Mini-documentary grapples well with the future of the Web ("semanticWeb"; "Web 3.0")

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

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India has more cellphones than toilets (and is poster child for ambivalence to the state)

Roger Cohen writes in NYT Oped May 24: "I was intrigued to learn the other day that there are now more cellphones in India than toilets. Almost half the Indian population, 563.7 million people, is hooked up to modern communications, while just 366 million have access to modern sanitation, according to a United Nations study.

"This can be seen as skewed development favoring private networks over the public good. It can be seen as an example of markets outstripping governments: Nimble cellphone companies profit while lumbering Indian authorities are unable even to stop the propagation of water-borne disease through defecation in the open. Or it can be seen merely as the choice Indians have made about their priorities...

"In some measure this duality is the modern condition. It brings an attendant schizophrenia about the state and government. On the one hand people who are increasingly autonomous — linked globally through technology, able to choose their own real or virtual gated communities, outstripping controls and taxes in their frenzied networking — feel contemptuous of the government and the state...

"On the other, aware that our globalized little earth has come very close of late to complete financial meltdown and is still hovering near the brink, noting that there are drawbacks when mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, perhaps even glimpsing that shared institutions are essential to any society, people clamor in moments of crisis for the reviled state to step in and save them.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25iht-edcohen.html

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Top 10 future issues in the mining industry

Thing the mining industry is a staid, slow-moving environment that doesn't have to worry about the future?
Think again.

Deloitte says: "Few mining organizations truly were prepared to address the volatility assailing the sector in 2009. Over a course of barely two years, commodity prices reached record highs and serious lows. As a result, mining companies have been forced to question whether their strategic frameworks were sufficiently flexible to weather both market upswings and downswings.
To help mining companies address these concerns, Deloitte’s Mining practitioners from around the world once again identified the top ten issues emerging in the global mining sector... By gaining a better understanding of these and other key issues facing the industry in the near term, mining companies can do more than prepare a short-term response plan. They also can begin to develop a full range of strategic options designed to position them to weather a wide spectrum of possible future scenarios. Only with this approach can they begin to harness the opportunities that lie within volatility."

Report available for free download:
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_CA/ca/industries/energyandresources/21920becf...

The top 10 issues:
1. Securing local supply
2. Commodities, currencies and cost
3. Demand management
4. The spread of sustainability
5. Cost of capital
6. Contending with a changing climate
7. Extreme mining
8. The valuation abyss (M&A issues)
9. Big brother is watching (govt intervention)
10. Infrastructure costs

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The "third billion"

S+B authors DeAnne Aguirre and Karim Sabbagh have suggest the move of women from agrarian to knowledge work will profoundly change the future in developing-world regions and the world at large.

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/10211?pg=all

"A huge and fast-growing group of people are poised to take their place in the economic mainstream over the next decade, as producers, consumers, employees, and entrepreneurs. This group’s impact on the global economy will be at least as significant as that of China and India’s billion-plus populations. But its members have not yet attracted the level of attention they deserve.

"If China and India each represent 1 billion emerging participants in the global marketplace, then this “third billion” is made up of women, in both developing and industrialized nations, whose economic lives have previously been stunted, underleveraged, or suppressed. These women, who have been living or contributing at a subsistence level, are now entering the mainstream for the first time. We estimate that about 870 million of them will do so by 2020, with the number conceivably passing 1 billion during the following decade.

"Their presence as economic actors will be widely felt, because they have long been overrepresented in the ranks of subsistence agriculture and other resource-based forms of work. As they move into knowledge work, in domains ranging from manufacturing to medicine to education to information technology, their sheer numbers will hasten the integration of the regions where they live into the larger economy."

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RIBA Futures Fair

The Royal Institute of British Architects is having a "Futures Fair" on June 2. The day spans design, business, community and environmental innovation, and will include presentations on five key themes:

• technological advancement and its potential impact on the built environment;
• innovative modes of business and entrepreneurship;
• landscape resilience;
• learning from design in different sectors and;
• emergent forms of community engagement and their place in development.

