It's the people, not the gear.
When I declared "technology is anthropology" as the guiding principle of HuffPostTech -- how technology in general, and the Internet in particular, is changing the way we live our lives, from politics and education to entertainment -- this is what I meant: Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, one of the chief architects of the Obama campaign's Internet strategy, exploring the future of the online-powered grassroots movement that propelled the junior senator from Chicago to the White House. In an exclusive blog for HuffPostTech, Hughes writes that while the movement behind BarackObama.com -- now called Organizing for America and housed at the Democratic National Committee -- is "alive and well," there's more to be desired in the leadership that continues to run it.
Technology is anthropology means Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, explaining the new editing rules of the world's largest information bazaar, a do-it-yourself encyclopedia built for our networked age. At a time in which more people visit Wikipedia than most major news organizations, it's rather ironic how poorly the mainstream media understands and reports on how the site works. It means John Maeda, president of the Rhode Island School of Design, one of the hotbeds of innovation in the world, boldly predicting that "art and design will rise in importance during this century as we try to make sense of all the possibilities that digital technology now affords." Design, he writes, humanizes technology. And it means Dr. Barbara Kurshan, head of the pioneering Curriki.org -- think "wiki" plus "curriculum" and you've got the gist of it -- emphasizing the value of teachers and educators collaborating on curriculum in these tweeting, Facebooking, YouTubing times. Curriki, as it happens, is the brainchild of Scott McNealy, chairman and co-founder of Sun Microsystems. "As technology spreads across the globe through low-cost laptops and even cell phones," Kurshan writes, "open content has the potential to bridge the education divide between those with and without access to high quality instructional materials."
Again, the focus is on the people, not the gear. Because here at HuffPostTech, we -- yep, you and I -- are chroniclers of technology's evolving solar system.
All these rocks, dust and gas are part of a messy, volatile planetary development stage -- with the Internet as the Sun. Disruption is constant. Comets fly in and out. Planets are continually building up mass, seeking to dominate their own orbits. Look at Facebook, which last week announced that it has turned a profit and counts 300 million users. And don't forget Google and its constellation of moons: Google Earth, Google Maps, Gmail, not to mention YouTube (and the people who start and end their days watching videos) and AdSense (the lifeline for many Web sites who live off it). To many, Google is the Sun. Then here comes Twitter, which for some seemed like nothing more than a meteoroid or an asteroid, before rapidly becoming a planet of its own.
But what about Apple and its undeniable gravitational force? Apple people -- well, some say they belong to a whole other planet. (Relax, Apple fanpersons, as Fake Steve Jobs calls them in a blog for HuffPostTech.) What about Microsoft and Yahoo!, whose Bing and Yahoo! Search have teamed up to challenge Google? And what about IBM and Oracle, Intel and Cisco? Though lacking the star power -- that trendy, often fleeting "it" factor (and "it" does not stand for "informational technology") -- these planetary stalwarts still claim spaces of their own. They are not to be discounted.
As you can read from the mix of posted stories and blog on the site, HuffPostTech covers the latest developments in technology's solar system -- the companies, gadgets, Web sites and apps that populate our ever-shifting lives. But just as important as offering a useful and one-stop-shop for the latest tech-oriented news, HuffPostTech also features a unique, surprising and diverse collection of bloggers you're not likely to read in one tech site. There's a blog from Robin Caldwell, managing editor of Black Web 2.0, lamenting the missing faces of blacks and Hispanics in the upper echelon of the tech community, alongside a post from Maya Baratz, formerly of Flickr and now at MTV Networks, blogging on what she called "The Silicone Ceiling" -- the story of the gender gap in technology. Together with other HuffPostTech bloggers, they write about the evolutionary, chaotic state of this solar system, in addition to analyzing how the the non-stop flood of technological advances impacts how we behave and see ourselves.
I grew up in Mountain View, Calif., near the geographic heart of Silicon Valley, home to Google's headquarters. Shortly after graduating from San Francisco State University in 2004, I moved to Washington, D.C., to write for the Washington Post. While at the Post, I reported on the marathon that was the 2008 presidential campaign through the prism of technology and politics: how everyday people, regardless of their background, are interacting with politics through the Internet and their cell phones. Then, in joining HuffPost to launch HuffPostTech, I moved to New York, which has a thriving, eclectically distinctive tech scene. This is a long way of saying that I look at technology with an expansive view, always open to ideas and insight. "Technology is anthropology" means it's about us -- and where we fit in.
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Welcome to HuffPostTech!
This is such a crucial point. How tech is affecting politics is one of the areas HuffPostTech will particularly cover. But the fact is all these new tools are just that -- so new -- that it's going to take awhile for politicians themselves to adapt to the ethos that's emerging.
Last evening I watched the demonstration of an solar cell capable of collecting and converting infrared energy into electricity. Meaning, that it would be relatively unaffected by cloud cover, since this wavelength of light passes straight though. And due to storage and subsequent re-radiation of that energy by the Earth itself, such a cell would function at night.
It was suggested that practical mass production of the device could be achieved in the next five to ten years. It occurs to me that this timescale relates to small group of minds working to overcoming some associated technical difficulties. But what if those problems were quantified, and circulated on the internet to all the human minds on the planet? Accompanied by the offer of a share in the resulting rewards, as incentive for the submission of solutions that are ultimately used. Would that accelerate development of this vital technology, and possibly encourage this type of collective endeavour in the future?
And you're completely right -- there is a spiritual site, as you call it a "Collective Consciousness," through technology. Can you blog about this? E-mail us at technology@huffingtonpost.com.
We must somehow separate ourselves from those flesh eaters for the betterment of mankind.
Then they all get naked and eat mushrooms.
Hey, I'm down.
Happy is not the correct measure of technology's social value.
I was part of the second wave of Silicon Valley founders back in the day (1970) when Don Hofler's scandal sheet was what the Drudge Report used to be to 1990's politics and Electronic News was the must-read newspaper. Fairchild's Mountain View plant was right on 101, and we spent many eighteen hour days trying to make up for production ruined by peak traffic pollution. Activated carbon filters did the trick, sort of. We knew then the Earth was in trouble.
Let me make your article simple: society has moved from the modern age (or post modern if you do Soho cocktail rounds) to the modem age. There are those who know what modem means and those who do not. Those who do will be just fine through the thick and thin of what's coming. Those who don't will say "Jesus" a lot and stand on hills watching the skies for his return. They're going to have a hard time.
The real unknown is biotech. For example: everyone believes the double helix structure of DNA is all there is. Nope. Genetists have started studying a triple helix. What does that mean? I dunno.
Scientific American had an editorial that argues the computer revolution is basically over. Yes there are investment points, but new wealth is in biotech. The problem we really face is grasping what the revolution in biotech (aka medicine) will mean and how do we deal with it. So far the religious right has controlled outcomes (research at the cutting edge).
The computer revolution is far form over. there are tons of computer applications waiting to be developed for smaller and faster hardware.