Shift to the Future

Imagine for a moment if you could see the billions upon billions of data points flowing throughout our world.  As our society has embraced more digital ways of being, we generate vast amounts of data.  Each one of us, as we engage with digital tools, lay down trails of data that say something about events, places, and who we are.  Within the mysterious realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI) lies the magic of Machine Learning of ML, a science of data and algorithms that act on it. Riders of buses in the Greater Vancouver area were frustrated that Google Maps, and other apps relying on Translink’s online data feed, predicted earlier arrival and departures by over 5-minutes the majority of the time. They were often standing in the rain or dark longer than they would like waiting for a bus that from their perspective was late.  By partnering with Microsoft, Translink was able to bring together numerous historical and real time data feeds including traffic and weather data...

How much do you think about the traces of you, that you leave behind as you engage more and more with technology?  There has been a not so subtle intrusion into what used to be our private lives where a lot of what we do and say is now recorded.  Notice how apps on our smartphones want access to our photos, contacts, and location.  Sure you can deny such access but then the value of the apps diminishes significantly, often to zero.  Do you remember which apps you have given the go ahead to track your movements, your buying habits, your interactions with others, etc.?  We use our digital tools in very trusting ways not really thinking about what the companies behind them might do with all that data about us.  Google makes something like 97% ($32M) of their revenue from advertising – actually from us.  Our use of their tools generates tremendously valuable data about human behavior including purchasing habits.  They really should be paying us for o...

This morning after breakfast, my wife and I were sitting chatting in our family room enjoying a French dark roast cup of amazing coffee when my iPhone, sitting on the coffee table, lights up.  It signaled that a new email had arrived.  This reminded me of how amazing our technology has become and how we essentially take it for granted.  How did the email get to my iPhone?  Really.  Can you explain it in full detail?  We can talk about how it came from the ‘cloud’ or a server at my work.  But how did it find my iPhone?  It had to find my my city, street, and house.  We use Shaw for wireless and Internet, so somehow (I know, IP routing, electrical signals, etc., but) it got from my worksite to Shaw then through kilometers of cables, dozens of complex machines, and eventually to our house.  It then ‘jumped’ into the air and enveloped the room.  Somehow the iPhone ‘sucked’ the email bits from the radio waves (how did it know to do this?...

With my recent job change where I now commute 48km each way through a complex labyrinth of roads and traffic, I have lots of time (45-50 minutes in the morning, 75-105 minutes after work) to reflect on the state of our transportation system.  Along the way there are seven cities, one bridge, and approximately 40 lights to navigate.  Traffic stops, goes, slows, speeds up, weaves (no signaling), merges, people cut each other off, some talk on phones, some day dream, some get sleepy, etc.  It’s a rats nest of dangerous weapons driven by people, many who shouldn’t be driving, just waiting to have an accident!  Let’s imagine together what could be done to change this up… There are some fundamental changes required to create intelligent roadways.  Electronic nodes could be installed, perhaps as nanopaint, and applied to the sides, lanes, and center of roads, starting with the freeways, highways, and major commuting routes.  Additionally, the cell phone networks...

I know, the title sounds kind-of retro, something from the 60’s, but let’s not go there.  I read and write a lot about machine power and how machines are increasingly taking over roles in society that were previously thought to be human only.  As this inevitable trend plays out, it will be increasingly important to be crystal clear about the role of people in the economy and society in general.  We seem to be on an unwavering trajectory to a highly automated and robotic future so why not leverage that likelihood to the people’s advantage.  Let’s be sure to keep our roles up front and center in this brave new world that’s unfolding. “In the years ahead,” Rifkin wrote, “more sophisticated software technologies are going to bring civilization ever closer to a near-workerless world. Race Against the Machine (Kindle 118) I remember as a kid hearing about some utopian future where machines did the work and people sat around enjoying their leisure.  That doesn’t ...

My first introduction to algorithms dates back to grade 11.  There was one computer, an APL machine , in the entire school district and it happened to be in my math classroom.  As budding mathematicians, we learned to write algorithms and program them into the APL machine.  I remember writing a black jack card game and that might have been the turning point for me to shift away from becoming a mechanic to go into computer science.  Actually I often credit that particular teacher (thank-you Jim Swift ) with changing my destiny as it was he that pointed me into the new direction.  Folks, math and algorithms, “ a set of rules that precisely defines a sequence of operations ”, are underlying everything in our world.  I will relate this to education later in this post so hang in there… Remember back in the early days of Internet search when there was no predictive hints provided?  You had to know how to find things online (Internet quests anyone) and tha...

I’ve started reading another book.  Yah, I know, what a surprise :-)  In How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed, Ray Kurzweil claims “ this is why we invent tools – to compensate for our shortcomings ” (Kindle 458).  That is an interesting statement given the checkered past the advancement of society has.  Although our technology is agnostic, it always seems to have a good and an evil use or purpose.  In Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation et al, the authors quote “’ In the years ahead,’ Rifkin wrote, more sophisticated software technologies are going to bring civilization ever closer to a near-workerless world’ ” (Kindle 118) and claim that the “ the role of humans as the most important factor of production is bound to diminish in the same way that the role of horses in agricultural production was first diminished and then eliminated by the introduction of tractors ” (Kindle 125).  In light of...

A lot of people are writing and speaking about innovation these days.  I hesitated to join in but it’s been on my mind lately too so why not see if I can add to the conversation.  Wikipedia (Feb. 25, 2012) starts its article on this topic with “ Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products , processes , services , technologies , or ideas ”.  When I read about the enormous problems facing us today and into the future, I see a rising need for more innovative thinking.  The worlds problems seem overwhelming with automated work , fuel costs and scarcity, war, public and private debt loads, education systems in need of redesign, governments buried in red tape and complexity , and the list goes on.  Small thinking isn’t going to help us solve these problems but innovation can.  The environment for learning matters tremendously as the authors of A New Culture of Learning suggest “ when play happens within a medium for learning—much like a cult...

I just got back from a short trip to Toronto, ON, Canada.  I used my iPad with my kindle reader to read some books on the way there and back.  It’s amazing that I can have 1/2 dozen books on a thin electronic slate, highlight and add notes, and later sync it up to “the cloud” for use later.  E-readers are disruptive technologies… While sitting in a cab cruising through the city, I wondered about the economy.  Actually, I think a lot about our economy these days.  I am overwhelmed with the complexity and magic that defines the economy.  Small shops on obscure streets, massive 50 story business towers, huge hotels, hospitals, government buildings, university facilities, restaurants, people walking everywhere, grid locked traffic with people coming and going, and so on.  At the airport, there are untold numbers of people going to and coming from hundreds or thousands of locations.  Some for pleasure and some for business.  Just one day in Toro...