Just noticed there’s a new documentary about Ray Kurzweil and his big ideas (transhumanism, artificial intelligence, technological singularity, etc.). The movie’s called Transcendent Man: … offering [Kurzweil's] vision of a future in which we will merge with our machines, can live forever, and are billions of times more intelligent…all within the next thirty years. I saw him talk [...]
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futurism,
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ray kurzweil,
singularity,
society,
speculation,
technology
I’ve heard great things about Zadie Smith’s work as a writer, but I had a hard time bringing myself to click on this link. The essay is about Facebook, and the generation that made it, and the movie that everyone’s talking about. It also references Jaron Lanier’s critique of the internet and adds to a growing [...]
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change,
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twitter
I love that it’s constantly changing. For now. It’s still pretty unpredictable, like the midst of a great big game — like the kind of games that Calvin & Hobbes played. It isn’t just the outcomes that change; our boundaries and rules keep changing too, without much notice. And we can change them (or at least [...]
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expertise,
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knowledge,
learning,
lifestreaming,
medium theory,
social media,
technology,
twitter
There’s an astonishingly bad article at Spiegel Online citing some research that has got a lot of discussion, arguing that notions like “digital natives“ and “the Net Generation” have been wrong because young people say that the Internet isn’t important to them. But the evidence all seems to confirm the ideas behind the “digital native” metaphor: Young [...]
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computers,
digital natives,
generations,
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learning,
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Lately I’ve been missing the old sense of wonder and enthusiasm I once had for the future. It seems to be a natural development in the life cycle: it was easier to get excited “when I didn’t know any better,” or hadn’t “seen it all before.” I’ve been able to get some leverage on that [...]
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awe,
change,
emotions,
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henry adams,
jacques barzun,
machines,
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society,
technology,
utopias
How It Happened Last night a group of us got together to discuss ChangeCamp London and different opportunities for fostering a more collaborative & open culture in London. It was a great meeting and we’ll see some good things coming together in the near future. With that still fresh in my mind, I noticed a [...]
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collaboration,
cycling,
open,
open data,
open government,
open source,
social media,
technology
Yesterday I read a really interesting story about a project to develop a new tool for researchers at the massive CERN laboratory (the folks who made that gigantic particle accelerator in Switzerland) to collaborate and share expertise more effectively. It’s a great complement to what John Seely Brown and John Hagel recently wrote about growing [...]
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projects,
technology,
tim berners-lee,
work
Did anyone really think Apple wants us replace our iPhones or MacBooks? I actually think it hits my sweet spot better than either its bigger or smaller cousins. It won’t replace my other stuff, but I definitely picture this as my primary device. Apart from a couple of hours I spend writing every day, most [...]
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ipad,
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technology
For 2010′s Edge Annual Question, John Brockman asked 165 of the smartest people he knows “How has the Internet changed the way you think? ” [It's a familiar topic around here... and I actually answered the question when I wrote about last year's.] A surprising number of answers are about sex. More than a few [...]
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epistemology,
internet,
mind,
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psychology,
technology,
think21st,
thinking,
third culture
Late last night I had a serious lapse of faith in social media — as we all must from time to time. We should have serious doubts questions about this stuff… Which is why I chuckle whenever I read editorials merely pointing out “there are hazards” and digitization “isn’t all good” — as if any [...]
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web,
will to believe,
william james
iPad: Setting the Table for Tablets
by Brian on 01-28-2010
in commentary,media,web
Did anyone really think Apple wants us replace our iPhones or MacBooks? I actually think it hits my sweet spot better than either its bigger or smaller cousins. It won’t replace my other stuff, but I definitely picture this as my primary device. Apart from a couple of hours I spend writing every day, most [...]
Tagged as: apple, change, culture, design, gadgets, innovation, ipad, publishing, strategy, technology