I remember quantum mechanics from college. We learned about Schrodinger’s and his cat (I remember something about a cat being both alive and dead inside of the box at the same time.) And we learned about the ‘uncertainty principal” which holds that the more information one knows about one subatomic particle the less one knows about the other bits of both that particle and other particles within a particular atom (I think.) For 80 years subatomic physics has basically been a cosmological game of “whack-a-mole” with no chance of ever hitting the mole.

But we may be getting closer to getting one of those moles. Scientists at Yale have developed a method for observing subatomic particles. The science I know nothing about. It involves things called qubits. I leave the rest to the article.

From the sounds of it though, quantum computing may be about to make a well, quantum leap. Things could get real powerful, real fast, real soon. We’ll see.

Click here for the article.

Aaron H. Swartz, one of our most vigorous champions of open access and copyright reform, committed suicide in New York City on Friday at the age of 26.

Click here for more.

4 years ago I founded a small social media constancy. The idea was to manage the coming deluge of social media for businesses. Turned out to be a pretty good idea.

At first many businesses didn’t believe that social media was going to be as important as it has become. What seemed completely obvious to me was still not obvious to most businesses even into 2009. Then people began to wake up and the rest is history. Before I knew it I had Fortune 1000 companies emailing me. Companies which just 9 months before had no interest.

It has been a fascinating ride and one with many twists and turns.

Social media is by its nature a constantly evolving thing. This is one of 2 great challenges for businesses in today’s online world. Should a business spend time developing a Google+ presence? Many did. Not such a good idea, at this point. What about Foursquare? What happens if a company spends a million dollars on a social media engagement strategy only to have the environment turn on a dime?

The other great challenge is managing the crush of information which comes from doing social media well.

I can say from experience that this is a colossal task, and one that people have not yet figured out. So if you know how to run algos and know how to pick good trees from the forest, I suggest you look long and hard at a career in big data. It’s only going to get bigger.

Click here for more on this in the Huffington Post.

Click here for the article.

Now this is high quality information – a step by step explanation of how it is that Obama won in cyberspace. Required reading for anyone who is in the business of online influence.

You can see it HERE.

Tech planet Journal is project of The Future 500. The Future 500 works closely with Rich and Liz Muller on global warming issues and the best ways to address the challenge.

The most pressing issue as Dr. Muller sees things is that China and India already eclipse the USA in carbon footprint and will only continue to expand this footprint if fracking is not introduced on a wide scale in China.

They argue that we have the know-how and that on some scale we should help China develop this technology more fully.

We are well aware of the issues surrounding fracking, however, it increasingly looks like for the issue of global warming to be addressed fracking will have to be embraced. Solar, wind, and other renewables are too expensive for the market in the developing world for the most part. In the developing world they are complete pipe dreams. They are far too expensive. Aside from some very high profile bits of tech highlighted by the PRC very little Chinese energy comes from renewables – or will anytime soon. Fracking is the only viable option if we want to reduce global carbon output.

Click here for the a video of Rich and Liz Muller discussing this issue.

(From PCMAG.com)

“The Internet Society came to this meeting in the hopes that revisions to the treaty would focus on competition, liberalization, free flow of information and independent regulation – things that have clearly worked in the field of telecommunications,” she said. “Instead, these concepts seem to have been largely struck from the treaty text.”

Click here for the story.

Of course 2012 was supposed to be the year the TV remote died, and despite my voice activated XBox interface I still keep the remote in hand in those rare moments when I get to watch a bit of television.

Next year cars are supposed to become more automated. Design will become more “natural.’ And 3D printing will go mainstream.

We’ll see. I would argue that in the last few months 3D printing has made leaps into our collective consciousness.

Now if we could print a self driving car – that would be something.

Click here for the story.