Category Archives: Memory

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!

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

Wikipedia What?

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I was chatting with some friends about where we get our general knowledge from. One reminisced about the rows of hardback, dark blue covered books, called the “Encyclopedia Britannica”, her family had bought from a dodgy door-to-door salesman. Back then in the 60s and 70s, it was a status symbol among working and aspiring families to have bought the entire collection. She admitted hardly having read them but pointed out how they filled the bookshelves nicely. According to Wikipedia, it was the longest lasting printed tome, first published between 1768 and 1771 in Scotland. It kept growing in size with new volumes being added each year such that the 15th edition spanned a mighty 32 volumes, comprising 32,640 pages.

For some reason my family bookshelf did not possess a set. Instead, we had the slimmer ‘Golden Book Encyclopedia’ that was made up of 16 slender, hardback volumes. Each has its own distinct shiny colourful cover made up of a collage of enticing objects and targeted at the family rather than keeping up with the Jones. I would often take one or two off the shelves at a time and dip into them to learn and wonder; whether it was reading about the brain, seeing volcanoes spew forth or discovering strange animals existed like the aardvark. It was a joy on a Saturday afternoon to be lying on my bed absorbing this general knowledge while whetting my curiosity. The writing was accessible, the text illustrated with enticing figures and drawings. I was hooked on the multimedia of my day. I loved the feel, smell and weight of the books in my hand and occasionally liked to rest my chin on the top of an open one, that I balanced on my bed, as I daydreamed about mummies in Egypt or seeing lions in Africa.

Then  the Internet and Google arrived, transforming how people got their knowledge – free and instantly available. It was the end for printed versions of encyclopedias. Next, Wikipedia came into being at the turn of 2000. And that makes it 20 years today. Happy birthday! The online resource started off by being written by a few keen editors contributing articles about things they knew about which were then edited by others if they felt they needed to be corrected. Over the years the number of edits grew exponentially while the number of contributors levelled off and then declined considerably. There are now over 40 million accounts, suggesting a huge number of people worldwide have had a go at adding to this collective memory of knowledge. However, of those only 127,480 are actively editing today.

Then there were the infamous editing wars over the years where editors who disagreed about the content of a page repeatedly wrote over each other’s contributions, sometimes to the point of being quite vindictive – be it about politics, history or scandal. Someone, also thought it was a good idea to start contributing biographies for ‘known’ people – be they footballers, academics, actors, musicians and so on. As a result, it also became a Who’s Who. We all quickly discovered you can learn lots of interesting things about your colleagues – that you did not know otherwise – like what school they went to and how old they are.

But who has the time on their hands to do all of this? Especially, since it is not paid for. It seems the contributions are not evenly distributed. The person who has edited the most articles is Steven Pruitt who has made over three million edits! He has also created more than 35,000 articles. I wonder if he wrote or edited my entry. It now needs updating and I don’t think I should do it.

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.

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.

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.”
fake-news

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.

Ten Pieces

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Ten Pieces is a BBC initiative to inspire a generation of primary school children to listen to, explore, and get creative with classical music. It is the brainchild of Katy Jones, an executive producer at the BBC, who for the last two years worked tirelessly and with amazing energy, planning and masterminding the whole thing. The ten pieces represent some of the best and well known, a taster that can be listened to in one sitting or separately. They include classics such as Holst’s Mars from the Planets, Beethoven’s Symphony Number 5, and more modern pieces, including John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine. A film of the 10 Pieces was made and shown on British TV, where the pieces were introduced, performed and choreographed in electrifying and captivating ways.

It is not surprising that Ten Pieces has spread like wildfire in its first few months since being announced. At the beginning of the year, more than 120,000 children watched the film at their local cinemas throughout the country, triggering them to interpret and explore what they had seen and heard in their own creative ways. Since, it has cascaded through a multitude of different avenues, manifesting itself in many forms. Many more children together with their teachers, national orchestras, musicians, conductors and TV presenters have come together and re-presented and interpreted them in art, performance and other forms of expression. The official website is brimming with reports, blogs, tweets, videos and images of musical happenings, being added to each day. Only last week it was announced that two of the Proms planned for this summer will include concerts that will celebrate the first year of Ten Pieces at the Royal Albert Hall.

proms I have had the enormous pleasure of listening to Katy telling me over the years about her latest venture, project and ingenious way of engaging ever more children and adults. Sometimes, it was hard not to want to pick up a trombone, trumpet or flute to make music and join in the fun.

