| The Singularity Movie - (Web Release)Check out this funny animation of a post-singularity scenario on ScenarioLand.com. (Note: Make sure the vid loads fully before watching as the service it's built on is serving animations rather slowly.) |
| Is the Singularity a Red Herring Built on Compelling, Yet Faulty Logic?Built on a faulty definition of intelligence, the Singularity meme is an informal fallacy with limited utility that constricts our view of the future if we rely on it too heavily. As we continue to refine our collective model of a rapidly accelerating future dominated by convergence, we should look to more comprehensive scientific models to take its place. |
| MIT Introduces New Windows That Harness SolarMIT Associate Professor Marc A. Baldo, leader of the project, and a team of four graduate students have constructed a cost-efficient solar concentrator device based on a failed 1970s model that uses glass and dye. In practical terms, the concentrator device is a high-efficiency window. |
| Best-Selling Futurist To Run For U.S. SenateProfessional futurist and Future Blogger regular Jack Uldrich has announced that he is running for United States Senator in the state of Minnesota as a candidate for the Minnesota Independence Party nomination. |
| Dear Al Gore, Did you forget about harvesting carbon for bioenergy?!In his bold speech calling to transform the energy industry, Al Gore forgot to say one of the most important words of the 21st century – biology. He forgot to mention that if we wanted to ‘grow’ energy, carbon could become a profitable feedstock rather than an economic and environmental liability. |
| How Smart Will Humans Be in 2020?Some background and a list of some powerful trends and technologies (some broad, some specific, many related to information and communication) that forward-thinkers might consider when developing scenarios for how human culture and social cognition will change as we approach 2020. |
| When Unusually Rapid Improvement Becomes UsualIf one tracks the amazing rate of progress in biotechnology, genomics, stem cell research and nanotechnology; it is hard – barring a devastating calamity that kills thousands or millions of people – to envision how life expectancy will do anything but continue to increase at an accelerating rate. |
| The Singularity FrankensteinWhile the bastardization of the Singularity meme may help spread it in the short term, it could hurt Singularity studies in the longer term. |
| John Naisbitt Hates the "Change" Meme"He supports this sentiment/analysis by arguing that “we human beings use the internet to do what we’ve always done” and that the underlying market forces driving human behavior have not fundamentally changed in at least 40 years that only “superficial” changes are occurring. I find Naisbitt’s argument that the change seen in the last 40 years, the change we’re experiencing, and the change we’ll see in the near-future is nothing but trivial, a bit naive and curmudgeonly." |
| Lab wants to capture minds... Literally!The mega-billion dollar Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) recently developed a new state-of-the-art facility to learn how brain cells store and process information. HHMI researchers plan to develop non-invasive techniques that will scan the brain’s neuronal pattern and retrieve each memory, emotional feeling, and thought process stored in that brain – which, conceivably, could then be transferred onto a chip. |
| The Mamas and the PapaInteresting short piece on the latest developments in genetic manipulation and assisted reproductive technology and its effects on the evolving meaning of parenthood. |
| Personal nanofactories promise an end to poverty, warIn the future, a small Star Trek-like replicator called a “personal nanofactory” (PN) will sit on your kitchen counter enabling you to create nearly anything your heart desires at little or no cost. -- Read how Dick Pelletier describes the potential implications of these technologies. |
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