Russell Davies

learning through hamsters

We bought these Kung Zu hamsters just after Christmas. Hadn't played with them much.(They're on sale all over the place, not sure they're selling well.) Then I started reading Alone Together and spotted that they're going to mentioned in there. So I thought I should have a play.

Then I went to see Mr Webb at the Royal Institution last night. He was very good. (And there's a similar talk with video here.) He talked about their presentation in the Argos catalogue - they boast ' hilarious sounds' and that they're 'artifically intelligent'. So I thought I should have a play.

Then I wondered why I felt like I should be having a play and it's this: it feels like that moment when Victorian botanists went out and catalogued and collected the world of plants and flowers - trying to learn big lessons from small observations and connections. That's what we're doing. The Argos catalogue is like the Galapagos Islands. This is not like the beginning of the web where you could have an idea and then build something - we mostly can't build domestic robots yet, we just have to examine what China and Mattel throw over the wall and see what we can deduce from it.

I tell you what it also feels like - it feels like the early iterations of this genetic algorithm thing. All these toys and gadgets get loads of things wrong, but get a couple of things right. I suspect that noticing the right and the wrong will give us a clue as to what the finised thing might be like.

I'll report back. Perhaps I'll do some delicate watercolours and elegant drawings too.

ogilvy planning fellowship training scheme thing

This looks like a good idea. (Not mine, I'm afraid.)

Please don't contact me about it, I will be no use to you. All the application details are here.

(Don't be confused by the site. It says that the Ogilvy Fellowship is closed, that's true. But the Ogilvy Planning Fellowship isn't. Yet.)

this time last year

pleasure to the converted

Cricket (1950) from BritishCouncil on Vimeo.

"My name is Richardson and I happen to have been born in Britain." Best. Opening. Ever.

via Lloyd

experimenting with a second screen

I've had a rare weekend of telly. And instead of just lounging on the sofa (well, as well as just lounging on the sofa) I thought I'd see how the experience is changed by a slightly different sort of second screen. Not the usual twitter on iPad fiddling, but a little pico projector beaming Dextr next to the telly.

It was interesting. I liked having the first and second screens at the same distance, in the same plane. Sometimes you just want to stare in the same general direction, not switching focus back and forth from near to far. And I liked the automatic nature of dextr, you don't always want to be prodding and poking at your feed, you just want to let it spill over.

I was expecting it to work better in low light - that's the usual assumption about projectors. But it was actually a better experience in a well lit room. Dextr's so big and contrasty that you can read it easily and the faint projection on the wall is appropriately calm and ambient. It probably shouldn't be as bright as the telly. And, in a light room, the projector doesn't feel like the centre of attention, you can't really tell where it's coming from. It's a little magic.

And the drifting messages from my twitter feed, occasionally fading into silence, were the perfect accompaniment to an afternoon of lazy sport.

Later in the evening, when watching North Sea Hijack, it also occured to me that having the twitter feed up there next to the telly also makes everything more social; the twitter stuff becomes another component for the banter in the room.

I bet there's a load more you can do with it though, to surround the telly with other stuff; complementary, distracting, whatever. That'd be worth playing with.

things I learned today

1. My blog used to be good.

2. There are a lot of car transporters on the A75.

3. The Bilderberg Group Hack Day is called Evil Camp.

4. Gabrielle, the singer, lived in Brockley.

Phew. That was a lot of effort. I don't know how Giles managed for a whole year.

 

branded robots?

Matt points us at this fascinating piece about branded robots. Ending with this moment:

"There it is then. The planet’s preeminent ALife & robotics academic, whom has been referred to by Richard Dawkins as “the creator of what I think is the nearest approach to artificial life so far”, is leaving it up to us to answer the big questions:

What is the potential for branded robots? Will they ever form part of a marketing strategy? Will we ever allow robots a part in everyday life?"

One answer is here. It's a dumb ad about slightly smarter ads, but it illustrates the potential perils of these things. Horrible.

This possibility has been haunting me for a while. I wrote about it in Wired back in November:

"...And then, once we've mastered the art of manipulating emotions with machines, robospam will be just around the corner. Think about those charity muggers. Now imagine a robo-chugger -- a cute, sympathetic face, a screen set in the chest showing the tragedy they're trying to prevent accompanied by a swelling, moving soundtrack.

Some facial recognition and a quick bit of database jiggery pokery and the direct debit will be set up and ready to approve before you even get there. Circling above you will be a fleet of tiny UAVs dispensing Starbucks vouchers to anyone whose skin radiates inadequate measures of caffeine. Around the corner will be an out-of-work car assembly robot waving a sign promoting a golf sale."

But, although that is a possible future and some people will be dumb enough to try it. I don't think that'll be the key place where brands and robotics overlap. It'll be in product behaviour.

You could think of it like this:

Branding creates personality by overlaying associations and ideas on products via media.

Robotics will create personality by giving products particular behavioural characteristics.

(Though these are obviously not the only places personality comes from)

It's hard enough at the moment getting product design and marketing to integrate. The next big challenge will be getting the personality to match the look to match the behaviour. Ben Bashford talks about some of the challenges here.

Do you know how to brief behaviour? I don't.

you, but a year ago

It's well documented that Photojojo's Photo Time Capsule is the third best thing on the internet. (The first being Flickr, the second being Words With Friends.) It's very simple; you sign up and twice a month it emails you flickr pictures you took a year ago. It's always such a moment when the emails arrive - instant nostalgia mashed with instant intimations of mortality.

It, for instance, just sent me this:

Which I can't believe is a whole year ago.

And this:

Which I can't believe is only a year ago.

Anyway, point being, there's a new brilliant and similar thing in town - twitshift - which lets you do the same thing with your twitter.

You set it up and it sends you your old tweets a year later. Genius. Suddenly you're getting daily reminders of how things were, what you were doing, what you wanted. Sometimes they goad, sometimes they sadden, sometimes they remind, but they're always another interesting atemporal layer.

(Note to anyone looking for a cynical nethaterz angle on this for a column - how self-involved can you get!!?)

(Remember - you need to set up a new private account to do the retwittering at you, otherwise you risk re@ing all those people you @ed a year ago.)

more interesting north

Toby Barnes from Interesting North on Vimeo.

All the Interesting North talks are good. But these are three that stuck with me. And they all convince me again that there's an emerging art form here - the short talk with images. It's not just a presentation and it's not the same thing as a TED harangue. Maybe it's the live action version of all that narrative non-fiction, maybe it's the performance aspect of James' Network Realism. It certainly feels like it when he does it.

James Wallis from Interesting North on Vimeo.

 

Stefanie Posavec from Interesting North on Vimeo.