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Theorem: smartphone as evolution of the human senses by lemasney

The obelisk is an iPhone
The obelisk is an iPhone
The obelisk is an iPhone
The obelisk is an iPhone

A conversation about whether evolution has a ‘mind’

I conversed with my 10 yo about the idea that evolution might have a mind. I believe that it does. It is not a physical mind in the sense that we think of the chemical/physiological extension of a brain. More like the chemical extension of trees.

Intelligence as evolutionary preference

We choose to be more or less intelligent. In degrees. We choose to have more or less information, process it, and make use of it. What would happen, (what if, if you will,) if we decided to be less intelligent, to work against our progress? Perhaps this exists already, in the interest of regression to a simpler time, maybe. What benefits exist, if any, in organized ignorance? This idea, as I write it, seems sacrilegious to progress. But what if it is the progressive path?

Data as prespectrometry chaos

We have limitless data coming at us all the time, in the form of visual information, light, smells, GPS coordinates, and so on. How do we interpret it? It is a fire-hose and we are looking for a water fountain. Filtering becomes necessary.

Hidden senses such as the limits of the eye to see the entire spectrum

We show the chemical makeup of suns as we look at them through a prism and telescope. What will the data driven sensor based data interpretation do for us, socially, and ideologically?

“Interfacing ion mobility spectrometry to mass spectrometry (IMS–MS) has enabled mass spectrometric analyses to extend into an extra dimension, providing unrivalled separation and structural characterization of lowly populated species in heterogeneous mixtures. One biological system that has benefitted significantly from such advances is that of amyloid formation. Using IMS–MS, progress has been made into identifying transiently populated monomeric and oligomeric species for a number of different amyloid systems and has led to an enhanced understanding of the mechanism by which small molecules modulate amyloid formation.” – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3787735/

GPS as sense of direction

I have a ridiculously poor sense of direction, and yet, with my phone, I will never get lost ever again. Ever. In a world where getting lost is impossible, will we work to lose ourselves? will it be a game? A lesson?

“Cooper switched on her GPS in the hopes that ‘Nell’ would bring them home, but in a 121 degree-weather, the confused device ended up taking the trio of day trippers further into the desert. After about 100 miles, the women were completely lost. To make matters worse, their car ran out of gas and they no longer had cell phone service to call for help.” – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2293713/Three-women-recount-lost-Death-Valley-THREE-DAYS-GPS-error.html

Camera as time machine

All of my memories are available, chronologically ordered, tagged and organized. I do not need to remember in my brain, because the evidence of my existence exists in other ways.

Step counter as caloric expenditure

I know precisely how many calories I have burned because a tiny sensor told me so. I need not wonder.
“Amazing Product! It motivates me to reach my goals!. This device is very accurate in my experience, and more importantly it motivates you to reach the goals you set. Excellent job Fitbit!” –

Technology is a solution for our human shortcomings.

I am obese because I have no sense of my intake and output. Solved. I am unintelligent because of my lack of photographic memory and understanding and recall of literature, math, and cinema. Solved. I am unloved because I do not have an understanding of the human condition, and yet thousands have written of it, and synopses of it. Solved. I am lonely. Solved. I am disconnected. Solved. I am inhuman. Solved.

I believe that we are years deep into a human evolution based on technology that will extend what we think of as sense, and will change how we emote

The obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey is a lot like a smart phone. Kubrick and Clarke coordinated on the idea of the extraterrestrial evolution of humans. I think instead we are being pushed ahead due to terrestrial technologies. I have always loved this idea. I think of the slab smart phone as the event that will move us forward evolutionarily.

I get frustrated when people complain about technology, because of its potential

Technology is not at fault, any more than a fire is at fault in the destruction of a home, it could have just as easily been used to make dinner. Guns don’t kill people, sociopaths kill people. Phones don’t make people antisocial, the phone/tablet is just a tool for those who want to do that.

My belief

I think that we are in the midst of a relatively quick evolutionary change due to the quickly accelerating use and portability of technology. I would argue that we are human-robot hybrids now, because we benefit from all the sensors and extended senses of the devices we carry, even if they are not literally and directly connected to us, as science fiction often predicts. This is similar to the idea that people are waiting for the future to come where flying cars exist. They exist now, we call them planes. Smartphones are adapters that allow us to have time travel, audio capability over long distances, an amazing global sense of direction, the ability to know what thousands of people are talking about at once. We are becoming a kind of god, knowing all of what is going on all at once, a few typed keys away from knowing the answer to anything that is known and shared openly.

