| Announcements
AC2005 Speaker Lineup
AC2005
will feature 40+ world-class speakers and 350+ distinguished attendees
discussing the increasing intelligence of machines (artificial intelligence
or AI), the evolving effectiveness of technology-aided humans (intelligence
amplification or IA), and how these two powerful trends are shaping
our future.
So far, our world-renowned speakers include: mathematician and science
fiction author Vernor Vinge, inventor and author
Ray Kurzweil, author and editor-at-large of CNET Networks
Esther Dyson, biophysicist and complexity science
author Harold Morowitz, iRobot
CEO Colin Angle, Linden Lab CEO Philip
Rosedale, president of DEVONtechnologies (creators of DevonThink),
Eric Boehnisch-Volkmann, co-creator of Mozilla
Firefox, Blake Ross, AI leaders
David Fogel and Robert Hecht-Nielsen,
Berkeley CITRIS director Ruzena Bajcsy,
nutritional scientist and author of the ground-breaking
China Study T. Colin Campbell, venture
capitalist and polymath Steve Jurvetson, and special
host Moira Gunn of TechNation.
See the complete
list of speakers confirmed to date.
Spaces are filling quickly, so sign
up now with your Accelerating Times discount code (AC2005-ATIMES,
entered in all capital letters) and get $50 off! This
special $350 post-discount conference rate will be available to
ATimes readers until June 30th.
ASF
is Hiring!
As our executive director Iveta Brigis starts her
UC Irvine MBA program this fall, ASF will be hiring a new ED to
start with us this August. We are looking for someone organized,
growth oriented, a team leader with good people skills, and passionate
about building a network of individuals committed to positive transformative
change. Pay commensurate with nonprofit or business experience,
with a $24,000 base and an equivalent amount (or more) of performance
bonus. Relocation to Los Angeles, at least for the first year would
be preferred. Know anyone who would be a great fit for our service
mission? Interested yourself? Please
inquire with ivetabrigis(at)accelerating(dot)org.
 New
AC2004 Audio
 Visionary
Doug Engelbart's keynote talk "Large
Scale Collective IQ" and Peter Thiel's
excellent presentation "Virtual
Money" are now available as a podcast
(streaming or download) courtesy of Doug Kaye at
our media partner, IT
Conversations. You can regularly check the free AC2004
audio archive at IT Conversations, or register for email
notification of new postings.
 PUSH
Conference
PUSH 2005: The Geography
of Change, June 12-14, Minneapolis MN. This well-regarded independent
futures conference nicely complements Accelerating Change.
PUSH is devoted to "identifying
issues of consequence, exploring them with some of the greatest
minds we can find, and helping to shape the questions that matter
most. No bullet points. No 'how-to's. Just an elite level of conversation
you won't find anywhere else." The PUSH audience is "350
leading strategists, innovators and futurists from business, academia
and the arts; people who not only want to be a part of what comes
next, but who will be the architects of the business, economic,
political and artistic landscape 20 years from now and beyond."
Cecily Sommers, founder of PUSH, will be an emcee
at Accelerating Change 2005. We hope you can join their
conversation this June.
Quotography
"In a time of change, it is learners who inherit the future.
The learned find themselves well equipped to live in a world that
no longer exists." — Eric
Hoffer
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the
things you did not do than those you did do. So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover. Give yourself away to the sea of life."
— Mark
Twain
Resources
and Tools
 Google
Web Accelerator (Beta Release, Presently Suspended)
[Commentary by John Smart] The ever-innovative
Google Labs has just released a great tool for accelerating web
surfing for broadband users. Like Mozilla Firefox, and AvantGo
for PDA users, Google is trying to jumpstart a new paradigm of browsing
and downloading that involves the anticipation of user habits. It
prefetches websites you typically use, and as you click your way
through the web it tallies how much time you have saved as a result
of the prefetching, continually tuning up its process. Some heavy
computer users using the beta are finding they save about an hour
a week of waiting for the computer to respond. Presumably,
background prefetching doesn't slow your regular computer use, or
the "time saved" wouldn't be accurate.
Unfortunately,
version 1.0 causes problems with some web apps and some interactive
websites such as forums (you should manually turn it off for the
forums you use) so they've taken the download off their website,
for now. You can follow the situation at Google
Labs - Web Accelerator forum, where you might be able to snag
a copy from a current user. Good luck in acceleration space! With
luck we'll all join you there soon enough.
