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

Infinite Computing Deprecates the Delete Function

On 26 March 02012 I discovered that Facebook has a Usenet page, so I “Liked” it. My curiosity prompted me to do some Usenet searching and I found a net.music posting that I made almost 30 years ago on 5/8/01982. http://goo.gl/16mNL

Quoting Voltaire: “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”

I’m going to ignore Voltaire and say that I’m 99.999% certain that we have entered into the “era” of “Infinite Computing.” [I put quotes around “era” because to me an era has an endpoint.] To me infinite computing implies infinite storage and infinite storage deprecates the “delete” function. In other words, a bit, once posted, is never deleted. We can click the DELETE key over and over and over, but being certain that our bits have been deleted might be absurd.

About “Infinite Computing”

On 4 April 02007 I gave a talk titled The Next Era of Computing: Computing in the 21st Century. The talk included the following blurb.

The following is my one sentence description of the next era of computing: A grid-based cyber-infrastructure that provides infinite computational power, infinite storage, infinite bandwidth and infinite services (utilities).

The phrase Infinite Computing is used in the book Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think (Copyright 02012 by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler).

“Abundance” Chapter One Review

I have finished the first two chapters of the book “Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think” by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler.

The following are some quotes from Chapter One.

“When seen through the lens of technology, few resources are truly scarce; they’re mainly inaccessible. Yet the threat of scarcity still dominates our worldview.”

I agree. U.S. politicians excel at using scarcity FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) to get elected.

“The high-tech revolution created an entirely new breed of wealthy technophilanthropists who are using their fortunes to solve global abundance-related challenges.”

It’d be fun, fun, fun to be a technophilantropist.

“[…], but it’s the combination of the Internet, microfinance, and wireless communication technology that’s transforming the poorest of the poor into an emerging market force.”

I liked this phrase…

“[…] amplified by exponentially growing technologies […]”

Chapter One ends with the following.

“Imagine a world of nine billion people with clean water, nutritious food, affordable housing, personalized education, top-tier medical care, and nonpolluting, ubiquitous energy.”

The authors of “Abundance” think it’s possible and so do I.