Technology on The Huffington Post

Chantal Sicile-Kira: Dear Santa

2009-12-24T12:04:14Z

Dear Santa,

This year, I am not asking for a cure for breast cancer, or cures for world hunger, ignorance, the crappy world economy, homelessness, the negative aspects of autism, greediness, war, global warming, or any other crisis facing the world today.

This year, I am being purely selfish and asking for fulfillment of a few basic needs for my family. I realize that compared to others, we are a very fortunate family because we have a roof over our heads, and my husband and I still have work (although we are making only 2/3rds of what we were making the year before and the cost of living is way higher, but why quibble?).

At the risk of appearing greedy, here is my wish list for what I would like to find under the tree this Christmas :

1. $100,000 for a college education for my daughter, Rebecca. She is graduating from high school in June, and according to the local papers, she will be lucky if she graduates from a state college or university in 5 or 6 years, if she gets in at all. Our beautiful state is broke, so there will be less students admitted to the colleges in fall 2010. Rebecca is applying for scholarships, and working some, but it's not going to be enough. There is not much in the way of student loans anymore. We have equity in the house, but we need to save it for real emergencies, like if our income continues to spiral downward (oh, and our son requires 24 hour support, and how are we going to pay for that?). Please, can you help us here? We'd be grateful even for a quarter of that amount.

2. A bigger iPhone for my son, Jeremy. I know this may sound like a weird request, but he can't talk very much due to his autism, and Apple has this great program called Proloquo2Go which can give him a voice. Problem is, the iPhone keys are really too tiny for him. Jeremy uses another assistive technology device, but it is heavy, hard for him to push the buttons, and frankly looks very 'special ed.' Not only that, but it costs a small fortune compared to the iPhone, and breaks down often. Communication is key to being an active part of society, and looking cool is important at his age. Please tell me you agree and grant this wish.

3. If you don't have any pull with Apple re: the iPhone, another wish high on my son's list is a girlfriend, because besides communication (and $$$) what is life without love or a warm body to hug? I'm sure living at the icy North Pole, you and Mrs. Santa can relate to that. Seems like something a mom shouldn't have to ask for her son, but although my Jeremy is buff from working out at the gym and really cute, he's not typical boyfriend material what with his autism and all. Funny thing is, Jeremy doesn't understand why I just don't run out to Costco and get him a girlfriend - I've been getting him everything else he needs all these years like occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, vision therapy; why not a little massage therapy? Maybe you can help with this one?

4. For my husband and I, my request is not that you give us anything, but we would like you to take back the 15 extra pounds each that we have put on stressing out on #s 1,2,3 above on our wish list. Feel free to re-gift them to someone else who could use a little fattening up. We would be happy to know that we are helping a family in need.

5. Last, but not least, For our dog, Handsome, and our cat, Gabe, a year's worth of food would be helpful. We've had to start rationing and Gabe keeps trying to get outside to hunt for her dinner, and we really like the birds in the area - we don't want them to end up in Gabe's tummy.

I guess that's it for what we'd like to see under the Christmas tree this year. I know there are people worse off than we are, and I feel guilty even sending you this letter. I hope you understand.

Thank you in advance, Santa. We wish you and Mrs. Claus, all the elves, and the reindeer, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Sincerely,
Chantal

Loren Singer Dead: "Parallax View" Author Dies At 86

2009-12-24T12:03:18Z

Loren Singer, whose 1970 conspiracy thriller, "The Parallax View," later made into a movie starring Warren Beatty, was one of the first novels to offer a politically paranoid vision of the United States as a country controlled by ruthless technocrats, died on Saturday in Valhalla, N.Y. He was 86 and lived in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

His death was confirmed by his son Andrew.

Alvaro Fernandez: Why You'll Need A Personal Brain Trainer

2009-12-23T13:37:00Z

Recently I had the fortune to interview Dr. Michael Merzenich, a leading pioneer in brain plasticity research, in his office at UCSF. In the late 1980s, Dr. Merzenich was on the team that invented the cochlear implant, and later founded Scientific Learning Corporation and Posit Science. You may have learned about his work in one of PBS TV specials, multiple media appearances, or neuroplasticity-related books. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1999 and to the Institute of Medicine this year.

Neuroplasticity-based Tools: The New Health And Wellness Frontier

Dear Michael, thank you very much for agreeing to participate in the inaugural SharpBrains Summit in January, and for your time today. What are, in your mind, the likely implications of your work and that of other neuroplasticity research and industry pioneers? specifically, given that there are many different technology-free approaches to harnessing neuroplasticity, what is the unique value of technology?

It's all about efficiency, scalability, personalization, and assured effectiveness. Technology supports the implementation of near-optimally-efficient brain-training strategies. Through the Internet, it enables the low-cost distribution of these new tools, anywhere out in the world. Technology also enables the personalization of brain health training, by providing simple ways to measure and address individual needs in each person's brain-health training experience. It enables assessments of your abilities that can affirm that your own brain health issues have been effectively addressed.

Of course substantial gains could also be achieved by organizing your everyday activities that grow your neurological abilities and sustain your brain health. Still, if the ordinary citizen is to have any real chance of maintaining their brain fitness, they're going to have to spend considerable time at the brain gym!

Having said this, there are obvious obstacles. One main one, in my mind, is the lack of understanding of what these new tools can do. Cognitive training programs, for example, seem counterintuitive to consumers and many professionals - why would one try to improve speed-of-processing if all one cares about is "memory?" A second obvious problem is to get individuals to buy into the effort required to really change their brains for the better. That buy-in has been achieved for many individuals as it applies to their physical health, but we haven't gotten that far yet in educating the average older person that brain fitness training is an equally effortful business!

Tools for Safer Driving: Teens and Adults

Safe driving seems to be one area where the benefits are more intuitive, which may explain why.

Yes, we see great potential and interest among insurers for improving driving safety, both for seniors and teens. Appropriate cognitive training can lower at-fault accident rates. You can measure clear benefits in relatively short time frames, so it won't take long for insurers to see an economic rationale to not only offer programs at low cost or for free but to incentivize drivers to complete them. Allstate, AAA, State Farm and other insurers are beginning to realize this potential. It is important to note that typical accidents among teens and seniors are different, so that training methodologies will need to be different for different high-risk populations.

Yet, most driving safety initiatives today still focus on educating drivers, rather that training them neurologically. We measure vision, for example, but completely ignore attentional control abilities, or a driver's useful field of view. I expect this to change significantly over the next few years.

Long-term care and health insurance companies will ultimately see similar benefits, and we believe that they will follow a similar course of action to reduce general medical and neurodegenerative disease- (Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's- and Parkinsons-) related costs. In fact, many senior living communities are among the pioneers in this field.

Boomers & Beyond: Maintaining Cognitive Vitality

Mainstream media is covering this emerging category with thousands of stories. But most coverage seems still focused on "does it work?" more than "how do we define It", "what does work mean?" or "work for whom, and for what?" Can you summarize what recent research suggests?

We have seen clear patterns in the application of our training programs, some published (like IMPACT), some unpublished, some with healthy adults, and some with people with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer's Disease (AD). What we see in every case: 1) despite one's age, brain functioning can be improved, often with pretty impressive improvement in a short-time frame and limited time invested (10 or 20 or 30 or 40 hours over a period of a few weeks up to two or three months). 2) Basic neurological abilities in 60-90 year olds that are directly subject to training (for example, processing accuracy or processing speed) can be improved to the performance level of the average 20 or 30 or 40 year old through three to ten hours of training at that specific ability. 3) Improvements generalize to broader cognitive measures, and to indices of quality of life. 4) Improvements are sustained over time (in different controlled studies, documented at all post-training benchmarks set between three to 72 months after training completion).

In normal older individuals, training effects endure -- but that does not mean that they could not benefit from booster or refresher training -- or from ongoing training designed to improve other skills and abilities that limit their older lives. Importantly, a limited controlled study in mildly cognitively impaired individuals showed that in contrast to normal individuals, their abilities declined in the post-training epoch. These folks had improved substantially with training. Even while there abilities slowly deteriorated after training, they sustained their advantages over patients who were not trained. We believe that in these higher-risk individual, continued training will probably be absolutely necessary to sustain their brain health, and, if it can be achieved (and that is completely unproven), to protect them from a progression to AD. Moreover, for both these higher-risk and normal individuals, interventions should not be thought of as one-time cure-alls. Ongoing brain fitness training shall be the way to go.

A major obstacle is that there is not enough research funding for appropriate trials to address all of these issues, especially as they apply for the mildly cognitively impaired (pre-AD) or the AD populations. We'd welcome not only more research dollars but also more FDA involvement, to help clarify the claims being made.

Next Generation Assessments

A key element for the maturity of the field will be the widespread use of objective assessments. What do you see in that area?

Unfortunately, most researchers and policy initiatives are still wedded to relatively rudimentary assessments. For example, I recently participated in meetings designed to help define a very-well-supported EU initiative on how cognitive science can contribute to drug development, in which most applied assessments and most assessments development were still paper-based. This is a major missed opportunity, given the rapidly growing development and availability of automated assessments.

I believe we will see more independent assessments but also embedded assessments. For instance, in Scientific Learning we routinely use ongoing embedded assessments and cross-referenced state test achievement scores to develop models and profiles designed to determine the regimes of neuroplasticity-based training programs that must be applied so that individual students, school sites and school districts may achieve their academic performance goals.

What's Next?

This has been a fascinating conversation, and a great context to the themes we will cover in depth in the summit. What else do you think will happen over the next few years?

First, I believe we'll need to focus on public education, for people to understand the value of tools with limited "face value". One important aspect of this is the need to find balance between what is "fun" and what has value as a cognitive enhancer -- which requires the activities to be very targeted, repetitive and slowly progressive. Not always the most fun -- people need to think "fitness" as much or more than "games."

Second, I believe the role of providing supervision, coaching, support, will emerge to be a critical one. Think about the need for having a piano teacher, if you want to learn how to play the piano and improve over time. Technology may help fill this role, or empower and richly support real "coaches" who do so.

Which existing professional group is more likely to become the "personal brain trainers" of the future? or will we see a new profession emerge?

Frankly, I don't know. To give you some context, at Scientific Learning we experimented with offering free access to therapists for a two-month training. At Posit Science we first experimented with virtual 'coaches' that many people seemed to hate, and later encouraged people who had completed the program to volunteer and coach new participants. Results were mixed. We're now exploring other possibilities.

Let me mention a few other aspects. I believe we will also see a growing number of applications in languages other than English, which will be key given growing interest in South Korea, Japan and China on aging workforce issues (until now they have been mostly focused on childhood development, using English-based programs). We will also see the programs widely available to people who may not have computers at home. For example, Posit Science recently donated software equivalent in value to one million dollars to the Massachusetts public library system, as a model of how wider access (in this case, to help older drivers) might be provided.

My dream in all of this is to have standardized and credible tools to train the five to six main neurocognitive domains for cognitive health and performance through life, coupled with the right assessments to identify one's individual needs and measure progress. For example, I'd like to know what the 10 things are that I need to fix, and where to start. Assessments could either measure the physical status of the brain, such as the degree of myelination, or measure functions over time via automated neuropsych assessments, which is probably going to be more efficient and scalable and potentially be self-administered in a home health model.

Mike, thank you very much once more for your time and insights.

My pleasure. I am looking forward to the very innovative Summit that SharpBrains is putting together to convene our little growing community.

______

Please note that this is an excerpt of the full interview published on December 17th by SharpBrains. If you want to read full interview (with extended focus on medicine, mental health and clinical aspects) you can read Michael Merzenich on Brain Training, Assessments, and Personal Brain Trainers.

To learn more about the inaugural global and virtual summit on Technology for Cognitive Health and Performance, January 18-20th, 2010, click on SharpBrains Summit. The Summit will gather over 30 speakers from leading universities and companies.

Eric Williams: The Bizarro Decade

2009-12-23T12:58:41Z

“May you live in
interesting times.” – Anonymous

“On second thought…”
– Me

Growing up, I sometimes
regretted that I had missed out on the “Swingin’ Sixties,” with all of that decade's societal
upheavals and explosions of creative freedom. Sure, you had a divisive and costly war, and I could have
done without all those assassinations, but at least big stuff was happening!

As I look back on the
past ten years of the “Still-Unnicknamed Zeroes,” I’d like to formally request
a little less turbulence in the next decade. Please?

No era is devoid of
history, but certain periods do seem to exceed their allotment of tumult, and
we are mired in a doozy. I find
myself reaching for Superman, Seinfeld, and Saturday Night Live for the appropriate
label.

I believe we’ve been
living in the Bizarro Decade.

The Bizarros, for short.

Or, if you prefer,
Bizarr-Os, although that makes it seem less like a momentous period in history
and more like a sugary breakfast cereal.

As you may recall,
Bizarro was the topsy-turvy opposite of Superman. From Wikipedia:

In
the Bizarro world of "Htrae" ("Earth" spelled backwards),
society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states "Us do opposite of all
Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything
perfect on Bizarro World!"

Basically,
it’s the “War is Peace” newspeak of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four; but with
poorer grammar.

So many events from
these past ten years make much more sense when viewed through a Bizarro prism.

