Inspire

Gerd Leonard on the Future of Mobile Content Types at Mobile Monday Amsterdam (MoMo #10)

Below the highlight of our latest Mobile Monday Amsterdam event: Gerd Leonhard. I met Gerd at the Club of Amsterdam in 2003 and there he talked about the future of mobile music. He was incredibly spot on as a futurist back then. In the presentation below he explains his vision on the future of mobile content during 45 minutes in a passionate way. Recommended viewing!

Our next Mobile Monday Amsterdam event on Monday June 1st, 2009 will feature seven world class mobile internet speakers, each covering a different aspect of mobile internet and sharing their long term vision. The speakers are:

• Howard Rheingold (Smart Mobs guru)
• Jamais Cascio (Mobile Science/Sustainability guru)
• Joseph Pine II (Multiverse guru)
• Robert Rice (Augmented Reality guru)
• Alan Moore (Mobile Society guru)
• Andrew Grill (Mobile Advertising guru)
• Eric Petersen (Mobile Analytics guru)

This will clearly be our landmark event. More information will follow at Mobile Monday Amsterdam website. All videos and presentations will be streamed and can be seen on our website afterwards. I really look forward to this event as a lot of Dutch and international mobile passionate people will be there, even from around the globe some MoMo chapters will be there. If you want to attend this free (!!) event, please drop me a note on [email protected].

Saul Griffith at Long Now Foundation on Alternative Energy Sources and Climate Change Recalculated

has multiple degrees in materials science and mechanical engineering and completed his PhD in Programmable Assembly and Self Replicating machines at MIT.  He is the co-founder of numerous companies including: Low Cost Eyeglasses, Squid Labs, Potenco, Instructables.com, HowToons and Makani Power. Saul has been awarded numerous awards for invention including the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Collegiate Inventor's award, and the Lemelson-MIT Student prize. A large focus of Saul's research efforts are in minimum and constrained energy surfaces for novel manufacturing techniques and other applications. Saul holds multiple patents and patents pending in textiles, optics, nanotechnology, and energy production. Saul is a technical advisor to Make magazine and Popular Mechanics.

In his talk below at the Long Now Foundation on climate change, ecological footprints, sustainability, global warming and alternative energy sources you can see an impressive overview of the current situation. How can you measure your own ecological footprint? How can you reduce it? What are the key trends in energy consumption and production? How much energy do we need right now and in 20 years? And how can we scale up? His talk is bombarded with a lot of interesting and illuminating numbers and statistics.

Juan Enriquez on the Financial Crisis, Synthetic Biology, Robotics, Cyborgs and the Homo Evolutis

Juan Enriquez has a solid track record concerning delivering and sharing funny, smart, cutting edge and very interesting presentations on different subjects like the evolution of borders and nation states, biotech, economic structures, evolution at large, synthetic biology and cultural evolution. Juan Enriquez thinks and writes primaril about the profound changes that genomics and other life sciences will cause in business, technology, politics and society.

Previous presentations by Mr. Enriquez can be found here: PopTech2009 on Financial Crisis, Long Now Foundation 2007 on Biotechnology and Mapping Knowledge, TED 2007 on Bio-Energy, TED 2003 on The Coming Huge Biotechnology Revolution and PopTech2006 on Countries, Flags and Dynamic Borders. All these talks are highly recommended. Mr. Enriquez is clearly one of my favorite thinkers, futurists and authors around.

The talk below is from the TED 2009 Event last month. I watched the whole TED show personally for the first time. It was truly mind-blowing and very very inspirational. By far, the best event I have ever experienced in my life. All the buzz surrounding the TED event is true. The structure of the program is outstanding touching your mind, heart and soul in different ways.

The talk below by Mr. Enriquez deals with the current global financial and economic crisis as well as the coming revolutions due to synthetic biology, stam cells as well as advanced robotics. Combining these biotech trends on the bacterial, cellular and tissue level with the robotics trend will eventually lead to advanced cyborgs and the Homo Evolutis. The latter group might co-exist with normal human beings but outperform them in different tasks. And this might be sooner than we think, the speed of innovation in this fields is simply impressive.

Enjoy the rollercoaster!

Daniel Suarez Presents DAEMON - Bot-Mediated Reality at the LongNow Foundation

There are many incredible, fascinating and inspiring videos and presentations available on the web and this seems to increase every year. Below one of the better ones in my view. The reason is an upcoming science fiction novel called DAEMON - Bot-Mediated Reality by Daniel Suarez. Recently, he gave a high-impact presentation at the LongNow Foundation, of which I am an active/paid member since the beginning of 2008.