In a single device. we can publish globally in a second, a dream never imagined by Gutenberg. We are our own television and radio stations, media creators who have a global audience waiting. We can send a thought out in text, audio, video, image, photograph, and endless mixtures of all of them. Everything is recorded, and readily retrievable, to boot.

I am able to watch any movie ever published, listen to any song, listen to any recorded speech in history, look at any photo. More personally, my entire recorded history in text, photography, music, video, and everything else digital is available to me, now, from any internet connected device, including one that I’ve never touched before. We live in an amazing time. What will happen next is a more streamlined connection between us and devices. For example, wearable technology is emerging, a further alignment between our flesh and these devices. Google Glass, Android wear, and Fitbit all point to devices that might one day simply be embedded in us, but for now, they are just very close to our bodies.

There was a man, Dann Berg, who embedded a magnet in his fingertip and it affected his everyday understanding of iron and ferrous metals. He sensed his world in a different way. There is a compass present in every contemporary smart phone which gives the same kind of feedback when viewed. The smartphone-based sense is just not nearly as obvious and unmistakable as the magnet fingertip.
“Let’s talk about magnet implants. I don’t really bring it up much, but I have a small rare earth magnet implanted in the pinkie finger on my right hand. I’ve had it for around three years now.” – http://gizmodo.com/5895555/i-have-a-magnet-implant-in-my-finger

On the death of privacy

 In my opinion, privacy is dead. It makes more sense to simply know that it is dead and to act accordingly. If everything everyone did was truly, fully open, I think that we would care far less about things like marijuana use, or masturbation, or the existence of a human body in its natural form.
“Google knows what you’re looking for. Facebook knows what you like. Sharing is the norm, and secrecy is out. But what is the psychological and cultural fallout from the end of privacy?” – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/03/internet-death-privacy-google-facebook-alex-preston 
In regards to the idea of too much access to knowledge, (see also Genesis,) I think that people have feared that at every paradigm shift in communication. I’m sure that when the printed book became available to the average person, people were concerned that we might know too much. I have no such fear.
 “In Jewish tradition, the Tree of Knowledge and the eating of its fruit represents the beginning of the mixture of good and evil together. Before that time, the two were separate, and evil had only a nebulous existence in potentia. While free choice did exist before eating the fruit, evil existed as an entity separate from the human psyche, and it was not in human nature to desire it. Eating and internalizing the forbidden fruit changed this and thus was born the yeitzer hara, the Evil Inclination.[6][7] In Rashi’s notes on Genesis 3:3, the first sin came about because Eve added an additional clause to the Divine command: Neither shall you touch it. By saying this, Eve added to YHWH’s command and thereby came to detract from it, as it is written: Do not add to His Words (Proverbs 30:6).” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_the_knowledge_of_good_and_evil
People also regularly believe that everything has already been done, all ideas being complete. Unfortunately, it’s simply not true. If it were, the world would still be flat, we would be without electricity, and we would still believe that gender or skin color or sexual orientation was a significant difference between people and their ability. It is not.
“All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing. That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one might say, “See this, it is new “? Already it has existed for ages Which were before us.…” – http://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/1-9.htm
You can try to hide from it, but then you lose the benefit of it. You can have a kind of privacy, at the loss of technology. Even then though, you could and would still be tracked/traceable.

On Application Permissions

I am familiar with the issue of Facebook Messenger’s privacy concerns over its request for certain sensor permissions. A friend tagged me in their post about it to comment. I started with privacy is dead, and reminded them that many other applications ask for exactly the same information. We can give up technology and convenience and assume that we have something like privacy, or we can dismiss it as a possibility, and use technology at will. Regardless, the concept of privacy is a dead matter.
“Much of the problem, Facebook says, is due to Android’s rigid policy on permissions. Facebook says it doesn’t get to write its own, and instead must use generic language provided to them by Android. The language in the permissions “doesn’t necessarily reflect the way the Messenger app and other apps use them,” Facebook wrote in a Help Center article designed to address what it calls misinformation on the topic.” – http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/08/facebook-messenger-privacy-fears-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
Are you familiar with the concept of the boiling frog? If you drop a frog into a pot of burning water, it will jump out, happy to escape the boiling. If you take the same frog and put into a pot of cool water, then slowly turn up the heat until boiling, the frog will simply stay there, always adjusting to the temperature around it, becoming boiled. We are the frog, and the loss of privacy is the boiling water. Facebook is the slow and gradual rise in temperature. We are the boiled frog.

