Berners-Lee on the read/write web

In August 1991, Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the first website. Fourteen years on, he tells BBC Newsnight's Mark Lawson how blogging is closer to his original idea about a read/write web.

Mark Lawson: Because of your invention, I was able to look up every article written by or about you quickly and easily. But at the same time, I was sent several unsolicited links to porn sites. I have to accept that someone in Mexico may have stolen my identity and now be using it. Is the latter absolutely worth paying for the former?

Tim Berners-Lee: That's an interesting question that you ask, as though it's a yes or no answer. As though our choice is to turn off the whole thing, or turn on the whole thing. I feel that the web should be something, which basically doesn't try to coerce people into putting particular sorts of things on it.

I feel that we need to individually work on putting good things on it, finding ways to protect ourselves from accidentally finding the bad stuff, and that at the end of the day, a lot of the problems of bad information out there, things that you don't like, are problems with humanity.

This is humanity which is communicating over the web, just as it's communicating over so many other different media. I think it's a more complicated question we have to; first of all, make it a universal medium, and secondly we have to work to make sure that that it supports the sort of society that we want to build on top of it.

When you write a blog, you don't write complicated hypertext, you just write text, so I'm very, very happy to see that now it's gone in the direction of becoming more of a creative medium Tim Berners-Lee

ML: When you think in terms of what it has allowed, what is the achievement of the web?

TBL: It's a new medium, it's a universal medium and it's not itself a medium which inherently makes people do good things, or bad things. It allows people to do what they want to do more efficiently. It allows people to exist in an information space which doesn't know geographical boundaries. My hope is that it'll be very positive in bringing people together around the planet, because it'll make communication between different countries more possible.

But on the other hand I see it as a substrate for humanity, I see it as something on which humanity will do what humanity does and the questions as to what we as individuals and we collectively do, are still just as important and just as much as before, up to us.

ML: But do you feel responsible? You say humanity will do whatever it does with it, do you feel responsible for what happens?

TBL: I do not feel responsible for everything that humanity does, no. I suppose I feel a responsibility when people take on the web expecting one thing and get something else, so yes I suppose that's partly why I'm involved with the World Wide Web Consortium, and lots of other people are trying to make it better.

Towards a rewritable web

ML: I'm interested that at what sense you began to sense the possibilities. You weren't thinking car rental, you weren't thinking blogging, I assume.

TBL: Well in some ways. The idea was that anybody who used the web would have a space where they could write and so the first browser was an editor, it was a writer as well as a reader. Every person who used the web had the ability to write something. It was very easy to make a new web page and comment on what somebody else had written, which is very much what blogging is about.

SIR TIM BERNERS-LEE Born in London in 1955 Read physics at Queen's College, Oxford Banned from using university PC for hacking Built own computer with old TV, a Motorola microprocessor and soldering iron Created web in late 1980s and early 1990s at Cern Offered it free on the net Founded World Wide Web Consortium at MIT in 1994 Named by Time magazine as one of the top 20 thinkers of the 20th century Knighted in 2003

For years I had been trying to address the fact that the web for most people wasn't a creative space; there were other editors, but editing web pages became difficult and complicated for people. What happened with blogs and with wikis, these editable web spaces, was that they became much more simple.

When you write a blog, you don't write complicated hypertext, you just write text, so I'm very, very happy to see that now it's gone in the direction of becoming more of a creative medium.

ML: Moving on to the consequences and the uses of the internet, the first question that arises a lot is the quality, the reliability of the information that is there. Now some people think that the internet has led to this great empire of lies, of unreliability. You simply don't know what the state of any of this information is.

TBL : When you say there are a lot of lies out there, if you go randomly picking up pieces of paper in the street or leafing through garbage at the garbage dump what are the chances you'll find something reliable written on the paper that you find there? Very small. When you go onto the internet, if you really rummage around randomly then how do you hope to find something of any of value?

But when you use the web, you follow links and you should keep bookmarks of the places where following links turns out to be a good idea. When you go to a site and it gives you pointers to places that you find are horrible or unreliable, then don't go there again.

You see out there right now, for example, when you look at bloggers some of them are very careful. A good blogger when he says that something's happened will have a point to back, and there's a certain ethos within the blogging community, you always point to your source, you point all the way back to the original article. If you're looking at something and you don't know where it comes from, if there's no pointer to the source, you can ignore it.

