Future Salon

Fab Future on the Internet Archive

Finally the fabulous April Future Salon video with Neil Gershenfeld is available on the Internet Archive. More details at the Personal Fabrication Future Salon post.

At the beginning of his presentation, he is covering so many things so fast, that he left a lot of people scratching their heads. It is really great now to be able to watch it again and again and again :-)

Things that they are working on in the lab. Covered in the first couple of minutes:

• Internet Zero
• Internet Protocol survived 7 orders of magnitude of growth. Let's bring the lesions learned from the Internet to physical goods.
• Computers as building materials, you spread it out like paint.
• Fault tolerant digital fabrication
• ... Much more you should really check it out.

This is also a mayor shift in your personal power the more things you can create on your desk, the less you are depending on the current corporate powers. One reason I can't wait to get my own little Nanofactory.

This trend is one of the reasons why the rights to the blueprints, the intellectual property is heating up.

It is so funny, the Internet Archive is giving you thumbnail pictures, one shot per minute unfortunately only for the first 30 minutes. Because Neil had to rush to the airport, we didn't do the round of introductions, this is why we only have pictures of Neil and me this time.

Mark your calendar: Next Future Salon Friday 22nd about the Future of Radio.
Future of Radio? Isn't that an old technology? Yes, but what happens when you put the intelligence into the software and give the radio flexibility that wasn't there before? Matt Ettus will give us an introduction. More soon.

Happy Birthday Sailor

The Sailor Boy, as he calls himself, celebrated his 80th birthday with his daughters, grandchildren and his friends last Saturday.

To live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy. [Essence of First Things First] If there is one person that has done it all, then it is Doug Engelbart.

He told the story again last Saturday at age 25, after he had proposed to his future wife he formulated a principle for his professional life:

Let me design a professional goal which will maximize the contribution my career can have to mankind!

Weeks later his lifetime goal emerged:

As much as possible, to boost mankind's collective capability for coping with complex, urgent problems.

This goal was his guiding light throughout his career, which enabled him to see things beyond the horizon, to see capabilities that are beyond the reach for you.

Beyond Mouse and Men: Doug Engelbart at the Future Salon

When Doug Engelbart left last Friday after talking over 2 hours at the Future Salon at SAP and joining us at Pizza my Heart until midnight he said: "This has been the most understanding audience that I had in a very very long time. How can we continue the dialog."

I was thinking about it, should the dialog go on at the Bafuture Yahoo group? Should we start something at the new Accelaware discussion area? As it is often the case if you don't get to it someone else will and that person will do a better job than you would have ever been able to. Davibennett created the Processing Engelbart Yahoo Group stuck full with good posts and links to relevant resources on the net. I didn't have time to really delve into it, yet, but can't wait to do so after I am back from my as I call it Unplugged Thanksgiving Tour to Inverness that starts right after I posted this.

I especially like that Paul King pointed to the where the Doug's demos from 1968 are hosted and working. (Even Wikipedia is still pointing to a page at Stanford's Sloan School which is not working anymore.Go MIT)

As someone said at the Future Salon the 1992 paper: Toward High-Performance Organizations: A Strategic Role for Groupware is his most important covering what he talked about last Friday. Doug told me that he got almost no resonance when he first published it, so much that it almost turned him off publishing. Read it, link to it and join the discussion at Processing Engelbart.

Clash of the Interface Titans! Will Wright Vs. Jaron Lanier at AC2004

Virtual Reality pioneer Jaron Lanier will debate Sims creator Will Wright at Accelerating Change 2004 (November 5-7 at Stanford). Their debate is entitled "Finding Humanity in the Interface: Capacity Atrophy or Augmentation?" and Future Salon's own Mark Finnern will do the moderating. (Mark is, of course, Superman in the picture to the left :)

In the latest edition of Tech Tidbits, ISAC President John Smart provides the following context for the debate:

"As our interfaces get continually smarter, how do we keep them from dehumanizing us? Can we avoid the world of MT Anderson's masterful dystopia, Feed (2002), where the internet-jacked, childlike teens of 2030 speak pidgin English and live primarily as vehicles for highly sophisticated and automated corporate marketing and political programming?

"Should we be concerned that U.S. youth have had forty years of declining math, science, and analytical reading skills? Do we need 1960's math skills in a world with ubiquitous calculators, or reading skills in a world with digital cable? Or thinking skills in a world with intelligent text analytics?

"Encouragingly, the Millennial generation reaches maturity earlier, communicates in new nonlinear ways, and has a strong facility to adapt to new technology. But are we in danger of losing our perspective, independence, and global vision? What are our most important priorities as we enter a world of increasingly sophisticated interfaces and simulations?"

It will be very interesting to see where these two interface and simulation legends differ in their views and assumptions about our collective human future. See the latest Tech Tidbits for more information, including Will and Jaron's bios.

Will Wright will also deliver a keynote presentation at AC2004 called "Sculpting Possibility Space", the abstract of which can be found here.

Make a Difference. Do Your Part. It's Fun.

Thanks to all of you who came out last Thursday and made it such an exceptional Future Salon. I am still totally happy, running around with a big smile on my face.

A couple of things fell into place starting with the sponsorship from SAP Labs, that provided us with the space, food and drinks and enabled us to have a relaxing hour to get together and network/socialize before the presentations.

You know that you have struck a nerve, when people change their flights to be part of it, when the room is totally packed and people happily sit on the floor or lean against the wall to listen, learn and participate.

Politics of Science and Technology

Just about 100 days until the presidential elections. Time for us to look closer at what the two camps have in store for us regarding the things that interest us the most: Science and Technology. (Or at least from a Future Salon perspective these themes are not covered enough.)

I would like to give the September Future Salon scheduled for Friday 17th to both parties to make their case. At the BlogOn last Friday I bumped into Phil Wolff who is very active with East Bay for Kerry. One of their committees is Scientists for Kerry. Phil promised to get me someone to cover the Democrat's agenda.

Same evening I floated the idea with Judith Meskill and she said that she may be able to provide me with an eloquent speaker to present the Republican standpoint.

Quantum Movie

Update: Quantum Computing at Stanford is tonight Wednesday 16th and the movie is skipping the Bay Area until July/August, see showdates or my comment further down. Shouldn't post that late in the night, but I knew that there is something happening this Thursday: The AllwaysOn Salon about Social Software. Does it matter? .

There is a movie slowly making its way down the West Coast. It has been held over for 16 weeks in Portland now, runs in Eugene already and is supposed to arrive in Berkeley this weekend.

The alchemy of the 20th century

Stumbled over this interesting question and viewpoint on the PC Forum Eventspace - Great Weird Ideas section:

The alchemy of the 20th century
Neal Stephenson was asked: "What's the alchemy of the 21st century."

The context of this question was a discussion of Newton and his fascination with and attempt to "rescue" alchemy. Stephenson explained this fascination as part of Newton's attempt to reconcile his belief in God with his attempt to explain the physical world in mechanistic terms.