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FUTURISM UPDATE (November 11, 2014)

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TECHCRUNCH: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella details his views on what Google and Apple do best http://tcrn.ch/1ypN0D4

REUTERS: Iranian-built copy of U.S. drone takes first flight http://lnkd.in/ddzJxZs

REUTERS: U.S. Postal Service data breach may compromise staff, customer details http://lnkd.in/dZcfTtf

GARTNER: Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2015 http://lnkd.in/ds775sy

THE ECONOMIST: Google announces its own delivery drones project http://lnkd.in/dYZvgmp

THE ECONOMIST: Bioprinting: Building living tissue with a 3D printer is becoming a new business, but making whole organs for transplant remains elusive http://lnkd.in/dqs5auN

THE ECONOMIST: 3D printing software. Something out of nothing http://lnkd.in/dJTzBtH

NEW YORK TIMES: Dinner Is Printed. THE hype over 3-D printing intensifies by the day. Will it save the world? Will it bring on the apocalypse, with millions manufacturing their own AK-47s? http://lnkd.in/dJDkKsy

FORBES: 3D Printers Will Soon Change The World, If It’s Not Strangled In A Lawyered Up World http://lnkd.in/dvX4t82

NEW YORK TIMES: Drones Outpacing Rules as Popularity Soars in New York http://lnkd.in/dtwTd_V

REUTERS: Stratasys sees robust 3D-printing market as HP reveals plans http://lnkd.in/dDMrtXz

REUTERS: Google tests airborne drones to deliver goods http://lnkd.in/dUjbYMn

WALL STREET JOURNAL: How 3-D Printing Will Change Our Lives http://lnkd.in/d7W-RJf

WALL STREET JOURNAL: FAA Clears Six Film Companies to Use Drones http://lnkd.in/d-YinFT

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Deutsche Post DHL to Deliver Medicine via Drone http://lnkd.in/dwfEJAy

WALL STREET JOURNAL: FAA Gives Approval to BP to Use Commercial Drones http://lnkd.in/dhvCSPn

WALL STREET JOURNAL: It’s Time to Take Artificial Intelligence Seriously http://lnkd.in/d4zDn5p

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Zuckerberg, Musk Invest in Artificial-Intelligence Company http://lnkd.in/dMWyvhY

NEW YORK TIMES: Artificial Intelligence as a Threat http://lnkd.in/dfCRiPN

REUTERS: ABB invests in U.S. artificial intelligence company http://lnkd.in/d55PRMW

THE ECONOMIST: Clever cogs. The potential impacts of intelligent machines on human life http://lnkd.in/dTu-Zvm
THE ECONOMIST: The language of the internet of things. More and more devices are becoming connected, but will they speak the same language? http://lnkd.in/dMDQGqB

REUTERS: Don’t fear the Internet of things http://lnkd.in/dABmEja

NEW YORK TIMES: With $30 Million More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things http://lnkd.in/d-Qg4pk

THE ECONOMIST: The dodgiest duo in the suspect six. As emerging economies hit hard times, Brazil and Russia look particularly weak http://lnkd.in/dy8dvbd

FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Who Is at Fault in Ukraine? Foreign Affairs’ Brain Trust Weighs In http://lnkd.in/dM8riM9
FINANCIAL TIMES: Google moves into Nasa’s territory http://on.ft.com/1yrP7WZ

DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Europe? The Ghosts of Jean-Claude Juncker’s Past Come Back to Haunt Him http://lnkd.in/dnWZFmT
DER SPIEGEL: Iranian Nuclear Negotiator: ‘We Can’t Just Turn Back the Clock’ http://lnkd.in/dSQJcSX

FORBES: Toyota’s next Camry will also be made of aluminum: http://onforb.es/1EvrbWS

CIO: Home Depot Says 53 Million Email Addresses Compromised During Breach http://lnkd.in/dshY3if

BY MR. ANDRES AGOSTINI

White Swan Book Author (Source of this Article)

http://www.LINKEDIN.com/in/andresagostini

http://www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini

http://www.appearoo.com/aagostini

http://connect.FORWARDMETRICS.com/profile/1649/Andres-Agostini.html

@AndresAgostini

@ThisSuccess

By: Bryan Nelson — MNN

By utilizing a process that Einstein famously called “spooky,” scientists have successfully caught “ghosts” on film for the first time using quantum cameras.
The “ghosts” captured on camera weren’t the kind you might first think; scientists didn’t discover the wandering lost souls of our ancestors. Rather, they were able to capture images of objects from photons that never actually encountered the objects pictured. The technology has been dubbed “ghost imaging,” reports National Geographic.

