What Do We Call a Device that is More than a Phone?

This is a phone. It does not fit in your pocket.

A device was patented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1876 by Scottish immigrant, Alexander Graham Bell. Although there is a lot of dispute over who invented the electric telephone sparking the sequence of events which eventually became the phone we know of today, Bell is most commonly credited for it in the United States due to his patent. Certainly other key inventors and tinkerers of the day, such as Charles Bourseul, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, and Elisha Gray, are just as if not more praiseworthy as Bell was. Many more innovations since then have contributed to what we today refer to as “the phone” making all these inventors mere cogs in the machine that is and has been the technology revolution.

Prior to the transmission of voice signals the telephone was a term used in other inventions. This includes an invention by a captain named John Taylor who used a series of horns to communicate between sailing vessels in the fog and called the system The Telephone. Comparatively, many inventors who were working on devices that convert sound to electrical signals did not use the term telephone at all.

The term telephone is derived from the Greek word tēle which means “far” and the Greek word phōnē which means “voice”. Put together it means “distant voice”. I would say that the term is certainly something that refers to transmitting speech over long distances. The term we use today, “phone”, is merely a shortened version of original term and I think still refers to sending a voice over a distance.

The device that we commonly refer to as a phone does include a feature of sending voice over long distances. However, I think it is long overdue that we consider other ways to refer to the device since transmitting voice is far from the primary use of those devices.

There are some types of these devices which are more dedicated to the task of transmitting voice than others. Sometimes these devices are referred to as dumb phones or feature phones. I have no doubt that many users of those types of devices do primarily use them for voice communication. But even those have the capability of text and sometimes image or video communication. I know many users of those devices who communicate primarily in text as well. Therefore, I think that it is a misnomer to call these phones as well.

When it really comes down to it what we are talking about are computers. These devices are specialized computers with a cellular connection which can be used for voice, data, text messages, games, productivity applications, picture taking, navigating, picture taking, etc. These devices are just as much a camera as they are a phone. They are much more than a single feature. They are an extension of ourselves. A device that allows us have near constant ability to communicate in various ways with the world. A multi-tool, an electronic swiss army knife that allows us to do tasks that our biology does not inherently allow. It is so much more than simply a phone.

So the first question is: What do we call it instead? While I like the idea of “electronic multi-tool” or “electronic swiss army knife”, I doubt that it could be widely adopted if it required saying more than one or two words. Maybe that sounds like I am saying that humanity is lazy but I guess I am. We already use the term “phone” to refer to these devices and I doubt anyone will put forth the effort to both use a more appropriate term AND use more words. It just will not happen.

One term that I have pushed for in the past is “comm”. It is a device which is used to communicate in various ways. I thought it worked. I never got anyone else used to it though and eventually I gave up. Furthermore, I now realize that it does not encompass some of the other functions of the device. The tools such as navigation or picture taking are not fully encompassed by the term “comm”.

My favorite idea currently is actually an acronym. It is an acronym that has been used in the past for these devices before they turned into phones. Personal Digital Assistant shortened to PDA really fits the bill. I think that term describes exactly what these devices do for us. However, I am open to other ideas. Do you have a better term for the devices we commonly refer to as a phone? Lets share our ideas in the comments below.

Kirk Aug

Kirk writes about tech trends, science, and whatever else society wants to innovate next. He still does not know how to explain the save icon on a Word document, is it a piece of St. Louis style pizza? Follow Kirk on twitter @kirkaug.

#ILookLikeAnEngineer needs to have meaning

Do the people who drive the trains look like an engineer?

I am conflicted about this one.  This #ilooklikeanengineer movement.  I’m a woman.  I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering, and a couple decades of “hard” technical experience.  I self-identify as an engineer, even though a big chunk of my current work is paper-push..., I mean management.  I’m also really glad that people like Mary Barra (BSEE) and Ursula Burns (MSME) have thrown in with the movement, not just because they’re major CEO’s, but because they are actually ENGINEERS.  And actual engineers seem to be only half of the #ilooklikeanengineer movement.

