technology moving too fast for humans

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Video appears in paper magazines
BBC News | Thursday, 20 August 2009 | 10:35 | UK

The first-ever video advertisement will be published in a traditional paper magazine in September.

The video-in-print ads will appear in select copies of the US show business title Entertainment Weekly.

The slim-line screens - around the size of a mobile phone display - also have rechargeable batteries.

The chip technology used to store the video - described as similar to that used in singing greeting cards - is activated when the page is turned.

Each chip can hold up to 40 minutes of video.

The first clips will preview programmes from US TV network CBS and show adverts by the drinks company Pepsi.

They will appear in 18 September editions of the magazine distributed in Los Angeles and New York.
It's believed the new technology will cost much more than normal print ads.

However, BBC correspondent Rajesh Mirchandani said that in an increasingly competitive market, advertisers have realised that it is more important than ever to create attention for their product.

He likened the technology to the Daily Prophet - a newspaper with moving pictures described in the Harry Potter books.
It is not the first time that publishers have experimented with digital technology in magazines.

Last year, for example, men's lifestyle magazine Esquire published the first using e-ink technology, with a cover that flashed in alternating patterns.

E-ink is the technology used in the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle electronic books.

Americhip, the developer of video-in-print, has also created magazine technology that appeals to various senses, including smell.

We really have to think about not being ready for this stuff... because Kurzweil is right about how hard and heavy it is coming down, and we are not controlling the negative effects of the science. Sort of like the guys who developed atomic bombs. They were so fascinated by the project of making something so incredible, they did not think out the consequences. The same is virtually certain to be true with the outrageous strides in nano-technology. It isn't just weaponry, but in all new technologies. I just found out that a browser out there comes loaded with the feature of letting you come into websites off any proxy server, or appear to, and this is great news for trolls and haters and others wanting around the few defenses we have. Some might think this is a good thing, help people in countries where internet content is censored, but it can mean endless headaches for site owners and administrators. The people offering up all these advances don't seem to be concerned with the negatives of all these goodies. They're doing all of it because they can, because they can think of it, try it and succeed at it, paying virtually no attention to the nefarious uses to which it might be put or the plain old bad consequences of something that seems otherwise groovy.

The future needs to be husbanded by people who care about more than novelty and profit, people who can look past just the benefits and into the possible harm. Who would that be? Is there a world leader out there you would trust with this work?