Future Salon

70 Miles Per Gallon Anyone?

I thought it was a declared goal of Ford to achieve a 50 miles per gallon fleet fuel efficiency average by 2010. Turns out it is a request from the Jumpstart Ford Coalition.

Well soon you may be able to get 70 MPG using the Smart Car co-developed by Mercedes and Nicolas Hayek the driving force behind the Swatch success in the 80s. They run very successful already on European roads.

It's a two seater, so small, that you can park three of them sideways next to each other in a regular city parking spot. Just for the fearful beneath us, it is using a particular space frame technology, that makes it safer than a Ford Escort.

A deal has been signed for ZAP to bring it to the American market. The diesel version is clocking in at 70 mpg and in San Francisco or New York or for that manner all cities with parking shortage it would be heaven sent. I would drive it.

For a long while I wanted to point out to this development and an article in the latest Wired magazine (online release 7th of October) has triggered it finally.

Can't wait for Make:

Dale Dougherty and Mark Frauenfelder introduced their new magazine project at this year's OSCON: Make:

It is going to be a celebration of tinkering, of using everyday objects and technology to create something new useful and unique.

Obey the Law ...

Wayne has updated his List of Laws as announced in his post on our mailing list.

By accident I stumbled over this year's The Edge Annual Question: "What's your Law?"
Quite some food for thought. Example: Steinhardt's Law Good science creates two challenging puzzles for each puzzle it resolves.

Wayne you may have some updating ahead of you. :-)

24HOURDOTCOM

24HOURDOTBOMB is a great Art/Prank with a dose of seriousness, cramming the dot com experience into 24 hours.

Right now we are at the Wizards of OS conference in Berlin to make a performance art/business project. The mission is to create a dotcom business from scratch in 24 hours. That means designing and programming a complete and useful web application, recruiting people, doing marketing, creating investment programs and much more. After 24 hours, the complete business will be sold on an eBay auction, and everyone involved will be rich!

You can't be part of the fun anymore, but can buy the business for currently $780 on Ebay. So hurry up. [via Steve at O'Reilly Blogs]

There I was, at NEXTFEST.2004

Strange thing about Wired's NEXTFEST-- I keep wanting to type NeXT Fest. Ah, does anyone else remember the black magnesium cubes? Does anyone else miss those days? Whenever anyone criticizes me for going off to build a shareware toolbar, I think of Steve Jobs going off to reinvent the very idea of a computer and smile. The software industry is chock-full of people who do apparently irrational things.

Anyway, back to Wired's shindig. Thanks to Our Fearless Leader, I went last Sunday and partook of the cutting-edge. Drank deep of the Pierian Spring, as it were.

It was clearly a 1.0 event. All sorts of minor issues with displays being too close together and lines of sight not quite being linear and so on. But that was small beans-- this was a chance to glimpse the future and share.

I enjoyed it immensely.

Rather than give a simple summary, I decided to create and bestow the first annual NEXT FEST Awards.

Roadtrip to the Museum of Jurassic Technology?

Jon Udell is asking: Should we exhibit GMail in the Museum of Jurassic Technology?

GMail as being the Google's email service announced on April 1st and for hours people weren't sure whether it is a prank or not. (It isn't and it is :-)

IT Conversations: Live Stream of Darpa Grand Challenge

IT Conversations does a sweet job of covering Live! The DARPA Grand Challenge. With lots of 80s music thrown in there. I requested Autobahn von Kraftwerk, but I guess Doug Kaye doesn't have that in his collection :-)

It was the next best thing to being at the starting line. Doug: "Team ESKO out of the gate, really fast, looking good. - Oh, it fell on the side." All teams didn't make it to the finish line. Red Team and SciAutonics II got to mile 7.

My disappointment of the day of course was the Berkeley Motorcycle Team apparently wobbled a couple of yards and fell. They were offered another chance to start again, but withdrew :-( Well, better get Dean Kamen on board for next year. John Smart and I were joking on the phone that we would create a jazzed up Segway for the competition next year.

Wired News: Robot Racers Catch a Break

Don't miss the Robot Race this Saturday, although the warm up doesn't sound very promising. Wired News: Robot Racers Catch a Break

"The principal was in the stands," explained Greg Larson, a Palos Verdes parent who's helping to supervise the team. "And it veered and headed right toward the principal before it hit a wall. It was like something out of Animal House."

I think the Berkeley team has the right approach. Lean mean motorcycle. If only they would get it stabilized, they would kick Hummer ass. Unfortunately they "admitted in their literature that the farthest their unmanned bike had traveled during testing was 150 feet."

May be next year. Some Future Friends will drive there especially from LA and San Diego. The Las Vegas Futurists have home court advantage anyhow. (Details to come soon on the mailing list.)

Falling through Dreams. Comics from Scott McCloud

I could have sworn, that after last year's Foo Fest I posted about the great Comics of Scott McCloud, but now I can't find it. Guess life caught up with me.

Loved his presentation at the Fest. He develops comic strips and explores the possibilities that the web is offering him for his chosen art. 

It is a beautiful little trick that he is using in his current strip. A mini version of the next picture is always in the center of the current one. Once you click to get the next frame, it expands from the middle. The effect is, that you feel like you are falling through a dream. A beautiful blue dream in the case of "The right Number". 

I just realized, that part two of the dream is out. Way worth the 25c he charges. He is using BitPass and has locked horns with Clay Shirky about the micropayments issue.

It would be great, if micropayments would work, giving creative people a way to make a living and all of our lives richer.

Would love to have him talk about his experiences and current outlook with micropayments at one of the next Future Salons too.