In principle, this hashtag is great.  Engineers aren’t just dorky white or Asian boys who are good at math.  I bet in a lot of places, boys with average aptitude in math and science are tracked for engineering, and yet their schools/parents don’t do the same for girls with equivalent or even better aptitude.  That happens.  I graduated from Purdue University’s College of Engineering in the 90’s.  Purdue has a history of actively recruiting and supporting women engineers, and prides itself on having started the first Women in Engineering program.  For all their efforts, female enrollment there is currently about 20% right now, per their own website.  (I can’t speak to black and Latino enrollment, but I’m guessing they’re similarly underrepresented.)  So I’m all for anything that encourages a more expansive view of what an engineer can look like.

But the problem with this hashtag is while it expands the view of what an engineer looks like, it’s also trying to expand the definition of what an engineer actually IS.   Engineering is a specific field of study.  And one of my pet peeves is the conflation of “engineer” with “person who works with any kind of technology.”  Words have meaning.  And, despite recent abuse of the language, web developers, coders, and network architects are not engineers.  The noun “engineer” implies engagement with the PHYSICAL sciences; the application of chemistry and/or physics to solve a physical problem.  It implies grappling with scientific unknowns, and imperfectly modeling the physical world.  Well, either that, or a person who drives a train.  (My alma mater’s website backs me up on this:  computer science is not listed under the College of Engineering.)

I’m not suggesting that other STEM professionals are lesser or greater.  My mom had a long career in IT working on mainframe software.  My dad is PhD chemist.  But they don’t call themselves engineers.  And frankly, even though he’s certainly earned the right to be called Dr. S as an honorific, it would be pretty misleading for me to say “my dad’s a doctor” without some kind of qualifier.  Look, dentists and CPA’s are both highly trained and respected professionals.  But my dentist doesn’t call herself an accountant, because she’s NOT one.  Words have meaning.  And if your education and work don’t involve the application of physical engineering principles, you aren’t an engineer.   The team that designed the Wii U hardware?  Engineers.  The team that designed Mario Kart 8?  Not.  (I intend no disrespect, quite the opposite.  Mario Kart 8 is awesome.)

All these web designers, software developers, etc. who are jumping on the #ilooklikeanengineer hashtag (including the woman who started it) are undermining their own point.  Because all the sexist guys who are real engineers can point to these women and say, “Well, I don’t have to listen, because what you do is programming/web design/etc.  You don’t even know what an engineer is.”  

The set of engineers is a subset of the set of STEM professionals.  (It’s the E part!)  But there are also the S, T, and M parts.  They are disciplines and fields of study in their own right, and deserve recognition and respect.  And once they get it, maybe people can stop gussying up their job titles by adding “engineer” as some kind of professionalizing suffix.  All girls should be encouraged to take calculus and physics in high school, and know that they can have any career they want, in either software development, cell biology, applied math, nuclear engineering or whatever.  So I really respect the intent behind the hashtag.  But please, stop diluting my profession.  Pick a different word.  And I’ll tweet the hell out of #ILookLikeaSTEMprofessional!

I welcome any and all rebuttals. 

It’s a bit old, but for an excellent piece on why STEM training is great for women in particular: Check this out.

Tina S.

Tina does not look dorky or like a boy. That does not stop her from engineering (or paper pushing) like a boss. Join the debate by writing for SeedSing.

Welcome to the Future: The web as the platform

You may not need to upgrade to Windows 10

I have long waited for the day that the platform I use would be primarily the internet browser. Years ago, I installed a Linux based desktop distribution and stripped out much of the software aside from Firefox. This was when Google Docs had yet to become Google Drive and Google’s Chrome browser was in very infantile stages. It sort of worked. There was not much for web based services for video editing, software development, or photo management the way there is today, but I did not really expect it to fulfill all my needs at the time. I just wanted to see how far we had to go. I ended up using it as my baseline, adding software as I needed it after the browser when nothing available through the web sufficed.

