tumblmeg

Paul Baran’s diagram of a communication networks, from his RAND paper ‘On Distributed Communication’ (1964)

Gartner hype cycle

Network warfare

“Today, new systems are being fielded to allow soldiers to enter data on the spot—even during battle.

These technologies are wonders, but generally they have not been accompanied by shifts in military doctrine and organization. The result: a tidal wave of data is being created that can swamp systems still organized around large units (such as army divisions, naval strike groups, or air force wings) whose goal is to apply “overwhelming force” at some mythical “decisive point.” Generally speaking, these large units cannot quickly disseminate the information they collect throughout their networks and then allow smaller constituent parts to swarm against insurgents.”

Full article by John Arquilla in Technology Review March/April 2008, p. 12

Google wave

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.