Speakers:
Julian Hakes, Hakes Associates
Gabby Shawcross, Jason Bruges Studio
David Marks, Marks Barfield
Geoff McCormick, Alloy Consulting
Dave Hampton, Carbon Coach
Ian Chance, UEA
Joost Beunderman, Zero Zero
Saffron Woodcraft, The Young Foundation
Ian Drysdale, Think Public
Steve McAdam, Fluid/Soundings
Professor Marcial Echenique, Cambridge University
Corrine Swain, ARUP Fellow
Fenella Collins, Country Land & Business Association
Professor Derek Clements-Croome, University of Reading
Ximo Peris, Crystal CG
Ruairi Glynn, Robotic Designer
Jake Desyllas, Intelligent Space, Atkins Global

http://www.architecture.com/WhatsOn/Seminars/Events/2010/FuturesFair10Dialogues-AdapttoThrive.aspx

Venue: The Building Centre, 26 Store Street, London WC1E 7BT
Cost: £130+VAT

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Rockerfeller launches "Searchlight" programme to ID trends impacting the global poor (tags: development, horizon scanning, Africa, Asia))

The Rockefeller Foundation hosted an international workshop on Horizon Scanning and Future Thinking at its centre in Bellagio, Italy, earlier this month, launching its Searchlight programme to identify emerging trends that impact the lives of poor populations around the world.

http://www.strategicforesight.com/bellagio_workshop.htm

The workshop discussed methods for trends monitoring, as well as substantive issues which are emerging on the horizon in different parts of the world.

It identified key issues in the developing world, including

• aging in East Asia,
• urban resilience in South and South East Asia,
• problems of small farmers,
• water scarcity in different parts of the world and its implications for food security,
• ICT revolution in Africa,
• migration issues on the US-Mexico border

A presentation on Africa brought out facts about the lessening role of men in the African society, as well as the growing role of mobile phones in financial transfers.

A presentation on Singapore illustrated the need for foresight in health care planning and the use of innovative insurance schemes, blending public and private resources.

A presentation on South Africa introduced the concept of peace parks for the preservation of nature in transboundary zones.

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H+Summit to focus on the shifting limits of the human condition

The H+ Summit, a two-day event that explores how humanity will be changed by technology in the near future will be held on June 12-13 at Harvard University.

Speakers will explore the potential of technology to modify body, mind, life, and world -- chewing over the feasibility of redesigning the human condition and overcoming such constraints as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, lack of resources, and our confinement to the planet earth.

Speakers include Ray Kurzweil, Aubrey de Grey ("Hype and anti-hype in academic biogerontology research: a call to action"), Alex Lightman ("The Rise of Citizen-Scientists in the Eversmarter World"), David Orban ("Intelligence Augmentation, Decision Power, And The Emerging Data Sphere"), Heather Knight ("Why Robots Need to Spend More Time in the Limelight: People Tracking and Artificial Personality"), Michael Smolens ("Removing language as a barrier to cross cultural communication"), M. A. Greenstein ("Sparking our Neural Humanity with Neurotech!"), and Andrew Hessel ("Altered Carbon: The emerging biological diamond age").

Cost: $200

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Church calls for BBC to go 'back to the future' in its public service mission (tags: religion, values))

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr4310.html
12 May 2010

The BBC’s proposed return to its core public service mission is a welcome ‘homecoming’ ...according to the Church of England’s response to the Director-General’s proposals for the future strategy of the corporation.

Noting that the term “public service” had increasingly been replaced in the BBC’s corporate language by the “rather more nebulous and management-speak version ‘public value,” the Church’s response welcomes the fact that the current proposals “keep that traditional (but nevertheless evolving) concept of public service mission firmly in mind”.

The response was issued by the Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester and the Church of England’s lead spokesman on communications.

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/papers/bbctruststrategicrev.rtf.

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UK to host "Planet under Pressure" conference 2012

The UK will host the conference, Planet Under Pressure: new knowledge, new solutions, expected to attract 2,500 of the world's leading thinkers in global change research, in London, in 2012. The four-day conference will be hosted by the UK's Royal Society, the Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) programme and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), together with the International Council for Science's (ICSU) four global environmental change research programmes.

The conference, provisionally booked for 7-10 May 2012, will take place prior to the next UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, also scheduled for that year. Presenting the latest research findings, the London conference is anticipated to provide a solid scientific foundation for the summit.

Professor Lorna Casselton, Foreign Secretary and Vice-President of the Royal Society, said, "It is a tribute to the quality of UK science that London has been chosen as a venue for the conference. The Royal Society is dedicated to building international links within the science community and is therefore delighted to be hosting an event that will bring together such a wide range of specialists from around the globe to address many of the big challenges of our time."

The sponsors aim to discuss the world's most pressing environmental issues - such as ensuring we have a sustainable supply of food and water, providing resilient infrastructures in our towns and cities that will withstand the pressures environmental changes will bring, and protecting people, animals and plants from hazards and diseases.

Director of Living with Environmental Change, Professor Andrew Watkinson, said, "An overarching aim of the conference will be to discuss solutions to the environmental challenges we face. We need to find ways to increase the speed with which we move to a low carbon society and ensure food, water and energy security for the billions of people across the globe in a changing world. The Living with Environmental Change partners are already addressing these critical issues, so I am very pleased that we are co-hosting the 2012 conference, which I am sure will become a catalyst for more innovative research collaborations to address the needs of society."

