.
By Chuck Squatriglia February 15, 2008
Before you can save the world, you'd better write a to-do list so nothing gets overlooked. Some of the world's brightest minds have done just that by laying out this century's greatest engineering challenges.
The panel of 18 engineers, technologists and futurists included Google co-founder Larry Page and genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter. They spent more than a year pondering how best to improve life on Earth and came up with 14 Grand Engineering Challenges, a list the National Academy of Engineering deemed so momentous it should be capitalized.
The list, announced this afternoon, addresses four themes the committee considered "essential for humanity to flourish" - environmental sustainability, health, reducing our vulnerability and adding to the joy of living.
"We chose engineering challenges that we feel can, through creativity and committment, be realistically met, most of them early in this century," said committee chair William J. Perry, the former Secretary of Defense who teaches engineering at Stanford University. "Some can be, and should be, achieved as soon as possible."
What are they?
Make solar energy affordable.
Provide energy from fusion.
Develop carbon sequestration methods.
Manage the nitrogen cycle.
Provide access to clean water.
Restore and improve urban infrastructure.
Advance health informatics.
Engineer better medicines.
Reverse-engineer the brain.
Prevent nuclear terror.
Secure cyberspace.
Enhance virtual reality.
Advance personalized learning.
Engineer the tools for scientific discovery.
The committee, which also included such luminaries as futurist Ray Kurzweil and robotics guru Dean Kamen, decided not to make any predictions or focus on gee-whiz gadgets. They felt it more important to outline broad objectives that might influence research funding and governmental policy.
The 14 challenges they laid out were culled from hundreds of suggestions from engineers, scientists, policymakers and ordinary people around the world.
"Meeting these challenges would be game changing," said Charles M. Vest, president of the NAE. "Success with any of them could dramatically improve life for everyone."
So... what should we check off first?
Showing posts with label Future Community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Future Community. Show all posts
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Robot future poses hard questions
Public debate is needed about the future use of robots in society
Scientists have expressed concern about the use of autonomous decision-making robots, particularly for military use.
As they become more common, these machines could also have negative impacts on areas such as surveillance and elderly care, the roboticists warn.
The researchers were speaking ahead of a public debate at the Dana Centre, part of London's Science Museum.
Discussions about the future use of robots in society had been largely ill-informed so far, they argued.
Autonomous robots are able to make decisions without human intervention. At a simple level, these can include robot vacuum cleaners that "decide" for themselves when to move from room to room or to head back to a base station to recharge.
Military forces
Increasingly, autonomous machines are being used in military applications, too.
Samsung, for example, has developed a robotic sentry to guard the border between North and South Korea.
It is equipped with two cameras and a machine gun.
The development and eventual deployment of autonomous robots raised difficult questions, said Professor Alan Winfield of the University of West England.
"If an autonomous robot kills someone, whose fault is it?" said Professor Winfield.
"Right now, that's not an issue because the responsibility lies with the designer or operator of that robot; but as robots become more autonomous that line or responsibility becomes blurred."
Professor Noel Sharkey, of the University of Sheffield, said there could be more problems when robots moved from military to civil duties.
"Imagine the miners strike with robots armed with water cannons," he said. "These things are coming, definitely."
The researchers criticised recent research commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre and released in December 2006.
Robot rights
The discussion paper was titled Utopian Dream or Rise of the Machines? It addressed issues such as the "rights" of robots, and examined developments in artificial intelligence and how this might impact on law and politics.
In particular, it predicted that robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans, including housing and even "robo-healthcare".
I can imagine a future where it is much cheaper to dump old people in big hospitals where machines care for them
Professor Noel Sharkey
"It's poorly informed, poorly supported by science and it is sensationalist," said Professor Owen Holland of the University of Essex.
"My concern is that we should have an informed debate and it should be an informed debate about the right issues."
The robo-rights scan was one of 246 papers, commissioned by the UK government, and compiled by a group of futures researchers, the Outsights-Ipsos Mori partnership and the US-based Institute for the Future (IFTF).
At the time, Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser, said: "The scans are aimed at stimulating debate and critical discussion to enhance government's short and long-term policy and strategy."
Other scans examined the future of space flight and developments in nanotechnology.
Raised questions
The Dana Centre event will pick up some of these issues.
