Here’s a short article worth your time:
“Attention, Protestors: You're Probably Part of the 1%”
I really don't want to belittle sincere protest against a global banking system gone haywire. But sometimes, a little perspective really helps. FTA:
“The poorest [5%] of Americans are better off than more than two-thirds of the world population.”
And from World Bank economist Branko Milanovic’s book The Haves and the Have-Nots: „It turns out that place of birth explains more than 60 percent of variability in global incomes.“
Protest injustice where you see/experience it. But let those numbers sink in.When you are reading this (or anything on the Internet, for that matter) from a safe, comfortable place, with some food in the fridge, you have already won the lottery. I know I have.
As an Apple fan, I’d like to claim that I “get” every Apple product the moment I see it. But I don’t.
I was disappointed when Apple presented the iPod – I thought that MP3 players as a product category were uninteresting (they were/are; but that wasn’t the point). Then came iTunes, where I’m now buying all my music, most of my software and some of my books.
I was underwhelmed when Apple presented the iPhone – I wasn’t interested in mobile phones. Then came a wave of excellent iOS apps which I am now using on a daily basis.
(I guess you can see a pattern here.)
So this time, it’s an iPhone 4S. And Siri.
Voice recognition? OK, whatever.
But now I’m getting it, or at least I think I do.
I have been playing with voice recognition technology since 1999. I have given up after a few days each time a new version of Dragon Dictate was supposedly perfect. It never seemed to be enough.
I now realize that the problem is not the quality of speech recognition as such, but its extremely limited scope.
I am a fast typer, so replacing a keyboard with a microphone doesn’t do much for me. With traditional voice recognition, I’m essentially dictating text and/or triggering simple commands. It is much like controlling a marionette, which does the same things I do – it only looks cuter. I’m only saving a few percent of time per task here and there, and when it goes wrong, it is really awkward.
An adaptive speech recognition embedded into the operating system, talking to all Siri-aware apps and web services via their APIs – now that is a completely different story. Once it can reliably connect to all the useful services outside of Apples eco system, it will resemble the Personal Assistant from the 1987 “Knowledge Navigator” video. But this time, the technology is not hardwired into that cozy office John Sculley-type executives would have enjoyed, and it will not wear a bow tie. It will essentially be invisible, following us everywhere, tied to data and services in the (i)Cloud.
And to say that an invisible, omnipresent interface to the world’s knowledge would be nice is an understatement. If it really works as advertised (and Apple products usually do), this will be like having the Enterprise’s computer in your pocket.
I looked up the “Knowledge Navigator” video (wich premiered 24 years ago) on Wikipedia and learned it was set in September 2011.
In October 2011, Apple presented the iPhone 4S with Siri.
PS:
I just learned that Siri – or rather, the AI research center where it was born – goes back to the CALO artificial intelligence project (2003-2008), which was funded by DARPA. Yup; that’s the same Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that gave you the Internet. So now is probably a good time for puns about Skynet and Cloud Computing.
Just like every other good Apple fanboy, I wanted to upgrade to OS X Lion the very second I heard about it, which was eight months ago. Turns out I can’t, because while most software shops around the world have made their apps Lion-compatible, one very important player hasn’t.
Now I don’t know what the good people at FileMaker, Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple Inc.) have been doing since Lion was announced in October, 2010. But I know what they haven’t done: Ensure that the most popular database management software in the world will run without problems under the Mothership’s new OS from day one. And I understand it will be another two, or four, or six weeks until these problems will get resolved.
FileMaker is as important to me as clean air and water, and has been so for almost twenty years, so to say I was pissed when I learned about this yesterday is a mild understatement (Yeah, I know, a first world problem).
But this isn’t a posting about some slow-moving software manufacturer’s laziness. It’s about craving for shiny new toys (in this case: Lion) and realizing you don’t need them.
Admittedly, there are many interesting and important changes “under the hood” in Lion – accessibility, security, networking. But the big stuff Apple is promoting is on the surface. It’s all the UI changes that bring OS X closer to iOS.
Now if you look closely, most of these “shiny” features (“All My Files”, Launchpad, Mission Control) are related to launching and managing applications and windows. The idea is to navigate a (Trackpad-equipped) Mac the same way you navigate an iPad.
But I don’t need these iOS-style launch features. I have been using a secret little UI weapon for months that has literally transformed the way I’m using my computer. It’s called LaunchBar.
