Ray Kurzweil talks about the future of (non)transportation, solar power and BRAIN EATING ZOMBIE NANOBOTS

OK so that last bit was an exaggeration, but maybe not that far off from what Kurzweil predicts we'll be living with in the not-so-distant future.

The inventor, futurist and author of The Singularity is Near in the latest issue of Good Magazine makes some predictions about the future of virtual reality, renewable energy and transportation.

Given the rapid advances we're witnessing in solar energy technology and storage, his belief that within 20 years most of our electricity will come from the sun seems plausible. However, I'm a little skeptical of his suggestion that we'll happily inject nanobots into our brains in order to enjoy better HDTV:

By the late 2020s, nanobots in our brain (that will get there noninvasively, through the capillaries) will create full-immersion virtual-reality environments from within the nervous system. So if you want to go into virtual reality the nanobots shut down the signals coming from your real senses and replace them with the signals that your brain would be receiving if you were actually in the virtual environment.

Yeah....normally I'm an early adopter of new technology, but I think I'll let others turn their brains into grey goo first before I give it a try. Then again, I vaguely remember spending a good part of my twenties doing exactly that...


[Good Magazine]

When a stranger calls

A few years ago you could have dismissed the development of a new social networking site by fresh-faced teenager as a curiousity, and nothing more. However since Mark Zuckerberg brought us Facebook and is now considered an industry sage at the ripe old age of 25, people now pay attention to what those crazy teens are working on. Case in point: Leif K-Brooks and Omegle. It's too early to tell whether or not he's going to be the next Zuckerberg, but it's still amazing to see how "an 18 year-old guy who loves computer programming" has created a site that's growing exponentially in users. Since its launch out of nowhere on March 25th (2009...about 2 weeks ago), it's gone from zero to 1,800 concurrent users in its first five days. At the time of this post there were 3,405 online.

Brooks created Omegle to facilitate chats with random strangers on the Internet. That's right - you land on the home page, click "Start a Chat" and the next thing you know you're chatting with....who the hell knows? It's the Web equivalent of hoping to make new friends by picking up a phone book and dialing the first number your eye lands on.

So what exactly is the point of this? Probably nothing....but it's not like you're already wasting a lot of time on the Internet, right?

This blogging thing can be a lot of work!

Yeah, I've been really really bad about posting, but I promise (to no one in particular) to do better starting today!

Predictions: The Digital Customer Experience in 2010, 2015 and Beyond

Last week I managed to sneak out of the office for a few hours to attend some of the sessions at Toronto Tech Week, held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

One of the many well-attended programs included a panel discussion hosted by Sequentia Environics: “Future Forward: the digital customer experience in 2010, 2015 and beyond.”

The panelists included:

• Parth Shukla, Director Interactive & MultiChannel Marketing, Bell.ca
• Sulemaan Ahmed, Director of Digital Marketing at Harlequin Enterprises
• Jay Goldman, Vice President, Marketing, Zerofootprint
• Steve Mast, Vice President and Managing Director, Delvinia
• Brendan Kenalty, Loyalty and Retention Programs, Research in Motion

The panelists were asked their opinions on a number of predictions about the state of the Internet in 2010, 2015 and beyond. Given the pace of change we’ve seen over the past decade and considering the current economic turmoil, it’s a pretty tall order to expect anyone to accurately predict what the world will be like less than 2 years from now, let alone in 7. However the panelists were up to the task and made their best guesses.

The first prediction related to the issue of privacy legislation: “Online behaviour tracking will be legislated against in 2010, unless consumers have given express consent to be tracked.”

On this prediction the panelists agreed that while such legislation is inevitable, it would not be introduced before 2010. Steve Mast suggested that if consumers knew the degree to which their movements are currently tracked public pressure could result in legislation sooner rather than later. Suleman Ahmed wasn’t so sure. He thought it an important issue and the government may eventually introduce legislation however social networking sites indicate that people are more than willing to share the minutiae of their daily lives with the rest of the world.

The next predication was about mobile gaming: “Mobile gaming will consume more time, attention and marketing budget than social networking by 2012.”

Panelists were divided on this one. Steve agreed based on the explosive growth of this market in Europe and Asia but qualified his enthusiasm by saying that the telecommunications infrastructure in North America needs to catch up with the rest of the world before it would take off here. Parth Shukla challenged this prediction by saying that in North America, and especially Canada social networking is far more popular than gaming and doesn’t see that changing significantly. Suleman agreed with him, pointing out that people have been making this prediction since 2001, but suggested that the iPhone could literally be the game-changer that advances the popularity of mobile gaming. Jay Goldman suggested that with more and more games being developed in social networks we would eventually see a hybridization of social networking and gaming.