Today things are quite different. I have been using a Chromebook for about a year now and I have not found that I need to go back to a full desktop for anything that I use a computer for on a personal level. Those three things I mentioned above are now taken care of through web based applications. I do all of my writing on Google Drive. I use a service called Codeanywhere for coding. I use WeVideo to edit together video clips. And Google Photos works great for photo management and editing for me. If I do need access to a desktop computer, I have a headless Mac mini sitting in my living room that takes care of some automated tasks. I can use remote desktop to get at it, but I have not used it for anything that I couldn’t do with Chrome OS. Maybe someday I would put a Chromebox in it’s place, but the Mac is doing the job fine right now.

The reason I have been so excited for the web to be operating system rather than merely another application on your main operating system (Windows, OS X, Linux, etc.) is because every platform has a portal to the web. At this point it makes more sense to build a web app before any platform specific app. In fact, a lot of the apps that can be attained from the various app stores of the modern mobile platforms (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and others) are little more than a native app wrapper around code that runs in a web browser. This does not always mean that the device needs to be connected to the web for the app to function. Many offline apps are built using web browser technologies as the core. Many websites can be placed on the homescreen of your device and be indistinguishable from an app store app to the untrained eye, even without going through the app store. I like this idea since I do not believe that any app store curator be it Apple, Google, Microsoft, or whoever, should be the czar to the digital media we enjoy.

Another positive reason to celebrate the web as a platform from a developer’s perspective is that an app hosted on the web can feature the ultimate piracy protection. Using a system that the user has to log into and pay if they want to continue to get certain features means that there is no way that a pirate can use your software without paying. Now I do believe that users should be allowed to try before paying, and I think that is one of the main lessons we have to learn from the state of piracy today. However, individual developers are free to try other models.

Problems with the web as a platform at this point are mainly the complexities. Most people are used to the world of software being something installed locally. Though web apps can be installed locally, most do not require it. The expectation is that you will likely be online when accessing these services. Many people are not comfortable with this. I can use Google Drive offline to some extent, but I cannot edit video from within a tunnel on the Metro. I think that some of the heavier web apps will evolve to work offline, but our connectivity will also evolve to a point where we will not be offline ever. It may still be a while, but even as I write this I am hardly ever away from access to the internet. I almost have to go out of my way to make it so that I am totally outside the boundaries of an internet signal. I went to a cave on my recent vacation and they had wifi hotspots in there. Seventeen hundred feet underground and I still could not escape internet access. Even with my example of the Metro train, I would not be surprised to see wifi installed in the near future. And if not, do I really need to be doing heavy web applications from within a Metro tunnel?

So the web is the platform. Some people are currently stuck using a more fully featured version of Microsoft Office or Photoshop, but I think it is silly to think that every feature of those software packages would not be available through a web app one day. I think someday soon native software will be dwarfed by what is available as a web app.

Kirk Aug

Kirk has settled into his virtual cubicle at SeedSing. He is curious if future space tourism will have good wifi coverage. Follow him on twitter @kirkaug.

The Death of the Old Internet: A rebuttal and revisit.

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece on the problems at Reddit, Gawker, and Ashley Madison. This morning I uploaded a podcast recorded days after the article that discussed the current death of the old internet.  The future of the internet is a topic that consumes my mind throughout a large portion of the waking day, I think I actually dream about the idea on some nights. I am excited, and saddened, when I think about how many of my favorite sites have changed with the times, and how many of them have failed to adapt. Being a beginner in content creation for the internet, I wanted to learn from all the successful people in the past, and heed the warnings of the failures. The new internet is where I want to live, it is where we will all thrive.

On August 6th, the website Vox.com published an article by Todd VanDerWerff titled 2015 is the Year the Old Internet Finally Died . I was initially shocked that there was an article out there with a similar headline, and many of the same ideas I had proposed. My first basic thought was "Have I been ripped off?". Then my rational brain took over and reminded me that Vox, Todd VanDerWerff, or any other large professional news organization probably did not rip off my piece. They did not know the article, or SeedSing, even exist. I really wish they had ripped me off, because that would mean some big dogs are reading, and agreeing, with the ideas I am presenting. I highly doubt, but am naively hopeful, that is the case.  

