Category Archives: Living

Should Professionals Be Using ChatGPT at Work?

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Increasingly, many of us are using ChatGPT and other GenAI tools* for work to help with a diversity of knowledge tasks. We may share with our colleagues how much doing so has improved how we work, for example, saving us time and making us more efficient, while revealing the ways they are helpful, for example, generating ideas, writing or seeking information. However, in many workplaces, it is frowned upon to use them and in some outrightly banned. The main reason given is confidentiality; the need to protect sensitive, personal or proprietary data. Many banks, tech companies and healthcare providers are concerned about the risk of data exposure, where workers might divulge confidential information (e.g. new products or plans for new investments) when using ChatGPT. Instead, they are provided with in-house AI tools, which may not be as good or easy to use.

It is a well-known secret, however, that a number of professionals, who work in organisations where public GenAI tools are banned, may use them furtively on their own devices, while working from home, and without letting their colleagues know. Recognising that the genie is out of the bottle has led to some organisations rethinking their policy on barring the use of ChatGPT. For example, earlier this year, the UK’s Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) reversed its ban. It has recently begun allowing its civil servants to use them for official business or when using government-issued devices (with the exception of DeepSeek). They realised the benefits outweighed the risks. On their website, it now says how it can help employees respond more quickly to queries, while providing their customers with “a more personalised and seamless journey and access support how and when they choose”. Not only does this public acceptance remove the stigma and guilt of using ChatGPT at work for these employees but it might end up triggering a snowball effect, leading to other departments following suit. The question this raises is where should organisations, who have sensitive data and proprietary information, draw the line for what is acceptable practice and what is not?

Consider the healthcare profession where it is important to get this right. Similar to DWP, it is now widely accepted that using ChatGPT at work can be useful and beneficial for clinicians, especially as they have lots of admin tasks, such as note-taking, generating summaries, and treatment plans, which we know ChatGPT is very good at. Most likely, most people, including patients, would not object.

But what about other aspects of general practice where clinicians would like to use it, but where patients might find it unacceptable? To find out, the UK’s NHS is trialling various AI tools in a number of GP practices, where they will be used to summarise consultations with patients (online or in person) that will then be used generate clinical notes and referrals using customised templates. Findings from an initial pilot study run at GOSH, using the ambient AI voice technology called Tortus showed it saved a lot of clinician time. Patients were also very positive, noting how it enabled the cllnicians to give their full attention to them during the consultation.

Where using GenAI tools is clearly unacceptable is when making a decision about a patient’s treatment or surgery. It is considered a no-no for clinicians to ask it to suggest the best course of treatment for one of their cancer patients. What would a patient think, if a clinician said to them, “I just checked with ChatGPT and it recommended we use a new form of cryotherapy that freezes the cancerous tissue within your prostate to destroy the cells rather than opting for the more commonly used High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) that heats and destroys cancer cells within a targeted area of the prostate.” Most would balk at the idea that a machine was deciding their fate. Patients in this situation are highly anxious and want reassurance that the decision that is being made about their treatment is being made by human expert doctors. Even though the AI could be trained to make better and more informed decisions like these, patients will most likely persist with wanting human reassurance and human decision-making. 

What other aspects of clinical decision-making might patients be more willing to accept for the AI to do if it helps the clinician in their work? What about the research clinicians need to do to keep up to date and discover the latest procedures? Rather than looking up information in online medical journals (e.g. PubMed), themselves, why not ask ChatGPT? It could speed up the research process for them in the way many of us now regularly use ChatGPT to get started on a project. It might also suggest alternative types of surgery or care plans that the clinician might not have thought about or discovered by themselves. Would this use of ChatGPT as a research assistant be acceptable by the medical practice, if it was increasingly found that clinicians were already doing this but without letting on?

Besides the various ethical reasons that have been espoused for not using AI at work, human nature, itself, can play a role in determining what is acceptable and what is not. Our propensity to judge each other all the time about what we do, what we eat, what we like, our appearance and so on is also shaping our perceptions of whether it is OK to use GenAI. Some people will shake their head in disapproval when discovering one of their colleagues has been using ChatGPT at work for tasks that were previously ‘done by hand’, for example, using it to write a farewell note for someone’s leaving card, composing a welcoming speech for new employees, or summarising feedback following an appraisal. It seems disrespectful for those on the receiving end, to the extent, some of us might feel shame if we were found out to have done this.

Another growing complaint is the output from AI tools is bland, homogenous, and lacking personality. A new term that has caught the public’s imagination is sycophancy, which refers to how AI appears to always want to please the user, agreeing with them, giving them positive feedback while avoiding providing criticism. To be human is often far from being sycophantic – we like to be different, funny, critical and at times we can’t help being sarcastic – qualities that AI has yet to demonstrate in any human-like way.

So, where do we draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not when using GenAI for work? As new versions of AI tools materialise that are smarter with more safeguards in place, it will probably end up being a case of moving the goalposts. Furthermore, as people start using them for a wider range of work tasks, it may have the knock-on effect of changing their opinions and perceptions; they may become less concerned about professionals (e.g. teachers, doctors, lawyers, financial advisors, pilots, and politicians) using them in their work.

Current research is also discovering there is a shift in professional’s perception of using AI to help them with their work.  For example, radiologists have begun to value more AI assistance for certain tasks such as gathering relevant data to inform their decisions. Pilots, likewise, are also more willing to have AI at hand to assist them for certain tasks; for example, presenting seminal information clearly and highlighting constraints at nearby airports. They draw the line, however, for when the AI suggests a course of action they should take. That is their prerogative.

In sum, so long as the role of GenAI is to assist, i.e., to inform us, enable us to complete our tasks more effectively, suggest alternatives we might not have come up with ourselves or extend what we can do, then it will continue to be increasingly adopted in all manner of workplaces. It is only if it starts to be used to take over complex and sensitive human tasks that it will be concerning and troubling, Many people will very likely want humans to continue to do them. 

* I use ChatGPT here as an umbrella term for all GenAI tools. The image was generated using ChatGPT-5

Sleeping Patterns

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One of the research projects I am currently working on is exploring how a wearable technology – the Oura ring – can help older people learn more about their sleep. We are conducting a study to see how older adults (over 65 years) take to wearing them. Will they find the data collected insightful or too much information? What will they pay attention to most (there are many data parameters that can be looked at)? Will they change their sleeping habits in an effort to improve their health?

Many of us go to bed in the hope we will nod off and wake up 8 hours later refreshed and ready to face a new day. However, as we get older we sleep less and more fitfully. I tend to sleep about 6-7 hours a night whereas when I was young it was more like 8-9 hours. I also wake up more through the night and sometimes have to make a conscious effort not to think about things that are worrying. A motivation for our study is to explore how older people manage their sleep and whether this kind of intervention is seen as being helpful.

To gain initial insight into how wearing the ring may increase our awareness and even improve our sleeping habits, myself and my fellow researchers on the team have been wearing one each now for a month. We have kept a diary. My entries were daily for the first two weeks, full of observations and then slacked off. Here are a few from the beginning.

Day 1 Monday 20th Jan 2025
Arrived in the afternoon in a white box that was aesthetic to look at and very easy to open. It felt like an Apple product. It was easy to try on and to download the app and get it set up via Bluetooth. The instructions for wearing it were nice and simple. Much thought had gone into the opening and onboarding experience. I looked at the visualisations on the app for resting heart (it was quite high as I was excited to try it on). I then saw it had gone down to a reasonable score in the evening.

Day 2 Tuesday 21st Jan 2025
I felt that I did not sleep well last night, waking up a few times but the visualisation from the Oura app said I had had a good night’s sleep. It showed periods of shallow, deep and REM sleep. It also said I fell asleep in 7 minutes which seems about right. I fall asleep quite quickly most days. I slept for 6.33 hours. And have a sleep efficiency of 82%. My sleep score (whatever that means is 83 Good). My readiness score was also rated as good, too, whatever that means. Numbers, eh.

 

Days 5 and 6 Friday 25th/Saturday 26th January
I went to bed at midnight and did not sleep well. The app data reflected this saying I had had only 5 hours sleep and not a good night. So the next night I went to bed early and got 7 hours sleep. I got a sleep score of 89 which equates to being optimal. And a sleep efficiency of 89%. Back on track. Just goes to show how resilient we are bouncing back if we rest up after a late night.

Then two days later:

Monday 27th January
I had a great night’s sleep last night. I got the highest score of 92 with an optimal rating and a crown icon. Total sleep was 7 hours and 23 minutes, good everything else. Text all in blue with no reds. The ‘in focus’ message that accompanied my high scores was surprisingly effective at making me smile. I must be a sucker to gamification. “Your 7 hours 23 minute of sleep last night will help you think sharp and stay focussed. Have a great day!”

It seems this yo-yo sleep pattern (poor night, poor readings, good night, recover, good readings) is part of my lifestyle. The data from the ring has certainly woken me up to this but will I change my lifestyle? Go to bed at 10.00p.m each night after a cup of camomile? I doubt it, not just yet. Maybe when I get older. If the body is so resilient why try to optimise it every night? Or is it even possible?

The new Bridget Jones film “Mad About a Boy” has just come out. The first film, “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (2001) was about a 32 year old single woman who kept a diary to improve herself. I wonder if it helped her to do so and what she does now she is 20+ years older.

AI Re-Imagined

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Android has just announced its latest new tech innovation combining AI and Extended Reality. The idea behind this latest mashup is to enable us to don a pair of fashionable looking glasses that when powered up can understand what we want to do (our intentions) and the world around us so that we might be able ‘get things done in entirely new ways’. That fired up my imagination. What might those be? To suggest the best way to run errands so that we can get them done without hassle? To  propose a new way to walk through a familiar woodland to see a flower in blossom we might never have noticed? To recommend a new coffee shop nearby where there is a lovely space to sit? 

The article continues by suggesting reimagining how to use the new AI to do existing digital tasks. The example given is one we have been able to do for many years – that is exploring the world by using Google Maps but in new immersive ways, soaring above cities and landmarks. I remember being wowed the first time I explored my street and other places using a desktop VR app and then with a VR headset whizzing over London at breakneck speed. How might this be reimagined?  I guess we could experience being even more immersed so that we can fly as if we were like an eagle flying high over mountains. The question this raises is how far can the technology go to making the real and the virtual experience indistinguishable? The mind boggles. 

One of the stumbling blocks with trying to make extended reality ever more lifelike is how best to interact with it and the world. Gesturing, pinching and pointing at thin air have been used with varying degrees of success. It seems these might get easier for us to learn and more natural to use when we want to bring up some relevant information that will overlay where we are. For example, it could show various details about a pair of running shoes we are looking at in response to a slight curl of a finger. However, it still needs to read our fingers, from what is a twitch to what is a gesture.  Perhaps in the future it will be able to read our mind so well we wont need to use our digits anymore. 

This kind of all-seeing AI could learn to know what, when and where to mention things we are interested in but never knew we needed or wanted to know, as we go about our everyday lives. It could even remind us at opportune times of what we need to do – an ever ready assistant. What if we could do different things with the tech rather than simply getting everyday things done more effectively or efficiently?

Being the beginning of a new year, many tech writers are envisioning how AI will reshape society for better or for worse. The new buzz term is ‘Agentic AI’ – where the AI shifts from thinking to doing and, in so doing, enables our tasks and work to be done more efficiently, effectively and faster. John Naughton, who writes for the Guardian, for example, says that 2025 will be the year of AI agents that will leverage LLMs to work out what our human intentions are and then break these down into steps that they can help us perform at home or work. So, instead of asking Alexa or ChatGPT to answer our queries, a new fangled agent AI will be proactive, learning, adapting and predicting what we need. 

These re-imaginings of our everyday and working lives are all well and good and will no doubt go a long way to transform society. But what if we were to dream about how we might use the latest AI and wearable tech to do new and different things? For example, imagine if we started creating new kinds of supertools that could help us with complex and protracted decision-making while dealing with uncertainty. The AI would work with us, not for us, empowering and supercharging how we think. It could also be designed to help us feel more confident about which avenues to pursue in life. Imagine, too, if it could help us make better decisions when under stress, for example, providing a chatbot-type ‘mirror’ that could be looked at periodically to reflect on how our moods are impacting our choices. We might become more self aware leading us to overcome our blind sightedness and our biases. The potential benefits for society are huge if we could only tap into this potential.

My 2025 vision is for new combinations of AI and ER tech to emerge that can engage with humans and each other in more diverse ways, pointing out new directions, and synthesizing different perspectives, leading to new insights and breakthroughs. Just imagine if we could develop AI that has some imagination itself, helping us to imagine what John Lennon imagined over 50 years ago:

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Happy New Year!

Mettle Madness

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There is an awful lot of self-help apps, TV shows, podcasts and books vying for our eyeballs that are about mindfulness, wellbeing and health. It seems it is all the rage; telling us how to eat better, how to breathe, how to keep young, how to have a good night’s sleep, how to exercise each day and even how to have clear thoughts. You can’t get away from the pervasive bombardment of advice. Only today, an ad caught my eye on the train to work with the heading, “Train your mind to be better” next to a picture of a serious looking Bear Grylls looking out into the distance. Clever play on the word ‘train’ I thought so I checked it out.

The site that was being advertised was for a company called Mettle (Bear is a co-founder) which purports “to help every man be the best version of himself.” Followed by an even more audacious claim “We believe if men are better, the world is better”. My goodness. If only that was true.

The training offered on the website has “personalised content and is naturally AI supported” with even more bold claims, including, “Fundamentally, we all just want to be happy. Mettle will give you tools to lead a more fulfilled life; from overcoming anxiety to having better sex and building stronger relationships.” Who wouldn’t sign up?

Testosterone is oozing everywhere. Physical fitness has morphed into mental fitness. Alongside Bear, are a group of fanned out men (not a woman in sight) who help with the training. They describe themselves as ‘coaches’. One even calls himself a ‘mindhack’ coach. Would I want my mind to be hacked by one of those guys? No way. But then I am not a man.

Meanwhile, plans have just been announced to transform the NHS in the UK, in the next 10 years, to become more digital, and to employ wearable tech to help people become more aware of their vitals. One plan is to give out rings, such as the Oura, that will enable people to track aspects of their health, such as steps, sleep, heart rate, activity levels, training frequency – and even measure aspects of women’s health by helping them listen to their bodies like never before! The ring apparently can accurately predict the phases of the menstrual cycle and hormone levels. Whatever next?

So it seems, men’s health is about mind hacking now while women’s health is about menstrual measuring? The mind boggles…

I think I will stick to my repertoire of hobbies I enjoy for their joy; swimming, walking, crosswords, resting, drinking fine wine, reading, laughing, and so on.

Choice Words

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The 2024 Olympic Games have taken Paris by storm. They are mesmerizing. Such a diversity of human athletics performing all manner of extraordinary feats, whether it be swimming like sharks, diving like dolphins, running like cheetahs, or jumping like kangaroos. I watched the triathlon which is an endurance multisport race consisting of swimming in the murky Seine, and then cycling through and running up and down the muggy streets of Paris. The stamina and grit of those who take part is superhuman. There isn’t an animal that matches their prowess.

Which is why when something mind-boggling happens it is truly remarkable. For a long time, during this year’s race, the favoured Brit in the men’s competition, Alex Yee, was way behind his rival, the New Zealander, Hayden Wilde. But then out of nowhere, he stepped up a gear and proceeded to race passed Hayden, with just 400 metres to go. He kept going reminding me of Forrest Gump, his momentum keeping him ahead. He then won the gold medal by a considerable distance. His rival could do nothing at that point but look on; having expended all his energy before, thinking he had it in the bag. How was this possible? How is someone able to turbo charge, like a sports car, after 2 hours of gruelling racing?

It appears on the last lap that he heard his coach poignantly say: “Anything can happen, mate.” These choice words jolted Yee into action. Usually the crowd will rally together in the hope of motivating runners with cries of “Not far now,” “You can do it”, “come on, keep going” and the like. Coaches might use arm gestures or hand signals. But this philosophical turn of phrase, which appeared seemingly out of the blue, resonated in Yee’s brain and body in a way that stock phrases might not have. It did not nudge him but empowered him to believe he could go the extra mile.

What is it about the power of language that it can motivate us to change our behaviour and even do something out of the ordinary? Peter Johnston in his book on education, called Choice Words, provides examples of words and phrases that are key to the effective orchestration of the classroom. He points out how what teachers say can have a big impact on how children learn, think and behave later on in life. Importantly, a teacher that can get a child to figure things out for themselves is the best strategy. This involves encouraging discussion by asking open-ended questions rather than simply telling children what they can and cannot do. As Jean Piaget famously once wrote, “When you teach a child something you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself.”

Yee’s coach was masterful when he spoke those four words – they were not intended to encourage him to keep going – as he was clearly way behind his rival – but to make him stop for a second, think the unimaginable, and in so doing, turn things around. They were chosen not in anger but in brilliance.


Peter Johnston (2024) Choice Words. 2nd edition. Routledge.

Super Shoes

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Kelvin Kiptum Nike shoes Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

This autumn, Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa broke the woman’s world marathon record. She took just 2 hours 11 minutes and 53 seconds – which is 2 minutes and 11 seconds less than the record set previously 4 years ago. That is a whopping amount of time she was able to shave off. Not surprisingly, it raised eyebrows. How was it possible to run so fast? Some commentators put it down to the trainers she was wearing that gave her the advantage – the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1. Not long after, the Kenyan long-distance runner Kelvin Kiptum broke the man’s world record time, wearing the latest Nike Alphafly 3 trainers (see left). So, what is it about these new kinds of super shoe that literally make an athlete run like the wind?

A big step change is the way they are made up and the materials used for this. This has enabled a new thick but lightweight structure to be built in the sole of the shoe. The way the layers of material are engineered seems to give the runners that extra spring. They also have added a stiff rod in the midsole that is made of carbon, which helps the shoe keep its shape. The Alphaflys also have a curved geometry in the sole that has been designed to propel runners forward. Taken together, they are truly a step up from previous running shoes. A marathon runner who was interviewed in an article in the Guardian on the super shoes said “on average I reckon that they are worth four minutes for a top male in a marathon.” And the proof is in the tumbling records this year.

But is it fair?

Technology has been developed for years to improve all manner of artefacts, clothing and equipment that are used in sport – including tennis racquets, cricket bats, racing cars and racing bikes. It is par of the course in sport innovation. But some ruling bodies see it as unfair and needs to be stopped in its tracks. For example, back in 2009 a new kind of high-tech super swimsuit developed by Speedo was banned by the swimming’s governing body on the grounds that it gave certain swimmers an advantage, and in so doing, was ruining the sport. The full body swimsuit was made from polyurethane which can trap air in the suit and increase buoyancy to the swimmer making it faster to swim.

The LZR Racer Suit unveiling at a press conference in New York City in February 2008. From wikipedia

Another concern is its impact on the past. Many world records from years gone by are being broken, especially those that were made by great sportsmen and women, who have since become legends. They did not have the same kind of high-tech super shoes, etc., then, so it is considered unfair to take away their crowning glories by those who have the super shoes, swimsuits, etc..

But records are there to be broken. And speed and innovation go hand in hand.

Another line of argument is that giving sportspeople these new kind of superpowers is equivalent to doping which entail taking certain kinds of drugs to improve fitness. But the big difference between doping and super tech is that the former is an internal enhancer while the later is an external aid. While both can improve speed, doping goes one step further by invisibly enhancing an athlete’s stamina which is especially important in endurance and long distance sports. The various substances, like EPO, used in doping increase the taker’s red blood cell count, enabling more oxygen to be transported around the body and to the muscles, thereby increasing stamina. No-one questions whether this should be banned because not only can they give certain athletes an unfair advantage, they can be dangerous, causing health issues. It is also difficult to see how much someone has taken and for how long so it is a very unfair playing ground.

Super shoes, on the other hand can be checked to see if they fit certain regulations. The same could potentially be true for full body swimsuits (they still remain banned from the ruling of 2009).

Ten years ago Google developed a concept shoe that could talk to the wearer to motivate them to get up and go. It was long before chatGPT had arrived. In the near future it might be the case that the super shoe could be embedded with a GenAI app so that it could talk to the runner like in the video – helping them keep going in the way trainers and spectators currently do from the sidelines. Now that would be truly super.

 

Beyond Human

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An interview with Geoff Hinton in the New York Times this week made me stop and think about where AI is heading next. The last few months have been a bit of a roller coaster since the public was given access to the various generative text and image tools, such as chatGPT, Bard, Dalle-2 and Midjourney which has resulted in millions of people trying them out. Quite remarkably, it has unleashed unprecedented levels of joy, amazement and incredulity from all walks of life at what they can do when prompted by us, humans. It has also been matched by many people worrying about how the AI tools will replace millions of jobs while turning our children into cheats, by using them to do their homework. Not since Google search and Facebook came to the fore has there been so much excited talk across the globe about what a new tech can do for society.

I have always been a glass half full person and start by looking at the benefits and opportunities of a new technology. Instead of seeing them ending up making children lazy, I see them helping them learn how to write and code. I see them empowering many others in their work – for example, enabling clinicians to see more patients by summarising and automatically composing reports from their consultations with their patients. Across the board, it is taking the drudgery out of many of our mundane knowledge-based tasks. It can also spark our imaginations to do more and differently. Writing new kinds of plays, books, scripts and so on.

But then something Geoff said in the middle of his interview made me see the future of AI from the dark side, for a change. The first worry that got me thinking was when he talked about there being ever more powerful tools that can be used by evil, malevolent and greedy people for their own ends. The so-called bad actors of the world (although personally I don’t like that term as it used to refer to people who are not very good at acting on stage but now been generalised to mean malicious rather than incompetent people). Scam porn, fake news, fake videos, fake voices, fake claims, etc. could become mainstream, being used in all sorts of unpleasant ways to extort us. Moreover, it is already starting to get messy; being more difficult to know what is real and what is fabricated. While we have all gotten used to getting email scams and more recently deepfakes we may find it more annoying, confusing and scary when they become commonplace – where videos, images and stories are made about us which are untrue but which become increasingly difficult to disprove. Our sense of reality will be turned upside down and inside out if we are not careful.

The second and perhaps more worrying concern is not knowing what the new AI tools might be used for or do, God forbid, on their own volition as they become ever more ‘intelligent’.  What happens when say, chatbots, start to learn from each other? Geoff poignantly pointed out:

“…  it’s as if you had 10,000 people and whenever one person learnt something, everybody automatically knew it. And that’s how these chatbots can know so much more than any one person.”

