Have we finally reached a point where ebooks are going to have the huge transformational impact some people think it will have..

Wired’s Chris Anderson’s had a good theory in 2004 on how to predict a technology shift and watch for 4 signals (that don’t all have to be present) for the technology shift;

1) The technology price reaches a certain lower point

2) The market share goes above a certain threshold (tech is usually 20% or so)

3) The technology reaches an inflection point where it displaces an existing technology

4) The price of the technology approaches “free”

Watch Chris Anderson’s great video on technology takeoff prediction –  http://nexle.dk/l/d6z

I love that great ebooks (also tech ones that normally cost upwards to AUD$100) now often costs $9.95 and how its just such a fantastic reading experience on the Kindle! (the fact that you can carry stacks of books with you and review your digital book highlightings easily is fantastic)

#wired

Also, interesting company “Skylook”, from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_Wireless);

Skyhook Wireless (formerly known as Quarterscope) is a Boston-based company that has developed a technology for determining geographical location using Wi-Fi as the underlying reference system. Using the MAC addresses of nearby wireless access points and proprietary algorithms, WPS can determine the position of a mobile device within 20–30 meters.

and..

At the Macworld Conference & Expo in January 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that both the iPhone and iPod Touch will use Skyhook’s WPS as the primary location engine for Google Maps and other applications.^[5] Skyhook WPS is also available on the Apple iPad, launched in March 2010.

My favs in HTML5?….

The top 3 things I love with HTML5 in prioritised order I think are;

1. Geo location API
2. Local storage and offline cache APIs
3. Notification API

Not too excited about the CSS stuff and the crazy web sockets stuff (might change my mind on that) and not too hot on the HTML5 video stuff either (heck we only need that because Apple suck sometimes)

Just read the article “DST’s Yuri Milner: Facebook Is Going To Be The Social Graph That Unifies All Civilization” on TechCrunch..

While the article itself wasn’t that great it was nice to read the thoughts from DST (the Russian company who invested US $200 million in Facebook a year ago and are investors in trending and promising companies like Zynga and Groupon) CEO Yuri Milner which basically were around the profound impacts that social sites will have on the human race.

A comment from Milner that struck me was;

Charlie Rose:

Backstage you told me about an article in the NYT that spoke to you when we think about why social networking has become such a phenomenon.

Yuri Milner:

Story was that human civ. started to develop with first social network. Emerged where population conc. was high. Helped propel to where we are now. Facebook is next step of creating huge human brain to embrace hundreds of million, possibly billions of people. Facilitate exchange of information never seen in hisotry of civilization…

I strongly believe that the rate of progress for the human race from a social and science perspective will continue on its ever accelerating path..

Think about the profound impact the printing press had on the human race. The Web was initially not more than the printed words delievered via a new medium. However, imagine now where the Social and “Understanding” Internet (which is underlined by fast processing, endless space, “everyone connected”, elaborate tools and algorithms and change in culture) allows for unrestricted, real time intelligent collaboration between anyone, Web 3.0 style classification and understanding of content and knowledge…

Technological Singularity may be closer than we think…..

From wikipedia:

Technological singularity refers to a prediction in Futurology that technological progress will become extremely fast, and consequently will make the future (after the technological singularity) unpredictable and qualitatively different from today. It is most often associated with the ideas of futurist Ray Kurzweil.^{[citation needed]}

Although technological progress has been accelerating, it has been limited by the basic intelligence of the human brain, which has not changed significantly for millennia.^[1] However with the increasing power of computers and other technologies, it might eventually be possible to build a machine that is more intelligent than humanity.^{[citation needed]}

Theoretically, if a machine built by humans could bring to bear greater problem-solving and inventive skills than humans, then it could design a yet more capable machine. If built, this more capable machine then could design a machine of even greater capability. These iterations could accelerate, leading to recursive self improvement