Neurosphere

The Human-Human Interface

Where It’s At


The World Right Now

Along with Google Earth and others, MapHub seeks to extend awareness of peoples thinking and acting about the geographic coordinates they can find and reach.

“The purpose of MapHub is to serve as a spatial forum for the residents of the City of Pittsburgh to find and share information about their community…MapHub is being used by bicycle safety Non-Profit Bike PGH! to collect information from cyclists about where they were hit or injured around the City of Pittsburgh. The neighborhood of Homewood is using MapHub technology to drive a website that makes information about services such as after school programs easily accessible. Many other organizations are working right now with our team to create interactive maps for use on their own websites.

Organizations can deliver map based information quickly and easily and can make changes and corrections in real time. Information that is hard to obtain and is usually only exchanged by word of mouth in communities can easily be collected online. Any way you use MapHub, your data is easily managed, shared, and maintained by members of your organization and the public.”

http://www.maphub.org/

Global Heart


Wholeness and Virtual Communities

Global Brain? Why not a Global Heart?

“Only through a rite of passage will humanity shift from the love of power to the power of love. This initiation will uproot and transform every aspect of human civilization. It will demand of humankind a new myth, one that insists on cooperation rather than competition, co-creation rather than procreation, networks rather than markets, and sustainability rather than exploitation. Waking the Global Heart is a handbook for this initiation, taking us on a journey through the twists and turns of our collective history.”

http://www.wakingtheglobalheart.com/

Intelligent Buildings Leadership Forum


Network Infrastructure for the Neurosphere

Interesting leap from “automation” to “intelligent buildings”.

“The Forum is being produced by the Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA). CABA is a not-for-profit industry association that promotes advanced technologies for the automation of homes and buildings in North America. Our mission is to encourage the development, promotion, pursuit and understanding of integrated systems and automation in homes and buildings.”

http://www.caba.org/leadersforum/

Visualizing the World Right Now


The World Right Now

I noted in a post last week that the UN and other agencies with lots of data don’t do enough to make them accessible to citizens and useful as monitoring tools. Here’s a tool for data visualization – sure are purty.

“These screenshots and animations are simply intended to give a feel for what visualization and navigation in Walrus are like. The data shown are not necessarily meaningful in themselves.”

http://www.caida.org/tools/visualization/walrus/gallery1/

Smart Motes


Personal Infrastructure

Smart Dust – Smart Motes –

“Intel believes that someday billions of embedded chips and sensing devices will be integrated into objects and locations that are part of our daily lives: clothing, baby cribs, cars, swimming pools, office buildings, hospitals — even vineyards and farms…Today, sensor motes monitor temperature throughout the vineyard. Each mote in the vineyard currently takes one temperature reading per minute and stores the results. The mote records the highest and lowest temperature readings for each hour of the day.

Someday these sensors may also act upon the environment. Imagine sensors that could monitor soil moisture to irrigate only the sections that needed it, or monitor crops to keep them free from pests and diseases.”

http://www.intel.com/technology/techresearch/research/rs01031.htm

Moneysphere


Wholeness and Virtual Communities

What they have to show so far toward a Single European Information Space is a Single European Electronic Market. Follow the money.

“A Single European Information Space offering affordable and secure high bandwidth communications, rich and diverse content and digital services. “?

http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/i2010/a_single_infor_space/index_en.htm

http://www.seemseed.net/WShop2006-06-21/default.aspx

Smart Dust


Personal Infrastructure

I don’t believe this, but I’m going to do more research in case.

“Smart Dust” is basically very miniaturized electronic devices. This is similar to stuff like RFID, smart cards, EZ Pass and those rice grain size tracking devices you can have injected into your pets. But Smart Dust takes this all to a new level by being small enough to be disguised as dirt, the kind you can pick up in your shoes or clothing. Each bit of Smart Dust can be given a unique serial number that, when hit with an “interrogation signal” from troops on the ground, or aircraft overhead, is broadcast back.”

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htecm/articles/20060610.aspx

Hard to Serve Communities


Network Infrastructure for the Neurosphere

Models for reaching the remaining five billion without internet access?

“ITI San Diego will focus on broadband deployment issues, a key component of the

Commission’s Strategic Plan. On the first day, July 27th, and the morning of the second day,

July 28th, presentations and discussions will focus on wireless methods of delivering broadband

solutions, strategies for aggregating demand and creating effective partnerships, and how to

acquire spectrum through FCC auctions, or through the secondary markets processes.”

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1253A1.pdf

Tell These Guys About Viridian Design


The World Right Now

So the United Nations, which I think at heart is progressive and evolutionary in its goals and philosophy, is mired in a certain amount of bureaucratic rather than solutions-oriented thinking. The UN Department of Early Warning and Assessment, in contrast to the Earth Charter Action Tool, is a place to get reams of data rather than user-friendly, intuitive summaries. Maybe the practitioners find this useful, but this doesn’t build the grassroots support for their lofty goals.

“The GEO Data Portal is the authoritative source for data sets used by UNEP and its partners in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report and other integrated environment assessments. Its online database holds more than 450 different variables, as national, subregional, regional and global statistics or as geospatial data sets (maps), covering themes like Freshwater, Population, Forests, Emissions, Climate, Disasters, Health and GDP. Display them on-the-fly as maps, graphs, data tables or download the data in different formats.”

http://www.unep.org/Dewa/early_warning/index.asp

Hi – We’re Earthcats


Wholeness and Virtual Communities

Steven Rockefeller of all people extolled the virtues of “The Earth Charter” in a recent publication of the American Teilhard Association.

“The Earth Charter is a declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society for the 21st century. Created by the largest global consultation process ever associated with an international declaration, endorsed by thousands of organizations representing millions of individuals, the Earth Charter seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family and the larger living world.”

http://www.earthcharter.org/

So in my community I’m trying to do things on a small scale (think global, act local), but networks and software slowly stitch together disparate efforts (nobody likes to feel they’re fighting a losing battle alone), and make possible ways to monitor progress that don’t require wading through mounds of data.

“The Earth Charter Community Action Tool is your guide to developing and implementing a community sustainability plan. Using EarthCAT, you will be able to learn from the experiences of other communities as you set goals and targets, develop strategies to achieve them, and select indicators for monitoring your progress towards a more sustainable future.”

http://www.earthcat.org/cgi/earthcat/index.html

“The [Santa Monica] Plan includes eight Goal Areas which, taken together, present a vision for sustainability in the community.”

http://santa-monica.org/epd/scp/goals_indicators.htm