But tragically and unexpectedly Katy died last Friday completely out of the blue, aged only 51. Many heartfelt tributes from all corners are starting to stream in via social media, from those who have just found out about the terrible news. She touched many with her infectious smile and contagious ‘you can do’ it spirit. I hope her wonderful energy and special magic will live on and continue to fulfill her dream; inspiring all manner of generations from across the world to not ever think again that classical music is boring but to want to ‘get creative’ with it.

Jones

Photo from the Manchester Evening News

Special Collections

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senate_library This week I went inside a real library. One made of bricks and mortar. I can’t remember the last time I went in one or what for – if I am honest, probably a few years ago. It feels like a shocking admission, especially since I work in academia. Libraries are our sustenance, where we obtain our knowledge. The stacks, the periodicals, the rows of books all neatly lined up in Dewey style used to be where you would find us browsing on a regular basis. But the Internet has changed all of that. Most of us now do our knowledge work by accessing the multiple digital libraries, databases and pdfs that are readily available at our laptop fingertips. Google, too, has made it even more easy to sample an increasing number of books in digitized form.

But Special Collections in libraries retain their specialness. Last Monday I visited one at Leicester University. The reason they are special is that they contain numerous archived collections that are often donated to them, by a local historian, politician, artist or other philanthropist. For example, at Leicester amongst many is the Dyos Collection, the Gorrie Collection and the Hatton Collection. The collections include rare books, pamphlets, papers, etc., from the person whom they are named after, such as the political memorabilia of Archibold Gorrie. Many of them have yet to be digitized and so can only be seen in the physical library where they are housed.

book_pillowMy reason for coming to Leicester University’s one was to delve into the Diplomatic Collection transferred from the Commonwealth Library after it became defunct (I was doing some research into my family history). It comprises 217 boxes of lists of diplomatic, consular and foreign service. I had requested to look at Box 140 that listed the diplomatic corps, consular corps and other foreign representatives for a given country. I’d discovered these existed through browsing Google and then the library catalogue. There was something antiquated about the place. The collections are hidden away in the bowels of the library to protect them and only brought out on request. The viewing room had no windows, just artificial light. Other protective measures included having to put my bag in a locker and being only allowed to use a pencil. But strangest of them all, was the presence of over-sized white cushions on each desk that looked like miniature futons. The librarian who welcomed me in (who had all the qualities you would expect – curious, rule-abiding, knowledgeable, methodical and very nice) told me they were there to protect the spines of the large rare books that are sometimes requested. How quaint.

I sat down and looked at the red box folder that was placed in front of me – it looked, itself, about 50 years old. I pushed back the metal clasp and opened it up. Inside were about 30 small green and red books all lined up in order of their year of listing. The first one I took out was from 1959. The pages were a faded yellow brown and the type font from a typewriter that had not seen the daylight for as many years. The one page I wanted to check was still attached to the next one. I was fearful I might rip the page in the wrong way so I asked the librarian to do it. She was delighted and went off in search of a paper knife. When she returned she diligently went through the whole book slicing up the pages that were cojoined.

I was transported back to another time and place, imagining who the people were and what they did in their diplomatic roles – behind the listed names of Brigadier M. d’Aude-Shaw, Major B.C. Butler and so on. A world full of diplomats, attaché cases and special car number plates in far flung places. The smell, colour and texture of the paper, with its embossed higgledy typewritten print, evoked a powerful train of memories and thoughts that digital print never does for me. It was sheer joy to let my mind move in mysterious ways. Usually when I am pottering through digital collections on the internet I jump all over the place, from one site to the next, engaging in multiple hops, that often lead me far astray from what I was looking at or thinking about. It can be as equally delightful but a very different form of mind wandering. One is not better than the other but there is something special about being immersed in a special collection that someone has carefully and meticulously catalogued for others to inspect. I doubt if many, if any, people had looked into Box 140. That gave me a visceral thrill to think I was the first and probably only one to do so. Whereas visual analytics can show the number of page views and downloads of digital collections there aren’t any records of what people look at in old boxes of papers. There is something special indeed in this time warp that cannot be digitally catalogued or mined.

