Awareness of the world right now’s awareness of America.
WatchingAmerica reflects global opinion about the United States, helping Americans and non-Americans alike understand what the world thinks of current issues that involve the U.S. This is done by providing news and views about the United States published in other countries.
http://www.watchingamerica.com/index.shtml
Imagine a TV remote control as easy to use as the iPod interface. Marry it to a processor that’s powerful enough to find all the cable channels snaking into your television or browse through all the music on your iPod. You can find all your stuff through one interface, but the problem is, you don’t _view_ or listen to the same stuff through the same display. So, can the interface travel with you. Can the iPod be your control for every device you walk past or sit down in front of?
“Remote Possibilities
The new Apple Remote makes it as easy to navigate through all the cool stuff on your computer as it is to navigate the songs in your iPod. A minimalist six buttons is all you really need. Play. Pause. Skip. Rewind. Crank up the volume. Whatever your pleasure, wherever you sit. Tip: you can use the Apple Remote to put your iMac to sleep. Simply press and hold the pause button for three seconds, just like iPod. Then, press any button to wake it up again.”
http://www.apple.com/imac/frontrow.html
The wider and deeper availabilty of information from the world around us is outstripping our ability to keep it all useful and close at hand. Nobody thinks a single computer screen is the best place to bring it all together – here’s an example of someone experimenting with what is possible merely by increasing the size.
“Stuart Card, a senior research fellow at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, said the other thing that’s getting bigger is computer displays. Dr. Card has evidence of that in his own office in California, where he has six large computer screens attached to each other. “It has the surface area of a 5-foot table,” he said. He can use the screens as one large screen or several smaller ones and can easily move information from one area to another. Research suggests that having more information arrayed in front of them can actually help people have “bigger ideas,” Dr. Card said.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06113/684425-96.stm
Tip of the NeuroHat to FUTUREdition from the Arlington Institute.
Battery power duration and energy levels are one dimension of limits on portable devices. There appears to be a lot of upside in this area.
“Despite their high energy density, lithium batter-ies are not used in cars
and other transportation applications because they cannot deliver power at
a sufficiently high rate. Kang et al. (p. 977) report a combined
theoretical and experimental exploration of a class of battery electrodes
with a layered transition-metal structure that permits much faster lithium
ion transport. The results suggest a general strategy for improving
lithium-battery power delivery.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol311/issue5763/twis.dtl#311/5763/913d
Ambient intelligence –a cool terminology in a Brian Eno kind of way.
“The metaphor of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) tries to picture a vision of the future where all of us will be surrounded by intelligent” electronic environments, and this ambient has claims to being sensitive and responsive to our needs. A multitude of sensors and actuators are already embedded in very-small or very large information and communication technologies, and it is only a question of time when better use can be gained from these complex (yet still extraordinarily primitive) technology systems. Pleasant or not, for the lonely human, researchers predict that AmI will be densely populated by IT gadgets and systems with potentially powerful NBIC capabilities (nano- bio- information and communication technology).”
http://www.emergingcommunication.com/volume6.html
Our place in the world right now.
“On 29 March a total solar eclipse will be observable from the island of Kastelorizo in Greece. The eTen funded D-Space project will, in collaboration with the Greek Astronomical Society, organise a mission to Kastelorizo in order to set up 2 solar telescopes and to transmit live the phenomenon through satellite and terrestrial link to the web. The D-space project is to deploy a virtual science thematic park that will connect schools, universities, science museums and parks with a network of robotic telescopes around the world. The project will give students, teachers, researchers and individuals (amateur astronomers, visitors of science parks) all around the world the opportunity to use remotely controlled robotic telescopes in real time.”
http://www.discoveryspace.net/
A “society” of devices? Beautiful.
“GridWise seeks to modernize the nation’s electric system – from central generation to customer appliances and equipment – and create a collaborative network filled with information and abundant market-based opportunities. Through GridWise, we can weave together the most productive elements of our traditional infrastructure with new, seamless plug-and-play technologies. Using advanced telecommunications, information and control methods, we can create a “society” of devices that functions as an integrated, transactive system.”
http://www.gridwiseexpo.com/2006/na/default.asp
Another convergence of Neurosphere topics – network infrastructure and the world right now, evolving in tandem.
“The Wi-Fi digital cameras have arrived. Nikon recently began shipping its CoolPix P1 and P2 models (only narrowly beating Kodak to the punch). Both Nikons feature integrated Wi-Fi for sending pictures from camera to PC, as well as to a PC-connected printer, or directly to some printer models equipped with an optional USB/Wi-Fi adapter supplied by Nikon. The P1 ($550) is an 8-megapixel camera, the P2 ($400) a 5-megapixel model.”
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/reviews/article.php/3556466
Not only a wider awareness of the world right now, but a deeper knowledge.
“Ever stand in a grocery aisle contemplating the unknown (and potentially unappealing) story about where a product comes from and what it contains? Given the deceptive nature of advertising and packaging, the best way to get a straight answer about a product is to aggregate the opinions of its users. Enter GreenScanner, a public database of consumer opinions about the environmental accountability of over 600,000 products.”
http://www.worldchanging.com/
Posted at 11:47 PM on April 18, 2006
During a bookstore appearance about my book, an audience member said, “there’s already a Neurosphere – it’s called Second Life.” Here’s a short interview with the founder. 175,000 “residents” and growing.
“Second Life creates an Internet-like environment in 3D. The best way I can show you why 3D is so important is to ask you to tell me the last five emails you read or the last three files you opened with Word or any file name from your docs directory? Almost impossible, right? … So when I show you stuff in Second Life — like my house — if you’re in that room once, you’ll never forget what I’m doing there or what I’m working on. Let’s say there’s a kid in China who can’t speak English well — he can get into Second Life and start making stuff because he doesn’t need to understand any of the concepts in words.”
http://ceruleanmedia.com/dmb/2006/04/14/philip-rosedale-created-a-second-life/