Communication

The Silent Intelligence: The Internet of Things

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Mon, 05/05/2014 - 10:02

The term "Internet of Things" is thrown around a lot, even used in parallel with other terms describing the same thing for a specific area of focus. Even after reading a range of articles over the last few years, I felt my understanding remained a bit vague and decided to look for a resource with depth and breadth. Kellermeit and Obodovski's The Silent Intelligence: The Internet of Things comes highly rated on Amazon (4.5 stars) and seemed more informational than application-oriented books such as McEwen and Cassimally's Designing the Internet of Things, or Robert Scoble and Shel Israel's Age of Context: Mobile, Sensors, Data and the Future of Privacy - which I plan to read as well.

Filtering falsehood in the future

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Mon, 04/28/2014 - 12:36

Liar card from eCards This past week, Facebook launched the FB Newswire, "...a resource for journalists that aggregates newsworthy social content shared publicly on Facebook by individuals and organizations." The service offers some hope that information shared through social media can become a bit more trustworthy, helping to clean up some of the misinformation and lies easily shared in an age where every person with a data line can publish content with very few restrictions.

It's an important development when the largest network in history adds a feature with this much potential impact. One of the reasons we value social media is the ability to get updates as soon as content is posted. Facebook provides sharing among acquaintances, friends, and family members while Twitter provides a near endless churn of news from any and every account and hashtag you follow. If news happens, whether the news is personal or global, we can know about it within hours, minutes, and even seconds of its posting. Sadly, the strength of social media is also a weakness when misinformation or outright lies are shared at the same speed. As Winston Churchill said...

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

Will social media splinter (us)?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Thu, 04/24/2014 - 11:15

Social media apps Mathew Brian Beck offers a look into the future of social media and forecasts new forms of digital tribalism. About this, he says,

"Every platform will be socialized, but every user base will be judged on quality of life, not sheer numbers. Big data will not matter as much as small relationships."

His is an interesting idea about how social media will change our relationships and our choices will reflect our interests and lifestyles. As social creatures, we have circles of relationships in which we are members and which in turn influence our lives.

A world of living data - Wikipedia on steroids?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Fri, 04/04/2014 - 11:34

Robot wearing a press hat Humans have issues with data. Data on its own is hard to turn into information, which we can understand much more easily. Weather data is a great example, as it is both a global and local phenomenon impacting almost every day of our lives. If my phone's weather app presented data, I would receive information about regional climates as far as the Arctic and Gulf of Mexico. It would be difficult for most anyone but a meteorologist (amateur or otherwise) to make an accurate prediction using this data.

Future Babble

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Wed, 04/02/2014 - 13:33

Why do we try to predict the future? According to Dan Gardner, it's because of our human need to protect ourselves that we are constantly attempting to recognize risk before the lions, tigers and bears descend upon us. In Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions are Next to Worthless and You Can Do Better, Gardner provides historical insights on the types of futurists able to make the most reliable predictions. Guess what? Those predictions don't come from experts in a field, they come from people with a wide range of knowledge looking at trends from different angles.

Will Facebook grow into the Global Village?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Thu, 03/27/2014 - 12:31

Oculus Rift visor Facebook's purchase of Oculus for $2 billion is making headlines this week. While most writers in the techsphere are focused on the value of VR as the next gaming platform, Lauren Hockenson at GigaOM looks ahead to the next decade and three ways Facebook might attempt to use the hardware.

Your Drone is Ruining my Buzz

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Wed, 03/19/2014 - 14:37

Camera drone Jester slid the door open and headed for the pool. Nothing like baking in the sun to cure a hangover - if your shades are dark enough and the splif is big enough. His feet danced a bit on the hot concrete, but it still felt good when the rays hit his back.

Sucking in some smoke, he held it in his lungs an extra few seconds before coughing it out. The chemicals hadn't hit yet, but his body knew to relax - help was on the way.

On course to collapse or a future of abundance?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Tue, 03/18/2014 - 14:58

Deserted farm News this week from a NASA sponsored study on the possibility of civilization collapse and how it might happen. The study was led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei and looked at five factors leading to historical collapses of past civilizations such as the Roman empire: population, climate, water, agriculture, and energy.

2030: A Day in the Life of Tomorrow's Kids

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Mon, 03/17/2014 - 11:51

So much energy goes into the future, both preparing for it and finding ways to retail it, but there aren't many good resources for the kids who will inherit it. 2030: A Day in the Life of Tomorrow's Kids is just that - a resource to help today's kids understand a bit of what their future might hold.

It's a nice resource and at only 30 pages long, it manages to cover a wide range of material, including clothing, communications, living space, careers, our populations, housing developments, transportation, recreation and education. The final page includes a nice list of books, reports and websites the reader can access for additional information.

Will our future include bread runs to feed our smart-toasters?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Mon, 03/17/2014 - 10:53

Brad the Toaster It'll start out that way, of course. We'll buy these networked, AI driven toasters to pop some bread in which they'll char to perfection every time. There will be toast contests with our friends, an app keeping track of how many slices we consume over time and how many steps it takes to burn the calories - more with butter - even more with jam.

Like most things, the toaster will lose its newness. The shine will wear off as the dust collects. Every so often, it'll let us know how unhappy it is. How unused if feels. That's when we start buying bread just to give it something to do, so it will feign happiness and not annoy us with its app notifications - "It's time for some toast!"