Update, 1:15 p.m. PST, December 24: Santa is currently arriving at Pinsk, Belarus.
Last Christmas Eve, Jeff Martin found himself forced to explain to a Canadian general why, when Santa Claus passed through Toronto that night, Google Maps had placed the city in the United States.
Martin, then a senior marketing manager in Google's Geo group, was part of a huge team of people involved in the joint U.S.-Canada North American Aerospace Defense Command's annual NORAD Santa tracker program, a long-running effort to provide children the world over a live view of Santa's progress as he and his reindeer deliver Christmas presents.
In 2007, Google signed onto the project as a technology partner, and since then, has been incorporating NORAD's data on Santa's whereabouts into special 2D Google Maps and 3D Google Earth representations.
And that's where the trouble began.
NORAD is now actively tracking Santa, and will do so until 3 a.m. on Christmas Day.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Inexplicably, as Santa made his way through Toronto that night last year, the mapping software began identifying the city as being in the United States. Instantly, NORAD Santa's dedicated Gmail account "just lit up" with messages from irate Canadians, Martin said, and quickly, the Google team fixed the problem.
But not before Martin's run-in with Canadian Lt. Gen. Marcel Duval. "He said, 'I understand that you have a new American city,'" Martin recalled. "It was a slightly tense moment for me, standing in front of a three-star general explaining to him why one of his cities had been designated as a United States city."
Is this Santa Claus?
All joking aside, NORAD has been taking its Santa tracking project seriously for decades. But it actually began in 1955 with a wrong number.
One morning that December, U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the director of operations at CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command--NORAD's predecessor--got a phone call at his Colorado Springs, Colo., office (see video below). This was no laughing matter. The call had come in on one of the top secret lines inside CONAD that only rang in the case of a crisis.
The ad that started it all.
(Credit: NORAD)Grabbing the phone, Shoup must have expected the worst. Instead, a tiny voice asked, "Is this Santa Claus?"
"Dad's pretty annoyed," said Terri Van Keuren, Shoup's daughter, recalling the legend of that day in 1955. "He barks into the phone," demanding to know who's calling.
"The little voice is now crying," Van Keuren continued. "'Is this one of Santa's elves, then?'"
The Santa questions were only beginning. That day, the local newspaper had run a Sears Roebuck ad with a big picture of St. Nick and text that urged, "Hey, Kiddies! Call me direct...Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night."
But the phone number in the ad was off by a digit. Instead of connecting with Santa, callers were dialing in on the line that would ring if the Russians were attacking.
Before long, the phone was ringing off the hook, and softening up, Shoup grabbed a nearby airman and told him to answer the calls and, Van Keuren said, "'just pretend you're Santa.'"
Indeed, rather than having the newspaper pull the Sears ad, Shoup decided to offer the countless kids calling in something useful: information about Santa's progress from the North Pole. To quote the official NORAD Santa site, "a tradition was born."
From that point on, first CONAD and then, in 1958, when NORAD was formed, Shoup's organization offered annual Santa tracking as a service to the global community. A phone number was publicized and anyone was invited to call up, especially on December 24, and find out where Santa was. Manning those phones over the years have been countless numbers of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel and their families, and for many people, turning to NORAD to find out where Santa is became something to look forward to each year.
Phones and e-mail
These days, of course, a single red phone isn't enough to handle the demand for the information. In fact, said Joyce Frankovis, the public affairs specialist who runs the Santa tracking program for NORAD these days, there were fully 1,275 people involved in the project in 2008, and there would have been more had there been more room for them.
Frankovis explained that most of those people are volunteers who come in to NORAD's Colorado Springs headquarters on Christmas Eve to answer phone calls and emails. And it's a good thing there's so many, she said, because "Literally, when a volunteer puts the phone down after they get done with a call, it's ringing again."
All told, she said that each volunteer handles about 39 calls per hour and that in 2008, the team used 100 phones and 25 computers to handle 69,845 calls and 6,086 e-mails from more than 200 countries. Most of those contacts happened during the 25 hours from 2 a.m. on December 24 through 3 a.m. on Christmas that the operations center (see video below) is up and running.
Most people, Frankovis said, just want to know where Santa is. And so the volunteer answering the question will look up at the big screen on the wall at the operations center and see where, on the map that is integrating geographical information from NORAD with Google's mapping service, Santa is at that moment.
"NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa--radar, satellites, Santa Cams and fighter jets," reads the NORAD Santa Web site. "Tracking Santa starts with the NORAD radar system called the North Warning System. This powerful radar system consists of 47 installations strung across the northern border of North America. On Christmas Eve, NORAD monitors the radar systems continuously for indications that Santa Claus has left the North Pole.
"The moment that radar indicates Santa has lifted off, we use our second detection system. Satellites positioned in geo-synchronous orbit at 22,300 miles from the Earth's surface are equipped with infrared sensors, which enable them to detect heat. Amazingly, Rudolph's bright red nose gives off an infrared signature, which allow our satellites to detect Rudolph and Santa.
"The third tracking system is the Santa Cam network. We began using it in 1998, which is the year we put our Santa Tracking program on the Internet. Santa Cams are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras that are pre-positioned at many locations around the world. NORAD only uses these cameras once a year on Christmas Eve. The cameras capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they make their journey around the world.
"The fourth system is made up of fighter jets. Canadian NORAD fighter pilots flying the CF-18 intercept and welcome Santa to North America. In the United States, American NORAD fighter pilots in either the F-15 or the F-16 get the thrill of flying alongside Santa and his famous reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and, of course, Rudolph."
Still, despite all that, "Santa is hard to track," said Frankovis. "We actually never know which route Santa's going to take. So it's just a matter of using that high-tech equipment to track him."
Technology is also playing an increasing role in how NORAD publicizes the program. Frankovis said that after taking over the project earlier this year when her predecessor retired, she decided to begin using a much wider collection of social and online media for promotion. As a result, the NORAD Santa tracker now has presences on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and TroopTube.
Google's Martin said that his company--which, like all the corporate partners in the program, offers its assistance at no cost to taxpayers--has dozens of people working on helping to track Santa. Those people provide technical consulting and server provisioning for the NORAD Santa Web site, as well as helping put together YouTube videos, information for Google Maps and Google Earth and, soon, a new service that will allow people to use their mobile phones to track Santa on Christmas Eve.
All told, Martin said, the Web site had 8 million unique users in 2008, who visited the site 15 million times, accumulating tens of millions of page views and more than 10 million map views. Those numbers were up about 45 percent from 2007, he added.
Martin also said Google helps out by providing and monitoring a Gmail account for the program. And it was there that one of the best messages he can remember came in just a few days ago.
"I have been good," a girl named Stephanie wrote to Santa. "But my brother Christopher is mean to me. Take him and leave the presents, please!"
