Attack Here

Exposed CircuitsGadgets you can’t live without

PG 17

ARE WE BECOMING MACHINES? PG 19

Tech ThisInformation about newgadgets being released soon

PG 21

What’s the worst that could happenif terrorists were to strike? PG 21

CONTENTS

FEATURES

22 Attack Here What’s the worst that could happen if terrorists were to strike? by S. C. Gwynne

28 Wire You Doing This to Me? The evolution of technology is more than just wires to wireless. Technology is becoming more and more human-like. by Ayesha and Parag Khanna

32 Take a Hike Hackers How to protect your computer, your information and your family from hackers. by Chris Engle

38 Lose the Baggage Why you should get ride of your old electronics and gadgets and how to help the environment at the same time. by Veronica Gyles

CONTENTS

DEPARTMENTS

The Plug: News & Info

17 Exposed Circuits Pros and cons for the most popular gadgets to help decide which new toys you can’t live without. by Ty McKenney

19 Wire You Doing This to Me? The evolution of technology is more than just wires to wireless. Technology is becoming more and more human-like. by Ayesha and Parag Khanna

The Wires: New Gadgets

22 Tech This All need to know about new gadgets being released in the near future. by Michelle Kink

The Power: Future Ideas

25 Are We BecomingMachines? With technology becoming more more accessible, are we becoming the machines? by Mike Heaps

27 Taming the Wild Only a handful of wild animal species have been successfully bred to get along with humans. The reason, scientist say, is found in their genes. by Evan RatliffAttack Here

Exposed CircuitsGadgets you can’t live without

PG 17

ARE WE BECOMING MACHINES? PG 19

Tech ThisInformation about newgadgets being released soon

PG 21

What’s the worst that could happenif terrorists were to strike?

plugged500 State Street

Salt Lake City, UT 84111

1.800.555.1234

Editor:

Ed Hollan

Art Director:

Susan Milling

Cover Photography:

Laney Galbraith

News & Info

17

Exposed Circuits

Throughout the his-

tory of technology,

emerging technolo-

gies are contemporary

advances and innova-

tion in various fields of technology.

Various converging technologies

have emerged in the technological

convergence of different systems

evolving towards similar goals.

Convergence can refer to previ-

ously separate technologies such

as voice (and telephony features),

data (and productivity applica-

tions) and video that now share

resources and interact with each

other, creating new efficiencies.

Emerging technologies are

those technical innovations which

represent progressive develop-

ments within a field for com-

petitive advantage; converging

technologies represent previously

distinct fields which are in some

way moving towards stronger

inter-connection and similar

goals. However, the opinion on the

degree of impact, status and eco-

nomic viability of several emerging

and converging technologies vary.

Over centuries, innovative

methods and new technologies are

developed and opened up. Some

of these technologies are due to

theoretical research, others com-

mercial research and others from

technological development.

Technological growth includes

incremental developments and

disruptive technologies. An exam-

ple of the former was the gradual

roll-out of DVD as a development

intended to follow on from the

previous optical technology Com-

pact Disc. And now we have Blu ray

discs that render the DVD nearly

obsolete By contrast, disruptive

technologies are those where a

new method replaces the previous

technology and make it redundant,

for example the replacement of

horse drawn carriages by cars.

Emerging technologies in gen-

eral denote significant technology

developments that broach new

territory in some significant way in

their field. Examples of currently

emerging technologies include in-

formation technology, nanotech-

nology, biotechnology, cognitive

science, robotics, and occasionally

artificial intelligence.

Many writers, including

computer scientist Bill Joy, have

identified clusters of technologies

that they consider critical to hu-

manity’s future. Joy warns that the

technology could be used by elites

for good or evil. They could use it

as “good shepherds” for the rest of

humanity, or decide everyone else

is superfluous and push for mass

extinction of those made unnec-

essary by technology. Advocates

of the benefits of technological

change typically see emerging and

converging technologies as offering

hope for the betterment of the hu-

man condition. However, critics of

the risks of technological change,

and even some advocates such as

transhumanist philosopher Nick

Bostrom, warn that some of these

technologies could pose dan-

gers, perhaps even contribute to

the extinction of humanity itself;

i.e., some of them could involve

extreme existential risks.