VR3
Auto MP3 Player: Podcasting on a Beer Budget
 [JS]
Would you like to listen to those great Accelerating Change
2004 audiocasts
in your car? How about all the other excellent talks you can download
at our media partner, IT
Conversations? If you are waiting for an iPod with a faster
and friendlier user interface (like me) or just don't want to spend
the $300, now you can get MP3 audio in your car for just $30 with
the VR3. With a good capacity keychain flash drive (500MB
costs just $45), you can load up lots of great audio for your
car (500 MB = 8 hours of audio files, or 16 half-hour programs).
Already own a key drive? You are more than halfway there. Plug you
keychain drive into your computer's USB port, copy over the downloaded
files you want to listen to, and plug the drive into your VR3, which
sits in your car's cigarette lighter port. The VR3 plays through
your car's FM Tuner and is grounded, so the audio quality is as
good as your car stereo.
With luck,
we'll see tomorrow's iPod and Cellevision converge with our next
gen mobile phones just a few years hence. In the meantime, this
is an excellent entry-level option for listening to the IT future.
Thanks to Scott Lemon.
The
Acceleration Story in Five Spaces
ATimes
covers world news and insight in five "spaces," giving
one to three briefs in each space. The story of accelerating change,
the most fascinating story of our time, appears to be one of movement
from outer, to human, to inner, to cyber, and ultimately, to hyper
space, the world beyond the present. Each of these deserves understanding
for a multidisciplinary perspective on the future:
Outer
Space (the world around us: science, the natural
and built environment, universal systems theory)
Human Space (the human
world: our bodies, behavior, minds, human systems theory)
Inner Space (the world
below: energy, small tech, computer "bodies", inner
systems theory)
Cyber Space (the virtual
world: computer "behavior", computer "minds",
cyber systems theory)
Hyper Space (the world
beyond: new paradigms, phase transitions, hyperphysics, hyper
systems theory)
If
you have important stories to share with our 3,100 acceleration-aware
readers, we'd love to hear from you
Outer
Space
science (biology, chemistry, geology, physics, research),
the natural and built environment, universal systems theory (developmental
physics, hierarchical substrates)
Transportation
 Underground
Automated Highway Systems (UAHS): A Framework Forecast for Post-2030
Urban Transportation, John Smart, 2005 (10 page PDF)
[JS]
This framework document (a forecasting tool) outlines what I think
is the most likely long-term future of urban transportation. It
projects continued improvement and expected convergence of several
enabling technologies, including tunnel boring systems, automated
highway systems, and zero emission vehicle systems, and their superior
efficiencies, safety, and public desirability over competing high
capacity transportation options, such as aerial systems.
I propose the
urban environment of our planet's wealthier megacities will easily
support at least an order of magnitude of greater transportation
and population densities by the mid 21st century, using UAHS. While
we may see more population growth in secondary cities, tomorrow's
greatest cities will be very interesting places to live, with amazing
new social, economic, and technological opportunities.
Human
Space
bodies (biology, health, neuroscience), behavior (business,
education, foresight, governance, innovation, pre-digital technology,
society), minds (psychology, spirituality), human systems theory (ecological
psychology, memetics) Education
2020 Visions: Transforming Education and Training Through
Advanced Technologies, September 17, 2002
(85 page PDF)
 [Commentary
by Iveta Brigis] In 2002, the Departments of Commerce
(Technology sub-department) and Education joined together to publish
this compendium of scenarios for education in the year 2020. A number
of experts, including Microsoft head honcho Bill Gates,
worldwide bestselling game designer and AC2004 speaker Will
Wright, futurist Chris Dede, and UC
Berkeley CITRIS director Ruzena Bajcsy (AC2005
speaker) contributed their visions of how technology will shape
and redefine education as we know it today.
The publication
of such a report asserts what many of us already believe and frequently
talk about: that both US and global education are not effectively
teaching society how to thrive in a world of accelerating technological
change. Many educators, technologists, policymakers, parents, and
especially children would agree that technology has the ability
to provide new tools that could revolutionize how and what is taught
in schools all around the world.
In this report,
Dr.
Rod Paige, US Secretary of Education, puts it bluntly:
“Indeed, education is the only business still debating the
usefulness of technology. Schools remain unchanged for the most
part despite numerous reforms and increased investments in computers
and networks. The way we organize schools and provide instruction
is ssentially the same as it was when our Founding Fathers went
to school. Put another way, we still educate our students based
on an agricultural timetable, in an industrial setting, yet tell
students they live in a digital age.”
The first step
to fixing something is identifying the problem, and then we must
come up with plausible solutions. This publication is a great resource
for anyone who is interested in understanding and shaping the future
of global educational technologies. I applaud the Departments of
Commerce and Education for putting together such an honest, foresighted,
and relevant document.
On a side note, Standard & Poor's has developed a new free public
service, School Matters,
that compares the performance of US public schools in your area.