Hell’s Dinner

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Michael_Winner_croppedFor many years, I used to look forward to reading the Winner’s Dinner column on the back pages of the Sunday Times; you always got an excellent meal of the late Michael Winner’s witty anecdotes, abundance of charm and pencil-sharp observations of his latest dining experience. It was a pleasure to consume and chuckle over coffee and toast on a Sunday morning. Sometimes, his best articles were about some of the worst places he visited – because it provided him with so much more rich material from which to mercilessly mock, slam and share.

I can only imagine what he would have written if he had been to Ollamessa – an Italian restaurant in Southbank where we went on my last night in Melbourne. From the outside, it looked tempting with plenty of greenery, potted plants and a front piece of glass at the entrance, with slick water gently pouring down it, giving the place a green, tropical feel. But once inside it felt like a different world. I am sure on moving from outside to inside Michael would have called his chauffeur and made a quick exit.

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We were too tired to pick up on the signs and then it was too late. Inside, was very dark. The place we were taken to had black plastic seating from floor to ceiling, in a cavern like space. No windows and closed in by a long imposing wall. As we neared our table, my eyes were immediately drawn to a large, brightly lit-up glass meat fridge, where large slabs of red pig, sheep and cow cadaver hung – just like a Damien Hirst piece, all within a few feet of our table.

The owner came lurching over to us. His ubiquitous white shirt stood out against the black backdrop; the buttons stretched at his belly where a mobile phone was inserted. He tried to tempt us with plates of cheese, garlic bread, cheesy bread, antipasta and other starters he deigned to list. Each time we shook our heads, he reciprocated by leering more at us more. Then he smiled and said he had been drinking since 7.30a.m – it being Anzac day – starting with 12 pots that morning. He eventually walked away but left his beery smell permeating in our nostrils. The plastic menus he left for us were greasy and plastered with too many options, covered with italic text on both sides. Too much choice. I eventually found the section on pizzas, and the first one listed comprised a strange assortment of potato, cheeses and meats. Not one I had ever heard of before – or wanted to try. The others also sounded equally unappealing.

A hapless waiter arrived and I asked him if they had a pizza oven. He gave a Basil Fawlty blank look. I understood immediately and ordered instead the simplest thing I could find – spaghetti with olive oil and garlic and a mixed salad. My companions ordered a Porterhouse steak and a Saltimbocca with salad and chips.

What was served and what we ordered, however, did not match up. No chips but soggy looking mash. No porterhouse just a rib-eye. My ‘mixed’ side salad was all fiery, wilted rocket leaves doused in an explosive dressing that ripped off the roof of your mouth. The rib eye turned out to be a rump of pink flesh and the saltimbocca a thick slab of fried grease. My spaghetti had been cooked for about an hour, was cold, and had the texture of baby food tinned pasta smothered in some overpowering garlic oil.

As we struggled to eat some of it, the waiter then brought a plate of cheesy pizza bread – compliments of the house. Talk about adding injury to insult. We just asked for the bill. I could not get out quickly enough. As J and I stood taking gasps of the night air the other J. suddenly came running out shrieking in distress. She had found a cockroach crawling up her sleeve when putting her jacket on.

When regaling our story to the Melbournites, they were aghast. The city is renowned for its amazing restaurants. Surely, not possible. But ironically, it is one we will dine out on for years and remember, unlike some of the other wonderful restaurants we went to. Sometimes, it pays to endure unpleasant and shocking experiences to pit against the good ones. At least for round the campfire.
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Tiger Thrill

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TriumphI’ve always been terrified of motorbikes, ever since one of my college friend’s got knocked off her Honda 50cc, when she was just 16 years old, and tumbled over the bonnet of the car that hit her. She survived suffering only mild concussion and bruises but another colleague’s wife died in her 20s, when she was knocked off – as a pillion – from his bike. So, it was with much fear that I agreed to go on the back of a bike – a bright orange powerful Triumph Tiger – to visit a winery in the Mornington Peninsula. The build up and banter amongst the Melbourne crowd who had set me up for this made me even more terrified.