Yikes! It could unleash a new generation of killer robots that could easily get in the wrong human hands causing unprecedented destruction. And other unthinkable things.

I reminded myself that this has always been the case with manmade (sic) weapons  – whether it is chemical warfare, machine guns, nuclear arms, and so on. We still see terrible acts and atrocities being committed all the time. But will the new generative AI escalate man’s propensity to destroy life with the latest technological means available and make it easier and more shocking to do so?

The sensible course of action is for societies across the globe to put stops and deterrents in place. The politicians and the officials are indeed starting to discuss what to do. But is it possible or realistic for governments to make sure safeguards, regulations and policies can be developed and implemented in order to prevent or reduce AI from being used for bad? Will the exponential advances in AI mean that the goalposts keep moving making it is difficult to keep up?

Returning to my more comfortable glass half full lens, I think about how the unprecedented speed and uptake of the latest AI technological advances could enable us to make more rapid and more profound scientific and medical discoveries, such as finding cures and ways of preventing awful illnesses, such as dementia, Parkinson’s and cancer.  Could we also use them to help society detect and even prevent all manner of crimes before they happen, including terrorism, people trafficking and money laundering? And wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was possible for AI to solve the problems it creates?

The bottom line is one of balance. Is it possible that the new AI kids on the block can be put to more good use than to bad use – now the genie is out of the bottle?

 

The two inserted images were created by DALL·E

NFT Art

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A mysterious dark space in a strange shopping mall can be very luring especially when it is only lit up by LED screens in the window. On entering ‘The Circle’ –  Zurich airport’s latest retail space built to connect a green park with the airport – I unexpectedly came across one such space – a pop-up NFT Gallery, called elementum.art showing a select few digital artist’s latest works. I wandered in not knowing quite what to do or where to go. I headed to the nearest brightly lit LED screen, which happened to be the work of the artist Aaron Huey. Turns out, he is a professional photographer who goes solo into various Metaverse worlds to find the edge – where the developers have stopped creating the virtual world.

As I was pondering why make art as a NFT, I heard clip clop noises getting louder. A gallery attendant was walking towards me. She had a big-eyed smile. Even though she was real she looked like she could have walked straight out of Second Life. There was something not quite real about how she talked to me in English about the exhibition. She seemed overly keen to know more about me, and was very curious to know what had led me in to the gallery. I tried to explain to her it was just simple curiosity and that I did not know much about NFT art. She then proceeded to tell me how I could buy one of the digital artworks if I had a crypto wallet of NFTs at the ready. If only…

After about 5 minutes of explaining she then wandered off and left me fumbling with my iphone trying to focus on the QR code next to the screen showing one of Aaron’s edgy pieces. On seeing me struggling, she promptly returned, and asked if she could do it for me. I agreed and handed her my phone; with nimble fingers and knowing how to catch the light, she was able to get the camera on my phone to snap the QR code; the accompanying website revealed the price and a link to a PDF brochure. This part of the process seemed a bit old fashioned. The reason I could not get the QR code to work first was the room was so dark!

It turns out that Aaron’s pieces are priced at about $1000 each. In the blurb about the work, it points out how edges are boundaries, which can signify the end or the beginning of the unseen – all to be explored, grasped, and shared. It asks the viewer to consider how the virtual and physical worlds connect and what is real and what is unreal. All very profound. I could imagine the artist confronting these questions while spending hours venturing forth in these unknown virtual worlds in search of an edge. To record his journeys, he films and takes virtual photos of his journey either from far behind his avatar or just in front of it. The ones shown in the exhibition convey him mainly being on the edge of various graphical landscapes such as those found in Second Life, MineCraft and Roblex. He walks, flies or jumps off them. For example, this one called Leap 293 shows a blockhead image of Aaron about to jump into oblivion.

I could see how some collectors might dabble in purchasing a few of these digital artworks on speculation. But when I mentioned to the big-eyed girl the recent outrage about the Damien Hirst NFT stunt she just smiled again. Last year he launched his first ever NFT collection, called The Currency, which was made up of 10,000 NFTs, corresponding to 10,000 original pieces of his art, largely comprising his bright coloured spot paintings. People who bought one of the ‘spotties’ had the choice of either keeping it as a NFT or swapping it for the actual physical artwork. Half chose the NFT and half the actual painting. Then, this year, Hirst burnt the first 1000 of his spottie paintings that had been sold as NFTs in his gallery and livestreamed the destructive act on Instagram. Some watched with horror. He argued that he was merely “completing the transformation of these physical artworks into NFTs by burning the physical versions…” All that was left from these is the NFT code. I am not sure what the collectors thought when seeing their art literally go up in smoke. I think I would have been one to have kept a physical spottie painting.

Next, I moved onto two artists called Harry Yeff and Trung Bao. They had created a multi-media piece that you listen to on headphones. The piece I heard was of  ethereal voices singing while I watched a very colourful piece of multiple digital gems circle in front of me. Their work was generated by synthesizing a series of AI algorithms – based on a data set of anonymous real human voices that were ‘gifted to the project’. The voices sounded lovely and in harmony with the digital gems. It was very pleasing eye candy and the name ‘voice gems’ was befitting. I was tempted to buy one,  but on discovering that they were nearly 5000 Swiss francs each I was not so sure.

I was glad I had ventured into this unknown landscape as I did learn a lot more about digital crypto art having explored it in first person for the very first time. But call me old fashioned as I much prefer physical art.

Post-Pandemic Bliss

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I am on my first work trip abroad for 20 months and it is so exciting. The return to ‘in-person’ meetings after what seems like a lifetime of being on Zoom and Teams is sheer bliss for many reasons. Not least experiencing again all that we took for granted but for so long has felt  like a distant memory, like using body language, sitting round an actual table, sharing cakes, buying a colleague a coffee, having a side conversation with the person sat next to you, smiling at someone across the table, to name but a few. While I agree with many colleagues that we managed very well during the pandemic and there are some advantages to meeting online – not least you can work more efficiently and have more meetings in a day, and you don’t have to travel – I have sorely missed talking while being co-located and in-person; the conversations can meander and allow for sensitive and unexpected topics to be touched upon and explored in more nuanced ways. Also, I find it discombobulating to hop from one online meeting to the next in a matter of seconds barely any time to catch your breathe. Being 5 minutes late for a physical meeting is acceptable; being two minutes late for an online meeting and item 2 on the agenda is already under way! I like to walk between rooms where different meetings are being held to gather my thoughts and reflect on what was said, what was not said and what we might do next.

But it is more than meeting others in person. It is the travel I have also terribly missed – by whatever means of transport. Flying is a real treat. It has been very easy to feel smug about not using planes for nearly 2 years and how much reduced our carbon footprints have become. But for me travel has always been core to my job as an academic. I cannot do my job without it. So I am very happy to be able to travel again to foreign lands, sharing wisdom, ideas, and advice while listening to others. I am more than happy to travel by  slower means (i.e. by train) when it seems sensible, but sometimes it is necessary by plane when it is too far to do so. I live in hope that our engineers will build viable zero emission planes in the not too-distant future. Airbus is already on the case.

So, to Berlin it was for me this week to give a keynote followed by attending an in-person research meeting with many European partners I had not seen for eons. I arrived at the North Terminal in Gatwick on an autumnal Sunday evening. After a slick check in and a super fast security check, I walked through the labyrinth of brightly back-lit duty-free shops when my senses began to go into overdrive. Colours, sounds, logos, smells…bang, wallop, bang. Then, out into the even brighter lit terminal building, where I found myself drawn to more back-lit rainbow-colours – this time a new bar just opened with socially distanced bar stools around it. Before I knew it, I found myself perched on one of the empty stools, gazing intently at all the lovely different kinds of spirits evenly and artfully spaced in beautifully coloured bottles. I had forgotten how magical it is just to look at aesthetically pleasing and perfectly placed artefacts. I sat there for an hour nursing a drink just staring and enjoying people watching.

And then I surprised myself by asking a guy, seated at the next-but-one barstool to me, where he was flying to. He was so surprised that a stranger had spoken to him that he appeared rather startled. But then when he saw I was just being friendly he relaxed and regained his composure. We then started chatting merrily, just like in the pre-pandemic times, about this that and the other for a good period of time, before realising we needed to to head off to our respective gates. I thanked him for talking to me and he reciprocated, saying this was the first time he had spoken in person to a stranger for so long and what a joy it was. We both learnt something about each other’s life we could take away with us. I now know much more about US banks in Europe and he more about human-centred design.

The flight was over in a jiffy. After the plane had landed, my journey out of the brand-new airport (I barely noticed it as it was dark) was smooth, effortless and fast. Straight through security, no queue at the taxi rank, roads empty, and another super slick check-in at my hotel.  Hassle-free travel. My room was weirdly modern with a sofa that looked like a green vegetable on steroids. The next morning, I enjoyed the delights of an over-flowing buffet with a sculpted watermelon on show. I felt like a child in a sweet shop.

 

I gave my keynote in a small loft room to a group of seated students and faculty. To begin, I focused on 2 or 3 smiling student faces (always helps to calm the nerves) and enjoyed the occasion flexing my full body while flailing my arms. The talk was also relayed via Zoom to other students who were sat in another building (German universities have strict guidelines on the number of people allowed in the same room). It seemed to work although I could not see any of the remote audiences. One remote student asked a question at the end which I had to repeat so those in the loft so they could hear. Later in the evening at the reception, the student who had asked the question revealed herself and told me all about her PhD journey originating in Mexico, via the USA, Germany and ending up in the UK. She was full of joie de vivre.

The Twisties

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Simone Biles introduced the world to the phenomenon of “twisties” this week when she had to pull out of the Tokyo Olympics as she realized her mind and body were out of synch after she had flung herself from the vault.  At the critical moment when you need to let the body twist and turn in mid-air by its own volition, she said she could not literally tell up from down. No wonder she stopped her routine there and then.

When interviewed by the BBC News, Christina Myers, a former gymnast, said that the twisties happen “when your brain and body disconnect.” It is at that moment when you need to be at your most self-assured and certain, but instead something flips and twists out of control. Sometimes, when this happens the gymnast ends up against their body will, doing an extra twist or flip that was not intended in their repertoire, resulting in them not being able to land correctly, risking serious injury. Thank goodness Simone had the wherewithal to recognise what was happening and to quit. And how lovely, to see her humility and team spirit shine in the face of adversity – where she came straight back to cheer her team on when she must have been going through mental agony.

I love watching gymnasts perform extraordinary feats, heat after heat. The Olympics is always a treat for watching endless supermen and superwomen move, jump, swing, swivel, uncurl, sail and fly in the most spectacular ways. They are under huge pressure at pregnant moments to perform –  and manage consistently to execute their moves with what looks like perfection to us mere mortals. It is jaw-dropping, gob-smacking magic – whether swinging at full pelt on the uneven bars, the balance beam, the vault, pommel horse, still rings or other apparatus.

I can’t even imagine what it must have felt like for Simone, with the world’s expectations on her shoulders, being one the world’s greatest gymnasts, to go through a twistie. To suddenly lose her  heightened sense of space and dimension when flying through the air, doing a double flip somersault. The body needs to lead the mind knowing what to do precisely when. But when the mind intrudes the body-mind goes into overdrive. It seems on this occasion, immense pressure took its grip, resulting in Simone losing control.

Meanwhile, back in my more mundane world of academia, it has been hard to perform anywhere near how we used to. Since the pandemic started last March 2020, I have not had the pleasure of ’embodying’ my lectures, talks or seminars with movement – there has been no flailing of arms or pacing up and down the stage or the aisles. Instead, I sit stationary in front of a laptop, check how my head looks in the image of myself appearing on Zoom, say hello to whoever is out there and then start my ‘talking head’ show. I have gotten used to the format now after 18 months – it is bland and flat. There are no pre-nerves, butterflies in the stomach, or any anxious looking at smiling faces sitting in the audience, nodding back at me reassuringly. Just my slides and a few postage stamp faces popping up on the side. The audience are hidden behind their portals, with only ever a few turning their cameras on. During conference keynotes, it is even worse, with the attendees all migrating to be in another virtual space (e.g. Discord) to back channel and chat about what I am saying while watching me on YouTube.  They are also all at home, half in their own world of pets, children, delivery people calling, and a flurry of beeps and other distractions.

Instead of the twisties, I have begun to experience occasionally a case of  what I am calling ‘the disconnecties’ – where I start to notice things on the desk, like a cable, an old scrap of paper, a pen, a bit of paper with my to do list on, a sweet wrapper. Instead of  projecting myself into the minds of others I feel myself drifting back into my own physical space. I try to stem the ‘at home’ mind from taking over. But I feel discombobulated and it is unnerving. Sometimes, I wonder if the audience on the other side are also disconnected. I try to block out my home world and focus on the slide in front of me, but then against my will I slip back into home world. I am even tempted to just click on the Teams or Zoom ‘leave’ button. I try cracking a joke – that usually helps me to get back in the flow – but of course no one laughs back. Eventually, when I have finished I know I could have done better. Damn those disconnecties.

This week, however, when giving a talk to some industry folk, a disembodied voice butted in out of nowhere and asked me a question mid slide. Never happened before. It completely threw me. Luckily, I knew the person so could picture them in my mind and try to compose an answer and shift gear. Then it happened a few more times throughout. Afterwards, it made me think perhaps we need a bit more of that – makes for a more spontaneous and natural presentation. My mind went into overdrive, and I changed what I had planned to say. It almost broke the 4th wall – so to speak. And it kept me on my toes rather than letting my mind do gymnastics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chloe Robbins performing a vault

Drone Delivery

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Amazon have been trialling drone delivery of parcels to people living in remote and suburban towns for a while now. Since then, flying deliveries have literally taken off. Only last month, a rival start-up company in Ireland, Manna, took it one step further. They have developed a fleet of drones that are pretty nippy, flying at 80km/h and delivering goods in less than 3 minutes within a 3km radius of take off. That is really impressive. 

At first, the dropping of goods in this way was limited to medicines where there is a need for urgency. Now, it seems all manner of groceries are being dropped, from coffee to melons. People can order something on their phone and within minutes a parcel is released and lowered on a dangling piece of string in front of the person’s house. How novel is that – having a cool glass of wine or a cup of coffee suddenly appear in this way – as if it was out of a sci-fi movie. Look up to the sky and see hundreds of buzzing drones circling, descending and releasing parcels in the air. 

Speaking of which, a new report released by the Pentagon provides further evidence that UFOs are for real. The US military has documented meticulously an increase in unidentified flying objects sighted moving around in the sky.  At first, one might think there is a coincidence – an increase in drones dropping objects might be what is being mistaken for as UFOs. But the video clips and photos they have released pre-date drones. They look like supersonic bats or lit up jellyfish in grainy skies. For many, it is the ultimate fantasy to imagine actual aliens landing on earth coming from these mysterious flying objects. However, no one has caught on camera any sighting of them lurking around Wandsworth or such like. Sadly, it seems there is still no real evidence. Just glimpses of what might be. Part of the problem is us earthlings don’t have the means to capture them or catch up with them, as they zip passed our planet at lightning speed. As noted by the former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe, “Movements that are hard to replicate, that we don’t have the technology for or are travelling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom. “

Meanwhile I am looking forward to my first G&T dropping slowly from the sky…

Funny Money

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One of my friends told me he still had cash in his wallet that he had withdrawn from an ATM a year ago! He works in the city and usually spends it on coffee, snacks, drinks, etc., when out and about. But since the pandemic he has been working from home and only shops online using his debit/credit cards. Many of us have followed suit, resulting in a dramatic reduction in cash withdrawals. Quite a few shops also started refusing to take cash – for fear of spreading COVID-19 on the banknotes – although this has since scientically been proven to have a very minimal risk.

Meanwhile, in the digital transactional world, we have seen the meteoric rise of bitcoins. Images of bitcoins depict them as being shiny but do they actually exist as physical coins? Yes they do, like those in the image, but they are not worth anything unless they have a private key that is hidden under a hologram on the back of the coin. Without that number it is worthless. And if tampered with bitcoins becomes invalid. 

The real deal is stored as bits on computer servers. You never really get your hands on them. Instead they are stored on a ledger and metaphorically in a wallet which has its own unique password. And if you lose your password, you are doomed  – as Stefan Thomas discovered after he could not remember his one to unlock his stash of bitcoins he got for doing some work for someone. Once he realised how much they were worth  – something in the order of $200 million (at the time he received them they were worth very little) – he decided it was time to act. The mind boggles at how absurd life has become when it comes to making money in this way and losing it again so easily.

The password that was too cryptic for its own good.

I had to read several articles to understand how bitcoins work and how they differ from pound coins. To help the uninitiated like me, there is now a proliferation of beginner’s guides available, such as ‘Bitcoins for Dummies’, cartoons and online tutorials. I get it now, but it seems a strange way to make money by solving hard mathematical problems using masses of computer power and that the money is just bits on a computer.

And then came along ‘non-fungible tokens’ to add further bafflement.  When I first heard the term, images of mushrooms going mouldy entered my mind. It turns out that fungibility refers to “an asset’s ability to be exchanged with a similar asset without sacrificing its value”. Or put another way: when you borrow a £20 note from someone and  pay them them back with two £10 notes it is the same value but through using a different entity. That is it is fungible. Non-fungible, on the other hand, means the entity has to be the same – in this case the digital token. Just like a Van Gough, it is unique. If I was able to borrow a Van Gough painting I could not give back a copy of it. It would have to be the one I borrowed.

It is not surprising, therefore, to see the rich and the rash start to cash in on a new craze; to be the first to buy something that is valued in non-fungible tokens or NFTs. (To make it sound more credible the funny term has now been replaced by  the acronym NFT). Headlines were made when some artist sold a digital artwork they had made (no one had heard of before) for $6 million worth of NFTs. That is up their for a first with a very physical graffiti Banksy number. Desirable to own, and then highly profitable to resell. It reeks of hubris. Perhaps the most preposterous of all was Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, selling his first ever tweet for $2.9 million in NFTs. The mind boggles even more! But Jack’s conscience is clear because he said he will convert the NFTs he got into Bitcoins which he will then donate to charity.

Maybe I could sell my first ever blog  this way? We could all get in on the act. Part of the lure of NFTs is the uniqueness of the ‘asset’ or artwork they are exchanged for. Once bought in NFTs, it becomes a collector’s item that can’t be duplicated. That makes it one of a kind and by default, rare, and what investors are drawn to. They can then sell it on later for many more NFTs and make a huge profit. The catch is they can’t just put the money in the bank. They have to first convert the NFTs into Bitcoins, and then work out how and who will convert those into real money. But that, it seems, is part of the fun of rollercoaster funny money.

Step Challenge

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There are a myriad of apps available now that are designed to get you to take part and sustain interest in some form of physical exercise – be it walking, running, cycling, yoga, swimming or other.  Many have been around for a few years now and have had considerable success in motivating the masses. At the start of the New Year I succumbed to one, called Hadrian’s Wall Virtual Challenge, that caught my eye as it flashed through my Instagram feed, and before I knew it, I had signed up. I have been quite debilitated for the last few months, having been diagnosed with sciatica and some damaged discs in my back  – in part due to sitting badly, for months of hours on end in front of Zoom meetings. I am slowly on the mend and in need of an incentive and encouragement to get doing some exercise again. The Conquest challenges you to walk the 90 mile length of Hadrian’s Wall not literally but where you happen to be. I have always wanted to do that walk in the real, but with lockdown and bad back, it remains for the time being a pipe dream. So why not do it virtually? You walk the steps wherever you are and they get added to your total count. Simple idea but clever.

The app has been around for a few years now and has so many endorsements from people who have taken up the various challenges, it had to have been designed well. Indeed, it has the right wow factor, and good use of behavioural  change mechanisms in place; rewards when you reach certain stages; compelling and simple visual feedback on a map that charts your progress against others; employs a social good factor; has some personalisation, and promotes peer support. The interface is also intuitive to use although the navigation is a bit fiddly at times. It also automatically downloads your steps (once you work it out, so even walking round the house adds to your total). You find yourself of an evening looking to see where you are on the virtual map and how far you have gone that day and how far to the next stage. It is quite compelling.

I asked a couple of my friends to join me on the Conquest and we paid our dues and got set up and set off. We created our own community so only our icons appeared on the route on the virtual map. There are thousands of people from all over the world doing any one of the challenges each day so you don’t want to be crowded out by lots of stranger icons. I uploaded an orange cagoule-hooded image of myself and it magically appeared on the map.

I set myself 12 weeks to complete the walk – having only just begun to walk again. My friends popped up soon on the route just behind me (you can see one of them on the screen shot). Then they got neck and neck. Two days later they were both racing ahead, fighting it out to the end, with me lagging behind. It was a bit of healthy competitiveness, pushing all of us to exercise that bit more each day. I came third but well within the time I set. By the end I was averaging 6-7,000 steps a day – which for me was a major achievement.

During the Challenge we received various messages charting our achievements. We also each planted 4 trees along the way as part of the Eden Project – that gives you a feel good factor. The strangest part of these ‘add-ons’ was every now and again being sent a virtual postcard, handwritten by yourself to yourself, about what you had seen and learnt. It reminded me of when I was a young child I wrote to myself a postcard from the Victory ship my family were visiting on a day trip to Southhampton. I did not know what to say to myself other than something inane ending up with ‘wish you were here’.  There is something weird about writing to your other self. And my handwriting was dreadful then – at least it has improved since then.

 

After completing the Hadrian’s Wall,  we hastily joined another virtual challenge to keep us going. This time we decided to climb Mount Everest. However, it did not feel right as it only counted your steps and not the height of your steps. Pity, as we would have had to have all been running furiously upstairs for the next few months to reach the lofty height of 8,849 m rather than the 39.9 miles we clocked.

I was surprised by how much I have enjoyed the Conquests. Not least, keeping in touch with some friends in a lighthearted and lightweight, but competitive way – while personally upping my game and helping me to get fit again. When you complete each one you have the option of being sent, in the post, a chunky physical medal with a fat ribbon to wear round your neck. The girl below is showing hers off on Facebook, having just completed the Land’s End Challenge, which is a whopping 1,743 km. No wonder she has such a big smile. I wonder what our next Conquest will be?

 

Managing Uncertainty

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 Last week I went to my local swimming baths for my pre-booked slot alongside about 25 others. On the stroke of 12.00 p.m. we walked at a distance from each other to the poolside already in our swimming togs. We stripped off our outerwear clothing at the poolside down to our swimwear – each at a physically distanced plastic chair. We then showered at alternative showers before slipping into one of the demarcated lanes.

