Very interesting basic stuff for modelling in the foresight domain (to be tagged “anticipatory mind”, “prediction game”).
Originally posted on Marko A. Rodriguez:
The concept of a graph has been around since the dawn of mechanical computing and for many decades prior in the domain of pure mathematics. Due in large part to this golden age of databases, graphs are becoming increasingly popular in software engineering. Graph databases provide a way to persist and process graph data. However, the graph database is not the only way in which graphs can be stored and analyzed. Graph computing has a history prior to the use of graph databases and has a future that is not necessarily entangled with typical database concerns. There are numerous graph technologies that each have their respective benefits and drawbacks. Leveraging the right technology at the right time is required for effective graph computing.
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Originally posted on ShapingTomorrowBlog:
By Dennis D. Draeger, Aiglatson Foresight Research
The entire electronics industry is approaching a considerable shake up as Moore’s Law nears its inevitable tipping point. However, new ways of processing information are on their way, and these electronics spinoff fields will develop devices with reduced power consumption, increased speed, and greater functionality at reduced costs while enabling a broad range of new applications.
What is changing?
Electronics has produced several spinoff fields of study. An early example is photonics which began in the 1960s by using light to perform the same functions as electronics…
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Cyborg scenario ahead?
- “Mass media”: Not now
Mobile AR will not be the gadget for the masses in the next 5 years, but …
- Tool in professional branches: Yes
Mobile AR (of theglasses / eye wear type) will become the standard interface in some professions
– e.g. security (cybercops), army, maintenence, medical surgery
- Hyper-transparency angst: Yes
as a consequence the surveillance topic (google PRISM, XKEYXSCORE, NSA super surveillance) will stay on the political agenda
- Politics and law: Adapt fast!
The law system has to adapt rapidly – else the wave of augmentation tech and hyper-transparency might end in a disaster for civil rights and democracy
- Meta, The Crazy AR Glasses That Aim To Do What Google Glass Can’t, Go Up For Pre-Order | TechCrunch
The convergence of information and communication technology is a permanent topic in tech foresight. Now there seems to be a next step in the combination of emergent technologies, that might change our culture in the foundations, actually could change our “cultural DNA”. The material basis for the transformation probably will be a mixed reality of the already emerging Internet of Things, Ambient and Ubiquitous Intelligence – and the maturing new interfaces of wearable Augmented Reality.
Internet of Things – Internet of Everything – Power of Anticipatory Intelligence
Since IPv6 means the unimaginable explosion of the addressable space mankind is prepared for tagging and tracking of everything – goods, vehicles, animals, human beings. Not only managing the data of their trajectories in space and time, but in combination with Big Data and Ubiquitous Intelligence allowing predictive intelligence. The most evolved and complex systems in natural and cultural evolution have created subsystems of anticipatory intelligence – the predator “sees” where the running prey will be in the next tenth of a second. Individuals are making plans over years and decades – as a CEO, a politician or a citizen thinking about the pension. Civilisations have created professions concerned with the future – in modern times based on science, math and computer simulations. The vast “smartization” of the lifeworld will result in much more anticipatory processes, just for the advantage of prediction, but also because of the grown complexity, which in turn might demand more “simulation runs” to find the best decision.
Since the announcments of Google’s project Glass and the amazing prototypes and concept videos there is much noise about it. Actually the view count is near 20 million now and shows the vast interest.
Update 2013-02-22: The graphics on top has been added, though in beta version. Some resemblance with the text and graphics in the newsletter (German text) of the appreciated foresight company Z_punkt is not an accident, since I am quite involved in the process.
Ecology – is it an immature science?
If you have watched the controversy netween Paul Gilding and Peter Diamandis at TED.com you might have come to the conclusion that approaching the big question of our future survival and wellbeing cannot be accomplished in a scientific framework, the contrahents seem to be stuck in a clash of believe systems.
Why is this? Because most of the ecological research is still underscoring the “human factor”. But don’t researchers talk a lot about the anthropogenic factors? Yes, but they do it in a static way, neglecting the dynamics that comes with disruptive innovations.
Radical systemic change – or perish! The need for a kind of
No, we cannot rely on those promises, in the contrary – technology innovation alone will not solve the problems. We need more socio-cultural innovation to realize the urgent and painful radical systemic change.