Powerful tool

ML: You must reflect though on the law of unintended consequences because it wasn't remotely ever your intention when you started on this that so much of the web would be given over to sexual exhibitionists masturbating in their bedrooms with webcams. Do you ever have bad moments about that?

TBL: Well I don't see that stuff.

My goal for the web in 30 years is to be the platform which has led to the building of something very new and special, which we can't imagine now Tim Berners-Lee

ML: But you know it's there though?

TBL: Some people tell me. I suppose the question is to what extent the people use it for things which should seriously concern us. For example, are people using the web to get information about how to do illegal things, whether it's to make explosives, how to kill people, poison people, or whatever it is. So there's a certain amount of danger that this tool can be used for bad purposes. It's a very powerful tool.

ML: And you've never had a sleepless night over that?

TBL: No I haven't. I haven't had a sleepless night over it because I suppose I'm so much more surrounded by the good things that people are doing with it. There are lots of positive stories of people doing great things, putting educational information out there for people in developing countries and things, for example. There's a huge spirit of goodness. Most of the people I meet who are developing the web are focused on all those things.

ML: You have a convenient benchmark, because you have a daughter who was born just as the web was beginning. Her stages of development are the same as the web in years. So, when she is 30, say, what would you want the web at 30 to be?

TBL: People often quite successfully compare the web with a growing person, and it's certainly had its years of adolescence when it's been trying to push the boundaries, see how far we can go, and I think some of these things, with spam and phishing that we see at the moment are examples of that. And people have been pushing backwards and forwards about piracy, and I think a lot of those things will settle down.

When it's 30, I expect it to be much more stable, something that people don't talk about. Really when you talk about an article, you don't say, "Oh, I'm going to write an article on paper!" The fact that we use pen and paper is sort of rather understood.

Similarly the web will be, hopefully, will be something which is sunk into the background as an assumption. Now, if as technologists develop, we've done our job well, the web will be this universal medium, which will be very, very flexible. It won't, itself, have any preconceived notions about what's built on top.

One of the reasons that I want to keep it open like that, is partly because I want humanity to have it as a clean slate. My goal for the web in 30 years is to be the platform which has led to the building of something very new and special, which we can't imagine now.

ML: Tim Berners-Lee, thank you very much.

Technology News Article | Reuters.com: "ROME (Reuters) - Who needs a sommelier? A 'talking' wine label could soon tell consumers in Italy everything they want to know about a particular bottle -- from its production history to the kind of food it should accompany. 'The idea is to bring the oenologist to the table so that each wine can explain itself in the first person,' said Daniele Barontini, whose Tuscan company Modulgraf is putting the final touches on the product to be launched in November. 'We envision our talking wine label in restaurants, wine stores and at vineyards that offer wine tasting,' he told Reuters on Wednesday. The new 'label' would consist of a chip implanted in the bottle that could be listened to with a small device about the size of a cigarette package in the wine shop or the restaurant. 'It could tell you how to enjoy the wine, where it came from, everything you'd hear from a sommelier,' Barontini said. 'You could even have music.' He said producers of some of Italy's finest wines, like Brunello, had already expressed interest. Modulgraf, a company specialized in wine labels and products aimed at preventing counterfeit, plans to launch the 'talking wine label' -- which still doesn't have an official name -- at Milan's prestigious wine fair in November. The label was patented by German engineer Florentin Doring, who works with Modulgraf. It could also help prevent counterfeiting, say its creators."

rixome: "rixome is a dimension for virtual and open publication in physical places. The creations in this network join the anxious landscapes of our cities making up a new public memory, an exchange environment where our trace always lasts.

rixome is a locative media project. This research area tries to make a social, glolocal and ibiquitious use of technology, going far away from usual individual and un-localizable interfaces."

World record 10.4 Gigabit wireless transmission: "University of Essex21.06.2005?World record 10.4 Gigabit wireless transmission Researchers at the University of Essex are claiming a world record for the amount of computer data sent over a point-to-point wireless channel.

The results achieved by the team from the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering are the equivalent of more than 162,000 phone calls or over 10,000 broadband internet connections being made simultaneously. Such large capacity could revolutionise wireless internet download times for many households and local businesses, small and large.

While the techniques used by the Essex group don%u2019t fit exactly to the MultiBand Alliance template in the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.15 ultra-wideband radio standardisation process, they are important because they show that 10 Gigabit radio is feasible. The successful experiment at Essex demonstrates that far greater capacity could be obtained from present generation wireless links given appropriate standardisation.

