Every so often, I see a video, usually from a research lab, that demonstrates some new technology. It’s typically kind of mundane, with banal camera work, titles from Windows Movie Maker and monotone, academic narration.
And yet it feels like I’m watching science fiction. I experience some combination of awe and creepiness, like I’m peeking into the future. I usually utter “holy crap” under my breath.
I’ve probably reacted this way to dozens of technology demo videos, but these are a few that stand out in my mind. The first one seems totally ordinary in 2012, but it blew my mind in 2006 when Sun Microsystems’ Johnathan Schwartz flipped over a desktop window (it’s at about 3:00–listen to the audience’s reaction). “What?” I thought. “Windows have backs?”
I expect that by now, we’ve all seen the footage of Boston Dynamic’s BigDog robot from 2008. It’s the first time that I ever saw a mobile robot that didn’t seem absurdly frail and delicate, as if it might tip over at any moment. In this video, a man actually shoves the robot with his foot, and the thing staggers but recovers.
The latest example of an awe-inspiring tech demo comes via Jeremiah Owyang on Google+. Touche demonstrates pretty fascinating new frontiers in touch interaction with objects. My favourite bit is when we see a guy changing songs and volume on his music player simply by making gestures with his hands and arms. It’s like we’re teaching objects sign language.
My old friend Rob is behind the launch of Moby, a private location sharing app focused on personal safety and families. It’s a handy alternative to services like FourSquare if you want to share your location with a small group, or for a short time. Here’s the spiel:
Moby is a private location sharing service for you, and the people that matter to you. Unlike other location sharing services, Moby only shares your location with the people you choose and for the length of time you want. With Moby, you are in complete control of your privacy. With Moby you can also request help at the touch of a button, instantly notifying your chosen contacts where you are.
There is, it must be said, no relation to a certain tiny, vegan pop star.
One avid market for Moby is real estate agents. These are people (mostly women?) who spend a lot of time with strangers in private locations, so Moby is a natural fit.
I’ve had a few days to kick the tires on Google+ (pronounced ‘Google Plus’), Google’s shot across the bow of Facebook and, to a lesser degree, Twitter. It’s a nascent social network built around the concept of ‘circles’, where you group friends and acquaintances into clusters so that your online social interactions are more distinguishable than in other tools.
Google hasn’t had a great track record in software products in recent years. Sure, Chrome has been a massive success, but Knol, Wave and Buzz all failed to cross that trough of disillusionment after a flurry of early excitement.
Will Google+ make that leap? It faces the tremendous inertia of Facebook, whose more 600 million have invested serious time and effort in their profiles. That feels like a nearly insurmountable obstacle.
That said, let’s look at some of the possible reasons why they might:
Users get bored with tools and platforms. We saw it happen when Facebook eclipsed MySpace, and when Gmail eclipsed Hotmail.
I haven’t tried it yet, but maybe there’s a sweet spot for Google+ Hangouts, group video chat sessions. On the other hand, there are rumours afoot of a Facebook partnership with Skype which might quash this competitive advantage.
Users might start seriously caring about privacy, and they trust Google more than they trust Facebook.
Google+ is being integrated into all of Google’s products. If you’ve got a Google Account–for Gmail, Google Reader, Docs and so forth–then you’ll see the ‘Sandbar’, the black bar at the top of our Google apps. Much like Facebook, there’s a red notification number on this bar that will constantly be reminding you of Google+ activity. Google has an enormous existing user base, and they’re not going anywhere, so this ever-present hook into the user may be the difference-maker.
Of those four, I think only the last reason has serious merit. Why do you think Google+ could win?
The Internet has made me a compulsive self-documenter. Obviously.
It occurs to me, though, that in the past few years I’ve added a lot of what we might call data streams to the usual bloggy, Twittery, Deliciously (soon to change hands, apparently) morass that is my web presence. I collect this data, automatically and manually, through my interactions in the real world.
Most of these data streams aren’t public, for reasons which will become obvious, but at one time or another I’ve depended on a handy app to capture them. I wanted to share some of the apps I’ve used, and ask others what they use for the same purpose. Some of the links below point to the iTunes app store:
Money – Occasionally I want to keep track of every penny I spend, just to see how it gets distributed over a couple of months. The results are usually shocking. Unlike most money management users, I don’t want an app that interacts with my bank accounts–I just want to track outgoing dollars. I use the simple, non-web-dependent Expense Tracker – Spending. It does what I need it to. You can export your data to a CSV file, which is handy for obsessively making charts in Excel.