“Like a heart beating while we sleep, the Clock in the mountain keeps time even when we pretend the past did not happen and the future will not come.”
Nineteen-Ninety-Five. Yes.
I remember receiving WIRED’s “Scenarios” special issue in the mail, in another century, although my brain may have edited and smoothed out some details retroactively (I actually still have this issue lying around somewhere, and when I find it, I’ll bathe in Cyber-Nostalgia).
This was just a few years after the German reunification – a few months later, I would start a very short stint in advertising. The burning-red, retina-burning-vector-graphics “Scenarios” magazine had Neal Stephenson’s visionary “Global Neighborhood Watch” article, a piece by Stewart Brand quoting Laurie Anderson quoting John Cage (which I have been quoting ever since) – and there was Danny Hillis’ vision of the Millennium Clock (the page with the full text is still there on the WIRED web site – and boy, is it HTML 1/Netscape fugly).
I read. I dreamed. I was amazed.
Because, you know, kids: Back then, the future was a big place. Sure; we didn’t dream of social networks where people could “poke” and “tweet” away; but the prospect of immortality and a cough Really Long Boom weren’t so bad, either.
A few months before reading this issue, I had heard about something called the “World Wide Web”, but I hadn’t experienced it yet; nor had anyone else I knew back then. We were on slow (and still illegal…) modems and (more or less) happy with a few local bulletin boards and a bit of CompuServe now and then. My phone bill for the little online access I had back then was about ten times higher than what I’m paying for 32 MB/s today. Loading a mid-size GIF took half an eternity, but hey – that was twice as fast as the year before that! We dreamed of far futures, but on the other hand, were easily satisfied.
Fast forward sixteen years.
It is a truism that our primate brains are not made to understand the complexity of the modern world. Most of us are dimly aware that even in the 21st century, this planet is in a terrible mess, shaped by a new variation of The Great Game. And we know that the forces at work become even more unpredictable as they interact with each other.
So to make our lives bearable, we do the same thing our ancestors did when they cowered in their huts, threatened by forces of nature or invaders.
We tell each other stories.
And the most powerful stories are those about the bogeyman, and how he is finally defeated/exorcized. Even if he commands whole armies or has powerful demons on his side, the death of this one creature brings the fight to an end and restores peace.
In rational discourse, most people will admit that this is too simple a pattern to explain geopolitical developments.
And yet, many of us will cling to the story they heard today. To them, it will close not only a chapter, but end a nightmare.
And sometimes, I envy those who find such comfort in stories.
Of course, the above is a terrible cliché. It’s also a pretty good song by Sting, from a time when white guys playing with super-cool black jazz guys wasn’t a cliché…
Anyway.
I have been using delicious since it was called del.icio.us, which always made my brain and my muscle memory fight each other.
Back then, when no-one was talking about “cloud computing”, the ability to store URLs online was incredibly helpful. I fell in love at first sight and imported 5,000 bookmarks from a browser.
Then I realized I had make a mistake, and I wanted to delete all those bookmarks again.
Hmm. At first I thought I was too stupid to find the “Delete all bookmarks” button, but then I realized it simply wasn’t there.
So … Manually clicking “Delete” 5,000 times? I don’t think so.
Planet Funk (especially with Dan Black) are/were masters of intelligent, danceable pop. If someone knows where I can purchase all their videos (YouTube has mainly low-res rips), you’d make me one happy fanboy.
Aaaand another one trick pony (I’m on a roll here).
It’s an iOS app called Zite.
Now Zite does just one thing:
It makes reading online content fun again.
And it is very, very good at it.
Smart aggregation, personalization, on the-fly customization… Call it what you want: This is what makes all the difference between half-*ssed shovelware and a fun, engaging reading experience.
But don’t listen to me; get the app, or watch the video:
I still don’t know how these people intend to make money (or stay out of prison once the content creators realize what is happening in this ad-free, elegant app), but I’m on their side.
This is the online magazine I’d like to pay money for: A perfect mix of “surprise me” and conformist “that’s the way - a-ha, a-ha – I like it”.
And just like Last.fm, it gets better the more you use it.
Now step up, oldskool publishers. If the creators of this app and red-blooded journalists from NYT, WIRED & Co. were locked into a room, they shouldn’t have a fight, but an orgy.
And the result … might just save journalism.
We don’t need a million bloggers vomiting up the same Reuters/DPA/AP content time and time again.
We need great content, smart comments and even smarter filters. This could be one of them.
