Nova Spivack – Minding the Planet

I’ve been thinking for several years about Knowledge Networking. It’s not a term I invented, it’s been floating around as a meme for at least a decade or two. But recently it has started to resurface in my own work. So what is a knowledge network? I define a knowledge network as a form of [...]

In recent months we have witnessed a number of social networking sites begin to open up their platforms to outside developers. While this trend has been exhibited most prominently by Facebook, it is being embraced by all the leading social networking services, such as Plaxo, LinkedIn, Myspace and others. Along separate dimensions we also see [...]

Steorn, the Irish company that claims to have invented a mechanical device that generates unlimited free energy with no fuel, is scheduled to demonstrate their device publicly for the first time in London tomorrow. A panel of 22 independent world experts has been recruited to study the device. It should be an interesting demo! Related [...]

Web 3.0 — aka The Semantic Web — is about enriching the connections of the Web. By enriching the connections within the Web, the entire Web may become smarter. I  believe that collective intelligence primarily comes from connections — this is certainly the case in the brain where the number of connections between neurons far [...]

The Business 2.0 Article on Radar Networks and the Semantic Web just came online. It’s a huge article. In many ways it’s one of the best popular articles written about the Semantic Web in the mainstream press. It also goes into a lot of detail about what Radar Networks is working on. One point of [...]

Another interesting article on the move towards wireless power, or what some are calling "WiTricity." I’ve written about this previously. The team at MIT is making some good headway. Check out the article for a diagram of how their wireless power beaming system works. It can power any device within about 9 feet. Nikola Tesla [...]

We had a bunch of press hits today for my startup, Radar Networks… PC World  Article on  Web 3.0 and Radar Networks Entrepreneur Magazine interview We’re also proud to announce that Jim Hendler, one of the founding gurus of the Semantic Web, has joined our technical advisory board. Related Posts:Radar Networks Announces Twine.comWeb 3.0 Roundup: [...]

The MIT Technology Review just published a large article on the Semantic Web and Web 3.0, in which Radar Networks, Metaweb, Joost, RealTravel and other ventures are profiled. Related Posts:Web 3.0 Roundup: Radar Networks, Powerset, Metaweb and Others…How the WebOS Evolves?Radar Networks Announces Twine.comQuick Video Preview of TwineDiagram: Beyond Keyword (and Natural Language) Search

This is just a brief post because I am actually slammed with VC meetings right now. But I wanted to congratulate our friends at Metaweb for their pre-launch announcement. My company, Radar Networks, is the only other major venture-funded play working on the Semantic Web for consumers so we are thrilled to see more action [...]

I’ve been thinking since 1994 about how to get past a fundamental barrier to human social progress, which I call “The Collective IQ Barrier.” Most recently I have been approaching this challenge in the products we are developing at my stealth venture, Radar Networks. In a nutshell, here is how I define this barrier: The [...]

Japanese scientists have developed a technique that can encode 100-bit messages into the DNA of common bacteria. The bacteria replicate and pass the message down from generation to generation for at least thousands of years. Because there are millions or more copies of the message it can survive gradual degradation or mutuations (so they claim). [...]

Here at Radar Networks we are working on practical ways to bring the Semantic Web to end-users. One of the interesting themes that has come up a lot, both internally, as well as in discussions with VC’s, is the coming plateau in the productivity of keyword search. As the Web gets increasingly large and complex, keyword [...]

Nice article in Scientific American about Gordon Bell’s work at Microsoft Research on the MyLifeBits project. MyLifeBits provides one perspective on the not-too-far-off future in which all our information, and even some of our memories and experiences, are recorded and made available to us (and possibly to others) for posterity. This is a good application [...]

Josh sent me this link. It’s a video of a new technology for doing laser graffitti on the sides of buildings at night. Josh and I have been discussing how to do this for years. You could also project onto clouds. And of course with a computer to control the image you could make some [...]

Google’s Larry Page recently gave a talk to the AAAS about how Google is looking towards a future in which they hope to implement AI on a massive scale. Larry’s idea is that intelligence is a function of massive computation, not of “fancy whiteboard algorithms.” In other words, in his conception the brain doesn’t do [...]

