Future Salon

Mitch Radcliffe: Swift results

While still in the middle of organizing the September (16th or 17th) Future Salon with the theme Extreme Democracy I stumbled over the Red Herring Blog: Swift results by Mitch Radcliffe one of the editors of the upcoming book Extreme Democracy.

The Swift Boat add as Mitch points out were designed for a target audience that would amplify their messages rather than for voters in general. In the long run, it signals a fundamental change in the way ideas are disseminated. He is convinced, that this was only the opening act and the real target is to paint Kerry as a peacenik.

These tactics make me sad and this is why I am looking forward to talk about alternatives at the next Future Salon. Details to come this week. For inspiration check the Wired Magazine this month: 6 ways to reboot the [democratic] system

Search the Future's Past

Inspired by Jeff Nolan's Blog I added search to the right hand side bar of this Future Salon Blog. Thanks, Jeff.

Funding for Two Future Salon Presenters

This week Socialtext as well as Technorati got venture funding. Congratulations to Ross and David. Well deserved.

I love that both of them are not making a big fuss about it and focus on building their services and company. They also always have the greater good in their perspectives when making decissions. Very nice.

Who put that in my Cereal?

Gene blocker turns monkeys into workaholics [via Gilda at LV Futurist]

Procrastinating monkeys were turned into workaholics using a gene treatment to block a key brain compound, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

I am convinced someone is blocking that Gene in me since about 2 years. I used to work only 4 days a week, to have time for all the other stuff that I love to do, like making music. Now work and fun with Future Salon is blending into each other on way too many hours of the week and I don't get to play my instruments as often as I like.

The Google Browser

Jason is speculating apparently not for the first time about The Google Browser. I am intrigued. Now that the quiet period is over, hope they rev up their innovation machine again:

A Google Browser is a no-brainer for them and they have to be thinking about it. It's been obvious for awhile now that Google isn't a search company, nor are they an advertising company, despite what the experts have to say. Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I'm convinced they're building an operating system (of sorts) from which they will dispense all sorts of applications and data (as well as allow other people/companies to do the same in this fashion). What we could see is the next generation of office suite. Not Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook of Microsoft's Office or iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie, iTunes, and Garageband of Apple's iLife suite, but Google search, Gmail, Google Browser, Blogger, and perhaps even GIM. It'll be interesting to watch whether this happens or not.

Google Instant Messenger using Jabber as the underlying technology would be really cool.

Falls into the category of what the Web 2.0 Conference is all about: The Web as platform to build solutions on top of. Great line up of speakers and topics. Bummer that it is at the same time as the SAP TechEd in San Diego.

The Evolution Will Be Mechanized

Got my Wired Magazine today and surprise, page 102 Bruce Sterling is opening up his column with the AC2004:

The Evolution Will BE Mechanized The rate of technological change is dizzying, and it's only getting faster. In September [It's moved to November 5-7th, I guess he didn't get the memo :-) ] at Stanford, the Institute for the Study of Accelerating Change is acknowledging the trend with its second annual Accelerating Change conference.

Update: Eric Nehrlich found the link to the column. Thanks.

Spimodo: Gizmos, Blobjects, Spimes

If you are looking for a visionary talk, Bruce Sterling' Seagraph keynote certainly hits the mark.

It's a call for the designers to conquer not only the digital world, but also the world of atoms. With barcode reader on your cell phone you can already find out the background to a product line and company right in the store. Soon to come so his vision, you will get with every purchase of a product the life history and all other needed information transfered to you too. From the design blueprint to the oh so important way to safely dispose it.

In the whole process you play a part in the feedback loop to the producer, as you do already with your purchases at Amazon: Improving the offerings and the processes of Amazon.com. You become a Wrangler.

He calls these things that go beyond Gizmos: Spimes as in merging the words Space and Time. I agree with Alex from Worldchanging Spime is not a good word, way to close to spine and therefore to spineless. Who wants that?

But it is quite possible, that Spimodo is coming to an RSS reader of your choice soon.

AC2004 gets noticed

First couple of time the Accelerating Change conference gets mentioned in the Blogosphere:

Loic Le Meur: Many friends amongst the speakers and a content that looks interesting, too bad I am not sure I will be able to join Accelerating Change, a Conference that talks about Physical Space, Virtual Space, and Interface on November 5-7 this year.

Overmorgen: ... Two weeks later we have Accelerating Change, packed full of "change agents" such as Jaron Lanier, John "Singularity" Smart, Ross Mayfield, Will "SimCity" Wright and Helen "Master of our robot overlords" Greiner. Could be good... the topics certainly get a full house in Buzzword Bingo.

Sandhill Trek - Accelerating Change! Intense opportunity at Stanford November 5, 6, 7... the Accelerating Change conference is featuring all the people Dave Winer would like to be! Check out this paper co-authored by Lada Adamic to get my drift. Unfortunately, Dave scheduled his Blogger...

Yes, Dave Winer has scheduled his BloggerCon on the same weekend also at Stanford. Make the best out of it and sign up for both and get some exercise while walking from one session to the other :-)

Carnegie Mellon Red Racing Team Visits SAP Labs

Our Brothers in LA had Dr. Richard Mason of the Golem Group, who finished third place at the DARPA Grand Challenge.

Talking about a challenge, of course the Bay Area can't let that sit "unchallenged". Therefore please join us when the winner: Carnegie Mellon Red Racing Team is visiting SAP Labs in Palo Alto this Thursday :-)

This is not a regular Future Salon, no round of introduction, no chocolate for the one who traveled the furthest, but we are coattailing on an SAP event that is open to the public, and a bit early if you ask me: Date & Time: Thursday, August 19 , 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Location: SAP Labs Cafeteria Building: D 3410 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto -- No chocolate, but refreshments will be served. It is free and open to the public.

Transparent Society Update

In July 2002 one of the earliest books we covert at a Future Salon was David Brin's Transparent Society He has just written the cover story for Salon Magazine [free day-pass] in August of this year: Three cheers for the Surveillance Society!

He makes the case that the surveillance technologies are so plentiful, that it is no use fighting it. It is a tide, that you may slow down, but not stop. What we should focus on is to make sure it goes both ways:

Each time the lesson is the same one: that professionals should attend to their professionalism, or else the citizens and consumers who pay their wages will find out and -- eventually -- hold them accountable.

I am not so sure about this. Take for example Prison Rape. It is a long known fact that these horrors are going on in the prisons on a daily basis. So we have found out about it, but we are not really holding anyone accountable do we?