Society 2.0

We now live in a techno-social system, Technium, or perhaps following the trend it may be Society 2.0.  Wikipedia describes society as - 'a group of people related to each other through persistent relations such as social status, roles and social networks' (wiki on society).

Humans today spend as much time with machines as they do with other humans. These tools may connect one person to another, or improve efficiency of a task. Whatever be their purpose they are surely encroaching our senses ever more. This heightened human-machine vis-a-vis human-human interaction has acquired enough momentum where the concept of society is giving way to a techno-social system or a Technium.

The nag is that scientific inventions have become so complex and interwoven with our lives that humans have less and less sway over how they evolve. During one of my conversation with Prof. Markku Sopanen, we discussed about how new technological products are so sophisticated and specialized (S2 from now on) that even developers of a product do not know the details of different parts of the same chip. Now extend the thought to the customer..who is largely numb to the sophistication inside the devices they are interacting with. To be fair, the manufacturers do mention some specs on the salesbox. Add to this, the fact, that these S2 devices are all made by machines themselves. The sheer complexity of interactions between the various layers and loops of the technium gives it a degree of autonomy. As it evolves it develops its own dynamics.

Kevin Kelly, in his new book What Technology Wants explains, an autonomous system displays traits of self-repair, self-defence, self-maintainance, self-control and self-improvement. No current system has all these properties, he admits, but many technologies exhibit some of them. Aeroplane drones can self steer and stay aloft for hours, but cannot repair themselves. Communications systems can self-repair but cannot self-reproduce. Computer viruses can self-reproduce but cannot self-improve. As technologies multiply and become more adaptive, the technium is becoming increasingly autonomous.

Curiously, the flow of bits through the telephone network in the last decade became statistically similar to the fractal pattern found in self-organized system, this would suggest that it is developing a behaviour of its own.

Although the technium has neither an idea of self nor concious desires, it develops mechanical tendencies through its complex behaviour. Its millions of amplifying relationships and circuits of influence push the technium in certain direction. As frontier technologies increase in sophistication, these desires gain in both complexity and force. Moreover, these tendencies become increasingly independent of individual designers or users, who though themselves are self concious and aware cannot single handedly (or in small numbers) alter the path of the technium.

The personality types would become more technophiles or technophobes rather than introvert and extrovert in Society 2.0/Technium. Experts agree that the technium is spinning beyond human control if it hasnt already, what they may disagree upon is whether to modify it, embrace it or ignore it. There is more force for the technium with the rise of genomics, nanotechnology, robotics and informatics.

Further reading :

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7322/full/468372a.html

Books: 

What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly

 (A self review)      

Autonomous Technology by Langdon Winner (Google reader)

Techno-Doc Booster

Techno-Doc Booster was an innovative postgraduate course I participated in Nov. 2010, offered by Small Business Center (Helsinki School of Economics) and GETA Graduate School of Finland. The course was aimed at technical doctoral students to brush up their basics on subjects usually most foreign to them- such as economics,  corporate strategy and soft skills like team-work. There was also a fascinating talk about use of social media and internet as a marketing tool.

Each of the subjects was dealt for one day and provided enough possibilities for interaction between the trainers and participants. First day, we were coached on economics, I found this a great lesson for a technical student to get familiarized with the basics of business studies. Day two on soft skills was perhaps lesser demanding, but no less revealing. Subjects such as team work, identifying your personality type and time management led to a lot of discussion and pertinent insight.
On day three we had lectures on strategy. Last but not the least, day four had broad ranging talks on use of internet as a tool for marketing. Internet opens up possibilities to reach buyers which were earlier either inaccessible or scattered, causing a dynamic shift in the way products and services are now segmented and marketed online.

Decibels during lunch breaks at the HSE main building cafeteria were pleasantly high and are surely unmatched elsewhere in Aalto University.

Hereafter, the course would be organized annually.