DAEMON deals with bots (software based on narrow AI incorporating algorithms for specific search, retrieve and actionable goals) and the future of the (mobile) web. Daniel shows us that bots are on the rise and that they redefine what it means to be human. What strikes me about this presentation can be summed up as follows:

• The first time it impressed me, but by the time of the second viewing this video really inspired me to broaden my vision.
• Bots are within my field of interest since May 2005 when I worked with/for Yme Bosma and Bas Verhart within MediaRepublic for extending the opportunities of the Eccky bot. Artificial Intelligence (AI), both narrow and general, is key to the development of chatbots.
• Recently, I visited the The Singularity Summit 2008, a remarkable and highly recommended event with speakers like Esther Dyson, Ray Kurzweil, Nova Spivack, Eric Baum, Neil Gerschenfeld, Cynthia Breazeal (fantastic!) and Ben Goertzel. Many talks in this one-day-event considered AI, bots and robots. 
• Daniel Suarez raises several important questions based on the rise of bots. They focus on a new Internet (DarkNet with limited bot-access), lifelogging, pattern recognition, copyright (User Owned Data?), security, terrorism, privacy, authentication, authenticity, identity, outsourcing, (hyper)efficiency, games and virtual worlds and new organizational structures.
• Amazing insights related to advanced reputational (human) systems, social networks and Mobile Augmented Reality as a gateway to a newer, more secured and better Internet (DarkNet) as to block unlimited powers of bots in the next decades in the current internet.
• Bots are also related to the current global financial crisis. Bots are in almost all cases linear, dualistic and digital in nature. The non-linearity of the real world (see the remarks by Nassim Taleb) in most cases might imply sub-optimal decision making by financial bots as can be seen by our current crisis.

Recommended viewing by Peter Schwartz, Paul Saffo and Kevin Kelly! The book will be officially released on January 9th, 2009.

Michael Chorost on Cyborgs, Direct Brain Interfaces and Human Enhancement

Recently I was amazed by the cyborg Kevin Warwick at the LIFT Conference 2008 with his story on telepathy and direct brain interfaces. Deepening Warwicks' story, Michael Chorost presents insights from his latest book called Rebuilt in the video below.

Michael Chorost became a cyborg on October 1, 2001, the day his new ear was booted up. Born hard of hearing in 1964, he went completely deaf in his thirties. Rather than live in silence, he chose to have a computer surgically embedded in his skull to artificially restore his hearing. This is the story of Chorosts' journey - from deafness to hearing, from human to cyborg - and how it transformed him. The melding of silicon and flesh has long been the stuff of science fiction. But as Chorost reveals in this witty, poignant, and illuminating memoir, fantasy is now giving way to reality.

Prepare to be amazed, especially after 31 minutes and 40 seconds as well as his view on direct brain interfaces. And how Google might play a big part on this future.

Lawrence Lessig, Vint Cerf and Jonathan Zittrain on Authors@Google on the Future of the Internet

A great historic, knowledgeable, funny and original overview of digital media in general and how they thrive. Now and in the future. Open/generative or closed systems ? In case you are interested in the evolution of the internet, this video is for you. But also in case you want to protect your privacy or if you are a developer for Facebook. Based on the book Future of the Internet by Jonathan Zittrain. Highly recommended!

Our Technological Future: Special on the Singularity by Vernor Vinge

IEEE Spectrum has a fantastic special edition on the Singularity just released in June 2008.
In this post on the many faces of the Singularity and our human and technological future are some remarkable quotes by Vernor Venge. For all readers who are into deep future, Metaverse, Multiverse and Augmented Reality. Highly recommended as this is in my view mind-expanding and blowing material !

"I expect the singularity will come as some combination of the following:   
1. The AI Scenario: We create superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) in computers.
2. The IA Scenario: We enhance human intelligence through human-to-computer interfaces—that is, we  achieve intelligence amplification (IA).
3. The Biomedical Scenario: We directly increase our intelligence by improving the neurological operation of our brains.
4. The Internet Scenario: Humanity, its networks, computers, and databases become sufficiently effective to be considered a superhuman being.
5. The Digital Gaia Scenario: The network of embedded microprocessors becomes sufficiently effective to be considered a superhuman being.

Several of the essays discuss the plausibility of mind uploads and consequent immortality for “our digitized psyches,” ideas that have recently appeared in serious  nonfiction, most notably Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near. As with nanotechnology, such developments aren't prerequisites for the singularity. On the other hand, the goal of enhancing human intelligence through human-computer interfaces (the IA Scenario) is both relevant and in view. Today a well-trained person with a suitably provisioned computer can look very smart indeed. Consider just a slightly more advanced setup, in which an Internet search capability plus math and modeling systems are integrated with a head‑up display. The resulting overlays could give the user a kind of synthetic intuition about his or her surroundings. At a more intimate but still noninvasive level, DARPA's Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System is based on the idea of monitoring the user's mental activities and feeding the resulting analysis back to the user as a supplement to his or her own attention. And of course there are the researchers working with direct neural connections to machines. Larger numbers of implanted connections may allow selection for effective subsets of connections. The human and the machine sides can train to accommodate each other.

