Technology is going to make the world around us smart as we move away from proprietary architectures to a standards-based ecology of information.

We still need a name for the UCD: UNIVERSAL COMMUNICATION DEVICE or "information - communications - appliance - utility- network computer, cable or wireless black box modem, play station, boom box, CD, DVD, VHS, camera, VCR, telephone, wireless, cordless, portable, TV, radio, pager, laptop, notebook, library, GPS, map, yellow pages, combat walk and talk and call in air strikes more".

The market for the bandwidth and the appliances is global - with billions of clients world wide.

The money is in software now moving from "programs" to content. The content will be interactive media that includes program functions. ISP such as AOL, will provide multimedia E-mail as a word processor that can handle graphics, photographs, soon video and data files. The browser becomes a universal systems package do all the most common functions as plug-ins. The USB universal serial bus ties to printers, sound and video systems, play stations, phones, keyboards and voice commands, other appliances and services. Microsoft-NBC-General Electric, merge into a convergence of media and communications services. Time-Warner, the News Corp., Disney-ABC, are positioning themselves for the transformation of many business into one. The current crop of Internet stocks are unlikely to be very important.

Other business includes finance, matching buyers and sellers, and a thousand other ideas and items. The ISP becomes a bank and travel agent, department store, and service center. Wal-mart, Sears and other may need their own ISP. Clients will pay the ISP for telephone service, cable, lease of hardware, Internet, credit, and may buy their insurance, tickets, or dishes from a company they trust, so it all adds up.

A limited set of functions and libraries in or around a CPU, with the capacities of a play station, will run a package of on demand utilities called from the network. Once there is a break in the bandwidth, your browser can quickly call down any packages it may need - high speed smart updates means you don’t have to have everything stored. Office systems can do this now but are afraid to be pioneers with arrows in their backs. Once Sun, Oracle, IBM or others really have high performance objective networks there will be no need for the bloated windows operation systems.

The market often is as slow as the political process in facing the inevitable forces of technology and social history. Cartels and semi-monopolies are the natural outcome of free competition because organizations can join together to control markets.

The robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century, such as Morgan, Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, Stanford, Dupont controlled steel and oil, railroads and chemicals. General Motors president Alfred P. Sloan worked with the du Pont's to control the auto market. A U.S. Court of Appeals finds that Aluminum Co. of America (Alcoa) held a 90 percent monopoly in U.S. aluminum ingot production before the war, a monopoly enjoyed by the Mellons for more than half a century. See RCA (NBC - Victor ) below..

Sun's McNealy portrays perils of running the Wintel 'gauntlet' ) ( Windows/intel )

http://www.excite.com/computers_and_internet/tech_news/zdnet/?article=zdnews2.inp

Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc., one could easily draw the conclusion that most of the ills in the computer industry stem from one company and one company only.

The charismatic McNealy used large portions of his keynote address here Thursday at Sun's JavaOne developers conference, as well as a subsequent press conference, to paint Microsoft Corp. as a ruthless monopoly destroying companies and promoting a flawed business model.

"The market economy works until somebody gets so much market power that they are beyond market principles," he said.

McNealy said Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop through the Windows operating system enables it to sell "bloat" like Office 2000 that people have to buy.

"The other opportunity it has is to go out and buy little companies that wouldn't normally be successful, bundle them into their Windows or Office hairball and use their lock-in and monopoly leverage to make them successful and drive everyone else out of business," McNealy said. "That makes everybody want to sell their company for a price lower than they want to because if you're not the one bought, you're done."

One of the best examples of how new technologies can be dominated by powerful forces that control standards was the companion development of hardware ( Radios, phonographs, and then television ) as well as soft ware, the programming, records and content necessary to sell the product. People won’t buy radios or TV if there are no stations, there can’t be stations until people have radios or TVs. RCA supported the networks in order to sell radios. Then they made more from the broadcasting then they did from hardware.

