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We are apps

What is a database but a resting place, however temporary, for bytes (being an arbitrary unit of measure) of data waiting to be consumed by some application.  It is useless otherwise.  But in essence, isn't the real world just a database?  Everywhere is information waiting for consumption.  Our senses are applications that consume data.  Our bodies themselves consume data (all living things do).  Evolution itself could be seen as versions of applications responding to changes in the Earth's database.  What I'm trying to say is, there must be some interesting way to make use of this fact.  There is data everywhere. We are all applications.  Why don't we build better bridges between ourselves so that we can better share our data?  Right now, as I sit here, the application known as Peter is consuming data. Is this info of interest to anybody else?  Depending on one's knowledge, care and/or use for me personally you could probably draw concentric rings eminating from me that demonstrate levels of interest.  But that interest quickly tails off.  My data becomes interesting only insofar as it describes environmental or other sensory inputs (this may not be strictly true - my editorial input may have value - e.g. The temp is 70 but that's unusual for this time of year). What's the barometric pressure at my lat/lon, etc.  Do I see the Golden Gate bridge from where I stand? Is there a line at the Starbucks where I am sitting?  If I go out of my way to post this data, would someone be interested in it (Flickr is a great data point)?  If everyone posted random bits of data what would that truly provide?  Useful information or meaningless noise?  Perhaps the Long Tail concept applies.  It rapidly becomes a problem of search and categorization to make sense of it all, but maybe Google could help.  Maybe it's self organizing. People are drawn to the info they're interested in and post the same.  Who would take the time to make inputs?  It's a social networking question but my bet is there could be a healthy quid pro quo.  At least from a core initial group.  There are probably good existing analogs. Spies, for instance, make it their job to constantly input data.  If the value to the greater good could be easily demonstrated, who knows?  There may even be an economic model that could support it.  I become a data source, a streamer, that people can rely on, subscribe to (RSS).  I could be a specialist on parking spots at 76 and Amsterdam.
    Perhaps even more interesting is what if I have hyper sensory inputs from other devices that I can assimilate into the Peter app?  For example, maybe I have a geiger counter with me that I can use to stream radioactive data.
   In this model, every person becomes a node in a vast, distributed application running off the database known as real life. And like other distributed apps, all nodes become more powerful and resilient as their connectivity increases.  Through sharing, the community grows, its resources increase, its efficiency improves.  Pretty cool.

Are you kidding me?

After all the hoopla, winkie-winkie, speculation and outright hysteria, the brainiacs at Intel/MS give us, at long last, the Origami. And I am utterly in awe of it's perfect lack of anything interesting. It's just astonishing. There is absolutely nothing inspiring going on in the world of electronics. Nothing even remotely similar to what's going on in "Web 2.0" or whatever you want to call it. Nothing. Boredom reigns.

Hyper-awareness

How do you experience the world? Through your senses. Your senses are your interface, your inputs. From there your brain produces understanding and response. But in a world that is increasingly connected, quantitatively and qualitatively, via computer and Internet, are our five senses enough? Our sphere of potential control has exploded. But control requires i/o. In a world where inputs are local this is not an issue, your senses work fine. However, when the inputs are remote what do you do? Instant messaging is a remote sensor. It senses input (presence) and delivers it to you over a network. Once received, your brain then knows what to do with it and can consider an output. But this is a rudimentary example. Think of your world, not locally, but globally. What does it include? How much is out of your reach right now. All of it, except what is directly around you...OR to which you are remotely connected somehow. That is what's new. Think about the information that you could connect to if you could but extend your senses. Maybe you could invent new ones to boot. Here's an example. You're in a traffic jam on the highway. The other side is flying along. You want to know if you should exit right away and try an alternate route but not if the jam you're in is short. But how can you tell? The radio says nothing. You know of no online service that could tell you. The answer is the drivers in the other lanes. They just drove past the line of traffic you're in and could easily tell you if it was a long one. But how do you reach them? How do you leverage other people's senses?! Think of the collective power of that. Certainly work is being done with cell phones and SMS. But it is still peer-to-peer. There are other opportunities to leverage sensors that are not human but "machine", placed by either you and/or others. The point is you start to utilize and consume virtual "senses". Does that mean you can expand YOU? If you embed these remote sensory organs into your perception, your hyper-perception, does that create a virtual octopus out of you? If you start to think/imagine that you can get answers to remote sensory questions, the way you perceive, control and respond to your world changes radically.

