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The Harrow Technology Report
Insight,
analysis, and commentary on the
Copyright © 2001-2005, Jeffrey R. Harrow. All rights
reserved.
Like Virtual Putty In Our Hands... Want to rest those eyes? The enormous 50-year gulf. From pirates, to images of pirates... Ask for it, and it appears! Getting kids (and adults) to THINK! May the Force be with you... Schedule Note.
The next issue of "The Harrow Technology Report" will publish on Aug. 25, 2003.
Listen to this Issue.Do you prefer to let your ears do the work of keeping you in-touch with, and thinking about where technology is taking us? If so, "The Harrow Technology Report" is also available in an audio-on-demand, M-P-3 version. If you have an M-P-3 player on your system (and most do, such as Window's Media Player, RealPlayer, etc.), the link below will either stream the file to you, or, depending on how your system is configured, it might download the file before playing it. Alternatively, if you specifically want to download the file, simply use the right-hand mouse button on the link, and choose "Save Target As..." Also, find out how you can listen at whatever speed is most comfortable for you through the FAQ at http://www.theharrowgroup.com/help.htm . Here's where to listen to this week's issue! http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/20030804/20030804.mp3
Quote of the Week.
"Imagine that you could travel back in time to the year 1900. Imagine that you stand on a soap box on a city street corner in 1900 and you say to the gathering crowd, "By 1955, people will be flying at supersonic speeds in sleek aircraft and traveling coast to coast in just a few hours." In 1900, it would have been insane to suggest that. In 1900, airplanes did not even exist. Orville and Wilbur did not make the first flight until 1903. The Model T Ford did not appear until 1909. Yet, by 1947, Chuck Yeager flew the X1 at supersonic speeds. In 1954, the B-52 bomber made its maiden flight. It took only 51 years to go from a rickety wooden airplane flying at 10 MPH, to a gigantic aluminum jet-powered Stratofortress carrying 70,000 pounds of bombs halfway around the world at 550 MPH. In 1958, Pan Am started non-stop jet flights between New York and Paris in the Boeing 707. In 1969, Americans set foot on the moon. It is unbelievable what engineers and corporations can accomplish in 50 or 60 short years. There were millions of people in 1900 who believed that humans would never fly. They were completely wrong. However, I don't think anyone in 1900 could imagine the B-52 happening in 54 years." From
"Robotic Nation"
This quote is from an interesting paper that depicts a 'present and future history' within which, by 2050, autonomous humanoid robots have taken over most of the entry-level jobs of today. But far from the Jetsons' vision of a utopia full of enthusiastic perennial vacationers, the robots have usurped most of the jobs, such as maids and other cleaning personnel, fast food cooks and clerks, and the many other jobs that don't require the spark of human creativity. One result is that 50% of the U.S. workforce is then unemployed. Marshall makes the economic necessity for businesses of that time to follow this trend quite clear, similar to how businesses once all gave up messengers for the telephone, horse-drawn delivery wagons for trucks, and typewriters for computers -- competitive necessity. At which point he uses the quote above to help us understand why this possibility is FAR from "absurd," even if it seems so from our viewpoint today, "50 years in the past."
Moore Perspective. Along the way, Marshall also illuminates some of the results of Moore's Law, such as through these excerpts: "A processor in 2002 is 10,000 times faster than a processor in 1982 was. This trend has been in place for decades, and there is nothing to indicate that it will slow down any time soon. Scientists and engineers always get around the limitations that threaten Moore's law by developing new technologies." "A 10 MEGAbyte hard disk cost about $1,000 in 1982. Today you can buy a 250 GIGAbyte drive that is twice as fast for $350. Today's drive is 25,000 times bigger and costs one-third the price of the 1982 model..." "In the same time period -- 1982 to 2002 -- standard RAM (Random Access Memory) available in a home machine has gone from 64 KILObytes to 128 MEGAbytes -- it improved by of factor of 2,000." "What if we simply extrapolate out, taking the idea that every 20 years things improve by a factor of 1,000 or 10,000? What we get is a machine in 2020 that has a processor running at something like 10 trillion operations per second. It has a TERAbyte of RAM and one or two PETAbytes of storage space (a petabyte is one quadrillion bytes)." "What if we extrapolate ANOTHER 20 years after that, to 2040? A typical home machine at that point will be 1,000 times faster than the 2020 machine. Human brains are thought to be able to process at a rate of approximately one quadrillion operations per second. A CPU in the 2040 time frame could have the processing power of a human brain, and it will cost $1,000. It will have a PETAbyte (one quadrillion bytes) of RAM. It will have one EXAbyte of storage space. An exabyte is 1,000 quadrillion bytes." Although none of us have a clear picture of what 2050 will look like, Marshall's reasoning (he presents additional supporting data in his must-read article - http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm), is very hard to argue with -- consider the well-established history of many technologies' double-exponential growth, and the just-now-beginning NBIC Convergence (the coming together, and therefore synergistic growth, of the previously separate fields of Nanotechnology, Biology & medicine, Information sciences, and Cognitive sciences)! (If the POTENTIAL for such changes seems like so much poppycock -- please re-read the first three quoted paragraphs at the beginning of this article.) The question, of course, if things develop as Marshall foretells, is how our society might plan to effectively deal with another 50 years of such exponential changes. Especially considering that the dramatically-high unemployment would be only the very tip of this particular iceberg... Don't Blink!