Martin said that, clearly, many of the kids who send emails think they're reaching out directly to Santa. "We'll write back and say we've forwarded their message to Santa at the North Pole, who's preparing for Christmas Eve."
Of course, not everyone believes in Santa. Frankovis said that some callers--especially towards the later part of Christmas Eve when maybe a little bit too much egg nog or a Canadian grog called Moose Milk has been drunk--dial in to have a little bit of fun.
But for those who question whether there really is a Santa at all, Frankovis said the volunteers answering the phone have a simple answer: "'We believe, based on historical data and 51 years of NORAD tracking information, that Santa Claus is alive and well in the hearts of people throughout the world."
Col. Shoup and the e-mails
Last March, Shoup died, said Van Keuren. But in the years before his death, she and her family would take the retired colonel back to Colorado Springs each year for the Santa tracker training. "They would introduce him and he would say a few words," Van Keuren said. "So that was a big thrill for him."
In his later years, Shoup "was not as sharp as he used to be," she said. But his days overseeing the Santa tracker program were still near and dear to his heart. She said the NORAD folks had printed out a sheaf of emails kids had written in and gave them to Shoup as a reminder of what he'd started back in 1955.
"For the last weeks of his life, he carried them around in his briefcase like they were top secret papers," Van Keuren said. "Those were just precious to him. I'd read them to him over and over."
Google Voice may not have made it onto the iPhone yet, but the service has still managed to attract more than 1.4 million users.
In a story posted Friday, BusinessWeek is reporting that Google Voice has grown to 1.419 million users, 40 percent--fully 570,000--of whom use the service every day. The information comes from documents in which Google responded to questions from U.S. regulators interested in whether the search giant is improperly blocking calls to phone numbers in specific rural areas of the country.
But while the information about the number of users of the service was included in the documents Google handed over, they were not meant to be made public.
"Though the number of Google Voice customers was redacted in the version that was made public, BusinessWeek reviewed the information in the redacted sections," BusinessWeek reporter Arik Hesseldahl wrote. "'We had intended to keep sensitive information regarding our partners and the number of Google Voice users confidential,' Google said in a statement to BusinessWeek. 'Unfortunately, the PDF submitted to the (U.S. Federal Communications Commission) was improperly formatted.'"
Hessedahl added that subsequently, the FCC has replaced the first letter on its site with one in which the information originally intended to be redacted has been blacked out.
He also reported that another since-redacted section of the documents suggests that Google intends to take its Voice service global and has inked deals with several "international service providers for inputs to Google Voice." However, Google said that no such international services have gotten off the ground so far.
That Google should screw up something so simple as PDF formatting is terrific, from a reporter's perspective. Surely however, its investors, board members, and executives are none too happy with the employee responsible for ensuring that the relevant passages of the documents were blacked out. But, as someone who may not have been too successful at such an operation myself, I shouldn't throw stones.
And in the spectrum of corporate secrets it would have liked to keep to itself, the number of Google Voice users is kind of small potatoes. Somewhere, Larry and Sergey are probably breathing a sigh of relief that that's all that escaped the faulty digital black-out.
So, word to the wise, corporate types: if you have to give the government documents that are going to be made public, pay a little more attention to the way you format your PDFs. A lot could hang in the balance.
The Edge and Bono perform before 96,000 fans during the U2 360 concert Sunday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)
PASADENA, Calif.--If you were one of the 96,000 people packed into the Rose Bowl Sunday night for the U2 concert--said to be the largest concert ever held here--you were sharing the experience with at least a few other fans off-site.
There's no way to know yet how many exactly, but it's safe to say millions of people around the world were also watching the concert live on YouTube, a potentially server-crashing Webcast that may have been the biggest live-stream yet.
For months, the band has been on tour with its U2 360 concerts. And to top off the grand claims, it has been called the biggest rock tour in history, at least as measured by the size and cost of its infrastructure--more than $750,000 per show, according to Rolling Stone.
Only days ago, the band announced that it would share the Rose Bowl concert live, with fans across the globe. Just before the band came on stage, a roadie calling himself Rocco got up in front of the crowd of 96,000 and said, "Tonight, you are the ones making history," shouting out that those in attendance would be joined by viewers in "North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica."
For its part, YouTube wasn't sharing much about how it put together the live stream. Before the show started, there was some discussion among reporters on hand at the Rose Bowl about whether YouTube would be up to the task of delivering the show to so many people, live, on so many continents. But if Twitter is any judge, the live-stream went off almost without a hitch. More to the point, a Twitter feed set up on the official YouTube U2 page showcased comments in a wide variety of languages from Webcast viewers.
Back at the Rose Bowl, in an effort to rally the capacity crowd, the concert-goers were told why this show was chosen by YouTube: "Because right here is where the greatest singers of U2 songs are....Tonight, we need to hear your voices, and to hear you sing. Can you do it?"
In response, the crowd roared its agreement, and indeed, throughout U2's approximately two hours on stage, there were several emotional moments when U2 leader Bono stopped singing and let the audience take over the vocals. These were truly beautiful and awe-inspiring moments, as there is very little on Earth like the sound of nearly 100,000 people singing together.
Ironically, no connectivity
These days, you can find out what's happening at just about any event by turning to Twitter. But at the Rose Bowl, this wasn't the case. It turned out that there was nearly no connectivity, and so there seemed to be a dearth of tweets sent from inside the concert. Still, because the show was being watched by millions of people around the world, there is certainly no shortage of posts on Twitter about what was happening.
That's an ironic turn of events, though, and not at all what I expected. I thought there would be a steady stream of tweets emanating from the Rose Bowl, and I had expected to send many of them myself. Instead, this highly tech-centric concert was ground zero for a disconnected audience. We were truly "stuck in the moment," to quote one of U2's hit songs, though I doubt anyone wanted to "get out of it."
A YouTube representative did tell me prior to the show that the service was using 24 cameras to film the concert, as well as 24 additional closed-circuit TV cameras. Further, he said YouTube was offering its stream at three different qualities, so that almost anyone could watch, regardless of the speed of their Internet connection.
The YouTube U2 page with the stream of the concert, albeit a rebroadcast. But millions around the world watched the Rose Bowl concert live on YouTube.
(Credit: YouTube)Having YouTube produce such a major Webcast is fitting, given the size and scope of the U2 360 tour. Among its facts and figures are tidbits like this: the 360-degree stage--which allowed huge numbers of fans to watch from behind--featured a 90-foot-tall steel structure, topped by a center pylon reaching 150 feet in the air; the innovative video screen atop the stage weighs 54 tons, is 4,300 square feet when closed, and is 14,000 square feet when opened; the screen itself is comprised of more than a million pieces, including components to illuminate 500,000 pixels, as well as 320,000 fasteners, 30,000 cables and 150,000 machined pieces.
