I have changed the site so that the default name for anonymous posters on comments (Anonymous) is now blocked. Users may still post without authenticating, but it is requested they pick a pseudonym so readers can see when the same person is posting. Otherwise threads become very difficult to read. You can change your pseudonym when you want if desired. If you want your own protected name, contact me for a login.

Join I and a panel of "sharks" for an online debate triggered by the recent acquisition of Amazon.com. Some of those issues are:

• What does this mean for the battle between tech giants, auto giants and start-ups?
• What are the reasons for the down-turn and who else might fall to it?
• What was the Zoox vision and will Amazon truly follow it, or was this an acquihire?
• What happens if Amazon automates delivery and logistics? Can other retailers compete?

The debate takes place on Zoom, at 11am PDT, 2pm EDT on Monday.

Next Monday, we will be doing an online version of a popular panel session we have done every year at the "Automated Vehicle Summit" -- the oldest self-driving car conference.

In this session we have a speaker propose a controversial idea, and then, a bit like a "shark tank" our panel (myself included) tear into the concepts and discuss them, and the audience asks questions too.

I'm pleased to announce that Tilt5, an augmented reality company for which I am an investor and advisor, has gone live with its kickstarter today.

Tomorrow, June 8, marks the 30th anniversary of my launch of ClariNet.com. In the 1980s, there was a policy forbidding commercial use of the internet backbone, but I wanted to do a business there and found a loophole and got the managers of NSFNet to agree, making ClariNet the first company created to use the internet as a platform, the common meaning of a "dot-com."

Boring administrative announcement: In a move long overdue for me, access to this blog and my other large sites will now be exclusively through "https" (ie. encrypted web.)

I set up this, of course, using the great tool Let's Encrypt which was created with support from the EFF. This project and the tools around it take a big step towards making the internet encrypted by default. Let me know if you experience any problems. But then I guess you aren't reading this if you are. Oh well!

The highlight and founding program of Singularity University, where I am chair of computing, is our summer program, now known as the Global Solutions Program. 80 students come from all over the world (only a tiny minority will be from the USA) to learn about the hottest rapidly changing technologies, and then join together with others to kickstart projects that have the potential to use those technologies to solve the world's biggest problems.

After a hard 10 weeks, our Singularity University Graduate class for 2015 will have its closing ceremony this Thursday night. If you are in the Bay Area, consider coming down to join luminaries of the SFBA accelerating technology community at San Jose's California theater and see presentations from the 5 top student teams as well as tables and posters from all 24 of them. With 80 students from 40 countries it's an eclectic and amazing group.

You can get Event info and tickets here.

At Singularity University, our students have been forming interesting ventures after the class for the past 6 years. This fall, we'll also be starting an SU Startup Accelerator for nascent startups working on exponential technology to solve the world's biggest problems. We will be accelerating both for-profit ventures (for the world's greatest problems can also be the greatest opportunities) and $50K grants for non-profit efforts.

As some of you may know, I have been working as chair of computing and networking at Singularity University. The most rewarding part of that job is our ten week summer Graduate Studies Program. GSP15 will be our 7th year of it.

The Robocars world tour continues. Monday I will speak on robocars at the UAE Government conference in Dubai, where I just landed. Then it's off to talk about them at a private event in Singapore, but I'll also visit teams there. If I have time, I will check out Masdar -- what was originally going to be the first all-robocar city -- while in the UAE.

I'll be back and forth to Europe in the next month giving a number of talks, mostly about robocars. Catch me at the following events:

I always feel strange when I see blog and social network posts about the death of a pet or even a relative. I know the author but didn't know anything about the pet other than that the author cared.

I will be a guest on Monday the 13th (correction -- I originaly said the 14th) on a the "City Visions" program, produced by one of San Francisco's NPR affiliates, KALW. The show runs at 7pm, and you can listen live and phone in (415-841-4134), or listen to the podcast later. Details are on the page about the show.

Other guests include Bryant Walker Smith of Stanford, Martin Sierhuis of the Nissan robocar lab and Bernard Soriano from the California DMV. Should be a good panel.

Two upcoming talks:

Tomorrow (April 4) I will give a very short talk at the meeting of the personal clouds interest group. As far as I know, I was among the first to propose the concept of the personal cloud in my essages on the Data Deposit Box back in 2007, and while my essays are not the reason for it, the idea is gaining some traction now as more and more people think about the consequences of moving everything into the corporate clouds.

I'm on the board of the Foresight Institute, which at over 25 years old has been promoting nanotech since long before people knew the word. This January, we will be holding our technical conference on nanotechnology and related fields. Foresight's focus is on the potential for molecular manufacturing -- doing things at the atomic level -- and not simply on fine structure materials.