Brooks suggests that the singularity might happen—and yet we might not notice. Of the scenarios I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, I think a pure Internet Scenario—where humanity plus its networks and databases become a superhuman being—is the most likely to leave room to argue about whether the singularity has happened or not. In this future, there might be all-but-magical scientific breakthroughs. The will of the people might manifest itself as a seamless transformation of demand and imagination into products and policy, with environmental and geopolitical disasters routinely finessed. And yet there might be no explicit evidence of a superhuman player.

A singularity arising from networks of embedded microprocessors—the Digital Gaia Scenario—would probably be less deniable, if only because of the palpable strangeness of the everyday world: reality itself would wake up. Though physical objects need not be individually sapient, most would know what they are, where they are, and be able to communicate with their neighbors (and so potentially with the world). Depending on the mood of the network, the average person might notice a level of convenience that simply looks like marvelously good luck. The Digital Gaia would be something beyond human intelligence, but nothing like human. In general, I suspect that machine/network life-forms will be faster, more labile, and more varied than what we see in biology. Digital Gaia is a hint of how alien the possibilities are."

Peter Schwartz and Niall Ferguson on Futurism versus Historians

One of my all-time favorite discussions on history versus futurism.  Two world class thinkers and authors - Niall Ferguson and Peter Schwartz - are discussing their similarities and differences as well as the foundations, methods, biases and limitations of both disciplines.

One great quote: "Historical knowledge is the reenactment of a past thought encapsulated in a context to present thoughts, which in contradicting it confine it to a plane different from theirs".

Another one: "If you have simultaneously Economic volatility, Ethnic disintegration and Empires in decline, then the probability of a high level of organized lethal violence is significant."

Highly highly recommended viewing including the spicy Q&A.

 

My Personal Vision on Mobile Phones, Mobile Internet and Authenticity

Connectivity breeds positive outcomes.

I would like to extend this idea a little to a possible logical (positive conclusion). At first for the rich countries, later on for underdeveloped countries as well. Here goes:

The overarching theme of our times in my view is authenticity and self realisation. The mobile phone and mobile internet in this respect is a key driver and enabler/facilitator. Why ?

1) The more we share (the more open we are), the more transparent we are. Open APIs, GPS data, photos, videos, blog posts, tweets, clickstream data and increasingly attention data concerning what we read and watch (see APML) are examples. This sharing (increasingly using our mobile phones) stimulates authenticity and honesty as inconsistenties and lies are exposed to ourselves, our family, our social network, our peers and even the market/public as a whole.

2) Information overload begets us the question of what is important to us ? Choices… Choices are based on your identity (who am I ? what are my values ? what is core to me ?). Filtering (using our mobile phones) based increasing identity awareness stimulates authenticity. If we are overwhelmed with options, possibilities and choices, we are drawn to ourselves.

3) Change is everywhere and seems to speeding up. This creates stress in people. In most cases, people can find their core personality in these circumstances as it makes us naked in our needs and wants. As a result, authenticity comes to the fore. As a mobile phones is present with us almost all the time, it seems likely this will be a key gateway to learn about ourselves in these circumstances.

4) Increasingly, (mobile) technologies are on the market for the automated detection of deception and lies. Examples are Facial Coding techniques integrated into and applied to videos and presentations. If you lie, certain particular facial expressions are salient. These expressions can be logged and analyzed using technology. Increasingly, these techniques will be incorporated into mobile phones. As a result, authenticity becomes not only a valuable choice (see point 1, 2 and 3) but also a necessity in certain instances.

5) Mobile phones transform conversational techniques due to ‘presence’ capabilities. If my loves ones and social network can follow all my updates and actions on Twitter, my blog, Facebook etc…this transforms my real-life interactions. The basic questions are skipped as they are already clear using mobile phones and mobile internet. In the past, the basic questions were a necessity due to the lack of the mentioned apps. As a result, real-life conversations focus on more deep questions related to emotions, feelings and intimacy. Shallow, factual questions are more unnecessary. All of this might stimulate authentic conversations and authenticity.

In short, the mobile phone is not only a fantastic connectivity and thus productivity, growth and empowerment tool but also increasingly IMO a tool for higher levels of trust, authenticity, self realization, transparency and honesty.

This is not a sure scenario, just a likely scenario IMO. It is evenly possible to construct an opposite case/scenario with fear (instead of hope and trust) as a key theme as a result of using a mobile phone and mobile internet (including Internet of Things/UbiComp). Fear due to increasing control by classic institutions and even ordinary people. Fear -> more closed systems -> negative outcomes across the board including Less authenticity. Yet again, I am an optimist :-)

Craig Venter on Synthetic Biology (LongNow Foundation Presentation)

One of the most exciting new scientific topics around: Synthetic Biology. If this field keeps on growing we are in my view experiencing a more revolutionary trajectory the coming decades relative to the internet (online and mobile combined). Highly recommended viewing, especially the Q&A. Including some possible solutions for our environmental and resource challenges.