In short

The devices we have in our pockets are  a vehicle for a series of 13-20 sensors that extend us as humans from the standard 5. We should embrace the reality of that and become the superhumans we are evolving to, and stop worrying about the noise versus the signal. Embrace the signal.
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65 of 365: A library design problem solved, perhaps.

nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

I was alerted to Toby Greenwalt’s great blog theanalogdivide by Sophie Brookover of Library Link NJ, in which Toby just proposed a series of design problems as they relate to libraries. I love a good design problem. Here he introduces the first problem, and below I answer it in my own way.

“Your first challenge? Create a online library card signup.   You could say that signing up for a library card is our equivalent of what websites refer to as onboarding – the process with which a user becomes part of that site. Sites invest significant work-hours and enormous sums of money to make this process as appealing as possible?

Libraries? Not so much. Whether through requiring in-person visits, confusing policy, or resorting to PDFs, libraries tend to get in their own way when it comes to attracting new users. We can do better than this. I’d like to use this inaugural Challenge to prove it.

Your criteria:

  • Design a workflow that a hypothetical user would use to sign up for your hypothetical library. You’ll need to use this design to address the issue of proving residency.
  • If there’s a policy that needs to be set in order to make your design work, you’ll need to explain that policy.
  • Any medium is OK. Pencil-and-paper. Google Form. Flowchart. Photoshop mockup. Working prototype.
  • If you draw inspiration from somewhere, cite your sources. I’d love to hear a bit about your process.
  • You must have your design published by Monday, May 5th. Remember to email me (toby at theanalogdivide dot com) with the link. If you don’t have your own web space, feel free to send me the design and I’ll publish it here.”

~ theanalogdivide » Blog Archive » The Librarian Design Challenge –

So my answer is as follows:

  1. Advertise a shortened URL (via whatever advertising channels you wish) to a Google Form in which you allow a new patron to fill out a form. Form logic should require all required fields, such as full name, address, email, and phone number, etc. If payment is required, payment information can also be collected, but should occur later in the process, after address is verified.
  2. As you may or may not know, all google forms publish results to a spreadsheet, which can be exported to a CSV for use in a mail merge.
  3. Daily or weekly, a mail merge can be used to create mailable postcards with a unique code (autogenerated) that is sent to the address of the new patron.
  4. A patron who receives the postcard at the indicated address will submit the code and payment information to a second URL (encrypted) if any payment is required. The code validation reasonably proves residence to the degree that this is possible through electronic means.
  5. Upon code submission and or payment processing, the patron’s new card is mailed out, or made available for pickup, depending on the patron’s preference.

This mimics Google’s own location verification process for business registration listing in Google Places service https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778?hl=en&visit_id=637299706572194876-2550561397&rd=1).

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56 of 365: A three dimensional coffee cup in SketchUp

55 of 365 Coffee Mug by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
55 of 365 Coffee Mug by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
55 of 365 Coffee Mug by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
55 of 365 Coffee Mug by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

This is a three-dimensional coffee cup created in SketchUp, the Trimble-owned, free, three-dimensional modeling application. Given the increased importance of making and three-dimensional printing in contemporary libraries, I have decided to focus a bit on 3D modeling as an area to extend myself into.  I taught a class on this for a full-day staff development session recently for the Long Island Library Resource Council (LILRC), a long-time friend of LeMasney Consulting. I think we discovered a few architects in the audience.

I fell in love with it when Google purchased it. The thing I love about it, despite also loving open source tools like Blender, is that it is incredibly easy to use and learn, comparatively. Honestly, after watching four short ‘getting started’ videos on http://sketchup.com, you’ll know enough to start building very complex shapes. A beautifully simple tool.

 

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On the importance of a great Calendar: Work/Life balance and management at LeMasney Consulting

51 of 365 on meeting management by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
51 of 365 on meeting management by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
51 of 365 on meeting management by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
51 of 365 on meeting management by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

On the importance of the Calendar in my work.

