THE AUDI URBAN FUTURE INITIATIVE IN NEW YORK, 6TH TO 9TH MAY 2011

The results of the Audi Urban Future Award 2010 were first presented parallel to the 12th Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2010 in the Scuola Grande della Misericordia within a walk-through architectural environment…

30 May 36 stoweboyd Permalink

vahidmotlagh:

Next month Cambridge University Press will publish “The Changing Body:
Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World Since
1700,” just a few weeks shy of Mr. Fogel’s 85th birthday. The book,
which sums up the work of dozens of researchers on one of the most
ambitious projects undertaken in economic history, is sure to renew
debates over Mr. Fogel’s groundbreaking theories about what some
regard as the most significant development in humanity’s long history.

This is really a complex issue that will cause a lot of debate. Especially now when the theories of nutrition and health seems to be questioned, re-evaluated and debated in several science communities.

13 May 3 vahidmotlagh Permalink

I wrote a quick post with a few scenarios on where this could lead us: Wikileaks and the future. This article is relevant for this… Even if I think more things are at stake than just the Internet.

infoneer-pulse:

You’ll have been following the Wikileaks saga, of course, because it is novel and interesting. Maybe you like it because it looks like a live action retelling of Enemy Of The State, or because history seems to be in the making. It feels big, doesn’t it? It is, but it’s bigger than that, too: what we’re witnessing right now is the opening of hostilities in the first big infowar. The war for the Internet is very big indeed.

If you’re not a digital native, or if you’re some kind of hearty outdoors type, this may not seem important, but you’re dead wrong. We could be spectators for the start of the cyber Great War – and they’ve just knocked over Franz Ferdinand.

» via The Independent

10 December 47 infoneer-pulse Permalink

As usual I am interested in how companies in general will relate to forecasts like this when it comes from this kind of source. Other sources i e individual thinkers, academics and visionary technologists have been saying similar things for 15 years (myself included). The difference now is that the existence of a powerful structure like the cloud is showing how this will happen, which makes it more believable and easier to grasp for a larger group of people.

In spite of this I predict that very few existing organizations will acknowledge this insights as well when it comes to responding to this tectonic changes in any significant way.

On the other hand there are billions of people not belonging to these organizations for one reason or another, who will acknowledge and use these new possibilities and create businesses and other value creating structures. Structures that will quickly outcompete the traditional and non-adaptive structures in area after area.

Evolutionary logic will of course manage this transition like it almost always do. What makes me worried is the gigantic side effects that this evolutionary shift will cause in the surrounding environment. An environment which foundations is built upon structural elements of traditional organizations.

infoneer-pulse:

The biggest change, for both workers and companies, is a move toward what we call “the human cloud.” In the same way that high-speed Internet access disrupted the corporate IT market, creating a “cloud” of web-enabled infrastructure, the human cloud is shorthand for how the web has disrupted the way we work. Companies rely on dispersed teams to get the best talent available regardless of location (or price) and many are using crowdsourcing and other innovative means to achieve their goals.

Meanwhile, many people who work in this new cloud have lives that look nothing like they would have even 10 years ago: they may have contracts with a variety of clients, outsource themselves and their skills through a third-party service like Elance or ODesk or collaborate with coworkers in opposing time zones. The companies they work for, and with, may not even know what they look like, or where they live. This is the reality of the human cloud and it is changing us (and the companies we work for) in ways we may not fully realize yet.

» via GigaOM

12 November 9 infoneer-pulse Permalink

infoneernet:

When does a library cease to be a library?

What started as a debate over whether brick-and-mortar libraries would survive much further into the 21st century turned into an existential discussion on the definition of libraries, as a gathering of technologists here at the 2009 Educause Conference pondered the evolution of one of higher education’s oldest institutions.

“Let’s face it: the library, as a place, is dead,” said Suzanne E. Thorin, dean of libraries at Syracuse University. “Kaput. Finito. And we need to move on to a new concept of what the academic library is.”

Seen at Inside Higher Ed

7 November 2 infoneer-pulse Permalink