There are petabytes of research data being produced in laboratories around the world, but the best web search tools available can’t help us make sense of it. Why? Because more stands between basic research and meaningful discovery than the problem of search.

Many scientists today work in relative isolation, left to follow blind alleys and duplicate existing research. Data are fragmented — trapped behind firewalls, locked up by contracts or lost in databases that can’t be accessed or integrated. Materials are hard to get — universities are overwhelmed with transfer requests that ought to be routine, while grant cycles pass and windows of opportunity close. It’s not uncommon for research sponsors to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in critically important efforts like drug discovery, only to see them fail.

The consequences in many cases are no less than tragic. The time it takes to go from identifying a gene to developing a drug currently stands at 17 years — forever, for people suffering from disease.

Science Commons has three interlocking initiatives designed to accelerate the research cycle — the continuous production and reuse of knowledge that is at the heart of the scientific method. By making scientific research “re-useful” , enabling streamline the materials-transfer process so researchers can easily replicate, verify and extend research and by Integrating fragmented information sources Science Commons makes scientific discovery easier by design.

Pioneer One is an ambitious project from Josh Bernhard and Bracey Smith who have collaborated before on ‘The Lionshare’, a BitTorrent-exclusive film which was released on VODO earlier this year. VODO is an online distribution platform which is able to reach millions of viewers through their relationships with existing BitTorrent communities.

Using a Kickstarter campaign to solicit the $6,000 budget for the pilot episode (over $7,000 was actually raised), the series will be further founded by donations from people that watch the pilot and are willing to donate money to see the series.

In the episode’s first day and a half online, about 84,000 downloads have occurred. and since the show’s premiere $1,000 a day has been donated to fund the next six installments.

In the pilot, what first looks like a terrorist act turns out to be a Cold War relic come back to haunt the present. We follow our main characters, a team of Homeland Security agents, as they discover the truth of what’s happened: a forgotten Soviet space mission has returned to Earth, and what it’s brought back will have implications for the entire world. It’s part political drama, part procedural drama, with a tinge of sci-fi. But beyond the initial catalyst, which is fiction, everything has its root in factual events.

download the pilot here http://www.pioneerone.tv/

PIONEER ONE Video Blog #10 from Pioneer One on Vimeo.

Behind closed doors, the European Union, United States, Japan and other trade partners are negotiating an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ACTA will contain new international norms for the enforcement of copyrights, trade mark rights, patents and other exclusive rights.

Following the release of a draft ACTA text, the FFII updated its analysis of the effects ACTA may have on the software field. The software sector is plagued by patent thickets. Non-practicing entities (“trolls”) file frivolous lawsuits and demand high damages. In the U.S., even major software companies, owning huge patent portfolios, support patent reform. Depending on the outcome of the final text, ACTA may impose injunctions for all patent infringements and increase damages. This will render reform impossible. The FFII analysis shows ACTA may help holders of large patent portfolios to eliminate competition from start-ups, smaller sized companies and open source projects.

FFII analyst Ante Wessels: “The ACTA-problems are not limited to software. To win the fight against climate change, fast diffusion of green technology is needed. Policy makers know that, patent trolls know that. We will see the same problems that plague the software field, like trivial patents, amassing of patents, frivolous lawsuits, hampering of follow up innovation and high transaction costs. Especially since many modern products, like hybrid cars, contain software.”

In a podcast, Nikolaus Thumm, Chief Economist of the European Patent Office, said that the key facilitator of technology transfer is licensing. He mentions people giving away essential parts of their technologies.

Ante Wessels: “Making the fight against climate change dependant on charity from patent holders hardly seems advisable. Means to force patent owners to cooperate are needed too. ACTA may impose injunctions for all infringements, there will then be no way to force patent holders to cooperate. Even if this problem is solved, the high damages ACTA proposes will drive up the costs for diffusion of green technology. While the funds are already limited, for instance, the fight against AIDS seems lost, due to lack of money. The same may happen with diffusion of green technology.”