The issue of data privacy was raised again with another prediction, "By 2015, consumers will be able to register a ‘data passport’ of information about their buying preferences and needs with corporations, allowing marketers to completely personalize marketing communications."

The panel thought that given technical, social and legal implications this is unlikely to happen by 2015. It was also agreed that it could conceivably work but would depend on getting consumers to opt-in and customize the benefits to their wants and needs. Jay pointed out that Microsoft tried this approach with its Passport service, but it didn't fly: consumers simply didn't trust handing over their information to Microsoft. Additionally, consumers would prefer to see relevant advertising but people are inherently lazy and usually won't make the effort to fill out a form to set it up.

Personally, I don’t think this is going to happen for two reasons:

1. Companies are loathe to share information about their customers with anyone else, and they’re not going to want to have to rely on – and pay - a single entity who stores, controls and distributes the information contained in these data passports

2. It would have happened already. For example, an Interac debit card is effectively a consumers’ digital passport, containing massive amounts of data about consumer behaviour, but as far as I know Interac has yet to market and monetize that data in some way to retailers (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).

So, do you agree with the panelists? Don't be afraid to give your opinion. It's not like I'll prove you wrong by saving your answers in a time capsule to be opened in 2020 :-)

Read the rest of the predictions and the panel’s take on them at http://www.glengarrynet.com/clients/seq/SequentiaTTW.pdf

Breaking News: Some Facebook Users May Be Narcissists!

(...and in other news: The Sky is Blue!)

A new study from the University of Georgia suggests that you can detect whether someone is a narcissist based on that individual's Facebook profile.

(I know, I had no idea either!)

"We found that people who are narcissistic use Facebook in a self-promoting way that can be identified by others," said lead author Laura Buffardi, a doctoral student in psychology who co-authored the study with associate professor W. Keith Campbell.

"Self-promoting? Moi?"

The researchers, whose results appear in the October issue of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, gave personality questionnaires to nearly 130 Facebook users, analyzed the content of the pages and had untrained strangers view the pages and rate their impression of the owner's narcissism.

The researchers found that the number of Facebook "friends" and wallposts that individuals have on their profile pages correlates with narcissism. Buffardi said this is consistent with how narcissists behave in the real-world, with numerous yet shallow relationships.

Yes, this should be obvious to anyone but aren't you now curious to log in and check out the profiles of your Facebook "friends" to see just how closely they fit the profile of a narcissist? Or maybe you already knew it and are just using them to get on a guest list.

I for one wouldn't dream of using social networks or blog sites for shameless self-promotion.

What I would like to know is: what does having a photo of my cat for a Facebook profile pic say about my personality?

[Via Physorg]

U.S. Patent Office experiments with crowdsourcing to streamline patent review process

Inventors have a lot of issues with the inner workings of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. There's no question that the application and approval process is overly long, and overworked and uninformed patent examiners often grant patents to dubious or "obvious" innovations. The current system is particularly burdensome for the small technology startups for whom time to market is critical to their success.

Seeking to remedy these problems, in 2007 the Patent Office began an experiment in crowdsourcing with the objective of speeding up the patent assessment and approval process and improving the quality of the applications submitted. Under the program called Peer-to-Patent the patent applications are posted to the web for all to see and those with relevant expertise can pass along their input to the Office and the applicants. This collective wisdom of the crowd helps the patent examiners to identify applications for something that's already been invented or questionable merit.

Not surprisingly technology companies are the biggest supporters of this experiment and include IBM, HP, and Microsoft but clearly the smaller inventors with limited financial and legal resources would stand to benefit from this the most.

The Peer-to-Patent web site is being managed by the New York Law School's Institute for Information Law and Policy.

[CNN via Slashdot]

Facebook's drive for global pervasiveness

BusinessWeek has an article describing how Facebook has raced ahead to #1 in global audience growth, ahead of rival MySpace. Overall its membership grew 153% year-over-year in June, the bulk of that growth coming from outside North America. Those members now account for nearly 63% of Facebook's 132 million users. What's interesting is how they've managed to accomplish this.

Unlike MySpace, which expanded outside the English-speaking world by launching local offices and versions of its site, Facebook built translation tools that allow users to personalize the existing site in their native tongue. This approach gave it an early presence in foreign markets that grew exponentially as users encouraged friends to join the site. Facebook, which had been translated into 20 languages including French, Spanish, and Mandarin, has recently added 69 more.

Let's just hope that their translation engine isn't based on the same technology recently used by this fast food joint in China:
















[Via BusinessWeek and AdFreak.com]