VanDerWerff's piece recounted some of the same problems I talked about surrounding Gawker and Reddit. The Vox.com article was more researched, and devoted a lot more words to the overall topic. The author also has experience working with websites I frequently visit. He is definitely more of an expert on the death of the old internet than I am. I also believe he is wrong in his conclusions of the new internet. Where VanDerWerff thinks we are getting away from community and long form expression (funny considering his piece was definitely not that short) I think that long form articles will be a big part of the make up in the new internet. We are entering a new age of enlightenment. The ideas of the common people, not only the connected elites, have a place on the new internet. Real, positive change needs to be explained, and explanation takes up screen space.

The professional internet writers are more interested in their personal profiles, they have forgotten about writing to the masses. Clicks and monetization seem to be the only concern for these old bloggers. The A.V. Club is a website I visit everyday. I have been there since the launch, and have no reason to change my loyalty. The A.V. Club is also in danger of not being a viable part of the new internet. They have built a community of writers and readers, and have walled off that community to anyone else. The movie reviewers have been my go to source for Paul Thomas Anderson praise and Adam Sandler hate. They are incredible predictable in their "reviews". I am sure Sandler's latest movies stink, but I also really did not care that much for There Will be Blood or The Master. Those views will invite the stupidest inside joke scorn from the commentators and a more professional rejection from the writers. The A.V. Club has created a community for the writers, and this shows a lack of vision. If you want to write about anything, pop culture especially, you need to understand and expand the audience. Creating a community of people that only think like you is the same as going to church (or the Republican National Convention). The kids in the high school audio visual club were awkward because they were assholes about what was cool (it was almost never something that was cool). The A.V. Club wants to be the asshole, they will also get to have their little room that no one else wants to go in.

Cracked.com is another website I have visited nearly everyday since their launch. What I enjoyed about Cracked was how they would talk about the worst fictional towns (Gotham City number 1) or the dumbest GI Joe vehicles (so many dudes hanging off of the sides). This was a site for nostalgic men over the age of 30, but who really want to be 13 again. As the audience changed, Cracked started to change with it. Their articles started to take on an intellectual vibe (with some crude humor), but at the same time the core purpose of the website stayed the same.  Their commentators hated the change. Recently Cracked has added a BuzzFeed feature looking at the news of the week, which their commentators hate. The personal experience articles, where the editors talk with people who have interesting jobs and life experience, have brought a whole new group of people in. The commentators predictably also hate this. Cracked does not care what the commentators think, those people will still come to the site that they fell in love with in 2005. Cracked is interested in growing the community by adding new people.

Todd VanDerWerff's piece lamented the fact that the new internet is removing the nice communities of the old internet. That is a good thing. The old internet was built with walls, and walls do not foster ideas. Many of the writers from the "professional" sites want to live in an echo chamber where only their ideas are correct. That kind of behavior leads into problems like ones facing the current national Republican Party. As communities start to meld, innovation takes off. The New York Times is going extinct because they have created a public persona that only the sycophants can believe in. Dissolve.com did not last past two years because The A.V. Club had already captured the "I like it because it is not popular" film crowd. Reddit created a wall by being where all the awful people can go and be unfiltered. When Reddit tried to take that wall down, their image was forever tainted. A new and better Reddit is being incubated right now to takes it place. Facebook created a community in the old internet and crushed the more free MySpace. In the new internet Facebook has brought down its walls and has become something that looks a lot like the free world of MySpace. VanDerWerff even points out that BuzzFeed may be disposable viral content, but they also produce insightful journalism. That is why BuzzFeed's community is one of the largest on all the internet.

We have the ability to radically remake global society into something grand. The grad student of yesterday would study Dunbar's number. The world at large can get a easier explanation through the Cracked article on The Monkey Sphere. The cult television show of yesterday would be lucky to last one season. Now Yahoo is not just a search engine, you can watch the latest season of Community. Expanding and dissolving communities is how we innovate. The new internet will bring more knowledge, culture, and freedom to the entire world. 

Standing on your island and you will only see the water. Standing on a continent and you can touch all of society. The internet does not need to be special for a few. The internet needs to be useful for all.

RD Kulik

RD is the creator and Head Editor for SeedSing. If any big websites are watching us for content, Hi there. Drop us a line seedsing.rdk@gmail.com

Welcome to the Future: Wearables Part 1

This watch must be smart. It knows how to tell time with Roman Numerals

Let me tell you about my watch.