From 2000 (“Me get less
votes! Me President!”) to 2009
(“Us in debt! Us get money from Communist China!”).

From the frivolous (“Us
network called Music Television! Us not play music!”) to the deadly serious
(“Me in charge on 9/11! It not me responsibility!”).

Think I’m off base on
that last one? Recently,
President Bush’s press secretary Dana Perino stated:

“We did not have a terrorist attack
on our country during President Bush's term.”

She made this claim to
Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel, whose slogan, “Fair and balanced,” surely
emerged from a focus group on Bizarro World.

This is the same network
where Craig T. Nelson brought new meaning to the name “Mr. Incredible” with
perhaps the bizarro quote of the year:

“I've
been on food stamps and welfare.
Did anybody help ME out?”

Just as no
conveniently-labeled generation is monolithic in its beliefs and behavior, no
umbrella term for a decade is ever wholly accurate. The Twenties didn’t roar for everyone, and the last ten
years were arguably more “Gay” than the 1890s, depending on your definition of
the word.

And things haven’t been
all bad. Just try getting through
your day without an iPod (born in 2001), MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004),
YouTube (2005), Twitter (2006), or even the Huffington Post (2005).

Yet as technology
becomes more integral to every aspect of our lives, the certainties of science
are sneered at by legions of global-warming doubters and evolution
ignorers. For them, no amount of
evidence is ever enough, just as “birthers” cling to their conviction that our
president was not born in America, as if Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have eagerly
seized on that to blast Obama out of the presidential race when she had the
chance. I do give
anti-evolutionists credit for their internal consistency: their arguments don’t change over
time. But I can't help wondering how many people who scoff at climate change do believe that a flood wiped out the entire population of earth except for the passengers on one boat.

It does seem that our civil discourse has
become less civil and more coarse, to the point where, not only can’t we agree
on the proper solutions, we often can’t even agree what the problems are. In an envirionment so polarized and
fractured, no wonder we haven’t found a consensus descriptor for the past ten
years.

Until now.

You’re welcome.

As we wind down the
Bizarros and enter our new century’s Terrible Teens, desperate to steer out of
the skid in which we find ourselves, it would be wonderful if our better angels
and collective wisdom would lead the world to a new epoch of benevolence,
prosperity, and peace.

But me not optimistic!

Thomas Goetz: Welcome To The Era Of Personalized Medicine

2009-12-22T08:41:23Z

There are certain ideas that hover in the ether, hinting at some perfect future where our cars will fly and robots will fetch our slippers. Personalized medicine is one of these - an idea that someday, somehow, we will all enjoy customized medical care that keeps us healthier and enables us to live better and longer. In the meantime, though, we're stuck with the healthcare we have now: an inefficient system with cookie-cutter predictions and trial-and-error treatments.

Part of the problem, so far, is that personalized medicine has often been understood as mostly about drugs - specifically, the idea that one day pharmaceuticals will be tailored to us, individually. This has been slow to happen. Aside from a few cancer drugs like Gleevec and Tamoxifen, the science of pharmacogenomics (the term for matching drugs to specific genetic traits) has been largely a disappointment. And until more personalized drugs emerge from the pharmaceutical pipeline, the thinking goes, personalized medicine will remain a pipedream.

But personalized medicine isn't just about drugs. It's also about data - our personal data, the stuff in our medical records, as well as less clinical information like how much sleep we get or how often we exercise. All this data can personalize our healthcare right now, today - it can be worked back into the equation of how we care for our health, improving decisions like what we eat, how to reduce our risk factors for disease, and what we get tested for (and when). When you start thinking about our healthcare this way, it starts to look like a series of choices, opportunities we have to make better decisions to affect and improve our health. Line all these choices up in sequence from prevention to diagnosis to treatment, and it takes the form of a Decision Tree - which is what I've called my forthcoming book.

Consider, for instance, Lose It!, a free diet tracking tool for the iPhone. Just click on what foods you eat, and the software, using a database of thousands of foods, can calculate the calories and nutritional value of your meal. Choose a weight loss goal and the app will calculate how much you can eat each day to get you there. The easy, engaging tracking tool has become one of the iTunes stores most popular apps.

Or log on to EPSS, short for the Electronic Preventive Service Selector. Based on recommendations by the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force, this free tool (it also comes in iPhone and Blackberry versions) uses a few bits of personal data - your age, your gender, whether you smoke - to crunch a personalized list of recommended screening tests. (Turns out for someone like me - a 41-year-old non-smoking male - there are 10 recommended tests, and 17 not recommended).

Or take a look at Nike Plus, the ingenious exercise system that lets runners track not just how much they've run, but also how many calories they've burned, and how close they are to accomplishing personal exercise goals. More than five million people have discovered that tools like Nike Plus not only make exercise more fun, they also make it more productive.

In this respect, it turns out that personalized medicine is already here. Personalized medicine is what happens when we go online and do our own research at MayoClinic.com before we check in with our doctor. It's what happens when we use iPhone apps to monitor our exercise or weight. And it's what happens when we ask our doctor for our lab test results, and then work with her to make a treatment decision (instead of just leaving it up to them). These tools and opportunities are just the tip of the iceberg though, the first signals of a new mode of healthcare, where individuals will be able to readily track their health and control their healthcare.

Now all this talk about data and statistics can sound intimidating. After all, not all of us are math geniuses, and most of us don't go looking for ways to brush up on high-school algebra. But it doesn't have to be all that scary. After all, we've already gotten used to dealing with numbers and statistical information in all sorts of situations. We manage to handle interest rates when we take out a mortgage. We're quick to calculate prices during a 30 percent Off sale at Macy's. And in our health, many of us already mind our cholesterol level, our blood pressure, and other numbers. If we can handle the math in balancing our checkbook, certainly putting these same skills to work for our health shouldn't be beyond any of our reach. Personalized medicine isn't something that happens to us; it's something that we have to choose to engage in. And the thing is, that's not as hard as it sounds.

Of course, engaging patients is only half of what personalized medicine is about. The other side of the coin requires that healthcare itself get better, in the form of better research and more patient-friendly clinicians. Medicine must be able to deliver more tailored, patient-specific predictions, diagnoses and treatments. This means that geneticists need to keep interrogating the human genome for the links between our DNA and disease, so we can identify our risks earlier. It means biochemists and molecular biologists need to keep spelunking for the biomarkers in our blood that can turn up a disease in its earliest, most treatable stage. And it means that healthcare providers - our doctors, nurses, and nurse practitioners - need to be trained to engage with more informed patients who may be bringing self-generated research and records to the doctor's office.

Thankfully, both components of personalized medicine are making rapid progress. Patient empowerment, long paid lip-service but given little heed by a medical profession steeped in paternalism, has made great strides in recent years, bolstered by the Internet and other consumer technologies. Genetics, proteomics, and other molecular sciences have all made stunning advances the past decade, fueled by bioinformatics (the combination of huge data sets and massive computing power). The pieces are coming together, and personalized medicine is starting to take shape.

In the coming weeks, I'll be sharing some ideas here at the Huffington Post for how personalized medicine is playing out, right now, today. As is so often the case with new tools, engaging in personalized medicine right now takes some work; it's still a piecemeal experience that demands diligence and initiative. But for those willing to do the work and make the effort, the returns can be nothing less than better health and a better life.

Thomas Goetz is the executive editor at Wired Magazine, and holds a master's in public health. His book The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine comes out in February. You can follow him on twitter and read his Decision Tree blog.

Jose Antonio Vargas: With "Avatar," Technology Has Never Looked So Human in Film (VIDEO)

2009-12-21T15:28:04Z

Technology has never looked so human in film.

After all the online buzz (some good, others bad), after all the focus on box office receipts (as ever, Deadline's Nikke Finke has the most comprehensive run-down), after all the attention on whether Hollywood's reigning techno-geek could create a worthy successor to his Oscar-winning, record-shattering "Titanic," "Avatar" snowballed through the pre-winter snowstorm of 2009. James Cameron didn't just make a sci-fi epic. He's created a wholly believable, realistic world, at once marking a new cinematic era and expanding the possibilities of film in our technology-dependent, digital entertainment-driven 21st century. From here on out, movies will be divided into two epochs: B.A. and A.A. Before "Avatar," After "Avatar."

Asked where "Avatar" stands in the history of technology and movies, Roger Ebert, a film historian and arguably the country's pre-eminent movie critic, wrote me in an e-mail: "It inaugurates the next generation and raises the bar. A milestone in the same sense as 'Star Wars.'"

For decades, Ebert has been a skeptic of 3-D technology; while blogging about the animated movie "Up," which premiered in 3-D at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, he wrote that 3-D is a "marketing gimmick" aimed "to justify higher ticket prices." But last week, Ebert led the throng of critics who raved about "Avatar," the largest 3-D release in movie history. Cameron's baby, more than 10 years in the making, is "not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that, " Ebert wrote. "It is an Event, one of those films you feel you must see to keep up with the conversation."

Because people are talking about it, especially in the virtual water cooler that is the social Web. The hashtag #Avatar has been a trending topic on Twitter for days; early Friday morning, on the day of the film's release, @walkercd tweeted: "If the snowstorm takes me this weekend it'll be because I left the house to see AVATAR." In a decade that's been marked by countless innovations in special effects -- from "The Matrix" series to "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy -- there's a sense that, too often, technology is showcased for technology's sake. You can almost hear the director shout from behind the camera, "See, look at what I can do!" The story takes a backseat to the technology. That's not "Avatar." Cameron's use of 3-D is the "best I've seen -- and more importantly, one of the most carefully-employed," Ebert wrote. "The film never uses 3-D simply because it has it."

It's not just critics who've run out of superlatives to describe the experience. Michael Arrington, founder of the industry insider blog TechCrunch, declared "Avatar" as the "the iPhone of movies" -- a real game-changer. Like Arrington, I lined up on Thursday night at the first midnight showing of "Avatar." I was in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to Silicon Valley, attending a conference at the University of California-Berkeley. It was a packed theater -- and, surprisingly, a mixed crowd. There were as many young women as they were young men, many of them sporting their Cal gear. A few minutes into the more than two-and-a-half hour film, when we first see Jake, the former Marine who's a paraplegic, take his first steps on Pandora as his nearly ten feet tall, blue-skinned avatar with a tail, a bespectacled student in front of me yelled: "Oh man, this is much better when you're drunk."

I wasn't drunk. But I did notice, as I looked down my notebook and jotted down some notes, that my jaw had dropped. Literally. It was breathtaking, the sheer beauty of the images on screen -- alive, vivid, seemingly touchable. There's a "thereness" to the action, fleeting and fantastical but somehow also grounded and natural. As others have noted, the story is not new -- it's part "Pocahontas," part "Dances With Wolves" and all the more relevant given the recent climate summit in Copenhagen. At one point in the film, Neytiri, the princess of the Na'vi tribe, tells Jake, her inevitable love interest, as they walk the lush, layered land of Pandora: "All energy is all borrowed. One day you have to give it back." But the new technologies that are used in service of the story -- shot with cutting-edge "Simulcam" camera, with live action seamlessly mixed with CGI imagery, among others -- has revolutionized film-making as a technical art form. And one with a heart. After all, what has distinguished Cameron's movies, from "The Terminator" to "Aliens," are the human stories behind the technology. Take the pulse rifle-carrying, gender stereotype-breaking Ellen Ripley.

"Too much is being said about the technology of this film. Quite frankly, I don't give a rat's ass how a film is made," Cameron told The New Yorker's Dana Goodyear, who wrote a 10,400-word profile of the 55-year-old, Canadian-born director. "It's an emotional story. It's a love story. They're not expecting that. The sci-fi/fantasy fans see the trailer and they think, Cool -- battles, robots. What you really need to get to is, Oh, it's that, too."

Let's leave aside the money haul; judging by the strong word of mouth online, "Avatar" should break the $1 billion mark. Let's forget the awards and accolades; this won't be the last time you'll read the words "Oscar" and "James Cameron" between now and March 10. (And if Cameron and "Avatar" are not top contenders for "Best Picture" and "Best Director," respectively, then the Oscars deserve the consistently low ratings it gets.) What Cameron has achieved, quite simply, will outlast any award and box office report.

James Cameron, Hollywood's reigning techno-geek, has humanized technology.

***Here's the latest extended HD trailer***

Mark Drapeau: What If Government Were On-The-Record 24/7?

2009-12-21T11:54:35Z

Recently, I wrote a post about Government 2.0 predictions for 2010-12, and one of them was that government would "always be on-the-record."

By that I meant that the combination of (1) the proliferation of tech-savvy citizens with mobile camera/video devices, (2) the prevalence of wi-fi or other Web connections, (3) the massive number of people using social networks like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, and (4) the great interest that people have right now in a number of controversial issues like our current wars, health care, and climate change that people could and probably would start documenting everything that government officials do and say, where they go, who they meet with, for how long, what their staffers eat for lunch and with whom, and so on.

And you don't need to be a professional journalist to do this, or even to do it well. An entire site along the lines of Gawker.com could be started around this, in fact. GovernmentGawker.com, anyone?

Well, I was doing some research to look at planes versus trains to get home for the holidays (in light of the recent blizzard that's affected transport in the DC-NY-Boston corridor), and I came across a fantastic video that essentially puts the Amtrak Acela First Class service on the record for the trip between New York and Boston (7 min edited clip). Check it out.

