Shrinking the Planet

A Panel Discussion

Accelerating Change 2005
50 minutes, 23mb, recorded 2005-09-17
Peter Barrett and Scott Rafer
New technologies and new ways of using existing tools are helping to bridge distances between people. Being able to share photos the same day they are taken is now possible - in the future it will be even easier. But are artificial intelligence or intelligent people creating these opportunities?

In these talks by Peter Barrett of Microsoft's TV division, and Scott Rafer, formerly of Feedster, examples of new tools are described in the context of connecting people and building a human-centric future. The speakers and audience discuss issues such as the convergence of mobile telephony with video and mashups between Google Maps and craigslist, and debate the difference between artificial intelligence and collaborative intelligence.

Peter Barrett argues that the real future in the "long tail" is in personal content - baby photos and family events. Scott Rafer predicts that artificial intelligence will not materialize in his lifetime, but that collaborative efforts of many people will mimic the output of intelligent machines. Both agree that new technologies and processes are connecting people across the world.


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Peter Barrett serves as chief technology officer and general manager of engineering for the Microsoft's TV Division at Microsoft Corporation. Barrett leads Microsoft TV's strategic product development and planning and ensures the division's ongoing innovation in the area of digital TV technologies. His technical vision and leadership were instrumental to Microsoft TV successful launch of its IPTV platform and Foundation Edition software, products that have been embraced by leading cable and telecommunication companies like Bell Canada, Comcast and SBC.

Scott Rafer is president and CEO of Wireless Ink and previously held those positions at Feedster. Before Feedster, Rafer co-founded WiFinder, the Wi-Fi hotspot directory; BookBroadband, the broadband hotel finder; Fresher Information, RSS indexing way too early; and Fotonation, a creator of connected photography solutions.

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This program is one of a series from IT Conversations coverage of the Accelerating Change 2005 conference held September 16-18, 2005 at Stanford University.

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This free podcast is from our Accelerating Change series.