As a prelude to her new book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, psychologist Sherry Turkle is back at TED, where she spoke for the first time in 1996, to elighten us about the impact of technology on our relationships...

This is definitely a welcome piece! For the past few years, I have indeed advocated on the importance of paying closer attention to the 'social' technology we continuously produce and innovate upon. Ensuring the continuous development of our emotional intelligence is as important as feeding our hunger for higher IQ, now more than ever...

Instead of building tools that are supposed to be an extension of our humanity, we have instead become an extension of the technology itself and turned ourselves into APIs, unable to fully function without the cloud.

Crackberry behaviors have long been adopted outside of the professional arena, feeding the fear of having real non-controlled person-to-person conversations (gateway to intimacy, oulala!). We are already contemplating machine-based companionship for our elderly days...

How many people are telling you "I would rather text than talk"?

When Turkle asked people "What's wrong with having a conversation?", the answer was "I'll tell what's wrong with having a conversation! It takes place in real time, and you can't control what you're gonna say"...

"Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be".

"Human relationships are rich, and they're messy, and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology... over time we seem to stop caring...".

I would love to hear your thoughts, especially from my friends building the next Facebook or the ones who cringe when I dare to pick up the phone to call them... ;-)

More seriously, is teaching the next generation how to be occasionally alone and disconnected from the cloud really the best way to deal with this technology-enhanced shift?

Published in Galaxy magazine in February of 1952, below are Heinlein's predictions for the year 2000:

So let's have a few free-swinging predictions about the future. Some will be wrong - but cautious predictions are sure to be wrong.

1. Interplanetary travel is waiting at your front door -- C.O.D. It's yours when you pay for it.

2. Contraception and control of disease is revising relations between the sexes to an extent that will change our entire social and economic structure.

3. The most important military fact of this century is that there is no way to repel an attack from outer space.

4. It is utterly impossible that the United States will start a "preventive war." We will fight when attacked, either directly or in a territory we have guaranteed to defend.

5. In fifteen years the housing shortage will be solved by a "breakthrough" into new technologies which will make every house now standing as obsolete as privies.

6. We'll all be getting a little hungry by and by.

7. The cult of the phony in art will disappear. So-called "modern art" will be discussed only by psychiatrists.

8. Freud will be classed as a pre-scientific, intuitive pioneer and psychoanalysis will be replaced by a growing, changing "operational psychology" based on measurement and prediction.

9. Cancer, the common cold, and tooth decay will all be conquered; the revolutionary new problem in medical research will be to accomplish "regeneration," i.e., to enable a man to grow a new leg, rather than fit him with an artificial limb.

10. By the end of this century mankind will have explored this solar system, and the first ship intended to reach the nearest star will be a-building.

11. Your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in your handbag. Your house telephone will record messages, answer simple inquiries, and transmit vision.

12. Intelligent life will be found on Mars.

13. A thousand miles an hour at a cent a mile will be commonplace; short hauls will be made in evacuated subways at extreme speed.

14. A major objective of applied physics will be to control gravity.

15. We will not achieve a "World State" in the predictable future. Nevertheless, Communism will vanish from this planet.

16. Increasing mobility will disenfranchise a majority of the population. About 1990 a constitutional amendment will do away with state lines while retaining the semblance.

17. All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic "brain."

18. Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of proteins. Beef will be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear.

19. Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will "Civilization" be destroyed.

Here are things we won't get soon, if ever:

-- Travel through time
-- Travel faster than the speed of light
-- "Radio" transmission of matter.
-- Manlike robots with manlike reactions
-- Laboratory creation of life
-- Real understanding of what "thought" is and how it is related to matter.
-- Scientific proof of personal survival after death.
-- Nor a permanent end to war.

A couple of quotes to conclude these 60-year-old predictions:

• Political debaters could benefit from: "I never learned from a man who agreed with me."
  
• And a reminder for VCs, Angel investors, doctors and whoever contemplates a dead-end: "Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done."
  