Calories – Much like money, sometimes I want to track every single grape or Grape-Nut that goes in my mouth. Most recently, I’ve used a website and app called MyNetDiary. 1998 called and wants its name back, right? The app is great, though, with a reliable bar code scanner and has over 100,000 food items in their database to make use of. You can even track the number of glasses of water you drink every day.
Exercise – I’ve written (and talked) about RunKeeper before, and I still use it. Bonus tip for going running or cycling in foreign countries: your phone probably doesn’t rely on your data connection for collecting GPS data, so you can still use it while on holidays. Before RunKeeper, I relied on Couch to 5k to get me off the settee.
Time-tracking – We sometimes need to track the number of hours we spend on client work. For that we rely upon Harvest, which does the job with a clean interface in its desktop, web and mobile apps.
What are your favourite apps for documenting your offline experiences?
You’ve probably heard about this usage-based billing controversy. One of the few downsides of living in Canada is that it’s an oligarchy for telecoms and internet providers. And the CRTC is clearly not acting in the best interests of the nation’s citizenry.
I haven’t written about the issue up to now because it’s received a ton of attention, and it’s kind of a foamy latte problem. If your biggest worry is “I may have to pay more for my internet access”, life must be pretty good.
But the UBB issue did get me wondering–how much bandwidth are we using? We’re on Shaw, and (I had to check) we’ve got the the top-tier internet package, Extreme (as in “bra, that was extreme!). The “monthly transfer limit” on that package is 100 GB. Here’s what the last eight months of usage looks like:
That green line is the 100 GB mark. We’ve only exceeded it once in the last seven full months of usage.
We work from home, and I spend a good amount of leisure time on the web. We probably download a couple of movies and maybe 10 episodes of TV a month, and there’s the usual YouTube viewing. On the other hand, it’s rare that we’re not traveling or otherwise out of the office at least a week each month. Here’s another usage chart breaking out the upload and download activity.
If I were guessing, I’d say we’re probably above average in our web usage, but not all the way out on the rim of the bell curve. In any case, it looks like Shaw has temporarily dodged the UBB bullet by planning some public consultation sessions. So even if we do exceed our 100 GB cap in the near future, I doubt that we’ll get dinged.
A reader sent along this follow-up to the Rogers billboards I mentioned last week. As you may recall, the Rogers sub-brand chatr was running, to my mind, some perplexing ads.
It turns out those billboards weren’t only perplexing, but potentially unlawful:
The Competition Bureau is seeking a penalty of $10 million against Rogers Communications Inc. for ads claiming that its discount cellphone and text service, Chatr, has fewer dropped calls than its new competitors.
The bureau announced Friday that it has begun legal proceedings against Rogers in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice under the misleading advertising provisions of the Competition Act. In addition to the penalty, the bureau is asking the court to rule that Rogers must immediately stop its advertising campaign and pay restitution to affected customers.
I gather the upstart Wind Mobile filed the complaint.
UPDATE: I got a note from somebody at Rogers with a response:
“We’re surprised by the actions of the Competition Bureau,” said Ken Engelhart, Senior Vice President of Regulatory, Rogers Communications. “We have extensive, independent third party testing to validate our claims and we stand by our advertising. We will vigorously defend this action in court.â€Â
“We’ve completed extensive testing in coverage areas across the country and there’s no question that the testing validates the advertising in market,†said Todd Stone, President & CEO, Score Technologies.
Score Technologies is an independent third party organization that specializes in network testing for leading wireless carriers across North America.
We’re helping our client Nitobi get their open source mobile development framework PhoneGap (fear not if that doesn’t make any sense, it’s not particularly relevant) nominated for the popular Mashable Awards.
I was checking out the stream of nominations, and noticed a highly peculiar nomination (click for larger size):
I’m not sure why it struck me as so funny–perhaps it’s the inclusion of ‘nan’.
I kind of want to get it put on a t-shirt, and start a global meme around the idea of your “your nan on her Stannah stairlift“.
Maybe I’m just getting (more) clumsy and awkward in my dotage, but every time I want to pay for something with a debit or credit card, I’m confronted with an existential crisis: to swipe or not to swipe?
Traditionally, you hand your card over to the clerk, and they swipe it through the cash register or card reader and you proceed with entering your pin or signing something and you’re on your way.
Now, about a third of the time, I’m expected to swipe the card at the card reader myself. I go to hand my over to the clerk, and they decline it and point to some device or other. I usually orient the card the first time, so we do a little Laurel and Hardy routine until I get it right.
Here’s the thing: I never, ever recognize when I’m supposed to swipe, and when I’m supposed to hand over the card. If there are common indicators around Canada’s cash desks which signify self-swiping, I’ve missed them entirely.
Am I missing something? Or are we just in that difficult time where self-swiping hasn’t become the norm?