In January of 2015 I purchased a Microsoft Band. I had been going to the local Microsoft store every Sunday afternoon to inquire if they had any Bands in stock. One day I got lucky, someone had returned a gift and there was a medium Band ready for my wrist.

Why would I want a Microsoft Band you ask (or you ask what is a Microsoft Band)? Well I am one of the few people on this planet with a Windows phone. I was with Blackberry for many years and I felt that Microsoft would fill my business needs when Blackberry became obsolete. I may have been wrong, but I do love Microsoft's mobile platform. The Band was a great device, with Cortana integration for Windows phone. That is the only additional benefit with a Band and a Windows Phone. All other features are available to any one with an Andriod or IPhone. Even if I did not have the Windows Phone, there was an excellent chance I would have purchased the Band just on the features alone.

I had been eyeing a Pebble smartwatch for some time but could never take the plunge (I know there is no Pebble app for the Windows Phone, but there are always ways around that problem). The price did not reflect everything I was looking for in a wrist wearable. I wanted my texts, e-mails, notifications, and some fitness tracking. I also felt that the Pebble looked kind of cheap. Do not get me wrong, it is a grand piece of technology, the aesthetics were just off. I was not looking for a computer on my wrist, I was never going to take phone calls from my wrist, and I was not about to use a watch as a camera. My choice of phone and time were conspiring against my simple wishes.

In late October of 2014 Microsoft unveiled the Band, with little fanfare. It was exciting for me, because I knew this wearable would be compatible with my very personal choice of phone os. The Band had all the features I wanted. E-mail / text / notifications sent to my wrist, steps counted, sleep tracking, calories burned, alarms, calendar, and the ability to display the time of day. There were a few features I could have cared less for, like GPS (I have a phone with that function and the Band needs the phone close by), and a fairly useless keyboard for text responses. The Band was also $199.00, better than most smartwatches with similar features. There was a few things I would have liked to see. The Band being waterproof  and native music controls would have been nice. During my time with the Band I have relied more on apps like the Starbucks card and Pimp My Band (best third party app out there), and I have found myself caring less for things like sleep tracking. The positives way outweighed the negative, I was sold.

The features of the Microsoft Band (except for maybe GPS) should be with every smartwatch. I think these are the only features smartwatches need. The other area the Band excels is the size and placement of the screen. The current crop of smartwatches use a large square (or circular) screen. This makes most of the watches only able to be worn on a large (usually a mans) wrist. The Band made the screen a rectangle, and the placement is recommended to be on the bottom of your wrist. This is the way all smartwatches should work. I use the device to see my notifications. When I am cycling, or driving my car, the natural reaction I have to read my Band is to quickly look at the bottom of my wrist. It is simple, and makes the messages much easier to read. Super fancy pen and watch company Mont Blanc knows this is best way to make a smartwatch. This is where Microsoft got something right, all smartwatches should copy this design aesthetic.

The Microsoft Band is a forward thinking device. The push of basic information from your phone is what will make the smartwatch market take off. The Apple Watch seemed to miss the boat on so many things people want, plus it was laughable overpriced. The Android wear devices seem to be caught in a keeping up with a moronic Apple cycle.  The Band may not look great (I refer to it as my prison bracelet), but it's functionality more than makes up for the weird looks. Microsoft deserves to be a market leader for understanding what people want in the world of wearables, and making the price reasonable. 

Just please make the next one waterproof. I am going to forget it is on my wrist sooner or later. Thank goodness I have the warranty.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. He knows his technology choices are part of the minority. Give the other side by writing for SeedSing. 

Welcome to the future: The Babel fish lives (in electronic form)

Welcome to the Future is SeedSing's look at trends and technology that are shaping the world we will live in. Submit ideas of interesting sociological or scientific ideas that are altering our current lives to seedsing.rdk@gmail.com .

Ever since I heard of the babel fish in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or the universal translator used in the Star Trek series, I have been thrilled with the concept. As someone who is interested in the perspectives of as many people as possible, the idea that I could communicate with anyone no matter where they are from or what linguistic background they had was very compelling.

