Tag: breakthrough ideas

What The Light Phone, iWatch, and Jacques Ellul Have In Common

Jeff GrahamLeave a comment

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I remember when I first read Jacques Ellul’s The Technological Society–I was deeply disturbed by his conclusion that the world of technology (technique, as he called it) would run amok, that humanity could never return to pre-technological civilization, that technology would simply run its course and overtake humanity. Quite a predicament by a philosopher who wrote the book in the 1960s!

I haven’t thought about that book for a number of years, but it came to me today when I read an article in MIT Tech Review about the Light Phone: a simple phone that tells time and makes and receives phone calls–simple as that. To me, this is a wonderfully simple solution, but the writer of the review certainly didn’t think so.

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The website describes the Light Phone as

a simple, second phone that uses your existing phone number. Leave your smartphone behind and enjoy peace of mind.

As a solution, the Light Phone reminds me of something I heard recently about the Apple iWatch. The iWatch is the antithesis of the Light Phone–to get data to your iWatch requires that you carry around your iPhone. To me this is too complex and gadgety. In our modern urbanized world, you shouldn’t have to take with you more devices than necessary. To wear something on your wrist that requires something else worn in your pocket to me is more of a capitalist ploy than a user-friendly solution.

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Well, a couple of colleagues of mine have iWatches–and they love them. They are always the ones at lunches and dinners providing fee demos about the phone’s various functions, which I must add are quite convincing. If I had a thousand bucks burning a hole in my pocket I probably would have bought one already. But the more I hear about the iWatch, the more I am learning about it as a kind of hand-cuff rather than wearable solution. I know one person who came very close to purchasing one but too was held back by the price tag. One day he met up with a colleague who had one that broke.

“Did you enjoy having it?” he asked.

“Oh absolutely–I loved it!”

“So are you going to buy another one then?”

“No.”

“Why not? I thought you just said it was the best thing you had?”

“It was–until I didn’t have it around my wrist. When I had the watch on, I loved the functionality, I couldn’t get enough of it . . .”

“So then what happened?”

“When I could no longer wear it, I felt free! Free from that stupid thing! For whenever I wore the watch, I was looking at my wrist every 3 seconds, all day long! ‘Bling!’ check my wrist. ‘Bling!’ check my wrist. I’m telling you–I feel liberated without that stupid watch!”

But do people feel free when they lose or break their technology? Could you disconnect from your smartphone and/or watch for a day and feel cool about it? Is the Light Phone a fantasy, a utopia, or a serious solution for the 21st Century?

The individual is in a dilemma: either he decides to safeguard his freedom of choice, chooses to use traditional, personal, moral, or empirical means, thereby entering into competition with a power against which there is no efficacious defense and before which he must suffer defeat; or he decides to accept technical necessity, in which case he will himself be the victor, but only by submitting irreparably to technical slavery. In effect he has no freedom of choice.
― Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society

This leaves us pondering Jacques Ellul. Technology keeps running amok, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Even when given a choice to have or not have it, we can’t live without it.

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Jacques Ellul predicted the Technological Society would run amok functioning without human intervention.

To me, the Light Phone is a fantasy, a product fetish. It points backward to a time when human life was perhaps simple. It is a fantasy of regress, rather than a solution of progress.

Would I choose a Light Phone? Maybe in another time and place. I like simplicity. I like to think of myself as a simple guy. But I live in a world that demands my time, demands that I am immediately updated and responsive to the information coming at me 24/7. I would like to choose a different life, but that would require that I change what I do. It would require that I enter a simpler life. Perhaps the Light Phone is a symbol of that simpler life, of that utopia (and by the way, ‘utopia’ means ‘no place).

So while I judged the MIT Review columnist for her disdain for the Light Phone, I had three fingers pointing back at me.

 

Holoportation Is The Doorway Into A New World–Seriously.

Jeff GrahamLeave a comment
starwars
Are we becoming less human? 
Sounds like a silly question, but when you look at how technology is developing, the kinds of things being developed, and where it all seems to be going, you get the sense that being human is on the road to obsolescence–without Elon Musk telling us it is so.

One striking example of this is “holoportation”–a terms Microsoft has created for its new hologram solution. As Wired describes,

Holoportation, as the name implies, projects a live hologram of a person into another room, where they can interact with whomever’s present in real time as though they were actually there.

And what inspired holoportation? The amount of time researchers had away from family, and the desire to reach out to them in a more effective way than merely Skype or FaceTime: “We have two young children,” said Izadi, one of the key researchers of the program, “and there was really this sense of not really being able to communicate as effectively as we would have liked,” Izadi says. “Tools such as video conferencing, phone calls, are just not engaging enough for young children. It’s just not the same as physically being there.” The way Microsoft has developed holoportation is to rig up a room with sophisticated 3D cameras that take images of every angle of the individual and the space he or she is in. Once all the images are captured, the custom software stitches them together into a full 3D image. 

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Microsoft Holoportation Demo. Can you believe this stuff?!

But get this: to make the technology ubiquitous, Microsoft claimed all one would need is a VR headset. To accomplish this vision, Microsoft has hooked up with Intel to share their knowledge of how to build virtual reality headsets with other VR companies–a way to make this technology ubiquitous. And according to Ray Kurzweil, VR is key to immortality–yes immortality. Through holoportation, one can see how humans will transport themselves all over the world and even to other worlds.