For those of you flying to Las Vegas for CES this week, AT&T is putting together a hackathon this Sunday, January 8!

It's a great opportunity for startupers, developers and talented students to launch their app and get the opportunity to market it thanks to the free PR and prizes.

Full details here: http://www.bit.ly/HackVegas
(Use code HDS903 to register for the hackathon)
It's this coming Sunday!

1st Place gets:
•$20k Cash Prize
•Featured in AT&T TV commercial
•Video Interview with Andrew Keen to be posted on TechCrunch
•Six (6) month membership in Alpha API program where we help setup networking events where you get to rub elbows with significant peers
•Three (3) days of AT&T Foundry business and technical support
•One month feature in AT&T Promotional Widget (platform dependent)
•"Back-Stage" meet and greet with Developer Summit Band (up to 4 people)
•Microsoft Xbox 360 + Kinect for the entire team if Microsoft Azure is used as a backend

Feel free to retweet & share with your peers.

Also, they are still open slots for startups & organizations who want to meet up with the AT&T one-on-one.
Email me for that so I can hook you up directly.

Best wishes of health, love and mobile prosperity & May the Force be with You!

S@

P.S. Yes, my sister's name is really Leia... no kidding! Mmmh, what does that make me? Luke?! 

Many thanks for your dedication, for your inspiring passion to do what you love, for bringing colors and beauty to the grey world of computing, for making products our grand-parents AND kids love showing off, for making products that connect people to each other, generation Y with generation, for being our muse.

I couldn't help shed a few tears over your death this evening. I know it sounds weird, given I didn't know you personally. But I practically grew up watching you and Bill Gates arguing and making up ;) After all, I'm one fo those who learned how to spell my name on an Apple keyboard before even knowing how to write it with a pen. Another reason I feel sick to my stomach is the realization that my opportunity of meeting you one day is forever gone. Completely vain I know, yet it is oddly frustrating and shakening... As you pointed out during your famous commencement address, life is indeed very short...

My dear Friends,

May Steve Jobs' spirited legacy inspire you for many years to come...

"I'm a VC, I'm a VC, can't take a leak without people who pitch me".
Mmmmh, I wish there could me more female VCs we could pitch in the ladies room!
I did 'pitch' a journalist at a TechCrunch Disrupt event while washing my hands though... ;-)

P.S.: The title of this post was inspired by the first verse of Victor Hugo's poem After The Battle.

After the intense launch of Ridehack, this labor day weekend was indeed welcome. And to make the most out of it, a trip to Upstate NY seemed the perfect way to find peace, quiet and nature.

A great Airbnb find led us to Rhinecliff, NY in a private and charming guest house surrounded by magnificant trees, still standing after Hurricane Irene's passage. Our hosts, a very friendly family, were grateful the water "only" destroyed their garden and covered everything up to the first floor of their house...

Alana, owner of the Red Dot, in Hudson, NY

Yesterday was spent exploring the quaint town of Hudson, NY following the advice of a CouchSurfing friend. After walking around the main street and enjoying the beautiful architecture, we found our way into the welcoming Red Dot, a local bar/restaurant owned by Alana. It quickly surfaced that Alana had lived in the city, i.e. New York City, for more than twenty years (it turned out that all the people who spoke to us that day were ex-New Yorkers...).

After years spent in the city in the extrememely competitive world of Fashion, and having launched Versace Jeans Couture in the US, serendipity brought Alana a welcoming parachute and a nice piece of real estate in Hudson NY.

A trip in Mexico led her to Alberto's Continental, a restaurant in Merida, which had welcome anyone and anybody including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

The Lebanese owner, who obviously knew what he was talking about, gave Alana, then toying with the idea of opening a restaurant in that Hudson NY building, two pieces of advice.  She was kind enough to pass these along:

Advice #1: Serve hamburgers

Advice #2: Treat the place like your own living room

If you can't do any of these, then forget about opening your own restaurant!

Click here to see why your startup will fail →

Yes I know these slides look ugly but they're hilarious!

(Source: Business Insider)