I remember when I first became aware of Google Translate. The first thing I did was find various Spanish or German chat rooms on IRC and tried to talk to people by translating my English into their language and then translating the response back manually. As cumbersome as this was, it also gave me a feeling of exhilaration.

Playing around with translate on the internet is fun and all, but it has become a useful tool in meat world too. Last year when my partner and I went to Mexico I used it quite a lot. Not only was translate helpful, but Google Now recognized that I was in Mexico and knowing that I was natively from the US gave me an easily accessible currency conversion without my having to do anything except enter the numbers. The way technology does things like this without me even having to think about it is tearing down international borders and I am overjoyed to see it.

We still have a long way to go before we will have babel fish or Star Trek level universal translation, but the space is progressing nicely. Coupled with voice transcription technologies, we are starting to see near real time language translation. Earlier this year the Google Translate app began to have a feature which takes what a person says in one language, transcribes it to text, translates it, and says the words aloud in the target language. From what I have heard the feature is still pretty error prone, but it will only get better over time. Another feature that came with that same update is the ability to hold the camera up to some text and get a translation of that text overlaid on the camera’s image on screen. It even does a pretty decent job of matching color and font on the translated image.

Microsoft, who owns Skype, is also making huge headway in the universal translation space. Skype users can now connect with people translating between English, French, German, Italian, Mandarin, and Spanish in near real time. Google is reportedly working on similar technology for its Hangouts service.

Language barriers are definitely being broken and this is amazing. The more that people of different backgrounds can understand each other, the more compassionate we will all be toward each other. It surely is not the pervading solution to violence and hate in the world, but it will at least be helpful in the reduction of it.

Kirk Aug

Kirk is able to communicate with his SeedSing colleagues. The problem is he is seeking more insightful conversation, and that conversation may be in another language. Talk to Kirk by following him on twitter @kirkaug.

What is real food?

Created by man or by nature?

Some folks seem to be up in arms today because of a vote in the House on GMO labeling. In a 275-150 vote, the House passed HR 1599, the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015. Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) issued a statement today about the passing of this act saying, “Advances in technology have allowed the U.S. to enjoy the safest, highest quality, most abundant, diverse and affordable supply of food and fiber mankind has ever known. With the world’s population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, biotechnology is an essential tool for our farmers to meet this demand in an environmentally sound, sustainable, and affordable way. Unfortunately, proposed Federal and State laws threaten this innovation by generating a patchwork of differing labeling requirements, which will result in inconsistent and confusing information for consumers and interfere with interstate commerce. H.R. 1599 establishes a voluntary nation-wide marketing program that gives consumers access to consistent, reliable information while protecting advancements in food production technology and innovation.”

I spent some of my morning reading HR 1599. In my reading I noticed that foods containing any genetically engineered element may be required to be labeled as genetically engineered if they contain “a material difference in the functional, nutritional, or compositional characteristics, allergenicity, or other attributes between the food so produced and its comparable food”. To me this makes sense. If there is no real difference in the product, no need to make an extra cost and confusion to the consumer by pointing out how it was produced. Analogously I do not need to know whether the peanuts used to make my peanut butter were crushed by hand or a machine if the end product is the same.

One of the things this bill was intended to do was to create a nationally unified labeling system. With individual states having different labeling requirements, there presents a problem for companies who ship product to multiple states with differing and contradictory labeling requirements. Having this kind of labeling fiasco would just drive up costs for the consumer while confusing the consumer all the more.

Many are saying that this new bill creates a ban on the consumer receiving adequate access to knowledge about their food. It seems to be causing more clarity to have a unified system that the interested consumer can understand. The alternative is for them to seek out a lot of conflicting information driven by the “natural” food lobbies in each state.

The producers of food who work hard to make sure there are no genetically engineered components in their product have an interest in scaring the consumer away from genetic innovation. They are big business just like any other. So requiring labels on all genetically engineered food regardless of its functional, nutritional, allergenic, etc. similarities seems to only be an attempt to use government to influence the market in their favor. If their food is “natural”, they are free to label it as such, but requiring other companies to use labels which enhance their own marketing tactics is deceitful.