Tiny Cannons.
Having just seen "Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl" (a truly excellent and enjoyable movie, to my surprise), I must have been very suggestive to the word "cannon" when reader Todd Hess used it. He reminded me of a recent breakthrough from Motorola that may, within a few years, have us enjoying movies at home in larger, flatter, and perhaps better-looking splendor. And all because of that tiny, elusive, carbon nanotube.
As you might recall, a carbon nanotube is a single carbon molecule with a hexagonal (chicken wire) structure that has rolled itself into the form of a perfect hollow tube. That nanometer-scale tube has more than a few unexpected properties, such as, "... [having] one hundred times the tensile strength of steel [at one-sixth the weight]; thermal conductivity better than all but the purest diamond; and electrical conductivity similar to copper, but with the ability to carry much higher currents...." (Picture and quotes are from http://www.cientifica.info/html/docs/Free_Nanotubes_WP.pdf, an excellent non-technical introduction to the many forms of these tiny tubes and their potential uses. (c) 2003 CMP-Cientifica, - http://www.cmp-cientifica.com .) Carbon nanotubes can also become a semiconductor, when bent just the right way. And, in deference to the pirate movie, it turns out that they make excellent cannons, firing single electrons straight and true with great force: "They can produce streams of electrons very efficiently (field emission), which can be used to create light in displays for televisions or computers, or even in domestic lighting, and they can enhance the fluorescence of materials they are close to."
Enter, the "NED." This "field emission"
characteristic, which among other things can be used
to excite individual phosphor sub-pixels on a flat
TV-like piece of glass, is not newly discovered.
But what Motorola has apparently now developed
(http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/ "The ability to place Carbon Nanotubes directly on a substrate while controlling their spacing, size, and length, provides a high quality image with optimized electron emissions, brightness, color purity and resolution for flat panel displays." "For this reason, we believe the market is ripe for a disruptive technology, such as carbon nanotubes, that provides a CRT quality image at a cost that is significantly lower than current plasma and LCD offerings."
Cheer For The Accidents! Perhaps most fascinating to me, is that these carbon nanotubes weren't the result of a massive targeted research project, but were discovered by accident in 1991 by NEC's Sumio Iijima, who was curious enough to analyze a "smudge" of black unexpectedly produced as a byproduct of an experiment. According to Iijima in a Jan., 2001 interview in JSAP International (http://www.jsapi.jsap.or.jp/Pdf/Number03/Interview.pdf), "It was an accident that suited me well." Indeed. Because of his curiosity, it may turn out that he struck the spark that changes how we build future things -- from vastly smaller and faster electronic components, to lighter and stronger construction materials for buildings and bridges and more, even to the "space elevator" that could dramatically reduce the cost of putting material (and even tourists!) into orbit! Because of an "accident." Because someone thought to ask "why," instead of just cleaning up. And because his employer supported his curiosity...
Again, Don't Blink!
Begin Self-Serving Advertisement There's MUCH More I Can Do For You!
You may not realize it, but there's much more to The Harrow Group than just "The Harrow Technology Report." For almost twenty years, as I've been sharing my research on the ever-faster-moving and converging technologies that are changing how we work, live, and play, I've also been working directly with businesses and organizations, large and small, to help them understand and address how these changes may affect them, their customers, and their customers' businesses, through a series of:
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Presentations -
Highly engaging, interactive, multimedia,
constantly-updated presentations and keynote
speeches to individual businesses, internal groups,
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viscerally understand and appreciate how technology
has brought us to where we are today, and where it's
likely to lead us tomorrow.