After a recent conversation with a client in which we were discussing appointment finalization, we discussed how I kept track of my meetings. It made me realize that my workflow for meeting management might make for an interesting template for others. I had another friend ask me what it was that allowed me to manage my work best. I replied without thinking that if something exists on my calendar, it’s real. Otherwise, it’s just an idea.

In that light, here is the way that my calendaring works:

  1. I use Google Calendar as the basis for everything. Because both my personal account and my business account both are Google based, it makes sense that I use the various tools there, including, drive, music, photos, contacts, Gmail and calendar. http://calendar.google.com
  2. Because Google understands my contacts in context, it makes it especially easy to add people and places to the meetings.  I am sure to add geolocation data when I enter business cards and contact info into contacts. When I start to type a client’s name in my location field in Calendar, it autocompletes with their location if present in contacts. http://contacts.google.com
  3. I use a Gmail feature that makes recognizable dates and times in my email into links that create new events in Calendar. http://email.about.com/od/gmailtips/qt/et_mailtoevent.htm
  4. I use Rapportive to give me socially-contextual information in my right sidebar. https://rapportive.com/
  5. I use Doodle.com. Doodle is best known for its service for letting multiple people arrange their meeting time. However, they have a less known feature called “Meet Me” pages, where you get your own Doodle URL that people can go to and choose an open spot (all busy times show as simply busy) on my Google Calendar. Meanwhile, I do not have to go through the relatively restrictive controls on sharing my Google Calendar with someone without a Google account, or with one I don’t know. Also, I do not have to make my calendar public. Doodle sends me a notification, and I confirm. Doodle updates my calendar, and syncs changes I make from Calendar.  The openness of Google Calendar’s APIs allows Doodle to make a better tool. http://doodle.com/lemasney
  6. I use If This Then That (IFTTT, pronounced ‘ifft’) in order to add certain social activities to my calendar. IFTTT takes the response from one service, and outputs it to another service. In particular, I have a calendar that just shows scrobbling (a log of what I listen to on my devices) from last.fm, and I add checkins (places I visit and geotag) from foursquare to my meetings calendar. http://ifttt.com
  7. Finally, I like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but I also enjoy both chocolate and peanut butter. With Google Calendar, I have multiple account calendars. One for public meetings, one for my time with my boys, and one for my personal meetings. I have a second account on Google that has its own calendar. You’d never know I have all of those calendars, because they all appear on one Calendar, with custom colors to differentiate them. Within Google Calendar, you can either create a new calendar, subscribe to another Google Calendar user, or subscribe by ICS to anyone using a standards based Calendar. This is one of the reasons I love open standards.
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44 of 365: On the possibilities of Geofencing – social geodata design principles

Amazon/iTMS links in Google Maps Placemark
Amazon/iTMS links in Google Maps Placemark (Photo credit: earthhopper)

Geofencing

In the last week or so, I was contacted by a team leader about developing marketing tools and social media to support a new mobile app. The startup (we’re still working on the name and brand) focuses on Geofencing. Geofencing is a technology that uses the sensors on your phone (cellular, wi-fi, and GPS) to decide if you are in a certain specific area, and then do something with that information, often automatically. Some great apps exist that make use of GeoFencing. Two that come to mind are Smart Places Checkin for Android and Tasker for Android.

Existing solutions

Smart Places Checkin for Android allows me to set up geofencing zones and then automatically check in to those places on Facebook, along with stats. It’s beautiful, and I have several zones set up. However, it’s difficult in my opinion to set up those zones, and the UI could use some work. What’s more, it only does that one singular thing: share my location with Facebook. I want that functionality, but I want flexibility to do other things too.

Geofencing example
Geofencing example (Photo credit: James Cridland)

Tasker for Android is a superb application that allows you to do everything you could imagine with the sensors on your phone, and as a result, you can set actions to be performed with your phone based on your location. Tasker is brilliant, but especially difficult to use for the uninitiated. The UI, in particular, could use an overhaul, or a “light” mode.

Our idea

What we are proposing started as simply a geofencing coupon app. It was like super-local groupons that pop up when you are near a deal. But after seeing what the app is capable of, we are looking to be able to do that and a lot more.

