Category: Emerging Technologies

[via Shiv] Scientific American writes about “new systems may allow people to record everything they see and hear–and even things they cannot sense–and to store all these data in a personal digital archive.”

Digital memories can do more than simply assist the recollection of past events, conversations and projects. Portable sensors can take readings of things that are not even perceived by humans, such as oxygen levels in the blood or the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Computers can then scan these data to identify patterns: for instance, they might determine which environmental conditions worsen a child’s asthma. Sensors can also log the three billion or so heartbeats in a person’s lifetime, along with other physiological indicators, and warn of a possible heart attack. This information would allow doctors to spot irregularities early, providing warnings before an illness becomes serious. Your physician would have access to a detailed, ongoing health record, and you would no longer have to rack your brain to answer questions such as “When did you first feel this way?
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In a sense, the era of digital memories is inevitable. Even those who recoil at our vision will have vastly more storage on their computers in the coming years and will expect software to help them more and more in utilizing it. Although some may be frightened at the prospect of ubiquitous recording, for us the excitement far outweighs the fear. Digital memories will yield benefits in a wide spectrum of areas, providing treasure troves of information about how people think and feel. By constantly monitoring the health of their patients, future doctors may develop better treatments for heart disease, cancer and other illnesses. Scientists will be able to get a glimpse into the thought processes of their predecessors, and future historians will be able to examine the past in unprecedented detail. The opportunities are restricted only by our ability to imagine them.

Nova Spivack writes about what his company Radar Networks is doing:

we are building a next-generation Web-based online service that will bring the Semantic Web to consumers and professionals across the Web. This application is focused on enabling the next generation of social software (note that social software is not necessarily social networking — that is subset of social software). It is an example of what “the Intelligent Web” will be like. We are very excited about this service and what it already does, but there’s still more to do before we release it.

Our app is based on the Semantic Web. It will enrich and facilitate more intelligent online relationships, community, content, collaboration and even commerce. It will help to bring the Semantic Web from research to reality by making it user-friendly, accessible and most of all, directly useful and valuable, to ordinary people. We are focused on providing value to consumers — not just developers or early-adopters.

The Economist writes:

Information-money can be handled by any information-processing device. That includes the mobile phone, which can add to money’s utility thanks to its display and its power at any time to link to your bank as a mobile ATM. Visa thinks a contactless digital transaction takes less than half the time of a cash one and that people liberated from what happens to be in their wallets spend a fifth more.

Which is why digital cash is now solving its chicken-and-egg problem. In the past shopkeepers would not install systems unless shoppers had electronic cash. And shoppers would not use electronic cash unless they had something to buy. But smart cards and readers have become cheap and consumers now possess mobile phones in droves. The trillions of payments that are too small to bear the fees of paying by credit card have come within reach and almost everyone stands to gain. Some Japanese merchants have already begun to offer discounts to people using electronic cash. Others will follow.

John Battelle writes:

Where are the greatest opportunities, and the greatest risks? At the Web’s edge – the places where the Web is just beginning to take root: the industries, geographies, and applications that have yet to be conquered by the web’s wide reach.

For the past three years, the Web 2.0 Summit has explored ideas which have already begun to slip into the mainstream. This year, we’ll highlight news from unusual suspects- the enthusiasts and dreamers touching the edges of spaces not yet conquered by the Web, as well as established players who are looking to expand into new and previously unimaginable realms.

How is the Web infiltrating new beachheads in areas we never thought it could–or would? What are the majors doing at the edge, at the loony “ten percent time” at Google, in the labs at MSN, IBM, etc., that might inform entirely new applications, opportunities, even threats? What are the edge startups promising to redefine the center? What are the things we wish or know the Web can do, but so far, is failing us? What are the edges in terms of policy, politics, and morality?

WSJ writes:

Alternative energy still can’t compete with fossil fuels on price. But the margins are narrowing, particularly since oil and gas prices have been rising. The math looks even more favorable if you consider the environmental cost of fossil fuels — which most purely economic calculations don’t.

Alternative energy still faces obstacles to mainstream success. Many projects need government or utility subsidies and incentives to be viable. Generating costs have risen recently for some types of renewable resources, pushed by higher materials prices, labor costs and demand. Supply chains are prone to hiccups, and wind and solar-energy resources need backup sources of power to compensate on windless or cloudy days.

Alan Moore points to a presentation by Nova Spivack:

Web 3.0. — Using the same pattern as the above Wikipedia definition, Web 3.0 could be defined as: “Web 3.0, a phrase coined by John Markoff of the New York Times in 2006, refers to a supposed third generation of Internet-based services that collectively comprise what might be called “the intelligent Web” — such as those using semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data-mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies – which emphasize machine-facilitated understanding of information in order to provide a more productive and intuitive user experience.”

Web 3.0 Expanded Definition. I propose expanding the above definition of Web 3.0 to be a bit more inclusive. There are actually several major technology trends that are about to reach a new level of maturity at the same time. The simultaneous maturity of these trends is mutually reinforcing, and collectively they will drive the third-generation Web.

[via Srinivas] Business 2.0 writes about jeff Hawkins’ new venture:

Computers running Numenta software will not be programmed like regular computers. Rather, algorithms that Numenta has come up with allow machines to learn from observation, just as a child learns by observing the world around her.

Numenta is developing a new computer memory system that it says can remember the patterns of the world presented to it and use them, the way a human does, to make analogies and draw conclusions. If it works as Hawkins expects, the applications and business opportunities will be stunning. They could range from the mundane – helping radiologists or airport security officers to read X-ray images, predicting machine failures in factories, improving manufacturing yields at chip plants – to the mind-boggling: predicting tornadoes and stock prices, making smart cars, unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos. “I know this has to work because this is how the brain does it,” Hawkins says.

David Kirkpatrick thinks it is Rhapsody.

We’re entering an era of ubiquitous wireless broadband, where data will be available to us wherever we go. In that kind of world, we will not need iTunes. I doubt most people will want to buy or “own” music at all. It will be far more useful to pick from a giant online library and listen to whatever we want wherever we are.

I didn’t fully realize this until I got a loan of a home music system called Sonos. It’s an elegant way to get music wirelessly from your PC to your stereo, but in its latest iteration it also is well-suited to getting your music directly from the Internet. The best way to get music into Sonos is via Rhapsody. Rhapsody, not iTunes, in my opinion, is the future of music.

Bill Gates writes in Scientific American: “The robotics industry…is developing in much the same way that the computer business did 30 years ago. Think of the manufacturing robots currently used on automobile assembly lines as the equivalent of yesterday’s mainframes. The industry’s niche products include robotic arms that perform surgery, surveillance robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan that dispose of roadside bombs, and domestic robots that vacuum the floor. Electronics companies have made robotic toys that can imitate people or dogs or dinosaurs, and hobbyists are anxious to get their hands on the latest version of the Lego robotics system.”

From Nyquist Capital:

# Google (GOOG) makes a really big move into hardware. This is accomplished by close partnership with Samsung or Sony (SNE) who finally realizes it needs a software partner to sell hardware.

# The Third PC emerges, after the desktop and laptop in many homes, and its in the living room. This drives all sorts of new trends, from a focus on highly integrated chipsets to low power to new software companies.

# China becomes the next investment meme as retail investors pour money into the country. Every company rushes to present their China strategy. Any investment with China attached to it get a premium. The 2008 Beijing Olympics become the must-have ticket for the glitterati.