Update September 2004

Since I'm not using this blog for much I'll try out some of the features that have emerged since Google acquired Blogger. Apparently many Blogger Pro features have been integrated into the standard offering.

Don't think much of the spelling checker - it doesn't recognise either blog or Blogger.

Tiny robots fly in

Scientist are trying to create tiny flying robots the size of insects, reports CNN. Unfortunately the only devices close to insect size that they've built haven't got off the ground yet - currently sheep-size flying robots is a good as it gets.

The problem is that flight at insect scale works on different principles to existing airplanes or helicopters. Though the aerodynamics are becoming better understood, there are still got substantial engineering and control problems to sort out.

Predicting when a usable technology will arrive is very difficult in these circumstances. Breakthoughs are required in several fields before flying micro bots become a reality.

CNN reports that spying, space exploration and clearing up chemical spills are the sort of application envisaged for the devices. They clearly haven't been reading enough Philip K Dick. These things are clearly destined to become advertising robots, with the potential to be more annoying than today's two-dimensional popups.

Discuss

Betting on the future

I'm amazed that the Flipem site is legal, but apparently it is. It lets you place bets on a wide range of future events, and have the cyber equivalent of betting slips mailed as gifts to people who can then collect real money if they win.

For example, you can bet on the number of commercial jets mothballed in US deserts at the end of August, or on the style of shot that will win the 2002 World Conker championship. The site is based in the London, and benefits from recent relaxation in UK online gambling laws.

In many ways it is reminiscent of the Foresight Exchange, but is a more commercial concept suitable for a dumbed-down age. At the Foresight Exchange, which has been going for at least seven years, no real money changes hands. Instead the point is to see how people expect the future to turn out. This can be gauged directly from the changing odds on the various predictions.

At the even more cerebral Long Bets Foundation, set up last year by Kevin Kelly and other people mostly associated with Wired magazine, you can bet real money - but the minimum stake is $1,000 and all winnings have to go to charity.

But the present cultural climate is more suitable for Flipem. For example Banzai, a betting show that spoofs a crazed Japanese game show, is a surprise hit on British TV at the moment.

Discuss

Clayton M. Christensen Interview
The author of 'The Innovator's Dilemma' has some interesting things to say in this Strategy & Business article.

CHRISTENSEN: When management waits until the data is clear, the game is over. But that means management has to take action on a theory rather than evidence.

Unfortunately, the word theory gets a bum rap at the Harvard Business School and in business in general because it’s associated with the term theoretical, which connotes impractical.

But actually theory is very practical. Gravity is a theory, for example. It allows you to predict that if you step off a cliff you will fall; you don’t have to collect data on that.

... In many ways a good theory is more accurate than data. It allows you to see into the future more clearly.

UK to relax policing of cannabis

Cannabis is to be reclassified as a softer drug under new British government proposals. The changes, which are almost certain to go through, should lead to far fewer arrests of ordinary users. The main motive - apart from the fact the present policy has done nothing to reduce drug consumption, seems to be to free up police time.

'In 1999, nearly 70 per cent of people arrested for drugs offences in Britain were charged with possession of cannabis', according to the New Scientist. 'Processing each offender can take a police officer up to three hours.'

Though the change is being presented as an opportunity to concentrate more resources against crack and heroin suppliers, it's hard not to see the knock-on effects of the war on terrorism in the timing. In the present climate chasing harmless potheads hardly seems an urgent priority.

An ICM poll carried out for the Guardian newspaper indicated strong public backing for the relaxation proposals, with all but the oldest age group (65 plus) in favour.

Winter Olympics story - security scenarios

Royal Insight The sheer rate of change seems to be sweeping away so much that is familiar and comforting. But I do not think that we should be over-anxious. We can make sense of the future - if we understand the lessons of the past. Winston Churchill, my first Prime Minister, said that "the further backward you look, the further forward you can see".

The Queen's Christmas Message 1999