"I think that concerns about robot rights are just a distraction," said Professor Winfield.
"The more pressing and serious problem is the extent to which society is prepared to trust autonomous robots and entrust others into the care of autonomous robots."
Caring for an ageing population also raised questions, he said.
Robots were already being used in countries like Japan to take simple measurements, such as heart rate, from elderly patients.
Professor Sharkey, who worked in geriatric nursing in his youth, said he could envisage a future when it was "much cheaper to dump a lot of old people" in a large hospital, where they could be cared for by machines.
Scenarios like these meant that proper debate about robotics was imperative, he added.
"In the same way as we have an informed nuclear debate, we need to tell the public about what is going on in robotics and ask them what they want."
Scientists have expressed concern about the use of autonomous decision-making robots, particularly for military use.
As they become more common, these machines could also have negative impacts on areas such as surveillance and elderly care, the roboticists warn.
The researchers were speaking ahead of a public debate at the Dana Centre, part of London's Science Museum.
Discussions about the future use of robots in society had been largely ill-informed so far, they argued.
Autonomous robots are able to make decisions without human intervention. At a simple level, these can include robot vacuum cleaners that "decide" for themselves when to move from room to room or to head back to a base station to recharge.
Military forces
Increasingly, autonomous machines are being used in military applications, too.
Samsung, for example, has developed a robotic sentry to guard the border between North and South Korea.
It is equipped with two cameras and a machine gun.
The development and eventual deployment of autonomous robots raised difficult questions, said Professor Alan Winfield of the University of West England.
"If an autonomous robot kills someone, whose fault is it?" said Professor Winfield.
"Right now, that's not an issue because the responsibility lies with the designer or operator of that robot; but as robots become more autonomous that line or responsibility becomes blurred."
Professor Noel Sharkey, of the University of Sheffield, said there could be more problems when robots moved from military to civil duties.
"Imagine the miners strike with robots armed with water cannons," he said. "These things are coming, definitely."
The researchers criticised recent research commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre and released in December 2006.
Robot rights
The discussion paper was titled Utopian Dream or Rise of the Machines? It addressed issues such as the "rights" of robots, and examined developments in artificial intelligence and how this might impact on law and politics.
In particular, it predicted that robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans, including housing and even "robo-healthcare".
I can imagine a future where it is much cheaper to dump old people in big hospitals where machines care for them
Professor Noel Sharkey
"It's poorly informed, poorly supported by science and it is sensationalist," said Professor Owen Holland of the University of Essex.
"My concern is that we should have an informed debate and it should be an informed debate about the right issues."
The robo-rights scan was one of 246 papers, commissioned by the UK government, and compiled by a group of futures researchers, the Outsights-Ipsos Mori partnership and the US-based Institute for the Future (IFTF).
At the time, Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser, said: "The scans are aimed at stimulating debate and critical discussion to enhance government's short and long-term policy and strategy."
Other scans examined the future of space flight and developments in nanotechnology.
Raised questions
The Dana Centre event will pick up some of these issues.
"I think that concerns about robot rights are just a distraction," said Professor Winfield.
"The more pressing and serious problem is the extent to which society is prepared to trust autonomous robots and entrust others into the care of autonomous robots."
Caring for an ageing population also raised questions, he said.
Robots were already being used in countries like Japan to take simple measurements, such as heart rate, from elderly patients.
Professor Sharkey, who worked in geriatric nursing in his youth, said he could envisage a future when it was "much cheaper to dump a lot of old people" in a large hospital, where they could be cared for by machines.
Scenarios like these meant that proper debate about robotics was imperative, he added.
"In the same way as we have an informed nuclear debate, we need to tell the public about what is going on in robotics and ask them what they want."
Advertising Maurice Lévy Chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe
Five years is an eternity in technology, but from our vantage point a few things are clear about what the internet and internet advertising will look like in 2012. One, virtually all media will be digital, and digital will enable almost all kinds of advertising. Two, online advertising will depend more than ever on the one element which has always been at the heart of impactful advertising, both analogue and digital: creativity. The explosion of media channels means this is a glorious time to think and act creatively. In art history terms, we are at the dawn of the Renaissance after the Dark Ages.
