"We’re seeking 10 outstanding people from around the world with specialist knowledge of their discipline, who want to lead the coverage of their disciplines in global media."

A couple of years ago at D8, Steve Jobs said on stage something like this: computers as we know them won’t go away, but they won’t be used nearly as much. They’ll be like trucks: most people don’t drive around in them all the time, but they’ll use them for special purposes, to get particular types of work done.

I haven’t always agreed with Jobs, and didn’t then, but I’ve since come around to this particular view of his, and come around pretty completely. I’m now convinced that what we think of as laptops and desktops today will be relegated to pretty nichey sorts of work tasks. The future, obviously at this point, belongs to other, more human & invisible, types of machines.

I'd put it down to us mistaking Sense of Wonder for Innovation. We used to read SF to get the heady high of a big vision, the "eyeball kick" as Rudy Rucker describes it, of seeing something brain-warpingly different and new for the first time. But today you don't need to read SF to get a sense of wonder high: you can just browse "New Scientist". We're living in the frickin' 21st century. Killer robot drones are assassinating people in the hills of Afghanistan. Our civilisation has been invaded and conquered by the hive intelligences of multinational corporations, directed by the new aristocracy of the 0.1%. There are space probes in orbit around Saturn and en route to Pluto. Surgeons are carrying out face transplants. I have more computing power and data storage in my office than probably the entire world had in 1980. (Definitely than in 1970.) We're carrying out this Mind Meld via the internet, and if that isn't a 1980s cyberpunk vision that's imploded into the present, warts and all, I don't know what is. Seriously: to the extent that mainstream literary fiction is about the perfect microscopic anatomization of everyday mundane life, a true and accurate mainstream literary novel today ought to read like a masterpiece of cyberpunk dystopian SF.

#distant #future

Hack the Cover - Craig Mod - Journal, from Craig Mod - Considering the future of books, publishing and storytelling http://craigmod.com/

The Economist, while only a weekly publication, has surpassed a number of daily outlets in its reach. On its mobile side, the publication offers a mobile Web experience, mobile applications for multiple platforms and even an HTML5 product. At the head of the Economist's digital strategy is Nick Blunden, Global Publisher of Digital for The Economist. Blunden recently spoke to FierceMobileContent about The Economist's success in these endeavors and what it takes to bridge content from print to mobile.

Like so many venture capitalists and web companies involved in the race to transform TV, Diller has long been interested in an online TV alternative, and it’s not a surprise that the one he chose to invest in is so much craftier than anyone else’s. Aereo manufactures and stores dime-size antennas that receive anything you can get over the air without paying extra (e.g., NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS) and sends it to a device of your choosing (iPad, iPhone, computer, TV) to watch or record for later. (Aereo operates in the New York market, and the antennas are stored in a Brooklyn warehouse.) It’s live TV, whenever and wherever you want it—more nuanced than watching network TV through a digital antenna on your mantel, and way less expensive than basic cable, which offers the networks alongside a dog’s breakfast of channels most of us never watch.