Jump The Curve Archives: 12/2009

10 Quotes on Unlearning

I have said before that the future will require unlearning and that unlearning will be one of the most critical skills for successfully navigating the future. With this thought in mind, here then are 10 quotes to consider:

#1. “The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” --Alvin Toffler

#2: “The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.”—President John F. Kennedy

#3: “In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists”. --Eric Hoffer

#4: “In some sense our ability to open the future will depend not on how well we learn anymore but on how well we are able to unlearn”.—Alan Kay

#5: “Two things seemed pretty apparent to me. One was that in order to be a pilot a man had to learn more than any one man ought to learn; and the other was that he must learn it all over again in a different way every 24 hours.”—Mark Twain

#6: “Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out.” --Thomas Cardinal Wolsey

#7: “The most important lessons lay not in what I needed to learn, but in what I first needed to unlearn.” Jim Collins

#8: “Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed. A short while ago I foolishly thought I could learn everything--all the knowledge in the world. Now I hope only to be able to know of its existence, and to understand one grain of it.”—Charly in Flowers for Algernon

#9: “The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.”—Antisthenes

#10: “The difficulty lies, not in new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of have been, into the corners of our minds.”—John Maynard Keynes

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Is “Personalized Solar Energy” in Your Future?

The short answer is yes. A new report explains how continued advances in solar energy, when combined with advances in fuel cell energy, will lead to more people producing their own energy on location.

The broad trend fueling advances in both solar and fuel cell technology—especially catalysts—is nanotechnology.

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A Futurist’s Future

Earlier this month, as a professional futurist, I put together a list of my top 20 technology-based predictions for 2010. Earlier this week, futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted how technology will change humanity by 2020. (It’s a great read and you can access it here.)

Among the highlights, by 2020:

1. Memory devices will be integrated into our clothing;
2. People will have ways to touch each other virtually;
3. Solar energy will continue to grow exponentially; and
4. Advances in genomics will address the problem of obestity.

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Robots’ More “Socially Aware” Future

Many people, myself included, expect robots to become more popular in the coming decade. One reason I’m optimistic is because social scientists (such as cultural anthropologists) are discovering how to make robots more acceptable in a variety of settings. According to this article, some hospital workers love robots while others hate them.

The difference is that the workers who hate robots hate them because they are unable to adjust their behavior to the appropriate situation. For example, if a doctor is talking in a hushed tone to a patient’s family in a cancer ward, the robots should also be quiet—but often it isn’t. As computer and sensor technology as well as algorithms get better expect many of these problems to be mitigated. The result: more robots in hospitals; aging facilities; schools and even our homes.

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Want to Know Your Future? Ask Your Phone

New technology is using “mobility events” to make your smartphone even smarter. According to this article, researchers in the Netherlands have created a system that learns users’ behavior patterns to provide them with an enhanced cellphone service.

The example cited in the article involves your “going to work” routine (i.e. opening your garage, getting in the car; stopping at the local store to buy a lotto ticket, etc) and explains how your phone might be deduce what will happen next. For example, you may drive through an area with poor coverage so your phone will wait to start uploading a large file. Before long, innovative marketers will also be able to exploit this information. For instance, it may know that you also enjoy a Starbucks latte every so often and a coupon for 15% off will be sent to you whenever your with a mile of one of their stores.

I would encourage you to consider how this and related technology may also help senior citizens. I envision the day when your phone will notice that you haven’t called your grandchild in a few days and will prompt you with a reminder. Or, your phone—due to the accelerometers—may also notice that your stride is beginning to wobble and will send an alert to your doctor that you may be experiencing the early stages of a stroke.

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Apple’s “Share-Everything” Future

Wired has an excellent article on Apple’s foray into live video streaming. For individuals and businesses interested in contemplating the future, I encourage you to think through the ramifications of “life-logging”—or the idea that more and more people will begin uploading major chunks of their life onto the Internet.

For newspapers and media, it will empower citizen journalists. For travel and transportation-related industries, it might mean fewer face-to-face meetings as individuals grow increasingly comfortable communicating in this new, more immersive format. And for healthcare professionals (and patients) it might portend quicker and remote diagnosis of disease.

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One Step Closer to the Minority Report?

The other day, I offered a picture of what the near-term future of police surveillance may look like. Today, I’d like you to consider a somewhat more futuristic vision. In this article, Google explains how quantum algorithms may soon be able to spot cars.

If you combined this future capability with today’s existing technology (together the impending era of super cheap, ubiquitous cameras), it is not difficult to imagine how a government agency might soon be able to not only watch us constantly but also spot any “strange” activity immediately.

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How Longer Life Expectancies Might Change the Future

The Wharton School of Business recently published an formative and insightful article entitled So You Want to Live to 100? More of Us Will, and Here is What Life Might Look Like.

Among the key findings:

1. Governments will need to impose radical changes in public policy.
2. Older workers will increasingly be managed by younger supervisors.
3. There will be a growth in jobs that require only 15, 20 or 25 hours of work a week.
4. The 21st century may be a “century of redistribution of work” in which individuals will will combine work, education, leisure and child-rearing (and parent care) in varying amounts at different times in their lives.

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The Future of Police Surveillance?

The police officer’s quote at the end of this video says it all: “This technology [automatic license plate recognition] is going to revolutionize law enforcement.” It is impressive technology but the civil libertarian in me is concerned that in the hands of over-zealous law enforcement officials the technology can also be abused.