Open Source Hardware

Can the DIY ethic of the Web be transfered to the physical world of atoms? It feels like the push is on with the sudden interest in customer-driven innovation and the various hacker/maker activities. But do the same rules apply? In the digital universe, coding an HTML page, posting a photo or writing a blog entry is entirely different than designing and building a physical object. Why? The physical world is less forgiving, which in turn puts significant emphasis on precision and accuracy. Errors are much more costly, literally. In the world of computers the only limited resource is time. In the world of atoms, time is only one of many limited resources. You can only make so many mistakes before you run out of raw material. Acquiring additional or extra resources requires money and, usually, more time. This then points to the need for fairly in-depth training and education in not only design but material science, which is fine for the early adopters but does not work for the mass market. Therefore, while one could make the argument that the world of physical DIY could experience significant growth, I believe it will be different, and more complicated. With the Web, anyone with a computer could participate, which means most of the US population. Where will the resources for the building of new things come from? In the consumer electronics space, the manufacturers of the latest and greatest gear don't sell retail and definitely don't sell in quantities of one or two. In fact, getting access to the best stuff as a hobbyist today is next to impossible unless you cannibalize another device for its components - not a cheap option. What will the standards be for assembling things? The protocols for communicating between components - serial, USB, TCP/IP? What about physical interfaces? The list goes on. It's difficulty is what interests me and, ultimately, makes me believe that figuring it all out, hard though it may be, represents a big opportunity.

Push to Pull

John Hagel and John Seely-Brown have just released a piece entitled "From Push to Pull – Emerging Models for Mobilizing Resources" which touches on some key points that resonate with what I discuss in this blog. I won't try to summarize the whole thing here because Hagel does a great job of that on his blog. But briefly, they believe a new set of dynamics is emerging that is beginning to move the market from our existing "push" model, or one where manufacturers have all the control over what products get brought (pushed) to market, to a "pull" model where the control shifts to the consumer.

"Push models treat people as passive consumers (even when they are producers like workers on an assembly line) whose needs can be anticipated and shaped by centralized decision-makers. Pull models treat people as networked creators (even when they are customers purchasing goods and services) who are uniquely positioned to transform uncertainty from a problem into an opportunity. Pull models are ultimately designed to accelerate capability building by participants, helping them to learn as well as innovate, by pursuing trajectories of learning that are tailored to their specific needs."

I find this piece completely in line with my thinking on not only where we are headed but where we should all be focused. As I mention here, here and here, I believe we are indeed entering new, incredibly valuable territory. The questions that needs to get answered are will it be as disruptive as the early adopters hope? Will it go mass market? Is it sustainable? I strongly believe the answer to these questions is yes but it will take many years, which does not, by the way, lessen the urgency. The quote in the paper that most aligns with my thinking is this one:

"...Customers are increasingly demanding the ability to configure their own products and services from modular components supplied by the vendor, leading to further proliferation of options. For example, the desire to obtain specific music tracks rather than an entire pre-packaged album of songs has spawned the rapid growth of online music networks serving that need. At the extreme, customers are demanding and receiving tools to create their own products and services, bypassing entire tiers of product and service vendors."

And while the example they give is for a digital content service, there is no reason to believe the impulse/need will not be shared and demanded in the physical world as well - a direction for which I am an ardent supporter.

I highly suggest you read this paper.

