July 22 2008 / by wowshucks Category: Economics Year: General Rating: 7 Hot New
The recent announcement of a joint venture between GE and Abu
Dhabi to finance and build advanced water and energy infrastructure
highlights where American investment needs to be, and why we are
falling behind.
An analysis of todays announcement of a massive joint venture
between GE and Abu Dhabi offers the most relevant roadmap to date
for the future of high tech infrastructure, specifically the
development of clean technologies. This global movement offers an
amazing view into the future, as the most progressive companies and
goverments in the world hash out collaborative plans to deploy the
latest and best solutions for the global technology elite.
Throughout history the areas of the world with the best
infrastructure have been the dominant forces in global trade and
innovation. In the past it meant the best roads, ports, schools,
etc. GE and Abu Dhabi show us that it is now a cross pollination of
public and private partnership, facilitated by investment
authorities and Fortune 500 companies. As we break down this
strategic partnership piece by piece, we get a glimpse at the
mechanisms in place that are creating the homes, towns, and cities
of the future, and how their interplay effects a larger ecosystem
of innovation. No one can dismiss this as central planning, rather
it is an attempt by government to become more innovative and
responsive to the needs of tomorrow. (cont.)
July 20 2008 / by wowshucks Category: The Home Year: General Rating: 7 Hot New
Events of the last five years have shown us that living on the
grid, dependent on large utility companies, has been anything but
stable. Large electric companies, still reliant on fossil fuel to
generate power, have been forced to raise prices dramatically. An
antiquated series of electrical lines, transformers, and switches
have produced devastating blackouts that have cost our economy
billions. With global demand for energy expected to rise, and the
cost of upgrading infrastructure approaching hundreds of billions,
living off the grid may become a highly plausible and desirable
future for many people.
In order to live off the grid you need to tie production and
consumption together, creating small scale systems for water and
power that require no outside support. It also requires a heavy
dose of conservation and efficiency, utilizing a system that
operates within the constraints of a limited source. Living off the
grid requires a large up front investment in equipment and
expertise, and a pioneering spirit. Costs for solar and wind
generation systems routinely cost tens of thousands of dollars,
yielding a cost per kilowatt hour that exceeds that of the grid.
Nonetheless it is becoming an option many people are beginning to
consider as the marketplace changes. More and more people are
looking to raw materials for energy that are free, inexhaustible,
and clean.
As innovation and subsidies collide in the market to create
critical mass for residential solar and wind systems, it is
reasonable to expect demand for these technologies to grow.
According to Solar Buzz, a San Francisco-based industry research
company, demand for solar power has grown 20-25% a year for the
last twenty years. Many of these applications of solar power come
in the form of on the grid solutions, however many of these are
distributed at the point of use. It is however the biggest choice
for off the grid applications. Demand has grown so fast that more
silicon now goes into photovoltaics than computer chips.
(cont.)
July 17 2008 / by wowshucks Category: The Home Year: 2008 Month: Jul Rating: 9 Hot New
The Metropolitan Museum of Art unveils an exhibition that shows
the technological innovation behind the pre-fabricated home. These
made to order homes may represent the homes of the future.
Highlighting the growing innovation in pre-fab homes, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art has unveiled an exhibit highlighting the
technological innovation behind the pre-fab home and how designers
are responding to global trends.
Unveiled at the show will be a full scale prototype of the
System 3, a design by Architects Oskar Kaufman and Albert Ruf.
After years of pursuing the optimum in high quality low cost
design, the System 3 is the pinnacle of austere elegance. Looking
like a direct cousin of a shipping container the System 3 abandones
traditional notions of architectural design. The truly intersting
aspect of it’s design however is it’s ability to be “stacked”,
taking multiple units and creating anything from hotels to office
towers and luxury villas. (cont.)
July 15 2008 / by wowshucks Category: The Home Year: General Rating: 13 Hot New
With all the media attention focused on the financial chaos of
the housing industry, technology is emerging as an even more
powerful force of change. More and more home buyers are placing
emphasis on technology, or lack thereof, in the process of buying
their new home. This is causing a surge in demand for technologies
that are changing the way we have looked at homes for generations,
all driven by an increasingly educated home buyer that’s
looking toward the future for efficient new products and
solutions.
Industry experts, corporations, and consumers are all pointing
to the same trend within the housing industry: the home is no
longer looked at as mere bricks and mortar, but rather as a
technological platform with the capability to adapt. Technology is
seen as a means to carry the concept of an affordable and liveable
private home into the 21st century, a concept now under attack.
Homes, followed by cars, represent the single biggest investment
for the average American. They also consume the most resources,
causing the biggest pain to our wallets. They are also a place
where we spend a significant amount of time, perhaps our most
important resource of all. There is no doubt that the home
represents a major part of our lives, both economically and in
terms of quality of life.
Despite some advances the home has been slow to change hundreds
of years. Studies have shown that the housing industry has been the
least innovative of our major industries despite its size. Most
people realize this is unsustainable, given the problems facing the
world today. In response consumers are creating an insatiable
demand for technology within the home. (cont.)