It mainly looks at performance on standardized tests, so it has
limited usefulness, but it's a step toward greater educational accountability.
Inner
Space
energy, small tech (nanoengineering, miniaturization),
computer "bodies" (automation, computer hardware, nanotech,
robotics), inner systems theory (acceleration, efficiency, miniaturization,
reductionism)
Nanotechnology
Toshiba's
'Nanobattery' Recharges in Only One Minute, Physorg.com, March 29,
2005
Practical
Nanotechnology: Toshiba's Li-Ion Battery Advance, TechNewsWorld.com,
, 2005
 [JS]
Wow! Here is an exciting and practical battery advance that will
make hybrid and electric autos and all our consumer electronics
a lot more usable very soon. On March 29th the very R&D- and
future-oriented Toshiba Corporation announced a breakthrough in
lithium-ion battery technology. By using a new nano-material that
better stabilizes lithium ions in liquid electrolyte while providing
much more surface area for their flow, Toshiba engineers have figured
out how to recharge Li-Ion batteries sixty times faster
than their present rates!
 This
is the kind of jaw-dropping efficiency improvement we have come
to expect from the nanocosm. Toshiba's new battery is 80% recharged
only sixty seconds after plugging in, and 100% recharged in less
than 10 minutes. By improving ion flow they have also greatly improved
cycle performance: the battery loses only 1% of its capacity after
1,000 cycles, vs. 30% or more for typical Li-Ion batteries (many
of us buy new batteries for our portable devices after only 500-800
real-world cycles). It also performs much better in extreme temperature
ranges (it works at 80% of its capacity at minus 40 degrees, and
95% at a sweltering 113 degrees). Toshiba plans to commercialize
this in 2006, starting in the automotive and industrial sectors.
As Motley Fool
"Rule Breaker" advisors Carl Wherrett
and John Yelovich note, the new Toshiba breakthrough
makes the similar rapid-recharge and cycle extension claims of upstart
energy IPOs like Altair Nanotechnologies
(Nadaq: ALTI) look significantly less monetizable. See their excellent
articles (spam-generating registration required, so use your spam-collecting
email address) highlighting the endless
reorgs and stock-pumping
shenanigans of Altair. Why can't they learn from Toshiba and
act more like real innovators, with less talk and more action?
Toshiba also
makes some amazing laptops, including the
ultra-small Libretto, the creative Portege tablet PC, and the multi-media
Qosmio. Check out their award-winning product reviews at CNet
or PC Magazine if you are in the market for one. Thanks to ASF Advisor
Steve Waite.
Cyber
Space
computer "behavior"
(co-evolution, automation, symbiosis), computer "minds"
(computer software, simulation), cyber systems theory (holism, information,
intelligence, interdependence, immunity)
3D
Printing
DIY Rocket Launcher (from
a Video Game), May 24, MAKE: Blog, posted by Phillip Torrone
(original article)
[Commentary by Jerry Paffendorf] The
MAKE:
Blog recently introduced its community of artful hackers to
the idea of 3D printing objects from video games and virtual worlds.
Picked up from Chris Anderson’s Long Tail
blog via reBang
where the original author, csven, writes:
The image
above is a screen capture from Pro/ENGINEER
CAD, perhaps the most widely used product development 3D application
for design and manufacturing. That object is a piece of a virtual
game object “captured” from id’s Quake
3 videogame (the barrel of a Rocket Launcher). It was not
created in my CAD application. It was not ripped from the game
files. I “hijacked” the data streaming to my monitor
using a freely available tool. And now, if I desired, I could
manipulate the data and create a real product.
Elsewhere,
bloggers considered the emerging copyright issues of, say, scanning
and reverse engineering the 3D construction of a car—something
that “will make the RIAA copyright situation look like a little
spat.”
On the
topic of 3D printing, MIT’s Neil Gershenfeld
recently spoke about his Fab Lab 3D prototyping initiative and his
new book, Fab,
at the Bay
Area Future Salon. We hope to have the audio online soon, but
in the meantime you can check out Neil’s talk
from this year’s O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference
compliments of IT Conversations.
 GPS
Mapping
Take
That, Google: Bill Gates Struts Microsoft’s New Search Stuff,
NY Times (free registration required), May 24, 2005, by
John Markoff
[JP] Microsoft
has joined Google in the race to build a GPS-driven platform for
geographical annotation and local search (see AC2004 speaker Jon
Udell’s great Google Maps screencast).
We seem to be just now entering an escalating competition between
the two companies to visually virtualize the planet and construct
a geo-spatial Web around it (yea, that’s a neat development
:-). See also my
post on the Second Life Future Salon blog for a few
more thoughts and resources including news of the upcoming O’Reilly
Where 2.0 Conference
and the reBang blog’s speculation
that Microsoft is building a virtual 3D world.