Sarnoff, David, 1891–1971, American radio and television pioneer; b. Russia. He worked for the Marconi Wireless Co., winning recognition as the narrator of the Titanic disaster (1912). After the Radio Corp. of America absorbed (1921) Marconi, Sarnoff became general manager. As president (after 1930) and chairman of the board (from 1947) of RCA, he played a major role in the development of television.

A superheterodyne circuit developed by U.S. Army Signal Corps major Edwin Howard Armstrong, 26, became the basic design for all amplitude modulation (AM) radios. It greatly increases the selectivity and sensitivity of radio receivers over a wide band of frequencies (see 1906; FM, 1933). Radio Corp. of America (RCA) was founded by Owen D. Young (see 1919) who loans Ernst Alexanderson to RCA which will employ him as chief engineer for 5 years (see 1906). RCA acquired the Victor Co. and become a radio-phonograph colossus but anti-trust court actions will separate RCA from GE (see VICTROLA, 1906; NBC, 1926). David Sarnoff urges marketing of a simple "radio music box." The American Marconi Co. says his plan will make the radio "a ‘household utility’ in the same sense as the piano or phonograph" (see 1912; 1920).

American radio and television pioneer who proposed the first commercial radio receiver and in 1926 formed the National Broadcasting Company. The first vinylite phonograph record appears in October. RCA-Victor issues a new recording of the 1895 Richard Strauss work Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche, but vinylite will not displace shellac until the perfection of long-playing records (see 1948).

People are unset by politics as usual. What they dislike is the passion to "win" by any means, means attack and counter-attack. When "victory" takes priority over policy, there in no longer an interest in the common good, the national interest, common sense, and the spirit of the laws of the commonwealth.

Complex systems are not stable. From human health, to environmental ecology, to social systems and national and international political economies, there is an inherent propensity to instability. There is an inherent need for standards and regulators and regulations. Some of these regulators are internal, self correcting systems. There are external positive and negative feedback loops including the legal systems, elections, revolutions, bankruptcies, plagues, famines, death and wars.

Complex systems operate as some level of stability and instability, with periods of declines alternating with periods of growth. We live in times of short or long cycles of relative tranquil Equilibrium, with orderly growth, punctuated with periods of rapid change. The federal reserve system tries to "manage" economic policy to smooth out the bumps in the road. Elections try to smooth out the conflicts about who gets what, when and how, who pays and who receives, who is protected and who gets put into the trash can of history.

In economics change is called the business cycle of "booms and busts", in biology cycles are called periods of extinction and increases in the rate of change in the varieties of species. Niles Eldredge along with Stephen Jay Gould describe the history of life on this planet as evolving with "Punctuated Equilibrium". Long periods of boredom with sudden extinction and bursts of tumult and change.

In business history changes in the rate of change is called restructuring, reengineering, takeovers and mergers. In medicine changes are called illness or disease, because there is no theory of health.

Health is Physical Synergy. Sickness is the siphoning vs. funneling of energy or wealth, use vs. Narrow control or ownership, Comforting vs. Frightening Religion, high energy or low energy people and institutions, are characteristics of synergy, as a sick or health society ?

We have had a out break of win/lose - me and mine - the hell with the hind most, winner take all, activity. This discourages the losers, causes aggression, and is socially dysfunctional. A few institutions maintain high energy but the society is winding down. Synergy is spirit and systems for successful cooperation, institutional means of using aggression (learning for conflict), and rewards for all from social success (tide lifts all boats).

The biosphere’s climate is regulated by the "hot house" effects of gases as explained in the work of Gaea theory of James Lovelock in The Ages of Gaea, he uses the laws of thermodynamic to set the scene.

Molecular biology is an information processing systems, evolutionary biology is the nature of creatures and their connections with information, and the physics which explains everything. The first law of thermodynamics is the conservation of matter and energy. Nothing comes from nothing and nothing goes nowhere.

The second law is dis-symmetry, hot objects cool but cold object never spontaneously become hot, water does not run up hill.