Now, imagine if someone did the same thing, but wanted to document a day in the life of Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), currently in the middle of heated debate about health care legislation. It's not hard.

You check the general schedules of his committees and such beforehand, research powerful, under-the-radar staff and other relevant people on the Washington Post's WhoRunsGov.com, go through simple security at the Capitol (far easier than an airport), find Nelson's office in the Hart building, camp out in his waiting area, maybe ask the person at the front desk some questions, find some press in the hallways and ask some questions (maybe visit the Russell rotunda, where the television crews do their spots), stalk the cafeteria (there's a great coffee shop called Cups in the basement) and listen for people saying "Nelson," go back to his office and see him leaving to walk down the hall to a committee hearing, take photos of the staff with him on your Samsung ST-1000 with wi-fi and geo-tagging and upload the pics to Bing Maps and Facebook, go to the sub-committee hearing and tape it from a Flip in your coat pocket while you tweet live notes, upload your Flip video to YouTube while you follow Nelson to his next meeting, and so forth.

(Note: This post has nothing in particular to do with Sen. Nelson or health care, it's just an example "ripped from the headlines" - I've even met and chatted with him when he spoke about energy at the Defense Department, he's a nice person.)

You can surely imagine at this point many variations on this for political appointees you don't like, lobbyists you're interested in, principal deputy assistant secretaries that make important decisions but don't necessarily travel in armored vehicles with bodyguards, various members of the press who might be meeting with sources at Capitol Hill bars, etc. Trust me, this isn't hard. If you live in Washington, DC, you probably realize how very easy this is, in fact, when combined with some good traditional news sources like the Post, Times, The Hill, and Politico. (If you live in Washington, DC, you also know that it's incredibly common to know where various officials live, eat, and so forth - I used to live about two blocks from Senator Obama's pad.)

But why would someone want to create an "ambient stream" of Senator Nelson or anyone else's life? (Besides it being fascinating in a lowbrow, Gossip Girl kind of way, of course.) Well, most people wouldn't. But so what? It's just like Wikipedia - only about 1% of people who use Wikipedia actively edit it; about 9% do sometimes, and 90% just read it. Twitter is not unlike that either - only about 10% of users contribute 90% of the tweets.

So what if 1% of U.S. citizens started doing this? Roughly there are 300 million people in the U.S., say half of them are adults, so we have 1% of 150 million as 1.5 million. Now, if everyone just did this at the state, local, or federal level one day a year, and generated one "amateur journalism piece" from that day, that's about 4,100 videos/blog posts/tweet sets generated PER DAY. That's a lot of government on-the-record.

Dr. Hendrie Weisinger: The Importance Of Project Management: An Interview With Terry Schmidt

2009-12-21T11:41:13Z

I will start by asking you, "How many projects do you have on your plate?" Weddings, family trips, the upcoming conference, rolling out a new customer service program or compensation system, or having to turn a blueprint feature of a car, plane, bus, or into a reality are only some of the diverse samples of projects that we attempt and want to be successful doing.

Yet, as research would indicate, most projects never achieve the success desired. How can you ensure that your projects are succesful? What can you do so you can cofidently assure your boss you will deliver the goods--on time?

I'd recommend a starting place is to meet Terry Schmidt -- a globally recognized strategy consultant and project management expert. He is the founder of www.ManagementPro.com, and the author of Strategic Project Management Made Simple: Practical Tools for Leaders and Teams (Wiley, 2009).

Dr. Hank: You have developed great expertise in Project Management. How did you get interested in this field?

Terry: My love of projects began in high school when I launched a small rocket loaded with guppies. That project earned national press coverage and motivated me to study aerospace engineering. During a summer internship at NASA, I devoured all the project and program management books in their library. This ignited my passion for Project Management and systems thinking, which considers how all the elements of large and complex systems work together to accomplish the big picture goal.

In a later career as a management consultant to developing nations, I witnessed the futility of piecemeal solutions to complex problems. For example, a project designed to reduce childhood mortality in Africa may provide inoculations and health education, but these good efforts will fail unless there is also access to clean water, which may not be part of the project. So we need to think, plan, and act from a larger perspective and address all the solution elements.

Given the nature of the problems we face today, it is essential to use systems thinking combined with Project Management.

Dr. Hank: Should "Project Management" be formally taught in our school systems, or just integrated into teaching methods?

Terry: Learning to use and apply Project Management is a valuable and essential life skill. Students need these skills because they'll use them life-long, on the job and off. Everyone who works deals with projects, but projects extend beyond the job to include personal projects, family projects, volunteer projects and so forth.

Project Management skills help you achieve better results. Mastering the art of Project Management can help you become a better parent, neighbor, and citizen as well as a stellar performer at work.

Project Management is a broad field. Let's be sure we teach the right kind. Typical Project Management gets too granular too quickly by focusing on activities, budgets, and schedules before first establishing the overall goals.. I'm a big believer in Strategic Project Management, which begins with clearly defining the big picture before delving into details.

Dr. Hank: If turning the Country around is a project, how would you approach it? What would your consulting advice be to President Obama and the Congress?

Terry: I can't think of a more crucial project. The place to start is to ask where we as a nation want to be in the future, and then develop a strategic plan to get there.

It's outrageous that the United States doesn't have a national strategic plan. Singapore has one; Dubai has one; China has one--but we don't. Sadly, right now there is no common vision, measures of success, or agreement on strategies to reach that vision. We have become too fractionalized and single-issue oriented to even discuss a common vision or projects that can get us there. By the way, I'll donate my time and expertise to help make that happen.

Dr. Hank: Since you lecture a lot on strategy, I am sure that you have met many people who are more "strategic" than others. In the scheme of evolution, I am sure that strategic thinking would be favored by natural selection. Do you think the capacity for this type of thinking needs to be in the genes, or can it be learned?

Terry: No doubt among primitive tribes, the man who had the Project Management knowledge needed to organize others and successfully hunt gazelles became the leader. Those less skilled in Project Management got eaten by tigers. Contemporary master Project Managers like Steve Jobs and Richard Branson would have made great tribal leaders because it is in their genes to triumph in any context.

While we can't alter our DNA, we can polish our strategic skills. Unfortunately, whole field of strategy and projects has become overly complicated and filled with buzz words. We need to get back to the basics. Everyone can master simple Project Management concepts like if-then thinking and assumptions-testing. Learning these increases your strategic I.Q. and multiplies your ability to make things happen.

Dr. Hank: You have been a consultant on some very exciting projects. Which stands out the most?

Terry: I'm fortunate in that my client base spans 34 countries and has involved just about every type of project imaginable.

One of my most exciting current projects involves helping the US Government's effort to reduce proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to combat terrorism. I am a consultant to CPOIS - The CounterProliferation Operations Intelligence Support Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. There are a lot of smart people involved - Scientists, Engineers, Mathematicians, IT pros, Military experts - but their efforts need to be organized into a coherent whole. CPOIS leaders have adopted the Logical Framework Project Management approach as a way to leverage their resources and keep nasty weapons away from the bad guys.

Project Management skills apply in every sphere of life. When you begin to appreciate that your life consists of multiple interrelated projects and manage them strategically, the quality of your results will skyrocket.

Dr. Hank: Thank you for taking time off from your busy projects to meet my readers. My new project--get your book today!

Blythe McGarvie: Decade of Disillusionment

2009-12-20T10:08:26Z

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, friends debated what we would name the past decade. I argued that we must understand the changes from the last 10 years in order to anticipate and shape the direction of our global economy for the next few years. I believe the zeitgeist is the Decade of Disillusionment. The dictionary defines disillusionment as the condition of being free from illusion; having lost naive faith and trust.

In the beginning of the decade, technology and the internet enabled many people to believe the dot-com business model in which sales revenue and number of visitors would replace the traditional business model of cash flow and generating returns above the cost of capital. As the CFO of a supermarket chain, we had clicks and bricks, the best of both worlds. Some believed the internet business (the "clicks") represented more shareholder value than the hard asset business (the "bricks"). It did not.

Americans were untouched by the extreme terrorist bombings that had occurred in Europe and Asia in the prior decade. They believed eliminating the nuclear arms threat after the fall of the Soviet political structure would eliminate the need to protect our borders. It did not. The Islamic terrorists in 2001 changed the false sense of security to disbelief.

Then, in the middle of the decade, we thought our domestic security and emergency procedures would prevent any major tragedy. It did not. When Hurricane Katrina revealed the pitiful organization and lack of life-saving emergency infrastructure, we started to doubt our bureaucrats' and leaders' ability to respond.

We prided ourselves on the best-educated college and university students in the world, the envy of many. We thought the college system could compensate for the decades of neglect and poor teachers at the Kindergarten through Grade 12 to create competitive talent in many schools, not just the elite private ones. It did not. Instead, competencies in reading, writing, math and science in many college students have declined compared to prior generations. A national survey by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) released in January 2006 showed 20 percent of U.S. college students completing 4-year degrees -- and 30 percent of students earning 2-year degrees -- have only basic quantitative literacy skills, meaning they are unable to estimate if their car has enough gasoline to get to the next gas station or calculate the total cost of ordering office supplies.

To read more, click here.

Mark Drapeau: The Rarity of Obscurity

2009-12-17T17:21:11Z

Are you the best in the world at what you do?

Ten years ago, it was very difficult to answer this question. One didn't really have a good sense of who the best shoe salesmen, school teachers, and local writers were around the world.

Now, things are different. You can actually find out very quickly who the most important people are in your community of interest, no matter where they live. Almost every professional now has an online presence. Websites share company's personalities. Blogs share employees' plans. Microsharing showcases real-time work.

Language will soon not be much of a barrier, either. Automatic translation will soon make it simple to read, say, a Chinese-language blog in English, and then comment on it in English and have the author see your comment in Chinese. This will be true not only of blogs but everything from newspapers to tweets and IMs.

In the not so distant future, obscurity will be rare. Are you prepared for the competition? For the attention?

Kety Esquivel: Latinos in Social Media DC

2009-12-17T07:21:08Z

I usually begin my New Media presentations with an aerial shot of the marches in Chicago in 2006 and state the outrageous but obvious claim: "In 2006 we marched. In 2007 we registered to vote. In 2008 we voted. And in 2009 we are mobilizing online." However, I trace my interest and passion in new media back three years earlier to 2003 when I was overseeing the Latino outreach efforts for the Clark Presidential campaign. That was the first time when I saw technology being leveraged in an innovative way that engaged Americans in a profound and meaningful way for social change. In my role, I saw a tremendous amount of opportunity in the tools and promise of this technology and what it could bring from a perspective of advocacy and empowerment for the Latino community. This was also the time of the Dean campaign and the amazing efforts of that group of technologists/anthropologists who were the predecessors to the Obama campaign, using Ganz's organizing principles learned from Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers online.

Once both campaigns closed shop, I decided to take that technology and the lessons I learned and apply them to the world of progressive faith. Over the next few years I was involved in that space through the launch of CrossLeft. A few years later I was called to serve as one of the founders for the first pro-migrant online community Promigrant.org.

Fast forward six years later and you now find me working in new media for NCLR, the largest Latino Civil Rights and advocacy organization in the US. I joined NCLR almost a year and a half ago because I saw the promise new media could bring to the civil rights movement and to the Latino community. I wanted NCLR to engage bloggers and lay people online. I saw a tremendous opportunity -- and I wanted to see the Latino community leveraging these tools to make a difference in the world much like the campaigns in years prior had. Moreover, I didn't want the Latino community left behind in this conversation.

There was a whole pipeline issue that I saw as an opportunity. On the speaking circuit there are only one or two Latinos or Latinas ever; and I've observed this across the board at PDF, SXSW, O'Reilly and even female conferences like BlogHer and unconferences like She's Geeky and the Bar Camps. It's a tremendous opportunity, especially when one considers that one out of every four children born today is Latino and in the next few years that figure is projected to jump to one in every three. We need to develop the pipeline of Latinos in social media, desperately. We need to develop the front end of that pipeline with our youth and folks who are new to the world of social media but who are doing some incredible organizing on the ground and in our community. We need to develop the pipeline with those who are in the middle and who already know a thing or two about social media but who could really benefit from a mentor and some good networking. Finally, we need to develop that pipeline for our experts who are amazingly gifted, experienced and poised to take center stage. That is where I think Latinos in Social Media comes in.

Latinos in Social Media (or #LatISM as the Twitter hash tag reads) was born from a tweet by @AnaRC (Ana Roca Castro) asking where the Latinos/Latinas in social media were. Slowly but surely, she said, we began to come out of the woodwork; and as our presence and numbers became clear the initial LatISM team was inspired to stage a conference in NYC. This first LatISM conference was the conference that I was invited to. Ana later writes through Whrrl how I drove up to Rochester to convince her to let us do something similar in DC. To that there is much truth, and when Ana finally said yes, I went to the Twitter verse to find a team. That's where I (@KetyE) found the other five Latinas. These ladies are five of the most amazing women that I have ever met in my life. They are generous, brilliant, hard working and each so unique and gifted in her own special way. Elianne (@ergeekgoddess) helped us rally the twitter troupes and worked the press. Alma (@AmericanLatina) brought her pragmatic and no-nonsense approach as well as her youth to the team. Julie (@JulieDiazAsper) managed our website and the registration of our guests. Jennifer (@meningioma) kept us on track with our minutes, took care of everything social and recruited her cousin to serve as an extra pair of hands. Sylvia (@httponline) helped us stay on track financially. Without these amazing ladies, NCLR's (@NCLR) donation of the venue, and the trust of our sponsors, LatISM DC would have never happened.