 But there is certainly a difference between encountering a physical person and a hologram. I suppose one could see a technology developed that would trigger sensations in the brain to give one the feeling of being with a physical person while in virtual reality. But, again, is being with a physical person a difference that makes a difference for intimacy and overall human relationship? Is a holographic conversation with my child the same as actually being in the room with him? Is there something important about human connection?  What about when I am sad or hurting? Can a hologram really console me?

This will become ubiquitous, and it will become embedded technology–by that I mean in the brain. This is a doorway to a new world, and we need to be aware of its unintended consequences.

It also presents tremendous opportunity for businesses to design solutions for VR, from business to education. This is the future, and it will very quickly become the present.

10 Strange And Wonderful Things That Happen When You Stay Up Late At Night.

Jeff GrahamLeave a comment

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I was a night-owl for many years–loved it. But with kids and projects and all the daytime and nighttime responsibilities, I no longer have the luxury of staying up till 3AM. So, over a period of about a month, I transformed from a night owl to early bird, rising between 5:00 and 5:30 to work on things for which I need plenty of time and (quiet) space.

Sometimes, especially on weekends, the night owl emerges, and I find myself up way past my bedtime with the house still and the sounds of exhales from the rest of my household in slumber. There’s something beautiful about the nighttime silence–something that gets my creativity going. Here are some things I (still) love about being a night owl:

1. It’s quiet: When you’re up past midnight, it’s likely you’re alone and the rest of the family is in bed. It’s peaceful. One can get a lot of thinking done with such peace and quiet. It’s one of the only times of day when one can get some real deep thinking and creating done–all that beautiful quiet. The best is not to try to fill it with anything; but if you’re inclined to fill it, to me there’s nothing like a late night jazz radio show–the sound of the city is what I call it. There’s also the late-night radio shows about bizarre phenomena, things that are too uncanny to listen to and take seriously during the light of day. But I’ll just stick with the quiet.

2. Nurturing: This might be a cheezy way of putting it, but there’s a way in which the night has a cozy factor–it’s a time when blankets can be placed over you while you’re huddled over a book, TV or computer screen. This kind of coziness is a by-product of peace and quiet. To me, there’s nothing like putting this coziness in tension with a thriller novel or spy movie. One of the best moments like this was reading Joseph Conrad’s classic ‘Heart of Darkness’ while under the covers at 1AM–something about drifting along the river of the Congo on some strange voyage while also being nurtured by the warm duvet of bed.

3. Productivity: As mentioned, you can get a lot done when there’s no one to bother you. As well, the darkness of night provides a frame of deep focus–you’re not distracted by salubrious sunbeams or frolicking squirrels across your roof, or bird songs out your window. You’re in flow. The night can bring on flow, real flow. There’s no other sound but the tapping of your computer keys or the scratch of your pen or pencil along the notebook. There’s a reason why many creatives love to create at night.

4. Nowhere to go: You have nothing scheduled at this time–it’s time out of (scheduled/arranged) time. As such, you can relax, be in the moment, think, do. This is an important thing, for many of us use schedules and meetings and busy-ness to distract us from our creative work–what Steven Pressfield calls ‘resistance’. This resistance is a killer of creativity, which is why, again, a lot can get done after hours.

5. Stretch the day out: If you feel you don’t have enough hours in the day, usurp your usual 10PM bedtime for 1:30AM. There is indeed a sense that night owls have that the day is something whose every droplet one must squeeze and drain out. This is a way to truly seize the day. Need to stretch it out even more, pull a full all-nighter then get dressed, quaff down a quad espresso and head back out to work. You’ll notice that you won’t be that tired, and in fact you’ll be in a heightened state of awareness.

6. Sleep is better: When you hit the hay after a late-night work session, and you’re head feels like it’s going to split open, and your heart is beating heavy, the bed just feels that much better. Sleep after a time of creative productivity is sweet indeed.

7. New ideas: There is something strange that happens when you’re up late–you have different kinds of insights. It’s like the profound fatigue you’re feeling opens up another dimension of thinking. Many of us are too into our routines and schedule and obligations to engage in deep creative thinking. But when you’re up late and wandering around your place while everyone else is sleeping, your mind takes all that it was filled with over the course of the day and starts amalgamating it together–similar to what happens in dreams. It’s pulling yourself outside of your day that the ideas start to congeal. This is the zone of insight.

8. Sleep in: Night owls tend to sleep in more, which creates the conditions for fresher ideas. There’s something about lying around in bed that gets the brain moving and conjoining all kinds of disjointed thoughts. I find laying around an extra hour in bed in the morning to be very productive–if I have a notebook near by. And that’s the key: keep a notebook handy to jot everything down in. Your phone or tablet’s not good enough–you need a notebook and pen or pencil; for there’s something important about the kinetic act of writing than simply tapping on a piece of glass that gives you greater insight.

9. Be in good company: By becoming a night owl, you can join the ranks of Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, and yes even Keith Richards. There is an entire history of night owls–those who have plumbed the depths of night to emerge with great jewels of creativity and imagination.

10. Noctambulism: If you want to read something interesting about night owls, read about Charles Dickens’s night walks, or those of William Blake and other noctambulists. There is indeed an art to walking at night, and there are many artists and creatives who relished their times wandering the streets at night: the city lights, the late-night cafes and bookshops, the theatres–the energy of it all. At least on one occasion, Dickens was known to have walked the entire night–a feat that left him energized yet exhausted.