Much ethical debate centers on

issues of distributive justice in al-

locating access to beneficial forms

of technology. Some thinkers,

With all sorts of reviews flying at you from off the screen

and out of the books, it’s hard to tell what you should

and shouldn’t believe. We’ve gathered pros and cons for

all the most popular gadgets to help decide which new

toys you can’t live without.

Ty McKenney

Tablets

EReaders

MP3 Players

Cameras

Laptops

TVs

REVIEWS ON:

New Gadgets

19

I n the history of technology,

emerging technologies are

contemporary advances and

innovation in various fields of

technology. Various converg-

ing technologies have emerged

in the technological convergence

of different systems evolving

towards similar goals. Convergence

can refer to previously separate

technologies such as voice (and

telephony features), data (and

productivity applications) and

video that now share resources

and interact with each other,

creating new efficiencies.

Emerging technologies are

those technical innovations which

represent progressive develop-

ments within a field for com-

petitive advantage; converging

technologies represent previously

distinct fields which are in some

way moving towards stronger

inter-connection and similar

goals. However, the opinion on the

degree of impact, status and eco-

nomic viability of several emerging

and converging technologies vary.

Over centuries, innovative

methods and new technologies are

developed and opened up. Some

of these technologies are due to

theoretical research, others com-

mercial research and others from

technological development.

Technological growth includes

incremental developments and

disruptive technologies. An exam-

ple of the former was the gradual

roll-out of DVD as a development

intended to follow on from the

previous optical technology Com-

pact Disc. And now we have Blu ray

discs that render the DVD nearly

obsolete By contrast, disruptive

technologies are those where a

new method replaces the previous

technology and make it redundant,

for example the replacement of

horse drawn carriages by cars.

Emerging technologies in gen-

eral denote significant technology

developments that broach new

territory in some significant way in

their field. Examples of currently

emerging technologies include in-

formation technology, nanotech-

nology, biotechnology, cognitive

science, robotics, and occasionally

artificial intelligence.

Many writers, including

computer scientist Bill Joy, have

identified clusters of technologies

that they consider critical to hu-

manity’s future. Joy warns that the

technology could be used by elites

for good or evil. They could use it

as “good shepherds” for the rest of

humanity, or decide everyone else

is superfluous and push for mass

extinction of those made unnec-

essary by technology. Advocates

of the benefits of technological

change typically see emerging and

converging technologies as offering

hope for the betterment of the hu-

man condition. However, critics of

the risks of technological change,

and even some advocates such as

transhumanist philosopher Nick

Bostrom, warn that some of these

technologies could pose dan-

gers, perhaps even contribute to

Tech ThisWe bring you all the information you need to know about

new gadgets being released in the near future.

Michelle Kink

the extinction of humanity itself;

i.e., some of them could involve

extreme existential risks.

Much ethical debate centers on

issues of distributive justice in al-

locating access to beneficial forms

of technology. Some thinkers,

such as environmental ethicist Bill

McKibben, oppose the continu-

ing development of advanced

technology partly out of fear that

its benefits will be distributed un-

equally in ways that could worsen

the plight of the poor. By contrast,

inventor Ray Kurzweil is among

techno-utopians who believe that

emerging and converging tech-

nologies could and will eliminate

poverty and abolish suffering.

Some analysts such as Martin

Ford, author of The Lights in the

Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating

Technology and the Economy of

the Future, argue that as informa-

tion technology advances, robots

and other forms of automation

will ultimately result in signifi-

cant unemployment as machines

and software begin to match and

exceed the capability of workers to

perform most routine jobs.

As robotics and artificial intel-

ligence develop further, even many

skilled jobs may be threatened.

Technologies such as machine

learning[9] may ultimately allow

computers to do many knowl-

edge-based jobs that require

significant education. This may

result in substantial unemploy-

ment at all skill levels, stagnant

or falling wages for most workers,

Future Ideas

21

W hether it’s

incessantly

chatting on a

cell phone or

listening to an

MP3 player, or chatting on a cell

phone that’s also an MP3 player,

or taking a picture of your MP3

player with a cell phone that also

has an MP3 player, it’s undeniable

that modern technological gadgets

facilitate our universal drive to

pamper ourselves. Without them,

we’d be relatively non-functional

and pretty irritable.

