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[ba-ohs-talk] "EARTHscope" - any hope for creating a CODIAK, incl. others ?

A potential CODIAK vision for bootstrapping TinyOS-sensorwebs, Pervasive Computing, and eMerging Societal-Scaled Systems:
“ … make a computer so imbedded, so fitting, so natural, that we use it without even thinking about it.

“Ubiquitous (pervasive) computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality. Where virtual reality puts people inside a computer-generated world, ubiquitous computing forces the computer to live out here in the world with people.” - Mark Weiser, the late Chief Technology Officer, Xerox PARC

“The sensor web allows you to make measurements on a large scale, like in remote sensing, but with the sensitivity of in situ instruments," - Kevin Delin, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) 2000

"Tackle the grand-challenge social problems of today. Create the architectures, the vision, and the fundamental technologies. Build prototype solutions and prove the value and importance of your work. Then industry will find a way to fill in the gaps and deliver the commercial versions of the technology.” - James Demmel, professor of computer science at UC Berkeley and chief scientist and associate director of CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society) 2001

"Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.” - Buckminster Fuller 1980


Resources Needed:
"The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) seeks partners to help develop presentations and the presentation technology.
< http://www.spaceshipearth.org/EARTHSCOPE/earthscope_resources.html >

The EARTHscope™ is a new tool designed to help people grasp the critical choices that will shape humanity's future, by displaying interactive and animated data about the state of the Earth and our possible futures.

EARTHscope™ is a standalone web based publishing tool in the concept demonstration and initial market testing stage. Its purpose is to help people grasp the critical choices that shape our future. For a wide viewing audience, it offers a unique combination of interactive visual formats attractively displayed in a single interface.
< http://www.spaceshipearth.org/EARTHSCOPE/earthscope.html >

First-generation EARTHscope users will be able to:

Over the past 12 months we have assembled an outstanding 25 member (and growing) advisory board for spaceshipEARTH, including leaders from the sustainability movement. They along with many others continue to confirm that spaceshipEARTH with its EARTHscope display tool addresses an important educational need and that, as yet, no such comprehensive online resource exists."

Purpose: Humanity's Options for Success
The EARTHscope is a new tool for displaying the profound, yet often invisible trends affecting our world.

Currently in development, the EARTHscope uses animated maps, charts, and graphs to help individuals and organizations quickly grasp global challenges and view scenarios for a sustainable future.

This effort addresses the urgent need for visual tools that empower people to see the "big picture" so they can make more informed choices on issues critical to humanity's success.

Most information about world resources, trends, and needs exists in an academic form. The EARTHscope is an antidote to this educational barrier. It provides easy to understand, graphic and interactive formats for presenting vital world information to a wide range of audiences.

Long-Range Vision:
The Buckminster Fuller Institute is in the initial stages of developing what we expect to become the interactive tool of choice for displaying and educating about Earth's mission-critical survival systems. "The PowerPoint of Sustainability," as Hardin Tibbs calls it.

We envision the EARTHscope as a ubiquitous, co-branded window to the state of the world, used around the globe by:

EARTHscope development goals include:

1. Display World Trends and Scenarios
Any user can pick from a wide range of social, environmental, or technological trends that are impacting humanity's future and quickly get up to speed on:

2. Presentation Building
The EARTHscope functions as a stand-alone Web and GIS-enabled multimedia application, allowing users to:


3. Interactive Scenarios
The EARTHscope contains a robust scenario modeling and gaming component (driven by frequently updated data sets) that would enable users to:


4. Open Source Development
The EARTHscope serves an open-source development platform for the refinement of existing features and the creation of new ones.