Tag Archives: technology

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More Luddite FUD about kids and computers

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I was thinking it had been a while since we had one of these. Via FuturePundit, O NOEZ TEH TECHNOLOGIES BE MAKIN KIDS SUCK AT TEH REEDIN:

“Our study shows that the entry of computers into the home has contributed to changing children’s habits in such a manner that their reading does not develop to the same extent as previously. By comparing countries over time we can see a negative correlation between change in reading achievement and change in spare time computer habits which indicates that reading ability falls as leisure use of computers increases”, says Monica Rosén.

OK, I’ll see your study and raise you with this one:

The e-Learning Foundation says that children without access to a computer in the evening are being increasingly disadvantaged in the classroom. Research suggests that 1.2 million teenagers log on to revision pages every week and those using online resources were on average likely to attain a grade higher in exams.

The charity cites BBC research in which more than 100 students used the BBC Bitesize revision materials before their GCSE examination. The children were found to have achieved a grade lift compared to those who did not use the online revision guides. The BBC study says: “This is compared to factors such as teacher influence, which was found to produce no significant difference.”

Which is right? I have no idea. The point is that if you send social scientists looking for evidence to support a pretty nebulous and hard-to-quantify phenomenon, they’ll probably rustle some up. Seek and you shall find… or, I dunno, spend that research money on looking into ways that we can use technology more effectively? How’s about it, huh?

Computers and the internet are here to stay. The way kids learn and interact with the world has changed hugely in last 100 years, and will keep changing, as it always has since the day some smart hunter/gatherer created the first baby sling. If all you’re gonna do is sit on your porch and kvetch about the good old days, you might as well let the kids get some enjoyment out of running around on the lawn.

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BitCoins: an unpolicable p2p e-currency?

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I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff that needs to get done over the next few days, so blogging here will perforce be of the drive-by link-drop variety for a few days or so. Today’s nugget of interest is BitCoin, a peer-to-peer electronic currency which, according to the folk behind the LAUNCH Conference at least, is “the most dangerous project [they’ve] ever seen”. Why so? Well…

According to companies like SoFi, Bitcoins are virtual coins in the form of a file that is stored on your device. These coins can be sent to and from users three ways:

1. Direct with peer-to-peer software downloaded at bitcoin.org
2. Via an escrow service like ClearCoin
3. Via a bitcoin currency exchange from Amazon Aktien kaufen

Each owner transfers the coin to the next by digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction and the public key of the next owner and adding these to the end of the coin. A payee can verify the signatures to verify the chain of ownership.

The benefits of a currency like this:

a) Your coins can’t be frozen (like a Paypal account can be)
b) Your coins can’t be tracked
c) Your coins can’t be taxed
d) Transaction costs are extremely low (sorry credit card companies)

It’s a “technotarian”political statement, apparently. not to mention a grenade in the nation-state punchbowl, to start investing, check this guide about how to Buy bitcoin with bank account transfer. Here’s a cuddly and very contemporary-looking promo video:

Given the global discontent with banking and finance right now, Bitcoin UP Seriös estimates BitCoins could look very attractive to a lot of people. Unsurprisingly, no “normal” financial system will let you buy them, and as the LAUNCH folks point out, legislation against them is inevitable. But would legislation be enough to stop them if enough people started bartering real-world goods and services for them? [Tip o’ the hat to Adam Rothstein]

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Transitioning into the Hybrid Age

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That’s what we’re doing right fuggin’ now, according to Parag and Ayesha Khanna at BigThink [via Kyle Munkittrick’s PopBioethics]:

Mankind is now experiencing its fifth and most intense technological revolution, and we are transitioning into the Hybrid Age. Most people believe we are still living in the Information Age, but in fact we have already reached an inflection point, a brewing storm that will once again drastically change individual life and society. The revolution in the nature of technology is fundamentally distinct from previous ones in five ways…

Those five ways are ubiquity, intelligence, socialisation, integration and disruptiveness. Not really new ideas to most Futurismic regulars, I’d imagine; more of a sort of umbrella-rebranding of a slow Singularitarianism, perhaps:

… what truly differentiates the Hybrid Age from previous revolutionary periods is that it will become global very quickly. Billions of the world’s poor from Africa to India are already participating in technological experimentation and have themselves become the innovators of paradigm-shifting services. In India, 8 million new mobile connections are activated every week. In Kenya, local engineers developed the mobile phone banking system Safaricom and M-Pesa that made traditional banks in the country immediately redundant. Chris Anderson, founder of TED, calls such disruption “crowd accelerated innovation.” Thus the poor who have access to technology will play an unexpected role in the Hybrid Age, using technology to create opportunities for themselves and unexpected disruptions for the developed world.

A slow singularity where the global poor bootstrap themselves up onto the G12’s playing field and start running with the ball? I’d love to see it; maybe getting shouldered aside by the young nations we’ve held back for so long might make us pull our collective heads out of our collective political backsides.

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Roastbusters! Firefighters of the future to zap flames with electric charge?

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I try to avoid doing the old “hey, look at this cool tech idea that may never make it past the drawing-board!” posts these days, but I hope you’ll forgive me this one. I mean, c’mon: who among us can’t get enthused about the idea of tomorrow’s brave firefighters fighting back the flames with Ghostbusters-style backpacks that shoot electricity out of a sort of wand? Sounds crazy, but it’s apparently Real Science™ [via Science Not Fiction]:

Firefighters currently use water, foam, powder and other substances to extinguish flames. The new technology could allow them to put out fires remotely — without delivering material to the flame — and suppress fires from a distance. The technology could also save water and avoid the use of fire-fighting materials that could potentially harm the environment, the scientists suggest.

In the new study, they connected a powerful electrical amplifier to a wand-like probe and used the device to shoot beams of electricity at an open flame more than a foot high. Almost instantly, the flame was snuffed out. Much to their fascination, it worked time and again.

The device consisted of a 600-watt amplifier, or about the same power as a high-end car stereo system. However, Cademartiri believes that a power source with only a tenth of this wattage could have similar flame-suppressing effect. That could be a boon to firefighters, since it would enable use of portable flame-tamer devices, which perhaps could be hand-carried or fit into a backpack.

If someone manages to get this idea to a viable production stage, finding volunteers for forest fire suppression duty should become a lot easier…