April 14 2008 / by wowshucks Category: Business & Work Year: General Rating: 3 Hot
Nicholas Negroponte foreshadows the future i n this 1984
discussion on what we can expect in the coming decades. His ability
to hit the mark on everything from CD-roms to products like the
iPhone show that we can reasonably predict at least the next score
of human years. Speaking at the first TED
Conference in 1984, Negroponte waxes prophetic on the convergence
of technology, entertainment and design:
Years before anyone was using the word “convergence,” Negroponte
was thinking about TV screens as the “electronic books of the
future” and computers as the future of education. In excerpts from
his 2-hour talk (this was before TED’s
18-minute time limit), he foreshadowed web interfaces, service
kiosks, the touchscreens for mobile devices like the iPhone, and
his own One Laptop per Child project. Oh, and there’s also a
fascinating project called Lip Service, which, well, let’s just say
it’s still ahead of us …
April 13 2008 / by wowshucks Category: Environment Year: General Rating: 6 Hot
This is a great 30 minute video featuring Sir Norman Foster, one
of the preeminent architects of our age, that brings us up to speed
on many of the intertwining issues within the ecological agenda,
the defining issue of our generation. From the perspective of the
design process, Foster discusses how green design is producing the
iconic products of our age. He takes it a step further by
discussing the interconnection of buildings, cities, and
sustainability.
It nicely summarizes the problems we face today coupled with
potential solutions, by one of the greatest designers of our time.
Showing how technology and computers can assist in green design,
Foster describes how we must look to technology to move forward the
most important work of our age. (cont.)
April 03 2008 / by wowshucks Category: Economics Year: General Rating: 2
Fostering the development of leading edge innovations is
becoming harder than ever. Paradigms such as Moore’s Law, the law
that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles
every two years, have become increasingly harder to achieve.
Even the greatest tech giants such as Intel and IBM have found that there resources are tapped, and
that r&d efforts are becoming increasingly difficult to carry
out alone. This presented a problem for corporations engaged in
tech innovation, since collaboration involves sharing knowledge and
even valuable trade secrets. Companies such as IBM took the plunge however, joining with other
companies and universities in an effort to enhance their r&d
capabilities. Did companies such as IBM
lose their competitive advantage through collaboration? In fact
what they found was that it was greatly increased. (IBM now turns
out more patents a day than any other corporation on the
planet.)
Collaboration centers, syndicates that bring together a wide
variety of public and private institutions under one roof, have
become the platforms for the type of innovation described above.
Often located in and around universities, these centers are growing
at an astounding rate, and attracting billions of dollars in
investment.
March 18 2008 / by wowshucks Category: Biotechnology Year: 2015 Rating: 9
With the coming of the gene age, should the human species in its
natural state be protected like other endangered species?
We now live in an era where profound genetic manipulation is a
fact of life. Assuming genetic manipulation is here to stay I offer
several thought provoking questions.
Should human beings be allowed to live in a natural state, and
should they be protected much like we protect other species?
If we do choose to protect natural humans with dignity (ie not
as a slave race)to what end should be dedicate resources, rights,
and privileges?
March 17 2008 / by wowshucks Category: Economics Year: General Rating: 8
In his book Deep Economy
author Bill
McKibben offers a well researched discussion on the meaning of
growth, and its implications for us all.
Deep Economy offers an analysis of growth since the industrial
revolution, shedding light on the underpinnings for the
technological age we live in today. Using insights into
globalization, inequality, consumption, and peak oil, McKibben
theorizes that growth as we know it may in fact be a one time binge
that is entirely unsustainable. He describes in intricate detail
the definition of growth most of the world has come to accept since
the launch of the steam engine, the technological innovation
regarded as the mother of the industrial age, and the correspondent
harnessing of fossil fuel.
McKibben shows a definition of growth as an ever pressing need
for “more” that is hiding some serious problems with our so called
“progress.” In order to survive as humans, according to the
author,we may need to redefine our meaning of growth, curtail
consumption, and question many aspects of globalisation in order to
produce sustainability and happiness. In other words we may need a
redirection in the way we live when our economic inputs become
scarce. According to the author our growth calculus has led to the
mathematics of inequality. He points to the fact that income
inequality has risen steadily since the 1960’s.
March 11 2008 / by wowshucks Category: Government Year: Beyond Rating: 15
In the early part of the 20th century the United States made
unprecedented investment in education, technology, public health,
and infrastructure.
Programs like the New Deal America made the greatest investment
in human potential the world has ever seen. The fertile
environment we created was a hotbed of knowledge and creativity.
Other countries attempted similar plans for their societies, and
all of them failed, with one unfortunate exception. The US then
blew past the competition in “planning technology.”
The ability to collaborate and create massive programs for
societal change from the top down put us out ahead of other
countries, all while maintaining a market economy. Knowledge and
innovation networks, clustered around universities and national
labs, created the digital economy from the ground up.
The secret sauce is not so secret anymore, my
future-friends.
From Dubai to Singapore, the worlds rising stars are planning
their destinies, and now blowing right past the US. A recent FB
post Futuristic Middle
East, serves to articulate this trend. Such City States have
been exceptional proving grounds, and benefactors, of “planning
technology.” With small geographies and simplified political
systems, they can implement national strategies with ease.
driven by an increasingly educated home buyer that’s
looking toward the future for efficient new products and
solutions.
In his book 
environment we created was a hotbed of knowledge and creativity.
Other countries attempted similar plans for their societies, and
all of them failed, with one unfortunate exception. The US then
blew past the competition in “planning technology.”