It was strange to see strangers stripped down to their bathers with no masks on. After a couple of lengths, I rediscovered the small pleasure of smiling at one or two of them in that old-fashioned way of acknowledging each other, having seen each other before at the same end. One spoke a few words to me which I replied to about how warm the water was, while facing me bearing their face, lips, mouth, cheeks and eyes. It felt so natural to have our smiles reciprocated followed by making an inane comment or two. Even the over-powering garlic breath, emanating from another chap reminded me of how deprived we have been of ordinariness. To be made aware again of each other while stood in chlorinated Hockney-esque water felt strangely liberating. Almost in touch. But sadly, my newly discovered pool times came to an abrupt halt. With the COVID virus starting to mutate and now spreading like wildfire through the UK, the government has decided to close down all leisure facilities in our neck of the woods.

It also put an end to millions of people’s much looked-forward-to plans for the Christmas Period. In their place, a cocktail of anxiety, confusion and uncertainty had returned. Can we, should we, is it OK if we… bend the rules a little? What if and when will it end? When will we be able to meet up again normally with family, friends and strangers? When will be able to book a holiday, a cruise, hold a big birthday party, a large wedding or other social gathering, that is not restricted by numbers, wearing masks and social distancing? And so on and so on. Everything is up in the air once more; some people resigned and other’s pulling their hair out with worry, wasted effort and disappointment.

Many of us like to be in control of our lives, planning weeks, months and even years ahead, whether it is the next career move, a personal life choice, e.g., getting married, having a family, taking a gap year, what university to go to, when to retire and what to do afterwards. We often spend hours researching, reading up and asking others for advice to help us make the right decision. And then bang! Along came COVID early this year that threw a mighty spanner in the works, for us all. A big effect has been massive uncertainty worldwide – even with the vaccine in our midst now being offered to the first lucky ones.

New uncertainties have come forth. When will I get the vaccine? Is it safe? Will it work? When can I travel unmasked, shake someone’s hand, and hug a colleague again? When will we be able to experience being in a crowd again, like attending a live concert, wandering through a packed shopping mall, or feeling crushed on a university campus during a normal termtime where there are tens of thousands of students and staff thronging through a labyrinth of corridors and courtyards? We simply don’t know….and for many managing this level of uncertainty can be all too much.

To help we can take recourse to the numerous self-help books and blogs around about dealing with uncertainty – including Christine Carter’s (2020) seven tips. Many of these seem sensible and common-sense, such as accepting the situation rather than fighting it, looking after yourself (e.g. getting enough sleep, eating healthy), and giving yourself the odd treat when feeling down. One that struck me, however, as being out of the ordinary was her advice to switch perspective at various times throughout the day. Instead of imagining a frightening and unknown future that we cannot fix or even predict the likely outcomes, she suggests we should “bring our attention to our breath”.

That phrase took me by surprise. What I think she means is: we should try to increase our self-awareness at inconsequential moments, such as asking ourselves, “how are you doing right now?” every time we wash our hands or wait for the kettle to boil. But supposing the answer turns out to be bored, tired, frustrated, listless, etc., then what? Her follow through is: “attending to what is happening within us at any given moment keeps a crappy external reality from determining our inner truth”. That sounds intriguing: turning in on ourselves to block out the depressing news around us. However, I am not sure such a strategy will enable us to feel better about ourselves. Will it make us calmer, more open-minded and less reactive? It might make us worse. I’ll give it a go but, personally, a walk by the sea or laughing my head off listening to a good podcast on my iPhone keeps the bogeymen away.

The other thing I have learned during COVID, is not to get my hopes up any more about us going back to normal any time soon – meaning not to plan anything ambitious in the foreseeable future. A weekly visit to the supermarket is the limit now. I’ll only allow myself to dream again once I know I am definitely booked in for a jab. That seems like it will be a while. Then I will plan a holiday, a work trip and even a city weekend break, reimagining the familiarity of strangers, from bustling queues and being squeezed into planes, trains, pubs, bars, shopping malls, hotel foyers, waiting rooms, reception areas, etc. and being able to smile and sometimes laugh at the person/s next to me without a mask on. In the meantime, it is back to a life of endless zoom meetings among familiar faces. Speaking of which…

Remote Sport

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Football has started again in Germany played in front of empty stadiums. It must be so weird for the teams to play without the roar of the crowd cheering them on. Normally, the chanting, banter and singing can lift and energise players to new levels. Now with the social distancing rules in place, when they score a goal there are no physical celebrations or embracing of other players. Instead, a punch in mid-air or a tap on the elbow. Not quite the same sense of euphoria or release.  The lack of atmosphere means there is no home advantage. Many players  approach the game more like a practice one. Show-boating and waving at the crowds also gone. It is no longer the beautiful game.

Same is true for other spectator sports and the Arts, from horse racing to concert-players. No audience physically present and no atmosphere to speak of. How can the performers find other ways to reach out to their fans and the fans connect back with them? Some venues have been thinking about how to bring real people back in their own car bubbles. A number of drive-in outdoor events are being experimented with. The Danish football side FC Midtylland, for example, plan to set up two massive screens in their large car park – that has 1000s of spaces – so that fans can rock up into a socially distanced space and tune into the commentary through their car radio. Instead of drive-in cinema it is drive-in footie. Maybe it will raise the noise level, as they hoot their horns when a goal is scored, but will it create the desired atmosphere for fans and players, alike? The football club have thought about this, too, and will show live footage of the fans parked up cheering in their cars from the car park inside the venue so at least the players can ‘see’ and ‘hear’ the crowd – albeit in their cars.

It might work – certainly better than the cardboard cut-out solution that some stadiums are using with canned cheering and crowd noises being emitted from loud speakers. I wonder how the graphic designer chose which people to use and how to place them at this match – to be representative of the fan base but also a chance for loyal season ticket holders to send in their choice of image to adorn their designated seat. Other plans are afoot for socially distanced drive-in raves and concerts. The mind boggles at the thought of 1000s of cars bouncing up and down as the owners ‘body’ dance while sat in their car seats.

All of these attempts to create some kind of connection, however, are a far cry from the real thing. Maybe, they will become the new normal for a while and morph into something that is still socially distanced but more socially connected. For example, they could evolve into a form of tailgating parties that are so central to US football culture – where fans rock up hours before the game to drink beer and cook on barbecues in car parks and open spaces near the stadiums. However, switching to drive-ins requires turning our cars into entertainment hubs – which obviously SUVs, 4x4s and pick-up trucks are best suited for. Trouble is society is trying to wean people off these gas guzzlers and get them to switch to compact electric cars. Seems counter-productive to saving the planet. There is also the problem that most cities don’t have the parking lots or spaces to support large-scale drive-ins. And then there is the added problem of managing toilet facilities but maybe someone will invent a portable toilet that disinfects itself after each use.

The strangest of drive-ins that have appeared are ‘drive-thru’ churches that pop up and where an outdoor mass is literally held in the carpark. It looks a sorry sight – no communal sharing of the bread and wine. Just the lone preacher necking the wine down himself while talking to a bunch of dark-windowed SUVs. That might be taking the biscuit somewhat.

Another way of connecting fans with players is to keep it digital. Streaming video games have been around for a while, where millions of spectators around the world watch top ‘streamers’ perform. They are provided with all sorts of extras that enables the fans to discover more about the player – not least their emotions and fluctuating heart rate and skin conductance at different stages of the game. This additional layer of data has been found to enhance the spectator experience and improve the connection between the streamer and spectators. But then we would return to being couch potatoes. Personally, I can’t wait to be part of a physical audience again, be it at a football ground, an outdoor venue or a theatre.

          Thanks to Daria Lisotsova on unsplash.com

Remote Nurturing

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Many of my friends have taken to gardening during lockdown, making raised beds and planting whatever seeds they can get their hands on. Just like the craze for baking and bread-making, there is now one for growing your own food. The other day, my neighbour, Julie, proudly listed the latest seeds she has pricked and planted in our new communal street garden, including peas, potatoes, runner beans, borlotti beans, spinach, garlic, carrots and beetroot. We can all take it in turns to go and help nurture them, weeding, watering or adding more plants, although one neighbour is definitely the head gardener.

It got me thinking how could we could capitalize on these enterprising green finger efforts to make them even more of a shared event, where potentially hundreds or thousands of people could take part to grow one mega veggie patch or a series of connected gardens. Wouldn’t it be amazing if those who don’t have a garden could feel as connected to the earth as those who have actual gardens? As I wondered about this possibility, I was reminded of a project from many years ago when the internet was just getting off the ground called Telegarden. Anyone could log on to the site where you could watch a circular garden with a robot arm. You could also sign up to control the robot who would plant flowers and then water them. It was created by artists Ken Goldberg and Joseph Santarromana from California. It was kept alive for 9 years and during that time 10,000’s people connected. It was a fusion of tech and nature. The idea that a physical garden could be operated by users online was considered by the artists as being “the most absurd”. Now, in lockdown it does not seem quite as absurd.

How about we try to recreate a more up-to-date version of Telegarden (call it Lockdown Garden) in empty school yards, university campuses, national parks, meadows, or even on the land that people own but don’t have a use for. School children, grandparents, single people, young and old people, bored people, well anyone really, could log on, pay a small fee and select from a catalogue of fruit and veg seeds to grow. Drones and automated robots could work in tandem nurturing the garden, weeding and picking the veggies, that could then be donated to people in need. Our favourite TV gardening presenters, like Carol Klein and Monty Don in the UK, could judge the best kept Lockdown gardens and the most crazy, beautiful, bountiful and so on. And of course there could be disasters filmed by the drones that could keep the viewers and growers hooked, like the robots overwatering, marrows growing to be the size of a small car, and robots refusing to cooperate. Perhaps I am getting a bit carried away here but it would be a fun challenge for all those makers and engineering students who are now at a loose end.

Remote Places

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Last week, everyone was experimenting with backdrops for their Teams, Zoom or GoTo meetings – I have seen the Northern Lights, New York, beach resorts, outer space, and various exotic places. Quite a contrast from the mundane, domestic kitchens and make-shift home workplaces we have become accustomed to peering into. One of my PhD students, chose Hawaii for his backdrop (see above), and at one point during the meeting it looked like he was surfing as he moved his head back and forth against the palm-tree foregrounded sunset beach. The illusion is created because the backdrop does funny things with your own image when you move your head – your hair starts to look like it is moving with the wind.

It made a light-hearted change to the start and end of our meetings, talking about the funny effects. The reason my student chose the Waikiki beach backdrop was that a group of us were meant to be flying to our annual CHI conference – which was to be held in Hawaii. Normally, 3000-4000 rock up, from all corners of the globe, for a week each year at this time (last year it was held in rainy Glasgow) to network, learn and talk about our current research for a diversity of areas concerned with the design and use of tech. But like many other large events involving travel it was cancelled due to Coronavirus. For many of my students this was a huge disappointment as it was to be their first time going – but they put on brave faces. Next week, instead of using backdrops, we plan to get dressed up in Hawaii Hula clothing and leis. Well maybe. Anything to lighten the mood.

Many of us are getting the lockdown blues now, feeling restless and bored. As the weeks of lockdown drag on the need to look forward becomes ever more pressing. Some people are rebooking their cancelled holidays for next year, giving them at least something to plan for. The papers are full of ads now for big ticket holidays and cruises – costing £1000s for a holiday of a lifetime. The images of ancient sites, rain forests, glistening beaches and city skylines are very alluring but seem all the more remote. One can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to enter a busy airport, let alone cram onto a plane with hundreds of other passengers for countless hours. How are we going to keep our distance if we are sat in a window seat and need to go to the toilet?

Many of my us are craving the embodied contact that comes with physically being with others. While we persevere with our remote meetings each day, trying to make the most of the impoverished bandwidth and the strangeness of seeing someone but not being with them, we are all getting tired of it. We are at that stage now wondering what our country will provide by way of a lockdown exit strategy. Some countries are further ahead and have already started taking baby steps. Singapore, China, Korea, Germany, Finland, Australia and the Czech Republic have begun to reopen schools, shops, gyms and other businesses.  In the UK, however, we continue to wait. Boris returning to number 10 soon will buy him more time – as our daily morbidity level continues to remain relatively high.

But whether and what it might mean to return to the ‘old’ normal is anyone’s guess – it could take months, possibly years. I looked at some photos today of Spanish children being allowed outside for the first time in two months – whizzing around on their bikes, roller skating with their arms flailing or simply just running around. The sense of joy and freedom on their faces was palpable. It gave me hope that it might not take that long.

Meanwhile, our governments continue to thrash it out with their scientific advisors. All sorts of factors have to be weighed up against each other, including wellbeing, unemployment, numbers of daily cases, relative change in daily deaths, availability of hospital places, medical staff available, who to safeguard, the likelihood of unrest, rebellion or uprising, and so on. The fear of relaxing too quickly and too soon is that it could result in a second spike, just as bad or if not worse than the first, meaning we would all have to go back to lockdown again. Keeping people cooped up for too much longer, however, is likely to have devastating and long-lasting effects; not least, a huge increase in mental health issues, economic disaster for many businesses, and many unknowns.

For those of us who see the glass half full, we continue to dream of returning to familiar but now remote places soon: re-imagining what it is like to experience the real thing rather than the digital substitute. To drink a proper cocktail rather than meet at cocktail ‘o’ clock, to go to a live concert rather than a livestreamed one, to go to a real football match and throng with the crowds rather than watch classic games on the TV, or simply to be able to walk into a coffee shop, enjoy waiting in line (not at a distance), having a banter with the other customers, and then take from the hands of the barista, a perfectly made frothy coffee with an emoji heart on the top.

Remote Tracking

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It is great to see the tech companies coming together to do their bit to help curb coronavirus. Apple and Google have been collaborating on a tracking platform that could help governments worldwide monitor, track and manage the pandemic more effectively. Their proposed system works by using Bluetooth and encryption keys, that enable data to be collected from phones that have been in close proximity with each other. From this data, it can be inferred who else, phone owners have been close to, for a set period of time (e.g. the quarantine period of 14 days). Users can also alert health authorities if they have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and conversely, the system can text them if they have detected that their phone, and indirectly themselves, have been in close contact with someone who has been diagnosed with the virus. The term coined for this new form of remote tracking is ‘contact tracing’ as illustrated by Apple and Google’s graphic:

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Remote Numbers

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The day before the coronavirus lockdown started in the UK, I had a smart meter fitted in my house. After the engineer had finished, he walked me through all the various functions shown on the digital display; a dashboard of numbers provides all sorts of stats and data about how much electricity and gas you are using and how much they cost per hour, alongside an easy to read traffic light barometer that moves into red bars (see above) if you are using a lot of energy (e.g when boiling a kettle) while rewarding you with green bars when you are being energy efficient. The idea is that you use the various number and bars to change your behaviour and in doing so reduce your energy usage and save money.

I looked at the display a few times but did nothing to change my behaviour to be more energy efficient. Quite the opposite in fact; I started using more electricity and gas, making more cups of tea, cooking more meals, spending more hours in front of my laptop, TV and doing more washing – as a result of being stuck at home 24/7 now. Best place for the display was to hide it in a drawer.

Meanwhile, like everyone else I have been gripped by numbers that are being delivered each day about coronavirus – but uncomfortably so. The number of new cases and the number of new deaths are on the rise each day. At first 2-3 people dying was considered shocking. Now we are up to nearly a 1000 a day in the UK. It is no longer shocking but expected. We have all become engrossed by the graphs the scientists generate each day to help the lay person understand what the numbers mean with respect to where we are in the quest to flatten the curve’. They project how steep the curve is each day relative to day zero. The colour coded ones show where the UK is relative to other countries we might care about. I catch myself comparing how we are doing against the US or Italy – thinking we are better off or not doing as bad. Why are we being shown this as if it was a competition? To make us feel better? Comparative graphs are a mechanism that is commonly used in behavioural change; known as social norms. By seeing how well you are doing relative to others (it could be a peer, a family, a neighbouring city or a country) you can feel good if you are below the others or worry if you are above – as it indicates loud and clear you are using more or spending more (conversely, if it is exercise, the reverse is true).

There are more and more of these visualizations appearing now, such as Sky’s: “Coronavirus: How many people have died in your area? COVID-19 deaths in England mapped”. Those who live in remote areas, like Suffolk can sigh a big relief that there are no big blobs near them. Those who live in London or other densely populated areas will notice  big blobs splatted over where they live. No wonder so many Londoners flocked to the countryside when they could. That is, before those who live there told them where to go.

For the most part there is little we can do other than worry when looking at these comparative coronavirus graphs. They are fodder, too, for the media and politicians. For example the headline on one news website: “Singapore Wins Praise For Its COVID-19 Strategy. The U.S. Does Not”

Today’s headline on CNN’s website was more in tune with the way science happens; through competing predictions and hypotheses: “New US model predicts much higher Covid-19 death toll in UK. But British Scientists are Skeptical.” The US team predict nearly 70,000 will die in the UK. The British scientists, on the other hand, predicted only 20,000-30,000 would die in the UK, based on their brand of mathematical modeling. Who do we believe?

One of the UK scientists involved, who has become a household name, is Professor Neil Ferguson from Imperial College. The UK government has increasingly relied not only on his team’s modelling prowess but also on their wisdom to decide on its next response strategy during the pandemic. It is an unenviable position to be in, as we scientists are not renowned for having the superpowers necessary to enable us to see into the future. Who knows what people will do and what will become of us when making such hugely impactful choices on how to manage the pandemic.

It goes without saying that mathematical models need lots of data in order to make accurate predictions. When predicting the weather, a tsunami or an earthquake millions of data points  are used. The current pandemic, however, in comparison, has relatively few data points that can be used.

It would be hubris not to remember the failure of Google’s Flu Trends program, a few years back, when it’s developers claimed, based on analyzing people’s search terms for flu, they could produce accurate estimates of flu prevalence two weeks earlier than official data. Sadly, it failed to do this for the peak of the 2013 flu season. Then, they had access to big data – masses of it. The current modelers only have access to small data – very little of it. Let’s hope all the lockdown restrictions imposed on society at large, that have been put in place in nearly every country in an attempt to stem the rise in the pandemic, based on current predictions and remote numbers, fares better. We can but hope.

Remote Working

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It has been a full-on week of remote working since the university instructed us last week to do so because of the escalation of coronavirus. It feels like I have had more videoconferencing meetings than hot dinners! One moment it is Skype, the next Teams and then Zoom – many have been back-to-back. Even though it is great that we can keep in touch in this virtual way, it is frankly exhausting – but in a different way from my usual tiring day at work. While my twice daily train commute often takes its toll at the end of the day, sat being glued to a screen for hours on end, talking to virtual colleagues and students, elevates fatigue to a new dimension. It is not a physical exhaustion but more enervating, like how one can feel after a long Sunday, when you have indulged in too much binge-watching.

Part of the new tiredness also stems from having quite different kinds of meetings than usual; having to deal with so many updates and breaking news each day, on what has been planned, decided, revealed and mandated by government, country, university or at the departmental level. Right now, there is an awful lot of ‘cascading’ interspersed with checking up and reassuring each other. There seems to be much less ‘actual’ work’; but one hopes this will return once routines begin to settle into place.

Then out of the blue you might get an email from one of your colleagues letting you know they are not feeling well and have begun self-isolating. It is quite anxiety-inducing, worrying if they have got the lurgy. I have heard now from quite a few people that they have developed flu-like symptoms and are self isolating; some seem more serious than others. It is all a bit discombobulating, and russian roulette-like. You can but hope they will be better the next day.

To welcome each day, I have started walking on the beach early in the morning with a couple of my neighbours. It is invigorating, filling the lungs with fresh sea air and watching life at a distance. We even see a group of women each day, braving the waves in their wetsuits for a bracing swim. But who knows how long we can carry on doing this before a lockdown is imposed – as has been the case in Spain and Italy.

Today it was raining and so we put our umbrellas up; making it easier for us to ‘social distance’. At one point we entered a shop, and while waiting in line, other customers came in and stood a metre apart from us and each other – abiding by the government’s guidance. It felt a little strange and silly as we skirted around the small place. But even though it seemed unnatural it felt prudent.

Later in the morning, when I peered out of my study window that looks onto a primary school playground, I saw many 5-6 years old children playing together during their break time as if they did not have a care in the world (as it happens it was probably for the last time as UK schools begin to close). For them the concept of social distancing must seem alien. As for taking part in social isolation, it must seem even stranger, as to why they can’t go out to play but instead have to stay indoors for a week or two without physical contact with their grandparents or playmates.

This new world order brings out the best and worst in people. There are so many acts of kindness being reported it makes you feel warm and fuzzy, realizing that, as human beings, we like to look out for each other. However, the flipside is just how many people are looking out for themselves. Many can’t resist the temptation to stock up on tins, bread, toilet paper and other staples. Panic buying maybe, but it gives them something to do and makes them feel safe. I found myself today, after failing to find any cereal left on the shelves, wondering if I should buy the last remaining cereal bar that I spotted. I would never normally buy such a thing let alone eat one. It is not easy to restrain oneself when irrational fears enter our psyche. As it turned out, one of my neighbours came to the rescue and brought round a tasty loaf of bread.

As we have all started to sign off our emails with: ‘Stay safe’.

Surveillance Madness

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safebytes.com/use-computers-webcam-surveillance-camera-free/

Recently, I read a newspaper article about a family who were having dinner in a restaurant when they all received an alert on their phones saying that someone had activated their home security system. They clicked on the app and watched in horror as they saw grainy infra-red images of masked burglars breaking their front door down. Their immediate reaction was to call the police. But before the police arrived the burglars had long gone, taking many of the family’s valuables with them.

The experience of witnessing a break-in at your own home by watching it remotely on your smartphone must be surreal. You must need to do several double takes. Apparently, according to other news reports, this new kind of surveillance experience has happened many times in the last couple of years. One woman, who it happened to in Kansas, exclaimed, “It’s nerve-wracking. Kind of makes you sick to your stomach.”

Why would anyone want to put themselves through their own home horror movie? Apparently, large numbers of people are buying these IoT home security systems now, as they become more affordable and the marketing blurb ever more reassuring. Lots of people have a CCTV camera set up next to their front door so they can be alerted while away and then watch who comes by. Many, too, have an array of sensors fitted on their windows to catch someone out if they try to intrude that way.

Sadly, the plain truth is that most burglars don’t appear to give a monkeys about the latest trend in DIY home security systems. They wear masks that make them unrecognisable on camera and they know how to get in and what to look for and where to find it in minutes. Given this is the case, why would anyone want to watch on helplessly and in a state of terror, knowing they can’t do anything to stop the criminals? Seems like torture rather than a reassuring deterrent.