The conference will bring together natural, physical and social scientists, economists, engineers, health specialists and many other disciplines, along with national and international policy makers, NGOs, industry representatives, technologists, and development experts. It will offer an important forum to consolidate these relationships and discuss the future.

The conference has been initiated by ICSU's International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP). Executive Director, Professor Sybil Seitzinger, said, "We need to set research priorities that fully integrate the information needs of diverse groups of people. We need to communicate a comprehensive picture of the state of the planet and its future to the institutions charged with global environmental stewardship. We will work with these institutions to help develop a planetary management approach that tackles all the challenges in a truly integrated way."

The final day of the conference will be dedicated to communicating with policymakers, industry and the public so as to help the international global (glocal) change research community connect with society at large.

Further information

NERC Press Office
Natural Environment Research Council
Polaris House, North Star Avenue
Swindon, SN2 1EU
Tel: 01793 411727 or 411561
Mob: 07917 086369 or 557215

Alice Henchley
Senior Press Officer
Royal Society
Tel: 020 7451 2514

Ruth Welters
Communications Specialist
Living with Environmental Change
Tel: 01603 593906
Mob: 07780 993084

Owen Gaffney
Director of communications
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
Tel: +46 86739556
Mob: +46 730208418
Skype: owengaffneyigbp

---

Notes

1. The Royal Society is an independent academy promoting the natural and applied sciences. Founded in 1660, the Society has three roles, as the UK academy of science, as a learned Society, and as a funding agency. It responds to individual demand with selection by merit, not by field. They celebrated their 350th anniversary in 2010, and are working to achieve five strategic priorities, to:

• Invest in future scientific leaders and in innovation
• Influence policymaking with the best scientific advice
• Invigorate science and mathematics education
• Increase access to the best science internationally
• Inspire an interest in the joy, wonder and excitement of scientific discovery

2. The Living with Environmental Change programme is a partnership of 20 UK organisations that fund, carry out and use environmental research, including the research councils, government departments, devolved administrations and delivery agencies. For more details of the partner organisations and accredited activities, see the LWEC website.

3. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is the UK's main agency for funding and managing world-class research, training and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences. It co-ordinates some of the world's most exciting research projects, tackling major issues such as climate change, environmental influences on human health, the genetic make-up of life on earth, and much more. NERC science is delivered under seven themes, namely climate system; biodiversity; sustainable use of natural resources; Earth system science; natural hazards; environment, pollution & human health; and technologies.

4. The International Council for Science (ICSU) is a non-governmental organisation representing a global membership that includes both national scientific bodies (117 members) and international scientific unions (30 members). ICSU sponsors the four leading international global environmental-change programmes:

• DIVERSITAS - an international biodiversity programme
• International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change
• International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
• World Climate Research Programme

The four Programmes form the Earth System Science Partnership.

Press release: 09/10

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/releases/2010/09-conference.asp

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Radar gets better, and with it weather forecasting is itself forecast to improve

http://www.wgntv.com/news/wgntv-storm-chase-radar-hirsot-may12,0,2809160.story

The critical work which will lead to work improvements in U.S. tornado warnings is underway in the heart of tornado alley on the University of Oklahoma campus inside the National Weather Center building, reports wgntv.com

'Dr. Pam Heinselman from the national severe storms lab just received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists for her work on phased array radar.

"It is a doppler radar so we do get velocity info from it," she says. "But what is different is it scans storms electronically rather than mechanically. So mechanical standing radars they sit and spin around and collect data in that way. From an electronically scanning radar, you can focus the beam wherever you want."

Instead of spending four or five minutes scanning the entire area around the radar, the new generation radars will focus only on precipitation and severe weather.

There is hope that phased array can detect things like microbursts, which can be very deadly and destructive.

Regardless of how well forecasts improve, we won't be able to predict a tornado hours in advance. Weather just doesn't work that way.

But with supercomputers getting better and faster, there are hopes to eventually improve warning lead times to a half hour or more."

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Stephen Hawking: How To Build a Time Machine

All you need is a wormhole, the Large Hadron Collider or a rocket that goes really, really fast 

'Through the wormhole, the scientist can see himself as he was one minute ago. But what if our scientist uses the wormhole to shoot his earlier self? He's now dead. So who fired the shot?'

Hello. My name is Stephen Hawking. Physicist, cosmologist and something of a dreamer. Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free. Free to explore the universe and ask the big questions, such as: is time travel possible? Can we open a portal to the past or find a shortcut to the future? Can we ultimately use the laws of nature to become masters of time itself?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1269288/STEPHEN-HAWKING-How-build-time-machine.html#ixzz0muag2wmF

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