For Your Consideration : 4 Links : 1/2/2015

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1. You Are Not Late

But, but…here is the thing. In terms of the internet, nothing has happened yet. The internet is still at the beginning of its beginning. If we could climb into a time machine and journey 30 years into the future, and from that vantage look back to today, we’d realize that most of the greatest products running the lives of citizens in 2044 were not invented until after 2014. People in the future will look at their holodecks, and wearable virtual reality contact lenses, and downloadable avatars, and AI interfaces, and say, oh, you didn’t really have the internet (or whatever they’ll call it) back then.

And they’d be right. Because from our perspective now, the greatest online things of the first half of this century are all before us. All these miraculous inventions are waiting for that crazy, no-one-told-me-it-was-impossible visionary to start grabbing the low-hanging fruit — the equivalent of the dot com names of 1984.

Because here is the other thing the greybeards in 2044 will tell you: Can you imagine how awesome it would have been to be an entrepreneur in 2014? It was a wide-open frontier! You could pick almost any category X and add some AI to it, put it on the cloud. Few devices had more than one or two sensors in them, unlike the hundreds now. Expectations and barriers were low. It was easy to be the first. And then they would sigh, “Oh, if only we realized how possible everything was back then!”

So, the truth: Right now, today, in 2014 is the best time to start something on the internet. There has never been a better time in the whole history of the world to invent something. There has never been a better time with more opportunities, more openings, lower barriers, higher benefit/risk ratios, better returns, greater upside, than now. Right now, this minute.

2. The Most Futuristic Predictions That Came True In 2014
A really truly amazing list, proof that we live in a time when science fiction is becoming reality. However, based on your personal filter bubble, 2014 may feel like it was full of chaos and terror, instead of broadly good. Links within the article for details.

1. Technologically-assisted telepathy was successfully demonstrated in humans
2. NASA emailed a wrench to the space station
3. Surgeons began using suspended animation
4. The U.S. Navy deployed a functional laser weapon
5. Scientists “uploaded” a worm’s mind into a robot
6. A computer solved a math problem that we can’t check
7. An artificial chromosome was built from scratch
8. A venture capitalist firm appointed an AI to the board
9. A double amputee received two mind-controlled arms
10. A cloaking device that hides objects in the visible spectrum
11. An orangutan became a legally recognized person
12. Self-guiding sniper bullets became a reality
13. A proto-cyber war erupted between the U.S. and N. Korea (based on some pretty crappy intel)
14. Humanity landed a robot on a comet

3. The Oil Crisis Explained In 3 Minutes
Crisis? Gas is the cheapest it’s been in years! Well… that’s true but let’s take a few geopolitical steps back.

Shale. Technological improvements in drilling have enabled access to previously difficult-to-reach reserves in many parts of the US and abroad. In particular, drillers can now extract oil from shale. When supply goes up, prices come down. And that’s what prices did.

The Sucker Punch: OPEC does not come to the rescue.Then came the curve ball. What usually happens when oil prices drop fast is that OPEC steps in and saves the day. (OPEC is an “Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries” that works as a cartel to control oil prices to their benefit.) The logic goes like this: OPEC wants higher oil prices so they can sell at a higher price. So when prices fall, they usually come together to cut supply in unison. But this time, they refused.

As oil continued to plummet, OPEC made a public statement that basically went like this:

“Too bad. Deal with it.”This caught a lot of traders and investors flat-footed, as many expected OPEC to intervene. Reflecting this new reality, oil continued its plunge, breaking $70 per barrel.

By refusing to intervene, OPEC exacerbated the oil price collapse. And many drillers that were counting on high oil prices would now be losing money.

4. By 2025, the Definition of ‘Privacy’ Will Have Changed
A new area of haves and have nots will emerge between those that have encryption and know how use it and those that do not.

Experts agreed, though, that our expectations about personal privacy are changing dramatically. While privacy once generally meant, “I assume no one is looking,” as one respondent put it, the public is beginning to accept the opposite: that someone usually is. And whether or not people accept it, that new normal—public life and mass surveillance as a default—will become a component of the ever-widening socioeconomic divide. Privacy as we know it today will become a luxury commodity. Opting out will be for the rich. To some extent that’s already true. Consider the supermarkets that require you to fill out an application—including your name, address, phone number, and so on—in order to get a rewards card that unlocks coupons. Here’s what Kate Crawford, a researcher who focuses on ethics in the age of big data, told Pew:

“In the next 10 years, I would expect to see the development of more encryption technologies and boutique services for people prepared to pay a premium for greater control over their data. This is the creation of privacy as a luxury good. It also has the unfortunate effect of establishing a new divide: the privacy rich and the privacy poor. Whether genuine control over your information will be extended to the majority of people—and for free—seems very unlikely, without a much stronger policy commitment.”

And there’s little incentive for the entities that benefit from a breakdown in privacy to change the way they operate. In order to get more robust privacy protections—like terms of service agreements that are actually readable to non-lawyers, or rules that let people review the personal information that data brokers collect about them—many experts agree that individuals will have to demand them. But even that may not work.

Where there’s tension between convenience and privacy, individuals are already primed to give up their right to be left alone. For instance, consider the Facebook user who feels uneasy about the site’s interest in her personal data but determines quitting isn’t an option because she’d be giving up the easiest way to stay in touch with friends and family.