The incredible expanding screen
The video screen, according to information provided by the band's publicists, is "broken into segments mounted on a multiple pantograph system, which enables the screen to 'open up' or spread apart vertically as an effect during different stages of the concerts."
I didn't think I'd ever seen such a thing before, and it just about made my jaw drop when I noticed it. Already, the screen was a sight to behold, but it didn't seem all that big, especially when I thought back to what I'd seen the band do with video during its U2 3D film.
The U2 360 video screen featured an expansion system that allowed it stretch to a size more than three times what it is when closed.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Well, it turns out I was right: I hadn't seen anything like this before, and neither had anyone else who hadn't been to one of the U2 360 shows.
"The video screen is the first LED screen to be based on a geometric system that allows it to expand in two directions simultaneously," U2 360 architect Mark Fisher told CNET News in an e-mail interview. "Video screens are normally flat panels that track like closet doors, or slatted panels that roll up like garage doors. The 360 degree screen uses a scissor-like motion to expand in two directions. It starts as a solid elliptical ring approximately 20 feet deep, and transforms into form a cone-shaped mesh 60 feet tall."
Fisher added that this is the first time such technology--what he called "transforming geometry"--has been used to "change the shape of a video screen."
And while Fisher said that, in general, the technology behind U2 360 isn't in and of itself new, the way it's being used during the tour most certainly is.
"The show employs a large number of computers and electric motors to control the motion of the screen, and there are large numbers of computer-controlled moving lights," Fisher said. "The video on the screen is also created using powerful computers that 'map' the picture onto the transforming screen. All of this automation and programming is possible because the computers available in 2009 and more powerful, and cheaper, than they were when we created the Vertigo tour in 2005."
Google Earth
Another piece of technology used for the tour--at least in a way that U2's fans can interact with--is Google Earth. Fisher explained that the stage's designers decided it would be fun for fans to see the huge structure on Google Earth.
"So we hooked up with the folks that run the operation, and they agreed to let us put 3D models of the stage into the 3D models of the stadiums where it plays," Fisher said. "The 360 degree stage is turned around in each stadium in six days (and) the models stay in each city on Google Earth for slightly longer."
U2 used Google Earth to give fans a sense of how the stage in its U2 360 tour was built. Here is the London site.
(Credit: U2)On U2's official Web site, the band explained what is going on with the Google Earth project: "If you're following the tour as it moves around...there's a very cool new feature on Google Earth--a model of the 360 stage, in situ, at the venue, about a week ahead of each show."
The site also explained that the model that fans see could be red, green or blue, with each color corresponding to one of three "steel teams" that "leapfrog each other from city to city to build the stage in each stadium."
Fisher also weighed in on the site with the real reason why the band chose to implement Google Earth: "We thought it would be interesting to put up on Google Earth a piece of portable architecture, which is what this structure is," he wrote. "In a way it's got no practical purpose...except that it's fun!"
SAN FRANCISCO--An initiative in the works from the nonprofit Internet Archive to centralize the electronic distribution of commercially viable books could upend the publishing industry and declaw Amazon.com, an industry analyst said.
On Monday, the Internet Archive, which among other things has been working for some time to digitize countless numbers of public domain texts, showed the first public look at its BookServer project, an initiative its dubs, "The future of books."
Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told CNET News that BookServer is about creating an open system that allows search engines to index books that are available from a wide group of sources. Effectively, commercial publishers, lending libraries and even individual authors would have a way to index their work and offer easy digital distribution under BookServer, Kahle said.
Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, on Monday unveiled an initiative called BookServer, aimed at making all books availble for digital distribution.
(Credit: Internet Archive)Kahle's timing is interesting. Also on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported details on Barnes & Noble's $259 e-reader called the Nook, which will compete with Amazon's Kindle and Sony's E-Reader, a move which heats up the market. More interesting may be Google's announcement last week of its "Google Editions" store, an initiative aimed at offering digital editions of books from publishers with which it already has distribution deals. Google said that should mean about a half-million books would be available initially, either through Google itself, or through sites like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
But it seems the Internet Archive is thinking even bigger than Google.
Kahle said that he's been thinking about such a project since before the advent of the World Wide Web, but that the technology has never been ready. But that's changed over the last 20 years, he said. "We've now gotten universal access to free (content)," Kahle added. "Now it's time to get universal access to all knowledge, and not all of this will be free."
He explained that BookServer is built on the notion of a Web server, and that only a good indexing system is standing in the way of making all books digitally and easily available to consumers, whether they're using a laptop computer, an iPhone, or a Kindle.
Today, he said, publishers, libraries, and others usually turn to outsiders to build them an online distribution system, and that each of those systems stands alone and unindexable. With BookServer, the Internet Archive is hoping that for the first time, consumers everywhere will be able to buy or borrow any text they want while leaving control over pricing and terms of such distribution in the hands of the content owners.
"Right now, they're largely sitting it out or dying," Kahle said of publishers and libraries. "Publishers are not dictating the terms of the distribution of their work. They're handing it over to others...This puts them back in the driver's seat."
And while Kahle imagines that BookServer would by no means result in the end of bookstores or even online booksellers like Amazon, he hopes that publishers and libraries will finally be able to set up their own distribution systems to better compete.
Though it's early days for the BookServer project, which could take several years to complete, Kahle expects that users will first look for what they're looking for on a search engine, ideally something like the Open Library, the Internet Archive's own book search system. Once someone finds the title they're looking for using their search engine of choice, they would be redirected to the publisher's site if they want to buy the title, or to a library's site if they want to borrow it.
"It will be as seamless as buying from a single store," Kahle said, "even though they'll be buying from (a) distributed (group)."
To Thad McIlroy, an electronic publishing industry analyst, BookServer is nothing sort of "incredible."
Amazon may find its business model under attack from efforts like BookServer and Google's recently-announced Editions store, not to mention the new Nook e-reader from Barnes & Noble.
(Credit: Amazon.com)"Each time (Kahle) moves in to open up the world, he has a big impact," McIlroy said. "Between (the Google Edition) announcement and (the BookServer) announcement, this changes irrevocably the landscape, and Amazon's shares should go down tomorrow."
McIlrory was exaggerating, to some extent, but it's clear that he believes that Amazon's dominance--both as a seller of physical books and a distributor of e-books--is in serious danger if outfits like Google and the Internet Archive are deciding to take it on.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"This effectively ends anyone's proprietary effort...to close off the system, as Amazon's been trying to do," McIlroy said.
Control back in the hand of publishers
One of the most important aspects of a project like BookServer is that it could, once again, give publishers the upper hand in selling their books.
"The way Amazon is really screwing up the market, creating expectations around (lower) prices, is calamitous," McIlroy said, "and very, very damaging to publishing."