Just as the Renaissance broke down the distinctions between sacred and profane art forms and between individual and community, so we are seeing a similar exciting blurring today - and this will only intensify. Linear media is fast giving way to liquid media, where you can move seamlessly in and out of different settings. Prescribed time - the 7 o'clock news, the Friday night out at the cinema, etc - is now becoming multitasking time. People are no longer willing to put up with interruptions for a commercial break during their entertainment experience, and so we have to find incredibly creative solutions to interact with them and engage them in genuine and honest ways. This implies a brave new world of engagement and involvement between marketers and consumers and will also mean co-production between marketers and media owners. Scale will be critical: in five years' time, around 2 billion people will be constant internet users and mobile internet computing will be ubiquitous. What a great time to be in the business!
Just as the Renaissance broke down the distinctions between sacred and profane art forms and between individual and community, so we are seeing a similar exciting blurring today - and this will only intensify. Linear media is fast giving way to liquid media, where you can move seamlessly in and out of different settings. Prescribed time - the 7 o'clock news, the Friday night out at the cinema, etc - is now becoming multitasking time. People are no longer willing to put up with interruptions for a commercial break during their entertainment experience, and so we have to find incredibly creative solutions to interact with them and engage them in genuine and honest ways. This implies a brave new world of engagement and involvement between marketers and consumers and will also mean co-production between marketers and media owners. Scale will be critical: in five years' time, around 2 billion people will be constant internet users and mobile internet computing will be ubiquitous. What a great time to be in the business!
Video By Chad Hurley CEO, co-founder YouTub
In five years, video broadcasting will be the most ubiquitous and accessible form of communication. The tools for video recording will continue to become smaller and more affordable. Personal media devices will be universal and interconnected. People will have the opportunity to record and share video with a small group of friends or everyone around the world.
Today, eight hours of new video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. This will grow exponentially over the next five years. Our goal is to allow every person on the planet to participate by making the upload process as simple as placing a phone call. This new video content will be available on any screen - in your living room or in your pocket - and will bring together all the diverse media which matters to you, from videos of family and friends to news, music, sports, cooking and more.
In the next five years, users will be at the centre of their video experience, you will have more access to more information, and the world will be a smaller place
Today, eight hours of new video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. This will grow exponentially over the next five years. Our goal is to allow every person on the planet to participate by making the upload process as simple as placing a phone call. This new video content will be available on any screen - in your living room or in your pocket - and will bring together all the diverse media which matters to you, from videos of family and friends to news, music, sports, cooking and more.
In the next five years, users will be at the centre of their video experience, you will have more access to more information, and the world will be a smaller place
Social networking by Chris De Wolfe
CEO, co-founder MySpace
In only a few years, social networks have become a staple in the internet landscape as the social networking phenomenon allowed people to "put their lives online". A person's profile became a representation of who they really were in the offline world, and allowed them to transfer their offline world online.
More than ever, social networks are blurring online and offline worlds, evolving into social destinations that are driving the direction of the larger web and affecting industries like advertising, music and politics.
Predicting the future of social networks exclusively misses the larger point - these evolving online social destinations are laying the groundwork for the new social web which we believe is becoming infinitely more personal, more portable, and more collaborative.
First, as we expand these social destinations to all corners of the world, we must always think in terms of the individual. With millions of people using social websites, there's an increasing demand to make everyone's web experience personal. In the same way a home or office is your physical address, we expect your personal, online social profile to become your internet address. When I give out www.myspace.com/chrisdewolfe to friends and colleagues, everyone knows where to find me online.
We expect aspects of all socially-based sites to become increasingly portable. In terms of mobile, we expect to have relationships with every carrier and device-maker in the world and we expect that half of our future traffic will come from non-PC users.
Social activity is happening everywhere and we expect applications and features to be more fluid, based on the online population that want content where they want it, when they want it, and how they want it. Social activity should be portable and we expect the industry will continue to move in that direction.
Lastly, online social destinations work best when creativity and development are collaborative concepts. From personal profiles, to the widget economy, to the OpenSocial standard - the future of the social web will harness the savvy of the masses to produce more relevant and meaningful social experiences, ultimately pushing the larger industry to be more innovative and progressive.
