Space gaming takes a step closer to reality

In the recent Signtific games on the future of cubesats (described here), a number of people suggested using them for games. At the 2009 cubesat conference

As Space.com reports,

[Space entrepreneur Jeffrey] Manber announced plans for Nanoracks, a company developing games incorporating CubeSats. The idea is to take advantage of recent advances in nanotechnology and hand-held communication devices like the Apple iPhone to allow people on Earth to participate in games of skill or chance that, in one way or another, involve an on-orbit CubeSat. "The CubeSat is a standardized platform that has an emerging base of developers," Manber said. "We think it's analogous to 20-25 years ago in the personal computer industry. If we can get people interested in games in zero gravity, there is a proven business model for using entertainment as a way to develop a market."

The Kentucky Space Blog adds,

There is, as he points out, a proven business model for using entertainment to pioneer new markets. His presentation is short and to the point.

In response to a question about why not simulate gaming in a weightless environment, a young member of the audience blurts out "because space is fun!" and talks about how zero-gravity games could be held using real time space to ground communications.

The argument that cubesats are like the personal computer is one that's circulating in the cubesat community now. It highlights the long connections, both technical and imginative, between computers and space: recall that one of the first personal computers was the Altair.

On conversation and extremism

It's conventional wisdom that groups generate ideas and plans more moderate than those of individuals. Groups and discussion encourage compromise, smooth out extremes, and guarantee moderation. It is also one of the unspoken assumptions of facilitation and group-oriented scenario work. Facilitation and scenario-building, the thinking goes, builds a sense of collective spirit by helping groups develop a shared vision of the future.

Tinkering and the future

My latest article, on the nature and future of tinkering, appears today in issue 22 of Vodafone Receiver:

Almost forty years ago, the Whole Earth Catalog published its last issue. For the American counterculture, it was like the closing of a really great café: the Catalog had brought together the voices of contributors, readers and editors, all unified by a kind of tech-savvy, hands-on, thoughtful optimism. Don't reject technology, the Catalog urged: make it your own. Don't drop out of the world: change it, using the tools we and your fellow readers have found. Some technologies were environmentally destructive or made you stupid, others were empowering and trod softly on the earth; together we could learn which were which.

Millions found the Catalog's message inspirational. In promoting an attitude toward technology that emphasized experimentation, re-use and re-invention, seeing the deeper consequences of your choices, appreciating the power of learning to do it yourself and sharing your ideas, the Whole Earth Catalog helped create the modern tinkering movement. Today, tinkering is growing in importance as a social movement, as a way of relating to technology and as a source of innovation. Tinkering is about seizing the moment: it is about ad-hoc learning, getting things done, innovation and novelty, all in a highly social, networked environment.

What is interesting is that at its best, tinkering has an almost Zen-like sense of the present: its 'now' is timeless. It is neither heedless of the past or future, nor is it in headlong pursuit of immediate gratification. Tinkering offers a way of engaging with today's needs while also keeping an eye on the future consequences of our choices. And the same technological and social trends that have made tinkering appealing seem poised to make it even more pervasive and powerful in the future. Today we tinker with things; tomorrow, we will tinker with the world.

Pentagon investing in energy research

The Washington Post reports on new Pentagon-sponsored research on energy efficiency, and the hard realities that now make it a priority:

[A]bout half of the U.S. military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are related to attacks with improvised explosive devices on convoys, many of which are carrying fuel. As of March 20, 3,426 service members had been killed by hostile fire in Iraq, 1,823 of them victims of IEDs.

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Richard Posner on preconceptions and anticipating disasters

Richard Posner writes in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education about the current financial crisis, and why experts didn't take early warnings about it seriously.

The financial crisis, when it finally struck the nation full-blown in September 2008, caught the government, the financial community, and the economics profession unawares.

