Technology networking in the heart of London
Every year the Real Time Club runs a series of dinners with distinguished speakers on current issues of the information age. Dinners are held under the Chatham House rule and robust and well-informed debate is explicitly encouraged.
Real Time Club dinners are open to non-members and everyone is welcome to attend.
Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science
For more than a century, science has cultivated a sober public image for itself. Best-selling science author Michael Brooks joins us to show that the truth is very different. Many of our most successful scientists have more in common with libertines than librarians.
Debate on High-Frequency Trading: A Formula for Liquidity or a Recipe for Meltdown?
High-Frequency Trading (HFT) is the nuclear energy of the finance industry. The smartest bankers on the planet have armed themselves with bleeding-edge technologies from ultra-high-performance computers to ultra-low-latency networks to exotic things they find lying around at CERN. Not only has financial regulation come under stress from their activities, but even the physical limitation of the speed of light is bitterly lamented for the problems it causes (or praised by innovators for the opportunities it creates).
Seeking Energy Efficiency Nirvana: Using Smart Technology and Smart Data To Save Energy
Climatic change presents massive and unprecedented challenges – how do we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, increase capacity to meeting growing demand, and decarbonise our lifestyles, whilst at the same time keeping energy affordable and eliminating fuel poverty? Much of the early focus in solving these problems have been on generating renewable energy from non-carbon producing sources, but opportunities from energy efficiency are probably at least equally important.
The Interknot: Unintended Consequences of Internetworking Different Kinds of Networks
Part of the Real Time Club/British Computer Society 2011 Network Security Winter of Discontent
The “Internet of Things” has become a common buzz phrase. In this catchy vision, it is imagined that we connect objects in the real world (sensors, actuators) to the Internet in the same way that we have connected input/output devices that humans use to the vast information system that is the Web and the Cloud. Objects such as temperature and air sensors, home appliances, cars, and entire existing other types of networks such as rail and air transport systems, and power grids, are all seamlessly interconnected in an harmonious firmament. At least that is the vision.
Security on the Move: Risks from Remote Endpoints, Mobile Devices and the Cloud
Part of the Real Time Club / British Computer Society 2011 Network Security Winter of Discontent
Ten years ago, an organisation’s servers and clients were normally in fixed locations, connected by the organisation’s own Local Area Network. With such a network it was reasonable to expect the organisation to know “is this system secure?” and to fix it if it was not. Since then, however, it has become much more common for clients, servers and even whole LANs to become much more mobile.
Do social media make the world more boring?
Amidst all the hype about the future of social media, there seems to be an assumption that social media are either good or, at worst, benign. Those who argue for positive effects cite the potential for new collaborations, for linking up small networks globally, for stimulating societal debate. They point to coloured revolutions powered by social connections and a global village on a hill. All great stuff, but is it true? As we reduce ourselves to two dimensional home pages or Facebook walls, and limit our discourse to overly quick instant messaging and thoughtless “wow”/“yuck” reactions, perhaps social media reinforce existing connections, simultaneously rendering them more shallow, as anyone with a few hundred LinkedIn connections would agree. By limiting our time for other discourse and channelling our connections social media may well reinforce our prejudices, increase our bigotry or intolerance and reduce our ability to interact with those who are not part of our group. We may be in danger of losing the ancient social skills of the Forum or the Polis – tolerance, debate, free speech – that are essential to the vibrant, democratic societies these social media are supposedly enabling.
Waiting for Vodot: The imminent Collapse of the video bubble and how it TV will evolve afterwards
Patrick Barwise takes us through the TV evolution. Since around 1990, the digerati have been predicting revolutionary change in the nature of television and how it is consumed. In the 1990s, they predicted that TV viewing would quickly change from being mainly live (off ‘linear’ channels) to mainly asynchronous (online and on-demand) and with viewers interacting with different types of content and with other viewers. TV would disappear as a separate medium, morphing into video content (much of it user-generated) in a kind of converged digital porridge. Traditional TV business models (broadcast advertising and channel subscriptions) would be replaced by one-to-one interactive advertising, pay-per-view, and monthly payments for bandwidth. All this was supposed to happen before or soon after the year 2000.
The Eternal Coin: Physical Endurance or Digital Failure. A Digital Money Event
Dave Birch’s proposition for discussion is that new technology will move beyond a facsimile of current exchange to new means of exchange that are better for society as a whole. Future e-money synthetic currencies for speculative fiction writers shouldn’t be, “that will be ten galactic credits, thank you”, but rather, “you owe me a return trip to Uranus and a kilogram of platinum for delivery in 12 months”. Well, that’s what our payments autodroid bots (i.e., mobile phones) will agree amongst themselves. Dave sets out his stall: “When you digitise something, you have the opportunity to re-engineer it. So it is with money. As money has changed from barter to bullion, from paper to PayPal, it has changed the markets and societies that depend on it. Where next?
Thinking about Thinking: Introducing the Real Time Club Brain Mind Forum
A suitably unusual timing (12:00 – 14:00) for this extraordinary event. The relationship between neurophysiology (i.e. the structure and biochemistry of the brain) and cognition (i.e. how we think and experience the world) is central to every aspect of our lives, yet one of the least understood areas of science. This will be a very important area of study over the coming decades, and is already producing research and debate on issues such as biological bases for criminality and antisocial behaviour (including use of evidence of tendency to such behaviour in court) and use of drugs that can enhance cognitive performance (e.g. nicotine and ritalin). Modern digital computing techniques will be crucial to research on the linkages of neurophysiology and cognition, as has been the case with recent tremendous advances in genetic research. Recognising the importance of these issues, the Real Time Club has established a Brain, Mind & Computing Forum (separate from the club’s regular dining programme), which will be launched at this luncheon.
A Bubble of Pomposity that needs Pricking
Justin Urquhart Stewart is going to take a pin to financial services bubbles … and we have no shortage of bubbles. He intends to challenge Real Time Club members with: how the financial services industry is a contradiction in terms for clients – you end up with poor service and no finance; how, from the platitudes of marketing departments to gambling with citizen’s savings, the track record of the financial services industry verges on the criminal. “We focus on a customer of one – you”, said one bank. That’s all they will have if they carry on like this, and that’s all they deserve. It’s not just about greedy investment bankers but the cancer of greed that has been endemic throughout the history of finance. Justin will look at a range of issues from the global stockmarkets right down to your ISA to highlight what has gone wrong and why – and more to the point what we should now all be doing to look after ourselves and our families.