So what exactly happened at LatISM DC? I'll let the agenda, list of speakers and tweets do all the talking -

rmmdc: Energized from #latISM #DC; amazing conversations. The time is now to add more Latino/as voices to #socialmedia conferences. #LDC about 24 hours ago from web

Qoobole: #latism #ldc - our objective is to connect bloggers, artists, non-profits, leaders and communities via #latism #latism about 24 hours ago from TweetChat

LatinoMovement: Attn: #latism #ldc friends. RT @LGTRG: Tuesday is the day. comp immigration reform being intro in Congress. let's get moving about 24 hours ago from UberTwitter

IGSpeaks: The insipiration and action behind the LATism movement. I'm honored to be a part! http://yfrog.com/6mxx0j #LATISM #LDC about 24 hours ago from Twitterrific

fernandovarela: RT @moliee92: creating your platform is key to having a voice said @anarc #ldc about 24 hours ago from web

eRomanMe: Rt @httponline #ldc #latism is not about cornering ourselves into a cyberghetto. Build cross cultural connections says @anarc about 24 hours ago from TinyTwitter

Javiervw: Share your voice. Don't be egoista. You are unique. #latism #ldc about 24 hours ago from TweetDeck

Angelette: @Angelette it was great meeting you at the social good session #LDC (via @moliee92) Same here! Great discussion! about 24 hours ago from Twitterrific

Javiervw: We are continuing the conversation with regular networking events and increasing the movement. @ergeekgoddess #Latism #ldc 1 day ago from TweetDeck

AmericanLatina: RT @Ramon_DeLeon: We are here to make America Stronger..How could we make our home weaker? #Latism DC #LDC 1 day ago from Echofon

moliee92: a participant said: #latism DC conference is less political, more real. We should have these type of events more often... #ldc 1 day ago from TweetChat

PhillyTeAma: Good people at #Latism-DC. Can't wait for the future of @Latism and where future conferences will take us #LDC 1 day ago from UberTwitter

tonnet: RT @JaviervW: Hispanics online are more influential because the take the conversation from online to offline. #Latism #LDC 1 day ago from web

ergeekgoddess: RT @kellymullaney: RT @Angelette: Tip: Hispanics spend more time online than their counterparts (60%). #Latism #ldc 1 day ago from TweetDeck

ergeekgoddess: RT @LeMulatreGentil: How do you all see social media encouraging multi-lingualism and multi-lingual literacy? #latism #ldc 1 day ago from TweetDeck

MiGuad98: RT @LouisPagan: Negativity in the US against Latinos is a double-edged sword...it has united Latinos together. #latism #ldc 1 day ago from UberTwitter

Javiervw: RT @LoriGama: Conferences are like clusters of intense energy of amazing people w/ passion. Thank you, friends, for being here. #latism #ldc 1 day ago from TweetDeck

gtiadvisors: RT @julito77: How do you succeed on Twitter? ABY = Always Be Yourself If you do this, people will come. #latism #ldc @LoriGama 1 day ago from TweetDeck

ergeekgoddess: @safajar tweets from the #latism #ldc conference http://twitpic.com/t8mtk 1 day ago from TweetDeck

GreatTwitTips: RT @LoriGama: New question: What are your top tips for engaging Latinos on Twitter? #ldc (invite them to the Twitte... http://bit.ly/8RwqUx 1 day ago from twitterfeed

Twit_Review: Latino Rebranded: Social Media and Latinos » LATISM Twitter Party #LDC: Subtitle: Twitter tips for newbie busin.. http://bit.ly/4uP35W 1 day ago from twitterfeed

SensataCreative: Yes! I am ready 2 start #Latism affiliate - Albuquerque. RT @AmericanLatina: We can't divide - we must unite as Latinos in US. #ldc #latism 1 day ago from HootSuite

rhonyk: RT @ergeekgoddess RT @Javiervw: Build in your strenghts, educated, awarness, speak up #Latism #ldc 1 day ago from TwitBird iPhone

hashtager: # @LoriGama @ergeekgoddes a hashtag is a marker to find the topics/ppl of interest #ldc 1 day ago from twitterfeed

AROMANDINA: RT @eRomanMe: Recs #latism #ldc it hurts to hear that people who work 3 jobs are called terrorists, ilegals, aliens 1 day ago from TweetDeck

LoriGama: RT @safajar IN 2006 we marched, in 2007 we registered to vote, in 2008 we voted, and in 2009 we are mobilizing online- @kety #LATISM #LDC 1 day ago from PeopleBrowsr

digitalsista: how many of you are saying one thing to your mom in spanish and to your kids in english? #latism #ldc #woc #p2 #fem2 1 day ago from web

LatinoMovement: #latism #ldc speakers say technology= civil rights tool. NLM agrees! Important for 2010- #immigration, Census, elections... 1 day ago from UberTwitter

Dustin_Schmidt: RT @digitalsista - what are you passionate about that is what you should be talking about in #socialmedia #latism #ldc 1 day ago from twitterfeed

kellymullaney: RT @LoriGama: #latism #ldc Associated Press reporter is talking now...if you reach a niche of people you can really make a difference. 1 day ago from TweetDeck

eRomanMe: Recs: #latism #ldc individuals have the power to compete with big media 1 day ago from TinyTwitter

Qoobole: #latism #ldc - social media also connects our Latino communities in U.S.: Mission in SF, Spanish Harlem, Little Havana in Miami, S. Bronx 1 day ago from web

LoriGama: @httponline is saying how overcome with emotion she was attending here. #latism #ldc Social Media conference in D.C. (I agree) 1 day ago from web

eRomanMe: #latism #ldc where do u see opportunity in social media to promote change?-@kety 1 day ago from TinyTwitter

JulieDiazAsper: RT @LoriGama Trends like #latism #vivaviernes are all gr8 places 2 start 2 truly understand Latino Twitter culture #LDC 1 day ago from TweetDeck

kellymullaney: RT @AnaRC: Here some Latino(a)s learning & doing Twitter 4 the first time at #LDC http://yfrog.com/1d9nwj <

JulieDiazAsper: RT @httponline: RT @julito77: Don't "promote" on Twitter. Be yourself..always connect w/ followers. Stay honest, give always. #ldc #latism 1 day ago from TweetDeck

eRomanMe: #latism #ldc is a conference where people really comminicate with each other. Viva nuestra gente 1 day ago from TinyTwitter

AmericanLatina: Thank you to everyone who has joined us & supported #LatISM DC!! We have learned so much from everyone! #LDC #LatISM 1 day ago from Echofon

Qoobole: RT @LatinoMovement: Hey #Latism #ldc peeps! Asking ?s now. What r best ways to measure outcomes from tweets? I use bit.ly for web click ... 1 day ago from web

moliee92: @LouisPagan now that you say that. I also think social media has added more value and purpose to my life as well...#ldc 1 day ago from web

ergeekgoddess: to our experts @julito77 @theonlinemom @john_rivera @urbanjibaro @louispagan great answers, thank you! #latism #ldc 1 day ago from TweetDeck

julito77: @ergeekgoddess A pleasure and we added video for more tips here: http://bit.ly/5k3Yxw#latism #ldc UN PLACER 1 day ago from TweetDeck

LouisPagan: RT @John_Rivera: LatISM started as an idea/look how fast and strong it has grown. From NYC to DC to Fla...LatISM Tokyo? #latism WOOT! #ldc 1 day ago from TweetChat

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What happens next?

First and foremost we continue to organize locally, here in the DC, Virginia, Maryland area. The seis Latinas are planning a series of networking events that will continue to be both educational and fun. Secondly, the two founders and I (@AnaRC, @LouisPagan and @KetyE) are incorporating this initiative nationally and are working with other folks from across the nation who are interested in bringing the LatISM flavor to their hometowns. Ultimately, the sky is the limit. This initiative will become what it needs to be. Born out of necessity and a scarcity it has created an abundance and wealth of resources, expertise and community, in just a few months and for that I am thankful. Now let's get working on changing the world!

Follow all the tweeps from LatISM DC.

See pictures from LatISM DC.

Read other blogs/press mentions of LatISM DC.

The Village Church Updates Status Of Pastor Matt Chandler Via Twitter, Facebook

2009-12-16T18:09:01Z

The Village Church, a megachurch in Texas encompassing three communities, is utilizing the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook to update its parish and others on the status of its Pastor Matt Chandler.

Chandler was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and had a 7-hour surgery earlier this month to remove the tumor.

But today, Chandler's doctor said the tumor was not encapsulated.

This afternoon, The Village Church shared the grim news, posting to its more than 8,000 followers on Twitter (@villagechurchtx), "Pastor\'s Blog: Pathology results revealed http://bit.ly/6h4JYc."

Due to server overload on its Web site, The Village Church posted the information again but this time linking to Facebook as a note.

The Village Church, which has campuses in Flower Mound, Denton and Dallas Northway, has been overwhelmed with responses. The Twitter update has been circulating via tweets all day and the Facebook note has received 66 comments (and counting).

Jerri Chou: Entrepreneurship in New York: A Personal Testimony to the City Council

2009-12-16T08:53:11Z

I'm testifying at New York City Council today on tech entrepreneurship and how the city can better support this community. I always want to represent and learn from those around me so I asked some of the best in the business. Through their insights and my experience combined, here are some thoughts going into the hearing.

1. Creative capital -- This city has maybe one of the highest pools of creative capital in the world. If anything, New York should be encouraging these hugely innovative people to take the leap to start their businesses (that statistically create more jobs). In order for this to happen, individuals need to have enough time and resources to focus on their ventures. Help with necessities like expensive health care, capital investments (computers, etc.), office space (even lawyers and accountants) would be a big burden lifted. But as the old adage goes, time is money.

2. Money -- it's not scarce in New York, yet the number of venture funds and angel investors in this sector are slim compared to counterparts in SF. It seems like the money here is locked up. Either those with the potential to invest don't understand what's going on or they just can't find it because they are so guarded (my opinion is the latter as I've met plenty of great potential investors who are very excited about social entrepreneurship once they get a glimpse of what it's all about). It's a question of education and I think that could happen most effectively by offering incentives to get involved in the space. New Orleans' tax credits (a sliding scale between 30 to 50 percent write off) of Angel investment in startups has been a boon to the sector. Events to facilitate interaction and education might also be helpful.

3. Media -- in New York is easy and there isn't much competition as far as getting your voice out. Thankfully, we've got that on our side.

4. University -- The potential for collaboration with learning institutions is untapped. Universities offer an enormous potential resource as far as time, facilities and talent to create new technologies. The Universities here are not as entrepreneurial as those in other cities like Boston. Creating bridges through incubators or even facilitating internships between startups would be beneficial for both sides.

5. Community -- This is one the city can support somewhat by getting behind initiatives like Internet Week, incentivizing conferences to come to the city, (even having more Wi-Fi around would help). In the end, this is a huge, yet organic piece of the puzzle (the reason Silicon Valley is what it is derives from community and knowledge sharing). In the end, NYC needs incentives for the community to move here, start up their own and grow what we've already got.

5. Social -- From the social entrepreneurship perspective, New York is the epicenter of some of the most creative companies working to support this particular community. Pop!Tech is in Brooklyn, TED is on the west side, Echoing Green which advises the Obama administration on the subject is headquartered here. If anything, the social entrepreneurs working here could potentially solve many of the problems the city is dealing with while generating income and creating jobs. Total win. The individuals themselves are already doing this, of course -- Ian Marvey and Rooftop Farms are providing food for the city, Hot Bread Kitchen has created a business giving women the chance to bake their native breads -- the list goes on. But if government was able to help scale or support more initiatives, we could be in a really amazing place.

All in all, the future looks bright. We just need to open up the stuffy doors and get the winds of change blowing through the city corridors. It's called NEW York for a reason. Time to live up to the novelty. (I'll report back more after the hearing.)

For those who want to follow, the New York City Council Technology in Government Committee is twittering from http://twitter.com/nycctechcomm.

Brad Smith: A Childhood for Every Child: Combating Child Pornography Online

2009-12-16T00:25:57Z

The Internet has dramatically changed the world for the better -- opening up incredible new ways for people and organizations to connect and communicate with others around the globe. Unfortunately, we are also well aware that there are dark corners of the Internet. The same technology that enables people to share photos and communicate with each other can also enable pedophiles to circulate graphic images of child pornography and even build online communities amongst themselves.

The distribution of online child pornography -- horrific photos of innocent children being sexually abused -- is on the rise. Since 2003 alone, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has reviewed and analyzed almost 30 million photos and videos of child pornography and it is projected that nine million child pornography photos and videos will be reviewed and analyzed in the coming year. In working with NCMEC on this problem, we know that victims are getting younger, the abuse they suffer is growing more violent and the children in the images are in many ways re-victimized as the photos of their abuse are shared online and viewed again and again by predators.

