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Recommendations, Technology

Why Google Did Away with Project Ara

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Some months ago, Google killed Project Ara, an ambitious venture to create a modular smartphone featuring upgradeable components. And when I say ambitious, boy was it a moon shot.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/project-ara-googles-modular-smartphone-is-dead/^

It’s one thing to upgrade components in a desktop computer or a car, but the smaller the device, the trickier it is to engineer efficient connections between components whose bandwidth requirements and standards of communication vary wildly. Even notebook manufacturers struggle with this limitation as they attempt to engineer ever-thinner devices.

As a result, Project Ara phones turned out a bit on the bulky side and looked like the phone would disassemble if dropped. Regarding this second caveat, don’t get me wrong: dissipating impact energy by falling apart isn’t necessarily bad. Nokia was an expert in this “method”. Its bulky phones could withstand countless drops. But at least for now it’s difficult to get the best of both worlds.

The idea behind Project Ara was good, the timing was not. Our technologies are a bit too scattered right now for this to properly work. There are different manufacturers for each phone component and countless standards in place. Building a prototype was easy (with Google’s money), but getting all those manufacturers in the same boat and getting a good selection of upgradeable components in shops around the world is a daunting logistical challenge. However, the largest obstacle was undoubtedly the fact that…

There is little customer interest in such a project. Who wants to carry around a phone that has 20% extra weight and size only so that they can upgrade a component or two once a year? Some people maybe will, but we live in a world where those that could afford or have interest in upgrading phone components will most probably choose to buy a new phone altogether.

Kudos goes to Google for making the attempt and opening the way. We still have a lot to learn regarding miniaturization, standards and logistics. I think we’ll see something like Project Ara come back sometime in the coming decades. For now, looks like we’re stuck with Samsung and Apple and their consumerist phones for which one can’t even replace the battery (not really, there are plenty of brands that allow this; it’s a pity people don’t press this requirement and instead let themselves fall prey to planned obsolescence).

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Recommendations, Technology

In GMail You Can Undo Sending an E-Mail

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I know, right? Hell froze over! Now we can actually undo sending e-mails. Remember that time when you pressed CTRL + Enter by mistake? Or when you hit send and just in the same moment saw a horrible mistake? Well, Google comes to our rescue, with the amazing “Undo Send E-Mail” functionality!

Granted, “unsending” an e-mail is possible using some other methods as well, but this is the first time I see a user-friendly method implemented by a major public e-mail provider. And this is why I thought it’s a good idea to make it known to other people.

Here’s how to do it: go to Settings and enable it. Simple, eh? How does it work? I tested this using two accounts of mine. Google will, in fact, delay sending the e-mail for up to 30 seconds.

How to set up Undo Send
How to set up Undo Send

Unfortunately, if you navigate away from the current page after sending the e-mail, I don’t think you can stop it from being sent anymore (at least I couldn’t find any relevant button or menu option when I opened a test e-mail during the undo window of opportunity). Also unfortunately, you cannot undo for more than 30 seconds. But I’m still very happy I learned about his functionality. I have enabled it for both my accounts.

It just... works!
It just… works!

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Analysis, Technology

Smart Contact Lenses Will Soon Be upon Us

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After Google experimented with integrating a glucose level sensor^ on a contact lens, it was only a matter of time before we would see more innovation in this field. A recent patent filing from Sony describes the intention of putting a camera inside a contact lens^.

Privacy concerns

While this toy won’t exactly be invisible –at least not at first – the privacy implications are quite serious. We’re still at least a few years away from market availability, but I imagine that after several product cycles, such a camera could reach a pretty good recording resolution. Coupled with wireless transmission to a storage device, people will eventually be able to record everything they see, everywhere they go.

To be sure, there are many advantages to having this sort of camera hidden in plain sight – pun intended. For example, it could be used as a self-defense mechanism because it would give the possibility to apprehend criminals and present irrefutable evidence against them in court. There’s also the enormous convenience of being able to record important moments or useful information at the blink of an eye.

When it comes to privacy, as our technology progresses, it will be increasingly difficult to detect and prohibit the use of this sort of devices. Evidently, in the wrong hands, such gizmos can also do a lot of harm. We will likely have to adapt to these changes and hope that the path they lead us on will be a good one.

All this reminds me of an episode^ from the fascinating “Black Mirror” series, where people use a similar technology to record and relive any part of their lives. Such discoveries will drastically change our culture and society.

Potential

There are quite a few challenges that will have to be overcome, such as powering the contact lens. We are already able to wirelessly power devices, but let’s also not forget that the human body itself is also capable of generating and conducting electricity and therefore even data.

The potential of the contact lens as a carrier for various technologies is enormous. When manufacturers will finally be able to integrate even a half-decent display on a contact lens, we’ll witness the birth of an extremely lucrative business segment. The first steps towards this breakthrough have already been taken^.

