On Social Media!

On Social Media. This is the reality, where are we as the Church in the mix? Do we understand (I mean honesty, really understand) the fundamental shift that is happening and the right and good role the Church can play in both the digital and tactile worlds? For the Cure of Souls? For peace? For an alternative?  How can we be the imago Dei among all of this?

Tablet computing

Notion Ink’s “Adam” tablet computer. A real competitor to Apple’s iPad. I may even be drawn to it if Apple doesn’t add such things as a camera or external port options.

A report of a speech by a Google’s European boss John Herlihy forecasting the future of information/computing devices, as reported on siliconrepublic.com:

Google believes that in three years or so desktops will give way to mobile as the primary screen from which most people will consume information and entertainment. That’s according to Google Europe boss John Herlihy who said that smart phones enhance Google’s mission to make information universal.
Speaking at the Digital Landscapes conference at UCD, Herlihy said that the cloud-computing opportunity will make sure that every mobile device will be capable of doing rapid-scale applications.
“In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs,” Herlihy told a baffled audience, echoing comments by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the recent GSM Association Mobile World Congress 2010 that everything the company will do going forward will be via a mobile lens, centring on the cloud, computing and connectivity.

Computer/Internet Worm

I usually don’t do this because I hate it when I receive three hundred e-mails from concerned friends and family members about some sort of Internet computer virus that is 10 years old, but the warnings refuse to die.
So anyway, this one is current and real and the New York Times report link here and posted in total below.
Be vigilant, anyone who might come across this blog.
Worm Infects Millions of Computers Worldwide – New York Times

Continue reading

Internet Neutrality

I started dealing with World Wide Web, the currently most popular segment of the Internet, from the early 90’s – almost from the beginning. I created Websites for my academic unit at Kent State and diocese before Microsoft even got involved. I remember the incredible dreams of those who saw a future of a free and neutral means of communication available to the common person – that was the early days of the Internet.

A new kind of oil?

From: The Times Online – Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol

“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”
He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.
Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”. After that, he grins, “it’s a brave new world”.
Mr Pal is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities such as software and networking and embarked instead on an extraordinary race to make $140-a-barrel oil (£70) from Saudi Arabia obsolete. “All of us here – everyone in this company and in this industry, are aware of the urgency,” Mr Pal says.

Read it all here. I wonder whether this will end up like the hype around “cold fusion” that was in all the news a while ago?
Hat tip to: The Topmost Apple

The Grid

There is the Internet. There is the Internet2, and now there is “The Grid,” from the same people that brought you the Web. Super fast Internet is a reality and…
The TimesOnline (UK)
P.S. Read the “Comments.” I love the one that says that this part of the Globalists’ (ala Dick Cheney) campaign to control the U.S. as a fascist state.

Kindle Reading Device

I’m not sure how long this thing has actually been out, but I just noticed Amazon.com’s new wireless reading device, Kindle. It kind of reminds me of a slimmer, white Apple Newton device. I wonder whether Steve Jobs and Apple really messed up by ending the Newton program. What could it be, now?
I think we are seeing the beginning of the “flexible digital paper” or devices that will really move us into reading through an electronic device. We shall see.