0700

The New York Times recently had an article on how the U.S. electric grid is turning out to hinder the development of wind power:

When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.

That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

X2 Project

read more

Configuring Your iPhone for Vacation

Anthony Townsend — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 06:35:57 -0700

I'm leaving in a few minutes on the first real, completely disconnected non-working vacation since the three days I spent in New Hampshire in 2003 after my dissertation defense.

I'm taking extra measures to disconnect. I'm not usually the get-away-from-it-all type, but I think it's an important thing to do at least once every several years.

Technology Horizons

Rethinking the Album Release: of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping Collection

Jess Hemerly — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:54:34 -0700

Technology Horizons

Are You Ready for A Future of Crises? NYU Report Says No

Anthony Townsend — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:48:33 -0700

A provocative new report from NYU argues that the vast bulk of US government agencies, non-governmental organizations and businesses are not ready to respond to a growing array and frequency of crises. The study, titled Predicting Organizational Response to Crisis: Perspectives and Practices toward a Pathway to Preparedness (holy alliteration Batman!), reports on a telephone survey of 468 organizational leaders conducted for NYU by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

Ten-Year Forecast

Running on Copyright Infringement

Jess Hemerly — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:21:30 -0700

Jackson Browne filed suit against John McCain, the RNC, and the Ohio National Republican Committee for using "Running on Empty" in an Obama attack ad without the artist's permission. Browne, a liberal, objected to the ad and the Ohio Republicans say they pulled it right away so they don't understand what all the fuss is about. Duh, guys, it's called politics. Oh right, and copyright law, something which McCain explicitly promises to protect from nasty pirates in his Technology Policy statement.

Technology Horizons

Playlist my way? Not quite.

Jess Hemerly — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:17:29 -0700

At first glance, Universal Music's new "Playlist Your Way" program may look like the company is finally catching on to one of the things that fans and digital music mavens have wanted for a long time: options.

Technology Horizons

Will Open Science Make It Even Harder to Build Science Communities in China?

Anthony Townsend — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:54:01 -0700

A pair of reports last week suggest that China's science community, while thriving, still has a long way to go before it becomes the kind of knowledge-circulating system needed to support world-class technical innovation.

Science In Place

An Arab Proverb About Forecasting

Anthony Townsend — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 06:11:25 -0700

Working my way through Kishore Mahbubani's recent book, "The New Asian Hemisphere", and came upon this great Arab proverb on the topic of forecasting:

He who speaks about the future lies, even when he tells the truth.

At IFTF, there is a broad understanding based on experience, that no one can predict the future. But we rarely say that no one should... perhaps we need to be as aggressive about that as these ancient sages.

Ten-Year Forecast