Essentially, Amazon is undercutting book prices and forcing publishers to make harder choices about which books to publish and how to edit them, he suggested. But now, with both Google and the Internet Archive on the job, Amazon may ultimately "be defeated by these two."
And while Google certainly has the might to make a go of its Editions store, it has recently lost a lot of credibility in the book world with the fallout over its Google Book search project. By comparison, McIlroy said that Kahle and the Internet Archive are seen almost universally as altruistic and selfless.
"You couldn't point to anything that hurt anyone," McIlroy said of the Internet Archive's various initiatives. "Everything (Kahle) has done has been truly helpful. But now, to step into this digital book situation is really fantastic. And yes, Google, they have a real credibility problem of their own making, and (Kahle) does not have that."
If you've ever been driving down the highway and looked at the Google Maps application on an iPhone to see what traffic is like ahead, you may have wondered where the data behind the green, yellow, and red lines indicating real-time vehicle flow come from.
In fact, the data are coming from people just like you: users of smartphones with GPS who, by the very act of driving down the highway, are feeding back information about how fast they're going to Google, which in turn is sending it back to users of its mobile map apps.
Users of the Google Maps iPhone app can get real-time traffic flow data that is based on the passive participation of other users. This is an example of mobile crowdsourcing, something that is a growing trend, especially on iPhones.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Which means, of course, that the application itself is crowdsourced--that is, based on the mutual contributions of many users, all of whom are participating in the product, and without whom, the product would be worthless.
These days, the concept of crowdsourcing--defined by Jeff Howe, who literally wrote the book on the subject, as, "the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call"--is all the rage, and there are no end of well-known examples, especially on the Web: the Netflix prize; Twitter search; public tagging of Library of Congress archival photos; even Wikipedia. Indeed, much of the concept of user-generated content is really about crowdsourcing.
But until now, much of the discussion about the subject has focused on what people are doing on their computers. Yet today, more than ever before, crowdsourcing has gone mobile. As more smart phones have brought ubiquitous Internet connectivity to the masses, more people have been feeding back into the system. And for now at least, nowhere is that more true than on the the iPhone.
"Why do I love my iPhone, which I do," Howe said in an interview. "Because I'm suddenly doing interesting things with my cognitive surplus. All these times (on public transportation)...are great times to contribute to these group efforts. It's crowdsourcing at its most root definition. Crowdsourcing is a perfect coupling of that downtime, of the very fuel that the crowdsourcing engine needs to run."
Today, the iPhone is not the most popular smartphone but it certainly is gaining steam. According to Gartner, during the second quarter of 2009, the iPhone's share of the global smart phone market had soared to 13.3 percent from 2.8 percent a year earlier. To be sure, the BlackBerry--with 18.7 percent share--and Nokia's offerings--with 45 percent share--still lead in total sales, but it's hard to argue with Apple's growth, or with its dominance in the community-developed application market.
"As Apple has so often done," Howe said, "they did it better sooner...crowdsourcing is only as effective as one's reach allows, because it does require either mass participation or at least mass viewership."
The iPhone app by The Extraordinaries allows users to volunteer small amounts of their time for the collective good.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Which is why there is a growing number of iPhone apps--both those that seek to make money and those that are nonprofit--that are based entirely on crowdsourcing, and which without the buy-in by a critical mass of users would be meaningless.
Some, like the traffic feature in the Google Maps app, are subtle about it. But others shout it out: Their developers know that the public has a thirst for this and have specifically made crowd participation a selling point.
Traffic apps, it turns out, are a natural for mobile crowdsourcing. Because of the iPhone's built-in GPS--on the iPhone 3G and 3GS, at least--and the fact that many owners won't go anywhere without their precious device, it makes perfect sense to build tools that rely on user-submitted data.
Some examples are Waze, which relies on users to inform others about traffic conditions, about road construction and about the existence of angry drivers; Trapster, which lets users report speed traps so that other drivers will be aware of them, in real-time; Aha, which mixes both live traffic flow information with location-based identification of things like cafes, bathrooms, and restaurants; and others.
"I think what it comes down to is what this device right now excels at," said Jacob Colker, the co-founder of a company called The Extraordinaries that is leveraging crowdsourcing. "And that is really to use GPS, a camera, and the phone itself."
Yet there are a growing number of other examples, as well.
One is an app from The Extraordinaries itself. Already well-known for work harnessing the collective power of large numbers of Internet users for the common good, the organization has now put out an iPhone app that lets any user participate in a wide range of causes, right from the device.
For example, users can add tags to photos from the Smithsonian to bring more collective context to that museum's huge archives; help create a huge map of kid-friendly places by finding a "playspace" and snapping a photo of it; or help the city of San Diego cut down on water wastage by reporting any city agency watering during the day or ignoring obvious leaks.
Crowdsourcing can be silly, too. Take the famous Ocarina iPhone app. With that, countless people have used the device to play a kind of flute-like instrument. In and of itself, that's fun but not crowdsourced. But what takes it to the next level is that users can look at a 3D rendering of the globe and see and hear the notes that are being played by other Ocarina users.
That's crowdsourcing in action.
And then there's Yelp, which by definition is crowdsourced. With its iPhone app, the popular tool for letting people rate and comment on businesses, is bringing the power of the collective experience to merchants and retailers anywhere, anytime.
Smule's Ocarina iPhone app lets users play a flute-like instrument and automatically submit their play so that others anywhere in the world can hear it.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)So is the iPhone speeding up the process of taking crowdsourcing mobile?
"I think it's creating conditions for new ideas to flourish," said Colker, "and that's really important. Showing that it is possible, that, yes, I can demand YouTube in my pocket, and I'm going to pull up this app and play flute into it and I'm going to listen to someone playing the Ocarina app in South Africa. It's powerful. It allows people to think in new ways, and to create the kernel for those new ideas to exist, and the conditions for those new innovations to exist."
Every day, Apple is adding more apps to its App Store. And while most do not involve crowdsourcing, an increasing number do. And that seems like a trend that there's little that anyone could do to stop. Nor would anyone want to.
For now, it's hard to say exactly what the next crowdsourced apps will be to come down the pike, but it seems certain there will be an exponentially growing number of them over time. Games will be built that rely on users to locate items in a virtual world; Poetry apps will rely on users submitting their own stanzas; Lolcat sites will depend on iPhone users snapping pictures of cats, slapping funny captions on them, and sending them in; and much more.
In essence, as with the larger app ecosystem, the sky's the limit for crowdsourced apps. And while other smart phones will also have an increasing number of applications that rely on user submissions, the iPhone is likely to stay at the head of the field.