FUTURISM UPDATE (November 10, 2014)

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MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Google ALSO Wants to Store Your Genome. For $25 a year, Google will keep a copy of any genome in the cloud. http://lnkd.in/dAjHdHj

POPULAR SCIENCE: Bionic Bird Drone May Fool Actual Birds. This biomimetic flying device can be controlled by a smartphone, to entertain people and cats alike. http://lnkd.in/d2Mcz9R

NEW YORK TIMES: A Strategy for Rich Countries: Absorb More Immigrants http://lnkd.in/dJUabhh

WASHINGTON POST: HP’s bold plan to become the first mainstream 3D printing company http://wapo.st/1ttYWiZ

THE ECONOMIST: America’s crackdown on tax evasion: Weil walks http://econ.st/1vTJRsK

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370? THE ECONOMIST: Hacking aircraft. Remote control http://lnkd.in/d9wd_-Y

CHINA DAILY USA: Canada becomes first yuan clearance hub in Americas http://ow.ly/E1NmW

ENGADGET: 3D Robotics is building the drones that just about anyone can fly http://lnkd.in/d45qtd8

THE ATLANTIC: This Cyborg Cockroach Could Save Your Life Someday. Bugs backpacked with microphones could be deployed to disaster zones in the future. http://lnkd.in/dD_yQ9r

THE ECONOMIST: It is the 0.01% in America who are really getting richer http://econ.st/1uG8hLx

BLOOMBERG MARKET: Jack Ma, China’s richest man, plans to make #Alibaba the go-to global marketplace: http://bloom.bg/1ynfCgl

FINANCIAL TIMES: China’s answer to Warren Buffett, Guo Guangchang, talks tai chi over #LunchwiththeFT http://on.ft.com/1EbpEmH

PHYS ORG: ‘Big data’ takes root in the world of plant research http://lnkd.in/dSRtJJJ

THE ECONOMIST: James Lord of Morgan Stanley, a bank, labelled Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey the “fragile five” http://econ.st/1zA1K6k

COMPUTERWORLD: An Internet sales tax would cost online shoppers billions http://lnkd.in/dfyQ57k

WALL STREET JOURNAL: How China’s new trade routes center it on the geopolitical map http://on.wsj.com/1ymYcR0

WIRED: A Military-Grade Drone That Can Be Printed Anywhere http://lnkd.in/dYyDeJH

BBC: 3D printing helps make drones faster. 3D printing has been described as the “future of manufacturing” and is increasingly being used to make everything from film props to food. The technology is also being used to make unmanned aerial vehicles as the parts can be designed quicker and made…more http://lnkd.in/dnGtkQZ

BBC: Parkinson’s stem cell ‘breakthrough’. Stem cells can be used to heal the damage in the brain caused by Parkinson’s disease, according to scientists in Sweden. http://lnkd.in/d_hCySg

THE ECONOMIST: East Asian firms in China: Taiwan, Japan and South Korea employ huge numbers of mainland Chinese http://lnkd.in/dYt_MrX

REUTERS: Samsung Electronics near license for new $3 billion Vietnam mobile phone plant http://lnkd.in/dxeEcH5

BY MR. ANDRES AGOSTINI

White Swan Book Author (Source of this Article)

http://www.LINKEDIN.com/in/andresagostini

http://www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini

http://www.appearoo.com/aagostini

http://connect.FORWARDMETRICS.com/profile/1649/Andres-Agostini.html

@AndresAgostini

@ThisSuccess

Written By: — Singularity Hub

MIT-Cheetah-robot1

Not long ago, robots were largely confined to books and movies. Then they started showing up on YouTube, and robot fear became a viral thing. There was that terrifying video of a Boston Dynamics robot wearing fatigues and gas mask. Another Boston Dynamics video showed a cheetah robot that could outpace the swiftest human sprinter.