The fact is, these means of production mean a higher yield per acre and less use of potentially harmful chemicals. One can bring up monoculture as a legitimate concern. One which needs to be addressed. But attempting to kill off the benefits of genetic engineering on the whole is not the way to do that. Testing should also be done on these and all foods to make sure they are safe. Since genetically modified foods are some of the most thoroughly tested, I have no concerns here.

Still, many people are concerned. Some fear that we will get too carried away and cause lasting and irreversible harm to our food sources and thus to humanity. I agree that some of the details within the realm of genetically modified foods may need more attention. Such as the patent system and how it affects the way certain agriculture companies do business or monoculture as I have already mentioned. But the solution is not to scare the consumer away from the process outright. What do you think?

Kirk Aug

Kirk writes about science, technology, and whatever else can catch his fancy. He is currently enjoying a snack and forgot to read the label. Follow him on twitter @kirkaug.

Welcome to the Future: Kirk looks at self driving cars Part 2

The new Tesla? Code named T-Edsel?

This is a follow up to part 1 of Kirk's look at self driving cars.

I cannot say I particularly enjoy driving. I enjoy the convenience that comes with driving. I like being able to go anywhere I please at a near whim. But the experience could be improved as far as I am concerned. I could find better use of my time than staring at the road. Sometimes, if I have the extra time, I take public transportation because it is not the commute that I dislike, but the bore of it. I love to have the opportunity to read a book or interact with my partner or my kids while I get to my destination. The passengers of the vehicle that I pilot get this. The technology is soon here for me to get this too. And it can be public transportation but with the same privacy I now enjoy. When thinking about self-driving vehicles, these are some of the ideas that delight me.

How about I start with the public transportation aspect. As of right now, if I want a fast way to get to my destination I need to own my vehicle. This means several things. I need to have insurance. I need licenses. One for myself to drive and one for the vehicle to be on the road. I need to have a place to put this vehicle when I am not using it, which happens to be the vast majority of the time that I own it. I need to maintain it; gas, oil changes, and the like.

Contrarily, once self-driving vehicles are widespread, I no longer need to own the vehicle. Transportation will be a front door service and it will be much faster, cheaper, and more versatile than taxi cabs currently are. There will probably be periodic rates for frequent users to benefit from. I need to run to the store because I forgot the milk? A couple of smart phone taps and I will have a vehicle in my driveway within minutes. This comes with exactly the same privacy that I already have with my own vehicle and with the other aspects of owning a vehicle obscured into the cost of the transport and taking no physical effort on my part. Because we do not pay a driver, this will cost less than a cab. The economic implications are definitely something to consider here, but I will wait for another post to get more into that.

Another thing that excites me is the environmental impact. Once the use of public self-driving vehicles is set in we can start making all sorts of cuts in where we currently have waste in exchange for convenience. One example is that it is no longer going to be one vehicle taking you or your party everywhere. Right now I drive a SUV, but I am no where near using all the space and power that requires a SUV every time I drive. Many times it is just me. Cut to the self-driving vehicle service, and I can specify exactly how many seats and storage I will need. Getting groceries? A one seat vehicle with enough storage for a bag or two will do. Going on a date? A two seater with no storage works. Family vacation? Four seats and lots of storage. Taking the dogs along? Special storage options available. A lot less energy wasted. I could go on.

An added energy benefit is the fact that a human is not navigating. Some drivers are certainly more efficient than others, but all of us are have emotions. Those emotions necessarily affect our driving. We misjudge how much time we have we have to make the gap, then in attempt to recover we slam on the gas. We switch back and forth between lanes in a jam on nothing more than a hunch wasting countless energy. Not only can computer give up the emotional aspect of driving, but the can also communicate telepathically. Self-driving vehicles can communicate with other self-driving vehicles in a way humans never can. Need to merge? There is no guesswork, just a seamless merge. Traffic jams on the interstate? Reroute X number of vehicles to a secondary route.

The last benefit I want to address in this post is the additional freedom of the youth of tomorrow. Say your ten year old wants to go to a friend’s house but there is no one to provide the ride. With a self-driving vehicle service, there is.

