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Monthly Archives: March 2013
Idea of the month: Pop-up libraries
Has anyone ever done pop up public libraries? If the people are no longer going to libraries why not bring the libraries to the people? But here’s the good bit – possibly. If you had, say, a pop up library in a station, airport or supermarket you’d give people a pre-paid envelope to mail the book back to the main library.
Peak Data
I had an idea walking the dog yesterday: “Peak Data.” This is nonsense on one level. How can we have less data in the future – surely the supply of data will increase one hundred, one thousand, one million fold due to the fact that more and more individuals and individual devices will broadcast data (devices but also sensors). But perhaps the concept does make sense in the sense of being about mankind reaching a peak in terms of the amount of data each of us is exposed to or allows past certain filters. How could you do this? One way would be to partly switch off (unrealistic?) or another would be to use smart software or known social networks to filter incoming data for us.
Second idea. Has anyone ever attended a future film festival? I’ve been asked by ABC Radio in Australia (Future Tense) to talk about a film that sums up the future. Nothing too obvious – Truman Show perhaps? Anyway, this in turn got me thinking about how fun it would be to take over a cinema for 24-hours and run a series of films about, set in or predicting the future. And what’s on the run list? You tell me, but my list of contenders – not ranked – is below.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Brazil
3. Metropolis
4. Modern Times
5. The Matrix
6. Gattaca
7. Minority Report
8. Splice
9. Clockwork Orange
10. Blade Runner
11. Minority Report
12. iRobot
13. Soylent Green
14. Children of Men
15. Fahrenheit 451
16. Silent Running
17. Logan’s Run
18. Escape from New York
19. 1984
20. Artificial Intelligence: AI
21. On the Beach
22. Mad Max
23. Sleeper
24. Truman Show
25. Back to the Future
26. The Road
27. District 9
28. Things to Come
29. WALL-E
30. Westworld
31. Contact
The Future of Love
I’ve become very self-conscious following my last post about being anti-social. For example, is this new post trivial or worth posting? Is it about anything other than me? Anyway, as a link to last week’s discussion about machines demeaning human beings, I’ve just been asked to think about the future of love, which could almost be as much fun as thinking about the future of fun. Now I’m not sure why exactly I’ve wandered onto relationships and sex, but have you seen any of the material on sex robots and is it just are or I these things really creepy? As for the image above, I’m not sure about the “Rental” business, although I guess that’s no different to what some people do with themselves and to other people already. As for the second image, is that a wedding ring on the finger of the guy not quite in the picture?).
Why I’m Feeling Anti-Social
I was close to stopping the blog last week. It was becoming increasingly obvious to me that I had nothing of real substance to say. Who really cares where I am or what I’m doing? This thought was inducing a certain level of grumpiness on my part, largely aimed at the other people that I felt were guilty of spreading inconsequential trivia – in less than 140 characters.
In short, Web 3.0 is fuelling greed for attention (validation) and I felt that I was falling into the same exhibitionist trap as everyone else. I tried to explain this to a journalist who was interviewing me about connectivity last week, but she was having none of it. The future, as far as she was concerned, was social and if you are not part of this epidemic of over-sharing you clearly have something of substance to hide.
I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not this post is inconsequential trivia, but I was in Oxford last week giving a talk. You don’t need to know this in a sense. It’s either me showing off or, more likely, me attempting subconsciously to offset the fact I haven’t been to Oxford. Here we go again with the exhibitionism, to some extent, but the debate I took part in did convince to me that I might be on to something important and that it wasn’t only people of a certain age – my age – that are feeling that something is not quite right in our new technological utopia.
The discussion was about whether mobile addiction, automation, networked intelligence and predictive systems are demeaning us as human beings. This was interesting in itself, but then things got even better. I picked up a couple of new books. One, which I have yet to open, is Who Owns the Future by Jaron Lanier. The other, which I’m deep into already, is Digital Vertigo by Andrew Keen.
Keen argues lucidly that the mobile internet, in particular the online personal revolution sometimes known as Web 3.0, is debasing society. Among other things, sites like Facebook and Twitter are redefining success as the ability to momentarily attract attention and are transforming friendship from a private pleasure into a profit centre. He also says that over-sharing online is a gift for authoritarian governments, but I’m less convinced by this.
The issue for me is twofold. First, the cult of social is creating a rigid orthodoxy and conformist group culture. This cannot be good. Second, we know not what we do: We are giving away huge amounts of information – our identities to some extent – in return for what? I don’t mind profit-seeking companies collecting some data if this allows them to serve me better. But I do object to companies seeking vast amounts of data – where I am, whom I know, what I buy, what I think – and then selling this data for a profit to other companies without my consent.
More on this subject soon. For now I’m offline.
Department of Future Crime
Two things for you folks today. First is a UK government report on South Asia out to the year 2040. It makes good reading alongside Shell’s scenarios for 2050. Second up is the Dept. of Future Crime…seriously. I wrote about this as a real thing back in late 2006 and I’ve been aware of various things coming out of LA for a few years, but when you actually see a web page like this it seems as though the future is now in the present (something Leo Robson picked up upon in the FT’s Culture page (Arts section) last weekend).
Shell Scenarios for 2050
Shell’s latest set of scenarios for the world 2050 are now out and, interestingly, include a view out to 2100. Here are two overviews and here’s the link to the scenario book.
Mountains
The first scenario, labelled “mountains”, sees a strong role for government and the introduction of firm and far-reaching policy measures. These help to develop more compact cities and transform the global transport network. New policies unlock plentiful natural gas resources – making it the largest global energy source by the 2030s – and accelerate carbon capture and storage technology, supporting a cleaner energy system.
Oceans
The second scenario, which we call “oceans”, describes a more prosperous and volatile world. Energy demand surges, due to strong economic growth. Power is more widely distributed and governments take longer to agree major decisions. Market forces rather than policies shape the energy system: oil and coal remain part of the energy mix but renewable energy also grows. By the 2060s solar becomes the world’s largest energy source.
BTW, as an aside, the idea of ‘peak oil’ is increasingly redundant as an idea as it fails to take into account the impact of other energy sources. At the very least one should now add gas to oil in the context of ‘peak’.
Update
Futures House Europe, the new scenarios and futures research company of which I’m co-founder, is now fully up online. Weirdly, most of the initial interest seems to be in one-day events for leadership teams looking at 2020 and physical study tours looking at recent developments, especially in retail.
But What is a Public Library for?
Here’s a lovely list of things that public libraries are for via Brian Gambles, who is Project Director of the new Library of Birmingham (the largest library in Europe).
Place making
Knowledge growth and transfer
Showcasing culture and learning
Celebrating creativity and innovation
Encouraging exploration and discovery
Working collaboratively and co-productively
Community engagement and empowerment
BTW, if you ever find yourself standing in front of 100+ library people in a conference don’t change your title slide at the very last minute so it reads: “A Benefits Office with Books?” Oh yes I did. It was meant to provoke but went too far.