hyper as in linked, and local as in location
In a fascinating dispatch from the future, author Bruce Sterling brings us the ultimate global citizen: Harvey Feldspar, who as a modern Phileas Fogg describes his encounter with world cultures with the only difference that he does it from the year 2017.
If there is a lesson to be learned from his adventures is that the future knows exactly where you are. And this knowledge is transformed into a myriad of location-aware transactions that blend your reality with your virtual self into one coherent experience that enhances your appreciation for local cultures.
People worried that ubiquity would create a boring global techno-monoculture from Seoul to Siena. But it doesn’t play out that way. In Dubai, 80 percent of everybody is a foreigner, yet its characteristic bazaars and souks thrive. That’s partly because they automatically match global demands with local supply. The more the place hyperlocalizes, the more like itself it becomes.
I had explored the idea of homogenization -or monoculture- in the post jazz & macdonald’s and have constantly pushed forward the idea that migrants are among the most important forces shaping local cultures around the world; but the mastery with which Sterling [...]
I used to live two parallel lives: working as a technologist on a digital agency by day and writing for this blog by night. For more than a year I managed to keep them separate, but blogging was an exercise of introspection and through it I learned of many things that I was passionate about. Over time I realized that to be truly happy I had to find a way to align my newly found passions with my areas of expertise. Last week I joined a small company that will allow me to do exactly that.
While I intend to maintain this blog as an exercise on free-thinking, therefore somehow independent from the activity of the company, the fact is that I will be creating technologies that allow global citizens to tap the true power of the web to express their culture and in the process redefine the mechanisms by which travellers immerse themselves in local cultures, facilitating the spread of cosmopolitanism.
This blog will continue to explore the notion of a global culture and perhaps provide the foundation on which technology is justifiable. It will not be a vehicle for releasing any information pertinent to the [...]
The Age from Australia has ranked the top Tech capitals of the world, based on a combination of factors such as cost and availability of broadband connectivity, wireless internet access, technology adoption, government support, education and technology culture.
SeoulSouth Korea
SingaporeSingapore
TokyoJapan
Hong KongChina
StockholmSweden
San Francisco & Silicon ValleyUnited States
TallinnEstonia
New YorkUnited States
BeijingChina
New Songdo CitySouth Korea
Wonder where your city ranks among these? Consider the following facts:
Broadband is available in four out of five Seoul households and costs just $40 a month for speeds up to 100Mbps. Nine out of 10 residents also have mobile phones. [...] Digital mobile TV broadcasting, or Digital Multimedia Broadcasting, was launched in South Korea in 2005 and nearly 2 million Koreans now use the service to watch TV on their phones while riding trains and buses.
Last December the Singapore Government said it would roll out free wireless broadband across the island and more than 400,000 Singaporeans already have registered for the service. The government also plans to deliver wired broadband speeds of up 1Gbps by 2012.
Japan had nearly 8 million fibre-to-the-home broadband subscribers in December 2006 and, according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 75 per cent of Japanese residents enjoy [...]
Although there is plenty of debate regarding how useful the GDP is to measure the size of an economy, the following map shows an interesting way to appreciate the massive size of the United States economy in comparison to that of other countries, which can only hope to size against one of its states.
The post provides the following breakdown:
1. California, it is often said, would be the world’s sixth- or seventh-largest economy if it was a separate country. Actually, that would be the eighth, according to this map, as France (with a GDP of $2,15 trillion) is #8 on the aforementioned list.
2. Texas economy is significantly smaller, exactly half of California’s, as its GDP compares to that of Canada (#10, $1,08 trillion).
3. Florida also does well, with its GDP comparable to Asian tiger South Korea’s (#13 at $786 billion).
4. Illinois – Mexico (GDP #14 at $741 billion)
5. New Jersey – Russia (GDP #15 at $733 billion)
6. Ohio – Australia (GDP #16 at $645 billion)
7. New York – Brazil (GDP #17 at $621 billion)
8. Pennsylvania – Netherlands [...]
Spearheaded by San Francisco, a group of cities have created a global Digital City Network with the following objectives:
Broker international relationships between educational, business, and community-based digital media organizations; Create new business to business ventures between jurisdictions; Support the growth and innovation of existing digital media businesses; Develop new cutting-edge digital media companies in each location; Encourage private and public investment in advanced digital technologies and linkages between jurisdictions; Expand workforce development and education opportunities in digital media; Provide technical support for digital media incubators and business accelerators; Develop strategies to respond to the rapid changes in new media technologies; Inform shareholders about emerging digital media issues, innovations and best practices
The short list of cities invited to participate in the network were chosen for their forward looking approach to supporting the development of the information and technology industries:
San Francisco – United States,
Toronto – Canada,
Paris – France,
Prague – Czech Republic,
Dublin – Ireland,
Madras – India,
Guadalajara – Mexico,
Skopje – Macedonia and
Singapore
Thanks to Dave for the heads up.
The Economist Intelligence Unit in collaboration with the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and a wide variety of organization and endorsed by an impressive list of international figures has launched the Vision of Humanity site.
Peace and sustainability are the cornerstones of humanity’s survival in the 21st century. The major challenges facing humanity today are global – climate change, accessible fresh water, ever decreasing bio-diversity and over population. Problems that call for global solutions and these solutions will require co-operation on a global scale unparalleled in history. Peace is the essential prerequisite, for, without peace, how can the major nations of the world co-operate to solve these issues?
The ranking is based on a methodology that considers many indicators such as domestic and international conflict, crime, terrorism, political climate and militarization. When analyzing the list, one interesting fact is the strong correlation between this index and the most travel and most globalized reinforcing an idea that I’ve stated before: knowledge of the world around you improves your chances of influencing in the creation of a better society. The quest to identify global citizens that can effect change is not simple, but very important for the survival of humanity.
Norwaymost [...]
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