ROBOTIC
NOTE-TAKING
Computer-aided minutes-taking could help make meetings more useful in
the future.
A new meeting-management project called M4 (Multi-Modal Meeting Manager)
will use information technology to automatically record and analyze what everyone says at
meetings. Decisions and the discussions and presentations leading to them will be archived
and structured so that users can browse and query the meeting minutes.
The meeting attendees all wear lapel microphones, and the room houses an
array of devices to record the meeting: closed-circuit television cameras that can track
the gestures of the attendees, computers with natural-language speech recognition, and a
mouse and keyboard monitor to track computer presentations. A mannequin with microphones
on both sides of its head records sounds from all directions, so analyzers can later tell
who said what at the meeting.
The goal of the M4 project, involving a consortium of European
laboratories, is to develop a way of processing the massive amount of information that
comes from different sources within a meeting. The project, under the auspices of the
European Union's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), could ultimately advance not only
human-to-human communication, but also human-machine interfaces.
DETAILS: FP6UK, http://fp6uk.ost.gov.uk/Page.aspx?SP=2077
DEAD ZONE THREATENS MARINE LIFE
An oxygen-deprived "dead zone" has emerged in the ocean off
the coast of Oregon for the second time in three years, suggesting a disturbing
environmental trend.
The hypoxic zone that emerged this summer--similar to one in 2002--is
the result of a combination of climate, wind, and upwelling patterns that dissolve oxygen
levels in the ocean. The low-oxygen environment kills fish, crabs, and other marine life.
The 2002 event, which caused a massive die-off, was thought to be an
anomaly, but the hypoxic event of 2004 suggests that the ocean system itself is changing,
according to Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco.
Dissolved oxygen levels in the region are a great deal lower than those
seen in the last 40 years, which may reflect major changes in ocean circulation patterns
and could have devastating consequences for marine life.
DETAILS: Oregon State University,
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2004/Aug04/hypoxic.htm
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IN THE LONG RUN: AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
In the long run – International Conference on Long-Term Thinking,
Corporate Foresight and Innovation Strategies in Companies and Society on October
18th/19th in Berlin.
Z_punkt – The Foresight Company is organizing a dialogue of the
future with renowned representatives from companies, the industry and society. This
conference is supported by Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank Research
and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
For further information: http://www.inthelongrun.de.
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LOWERING THE COSTS OF ALTERNATIVE FUELS
Changing the tax structure could help the United States reduce the need
for imported crude oil by lowering the costs of alternatives, according to a study by the
University of Missouri-Columbia.
Synthetic fuels face several nontechnical barriers to commercial
viability, including the amount of petroleum in reserve, the costs of investing in a new
technology, return on investment, and the U.S. tax structure. The study found that if
these barriers were removed, a barrel of synthetic fuel would cost just $13.
Imported crude oil has essentially zero taxes imposed on it, while a
barrel of domestic synthetic crude oil has corporate, personal income, FICA, state income,
local sales, and other taxes applied before workers and investors realize earnings,
according to Galen Suppes, associate professor of chemical engineering.
"In modern society, a nation must be able to commercialize new
technology to maintain high worker productivity and an industrial base that is critical
for national security," says Suppes. "When national policies inhibit this
commercialization, the future of a country is inevitably compromised."
SOURCE: University of Missouri-Columbia,
http://www.missouri.edu/~news/releases/suppeseconomicalternative.html
VIRTUAL CLAY
You may soon be able to reach out and manipulate clay in cyberspace,
thanks to a new tool for transmitting touch to the virtual world.
"This technology will give product designers, or even artists, a
tool that will allow them to touch, shape, and manipulate virtual objects just as they
would with actual clay models or sculptures," says Thenkurussi Kesavadas, director of
the University at Buffalo's Virtual Reality Lab.
|
UB researcher demonstrates
technology that allows users to "sculpt" clay and other malleable materials on
the computer. |
High-resolution:
http://www.buffalo.edu/news/hires/virtualclay.jpg |
The virtual clay sculpting system replicates in real time the physical
act of sculpting a block of clay. The computer generates a 3-D electronic shape that can
then be fine-tuned for product design.
The designer uses a "ModelGlove" that records the force
exerted by the hand when depressing and shaping a block of clay. The force-feedback
information, hand position, speed of fingertip motion, and other information are
communicated instantaneously to a computer, where the virtual clay is shaped precisely to
the contouring of the actual clay.
The technique promises not only to allow for more-intuitive design than
is possible with current mouse-based computer prototyping devices, but also to make
virtual reality more realistic.
"The most natural tool for a designer is his or her hand,"
says Kesavadas. "Touch is the next frontier in the evolution of virtual reality. Most
virtual-reality technologies to this point have focused on 3-D visualization, but the
sense of touch may be the most powerful way to make virtual reality more real."
SOURCE: University at Buffalo, http://www.buffalo.edu/news
************************************
WHAT DID FUTURISTS SAY?
AUDIO RECORDINGS FROM WORLDFUTURE 2004
If you missed a favorite speaker at the World Future Society's 2004
annual meeting or just want to have your own record of what was said, you can now order
audiotapes of individual sessions or a CD-ROM of all the recorded sessions.
The CD-ROM (containing nearly 100 sessions in all) is playable on PCs,
Macs, laptops, and MP3-compatible devices. Individual sessions are available on
audiocassettes.
BROWSE or ORDER: IntelliQuest Media,
http://www.intelliquestmedia.com/refer.php?o=World%20Future%20Society
************************************
CLICK
OF THE MONTH: PLAUSIBLE FUTURES
NEWSLETTER http://www.plausiblefutures.com
Headlines on breakthrough technologies and their potential implications,
as well as news stories on events of interest to all futurists, highlight this
refreshingly designed online journal.
The Plausible Futures news service for the futures-studies community is
edited by independent researcher Ole Peter Galaasen, based in Oslo, Norway.
Explore the newsletter's archive for intriguing stories on topics such
as scenario planning, learning organizations, the network economy, information warfare,
nanotechnology, biotechnology, habitats, demography, and robotics and artificial
intelligence.
Click on "News Sources" for a buried treasure of links to
mainstream news sources and future-relevant and specialized publications for news about
the economy, nanotechnology, energy, the environment, and much more.
An excellent resource for info-hungry futurists!
************************************
SAVE $250 by registering before September 30 for WorldFuture 2005, to be held in Chicago
July 29-31, 2005: https://www.wfs.org/2005regfrm.htm
************************************
FUTURIST UPDATE: News & Previews from the World Future Society is an
e-mail newsletter published monthly as a supplement to THE FUTURIST magazine. Copyright ©
2004, World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA.
Telephone 1-301-656-8274; e-mail mailto:info@wfs.org; Web site http://www.wfs.org.
Editor: Cindy Wagner
Assistant Editor: Clifton Coles
Network Administrator: Jeff Cornish
Webmaster: Sarah Warner
Membership Director: Susan Echard
To subscribe, send an e-mail message to mailto:majordomo@wfs.org with
"subscribe futurist-update" in the BODY of the message.
To unsubscribe or change your e-mail address, send message to Jeff Cornish,
mailto:jcornish@wfs.org.
Submit feedback at http://www.wfs.org/fbsep04.htm
The WORLD FUTURE SOCIETY is a nonprofit, nonpartisan scientific and
educational association with a global membership. Regular membership in the Society,
including a subscription to THE FUTURIST, is $45 per year, or $20 for full-time students
under age 25. Professional and Institutional membership programs are also offered; contact
Society headquarters for details: http://www.wfs.org
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