The Essex Department of Electronics Systems Engineering is one of the strongest in the country, and currently has a grade 5 rating for carrying out research of national and international excellence. In 2001, researchers in the department achieved a world record for the amount of computer data sent over a single multimode optical fibre, which won them a slot in the Guinness Book of Records.

The latest record-breaking results came at the end of a two-year project by MSc student Terry Quinlan, part of precursor work which will be further enhanced by a recently-announced ?1 million Higher Education Funding Council for England equipment award. Eventually, the mm-wave region could be used where even higher data rates may be possible.

Head of the Essex project, Professor Stuart Walker, said: %u2019This achievement represents the culmination of many months of painstaking work. Multigigabit transmission systems of any sort require really detailed design and wireless is no exception. The original aim was just to investigate the performance of cheap flat patch antennas. We were pleasantly surprised by the initial results and kept on improving the experimental set-up. "

local6.com - News - Bionic Man Moves Artificial Arm With Brain: "Bionic Man Moves Artificial Arm With BrainBreakthrough Could Change Lives Of Amputees, Patients With Spinal Cord InjuriesPOSTED: 12:55 pm EDT June 23,

2005UPDATED: 4:07 pm EDT June 23,

2005CHICAGO -- Researchers have developed artificial arms that can be moved as it if they were real limbs, simply by thinking about making them move, according to Local 6 News. When Jesse Sullivan's brain tells his arm to do something, it's done in seconds.The world's first bionic man, Jesse Sullivan, 54, accidentally touched live wires while working as a utility lineman in Tennessee. He suffered severe burns, causing him to lose his arms."

New Scientist Breaking News - Nano-levers point to futuristic gadgets: "Nano-levers point to futuristic gadgets

15:25 24 June 2005

NewScientist.com news service

Will Knight Billions of tiny mechanical levers could be used to store songs on future MP3 players and pictures on digital cameras.

As bizarre as the idea might sound, researchers at a Dutch company have already demonstrated that miniscule mechanical switches can be used to store data using less power than existing technologies and with greater reliability.

Nanomech memory, developed by Cavendish Kinetics in the Netherlands, stores data using thousands of electro-mechanical switches that are toggled up or down to represent either a one or zero as a binary bit. Each switch is a few microns long and less than a micron wide - roughly a hundred times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Existing computer memory typically stores data as an electrical or magnetic charge. Cavendish Kinetics claims Nanomech memory can read and write data using 100 times less power than such systems, and works up to 1000 times faster. It is also much more resilient to both temperature and radiation, the company claims.

Intermolecular forces

Nanomech memory incorporates hundreds of thousands of conductive metal levers, each just a few microns long. These are created by lithographically etching a design onto a template and then chemically dissolving away unwanted layers."

PCWorld.com - The 100 Best Products of 2005: "The 100 Best Products of 2005
All Products Listed by Ranking"

Tag, you're it: ZDNet Australia: Insight: Hardware: "Tag, you're it
By Stephen Withers, Technology & Business magazine
10 June 2005

In 10 years almost everything will be tagged, say the experts. So what are these little chips that are soon to be so pervasive, and how will they take over your business?"

Telegraph | Money | Shell chief defiantly upbeat about future of the oil sector: "Shell chief defiantly upbeat about future of the oil sectorBy Sylvia Pfeifer?(Filed: 12/06/2005) Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of Royal Dutch/Shell, the oil giant, will launch a robust defence of the future prospects of the industry tomorrow, arguing that 'this is most definitely not a sunset industry'.
In a speech to be delivered in Asia, van der Veer will argue that the business prospects for the industry are good and that 'energy will remain one of the most impor-tant and dynamic indus-trial sectors'."

Vision 20/20 Final Report: "Vision 20/20: Future Scenarios for the Communications Industry - Implications for Regulation

World news from The Times and the Sunday Times - Times Online: "Space fireworks give Nasa cosmic clues

By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent


A NASA spacecraft is preparing a celestial fireworks display for Independence Day, when it will shoot a huge copper bullet into a comet in an attempt to find clues to the origin of the solar system.
The Deep Impact probe will fire the missile at the Tempel 1 comet in the early hours of July 3. The next morning, astronomers will see what the explosion reveals about its make-up.
NI_MPU('middle');%u201CEvery year I look forward to the Fourth of July, but this year promises to be extra special,%u201D Andrew Dantzler, the director of Nasa%u2019s solar system division, said yesterday."