And someday … they will de-

stroy us all!

I’m kidding.

But seriously, could our fate re-

semble the apocalyptical scenario

in the film Terminator 2—when

computers and machines and

small electronic devices rise up

and wage war against mankind?

Creepy to think about, yes … but

could it already be happening … on

an iPod scale?

Obviously modern day iPods and

their accompanying devices aren’t

taking over our sprawling civiliza-

tions in a physically destructive

sense, but they certainly have

infiltrated our everyday lives by

making it possible to listen to Barry

Manilow’s entire catalog on the

go and still have enough available

memory for a few Sanford and Son

reruns downloaded from iTunes.

Okay, let’s get serious again …

Could this be a future Apple press

release?

“On February 10, 2031, Apple

will unveil their new iPoo—a fully

functional, individually priced,

completely portable lavatory

module. The days of waiting in

Are We BecomingMachines?With technology and information becoming more

and more accessible and common, are we ourselves

becoming the machines?

Mike Heaps

long, sweaty Port-a-potty lines

are officially over. It’s time to drop

it where you stop it. Drip it where

you grip it. Splash it where you

stash it. And that’s definitely not

all! Be entertained by the 21,003

audio books and over 500 gigs

of music from the 1970s and 80s

played directly from the built-in

and newly released ihaveallmedia-

pod. Watch every television show

and film ever made. Make business

calls through an onboard iPhone—

using the hands-free wireless

earpiece feature, of course! Enjoy

all-organic iChow fed to you by

the robotic iHand from the built-in

convection iOven that extracts

food from the attached iFridge.

And guess what? It does it all while

you poo! Hell, you can spend all

day on the iPoo! Tell your friends!

Along the fifty-mile Houston Ship

Channel, there are more explosive

materials, toat it’s one of America’s top

Targets. So what’s the worst that could

happen if terrorists were to strike? Could

we be left picking up the pieces?

by S. C. Gwynne

24 Spring Issue

The attack begıns in

the Houston Ship

Channel, in the cargo

hold of the Belize-

flagged, Singapore-

owned container ship Ocean

Princess. The vessel is eight

hundred feet long. It is stacked

from stem to stern with forty-

foot-long steel boxes and looks

oddly top-heavy. On international

manifests its cargo is listed as

“toys and electrical components.”

But that’s not all it is carrying.

Inside one of the containers, each

of which ca

hold thirty tons of cargo, is a

stockpile of terrorist-planted

explosives that makes Timothy

McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bomb

look like a firecracker.

As the ship steams north and

west toward the heart of Houston,

there are no signs that anything

is wrong. The U.S. Coast Guard

boards the ship and performs a

routine inspection, interviewing

the captain and crew but opening

no containers. U.S. Customs and

Border Protection, which uses an

x-ray machine to inspect some

10 to 12 percent of containers

entering the port, sees nothing

suspicious in this shipment and

elects not to screen it.

But as the ship approaches

the giant Shell Oil refinery in

Deer Park, the Coast Guard’s port

commander receives a panicked

call from the Department of

Justice’s Counterterrorism Section

in Washington. It’s bad news:

The Ocean Princess is probably

carrying a bomb. The Coast Guard

scrambles into action, but it is

already too late. Before the cutters

can reach the vessel, an immense

blast rocks the channel and

surrounding areas.

As Homeland Security officials

will later discover, the bomb

consists mostly of Soviet-era

anti-ship mines, originally loaded

onto the Ocean Princess in Trieste,

Italy, by an obscure but well-

organized group of Algerian and

Moroccan terrorists. The explosives

are triggered by a device known as

a GPS detonator, which sets them

off as soon as a certain longitude-

latitude coordinate is reached. In

this case, the coordinates were

for Shell’s refinery. Today the

terrorists are lucky: The bomb

goes off just as the container ship

is also passing a seven-hundred-

foot liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)

tanker. The blast rips into the side

of the tanker, causing yet another

large explosion, which in turn

both ignites gasoline and crude-

oil storage tanks at Shell and

causes the tanks’ walls to rupture,

sending a river of fire out into the

refinery and reaching the far more

dangerous pressurized pentane

storage tanks. A little more than

11 million gallons of pentane are

released, some of which burns

and some of which evaporates and

forms a vapor cloud, which then

explodes with enormous force,

leveling buildings and structures

in the immediate vicinity. By

the time another compartment

on the LPG tanker is breached,

sending a new fireball into the sky,

more than two hundred people

are dead. The container ship is

half-submerged, still burning and

resting on the bottom of the fifty-

foot-deep channel. But all this, as

Houstonians and the rest of the

world will soon learn, is merely

prelude. What happens next is

scarcely imaginable.