Not only are we increasingly setting up cameras to watch who walks up to our front doors but we are also now using ever more child tracking software. There are countless apps available that aim to reassure anxious parents where there kids are at any time by tracking their phones using GPS in real time. One boldly calls itself Life360. Parents can be sent a barrage of buzzes to their phone or smartwatch as to their whereabouts – when their child reaches school, when they are playing in the park or even when they are just about to walk in the front door at the end of the day. The children can also be ‘geo-fenced’ where boundaries are set where they live that they must not cross. If they do, then the parents are immediately alerted. The upside of this helicoptoring is it can be nice for the child to know someone is looking over them; as one mum explained about her son, “so when he gets to the end of the road on his way home, I can just go and open the front door, so he doesn’t have to get his key out.” Yikes, what will happen when the child leaves home for good?

The apps can do more that show a child’s whereabouts. They can capture the child’s phone usage, letting you read their text messages and social media posts. As sagely written by Tanith Carey in an article in the Telegraph newspaper, “do they provide the reassurance they claim? Or are they creating a generation of parents who find it hard to cut the apron strings?” And therein lies the rub.

Plastic Robots

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Six months ago, I was all in favour of the arrival of interactive androgynous robots in public places, like shopping malls and airports, that had the potential to be equally appealing and entertaining to kids of all ages and gender. Now I am not so sure. When departing from San Jose airport the other day, I came across a new breed of plastic robots that provide public services for travellers and their young children. The first one I encountered was a weird looking robot-guide, about adult-sized, who looked less robot-like and more digital display-like with a ‘blockhead’ stuck on top.  I approached it out of curiosity, then started pressing icons on the display to get directions to a coffee shop. While interacting with it, its encased head appeared to move while its eyes blinked at me. Not creepy but over the top silliness: a strange way to mix technology. Three of these so called greeters, named Norma, Piper and Amelia, have been at San Jose for over six months! They were developed by a Korean company and cost $120,000 each. That might explain their design but this is Silicon Valley.

Then a hundred meters away, I noticed a play area where two more plastic robots stood motionless amongst a bunch of other more colorful, conventional toys, such as a truck, balls, soft dolls, a desk and chair, crayons and the like. When a mother stopped to look, the human assistant in the play area invited her to place her toddler into the play pen. She then  switched on the robots to make them come alive with the goal of attracting the child towards them. Their tummy displays lit up and they made some sounds. One started moving its clunky arms towards the toddler, as if beckoning it to come closer. The child glanced momentarily at it but then turned to play with the truck on the ground that it was near to. They seemed far too big and ungamely for toddler interest. Compared with the toys that come alive in the Toy Story movie, the robots did not become animated when switched on but stood strangely, inanimate and cold-looking. And their white plastic bodies looked most unappealing. Neither robot had mouths but just big inset eyes. One of the robots had been dressed in a little frilly, red tutu-thingy. It looked most bizarre. The mix of cloth, plastic and digital display materials did not work at all together in this context. And why leave the other one ‘naked’? Most people walked straight passed the play area without so much as a glance. But one couple that did stop (they seemed to know the human assistant already) placed their toddler in the smaller pen next to the robot area. The toddler started to play with some Disney-character, oversized, but more ‘normal’ looking dolls. During this interaction, none of the assembled humans took a blind bit of notice of the robots.

I walked closer to the play area to read the marketing banner that was promoting the new child-friendly robot. “I am cute, I am cool, I am capable” it proudly acclaimed. We have a long way to go before robots start to get  anywhere near being any of these – let alone useful, attractive or desirable – at least in these settings.

Alarming Alert

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When I lived in the mid-west in the US, I used to go swimming in the Olympic-sized outdoors pool at the University I was working at. One afternoon, I jumped in and started doing my strokes when I noticed people around me stopping and getting out. I did not think anything of it and carried on swimming until I got to the end of my lane. I then looked up and saw an official waving his arms furiously at me. My ears became attuned to a large shrill siren sounding. He shouted manically at me, “Tornado warning! Get out now!” I looked around and noticed by then everyone else had left the pool. I apologised saying I was from the UK and had not known what the sound meant. I quickly got out and ran to the changing room, where most people were hurriedly collecting their stuff and leaving.  I got changed and drove home, against the backdrop of blaring wailing sirens all around me and the car radio repeatedly telling me to go indoors, or if not possible, to hide in a ditch or under a bridge. I’d never been through this perpetual warning scare before. It felt terrifying. When I got back to an empty house (my then partner was elsewhere at the time), I put on the TV and hid in the utility room in the middle of the house. It felt silly standing there not knowing what to do, but also scary imagining the house being swept away in the path of the tornado. After a couple of hours, the siren warnings went away and I came back out into the living room, relieved after having been so tense for so long about what might have happened.

I can only imagine the panic and fear the residents of Hawaii went through yesterday on receiving a text message telling them to seek immediate shelter from a ballistic missile threat. Most probably thought initially it was a test drill but then realized from the message that it was for real. I think If I had been in their situation I would have gone ballistic with only 15 minutes to find shelter. Some people were able to quickly hide under their beds, while others were outdoors away from safety, playing golf, cycling or surfing.

It was not until 38 minutes later, when the emergency services sent out another message saying ‘there is no threat’ and the first message was mistakenly sent. One of their guys  had accidentally sent out the alert, having clicked ‘OK’ in response to a second message – intended as a safeguard – that asked whether the alert should go out. I am sure people were mightily relieved at receiving this, but at the same time confused, angry and in a state of shock.

The reason it took so long to send out the second message, after the emergency services realized what had happened was, according to Hawaii Governor David Ige, that “there was no automated way to send a false alarm cancellation. We had to initiate a manual process. And that was why it took a while to notify everyone.” Shame on the software engineers for making it so easy to trigger the alert but so difficult to rectify.

We’ve all clicked on that warning message button “Are you sure you want to …” where the dots can mean overwrite a disk, delete a file, send a message and so on. Sometimes, it triggers a momentary awareness that makes us think twice before and that we are sure; other times it is simply an automatic act.

It is far too easy to make a decision with huge consequences by simply pressing a button. If only software engineers and HCI researchers could come up with a better way of helping humans make rapid decisions for seismic events that have massive consequences. Perhaps, at the very least it should require two people to press their buttons in a sequence. After all, the aviation business has known for years that two is better than one; always requiring two cabin crew to manually ‘cross check’ when arming opposite doors of a plane.

Smart AI

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One of my PhD students has been investigating how environmental sensors can be situated in community gardens to provide new data about light levels. The motivation stems from wanting to help the volunteers who work in these gardens decide what to plant and where best to plant new crops. The data can be digitally visualised for them on a display to provide new information about the patterns of shade and bright sunlight over time. Information they don’t currently have access to. Instead they rely on previous knowledge and experiences of what worked and what didn’t do so well. The aim is to augment people’s existing knowledge with new contextual information, especially where it can be difficult to predict how different areas of a garden changes due to seasonal shifts in light and variable plant growth.

However, the initial reaction from the community gardeners was one of scepticism. They did not want to have ‘computers’ in the garden because that is where they come to get away from the digital world. Instead they value the experience of being in the garden and the importance of ‘getting their hands in the dirt’.

But later, when shown the sensed light levels in different parts of the garden over time, using augmented reality, their initial resistance was replaced with a degree of curiosity. They could see the potential benefit of having such light data to hand that could be overlaid on their schematic sketches and maps of the garden when planning in the potting shed. What they were clear about was not wanting an app that gave them advice  about what to do in the garden.

Meanwhile in India, Microsoft in conjunction with the Andhra Pradesh government have been using AI and machine learning to help local farmers determine when best to sow their seeds for groundnut, rice, maize, cotton and the like. Using 40 years of past data for weather patterns and soil conditions, they have been able to develop a predictive model of the likelihood of rain, drought and even pest attacks. From their models, they can determine when the best time is to sow seeds in a given region so as to optimise yield and reduce risk of failure.

The really cool part of the project though is how the new knowledge is delivered to the farmers. Not via a smartphone app but by Microsoft letting the farmers know simply through sending them a text message – in their native language – to their feature phones.  And for those who can’t read they  leave a voice message. Gut feeling, experience and human wisdom are being replaced by straight forward messages – based on a remarkable combination of weather forecasting, satellite images, machine learning and cloud services. And what’s more, the farmers don’t need to have any sensors installed in their fields.

Who wouldn’t want to take heed from free advice coming from the cloud that is better informed and has a better chance of increasing their income? This seems like a win-win situation for all concerned. Local farmers benefit without having to compromise or change their practice. Scientists get to demonstrate a real impact of AI through increasing the income of people living in developing countries – without replacing them with robots or pushing ads down their phones. And Microsoft can bask in a feel-good factor for providing the infrastructure and wherewithal.

But what happens if the advice given is wrong?  And the farmers end up planting too early or too late resulting in a poor crop yield. Do they simply shrug their shoulders and think, oh well even AI can get it wrong. Do they continue to follow the text advice, next time – just like many people now have taken to blindly following their GPS when driving – sometimes against their better judgement. Or will they abandon the advice, revert to their gut instinct and decide once more for themselves? I supect we are in the midst of a quiet revolution in rural farming and there is no looking back. The AI will keep improving, too. But then again, global warming is also in our midst. And that is unpredictable.

 

Alpha Generation

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When does childhood innocence disappear?  Does it get younger for each generation as they get caught up in the all encompassing digital world? The other day I was asked by a writer from Wired UK to comment on the latest Alpha Generation – kids who are  born after 2010. Most have yet to start school but many are no doubt merrily enjoying much screen time – watching cartoons, playing games and flicking through endless photos. The writer was interested in how technology and culture are shaping the development of this generation and how this will impact their attitudes and expectations. My honest answer was to say I have no idea other than they will be ever more tech savvy from an earlier age and kiddie-sized selfie sticks will become the next big craze. Toddlers will be able to look at the results of their nappy-clad, snapping, magically appearing on smart home-embedded displays that will pop up on the floors and walls and in the covers of books and even on their clothing – long before they have developed any sense of self consciousness. Seeing themselves everywhere will become the new norm, where their digital self is omnipresent.

On a more serious note, for many years, the pressing questions confronting parents have been: at what age do we let our children have a smartphone? How many hours a week should they be allowed screen time? How do we prevent them inadvertently or curiously coming across adult content or other unsuitable material? The BBC used to help parents by having a set children’s hour of TV shows and  a policy for a 9.00 o’clock watershed where TV producers chose carefully not to show crime, violence or sex before then. Kids were assumed to be in bed then or it became the responsibility of parents to chose what they watched with them. But with so many new TV channels, and the universal uptake of Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube, all able to be viewed on multiple platforms at any time – all that has changed. Now there are so many ways of viewing all sorts of content really easily. It is much harder for parents to control what their children watch – at school, in their bedrooms or even in the living room. If they are super conscious they can  set all manner of parental controls on everything. But children are instinctively curious and have a way of discovering what is forbidden or hidden from them with little difficulty.

New technology also opens doors for inadvertently coming across unexpected content. Only a few months ago a YouTube video went viral showing Amazon Alexa misrecognizing what a toddler asked it to do. The little boy said “Play Twinkle Twinkle” and Alexa heard it as “you want to go to a porn site” then proceeded to list all the options available. The video of the child’s parent intervening is very funny.

It is impossible to shield children from the dark side of adult life.

Not only are parents having to worry more about their kids being exposed to such unsavoury content through new tech, there is now pressure on them to embrace the latest range of apps that can track their baby’s movements, breathing patterns, crying levels and so on. But why stop at 6 months? Why not keep tracking them in to their toddler years, adding ever more apps – such as how well they are learning to speak, walk and play with other kids? What about measuring specific kinds of cognitive skills they are developing; all the drawings they ever made, their first attempts at writing a story, all their scores on tests from 5 years old and so on. And then there is the possibility of capturing what happens in their minds – their fantasies, made-up games and imaginary friends. I am sure someone will come up with an app that can conjure up their inner soul based on doing some trickery with all that data to hand. Whether it is a true reflection is another matter.

Soon, it will be expected that every parent should be measuring and monitoring their children growing up, and in doing so accumulating vast amounts of kiddy data that will be viewed as part and parcel of good parenting. The commercial opportunities will be endless.

Call me an old fogey, but childhood should be ephemeral, exciting and enjoyed for what it is – whether it is with and without toys, or in front of or away from screens. Just like everything else in life, there needs to be a balance between how much and when. For me, the scary unknown is the prospect that the Alpha Generation will have terabytes of data accumulating about them every day of the year: their every action, emotion, spoken and texted word that ends up as reams of digital summaries, albums, timelines, profiles, graphs and so on. An ever-lengthening shadow of themselves etched in the digital ether. It is going to make it much harder to imagine a future where they can freely use their creative juices to embellish, edit and shape their own stories and mental memories. Sadly, childhood innocence is being swallowed up by the cloud. The right to be forgotten by the Alpha Generation will need urgent attention.

Face Age

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I have been watching episodes of “Tonight at the London Palladium” on ITV for the last couple of weeks. My interest was whetted when seeing one of my former schoolmates, Bradley Walsh, hosting it. He is slick, funny, charming and on occasion a bit naughty. Just how I remember him at Francis Combe School when he was 15 years old, and he had the rest of the class in stitches impersonating Tommy Cooper. Besides the variety acts he introduces each week, from moving magicians to sparkly singers, he invites an unwitting member of the audience to come onto the stage and play a ‘guess the age’ game. One row of the audience is asked to stand up and the participant has to guess their age by saying whether the person to the right of them is older or younger. This is repeated for each person all the way down the row. The person who has been judged to be older or younger then turns over a white card, they are holding, which reveals how old they actually are. If the participant guesses right the audience roars in approval. If they get it wrong everyone looks a bit embarrassed. Great fun. Mostly the guesses are right because humans have developed a well-honed skill of working out the age of someone by how their face looks.

It was with a mix of shock and then disbelief that I later saw a version of the guessing game being played by a computer for real in a wine bar in Hove. Many bars and clubs now have scanning technology (Scannet.com). It checks someone’s ID card (usually their driving license) and reveals the details on a public TV display for all to see; their mugshot with their age and a big tick on either side – indicating if their ID has passed the authentication test. While having a quiet drink in the wine bar after dinner, we noticed it in action as the early birds arrived, all made up. They waited patiently at the door for their go with their ID cards ready to hand over to the bouncer. It just seemed routine to them. Nothing out of the ordinary. Why were we so surprised?

The mugshots that appear on the screen appeared to have some kind of pattern superimposed on their foreheads which made each one look like a criminal photo. Their age extracted from the card also shows up in bold 60 point font; both can be seen clearly from anywhere nearby. For added security, the scanner takes a photo of the ID card and stores it as data. Who knows what other information is stripped from the ID card as part of that data? When the scanner is not in use, a webcam on top of the display clicks into action, like a CCTV camera, which was pointed at our table in front of it – we could see ourselves on the screen drinking.And for equal measure, there is another TV screen, with the same information appearing on it, hanging by the bar, so the bartenders can check as well as the bouncers.

Apparently, in London and other cities across the world, it is now required to install this kind of ID scanning equipment in clubs and bars. Worryingly, the data does not stay in one place. The scanners are all hooked up to a network that allows all the signed up clubs and bars to share the data with each other. Should a clubber be rowdy in a bar and subsequently banned, they may find they are banned from all the other venues that are part of that network. No wonder nightclubs are closing by the hundreds throughout the UK.

We watched as people’s ages popped up alongside their faces on the screen – 22, 23, 26, 33. We played our own version of the London Palladium game, guessing whether we thought the number appearing on the screen matched the person walking through the door. Some looked older than their actual age rather than younger. None appeared under age or had fake ID. Perhaps the technology was doing its job acting as a deterrent. But most unsettling to us was that the young things did not seem to care in the slightest – after being handed back their cards they headed straight to the bar to grab a cocktail. Par for the course of being young these days.

Fake News

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father-christmasAt what age do children stop believing in Father Christmas? I think I was about five when I saw my mother stealthily entering my bedroom with a stocking stuffed with presents ‘from Santa’ and placing it at the end of my bed. I pretended I had not seen her and waited a few minutes lying motionless before taking a peak at the goodies. I carried on pretending I believed in Father Christmas for another year.

Many kids seem to continue really believing in Father Christmas until they are 7 or 8 years old – according to some online surveys. That is hard to believe but maybe they want their parents to think they still believe in him. All part of the make believe that is part of the story of Christmas. The idea that a kindly old man with a big white beard comes all the way from Greenland, on a sleigh pulled by reindeers through the sky, and pops down every child’s chimney throughout the world, to deliver them presents is a wonderful fantasy. What young child wouldn’t want to stop believing in that?

But what happens when we become grown-up? Are we able to know when something is for real and something is made up? And do we pretend to believe in something when clearly it is not true? It seems the line is becoming more blurred. Some people have started making up stories, and publishing them online, in the hope that other people will believe them – even though they are clearly not true. These stories, however, are not innocent stories about kind people, but sinister stories about the world. Welcome to the year of fake news.

By fake news is meant the deliberate pushing of hoaxes, propaganda and disinformation, via social media and online news that are intended to incite people into believing them. At the same time, the term is used to refer to anything people happen to disagree with or don’t want to hear. When somone doesn’t like the facts or news they will make out they are fake. For example, the idea that the world is getting warmer is viewed by some as fake – despite the resounding scientific evidence. They will then ‘find’ and ‘generate’ news that ‘proves’ it is not true. But this then becomes clearly fake for the others.

What is fake depends on the eyes of the beholder.

Why is this happening? When people grow up they often look for information that confirms their ideological views, rather than information that comes from reliable sources or science. Increasingly, this entails following links on social media to read stories and watch YouTube videos that support their opinions. Most startling is the outcome of a recent survey by BuzzFeed that revealed that 75% of US adults believed fake news headlines they were shown. Moreover, those who use Facebook for their news feed are more likely to believe fake news headlines as telling the truth than those who read their news from other sources.

If the kinds of fake stories that were being promulgated through people’s newsfeeds were only porkies – like those we read or watch on April Fools Day – it would not be quite so bad. It would be a bit of harmless fun like the classic spaghetti story. Back in 1957, the BBC made a short documentary about the plight of the spaghetti crop that grew on trees in Switzerland. Now that would be laughed at as being ridiculous. Then, many people were fooled – since at the time very few people ate spaghetti outside of Italy, let alone knew where it came from. Indeed, a considerable number of British viewers called up the BBC after watching the programme to find out how they could get hold of a spaghetti tree. They were told to “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best” It was later viewed by CNN as the “the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled.”
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These kinds of hoaxes are harmless. Just like the kinds of ridiculous but funny stories the National Enquirer comes up with each week. In contrast, the increasing spreading of fake news is much darker and more sinister. People really do believe that that global warming is not true, that Hillary Clinton is a criminal, and so on. Please bring back Father Christmas.

Super Robots

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roombawhiskerI visited some friends for dinner last night and in the corner of their living room I spied a Roomba. I asked them if they still used it and they enthused how it was one of the best presents ever. They have had it for five years and they have used it everyday. It never complains, just gets on with cleaning their hard wood floors and carpets downstairs. This was viewed as a godsend for their family of 3 growing boys. They gave me a demo of their ‘RoboCop’ in action, and it simply went about its business, twirling around, picking up crumbs, fluff and other stuff, while all the time snitching its plastic whiskers to re-orient itself for when it gets stuck in a tight corner.

Having an autonomous gadget that cleans floors simply works. Over 12 million Roombas have been sold worldwide since they were introduced in 2002. China is now getting in on the act and shipping them by the boatload.

superrobotThere is much talk about the next generation of domestic robots. However, these are of an order of magnitude more ambitious than the Roomba in what they are being programmed to do and the hoped for improvements to life. They are now being coined super-robots (Sunday Observer, Nov 6th 2016). One of the latest offerings is Miro – designed to be like a cute cartoon dog with big eyes, big ears and a pert plastic tail. Funnily enough, it has no legs so can’t jump up or crouch or fetch like a real dog. Instead it sits on two base stumps. Its role is to be a companion dog that will nag its owner to do things. The envisioned end user is an old granny, who forgets to take her medicine and people’s names. Making a robot dog be your reminder seems perverse to me. Dogs are meant to be petted, cuddled and taken for walks – not to become your super ego.

The makers mean well – just like all the many other assistive technology developers do. They all seem to have a vision of what ageing is – an old person living on their own who could fall over at any moment and that new tech can sense when this has happened and alert an ambulance to come to the rescue. This breed of robots are quite different from the early dog robots, like Aibo (an expensive toy that was popular a few years back among computer science departments) – that could amuse its owners with tricks. They are being designed to be integrated in smart homes, with cameras, sensors and wearables all thrown into the mix. The dream of tech developers is to put all this gubbins together in someone’s home to show tech’s might. The system of sensors will be able to measure everything about an old person and what they do in their own home, including their heart rate, body temperature, when the taps were turned on and off, when the toilet was flushed, how much toilet paper was used at a sitting and so on. But who is interested in all of this and who is going to look at all of the masses of data that will quickly acumulate?

There will be special data analytic companies set up whose job it will be to monitor the millions of feeds of data, determining if one of the many alerts and notifications that will beep away on their screens actually need attention or is just a quirk of the quotidian of being at home. Most of the data will be extraneous and of no use to helping old people living on their own. It is no substitute for a friendly face popping round for a cup of tea and a chat.

What’s more the domestic robots are still a long way from being able to perform taken for granted chores like making a cup of tea, emptying out the dish washer or making a cheese and pickle sandwich. They might be able to make the perfect pancake but they can’t use a spatula to take it out of the frying pan and place it onto a plate – something we humans do without thinking. Simply put, “It’s an implicit knowledge humans have, but it’s extremely hard to make that explicit for a robot.” (Michael Beetz, head of RoboHow). While companion robots can be programmed to roll their eyes around or purr when stroked, they are a long way from looking their owner in the eye to say ‘come on, pet’, or sharing a good laugh with them cracking jokes about the innuendos being pronounced on TV.

The people who are being targeted at for the next generation of super-robots are the frail, the lonely and those with Alzheimers or other memory loss. The robots are going to cost an arm and a leg together with all the other tech and monitoring support needed. The Roombas, in contrast, were targeted at consumers, from busy working families to business people. They now cost the same as a smartphone or a dishwasher.

Why can’t the next generation of domestic robots, be designed to help everyone enjoy life more than be just nagging at old folk. Our parents and elders are a lot smarter than tech developers might like to think – as this wonderful video from Superflux called ‘Univited Guests’ depicts.