Mighty Morphing Power Processors: "Mighty Morphing Power Processors IBM and others are racing to create chameleon chips that change to suit the job

Even by the standards of the Lone Star State, the claim by two Texas researchers -- Douglas C. Burger and Stephen W. Keckler -- can seem a trifle grandiose. 'We're reinventing the computer,' asserts Keckler.

A glance at their backers, though, dispels some of the skepticism. IBM (IBM
) is working closely with the two University of Texas computer scientists. And the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2001 handed them $11 million in development funds. Now, IBM is gearing up to manufacture the first prototype of their concept for a radically new computer-brain chip. If it delivers what Burger and Keckler promise, high-tech gurus are betting it will spawn a new family of superchips from Big Blue -- chips capable of crunching a trillion calculations every second.

Such blistering speed would itself be amazing; it's roughly the oomph of a $50 million supercomputer in 1997. But more impressive, the chip can rewire itself on the fly -- a feat known as reconfigurable computing. With this technology, a future Macintosh from Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL
) might rejigger the circuitry on its PowerPC chip and then run software written for Intel (INTC
) Corp.'s microprocessors. Or an iPod music player could turn into a handheld computer -- or detect an incoming call and convert itself into a cell phone.
IBM is hardly the only chipmaker chasing morphing semiconductors. Virtually every major supplier of so-called logic chips is working on some such notion, including Hewlett-Packard (HPQ
), Intel, NEC (NIPNY
), Philips Electronics (PHG
), and Texas Instruments (TXN
). A dozen or more startups are in the race as well, including Velogix, picoChip Designs, and MathStar."

Perpendicular recording: Why it matters - page 2 | Perspectives | CNET News.com: "Fifty years ago, when the first 5MB drive was introduced, few if any observers could have predicted the current state of the industry. They would likely not have believed that a read/write head could fly 100mph over a spinning platter at a distance that is less than 1/10,000th the width of a human hair. Or that hard drives the size of matchbooks would be capable of storing entire music libraries. This all would have been in the realm of science fiction.

Yet they would likely understand the scientific concepts and physical laws that have made these advances possible. While there has been a great deal of invention, the basic science--like Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen's discovery of magnetic recording more than 100 years ago--has remained relatively constant.

Such constancy gives rise to confidence across the industry that the challenge of superparamagnetism will be met. Perpendicular recording is most likely the first technology bridge in this realm, but it is by no means the last."

? The future of nano-biology: regenerating tissue and artificial proteins | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com: "The future of nano-biology: regenerating tissue and artificial proteins

-Posted by Dan Farber @ 5:45 pm?
Home
Future in Review

The last day the Future in Review conference focused on big societal issues, rather than the usual techno-centric topics. During a panel on the future of nano-biotechnology, Alan Russell, head of regenerative medicine at the University of Pittsburg, described progress in moving from treating symptoms to generating cures and regenerating tissues as a result of the convergence of nanotechnology and biology. 'Every tissue from head to toe is being regenerated somewhere across the planet,' Russell said. Corneal epithelium are being grown in dishes at one temperature and then cooled and peeled off and placed on an eye. Three patients in the U.S. have received whole cultured bladders grown using nano-biology techniques. A uterus can be grown outside the body in animal tests, placed inside the body and subsequently produce babies. He predicted that within the next five years, spinal cord injuries will be treated with stem cells and some of the paralyzing effects reversed. In South America, stem cell therapy is used to eliminate disease in failing hearts. U.S. trails are starting next week, Russell said. The Department of Defense has allocated $20 million to study whole limb generation. 'If a newt can do it, why not we,' Russell said. However, limb regeneration is more than five years out.

Michael Knapp, CEO of nano-startup Cambrios, described applying techniques of molecular biology to synthesizing electronic components and other materials. His company is discovering and creating artificial proteins (nanostructures) that will attach to inorganic materials, such as semiconductors. Instead of harsh chemical conditions and expensive machines, Cambrios can physically self assemble and bind elements via molecular affinity at room temperature in a bathtub type environment. 'The implementation of bio manufacturing technology will happen first by replacing existing steps in the manufacturing chain in three to five years,' Knapp said. He predicted that the Holy Grail of simply mixing biochemicals and organic salts to create a computer will occur in the 20 to 50 year timeframe."

News in Science - Cloth bag catches shoplifter - 23/05/2005 : "Cloth bag catches shoplifter
Tracy Staedter


Discovery News

Monday, 23 May?2005?