"I think the iPhone itself has done tremendous good for moving technology forward, and as a byproduct, paving the way for new forms of crowdsourcing to exist," Colker said. "And that's what really excites me about the iPhone."
Corrected at 10:16 a.m.: This story originally reported that The Extraordinaries is a non-profit. In fact, it is a for-profit company.
What is this, and where is it located? Be the first to provide that answer to today's Road Trip 2009 Picture of the Day challenge, and you win a prize. And there's a bonus prize-worthy challenge, too.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Update (11:06 p.m.): I've been out of Internet touch all day, but we've long since had a winner. The petroglyph in question is Newspaper Rock, in Utah. It was also possible to find the result by Googling "Petroglyph USA."
RIGGINS, Idaho--In the American West, nature's walls can tell a lot of stories. Many can be told through an examination and analysis of the landscape itself: what do all the different colors in the layers of the Grand Canyon say about the history of the region?
But others are man-made, even when left behind on great spots in nature.
For example, the picture above must surely depict a fantastic story, of one kind or another. Unfortunately, it's true that no one knows exactly what that story is, or whether it's even narrative.
What is known is that in a region that I drove through earlier on Road Trip 2009, anyone can stop by and personally try to interpret the original, much larger and more complete version of this.
My challenge to you: what is this called and where is it located?
I'm learning as I do more of these Picture of the Day challenges, that even the smallest clues seem to make them too easy. Gee, thanks, Google. So, I'm withholding the kinds of hints that led the previous two iterations of this Road Trip sidebar to be solved within mere minutes.
Not to say that you won't have the answer in mere minutes. Perhaps you've seen this yourself. If not, you'll just have to do a little bit more to solve it than type four words into a Google search. Or not. So here's a second challenge: if it's possible, and you're the first person to find the answer to this with a four-word Google search, based on nothing more than what I've written here and the photo above, you win a prize, too. You just have to tell me what the four words are so I can verify it.
Good luck.
For the next two weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman's in-laws peruse the Internet via a Wi-Fi connection at their mountaintop, off-the-grid house.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)NICE, Calif.--Over the last few days, I spent hours with my wife's parents, Tyler and Donna, helping them adapt to the first Internet connection they've ever had. For them, living on top of a mountain at 4,000 feet, in the middle of a national forest, and entirely off the grid--this has been a big step.
For my wife and I, it's also been a big project, at least in terms of teaching them the basics, and helping them get ready to learn on their own. While their Internet proficiency is still low, they are learning fast, and over time, it should be interesting to see how much progress they make, and how they make it.
Over the few days that we just spent on the mountain with them, these are many of the things (in no particular order) we talked to them about, showed them on their new MacBook, and explained that they might want to investigate in the future:
• Undo/Control-Z. They wanted to know if there was any way to undo a mistake on their computer, and we explained that Control-Z (Command-Z on a Mac) is the way to do that.
• Pandora. They haven't used it yet, but we explained how this free service makes it easy for anyone to create a totally custom Internet radio station based on their musical interests. They asked how Pandora makes money. I couldn't answer that very good question.
• Rotten Tomatoes. We explained that this service is among the very best for crowd-sourced movie reviews.
• IMDB. They watch a lot of movies, and often want to know more about the actors involved. We explained that IMDB is the only site they needed to go to get fully cross-referenced information on actors and filmmakers.
• Skype. For my in-laws, Skype will be key in helping them save money on their cell phone bill. We showed them voice calling and Skype instant messaging.
• iTunes Store. Tyler was looking for a specific song by an artist, and I showed him how he could use the iTunes Store to listen to short clips of artists' songs.
• Downloading photos from digital camera. We recently gave them a Canon PowerShot G2, and now that they have a new MacBook, we showed them how to easily download photos onto the computer.
• iPhoto. After downloading photos, we showed them how to organize the pictures in the Mac's built-in photo management software.
• Printing wirelessly. Now that they have a Wi-Fi network (running on an old AirPort Extreme) I talked to them about setting up wireless printing to their HP DeskJet printer.
• Connecting the Mac to a TV. I bought them the connectors for linking their MacBook to their TV. At first they didn't see the value of doing this, but they eventually saw that as their vision gets worse, a larger screen will make computing easier.
• NeoOffice versus OpenOffice. They've been using OpenOffice on their Windows computer, and we loaded NeoOffice onto their Mac. I haven't used it, but I explained that my research concluded that NeoOffice is better on Macs than OpenOffice.
• Second Life. My wife and I are both longtime Second Life users, and we talked to them about whether they'd want to use the virtual world. However, their download limits (200 megabytes per day) would likely make it difficult for them to use such services.
• PayPal. They hope not to buy very many things over the Internet, but they do understand that having a PayPal account will make it easier for them to do transactions on services like eBay.
• Amazon.com. We walked in on them looking at prices for tarps on Amazon.com. My reaction was "hide the credit card."
• Facebook. While social networking is likely something they won't deal with for some time, we talked about how many people have used Facebook to connect with friends from past lives.
• Twitter. They have heard a lot about Twitter, and we showed them how the microblogging service is a great way to see what people around the world are thinking about things in near-real-time.
• YouTube. Among other things, I showed Tyler how he could use YouTube to find obscure songs he might be looking for.
• Netflix. We've managed a Netflix account for them (they would pick up the DVDs at their P.O. box) for some time, since they didn't have an Internet connection. Now that they do, they've taken over management of the account. I had high hopes they would be able to watch Netflix streaming movies, but their download limits may prevent them from doing that.
• Google Earth. We showed them Google Earth and used the service to locate their house, a process that took even them some time, given the remote location in which they live.
• Gmail. They are using Gmail for e-mail, and we set them up to be able to send and receive their Gmail messages using the Mac's Mail application.
• Control on PCs/Command on Macs. We explained that anything that uses the control key on a PC (Control-C to copy, or Control-Z to undo) would utilize the command key instead on a Mac.
• Windows Security patches. I uploaded Service Pack 3 and six Windows security patches on their PC.
• WhiteHouse.gov. They were excited to be able to send messages to the president and to be able to watch his weekly video addresses. They also were happy to be able to easily e-mail many other government officials.
• Instant messaging. We explained that instant messaging is a terrific way to carry on informal conversations, and we discussed some of the etiquette of IM.
• Commenting on Web sites/blogs. We talked at length with them about how comments are implemented on various Web sites and blogs, and how people use them for different purposes.
• Wi-Fi. We set them up with an Apple AirPort Extreme and made it so their new MacBook could be connected to the Internet throughout their house. They were more excited by this than by anything else.
• USB hubs. Tyler wanted to know how to print wirelessly and I explained that he would need to get a USB hub to split the cable coming from his printer.
• Bookmarks. We provided them with a long bookmarked list of Web sites, and showed them how to add new bookmarks so they don't have to type in entire URLs for sites they hope to visit a lot.
