In the Future Their Will Be No Browsers

I have been thinking( dangerous in itself) lately about a number of things.

• The idea of the singularity.
• The internet as a database.
• How will we access that data
• all objects being connected with the internet
• the iPhone (of course)
• web apps
• LAMP html xml mysql ruby on rails etc.
• Adobe AIR
• Microsoft silverlight
• mozila PRISM
• ubiqitous broadband ( wireless especially)

I had all those things floating around in my head and realized that the way we interact with the internet, including reading it might be very different from how we view it now ( static pages access through a browser). we now have memory cards that you can put into your digital camera, and they will upload your photos to flickr( or what ever site you wish to host them). you cant browse the internet on the camera. you can’t email the image to a friend or family member from the camera. Just a dumb device that interacts with the camera and the internet.

The browser is a great way to display text and graphics from the internet on a laptop and or a desktop. But inclreasingly we will access the internet from small screens like our cell phones. On the iPhone you can build web apps that can be saved as icons onto the iPhone screen. When the 2.0 software upgrade comes out those apps will do away with the browser bar and go full screen. To normal users the difference between that web app and an installed app on the iPhone will not be obvious.

So when the internet become apart of everything, with two way streets of information flowing, will we still days things like, ” I need to get on the internet”.  Or will we be able to recall just the information we need using one of many devices to connect us to the vast sea of information out there.

No laptop, No fun

A couple of weeks ago my laptop stopped working. It just stopped turning on. So I sent it to the Little Laptop shop in the LES. There it sat a whole weekend, alone. The techie called me on Monday to report the sad news that the problem was the motherboard. A hard to find $450 part that wasn’t worth it for a laptop this old.
I was sad. The laptop had been invaluable to me over the past year. I took class notes, read email and RSS feeds on it. Wrote reports. Used it for PowerPoint presentations while Student teaching 7th and 8th graders. Watched movies on it with my wife. Good times good times indeed.
Being away from my laptop , and using other machines, made me realize how personal computing has become. I felt at home on that Thinkpad. I had moved in and done all the interior decorating. Everything was where I wanted it. Firefox was bling’d out.
There is a good ending to this story. I gave it to my brother and he turned it on. He didn’t even do anything to it either. It just worked again. My laptop, resurrected from the dead. Now hes backing up the data and installing Unbutu on a dual boot. I hope he gives it back soon, cause i miss my baby.
al boot. I hope he gives it back soon, cause i miss my baby.

Apple Has Got The Kids Hooked

Thats a lot of macs. There is a kid in the bottom right with a PC. While PC’s and Windows hold court in the business world, Macs have become the de-facto tool of the Cultural Creatives. Or maybe this just means that the “The Network Is The Computer”.
link
found via

Hip-Hop is International

What is it about Hip-Hop that makes it universal. The struggles of everyday people translate into this music style on a global scale. Is hip-hop reactionary? Is it the voice of the people, or now a corporate commercial?

Will Pink bring the Majority With Her?

Will this tip the American conscience to act?
Will this be another capitalist channeling of youth aggression into inaction?
Will this sell more itunes DL than register people to vote?
Is it too late to change the apathy of the youth?
Do they realize their power to change the reality we live in?

“You are not getting one thing for Christmas”

a kid tells his mom he is an atheist. He records the conversation
Nice

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Twitter and thank you T-mobile for Unlimited SMS

I have been using Twitter lately. It has been blowing up since SXSW, and that may be true but I got hooked on it a Macworld when Don McAllister used it to update what he was doing there.
The simplest things are great ways to break down the walls of communication between people around the world.
A great example of this is twittervision
I know the conversations are basic right now but this shows the level of community that these technologies can bring. Think of what this map will look like if a natural disaster or terrorist attack in Europe/ U.S.A.
Shouldn’t all my representative in Government have a Twitter page that I can send a message to instantly when i think of it. John Edwards does

Kottke has a great post about twitter

Digital Divide

Oya yubi sedai

which I think means “thumb tribe” in Japanese.  Cesar Studillo’s subject has grown up in a world that is dynamically different from the one ever we lived in.

 I can keep driving this idea home over and over again, but the internet, and all the subsystems of it, ( i.e. personal computers, cell phones, smart devices) is just beginning to have effects on our culture.  Those who backlash against it have not opened their eyes to how significantly different this world is.  A world of always connected.  A world of citizen journalism.  A world of democratized voices. 

It used to be that information was power.  Those that controlled information had power and doled out info like cowery beads in Africa, or wham-pam in New York.  There are no more Gatekeepers of information.  Not even Google is a gate keeper (quite the opposite).  When listening or reading world news, try and keep an eye on Governments or Corporations or trying to keep information limited.  Those organizations who try are dinosaurs now and will soon go extinct.

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Sustainable Food Goes Mainstream

Forget Wallmart carrying organic food, when one “Natural” Grocery Store chain buys another for more than half a billion dollars, we can honestly say there is a shift in the market.  Whole Foods is a great chain with people in charge that understand the market.  Trader Joe’s should be feeling some heat now that Whole Foods bought Wild Oats, their scalability just went up.

Found Via Digg.com

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Because Seseame Street is Made in NYC

This is a video every NY’er should watch.

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