Back then, it was easy enough to imagine being run down by a robot—particularly because Boston Dynamics was funded by the military. But there was no good reason to fear them. Not yet. Why? They were all powered by internal combustion engines. Imagine being stalked by a car with no muffler. You’d hear it a mile off and climb a tree.

Well, all you robot fearing folk, the era of insanely noisy robots may be nearing an end—MIT’s stealthy electric robot cheetah is here to prowl your nightmares. (Sure, it looks friendly and playful, gamboling care-free on the quad—but don’t be fooled.)

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FUTURISM UPDATE (November 09, 2014)

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NEW YORK TIMES: Home Depot Says Hackers Also Stole Email Addresses http://lnkd.in/dmDSkuK

NEW YORK TIMES: International Raids Target Sites Selling Contraband on the ‘Dark Web’ http://lnkd.in/dc2jZdC

BUSINESS STANDARD: 50% of occupations today will no longer exist in 2025: Report. Workspaces with row of desks will become completely redundant, not because they are not fit for purpose, but simply because that purpose no longer exists, the report predicts http://lnkd.in/dFyWwk2

BUSINESSWEEK: David Cameron kept Scotland in the U.K., but the rise of right-wing nationalists could cost him his job: http://buswk.co/1uKH4H5

FOREIGN POLICY: Asian countries are wary about Beijing’s growing power, but China still brings home the bacon. http://atfp.co/1z9Tkje

NBC: Gorbachev Warns World is on Brink of ‘New Cold War’ http://nbcnews.to/1uNQBhh

BBC NEWS: Ex-USSR leader Gorbachev: World on brink of new Cold War http://lnkd.in/dtwysHG

The Huffington Post: Why Gorbachev Feels Betrayed By The Post-Cold War West http://lnkd.in/dCPTsiV

MARKET WATCH: Gorbachev says don’t pick on Putin http://lnkd.in/dWSK9xS

FOREIGN POLICY: Emerging market economies are in a lot more trouble than investors want to believe. http://atfp.co/1wECOYU

Discover Magazine: The mystery of the Virgin Galactic pilot’s error: http://bit.ly/1uafHEX

BIGTHINK: Your Brain Peforms Better When It Slows Down, with Steven Kotler http://lnkd.in/dgvCMxY

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Big Data Gets Master Treatment at B-Schools. One-Year Analytics Programs Cater to Shift in Students’ Ambitions http://lnkd.in/dWznGnn

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Elon Musk’s Next Mission: Internet Satellites. SpaceX, Tesla Founder Explores Venture to Make Lighter, Cheaper Satellites http://lnkd.in/d4vN-AM

BY MR. ANDRES AGOSTINI

White Swan Book Author (Source of this Article)