According to the FFII, there is no indication that the 1994 WTO TRIPS agreement provides inadequate protection for patent holders.

The next round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations is scheduled for later this month in Switzerland.

Links

FFII analysis:
http://action.ffii.org/acta/Analysis

European Patent Office Forum 2010 on Climate Change
http://www.epo.org/about-us/events/inventor-forum/forum/programme.html

European Patent Office podcast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-en6m8etOYk

Permanent link to this press release:
http://press.ffii.org/Press%20releases/ACTA%20may%20hamper%20fight%20against%20climate%20change

About FFII

The FFII is a not-for-profit association registered in twenty European countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 1000 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing.

The voyage of the HMS Beagle has been described as the most important journey ever made. During his travels, Charles Darwin gathered information and knowledge that would drastically change the way we look at the world. With his book “On the Origin of Species” (1859) Darwin would be the first to explain that life on earth is not created by God, but rather developed by evolution.

To celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birth year, and the 150th anniversary of his publication of “On the Origin of Species”, VPRO is running a 35-part series called Beagle: On the future of species. Life on earth is under continual change. Is there reason to worry about the future? Can science offer us sufficient answers to some of our most compelling questions? Are we leaving behind an inhabitable world for future generations?

Our VPRO-Beagle ship the Clipper Stad Amsterdam is an experiment in itself. This three mast sailing ship is rigged with advanced scientific measurement equipment. Scientists from various disciplines and from all over the world execute experiments on board this sailing science lab. The ship also has a built-in TV studio from which parts of the series are produced and broadcast.

Beagle takes viewers on a journey across magnificent landscapes, vulnerable regions, endangered areas and adventurous locations, stretching from Patagonia to the South Pacific, and from Australia to St. Helena. En route one recurrent question will be asked: “Will the earth survive mankind?”

Beagle has strong interactive components. All scientific findings made during the journey can be closely watched on VPRO’s Beagle website, and are broadcast by both radio and television; personal journals and video logs about life on board are made by the producers, the sailing crew, and by guests on board. These are updated on a daily basis. The route of the entire voyage can be closely followed by viewers on the internet.

The TV experiment has finished but youtube channel remains there http://www.youtube.com/vprobeagle

made at Wordle

Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist and writer.

I remember some 3 or 4 year ago when there was a general fear of internet been transformed in a expression of ‘conservative business and commerce’, the main stream values, that ‘kind of television’ that assume the crowds are a swallower of bad quality. This pressure still exists, see the secret lobbys from the media industry around the ACTA.
Even in accessing the issue of pirate downloads, this new economy has positive things to do compensating the negative of ACTA and old media industries:
Biracy is an indie film project launched at the beginning of last month with the goal to convert download pirates into investors, creators, and distributors by using a persuasive crowdfunding /crowdsourcing hybrid business model. It’s quite innovative in that the filmmakers have allocated 32% of membership income towards an upfront referral reward system, meaning that members can potentially earn money before the film has even been made.

It so exciting this glimpse peer to peer economies gives on a future where media monopolies and other big money industry owners don’t have the power to dictate what I want where they wont be able to keep on pushing me values, images and products I don’t care about.

The initiatives may sound to many like microfinancing, or possibilities to raises limited amount of money. This is not true. As an example, The Age of Stupid. a documentary project on global warming has raised over $1.2 million via crowd funding, and also used crowd sourcing to distribute and exhibit it around the world.
http://www.mymilliondollarmovie.com/ My Million Dollar Movie. This project is still in funding stage, but it is notable that it has so far raised $942,520 towards the goal.

More and more people are believing and investing in crowdfinancing. Trampoline Systems, the London-based social analytics business, is using an unconventional approach to finance its growth. Instead of raising money from venture capital firms Trampoline is “crowdfunding” the business, raising small stakes from a large group of investors.

Introducing Trampoline Systems from Trampoline Systems on Vimeo.

Because this whole concept really gets my heart and mind, here a compilation of links about crowd financing.