CHARLES DICKENS once

described Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, as “hell with the

lid off.” His reference was to

that city’s vast landscape of

smoke-belching steel mills, but

the metaphor also works for

something much closer to home:

the grotesquely magnificent

stretch of refineries, petrochemical

and other plants, mills, docks,

silos, wharves, and warehouses

that rise along the banks of the

malodorous waterway known as

the Houston Ship Channel. Over

its full fifty-mile track—from near

downtown Houston to Bolivar

Roads, on the Gulf of Mexico—the

channel houses three hundred

plants and is one of the largest

concentrations of heavy industry

on earth, producing nearly half

of the nation’s supply of gasoline

and half of its petrochemicals.

It comprises the largest refinery

Along the

fifty-mile

Houston Ship

Channel, there

are more

Explosive materials,

toxic Gases,

and deadly

petrochemicals

than anywhere

else in the

country.

25

Chemical plants can kill people at

long range, but it is still a bad idea

to put them next to residential

subdivisions. Back in the twenties

and thirties, when industries began

to locate along the channel en

masse, this must have seemed

like a sound idea. In the year

2004, when terrorist attacks are

daily events and people fly planes

into the World Trade Center to

make a political statement, this

sort of unarmored industrial

concentration is like having a giant

target painted on us with a sign, in

Arabic, that reads “Attack here.”

As most Houston residents

can tell you, the Ship Channel has

long been considered one of the

top strategic targets in the United

States. Russian missiles were

(and perhaps are) aimed at it. A

single well-placed strike would

cripple a significant portion of our

national economy. Along with the

rest of the city, the channel was

put on a Code Orange terrorist

alert during Super Bowl week in

in the world (Exxon Mobil, in

Baytown) and the sixth-largest

seaport. Viewed from the tollway

bridge on Houston’s east side,

the upper channel can seem both

frightening and, in its own dark,

industrial Gothic way, weirdly

beautiful. On certain days the

whole brutish apparatus seems

to hiss into action, spewing fire

and emitting long, gorgeously

looping plumes of cottony white

steam that coil around its steel

tanks and spires and rise hundreds

of feet into the sky. Dickens, who

chronicled England’s industrial

revolution, would have felt right

at home.

But as the above hypothetical

attack suggests, the channel

is more than just a spectacular

industrial engine. It is also a prime

terrorist target. That’s because it is

both ground zero for the nation’s

petrochemical industry and home

to unfathomably large quantities of

the deadliest, most combustible,

disease-causing, lung-exploding,

chromosome-annihilating, and

metal-dissolving substances

known to man. The sheer toxicity

of it all, in fact, is one of the main

reasons the channel zone evolved

as it did: Part of the idea was to

confine all of these poison-laden

refineries and chemical plants

and ships filled with anhydrous

ammonia to their own noxious

neighborhoods, generally away

from homes and schools and

offices. You don’t want to put

storage tanks next to nursery

schools if they have the potential

for igniting and leveling every

building within a half-mile radius.

As the ship approaches the giant Shell Oil refinery

in Deer Park, the Coast Guard’s port commander

receives a panicked call from the Department of

Justice’s Counterterrorism Section in Washington.

It’s bad news:

The Ocean Princess is probably carrying a bomb.

The approaching ship looks just

like any other ship, but a closer

look reveals a hidden secret.

A secret that could kill thousands.

26 Spring Issue

January. Two months later the FBI

announced another alert—again

Code Orange—specifically for the

Ship Channel. It is unclear what the

feds thought was going to happen.

Beyond their disconcertingly vague

warnings, they plainly aren’t ever

going to share their real concerns

with us.