Law enforcement is working heroically around the world to fight child pornography with limited resources. Many officers who investigate these cases pay a steep emotional price for having to view the torture of innocent children day after day as they work to do something about this problem. But the volume of these images online is much too large to expect law enforcement to fight alone. We must do more.

Today, Microsoft has donated to NCMEC technology we call PhotoDNA^TM, designed to help fight the spread of graphic child pornography online. The technology works by creating a unique signature for a digital photograph, like an individual's DNA or fingerprint, which can then be compared to the digital signatures of other images to efficiently and reliably find online copies of the worst child pornography images known to NCMEC. We're also joining NCMEC to launch a campaign for "A Childhood for Every Child" to build public awareness and inspire broader action to tackle this problem. We encourage online service providers to join us in initiatives like PhotoDNA^TM to help more proactively disrupt the spread of these images online through technology. We encourage lawmakers to continue to set good policy to help in this fight, and we applaud the good work of the Congressional Caucus for Missing and Exploited Children. However, we must also ensure that policies, once established, are fully funded so that law enforcement has the resources they need for the job. And lastly, we encourage everyone -- no matter who you are -- to join us in bringing this issue out of the shadows and into the open.

Because most law abiding citizens will never see these pictures, the victims are often invisible to the general public. Please join me today and tomorrow in lending your voice to their cause by becoming part of the movement to provide A Childhood for Every Child. Use your Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live or any other online account to tell a story about what childhood should be, and signal your support by attaching the logo from our Web site to your words.

You can also support the work of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by donating your time, talents or financial resources. Most importantly, help fight the problem of child sexual abuse and exploitation in your community. If you see it, if you know about it, if you suspect it, report it to thenationalcenterformissingandexploitedchildren@cybertipline.com or to 1-800-THE-LOST.

Jose Antonio Vargas: The Goracle -- Al Gore, the Internet and the Future of American Politics

2009-12-14T09:26:19Z

The advent of global warming, the dangers of declaring war on Iraq, the power and reach of the Internet. Is there another American political figure who's been so right, so prescient, about so many things -- and, in turn, so loathed by a consistent vocal opposition?

No, there's only one "Goracle."

All eyes will be on Al Gore this week, as he attends the last days of the U.N.-sponsored climate change summit in Copenhagen. In recent years, it's been impossible to divorce Gore from the environment, what with the Oscar win for An Inconvenient Truth, the Nobel Peace Prize and the release of another book called Our Choice. "President of the planet," he's been hailed. "Alarmist" and "exaggerator," he's been mocked. But just as lasting and undeniable as his imprint in modern environmental history is Gore's early and sustained prophecy -- there's no other word for it -- for the inevitable impact of the Internet in our everyday lives. Starting with his years in the House of the Representatives and the Senate ("the Gore Bill" being just one of his achievements), and throughout his service in the Clinton administration (in developing what he called an "information superhighway"), the global warming crusader was also the government's biggest Internet advocate. Gore never said he created the Internet, though Vint Cerf, aka the "father of Internet," has said that Gore's "initiatives led directly to the commercialization of the Internet." Cerf added: "So he really does deserve credit."

These days, his two long-time interests are crossing paths. The man (Gore) and the message (our climate crisis) has finally met the medium (the Web) that can effectively help spread the word around, from one social network to another. To hear skeptics such as former vice president candidate Sarah Palin tell it, the global warming debate is far from over. To Gore, however, there is no more debate -- just an opportunity for fact-driven, practical-minded individuals to mobilize around the cause.

"You know, Web 2.0, which may gave way to Web 3.0 -- social networks, basically -- holds the great promise of empowering enough individuals who share that broad public interest in an issue like global warming to organize and express themselves with sufficient intensity and focus to overcome the special interests. We're already seeing that begin to happen, and I'm encouraged by it," Gore told me recently inside the headquarters of Current TV, his Internet-meets-television outfit in San Francisco, located just a few blocks from the offices of Twitter.

It was the beginning of a three-hour interview for Rolling Stone -- the first half in San Francisco, the second half in his solar-paneled, geothermal system-powered home in Nashville. And Gore being Gore, we covered a wide range of topics. (The transcript of the interview is here.) He was more casual than I expected, with a loose face and a relaxed voice. ("Hi, I'm Al, very nice to meet you," he said.") Wooden, he is not. This is more the Gore as seen in his recent appearances on The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live: funny, a tad sarcastic and altogether animated. Twice, he walked over to a white board and, ever the lecturer, drew a diagram, illustrating what transparency in local government might look like. "The computerization of the data, the sharing of the data, and creation of the kinds of 'clicks-and-bricks' hybrid model for absorbing and responding to the implications of the meaning contained in the data -- that's really where self-governance needs to go," he said, blue pen in hand. At one point, he took off his leather two-toned belt to illustrate the changing of a political system -- no joke -- as tied to a ground-breaking study of open systems by Ilya Prigogine, a Belgian chemist. Some people, especially politicians, talk in paragraphs, finding their way through soundbites, the digestible, quotable bits. This is not necessarily Gore. He talks in well thought-out, carefully considered chapters. Here are a few chosen bits, pared down:

Asked if government should fund journalism, as recommended by a recent study commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School, Gore, a former newspaperman and a frequent critic of the press, said: "I don't think so, I don't think so...I think those who propose government-funding for the support of newspapers are overlooking the essential number of the relationship between the press and the government. And you think about Richard Nixon or George W. Bush. Dick Cheney. The first time some news organization that receives government support decides to be antagonistic toward the government. Whatever source of leverage the person in charge of the government has is a potential danger to the integrity of that news organization."

Asked if Internet access is a fundamental right for Americans and a basic necessity for kids -- just like water and electricity -- in order to be a part of a global, knowledge-based society, Gore said: "I think it should be, yes. But the process by which a new capacity graves into that circle labeled 'necessities,' well, it's not a simple process."

Asked if the Internet will eclipse television as the most influential source of information, following a report by Pew Internet last year which noted that more than 50 percent of Americans got their political news from the Internet, Gore said: "The Internet is on such an impressive upward trajectory that it will certainly play a much more prominent role in the 2012 election than it did in 2008. But that's not to predict that in only three years we will see Internet-based political communication eclipsed what's taking place in television."

Jose Antonio Vargas: TRANSCRIPT: Q&A with Al Gore

2009-12-14T09:00:56Z

This is the transcript of a wide-ranging, two-part, three-hour interview with Al Gore, touching on the impact of technology and the Internet in politics, both in the U.S. and abroad; the state of the mainstream media and the left and right blogosphere; the role of the Web in spreading the facts about global warming, among others topics. The interviews were held in early and late October, first in the San Francisco offices of Current TV, then in his geothermal system-powered home in Nashville, which is certified as Gold LEED, one of the highest ratings for green design. An excerpt of the Q&A appeared in the Dec. 10, 2009 issue of Rolling Stone.

Jose Antonio Vargas: A year ago, weeks before the election, I visited Blach Middle School in Silicon Valley and spoke to a group of young reporters. In the middle of the talk, Naib Mian raised his hand and asked if I had downloaded Obama's iPhone application -- which showed, in real time, where Obama was campaigning, the number of campaign offices within a few miles of where Naib lives, how much money he had raised...

Al Gore: [Laughs.]

JAV: This kid was 13, and politics was right in his pocket.

AG: Wow.

JAV: What do you say to a kid like Naib?

AG: More power to you. More information to you. You know, politics, as we understand the word, is a recreation of the Greek concept which arose in a culture where spoken word was a medium of the community within which individuals could express themselves well, could yield influence and political power with ideas. Before we talk about what's happening now, let's look back to the history of the printing press. The printing press catalyzed the emergence of an information ecosystem with very low entry barriers for individuals and created a marketplace of ideas in which individuals were literate even without wealth, family connections and force of arms -- all important prerequisites for power during the period from the fall of Rome to the emergence of the printing press. Individuals use ideas without any of those prerequisites as a source of power or influence or political authority, then the ecosystem that flowed out of the technology of the printing press was eclipsed by electronic medium -- the antecedent being the telegraph, and then the radio and then the big kahuna, you know television, which has you know the attraction for the brain because it's moving. You know the average American now watches TV five hours a day. The average American in an average American lifetime spends 17 uninterrupted years -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week --- watching TV. Seventeen years! So the reason why all the newspapers are in a nosedive is because -- first, that started with the afternoon newspapers, when television colonized that market niche. And the coup de grace was the Internet, coming in and taking in classified advertising...But now what's happening is, as evidence by that 13-year-old in Silicon Valley, that young kid with an iPhone, is that the Internet is now getting close to the stage where it will be possible for the Internet to eclipse television.

JAV: That's the process we're seeing now?

AG: That's the process we're seeing now. As the great writer [William] Gibson said -- he wrote this phrase: "Television will sink into the digital universe." I think we're beginning to see that happen. But we're not there yet. We're still at a stage where TV is completely dominant in our political culture.

JAV: As we see with Glenn Beck...

AG: Yes, and where candidates and elected officials are concerned, they have to spend more than three-quarters of all the money they raise to purchase 30-second TV ads and the only way they can get that amount of money on a consistent basis is by relying on business lobbyists. During the Enlightenment -- which again flowed out of the printing press -- ideas displaced some of the remarkable amount of the influence that had been placed on money and also power, and led to the blossoming of representative democracy and the modern version of capitalism. As you know, the Declaration of Independence and The Wealth of Nations were both published in the same year. And they were both based on the idea that individuals, empowered with information, can make intelligent choices, and then their choices can be aggregated to give the kind of a massively parallel processing of all the data that society has to digest and process to guide the economy, to guide self-government. But when television replaced print, there was kind of a "re-feudalization" of political power -- because those with a lot of money were able to exercise enormous influence in the political system. So what you have now is that the Congress finds it almost impossible to take any action that is opposed by very powerful business lobbyists. They still do sometimes -- if popular sentiment rises above this threshold that causes them to say, "Wait a minute, you know, this is popular with the people." But by and large, the underlying algorithm of governance is, an intensely held minority view can trump a weakly held majority. If a small group that has lot of passion and means to make their views heard has one point of view, and the general public interest is in opposition of their view, but most of the public is not aware of it, then the small group, which is often a special interest group, dominates. Now television has anesthetized the body politic and has made the citizenry an audience, and the dominant political act of participation today is sitting motionless watching ads, and it's one-way meme. But the Internet empowers that 13-year-old kid to connect directly to all the information he can absorb about whatever political topics, or whatever topics, he's interested in. So if he develops passion for Obama's campaign or points of view that Obama is expressing, he can participate in the political process, once again, by using the power of ideas. So I see the Internet as a great source of hope for re-energizing representative democracy, and making it possible for people to really participate.

JAV: So we have a case in which the people are basically ahead of the politics?

AG: Yeah, yeah.

JAV: In 1969, you wrote your 103-page college thesis on the impact of television on the American presidency. Because of the social Web, however, people's expectations of politicians -- how transparent they are, how authentic they seem to be -- are changing. Expectations are different in a Web-based democracy, right?

AG: What I have learned since writing that thesis paper is a greater appreciation for the economics of media, and how the interaction of media and society and the business model for different media also have a powerful influence. The most important aspect of the shift to television -- of course that thesis was focused on governing and the constitutional balance through the lens of the presidency -- is the extraordinary expensive price tags for these television ads that have reshaped the U.S. political system. You know, when I first visited the Senate as a child -- since my father served there, I spent time there watching him -- he would take me to the floor of the Senate. In those days, debates really counted for something. Now, it's rare to have a debate on the Senate floor. And the reason they're not there, usually, the principal reason is, they're in fundraisers all the time. All the time. And the reason they're on fundraisers all the time? Mainly, is to make sure they could stockpile enough cash to overwhelm any potential opponents, by having so many 30-second TV ads that the other candidate doesn't have a chance. And again the only way they can get that money is by going to all these little cocktail parties and receptions that are populated overwhelmingly by business.

JAV: What was going through your mind as you watched how the Obama campaign was using the Web?

AG: I was happy about it. I had tired to do it, when I ran in 2000, but the technology was still at an earlier stage. There weren't enough practitioners for it to really take hold. I was very happy that they were doing it. I do think that there is a way to use this technology for governing that will similarly revolutionize the effectiveness of self-governing. One early example is something called ComStat -- do you know about ComStat? It's short for Computerized Statistic. I have a new book coming out. I only have one copy, I can't give it to you, it just got off the press, I just got this today. [Gore gets up, grabs book, sits down and flips through the pages as he looks for a large graphic that begins a chapter.] Chapter 17 is the power of information. I don't know if you're ever seen that graphic? That's a visualization of the World Wide Web. It's really a beautiful work. It's accurate in its depiction. These are all the e-connections, where the real hubs are, and different colors for different languages. And the reason I'm showing this to you briefly is that, there's an example of ComStat being used in a place called Redlands, California. This shows the incidence of crimes. The police chief down there leads the charge. They map the crimes, and then deconstruct them to find out: why did this crime happen? The data shows your everything. And as a practical matter, in terms of the clicks and bricks model. [Gore gets up again, walks over to a white board in his office, grabs two pens (one blue, the other red) and starts drawing.] They have a horse-shoe table, basically, with a podium. One precinct displays data from that precinct, computerized data, okay? So, look, you've got 18 burglaries. That's a simple diagram. The point is, when the data is visible and understandable because it's visualized and it's held in the consciousness by all the relevant decision-makers in the organization -- they're sharing the consciousness of the problem to be solved, everyone is focused on it -- and the problem is solved. [William] Bratton put it in effect in New York City, and it spread like wildfire in police departments. But the same basic model can be used for immunization, illiteracy, AIDS prevention -- any problem that the society has to cope with. The computerization of the data, the sharing of the data, and creation of the kinds of clicks and bricks hybrid model for absorbing and responding to the implications of the meaning contained in the data -- that's really where self-governance needs to go.

