Wearables-Mobile-IOT Tech creates Fourth Person Perspective

So far the individual has almost always existed in the context of a society of others. This could change in the farther future as individuals might be in the form of a variety of digital and physical copies in different stages of augmentation. It could become more difficult to find ‘like-others.’ My claim is that the function of alterity (an awareness of others that triggers subjectivation) would need to persist for individuals to fully become themselves, but it would not need to come from others that are like us.

All that is needed is some sort of external otherness that can show us ourselves in a new way to facilitate a moment of development. There is nothing in the function of alterity to suggest that it must be an ‘other’ that is like us. It is just that it has been this way historically, because other humans have been the ready form of ‘the other.’ It has been easiest and most noticeable when another human serves as a device like a mirror allowing us to see ourselves in a new way.

However, it is quite possible that the alterity function could be fulfilled in many other ways that do not involve a self-similar subject. One mechanism that is already allowing us to see ourselves in new ways is quantified self-tracking gadgetry. The ensemble of QS gadgets creates a fourth-person perspective, an objective means of seeing ourselves via exteriority and alterity that can trigger a moment of subjectivation. Now understanding the alterity function as such, there could be many alternative means of fulfilling it. 

Longer video on the topic: Posthuman Interpretation of Simondon's Individuation

2014 Top 10 Technology Trends

2014 promises to be another exciting year for technology development! Technology more than any other endeavor has the potential to most quickly improve people's lives.  

Some prominent multi-year trends currently in development include:

1. Worldwide Internet-connected (2 billion in 2013 growing to 5 billion in 2020) and growing Southern hemisphere megacities
2. Big data (doubling to 8 zettabytes 2013-2015)
3. Smartphone (>1 billion)
4. Smartwatch 
5. Wearables, Glass 
6. Quantified self-tracking (QS) gadgetry
7. Self-driving vehicles
8. eLearning and MOOCs 
9. 3D printing 
10. New economic models: bitcoin/cryptocurrencies, crowdfunding, crowdsourced labor marketplaces 

On the Horizon:

• Lab-produced synthetically-engineered food 
• Smart home 
• 3D bioprinting / DNA computing / synbio

Predictions for 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 

Identity Authentication and Security Access 2.0

Identity needs to be authenticated in more granular, flexible, real-time ways as digital venues expand and the physical world becomes more digitalized. Technology is now making it possible to rethink and provide a 2.0 update to the whole area of identity authentication and security access services.

The ubiquity of cell phones, and increasingly smartphones, means that many forms of identity authentication can be moved from costly and easy-to-lose physical ID cards to mobile access platforms. QR codes, NFC, and other wireless-based technologies are already starting to be used for security authentication and single-use sign-on for website access.

Work identity badges, hospital access badges, and government and school IDs are examples of physical-world ID cards that can be moved to smartphone ID cards. Likewise many services linking identity authentication to resource-access and mobile payment can be automated, for example, event tickets, work conference room reservation and access, medical equipment and pharmaceutical inventory access, and rental car and hotel check-in and resource access. Digital ID cards can incorporate multi-factor authentication: for example, the visual look, a custom sound or image elicited upon being tapped, or information returned from an external server as the QR code is read.

Quantization trends of the future: crowdsourcing and geolocation

Two conferences held in San Francisco last week underline key future trends, the crowdsourcing of work (and maybe everything), and hyper-local mobile-phone based services such as payments. Thematically, crowdsourcing and mobile services both deal with quantization – the idea of resources being granularized to the smallest unit, and then directed fungibly and automatically to where they are needed and requested, like routing internet data packets. In this case labor units and targeted personalized mobile services can be delivered on a quantized basis. Market principles continue to seep into life with quantization models which typically provide superior value creation and exchange.

Crowdsourcing
CrowdConf2011 (November 1-2, 2011) was bigger and broader than CrowdConf2010. The main focus continued to be on crowdsourced labor, but these models are also emerging in e-government, consumer travel, entertainment, fundraising, and philanthropy (and health, though not included at CrowdConf). Software, professional services (i.e.; graphic design) and R&D have long been staples of crowdsourced labor, and these models are now being extending to almost all areas of the enterprise including sales, social CRM (customer relationship management) and finance, accounting, and administration.

