Neurosphere

The Human-Human Interface

Cowboysphere


Personal Infrastructure

Wireless broadband is possible in Laramie Wyoming, without centralized national scale planning. Hmm

LARIAT.NET is a local Internet service provider based in Laramie, Wyoming. Founded in 1993 as a community network and relaunched as a private ISP in 2003, we were the world’s first wireless broadband provider and have more than 11 years of wireless experience. We remain an innovator in wireless technology and Internet security, and are the only Internet provider serving Laramie which is locally owned, locally operated, locally managed, and not a franchise or chain…Get out of the house, dormitory, or office and enjoy a beverage, food, and/or the company of others while you work.

http://www.lariat.net/

Financing the Third World Neurosphere


Network Infrastructure for the Neurosphere

If I may be politically incorrect, this effort is going nowhere. The Digital Solidarity Fund is a drop in the bucket, and likely to remain so. The Bush administiration is not going to spend significant money here when their posture in the U.S. is that the private market will provide for all needs. The $100 computer pushed by MIT is a better way to get at the problem. The Digital Divide is a situation tailor made for high risk financing – third world markets are high risk, but the potential scale and upside is enormous. This looks a lot to me like where the cable television industry was 30 years ago. Michael Milken went to jail, but now we all have more digital television channels than we can stand. Watch the Network Infrastructure section of this site for my forthcoming paper on Capital Formation for Closing the Digital Divide.

“An African-led initiative that will use high-speed internet connections to treat AIDS patients in Burundi and Burkina Faso offers inspiration for those working to bridge the world’s digital divide…The Digital Solidarity Fund has just $6.4 million in cash and pledges, pocket change compared with the $2.25 billion the United States spends a year on E-rate grants to schools and libraries in the nation’s rural and low-income areas. Of the countries contributing to the world fund, all but one — France — are African.

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,69561,00.html

Interfaces to the World


The World Right Now

Neurosphere periodically finds nuggets of interest from the email tracker FUTUREdition of The Arlington Institute. The Institute also has developed an explicitly noospheric “Vital Signs Monitor”, in conjunction with the Center for Human Emergence, as a tracking tool for business or governmental use. A near-term project for the Neurosphere Institute is to develop a better interface to The World Right Now as a consumer product.

“Vital Signs Monitors are the early critical warning indicators for understanding and communicating about the dynamics that work in complex social systems to generate levels of destructive violence and conflict, or act to create waves of peace and tranquility. We will be scanning for the Vital Signs that announce the onset of either conflict or peace, and reveal the contours of the deeper tectonic-like social plates that are rumbling beneath the surface.”

http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org

http://www.humanemergence.org/vitalSigns.html

Be the Grid


Wholeness and Virtual Communities

Grid computing available at retail!

“The Sun Grid can accept any self-contained, 32-bit application that is pre-compiled for Solaris 10 OS on the x86 architecture. (Java binaries will work as well.) Upload your apps for deployment on the Sun Grid and for execution. Input files may be cataloged and stored for repeat usage.”

http://www.sun.com/service/sungrid/overview.jsp

Grid computing like other innovations starts to see business model enablers come along. To the extent free markets are the perfect vehicle for expression of human needs, this growing grid entity will have the necessary circulatory systems to keep it going. Here’s one enabler from H-P, and a fully formed market mechanism for buying “computons” from Sun.

“Tycoon is a market-based system for managing compute resources in distributed clusters like PlanetLab, the Grid, or a Utility Data Center (UDC). The basic idea is that users have a limited supply of credits. Consuming users pay providing users to use computer resource. Users who provide resources can, in turn, spend their earnings to use resources later.”

http://tycoon.hpl.hp.com/

Whenever someone uses the term “solution”, I reach for my wallet. But I suppose this is the way the grid infrastructure is adapted to specific uses.

“Kontiki offers the industry’s most secure and scalable digital media delivery solution, enabling enterprises and content providers to securely publish, deliver and track digital media to employees, partners and customers.”

http://www.kontiki.com/

Wholeness, Ancient and Modern


Wholeness and Virtual Communities

Pir Vilayet Inayat Khan died this year. Pir Vilayet brought the teachings of Sufism, the contemplative, mystical branch of Islam, to the West. He founded the Omega Institute, a “holistic” learning center whose name comes from Teilhard’s concept of the Omega Point. He talked about the institute resurrecting the aims of the ancient library of Alexandria, the compendium of all known knowledge at the time. Years ago, Internet pioneers had the idea that the Interent had the potential to be a mechanism for such an ambitious project of wholeness. Today advocates of online encyclodpedia Wikipedia harbor similar ambitions.

