Whuffie Stream

infoneernet:

Cory @doctorow , the sci-fi author and ebook pioneer (at least when it comes to DRM and pricing), announced this month in his new Publishers Weekly column that he’s about to embark on a bold publishing experiment. He says he’s going to publish his next book on his own, or at least without a publisher’s help. He’s going to use all the unconventional distribution formats he’s now familiar with, and he’s going to make a profit.

Best of all for the rest of us, he says he will document the process and share the results, which means any writer or publisher curious about digital distribution will be able to benefit from whatever happens. I’m rooting for ya, Doctorow.

Seen at Booksprung

infoneernet:

zehnuhr:

“We enjoy accumulating followers, seeing ourselves referred to, commented to, and otherwise being made visible. Doesn’t matter whether this involves acknowledgment, recognition, or validation; the point is that the medium does create a kind of social visibility. Call it, for simplicity’s sake, “being paid attention to.”

Well, attention doesn’t correlate with actually engaging in conversation. Many of us sometimes ignore a request for communication, for whatever reason. It’s part of daily life; in real life it’s called “civil inattention,” and is handled by acknowledging others in ways that also indicate to them “I see you, recognize you, but I’m not available to interact.” Simply put, politeness.

Now, consider the social media space. Attention paid to others may not be visible to them. But if it’s given, such as by taking any action recorded and captured by the medium and surfaced by design, then this action can have two social outcomes, not one. This is the power of the medium, and the net effect of the doubled audience mentioned above.

now hook that up with a trust metric and you have Whuffie

infoneernet:

Mr Saffo, from San Francisco, says in the future people will be able to grow their own replacement organs, take specially tailored drugs, and use genetic research tools to alert them from any possible hereditary health dangers.

He adds that tomorrow’s world will be a fusion of biology and technology, where robots do the chores, cars drive themselves and artificial limbs are better than real ones.

Mr Saffo’s comments reflect claims by American scientist Ray Kurzweil who only a few months ago said immortality was only 20 years away due to the speed of advancements in nanotechnology.

But Mr Saffo says these improvements would only be affordable to the super-rich. And because of this, he says, advancements may lead to a divide between the classes and eventually could lead to the super-rich evolving into a different species entirely, leaving his not-so-rich counterpart behind.

Seen at The Telegraph

biothriller:

infoneernet:

A Web where Chinese is the dominant language, and connections are so fast that distinctions between audio, video and text are blurred is perhaps just five years away, the head of Google said Wednesday.

Seen at Yahoo! News

infoneernet:

chrbutler:

In regard to the ViconRevue pendant camera, Andrew Keen’s comment:

Worn on a cord around the neck, I fear that the ViconRevue could end up strangling those English virtues of individual liberty to which George Orwell dedicated his life. Invented for the demented, this product will lead to a general social dementia if popularly embraced.

ledgergermane:

• Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) — The dollar may drop to 50 yen next year and eventually lose its role as the global reserve currency, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.’s chief strategist said, citing trading patterns and a likely double dip in the U.S. economy.
• “The U.S. economy will deteriorate into 2011 as the effects of excess consumption and the financial bubble linger,” said Daisuke Uno at Sumitomo Mitsui, a unit of Japan’s third- biggest bank. “The dollar’s fall won’t stop until there’s a change to the global currency system.”

Perfect for a new social currency……

mashable:

We’ve seen Tweets posted by plants, a space shuttle and even a house, so we shouldn’t be particularly surprised to hear that commercial jets are now Tweeting and posting Facebook…

and thusly inanimate objects become animated: web 3.0 is AI+ content+social networks and 4.0 is “spimes” or “smart tools” we use internet, memory, processors, GPS, to “give life” to everything.

(via jark)

omg whuffie is now real

infoneernet:

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy expressed worry about whether the news industry’s financial woes will make for a less educated citizenry and considered whether the government should prop up independent journalists.

The commission includes two former FCC chairmen, newspaper publishers, a top Google executive, the NAACP president and a former CNN president. It concluded that a free flow of information “is as vital to the healthy functioning of communities as clean air, safe streets, good schools and public health,” and that it’s time for leaders to give it a higher priority.

Seen at MSNBC