ARRL

I got my ham radio license a few years ago (KC2JZR) and was surprised to find myself joining a network of over 3 million people worldwide (700,000 in the U.S. alone). I got my license because I am a geek. But what really piqued my interest was the organization that supported me - the ARRL. The American Radio Relay League is the voice of Amateur Radio (or ham radio operators, "hams"). This not-for-profit group represents a fascinating hybrid of DIY energy and enthusiasm working effectively with big government, in this case the FCC. Here's a snip from their website:

Today ARRL, with approximately 152,000 members, is the largest organization of radio amateurs in the United States. The ARRL is a not-for-profit organization that:
• promotes interest in Amateur Radio communications and experimentation
• represents US radio amateurs in legislative matters, and
• maintains fraternalism and a high standard of conduct among Amateur Radio operators.

And this isn't some little outfit running on a shoestring budget:

At ARRL headquarters in the Hartford suburb of Newington, a staff of 120 helps serve the needs of members. ARRL is also International Secretariat for the International Amateur Radio Union, which is made up of similar societies in 150 countries around the world.

If you visit the FCC's website and look up Amateur Radio you find a whole section on it. The hams of the world get serious respect. This is from the FCC web site regarding the role of Amateur Radio:

• Promotion and enhancement of the Amateur Radio Service as a voluntary noncommercial public communications service.
• Continual advancement of the art of radio communication.
• Expansion of the reservoir of trained radio operators and electronic experts.
• Enhancement of international goodwill at the grass roots level.

This is a stunning example of not just the power of these "amateurs" but how the U.S. government has encouraged, accommodated and cooperated with the public in ways that most people don't appreciate or even know about. But it's easy to find out more. Just check this out. I can't think of any other national, volunteer organization that has such systematic impact on things so important.

There is a critical issue facing us today, especially in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the Katrina disaster in NOLA. How much are we going to rely on government to take care of us and how much are we going to do ourselves? Thomas Paine said in "Common Sense" that "Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness", and all too often over the past few days I've been feeling that distinction. My confidence in government to do the "right thing" is at an all time low. I know I'm not alone. The digitally enabled masses are speaking up via blogs, SMS, forums, etc. and big media is paying attention, alerting the public at large of the discussion. All this is a good start. But it's only that.

One of my themes on this blog is the power of DIY, not just as a way to build things, but as a way to view the world, as a way to live. In a way, if you had to categorize it, it's sort of libertarian. But it's really more about control - over your life, over your world. In ceding all control over our safety to the government we are, in effect, forfeiting a huge chunk of our freedom. We expose ourselves to all sorts of potential problems - big ones. So what do we do? I find the existence of the ARRL enormously encouraging. Clearly, the public at large can not just shoulder the burden of public safety, but I do think that technology, designed creatively, distributed economically, and used cooperatively with government can, and absolutely should, play a key role in helping all of us sleep better at night. The ARRL is a perfect example of this. I anticipate much more discussion in the coming months and years as we try to deconstruct what happened in NOLA. I'm hoping the ARRL gets the credit they deserve but more importantly, I hope that it inspires our leaders to issue a call to arms. All of us need to take more responsibility for our own, as well as our communities' safety. And I strongly believe technology can play a crucial role.

New Environment

Optical magnification always blows me away. Not because of what it reveals through the lens, but what it reveals of our limitations. It's easy to believe, as I did when I was little, that a pair of binoculars compresses distance and somehow moves you closer to what you're observing because that's what it feels like. In reality, all that's happening is it's taking the same information (visual data) that's already available to you and enhancing it - in essence doing something your eyes can't (unless you're the Bionic Man). It always makes me stop and realize the immense amount of data that's swimming around me right now that I can do nothing with because I can't sense it, detect it or otherwise interact with it. Here's a great example. Right now, in the air of my office in NYC, there are probably over a million cell phone conversations taking place - right now. The air, though transparent to my eyes and silent to my ears, is literally teaming with radio-wave energy. If I had the proper sensory organ I would most likely be blown away by the volume.

Now take a step back and consider this. All our sensory organs exist for one reason. To process information about our environment, that is, our immediate surroundings. But isn't our definition of environment radically changing? Doesn't our world extend way beyond the reach of our physical senses? We all interact with data created far from our physical location, but only a tiny proportion. How can we get smarter? My point is, the wind as a resource has existed forever, but at some point someone invented a sail. What can we do creatively with all the data being created everywhere, all the time? I know there are some good answers. NOTE: I posted something similar to this over a year ago here.