JAV: That's re-inventing government, that's Government 2.0?

AG: Yes, yes. The government has to be more transparent. Technology demands transparency.

Satya Nadella: Moving Search Forward

2009-12-14T01:30:33Z

At Bing we talk a lot about how both search and how people use it are changing. The behavior we observe is that people are moving beyond the simple query to URL mapping scenario. They're using search to answer more complex questions, accomplish tasks and make decisions. The classic search interaction model simply does not work as well for these new usage scenarios.

A search interaction model that could assist the exploration of the web's content in support of these new usage scenarios is needed.

With the new features we released from Bing last week we are starting to better flesh out the model we think makes more sense for these types of use cases. What we're aiming to do is respond to the changes in core search patterns and develop an experience that is more useful in the context of task completion.

Let's take a look at how each of these features help someone get their task done quickly without having to wade through a bunch of web pages.

Autosuggest
Even though people have specific intents, they often start with a very generic query since they aren't confident about the words they have to use to 'trick' the engine into giving them the knowledge they need to complete their task. When someone starts typing "Atlanta" you can see how Bing helps you to try and narrow the query by showing the most common queries about Atlanta. In this case, let's just choose Atlanta.

Answer Cards
Atlanta is a big place and we see a ton of queries about it daily. Using our technology we are able to mine this data to understand what people are trying to do when they search for Atlanta. In this case, the most common 'tasks' people are doing when looking for Atlanta seem to congregate around weather, the attractions in Atlanta, neighborhoods, and events happening around the city. With our Answer Cards we try and surface these tasks prominently to bring you closer to your final destination more quickly than by doing a bunch of follow on searches. For other types of answers, these common tasks are different so you'll see different groupings of tasks depending on what you're querying for.

Task Pages
When you click on "Events" or "Weather" in one of our Answer Cards, you'll see one of the core changes we're making to the search experience. You see, when you choose one of these tasks, you're signaling to us a pretty clear intent that you want to explore that topic area more deeply. For weather, maybe you're heading there next week and want to know whether to bring a raincoat or a pair of shorts. From our data we know that when people do 'weather' queries, they often visit multiple sites on a search results page. We asked why? Turns out you are comparing the different forecasts and also looking for different information (like satellite views) on each site. That led us to develop a concept that we call Task Pages that try and take data from across the web and stitch it together in a single interface that allows you to fully explore that topic without having to visit a ton of links. In some cases our Task Pages make it easy to connect deeply into relevant sites and in other cases we bring the content directly into the search experience. Look at "Events" -- in this case we "pivot" the user experience to make it easy for you to narrow down the choices you have in Atlanta and actually take you through the process of getting tickets to that concert you're looking for. The beauty of this technology is that it is a platform that enables us to continually develop these rich experiences as we identify the key tasks searchers are trying to accomplish.

Now of course we're still focusing on making the quick searches you often do (say, when you're looking for the nearest Target store) as fast, relevant, and useful as possible. But we believe that search needs to evolve beyond displaying a bunch of sites that you have to explore to a service that enables you to complete your tasks in the real world more quickly and with more confidence. We hope you like the changes we're bringing to the search experience and look forward to your feedback!

Dan Agin: Book Review: Giant Molecules: From Nylon to Nanotubes

2009-12-12T22:30:06Z

When the history of chemistry is written a thousand years from now, the 20th century will no doubt be marked as the century of giant molecules (macromolecules) in industry, the century in which the properties of giant molecules were first seriously studied and applied to technology and commerce. Most certainly, the importance of giant molecules in industry will be amplified in the present 21st century. In plain English, take giant molecules out of our lives and our present civilization would quickly collapse.

But there's another 20th century marker. Above all, in the 20th century giant molecules became the central feature of the application of chemistry to biological science. What happened in the 20th century was that the puzzle of life, which had passed from philosophers to theologians to zoologists, finally passed to chemists. Life, as we now understand it, is a phenomenon in the chemistry of giant molecules. It's jarring, of course: so many millions of words in old books have become irrelevant.

A giant molecule is not merely an arithmetic agglomeration of small molecules stuck together. Put a million monomers together to form a polymer, and you can easily have an entity whose properties are not predictable from the properties of the monomer -- an entity with new properties of vast importance in chemistry, biology, physics, and technology. DNA is a giant molecule. The polymers of plastics are giant molecules. Nanotubes are giant molecules. There will be giant molecules in the 21st century that we haven't even imagined yet. And after the 21st century, who knows? Science and technology do not stop. One provokes the other, new science provoking new technology that provokes new science that provokes new technology and so on, the interacting spiral unpredictable -- and with unpredictable transformations of our daily life.

One of the most fascinating properties of some giant molecules is their ability to self-organize -- to form solid or hollow spheres, sheets, tubes, sol/gel transformers, thermoplastic structures, all of them with a whole variety of emergent chemical and physical properties.

Self-organizing polymeric domains are of considerable interest in materials science, and are essential for the existence of biological systems.

Biological materials exhibit special physical or chemical functions as a result of special shapes or conformations that result from self-assembly. To act as enzymes, for example, proteins require specific amino acid sequences that result in specific foldings and conformational arrangements, the end product providing a "docking" site whose interaction with a transition state entity catalyzes a particular reaction.

Biological self-organizing polymers such as proteins and nucleic acids are much more complicated than the self-organizing polymers known to polymer chemists outside biochemistry, and a recent trend is for polymer chemists to look to the data on self-organizing biological macromolecules for hints about special synthetic innovations.

Given the importance of giant molecules in science, medicine, technology, and commerce, accessible information about giant molecules is important to the public interest. Walter Gratzer, a British biophysicist, presents a fascinating new book about giant molecules -- their history, their chemistry, their use in technology. It's a fine introduction to giant molecules, but especially fine for people in the general business world. The book is readable and the author is fully aware that giant molecules have been transformative for commerce. In addition, the focus of the book is on giant molecules in present and future technology -- which should make the book required reading for any serious enterprising industrialist.

Walter Gratzer. Giant Molecules: From Nylon to Nanotubes. Oxford University Press, 2009.

Leslie Harris: Smart Grid: Classic Struggle of Reward vs. Risk

2009-12-10T13:56:49Z

The nation's electrical "grid" is getting smarter, maybe too smart. The transition to the "Smart Grid" holds great promise for consumers, such as lowered energy costs, increased use of "green" technology and improved security from malicious hacking and outages. But this reward also carries new risks for consumer privacy.

There is a set of unresolved privacy issues arising from the Smart Grid's ability to collect an unprecedented amount of energy consumption data in the form of highly granular household consumer information.

Historically a consumer's energy consumption details are collected on a monthly basis and sometimes less if that data is being read from a traditional meter outside your home. But in the Smart Grid a consumer could have anywhere from 750 to 3,000 "data points" collected per month.

Some of the activities that might be revealed through the Smart Grid include personal sleep and work habits, cooking and eating schedules, the presence of certain medical equipment and other specialized devices, and activities that signal illegal, or simply unorthodox, behavior. As a result, information collected by the Smart Grid is valuable for many purposes other than energy efficiency, most prominently commercial exploitation by advertisers and marketers, access by criminals who wish to peek into homes, and access to household information and surveillance by law enforcement.

Within this new Smart Grid framework--and currently there are about 7 million "smart" meters in operation today--the Department of Energy estimates that by 2012 some 52 million additional smart meters will be added to the grid. And in fact, the Administration granted some $3.4 Billion in Stimulus money to install smart meters in 18 million homes.

As the technology ramps up the system will become highly interconnected and less bordered, third-party service providers will enter into the mix offering new web-based portals for managing energy use. Suddenly, these third-party players in the energy data arena have the potential to use consumer data in ways that end-run the traditional consumer-to-utility relationship and to monetize that data through marketing and sharing with others.

Recent experiments using the simplest data mining and pattern matching techniques reveal how easily this information can be analyzed to reveal intimate details about activities within the home with a high degree of accuracy. Already law enforcement is beginning to rely on access to "smart meter" readings as a valuable part of the investigative toolbox; however, such data isn't a slam-dunk indicator of illegal activity. For example, a California family was put under surveillance by law enforcement for having an unusually high electricity bill, which turned out to merely reflect the legitimate activities of a busy household. Although this data is about activity in the home, which has traditionally received the strongest Fourth Amendment protection, the routine sharing with utilities likely strips it of strong constitutional protection.

Although incentives are now in place to get the Smart Grid rolled out, there is not a clear privacy regime that applies to Smart Grid data.

In the last few months, smart grid privacy is moving to the fore of the policy agenda. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently finished collecting a round of comments addressing Smart Grid privacy and security risks in order to inform standards. NIST is especially well placed to encourage the development of standards that both fulfill the promise of the Smart Grid and protect privacy. In adopting a "privacy by design" approach based on a robust set of fair information practices, rather than attempting to tack on privacy at a later point, NIST can support the most effective means of protecting consumer privacy in the Smart Grid, and provide needed guidance to state regulators and industry players.

There will be many other forums for working on privacy for the Smart Grid and we need to seize those opportunities as well to build in privacy protections for a technology that will one day control a vast amount of our personal, intimate data.

Colin Delany: Winning in 2010: Online Fundraising and Mobilization

2009-12-09T16:57:00Z

Part Four of How Candidates Can Use the Internet to Win in 2010

What Dean and Kerry suggested in 2004, Barack Obama proved in 2008: an army of motivated online donor/volunteers can be a truly decisive force in politics. And with software designed to allow campaigns to tap the enthusiasm (and the wallets) of supporters both within their districts and around the country now widely available (see Chapter Two), 2010 should see an explosion of online fund-raising at the state and local levels.

It helps a campaign immensely if most individual donations, even the big ones, come in online rather than as paper checks. First, money collected via credit cards is available instantly, allowing a candidate to take immediate advantage of an overnight surge of income. Plus, online donation details automatically end up in a database, simplifying accounting and reporting. By contrast, physical checks present a logistical burden, since each has to be processed individually whether it's collected at a fund-raising dinner or arrives in the mail.

As the Obama campaign found, online fund-raising also lets a campaign tap the vast number of politically interested people who can't donate hundreds or thousands of dollars at time but whose smaller donations can add up to a princely sum. Obama's grassroots donors tended to send relatively small amounts repeatedly, which in turn shows why a small-donor list is such a valuable resource -- it's the gift that keeps on giving, quite literally. Unlike traditional big donors who often reach their quota for a given candidate with a single check, small donors can contribute again and again, providing a financial consistency that's useful in a short campaign and priceless in a long one.

The Basics

So, how does online fund-raising work? Essentially, giving to a candidate is just like buying a product online -- aspiring donors go to a website and enter a credit card number and the necessary personal information, then click the "donate" button. Once the transaction is processed, the money passes to the campaign's bank account, either immediately as a single transfer or periodically as donations add up.

Depending on the details of the Constituent Relations Management system the campaign uses and the extent of its integration with the fund-raising system (see Chapter Two), donation details may automatically populate the same database used to track supporters and volunteers (otherwise, staff may have to download the data and integrate it into the CRM as a separate step). Obviously, the closer the two systems work together, the more easily a campaign can track top donors.

If You Build It, Sometimes They Will Come

Where do new online donors come from? Some will hit your website entirely on their own and without any prompting from a campaign, driven by word-of-mouth or by news in the race. After Sarah Palin's convention acceptance speech in 2008, for instance, Barack Obama's website saw a huge influx of cash even before his staff had time to send out an email solicitation -- his supporters didn't care for what the Alaska governor had to say and were eager to let it be known. Consequently, it behooves a campaign to make it as easy as possible for spontaneous donors to act, ensuring that the website's "donate" button is prominent and that the transaction itself doesn't have any speed bumps.

To maximize the chances of capitalizing on such "drive-by" support, a candidate will want to be visible in as many places online as possible, either via advertising or through campaign-created content (see Chapter Three). Online recruitment is all about being where the potential donors are, whether it's on Google, YouTube, Facebook, political blogs or local media sites.

More often, politicians won't need an umbrella to ward off an unanticipated rain of dollars: they'll have to work for for every cent they get.

Motivating Donors and Volunteers

If political support ultimate comes down to emotion -- how a potential donor or volunteer feels about a candidate or a race -- every contact people have with a campaign influences their propensity to give time or money. Every interaction matters: their experience at an in-person event or a storefront office, what they see online, the ads on their televisions, and of course any direct communications they receive via email, phone or direct mail. Successful online fundraisers realize that they are essentially managing virtual relationships with many people at once.

