NYTimes.com: What Carriers Aren't Eager to Tell You About Texting

The NYT reminds its readers of the low (~0) marginal cost of transmitting digital data and the reluctance of digital service providers to talk about this fact. RAEM

Robot teddy - too late for this year's x-mas market

KurzweilAI.net reports:

MIT's Huggable Robot Teddy Enhances Human Relationships
PhysOrg.com Dec. 17, 2008
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MIT's companion robot called "the Huggable" is designed to enhance human relationships by functioning as a visual tool for long-distance communication. Grandparents who want
to talk to young grandchildren, teachers instructing students, or healthcare providers communicating with patients could all enrich their interactions using the...

600,000 kids now equipped with XO computer

The New Scientist reports on Dec 18th 2008:

"One Laptop Per Child ready for version 2.0
The ultra-cheap XO computer from the One Laptop Per Child project is now being used by 600,000 children in the developing world, the ambitious project's founder Nicholas Negroponte told New Scientist in an interview yesterday.

"That's not promised machines, or machines that might be on their way, that is actual laptops in use by children in their schools and homes today," the former MIT Media Lab director said...."

Negroponte has put on a good show at TED: The vision behind One Laptop per Child.

Wikipedia becomes an add-on to scientific papers - or vice versa

I still have a few colleagues who disdain Wikipedia and who tell our students not to use Wikipedia. These colleagues may have to adapt quickly.

Under the title "Publish in Wikipedia or perish - Journal to require authors to post in the free online encyclopaedia" naturenews reports, "RNA Biology will require Wikipedia pages from all authors who submit work to a new section of the journal, to be launched later this week, that describes families of RNA molecules. The first paper scheduled is "A Survey of Nematode SmY RNAs"1; its corresponding Wikipedia summary can be found here.
The goal is to encourage more scientists who work on RNA to get involved in creating and updating public data on RNA families, while being rewarded by the traditional method of a citable publication, ..."

Open-source innovation

The organization of agrifood R&D is likely to change. It used to be organized around centers of excellence - large chunks of concrete with good people inside. The model may change and I need to prepare myself and my students for the change. This is one reason I am rummaging through books, papers and websites in search of nuggets of useful insights.

The other reason for this search is a presentation I am committed to give on January 7th. The topic is "Knowledge and world food". I am still not quite sure what exactly I will say. I think the cast of characters will involve: Malthus, Sen, Mao, Haber & Bosch, Borlaug, Potrykus, Julian Simon, Ehrlich, Schultz, Fogel, Negroponte. The key message most likely will be that networked research capabilities are a good bet to avert Malthus' curse.

At present I am exploring two sources that may be useful. Leadbeater's book was reviewed very favorably in the Economist. Leadbeater has his own useful website. The other source I have to look into more closely is Yochai Benkler's "The Wealth of Networks".