Innovation Watch Newsletter - Issue 10.

05 - February 26, 2011 ISSN: 1712-9834

Selected news items from postings to Innovation Watch

in the last two weeks...

synthetic biologists aim to create programmable cells... brain scans to

predict if babies will be criminals... researcher aims to create brain-to-
brain networks... in-car technology to become a booming market...
telepresence goes mainstream... BMW opens a car plant for aging
David Forrest workers... age rage fuels revolutions in the Arab world... youth
advises unemployment is poised to create unrest in Europe... Brazil competes
organizations with China for Africa's resources... Australia blocked China's bid to
on emerging control the world's richest rare-earth deposit... Peru to safeguard 1,500
trends, and potato varieties in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault... world food supplies
helps to develop could face massive disruption from climate change... the challenge of
strategies predicting future conflict... a new Shell scenario study points to a 'zone
for a radically of uncertainty' ahead...
different future
More great resources ...

the book, The Five Futures Glasses: How to See and Understand More
of the Future with the Eltville Model, by Pero Micic... a link to the
RoboEarth website, a World Wide Web for robots... a Diane Rehm show
on the surging cost of food... a post by Kevin Kelly (The Technium) on
his changing relationship with books -- from physical library to digital
books on the screen...

David Forrest
Innovation Watch

SCIENCE
Top Stories: Forward
Synthetic Biology's Hunt for the Genetic Transistor (IEEE Know someone who
Spectrum) - We essentially want to make a cell might be interested
programmable. We'd like to give it a command and have it in this newsletter?
perform a new function, just as if it were a tiny computer. To Forward it
gain this power, we first need to amass a collection of well-
characterized biological circuit elements that we can arrange Unsubscribe
however we like. This is one core focus of a subset of
bioengineers, known as synthetic biologists, who are trying to Don't want to
revamp how genetic engineering is done. Synthetic biologists receive the
take their circuit analogy quite seriously, despite the fact that newsletter?
a cell is a whole lot squishier than a silicon wafer or circuit Unsubscribe
board.

Scientist: We’ll Be Able to Predict if Babies Will Grow into

Criminals (Daily Record) - Scientists will soon be able to
predict if six-month-old babies will grow up to be criminals,
an expert has claimed. Psychologist Dr Adrian Raine says
pinpointing problems in the tots' brains will identify future
crooks and psychopaths.

TECHNOLOGY
Top Stories:

Beyond the Borg (H+) - Ben Goertzel Interviews Researcher

Alexandra Elbakyan on Brain-Machine Interfaces, Distributed
Intelligence, and the Consciousness Singularity. The goal of
Brain Computer Interfacing technology is simple to describe -
- connecting the biocomputers in our skulls with the silicon
chip based computers on our desks and in our pockets. And
it's also simple to imagine the vast array of life-changing
possibilities this technology might provide once it matures.
This interview highlights one of the most exciting of these
potentials -- the emergence of distributed mind networks
that rely on direct brain-to-brain links.

The Future of the Connected Car (Mashable) - Most of us who

watched Knight Rider as a kid expected that by 2011 we
would be driving sleek, self-aware cars like KITT -- cars that
would take us seamlessly from A to B while cracking witty
one-liners. Though that future has not yet come to pass,
things are starting to get exciting in the in-car technology
space. Connected cars are hitting the consumer market in a
price bracket that makes them a realistic option for many.
One prediction sees "near saturation" in the U.S. market in as
little as four years' time.

BUSINESS
Top Stories:

I’ll Have My Robots Talk to Your Robots (Businessweek) -

Thanks to their mobility, telepresence robots are being used
by managers to walk factory floors. Health-care organizations
are looking at employing them for home care; so are storage
companies for security. Cisco and some of its partners are
creating telepresence retail displays to ensure that a
salesperson is always on hand to sing the praises of a
particular product to a browsing consumer. Telepresence has
even come to the coffee break: Four of Cisco's European
offices have wall-size telepresence screens constantly on in
the office canteen, so that co-workers hundreds of miles
apart can "meet" there for a drink.

Built by Mature Workers: BMW Opens Car Plant Where All

Employees are Aged Over 50 (Daily Mail) - Its name is a
byword for providing drivers with every comfort -- and now it
seems BMW is taking the same approach with its workforce.
A section of the luxury car manufacturer's works at Dingolfing
in Southern Bavaria has been nicknamed 'Altstadt' -- German
for Old Town -- by the grateful employees who say they
might otherwise be on the job scrapheap. Because Germany
has a highly skilled workforce -- but an increasing skills gap -
- BMW has taken the lead to get those laid off or in early
retirement back on the production line.

SOCIETY
Top Stories:

Birth of a Revolution (Ottawa Citizen) - They are young, they

are frustrated and there are more of them than at any other
time in history. Ian MacLeod breaks down the demographics
to explain how age rage is fuelling the uprisings in the Arab  
world, and how the phenomenon might play out in the years
to come. Today's Arab rebellion began rising three decades
ago as a neonatal bulge rippling across the Middle East and
North Africa.