·
Workshops
- Beginning with the presentation described above
(to give all participants a common understanding and
insight), the workshop further engages attendees to
explore how this march of technology might affect
their individual businesses and organizations, and
their specific needs.
·
One-On-One Consulting -
Individualized
consulting services, available via phone or
in-person, to help you explore the topics and trends
discussed in The Harrow Technology Report,
and related issues. Please continue at http://www.theharrowgroup.com/consulting2.htm for additional information. Then, contact me at Jeff@TheHarrowGroup.com with any additional questions, to discuss fees, and to schedule a consulting event. I look forward to working with you! End Self-Serving Advertisement From Out of the Ether.
Traffic In Your Pocket Redux
-- Furthering our discussion on real-time
traffic information (http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/ "I can suggest it works well - radio coverage for paging services is developed well, and road information is reliable since it's taken directly from road police. Using this device you can save a lot of time, from 15 minutes to hours..." If you read Russian, you'll
find more information at
http://roadinformer.ru/
.) Wish For It...
"Of course there's that one more "mile" to go -- standardizing the wireless digital real-time traffic data so that automotive (and pocket) GPS receivers can integrate that into their route calculations (in essence, adding a "fastest route based on traffic" choice to the typical "shortest route" and "fastest route" choices.) And make that a worldwide standard, please..." But that was before I heard from UK reader Colin Jolleys, who proves that in the Internet/technology world, wish for something and it tends to appear:
"In your report [at
http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/ I have a Renault car that incorporates a badged satellite navigation system from VDO Dayton. This system has the ability to receive TMC (Traffic Message Code) data via the car FM radio (it uses an extension of the data capability of RDS I think). These TMC codes are provided in the UK by a company called "Itis Holdings" which gathers the information from a variety of sources. On receipt of this information, and provided that you have purchased a map CD that is TMC ready (this funds the TMC model), my GPS system puts symbols on the maps to indicate traffic problems, and prompts with options for me to select alternative routes if I want to avoid trouble and have a quicker journey. I hope this is of interest & sorry it doesn't seem to be available in the US yet!" http://www.rds.org.uk/episode/rdstmcbrochure.htm http://itisholdings.co.uk/itmc.asp Many thanks, Colin. I've driven in London traffic and I can well appreciate what a valuable service this could be. I also suspect that this would be as-valuable in the U.S. Is any forward-looking company that wants to re-invent itself in this new century listening...? (By the way, how about also extending rental cars GPSs on both sides of the pond to be watchful in case "wrong-side-of-the road," or perhaps inebriated, or just confused drivers mess up and enter the wrong lane -- the GPS could warn him or her LOUDLY!) Of course, TMS doesn't address
the global "standardization" issues that remain to
be solved -- I can use my current U.S. Garmin
StreetPilot III in London, but it would surely be a
shame if I couldn't also get the London traffic and
rerouting info! Another Way.
(Think of this like "time
sharing," where the centralized server does most of
the work that is displayed on (relatively)
inexpensive wireless "dumb terminals" in the users'
cars, as opposed to putting more expensive computing
power and hordes of data into each car. They've
traded end-user computing power for increased
bandwidth utilization.) "Safe Speed Option" "The Smartnav Safe Speed option has been designed to protect your licence and encourage safer driving. Whether driving to an unfamiliar destination or making a frequent journey, it's easy to become preoccupied by other events and to lose concentration momentarily; this could result in you breaking the law or even worse, an accident. The Smartnav Safe Speed option alerts you when you approach zones monitored by fixed safety cameras, variable safety camera and multi-camera detectors (also know as Specs). Two levels of audible warning are provided - one as you approach the monitored zone (3 beeps) and a second (5 beeps) immediately before the monitored zone, giving you sufficient time to correct your speed and alert you to concentrate on the road ahead. If you continue to drive above the speed limit through the monitored zone, you will hear continuous beeps until your speed has fallen to below the specified speed limit." I've long-suggested the value of incorporating speed-limits for each road section into GPS databases; SmartNAV goes beyond this, adding the enforcement areas. (And yes, I noticed how carefully they worded that statement, since some people could use this service to flout the law, which is not a good idea at all. But such a service could also help the inattentive or distracted driver to stay within the speed limit.) Even better, if they were to
incorporate the posted speed limits for each road
segment, they could continuously warn drivers if
they exceeded the speed limit for where they're
actually traveling by a fixed speed or percentage,
even outside of traffic enforcement zones. THAT
could really help the unintentional speeders to
drive more safely, overall.