Physical Interface Standard - Thesis

--> There are three components to every physical interface - the structural, the logical and the informational. The structural defines the configuration of the physical interface. The logical defines the dialog (language) between assembled components. The informational defines the contents of that dialog. A nut and a bolt have three interface components - 1) the physical male/female thread pattern, 2) the friction and mechanical qualities of the threads, 3) the temperature differences, voltage differences, etc. of the nut and the bolt. A USB interface also has three components - 1) the physical pin and connector layout, 2) the electrical signal protocol, 3) the information implied by the bits flowing through. A handshake - 1) the hands, 2) the mechanical qualities of the connected palms and fingers, 3) the pressure, temperature of the individual hands. Drinking a beer - 1)the lips and the rim of the glass, 2) gravity, 3) the beer.

How does one use this to construct a philosophy of building things?

Maybe define rules for each component.

Structural - interface components must be explicit and easy to understand.
Logical - how the interface works must be obvious. Permutations of the interface should also be obvious or easily discovered.
Informational - what the interface communicates must be highly structured, contextual and self sufficient - "transactions" have knowledge of themselves, etc. Much could be taken from the digital world here.

Needs work, but I feel like I'm moving in the right direction.

Object Sentences

I love language and have always been fascinated by its mechanics - how the assembly of words in a sequence can either convey meaning or sow confusion. Given my interest in the value of splitting structure (grammar/syntax) and content (words), language has been a potent catalyst. When I was younger, one of the questions I turned over in my head all the time was - why can't there be a language in which it was impossible to speak nonsense - meaning a language where ANY combination of words made sense somehow. It's a wacky question but points, I think, to an important strength of every successful language - it's incredible flexibility. Without the ability to write nonsense, nothing new could be done. Our idea of nonsense is subjective. The poetry of e.e. cummings would have likely been viewed as complete garbage 200 years ago. Or how about a computer program?? But the other thing that fascinates (inspires) me is that even though the interface between words is formally defined as grammar, it is also totally open, meaning those rules are really only a guide. Poetry routinely flouts the rules to great effect. If I know the words of more than one language the options for sentence construction increase, as long as the reader understands the languages used and doesn't mind dealing with no formal grammatical structure. Words, like atoms, seem capable of infinite types of combinations, but gain particular value when used with a logical grammar (e.g. Shakespeare or Hemingway). All of the above, by the way, is equally true of music, but I digress.

Lately I have been puzzling over creating what in essence is a grammar for the construction of not word sentences but "object sentences". Is there a formal way to define how objects should/could go together to create a useful thing or "sentence"? Sounds crazy because maybe it is. But consider electronics, which for the purposes of this argument I will equate to a language - meaning it is contained and its moving pieces defined. At a very high level every device, gadget and gizmo is identical - power supply, processor(s), i/o devices. Mix them up in lots of different ways and you get everything from a digital watch, to an iPod, to an IBM mainframe; like the words of a sentence. Take vehicles of any kind - the same high level analysis produces the same result - all vehicles are identical. So what? My point is that, at least in some cases, there is a starting baseline of components (words) for the construction of certain categories of product. If you could elegantly define the interfaces between these basic categories perhaps you could start to generalize and identify an interface "grammar", at least for that "language". Will work on that next.

Warmspots

Not hot, warm. Meaning, a portable router contained in a small wireless device that an individual carries around with them (could even be a cell phone). Create a mesh of users. Assume that some percentage of people are always near an actual hotspot and therefore wirelessly connected to a broadband connection. Make this mesh generally available and you now present voice carriers with a big problem in the form of VoIP. This is already happening on the vehicular level. Given the potential for disruption, I'm not surprised by reports like this or this. Seems like a great way to wipe out the strangle-hold wireless carriers want to keep on access to their infrastructure. It could also mean that, like the restriction-free WWW, real innovation in the wireless space may finally bloom.