Mobile-phone based services
Mobile is the platform. One billion smartphone users are expected by 2013 and app downloads grew explosively from 300 million in 2009 to five billion in 2010. Arguably, the mobile phone has become an indispensable human augmentation accessory: the loss of a phone is noticed within five minutes, versus the loss of a wallet which takes an hour. The intimate continuous connection individuals have with their mobile phones suggests the platform as a critical delivery mechanism for many important future services such as mental mood performance optimization.

Geo-Loco (November 3, 2011) focused on hyper-local mobile services delivery. The biggest growth area is mobile payment programs where the prevailing methods in use are 2-D barcodes (as used in Starbucks smartphone apps) and NFC (near field communication) chips which send encrypted data over short distances. The development of corporate and brand marketing strategies for mobile services delivery was another big focal area. The poster-child of success of branded smartphone apps, from Starbucks, allows payments, store locating, and checking nutritional information. Ironically, drinks can be configured out of 85,000 possibilities and shared with friends, but not actually ordered!

Hardware apps (smartphone peripherals)

Apps are not just software anymore! The interesting new field of hardware apps, or smartphone peripherals, is under development.

One example is the iPhly iPhone-based radio controller. Radar detectors and dashboard car-surveillance cams could follow. Earthquake sensors are another obvious application, as accelerometer chips for sensing earthquakes have already been used in laptops.

Miniaturized modules could snap onto smartphones for many different applications. Scientific instruments could be an interesting application area, giving any individual the opportunity to have a mobile lab. Ultrasound and portable microscopes have already been demonstrated (iPhone attachment, cell phone attachment).

Portable personal sensing modules for biodefense (iPhone biodefense app spec) and health optimization could be a killer app. Microneedle arrays could continuously or periodically perform a sampling of hundreds of blood-based data points like Orsense does for continuous glucose monitoring. Mass spectrometer attachments could identify any substance chemically. Miniaturized genome sequencers and RNA sequencers could identify the underlying DNA and expression profiles of samples.

Mobile app concept: Disaster Telediagnosis

Disaster Telediagnosis is a mobile app idea that takes advantage of the bandwidth and mobility of 4G. It is a massively scalable peer-to-peer clearinghouse application providing live streaming video communication between people injured in a crisis situation and remote physicians for diagnosis and ongoing support until hand-off to local health authorities.

Whenever an injured party needs to interact with a physician, anyone with a smartphone can take a picture or stream live or archived video coverage to the internet clearinghouse to be connected in real-time with any available physician worldwide. There may be multiple interactions between patient and physician, both of whom are mobile, over the course of the case, and continuity can be preserved through high-bandwidth video connectivity. The internet clearinghouse could provide language matching or automated translation, and would log all calls based on GPS and other tagging attributes. Remote physicians could review and annotate patient electronic medical records, and the archived video files would provide patient history.

Figure 1: Disaster Telediagnosis

Any citizen with smartphone video capture could record injured parties describing their conditions, or otherwise document the status of the injured or dead. Video is streamed to the internet clearing application and on to available physicians, possibly with specialized language capabilities.

This application concept is accepted for presentation, if a demo can be realized, at the Clear 4G Symposium at Stanford in Palo Alto, CA, June 15, 2010; any interested developers and collaborators please contact the author.

Expanding notion of Computing

As we push to extend inorganic Moore’s Law computing to ever-smaller nodes, and simultaneously attempt to understand and manipulate existing high-performance nanoscale computers known as biology, it is becoming obvious that the notion of computing is expanding. The definition, models and realms of computation are all being extended.

Computing models are growing
At the most basic level, how to do computing (the computing model) is certainly changing. As illustrated in Figure 1, the traditional linear Von Neumann model is being extended with new materials, 3D architectures, molecular electronics and solar transistors. Novel computing models are being investigated such as quantum computing, parallel architectures, cloud computing, liquid computing and the cell broadband architecture like that used in the IBM Roadrunner supercomputer. Biological computing models and biology as a substrate are also under exploration with 3D DNA nanotechnology, DNA computing, biosensors, synthetic biology, cellular colonies and bacterial intelligence, and the discovery of novel computing paradigms existing in biology such as the topological equations by which ciliate DNA is encrypted.