Beneath The Covers.
Teaching kids (or adults) how to use a PC by teaching them how to use programs that do word processing, spreadsheets, page layout, etc., can be very valuable. The students become productive at those specific tasks in a reasonable amount of time, and they can then use those skills to further their educational or career paths. This is al well and good (and desirable). BUT -- people so-taught do not really know anything about computers, or about the technologies that make them possible! They are not educated about "computers." Within the context of this discussion, while they've learned how to use specific programs on a PC, they did not learn much of anything about the underlying "technology." They've simply learned to use certain tools that just happen to run on a PC. They've learned a set of skills. It's similar to my using a wrench to fix a leaky faucet -- I can use it effectively as a tool, but I have no knowledge of the metallurgy that gives my wrench just the right combination of strength, flexibility, and hardness. I don't know how to calculate the best overall length vs. jaw length and balance that makes a "great" wrench. In fact, I can't even identify the myriad questions that I would HAVE to ask if I were trying to "build a better wrench." This then, is the position in which most average (non-technical) people find themselves with regard to most elements of technology. They've been trained as "users," but not as "thinkers," even though they may believe that they've been taking "technology courses." And what a waste of enormous potential that is. (Don't get me wrong -- the "user" skills remain very necessary and valuable, but without being further taught to "peer under the covers," to learn to think ACROSS traditional disciplines, then "users" these students will remain.) So, how do we educate people in ways that better prepare them to excel (or survive) in a technological universe that finds itself doubling its capabilities every 2 or so years, and in which the RATE at which many technologies do this doubling, itself, continues to accelerate?
This Is One Of Those "Non-Trivial" Problems... It's a HARD problem, given educational inertia and that, according to reader Miguel Aznar who is the Executive Director of KnowledgeContext (www.knowledgecontext.org), "...[many teachers are] desperate to make their students perform on standardized tests (which do NOT cross disciplines)." Following up on some of our recent discussions in this area at
(http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/ Miguel has, in fact, been thinking about these issues for a long time. As an educational professional, he codifies many of these issues into an educational context. And as you'll see, he has done far more than just thinking and codifying: "Now, I agree wholeheartedly with both you and Sanford Forte. For a scare, though, look at how U.S. public schools teach about technology. It is almost exclusively "competency" instead of "literacy." Students learn how to operate a technology, usually a computer, but they miss the context. To be technologically literate in an age of ever-accelerating technological change, they must learn the patterns that do NOT change with each new generation of technology. If our youngsters studied these questions:
1) What is technology? ...then they would find many answers that apply to the latest and also most ancient technologies. That context would prepare them to understand and evaluate any technology, [which is] an important skill, considering how quickly technology is changing and how great its impact is and will be. This context comes from history, sociology, science, math, reading, writing...all the separate areas they study, but tied together with the unifying thread of technology. [In fact,] some 10-to-12 year old students ARE ALREADY gaining this level of technological literacy. I know because I helped to develop a middle school curriculum organized around these nine questions. The educational nonprofit corporation that owns it, KnowledgeContext, now gives it away to schools and teachers without charge. But it is hardly enough to make such a tool available to teachers, most of whom are desperate to make their students perform on standardized tests (which do NOT cross disciplines). We who appreciate the importance of educational breadth and context need to promote this. I welcome people to the KnowledgeContext website (www.KnowledgeContext.org) to check out the curriculum and to tell their childrens' teachers (and their friends' childrens' teachers) about it. KnowledgeContext is also publishing a book for adults. It is organized along the same nine questions, but delves a good deal deeper. Anyone wishing to read the online draft is welcome to at http://knowledgecontext.org/organization/marketing/book/. The readers of the Harrow Technology Report have probably developed a contextual grasp of technology, but they (we) are in a minority. Young people may be brilliant at using many new technologies, but if they cannot put them into context, they will just be pushing buttons, not understanding and evaluating them. Keep up the fine work on your newsletter!" As I said, Miguel has brought something far more tangible to the table than just the initial "raising and understanding the issues" -- he and his colleagues have developed an entire curriculum that can (is!) helping students to peer beneath the technological covers. Its introduction is at http://www.knowledgecontext.org/curriculum/index.htm , and by following its Lessons link to http://www.knowledgecontext.org/curriculum/lessons.htm , the structure of the curriculum is laid out before you. I then found it helpful to go to http://www.knowledgecontext.org/curriculum/print.htm and click on each of the Lessons in the left-hand column; each of which provides a single long page that contains all the details of that lesson.