Uninvited Guests from Superflux on Vimeo.

Roving Eyes

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A police body camera is seen on officer during news conference on pilot program involving 60 NYPD officers dubbed 'Big Brother' at NYPD police academy in the Queens borough of New York
It is now increasingly common to see bobbies on the beat wearing body cams. Millions of drivers have in recent years bought dash cams for their cars. More cyclists are attaching Go-Pros cams to their helmets. The placement of these ‘cams’ on the body, the head or in the car while on the move is in anticipation – recording in the background just in case an incident happens, that can then be replayed back as evidence. These roving eyes are able to ‘truthfully’ show who said what, how recklessly a car was driven, who threatened whom and so on. Which can be quite different from and often more reliable than what people recall from human memory.

But it seems the cams are doing much more than acting as our personal CCTV cameras. This week, a paper published in the journal, Criminal Justice and Behaviour, claimed there were far fewer complaints made against police officers than in the previous year. The reason was laid squarely at the power of the cam. A completed trial compared the impact of when police wore cams and when they did not. The results showed a whopping reduction in complaints. In fact, nearly 100% – there were only 113 complaints compared with 1,539 reported in the 12 months before.

Seeing someone recording you changes your behaviour:

“Once [the public] are aware they are being recorded, once they know that everything they do is caught on tape, they will undoubtedly change their behaviour because they don’t want to get into trouble.”

People aren’t as rude or aggressive towards the police. Moreover, they are much less likely to make up porkies about being subject to police violence or assault – knowing they are being recorded. But even more interesting is that it works both ways. Police officers were also found to change their behavior, knowing what they say and do will be recorded for later use. They appear to be kinder and more courteous. And even more remarkable, was the study reported a huge reduction in complaints for the control group – the police who did not wear the bodycams during the trial period. This cascading effect was explained as a form of ‘contagious accountability’ sweeping through the whole police culture. Being nice to each other makes others nicer.

dash_camThe cam, however, seems to have, so far, not had the same impact on car drivers. Road rage is still very much the order of the day. And the peculiarly British disease of ‘crash for cash’ is on the rise. In particular, the number of people claiming for whiplash is spiraling out of control. A report that came out last week in the UK showed that there were more than ¾ of a million insurance claims last year just for whiplash. That is one in every 38 cars insured on the road – an awful lot of people driving with stiff necks. Of course, whiplash claims are well known for being one of the biggest scams around. Hard to detect, easy to engineer and even more difficult to contest. No wonder, motorists are easy prey for claims management companies, who spam them relentlessly with emails, texts and ads, asking if they had an accident recently. These ‘ambulance chasers’ lure their victims by charging nothing for their service but then taking a hefty chunk of the spoils – easy money, and bread and butter work for them. What’s more it is a win-win for both parties.

Might it be possible soon for insurance companies to require the use of the output from dash cams as evidence against this kind of blatant fraud? With a bit of extra gubbins thrown in to the cam, we could soon have quality car intelligence. Indeed, it seems this might be starting. Recent dash cams, like the RoadHawk, can detect speed and force from an impact as well as showing the setting in how it took place – all in high-def. If these smart cams became a compulsory part of the car that might reduce whiplash claims to only the genuine ones – in the same dramatic way as bogus police complaints have been reduced. And it might even encourage more courteous driving behaviour.

Imagine, too, if cyclists all had to wear head cams that recorded how they cycled. We might see more cycling courtesy and less bike rage. Only today, I had to stop in my tracks on a zebra crossing as a bike refused to stop for me but darted passed me. Not only did he increase my heart rate, but shortly afterwards, another cyclist had to swerve to miss him as he continued at speed through a red light.

I am all for technology acting as our external memory if it can change human behaviour to make people more courteous and considerate of each other – given, how many of us, it seems, have a tendency to try to beat the system whenever we can.
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The i360

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img_7422 The latest attraction in Brighton, the i360, opened a few weeks ago to much fanfare and a bit of grumpiness. On the website, British Airways who are behind the project proudly proclaim, “Take a flight to the skies and see Sussex as you have never seen it before. Glide up slowly to 450 feet high to enjoy breath-taking 360 degree views of up to 26 miles from the world’s first vertical cable car.” Janet Street-Porter, in the Independent, described it as “naff” and “an expensive and hideous eyesore”. At ground level, the locals refer to it as the ‘donut on a stick’. On a sunny day, it stands out like a shimmering silver time machine capsule majestically rising above the rooftops.

In the first three weeks of it’s opening, over 100,000 visitors have coughed up £15 each to have a ride in it. That is a lot of people and even more dosh. R and I went a month into its infancy, on a shiny sunny Tuesday afternoon. As we entered, we were screened and patted down as if going on a flight. Once inside the capsule, we found our spot to view Brighton as never before seen. We waited with much anticipation, chatting and eyeing up the other people on board, who were snapping merrily on their smartphones. At one end, was a bar selling the local NyeTimber champagne. We resisted, wanting to go up and down before celebrating. Other visitors, however, were less restrained, already in holiday mode, happy to neck back the bubbles at any occasion.

img_7428There were no announcements, no British Airways muzac or welcome. Instead, the capsule simply started moving upwards, almost imperceptibly and silently, at first. It was smooth and gentle; watching the people on the ground becoming more matchstick-like and the cars move slower, and more blocks of Lego-like flats appear on the expanding horizon. The coastline west and east swept into toy town fringes, of groynes, lawns and shingle. Then just as it had started moving the bubble stopped and our ears popped. It was all a bit of an anti-climax for what was the final view before we started our slow descent. There was no sighting of France, nothing of the Isle of White and even less of the suburbs of London. Just a bit of a blur at the edges. The South Downs were there in the distance, but unlike experiencing them from favourite viewing spots, when walking in Firle, Devil’s Dyke or Chanctonbury Ring, there were no little villages or cricket pitches unfolding before your eyes or fresh new sights around each corner. No distant sounds of cars, cows, planes or trains. No wind in the hair or country smells. No unexpected sights or quotidian human traffic. Just chirpy people taking lots of selfies.
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Ironically, by far the most spectacular view was from outside the capsule – looking directly up from below, as the shimmering donut descended down onto bystanders waiting their go, from a brilliant blue sky. Like the transmogrifying Anish Kapoor Bean in Chicago, you could see distorted reflections of yourself and others, growing larger and more funfair-like, as the capsule finally came to rest.

On exiting, you are bundled into a basement room, a cornucopia of tat. You are suddenly reminded, that just after being screened at the entrance you were photographed for a personalized souvenir. For the princely sum of £21.50 you could now buy a paper album, curated with your mugshot set against backdrops from different eras and places in Brighton. Victorian, modern, and space age. Unsurprisingly, no-one was buying them. R snapped some of the pictures as we flicked through the pages with his iPhone. Then we went across the road and had a delicious cream tea in the Victoria Terrace at the Grand Hotel – that cost less than the tacky booklet. It was a real treat, with all the trappings, and on top of that, fine views of the sea and pier.
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Street Party

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stirling street partyEach year my street has a summer party to which everyone in the street and adjoining roads is invited. I have managed to be on holiday for the last few years and have missed it. But this year I was at home and my cheery neighbours cajouled me into joining in. The sun came out and the street was transformed with bunting, removal of parked cars and trestle tables all lines up in a big square. I looked nervously out of the front room window for when it was to start and saw people had begun to sit down, bringing with them an assortment of dishes and bottles. It was time to enter the fray.

My closest neighbours and myself plonked ourselves down at one end of the communal table with our contribution. I had made a salad and heated up a ready-made quiche. My neighbours had brought two huge boxes of tempting donuts. But what to do next? Where to start? We sat waiting for others to join and then hesitantly started to put a few bits of food on our plates and fill plastic glasses with Rosé wine. People seemed to be huddled in their own bubbles. We ate our food and then drank more. It all seemed rather uncomfortable and awkward – well at least for me. Then, Peter, one of my more sociable neighbours, had the bright idea of taking his box of donuts around the tables and offering them to people. That broke the ice. He came back beaming – having got an assortment of people to take up his offer. And suddenly the floodgates opened. Lots of people stood up with their dishes and started offering them to everyone. We were inundated with offers of homemade Victoria Sponge cake, strawberries, chicken dishes, cheese plates, salads and lots more. Everyone started sharing and competing with their offerings. Try mine – it is delicious. The conversations started to flow. I was stuffed not wanting to offend anyone. The pub started selling Pimms and the Tombola and raffle got into full swing.

Then the band started playing, children started dancing, dogs ran crazy and the much hoped for conviviality was there for all to be a part of. The tables had turned. The openness and willingness to step out of one’s comfort zone – started by the offer of a donut – was a refreshing contrast to the depressing fallout from Brexit and world news of recent. I am even looking forward to the next one.

Cognitive Dressing

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gettyimages There is so much hype about AI at the moment; how it is going to transform society in so many ways. The 4th industrial revolution seems to be in our midst. Our lives will be made more efficient and everything will be easier but at the cost of 20th century jobs ceasing to be and machines becoming more autonomous.

The latest offering is from the fashion house Marchesa who have teamed up with IBM Watson to make an AI-enabled dress – somewhat misleadingly called a cognitive dress. The dress has a network of LEDs sewn into it that can change colour depending on signals sent to them. LEDs in clothing has been around for years and is super dumb. So what is intelligent about the cognitive dress? Well it is based on an analysis of social media data in realtime. IBM Watson analyzes Marchesa’s follower’s tweets tagged #CognitiveDress, instagrams and Facebook posts – and uses these to translate the aggregated sentiment expressed through colours. Words like cool, amazing and awesome are tagged as positive emotions and if enough are detected then the dress will transform into a rose colour (signifying joy) and then coral when the sentiments get a bit more passionate, and then aqua if excitement is detected. Others colours projected are lavender that shows the followers are curious about a model or product and butter to show encouragement.

replace_flower_back_2xNow remind me what lavender means? The mappings between the colours and the underlying sentiments seem fairly arbitrary but maybe that does not matter. Followers watching the models on the catwalk can ‘see’ the colours on the dress change in response to their Internet activity.

But this isn’t AI in the true sense. It is a bit of keyword crunching and machine learning, triggering colours to turn on when a threshold for a state has been reached. The underlying technology that was developed to do this is hardly rocket science. IBM also uses its powerful computers to gather thousands of images stored by Marchesa and feeds them into a color design tool, which it claims to be able to understand how the psychological effects of colors, image aesthetics and emotions are interrelated. Maybe that could be considered cleverer. The creative part however is not what appears on the dress – but a neat design tool built on this that can suggest a new palette to designers that they might not have thought about and which fits Marchesa’s brand.

There is much more that can be done with the emerging AI technology. But, importantly, we should be thinking of how humans can work together with computers to make better decisions than each can do alone – about how to live our lives more creatively and enjoyably, resolve complex problems, create new inventions, work out how best to feed 7 billion people, develop new economics models and so on. What excites me is how computation, machine learning, and human intelligence is how we can synergistically come up with new ideas for a diversity of tasks, from planning a complex itinerary, determining the best way to learn, and to help politicians work together on a new global warming agreement, peace initiative, or trade policy. It requires thinking at what points should computers solve problems, simulate solutions, and show outcomes and at what points should humans intervene, overide, control, suggest and inspire.

Super Smellers

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carscentsLast night the weather suddenly turned into a full on symphony as I made a dash from the train to the taxi rank; all at once rain started lashing, wind howling, lightning sheeting, thunder cracking, reaching a crescendo of hailstones crashing on the ground. It really was a case of elephants and lions rather than cats and dogs. I sank into the backseat of a taxi thankful I did not have to wait. The inclement weather was mercifully silenced and shut out by the slam of my door. Within seconds my nostrils were filled with a distinctive smell of almonds that turned to marzipan. Before I knew it, I was being transported back to childhood memories of eating Christmas cake.

Because it was such an unusual and strong smell, I mentioned it to the cab driver who guffawed:

“All the girls say that. Smelling of almonds and then marzipan. It is actually Coronado Cherry.”

I sniffed again and tried hard to think of cherries and sure enough I began to detect some different notes.

“Yes, it is cherries like you taste in Dr Pepper!” I chirped.

He laughed heartily again.

He replied “It is funny because men usually say it smells of chocolate.”

We then got into a very animated conversation about the difference between men and women’s ability to smell. He reckoned that 9.5 out of 10 women say it smells like almonds while 9 out of 10 men say it is like chocolate. His sample is based on the 10-20 customers he picks up a day over the last 3 years he has been buying his tubs of California Coronado Cherry. What is more, he doesn’t ask them directly, but just waits for them to say something about what they can smell. Just like with me that sets him off. What a wonderful icebreaker I mused.

But not only that, it is a lot of data collected ‘in the wild’ that shows a massive gender difference. I had no idea we were so different in our ability to identify smells. Whether women are better is another matter since we all seem to think his car smells more almond than cherry.

littletreeI’ve always thought car air fresheners are a bit naff. My memory of cardboard pine trees in a variety of colours dangling from rearview mirrors is that they were always overpowering and unpleasant – artificial sickly sweet. Reminded me of when I was 16 – and the first time I went on a date with Aaron the carpet-layer from Luton – who had a couple hanging in his Ford Cortina. Whatever was I doing…

carscent2When I bought my Scirocco a couple of years ago, it had that horrible new car smell of plastic and rubber. It never seemed to fade, so I caved in and went to Halfords in search of a car freshener to mask it. I was amazed to discover just how many different kinds of exotic trees, sticks, sprays, and tubs of super smelly gunk there are now to fill our cars with fragrance. Seems the marketing departments have gone overboard with Tropicana scents that conjure up drinking cocktails on a beach. All of them had exotic sounding names with the likes of “Jelly bean Margarita”, “Bahama Aruba Blue Breeze” and “Bahama Waikiki Wild Hibiscus Vent Sticks.” I bought a stick that promised the taste of Pina Colada – coconuts and pineapple. After taking the wrapper off, however, it smelt more like the Costa del Sol than fresh fruits. It was awful. I had to throw it out and keep the car windows open for a couple of weeks to get rid of the new smell.

As we neared home, my taxi driver regaled how he has met women who could even name the make and brand of perfume others are wearing. What must it be like to be a super smeller?

Pigeon Carriers

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pigeonI came across an article in the news about using pigeons to monitor air pollution levels in London. 12 carrier pigeons have each been strapped with a backpack full of sensor technologies that can detect nitrogen oxide and other gases. It seems pretty harmless and rather cute at first imagining such birds helping humans to discover how polluted our city is (or not) in places where it would be impossible or very difficult to find out otherwise. Maybe we will discover that it is more polluted at the top of Nelson’s column than in the grounds of Buckingham Palace – when we might have assumed the opposite. Maybe the birds will ‘understand’ their mission to learn more and swoop down into all sorts of unexpected places, including inside churches, shopping malls and onto the smelly platforms at Kings Cross.

While seemingly benign, something irked me about the use of animals in this way for human interest. Is it right? Has anyone asked the pigeons if they minded acting as mules? Surely, it would be uncomfortable for the pigeons flying whilst wearing all that kit? Plamena Panova tweeted the same concern as me:
“@PigeonAir How safe are your backpacks for the pigeons? Do they cause them pain or discomfort?” Apparently, the carrier pigeons only had to wear their backpacks for three days during the experiment and then they were removed.

bees_3370425bAnother project has been using bees to monitor the air quality of industrally polluted areas. Bees generate a lot of static electricity that results in molecules from pollen sticking to their wings, legs and abdomen. Tiny particles that are hard to detect can also be picked up by the bees providing a way of measuring local levels of pollution. The researchers have been using bees to discover more about the pollution levels of an industrial area of Sardinia where there used to be lead-zinc mines operating until a few years back. While the bees in this case can fly around unfettered they still are breathing the polluted air.

But it is not just bees and pigeons that are now becoming our roaming sensors but all manner of animals. From elephants to whales to ducks – all are being donned with electronic gear and often for much longer periods in the pursuit of science. The benefits are obvious – providing us humans with more detailed data about the gases around us, climate change or more about the animal’s own migration patterns and predatory/sexual behaviors. Scientists are having a field day finding out more about what dolphins, bats and ants get up to in their natural habitats.

The scientists argue that this kind of pervasive data collection is invaluable. Moreover, they reassure us that the animals are not being harmed in anyway. Let’s hope they are right. After all, donkeys, packhorses and mules have been carrying infinitely heavy loads for our needs for centuries. The pigeon backpacks are featherweight in comparison.

We often go to great lengths to debate the ethics of whether humans should be monitored or monitor on behalf of others (e.g. workers wearing sensor vests to collect environmental data in warehouses) but we rarely question whether if it is OK to use animals to do the same. Of course it would be easier if we could simply ask the animals if they mind.

drone-swarm-2 swarmingPerhaps, in the not too distant future those drones, that are becoming commonplace in our parks, will take over our monitoring needs. And we might get to watch them as wings of beauty instead of as noisy pesky devices – that they currently are. Rather than watching a flock of starlings swarming in formation against a beautiful sunset we might one day be in awe of a swarm of flying drones performing breathtaking air display acts.

Which Reality?

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markzuckerbergVirtual Reality is all the rage again. Last week Mark Zuckerberg extolled the joys of not only being able to see and interact in virtual worlds but to be able to record those special moments, yourself, using a 360 degree camera. Up until now, we have had to rely on filmmakers and researchers to develop the VR content using expensive equipment and powerful software. But it seems, sometime soon we will be able to get our hands on the technology and start capturing birds in flight, cars racing past and our dogs doing tricks – so that our friends and ourselves can see and share them from all angles. For Zuckerberg, a recent father, it was imagining being able to capture his daughter’s first steps that caught the headlines:

“I hope we have a 360 camera that can capture the whole scene, so if my family isn’t there to experience it, I can send it to them afterwards — or it would be real-time enough where I could stream it to them live. They could put on a headset or get a message and feel like they’re really there and experiencing it.”

What a wonderful sentiment. But I wonder how much better the experience will be than existing ways of capturing those special moments, like using smartphone video or GoPro or even a cheap and cheerful camera – that can be quickly uploaded to Instagram or Facebook or WhatsApp or whatever – for all to see at the press of a button or a swipe of the phone. With VR it requires donning a headset to see the content. For many that could be a step too far. While the headsets will come down in price and every household will be able to afford one for Christmas – it is likely to not be the best quality. For an unknown number of people (could be quite high) it will make them feel claustrophobic, nauseous or headachy. Also overlooked in the current hype and fanfare about VR, is that the headsets are like toothbrushes – fine for you to wear but not for anyone else to use. They can pick up human scent, especially hair sweat – being worn so closely to the head – meaning they can get very smelly and unhygienic. It is likely that no one wants to don the VR headset of a teenager gamer anymore than they would want to try on their sneakers.

phphh9njx The few times I have tried on an Occulus Rift headset it has been sanitized for me with a sterilized wet wipe. Even then, I detected a slight whiff of the last person who wore them. Can’t see people getting the wet wipes out every time they want a quick VR fix. Of course we could each own our own headset but you might find out you don’t like the smell of your own head. I suspect the first generation of VR headsets targetted at the general market will go the way 3D glasses went – those that had to be worn for 3DTV. Most have fallen into disuse, disrepair or got lost behind the back of the sofa.

giphy Besides wearing a VR headset makes people look weird and as this video attests, it is also terribly anti-social. You immediately shut yourself off from the rest of the world in ways that other technologies don’t. While it can be very annoying to be shut out when someone answers a call or checks their phone when you are in a conversation with them – you can look away, fiddle with your own phone or give them a glare to let them know how you feel. When someone goes into VR forget it.

3ddisposeOf course you could meet others in the guise of avatars in a VR world and have lots of fun. That possibility has been around for year for gamers. Other areas, such as training and overcoming phobias like fear of flying have also been benefitting from the application of this technology for a while. The leap from this to everyday viewing and sharing of moments is still a leap of faith. Having said that – when the first disposable 3D cameras came out back in the mid 90s I was bowled over by the 3D postcard photos they created. And spent a happy few months playing with them. Then they just disappeared off the shelf. Whatever happened to them?

imagesMy money is on augmented reality being the winner. Microsoft’s HoloLens looks amazing. Where it differs from VR is in the nature of the wearable and the digital augmentation. The wizardry behind HoloLens, will allow the user to still see and engage with the real world while also interact with all sorts of overlaid 3D content on that world. It is still very much a technology for the individual but at least you will be able to see what the rest of the family is up to in the living room or whether the real family dog wants some attention.

Creative Charities

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IMG_6786 While waiting for my coffee to be made at Costas I noticed a lemon floating in a cup of water on the counter with a tantalizing teaser besides it: “balance 20p on the lemon and win yourself a drink”. I have never tried to do that before and so was curious to see if I could. Of course, my delicately placed coin slipped off the lemon and slunk into the cup of water as the lemon rolled over like a barrel with the weight of the coin. It lodged itself in the bottom of the cup along with several other 20 pence pieces. I asked the barista if anyone had achieved the seemingly simple feat and she said, wisely, yes a couple of customers had but she had no idea how. Perhaps, the secret is to hold the lemon with one hand to stabilize it while using the other hand to place the coin on top of the lemon. Somehow I felt that might be cheating and not in the spirit of raising money for a good cause – in this case it was the Costa Foundation. It seems that other pubs and cafes have also been using this trick as the video below shows someone trying to do the same at Weatherspoons. I failed to find a video of anyone succeeding the lemon test.

Raising money for charity has seen many innovations over the years. Last year the ice bucket challenge was all the rage where people poured a bucket of iced water over their’s or someone else’s head to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In doing so, it was intended to encourage people to donate to research. An integral part of the challenge was to upload a video to Twitter or other social media platform. The silliness went viral; over 2 million tagged videos appeared on Facebook, alone.

rednose An annual favourite event in the UK is Red Nose day, organized by Comic Relief. Lots of people don a plastic or furry red ball on their nose and do something equally silly. Last year, they raised nearly 100 million pounds. Rather than freeze to death, people did all sorts of other crazy things, such as getting everyone to come into work with their face painted in some funny way. Passers-by are encouraged to dig into their pockets or go to the website and donate whatever they can. It always seems like lots of fun for those participating. The money that Comic Relief raise is then spent on all sorts of projects to transform the lives of millions of people, both in the UK and across Africa.

