This is a talk by Craig Samuel from Hewlett Packard.

Increase in available information leads to problems of information overload, and also issues of getting to ‘authenticated’ information

The idea of ‘millenials’ people who have grown up with technology. A survey showed that 40% said they preferred to discuss stuff by sms (with friends) than f2f

CS emphasising that the technology is the small part of the problem – the tip of the iceberg. We need to consider the Process, the People and the Culture. The technology is just an opportunity to challenge established practice.

OK – so now to the meat of the talk – CS is going to talk about:
Virtual Collaboration
Grid Computing
IPv6
Digital Preservation
Next Generation Web
Nanotechnology and computing

Virtual Collaboration
Can we create a virtual presence that is ‘better than being there’. Collaboration is around us – telephone, email, f2f – all of these are collaboration.

HP have been building virtual collaboration technology – but he skipped over the detail, so I’m not really sure how it all goes together  – sounds good, but would be great to see it in action.

Grid Computing
HP have been working on The Paua Grid Project – a Decentralised and Open computing grids using peer-to-peer technology (this based in Brazil)

OK – CS seems to be skipping across these pretty quickly – I’d like a bit more detail really.

IPv6
Apparently a Good Thing – he really isn’t given enough detail here to be interesting

Digital Preservation
Talking about DSpace – open source solution that HP have worked on with partners like MIT. I’ve seen this – currently being used in the UK in some eprint projects. However, I can’t see that it is a viable alternative to Enterprise records management and content management – that is software that applies across the whole enterprise, and is just integrated into daily work – e.g. when you hit save, you shouldn’t be worrying about where the document is saved – it is saved with appropriate permissions in a central space – so you, or others, can access the document whenever necessary.

Next generation web
Semantic web – HP looking at this to solve their own problems in managing information internally.

Again – apparently ‘very important’ and ‘very interesting’ – he really needs to explain a bit more what he is talking about!

Croquet – the next gen web? – True collaborative computing? Croquet is a joint project with UC Berkley, I’ve not come across this, so probably could do with finding out a bit more. Looking at areas of visualisation and exploration, avatars etc.

http://www.opencroquet.org

An interesting point here – technology is connecting us ‘faster’ but not making us ‘more connected’. I think this is coming back to something that was common through the talks yesterday – that is, the technology is not the issue – it is the application of the technology and the people/culture issues that are holding back progress.

Nanotechnology
Apparently already pervasive – microprocessors, cleaning detergents etc.

First products could be a replacement for flash memory. Silicon isn’t going away – but molecular scale ships will be used to supplement silicon structures – basically "you ain’t seen nothin’ yet"