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The polygot web
Mapping the internet as it goes truly global (Image: Matthew Hurst/SPL)
Imagine what browsing the web would be like if you had to type out addresses in characters you don’t recognise, from a language you don’t speak. It’s a nightmare that will end for hundreds of millions of people in 2010, when the first web addresses written entirely in non-Latin characters come online.
Net regulator ICANN – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – conceded in October that more than half of the 1.6 billion people online use languages with scripts not fully compatible with the Latin alphabet. It is now accepting applications for the first non-Latin top level domains (TLDs) – the part of an address after the final “dot”. The first national domains, counterparts of .uk or .au, should go live in early 2010. So far, 12 nations, using six different scripts, have applied and some have proudly revealed their desired TLD and given a preview of what the future web will look like.
The first Arabic domain is likely to be Egypt’s and in Russia orders are already being taken for the country’s hoped-for new TLD. The address HOBЫЙyЧеНЫЙ.pф – a rough translation of “newscientist” with the Cyrillic domain that stands for Russian Federation – can be registered today.
Mind Reading (Neural Decoding) Goes Mainstream
For the past two months I’ve been running a large project for the world’s largest provider of higher education and have not really had a lot of time to post.
During that time I kept seeing signs of what I call the start of the human-machine convergence. Yes, I know there are precedents for this and these are not the “true first signs”.
I’m interested for another reason, the way it is being marketed. For some reason it’s being commercialize this holiday season. Several “toys” are being promoted to consumers that allow brain reading to control objects in front of you.
Mattel and StarWars Science are both offering these toys at your local Walmart or Target. But good luck finding them, even with a $100+ price tag they appear to have sold out.
I don’t have the time to post all of my thoughts, and came across this article below that sums up what I was missing above. Have fun and enjoy the read, let me know your thoughts too!
Mind Reading (Neural Decoding) Goes Mainstream | h+ Magazine.
Other Resources:
Thought Translator Knows Vowels from Consonants
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24279/
Neuroscience 2009
http://www.sfn.org/am2009/
Brain scanners can tell what you’re thinking about
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427323.500-brain-scanners-can-tell-what-youre-thinking-about.html
NeuroSky
http://www.neurosky.com/
Emotiv Systems
http://emotiv.com/
Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12500
Toyota Unveils Wheelchair Propelled by Thoughts Alone
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/clay-dillow/culture-buffet/mobility-mind-control-toyota-unveils-wheelchair-propelled-thoughts-a
Agile – Project Management
After working with Scrum with assorted business units, I’ve discovered we don’t always have “Done as Done” shippable products at the end of the Sprints.
You might ask, if each sprint ends up with an incomplete work, when can we see a stable product ?
Answer is the work around invented by the thought leaders. It is called Stabilization sprints.
What are stabilization Sprints ?
These are sprints dedicated towards tasks such as
Defect fixing
Stabilization sprints can be scheduled based on the need of the hour. There is no hard and fast rule around when it should be scheduled.
Many people call stabilization sprints with different names based on the specific activity being executed. Some names are, Testing Sprint, Technical Debt sprint, Analysis Sprint, etc
TED Phoenix
I just got home from a business trip to Seattle. I’m sorry I missed TEDx Phoenix tonight in Mesa. I’ve been a fan of TED for a few years now and was excited to hear about the Phoenix edition. Here’s one of my favorite TEDs
Wordle – I love Wordle
Wordle example of blog
I love seeing data in a Visual Data Diagrams almost as much as I love Augmented Reality. It’s become my second biggest interest in emerging technologies lately.
Thank you IBM Research for allowing Jonathan Feinberg, the ability to reuse code he wrote on your dime to develop this awesome, fun, cool, educational application.
Try it – you too will fall in love – http://www.wordle.net/
<from the site>
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.</from the site>
Forget Gen Y: Gen X is Making Real Change
Sometimes even the best researchers forget that the answer you get depends entirely on who you ask. A new Forrester survey of 2,000 information workers has revealed that despite the hype, it’s not Gen Y that’s getting business to adopt collaborative technology. Gen X, those who are 30-43, are the ones leading the charge for social computing.