The name often given to this kind of feel-good and good-humored charity raising lark is somewhat unfairly, called “slacktivism” – implying that doing something silly with minimum effort to show that you support a good cause is rather shallow – because it does not require any long-term involvement or commitment. Most people don’t agree. Even if it is only one-off, it manages to raise millions of pounds while increasing people’s awareness about certain diseases or good causes. According to the Huffington Post, scientists were able to make a scientific breakthrough from the money donated from the ice bucket challenge last year, namely identifying a protein that fails in the cells of most ALS patients that importantly, can be repaired. That seems like a mighty achievement.

But a dark side to how charities run themselves is starting to raise its ugly head. While many spend wisely the money collected by people having lots of fun there has been a growing concern about some charities who are splashing the cash as if they were heading up a company or corporation. Fat cat salaries for execs is one example that is raising crossed eyebrows. More worrying, is how some charities are selling services and products to unwitting customers which are not the best deal for them – so that they can raise ever more cash. One that has come to light recently is the sale of car insurance by a charity that many people trust because it is meant to be looking after their interests. Because the charity is recommending a package many assume it is the best one for them. Given that there are now a myriad of packages for insurance, Internet Service providers, and utilities, it would seem a worthy thing to be doing. But the truth is that some charities may be suggesting options that are not the best value for money or in the interest of the customer concerned – but which helps them to line their coffers. Now, that is really taking the biscuit. Far worse than a bit of harmless slacktivism.

Meanwhile I checked up on the Costa Foundation and found nothing untoward in their fund raising or spending behaviour. The charity aims to “relieve poverty in coffee-growing communities. Its mission is to improve the life chances of boys and girls by providing them with the opportunity for a quality education. Foundation schools deliver both academic and extracurricular programs that enhance health, gender equality and environmental awareness.”

I’ll happily have another go at the lemon test but pass on the counter of irresistible cakes that also lure you to spend more.

Hot Shots

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shutterstock_239524879-1024x776 Everywhere you look now there are people – the majority young girls – taking photos of themselves, whether it is on the beach, up a mountain, at a party, or in front of a famous landmark. It is increasingly common for selfie sticks to be used to enhance the poser’s look, by providing better angles of their face and other bits. These are then instantly uploaded to Instagram and the wait begins. Who will give the first like or comment? How many likes will they get in the first hour?

An instant hit follows if someone gets some likes and/or comments within five minutes of uploading. The hits only last for a moment and then it is onto taking the next set of photo shots hoping one of these is even more likeable, stunning and stands out from the others that their followers are taking in their parallel worlds.

Last summer while on vacation on a Greek island we saw the Instagram craze in full throttle while on a quiet boat trip to a few of the less populated beaches. A group of twenty-something year old Greek girls, covered in shiny skin salt spray (that was frequently applied to make their skin look like it does for models on the cover of glossy magazines) posed on the boat, sometimes just a few inches away from us – for the whole 8 hours – completely oblivious to anyone else, but themselves. At times they took up to 100 shots per hour. The trouble was that their poses were as fake as their tans. The fluttering of the eyelids, the pushing of their cleavages out of their bikinis and the pouting of lips just did not cut the mustard. Well not for the rest of us on the boat. They were also on the chunky side and, in our minds, not at all attractive.

chandonaustralia The same happened yesterday when I was on a wine tour in the Yarra Valley in Australia. A group of young girls, wearing floppy hats, large insect shades and high waisted shorts joined us on the bus. Instead of listening to any of the commentary they spent the whole time shooting snap after snap, uploading the best of their batch at half hour intervals and then waiting anxiously for the notifications to start pinging likes and comments on their phone. I don’t think they took in anything about the production of the wine, the beautiful scenery or what the different wines were. The time they seemed most animated was when taking photos of themselves posing by glasses of champagne at Chandon Australia (the image is not of them but another one from @Chandon Australia).

There is a viral video at the moment doing the rounds called ‘Instagram Husband’. It captures how many young girls now use their partners as extended selfie sticks to get more extreme shots of themselves to post in their virtual worlds. It is all about the ultimate posing and most gratifying posting now.The boyfriends and husbands are left feeling like second fiddles, largely being overlooked.

Screen-ShotAccording to Mashable, more people died in 2015 from accidents taking selfies than were killed by sharks. 12 people died falling off cliffs, stairs and other precipices whereas only 8 people were killed by sharks. That stark statistic puts the latest narcissistic craze into perspective. The number will surely rise as tourists become ever more daring in order to get ever more likes. It is hardly surprising that increasing number of parks and tourist attractions are now banning the selfie stick because they dont want dead tourists in their midst.

EdSheeren Meanwhile, superstar singer and songwriter Ed Sheeran announced recently that he is “taking a break” from social media to begin seeing the world through his own eyes and not always via a screen. He has a phenomenal 16 million Twitter followers and 5.5 million Instagram fans lapping up his snaps. This random photo got 393,000 likes and over 5000 comments/strings of emojis (“you look cute”, “wow”, “so amazing!”, “love this photo”). Good on you, Ed. Just make sure you don’t take a smartphone or camera with you on your travels.

Futuristic Videos

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It has become increasingly popular for companies to make a YouTube video that depicts their world of future living. Some are intended to show what is possible now and others what it will be like in a few years hence. Most depict a world where technology is there to serve us making our lives more efficient, less effortful, more informative, and even calming. One future living video I came across the other day, while doing some research for am upcoming lecture, was by Hoover – the well known vacuum cleaning company. It was released a few weeks ago, to promote their vision of the future home, where people can stay in touch with all their white goods via an application that is ostensibly the Internet of Things – wherever they are. The marketing guys have even metamorphosed the concept into a Wizard that does it all for them with the strapline “Tech that Talks”.

The scenarios played out of modern life are so out of touch with the messiness and richness of the real world it made me laugh. The kitchen has been decked out with smart sensors that proudly send out a constant string of notifications to the owners’ smartphones and tablets keeping them informed of how much energy is being used, when the cooking is done, when the dishwasher has been switched on, and so on. A young couple are shown living in perfect harmony; the wife sitting on a bar stool flicking through her tablet, waiting for the stove to tell her to take a saucepan off the hob when the stove has decided it is ready. The husband, meanwhile, is out cycling by himself in the park when he gets a notification on his phone, that is strapped to his arm. He stops, takes his phone out of the arm strap and reads a message from the cooker telling him the fan in the cooker hood has been activated – presumably because of the steam arising from the cooking. He smiles to himself – presumably because he infers dinner will be ready on the table when he gets back.

Honestly, do these tech companies seriously think young couples dream of a life where they are constantly bombarded by notifications on their phones letting them know every time the fridge, the oven, the dishwasher, the cat flap and so on have done something they feel worthy of broadcasting? It is enough to turn anyone into an obsessive-compulsive disorder addict. Never mind the sterotyping of the different roles.

Some of the videos have an injection of humour in them that at least makes you know they are not taking themselves totally seriously. One I liked from a couple of years ago was a concept video of how a pair of running shoes could talk to its wearer, encouraging them to be more active. They got a lot of mileage from considering how to get people to run for the pleasure of it – rather than reaching some target that most of the self obsessed step counting apps that are around now make us all aim for.

There are also a number of videos that show how future technology can transform the health of the nation. The one below was created for me and a friend while we were on a ride at Disneyland. It is short, sweet, funny and suggestive of how we can continue to enjoy life without being scared of taking risks because technology will be there to the rescue – to heal our broken bones in a matter of hours.

One of my favourite videos of future living captures the absurdity and stupidity of a future where monitoring and notifying are at its heart. It portrays a man in his 70s finding the smart home all rather tedious and tiresome – that his children and grand children have set up for him to reassure themselves (sic) that he is living healthily and safely by himself at home. He then works out how to outsmart the smart technology while keeping his family thinking he is doing all the things they want him to do. There is hope yet for humanity after all.

British Bake-Off

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NadyiaI couldn’t help overhearing the conversation between two ladies, in their eighties, sitting at the next table to me at Costa Coffee as I was trying to do some marking. It was much more riveting than the printed words in front of me. One was regaling to the other her immense pleasure at watching the last episode of the Great British Bake-off. The other had not watched it but listened intensly.

Her friend was waxing lyrical in a loud voice about the programme. Her opening gambit was saying how a lovely Muslim woman had won it:

“She was a typical Muslim woman – very timid. You know. But then as the show went on she really blossomed. I thought how wonderful. You don’t see that, do you? Oh and her husband was a real hunk. Got his own fan club now. Not surprised. Lovely couple…”

Her friend nodded with interest.

“Must come from a really good British family. On the last day at the tea party her mum and dad were so excited for her. And her husband thinks the world of her. I have never seen such a lovely couple. Gorgeous. Don’t see that in a Muslim family. He gave her so much encouragement. He was so proud of her… It brought tears to my eyes.”

The star of the show, Nadiya, is a Bangladeshi mother of three, aged 30. She and her husband have shown what a truly multi-cultural society we are in the UK, slicing through all the stereotypes about what it means to be a Muslim in Britain. The same conversation I just heard, is being repeated up and down the country, in its myriad of coffee shops and echoed throughout social media – in the aftermath of the competition. There have been hundreds of thousands of tweets about her victory – all in the same vein. Just a few have dared to say she only won it because she was a Muslim. Which of course is absolute rubbish. And has been counter-argued by the likes of Pritha Bardhan, who tweeted, “She won the Great British Bake Off because she’s able – not because she’s a Muslim woman. Her soda can cake and choco peacock were amazing.”

weddingcakeNadiya’s showstopper in the final was to bake a British wedding cake for the one her and her husband never had at their wedding. It was a lemon drizzle cake (a classic British favorite) draped in some of the jewelry she wore at her wedding and wrapped with some of her sari dress. She joined her britishness with her culture. Perfect fusion.

A striking factoid about what it means to be British is that more people watched The Great British Bake Off final than voted for the Conservative Party in the last general election in the UK. Well over 14 million viewers watched it live (while many more watched it later on iPlayer). That speaks volumes.

Sudden Death

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snowdonWhile waiting in the queue to get a coffee I overheard a young man regaling the story of how his aunt had fallen off the side of a mountain and died on impact. Not any old mountain, mind you. It was Snowdon, the highest in the UK. Hearing this made me feel sad. But then the chap perked up and said that she was 82, very fit and she died doing the thing she loved doing most, hiking. He then asked the lady serving him whether it was better to go quickly doing something you love or hang around and die in hospital of a slow and painful death. The woman looked at him sagely and said “oh yes, much better to go just like that, especially doing something you love… and not having all those tubes hanging out of you in hospital for weeks or months on end dying a slow and painful death.” To which he replied, “Yeah, she had a good life and she had lived to a ripe old age.” And on they continued, restating the virtue of a good death to somehow make them feel better about his sudden loss.

You could see he was quite shaken by the news and wanted to rationalize the terrible accident. Slipping off the edge of a mountain while trekking is surprisingly common. While it may result in an instant death, to the person who looses their footing it can be a terrifying few slo-mo seconds – not knowing what will happen at the end. Slip a few feet or a few hundred? Live or die? I wonder whether the aunt in question was looking forward to another 10 or even 20 active years of doing the things she enjoyed. If you can squeeze another chapter out of life then surely dying at 82 is just as tragic as dying at 22. The next day I read in the local paper about how a 92 year-old man had recently married an 81 year-old woman. The photo of the recently weds was touching – clearly they saw a future together.

When is the right time to go? Just as we have no control over when we are born we don’t know when we will die. The debate over whether people who have life threatening illnesses should have the right to decide they want to die through assisted suicide rumbles on. Last week it was voted out by the UK government. There are too many arguments stacked against helping people who want to die knowing they have a terminal illness compared with those for helping them. Some vulnerable people will feel pressurized by the state or their family to die earlier than they might want to – being a burden on society. Others lose their mental faculties to no longer be in a fit state to make such a decision. Life is precious no matter what. And so on. The moral high ground remains with the living.

My dad died of Alzheimers a couple of years ago. It was a long and painful time for him, especially in the later stages. In the early stages he tried to talk to the family about wanting to die early through assisted suicide. The family would not hear of it. I was more sympathetic, knowing my dad and observing the devastating deterioration in the quality of his life. Up until his mid 70s he was as fit as a fiddle climbing mountains, like Snowdon, when ever he could. For a long time, as the illness took away his faculties, his personality and his raise d’etre, he would cry repeatedly, when we visited him, that he wanted to die. It took many more years before his body finally gave up. The last few days watching him literally starve to death after he had had multiple seizures and was no longer conscious was harrowing.

I have enormous respect for people who have dementia or terminal cancer, who have made the brave and measured decision to travel to Switzerland with their partners or family, to die in dignity rather than go through such an ordeal.

IMG_5955 Meanwhile, on the news today, research reported in the Lancet mentioned how placing notices for how to get help from the Samaritans at the end of railway platforms or putting thorn bushes at the edge of well known hotspots can act as highly effective preventative barriers – often just enough to make suicidal people stop and reconsider. In that moment they can come to their senses and seek help, often enough to move them from the brink. For example, in one study in the UK and Hong Kong, it was found that the number of people taking their own life dropped by over 50% after these kinds of simple interventions were introduced. In another study it was over 90%. Clearly, the motives for attempted suicide are different from assisted suicide. The period of a suicidal crisis, where a person becomes obsessed by the need to die for whatever reasons, can be broken. A bush, a safety net or a stranger simply asking someone if they are OK can break the trance. It is a cry for help and when they have to stop and think it can be enough for them to reconsider.

Ninja Talk

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greensmoothie Many of us dread going to the hairdressers as much as we do when visiting the dentist. Having to engage in small talk for an hour or so can be quite exasperating. After the first few minutes of niceties ‘sharing’ where you went on holiday, followed by isn’t this spell of hot weather too much, the conversation can often dry up. A few can open up too much and start to overshare what they got up to last week or moan incessantly about anything from the price of parking in town to the crisis at Calais. The easy option is to hide behind the glossy magazines, immerse oneself daydreaming in the background music or play Candy Crush on one’s smartphone.

I actually look forward to going to my hair salon as I have developed a quirky rapport with my stylist, Ella, where we usually skip the small talk and move straight into something a little more alternative – whatever tickles our fancy. This morning we began by talking about the row of very luminous green Maidenhair ferns that adorn the windows of the salon. A new addition. I asked her how come they were looking so healthy when they are so hard to look after. That was her cue. Ella went into rapture as she marvelled about the precarious art of fern care. Besides frequent watering and daily misting the secret is to give them a full immersive soaking once a week – but not any old soak it has to be just so and only for a few minutes. At the beginning of their new life in the salon they nearly died. It was only when one of the assistants took over did they make a recovery.
maidenhair

We then moved onto the current craze of using Nutribullets for making smoothies for breakfast and throughout the day. She regailed how her last one went up in flames and left the house reeking of an acrid burning smell. On investigating why it had spontaneously combusted it turned out that she had left it on for a couple of minutes too long and that had no doubt caused the motor to overheat. She fessed up to walking away to do something else and then coming back ‘probably’ a bit longer than a couple of minutes. Anyone who has kept a blender on full blast for a few minutes knows that smell only too well. Anyway she had the balls to take the burned out bullet back to the kitchen store who replaced it without question for a newer one called a NutriNinja. Those Nutri guys have done their marketing homework. Bullets and Ninjas as names for fruit pulverizers. Masterful.

nutriNinjas are commonly associated with warriors – secret weapons used against enemies. In the US there is a popular TV reality series where competitors have to tackle a series of challenging and heart-stopping obstacle courses to win. It’s about power and blast. The NutriNinja boasts a 900W motor that blends using its “21,000rpm stainless steel blades.”

Unlike the Nutribullet, the NutriNinja has a control panel that allows the user to set the time for the blasting after which it stops on its own accord. Perfect for the likes of Ella who wander off and forget the time. Genius design.

It seems this the Nutri family of machines is transforming a whole generation’s way of eating. Everyone in the salon fessed up to owning a Ninja or a Bullet and enjoying throwing whatever was languishing in the fridge into it to make exotic smoothies or creamy porridge. We went through the list of must-have veggies and fruit to use and the no-no list. Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries were the best. Half a carrot not a whole one as it make it too bitter. Avocados and bananas were considered too claggy. Celery did not work well. Ella likes throwing oats, almond milk, dates, frozen berries and some kale into hers for breakfast. Another stylist favoured Kale and spinach and apple and ginger. And on they went including the other clients describing their concoctions and wonder drinks. Vodka was also added for nighttime drinks. They revelled in the art of mixing fruits, vegetables, nuts and grain with yoghurts, milks and whatever – in the way artists enjoy setting up their palettes. Utterly riveting. I was chomping at the bit by the end, ready to go and buy my NutriNinja.

But as with any new pleasure there is always a killjoy lurking in the background telling us too much of a good thing is bad for you. Research has shown that you get hungrier more quickly if you drink vegetable and fruit smoothies rather than crunch and munch your way through them whole. The sugar spike can come all of a sudden causing the premature hunger pangs. But as pointed out by Rhik Samadder on his blog “it’s not for healthy people. It’s for incredibly lazy people.” And there are many of those in the world. Ella, for example, would barely manage a piece of toast most mornings. Now she is powered up with vitamins and zest every morning. And it is so much fun to play with not knowing what it will turn out like each time.

Super Technology

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logo_rememberthemilk My smartphone beeps. This time, a message from my fridge alerting me to buy milk on the way home. This rather tired example of smart technology is still being rolled out whenever anyone talks about the benefits that future technology holds for us. Why can’t it order the milk and get it delivered without needing to involve me? Surely, that would be the smart thing to do. A bottle of milk would be sitting there on the doorstep for when I arrived home. But, equally, I could have nipped out to the corner shop when finding the milk had run out. Just like many of us happily do now. Once there, we might have a chat with the shopkeeper and find out about the local gossip or their opinion about the heatwave or their joy at England beating the Aussies in the latest Test match. And even try the new apple and ginger fruit juice he has just got in.

cornershopMuch of everyday life is made up of these unexpected encounters. We bump into people we know all the time: at work, down the street, at the cinema, in the supermarket and even miles away on holiday. Inconsequential in themselves but which is the social glue that holds society together.

Opportunities for unexpected human contact are slowly being eroded for every transaction that becomes automated – unless you use apps like Tinder specifically to meet a random person you fancy the look of. Taking humans out of the loop is of course nirvana for business, helping them to cut down on operating costs while making services more efficient – and at the same time encouraging people to buy more.

It can also take the headache out of having to queue – and how we hate having to wait for others in front of us especially if they are slow. Last week, when driving to Cambridge, I whizzed across the Dartford Crossing without having to stop at a toll booth and chuck a few quid into an over-sized bucket and then wait magically for the barrier to rise. The new Dart Charge system that has been installed swiftly reads your car registration number and checks to see that you have paid online within 24 hours of crossing. That is super technology.

Dartford_Crossing_400x400dartsystem-large

Trouble is it takes five minutes to fill in the form and register online to use the Dart service. They want to know all sorts of things about you, your car and not forgetting the all important bank details. The same has happened now when parking at Brighton station. There are no barriers or uniformed officials sitting in glass windowed booths. There is still one small wooden hut but it was locked with not a person in sight. All rather eerie. You can pay in advance or up to 24 hours afterwards. After that they slap on a penalty. I paid as soon as I got home fearful I would completely forget once ensconced in domestic life.

It took me another five minutes to key in my details online. The same pattern happens when buying tickets for train journeys. I nearly missed my train last week when trying to buy a ticket to Lincoln on the Virgin site. There was some mix up with being a new user versus a registered one. And it did not tell me until I had filled in all the details including the prized seat facing forward at a table with electric socket. They just vanished from the screen after the error was detected. I had to get a new password as I could not remember what it was. It would have been easier if I had bought it at the station and much less frustrating!

The underside of the relentless push towards ever more automation is that we humans have to do the ‘paper’ work to make it work – tapping all those personal details into our computers or smartphones for every new transaction, making up new passwords and forgetting them. For each new cloud-based system that comes along and replaces the old fashioned way of doing things – like paying with cash and having a human be in charge of the transaction – requires us to sign up before or after and give bank details.

And then there all of those services that we have signed up for using direct debit because it was easier and because sometimes they give a miniscule reduction – be it the TV licence, car tax, gas, water, leccie, Virgin/Sky Media, Netflix, O2 and so on. While taking away the pain of having to fill out yet another form online (once it has been set up) it means we forget how much money each month they are taking from us. When they increase their monthly subscription or charge we simply shrug. I don’t know how many direct debits and standing orders I have now. Some just disappear from my radar. When email notifications pop up from these companies I often don’t bother opening them. I don’t want to really know I have spent an extra £50 this month on data while roaming abroad.

Shockingly, I don’t know how much I earn anymore. Instead of enjoying the monthly ritual of opening a pay slip that would come in a brown envelope – especially when there was a rise due, many of us now have to go online to find out. That means remembering the URL or typing into the search engine when in the work’s intranet and tapping in our user ID and password (finding the one the computer used to have stored is no longer valid) to get to the same information. I simply forget – since there is no monthly email reminder I’ve been paid. And it is not as pleasurable looking at the data in a spreadsheet format – which invariably it is formatted in.

The weather is miserable out there today. So I booked online to get tickets to go to the cinema tonight. It only took a couple of minutes, even after having to scroll down a long menu of countries to enter that I live in the UK. Why do they need to know that? Then up popped a ‘Verified by Visa’ form for me to fill in. I hate those things and can never remember what the 2nd, 4th or 8th or other 3 random sequence of letter/digits they ask for from my password for that credit card. So another couple of minutes filling this bit in and stressing that it was correct.

Hey presto – up popped the message:
“ORDER COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY”
but then as I read on:

“Collect your tickets from the cinema counter or kiosk – Don’t forget your Reference Number!”

Usually it provides a RFID code that you print off as your ticket so you don’t have to queue. What was the point of doing all that key tapping in again and paying an extra online booking fee (nice one!) if I still needed to line up?

An email arrived a few minutes later with the codes on them. Just as well.

I just read in the news that the number of fines issued by the new automated payment system at the Dartford Crossing in its first 6 months exceeded the number of speeding tickets issued in England and Wales for an entire year! 867,897 motorists were fined £70 each compared to the 713,000 speeding tickets issued throughout the whole of England and Wales. That is a whopping £60,752,790! But it gets worse. Some drivers have reported that they are being charged on days when they have not used the crossing. Apparently, the automated letter recognition software sometimes mixes Cs and Gs and other similar looking letters. That is not smart technology. I dread to think how much has been made by Transport for London (TfL) since the Congestion charge was introduced in London over ten years ago. In 2009, alone, nearly 1.5 million congestion charge penalty charge notices at £120 each were made. TfL managed to collect £77m of what was owed to them. That is daylight robbery.

