Petervan's Delicacies - Issue #105

The very best

About the need to stop talking and take our own responsibilities in building 21st-century institutions. Fantastic post. One of those you want to read 100 times.

About bionic brains. Robots. Cutting-edge efforts to blunt the effects of climate change. The future of health care, and tech, and business. 2069  or what life may be like in the next 50 years.

About cities, streets, curbs etc sucking up your data. How organizations around the world are handling growing privacy concerns.

About strong bonds and high quality social interactions as the foundation for today's workplace. Reflections by @jharche on the British Army latest recruitment campaign. See also the section on Aesthetics in this Delicacies.

About community-based design vs Human-centered design. By the godfather of design Don Norman.

Our homes contain too much wasted space

As we enter the New Year, it’s an opportunity to step back and reflect in an increasingly hectic world. In an earlier post, I suggested we need to find time to reflect in a world increasingly dominated by flows –...

I remember when a CTO asked me for a more detailed, solution-oriented roadmap. I resisted. He asked repeatedly. I finally caved and spent twenty minutes sketching out a dozen ideas based mostly on…

Designing our Complex Future with Machines. Dec 2018 update.

We’ve all seen the stark headlines: “Being Rich and Successful Is in Your DNA” (Guardian, July 12); “A New Genetic Test Could…

Of all the age-old questions of philosophy, the problem of free will might be most likely to result in existential angst. In this video from Wi-Phi or Wireless Philosophy, the English philosopher Richard Holton, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and now at the University of Cambridge, outlines the two problems often used to argue that free will doesn't exist. The first says that, if the laws of physics are fixed, all our choices must be predetermined. The second holds that, with enough computing power and knowledge about how the Universe works, someone could theoretically peer into the future to see the predestined outcomes of our lives – which would also mean we're not free. However, using a clever thought experiment, Holton demonstrates how the second conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow from the first. That is, our ‘books of life’ can never truly be foreknown, except by a thinker who exists entirely outside physics itself.

A phenomenon I noticed when researching Digital Minimalism is that many people are confused by the creeping unease they feel about their digital lives. This

Ben Goertzel explains how artificial intelligence could make psychedelic drug experiences safer and more meaningful. we could wire our minds into superintelligent machines to access altered states of consciousness and truly expand our mind's borders.

Dan Lockton's keynote at ILA18, "New Metaphors"

A photographer documents the beaches of her youth along South Carolina’s ACE Basin as they shift and re-form beyond recognition.

Relativity says we live in four dimensions. String theory says it’s 10. What are ‘dimensions’ and how do they affect reality?

Data and Society

It is the summer of 2023, and Rachel is broke. Sitting in a bar one evening, browsing job ads on her phone, she gets a text message. Researchers doing…

The software, developed under contract, will be given to foreign governments. It is already being tested.

Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal and New York Times among titles affected by virus that hit shared systems

Data is Data. It is not Oil or Gold or Labour or anything else!

On the seductive myth of information free of human judgment

The American National Security community thinks Huawei is one of the greatest security risks in a world where American has declared China a strategic competitor. In an era of trade wars, a cold war…

It's not the end of the story yet.

Welcome to the era of the self-service platforms, automated monolithic machines wrapped in consumer-friendly branding.

China’s Use of Big Data Might Actually Make It Less Big Brother-ish. Why the country’s adoption of ever-more-intrusive technology could, paradoxically, lead to stronger civil liberties.

Zeitgeist

The WELL: State of the World 2019

Multibillion-dollar companies like Alibaba and Tencent have thrived thanks to a government that provided incentives but otherwise let them grow. Can they count on that in the future?

Now that financial markets see the danger of the Trump presidency, the risk of a financial crisis and global recession has grown.

Russia experts look at recent events and peer into the future.

‘Defining moment’ for Tim Cook as Apple looks beyond the iPhone

We need the next wave of innovation, and we need it now.

The new era of intensifying global competition is characterized by growing rivalry in the political, economic, and military spheres. This report summarizes the findings of a RAND Corporation study about the emerging era of international competition.

"We need a vision for a new journalism, and a clear path to supporting and sustaining it in a world where consensus can no longer be taken for granted."

Innovation

I loved this piece by Tim Harford in the FT about why corporate innovation fails not least because it emphasises one of the more under-acknowledged challenges with generating disruptive innovations…

huawei has released facing emotions, an AI-powered app that translates emotions into sounds for the blind and visually impaired.

Do you know your platform solution? Knowing your digital solutions is key to choose industrial platforms, as they might not meet your exact needs What is under the hood of an Industrial Platform solution? What do you look for? IIoT Platforms are still under significant construction How do you judge the platforms that are out…

Radar that can spot stealth aircraft and other quantum innovations could give their militaries a strategic edge.

The Innovation Excellence community is home to articles, webinars, videos, training and education - powering growth in the innovation management profession.

Google’s Project Soli explores the use of miniature radars in future hardware interfaces. Now, researchers from the University of St Andrews show how the same technology can be used for more nuanced sensing tasks, like counting cards.

Future of work

Say "NO" to crap! It's the first working day of a new year for me. A good enough reason as any to revisit and recommit once again to an old resolution. Because here's the thing. Look past all the rhetoric, the confident future gazing, the self-congratulation, the slick case studies, the awards, the campaigns du jour, the smartass blogs, the…

Gary Hamel's powerful speech at the Global Peter Drucker Forum 2018 was oen of the highlights of the event. Here is what he was talking about.

This is "Generative Design for Architecture: Autodesk MaRS Office" by The Living on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

There’s been a reasonable amount of focus over the last few years questioning the value of strict hierarchical structures in business and asking whether, particularly in the context of today’s…

Predictions for what independent work might look like in the future from MBO Partners.