Kitted up in all the gear and having listened to the basics of being a pillion, I stepped onto the bike behind my friend and confident driver, Steve. I trusted him 100% to drive safely and for good reason. You are at their mercy. There needs to be good body talk and understanding as you can’t chat or see eye to eye once on the move. Tapping on the shoulders means stop – like pulling the safety cord. I was determined not to have to do that.
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After saying farewell to the others, who were driving there in the car, we whisked off up the driveway and immediately came to a roundabout. My arms and body were shot and taut with adrenalin. First test within seconds: was I leaning enough, should I look to the left or right or bury my head in Steve’s back. So many mini-fears raced through my mind. And it seemed like my inner thoughts were shouting at me – being amplified under my helmet. The next 10 minutes were sheer terror – when I dared not look at anything except Steve’s silver helmet in front of me – which I kept hitting with mine as we braked.
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And then slowly, I started noticing the scenery, the amazing modern houses along the coastline, the beaches, the other drivers, the curves and inclines in the road. It was fun to be peeping at the world as it whizzed by. I started enjoying leaning round the bends and the umph from accelerating and zipping in and out of the traffic. I felt so vulnerable and yet so free at the same time. And so enclosed (with all the protective gear on) and yet every now and again could smell fresh grass in the fields or raw petrol coming from the car exhausts – that I had not experienced before, with such intensity. It was all so precarious and yet so enthralling. Knowing one had protective gear on that could help save us from brain damage or ripped skin was reassuring. But also knowing a margin of error by another driver could be curtains for both of us was unnerving. The tension, contemplated at speed, added to the thrill. I got it – for what it means to be a biker.

Another dream fellow has been researching thrilling interactions as part of his work on new forms of entertainment. He has conjured up, in collaboration with a number of artists, ever more amazing experiences, including a new form of interactive thrill ride that is controlled by a person’s breathing. His take is to deliberately use discomfort as a way of enhancing the excitement. It seems the more frightening, scary, dangerous and uncomfortable, the better.

A thrill begins with the much feared anticipation, followed by an extreme physical sensation, and then the euphoria of relief at having survived the experience. That sums up my experience to a tee. But why do we keep seeking novel thrills? It doesn’t seem natural to put our lives at ever more risk by deliberately scaring ourselves shitless. One theory is that such feelings of thrill fill the void that has come about through civilisation. We crave powerful emotions that somehow have got lost through becoming a modern society. No longer able to hunt or face a roaring tiger we seek out new thrills, like bungee jumping, white water rafting, or riding a motorbike Tiger.

The terror we go through, before, during and after combine together to heighten the actual experience and subsequent memory of it. I may forget what we had for the delightful lunch at the winery afterwards but I will never forget my Tiger Triumph bike ride.

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Tragically, Steve died last night (18/4/13) suddenly and unexpectedly in his sleep.
Just one week after this. Life can be so cruel.
My thoughts are with his wife, Anna, and their son Alec.
The remembrance page.
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steve

Tech Talk

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tedtalk I’ve been invited to give a TED talk in May, admittedly, only a TEDx talk but nevertheless the idea of being on stage talking to 1000s of viewers, potentially millions, is nerve wracking for me. To get me in the picture, I have been watching some of the more popular TED talks already out there. Trouble is, every topic I think about has been presented already, and often very well. Nearly every angle about the good and bad effects of technology has been covered. The key is to make the narrative sound fresh and original and use your own research findings to make the points. Here is my first attempt at an outline.

I want to talk about how smart technology makes us stupid and how simple technology makes us clever. The question is one of framing. Make technologies that do things for us and we forget how to do them ourselves. Design technologies that encourage people to make better decisions in their lives and enable them to be happier, more engaged and empowered.

Every week there is a new book, blog or sound bite that espouses a view on how technology is making us, on the one hand, dumber, shallower, addicted, more alone, and overloaded, while on the other, it is assumed it can make us better informed, more connected, resourceful and more aware. Some argue that it is improving our brains, others that it is destroying our cognitive faculties. It seems many of us can’t write anymore, let alone remember our phone number. And yet a multitude of apps claim they can help us to make snap decisions, be more creative and have richer and more satisfying lives.