We can get help in understanding the blindness of experts to warning signs from the literature on surprise attacks. Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, there were many warnings that Japan planned to attack Western possessions in Southeast Asia, and an attack on the U.S. fleet in Hawaii, known to be within range of Japan's large carrier fleet, was a logical measure, on Japan's part, for protecting the eastern flank of its attack on the Dutch East Indies, Burma, and Malaya. The warnings were disregarded because of preconceptions (including the belief that Japan would not attack the United States because it was too weak to have a reasonable chance of prevailing), the cost and difficulty of taking effective defensive measures against an uncertain danger, and the absence of a mechanism for aggregating, sifting, and analyzing warning information flowing in from many sources and for pushing it up to the decision-making level of government.

Similar factors made it difficult to heed the warning signs of the 2008 financial crisis. Preconceptions played an especially large role. It is tempting, indeed irresistible under conditions of uncertainty, to base policy to a degree on theoretical preconceptions, on a worldview, an ideology. But shaped as they are by past experiences, preconceptions can impede reactions to novel challenges. Most economists, and the kind of officials who tend to be appointed by Republican presidents, are heavily invested in the ideology of free markets, which teaches that competitive markets are, on the whole, self-correcting. Those officials and the economists to whom they turn for advice don't like to think of the economy as a kind of epileptic, subject to unpredictable, strange seizures.

New on IFTF.org: IFTF Workshop Listings

IFTF has just posted a menu of workshops based on our most recent research, facilitated by IFTF staff. In today's volatile, uncertain world, it seems impossibly difficult to forecast the future. Yet now is also the time when forecasting can be most valuable. It's a time when looking long can give you perspective, when thinking about the future can help you turn ambiguity about where you are into clarity about where you're going. IFTF's workshops can help your organization apply foresight and insight to create solid action plans.

From the Signtific Blog: Heading to China

One of the most interesting parts of the Signtific project for me has been the opportunity to do interviews and workshops with scientists around the world. Last year was a particularly active year, with trips to Malaysia, South Africa, Hungary, Singapore, Canada, Austria, England, and several places in the U.S.

Interesting question

One of the things that can powerfully affect the future is the radical decline in price of a currently expensive good or service. The invention of the printing press made books (and later newspapers) exceptionally cheap; the Industrial Revolution did the same for a whole host of manufactured goods; and more recently the same thing happened with information technologies.

The Launch of Signtific!

After many months of hard work, we are proud to announce the official launch of Signtific!

John Kay on financial models

John Kay's recent piece in the Financial Times is a useful warning to people doing financial—and other kinds of—forecasting: understanding the historical limitations of your model, and how badly things can go when the assumptions built into your model no longer hold:

On the intersection of design and futures

For some time I've been thinking about how trends in computing and design might affect the way that futurists work: how they could be used to sharpen our research methods, create new ways of interacting with audiences, and help people see and act on the future more effectively.

I've pulled these thoughts together in an essay on my blog. As I explain in the introduction,

I approach this from two directions. First, I describe how design can improve futures. In particular, I argue, research techniques developed by designers-- particularly their close attention to human-device interaction-- could sharpen thinking about, and forecasting of, the future of technology. Second, I describe the contribution futures can make to design. A combination of new technologies and challenges, I contend, are creating an opportunity to design products that can guide people to make better-informed choices about how they can be used, to reinforce behaviors that help users reach long-term goals, and to create a heightened awareness of the future.

This could have profound implications for futures. It would shift the profession from one that communicates through texts, mainly influences leaders and elites, and influences strategic processes, to one that communicates through things, influences large number of people, and informs everyday decision-making. But this is an essential transformation, as it would give us the ability to help solve the critical problems of the 21st century-- problems that, I contend, futures as it currently is practiced is ill-equipped to confront.

The complete essay is available here.

Time on After Shock

From Time:

[S]tarting at 10:02 a.m. on Thursday, you can play a sprawling, multiplayer collaboration game called After Shock to see what happens on the other side.

Ophelia Chong on After Shock

Los Angeles-based writer and designer Ophelia Chong (one of a handful of people who've made me think more positively about Southern California) writes about After Shock in her 404 City blog.

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