For fall semester 2009, I’m enrolled in a bunch of higher-level Information Science courses at UALR. One of these is Dr. Berleant‘s “Computing, Information, and the Future” class, a special-topics class being taught the first time this semester.

For the first homework assignment, we were tasked with setting up a blog (or integrating course content into our existing blog), and then to “find a modern and timely place on the Web that deals with the future of the same or a similar topic” as a three of the links in the syllabus. Find my three links inside…

1. Augmented Reality. I’m sure the concept has been around for a long time, but in the past few months, a recent in-vogue meme has been the coming of a slew of augmented reality applications for mobile devices that will let you see an overlay of information on top of the physical world. For example, wearing my AR goggles while walking around town would show me the twitter username floating above a person’s head.  The most recent chatter has been regarding the iPhone 3GS; its more powerful processor, roomier RAM, and especially the built-in GPS and compass make it possible.  For example, the Metro Paris iPhone app overlays nearby businesses and can direct the user to the nearest subway entrance.
2. Spime. In August 2004, Bruce Sterling suggested a type of technological device that, through pervasive RFID and GPS tracking, can track its own history of use and interact with the world. He also gave an amazing talk at SXSW Interactive (the keynote address, actually), where he expounded upon those ideas (listen). There are not a lot of sites out there talking about this end-to-end lifecycle management, which is why I chose to write one of the required opinion papers (read my paper) on the subject for Dr. Wigand’s eCommerce class last year.
3. Transhumanism. Starting with the concept that every species is a species undergoing evolution, transhumanists seek to use our knowledge of the world to drive our evolution to unprecedented speeds.  One of the best media I’ve found regarding transhumanist thinking is H+ Magazine, a quarterly magazine available online. Current topics include designer babies, the Singularity, a retrospective on Biosphere 2, and artificial intelligence in video game bots.

These topics and their associated links make for fascinating reading, and I suggest you take a look!