The next generation of bags are being engineered to tell us when they're carrying stolen goods (Image: iStockphoto)



At first glance, a cloth bag may seem an unlikely security device. But if it's made from a new electronic fabric, it could not only resist tampering, but sound an alarm or send an alert to the owner and authorities.'You wouldn't need a safe if you had this,' says Dr Jerry Krill of Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, and the technology's inventor.The cloth is woven with conductive fibres and can be designed to support a variety of electronic components such as tiny circuits, sensors and wireless communication devices. Like other fabrics, the electronic cloth can be sewn into many shapes, such as a bag or a tag. The key to Krill's invention seems to be the way such a bag would be sealed or such a tag might be affixed as a lock. But he's reluctant to talk about the method of attachment until after June, when he expects to file for a patent. Once fashioned into the appropriate device, though, the cloth can be programmed to respond differently to a variety of situations. If it were a bag used to secure a laptop computer, for example, the owner might link it via wireless technology to an existing alarm system, which can sound if the bag is moved or tampered with. It could also trigger a video camera to record the intrusion or place a call to the owner's mobile phone to alert him or her of the breach. Incorporating electronic cloth into such a variety of security devices is completely reasonable, says Tom Martin, an assistant professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, whose own group develops wearable computers and electronic textiles. Martin says conductive fibres can feel soft or be made 'strong enough that somebody would have to take a crowbar to it'. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory is seeking commercialisation development partners for this technology."

JPMorgan Chase to Roll Out No-Swipe Card - Yahoo! News: "JPMorgan Chase to Roll Out No-Swipe Card

By Vivian Chu, AP Business Writer Thu May 19, 1:34 PM ET

NEW YORK - JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Thursday it will offer a new credit card that allows users to pay for items by holding the card near a terminal instead of manually swiping it.
ADVERTISEMENT

JPMorgan said it will start mailing out the new 'blink' cards in late June in two major U.S. cities, followed by a nationwide rollout continuing into next year. The company would not name the cities.

The cards are equipped with encrypted data readable by a point-of-sale terminal at the checkout counter. The terminal will emit a tone confirming payment, the bank said.

Besides speeding up the payment process, the new cards are aimed at bolstering credit card sales for JPMorgan Chase, the nation's second largest financial services provider and its premier credit card issuer.

'The new card makes it easier and faster for people to pay in places where they currently use cash, like convenience stores and fast-food stores,' said Thomas O'Donnell, senior vice president of Chase cards services. 'If you can get them to stop using cash, that translates into more frequent credit card use and greater loyalty with customers.'

Although the new cards will not require a customer signature, JPMorgan maintained they provide the same level of security as the traditional card-swiping method.

'The customer has to hold the card close to the terminal, but it stays in their possession at all times,' O'Donnell said. 'The card and the reader in the terminal are safe and secure, and the transaction is handled the same way that credit cards are managed today.'

7-Eleven Inc., the world's top convenience store chain, will test the new card in 170 of its stores, while Sheetz Inc., a family-owned convenience store chain, will launch a cobranded credit card offering the new service at its 300 locations, the bank said. Drugstore chain CVS Corp. and movie theater operator Regal Entertainment Group have also agreed to use the new cards.

JPMorgan said it plans to have thousands of merchants nationwide accepting the new cards by the end of the year."

ThisisLondon: "Scientists hail British cloning success
By Patrick Sawer, Evening Standard
20 May 2005

Scientists around the world today welcomed a British breakthrough in human embryo cloning which they believe will pave the way to curing diseases such as Alzheimer's and diabetes.

Researchers at Newcastle University have successfully cloned a human embryo, becoming only the second in the world to do so and placing Britain at the forefront of controversial stem cell technology.

The team was the first in Europe to be given the goahead to clone embryos after being granted a licence by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority last year. The clone was created as part of research into treatments for diabetes."

New robots can build other bots, fix themselves | CNET News.com: "New robots can build other bots, fix themselves

Published: May 12, 2005, 6:44 AM PDT

By Reuters
Self-replicating robots are no longer the stuff of science fiction.

Scientists at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., have created small robots that can build copies of themselves.

Each robot consists of several 4-inch cubes that have identical machinery, a computer program for replication, and electromagnets to attach and detach to one another. The robots can bend and pick up and stack the cubes.

'Although the machines we have created are still simple compared with biological self-reproduction, they demonstrate that mechanical self-reproduction is possible and not unique to biology,' Hod Lipson said in a report in the science journal Nature on Wednesday.