Smart Time

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QRcode While travelling on the Heathrow Express into London I had one of those envy moments. As the ticket inspector came into the carriage I fumbled in my bag for my ticket that I had just bought at a ticket machine while a smartly dressed guy across the aisle from me raised his arm to her brandishing a sparkling new Apple watch. The QR code on his ticket filled the screen. The ticket inspector put her handheld scanning machine next to his arm and hey presto his ticket information pinged up on her screen. Ktchung! We all looked at her smiling face and marveled at how slick the action had been. It was her first time checking an Apple watch face.
apple3 She then turned to me and I handed her my ticket. She looked at it and then me and said, sharply, “that’s your receipt.” I apologized profusely and looked again in my bag for the ticket. I found another one and gave it to her. She looked back at me and said that was also a receipt. Two receipts, no ticket! I must have left the ticket in the machine in my dash to catch the train. I tried to explain how after two pieces of card had been printed I’d assumed that one must have been the ticket. Then I remembered, how on other occasions having to wait ages for numerous bits of card to be printed (some for the seat assignments) and each time scraping the back of my hand to scoop them up as they slowly came out of the machine.

Luckily she was sympathetic and did not make me buy another ticket. Meanwhile Mr smart guy’s watch had turned into a swirl of candy crush apple icons and he and his colleague returned to talk business. I saw the future. I checked out the new smartwatch train apps and saw that there is a cool one for checking where you are on the track and what the next station will be. Perhaps, that was a trainspotting step too far!
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Yesterday, FitBit’s shares soared on the New York Stock Exchange on their first day of going public. The wearable technology company that sells fitness bands that track your sleep, calories and footsteps sold over 10 million of the devices last year. That is a lot of people wanting to find out more about how their body works. It seems all the tech companies are getting in on this wearable act, all counting and measuring parts of the body, from pulse to movement. One I tried, was Microsoft’s new Band – that was a gift given to me at a tutorial run by Microsoft. They normally cost £170 each. Made me feel like I had been given a big present. Once I had set it up, I was curious to see how well I had (or not) slept, how many calories I had burned each day and what my pulse was. There are lots of other cool sensors packed into the band; one that even lets you know the current UV level so that you know whether to slap on some sunscreen.

But after two weeks I stopped using it. I did not need to obsess about whether I was exceeding or deviating from my average number of counts. Checking occasionally an app on my mobile phone to see how often I have reached or exceeded the magical 10,000 steps each day seems to be about the limit of my interest in body counting. According to one of my colleagues a lot of other people also stop using their wearables after a couple of weeks, once the novelty has worn off. While the consumer market may not grow big it seems the corporate one is likely to. A number of companies have been buying them for their employees with the goal of improving overall employee health and well being. BP America, for example, bought 24,000 FitBits for its employees, their spouses and retirees in 2013. Nearly 75% of their employees are now wearing them. That is a lot of step counting for a company usually associated with putting your foot on the gas!

It is not just BP. Last year, according to an article written by Jena McGregor in the Washington Post about 7% of all Fitbit wearers got given a band by their employers. And that is likely to increase as more health insurance companies offer reductions in their deductables as part of their health insurance schemes to companies who get their employees to wear them. No wonder Fitbit shares are soaring. While I was free to stop using my fitness band, I wonder what the pressure to continue wearing them is for those who are given them at work. The social pressure to conform could be immense. If everyone else at work is wearing a Fitbit or a Band or an Apple Watch maybe it will be hard to justify why you are not. Especially when 3rd party companies are brought in to manage the scheme and so in charge of the privacy issues as to who gets access to your personal data. Luckily, we humans can be crafty. If you have not achieved your 10,000 steps each day there are workarounds – so long as you just know how to…

Book Power

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brainMost of us have returned to work this week after a prolonged festive break, indulging in a diet of over-eating, sleeping, drinking, relaxing, watching TV, and meeting up with friends and family. Our brains were given a break from the treadmill of social media, 24/7 news and bubbling up email. And most of us really needed it. Trouble is after such a slothful period it can be really difficult to get our brains back up to speed. I was joking with some colleagues today about still only running at 60%, to which they replied they were barely at 50%.

Why is it so hard to start working again after a much needed break? I often get a headache after using my brain having not used it for a while. It is as if the brain synapses are complaining like leg muscles following a strenuous run.

Is it possible to keep our brain in good working order like a well-oiled engine – that does not need such a shut-down? Can we keep it healthy so that it is easier to rapidly switch gears from thinking slow to thinking fast? In the Evening Standard this evening, the columnist, Richard Godwin talked about the effects of unhealthy media on ourselves. His solution is not to treat digital media like alcohol and every now and again have a week of digital detox – but to make it more difficult for ourselves to reach such a state of overwork and unhealthy media in our normal everyday lives. He provides a few handy tips on how to achieve this, like deleting shortcuts to time-wasting websites, changing the language on your phone to Korean so you are forced to talk to people rather than texting them (unless you happen to be Korean) and signing off Facebook.

Books shelf Will reducing our daily dosage of digital consumption improve our levels of brain energy so that after a holiday we are able to return to a 100% functioning brain more rapidly? I am not so sure. How about discovering the joys of physical media, again? Where we start reading paper books from cover to cover, sing along to the lyrics provided on the back of album covers while listening to old vinyl records, flicking through comics, magazines and newspapers, and even browsing through the junk mail that drops through the door.

practicalethicsMuch pleasure can be gained from loosing yourself in print as in digital media – we just need to rediscover what that is for us. One glossy flier that grabbed my attention was the offer of an evening class in practical philosophy at a nearby pub. That got me thinking, why not? Discussing practical ethics over a pint with some locals. What could be more delightful? And what’s more, there are 41 copies of Peter Singer’s first edition (1980) going for just a penny each on Amazon!

I was also struck by Mark Zuckerberg’s proclamation the other day; he plans to read more books in 2015 purely for intellectual fulfillment. You never know this year could see the return of the paperback.

Japanese Blooper

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Japanese-Sento-6One of the delights of going to a foreign country is discovering the different ways of doing things in all manners, from greeting someone to sharing a meal. Japan, for example, where I am currently visiting is full of them; often mindboggling for those of us from western cultures not familair with such habits. It makes us have to rethink what are normally taken for granted habits, ranging from taking our shoes off when entering someone’s house, to never taking a dripping umbrella inside a shop, to not blowing your nose in front of someone else. It all makes perfect sense when you think about the reasons behind these etiquettes and, of course, is far more civilized than not doing them. But, inevitably one slips up and does the wrong thing, like I did today, big time.

The hotel I am staying at in Japan, in the city of Nara, has a bath house – which I was curious to try. Called a Sento, in japanese, it translates into cleanliness plus nakedness plus togetherness. The japanese bathing culture started centuries ago, coming orginally from India, as a communal place for both sexes to get scrubbed cleaned while gossiping – just like what happens in Turkish Baths. Nowadays, many have closed, while most others survive on tourists paying good money to experience something that they simply dont have in western culture.

Being a good citizen, I looked at the folder in my room containing the directory of services but for the entry against bath house, it just mentioned the opening hours. So I thought I better read up on the etiquette of public bathing, especially given that I was going by myself. So, I checked it up on the web and was quite surprised to see so many rules associated with the tradition of communual bathing. What drew my attention were two key rules which could easily cause problems for prude and brash brits: (i) no-one is allowed in wearing a swimming costume and, (ii) no-one is allowed in bearing a tattoo – the reason being is that tattoos are associated with symbols from the Japanese mafia. I stopped reading up about it after this – assuming there would be a receptionist at the desk to show foreign guests the ropes (as I had recently experienced when visiting, for the first time, a Turkish Bath in Istanbul a few weeks ao).

I went down to the bath house on the 6th floor in my hotel flip-flops holding my hotel towel, eager to find out more. However, no-one was around to tell me what to do at the front desk so I walked into the ladies changing room, where I saw a japanese lady drying her hair. I stripped off and wrapped myself in my bath towel, thinking that was what I should do. I then asked the japanese lady (who rightly spoke no english) in a kind of improvised janglese, flappy arm sort of way, where the entrance was. She pointed to a sliding door and then started waving her small wet towel at me, gesticulating and rabbiting on in animated japanese. Google Translate would have come in handy then – but maybe not when standing naked. So, instead, I waved my large towel and she laughed mirthfully at me. This cross-purpose banter went on for some time with neither of us getting anywhere. Then she pointed to my wrist – I showed her my orange wristband locker key and that got a nod of approval from her. At least I got that right! Then I grinned inanely, as you do when you reach a lost in translation impasse, and slid the door into the bath house. I was confronted with female nudity which took me aback. A few women were merrily showering and lathering themselves, each holding a handheld shower and sat squately on a feeble plastic stool in front of their own mirror. I felt far too self conscious to try doing the same. Instead, I put my large bath towel to one side and plunged straight into the large communal hot bath. I sat there by myself feeling like a lemon, wondering if I should have showered first. There was no one for me to follow in their footsteps or to give me a helping hand. Eventually, some of the japanese women who had been cleaning themselves followed me into the bath but sat at the other end.

At that point, I realized I had messed up big time. Got it the wrong way round. So I stood up and walked straight out, without looking back, to the changing rooms – wondering what the women sitting in the bath were thinking about me. Luckily, the hair-drying woman had disappeared. I then saw a sign saying restroom and thought I could hide in there to rest, overcome my embarrassment and decide what to do next, but on sliding the door open discovered it was just a toilet (it seems they use the American term here for toilets). At which point I wanted to sink into the ground. I hurriedly put my clothes back on and rushed out, back to my room.

hot bath On re-reading the dos and donts of going to a Japanese bath house, back in the safety of my own room, it turns out that having a little towel is really important, and you should never use a big bath towel when there. I was reminded of the divers at the Olympics who all have their little flannel towels they wring and use all the time to dry bits of them while focusing the mind. So, that was what the hair-drying woman was trying to explain to me. Then I discovered the other faux pas I had made:
Not washing all over beforehand but instead brazenly walking straight into the bath: “Wash thoroughly before entering the relaxation baths. It is important that every square inch of skin gets a pre-soak lashing of the suds. Typically, one squats centimeters above the ground under small showers with the backside resting on a miniature stool. Don’t worry, it is more comfortable than it sounds – even if the knees have seen better days. Instead of allowing water to run over yourself as you clean considered wasteful in Japan – pour water over your body with a shallow plastic bucket provided by the sento.”

This time I read on. I could have done worse! Apparently, they do use a chemical in the water that turns it purple if you pee in it. But not only the water it also turns your skin purple. Could you imagine if I had turned up at my talk scheduled for tomorrow all purple and the Japanese members of the audience chuckling to themselves, knowing the reason. I cringed imagining how that might have played out! Professor Purple found in the bathroom with lead piping…

For more on Bath House rules.

Call Buttons

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fasttrack Pressing buttons is often irrepressible. You can’t help yourself when you see one just asking to be touched. The other day, I was at a meeting where someone proudly proclaimed how they love to push the green button when going through fast track security because it gives them a great sense of satisfaction. The physicality of pressing down on something makes them feel good – like a high five. And, conversely, if they have been subjected to a slow ordeal through security they equally enjoy slapping the red button, helping to relieve their frustration.

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Buttons are becoming more ubiquitous in other contexts, especially, it seems, those designed to expedite service. Getting someone’s attention can be a trying experience, especially in cafés where waiters are often surly and go out of their way to be unhelpful. Imagine my delight when I saw this call button at Searcys Champagne Bar at St Pancras Station – inviting the customers to press for more champagne. The bar claims to be the longest in Europe and so it saves the waiters having to walk up and down all the time so that you can catch their eye. There is something rather alluring about seeing a sign next to a button saying ‘press for champagne’ rather than the more impersonal ‘press for service’. Trouble is when I last visited it with a friend it did not work. We pressed it and waited five minutes. No waiter. We pressed it twice more and still no waiter. There was no way of knowing if the thing worked as it did not give any feedback after being pressed. Eventually, after 20 minutes a waiter sauntered past, oblivious to being summoned by the button, and so we resorted to the usual, grabbing his attention by shouting and raising our arms.

pushbutton The second call button I came across the other week was in a rather ordinary hotel in the centre of Madrid. The push buttons were encased in a plastic base – located on each table in the foyer/café. At first, I thought they were decorative paperweights but then I realized they were service call devices, comprising three buttons; call waiter, ask for the bill or cancel call. It was only when I looked at a sign at the bar providing an explanation I worked it out. Being mischievous, I was tempted to press all three and run away. Like playing Knock Down Ginger. But then I thought better of it. Instead, I gingerly pressed the icon that looks like a man about to shoot himself in the head (it is meant to be a waiter holding a tray up high). I waited. But it was the same as at the Champagne Bar. No response. After five minutes and still no sign of a waiter I pressed it again. Eventually a waiter did appear from behind a closed door and I hailed her over with my arm.

It seems, in both cases, the waiters were ignoring the new-fangled technology (or had switched it off). I don’t blame them – being beckoned by the tyranny of a button is surely very demeaning. And yet, flight attendants would lose their job if they did not attend to the call buttons pressed throughout a flight. However, many of us don’t dare use them. The one time I did press it to get some water, the attendant gave me that look that puts you in your place, masked by the ‘have a nice day’ smile. There is something in a glance that speaks volumes. It is rare now to see passengers pressing the call button. Instead, most of us will walk up the aisle to the galley and ask for what we want.

Why is that pressing buttons to get someone’s attention feels awkward? After all, this uneasiness and not knowing does not happen in Korea – where restaurant table calling buttons are an integral part of the culture. Everyone simply presses the discrete button, placed at the end of each dining table when wanting waiter service – without giving it a moment’s thought. What’s more, a waiter will invariably arrive in seconds and seem only to pleased to serve.
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Breaking Bad News

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There is never a good way to receive bad news. We all dread the scenario of the doctor telling you the results of scans and tests that indicate you have terminal cancer or the policeman knocking on your front door to tell you your child had been run over. Conversely, there is never an easy way to tell bad news. Policemen and doctors receive special training. The rest of us, not. Increasingly, people resort to using email or a text to pass on bad news. You can compose an email or text in the best way possible, using opening gambits and well-worded condolences, and then simply hit the send button – not having to deal with the immediate reaction of the person it is sent to. Some tweet the bad news or post on Facebook without thinking whether the bereaved have been informed personally. That is really bad.

At the end of last year I was working on my laptop, having just landed in California the day before, when an email notification appeared at the top of the screen with the subject matter “bad news i’m afraid.” I stopped in my tracks and my heart beat a little faster. It was the addition of ‘I’m afraid’ that made me afraid. I opened up the email thinking it was from Gary, the email address of the person sending it to me. But his wife, Gil, had used his email account to let me know he had died out of the blue: “i have terrible news and there is no easy way to tell you: Gary died this afternoon of suspected heart attack on the beach.”

gary_posterShe had a point that there is no easy way to tell terrible news. But it completely threw me that it came from his email account. I read it as if he was talking to me – as you do when you read emails from people you know. Someone I had thought was talking to me appeared for a split second to be sending me news of his own death. I understood later why Gil had sent the email from his account – it was far easier and more practical for her to let all his many friends know in this way as she just had to go through his email address book. The shock to her was so great that it did not matter which email account it came from – so long as we found out personally and not first through Facebook.

Besides death, another kind of bad news that can be hard to receive via email is disappointment. Typically it happens, when you fail at something – such as not getting the job you wanted, not being awarded a grant proposal you had worked hard at, not getting a paper accepted for publication at a conference when it was one of your best, coming second in a competition you thought you deserved to win, and so on. Often you have aimed high, imagining and daydreaming about what it would be like to succeed. But then the email letter arrives and you read the first line, “I regret to inform you…” that stains your retinas. The rest is a blur and you experience that awful sinking feeling. I usually swear profusely under my breath, say childish things about the sender of the email, kick the desk and then go for a walk to try to distance myself from the indelible words in the email. And then come up with any number of post hoc reasons for why I did not want the job or the grant and why I am better off without it.

Another kind of bad news is at the group, organizational or national level – that triggers anger and frustration. For example, England’s abysmal performance at the World Cup last summer, Man United’s dreadful start to the Premiership this season or the political party you supported loosing at the general election. A common strategy is to blame – “we was robbed”, “the ref was blind” etc. Another is to assume you know better and to spell out how you should have done this or that. It can help to dissipate the disappointment by feeling superior or more knowledgeable.

Last week my dean dropped a bombshell to a number of us in a largely positive email sent to various members of a list. While reading all the good news the bad news – otherwise largely hidden– popped its ugly head out for those who would be affected by it. We were told of the plan to move the Computer Science department to a new building (the good news). But following this was the sentence that for the next couple of years the majority of us were to be ‘decanted’ to another building, temporarily, while a new building was found and repurposed for us (we’ve grown too big for our current accommodation). I got really upset at how I had received this piece of news. I know I can be over-sensitive, but somehow receiving it in this way made it all the worse. I let my dean know how I felt in a frank email reply just to him. He made up for it by meeting me face to face talking it through over lunch and coffee. It is good to talk – it really is.

Bad news image from http://www.thirdoptionmen.org/blog/bad-news/

Data-Assisted Living

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eco-technologyLast week I gave a talk about how to change behaviour using a variety of technologies and nudges at the Eco Technology Show in Brighton. Bizarrely, the seminar area was surrounded with seriously high performance electric concept cars, like the BMW i8 and the Tesla S – the ones that pop stars and film actors drive to their private jets in – that have zero carbon emission. It sends the message that it is OK to own and drive a mean machine that is made out of piles of shiny metal provided you can say it runs on zero carbon emmision – but ironically uses loads of electricity to go fast and that needed tons of carbon to make in the first place. The focus is on reducing and reaching targets rather than on changing our lifestyles. Many of us offset our carbon-rich lives (especially busy academics who fly everywhere) by justifying them through the many decisions we make along the way. I can argue that I am able to fly and drive because I don’t eat meat or have children. Others make the balance by not having a car, camping at home, growing their own vegetables, riding a bike and recycling their waste.
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I started my talk by commenting on that day’s news about how we should change children’s drinking habits. Instead of giving our kids zero coke, Fanta or other fizzy drinks at mealtimes we should put a jug of water on the table so they get used to just drinking water. Then, hopefully drinking plain H2O will become the norm – and obesity and diabetes levels will decline. A long shot.

There were lots of questions at the end. A journalist asked me whether we shouldn’t be trying to change people’s attitudes and whole lifestyles rather than simply nudging specific behaviours – even following the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous but instead for a Zero Carbon life. I shuddered at the thought that we needed to go to such lengths in order to save our planet – happiness and fun taken over by guilt, denial and God.

nestThere are a slew of new technologies on the market now that can track, aggregate and visualize our every behaviour – from toothbrushes that check whether you and your family are brushing their teeth correctly to the Nest thermostat – that is now available in the UK – that provides an intelligent way of controlling how your house is heated or cooled. In an interview in the Guardian last weekend, the designer and CEO of Nest, Tony Fadell argued its case for being in every home: “We want you to do things you want to do. We know what you have done in the home and can give you suggestions” and let you know “Hey here’s a better way to save” or “You’re doing really well today.”

Although the data-assisted device (currently selling at 50,000 a month worldwide) is cute and aesthetically pleasing to the eye – there is something rather sinister in the way it has been designed to learn about your everyday habits and make suggestions about what you should do based on this. It smacks of anthropomorphism and nanny state mentality. While there is nothing wrong with giving your new Tesla a name (I called my first car Gertie), the kind of sophisticated modeling that is used to determine intent, and which is then used to decide what is best for you, while at the same time smattering you with platitudes and praise might get a tad annoying and patronizing. There is a lot to be said for simply putting a jug on the table every day and embracing the pleasures of pure water.
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High-Tech Shopping

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Last week I spent a whole morning at a mega Sainsbury’s supermarket in Chingford, somewhere on the outskirts of East London. The British TV series, Gadget Man was filming content for a new show and they asked us if they could try out our lambent shopping handle.

The handle we designed is a minimalistic, mobile and fully functional display that clips onto supermarket shopping carts/trollys, intended to help people decide when choosing between which groceries to buy. It can be easily customized to provide salient information about the food dimensions people care about, such as salt content, fat content and food-miles. The latter are represented by varying lengths of a series of LEDs on the handle and a changing emoticon showing their total miles against a social norm. For example, scanning a packet of quinoa results in all 16 LEDs lighting up because it comes from multiple countries in Asia, whereas scanning a ready-made lasagne lights up only 3 of the LEDs, because it is made from Scottish beef. (Lambent by the way means having the property of moving lightly or flickering gently over a surface – which our handle does rather than being in your face.)

At a glance, a shopper can compare the same product for different brands, for example, two types of chocolate, bottled water or apples. The price might be the same, but the salt or sugar content or whether it has been locally sourced varies. While much of this information may be available on the food packaging it is often in small print or presented in such a way that it takes ages to find and can be confusing to the shopper. We make it compelling and easy to read off. Some might argue that smartphone apps do the same job. We showed empirically that this is far from the truth; they are often fiddly and tedious to use, and can overwhelm the shopper who is holding their phone in one hand, a product in the other while trying to scan it and navigate a complex store environment, usually in a hurry.

The lambent shopping handle was just one of several new gizmos being filmed intended to make shopping easier and more enjoyable. So, we got to watch Richard Ayoade (the british comedian, actor, writer and TV presenter) in the flesh for the whole morning act out various scenes with the latest gadgetry. When not being filmed, he sat or stood calmly in the store reading a book. He was happy to let me have my photo taken standing next to him. How cool is that?

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Our approach to enhancing shopping is to provide just enough information about certain product properties in order to help shoppers make more informed purchasing decisions. It is lightweight, playful and simple – enticing you to think rather than accept what others recommend. Quite different from much contemporary thinking about how we should use technology which promotes deciding for the user. For example, only this morning I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 about “Silicon Valley’s vision of local high-tech shopping”. The vision was same old, same old. An example of the future was of Jenny walking into a Burger Bistro, where upon her smartphone is recognized by the Point of Sales that then flashes up what she ate last time. The waiter on seeing her and the information about Jenny picks up a plate of fried sweet potato fries and takes it to her table saying in a cheery voice, “Hello Jenny, I thought you would like some of these again!” without asking her. This kind of personalized service is likened to ‘Rockstar treatment’. Just like Justin Beaver or David Beckham never have to decide or ask but always get the food they want. But sometimes even they might want change…

Whereas the likes of PayPal, eBay and other retail companies are pushing for more of this kind of personalisation in restaurants and stores, Isabelle Szmigin, a professor of marketing at Birmingham University, offered a refreshingly sceptical riposte, pointing out that just because Jenny ordered sweet potato fries one day, it does not mean she wants them every time she goes back to the same restaurant. While many of us maybe creatures of habit, most of us crave new experiences, tastes, products and surprises. We don’t want to be stuck with a Groundhog Day mindset. The model of personalized shopping based on your past experiences and purchases is set in the past. High tech retailing needs to break out of the automated recommender way of trying to please and nudge people. We can do much better when thinking of how to enhance shopping and dining experiences with technology.