• Delicious. We want to see what kinds of sites they are interested in and encouraged them to use Delicious.com to share their discoveries with us.
• Safari versus Firefox. I explained that Firefox is generally considered the best Web browser for the Mac, but told them how to use Safari is they were so inclined.
• Never using Internet Explorer again. I said that because of its many security holes I would never let them use Explorer on their PC again.
• Registering for Web sites. They were interested in why people would provide their e-mail address and/or other information to register for Web sites, and we explained the many reasons people are willing to do it, and why sites want it.
• Adding an AirPort Express to extend the Wi-Fi network's range. We told them that by adding an AirPort Express to their wireless network set up, they could extend the range of their Wi-Fi connectivity to a metal shed near their house. It also happens that that is where my wife and I sleep when we visit during cold months.
• Google News. I showed them Google's clearinghouse for news stories. They didn't seem particularly interested in it, but I'm guessing that will change as they realize the site's utility.
• Using wireless keyboards and mice. If they do decide to connect their Mac to their TV, we explained, they would likely want to add a wireless keyboard and mouse so they could have more freedom of movement in their living room.
• eBay. We explained that this service would be a fantastic way for them to find the kinds of supplies that their local merchants often don't have, or charge too much for.
• iPhone (for the future). We touted our beloved iPhones, and tried to get them excited about the devices as well. This is clearly something for another time.
• Blogrolls. They asked what blogrolls were, and we showed them how many blogs offer lists of other sites they endorse and suggest readers look at.
• Using the trackpad on the Mac instead of a mouse. Having only previously used their desktop PC, they weren't familiar with laptop trackpads. So we spent some time explaining how they work, including how to use two fingers on the MacBook to scroll up and down pages.
• Wikipedia. I had already been touting Wikipedia, but now I explained how anyone can edit any page, and how it is possible to see the entire history of changes for a page.
On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman's in-laws live at the top of a mountain, are off the grid, and have missed the last 30-plus years of innovations in media. On Monday, they got satellite Internet installed. This is the view of their new dish from the deck of their mountain-side house.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)NICE, Calif.--This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Imagine getting to introduce to the Internet a couple of otherwise-normal 60-somethings who, having lived off the grid at 4,000 feet in the middle of national forest, have missed more than 30 years of media innovations.
That's what I did earlier this week, with my in-laws, Tyler and Donna. They're perfectly nice people. They just have never used the Internet before, haven't watched TV, really, and even their cell phone is turned off most of the time to conserve their limited solar power.
I've been coming to visit them for nine years, and there were countless conversations with them during which my wife and I, both Internet junkies, rhapsodized about its virtues. We gushed about Google. We raved about Second Life. We couldn't stop beating Wikipedia's drums.
We'd get weary nods and, "It sounds great, but we don't really have any use for the Internet."
For my wife and me, that was nothing but further motivation to get them online.
A couple of years ago, we replaced the ancient desktop computer on which they did their accounting with a new PC that we joked was the planet's healthiest Windows machine, having never been anywhere it could meet a virus.
We also began bringing them DVDs, and they fell hard for "The West Wing" and "The Wire." But it was my wife's masterstroke--getting them a Netflix subscription--that probably won them over.
They had no way to manage their Netflix account, so we did it for them. They'd get the movies at their P.O. box, 45 minutes away, watch them, return them on their next supply run, and repeat.
Two installers from HughesNet putting the finishing touches on the satellite dish.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Setting up their queue was beyond surreal. They'd seen nothing. Not "Goodfellas," not "Pulp Fiction," not "Gladiator," "The English Patient," "Traffic," or "Chariots of Fire." Hardly anything. Do you know anyone like that?
The last time we visited, Tyler asked me to find out how much power a satellite dish, a modem, and a wireless router used. He wasn't sure that their power system was up to the task.
It was, though, and last week, as we were getting ready for a visit, my wife said, "By the way, they're getting satellite Internet installed on Monday."
Our incredible toy
I'm a geek, so I don't mind telling you how eager I was to show off our incredible toy. Despite being avid readers, radio listeners, and now movie fans, my in-laws still had no idea that the world was coming to their door. On Monday.
Some friends visited the mountain with us, and they also got excited about introducing my in-laws to the Internet. Over the weekend, we made a list of Web sites everyone agreed they had to visit: Snopes.com, NYTimes.com, NPR.org, BBC.co.uk, Huffingtonpost.com, Google News, PostSecret, Craigslist, Flickr, BurningMan.com, Epicurious.com, TED.com, and others.
But on Saturday night, we asked them what they wanted to explore first. In my mind, it would be something fanciful. Maybe a site about science or history or politics.
"Oh, something about fava beans, I imagine," Tyler said.
On Monday, HughesNet sent two installers, and then, after nine years, it was game on.
In the in-laws' little office, where their PC lives, I sat down to work on getting the machine secured.
We're buying them a Mac, but for now, my eyes were on the prize: the latest Windows security updates. But the connection speed they were getting was painfully slow, around 13Kbps. Windows Service Pack 3 is more than 300 megabytes--more than eight hours of download time away. We had to leave long before that.
I decided to forgo SP3 and instead install AVG, a free antivirus package. But the connection was so slow that the download failed. Twice.
The screen on the computer of one of the HughesNet installers as the satellite Internet connection was being set up for the first time.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)I was embarrassed and frustrated. To diffuse the situation, we decided to turn the focus to picking a Gmail address. They suggested a series of what to any veteran Internet user were obviously unavailable names: Tyleranddonna, Donnaandtyler, Beautifulmountain. Using my MacBook Pro and an EV-DO card, we finally found something.
I also decided to download AVG on my Mac. That, too, was painfully slow--we were at 4,000 feet, far from town--but it worked, and I copied the AVG file to their PC via a thumb drive.
But AVG needed its own updates, and so it went looking for them. I noticed that the download speeds had slowed even further, now to less than 2Kbps.
Slowly but surely?
This was ridiculous. They had signed up for a 1.0Mbps connection, which, I read, promised downloads of more than 500Kbps. They were getting 1Kbps.
I called HughesNet, and a technician told me that the account had surpassed its "Fair Access" limit. It turns out that satellite Internet users get only so much bandwidth per day--in my in-laws' case, 200 megabytes. Go over the limit, you get dial-up speeds for 24 long hours.
The technician told me that there was nothing he could do about it, despite my insisting that there was no way they'd passed 200 megabytes. A supervisor confirmed that he had "no mechanism" to lift the limit for the day, even when I explained that I had to leave soon and that I absolutely needed to finish downloading the security patches before I drove off the mountain.
In the HughesNet pamphlet that had finally lured Tyler and Donna, a footnote I now discovered really concerned me: "Based on analysis of customer usage data, Hughes has established a download threshold for each of the HughesNet service plans that is well above the typical usage rates."
CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman's father-in-law sits at his computer, looking at his Internet connection for the very first time.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)This was alarming, as one of the things my wife and I were most excited about was the idea of her parents being able to . This vision now looked endangered.
"In order to arrive at our Fair Access Policy, Hughes conducted an analysis of HughesNet customer usage and then established a download threshold for each plan that was above average usage rates," Hughes wrote me in an e-mail Thursday. "Certain activities are more likely than others to exceed the daily download threshold, such as continuous downloading or viewing streaming-media content such as audio or video programming."
Users do get unlimited high-speed downloads from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m. EST. Long after the in-laws would be watching streaming movies.
This was not good. What worried me more was that even watching YouTube videos might quickly put them over the top. The Hughes e-mail, though, seemed to dismiss that worry: "Activities such as viewing Web sites, checking e-mail, watching short streaming-media presentations, i.e. YouTube, and automatic software and antivirus updates are not likely to exceed the download threshold."
Back on the mountain, I decided that, slow speeds be damned, I was getting them online before my wife and I departed.
So I pulled Tyler over to the PC and sat him down.
This would not be so simple. After all, he had no experience with a browser. He didn't know where to click, or how to enter a URL, or how to tab between fields. There's a huge learning curve here for my wife's folks. They need Internet for Dummies--and now.
We booted up Firefox--I had downloaded it for him, as I would never let Internet Explorer set foot in their house again--to head to Google (see the video below, which evolves slowly).
Starting with the basics
I showed him where to type, and a little while after he typed in "Google.com," he got his first look at the search engine's wonderful, spare home page.
It was a moment of truth: What would be the first thing he would look up? Would it be FDR? The Vietnam War? Barack Obama?
Nope. It was fava beans. He hadn't been kidding earlier.
Before we knew it, Tyler was on EveryNutrient.com, a good site, it seems, to learn about the nutritional value of fava beans.
After a little more browser 101--explaining that words in blue are usually hyperlinks, and how to use the back and reload buttons--we hopped over to Wikipedia. More fava beans.
But things went downhill when we tried Gmail so that Tyler could send his first-ever e-mail--can you remember when you did that? The site wouldn't load. The connection was simply too slow.
My wife and I had built this moment up so much in our minds over the years that we were clearly more excited than her parents. Yet Tyler was frustrated. And that was crushing.
Looking for a graceful way out, we adjourned from Gmail and moved into their living room to talk.
We asked them what they were looking forward to using the Internet for. And again, practicality won. Donna said she wanted to be able to get better fire information than she could on the radio, which makes sense, since they live in the middle of a forest.
I said there were always real-time maps online during fires.
"That's exactly what we want to know," she said.
Tyler added, "That'll be tremendously helpful."
They also said they were excited about investigating the various weather sites, since they are deeply subject to the whims of their environment. And, yes, they expect to spend a lot of time reading up on nutrition.
For my wife and me, it was time to leave. But I felt sheepish.
I had had such high hopes for this experience, and instead, it had been deeply disappointing. I couldn't even bring myself to ask what they had thought about their initial experiences on the Internet.
But it will get better. We'll go back soon to make sure.
PALM DESERT, Calif.--How does one measure the effects of economic meltdown?
At Demo 09 here, there are two ways, one that's obvious, yet hard to see, and another that is both obvious and visceral.
While Demo for years has featured about 65 to 70 companies, this time around there's just 39. Everybody knows that, but it's hard to actually see it. The main ballroom where Demo presentations are held is packed, with every seat at every table full. But that's an illusion: the wall at the back of the room has been pulled in dramatically from a year ago when Demo 08 had several hundred more attendees.
And no wonder. The companies that present here pay well into five figures to do so, and most bring a group of people. The registration fee for non-presenting attendees is $3,000.
In the past, Demo has received hundreds of applicants for its coveted on-stage spots. While have complained that the show's format is pay-to-play, there's no doubt been an overabundance of companies willing to pony up for the chance at the exposure the show generally nets presenters.
This year, however, word is that Demo Director Chris Shipley and her team simply didn't have enough applicants that fit its criteria to fill out the normal-sized roster. Incidentally, Shipley recently announced she was handing off her leadership responsibilities to VentureBeat CEO and editor-in-chief Matt Marshall after this year's DemoFall.
Still, just because there are fewer companies presenting here this time around, doesn't necessarily mean the quality of those taking the stage was any lower than in previous go-rounds. In fact, it's always hard to accurately judge that quality until months later, since Demo is all about showcasing companies and products that are just getting off the ground. So, since it takes time build a business, the results are often not known for months.
Spotting likely success stories
To be sure, you can tell right away that some of the companies that present here are going to do well, or are going to fail. Sometimes their presentations just wow the audience, and sometimes you can feel the discomfort in the room. This is my sixth Demo and I'd have to say that the percentage of companies in those two categories this week feels about the same as it has in the past.
Indeed, my colleague Rafe Needleman and I nominated seven products as the best of Demo, and just one worst of. With just 39 companies on hand, that's a pretty healthy percentage.
First Round Capital
Last week, I wrote a story asking the question, do we still need Demo and conferences like it when the economy is falling apart and when companies have more choices than ever to promote themselves and their products. My conclusion? We do, but only some of them. As Eric Faurot, whose TechWeb company puts on the Web 2.0 conferences, put it, "In the event business, the stronger events, the really healthy events that have a real purpose to them, will emerge stronger, and weaker events will just die. They just won't survive."
After the last company finished its presentation here, I asked Christine Herron, a principal at San Francisco-based First Round Capital, what she thought of the event, especially given the smaller size.
Herron said that size really doesn't matter that much at Demo. What matters is companies' relative health and their funding situation.
"This year, there's a lot of companies who have made it here without a big check, so that's more interesting," Herron said. "If you're a venture capitalist coming to Demo looking for undiscovered investment (opportunities)...I'd like to see companies without a big check."
The lessons of Demo
She's talking of companies that can handle the five-figure presenter's fee, as well as Demo's criteria, without having taken significant investment from a VC. Herron seemed to be suggesting that this is a sign that even in this toxic economy, there are still a number of companies that have been able to get to the stage where they are qualified to present at Demo--including paying the fee--with very low costs. And that could well be a sign that companies, albeit a limited number of them, are seeing ways to weather the recession (or depression, if it gets that bad) by more quickly and efficiently getting products and services to market than has been the case in recent years.
If so, this is good news. It seems to me that this is the only model that is going to succeed in coming years. A panel here on Monday about venture capital in the post-downturn era pointed out the obvious reality that VC investment is down significantly. Eric Tilenius of Tilenius Investments said, for example, that his firm's investments are down 67 percent and that of those that are getting money, most are companies that have already gotten at least one round of funding. The number of new companies getting VC money, he said, "has dropped precipitously."