http://www.LINKEDIN.com/in/andresagostini

http://www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini

http://www.appearoo.com/aagostini

http://connect.FORWARDMETRICS.com/profile/1649/Andres-Agostini.html

@AndresAgostini

@ThisSuccess

. @hjbentham. @TheVenusProject. @clubofinfo. #futurism. #LOrdre. #antistatism.
The creeping social inequality in Britain has become a source of growing concern to many. When strikes and despair over the income disparity within a single country or locale feature often in our politics, do we unjustly forget the scale of global wealth inequality?
I am not writing this article to belie the social calamity of income inequality in Britain, nor to argue for more urgency in remedial foreign policies such as development assistance. This is purely an analysis of the long-term crisis represented by global disparities of wealth, and the historical choices it will force on many actors in the world-system, from states to activists.
In a talk I heard in my studies at Lancaster University in 2012, former Home Secretary Charles Clarke gave his predictions on the greatest threats to global security in the short-term and long-term future. One of his predictions struck me as the most important: the ease with which modern media allows different strata of the world to see one another’s vastly different lifestyles, thus threatening to turn global inequality into an ever greater spectacle. This spectacle has the potential to inspire global rage, perhaps justifiable in the same sense as encountered in the years preceding the French Revolution. Indeed, the present world order resembles France’s Ancien Régime in many ways.
Interestingly, the term “Third World”, used to denote less “developed” states, comes from the term “Third Estate”, which referred to “commoners” in France’s Ancien Régime – the subjects who rose up and turned their kingdom into a republic. Famously, Alfred Sauvy coined the term when he presented an analogy between exploited colonial states under the European powers and exploited subjects living under absolute monarchy, in an article for L’Observateur in 1952.
Since Sauvy coined the term, decolonization has achieved its popular ends, but an exploitative structure remains in place. At least that is the view of dependency theorists, world-systems theorists and other structuralist critics of the international system. The most eminent of these analysts is Immanuel Wallerstein, possibly the greatest sociologist alive.
In Wallerstein’s analysis, the modern thesis of “development” supported by the United Nations and other intergovernmental institutions is as much to blame for world inequality as Europe’s colonial “civilizing” thesis that came before it. In his widely taught theory of the world-system, the world can be socially and geographically broken down into three strata based on the kind of production processes occurring in different states and geographic regions.
Immanuel Wallerstein sees world inequality not as something proceeding from countries lagging behind others as a result of historic oppression and debt, but as something proceeding from the existence of “countries” altogether. In his assessment, the division of the world into distinct nation-states is founded on arbitrary distinctions among the human race, and this gives rise to world inequality. Taking up such logic, it is hard for one to deny that the dissolution of the nation-state model itself would be a core part of any long-term political designs for remedying world inequality.
If the abandonment of the nation-state model seems too radical for you at this stage, it is not too radical for Wallerstein. In Utopistics (1998) he predicts that a crisis that could occur as early as the coming half-century will create real opportunities to seriously challenge the nation-state model. He does not say what alternative system this crisis entails, but argues that there will be a unique opportunity to construct something far more egalitarian than anything previously known. If a more equitable order is indeed gained, this would involve borders ceasing to be necessary or recognized, and authoritarian state norms becoming unsustainable.
We can already see antagonisms that are directly tied to the transnational wealth inequalities on which this article is focused. Often misleadingly framed as issues between two states, they are actually issues between opposing strata of the world-system itself. Such issues include crises on the land, like migration to the United States through its brutally enforced border with Mexico, and the inhumane occupation of Palestinian land by the Israeli State. They include crises on the water, such as migration from North Africa to Spain and Italy.
The crises tied to the enforcement of borders are part of the larger crisis gripping what Wallerstein calls the “interstate system”. This interstate system is the “political superstructure” of a global division of labor predicated on the historic industrial inequality persisting between entire continents and so-called nations. Strong states possess advanced factories and skills, while weak states are left to mine arduously. Wallerstein describes this exploitative situation in terms of a “core-periphery” relationship, in which the industrialized powers represent the “core”.
Another side to this crisis of the state is the alarming spread of internecine conflict and the growing perception of law enforcers as illegitimate, arbitrary and cruel (the 2014 Ferguson Riots are a compelling example of this and demonstrate that the US is not exempt). Such trends point inexorably towards the view that the nation-state may eventually be fated to be abandoned – not just in a particular country, but everywhere.
In my view, Wallerstein’s analysis is compelling. However, it lacks emphasis on the dawn of digital life, which has added a whole new dimension to the crisis of the world-system by literally turning the world into a community of individuals interacting on an unprecedented supranational level. This is historically important and bound to change global politics for very profound and complex reasons.
Another key historian of the world-system, Benedict Anderson, says something insightful about our modern nation-states in his book, Imagined Communities (1982). His analysis differs from Wallerstein’s, mainly due to his greater emphasis on technology and language. He gives the example of Bismarck’s Germany as the first modern nation-state, which differs from Wallerstein’s preoccupation with revolutionary France. In Imagined Communities, Anderson explains that the telegraph and rail systems allowed Germany to become a unified nation, by developing a sense of national consciousness.
If telegraph led to the formation of national consciousness through an illusory sense of community enough to give rise to a nation, surely it follows that the internet – with its profound revolution in our lives – will give rise to something equally significant. The champion of today’s rebel “cypherpunk” elite, Julian Assange, has said something very approximate to this in his own rhetoric, arguing that a “new body politic” is rising to challenge government authority through the internet. He also describes digital life as borderless and free, in such a way that can only become more and more real as digital technology continues its exponential growth. It is no accident that this sounds like the egalitarian post-state future leaned towards by Wallerstein as humanity’s noblest alternative.
Modern political legitimacy is founded on the doctrine of popular sovereignty, as Immanuel Wallerstein repeatedly points out in his works. One may be the citizen of a “nation” by having certain arbitrary qualities or place of birth, and as such may be treated equally and defended by a given state. This is what we call being part of a nation, whether it is the United States or a highly contested “state” like Palestine or Abkhazia. However, the basis of such an institution is very much in question, and in the future it will become increasingly weakened by the growing transnational consciousness brought about by weakening borders and exponential digital communication.
Where does this lead us? Shall we reject popular sovereignty as obsolete? Impossible. It is the sacrosanct foundation of all modern democracy and civil rights, and the only reliable metric of social progress. Self-determination of nations has been part of the doctrine of popular sovereignty, as is the idea that regimes must be legitimately elected to power by their constituent nations. However, if the nation is to become obsolete, as predicted in Wallerstein’s analysis of the crisis of the world-system, self-determination still stands because human rights are sacrosanct. The self-recognition of transnational humanity as sovereign must follow, and global lines of transport and communication make that feasible. The hard part is educating people that their dear “nation” no longer exists, and that is why speech and writing to sustain a global social narrative are so vital.
Perhaps the end result of the self-determination of humanity is not necessarily “global citizenship” as predicted by some (redundant, since citizenship is designed to exclude others and serves no purpose if it lacks this proscriptive power). Nor is it necessarily “world government”. However, we can know that human rights like self-determination will outlive the existence of the nation-state, and the alternative regime will then be designed and elected by the whole of transnational humanity rather than a particular group.
A new form of network-centric governance, authoritative but not authoritarian, based on scientific methods of evaluation, and tolerating no disparities in wealth or information, is a model that could supersede all the nations and make world inequality obsolete. Such a revised politics would be intellectually consistent with and assist to usher in a Global Resource-Based Economy.

