Beyond Today — Peter Diamandis and Larry Page

Technologies riding Moore’s Law… “Infinite Computing, Networks & Sensors, Robotics, 3D Printing, Synthetic Biology, Digital Medicine, Nanomaterials, Artificial Intelligence”

Quoting Peter Diamandis: “…technology has been the mechanism for turning scarcity into abundance.”

Near the end of his talk Diamandis predicted that by 02020 there will be “three billion new minds” on the Internet.

YouTube.com::Beyond Today – Peter Diamandis – Zeitgeist 2012

Next up is Larry Page: “…the pace of change is really accelerating.” Page told his audience that for many people in the world “their smartphone will be their first computer.”

I use and like Google+ (G+). Google+ has grown from zero users to 170 million users (April 02012) since it launched on 28 June 02011 (i.e. 11 months ago).

With respect Google Search, Page says the company needs to get to the point where they can “represent knowledge” and that they are “really looking at synthesizing knowledge.” In a nutshell: Semantic web.

Larry Page likes the University of Michigan slogan have a healthy disregard for the impossible.

YouTube.com::Beyond Today – Larry Page – Zeitgeist 2012

An Example of the Power of Twitter

2010.08.24: During the first day of the Introduction to Computer Science class, I asked the 26 students the following question: How many of you use Twitter?

My question prompted some gentle giggling, but a couple of hands were raised.

I shared with the class about how I’ve been trying to turn students on to Twitter, but that my current grade would be an F-.

I shared with the class that for me the power of Twitter was in whom I followed. I told the class that the first thing I do when I log into my computer is scan my un-read tweets. I pointed out that if the “right” people are followed, then Twitter can be a treasure trove of great stuff.

Student (sitting in row one): Give us an example.
Me (excited): Did I pay you to say that?

The following example was then presented…

On 2010.08.20 at 6:14am @compufoo tweeted:

RT @hrheingold Doug Engelbart & Ted Nelson came to dinner (14 min vid): http://bit.ly/cprNC8

Student (excited): Doug Engelbart?
Me (yet more excited): Yes. Do know about Doug Engelbart?
Student: Yes, he invented the computer mouse.
Me: How do you know that?
Student: I learned it last semester from Peter Martin. Engelbart was his idol.

Back to the tweet…

RT @hrheingold Doug Engelbart & Ted Nelson came to dinner (14 min vid): http://bit.ly/cprNC8

I explain how my tweet was a re-tweet (RT) of a tweet by @hrheingold (i.e. I follow Howard Heingold on Twitter). Howard Heingold lives in Silicon Valley and he’s a visiting lecturer at Stanford and UC-Berkeley; a research fellow at the Institute for the Future; and a guru when it comes to understanding “virtual communities” (and these days “social networking”). Howard Heingold tweets; he is a user of Twitter. In his Twitter biography, Howard says he’s an “online instigator, educator, offline gardener.”

I click on @hrheingold and we see (which at that time was) Heingold’s most recent tweet.

Thank you! @jimmy_wales for great interview on collaboration. Will publish video eventually.

Wow! Look at that… It appears as though Howard Heingold has interviewed Jimmy Wales and he’s going to share the interview with the world. Question to the class: Who is Jimmy Wales? There’s a pause, so I tell the class that if they use the Wikipedia, then they should give thanks to Jimmy Wales. I also point out to the class that they too can follow @jimmy_wales on Twitter.

Back to the tweet…

RT @hrheingold Doug Engelbart & Ted Nelson came to dinner (14 min vid): http://bit.ly/cprNC8

I point out the class that the power of Twitter is significantly amplified by the ability to insert hyperlinks into tweets. Hyperlinks make the web the World Wide Web (WWW) that it is. But well before the WWW (almost 30 years before), one technologist was thinking about hypertext. Question to the class: Whom do think this technologist was?

“It felt like having Newton and Galileo over for dinner,” wrote Howard Heingold on having dinner with Engelbart and Nelson.

At this point, this power of Twitter example is over. With one tweet I was able to introduce Ted Nelson and Doug Engelbart to the students in an introductory Computer Science class. In addition, the students were introduced to Howard Heingold and Jimmy Wales.

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Doh! It turns out this power of Twitter example isn’t over. On 2010.08.26 (i.e. day two) of class, the following was presented.

Let’s rewind three weeks to a tweet by Mitch Kapor.

2010.08.03 at 2:10pm @mkapor tweeted:

I’m grouchy that so few people (except us old-timers) have even heard of Ted Nelson http://bit.ly/cGbsWC (Wikipedia bio)

Observe… Mitch Kapor hyperlinked into the Wikipedia.

2010:08.03 at 2:11pm @mkapor tweeted:

All of the web is in essence a pale shadow of just one of Ted Nelson’s dreams. Now do I have your attention?

2010.08.03 at 2:15pm @nanofoo in reply to @mkapor:

I’m going to make sure my CS1 students learn a bit about Ted Nelson this fall. They’ll come in knowing Gates & Jobs, but not Nelson.

@nanofoo never got reply from @mkapor, but @rossk did…

2010.08.03 at 2:48pm @rossk in reply to @mkapor:

where should the Nelson-newbie start?

2010.08.03 at 8:07pm@mkapor in reply to @rossk

Read “Computer Lib” by Nelson. Also see the Wired article on him for a dissenting view

Mitch Kapor did not provide his followers with hyperlinks, but here they are…

Computer Lib/Dream Machine (dot-pdf) and Wired.com: The Curse of Xanadu

Ted Nelson

Hmm… Who is Mitch Kapor and more…

The power of twitter

I was reading what some psychologist had to say about Facebook and Twitter and the following quote caught my attention.

“On Twitter you receive an endless stream of information, but it’s also very succinct,” Dr Alloway said. “You don’t have to process that information. Your attention span is being reduced and you’re not engaging your brain and improving nerve connections.” (via news.com.au)

I understand Dr. Alloway to an extent; however, tweets can contain hyperlinks that in turn, if clicked, take us to a constantly growing world wide web of information. In other words, tweets can exploit the power of the hyperlink.

I think of tweets as expanded headlines/titles/subject-lines and the effective use of these communication objects can be a powerful tool.

In a nutshell, for me right now, the power of Twitter is in who I follow.