[Air-l] The Serendipity Machine & the Components of Navigation
George Lessard
media at web.net
Fri Mar 12 17:27:16 PST 2004
The Serendipity Machine
David G. Green
Information Technology, Monash University
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~dgreen/books/serendipity/
serendipity_article.htm
[excerpt]
Predictions about the future of technology are notoriously risky. In
the 1940s, Tom Watson, then chairman of IBM Corporation, made what must
rank as one of the worst predictions of all time. "There is a need", he
said, "for perhaps five computers in the world." By the year 2000,
computers numbered in the hundreds of millions.
In Watson's day, information was a rare and expensive commodity. Today
it is abundant and cheap. That transition marks a revolution in the
ways we do things, and even in the way we think and live.
As anyone knows who has searched the Internet, abundant information
means that we inevitably discover things that we never set out to look
for. Serendipity, accidental discovery, is an everyday event.
The importance of serendipity was driven home to me while building an
environmental information system. The design focussed on crucial
questions, such as "Where is species X found?" But as we gathered the
necessary data, a curious phenomenon emerged. Data that we collected
for one purpose yielded unexpected discoveries about other matters. For
instance, data on species distributions, which we needed to describe
different environments, could also help us interpret seasonal colour
changes in satellite images. As the volume of data grew, the number of
potential discoveries soon went off the scale. Since that time, new
areas of computing, especially data mining, have arisen to exploit this
"serendipity effect."
================================
The Serendipity Machine: Voyage of Discovery through Unexpected World
of Computers (A Voyage of Discovery through the Unexpected World of
Computers)
The incredible advances in information technology during the second
part of the 20th century have created a new form of complexity and have
produced many surprising and totally unexpected consequences
Table of Contents
The information revolution
The serendipity effect
Divide and rule
The platypus effect
From the Net to the grid
Nuggets of knowledge
Talk to my agent
Computing and nature
Pandora's box
The Internet turns green
Virtual worlds
The global village.
Author : DAVID GREEN
Format : Paperback
ISBN : 186508655X
Publisher : Allen & Unwin (Australia) Pty Ltd
Publication Date (AUS) : January 2004
Pages : 216
Imprint : Allen & Unwin
http://www.abbeys.com.au/items/25/65/26/
Abbey's Bookshops 131 York Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
Phone: +61 2 9264 3111 or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 426 657)
Fax: +61 2 9264 8993
Book enquiries: books at abbeys.com.au
======================================================
The Serendipity Machine: A Voyage of Discovery Through the Unexpected
World of Computers
Paperback - ISBN: 186508655X - AU $22.95
http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/18/pid/3882.htm
Cover Image
http://www.publish.csiro.au/covers/3882.jpg
Description
The incredible advances in information technology during the second
part of the 20th century have created a new form of complexity and have
produced many surprising and totally unexpected consequences.
Computers, we love them and we curse them. No matter what we think
about them, we know they have changed the world irrevocably. They have
allowed us to make surprising, fantastic and unexpected discoveries.
They are serendipity machines. However, computers have also made our
world and our lives more complex. From mobile phones to the Internet,
we use them to cope with rapid change and global crises. But what of
their social impacts, especially when it comes to personal privacy and
the role of the Internet in the globalisation of terror?
The Serendipity Machine helps us make sense of recent developments in
information technology. It explains how innovations such as data mining
and evolutionary computing deal with the complexity by exploiting
serendipity. It looks at possibilities raised by new technologies of
personal agents and virtual communities. And it examines the growing
influence of computers in new fields including biotechnology,
environmental management and electronic commerce. It also reveals
surprising connections between computing and everyday life. What do
handbags, platypuses and traffic congestion have to do with computing?
Why is computing becoming more and more like electricity supply? And
why do computer scientists increasingly look to nature for inspiration?
The Serendipity Machine is an engaging and insightful trek through the
new worlds of information technology with plenty of chance discovery on
the way.
=================================
Components of Navigation
http://www.izhd.uni-hamburg.de/paginae/Book/Ch2/Navigation.html
[excerpt]
‘Lost in Hyperspace’
The topic of navigation is discussed by most hypermedia authors in
close connection with the thesis formulated by Conklin (1987) that the
user might »get lost« in the multitude of information contained in the
interaction space, a risk that has been expressed in the catchphrase
»lost in hyperspace« [Edwards/Hardman (1989)]. This thesis crops up in
many studies, like a biblical quotation. Does it belong to the
pedagogical myths that have grown around multimedia? Most authors
conclude from this that it is necessary to develop transparent methods
of navigation. I think that one can clearly see from the manner in
which this argument is brought forward over and over again that the
thesis of getting lost serves as a justification of introducing more
strict forms of navigation for most authors. It seems to me that this
topic therefore has a definite point of contact with the question of
learner control, which I am going to discuss later.
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