Which more or less leaves it to

us to imagine what the effects of

a terrorist attack might be. The

notion that the Ship Channel is

an enormous bomb waiting to

be detonated is an oft-repeated

truism. Everyone agrees that

it is, but that tells you nothing

about what happens when the

bomb actually goes off. As we roll

on and off of the now-familiar

Code Orange alerts—only one

notch back from Code Red,

which means, presumably, that

cargo planes loaded with TNT are

already winging toward Disney

World—it might be helpful to

know exactly what it is that we

are supposed to be afraid of. By

that I do not mean minor bits of

terrorism such as strapping one

hundred pounds of C-4 explosives

to a petroleum barge and sinking

it in the channel or running a truck

packed with Semtex explosives

into a tank farm. Those are mere

annoyances. I mean a full-scale,

worst-case scenario of the sort

the Homeland Security folks are

modeling and simulating and

staying up late worrying about, an

attack that would have as deep

and abiding an effect on the public

as the horrors of 9/11. If we are

supposed to believe these alerts,

it seems only fair to ask: How

would it happen in the Houston

Ship Channel?

TO UNDERSTAND HOW a terrorist

strike might affect this vast tangle

of smoke and steel, it helps to look

at the horrific industrial accidents

that already happen there with

surprising regularity. Things are

always blowing up or burning

out of control or leaking in the

channel—much as they would

be likely to in a terrorist attack.

(Since 1955 the place has even

had its own private fire brigade,

with two hundred pieces of heavy

equipment—Channel Industries

Mutual Aid, or CIMA—that does

nothing but put out the fires and

fix the accidents.)

The worst of all the channel

disasters was the 1947 explosion

of the French freighter S.S.

Grandcamp at a dock in Texas

City. The ship was loaded with

ammonium nitrate, the same

stuff McVeigh used to craft his

truck bomb in Oklahoma City

48 years later. A fire on the ship

caused a blast that leveled docks,

warehouses, and a chemical

plant; damaged or destroyed one

thousand residences or buildings;

and killed 578 people. It remains

the worst industrial accident

in American history and led to

sweeping changes in chemical

manufacturing and storage.

Still, major accidents

continue to happen. In 1979 the

tanker Chevron Hawaii exploded

at the docks of Shell Oil’s Deer

Park refinery, killing 3 people

and touching off a cascade of

explosions and fires in storage

tanks that engulfed Shell’s docks

and the nearby channel. The blast

tore the ship in half, caused two

nearby gasoline and crude-oil

barges to explode, and filled the

channel with a twenty-foot wall of

burning crude oil. In 1987 a crane

operator at Marathon Oil’s Texas

City refinery dropped an industrial

heater on a storage tank, causing

the leak of 30,000 pounds of

deadly hydrogen fluoride, which

formed a gas cloud. Thousands

were evacuated from Texas City,

and 800 people were treated

for breathing disorders and skin

problems. The worst of the recent

accidents took place in 1989,

when an explosion ripped through

a petrochemical plant in Pasadena

owned by the Phillips Petroleum

Company. The blast—equivalent

to igniting 20,000 pounds of

TNT—started in an ethylene reactor

and created an orange fireball

that was described by one witness

as looking like the detonation of

an atomic bomb. The explosion

was heard 25 miles away, broke

windows 3 miles away, leveled

most structures on four hundred

acres of property, and tossed

I was escorted to a private room and

watched by a guard for two hours while

I read the material. I was allowed to

take notes but not to remove or copy

any of the information. After I left, the

documents were shredded.

27

debris for miles. It killed 23

people, wounded 130, and left a

grim wreckage of twisted steel

and concrete.

To see just how hazardous

the products of the channel’s

plants are, you have to read the

companies’ own worst-case

scenarios. Under law, each plant

must make such a report—

known as a risk management

plan (RMP)—and file it with the

Environmental Protection Agency.

This information is public but is

considered to be so sensitive that

my request to the EPA in Houston

for the documents brought an

immediate return phone call

from the Department of Justice’s

Counterterrorism Section in

Washington, asking who I was

and what I wanted. In order to

view the RMPs for channel plants,

I had to go to the U.S. Marshal’s

office at the federal courthouse in

Houston, where I was escorted to

a private room and watched by a

guard for two hours while I read

the material. I was allowed to take

notes but not to remove or copy

any of the information. After I left,

the documents were shredded.

The information in the RMPs

is sobering, in part because the

premise is that these areaccidents,

not deliberate attacks. Attacks

would cause much more damage.

