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Shocking stats on dying mass media! Blase blather about today's Web wonders! Here's how plugged-in netsters talk today.

Plugged in: Dinner with the Masters of the Metaverse - May. 26, 2006

How tomorrow's nuclear power stations will differ from today's

Nuclear power | The shape of things to come | Economist.com

This research brief examines how technology changes — in economic development, health, environmental quality, and military power — will play out differently across the globe.

Global Technology Revolution 2020: Technology Trends and Cross-Country Variation

In 2020, areas of particular importance for technology trends will include biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials technology, and information technology. The authors of this report assessed a sample of 29 countries across the spectrum of scientific advancement (low to high) with respect to their ability to acquire and implement 16 key technology applications (e.g., cheap solar energy, rural wireless communications, genetically modified crops). The study’s major conclusions are that scientifically advanced countries such as the United States, Germany, and Japan will be able to implement all key technology applications evaluated; countries that are not scientifically advanced will have to develop significant capacity and motivation before barriers to technology implementation can be overcome; and public policy issues in certain areas will engender public debate and strongly influence technology implementation.

The Global Technology Revolution 2020, Executive Summary: Bio/Nano/Materials/Information Trends, Drivers, Barriers, and Social Implications

In 2020, areas of particular importance for technology trends will include biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials technology, and information technology. The authors of this report assessed a sample of 29 countries across the spectrum of scientific advancement (low to high) with respect to their ability to acquire and implement 16 key technology applications (e.g., cheap solar energy, rural wireless communications, genetically modified crops). The study’s major conclusions are that scientifically advanced countries such as the United States, Germany, and Japan will be able to implement all key technology applications evaluated; countries that are not scientifically advanced will have to develop significant capacity and motivation before barriers to technology implementation can be overcome; and public policy issues in certain areas will engender public debate and strongly influence technology implementation.

RAND | (Technical) Reports | The Global Technology Revolution 2020, In-Depth Analyses: Bio/Nano/Materials/Information Trends, Drivers, Barriers, and Social Implications

The American ENIAC is customarily regarded as having been the starting point of electronic computation. This book rewrites the history of computer science, arguing that in reality Colossus--the giant computer built by the British secret service during World War II--predates ENIAC by two years.

Colossus was built during the Second World War at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. Until very recently, much about the Colossus machine was shrouded in secrecy, largely because the code-breaking algorithms that were employed during World War II remained in use by the British
security services until a short time ago. In addition, the United States has recently declassified a considerable volume of wartime documents relating to Colossus. Jack Copeland has brought together memoirs of veterans of Bletchley Park--the top-secret headquarters of Britain's secret service--and
others who draw on the wealth of declassified information to illuminate the crucial role Colossus played during World War II. Included here are pieces by the former WRENS who actually worked the machine, the scientist who pioneered the use of vacuum tubes in data processing, and leading authorities
on code-breaking and computer science.

A must read for anyone curious about code-breaking or World War II espionage, Colossus offers a fascinating insider's account of the world first giant computer, the great great grandfather of the massive computers used today by the CIA and the National Security Agency.

Colossus : The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Code-breaking Computers

Evolution has long shaped human behavior. Yet just recently have we learned that evolution based on natural selection is not the continuous process Darwin assumed. It is instead a two-part process of change and stability called punctuated equilibrium, with natural selection operating mainly on the frontiers of change.

Taking account of biology’s latest understanding of evolution, it becomes clear that culture evolves by a similar process. This is important because over the past 30,000 years most human evolution and the behavioral changes that go with it have occurred in our cultures–not in our genes. Knowing the process by which culture evolves clarifies the origin of many of our current problems, both within and between cultures. The author contends that new technology drives cultural evolution much as mutations change our DNA. The problem is that technology is now coming at us so fast that it is inducing "circuit overload" in cultures all over the world, leading to conflict. Techno-Cultural Evolution, which builds on the insights of such bestsellers as Jared Diamond’s GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL and COLLAPSE, explains how this process works—and what it means for all of us.

Techno-Cultural Evolution: Cycles of Creation and Conflict

It took 2,000 years for punctuation and spaces between words to enter written language, so can the continued evolution of how information is packaged, filtered and consumed be doubted? In this exploration of the changing economics of our information-based world, Lanham, professor emeritus of English at UCLA and author of The Electronic Word, proposes the problem with the information economy is "information doesn't seem in short supply. Precisely the opposite. We're drowning in it." Lanham posits that as society moves from a world defined by "stuff" to one defined by "fluff," people are increasingly in need of filters to weed through the information glut. Enter the arts and letters. Citing sources from the art world to Madison Avenue, Lanham delves into the increasing amount of importance placed on a product's packaging rather than the product itself. Lanham's points are strong and well-researched, as shown through his "background conversations," substitutes for endnotes included at the end of every chapter. If style is going to increasingly operate as the decision-making arbiter, Lanham should be commended on his: clear, jargon-free and forward-thinking.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
If economics is about the allocation of resources, then what is the most precious resource in our new information economy? Certainly not information, for we are drowning in it. No, what we are short of is the attention to make sense of that information. With all the verve and erudition that have established his earlier books as classics, Richard A. Lanham here traces our epochal move from an economy of things and objects to an economy of attention. According to Lanham, the central commodity in our new age of information is not stuff but style, for style is what competes for our attention amidst the din and deluge of new media. In such a world, intellectual property will become more central to the economy than real property, while the arts and letters will grow to be more crucial than engineering, the physical sciences, and indeed economics as conventionally practiced. For Lanham, the arts and letters are the disciplines that study how human attention is allocated and how cultural capital is created and traded. In an economy of attention, style and substance change places. The new attention economy, therefore, will anoint a new set of moguls in the business world—not the CEOs or fund managers of yesteryear, but new masters of attention with a grounding in the humanities and liberal arts. Lanham’s The Electronic Word was one of the earliest and most influential books on new electronic culture. The Economics of Attention builds on the best insights of that seminal book to map the new frontier that information technologies have created.

The Economics of Attention : Style and Substance in the Age of Information

TIME Magazine
"Kim Vicente puts human simplicity back into technology." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
"This book can save lives. Strong words? Yes, but this is a strong book: engaging, easy to read, but carrying a powerful message. We have far too long neglected the human and social side of technology. ...Read this book: it can save lives."
–Donald A. Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things

"This delightful and important book explains how we can at last reap the fruits of the recent revolution in technology. It should be required reading for all engineers."
–Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate and How the Mind Works

The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live with Technology