Youth Unemployment Offers a Flashpoint in Europe, Too

(Guardian) - The past month has provided a stark illustration
of the unrest caused by having millions of young, intelligent
and frustrated people on the dole. In Tunisia and Egypt, high
levels of youth unemployment helped create the conditions
for political change. But it is not just countries in north Africa
and the Middle East that are concerned about the high
incidence of joblessness among the young. In Spain, the
youth unemployment rate is 40%; in Ireland there are fears
of a new brain drain and in Britain the latest trend suggests
that there will be more than 1 million people under 25
without a job this spring.

GLOBAL POLITICS
Top Stories:
BRIC Countries Compete for Africa’s Assets (Fast Company) -
China is all over Africa -- with its massive aid packages,
loans, investments, and thousands of Chinese construction
workers. But Brazil is set on making its mark, too, and it's
hiring locally to get on the good side of Africans who want
jobs and whose resentment toward the Chinese is reportedly
increasing.

Australia Blocked Rare Earth Deal on Supply Fears

(Businessweek) - China's bid to gain control of the world's
richest rare earth deposit in 2009 was blocked by Australia's
Foreign Investment Review Board on concern it would
threaten supply to non-Chinese buyers. Minutes of a meeting
by the review board on Sept. 23, 2009, obtained by
Bloomberg News through an Australia Freedom of Information
Act request, show a concern the deal could undermine
Australia as a reliable trading partner.

ENVIRONMENT
Top Stories:

Peruvian Potato Farmers Launch Ambitious Plan to Send

1,500 Varieties to Arctic Seed Vault (PhysOrg) - As climate
change and disease threaten potato farming in the tuber's
ancestral home in the Peruvian Andes, potato preservationists
today launched a major effort to safeguard more than 1,500
varieties by sending them to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault
(SGSV) in the Arctic Circle within the next one-to-two years.

Climate Change May Cause 'Massive' Food Disruptions

(Businessweek) - Global food supplies will face "massive
disruptions" from climate change, Olam International Ltd.
predicted, as Agrocorp International Pte. said corn will gain
to a record, stoking food inflation and increasing hunger.
Corn futures surged 90 percent in the past year, while wheat
jumped 80 percent and soybeans advanced 49 percent as the
worst drought in at least half a century in Russia, flooding in
Australia, excessive rainfall in Canada, and drier conditions in
parts of Europe slashed harvests.

THE FUTURE
Top Stories:

Why Models Couldn’t Predict North African Revolutions (New

Scientist) - Is it possible to forecast unrest? The upheavals in
the Arab world are the perfect opportunity to put the best
models of human conflict to the test. Unfortunately, only
those with access to classified intelligence documents will find
out the results. It's a problem that has troubled the field of
conflict modelling for years. Many military funding bodies,
notably the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
 bankroll attempts to forecast revolutions, terrorist activity
and other conflicts -- but results emerge into the public
domain only piecemeal, if they come out at all.

'Zone Of Uncertainty' Ahead (Wallstreet Online) - Shell has

published Signals and Signposts -- a report into future energy
scenarios which offers a deeper understanding of global
developments and the world's energy supply, use and needs.
They help us to make crucial choices in uncertain times as we
grapple with tough energy and environmental issues. Signals
and Signposts updates our thinking by taking into account the
impact of the global economic and financial crisis.

Just in from the publisher...

The Five Futures Glasses: How to See and

Understand More of the Future With the Eltville
Model
by Pero Micic

Read more...

A web resource...

RoboEarth - At its core, RoboEarth is a World Wide Web for robots: a giant network and
database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other about
their behavior and their environment. Bringing a new meaning to the phrase "experience is
the best teacher," the goal of RoboEarth is to allow robotic systems to benefit from the
experience of other robots, paving the way for rapid advances in machine cognition and
behaviour, and ultimately, for more subtle and sophisticated human-machine interaction.

Multimedia...

Commodity Price Spikes (Diane Rehm) - Windows Media | Real Audio … Around the
world, prices for food and other basic commodities are going up. The price of food has
climbed by almost 30% in the past twelve months. Cotton is near a ten year high, and
copper is the highest it’s been in forty years. Some say the price hikes are a sign of global
economic recovery, but for the world’s poor, the increases can be devastating. The show
explores what’s behind the recent price spikes for food and basic commodities and what
these increases could mean for consumers and governments worldwide. (51m 34s) [Diane
Rehm]

Ideas and opinions... Screen Publishing (The Technium) - Kevin Kelly – "We are
becoming people of the screen instead of people of the book. I have been a person of the
book, but I am becoming a person of the screen. It is not an easy transition. I write in a
two-story library full of books that I love. Few things give me as much pleasure as sitting in
an overstuffed chair late at night in my library reading from my books. I especially love my
illustrated tomes and art books. They help me dream. I am surrounded by pages. We have
floor to ceiling bookshelves in our bedroom as well. In our living room. In our den. In our
kitchen. Books everywhere! But I will get rid of 90% of these books as soon as I can get a
digital copy of them."
 
Email: mail@innovationwatch.com