A sampling reveals the plants’

astonishing ability to kill or maim

human beings. In their toll on

human life, the worst substances

by far are so-called toxics, like

chlorine, ammonia, and hydrogen

fluoride, as opposed to the

flammables, like pentane and

butane. Take, for example, Oxy

Vinyls’ Battleground plant, which

makes chlorine and caustic soda.

According to its RMP, the daily

production of liquid chlorine is

collected in seven 650-ton storage

tanks, and its worst-case scenario

“assumes 1.3 million pounds of

liquid chlorine [one full tank]

would be released and evaporated

in a ten-minute period.” The

chlorine gas cloud would travel 25

miles before falling below the EPA’s

toxic threshold of three parts per

million and would affect 1.8 million

people. How many died or became

acutely ill would depend largely

on wind speed and direction and

on what time of day the accident

occurred. Fatalities are not

addressed in the RMP. But based on

worst-case scenarios run by other

organizations, they could easily be

in the tens of thousands.

In Pasadena the Crown Central

Petroleum refinery’s worst case

involves a “catastrophic failure of

the hydrofluoric acid storage drum

resulting in the release of 50,000

pounds of hydrogen fluoride gas

over a ten-minute period.” The

distance to what the EPA calls

the “toxic end point” is 9.3 miles.

The spill would affect 650,000

people. BP Amoco’s worst case in

Pasadena involves the “liquid spill

and vaporization” of 4,440 pounds

of iron pentacarbonyl. Toxic end

point: 3.9 miles.

People affected: 84,881.

While it is harder to kill

large numbers of people in the

channel area with explosions

alone, the worst-case scenarios

from some of the refineries still

indicate a serious threat to local

communities: Shell Oil’s giant Deer

Park refinery lists a pentane “vapor

cloud explosion” as its worst case.

The explosion “could affect areas

up to 1.8 miles away” and up to

5,532 people, according to its RMP.

The nearby Lyondell-Citgo refinery

also lists pentane as its worst case.

Toxic end point: 1.68 miles. People

affected: 20,100.

Though the RMPs make no

mention of terrorism, they do

offer clues as to how much

worse an attack would be than

the hypothetical accidents they

describe. A concerted terrorist

assault might, for example, release

the entire contents of all seven

of Oxy Vinyls’ chlorine tanks,

instead of just one. Chlorine is

very nasty stuff. In 1915 it was the

German army’s choice for the first

deadly chemical attack in history,

which killed 5,000 Allied troops

in Belgium. A number of other

widely used chemicals—including

anhydrous ammonia, hydrogen

fluoride, and methyl isocyanate—

are also fatal to humans. A leak

of the latter from a Union Carbide

plant in Bhopal, India, in 1984 killed

35%Docking Services

22%Warehouses

14%Factories

29%Storage

BuildingsAlong the

HoustonShip

ChannelThe Houston ship channel

is a widened and deepened

natural watercourse cre-

ated by dredging the Buffalo

Bayou and the Galveston

Bay. Major products, such

as petrochemicals and Mid-

western grain, are trans-

ported in bulk together with

general cargo.

On December 25, 2007, the

Houston Ship Channel was

featured on the CNN Special,

Planet in Peril, as a potential

polluter of nearby neigh-

borhoods. That year, the

University of Texas released

a study suggesting that

children living within 2 miles

(3.2 km) of the Houston

Ship Channel were 56 per-

cent more likely to become

sick with leukemia than the

national average.

If an explosive were to go off

in or near the ship channel,

the effects could affect tens

of thousands of people.

The evolution of technology is

more than just wired to wireless.

Technology is becoming more

and more human-like.

by Ayesha and Parag Khanna

30 Spring Issue

Every baby born today in the Western world

has a life expectancy of about 100 years,

which means it will be alive in 2110. It’s

nearly impossible to forecast in detail life

in 2110. However, what we can venture

to guess based on current trends is that humans will

still populate the planet, as will animals, and we will

be joined by simple biological creatures designed

synthetically in the lab, and of course, machines.

Machines will roam the earth, toiling in factories,

taking our children to school, delivering babies,

cleaning the streets, and other such tasks, which will

make them seemingly indispensable to us.