An adjective that has been much bandied about, but in my view is well past its sell by date, is ‘smart’. From smart phones to smart cities, smart cars to smart meters, and smart homes to smart grids… Everywhere you look in the tech world, you see smart this, smart that… The list of smart gadgets is mind boggling. There are smart pillows that analyse your sleep and smart shoes that tell you to stop being lazy. There is even a ‘smart dog’ Wandant device that tracks how far your pooch has walked and its stress levels. It claims to be “the world’s first obesity monitoring system for dogs” and, yes, it has a “smart-collar” that uses mobile phone sensor technology to do the monitoring and measuring.
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Tech companies, governments, researchers and the like are all trying hard to make people, the environment and the world smart through these kinds of technologies. But who are they kidding? They are not smart. They don’t think for themselves or walk the dog for you. Somehow we think by using the word smart we have elevated the technology into being clever, intelligent and autonomous. My colleague Adam Greenfield, poignantly noted 7 years ago in his prescient book Everyware: “We simply don’t do smart very well yet.”

Moreover, those that act on our behalf can make us mentally lazy. Gadgets and apps in the form of cognitive aids, mean that we no longer practice certain skills, be they our multiplication tables, our map reading skills or are ability to remember birthdays, numbers or appointments. “I’ve lost my dart’s faculty” I joked to a colleague the other day, when trying to work out how much a meal split three ways would cost each of us. There is a worry that our increasing reliance on GPS/satnav to tell us where to go will mean we lose the ability to read proper maps – most of us only use ones with cars and people icons that jump along yellow moving road lines. How many of know how to use a compass? There is also the problem that we may soon lose our ability to remember numbers, lists, birthdays and so on. Gone are the days of reciting.

So why does the relentless move to make technology smart persist? An article published last month in the Wall Street Journal by Evgeny Morozov, cleverly entitled “is smart making us dumb?’ splits technologies into bad smart and good smart. Bad smart includes gizmos that suppress behaviours that are considered undesirable, such as vibrating forks that tell us to not to eat so quickly, cars that tell us to drive slower because it is raining and toothbrushes that tell us to brush our teeth more. Good smart leaves us in control of our actions and where gadgets are designed to empower by providing the right kind of information at the right time – just enough to nudge us in the right direction. I was pleased to see that Evgeny Morozov mentioned one of our projects as an example of good smart – where we developed the lambent shopping handle that is intended to enhance decision-making by informing shoppers of the nutritional benefits and food miles (or other dimension someone cares about) using simple LEDs and smiley faces, representing social norms. Instant information presented in a playful and useful way. No overloading, no pressure and no atrophying of the brain. As our tongue in cheek video below shows it boils down to designing simple interfaces that can facilitate fast and frugal decision-making. Our philosophy is less is more and simple is powerful. That is how you can make people clever.

Deconstructing Salad

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At a workshop I was running the other weekend on ‘Creative Dining, Cooking and Technology’ we were treated to the culinary delights of hot chef Ben Spalding. One of the dishes that he brought to the table was a small bowl containing a delicate salad that was beautifully plated. The pieces were tiny – a wisp of fennel, a sliver of radish, a shard of celeriac. The dish came with a paper print-out listing the ingredients – all 30 of them. Rather than place forkfuls of the assembled leaves, seeds and other tasty morsels into our mouths to munch – as one typically does when confronted with a mixed salad – the brightly-coloured list encouraged us to deconstruct its contents, identifying and matching up each ingredient to those on the list. I managed about 20. My neighbour slightly more. It was very much a shared experience as we compared notes; firstly, describing the visible dimensions, of colour, shape and form and secondly, articulating the taste, crunchiness and lingering flavours. Talking about the leaves transformed the usually talked over salad experience for me.

I asked Ben’s sous-chef, Nathan, what next and he said their new challenge was to come up with 50 ingredients that they could forage and which would go together. Upping the ante or what. Usually, a salad has between 1 and 15 ingredients with a dressing of 4 or 5. It is often regarded as a dish to freshen the taste buds or whet the appetite. Of course, there have always been main salads, where the leaves are accompanied with tuna, chicken, salmon, egg, nuts or cheese, often with grandiose names, such as Caesar, Waldorf, Caprese or Nicoise. But for a side salad to take centre stage and become the talking point was a stroke of creativity.

