The title of this post is an article headline from this week’s New York Science Times. The article describes an approach that is catching on for connecting would be innovators with problems that need solving. The report begins with the story of a chemist in Illinois whose understanding of how to keep cement from setting too soon solved a problem of oil freezing in storage tanks in Alaska.

The chemist and the institute came together through InnoCentive, a company that links organizations (seekers) with problems (challenges) to people all over the world (solvers) who win cash prizes for resolving them. The company gets a posting fee and, if the problem is solved, a “finders fee” equal to about 40 percent of the prize.

The process, according to John Seely Brown, a theorist of information technology and former director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, reflects “a huge shift in popular culture, from consuming to participating” enabled by the interactivity so characteristic of the Internet. It is sometimes called open-source science, taking the name from open-source software in which the source code, or original programming, is made public to encourage others to work on improving it.

German researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute have introduced their third generation of household robots, the Care-O-Bot 3. The previous generations of this mobile robot assistant were designed to assist elderly or handicapped people in daily life activities. But now, this new 1.45 meter-high robot is intended to be an artificial assistant always at your service, even if you’re young and in good health. It moves on 4 spherical wheels in any direction and has a large array of sensors to ensure it will never hurt you. With it 3-finger hand, it can handle a bottle of apple juice or champagne put on its front tray. It will then wait until you ask it to pour a glass for you. Sorry, I don’t know when it becomes commercially available. But read more…

Links: ZDNet, Primidi

An experiment: This brief video mashes up remarks I made in previous episodes to convey a meta-message: From The Martian Report (1977) to The WELL(1989) to TED (2005) to the New Media Consortium (2007) to Jim Lehrer’s 2008 Newshour documentary, By The People, to my recent remarks to the Korean people.

This may seem like a stretch, but the wisdom of the crowd certainly must operate from some principle of nature. Today I ran across a discovery that the dilution of bird populations has an effect on the transmission of the West Nile Virus. The virus is spread by mosquitoes, who infect birds. The more diverse the population of birds, it turns out, the less effective the transmission. The article reporting this in the Public Library of Science includes this:

We found there is lower incidence of human WNV in eastern US counties that have greater avian (viral host) diversity. This pattern exists when examining diversity-disease relationships both before WNV reached the US (in 1998) and once the epidemic was underway (in 2002). The robust disease-diversity relationships confirm that the dilution effect can be observed in another emerging infectious disease and illustrate an important ecosystem service provided by biodiversity, further supporting the growing view that protecting biodiversity should be considered in public health and safety plans.

Are mobs smarter when they are diluted and diverse? My guess is the mosquitoes think so.

Stefanie Olsen on CNet News: Marketers convened recently to figure out how best to reach teens on the Internet. The answer: It’s all about the mobile phone.

“The iPhone is just the beginning of the all-in-one device. Uses of mobile devices will expand to include all kinds of bar code applications and prepaid debit card payment methods,” said Bill Carter, a partner at Fuse, who presented the findings here at the YPulse 2008 National Mashup, a two-day conference on teens and technology”

“That’s likely why geographic ad targeting to teens via the phone is expected to explode in the coming years. Right now, mobile phone providers analyze an estimated 4 billion Internet Protocol addresses to provide street-level targeting to consumers.”

Pope’s message goes hi-tech in Australia

Pope Benedict XVI took a new hi-tech road to spreading his message Tuesday, sending a mobile phone text to pilgrims attending World Youth Day celebrations in Australia, organisers said. “Young friend, God and his people expect much from u because u have within you the Fathers supreme gift: the Spirit of Jesus - BXVI,” read the first of the daily texts.
Source: AFP, July 14, 2008

For teens, the future is mobile

Marketers convened here this week to figure out how best to reach teens on the Internet. The answer: It’s all about the mobile phone. Advertisers are clamoring to reach teens in digital environments because that’s where they’re spending much of their time–either online, with cell phones or playing video games. What’s more, teens wield an estimated $200 billion annually in discretionary spending.
Source: Stefanie Olsen, CNET’s Digital Media blog, July 15, 2008

Opening Up Microblogging

The first open-source challenge to the pioneering microblogging site Twitter launched earlier this month. Identi.ca, built using open-source software Laconica, was started by the Montreal-based company Control Yourself. The site is getting attention from microbloggers who hope that Identi.ca will improve upon Twitter, which has been plagued by problems.
Source: Erica Naone, Technology Review, July 17, 2008

