<div>I heard about this "University" on short wave... This is out of a science fiction novel, but supported by some rather important players in science and technology. Among the four possible futures for humanity (I assume combinations among the four are of course likely) discussed in the astonishing environmental documentary from Scandinavia, "The Planet," (Mad Max, Star Trek, Ecotopia, and Big Government), the view of the future expressed by Kurzweil heading the "Singularity University" is clearly a "Star Trek" future:</div>
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<div>Info on "The Planet" environmental documentary, the best I have witnessed in this genre:</div>
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<div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planet">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planet</a></div>
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<div>NASA and Google back "Singularity University:"</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/03/nasa-google-futurology-kurzweil-singularity">http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/03/nasa-google-futurology-kurzweil-singularity</a></div>
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<div>An American inventor who plans to live forever has been appointed head of a new school for futurologists backed by <a title="Guardian Google page" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google"><font color="#005689">Google</font></a> and the US space agency Nasa.</div>
<p><a title="Ray Kurzweil biography" href="http://www.kurzweiltech.com/raybio.html"><font color="#005689">Ray Kurzweil</font></a>, who worked as a computer scientist before turning to future gazing in the late 1980s, will become chancellor of the Singularity University based at Nasa's Silicon Valley campus in California.</p>
<div>The institution gains its name from a controversial 2005 book by Kurzweil, entitled <a title="The Singularity home page" href="http://singularity.com/"><font color="#005689">The Singularity is Near</font></a>. In it, he argues that the exponential advance of technology is set to transform society by giving rise to computers that are more clever than humans. The leap in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/computing"><font color="#005689">computing</font></a> power will drive rapid advances in other fields, he claims, that together could solve the problems of climate change, poverty, famine and disease.</div>
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<p>Among Kurzweil's other predictions are a pill that lets you eat what you want without getting fat – which he believes could be available within ten years; a world where all energy comes from renewable sources within 20 years; and a life expectancy that increases at a rate faster than you age within 15 years.</p>
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<p>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</p></div>