If we incorporate gamification features, a social layer that allows tie in to Facebook, Twitter or G+, sharing IFTTT style recipes between users, and other features related to Geofencing, we could really have something. People can choose to create scenarios like those below and share them for customization by others. Consider the following examples:

  1. Use the app to create geozone based easter eggs, and create a reward (for businesses, it might be a discount, for others it might be a badge) for collecting all the ‘eggs’.
  2. Use the app to create awareness of location between you and your significant other or children so that you always know where each other are.
  3. Use the app to design a tour of a campus, lab, city, or route, with messaging related to placemarks.
  4. Use the app to create one-off or repeating reminders to yourself or others that while you are near the Post Office, drop off the mail; While near the grocery store, pick up eggs.
  5. Use the app to track your movement along your path for later review.
  6. Use the app to give yourself points or a badge when you visit a friend’s house or some other task that you want to encourage yourself to do more often, and share the recipe with your friends to encourage them to do the same. Automatically share your points or visit with Facebook.

I could list another 10 examples, but I imagine that you have your own examples that you are thinking about. When this was just a geofencing coupon app, I have to admit, I was not as excited. But with the potential flexibility and extensibility of this, I could not be more so. Stay tuned for more on this as it develops!

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  • Creating smarter apps with geofencing
  • Frencer: A Free Android Geofencing App
  • Self-Taught Developer David Richard Harnesses the Power of Geofencing to Create a New Type of Local Network with His New Mobile App JaVu
  • Philips Hue For Android Updated With Geofencing Feature, Bug Fixes
  • Keep a watchful eye on your kid with the Trax wearable sensor

 

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42 of 365: $35 is the new $19.99 – price point design principle

42 of 365 - 35 is the new 1999 - price point design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
42 of 365 - 35 is the new 1999 - price point design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
42 of 365 - 35 is the new 1999 - price point design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
42 of 365 – 35 is the new 1999 – price point design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

Price Point design principle

When considering pricing your product, you are considering more than the cost of the parts + some percent for profit. You also have to consider the other factors at play. For instance, what is the value in the mind of the consumer, regardless of your costs? What is the perceived value in the consumer’s circle of colleagues and friends? Do the consumers have experiences that might degrade their perceived value of your product? You have to choose the price that the consumer is after, the one that they can justify for themselves or others.

$35 is the new $19.99

I’ve noticed a trend that reminds me of my younger years. I remember watching commercial after commercial for products offered at the magic price of $19.99. But recently, there seems to be another magic price, one that no one would blink at. $35.00 is the new $19.95, it seems, and I have some examples to show what I mean. I gave a presentation at Cherry Hill Public Library recently where I talked about these, and so they were fresh in my mind. I included the presentation below.

Successful Examples:

  • The ChromeCast – Google’s smart TV in a dongle, sold out about a day after its announcement. Google is particularly sensible about pricing generally, though I think the Chromebook Pixel may be an exception. ChromeCast offers the ability to run app content from apps like Netflix and Google Play Music on your HDTV with the great surround sound, and allows you to control it from your phone, tablet, Chromebook, laptop, or desktop.  I use it all the time, and often bring it with me as a backup for presentations, since I can run presentations on it using Google Drive.
  • The Raspberry Pi – This is a $35 computer, very simply put. You’d need to BYO keyboard, monitor and mouse, but once you have those, you have a rich, powerful desktop machine. You can also use it as a headless server, with remote access.  You could set it up as a design workstation, with apps like GIMP, Inkscape, and Scribus. You could use it as a media server complete with a navigable interface in the form of XBMC. You could use it as a security system with a motion sensor, and camera. The possibilities are endless, and what a great price point.
  • The Arduino Uno – The Uno is a great electronics learning and testing platform from Italy. It is less than $35, often available for as little as $25. The Arduino has a higher learning curve than the others here, but also potentially has the greatest flexibility and rewards. You can use Arduino for home automation, light shows, and any other electronics project you can think of. You use an open source programming language called Processing to make sketches to direct the inputs, like switches and sensors, and outputs, like LEDs. It’s products like this that allow you to “scratch your own itch”.

Here is my presentation on these devices.

And here is my presentation on Context, Connectedness and the self, a look at the ways that sensors are increasing in importance.

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