He and his team believe the design principle could be used to make long term, self-repairing robots that could mend themselves and be used in hazardous situations and on space flights.

The experimental robots self-replicate by using modules placed in special 'feeding locations.'

The machines duplicate themselves by bending over and putting their top cube on the table. Then they bend again, pick up another cube, put it on top of the first and repeat the entire process. As the new robot begins to take shape it helps to build itself.

'The four-module robot was able to construct a replica in 2.5 minutes by lifting and assembling cubes from the feeding locations,' Lipson said.

The robots, which don't do anything else except make copies of themselves, are powered through contacts on the surface of the table and transfer data through their faces."

RFID | News.blog | CNET News.com: "Tags, you're it in new Vegas casino

With the gala opening-night bash winding down at the Wynn Las Vegas resort, it's time to turn on the chips inside the chips.

The casino inside the new $2.7 billion, 2,700-room blue-tinted structure has adopted high-tech radio tags to help keep track of its betting chips. 'Securitywise, it will be huge for us,' Rick Doptis, vice president of table games for the Wynn, told CNET News.com earlier this year.

Located at the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip, hard by the Bellagio and Treasure Island, Steve Wynn's gaming-and-good-times venue is also just a short walk from the Las Vegas Convention Center, better known in years gone by as the home of Comdex--now canceled for a second straight year. Posted by Jonathan Skillings"

The Four Hundred--RFID: Coming Soon to an Application Near You
: "RFID: Coming Soon to an Application Near You

by Mary Lou Roberts

Unless they hold places as direct links in the Wal-Mart or Department of Defense (DOD) supply chains, most iSeries shops have been sitting back and observing emerging RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Systems) technology with little more than passing curiosity. After all, if there's no behemoth retailer mandating that you put RFID tags on your products by some fast-approaching date, what's the worry?

Heads up. RFID may soon be coming to an application near you. RFID tags--tiny microchips that contain data and 'listen' for a radio signal that causes them to transmit a response--are piquing the imaginations of people in lots of lines of business, some of which are inventive, to say the least.

The first and most pervasive application, of course, is retail. That's the one that's been on the front pages since Wal-Mart (now joined by a number of other companies and the DOD) mandated that all of its suppliers will apply RFID tags at the pallet level. Everything coming into their stores will be read into a database that will track inventory and movement.

But that's old hat now. Let's consider the following other uses to which RFID is being applied:

Companies are attaching RFID tags to a variety of corporate assets, including computers, cell phones, PDAs, printers, and more. Companies like Stratum Global offer software that is designed to tag the assets or equipment, and then provide current location information, auditing and triggers for service and repair requirements.
Hospitals are using RFID tags in patient wristbands to make data more available at the bedside, freeing healthcare workers from additional data entry tasks, and presumably ensuring the validity and consistency of the information being collected.
Healthcare facilities also plan to use RFID for document tracking as well as tracking physical assets through their own supply chains, keeping more accurate watch on their inventories of all sorts of items, from bandages to needles, wheelchairs, bedpans, and more.

The financial industry, as well, is gearing up with RFID applications. According to Kip Jones, chief technologies for nuBridges, banks are using the tiny tags for cash tracking and for tracking bulk money movement. (Anyone thinking of robbing a Brinks truck had best beware. That bag may contain an RFID tag--and you won't be hard to find.)
Jones says that there's even talk of embedding RFID tags into currency (though at a nickel a tag, that application is not very practical right now). RFID-tagged bills, however, would make counting much easier and would certainly help to eliminate counterfeiting."

In this interview Craig Rispin, Business Futurist talks about mass personalisation using a new service call Smile Media.

http://www.smilemedia.com.au


MP3 File

In this interview with Futurist Craig Rispin, he talks about virtual receptionists from Delacon.com.au


MP3 File

http://www.questionsforthefuture.tv/

This interview with Craig Rispin describes how to get your customers to tell you exactly what they want to buy.

Note: the Votations service has been discontinued, a great alternative is the Ask Database. http://www.askdatabase.com


MP3 File

Scotsman.com News - Latest News - Reprap Machines Would Turn Homes into Factories

Reprap Machines Would Turn Homes into Factories

By John von Radowitz, PA Science Correspondent

A revolutionary British development could one day change the face of manufacturing by turning every home into a factory.

Engineers are working on a machine capable of churning out a host of household items and gadgets, including kitchenware, cameras and even small musical instruments.