Like any friendship, a political relationship that heads downhill can be hard to salvage (disillusioned donors are unlikely to open their wallets again), and unless a campaign is entirely short-term and doesn't mind burning bridges, properly managing and motivating supporters over the course of a race will be paramount. List size matters, and campaigns should take every opportunity to grow their own, but list response is just as important, since a relatively small number of motivated people can outperform a much larger group whose members don't have much coordination or reason to care.

One excellent way to turn people away over time is to treat them like cash machines, something that's entirely too easy for political professionals to do (in fact, early in the Obama campaign, manager David Plouffe frequently had to mediate between a fundraising team eager to maximize short-term revenue and a new-media team with an eye on the long game).

At a basic level, not every communication from the campaign should ask for money. Instead, campaigns should think of ways to provide value to supporters in the form of news, information and giveaways, as well as of non-monetary ways they can contribute. Getting people to recruit ten friends via email, for instance, is an easy way for them to participate without having to part with a dime -- and once they've taken that action, they're more involved and committed than they were the day before.

A common approach to supporter management is to provide activists with escalating levels of engagement. Like a the rungs of a ladder, each higher engagement level requires more work and holds fewer people, but ideally it also creates more value for the campaign or cause. Over time, list managers will obviously try to move people to higher tiers, converting casual list-members into donors, donors into volunteers, and volunteers into precinct leaders. With a sophisticated CRM, campaigns can get creative in how they track supporters, noting the most reliable activists in the database and putting these "super-volunteers" to work in ways that use their skills, connections and time.

Tiers of engagement work in the other direction as well -- if you're planning a social media-style create-a-video contest, for instance, find a way to involve people who AREN'T actually doing the shooting and editing, perhaps by asking them to rate or comment on the submissions. The overall goal: keep the most casual supporters working at a basic level, while also providing more strenuous outlets for the smaller core of true activists.

Successful Email Campaigns

Regardless of what a campaign is asking supporters to do, they're likely asking it via email. As we've covered before (see Chapter Two), email remains the most effective way to stay in consistent online contact with many people at once, despite the growth of Facebook, Twitter and other social tools -- and it's the best online fundraising channel we currently have.

Of course, anyone can send an email message asking people for money, but getting the most out of a list over time takes skill, planning, good execution and testing. Let's look at some basic principles that help maximize a list's long-term performance:

Emails should perpetuate core messages and goals of the campaign. A key idea: the three Ms of political email are messaging, mobilization and money.

Emails must also do no harm -- list managers must take care not to alienate people on the list.

The more personal, informal and direct a message is, the better (usually). Messages may appear to come directly from the candidate, from staff, from prominent supporters or from individual campaign volunteers, depending on whose voice the campaign needs to amplify at that moment. Authenticity is key.

Make the ask clear and the action links easy to find.

Targeting helps get the most out of a list. For instance, list members might receive messages with different content based on their locale, their interests, their demographics or their past pattern of actions on behalf of the campaign. A good CRM is a targeter's friend.

Email may start the process, but the landing page finishes it, so make sure that each message links to a donation or action page that matches the ask in the message.

Use the email initiation sequence to start a relationship off on a good foot, sending new list members a pre-set series of messages after they sign up. The sequence might steadily "scale the ask," encouraging newbies to move up the ladder of engagement.

Besides scaling the ask over time, savvy fundraisers also tailor the ask over time, for instance soliciting different amounts based on a person's donation history -- a $10 donor might be asked to donate $20 the next time around, but someone who'd donated $150 might be safe to hit up for $200.

Campaigns should also vary the ask -- as discussed above, not every communication from the candidate or his surrogates should be about money. Some might deliver talking points, others strategy or context, while a few may be straightforwardly inspirational.

When possible, staff should map out email narrative arcs in advance, with each message forming part of the stream while also able to stand on its own. But this approach shouldn't preclude seizing on emotion and the moment, such as capitalizing quickly on an opponent's gaffe.

Campaigns should also consider the "value proposition of fund-raising," being careful to portray donations as doing more than just providing abstract support. To that end, campaigns often make it very clear where money is going, for instance raising funds for a particular stated task such as running TV ads or supporting grassroots organizing in a defined area.

Even if a campaign is overwhelmingly relying on email, content integration can be key, with online video and social networking outreach in particular serving as a powerful adjunct to email fundraising. For instance, a particular message might ask people to watch a video and spread it via Facebook, with the video itself and the landing page on which it's hosted doing the heavy lifting of soliciting donations.

Despite the best targeting, different emails activated different people at different times. No one message has to connect with every supporter or every voter -- if you miss 'em this week, you might get 'em next week.

How Much is Too Much? (The Importance of Metrics and Testing)

How many messages can a campaign send to supporters before they click the "unsubscribe" button? To find out, email communications managers monitor statistics, since modern CRMs will track when people sign up, when they drop off, which messages they open and what kind of actions they take.

Lists turn out to have their own quirks: while one could be very open to tell-a-friend or volunteer requests but not so good at giving money, another might respond oppositely. Each mass email sent provides raw data about that campaign's specific supporters, helping to identify the kinds of appeals that work and which to avoid. Metrics and list segmentation can even assist with message development, since campaigns can try out different ideas on relatively small groups first.

Of course, as an election or other deadline approaches, managers can get away with sending many more messages than usual, since people will understand the urgency. Don't forget to follow up after the vote, particularly if your candidate plans to run again!

Viral Fundraising

Another aspect of the Obama fund-raising machine that other campaigns can copy is its peer-to-peer component, the personal fund-raising campaigns that individual volunteers launched through their MyBarackObama.com accounts, alongside all of their other online outreach.

Supporter-driven distributed financial outreach raised a few tens of millions of dollars directly for Obama's campaign, but perhaps more important is that it helped mine individual fundraisers' social connections for new donors, who would then find themselves on the main email list and subject to the kinds of "encouragements" described above. Though perhaps less of a priority for smaller-scale campaigns, the capability to create friend-to-friend donation drives is included in many CRMs and is built in to the technology of sites like ActBlue.

Custom Social Networks

Some campaigns provide additional opportunities for volunteers by creating custom social networks along the lines of MyBarackObama.com. Bob McDonnell's 2009 campaign for Virginia governor featured a community based on the Ning platform, for instance, which provided an outreach and fund-raising hub for activists.

A custom social network turned out to be a useful tool for Obama volunteers, particular when it let them organize themselves in places where the central campaign's infrastructure wasn't fully built out. But Obama's campaign also had an enormous supporter list to populate MyBarackObama.com from the moment it launched, and other political social networks risk sputtering out if they can't reach a significant scale right away (a site is neither social nor a network if no one's using it). Most down-ballot campaigns will likely focus on reaching people in the online spaces they already frequent, not trying to get them to join a new one.

More Than Money: Mobilization Means Votes

This chapter has primarily focused on boosting donations, but supporters are worth more than just the contents of their bank accounts. Smart campaigns will try to tap their brains and time as well, and the engagement techniques described above are as applicable to mobilization as they are to fund-raising. The Obama campaign relied on volunteer enthusiasm to a remarkable degree, with hundreds of thousands of people downloading "walk lists" of houses to visit in their neighborhoods and phone numbers to call. They reported the results of their outreach work through a comprehensive grassroots data collection system, in turn giving the leadership priceless data about how the campaign was playing out at a neighborhood level.

This kind of sophstication is a little out of reach for most state- or local-level campaigns, but they can still use online communications to mobilize supporters to:

show up for in-person events

volunteer at local offices

phone-bank, either at a campaign office or over their own cell phones

connect with their neighbors door-to-door

recruit friends via email, Facebook or MySpace

put up yard signs

view online content and spread it virally

create content such as blog posts, Tweets or online videos

and of course, vote!

The importance of that last bullet cannot be overstated for down-ballot candidates, particularly in a low-turnout off-year election. Many races in 2010 will swing on a relatively small number of votes, giving a campaign with a core of motivated supporters an advantage on election day.

Putting It All Together

That's it for the essentials of internet political campaigning! Next, let's pull it all together into a basic online communications plan.

– cpd

Brady Westwater: How to Save the Los Angeles Times , End Rush Hour Traffic, Solve the Housing Crisis (And Not Have to Pay For It)

2009-12-08T15:10:01Z

Two of the most important decisions any of us ever make is where we decide to live and what job we choose to accept. Rush hour traffic, however, proves how wrong we all can be.

But it is hard to make informed choices when there are so many housing options within 20 miles of any job. And if you fall in love with a house -- it's hard to know what jobs might be within commuting distance.

There are also those who are trapped in homes or jobs that are no longer right for them -- but who stick with them because they are too exhausted from day-to-day life to summon the energy to fix their lives.

But in chaos exists opportunity.

Someday, a local media company -- such as the LA Times or Rubicon -- or someone such as Jay Penske -- will realize there is a need for a website that contains everything anyone in Los Angeles needs to correctly make those decisions.

A single site with every possible housing option in greater Los Angeles, and every imaginable job option.

A site with public school test scores, statistics for charter and private schools, locations of medical facilities, churches and temples -- and everything else (crime rates, air pollution, etc.) anyone needs to know.

A site that ranks every job and housing option -- based on your needs -- and then -- and here's the first killer app -- it sorts them first by the physical distance, and then by real world, rush hour commuting time distance by car and then by every different transit option -- between each job and every housing option.

Everyone will suddenly have far more options, while also being able to quickly reduce the numbers of those options to more manageable numbers.

But helping people already looking for a new job or a home is only a start.

The key part of this killer app is that everyone can input their desired jobs, housing and commute times, long before they need them.

They will then get emails with every new job and new housing opportunity that meets their needs.

And that's when the larger societal and personal benefits start to kick in.

Workers will have instant access to options for advancement, and gain more control over their lives, while employers will be able to find more qualified workers within the larger pool. And reduced commuter times will make for healthier and more productive workers who will have more time with their families.

But even that isn't the real game changer.

One of LA's biggest problems is that jobs often aren't where housing is, or housing isn't where the schools are the best or the housing is too expensive for the workers in that area.

So imagine a developer owns land in an area with less desirable housing but near major job centers. From this website, he can get a list of people who want new condos in that area and find out only 20 people want a 2 bedroom for $250,000, but that 50 people want a 3 bedroom for $275,000.

He then knows what to build, the lender knows what to finance and the community gets the housing it wants.

Then if 50 parents in the same area are looking for a good charter elementary school within 5 miles, the website will enable them to find each other, and then find a school willing to open in their area.

And if a suburban community has 30 programmers willing to work for less rather than commute and there's nearby empty office space, and if rising rents in Venice are forcing tech companies to lower some of their costs, everything needed to make a deal is on the website.

So not only does this website enable us to make better choices, but it helps creates a new, better city with better choices for us to choose from.

And, finally, to help pull this all together, social media will also need to be fully integrated into the site.

Now, of course, building this site will not be cheap, and much of the data may have to be initially shared via split revenue deals, or bought.

In the long run, though, it is final part of the killer app that will help finance the site.

The part where whoever owns this site owns the ultimate Los Angeles portal; the portal with the broadest and the narrowest reach of any site in LA. The portal with more information about more things in this city than any other site. And if you can't figure out what that's worth -- you probably didn't read this far.

Now as for how to create this site, and why no one has tried to do anything like this before, that is for a later column.

Other columns over the next two months will address six other ways we can reduce traffic congestion and housing problems in Los Angeles (and many other problems, too) by dealing with the causes of the problems as opposed to spending billions to solve problems that might instead be prevented.

And if any of you have any suggestions for problems of this city that need real world, pragmatic solutions -- long with financially sustainable business plans -- let me know. Because that is what his column is about.

A Rx for Los Angeles: 101 Ways to Fix a Broken City.

Linda Stone: Life in Front of a Screen: Finding Your Rhythm

2009-12-07T10:34:27Z

Someone always stops me in the hall at a conference or asks anxiously after a talk: How much time should I spend in front of a screen? At what point should I pull back and take a break? Should I stop every 30 or 45 minutes?

My response is always the same: How do you feel? Your body is wiser than your mind in these matters.

The challenge is, most of us, especially those engaged with technology in some way, tend to favor the inclinations of the mind. The mind, for many of us, is often tyrannical towards the body. "Just stay up 3 more hours. One more all-nighter. A Red Bull or two and I'll meet this deadline! No walking until this paper is done..."

Our always-on lifestyle has favored thinking and doing. As we move toward a lifestyle that seeks quality of life, we'll find ourselves valuing sensing and feeling. We see the first signs of this in the various food related movements that are gaining popularity: slow foods, Farmer's Markets, and preferences for artisanal and local organic foods.

Check in: How do I feel? What would feel better? These questions can help create a flexible, flowing sensibility that will enable the wisdom of both body and mind to come through in everything we do.

Share your stories. When you stop to check in with your feelings, what do you learn? Does it shift your behavior? How do you tune in to the wisdom of your body?

Julia Moulden: The Aging Population: A Silver Tsunami?

2009-12-05T07:00:00Z

I just spent two days with some smart, thoughtful people, talking about something everyone knows is coming, but most of us are in denial about. No, not climate change. Our aging population. Here's a small slice: in 2000, there were 600 million people 60 and over worldwide. By 2025, that number will double. And right now in the developed world, people 80 and over are the fastest growing population group.