We dont know how sophisticated these machines

will be a century from today. Some might continue

as dumb machines like the ones we have now,

assiduously screwing on the caps of Coke bottles.

Or they might be humanoid robots that resemble

us and nurse our elderly parents. The increasing

sophistication of Technology from the steam engine

and discovery of electricity to telecommunications,

the Internet and biotechnology can be seen as a

haphazard confluence of the breakthroughs of

geniuses — or it can be seen as an evolutionary

pattern.

Brian Arthur of the Santa Fe Institute believes that

Technology evolves over time: “machines started

as disparate pieces of seemingly unconnected

technologies, but like humans, they also have an

origin and a process of evolution.” He is arguably the

first person to tackle the question of the origin and

evolution of machines, eloquently laid out in his book,

The Nature of Technology. Evolution is an increase

in maturation and complexity, and does not have to

necessarily follow the path of Darwinian evolution,

which is modification by descent – nature introduces

small variations in an existing form over a long period

of time. Granted the results are staggering, but the

journey, such as that of the ape’s evolution into

mankind, can take millions of years.

Technology, according to Arthur, spawns

new generations of products by using existing

components, a phenomenon he calls combinatorial

evolution. The change in ‘species’ can thus be quite

radical in a short period of time. The greater the

number of components we have at our disposable,

the larger the number of permutations of new

technologies that can be created, and the faster the

evolution. The technology eco-system becomes alive

with increasing possibility with the passage of time.

“Slowly, at a pace measured in decades, we

are shifting from technologies that produced

fixed physical outputs to technologies whose

main character is that they can be combined and

configured endlessly for fresh purposes. Technology,

once a means of production, is becoming a

chemistry.” (Brian Arthur)

There is yet another aspect to Technology’s

evolution: technologies always capture a phenomenon

(like using wind for power), with new phenomenon

becoming available for capture with more powerful

tools. Take the simple example of the fact that when

you bend a flexible material, it stores energy. This

phenomenon was used to create ancient tools like the

bow and arrow. Today, we use all kind of phenomenon

— optical, chemical, physical, and electrical to name a

few — to create new technologies.

The rules of Technological evolution thus make

a strong argument for accelerating evolution.

Compared to the snail-paced evolution of the human

species, we have to wonder if we’ll be able to manage

the increasing complexity of technology or if the

dystopian vision of some futurists will come true:

machines will become ‘alive’ with artificial intelligence

and not just roam the earth but also rule it.

Ayesha and Parag Khanna explore human-technology

co-evolution and its implications for society, business

and politics at The Hybrid Reality Institute.

The computer

is a perfect

example of

technological

evolution.

From a basic

typewriter,

to a bulky

monitor, to a

sleek iMac.

31

Tabletsvs

Smartphones

44%

49%Tablet

Smartphone

18%Tablet

Smartphone

13 – 17

19%

25 – 34

33%Tablet

Smartphone

26%

18 – 24

21%Tablet

Smartphone

14%

35 – 54

21%Tablet

Smartphone

24%

55 +

7%Tablet

Smartphone

17%

56%

51%Tablet

Smartphone

Travel

EmailEntertainmentMapsNewsProductShoppingSocial Media

Banking

17%

24%

8%11%

11%14%

31%46%

11%

20%

31%

11%

30%

41%

18%

30%50%

18%

Smart MobileDevice Usage

AGE

Smart Mobile Device Usage

Gender PreferredApp UsageActivities

TabletsSmartphones

smartphones and tablets are

primarily used

for Maps, Social

Media, Email

and Banking.

TopManufacturers

TabletsSmartphones

37% 8%8%43% 4%

Other

43% 20% 2%39% 6%

Other

16% 10%15%38% 9% 8% 3%Other

2% 2% 2%2% 2% 6% 20%5% 7% 53%

OS Market Share

TabletsSmartphones

39%

24%

17%

3%

3%3%

11%

SocialNetworking

Games

Utilities

Health & Fitness

LifestyleEntertainment

Other

67%

7%9%

10%

4%2%1%

GamesSocial

Networking

Utilities

EntertainmentOther

ProductivityNews

App Download DistributionCategories

smartphones are primarily

manufactured by Apple, HTC

and Samsung.

tablets are primarily

manufactured by Apple,

Amazon and HP.

US $7.99 | CA $8:50