Human agents - learning from advances in distributed computing

I am delighted to republish a bioteams guest essay on “Agents: Technology and Usage” by James Odell which is attached in full as a pdf.

Evolutionary science has many lessons for our online communities

David Bollier offers a very interesting overview perspective of a workshop co-sponsored by the Berkman Centre and The Gruter Institute.The workshop, involving lawyers, biologists, social scientists, technologists and policy experts, focussed on what evolutionary science and "commons scholarship" can teach us about the social architecture of co-operative on-line communities ('on-line commons').

HOW LIVING CREATURES DO BUSINESS

Humans and other animals share a heritage of economic tendencies - including cooperation, repayment of favours and resentment at being short-changed. By Frans B. M. de Waal, Scientific American, April 2005 issue

In Canine coach keeps dieters on a leash, NewScientist - September 2005, we hear how the robot will gather information about our eating habits and exercise routines by connecting wirelessly to a pedometer. Actually virtual robot project managers, wizards and assistants may not be that far away - as a very simple example check-out The Meeting Facilitator.

Networked individuals are the future of enterprise.

In their enormously impressive (and sometimes intimidating) book “The Support Economy” by Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin the authors identify eleven new “Metaprinciples” for the emergent “support economy”.

Open Source Software (OSS) Networks gel around common values and beliefs according to new research report.

Bees really do point to new foodsources by dancing

The waggle dance is a famous example of the power of one-many broadcast communications in one of natures most successful teams – honeybees!

The million member virtual team?

Science Daily, “Establishing Trust Online Is Critical For Online Communication Say NJIT Experts” reports the conclusions of a paper “Swift Trust in Virtual Teams".

A swarm or a team can collaborate to overcome what a single robot might not be able to do.