A trend that keeps appearing is how consumers are moving from users of information and services to becoming manipulators and creators of information and services. This interesting article (found via Lifehacker) discusses the possibilities of using iPods or other music sources instead of DJ’s to supply wedding music. Interesting concept. It makes me think about how we use technology and how it shakes up all kinds of professions. Are there other ways people can get or use the information that Extension provides?
An iPod Wedding?
September 21st, 2005 · 1 Comment
Tags: Organizational Development/Strucuture · Technology · Uncategorized
1 response so far ↓
1 Tim_Myth // Apr 26, 2006 at 11:28 am
First time visit to your blog, and the first time I have heard the terms Singularity or Extension. I’d only ever heard the term Future Shock, which may date me a bit.
There are many ways people can use currently available technology to shake up current professions. Here’s a website for Do It Yourself Lasik: http://www.lasikathome.com/ . But seriously, I work as a site technician in a Telecommunications Relay Center (we provide phone service for people who are deaf and hard of hearing)., and I see the effects of cell phones with IM capabilities. I see better hearing aides and cochlear implants or even the special glasses at Futurewire (http://haloscan.com/tb/bpomeroy54/114598695301093734). I do not see my job lasting another 20 years. I see an even shorter lifespan for the human agents that convert speech to text and text to speech.
The company I work for also happens to be a major cell phone company, and I look at the cell phone as being an integral part of the next Big Thing. I already read more news in a week on my cell phone than I do in an actual newspaper. If the browser and UI better, I’d use it for web surfing more as well. Give me some HUD glasses that can be plugged into my phone (so I’m not staring at a postage stamp), more memory (so I can actually visit real web sites), a virtual keyboard (so I’m not forced to hit 13 buttons just to type Hello), and I’ll use my cell phone more than my PC. Then you’ll have millions of people running around with nearly instant connectivity to those in there sphere of influence. When an event happens, people will be able to instantly proccess the information and spread it.
And now this starts sounding like other familiar objects that have millions of little things that proccess and transmit information to other similar things around it. The two I’m thinking of are the internet and the brain. The brain gives us our thoughts, and with it we understand and know, but this I think takes place at a higher level than the actual physical synaptic connections. I doubt a single neuron has any concept of the “higher process” it is involved in, but at some point, some group of neurons must know this because “I think, therefore I am”. If all the “synaptic connections” of the internet or a human/PCS network achieve conciousness, how would we recognize it? When it communicates its “presense” to us? How would you communicate your presence to your brain?
I’ve bookmarked your site. I think it will be an interesting read while I’m in meetings this afternoon.
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