Figure 1. Evolving computational models (source)

Computing definition and realms are growing
At another level, subtly but importantly, where to do computing is changing from specialized locations the size of a large room in the 1970s to the destktop to the laptop, netbook and mobile device and smartphone. At present computers are still made of inorganic materials but introducing a variety of organic materials computing mechisms helps to expand the definition of what computing is. Ubiquitous sensors, personalized home electricity monitors, self-adjusting biofuels, molecular motors and biological computers do not sound like the traditional concept of computing. True next-generation drugs could be in the form of molecular machines. Organic components or organic/inorganic hybrid components, as the distinction dissolves, could be added to many object such as the smartphone. A mini-NMR or mini-Imager for mobile medical diagnostics from a disposable finger-prick blood sample would be an obvious addition.

Future Phone

Compared to the cell phone of tomorrow – the omni-function imbedded or external mini-peripheral perhaps with the processing and communications capability of today’s supercomputers – the contemporary smartphone may look even more primitive than 20-year old cell phone bricks look today. The future phone may not even be visible.

The contemporary cell phone has many features: voice and data communications, a camera, music player, contacts, calendar, data storage and games to name a few. Texting, VOIP and data links have reduced the imperative of traditional voice telephony to a mere offering in the feature suite. The many functions of the cell phone could easily keep proliferating.

Other obvious features
Miniaturized headsets could become earring-sized objects for external wear or internal implantation. Subvocalization technology could allow everyone to talk silently and privately all the time without disturbing others; one side effect could be that world intelligence units attempt to develop throat-reading skills. 3D projection technology could be used for a visible full-size keyboard and navigation, video, gaming and entertainment applications.

Detachable components
Cell phone components could be retractable or detachable, such as clipping the handsfree headset into the handset body for storage. The accelerometer (now standard componentry of the iPhone and G1) could be detached and popped into a belt or armband for exercise or sleep measurement or elder monitoring. USB ports could be pulled out for universal connectivity to external hardware. The camera could pop out to an unobtrusive ear, forehead or hat anchor-point to capture continuous streaming video as a life-cam rig, accompanied by continuous audio recording. Life-cammed AV could be streamed via the net to a storage location, ideally in a tagged, parsed and abstracted form.

Positively-unobtrusive technology
Once mobile processing is more rigorous and automated data access occurs through machine environment sensing, positively-unobtrusive technology can happen.

Positively-unobtrusive technology is when one’s data environment makes unobtrusive suggestions for better navigating a situation.

An example would be using facial recognition, location recognition and a contacts database search to display critical information on a smart contact lens such as the approaching person’s name, kids’ ages and summary of last conversation.

The farther future: sensors, microscopy, spectroscopy
In the longer-term, the cell phone could contain an all-purpose sensor, a microscope, spectroscope and other features. The sensor could provide both health and environmental monitoring, tracking biomarker readings (e.g.; cardiac event, blood pressure, breathing, metabolism, etc.) and ambient air quality and toxin exposure, serving as an early warning system. Microscope-on-a-chip and spectroscope-on-a-chip technology could be used for advanced diagnostics, using physical port or wireless connectivity to read recyclable or disposable cartridges of blood prick slide samples for mobile diagnosis or to determine the composition of any physical sample. Energy may be supplied via solar power (like the Nokia Morph concept phone), ambient body-heat recharging or other thermoelectric mechanism. Carbon-offsetting, organic interfaces and other componentry may be standard.

Top 10 Computing Trends for 2009

Here is a quick list of my top computing and communications predictions for 2009 ranging from smartphones to supercomputers.

1. Smartphone AppMania continues
The explosion of application development on smartphone platforms like the iPhone and G1 continues, particularly in location-based services, social interaction and gaming. More computer science departments offer smartphone application development classes. There is more standardization of USB, earphone and other ports. U.S. ARPU is over $100/month.

2. Twitter is the platform
Despite renowned technical glitches, thousands more flock to messaging-leader Twitter and the fastest-growing user group of the microblogging notification system is non-human tweeters using the service as a data platform, example: Kickbee. Web 2.0 continues to bring back network computing, turning the web into the computer and human and object-based messaging becomes the new RSS.

3. Minis go mainstream
Mini PCs such as the Asus Eee PC, MSI Wind and Dell Inspiron continue to proliferate. Minis are fingertip candy; a travel machine for the on-the-go tech-savvy and too cheap to not be affordable for others at $200-$400.

