Since I already touched on transparency through technology today, might as well give it another go. 

Remember that great conversation we had a few years ago? Not really? Yeah, me either. Give tech some time and you'll never forget your new ones though.  Or at least that's the world that DARPA envisions in the near future.


Check out the article that covers all of the creepy stuff DARPA is doing by reading wired.com's piece, found here: http://goo.gl/LepRw

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I spend a lot of time following innovative technology.  Currently, one of the things being the most discussed is Google's Glass project. All positive hype aside, I think it would do us all a lot of good to seriously consider the social implications of such a privacy invasive technology. 

Then again, the exponential increase in the transparency of individual lives in the developed world seems like an inevitable cost of living in a technologically immersed environment. Anyways, this is a well developed work that addresses the concerns we should all have for such an intriguing and disruptive project. Read it by clicking the image below:

Three dimensional printing and fabrication has been around for longer than I have, but now it is finally being applied on a larger scale.  It is no longer the late 80's or early 90's, and in today's 21st century instead of these printers being used for prototyping they are being implemented in full scale production.  

If you aren't familiar with 3D-printing then don't feel bad about yourself because you are apart of the majority of consumers, but the time has finally come for you to wise up--and fast.  3D printing promises to set a new standard for the production of consumer goods, and it will decentralize an industry that has long been predicated on logistics and transportation from production sites to consumer sites.  Like others interested in modeling the future, I believe that 3D printing will shift the way in which we have goods made, and interestingly enough the future that I envision moves things back to local commerce--not unlike the artisan era of production that was seen in pre-industrial times.  Instead of your plastic thing-a-ma-jigs and doo-dads being made in Asia and then shipped throughout the world, these items will be printed at your local print shop and in some cases your own homes. 

If you are not convinced by the potentials for 3D printing, then this article that was just tweeted by B3dge that reports on China's investment of $80M in 3D printing technology and exploration might help convert you.  The investment maybe a drop in the bucket as far as the industrial revenue for China is concerned, but give it a few years and major shifts in manufacturing are expected to happen.

You will definitely hear more about 3D printing on this blog in the future.

--Oz

Link to China 3D Printing Investment Article:
http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130205-china-to-invest-8m-in-3d-printing-innovation-center.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

So, I've been missing in action from both the technology/science sections of this website but as of this morning that is going to change because I am now a college graduate.  Thank god that stuff is over--after this helluva semester I now know for sure that I'm going to take an academic hiatus before going to graduate school. 

Anyways,  this is the official promise that more time will be spent on the technology/science sections of this site.  I mean, don't get me wrong,  I really enjoy all of the music/art/life stuff, but it's really scientific discovery and technological innovation that makes me tick.  At the same time those are the topics I'd like to dedicate the most time to and so it didn't seem right to just quick post about them like I do all of the other stuff.  

So, for my next trick..

The Googlarity is near!  Forget the singularity, (actually don't, that would be dumb) Google has made an epic signing! 

(I haven't been this excited about a signing since Robin Van Persie got picked up by Man Utd)

Anyhow, Ray Kurzweil has just announced that he will be heading up Google's Engineering Department.  Talk about a game changer!  His area of concentration within Google is going to be on machine learning and language processing, and I can already picture him now: Kurzweil as a kindergarten teacher for little robotz. lulz.


Source:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/14/3768332/futurist-ray-kurzweil-joins-google-will-focus-on-machine-learning-and

PhreakNIC vol. 16 has come and gone.  It was my first exposure to the tech convention and it was an absolute blast.  I learned so much that I'm still processing the data and digesting the overall experience, but more important than the gained information were all of the friends that I made. You know who you are.

I have to give a big thanks to everyone involved with putting it together, but an extra special thanks to my good friend Mitchell for getting me to go in the first place.  He helped make the convention what it was and introduced me to a great group of people that I hope to keep up with in the future.  Wish I had attended a long time ago.

Event highlights for me were the talks given on cyber security, magnetic physics, and personal identity security.

Oh, and the pig roast wasn't half bad either.  

The coolest thing I saw at the convention though was a homemade printer that was brought in by The U. S. Department of Homemade Stuff.  Cheers for the "To Infinity and Beyond" print and the good conversations.

Anyways,

If you are a tech enthusiast, and you have a chance to attend this convention, I strongly recommend making the trip.  You'll be surrounded by like-minded people who are looking to have a relaxed weekend celebrating the things they love.  With that chemistry you can't go wrong.

More information can be found here:

http://www.phreaknic.info/

     Welcome to my blog concerning technology and the future!  I'd like to make my inaugural post on technology be an explanation of how technology relates to me as an aspiring futurist, writer, and individual.  As a person somewhere in between the stages of being a very old kid and a very young adult figuring out "what I want to be when I grow up" has been a difficult process. I wrestled with a lot of options throughout undergrad and I did a lot of soul searching, but towards the very end of it I finally stumbled upon the field of futurism and strategic foresight.  Looking back it seems like the obvious field for me to pursue because I was (and still am) so obsessed with the way biological evolution and technological innovation relate to one another, but at the time I was still filling in the pieces of the puzzle and asking a lot of questions that nobody had or has the answers to.

     As an avid fan of the writings of Ray Kurzweil, especially The Singularity is Near, I have to give a lot of credit to his work for inspiring my pursuit of futurism as a profession.  Another author, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his book, The Phenomenon of Man, also left a deep impression on my outlook for technological growth and its implications for mankind.  I spent a lot of my early collegiate career waking up to the exponential growth of technology, and I became aware of it as an obvious extension of biological evolution prior to any knowledge of Ray Kurzweil or his concept of the singularity.  After making the profound realization about the rate in which technology was growing I spent a long period of time in a state of existential crisis, but eventually I resolved myself to find a way to be a part of the outcome of the unfolding future and thus my goal for becoming a futurist began.  It seems sensible to me that if I am going to spend a vast majority of my time considering the possible outcomes of the future based upon the changing dynamics of technology then I should try and make a profession out of it.  Now I am in my final semester of undergraduate school at Tennessee Technological University, and my plans for after graduation include pursuing a Masters Degree in Strategic Foresight, traveling the world extensively, and writing as much as I can.

     This website is a tool for me to convey my life to the world, and this blog is purposed specifically for discussing the exponential growth of technology.  It is exciting and bizarre to realize that we are alive in a time where dreams become realities in the matter of mere days, weeks, months, or years.  The paradigms of life on planet earth are shifting and we are lucky enough to be here to experience these changes.  I hope that you will find my personal exploration of science, technology, and innovation to be relevant to your life and that you will give feedback to my work whenever you have something to contribute. 

Thank you,

Austin Cleek