A brand new Waitrose opened last month in Hove. It is the talk of the town (we have been waiting years for one) and it seems a destination in itself to visit judging by the line of cars queuing up for the car park. My fellow commuter regaled to me how it was the highlight of her weekend. She went with her chum on a Saturday afternoon and sat down at a table in the middle of the store (next to the wine section) and they both ordered a glass of house wine and some tapas. Whilst enjoying their repast, they merrily selected their shopping by tapping icons on a tablet, craftily positioned on their table. A minion then went on their behalf to do their shopping, that was ready for them to collect on their way out. No hassle, no queuing. There is a premium for this service but what a fun way to while away an hour – quaffing while doing online shopping in an actual bricks and mortar supermarket.

Cloud Talk

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glass_photos4-578-80Google Glass has been unleashed now for several months. Volunteer researchers are trying them out and developing a range of apps for them. Up until now I’ve only seen photos of people wearing them but last week there were several attendees wearing cool colored ones at the SIGCHI conference I was at in Toronto. It can be slightly unnerving when in their company as they look up and to the right to view what is on the glass screen rather than at you and into your eyes. As a result you might see more of the whites of their eyes than the usual interested dilated pupils. It could be the end of eye contact as we know it.

Meanwhile, there has been much debate in the press about the latest developments in facial recognition. NameTag, for example, is an app developed for Google Glass that takes a picture of the person you are talking with and then checks their online profile, providing a cloud of personal information about them, presumably mined from Facebook and other social media apps. So, you can find out more about someone on the go while talking to them – for example, what music they like, what films they have just seen, where they have just been on vacation, and so on – all in a digestible précis with a halo of photos around to boot. One could imagine that if this way of meeting up with others actually takes off, we may find ourselves in the situation where we wont need to talk to each other anymore. Just as text messaging has largely taken over from making phone calls for many people, ‘cloud talk’ could start taking over our initial encounters with people when we meet them at parties, at conferences, on trains etc. We might nod and smile in acknowledgement of each other but we wont ever have to have those awkward conversations anymore. A panacea for the shy? But how will we know what each other is looking at? You might think I am reading your blog or tweets when in your presence but really I might just be watching the latest updates of the football results and pretending to ‘meet you’.

scenetap Perhaps a more creepy development is the installation of cameras in bars in the US that are starting to use facial recognition. SceneTap, for example, uses it to provide information about the age and gender of people already in a bar to help others decide whether it has the right kind of people in it that they want to drop in. The thin edge of the digital voyeurism wedge?

PrintAt the conference I was at some of my researchers attended a hackathon where, with a team of others, they set up a hoax service called the quantifiedtoilets.com giving a new twist to surveillance in public places. They placed signs up in the restrooms in the convention centre we were at saying they were capturing toilet behaviour for real-time data and health analysis. They claimed furthermore to be working with local businesses, building owners, and local officials to improve the health and efficiency of individual buildings, neighborhoods, and entire cities. To achieve this, they purported to be analyzing “the biological waste process of buildings to make better spaces and happier people. We use this data to streamline cleaning crew schedules, inform municipalities of the usage of resources, and help buildings and cities plan for healthier and happier citizens.” The data they collected from each individual toilet , which they then revealed as stats for each toilet in the building, included the amount deposited, the odor, blood alcohol level, and any drugs, infections and even pregnancy detected. For example, a fresh urine deposit in the far end toilet on the 7th floor might have revealed that a recent occupant was female, had a blood alcohol level of 0.3% and was pregnant.

Not surprisingly, lots of people tweeted and blogged about this latest development. Many took it at face value and were shocked and outraged at such an invasion of public privacy. Which is what the researchers were interested in. There was also lots of coverage in the press, including Wired, the Washington Post and the Atlantic. It was only later that it dawned on people that it was a hoax – a thought experiment intended to get people to debate. And it surely did.

But do keep an eye on those advanced Japanese toilets that already have a set of mindboggling functions. You never know, they might just start adding a few more sensors and a webcam in the bowl.

Big Decisions

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For the last few months I have been toying with whether to buy a brand new car or a used one. Everyone tells me to buy one that is a few years old as it is far better value for money. But my gut feeling is to go for a new one that had all the bells and whistles I want rather than those chosen by someone else – even if financially it does not make sense. The final countdown to what to do was a close shave that caused me much stress. Eventually, my heart ruled rather than my head. In a couple of months a new beauty will be delivered to me.

Throughout our lives we are confronted with making a number of such big ticket decisions, not just what kind of, or indeed whether, to buy a car, but also when moving to a new house, which university to go to, whether to change jobs and so on. For these kinds of life-changing choices we typically begin by doing lots of research, partly to reassure ourselves that we are selecting the best option according to certain criteria, such as reliability, price, reputation or new opportunities. To do otherwise, such as based on a hunch, would be rash and unwise. During this comparative process, we weigh up many options, read other’s reviews, prioritizing, and talking to others about our current thinking, all the time juggling the various criteria in our heads.

the big decisionMuch has been written about the rational decision-making processes that are involved. A commonly accepted view in the fields of economics, psychology, and consumer behaviour is of unbounded rationality; that states decisions are best made by gathering and processing all available information. Once, all the information has been sifted and sorted through, we can then make a well-informed decision. In contrast, the perspective of bounded rationality argues that we often make decisions with much less information, because of limited time, information, and computational abilities. Instead of processing all the available information and considering all the options, we often make surprisingly good decisions simply by using “fast and frugal” heuristics, which are rules of thumb or short-cut choice strategies that ignore most of the available information. The trick is to ignore the unnecessary pieces of information, and just search for the few pieces of information that will be most useful, or the few most appropriate options, and process them appropriately. To do this, we use search heuristics that look for options only until one is found that is good enough or “choice heuristics” that seek as little information as possible to determine which option should be selected.

In my case, I knew which car I wanted from the get go based on a gut instinct. However, because it was such a big decision, I looked at the internet flow of information in order to be more sensible. I don’t know how many reviews I read and how many people I talked to before stopping my search. But I ended up choosing what I felt I wanted 6 months ago. I wonder how many of us do the same – following our instincts but prolonging the anxiety by going through a drawn out decision-making process to justify it to ourselves and others.

So what is the role of technology in all of this? Has it helped or hindered, vindicated or confused? Especially for those of us who were born only ever knowing life through laptop fingertips?

Howard Gardner and Katie Davis in their new book “The App Generation” note how the app mentality developing in the psyche of the younger generation is making it worse for them to make their own decisions because they are becoming more risk averse. By this they mean that young people are now depending on an increasing number of mobile apps that remove the risks of having to decide for themselves. They will first read what others have said on social media sites, blogs and recommender apps before choosing where to eat, where to go, what to do, what to listen to, etc. Moreover, they often leave it until the last minute, micro-coordinating their arrangements with their friends, before deciding. They will wait and see if a better offers comes their way rather than making a decision for themselves, a week in advance, say, to see a movie with a friend and sticking to it.

But, relying on a multitude of apps means that young people are becoming increasingly more anxious about making decisions by themselves. For many, their first big decision is choosing which university to go to. This has become an agonizing and prolonged experience where both parents and apps play a central role in helping them out. They will read countless reviews, go on numerous visits to universities with their parents over several months, study the form of a number of league tables, read up on what others say on social networking sites, and so on. But in the end, I wonder if it was all that necessary. They may finally end up choosing where their friends are going or the one they liked the look of in the first place. Many will have spent hours, weeks, and even months talking about it, reading up on it, listening to lots of advice and procrastinating right down to the wire. Compared to previous pre-internet generations they wont have made the decision by themselves.

Technology, it seems may now be hindering not helping us with making big decisions.

Digital Destruct

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broken-cellphoneYesterday a friend of mine sent me an email where she announced she had had enough of digital technology. She exclaimed how she had slammed her mobile phone against the headrest of the seat in front of her whilst sitting on a bus. A bit drastic I thought but she has a point. She continued ranting in her email about how the technology we subscribe to has been taken over by the advertisers. For example, since IPO, Twitter users are beginning to receive vast amounts of visual advertisements in their sea of tweets. Facebook users have been inundated with personalized ads for years. And every time you watch a YouTube video now it is fronted with a commercial video that you need to click on to skip it. And then up pops a banner ad obscuring the video, so you have to click on the tiny check box to hide it again. Anyone who subscribes to O2 will have also received weekly text ads via the delightful service, O2More. I pay O2 so much a month to make phone calls and send text messages – not to discover that the new Reebok FitHub Store is now open in Covent Garden or that I can pick up a packet of Jordan’s Country Crisp for just £2 at Tesco Express on Western Road. To stop O2 More sending me these ads I have to text stop to 20502. I can’t work that out as to whether is it just the number or I have to call the number with the letters ‘stop to’ on first. And if I do succeed, there will no doubt be some obnoxious bot waiting to pester me.

My friend was not only incensed by the ubiquity of digital advertising we are all subjected to on our technologies – but also the way we communicate with each other becoming increasingly shallow and cold: “The original idea of making a phone call, sending a text or an email to make a simple communication is now part of a long drawn out distraction. The more time and coverage we have the less we communicate directly.” It is true that many of us will opt for the easy option of keeping in touch rather than engage in a lengthy conversation. Send a quick message on WhatsApp to ask how someone is or simply post a selfie for everyone to see showing how much fun you are having – much easier than having a weekly chat over the phone with mum or catching up with family over a long Sunday lunch.

And we all know how addictive it is. You wait for your next tweet, text or email – hoping it will be from that special someone.

art_snapchat-620x349 The latest craze is Snapchat that lets users connect by sending each other photos that automatically delete after a few seconds. It is now on a quarter of all UK smartphones – and rising. It is even overtaking Facebook amongst teenagers as their modus operandi. And as of yet it is not doused in ads. Under 20 year olds love it because it does not leave a digital footprint that mum or a future employee can look at. It means they can send embarrassing photos to their friends for a quick laugh of them doing something stupid and know that it will be gone in an instant. There is no fear of getting dissed. And that is priceless for a teenager. Ironically, it has the same property of a real conversation, that is, being ephemeral. Other than that it could not be more different. Gone is the art of conversation. Just snap, annotate, send – see, laugh and reciprocate. Instead of chatting in the old fashioned way, you can send an even longer selfie – known as a Snapchat story – a short collage of photos and videos that lasts in the digital ether for just 24 hours.

Against the rise of snappy happy teen life, there appears to be a ground swell of discontented 20+ something users. Those who have started to get tired of a life filled with self-obsessed, soundbite living and instead want to get back to the Good Life. Just after reading my friend’s email, I went to my local Costas and came across this graffiti on a wall – I thought it rather poignant.

smartphone_notSeveral of my friends have ditched their smartphones for ‘stupid phones’ – ones that just let you make a call or send a text. And they seem a lot happier. Some have blogged about living without a smartphone and they all agree it is great, the quality of life is so much better.

Here is a list of 5 pros and cons from offbeathome.com

The upside of getting rid of your smartphone
• Making fun of everyone on them while out with friends
• Having more conversations
• Realizing how much more time you have and how much you can get done when not distracted by your phone
• Talking more to one’s spouse and getting more done each night after work
• Getting lost

The downside of getting rid of your smartphone
• Getting lost
• Not having music for long drives back home (buy an iPod)
• No camera and instant photo sharing
• No distraction when you’re bored, or in an awkward situation
• No GPS to help you find your way

It seems like a no-brainer for anyone over 25. But, I just love my new iPhone 5S. The camera is awesome…

Shock Box

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phone boxDefibrillators (AEDs) are located on walls in public buildings, stations, trains and planes. You never really notice them unless called into action – just like all the other safety equipment that is required in public places, such as fire alarms, fire hoses and extinguishers.

Last week we were ambling though the quiet village of Steyning, doing a spot of window shopping, when we came across an AED in a disused phone box. At first sight, I thought it was bizarre to see a life saving contraption where a public phone used to be but then it made perfect sense for it to be there, since no one uses public phones anymore. Rather than sell them off to Americans who place them in their restaurants, bars and homes for show and effect – why not keep them as a permanent feature of the British landscape, but repurposed to be live savers? Maybe it will stop the phone boxes smelling of urine and being vandalized. And help save a live.

aedDefibrillators are strange machines that are intended to issue jolting electric shocks to someone who has just had a heart attack. They come encased in plastic boxes, usually coloured bright yellow or green. When opened up, they provide step-by-step instructions, with voice prompts, designed to be used by untrained bystanders. The boxes include a kit with all the things you will need to use the defibrillator. You are meant to start by ripping open the person’s clothing to expose their chest, then, if it is dry, wet it followed by applying two sticky pads with electrodes in them – one on the heart and one above the nipple on the right chest. If the person has a lot of chest hair it is suggested you trim it using a razor that is included in the kit. And if they are wearing an underwire bra you are meant to cut it away to avoid burns on the patient’s skin.

All of these preliminary actions are very intimate to be doing to a stranger. There is no dignity when it comes to having a heart attack. The AED machine will analyse the patient’s heart beat and then tell you to stand clear of the patient so it can deliver a shock if it considers it necessary. It will repeat these steps until the patient is revived or continues not to respond to the treatment.

Last week, one of my students witnessed a passenger using an AED, whilst on a tube train, on another passenger who had slumped unconscious. The person did not respond and was eventually taken away by the emergency service who came to the scene, assumed dead. She found it very distressing to be stuck in a carriage, having to watch the defibrillator machine repeatedly being used, in vain. I had a similar experience, about 10 years ago, on a flight to Seattle when a man crashed to the floor, face first, right next to my aisle seat. Two doctors rushed to the scene, when a message was sent out on the tannoy system, alongside two undercover air marshalls. They turned the man over and started the process under my nose. They began by opening up his Hawaii shirt (I can remember the detail of the pattern) and quickly strapping on the defibrillator. Then for the next hour, the defibrillator took over control issuing orders; which the doctors and air marshalls obediently followed. It was clear to everyone around him that he was dead but it is a requirement by law to continue trying to revive the patient until the plane has landed. The plane eventually made an emergency landing where he was taken off the plane on a gurney.

It is very disturbing seeing someone, unexpectedly and suddenly, die in front of you in a public place; a living body suddenly becoming lifeless, and then stripped and strapped to a pulsating AED. What has stayed with me most is the eerie robotic voice that repeatedly barks the same piercing dictum throughout the ordeal, just before it is about to deliver a shock, “Stand clear. Do not touch the patient. Stand clear.”

A couple of years ago a guy called Shay Carmon developed a concept defibrillator toaster that would revive your bread. That is black humour to the max.

toaster

Which Sauce?

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sausage-sandwichI’ve started listening to the Danny Baker show on Five Live that goes out on Saturday mornings. The delectable Danny explores everyday topics in his distinctive style; quirky, witty and maundering. You never know where a conversation with a caller might end. He has the knack of moving it in unpredictable and very funny ways. The pièce de résistance is the weekly Sausage Sandwich Game – that is now legendary amongst his fans. A guest (such as a former footballer, or a singer) is invited to answer questions about him or herself that are innocuous but personal – such as when did you last climb a tree (this year, in the last two years or over 10 years ago) or where did you live for the longest when you were a child – on a street, road, lane, close, avenue or other. The kind of unique questions that banks should come up with for their security questions instead of what is your mother’s maiden name or the primary school you went to (since now you can lift that information so easily from Facebook or LinkedIn).

Two call-in contestants are also invited to represent their football team (say Arsenal or Berwick Rangers) and have to guess what the guest would choose as their answer. They have to make their choice based on what they have heard about the guest in the introductory banter.

So, on very little information they have to decide, for example, if the person is a tree climber (and hence climbed up one recently) or even more random, they seem like a person who would have lived on a road rather than an avenue. Having tried to work it out and explain their reasoning the guest then reveals when, where or whatever the answer. Whoever gets the right answer scores a goal. The last question asked is the sausage question – do they take red sauce, brown sauce or no sauce when eating a sausage sarnie. The suspense is brilliantly timed. We hear the clock ticking and then the contestant’s think aloud reasoning behind their choice (e.g. ‘oh she is definitely a brown sauce person, given she is from up north’, or ‘he does not seem like someone who would take any sauce’ so a no-saucer). As Danny says, this question reveals something about a person in ways that an interrogation could never do. The bon homie and self-deprecating humour that exudes from Danny throughout keeps you laughing and looking forward to the next game the following week. It is masterful, phone-in radio.

We often have to guess something about someone else, their likes, dislikes, what presents they might like, writing something witty about them on a ‘miss you’ leaving card, which restaurant or café they would like to meet at, and so on. For many it can be hard work, especially if they don’t know the person that well. There is a mismatch between the individual things we know about a person and the high level categories offered by retail. Buy for him or her; that special present for mum or dad, and so on. What if you could go to an online site and instead answer a few sausage sandwich type questions about a person you need to buy a present for, say a 40th birthday. The underlying system could do some clever pattern matching and suggest something original and unexpected for that person. That would be smart shopping – and entertaining for the shopper instead of being a chore.

Fascinating Bodies

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shadow02We are fascinated with our bodies and the shadows they project. From making hand shadows by creative molding and twisting of our hands and fingers under a projector light to interactive artistic works that encourage you to move and twist to make larger than life shadows on public walls such as Felix Bonowski’s Proximity Repulsion, recently shown at the Saatchi Gallery. felixrepulsion

Then there is Nature that does it on your behalf, making elongated and strange shapes of you from winter late afternoon suns.

ourshadows
There is something magical about projecting yourself as a flat moving dark shape to appear in front of you onto a surface such as a wall, grass or water, using either natural or artificial light. You never think of it as blocking out light but as an extension of your embodied self that you are in control of; making it bigger, smaller, wider, animal or head like. Felix’s interactive projection is captivating and compelling: a rain of particles falls from the top of the projected shadow and if one hits the edge of it, a repulsive force pushes it away from your head, arm or hand. The effect is to feel like one is playing with particles in a way similar to water or sand but by bouncing off one’s shadow. It is a beautiful piece.

Last week, I went to the Science Museum and came across a new exhibition called “3D: printing the future”. There was a fine collection of plastic artefacts, and various replacement body parts for cars, planes and people. They even had a facsimile of the liberator plastic gun that was 3D printed recently and which caused a furore in the press. liberator gun

And there was also an amazing 3D printed sculpture that was a combination of MRI scans and St Paul’s Cathedral by the artist Tobias Klein. But what really caught my eye was lots of jellybean coloured plastic figurines – like the ones you used to find in cereal packets – hanging from the wall at the end of the exhibit. On closer inspection I discovered they were 3D scans of real people who had visited the museum. They had chosen their own colour and pose. Each was unique in a quite different way to having your photo taken. Whilst no longer attached to the body in the way shadows always are, it felt as if there was still a part of the person in the 3D model. Like little people who might start to come alive as they do in the classic Pixar animation film Toy Story.

figurine2

Only last week, the UK supermarket, ASDA, announced it was launching an in-shop 3D printing service that will scan your whole body to create an 8-inch version of you. Now just imagine getting the whole family done, aunts and uncles and all. And then turning the lights off and putting the projector on… one could act out family dramas with their like-like shadows coming alive. Perhaps, it might get a tad creepy, even uncanny valley.

Urban Divide

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eastpaloalto“You don’t want to go to East Palo Alto! It is on the wrong side of the tracks”, was the advice I was given when looking for somewhere to rent in Silicon Valley back in the late 90s. East Palo Alto has been very poor since the early 80s and has much higher rates of crime than the other bits of Palo Alto that just got more wealthy and posher during the technology dotcom bubble. A similar demarcation exists in Bloomington, Indiana, where I also once lived. Those on the wrong side of the tracks live in poverty and are often regarded as trailer trash whilst those on the right side are university dons and students, respectable and educated. A clear town and gown divide.

More generally, every country has its north and south or east and west. If you live in the south of England you consider those ‘up north’ to be working class, poor and hard-nosed. Conversely, if you live in the north of England you consider those ‘down south’ to be stuck up, wealthy and snooty. The dividing line is located at the infamous Watford Gap service station on the M1. Apparently, nearly 75% of the English are prejudiced against their northern or southern neighbours.

The same can be said about cities. People south of the Thames rarely venture north of the river outside of work and vice versa. Each side of London has its own culture, accent, street fashion and views about people living on the other side.

millroad Such urban splits are perpetuated right down to the street level. There is a street in Cambridge, UK, called Mill Road that is divided by railway tracks. On one side is Romsey and on the other, Petersfield. Romsey people believe Petersfield is less safe and has less community feel than their neighbourhood. But what do those in Petersfield think? Do they regard themselves as being poorer – whether financially culturally or economically? Do they think it is more or less unsafe than Romsey? Another case of being on the wrong side of the tracks?

Are the perceived differences about the other side real or imagined? This is the question being asked on one of our current research projects run by Lisa Koeman and Vaiva Kalnikaitė as part of the ICRI Cities. Instead of simply asking people on the street what they think, we have employed electronic voting devices to mediate. 18 of these portable devices have been designed, custom built and placed in shops along the street – some on the Romsey side and the others at the Petersfield end.
lisa2 Shoppers get to vote on a variety of questions to do with the neighbourhood, by simply pressing one of three coloured buttons, depending on whether they agree, are neutral or disagree. Statements include “the street has a real buzz today”, “I feel socially connected” and, “I feel at home on Mill Road.” They are of course free and encouraged to talk at large about the issues with others in the shop or street.

The logged votes are then aggregated for each shop and displayed as a public visualisation outside them. Local graffiti artists spray the breakdown of the votes as a percentage for each choice – using temporary chalk and stencils – onto the pavement next to each shop taking part. This then becomes the talking point for for all to see, be puzzled about and compare.
visualisation_3

At the end of the week an evocative visualisation of all the votes for all the questions, from the two parts of the street – divided by the tracks – will be designed and sprayed on the bridge pavement to show whether and what are the differences, as judged by the shoppers and shopkeepers. Will it be the case that the perceived economic and social differences are as marked as we are led to assume?

The jury is out.

If you want to have your say pop into one of the participating shops and cast your vote. The project also hopes to enable residents and visitors to the area to find out more about the street – which is known for its vibe, diverse community and international shops.