So far, all our experiments regarding augmented reality have involved clunky glasses. In seven to fifteen years, we might be able to have our smartphones implanted in our eyes and ears. Many will find this prospect rather scary, but many also consider their grandparents to be woefully out of touch with technology. It might soon be our turn to be out of touch.

Conclusion

I think that we can say with a fair degree of certainty that smart contact lenses will flourish in the years to come. At least until we’re able to feed information directly to the optic nerve, their form factor makes them the holy grail of augmented reality. Perhaps they’ll never reach the high performance of larger devices, but I imagine contact lenses will become one of the most important “wearable” technologies of the 20s.

As nanotechnology progresses, humans are bound to integrate more and more devices with their bodies. I don’t know if this is good or bad. It’s up to us as a society to correctly negotiate this upcoming technological leap.

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Recommendations, Technology

Microsoft’s New Direction Is Not Surprising

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Together with its new CEO, the software giant is embracing the inevitable: transforming its users into a data product. Google is, arguably, the company that has done this with the greatest degree of success. Jealous, Microsoft ran the “Scroogled”^ smear campaign against its competitor. It dropped it in 2014, probably when somebody decided that, after all, Google’s strategy is more in tune with the times.

Two years later and Windows 10 is phoning home hundreds of time every day, even when told not to^. The company said it will provide a “fix” for this, but as the article I linked cleverly points out: as operating systems start to increasingly rely on their companies’ cloud infrastructure, especially when it comes to Artificial Intelligence, we will be forced into all sorts of privacy trade-offs.

But what worries me the most is the fact that Microsoft is moving towards transforming Windows into a closed ecosystem, emulating the model established by Apple and, later, Google. For better or for worse, Windows’ popularity has ensured that developers have a popular platform that they can deliver products on, with few intermediaries.

However, with the upcoming Universal Windows Platform, Microsoft is taking its first steps into placing itself as a leech between developers and customers, charging not only for the operating system but also taking a profit share from producers – just like pretty much all other “app stores”. If this comes to pass, it will be particularly harmful for game developers, with games being one of the most profitable products sold in the Microsoft ecosystem.

No wonder Tim Sweeney of Epic Games is upset (while Gabe Newell of Valve started a long time ago to heavily invest in the Linux ecosystem):

http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/4/11160104/tim-sweeney-microsoft-walled-garden-criticism^

In all fairness, Microsoft is making the right moves to stay profitable. Each year, there’s fewer people willing to renew their Windows licenses, so it’s no wonder that the company ponders offering updates to Windows 10 for free, while in the same time devising new ways to turn a profit. The App Store model has been implemented successfully by many companies, why should Microsoft remain behind?

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Recommendations, Technology

Big Corporations Go After Artificial Intelligence

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The word “Go” in the title is not coincidental. Much earlier than expected, an AI program managed to defeat a human Go champion. Artificial Intelligence has had the upper hand in the game of Chess for more than a decade already. However, defeating humans at the game of Go requires a different kind of intelligence than it is the case with Chess.

Here’s the news report about Google having reached this important milestone in AI development: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/546066/googles-ai-masters-the-game-of-go-a-decade-earlier-than-expected/^

IBM, Google, Microsoft, FaceBook, Amazon and Apple are all pouring billions of dollars into this sort of research. So do other companies and, less advertised, so do many governments. Not to mention universities and even hobbyists. The jury is still out regarding whether strong (true) Artificial Intelligence is even achievable.

My worry is that once a corporation or government manages to succeed in this venture, the result might offer that entity an unimaginable economic and strategic advantage. Such an advantage will make nuclear weapons seem like a wet firecracker in comparison.

Some have said that AI will be our last invention, for better or for worse. That is because AI might overtake us in intelligence to such an extent that it could invent things that we cannot even begin to imagine. So the risk lies not only in the birth of true AI, but also in whatever new beings such intelligence might give birth to as it grows and learns how to play with its intelligence. All this may very well lead us to immortality or to extinction.

If you’d like to learn more about the topic, I recommend you to read this excellent two part article explaining what it’s all about. It’s quite long but it’s an interesting and pleasant read. At least skip through it, because a life-changing Artificial Intelligence development may be closer than you think.

Part 1:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html^

Part 2

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html^

I also find it quite interesting that some corporations are open sourcing their AI frameworks and tools. I have a fair amount of trust that a large economic entity or a scientific organization will be at least a bit careful about how they program the ethical aspects of an AI, if nothing else then for self-preservation purposes. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same thing about hobbyists who might not even give a priority to such a vital concern.

Microsoft Open Sources Artificial Intelligence Toolkit:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2498435,00.asp^

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