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I would like to thank GETA for accepting me to their prestigious National graduate School in Electronics Telecommunication and Automation.
Visit GETA: http://geta.tkk.fi/en/
Course was offered at HSE - http://www.hse.fi/EN/frontpage
Course Flier - http://geta.tkk.fi/en/courses/technobooster-002.pdf
Venue - Aalto University School of Economics, Small Business
Center, Arkadiankatu 28, 00100 Helsinki

Optical Science

Optical Science has been at the forefront of in-numerous technological and scientific leaps, yet I sometimes wonder if it is accorded corresponding importance vis-a-vis traditional disciplines like mechanical, chemical engineering etc.
Optical instruments, looking light years away (telescope) or looking at cells (optical microscope) or more commercial ones like spectacles and binoculars, have created scientific disciplines.
General purpose lighting from lamps, enabled us humans to make progress at night. Which is now becoming cheaper and more efficient with LED's. An even more sophisticated light source, laser, is one of the most significant enablers of industry and medicine as well.
Why just history, a peek into future and it is abundantly clear that- use of solar energy must be more large scale and efficient. In that direction the research in the field of solar cells has produced remarkable results and is still marching ahead.

An even more humongous contribution has come from optical fibres, which are the physical backbone of the internet age. These fibres extend for thousands of kilometres under the surface to provide us almost seamless bandwidth and information all around the globe.

Optical Sciences have led to such revolutionary products and solutions which have transformed human life from light bulb to Hubble telescope, from IT revolution to solar cells and we have not even touched the subjects as cameras, movies, projectors, laser cutting in industry to laser guided weapons, DVD, blue-rays discs. In fact little would we know that the entire electronic industry (mobile phones, laptops etc.) owes its beginnings to a humble finding by an optical-material scientist that certain polymers change behaviour when exposed to UV light, this process is used in the electronic industry by the name of photo-lithography, one of the defining steps in electronic chip manufacturing!

In all of the above examples, in no way does it imply that optical science is above all, however, that it has not received similar attention as other so-called traditional disciplines of science and technology is troubling.

This is felt most during interaction with students undertaking PhD's and MSc. around the world. The most fundamental and almost unique challenge before an Optical Scientist/Engineer or Designer is to 'get-over-the-eye'. Our eyes, one of the most sophisticated optical systems in nature, provide vision and enable us to see. However, the limitations of the human eye are gigantic -
Scale - The human eye can only see from the scale of millimetres to kilometres, therefore we use binoculars, telescopes and microscopes.
Wavelength - The human eye can only process signals of the wavelength range 380nm (violet light) to 750nm (red light). Therefore we cannot see anything in the ultra violet range (less than 380nm) or infra-red (higher than 750nm).
The solar spectrum on the other hand is in the range 250nm to 2500nm. Thus we need to protect ourselves from UV and infra-red light, for example we use UV protective eye wear when we are in the sun.

Lets explore an even more fundamental aspect of optics. Optical Science is almost as vast and critical as all other sciences put together. Atoms are the building blocks of all matter. Even more fundamentally electrons are the fundamental building block of all atoms. The electronic behaviour and configurations determine all material properties, hardness, reactivity, colour ..everything.
Movement of electrons from their default positions often requires release or absorption of optical energy. This is where optics is born. If electrons is where all things material owe their existence then changes in electron is where all things optical come to life, for the past 200 years we have focussed our energy towards every aspect ground-state-electron induced and so little to most things electron-transition (optics) induced!

Given that there are no specific optical engineering departments in most science schools and technological universities there is still lots of room for improvements and advancements. One of the most significant hurdles is inter-disciplinary nature of optics, thus often lending itself accessible to senior students and researchers. But if that were sincerely the cause, the traditional disciplines would not  have become traditional. There is enough breadth and depth in optics to be taught at undergraduate level and at the advanced stage. We do though have a dearth of entrepreneurs from the optics field or perhaps even fewer pop-sci articles reporting their success. Our realization of our limitations, as in the case of the eye, may be a good beginning.

Some of the most interesting schools offering studies and research in optics are -
College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, USA (http://www.optics.arizona.edu/)
Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, USA (http://www.optics.rochester.edu/)
European Masters Program (http://www.master-photonics.org/ )
Photonics Group, Helsinki (http://nano.tkk.fi/en/research_groups/photonics/)
In India, IIT Delhi offers M.Tech in Applied Optics (http://web.iitd.ac.in/~mtechao/)
International Institute of Photonics, Cochin, (http://www.photonics.cusat.edu/index.html)