Hyper
Space
new paradigms (including evolutionary development),
phase transitions, hyperphysics (black holes, multiverse, string
theory, supersymmetry), hyper systems theory (computational limits,
emergence, phase transitions, technological singularity hypothesis,
developmental singularity hypothesis)
Medicine
Instructive Immunotherapy: The Most Promising Biotech on
the Block?
[JS]
Longtime ATimes readers know my perspective that biotech,
in general, will give significantly less accelerating returns than
infotech and nanotech going forward, due to the inherent limitations
and bottom-up developed complexities of biological systems. I've
explained this perspective in a few arcane
articles, and will try to better clarify this position in the
future.
Nevertheless,
immunology stands out as an area with great potential to help humanity
in coming years. The obvious great benefits are cures for cancer
and infectious diseases, and better management of our comparatively
rare autoimmune disease. Less obvious is that when we understand
how to empower our immune sytems, we will eliminate what many futurists
see as the last major threat to accelerating techno-economic globalization:
the possibility of a worldwide pandemic. Whether human-engineered
or naturally emergent, I suspect that no simple pathogen can resist
the incredible redundant complexity of a healthy immune system,
once we've primed it for the recognition and destruction of the
offending virus or bacteria. By understanding how to help our immune
systems work at their natural best, I believe we'll sharply limit
the nature of this risk in coming decades. (Other risks, such as
religious fundamentalism or even nuclear terrorism, arguably aren't
in the same class as biological pandemic).
 Dr.
David Baltimore, professor of biology and president of
Caltech, and Dr. Lili Yang, a postdoc in Dr. Baltimore's
lab, have recently managed to train an immune system to entirely
eliminate large solid tumors in mice. That is a very difficult and
valuable trick. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the
United States. In 1950, our global average life expectancy was about
40 years old. By 2000, that figure had risen to 62. As our planetary
life expectancies have increased worldwide, cancer has become a
major killer in emerging nations as well.
As Dr. Yang
says: "We have combined three leading edge technologies, [hematopoetic]
stem cell therapy, gene therapy and immunotherapy, to program a
mouse to develop large numbers of cells that can kill a tumor. We
call the method 'instructive immunity'. It takes advantage of the
longevity and self-renewal of blood stem cells. It is appropriate
to human clinical application. The method can provide immunity against
tumors and microbes and represents a potent new direction for T
cell immunotherapy. It will also be useful for experimental studies
of the immune system.”
We invited her
to speak on her research at the Los Angeles Future Salon last month,
and she was fantastic. Here is a blurb
on her talk, and a PDF
on her March 22 PNAS paper describing their work. One of
their next experiments will be an attempt to eliminate human tumors
transplanted into immunodeficient mice, so they are moving fast
to explore the potential for human clinical application a few years
hence. Instructive immunotherapy is a powerful improvement over
the old strategy of adoptive immunotherapy, and is the most promising
approach to cancer treatment I've seen in many years. This whole
field may eventually open up a brand new paradigm for medical treatment,
and I hope it gets the early funding and attention it deserves.
At present this lab is the only one attempting this fantastic work.
If you'd like to congratulate Dr. Yang, or send her lab a small
donation, you can reach her at liyang{at}caltech{dot}edu.
Fun
We
all deserve a little fun every day. Send your entries for the next
ATimes!
Movies
 The
Up Series
[IB] This brilliant documentary series is a must
see! Starting in 1963, director Michael
Apted visited 15 British children of diverse backgrounds
every seven years, ending in 1998 when they were all 42 years old.
Apted's time-lapse movies bring us a fascinating and never-before-seen
"God’s eye view" on the many faces of human development
in the late 20th century. It’s very engaging to guess which
child will be “successful” and how they will change
over the years, to see how the fervent goals of seven-year-olds
are either fulfilled or cast away, how their relationships develop,
how their lives are affected by technology, and how they come to
raise their own children. We bought the DVD set on eBay for $55
(it’s $80 new on Amazon) and watched the entire 6-film series
in one week of evenings. Read Roger
Ebert's review ("one of my top ten films of all time")
or watch them with no prior knowledge, whatever works for you.
Call
for Submissions
ASF
is seeking submissions for our Accelerating
Times (AT) web-based publication. AT
is a "free and priceless" monthly to bimonthly newsletter
covering scientific, technological, business, and social dialogs
in accelerating change. Anyone may submit scan hits, article links,
original papers, questions, reader feedback, and artwork to mail(at)accelerating.org.
Accepted work will appear, fully credited, in future issues. |
