Summary of the Week

"The week of December 6, 2004: Startups are worth their salt, gas-guzzling economies to take another hit, router whiz Tony Li rejoins Cisco, and rumors of the next iPod hatch."
Link
Source: Red Herring

Google Zeitgeist
Link

See also:
Week at a Glance - BBC News
Trends - BlogPulse
Yahoo Buzz Index
Daypop Top 40 Links
Technorati
Blogdex

Google Suggest

Google has a new suggestion:

"What is Google Suggest?
As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time."
Link
Source: Google Labs

See also:
Google Suggest - Google News
InsideGoogle
John Battelle's Searchblog
Google Blog
Google Blogoscoped
Google Suggest - WebmasterWorld
Suggested Search - Davenetics
Google - Topix.net
Search Engine News - Topix.net

Art Mobs

iPods + Mobile Phones + Smart Mobs = Art Mobs

Link
[via Marc Canter]

Audio:
EventLab - Corante

Video:
Rocketboom

See also:
Smart Mobs - Wikipedia
Mobile Phone - Wikipedia
Podcasting - Wikipedia

The Future of the Car - 2

"Toyota has announced a concept vehicle that is intended to provide a form of personal mobility that 'seeks to attain a greater balance' for individuals who want to enjoy freedom of movement, harmony with society, and harmony with the Earth's natural environment. This accomplished by supporting the union of the driver and the vehicle."
Link
Source: Space.com

See also:
More pics of Toyota's i-unit personal mobility vehicle - Engadget
The Future of the Car
The Future of Aviation
The Future of Travel
Cyborg - Wikipedia

Living Forever?

"Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why."

Dr Aubrey de Grey says:
"Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today.

I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project to prevent and cure ageing.

It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time."
Link
Source: BBC News
[via Geek News Central]

The Prophet of Immortality
"Controversial theorist Aubrey de Grey insists that we are within reach of an engineered cure for aging. Are you prepared to live forever?"
Link
Source: Popular Science
[via AlwaysOn]

Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever
"Immortality is within our grasp . . .In Fantastic Voyage, high-tech visionary Ray Kurzweil teams up with life-extension expert Terry Grossman, M.D., to consider the awesome benefits to human health and longevity promised by the leading edge of medical science--and what you can do today to take full advantage of these startling advances. Citing extensive research findings that sound as radical as the most speculative science fiction, Kurzweil and Grossman offer a program designed to slow aging and disease processes to such a degree that you should be in good health and good spirits when the more extreme life-extending and life-enhancing technologies--now in development--become available. This bridge to the future will enable those who dare to make the journey from this century to the next . . . and beyond."
Link

Audio:
The Long Now Foundation: library

See also:
Transhumanism - Wikipedia
Immortality Institute
KurzweilAI.net
Fundamental limitations on 21st century biotechnology

The Anglosphere Challenge

James C. Bennett thinks the English-speaking nations (the anglosphere) will lead the world in the 21st century:

"The Anglosphere Challenge is a new and different look at where globalization and information technology are taking the world, and specifically the USA and the other English-speaking nations. Unlike most of these observers, Bennett believes that these forces will not create a borderless world, nor will the process of globalization lead to a homogenized world culture. Instead, Bennett argues that what is emerging is a series of distinct but overlapping globe- spanning linguistic-cultural phenomena, which he terms 'network civilizations'. (The Anglosphere, or English-speaking network civilization, is the first but by no means the last of such entities.) Within these network civilizations, cultures with strong civil societies can cross intra- civilizational boundaries with ease, widening the scope of easy interaction, particularly for smaller, entrepreneurial ventures. The task of the emerging era, then, is one of creating political forms of cooperation appropriate to these network civilizations. Bennett argues that such a form, which he terms the 'Network Commonwealth', is already emerging. Unlike national or imperial forms of organization, network commonwealths are characterized by extreme decentralization and lack of compulsory mechanisms. Network commonwealths will serve to replace the trade and defense functions once performed by large economic states. Bennett's book contains a detailed discussion of the English-speaking world and why its strong civil society, and resultant entrepreneurial market capitalism and constitutional government will likely result in the Anglosphere's retaining the lead role in the next stages of development, the multiple and simultaneous scientific-technological revolutions sometimes called the Singularity, and the emergence of the Network Commonwealth.."

Link
[via Chicago Boyz]

See also:
The Pentagon's New Map - Thomas Barnett
The Chinese Century - Moore's Lore
Fantastic Voyage : Live Long Enough to Live Forever - Ray Kurzweil, Terry Grossman

The Future of Media - 2

Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Friendster, social networks, blogs, New York Times, Googlezon, Google Grid, EPIC...

Link
Source: Robin Sloan 2004
[via SiliconBeat]

Transcript:
Robin Good
[via Loic Le Meur]

Audio:
Media online in 2014: Google Grid, GoogleZon, EPIC - Web Talk Radio

See also:
The Future of Media
Google Broadband?
The New Moore's Law
Future Vision - Vodafone

Update:
Epic 2015 - Google Blogoscoped