The mixed-reality workplace is coming.

Traditional ways of work are being transformed by change agents. Or are they? What is the actual impact of change agents on corporate culture change? Is it worth the hype around the flourishing “Transformation” and “Innovation” job titles? First part of my reflections on impact, inspired by the Berlin Change Days.

Over the past four months, 2,000 people trying to get hired by McKinsey have been plonked in front of a computer screen showing a picture of an island and these words: “You are the caretaker of an…

An increasing number of companies are reaching out to include "neurodiverse" candidates — like those with autism or obsessive-compulsive disorder — who they say can offer unique talents.

Eliza Blanchard on Curiosity | Kara Swisher on Apple | Time for Antitrust Enforcement? | Google Drive Spam | Millennial Burnout Beacon NY - 2019-01-05 — A bit behind on this and other things, thanks to the emergency transition back to Substack from Revue . Maybe I should not be surprised that Revue responded to my request to double the newsletter limit to two post per day by offering to double my monthly fee.

Internet Culture

Handshake, despite popular misconception, is not a blockchain project that seeks to decentralize existing DNS infrastructure in its entirety. That’d be biting off something much more than any…

FinTech

New year predictions are little more than "mental junk food."

You don't have to be a fintech upstart or online native to make digital waves in the financial field.

Two of Africa’s largest mobile operators and mobile money providers, Orange Group and MTN Group, have announced they will use open source financial services technology that was sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The two companies call their joint venture Mowali (mobile wallet interoperability), to enable interoperable payments across the continent. Mowali makes…

For most people, finance is at best something to be tolerated, endured. Avoided when possible. ...

China's Didi Chuxing has launched a suite of financial products, including crowdfunding and lending, as it continues to diversify outside the ride-hailing business following a year of safety scandals.

There is little evidence of practical scalable use for blockchain technology, according to a post published by consulting firm McKinsey. See also next entry in this Delicacies ;-)

But 3 years ago, the same major consulting firm McKinsey predicted the blockchain adoption in four stages. See previous entry in this Delicacies ;-)

AI, Robots, Algorythms

The world in 2019: The vexed politics of our times has obscured the view ahead. Over the holidays we have been examining some big issues on the horizon. Today, in our final instalment, we look at the spread of artificial intelligence

Zoltan Istvan is a leader of the transhumanist movement, which advocates using radical science to improve and evolve the human being. Zoltan’s award winning ...

There likely won't be another AI winter, but some prominent researchers and leaders in AI vary in their optimism. Find out why this might really be the "eternal spring of AI."

Building on deep learning tools, AI could mean significantly improving service delivery for citizens and elevating the work of public service professionals while also inspiring a new generation of technocrats to enter government. Alternatively, AI could also mean remaking government altogether.

Digital Ethics

Luciano Floridi has never been kind with technology. In ’95, when the web as we know it today did not exist and he was a PhD Philosophy student, he wrote things such as: «No one controls the system…

Define ethical principles and let the courts correct problems as they come up, says Pekka Ala-Pietilä.

VentureBeat spoke with Google Brain cofounder Andrew Ng, Fast Forward Labs founder Hilary Mason, Facebook AI Research founder Yann LeCun, and Accenture responsible AI global lead Dr. Rumman Chowdhury about key milestones of 2018 and what lies ahead for 2019.

Mention artificial intelligence (AI), and the term may bring to mind visions of rampaging killer robots, like those seen in the “Terminator” films, or worries about widespread job…

A Chinese scientist has claimed to use CRISPR to genetically engineer two babies. An expert explains what this means and the ethical implications.

I asked some of the more prolific tech ethics scholars what they thought were the most pressing issues facing us in 2019. Here's what they had to say.

If natural selection is the enemy of attempts to eradicate malaria, might “unnatural selection” in the form of gene drives be the solution?

Facial Recognition Has to Be Regulated to Protect the Public, Says AI Report. The think tank AINow has identified facial recognition as a key challenge for society and policymakers — but is it too late?

2018 was a year of reckoning for tech companies, their employees, and consumers. Both Facebook and Google were caught misusing people’s personal information—landing their leaders in front of the…

If you imagine the technologies that will define daily life in 50 years, it’s tempting to think of Arthur C. Clarke’s dictum that advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. You might…

Post Capitalism

https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-10021-the_precariat_a_disruptive_class_for_disruptive_times Why and How the Precariat will define the Global Transformation to sa...

Jeff Bezos is bringing in a familiar face to run the education arm of his new $2 billion philanthropic initiative. Mike George, the ex-Amazon vice president who oversaw some of the company’s most successful products, will lead the Day 1 Academies Fund, Bezos announced in a tweet on Tuesday. George…

Imagine for a moment that a notable American actually came up with a plan to save America. A good one. Maybe even one that was a little revolutionary. To turn this state of ruinous collapse around…

Visiting futurist Jacque Fresco, whose magnum opus is The Venus Project, a 21-acre Central Florida Eden with white dome-shaped buildings that Meadows and he hand built over three and a half decades.

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Art related

The Guggenheim exhibits bold, groundbreaking paintings by Hilma af Klint, a turn-of-the-century artist who created visionary, abstract works.

Aesthetics

Creator Charlie Brooker, actor Fionn Whitehead, and others take us behind the scenes of Netflix's 'Bandersnatch' to show how the interactive movie was made.

Other

Synthetics created in the 20th century have become an evolutionary force, altering human biology and the web of life

This Konnakol composition by B C Manjunath follows the Fibonacci pattern: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 - https://www.soundslice.com/slices/8klcc/ — Follow percus...

A lost language encoded in intricate cords is finally revealing its secrets – and it could upend what we know about Incan history and culture

The Walker Guest House, in Florida, was a breakthrough for the architect