Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 725

Augmented Reality: noted industry booster predicts future of AR

*No doubt he's wrong about a lot of this stuff, but at least he's clear and assertive.

Also, there's lots and lots of it.

http://curiousraven.squarespace.com/home/2009/10/26/future-vision-2012-augmented-reality-predictions.html

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* User generated content will dominate.

* No, still no AR contact lenses. Maybe 2018-2020. No mind reading devices either.

* The first major mass market augmented reality April Fools joke will occur on April 1st, 2012

* It will take longer than 3 years for AR to become u...

Augmented Reality: historical reconstruction

*Liking the firm, immediate, coin in the slot tie-in to other forms of phoney-baloney tourist-industry exploitation here.

*Likely this oughta be called "historical deconstruction," as the temptation

to steampunk-ize these little wonders, sticking only to the cool, user-friendly and

off-the-wall aspects of the past, is gonna prove irresistible.

http://thomaskcarpenter.com/2009/10/27/time-travel-with-augmented-reality/

*The French application on Thomas Carpenter's site is well worth a look,...

Connectivity and poverty

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/...

UN to text message food vouchers to Iraqi refugees

(AFP)

GENEVA — Iraqi refugees in Syria will receive UN food vouchers through text messages on mobile phones, the World Food Programme said Tuesday.

In a test project targeting 1,000 Iraqi refugee families, the United Nations agency will send a 22-dollar (15-euro) voucher every two months by SMS to each family, who will be provided with a special SIM card.

The...

Web Semantics: Toiling in the Data Mines

*Listen to the way this infoviz guy describes his daily labors. It truly is a strange and foreign territory.

http://berglondon.com/blog/2009/10/23/toiling-in-the-data-mines-what-data-exploration-feels-like/

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"Programmers very rarely talk about what their work feels like to do, and that's a shame. Material explorations are something I've really only done since I've joined BERG, and both times have felt very similar – in that they were very, very different to writing production code for an...

Augmented Reality: 50 Things Programmer Joe Learned at ISMAR09

*Hey, those are some pretty good things to know:

http://programmerjoe.com/2009/10/25/50-things-i-learned-at-ismar-2009/

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19. The vast majority of the AR research being done in academia is being done outside the US. I knew this going in, but it was shocking to be confronted with it in person.

20. Georg Klein (of PTAM fame) works at Microsoft now. Hmm.

21. The food in Orlando is terrible. Maybe they could move this conference to Austin…

No Fear of the Russo-Baltique Armored Luxury Car

*Skeptics may well doubt this, but this "Prombron" armored behemoth is the very vehicle that Chris "No Fear of the Future"

Nakashima-Brown customarily pilots, whilst hosting meetings of the legendary "Turkey City" Texan writers'

group in his Austin home.

http://nofearofthefuture.blogspot.com/2009/10/turkey-city-off-port-bow.html

http://dartz.eu/en/dartz_site_bankz/vip-armored-car

(((Chris has also been known to spin that rockin' Russian-mogul rap soundtrack, to go with
his customary 70s classic a...

Augmented Reality: Tonchidot

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonchidot/

*It's gonna be some kinda scene in the streets when these Tonchidot dudes

rule the augmentiverse.

Those Weirdo Kids These Days (by a 23 year old)

*Tell you one thing about them echo-boomer kids — they were never forced to punctuate or spell.

http://simon-dufour.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-communication-will-change-our-world.html

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The teens today, are different from me. I am only 23 now and I can see the drastic change that went into them.

My generation was drawn in by technology in many ways. Most of us are properly trained with a computer. Almost everyone can use one even if some are not doing it well. Almost everyone however, can see...

I Wanna Be Sci-Fi Anarcheeee

http://nwsfsnews.blogspot.com/2009/10/i-wanna-read-sf-anarchy.html

*That's an interesting list, but it's pretty much green feminist Ecotopian West Coastie anarchist sci-fi. I don't see much in there that would keep Nestor Makhno happy; why, there's hardly even one single fat bourgeois strung up by the heels and machine-gunned.

*Even the Black Bloc kids down in Eugene would probably gum their way through these peaceable doctrines and spit 'em in a barrel of sawdust.

*Some British sci-fi...

The Spirit Level

*Wanna see a world without the bizarre extremes of "Gothic High-Tech" and "Favela Chic"?

It would be a world like this: a world dominated by a very huge, inclusive, socially and politically prosperous middle class. All kinds of statistical benefits would immediately ensue, and oceans of misery would be wrung out of the world like a sponge.

*So why isn't everybody Norway and Sweden? Got me beat.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n20/runc01_.html

"The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost...