Minding The Planet is Nova Spivack’s weblog on emerging technologies and trends. It focuses ways in which the Web is becoming more present, personalized and precise.
Nova Spivack is a technology futurist, entrepreneur, and angel investor, and a leading voice on search, collective intelligence and the Semantic Web. More...
Here’s a wildly unexpected proposal that just popped into my brain: Humanity should intentionally contaminate Mars with Earth lifeforms — as soon as possible! The benefits vastly outweigh any concerns to the contrary. Indeed, it may be the smartest thing our species ever does.
The first obvious benefit is that it will get Earth life off [...]
At Radar Networks we refer to pieces of microcontent as “Memes.” A Weblog posting is a Meme (pronounced “meem”), so is any RSS item. The classic definition of a meme is “a replicating unit of culture.” There is quite a bit of debate among memeticists about what constitutes replication and what constitutes a replicator. But [...]
Today I realized that the solution to the failing patent law system in the US and abroad is not to eliminate patents, or prevent patents in certain areas. Nor is it to have more or better patent examiners, or stricter guidelines for prior art analysis and appeals. No, the solution is to keep the current [...]