I’m in DC this week, arguably the command center for the world’s most powerful military, the epicenter of geopolitical power (for now), a city where “war” is just another word for Monday morning. Like it or not, our cultural (some would say human) fascination with war is endless. While the average American would likely be hard pressed to name 10 elements in the periodic table, thanks to the US media and recent election cycle, most could easily tell you that we’re spending $10 billion per month to fund the war in Iraq and that General Petraeus likes oatmeal for breakfast. Now that we’ve elected a new Commander in Chief, what sort of wars will the leader-elect of the free world have to contend with? For better or worse, this week’s Friday Five covers different visions of the future of war.

Mind Wars

War has always been a boom time for science.  Since WWII when the military establishment and academia first got cozy, scientific advancements have flourished in the wake of war.  Government support of science has led to breakthroughs in war technologies (think: sonar and the atomic bomb) but also benevolent ones, such as penicillin and the Internet.  In Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense, Jonathan Moreno explores the military applications of neuroscience, providing a tour through some of the most provocative research that’s making the brain the most popular object of national security attention, including:  wearable robotics, smart drugs, “neural prostheses” and “rapid onset brain-targeted bioweapons.” Moreno covers both near and long-term technologies, painting a broad picture of how future wars may be fought, and importantly gives focused attention to the ethical dilemmas that these new technologies will create.

CyberWars

In May, seven NATO nations backed a new cyber defense center in Estonia, the ex-Soviet state which last year faced weeks of denial of service attacks on its internet infrastructure. The move marks new territory for NATO; as cyber-skirmishes increase, geo-political alliances must write new rules to deal with these emerging forms of conflict.  The playbook is wide open: should cyber-bullets be considered weapons of mass destruction? What constitutes collateral damage online? This New Scientist article takes a look the battleground of the future: cyberspace.  

Non-Lethal Weapons

Is the term “non-lethal weapon” an oxymoron on the battlefield?  Wired.com’s “Danger Room” blog reports on the development of a combination sonic  blaster/laser weapon that when deployed, would blast off a deafening and blinding combination of light and sound, or in military contractor lingo, a “psycho-acoustical event.” A new wave of such non-lethal weapons which ‘distract and disorient’ are on the horizon, touted by military experts as essential tools in peacekeeping missions and civilian-heavy battle zones.  Check out the Danger Room blog for more on ‘what’s next in national security’.  

War of the Nerds

In 2005 the secretary of the Air Force penned a vision statement for the future in which he vowed that the Air Force would “fly and fight in air, space and cyberspace.”  That statement was the force (no pun intended) behind the establishment of the service’s newly-formed Cyber Command, and its chief, Brig. General William Lord, is looking for a few good geeks to recruit. This Wired article (“Welcome to Cyber Country, USA”) offers a behind-the-scenes look at the new command whose mission is to prepare for a future where computers are weapons.  Says Lord: “We have to change the way we think about warriors of the future.  So if they can’t run three miles with a pack on their backs but they can shut down a SCADA system, we need to have a culture where they can fit in.”

Water Wars

India.  China. Pakistan.  Uruguay. Turkey. Iraq. Nevada. This is just a short list of the places that are hotspots for future (and in some cases, current) water conflicts, the threat of which has been heralded by academics and policymakers for years. Blue Gold: World Water Wars takes a different look at the source of these future conflicts. Based on the book, this documentary film looks at the privatization and commoditization of the world’s water sources by both corporations and countries.  Following the fight for water rights around the world, the film asks: is water a commodity or a human right? The answer today, of course, is both.  But by 2025, when more than two billion people are expected to live in water-stressed countries, perhaps the more relevant question is: what will it be in the future?  

If you think a new web app comes out nearly every day, you’d be partly right - it’s actually closer to about five per day. Google has popularized the practice of crowd-sourcing product development by releasing “beta” versions of unfinished products into the world for its customers to play with.  I admit to being a bit of a beta geek; the lure of being the first kid on the block to know about the coolest new web toy is irresistible to a futurist who loves to see around the corner to the future.  There are thousands of betas in the marketplace, which made finding a handful of them to feature for this week’s Friday Five more than a little difficult.  That said, here are five products in beta that we think are worth keeping an eye on.

Grand Central

Grand Central seeks to solve an increasing problem in the mobile age - converging multiple points of contact into one. The basic idea around GrandCentral is “one phone number for all your phones, for life.”  The service provides a single number tied not to a phone or location, but to you.  According to the website, with GrandCentral “you can be reached with a single number, answer a call at any phone you want, seamlessly switch phones in the middle of a call, as well as check messages by phone, email or online.”

(Thomas Friedman’s talk at Pop!Tech, subtitled in Kiswahili)

dotSUB

dotSUB is quietly staging a revolution on the web. Its mission:  to make online video content accessible to the millions of non-English speakers by offering open-source translation services. The idea is deceptively simple: think YouTube meets Wikipedia: users can upload videos, films (even TV programs) for either the rest of the world or dotSUB’s team to translate. Translation services are either “closed” (utilizing dotSUB’s team of freelancers) or “open” (posting a video on the site and letting volunteers translate it for free, wiki-style).  For a great example of the service in action, check out Pop!Tech speaker talks (called Pop!Casts) which are translated via dotSUB into nine languages.   

MetaNotes

MetaNotes is “social graph paper” on which users can paste stickynotes containing text, images, videos, and widgets, creating scrapbooks to track and remember any topic.  It won the top “Experimental” website at the 2008 SXSW Interactive Awards last week, the category which tracks “cutting-edge and trend-setting destinations that are pushing the envelope and challenging our perceptions of the web.” While it still has a ways to go (i.e., it really needs private spaces for users to post notes); MetaNotes’ intuitive interface is familiar and user-friendly. And: it plays well with others, integrating with sites like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Pownce, and Photobucket.

Google’s Experimental Search

Courtesy of the brainiacs at Google Labs comes the Experimental Search project which offers new visualizations of search results including a timeline, map, or in context of other information types. With these views, G-Tech (the ambiguous but patent-pending-sounding term for “Google Technology”) extracts key dates, locations, measurements, and more from select search results so you can view results in multiple dimensions. Timeline and map views work best for searches related to people, companies, events and places. Info view shows all the data found for each result, to help you select the best choice.

Museum of Modern Betas (MoMB)

Aptly named, the Museum of Modern Betas is the go-to place to check out and track web apps that are in beta.  In fact, we think it should be called the Motherload of Modern Betas - since it opened in two years ago its listed over 4000 sites that are in beta, helpfully organizing them into categories such as Top 100, Most Anticipated, Recently Added and by Language.  The large number of sites it tracks makes getting in-depth information about each one difficult, but active links are provided.  The MoMB is a like a giant playground for the future of the web, perfect for those who don’t want to wait for the new ‘new thing’ to arrive.

P.S. - Last but not least, here’s a bonus track: keep Wello Horld on your watch list; it’s still in alpha and very hush-hush, but I want to go on record as being (one of) the first to say “I told you so!” when it launches.  

P.S.S. - If you’re wondering why I didn’t include PMOG as a beta to watch, stay tuned.  It’s so cool it deserves it’s own blog post.