Not only would the machine make things out of plastic and metal, it would also fabricate its own component parts.

The “self-replicating rapid prototyper”, or RepRap, will be about the size of a refrigerator.

It could become a reality within four years – and the aim is to make it a universal feature of the home.

RepRap machines could in future render many forms of traditional manufacturing obsolete, according to project leader Dr Adrian Bowyer.

“Four hundred years ago almost every human being was employed in agriculture, and now it’s only a couple of per cent,” said Dr Bowyer, from the University of Bath’s Centre for Biomimetics. “I suspect the same thing is going to happen to manufacturing.”

Computer controlled machines already exist which mass-produce plastic components for industry, such as vehicle parts.

These conventional machines cost about £25,000. Dr Bowyer’s idea is initially to use these machines to make the component parts for his RepRap machine.

These machines can then be programmed to make further copies of themselves. People buying them would then be able to make more copies to sell on.

As the number of RepRap machines grows, their cost is expected to tumble to only a few hundred pounds or less.

Dr Bowyer plans to make the 3D designs and computer code needed for an existing machine to make one of his devices freely available on the internet.

He is not taking out a patent and will not charge a licence fee.

“The most interesting part of this is that we’re going to give it away,” he said.

“At the moment an industrial company consists of hundreds of people building and making things. If these machines take off, it will give individual people the chance to do this themselves. And we are talking about making a lot of our consumer goods.

“The effect this has on industry and society could be dramatic.”

Rapid prototype machines work by fusing together layers of plastic according to a blueprint fed into the computer.

Dr Bowyer’s machine would also be able to incorporate simple metal components and circuits out of an alloy that melts at low temperatures.

The machines could, for instance, make complete sets of coloured and decorated plastic plates, dishes and bowels.

The objects they produce would measure no more than 12 inches in length, width and height. But larger items could be made by simply clipping together smaller manufactured parts.

Glass items, complex parts such as microchips, and anything exposed to intense heat – such as a toaster – could not be directly assembled.

Components the machine is unable to make could easily be added. A basic digital camera could be made with the lens and computer chip bought separately and slotted in later.

Dr Bowyer said the devices would effectively be a form of Universal Constructor, the theoretical self-replicating machine first proposed by mathematician John von Neumann in the 1950s.

He and colleague Ed Sells have already built a simple demonstration robot with an electrical circuit using the technology.

They are now looking for funding for the next stages of development, leading to a programme for making the component parts of a RepRap machine in about four years.

Transforming the whole basis of manufacturing might take as long as 20 years, if it ever happened, said Dr Bowyer.

He admitted there was an anarchistic element to what he was doing.

“Employment will increase, because it’s not employment that creates wealth, it’s wealth that creates employment,” he said.

Channelnewsasia.com: "Samsung unveils six new MP3 players in bid to triple sales




SEOUL: South Korea's Samsung has unveiled six new models of MP3 player to help it triple sales this year.

It aims to sell more than five million MP3 players this year, up from 1.7 million units in 2004.


Samsung, a relatively late comer to the MP3 player business, already has eight models in the fast growing and profitable market.

The six new players from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd should be available in the first half of the year.

They range from a 256 megabyte flash memory type to a 30 gigabyte hard disk drive model capable of holding about 7,500 songs.
"

Technology News: News: Bush Taps Hopkins Physicist to Lead NASA: "Bush Taps Hopkins Physicist to Lead NASA
Bush Taps Hopkins Physicist to Lead NASA

By Marcia Dunn
Associated Press
03/13/05 5:21 PM PT

Prior to taking over the space department at Johns Hopkins, Michael Griffin was president and chief operating officer of In-Q-Tel, a CIA-bankrolled venture-capital organization. Earlier in his career, Griffin worked at NASA as chief engineer and as deputy for technology at the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.


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President Bush picked physicist Michael Griffin to lead NASA Latest News about NASA as it prepares to resume space shuttle flights and tries to meet the White House goal of sending astronauts back to the moon in the decade ahead.

If confirmed by the Senate, Griffin would become the space agency's 11th administrator.

Members of Congress on Friday immediately praised the president's choice, as did John Logsdon, director of George Washington University's space policy institute.

'I've known Mike for a long time and have a great deal of respect for him as a kind of innovative thinker, real enthusiast full of energy,' Logsdon said.

'His biggest challenge is convincing Congress that the president's vision should be a national vision, that it's the right way for the program to proceed,' Logsdon added.

