Even before the Ajaxian bubble is burst, the net is already a-twitter with prophecies about Web 3.0. Wikipedia already has an article for it. And I’m wondering if we aren’t nearing some divergent singularity. Maybe not the Vingean Singularity, just one with a little ‘s’.

As far as Wikipedia is concerned, it seems like there are a few defining characteristics of Web 3.0. I’m not sure we’re really that close quite yet. But consider (1) the overlaying of virtual space on top of meat space, AKA the geospatial web, with echoes of ubiquitous computing and (2) the deification of Google further evolution of Google as an AI entity. Never mind mindless Googlebot spiders crawling the random web. We’re talking about the ability to pass Turing Tests here, people.

If the telcos and cable companies get their way with the obliteration of net neutrality, ubicomp is off the table, which will postpone the otherwise inevitable advent of the Matrix, as visualized by William Gibson.

The way I see it, Web 2.0 still has a ways to evolve. Maybe we’ll be making a stop over at Web 2.718 first.

I’m reading Halting State by Charlie Stross right now. The man can write. It’s like the first time I opened up Neuromancer, except with methamphetamines. And some mad overclocking.

I’m feeling a wave of nostalgia here.

I first came across Stross when I read his short story ”Lobsters”, which formed the nucleus of his novel Accelerando, which is itself an exercise in future shock. The nerdcore poetry of technobabble backlit by the unexpected end of the Cold War was quite inspiring. Add to this the fact that I had just joined Web 1.414, what with me starting a blog at the dawn of the new millenium, using all GPLed tools, running on Linux, posting on Slashdot. Those were quite heady times.

(The concept of uploading a genome into cyberspace and accidentally having it turn into an autonomous virtual organism still fascinates me. I eagerly await the release of Google Genome, featuring C. elegans and D. melanogaster. It’s only a matter of time, folks. I figure once we outlaw the practice of patenting basepair sequences, we’ll have H. sapiens online in no time.)

Stross hasn’t been one to disappoint, either. His speculations into farther, interstellar, futures are interesting as well, with Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise featuring the universe-wide AI known as Google the Eschaton.

<p>Halting State</p> takes us a little closer to the present. Ubicomp and autonomous search agents (think RSS readers with intelligent, educable filters that learn what you like, which is code that is probably already cooking in Google’s Labs, to be released as version 3.0 of Google Reader) are pedestrian utilities in Stross’ novel. All you have to do is cross the Nintendo Wii with MMORPGs and his vision is complete.

I just keep hoping that tech will continue to evolve despite the apparent devaluation of human knowledge in the U.S. I don’t think we’ve had such an anti-science period in history since the Spanish Inquisition. Sure, the American abdication of its leading position in science will just mean that the brown boys in Mumbai and the brown girls in Manila will have to take the baton from MIT and Silicon Valley, but that means it’ll definitely suck if you’re stuck in the Midwest having to live through the Dark Ages 2.0. (I mean, c’mon. It took like 1,000 years for white people to remember that the world was round—something that Eratosthenes had already figured out in 240 BCE. Western civilization would be a quaint footnote in the history books if the Arabs hadn’t been around to preserve Greek and Roman science.)

I imagine that the red states will turn into some libertarian wet dream/apocalyptic wasteland akin to Mel Gibson’s Road Warrior, and technology will be regarded as magic and witchcraft, and Texans will start burning people at the stake. Maybe, just maybe, places like California will maintain some semblance of civilization, but that’ll only probably happen if President Schwarzenegger manages to secede from the Union and start flying a Bear flag over Sacramento again. Or if the Left Coast decides to join either Canada or Mexico.

America. Just like Rome. Except much faster.