My Presentation on the Evolution of Geeks (Where did geeks go right?)

Excerpt:
Nothing can evolve when everyone sees things the same. A teacher simply teaches what they are taught, but an observer, a thinker, a new mind -­‐ a geek -­‐ is the one that pushes the seed of thought that goes from unnecessary, to foolish, to laughed at. And they endure through those stages due to their intense passion, un-l it blossoms, becomes admired, and eventually takes over as the new school of thought.

Enter here please. How does mobile change the browsing experience?

As the PC experience  keeps pushing away from the OS and into the browser as the main entry point for data, with web sites being those data points – the mobile experience is doing the opposite. It keeps pushing users back to the OS level as the entry point to get to data, with those data points being apps.

One consequence of that experience: how will businesses harvest value from the users interactions when a user is not in their app? That problems has manifested itself into things such as app discovery, re-targeting, etc. Where before serendipity and injection in the browser experience had value for advertiser, the mobile user is more specific with their actions. Entering the phone to get specific data from specific apps.

Unfortunately the OS level of a mobile device isn’t in itself serendipitous, and therefor many business must rethink how they get injected into a users experience, before the user knows they want it.

The idea of “browse” has changed considerably in mobile, and one must focus on the change in foundation to re-think how to create new solutions to old problems.

One way to look at this through the lens of solutions: If the mobile device, which is primarily intent based and very rarely spoken of in terms of browsing, pushes its content to the web; And the PC, which is primarily referred to using the word “browse”, pushes users serendipitously to a device; then having the two work with one another as an ecosystem allows both sides of the puzzle to fill in for weaknesses and leverage strengths, and most importantly solve problems with tools that cross the device/tool/experience chasim. This is a true form of making vertical fragmentation (single user cross many devices) work for you.

Do you see what I see?

Can you guess who that famous person is in the image on the left? Not a clue huh? Well it’s Steve Martin in a scene from the movie Pink Panther. But it isn’t exactly straight from the big screen film, and it isn’t exactly not from the movie either. Confused? Well, it is a mind boggling concept. The technology that Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at U.C., has developed is able to produce a video from what a persons mind is seeing or thinking.

It really is hard to explain the amazing nature of the this technology so I attached a video below showing it in action. It’s is a must see, and probably is THE most amazing technology I have seen in my entire life.

It’s is interesting how many of the representations of people look primarily the same from the minds eye, and how there are strange over laps of data on others at times. Almost like you can see the minds eye wander, or you can see the related emotions that are associated with some visual queues.

You also have to give allot of credit to the impressionist movement. They were way ahead of their time. As you can see they completely got the nature of the difference between what we “see”, and what we remember or interpret even though we don’t realize it. The videos also remind me allot of what it feels like when I am dreaming.

 

Video: Left side what was actually seen, right side what the technology decoded from the brain:

Video games may rot your brain, but those gamers may help find the cure for AIDS

Just when parents and wives everywhere finally got thier point across to get their loved ones out from in front of the large screen TV and unplugged from their beloved game console, a twist emerges.

As it turns out even our most powerful computers have problems figuring out the right combinations, patters and sequences necessary to solve large complex problems. AN example of these complex problems that baffle our silicon constructed counter parts is defining the model of many viruses, and you can’t defeat what you do not understand. By leveraging the power of crowd sourcing and the serendipitous realizations that only humans can have (so far,) creating a game to engage gamers to figure out the unique characteristics (folds) of  the simian AIDS-causing Mason – Pfizer monkey virus retroviral protease (AKA M-MVP) is having some great success. It’s kind of like Tetris meets chemistry class. Move over xenga, no virtual good in the world will trump the prize of being the person who helped conqore aids!

Even after this gaming experiment ends, the analyzation of the methods and patterms applied to the game by the gamers will be adopted by the computer algorithms, thereby furthering our ability to solve problems at scale.

 

Check out the video:

Google Labs is Shutting Down :(

Early on in transformation into an official entrepreneur I began preaching the benfiist of focus, and the trap that any small task will invariably have the potential to become a time suck from what you should be spending brain cycles on instead (what has now been known as ABBA in our circle). But I am still left with a small sense of saddens to find out that Google Labs is shuttung down. 😦

Check out the list of many of the apps that will be phased out, and find those are already gone: http://www.googlelabs.com/

It was a good feeling to know that Google maintained their, seemingly altruistic, attention to the experimentation of new ideas for the sake of simply knowing more, and fixing our uneeded hudles in data through tech and science. They were the “casual NASA” of our dat, and althought I understand the need to focus, I had always hoped Google would remain the exception to the rule, and give us something to map our ideals to.

Farewell Google Labs, I hope what you represented does not fall by the wayside in your company or our tech community as well.

A new take on flight: One wing is all you need.

Check out this video. It’s kind of geeky, well it’s very geeky, but still neat-o. These guys at lockhead took a short break from creating deadly weaponry and re-invented flight.

From divincis screw shaped helicopter, to the right brothers wheeless test flight, flight has been a display of symetrical balance. Most likley due tothe need to ma the air craft as part of the prerequisites. But as unmaned aor craft becomes moreand more of a mission of our miltary, the premises are thrown out the door, and the ability for our engineers and deisgners to get creative beings in the begining of a new era of what we see as flight.

Here, the helicoprter-ish-one-winged-airplane spins in cricles to achive all raged of motions, as well as take of and langing. With this design laucnhng by flingin
 the aircraft into the area is also a falry easy manuver.