I have written about the scenario logic of the ecological singularity and I even claimed that “Eco-Singularity is the top issue of our time” (here). Actually there are solution concepts – contrasting with the two extremes of the naive eco-apocalyptic stance or the also naive believe in hypertech solutions. The first one underscores the gamechanging role of innovation, the second one is narrowing the innovation issue to the technological realm alone. Typically the techcentric approach is neglecting also the economical system framework, let alone the ecological, the planetary boundaries. How can we find a new balance with our limited ressources, when hyperproduction, hyperconsumption and a unhealthy financial system are systematically cursing us to shred our ecosystems?
Gilding and Diamandis are both right and wrong
The technological optimist Diamandis has to understand the severe crisis and the limits of “technological salvation”. The ecologist Gilding has to integrate innovation more radically.
The technological optimist Diamandis has to understand the severe crisis and the limits of “tech salvation”. The ecologist Gilding has to integrate innovation more radically.
It woutd be encouraging if we can see the entanglement of both “cultures” in the soon future.
What is in your mind? What will I have I forgotten to mention? Arab spring, occupy movement, maybe a stolen Arab spring in Egypt, maybe an awakening civill society in Russia. And kind of “cold (civil) war” in US. And ever more extreme weather conditions around the globe. Durban climate conference at the end of the year is a new confirmation of cognitive mis-mapping of the political leaders. As cognitive psychology has shown often: A certain complexity of a system cannot be handled by most of human beings, they take refuge to heuristics and kind of superstitious solution approaches.
Oh, Fukushima not to forget – for some 10,000 years – radiation is a reminder future generations did not ask for … What else? A lot of rather helpless activities to handle the debt cirisis in Europe. Angry citizens. Credibility of systems solutions going down, down, down. Politicians’ growth paradigm seems 99% unchanged. Locked in the mindset, which is the problem, not the solution. And again confirmation of the uncontrollable “innovation avalanche” of the hightech super-innovative society. News: H5N1 avian flu created in the laboratory.
Occupy the economy – New models please!
Oh, not only bad news!!! Some weeks ago I was really surprised and excited about the announcement of a “Funky Business Barcamp” in Berlin. Was this the “mycel of transformation” reaching the economy? Will there be emerging new models how to make business in a different cultural setting, with different values and goals – and in a intrinsically sustainable manner. It was an unconventional barcamp and time will tell, whether something substantial will spread from it. I will watch this carefully and will tell if it is …
Update – related posts (oops … Cassandra complex)
- 2009 vs. 1789 – Will the crisis end in a revolution? (March 30, 2009 – detecting weak signals)
- Titanic in full speed, me, you and the Trojan horse (II) (October 23, 2010 – the economic-political world system with extreme deficit of learning capacity)
Facts – present and future
There are different names out there: sharing economy, peer-to-peer value exchange – and “people-powered markets”. The last title is from Vanessa Miemis, who has done a great job to collect and sort 60 (!) of that markets (emergentbydesign.com). There are some more facts from her research:
- There are over 2.8 million couchsurfers in 80,317 cities across 246 countries
- Over 820 coworking places are active worldwide
- Car sharing will be a 6 billion annual business by 2016
You might ask: People Economy – is that communism reloaded? Definitly not! Just in the opposite direction. Yes, it has to do with re-wiring the value chains, but to give people more power. It is about empowerment. The leftist ideologies often did show that they have no real trust in people. When they have acquired power they have again and again build massive control structures – to keep themselves in power and keep people powerless. They even did hate freedom of speech, freedom of thought. The new “people economy” is quite the opposite: It accepts your economical empowerment, conceives you as an entrepreneur, encourages you to monetize on your ressources.
Airbnb story as an example
Why is this happening now? In the US context there might be an influence of the ongoing economical crisis, but the primary driver is the maturity of the “socio-technological complex”, the matrix of highly inter-connected people – technologically supported with digital mechanisms of trust and reputation, with the habit to connect and interact. We will see this spread and gaining momentum in the coming years. While this trend is about sharing some posessions or skills there is another disruptive trend in close company: microwork crowdsourcing in the real world. Curious? Check out Gigwalk, the “first ever distributed workforce”: “We turn the world’s iPhones into your instant mobile workforce.” In the moment available only in US .