By Harry J. Bentham – More articles by Harry J. Bentham

Originally published in Issue 13 of The Venus Project Magazine

Written By: — Singularity Hub

battery-free-chip-size-of-ant1

As a concept, the Internet of Things has been around for awhile. In theory, as chips get smaller and cheaper, we should be able to embed them in everyday items. Appliances, lighting, doors, climate control—all these things (and many more) get a chip and an internet connection. They can send data and receive commands.

In short, a world of dumb, inanimate objects wakes up to do our bidding.

But there are usually more than a few roadblocks between concept and execution. And two of the biggest challenges for the Internet of Things are power and cost.

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Written By: — Singularity Hub

tobacco-plant

While computers scientists find new ways to supercharge computers, a team of plant scientists have demonstrated that they can supercharge a plant.

Hoping to speed up plant photosynthesis, researchers from the US and UK have successfully upgraded a carbon-fixing enzyme vital to photosynthesis in a tobacco plant with two enzymes from cyanobacteria, which function at a faster rate. If photosynthesis can be performed more efficiently, plants would grow larger and crops could have higher yields, possibly as high as 60% according to computer models.

“This is the first time that a plant has been created through genetic engineering to fix all of its carbon by a cyanobacterial enzyme,” said Cornell Professor Maureen Hanson, a co-author of the study, in the release. She added, “It is an important first step in creating plants with more efficient photosynthesis.”

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The audio in this archive file was compiled from a 1984 meeting of futurists, transhumanists & progressives. The main topic of the meeting was the most appropriate ways to engage or advance these philosophies within government. For example, one significant point of discussion centered around whether running for office was an effective way to drive change.

The excerpts in this archive file collect many of futurist FM 2030’s thoughts over the course of the discussion.

About FM 2030: FM 2030 was at various points in his life, an Iranian Olympic basketball player, a diplomat, a university teacher, and a corporate consultant. He developed his views on transhumanism in the 1960s and evolved them over the next thirty-something years. He was placed in cryonic suspension July 8th, 2000.