4. Supercomputers achieve 8% human capacity
With IBM’s RoadRunner and Cray’s Jaguar running at just over 1 petaflop/s currently, the world’s fastest supercomputers could reach 1.5 petaflop/s in 2009 (unconfirmed results here), about 8% of the total processing capacity of the average human.

5. Chips: 32nm node rolls out amidst sales declines
Intel rolls out its 32nm node 1.9 billion transistor chip despite worldwide industry sales declines. Gartner forecasts a 4% decrease in chip sales in 2008 vs. 2007 and a 16% decrease in chip sales in 2009 vs. 2008. The biggest speedups continue to come from hardware, not software, and there could be additional breakthroughs in memory (flash, NRAM), magnetic disk storage, batteries and processor technology.

6. iWorld persists
The 200 millionth iProduct is sold before Apple’s CEO succession plan is in place.

7. WiMAX roll-out still stalled
WiMAX services could roll-out to 1-2 cities beyond Baltimore by year-end if Sprint and Clearwire’s operational and legal challenges are resolved. WiMAX would help to stratify connectivity offerings with a recession-attractive price point and bandwidth package (2-4 Mbps download, 1 Mbps upload speed; 6 month introductory price of $25/month, then $35/month).

8. More flexible media consumption models
More models for flexible on-demand pay/free video content viewing are launched for Tivo, Netflix, DVR, media PC and Internet consumers.

9. Video gaming grows
Video game titles, types and hours growth continues as escapism and low-cost entertainment options flourish.

10. Extended use of virtual worlds
Virtual world penetration and proliferation continues (Sony’s recent launch: PlayStation Home) at a slow and steady pace for both entertainment and serious use. The largest platform, Second Life, saw a 50% year-over-year increase in total hours and a 100% year-over-year increase in land ownership (much less exposure to virtual subprimes), and this rate of growth could easily continue in 2009. In the natural evolution of the Internet, virtual worlds continue expanding from the 3 Cs (communication, collaboration and commerce) to more advanced rapid prototyping, simulation and data visualization.


Other advances that could be around the corner:

• Speech-recognition version of Google translate
• More automated quantified self-measurement tools like the GoWearFit and FitBit
• Device convergence, one example: automated quantified self-measurement sensors built directly into existing mobile devices (G3?)
• In Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), basic video gaming avatar movement functionality via non-invasive EEG-based helmet; not quite working yet
  

Still waiting, a few other (non-comprehensive) opportunities:

• Semantic web
• Natural language processing
• VLT (very long-term) laptop batteries
  
• Wireless power
• Ubiquitous free Wi-Fi
• Paper-thin reader for newspapers, eBooks and any printed content
• Cognition valet and other AI services

Mobile surveillance?

Are location-based services (LBS) quickly becoming the next FaceBook? Loopt would be one prominent example. As the number of Internet-enabled and GPS-enabled mobile phones proliferates with the spread of the iPhone and the two-year upgrade cycle for mobile devices, about 45% of mobile devices in the U.S. now have wireless broadband access. Local search and other mobile applications can finally be realized.

Location-based services, also called location-aware services, are about finding out what is nearby and who is nearby.

The what is fairly straightforward. This is more granular and possibly dynamic information about the places nearby; restaurant and store reviews, movie times, historical information for self-tours, etc. and the ability to take action, to make reservations, buy tickets, etc.

The who is related to people you know and people you don’t know. One social application is enabling your geographical location to be seen to friends in your network so they can easily find you. Another application is chat networks for people that are nearby, waiting somewhere for example, that would like to meet or just chat anonymously. There are also public-space interaction projects, games, art, etc. where people can use their cell phones to interact with a billboard or display, playing a video game against someone else in Times Square or making billboard art, either directly with call or text input or ambient algorithms following network participants as they pass through the area.

Age-tiering of technology
Twenty-somethings may be happy to permission their friend network to see where they are and senior-monitoring could be desirable but are age tiers 30-70 as interested in this functionality? Is the last modicum of privacy breached when your friends and family can see that you are at the gym, the dry cleaner, not at your office, etc. or is it too plebeian to care if everyone does it? Cell phones mean we can be reached everywhere, but do we want to be seen everywhere?