“Omega will be a global center for the development of human potential.”

http://www.eomega.org/

www.alexandria.ucsb.edu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Teilhard and Intelligent Design


Wholeness and Virtual Communities

Here’s a critique of theories of Intelligent Design by reference to Teilhard de Chardin’s more inclusive synthesis of science and religion.

“And this is the first thing to notice; unlike ID, Teilhard’s cosmology is not a shortcut to anywhere. Teilhard’s cosmology does not close off questions; it opens them up. And, if it is right, it really does help us make metaphysical sense of everything about the universe without having to abandon real science at any point in the process. That is, for Teilhard, as much as for any naturalist, we understand the universe by looking at the universe; not outside of it. In Teilhard’s universe there are no dei ex machina; things happen in the universe because that’s the way they happen in this universe. The difference is that this universe is not quite as straightforwardly self-subsistent as the naturalists would have it be.”

http://www.techcentralstation.com/111705B.html

Grid Television


Personal Infrastructure

Television becoming more Internet-like is always a promising development. But IP doesn’t mean Free TV. There is a contractual production and distribution infrastructure that won’t be “disrupted” so easily.

“The BBC’s Broadcast network faces many of the problems which computing grids are designed to solve. It is a distributed network , with processing of broadcast material taking place at many nodes, carrying material (broadcast video) that has very high bandwidth requirements and mixes ‘live’ and stored events. The BBC also places high demands for reliable and consistent performance on its systems and networks. Special purpose broadcast processing equipment (e.g. video editing suites or image rendering devices) are located at specific points in the network but, in general, are not available for use outside these locations. As an example of this, a producer from BBC Northern Ireland will have to travel to London (taking his programme material with him) should he want to edit his programme on an advanced editing suite not available at the BBC’s Belfast site.”

http://www.qub.ac.uk/escience/dev/article.php?tag=gridcast_summary

Faulkes Telescope Project


The World Right Now

Here’s a great example of students turning the eyes of the noosphere in the direction of their choice.

“The whole telescope system is designed to operate automatically so that the telescopes run as robots. All that is needed to control one of the telescope is a computer (Windows or Apple Macintosh) and an Internet connection. A control centre in the UK (and others in Hawaii and Australia) will send instructions from the user via the Internet on which observations are to be carried out…The robotic nature of the telescopes means that excellent images of stars and galaxies are sent within minutes to the classroom computer via the Internet.”

http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/index.php?page=7

Disturbing the World Right Now


The World Right Now

The Webcam links in the The World Right Now section of the Neurosphere site provide an eye on the world. But additions to Webcam technology have started to add functionality to what the user can do with or get from the Webcams. You can’t operate the Mars Opportunity Rover yet, but some NASA hotshots get to do that today.

“Some cameras connect directly to a VCR and others record to your computer’s hard drive… You can also get cameras that send alerts when motion is detected or still shots at specific intervals. These are both handy features that offer you greater peace of mind. Likewise, the ability to pan the camera remotely is helpful. Use a Web camera that has a built-in microphone. They will capture audio in addition to video. And the two-way audio allows you to use the camera as an intercom. You can purchase sensors that monitor doors, windows and the temperature. They cost about $40 each. This is great if you’re leaving home for an extended period…The system offers e-mail alerts. It will also send text messages to your cell phone.”

http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/06/technology/komando/security_cams/

Tip of the NeuroHat to Kim Komando.

Where In the World Right Now Are You?


The World Right Now

The FCC is just this year catching cellular phone service up to the emergency 911 requirements of traditional telephone networks.

“Under current FCC rules, VoIP providers have until Nov. 28 to be able to connect their subscribers to the enhanced 911 network, a next-generation system that can pinpoint the caller’s geographic location.”

http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-5951468.html

The technology that makes this possible has repercussions far beyond 911 – all kinds of location-based applications are sure to follow, with each individual having as many degrees of freedom of behavior when they are on the road as when they are any place else. From life-saving behavior, as in this announcement, down to which McDonald’s am I closest to.

“Intrado Inc., a global provider of integrated data and telecommunications solutions, and MedicAlert, the market leader in healthcare infomatics, today announced an alliance to provide subscriber-specific medical information during 9-1-1 calls.”

http://www.intrado.com/main/press/pressreleases/051109.jsp