the Times calls it ‘a mastersinger of the space opera’. i really was not sure what that meant, but i was in London and needed a book to help me get thru my 38,000 feet jet lag time shifting. it was excellent. really well written and well thought out.

i have read quite a few books and my tolerance for poorly written fiction is very low. this future sci-fi work was surprisingly fresh. it makes you really think. i like that.

a good read if you need something that does not take your whole attention, but you want something that you do need to follow.

i bought this at a sidewalk stand somewhere. cant remember where. it looked interesting…..”the most important and dramatic novel of the Atomic Age” in bold print on the front cover. how could i not have read this i wondered. It was first written in 1957. my paperback from 1970 was the 23rd printing. the declaration might have had some teeth.

it really is a must read. it is from another time. another vision of what our world could have become. at some point you know the ending but it is still incredibly moving as it draws to it’s logical conclusion.

if you see it in a library, check it out.

1. The Rise of Citizen Science – Public participation in scientific research will become increasingly popular. Amateurs will see and seek out greater opportunity to gather data, participate in collaborative studies run by both professionals and amateurs and lend their computers to large scale ‘grid computing’ efforts such as SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).

2. NBIC-convergence: The convergence of the domains of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technologies and cognitive science offers the potential for truly transformational scientific breakthroughs in fields as diverse as brain science, energy, environmental protection and food production.

3. Synthetic Biology: Synthetic biology involves designing and building basic biological building blocks that can perform functions as diverse as cleaning up toxic waste, growing electronic circuits, and producing artificial drugs food and fuels.

4. Personalized Medicine: Commercial services are already available that can read and map the bulk of an individual’s genome for less than $10,000 in a matter of days. Advances could see the price fall to around $100 to sequence our entire genome in eight hours or less. This would enable medical treatments to be tailored to our unique genetic profile.

5. Novel Energy Sources – As the level of government and private venture capital funding for green technology increases, so the range of candidate technologies will grow. Expect to see regular coverage of ‘breakthrough concepts’ as diverse as energy producing kites, liquid and printable batteries and a variety of initiatives attempting to capture energy from human motion.

6. Food Production Methods – A variety of approaches will be discussed for closing the gap between production and demand. Expect to see Genetic Modification back under the spotlight along with concepts such as vertical farming, salt water farming, precision farming using satellites to optimise seeding and harvesting and artificially reared meat.

7. 3D Printing / Personal Fabricators – Three dimensional printing techniques have been used for some time in manufacturing to create 3D items by bonding particles together layer by layer. As the costs and footprint of 3D printers come down, so the potential emerges for ‘print on demand’ fabricators to be deployed on the high street – enabling stores to offer a far wider range of products while reducing the physical stock holding. The ultimate would be the personal fabricator which sits at home next to the washing machine and which enables us to print items (for example a plate) locally – using ‘recipes’ we have purchased and our own designs.

8. Ambient Intelligence – The expectation is that everyday objects from wallpaper to carpets, furniture and our clothing will all have embedded intelligence and an IP (Internet Protocol) address so that our environments can interact with and adapt to us. For example, picture the scene, we are having a stressful phone conversation, our mobile phone picks this up and responds. It communicates to our clothes to increase the air circulation around our body, requests the wallpaper to display a brighter tone and instructs the photo frame to display a happy or uplifting image. While all of these may sound far fetched, each development is already being worked on in the labs and ambient intelligence is seen as the glue to help link these developments together and shape the environment to the needs of the individual.

9. Self Replicating Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Real world applications of AI surround us – from satellite navigation to aircraft autopilots and washing machine control systems. The next generation of AI programs to emerge from the labs will demonstrate ever greater capacity to learn, adapt to their surroundings and even replicate themselves.

10. The Singularity – The basic concept was popularised by futurist Ray Kurzweil. He argues that we can expect the continued application of Moore’s law – the doubling of computer power every 12-18 months – for many decades. Moore’s law coupled to advances in AI will lead to a point around 30-40 years from now when devices will have so much computing power that machine intelligence will exceed human intelligence. A film on this concept is scheduled for release at the end of 2009 and will lead to widespread debate on the issue.

FutureScape Issue 7: October 29th 2009

last week found me in the vicinity of Budva, Montenegro. It is not an easy place to get to. nor, as i discovered, an easy place to get out of. I led a workshop on Sustainable Tourism with two members of my Team and some colleagues from Arup. The country is young and old. it has been reestablished as a nation, but the land lived upon for thousands of years. you can drive from the coast to the hills in an hour. thru the whole country in three. it is not a big place. i was told by one taxi driver that it has become a place where all you need to open a bank account is a wheelbarrow of money. hmmmm.

they are at a point where development will either destroy their only asset, or support its sustainable use for a long time. it is hard to say which way the Russian money will push them. the Montenegrins are very proud of their orthodox christian roots to the neglect of the other cultures which have also come across the mountains and shores with the waves of time. the deteriorating ruins of a once majestic turkish fort above the city of Budva was pointed out by another taxi driver as a blemish in both the landscape and history of the place.

my noon departure to belgrade for my connection to frankfurt for my connection to san francisco ended up being delayed by ninety minutes. the consequence of this was a very unsympathetic ‘you need to go to the transfer desk when you arrive in belgrade’. i pointed out ‘we both know that there are no connections departing until tomorrow’. ‘you can sleep in the airport’. [ahhh. my mind went to Soviet Era barrenness of the waiting room and the blue cigarette smoke filled corridors and i shuddered...] in the end, i went to Belgrade, Serbia and spent the night in a nice hotel and got up the next morning very early to make the journey. i arrived back in SF safe and sound. jet lagged and really ragged.

it was a fascinating trip. there is no such thing as normal on this planet of ours.

[oh, the workshop went very well]

this was sent to me from the Yale Project on Climate Change. The note is included below:

Dear Friends,

Just a quick note to let you know about two recent items of interest:

First, ABC News recently broadcast an interview with me about our “Global Warming’s Six Americas” research. We have identified six distinct audiences within theAmerican public that each respond to this issue in very different ways and will require different engagement strategies. It’s available for viewing online:

http://abcnews.go.com/abcnewsnow/naturesedge

Just click on the top video, featuring the cover of our report. That segment is followed by an interview with Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, then by another segment with me.

Second, we just launched a short online survey in collaboration with KQED (public radio in San Francisco) that allows people to find out which of the Six Americas they belong to. It¹s available on both the KQED website and as a Facebook app, where people can then have their friends take it too. Here are the links to both:

http://apps.facebook.com/climatesurvey/

http://uw.kqed.org/climatesurvey/index-kqed.php

Thanks again for your support of and interest in our research – it’s great to see it getting some airplay.

Hope all is well with you!

Cheers,

This was one of my favourite TED talks at TED Global in Oxford this year. It is one about misconceptions and single-sided stories. I highly recommend this as a must see.

http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html