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Jack Uldrich’s Interview on The Small Business Advocate

Earlier today, I appeared on Jim Blasingame’s nationally-syndicated radio program, The Small Business Advocate, to discuss my predictions for 2010. Below is the full interview:

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Is this the Future of Magazines and Newspapers?

Does Sports Illustrated have its pulse on the future of magazines and newspapers? I believe it does. I encourage you to watch this three minute video demonstration of what the company is working on:

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Extrapolate Forward: 2010 Predictions from Futurist Jack Uldrich

#1: By the end of 2010, one-third of all automotive ads will focus exclusively on software-driven features that emphasize future car’s ability to interpret, react and connect to the external environment. Far less emphasis will be placed on car’s physical appearance and performance.

#2: One 4-year college will decrease its tuition by more than 5% in 2010 citing growing pressure from online universities; 10 universities will follow Princeton’s lead and begin distributing e-Books (such as the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader) to incoming students; and at least 100 other colleges and universities will follow Boston University’s lead in eliminating email addresses for incoming freshmen.

#3: The sale of solar cells will grow faster than expected due to innovations in new financing models that minimize or eliminate altogether the large up-front costs currently associated with installing solar modules.

#4: The first fully robotic vehicle will become operational in Iraq and Afghanistan and will successfully deliver military supplies more than 25 miles without the aid of any humans.

#5: A socially-networked song in which none of the band members knew one another prior to the song’s release will become a Billboard Top Ten hit. The band will attempt to conduct a conventional tour but will soon breakup citing “artistic differences.” The real cause: they find they just don’t like one another. 

#6:The first cyborg soldier—with above average human capabilities in terms of strength, speed and/or vision—will return to active duty. Nicknamed “Steve Austin” by his fellow soldiers; the technology inside “the bionic man” (or bionic woman) will cost far less than 6 million dollars.

#7: An amateur scientist using cheap supercomputers accessed through “the cloud” will make a major scientific discovery. Her discovery will have initially been dismissed by peer-reviewed journals but hailed by the growing number of “open-science” advocates.

#8: A full two years before its first-ever “Space Tourism” launch, Galactic Suite Ltd will lower the price of its three-day trip to space from $4.4 million to $2 million.

#9: A physician in India will perform a prostectonomy on a patient in a different country using only a high-speed Internet connection and da Vinci robotic surgical device. The “medical tourist” in Sri Lanka will return to the United States the following day.

#10: A new iPhone app will be created which overlays a “Nascar-like” suit over the images of Congressmen and other prominent politicians to reveal from whom they are receiving campaign contributions. The size of the “patch” will vary according to the amount of campaign contributions they have received from the organization. The new app will bring heightened attention to the burgeoning field of augmented reality.

#11: An RFID chip embedded in the arm of an elderly Alzheimer patient will be credited with saving the man from freezing to death after he strolled away from his residence in the middle of the night and became disoriented.

#12: A leading concrete company will call for a ban on carbon dioxide emissions from concrete because its nanotechnology-enable concrete will be certified as a “CO2 neutral.”

#13: Hype surround algae’s promise as the “bio-fuel of the future” will grow hot after a breakthrough in the field of synthetic biology. Environmental advocates, however, will draw parallels between the advent of the “designer bacteria” (which is used to convert algae into fuel) and the creation of genetically modified organisms. The issue of “Frankenbugs” will gain traction in the media.

#14: Mind-control toys will grow from a small niche product in 2009 to the latest “must-have” toy by the 2010 holiday season. The technology will sell very well among kids under the age of 10 and seniors over the age of 65. Interest in brain-neural technology will also be driven by plummeting prices and increased product performance.

#15: Synthetically grown diamonds will make their way into the commercial marketplace but the diamond industry will have no ability to discern the products from “natural” diamonds. The diamond industry will attempt to downplay the significance of the event but will quietly ramp up efforts to regulate and control the creation of synthetic diamonds.

#16: A robotic pet that also serves as a companion, watch dog, vacuum cleaner and a personal healthcare monitor will be unveiled in Japan and marketed to the seniors. Voice recognition technology inside the robot will also be able to detect if a person"s speech is slurring and will connect to a healthcare professional immediately.

#17: The cost of sequencing an individual’s genome will drop to less than $1000. The breakthrough will lead to the creation of a rash of new social networking sites around different genetic dispositions in order to deal with the avalanche of genetic information. Genetic counseling will become one of the fastest growing professions in the coming decade.

#18: The growing sophistication of language translational software (available on such platforms as Google Wave) will cause leading corporations to revisit some job descriptions which currently require candidates to speak two languages. Citing the technology’s ability to facilitate conversations with native speakers, the city of Paris will become an even more popular tourist destination.

#19: A conservative state legislator will introduce legislation prohibiting healthy individuals (i.e. non-injured combat veterans) from using implanted brain-neural technology to control objects outside their body. The bill will die in committee but the author and other supporters vow to make it a campaign issue in 2010.

#20: Technology artisans will begin using inexpensive rapid prototype manufacturing equipment to develop new pieces of art and jewelry of previously unseen sophistication, complexity and beauty. More traditional artisans will ask that “non hand-made” products be banned from local art fairs.

The “Back to the Future” Prediction of 2010: A barefoot runner will win a major marathon and fuel a growing trend among recreational runners to run without shoes.

Jack Uldrich is an author, futurist, keynote speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations. He can be contacted at 612.267.1212 or jack@nanoveritas.com.

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