What does this all mean? Clearly, that the salad days are over. We all thought that after the dot-com bust, only companies with viable business models could get funded. In reality, I think we saw that the lessons learned in the tech industry really had more to do with the levels of funding VCs were willing to put into companies. In the 2003 to 2007 years, as the stock market rebounded and Google millionaires started impacting real estate values throughout the Bay Area, companies could still get funded. They just weren't getting $50 million just because they had a badly-spelled URL like in the pre-2000 days.
Now, companies are still going to be getting funded, but seemingly only if they really do have a solid business model, and likely only if they've already convinced previous investors to get involved. Venture capital is only going to flow to companies that have demonstrated they know how to get to profitability without spending a fortune and without needing to be propped up because they don't have any revenue.
In that regard, then, Demo looks like it could well be an interesting barometer of the state of the (technology) economy. Some companies will succeed. Many will fail. And those trying to make it are going to need to keep their eyes seriously on the prize, even as the grim reaper circles around.
"There's a suspension of disbelief that goes into start-ups," said Herron. "You have to have a certain suspension of disbelief if you're going to quit your job, anger your spouse, and work 14-hour days. You have to have a certain Pollyanna vision."
Co-founded by noted futurist Ray Kurzweil and X Prize CEO and chairman Peter Diamandis, Singularity University will begin offering a 10-week interdisciplinary course in exponentially growing technologies this summer.
(Credit: Singularity University)Starting this summer, some of the world's leading thinkers in exponentially growing technologies will be gathering annually at NASA Ames Research Center, in the heart of Silicon Valley, for 10 weeks of discussions on how to change the future. And you could join them.
The gatherings will be part of what is known as Singularity University, a brand-new academic institution co-founded by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, X Prize chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis, and former Yahoo Brickhouse head Salim Ismail, and anyone can apply.
Singularity University is less a traditional university and more an institution that will feature intensive 10-week, 10-day, or 3-day programs examining a set of 10 technologies and disciplines, such as future studies and forecasting; biotechnology and bioinformatics; nanotechnology; AI, robotics, and cognitive computing; and finance and entrepreneurship.
The founders anticipate that students will come from all over the world, and they hope the program results in the founding of new companies, the evolution of scientific and technological thinking, and the solidifying of professional and personal networks among the highly-accomplished students and faculty.
To Kurzweil, Singularity University is a place to problem-solve and talk about the results of the most recent iterations of the exponentially growing technologies that have shaped modern life. Among them, he said, are vacuum tubes, integrated circuits, chips and microprocessors.
Now, he said, we are on the threshold of an explosion of the newest such technology, including 3D and self-organizing molecular circuits. And to Kurzweil, the ability to bring together the leaders in this wide range of fields is a rare opportunity to jump-start the future. (The program's name is based on the theories Kurzweil popularized in his best-selling book The Singularity is Near.)
For Diamandis, who previously co-founded the International Space University (a space studies program on which Singularity University will be modeled), the idea of building an interdisciplinary academic institution around the concepts of exponentially growing trends seemed natural--and powerful.
So, after bringing together 50 leading thinkers for a founding conference at NASA Ames, Kurzweil, Diamandis, and Ismail got the backing of Ames' director, Pete Worden, and a commitment of space at the center--a highly visual Silicon Valley landmark along highway 101--for the annual summer programs.
In addition to the core 10-week course, which will be open to graduate and post-graduate students, Singularity University will also offer 3-day and 10-day executive programs. The shorter version will be targeted at CEOs and CTOs, while the 10-day program will be aimed at rising-star executives who want to add to their knowledge and networks.
"These programs are there to give executives a look at what's in the lab today," said Diamandis, "and what is likely to hit the marketplace in the next 5 to 10 years."
This summer, Singularity University will kick off with just 30 or so students and will piggyback on the International Space University, which will host 120 students at NASA Ames. But in following years, the new institution is expected to expand to about 120 students, each of whom could be the next Larry Page or Sergey Brin.
"If we do our job correctly," Diamandis said, students "will meet, (discover their) common visions, and start companies together. They'll have a chance to match a nanotech expert from Russia with an AI expert from Silicon Valley and see what magic happens at the boundaries."
A stellar faculty
As evidence of how seriously many people in the fields of focus take Singularity University, it has pulled together what can only be described as a very impressive roster of faculty.
Among them are The Sims and Spore creator Will Wright; George Smoot, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics; Dan Kammen, co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore; Vint Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist; and Stephanie Langhoff, NASA Ames' chief scientist.
Befitting the serious nature of the program, its curriculum is not for the faint of heart. The first phase, said Diamandis, is a series of plenary lectures in which all students take the same coursework and learn together about each of the 10 disciplines.
"It's about learning the vocabulary" of the disciplines, Diamandis said, "the basic principles, so they can communicate better between themselves."
In the second phase, students will take deep dives into one of the 10 tracks, typically not one in which they already specialize, learning together in 10-person classes.
And in the final phase, the entire student body will come together to work on a team project.
"This is where the student body will focus as a group in taking on one of the world's grand challenges," said Diamandis, dealing "with global hunger, pandemics, climate change," or something similar.
And while the program's students can expect to work very hard and be deeply immersed in their studies, the faculty will be equally challenged.
"It caused all of us who were invited to be faculty to pause and think about it," said Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley-based forecaster who is teaching in the Singularity University program. "We're expected to be there for the full nine weeks, which is a breathtaking commitment of time."
But for Saffo, who is helping to organize the future studies and forecasting track with Kurzweil, being intimately involved with the program at every level is precisely the point.
"The real benefit of teaching is being able to participate," Saffo said. "It would be a waste of time to just show up, give a couple of lectures, and leave."
And while their involvement at any level would bring Singularity University the prestige it needs to recruit talented students and faculty, both Kurzweil and Diamandis said they would be teaching each summer.
For Kurzweil, that means teaching some of the future studies and forecasting classes, and for Diamandis, it means helping to build the curriculum and teaching where he is needed.
The students, meanwhile, will need to pony up some serious money to take part in Singularity University. The base fee for the 10-week program is $25,000, though Diamandis said that there will be a significant number of full and partial scholarships available, funded by private companies, and other contributors.
Ultimately, the results of Singularity University won't be known for some time. But given the people behind it and the likelihood of a steady stream of highly talented students, the odds of it producing the kind of deep thinking and world-changing technology the founders hope for are good.
"I have no doubt that society gets ever more complex, and the consequences of ever-growing technology become ever more difficult to anticipate and respond to," said Saffo. "So having a 10-week program of smart, committed people looking at the challenges from an interdisciplinary point of view can only be a good thing."