Life is a process of collecting energy for the temporary reason of survival, having fun and reproduction. Edwin Schrodinger little book on " What is Life" looks at "aperiodic crystals" that move upstream against the flow of time. Life is improbability low entropy.

Claude Shannon information theory is that there is a loss of data but interference, noise never becomes meaning. Life is dependent on the use of external energy can be described in John Von Neumann mathematical model of entropy. "The Gaean Conspiracy" By Anodea Judith tries to form a human reaction and political platform based on order and chaos, a theory of social climate change using the same methodological paradigm., involving synergy.

The House Republicans are making fools of themselves "doing the Right Thing" in face of the facts, the law, and the popular will.

In a Democratic and free enterprise society the functional definition of the "right Thing" is determined by votes and the market. The whole idea of the Constitution was that there is no certainty, we can not have government by principle but by men. People are not angels, so protection of civil society has to be by the balance of power - one power limited by completion of other powers. Free debate and open election determines who wins - and who is "right" at the moment. When Joe McCarthy was popular he was "right" and the way to protect us from this clear and present danger to the rule of law and the Constitution was to see he became unpopular.

The law is determined by what courts decide after an adversarial case is made for both sides about the facts and the law. The impeachment of the President, the Law is uncertain, but since power is decided by elections - any change in the outcome of an election can only be justified by a overwhelming case of necessity.

Some of the early Colonies were theocracies. People grew quick tired of the dogmatic assertion of divine principles. Our form of government is not "Christian" but is secular, humanist, modern, relativist, the only overriding PRINCIPLE is of free speech, open debate and elections.

There are three important ways American Civilization is different from other developed societies.

We have no external performance exams in schools and colleges;

We have a poorly organized and very expensive health care non-system;

We have private money driven politics.

Each persons election is supported by money from private interests, utilities, defense contrators, railroads, banks and land developers. Politics in our cities have caused serious "infrastructure" problems, uncontrolled growth and decay, ugly, inefficient, backward, sprawling, degraded, polluted, expensive, places to live and work and try to get from one place to another.

For example:

Robert Moses willfully did not connect Kennedy Airport by light rail to NYC because of the political pressure of the taxi and bus interest heavily controlled by the "mob". Chicago did the same for the same reasons. The time/cost of air travel be best improved by ground transport from city to airport and adds to the cost of almost everything we do.

Our country is not run by the majority, or popular will but by well placed willful or wealthy minorities such as the "mob", health insurance industry, what used to be the AMA , etc.

Electoral politics is only about who gets what, when and where, paid for by the winners. If you get elected the money flows in to keep you elected. BUT, the mood is shifting from primary concern for the protection of private wealth toward greater interest in the public welfare because of the necessities of international competition.

Others have better electoral systems that support better schools, therefore more efficient workers, using better tools and supported by a practical infrastructure. If you can fly to Frankfort, ( or London, Paris, Rome ) and have efficient airport, central city connections, go into a clean, attractive, well run and safe city, with modern communications, social facilities, ( other than big league sports ), museums, theater, music, parks, libraries, Universities, et al - is there not a competitive advantage to the ugly mess that Orlando, Austin, Atlanta, San Jose and other fast growth American Cities have become.

The core of the problem is a evil electoral system, supporting the best politicians money can buy. The issues of the next decade will be health, education and public planning ( the quality of social life ) none of which can be done without real electoral reform. Theses are Democratic issues so the short term decline of Republican Tax cut, anti-governmental politics become another 40 years in the wilderness unless they can resurrect "progressive" Teddy Roosevelt ideologies. The fundamentalist most be not be allowed to control the agenda. We all need a functional opposition.

In most of the civilized world there are secondary school exams known as A and O levels in England, baccalaureate in French, German Gymnasium, theses standards copied around the world, from Russia to Japan. We are the only organized culture with public education system unchanged since it was set up in the 1850' s. As Dewey said 100 years ago the structure was in place by the end of the civil war. We have a muddle of systems, made up of 15,000 school boards, superintendents, unregulated teacher colleges, text book publishers, and a curriculum set by a private panel in the last century ( The Carnegie Commission ) without external performance standards or methods for change.