Sean O'Keefe left NASA last month after three years in the top job to become chancellor of Louisiana State University. Since then, his deputy, former space shuttle commander Frederick Gregory, has been serving as acting administrator.

For the past year, Griffin has headed the space department at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. It is the lab's second-largest department and specializes in projec"

USATODAY.com - Townes leads life where science and faith coexist

Townes leads life where science and faith coexist
By Robert Tuttle, The Christian Science Monitor
NEW YORK — When Nobel Prize-winning physicist Charles Hard Townes was a professor at Columbia University during the 1950s, a colleague, Willis Lamb, asked him if God ever helps him in the lab. Dr. Townes gave the question some thought. "Well," he recalls telling Lamb. "I think so."

For centuries, scientists and religious scholars have sparred over questions about the workings of the universe. Galileo's espousal of a sun-centered universe, rather than the earth-centered model widely accepted at the time, landed the 16th-century astronomer in court, accused of heresy.

AP
Townes

"I don't think that science is complete at all. We don't understand everything and one can see, within science itself, there are many inconsistencies."

More recently, scientists and religious leaders have disagreed over everything from the big bang theory of the origin of the universe to the teaching of evolution in schools to the debate over stem-cell research.

But even in these often discordant worlds, Townes has found little difficulty in reconciling his Christian faith with the empiricism of scientific inquiry.

"I don't think that science is complete at all," says the 89-year-old physicist. "We don't understand everything and one can see, within science itself, there are many inconsistencies. We just have to accept that we don't understand."

Within the great unknowns of the universe, Townes argues there is ample room for faith in God and His presence in human experience.

On Wednesday, Townes was awarded this year's Templeton Prize for progress or discoveries about spiritual reality. The award includes a cash prize of £795,000 sterling ($1.4 million).

"The real focus of the prize really seems to resonate with Townes's interest for the past 30 years, which is how to break down the barriers between science and religion," says Sir John Templeton, president of the foundation that bears his name and which awards the prize.

The award, Townes says, is "a great honor, but it is also very humbling."

Townes is best known for his groundbreaking research in the 1950s into the amplification of electromagnetic waves, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in physics with two other scientists in 1964. The research eventually led to his invention of the maser (microwave amplification by stimulated emission) and later the laser (light amplification by stimulated emission).

Both inventions have had an impact on a range of different scientific and industrial fields. Masers are used to amplify radio waves, and lasers have become commonplace in everything from welding to communications to medicine.

Born in 1915, on a farm in Greenville, S.C., Townes was raised a Baptist. He was immersed in the wonders of the Blue Ridge Mountains near his home.

As a child, he says, he loved to explore the natural world around him, collecting insects and especially butterflies. The marvels of nature, he says, helped spark a curiosity about the universe and man's place within it. To this day, he remains an avid naturalist and accomplished bird watcher.

"I knew I wanted to be a scientist," he says, speaking of his childhood. "Which kind of scientist was the question."

Townes took his first physics class in his sophomore year of college and went on to earn a PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1939.

For much of the next decade, Townes worked on the technical staff at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City, where, he says, he once talked about his research with Albert Einstein.

Townes tackled a variety of problems at Bell including microwave generation, vacuum tubes, and solid-state physics.

In 1948, Townes joined the faculty of Columbia University and spent most of the remainder of his professional career in academia, moving to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961 and then to the University of California at Berkeley in 1967.

There he focused on astrophysics, discovering the existence of molecules in interstellar space and a black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Today he remains on UC Berkeley's faculty, working with graduate students and researching.

"Now, I'm looking at stars," he says, describing his current research interests. "I'm looking at their behavior. Most people don't realize that stars are changing pretty rapidly."

For all his interest in scientific inquiry, Townes says it has never led to a crisis of faith. He exhibits a strong sense of rationalism in his approach to both science and religion.

"He is very interested in the foundations of religion and faith-based concepts and he discusses them in a manner that is very attractive for fellow scientists," says Marvin Cohen, president of the American Physical Society and a close colleague of Townes. "He really thinks before he speaks. If there is an opposite of a loose cannon, that would be Charles Townes."

In 1966, Townes published "The Convergence of Science and Religion," an article that detailed some of his thoughts on the relation between religion and science.

"They are much more similar than people generally accept," Townes says. "Science has faith. We make postulates. We can't prove those postulates, but we have faith in them."

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In this interview with Craig Rispin, he describes how to get your customers to tell you exactly what they want to buy.