It made be think of the word salad and my childhood memories of being served it at school. Not nice. Always cold, off-putting and uninspiring: limp soggy-tissue lettuce, insipid thistle-threaded tomato quarters and ugly-tasting beetroot slabs. Then I switched to fonder memories: the first time I really understood what mouth-watering meant: tasting a bunch of ultra-fresh radishes served up by themselves on a plate with salt crystals and a slaver of creamy butter on the side. I could not get enough of the combination.

One memory led to another. Food is great for letting the mind wander. From salad to salad days. A lovely turn of phrase from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra – referring to the period when one was young, inexperienced, and carefree. From carefree to listening to ‘Lazy Sunday Afternoon’ being played on Radio One. To baking a different cake each week – chocolate, banana, lemon, cherry, walnut…to the delight of my family at Sunday tea. Stringing together poignant memories is a joy as anyone who has read or seen the film of Nigel Slater’s book Toast will know.

It was lovely to be able to pick at Ben’s salad and discover new ingredients rather than act all grown-up, trying to balance the delicate pieces on a fork. The secret to creative cooking is choreographing surprise that lets the diner deconstruct the dish and discover what’s hidden.

Sound City

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Sometimes you find yourself being a tourist in your own city. Yesterday after work, I got caught up on the crowded Circle Line on my way to the Tate Modern, along with the hoards of Olympic Ceremony goers making their way to the Stadium. After I surfaced from London’s underground, I walked across the now affectionately called Wobbly Bridge, that was thronging with people from far flung places. We all found ourselves suddenly immersed in unexpected stereo sounds: single words and sentences booming from big speakers hanging over the bridge cables, resonating like a wall of deep sound.

Having gotten a little tired of our mayor, Boris, chirping all week his heartfelt recorded message ‘Get Ahead of the Games’ – on the buses, trains and in the station concourses – I found this unexpected 3D soundfield, suffused with our pattering feet, delightful. I discovered later that it was called Tales from the Bridge and created by Martyn Ware (founder of The Human League) in collaboration with the poet Mario Petrucci. Lines of poems and strings of local anecdotes about the life and times of London ran and rang alongside us as we strode forth across the Thames. They did not stream together as a coherent narrative but faded and overlapped, acting as emotive heart-string pullers. I was transported back to being much younger, vividly being reminded of special times when I had gone to see a Shakespeare play outdoors at Regent’s Park and a trip to the Museum of London. This jolting of childhood memories was a refreshing change, making me focus on the potency of words rather than having to navigate my way through the visual overload of garish Olympic mascots, banners and flags. From the accompanying website, it suggests it will “immerse the listener in an oasis of peace and contemplation, half-remembered dreams and thoughts, of meditation and learning.” Indeed, instead of worrying about something at work I drifted back in time.

I eventually met up with Rafael at the Tate where we stumbled into one of its latest installations located in the bowels of their massive oil tanks. The first darkened enclosed room we went into had just a hanging microphone that emanated with powerful 360 degree voices. Again, my ears were seduced by a singular form of audio art. I sat and just listened. Appreciating art through sound is ephemeral. But such momentariness triggers visceral emotions and memories in such a sharp shard way. I wanted to linger in the moment in quite different ways to being immersed when looking at visual art.

Back in the underground we heard several buskers, strumming and singing in the echoing tunnels. Again, it took me back in time to when I first heard those songs.

Such is the magic of a tune when walked into an unfamiliar context but very memorable time.

Hearing the city, augmented with mellifluous voices and sweet sounds, is such an arresting contrast to the “cha, chee, chee, cha, boo, booom” we hear so often and resent so much leaking out of our fellow commuter’s ear buds. While city dwellers enjoy their personal playlists reverberating through their inner worlds, serrendipitous street-shared sonics pervading our cities are, in my mind, infinitely more pleasurable for all.

“I’m not in love. So don’t forget it. It is just a silly phase I’m going through.
I’m not in love, no no, it’s because…”

10cc’s mid 1970s ethereal song reminds me of long gone summers. To top the day, I caught a snippet of it when walking past a store. And even now, it continues to hit a sweet spot: melancholic, romantic, and full of teenage-angst.