Forrester’s analysis is that despite their different view of technology, Gen Y, Millennials, or whatever you want to call those 29 and under, don’t yet have the clout within organizations to make real change. The same Gen X employees who are the fastest growing demographic in Facebook are the ones getting management to accept new technology as more than a fad.
Just Ask Employees
A common method for researching about how people use technology is to ask industry experts and management about what they’ve provided to workers and how they think it’s being used. That’s how many market researchers go about their business.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/09/forget-gen-y-gen-x-is-making-r.php
Resetting Expectations: Some Augmented Reality Links – O’Reilly Radar
It’s time to start looking at the missing pieces with Augmented Reality being pushed today. Demos and videos make it appear as if it’s possible to do anything with AR. Not entirely truthful as we don’t even have set standards. There are still other issues to face that are the same as any other venture. Finally, there are still technical challenges that we need to meet.
This column by Ben Lorica mentions them all and in great detail, it’s worth the read.
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/09/resetting-expectations-some-augmented-reality-links.html
Don Tapscott: Re-Industrialize the Planet
(Thanks Gerd!)
“Re-Industrialize the Planet”. A quick summary:
* The web is creating a global infrastructure for collaboration (which leads to disruption and confusion)
* As a result, all of our institutions have come to the end of their life-cycle
* The current recession is a crucial punctuation point in human history – the point where we said that we need to reset, the point where the industrial economy has finally run out of gas
* This paradigm shift is creating a crisis of leadership
* The Digital Natives are inheriting this situation – and they think very differently
* Kids are now the authority on many issues
* We have 40 years to re-industrialize the planet
Nokia Augmented or Mixed Reality
This concept allows to you to experience immersion and effortless navigation in an Augmented Reality environment. New types of interactions involving near-to-eye displays, gaze direction tracking, 3D audio, 3D video, gesture and touch.
Through these new types of social linkages people will be connected in innovative ways between the physical and digital worlds.It’s hands-free and weightless compared to a tablet, no small screen problem as you have on a mobile phone – but is it truly useful?
Unlike most other AR apps we’ve seen lately, where the physical world is referenced by the AR – the two seem unrelated here. It takes all kinds, though, and who’s to say how AR will be used?(Also, isn’t this music a little creepy? It sounds bittersweet about the inevitable and yet slightly frightening future.)None the less, we’d love to get our hands on a prototype of this technology to test it – just as soon as it becomes real.
Peek – About Peek
Check out Peek – a great simple device to get your email anywhere.
Peek was born on a walk in the park when Amol Sarva and his wife, Ursula, were expecting their first child. At six months pregnant, Ursula couldn’t sit still and found comfort in taking long walks. But planning for a new arrival and a busy life besides, Amol saw that Ursula would return feeling behind. Emails were piling up. She had inbox anxiety.
A seasoned wireless industry entrepreneur, Amol had long been using smartphones for mobile email. With smartphone in hand, their long walks were actually a great way for him to stay on top of things at the office. Amol tried to get Ursula to use one, describing the many features: email, texting, voice calling, Internet, etc. But the bells and whistles are exactly what turned her off. She didn’t want a complicated smartphone with extras she didn’t need.
What she really wanted was a simple, nifty device that would let her do email on the go since email was how everyone she knew made plans, caught up, and shared news.
Amol thought a simple, fun, and attractive mobile email device had to exist. He asked his contacts at the cell phone companies, but they were dismissive. Nobody wants “simple”, they want “more”, they said. But Amol saw an opportunity, which he discussed with a few colleagues from earlier ventures. They explored the idea in the “real world”, closely observing real people using email at their desks and on the go.
Amol’s hunch was right; people really want a device that simply does email.
via Peek – About Peek.
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