• http://www.rockethub.com/projects
• Fundable is a service allowing for the creation and management of fundable “group action” pages where pledges can be accepted. If a campaign does not reach its goal within a set time (14 or 25 days), then all pledges are negated and no money distributed.
  Kickstarter is a New York start-up that helps other projects raise small amounts of finance through crowdfunding.
• Create A Fund allows both individuals and organizations to collect money online. The site tightly integrates with services like PayPal and Facebook to ensure a cohesive donor experience from start-to-finish. Fund creators get customizable ‘Donation Pages’ where donors can keep tabs on a fund’s progress, leave comments and invite others.

Crowd funding in the film industry

• Artemis Eternal – Upcoming sci-fi short film being produced independently by Jessica Mae Stover. The user is invited, via the web, to donate (from $1 to $100) and join “The Wingmen” (whose members hail from students to homemakers to NASA employees and filmmakers) and help to crowdfund the project.
• A Swarm of Angels is a project to utilize a swarm of subscribers (Angels) to help fund, make, contribute, and distribute a feature film using the internet and digital technologies. It aims to recruit earlier development community members with the right expertise into paid project members, film crew, and production staff. I wrote about this project sometime ago (in portuguese)
• “The Cosmonaut” is a feature film in which members of the public are invited from to become a “producer” with a minimum investment of €2. The project is licensed under Creative Commons’ Attribution-Sharealike so anybody can edit, remix, copy and freely distribute all the film materials which the creators have committed to publish in unedited HD.
• http://www.indiegogo.com/is an online social marketplace connecting filmmakers and fans to finance independent films. The platform provides filmmakers with tools for project funding, recruiting, and promotion; while enabling the audience to discover and connect directly with filmmakers and the causes they support. Since launching at the Sundance Festival in 2008 several projects have been financed through the platform.

Other industries

• Spot.Us is non-profit pioneering community-funded journalism. Journalists pitch stories on the website which are then selected and financed through crowdfunding.

• Blender Foundation is a beautifull story of an Amsterdam-based venture that develops widely-used 3D animation software. Having started life as a commercial venture Blender raised €100,000 through a crowdfunding process and switched to an open source model.

• Cameesa is the first site breaking into ‘Crowdfunding Fashion,’ where it encourages participation in the clothing creation process. Members decide which designs to print on T-shirts by supporting them financially. Once a design is 100% funded, the members who supported the design get a special edition of the t-shirt and earn a revenue share each time that design is purchased.

Crowd funding in the music industry

• SellaBand is a service for musicians and bands to promote their work in an effort to gain “believers” who will help to fund the production and distribution of an album. Believers must raise $50,000 in order to graduate the artists into contractual agreements. Believers can earn money back from ad revenue used in tandem with giving away the music for free online at sellaband’s site.
• Bandstocks provides a financial model for artists seeking an alternative to major labels. Funds for production and promotion are raised through “band stocks” purchased by fans in £10 units. Investors receive a copy of the album plus royalties from sales. Patrick Wolf is the most prominent artist to use the platform to date, raising £100,000 to release his album “The Bachelor” after leaving his contract with Polydor.
• ArtistShare is a service for musicians to fund their projects outside the normal recording industry. It utilises micropayments to allow the general public to directly finance, and in some cases gain access to extra material from an artist. In 2004 Maria Schneider became the first artist to win a Grammy with an album distributed exclusively over the Internet. Distributed through ArtistShare she received four nominations for her album Concert in the Garden and won Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.

non profit

• First Giving is a service that allows fundraisers to create online person-to-person fundraising pages for any US non-profit. The funds are directly transferred to the non-profit which differentiates firstgiving from other services.
• PledgeBank while not exclusively for funding has often been used to crowdfund for projects and charities.

Zie de wikileaks video, dan de MSNBC discussie, die Salon.com blogger kan er ook wat van. Die Wikileaks luitjes schijnen ook nog eens achtervolgd te worden door de CIA, wat hun coolheidsstatus nog een graadje verhoogd.