It’s been a while since I posted about what my stealth venture, Radar Networks, is working on. Lately I’ve been seeing growing buzz in the industry around the "semantics" meme — for example at the recent DEMO conference, several companies used the word "semantics" in their pitches. And of course there have been some fundings [...]

If you are interested on what computer user-interfaces are going to feel like in the future — you must see this video of a demo of a new multi-touch computer monitor. This is amazing technology — and the various demos themselves are interactive artworks in their own right. For more information about the researchers and [...]

Here is my timeline of the past, present and future of the Web. Feel free to put this meme on your own site, but please link back to the master image at this site (the URL that the thumbnail below points to) because I’ll be updating the image from time to time. This slide illustrates [...]

D-Wave, a company making quantum computers, claims the first quantum computer will be unveiled next week. If this really happens it could be big. Quantum computing can theoretically enable a massive increase in computing power. The question is what will it cost? If this technology is viable it also ups the ante in the encryption [...]

Read this fun article that lists and defines some of the key concepts that every post-singularity transhumanist meta-intellectual should know! (via Kurzweil) Related Posts:Big Thinkers' Most Dangerous IdeasCollective Intelligence 2.0Simulated Universes and the Nature of ConsciousnessScientists Discuss their Beliefs in the UnknownHuman-Brained Monkeys Pose Ethical Challenge

Go see the film Children of Men — it’s a bleak, brilliant, entirely convincing vision of the near future — and has great action too. Here’s a YouTube video that makes the case for why this film should win an award. Related Posts:Peace in the Middle East: Could Alternative Energy Be the Solution?A World Without [...]

KurzweilAI.net has published an article I wrote redefining the meaning of Web 3.0. Basically, I am proposing that Web 3.0 include a set of emerging technologies that are all reaching new levels of maturity at the same time. Related Posts:Metaweb and Radar NetworksWhat is the Semantic Web, Actually?New York Times Article About the Emerging Semantic [...]

A group of physicists at MIT have come up with a new model for beaming wireless power to mobile devices, such as computers or cell phones. It promises to do for power, what wireless ethernet hubs do for network connectivity. I’ve been interested in wireless power ever since I first read the biography of Nikola [...]

By the way, as long as everyone is questioning the term,"Web 3.0" can we also please stop calling everything "Web 2.0.?" I am so tired of Web 2.0! Web 2.0 is a myth — there is no Web 2.0. It’s just the same Web, with more social features, tagging and AJAX. And so far Web [...]

And now for some other science news. A new technique called cryotherapy is emerging in which people subject themselves to short bursts of extreme cold, in order to rejuvenate the body: It’s minus 120 degrees and all I’m wearing is a hat and socks. Cryotherapy is the latest treatment for a range of illnesses including [...]

Wow — there has been quite a firestorm over the term Web 3.0 on the blogosphere today and yesterday. While I am remaining neutral, I also have an open mind regarding what it could be defined to represent. Here are some random thoughts towards defining term: Related Posts:Web 3.0 Roundup: Radar Networks, Powerset, Metaweb and [...]

ZDnet’s Dan Farber, just blogged about the Semantic Web meme — Dan says: Back to Web 3.0. There will be one, and it has been associated at this point with concepts of the semantic Web, derived from the primordial soup of Web technologies. It’s been a focus of attention for Tim Berners-Lee, who cooked up [...]

I’ve read several blog posts reacting to John Markoff’s article today. There seem to be some misconceptions in those posts about what the Semantic Web is and is not. Here I will try to  succinctly correct a few of the larger misconceptions I’ve run into: The Semantic Web is not just a single Web. There [...]

A New York Times article came out today about the Semantic Web — in which I was quoted, speaking about my company Radar Networks. Here’s an excerpt: Referred to as Web 3.0, the effort is in its infancy, and the very idea has given rise to skeptics who have called it an unobtainable vision. But [...]

Ok, here’s a very unusual news item: During his time as head of the Ministry of Defence UFO project, Nick Pope was persuaded into believing that other lifeforms may visit Earth and, more specifically, Britain. His concern is that "highly credible" sightings are simply dismissed. And he complains that the project he once ran is [...]