Cyber-capos: How cybercriminals mirror the mafia and businesses

Cybercrime, the harvesting and sale of credit card and other data for online fraud and theft, is a “shadow economy” that mimics the real business world in its practices and the mafia in its structure, according to a new report from security firm Finjan. “The current cybercrime organizations bear an uncanny resemblance to organized crime organizations such as ‘La Cosa Nostra,’” concludes Finjan’s Malicious Code Research Center’s Web Security Trends Report for the second-quarter of 2008.
Source: Elinor Mills, CNET’s Security blog, July 16, 2008

US sees first airliner flight with laser defences

US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trials of laser missile-dazzler defences on airliners have passed another milestone, with armaments maker BAE Systems announcing that its “JetEye” gear has made its first scheduled passenger flight. The JetEye-equipped plane, a Boeing 767 operated by American Airlines, made a routine trip from New York to Los Angeles.
Two further American 767s will also be equipped with JetEye for the trial, which is designed to find out the effects of the gear on airline operations and finances. The planes will fly with the new equipment until 2009.
Source: Lewis Page, The Register, July 17, 2008

Smart clothes revolutionize attire

Imagine an outfit that fits perfectly and eliminates the worry of sweat stains and body odor. Oh, and it plays your favorite music. It’s an idea that’s not far off in the future. New fabrics are being developed that can regulate body temperature, conduct electricity, play music, fight bacteria and odor, repel insects, soothe dry skin and have the capacity to custom shape themselves for your body. These new “smart fabrics” have medical and military purposes as well.
Source: Jessica Franklin, The Auburn Plainsman, Auburn University, Alabama, July 17, 2008

iTunes allows radiologists to save, sort and search personal learning files

iTunes has the ability to manage and organize PDF files just as easy as music files, allowing radiologists to better organize their personal files of articles and images, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at Renji Hospital and Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine in Shanghai, China.
Source: American Roentgen Ray Society news release, July 18, 2008

A book with 90,000 authors

Among the unlikelier announcements made at Wikipedia’s conference in Alexandria, Egypt, was the bold claim on Friday that the online encyclopedia was about to make history in print publishing: creating the book with the most credited individual authors ever — about 90,000.
Source: Noam Cohen, The New York Times, July 19, 2008

On Mashable (twitterer/blogger) Steven Hodson argues that ‘Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool’. In Steven’s view Twitter “is no different than another service that we have had for a very long time on the Web and it’s called Internet Messenger or Gtalk or any number of messenger type services“.

This qualification is partly confirmed by Scott Hanselman’s musing explaining why he hasn’t used Instant Messaging for anything significant in months. Read in ‘Twitter and The Uselessfulness of Micro-blogging’ what elements make Twitter special.

What’s your opinion about ‘Twitter as micro-blogging’ tool? Are you (like Steven) ‘insulted that Twitter is even considered to be in the same field as blogs or even micro-blogs’??

In the UK, 19-26 July is Save Our Butterflies Week. The positive impact for the little insects that will result from the promotion through the Internet of this focus week is something very new in the relationship of us humans with other species. The homepage of Save Our Butterflies Week links to a cluster of resources for human pro-butterfly activity and information about the creatures. It is also a strong call to action to save the butterflies, complete with specific instructions on several ways to help. By blogging this description of the project, I am likely to inform someone who will go to the page and end up saving some butterflies. In assessing the smart mob principles that are changing the real world, conservation websites should be included as important players.

Choconancy pointed us to this ‘Digiactive introduction to Facebook Activism’ by Dan Schultz Lead Researcher of DigiActive ‘A world of digital activists’.

The social basis of activism explains why Facebook, an increasingly popular social networking site, is a natural companion for tech-savvy organizers. Because of the site’s massive user base and its free tools, Facebook is almost too attractive to pass up. However, the site has its flaws and is not a guarantee of organizing success. This guide is written to provide some insights into what works, what does not work, and how best to use Facebook to advance your movement.

From 24 to 26 September 2008, thousands of creative minds from all over the world will come together in Amsterdam for the third PICNIC.

The main theme of PICNIC’08 is Collaborative Creativity in its many guises. We will look at new and connected forms of intelligence and creativity, from the fields of entertainment, science, the arts and business.

Here is a programme by day overview of the conference. Also keep an eye on this weblog for the latest news about PICNIC