Lowering the barrier to entry for a new generation of developers will lead to a more collaborative and dynamic web and directly affect the tools and feature sets available on socially-based sites. Supporting a more collaborative web creates a more global and participatory internet experience for everyone.
The evolution of social networks is kick-starting a broad global shift for how people, content and culture collide on the web. Right now we're looking at the tip of the iceberg for what the social web will look like in the future. Fundamentally, all social destinations must expand while staying personal, they must engage users while empowering portability, and they must work with up and coming innovators and major web leaders to both collaborate and contribute to the larger web community.
In only a few years, social networks have become a staple in the internet landscape as the social networking phenomenon allowed people to "put their lives online". A person's profile became a representation of who they really were in the offline world, and allowed them to transfer their offline world online.
More than ever, social networks are blurring online and offline worlds, evolving into social destinations that are driving the direction of the larger web and affecting industries like advertising, music and politics.
Predicting the future of social networks exclusively misses the larger point - these evolving online social destinations are laying the groundwork for the new social web which we believe is becoming infinitely more personal, more portable, and more collaborative.
First, as we expand these social destinations to all corners of the world, we must always think in terms of the individual. With millions of people using social websites, there's an increasing demand to make everyone's web experience personal. In the same way a home or office is your physical address, we expect your personal, online social profile to become your internet address. When I give out www.myspace.com/chrisdewolfe to friends and colleagues, everyone knows where to find me online.
We expect aspects of all socially-based sites to become increasingly portable. In terms of mobile, we expect to have relationships with every carrier and device-maker in the world and we expect that half of our future traffic will come from non-PC users.
Social activity is happening everywhere and we expect applications and features to be more fluid, based on the online population that want content where they want it, when they want it, and how they want it. Social activity should be portable and we expect the industry will continue to move in that direction.
Lastly, online social destinations work best when creativity and development are collaborative concepts. From personal profiles, to the widget economy, to the OpenSocial standard - the future of the social web will harness the savvy of the masses to produce more relevant and meaningful social experiences, ultimately pushing the larger industry to be more innovative and progressive.
Lowering the barrier to entry for a new generation of developers will lead to a more collaborative and dynamic web and directly affect the tools and feature sets available on socially-based sites. Supporting a more collaborative web creates a more global and participatory internet experience for everyone.
The evolution of social networks is kick-starting a broad global shift for how people, content and culture collide on the web. Right now we're looking at the tip of the iceberg for what the social web will look like in the future. Fundamentally, all social destinations must expand while staying personal, they must engage users while empowering portability, and they must work with up and coming innovators and major web leaders to both collaborate and contribute to the larger web community.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Ecotopias Aren't Just for Hippies Anymore — and They're Sprouting Up Worldwide
By Frank Bures 01.18.08 | 6:00 PM
In the 1970s, environmental idealists had a vision of Ecotopia: Everyone recycled, there was no pollution, and we all worshipped trees and co-ops. Today's eco-communities are less crunchy and a lot more high tech. In addition to using renewable energy sources, these projects aim to limit their impact on surrounding ecosystems by building with green materials, promoting earth-friendly transportation, and recycling water and waste. The race for the first carbon-neutral, zero-emissions community is on.
Costa Rica Costa Rica
Dockside Green Victoria, British Columbia
Dongtan Chongming Island, China
Green Mountain Libya
Guangtang Chuangye Park Liuzhou, China
Masdar Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Northstowe Cambridge, England
Norway Norway
Treasure Island San Francisco
Vauban Freiburg, Germany
Växjö Växjö, Sweden
In the 1970s, environmental idealists had a vision of Ecotopia: Everyone recycled, there was no pollution, and we all worshipped trees and co-ops. Today's eco-communities are less crunchy and a lot more high tech. In addition to using renewable energy sources, these projects aim to limit their impact on surrounding ecosystems by building with green materials, promoting earth-friendly transportation, and recycling water and waste. The race for the first carbon-neutral, zero-emissions community is on.
Costa Rica Costa Rica
Dockside Green Victoria, British Columbia
Dongtan Chongming Island, China
Green Mountain Libya
Guangtang Chuangye Park Liuzhou, China
Masdar Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Northstowe Cambridge, England
Norway Norway
Treasure Island San Francisco
Vauban Freiburg, Germany
Växjö Växjö, Sweden
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)