New Post: Exponential Function, Exponential Function, Exponential Function
This is a post that will take up your time, in total maybe an hour or two. In case you are just way to busy to dedicate that amount of time – here is the bottom line: if population continues to grow (at any % rate), and consumption does not decline, resources will not exist to support us.
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. ~ Prof. A. Bartlett
A 7% growth rate doubles the original number over a ten year period – fact < the exponential function in action… Continue Reading
Google Translate for Animals
Just tried it out with my Dog; result "Steak, I want steak" and the cat said "Let me sleep, sigh" – great new tech from Google: eat that #Apple… Thanks to +Denis Labelle for surfacing this one!
Weekly Dose of Wisdom
Weekly Dose of Wisdom
Social Reading: In search of juice
Social Reading: In search of juice
Reshared post from +Gideon Rosenblatt
On "Social Reading"How often do you find yourself half reading something, getting through it as quickly as possible so you can find the juicy tidbits that you can clip for your post here on Google+ or on Twitter or Facebook? This is reading as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. This is the dark side of the shared interest graph; the part that accelerates the flow of content beyond our ability to pay real attention to it.
I've been thinking about this problem over this last week, when, on vacation, I had web access only via an iPad and my Android phone. I was able to read articles on the web, but sharing them in a rich way was much less convenient than on my Mac.
This was when I really noticed it, this little pang inside, this desire to share what I was reading…to share it before I'd even fully digested it myself.
And this gets me to an interesting interview with +Clay Shirky, where he talks about the future of books and the future of reading. I encourage you to read it yourself:
http://blog.findings.com/post/20527246081/how-we-will-read-clay-shirkyClay is talking about a lot of interesting ideas here, but the one I want to riff off of here is the focus on "social reading":
“Social reading,” the way I’ve always interpreted the phrase, is reading that recognizes that you’re not just a consumer, you’re a user. You’re going to do something with this, and that something is going to involve a group of other people.
He notes that the Kindle Fire, with its improved annotation abilities, is changing the way we use books in this way. And so my riff here is that these kinds of capabilities are atomizing long-form content in ways that make it easier for us to share with others.
Think about it. We very frequently pull excerpts from articles we read, as part of our sharing process here on Google+. But how often do we do that with books?
The future of books is a future where this kind of content isolation will continue to break down more and more. As the traditional publishing industry loses more and more control, the tight grip over content will inevitably loosen. As a result, it will be easier and easier for us to grab pieces of long-form content (what we call books today) and share them with others…just as we do with articles, blog entries and posts here on Google+. We will share more and more excerpts from books…
The question this raises for me is – to what end? Already, I feel increasing pressure to read/skim articles with greater and greater efficiency, as part of the social media sharing frenzy. Books still have a special place for me. I read them more slowly, but that too may soon change as social reading creeps more fully into our consumption of books…
Interview with Clay Shirky found through link from +Thom Kennon.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/celesterc/1069893367/
PlaceMe: Persistent Ambient Sensing
Collecting all forms of data from your phone and mashing it up to provide information beyond your wildest dreams. Will you install the app?
cc/ #mustwatch #datamining +David Pidsley +Lee Picton +Cause Analytics
Reshared post from +Robert Scoble
This app will freak you out, but it's the future of, well, a lotEveryone I've shown this app to today (it came out last week) says "that's freaky."
What does it do? It captures a ton of data on your phone as you move through the world. Right now it keeps a list of places. But here I sit down with founder Sam Liang for a discussion about just what data it captures, how that data could be used, and how he's going to get people to cross the freaky line.
This is the future folks and, it, is, indeed, freaky. Learn more at https://www.placemeapp.com/placeme/ It's a free Android or iPhone app.
Last night I spent a few hours with Liang talking about this kind of persistent ambient sensing app.
It studies all the sensors in your phone. Temperature. Compass. Gyroscope. Wifi and bluetooth antennas. Accelerometer. It collects all that data and uploads it to his servers.
This app knows EVERYTHING about where you are, even more than you do. It is TOTALLY FREAKY and TOTALLY is the future.
I'm already addicted to it, and Highlight, which uses some of the same data to show me people near me.
I'm not the only one. +Tim O'Reilly is using it. So are thousands of other people.
Let's see what it learns pretty quickly.
1. Where you live.
2. Where you work.
3. Your route to work (it can tell you're driving).
4. What church you go to, or if you go at all.
5. What strip club you go to and just how excited you are (seriously!)
6. What gas station you stop at. It also knows how many miles you have to drive before you have to get more gas.
7. Whether you are walking or running or just standing still.
8. Whether you just got in a car wreck.
9. What your favorite restaurants are and what kind of food you both like and hate.
10. What kinds of things are you likely to have bought inside stores, or at least the departments you visited.Everyone should watch this video to see what the future will look like once you cross the freaky line (I already have and I predict you will too — these kinds of apps will save you money and make your life better. We talk a bit about the use cases in this video.
Are you freaked out yet? You should be. But let me know if you are joining me in using apps like this and Highlight, which are both over the freaky line.
By the way, I shot this video late at night in front of the http://blackbox.vc/ Blackbox VC Mansion, where I met Sam at a party. More on that soon, it's one of the coolest startup incubators I've ever visited. This is why I love Silicon Valley so much. Where else can you meet guys like Sam who freak you out and show you a mind-blowing future?
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