The Internet of Why [post 38/100]

I was thinking some more on my way down to MIPTV this morning about last week’s post on the (possible) commoditisation of our selves through the wholesale adoption of “helpful” technologies (thanks very much for the comments, by the way, both here and on the backchannels. You know who you are). I don’t want to sound too much like Cassandra …

The Internet of No [post 37/100]

I enjoyed Nick Sweeney’s post from last month about motion and rest and how much of the technology we’ve been inventing recently, including the Apple Watch, is focussed on keeping us in perpetual motion. He muses about its technological antithesis, the ‘Internet of Rest.’ While I concur with his point – a life of perpetual motion is no kind of …

Literature & the value of values [post 34/100]

I spend rather a lot of money on Amazon, as do an enormous number of people. But for the last year and a bit I’ve been trying not to spend as much money there on books. There is no doubt that Amazon offers supreme convenience, and thanks to my travel schedule and a healthy dose of laziness, that has a …

My Tivo is trying to make me gay* [post 20/100]

I’d like to revisit the topics of personalisation and etiquette in digital services. Over the last 2 days I’ve posted a couple of things about beacons, their potential and also their pitfalls, and I’ve had some feedback across a range of channels that tells me further discussion is warranted about opting in and preferences and user control and all those …

La la la la la can’t hear you! (or, when personalisation really sucks) [post 9/100]

There’s a bit of synchronicity of ideas going on today. A friend and co-conspirator in Superhuman is working on an interaction model that’s heavily driven by personalisation. And this morning, I was linked (thanks, Tom!) to an article about where the Nest experience went terribly wrong for Kara Pernice, one of its (former) users. These two things share a critical …

Singularity, Schmingularity

There are those who insist that by 2045 we will have  achieved the Singularity: Artificial Intelligence will have surpassed our own. This may be the case, but then again it may not be. In the 1960s there were those who thought they could crack AI in one summer. What’s interesting about the AI debate is… well, a lot. But one …