The Good "Hook!" Most of my experience is not as a K-12 educator, so I won't attempt to comment on this curriculum from that perspective. But I am a technologist, and from that standpoint, based upon the random sampling of this curriculum that I've looked at, this could well "hook" many a young (or older) mind and excite its curiosity. And that, I believe, is what sparks the self-drive that helps many people succeed beyond their wildest dreams (and NOT only in the 'technology sector!') I can also say that, if I had received such exposure in my middle-school days, it would have given me a fascinating head start. Most educational budgets are very tight; this "ICE-9" curriculum, along with all its materials, is free. I wouldn't presume to say that it's "right" for your schools, but I do suggest that you familiarize yourself with it, and then bring it to the attention of your local school administrations. We desperately need "cross-domain thinkers" to help us safely and prosperously navigate the dangerous and marvelous shoals of today's NBIC revolution (the coming together of the previously disparate fields of Nanotechnology, Biology & medicine, Information sciences, and Cognitive sciences). "ICE-9" may be a good starring point. I found the Lessons at http://www.knowledgecontext.org/curriculum/print.htm to be interesting reading myself, as might you as a reader of "The Harrow Technology Report". They explain technology's background in sometimes unusual ways, and they ask some of the hard questions that get people to THINK. Which I think, is a great way to start!
Beyond the GUI?
Finally, let's face it -- the graphic desktop metaphor, although far more friendly to most people than the arcane command line interfaces that preceded it, is more than a little long in the tooth. Oh, sure, with some "stretch" we still do find value in dropping documents in folder, folders in filing cabinets, and so on, but it's rather hard to get a real "feel" for the work. You may have tried some of the "force feedback" mice on the market, such as the iFeel mouse from Logitech, and for those applications that support its force feedback it can be helpful to "feel" objects on the screen as your mouse cursor rumbles or scratches over something, or hits something "solid" such as the border of a window. This "haptic" ("to feel," from the Greek) interface may seem like a (useful) toy in the "desktop" context, but imagine the value that a physician performing remote surgery would find in an interface that lets her "feel" the soft tissue, muscle, and bone on which she's operating, from a continent away. Or, as brought to our attention by readers Kenneth LaCrosse and others, consider what adding the sense of "feel" would bring to molecular scientists who could "feel" how two molecules are coming together, such as when trying to design a drug whose molecules must bind "just so" with the receptors on its target. Yes, 3D graphic displays do help, but adding the dynamic "magnetic force" if you will, as molecules come together and try (or not) to mate, may just increase the rate of innovation. Which is just what Texas A&M University's Dr. Edgar Meyer has done -- he's added a sense of feeling to the problem of getting a 50-atom drug molecule to bind to "just the right receptor" on a biological 600-atom entity. According to Meyer, in the July 16 AgNews (http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/BICH/Jul1602a.htm), "Biological molecules are inherently very complex. Molecules have bumpy surfaces, so [with a haptic interface] you feel what it is like to go over the rough places, in order to get it to fit into the right place. There is a noticeable repulsion when you are pushing against a molecule in the wrong place." I'm a firm believer that the more senses we enable creative people to use as they "play" in their work environments, the greater the opportunity for that elusive creative spark to occur. And haptics may well add that extra little bit that could make the difference between a wasted day, and a drug that cures something that ails you and me. Or, haptic interfaces might spark a similar breakthrough in just about any field where getting "down and dirty" with thing we can't (normally) touch, could make the solution to a new idea but virtual putty in our hands. It's how we've learned from childhood, and growing up does not mean that we have to leave the sandbox behind!
About "The Harrow Technology Report.
"The Harrow Technology Report" explores the innovations and trends of many contemporary and emerging technologies, and then draws some less than obvious connections between them, to help us each survive and prosper in the Knowledge Age. "The Harrow Technology Report" is brought to you by Jeffrey R. Harrow, Principal of The Harrow Group. http://www.TheHarrowGroup.com . Where To Find "The Harrow Technology Report:"
Copyright (c) 2001-2005, Jeffrey R. Harrow. All
rights reserved.
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