This may scare some parents. I certainly know more than a few parents who want to keep their kids locked down as much as they can for as long as they can. For these parents, there will probably be ways to secure the service to only be used with particular amounts of permission. There will also be kids who get around this as they always is with technology lockout systems. (Another topic for another post I suppose.) And sure I think that a certain show of responsibility should exist before a kid can set out in a self-driving vehicle alone, but this takes down a lot of barriers to those kids who are deserving of that responsibility. They do not really need to be responsible enough to drive a vehicle in order to benefit from the geographical freedoms associated with it.

How do you feel? Are you excited about the changes to our world that self-driving vehicles might mean? Are you concerned about some of the details that have yet to emerge into our collective consciousness? Let’s discuss it.

Kirk Aug

Kirk is getting settled into his virtual cubicle of internet journalism. He is looking for ideas on other near future technologies that will change your life. Follow him on twitter @kirkaug 

Welcome to the Future: Kirk looks at self driving cars Part 1

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Welcome to the Future is SeedSing's look at trends and technology that are shaping the world we will live in. Submit ideas of interesting sociological or scientific ideas that are altering our current lives to seedsing.rdk@gmail.com .

We are quickly coming to a point in time when vehicles will be driven by computers in addition to humans. Once this point comes and takes hold, it seems the vehicles that are driven by humans will be the biggest safety risk on the road.

As many are aware, Google has been testing self-driving vehicles for six years and counting. The vehicles have driven about 1.9 million miles since they hit the road and have not caused any collisions. Of the 14 collisions that they were involved in, 11 were caused by human drivers rear ending the robot vehicles. Although, I am not sure that you would get that impression if you happen to merely skim the tech news headlines.

Every time that I hear about one of Google’s vehicles being involved in an accident, before reading the article, I am tempted to think that Google’s vehicle must have caused the accident. For what other reason would the involvement of a self-driving vehicle warrant a mention in the headline?

The following are examples of headlines related to the most recent such accident: “Google Self-Driving Car Involved in First Injury Accident” - ABC News. “Google self-driving car has 1st accident causing injuries” - CBC News. “Google Sees First Injury Accident for Self-Driving Cars” - TIME. “Injuries in Google self-driving car accident” - CNN Money.

If the self-driving capability is not an element in the accident, as has been the case in all incidences with these vehicles, I am having trouble coming up with a reason for them to be part of the story at all. It nearly always seems that once I get past the headline, the story is much more of a couple sentences in the weekly accident report of the local newspaper. Something like: “Rear end accident on 12th & Maple. Minor injuries.” That’s the whole story.

So why do we add in the part about the self-driving vehicle getting hit and expand it to a full article? And why do we often have a vaguely suggestive headline about Google to go with it? My suspicion is clickbait. If there is a way to squeeze an element of fear into a headline, people are more likely to click. New technology, as with any change, is scary. Handing over control of our transportation to a machine that has been proving itself to do a better job than humans is degrading. Many humans want to think they are superior to the machines. They want to believe that the machines will fail. They do not see the machines as an extension of ourselves, but a scary other to fear and conquer.

This fear is only human. These machines, while built by humans who are specialists in building and programming machines, are meant to be used by humans who do not understand them. There is a big divide here and the only way it will be overcome is through time. Just as historically with any new technology, time will bring comfort. People will start to see the convenience and benefit over their fears. They will start to understand it better and trust it more. In fact, as baiting as these headlines may be, those who do actually read the article are going to keep seeing this new era of self-driving vehicles to be safer.

I am not saying that self-driving vehicles are perfect and the day will not come when a self-driving vehicle will be the cause of an accident. I expect that it will. To some, I am sure, that will be all that it takes to dismiss those vehicles entirely. It is my hope, however, that the majority will see some of the major benefits to be gained from these vehicles. It is for those reasons that I am excited. You can read more about that in the second part of my musings on this topic tomorrow. (Read Part 2 here)

Kirk Aug

Kirk is still excited about the New Horizons data. His excitement has led him to be the point person on SeedSing science and technology insights. Follow him on twitter @KirkAug