State Department Tells Twitter To Delay Scheduled Maintenance

Twitter delayed its scheduled maintenance yesterday after a meeting with the US State Department. The State Department highlighted that Twitter was a very important form of communication in Iran. Like in Moldova, Twitter has help facilitate the organization of protests in the country. Full story.

New Internet Metaphors: From Static Pages To Streams

In a recent TechCrunch article, Eric Schonfeld discusses a metaphoric shift. For the internet, the dominant metaphor is that of a book, with pages. Now, more and more we are seeing something that looks more like a stream (First with RSS and now with twitter and friendwall). These sites are driving a trend toward fluid, INSTANT information. Traditional websites can't afford not to take note. Schonfeld says "The stream is winding its way throughout the Web and organizing it by nowness."

It does seem interesting that a decade or so after the 'surf' metaphor we get another water-based metaphor in 'stream.' Are we kayakers now? Or still surfing the rapids of the stream. I need someone to organize all the water for me? Maybe a water management technician? A beaver?

(Ward, thoughts on this?)

Researchers Seek To Map The Connectome

The Economist explores the concept of the connectome and the push to map it:

For, just as every organism has a genome (the complete set of its genes, as encoded in its DNA), every organism with a nervous system has a connectome (the complete set of its nerve cells and the connections between them). In practice, of course, a connectome will change over the course of time as new connections form and old ones die. But that does not stop people like Dr Lichtman dreaming of a Human Connectome Project inspired by the success of the Human Genome Project.

12 Million Node Botnet Triggers 'Disaster' Speculation

NYtimes on the Conficker Botnet:

Given the sophisticated nature of the worm, the question remains: What is the purpose of Conficker, which could possibly become the world’s most powerful parallel computer on April 1? That is when the worm will generate 50,000 domain names and systematically try to communicate with each one. The authors then only need to register one of the domain names in order to take control of the millions of zombie computers that have been created.

And Wired...

Federal Agency Fights Sophisticated Computer Worm

Apparently, there is a behind-the-scenes struggle raging between the government experts at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (which definately sounds like a crazy sci-fi organization) and the alliance known as the Conficker Cabal (ditto). The Cabal, according to this article, has created a program that has infected millions of computers with software code that is intended to lash together the infected machines it controls into a powerful computer known as a botnet.

When Will We Meet C-3P0 And Will He Be Linked To His Buddies?

In the same way some people ask, "where are the flying cars we all expected to have by now," dvice.com asks, "where the hell are the walking, talking, thinking robots that we imagined filling our future?"

Dvice goes on to interview James Kuffner, a specialist in the field of motion planning and professor at Carnegie Mellon' robotics institute. He says that for him and his team, "The goal is for a robot to be able to search back through its memory and know what it's learned and what the robots before have learned and continue to pass on that searchable database onto the next robot, so that it keeps learning."

A robot that can learn from the mistakes of its peers!? It's an interesting idea–a robot intranet that links similar, learning bots in a sort of collective consciousness. It's not unlike the idea of putting the internet into the hands (or eyes via contact lenses...or brains even) of every human. With the advent of the smartphone we catch glimpses of the sort of connectivity and the potential to learn from the vast store of history's lessons, the challenge is figuring out how to efficiently search the MASSIVE amount of information.

The Universe In 2009

The best ideas that give us reason for optimism in 09.

The Future Of The Internet

"First it will become wireless and ubiquitous, crawling into the woodwork and perhaps even under our skin. Eventually, it will disappear," explains the recently dugg Time article. By 2020 they say, they'll be more things (appliances, vehicles, and buildings) online then people.

Knol: An Authoritative Alternative To Wikipedia

There are still those who remain wary of the hive mind of wikipedia:

"The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him."

- Robert McHenry, former editor-in-chief of Encyclopædia Britannica

If you are the type of person that would prefer a expertly maintained bathroom (or encyclopedia), Google has just announced that the 100,000th knol (they define a knol as "a unit of knowledge"...it's sort of like an elite meme) has just been published to the wikipedia alternative (or complement), knol. Unlike wikipedia, knol emphasizes personal expertise by highlighting the authorship of each article.

Read the wikipedia entry on knol here.

Mobile Devices Will Be Primary Online Connection Tool By 2020

For their internet evolution report issued in December of 2008, the Pew Internet and American Life Project asked a panel of internet analysts, media professors, and technology experts to make a series of predictions about the internet and its affect on American Life in 2020.

The findings, available here, suggest that the mobile device will quickly become the dominant form of online connection, that voice recognition and touch interfaces will become increasingly widespread, and that because of this connectivity capability, the division between personal time and work time, physical reality and virtual reality will fade away.

The panel of experts were mixed in their opinions of how the tech/internet changes will affect American Life. Will transparency and tolerance increase? Not necessarily.

It does seem that in a global 'idea economy' the 9-5 work day will transform into a much more fluid 24/7 type of work atmosphere. Having highly creative employees continually connected to work through mobile devices and virtual reality forums might allow for those important insights to come more readily (like when you in the bathtub or taking a walk). Will this come sort of work day become acceptable? How will it affect the family?

Steve Mann, Cyborg Man

Steve Mann of the University of Toronto invented the terms "sousveillance" and "glogging"...which is what happens when cyborgs blog, vlog, or flog.

Consequences Of Digitial Intimacy

NYtimes article by Clive Thompson uncovers some important insights about the new state of digital intimacy.

1. People often think they don't want the sort of omnipresent knowledge that comes with twitter and facebook feeds...until they sign up. Then, they find it intriguing and addictive.

2. Twitter and Facebook's scrolling wall spread trends quickly - more quickly than blogs.

3. Individual "tweets" are insignificant on their own, but when you track them over time, real understanding and intimacy with a person develops (another example of emergent property).

4. When you post updates about yourself, the process of posting forces you to view them objectively, and to contemplate them. So, "in the age of awareness, perhaps the person you see most clearly is yourself."

This Might Be The Birth Of A New Genre

Great example of how web 2.0 has permeated generation Y's social life and understanding of connectivity and self promotion. This song has to break the record for most internet references. Not only does 20 year old Charles Hamilton rap over a Windows computer jingle (you'll recognize it), the entire chorus consists of a list of his various blogs, profile pages, and websites. "Log on...download me," he says. Later he wishes viruses upon his haters' blogs.

Beme: Connectivity And Sousveillance Via Twitter

The fascinating thing about Twitter (Founded in 2006 and identified by NYtimes in 2007 as the net's fastest growing phenomenon) is not that socialite teens have found a great way to persistently give real-time updates to all their friends ( i.e. "Chillin").  It's not even that surprising that political figures (Barack Obama) have attempted to capitalize on this phenomenon by creating their own Twitter accounts and inundating their fans facebook accounts, cell phones, email with "tweets" ( i.e. "Discussing healthcare in Findley, Ohio").  For me the most interesting thing about Twitter is its potential for 'sousveillance' (the opposite of surveillance).  With Twitter, citizens have found another empowering tool with which they can quickly and broadly 'watch from below.'  Witness an act of injustice?  You can 'tweet' it into cellphones, emails, and social network websites and watch your Twitter subscribers spread the word like wildfire.  Just don't cry wolf.