Two hundred people from around the world gathered at The Business of Aging Summit in Toronto (co-hosted by MaRS Discovery District and the Province of Ontario), to talk about the challenge and opportunity of what was quickly dubbed the "silver tsunami".

In fact, whether our aging population will be a deficit or a dividend was hotly debated. By the end of the summit, I was listing heavily to one side. Yes, there are huge challenges, and we must acknowledge and address them. But, ohmigod, such amazing things are underway and we are going to reshape the world!

In my head, I replaced the tsunami with a gorgeous wave - huge but not terrifying - and all of my favorite experts were yelling "surf's up!" and paddling their boards madly into the roiling waters. Here are the people you'll see riding the crest of this wave. (If you're like me and need a little soundtrack to go along with your visualization, try the boomer-friendly Hawaii 5-0.)

• Jane Barratt
Jane will be the first one into the water. Secretary-General of the International Federation on Ageing, she kicked off the summit with the thought that aging begins at birth. "I'm not an older person, I'm a person who's growing older." She got us thinking about why we need to create an age-friendly society, and how each of us can contribute. In fact, she was particularly emphatic that this work can't be left to the "experts", that we all need to speak up and chip in.

• John Beard
He had me from hello. John showed us a news item about a woman working on her 100th birthday. "Why is this news?" he asked. "Because she's 100, of course, and because she's working. This won't be abnormal in the future." He then debunked a bunch of myths about aging, like that older people are a burden on society (in fact, most of us continue to live independently right up to our last year of life). That the real objective is how to stretch out what he calls the middle years - by doing things like preventing chronic illness, creating environments that foster engagement, and introducing age-appropriate care. John is Director of the Department of Ageing and Life Course at the World Health Organization in Geneva. Check out their website for data and publications about how we can all adapt to what's coming and realize potential benefits.

• Alvaro Fernandez
Imagine a workplace brain fitness program that will help you think better now and ward off the symptoms of dementia as you age. One that is grounded in two decades of research. That's what Alvaro and his team are developing at Sharp Brains. It's one of the projects launched by Cogniciti, a joint venture between MaRS and Baycrest (a health sciences centre), created to bring cutting-edge research to market.

• Laurie Orlov
Laurie's New Radical career started with a deeply personal event: the death of her mother in 2006 (New Radicals are people who put skills acquired in their careers to work on the world's greatest challenges, for more please see archived articles). A technology industry veteran, Laurie realized that tech could be used to help seniors achieve one of their goals - to "age in place". So she founded Aging in Place Technology Watch to provide insight, analysis, and guidance about technologies that can help people do just that. Great resources on her site. Not to be missed.

• Saul Kaplan
The fact that he calls himself Chief Catalyst and his organization the Business Innovation Factory speaks volumes about Saul. He got us all stirred up by asking "where's the urgency, where's the outrage?". He insisted that we don't need to simply tweak existing systems, but transform them. His team designs and tests new solutions in real-world laboratories, including something they call the "Elder Experience Lab". Highly recommended. (And count on Saul to be wearing the most creative trunks.)

Buzz Aldrin, one of the first two astronauts to walk on the moon (and fellow HuffPo blogger), was supposed to wrap up the summit, but had to cancel due to illness (we wish him a speedy recovery!). As the full moon rose in the early evening sky over Toronto, Buzz's stepdaughter, Lisa Cannon, showed us a video that brought back memories for everyone in the room (where were you when they walked on the moon in 1969?). She spoke about the insatiable curiousity of humankind, and our desire to try new things - in JFK's phrase, "Not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

I'll be writing more about who's out there surfing the wave, including what technology companies like Cisco are doing, about cool new ideas in urban planning, transportation, health care, and storytelling - and how it all fits together. In the meantime, be sure to sign up at the Business of Aging website.

Now, over to you. Do you think the "silver tsunami" is a problem or an opportunity? And should we suggest to Arianna that HuffPo add a new section called, perhaps, Silver? Please comment below, or feel free to email me directly: Julia (that familiar symbol) wearethenewradicals (punctuation) (COM).

Julia Moulden is on tour, talking about the New Radicals.

Alan Kaufman: Google Books And Kindles: A Concentration Camp Of Ideas

2009-12-04T14:20:10Z

When I hear the term Kindle I think not of imaginations fired but of crematoria lit. And when I hear the term "hi-tech" I think not of helpful androids efficiently performing household chores or light-speed rockets gliding seamlessly through space but of the fact that between 1933-45, modern technology was used to perform in ever more efficient ways the mass murder of six million of my people. The instruments of so-called progress, placed in the hands of the modern state, disappeared six million Jewish men, women and children, into a void from which they will never return and in which a majority of them remain forever unidentified. This was done in the name of progress by means of technology for the creation of a better world.

The Nazis often were, by their own lights, well-intentioned idealists working for a better tomorrow. And their instrument was modern technology, aspects of philosophical and aesthetic modernism and the old religious concept of supercession implicit in the Christian notion of progress. Jews were outmoded, useless, they said. Most high level Nazis, like Himmler or Heydrich or Eichmann, did not feel visceral hatred towards the Jew. Rather, they looked upon them coldly as something that simply needed to disappear so that the new life could get on its way. And the means by which they sought to do so was first through a propaganda campaign that portrayed Jews, in Wagnerian terms, as a drag on the visionary energies and bursting vigor of the new Aryan man, and then by the implementation of this decision to eliminate Jews through ever more sophisticated state corporate and scientific technological means. And yet, during the war crime trials at Nuremberg, while Nazi Jurisprudence was tried and hanged, Nazi technological attitudes were not put on trial.

The victorious Allies did not mandate that technology, which had been turned to such murderous ends, must pass an ethical standard review from an international body, like a UN of technology. No such body of decision came about. To the contrary, even while the war crime trials of Nazi chieftains were in session, American and Soviet governments were recruiting high-level Nazis to their intelligence services, military armaments industries, and space programs. So that, while in jurisprudence terms Nazi social and political values were delivered a blow, the Nazi fascination with technology merged seamlessly with that of their conquerors: us.

That is why today we drive Volkswagens, which were invented by Hitler, and use space heaters from companies that may once have manufactured crematoria and why Werner Von Braun, the Nazi father of the V-2 rocket became an American space pioneer hero studied in public schools. Nazi Technology and corporate methodology was folded handily into American feel-good Capitalist culture. That is the very point of the brilliant satire, "Dr. Strangelove".

So that now, sixty four years after the Holocaust, the Nazi disdain for the book has become the feel-good Hi-Tech campaign to rid the world of books in place of massive easily controlled centralized repositories of book texts downloadable on little hand-held devices and from which a text can be dissapeared with the click of a mouse: in Nazi terms, a dream come true.

How grave was Nazi contempt for books? As response to the book burnings in Germany, in the May 11, 1933 issue of Chicago's Daily Worker, (and years before the first fully operational death camps opened their furnace doors), a grim cartoon entitled "Altars of the Nazis" portrayed two smoking crematoria of equal size, placed side by side, one marked "Nazi Victims" and the other "Condemned Books". The link between contempt for books and mass murder could not be more clear.

President Roosevelt, recognizing the threat of Nazi attitudes to the book, launched a full-scale government campaign, and declaring it part of the national war effort, said: "...books...embody man's eternal fight against tyranny. In this war, we know, books are weapons."

In World War II, people died to produce and protect books. Anti-Fascist organizations, American Jewish Groups and writers, editors and journalists launched massive demonstrations in defense of the book, including, on March 10, 1933, the largest march, to that date, in the history of New York City: 100,000 people turned out to express outrage at the burning of books and other events in Germany. In its coverage of the Berlin book burnings, Newsweek used "Holocaust" as its headline.

Today's hi-tech propagandists tell us that the book is a tree-murdering, space-devouring, inferior form that society would be better off without. In its place, they want us to carry around the Uber-Kindle.

The hi-tech campaign to relocate books to Google and replace books with Kindles is, in its essence, a deportation of the literary culture to a kind of easily monitored concentration camp of ideas, where every examination of a text leaves behind a trail, a record, so that curiosity is also tinged with a sense of disquieting fear that some day someone in authority will know that one had read a particular book or essay. This death of intellectual privacy was also a dream of the Nazis. And when I hear the term Kindle, I think not of imaginations fired but of crematoria lit.

Dr. Hendrie Weisinger: A College Tour De Force

2009-12-03T17:19:08Z

It's no picnic waiting for a train on a chilly Sunday morning but that is exactly what I was doing at my local train station in Westport, CT when my attention was drawn to three teenagers who were in a close huddle a few feet from me. I knew they weren't standing around a fire, nor did I think they were designing football plays. I didn't smell any smoke either.

Since I didn't hear the train a coming, I started to banter. "What are you guys up to?" Without breaking their huddle, the big kid voiced, "We are visiting colleges."

"Oh, going into the city to see NYU and Columbia?" (two popular schools for Westport students)
"No. Right now I am leaving MIT and now I will tour Stanford."

The smallest of the pack broke the huddle, and before my curiosity could act, showed me his iPhone. "I'm going to Harvard. Look."

Easier than making apple pie, he pushed a button and showed me a hot new iPhone application that college bound students and their parents are sure to love -- college tours packed with "insider" information that familiarize students with the schools they wish to attend.

"Show me MIT. I've given a lot of lectures there." In a second, I was strolling M.I.T. campus.

The small kid continued to educate me. Watch what this does. Calling into play one of the application's innovative features, I could now read specific information about the specific location that I am viewing. Very sweet, I thought.

"It uses a new technology,"...but before the mall kid could explain, the train pulled up. I parted ways with the college bound students but not before I asked them to tell me the name of the application. It's called uTourX.

I had a good idea. In the next few weeks, I would be speaking to executives and managers from companies such as State Farm, Prudential, Medtronic, Attachmate, Nationwide, Merrill Lynch, United, Shire andBoeing, to name just a few. I've learned over the years that top executive from top companies like to hear about up and coming start-ups and clever applications of technology. I thought the company behind uTourX might fit the bill. I was also working on an article about management styles in startup hi-tech companies. Some would say I could kill two birds with one stone.

It was easy to find out that the company that created uTourX is called oSnapplications . Although I shouldn't of been surprised -- not in this day and age -- I was to find out that oSnapplications' corporate makeup was no more than a very small band of young entrepreneurs with hi-tech skill and savvy.

I remembered that the small kid from the train station told me uTourX used a new technology so using my investigative reporting skills, I tracked down 17-year old Chief Technology Officer Mr. Ian Cinnamon.

"Hello, May I please speak to Ian Cinnamon?"

"Sure, may I tell him who's calling?" The voice definitely sounded more motherly than receptionist.

"Yes, it's Dr. Weisinger. I'd like to speak to him about uTourX."

A half minute later, "Hi, this is Ian. Can I help you?"

I explained the purpose of my call and for the next twenty minutes, the young Chief Technology Officer filled me in about oSnapplications and uTourX. I learned that he had met his partner and president of the company, Max Uhlenhuth, when they both attended the Research Science Institute summer program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I also learned that Mr. Cinnamon ("Call me Ian," he reminded me several times) had developed other successful Apple applications but he was clearly psyched about uTourX.

"This is going to help a lot of college bound students. It will give them a preview of a school they may wish to attend but might not have the time or money to actually make the visit. The tours might also get a students interested in schools that were off their map. Also..."

It was refreshing to hear the passion, the conviction, the belief that Ian projected in explaining how uTourX would revolutionize college tours and in the process, help hundreds of thousands, (or was it millions?) of college bound students. Apple would love this kid, I thought.

He then went on to tell me that their business plan allows other students to make some easy cash. Naturally, I asked "How?"

"Well, we want students from colleges and universities all over the world to create their own college tour for uTourX. Students can put their unique "inside university/college information," on their tour -- it's a new technology called augmented reality. Every time someone views the tour, the tour creator gets reimbursed. In effect, their application becomes part of our application. We hope to get thousands and thousands of tour submissions. For some schools, like Michigan, Arizona State, UCLA, we could get a hundred tours each. Students who make the best, most creative, funniest tours, will probably go to the bank often. I believe we are investing in the creativity of our fellow students!"

On that note -- he did sound a little like Buffet -- I ended the interview.

Later that evening, I thought about uTourX, oSnapplications and my conversation with the "emotionally intelligent" CTO. Then, it suddenly hit me. I thumbed through my calendar, and it became very clear what the next two months had in store for me.

Why should students have all the uTourX fun and make all the money? My plan materialized. When I speak to Nationwide in Columbus, I would create a tour of Ohio State. In Seattle, after a presentation to Medtronic, I would knock out a University of Washington tour. Speaking to State Farm in Portland would give me the time to tour Portland State.

A seminar for the Institute for Management Studies in San Francisco, and Los Angeles, would add USF, UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, and if time permitted, Santa Monica Community College. I was happy I was going to Atlanta to speak to the Federal Reserve Bank because I wanted Emory on my app too.

And so it went. An hour later, I counted close to 100 university/colleges and if I spent several hours in Boston, I could add twenty junior colleges! Furthermore, I realized that I could have two tours for each school -- one for students, one for parents. I just doubled my fortune.

I went to sleep excited about my new endeavor but I knew I had my work cut out for me. First step, I'd have to buy an iPhone! Then I would be able to give Mr. Ian Cinnamon, CTO of oSnapplications a college tour de force!