The non-health care systems are even more fragmented and muddled and even more expensive. Every other advanced civilization has some pattern or public and state health providers and insurance. As the population column begins to bulge at the top the poorly educated work force will not be able to support the elderly' s desire for every kind of expensive medical care.

We have private public utilities, weak land use planning, and a capitalist mentality that has undercut the physical infrastructure - roads, bridges, bullet trains, optic fiber networks, water and sewers, parks and other public facilities.

It maybe we are so special because of history and geography that we need to evolve differently than other industrial societies - but more likely it' s just that our political system fails in certain critical ways to deal with change. Once we develop parts, organs, traditions, it becomes difficult to impossible to change them.

The destructive nature of size:

When people feel very uncomfortable because "things aren’t what they are expected or should be " there is anger, frustration, impeachment, radical cults and white buffaloes appear promising to return to a romantic past.

BIG always has serious weakness but also monumental strengths. Big units benefit from economies of scale which allow for backup resources that can cover or recover from error. Up to a point; then the whole vast edifice begins to crumble. The nature of world civilization in the last century has created wonderfully complex organization that can function against the grain. The United Nations is clearly a system fighting up stream - against nationalist and territorial instincts. Global banking, computer systems, communications, trans-national corporations, are not the natural evolution of small to large - but a temporary victory against nature and natural forces.

This century has gone from one to six billion people. The number of connection begin become so complex that the result is to reduce activity rather than increase activities, somewhere around three billion. Over a certain size the linkages begin to break down. More becomes less. The internet has LESS real communication and human community than it did a few years ago.

The challenge is to create human institutions that go with the flow - that fit the evolutionary potential of human beings. Human society has the capacity to function with less than perfect systems, we can manage with organizations that defy human potential and essential character of people. The price of being "out of the grove" or having social systems that push the limits of our biological nature is tension. Tensions can be useful but also dangerous.

Big is not better. Humans evolved in troops of about 40 individuals. The number of possible links among a group of 40 is 40! ( 40 * 39 * 38 etc.) a very large number. Three men and a boat catch fish, they are met at the shore by members of several households who share the catch, someone markets the surplus, someone does repairs on the boat and a pattern of activity and exchange is established as one of the many networks connecting the people of the village. From my experience in fishing villages there are thousands of big and little networks - connection between individuals and family units. The village has hundreds of connections to other villages as they import and export supplies, people and information. Almost everyone can understand the connections and their various roles in these complex human interactions. Small schools work better for the same reasons - people have evolved in small networks which have been critical for survival and progress.

When the town grows to 400 or 4000 the networks still function as subsets of each other. There are neighborhoods, extended families or clans, formal role sets such as teachers, police, full time priests, merchants and bankers, thieves and politicians. Now no one knows what everyone else is up to but can find someone who knows someone who knows. Information becomes second hand and hearsay. While gossip is a major village pass-time, in town rumor can disconnect from its roots and find a long life out on its own. The division of labor and specialization are critical to the town and cities and hand crafts become professional technical skills and products. The village shaman becomes a town medicine man or even a real physician. Schools and colleges sometimes need high levels of specialized skills that required size, departments, bureaucracy, certificates and final exams.

Over a certain size the linkages begin to break down and are replaced by formal rules and procedures. No one really understands what is going on outside the limits of their domains and have to depend on the process of administrative overhead to keep the system going. Large scale enterprise was based on military type organizations - troops of 40 or so - - formed into regiments within battalions with a captain or higher ranking officer in command who took orders from the division commanding officer who marched according to the directions of the general in control of the army. The massive armies defeated tribal and village self defense forces so nations and empires could be built. At this level of activity you are not expected to know or understand what is going on - just follow orders. Large schools and colleges with systems of superintendents, principals and department heads are traditional quasi- rational large scale organizations not very different from factories and military units.