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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Author: Foresight Editor

ABA and smart contracts

from the OK-who's-the-smart-lawyer-behind-this-one dept.
Senior Associate Charles Vollum writes "The American Bar Association is meeting today (in London, England?) to discuss a draft report of the ABA Global Cyberspace Jurisdiction Project. According to the press release, one of the report's suggestions is that '… intelligent electronic agents can be programmed to electronically communicate jurisdiction rules, thus enabling these preprogrammed agents to do business with each other.' Sounds a lot like smart contracts to me."

(Google + Open Directory) x Nanotech = Useful

from the what's-the-nano-herd-reading-these-days dept.
Jonathan Desp of Atoma writes: There is a nice page on Nanotechnology at Google." The Google directory is based on the Open Directory combined with Google technology and shows page popularity among Google users. Subcategories under Nanotech include Articles, Books, Businesses, Conferences, Funding, and Social & Political Implications.

Individuals' "human thermal plume" to be analyzed

from the they'll-know-what-you-drank-last-night dept.
The New York Times reports that a patent has been granted on a system to scan every person passing through for explosives: "Mr. Settles says his invention could also be used to detect smuggled money, narcotics, chemical or biological warfare agents, nuclear substances like uranium, or other hazardous material. And he maintains that the skin flakes could provide samples of human DNA…" CP: If we leave our DNA everywhere we go, how can it be a personal secret?

Dangerous bacterium DNA sequenced in one day

from the "But-That-Sounds-Like-Science-Fiction!" dept.
The BBC reports: "It has taken scientists just a day's work to unravel the entire genetic sequence of an antibiotic-resistant 'superbug' that is one of the leading causes of hospital-acquired infections…The work has been done extraordinarily quickly — even by the latest standards. The 2.8 million 'base pairs' — the nucleotides that pair up to make the twisted ladder of DNA's double helix — were sequenced using what is the essentially one day's production capacity at the US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) in California." CP: It's clear what's coming: sequence an individual human genome in one day. Then: faster.

Get a Nanobiotechnology PhD at Cornell

from the when-you-need-that-piece-of-paper dept.
From the press release: "The emerging field of nanobiotechnology could hasten the creation of useful ultra-small devices that mimic living biological systems — if only biologists knew more about nanotechnology and engineers understood more biology. They soon will. Starting in June 2000, the first 12 PhD candidates will hit the laboratories of Cornell University's new W.M. Keck Program in Nanobiotechnology…the devices that will emerge could someday solve human problems: Micro-mobile smart pharmacies, propelled through the human body with biomolecular motors that run on nature's ATPase energy, to dispense precisely metered drugs wherever and whenever cells (such as cancer cells) signal the need."

Futurist enters biostasis

from the au-revoir-but-not-goodbye? dept.
Futurist F.M. Esfandiary has been placed in cryostasis at Alcor Life Extension Foundation, reports the San Jose Mercury News: "The tall, affable, soft-spoken philosopher, visionary educator, lecturer and writer…was respected by scientists, engineers, students who took his classes and intellectuals who read his books or attended his lectures. A quarter-century ago he was predicting things that are now happening. What he called “teleshopping'' and “tele-education'' are now ordinary Internet activities. And he foresaw such medical and biological breakthroughs as fertilization and gestation outside the womb and the correction of genetic flaws." FM thought he would live to see the year 2030 — he may be proven correct on that prediction as well. Good luck to him and others now in residence at Alcor and other cryonics facilities, especially Foresight pal Phil Salin.

"Computing with Molecules" in Scientific American

from the OK-so-it's-not-our-favorite-magazine dept.
BradHein writes "Scientific American has an article titled Computing with Molecules by Mark Reed and James Tour. The article covers Reed and Tour's work with molecular electronics. Some of the topics include current day research challenges in working with self assembly, combining molecular systems with conventional electronics, and creating complex molecular devices."

Reputation-based Idea-Futures-style investing

from the talk-about-"Group-Genius"(TM) dept.
Senior Associate Charles Vollum writes "When I entered the Mutual Minds web site, I thought I'd been transported to the world of Earth Web…A mutual fund whose stocks are selected by the best forecasts of its investors. According to the FAQ, "Participants visit the site and predict future stock prices. Over time, forecasts are compared against actual stock prices and each participant earns a score that reflects their historical performance. A computer model combines the forecasts from all participants that are invested in the fund based on their scores. The combined forecasts determine the investments for the fund (those with the highest risk adjusted return potential). The forecasts are used by a portfolio optimizer similar to those used by fund managers today to determine what % should be invested in each security. The result is a well-diversified portfolio consisting of the preferred investments of the community." CV: It will be interesting to see how this works out."

Self-replicating distributed security agents

from the software-immune-system dept.
JohnPierce reports on work at Sandia: "A thought-provoking article on software security agents. They are self-replicating, and work in a social structure. These may be precursors to AI and distributed control of swarms of nanomachines."

Brain-scan technology detects emotion of love

from the do-you-love-me?-better-tell-the-truth dept.
BBC reports that researchers at University College London have been able to detect the emotion of love using brain scans. Dr Andreas Bartels said: "I'm convinced that we can use it as a test for love — however, it's rather an expensive one!" Oh, well, that's all right then.

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