I’m a little late with publishing my posts to be strictly adhering to the challenge. Still, as its a voluntary test, I’m not particularly worried as no money is relying on this working. I guess if I publish 30 articles in the 30 days with an approximate schedule of one a day, then it could be considered that I completed the task.

Many of us use services on a daily and regularly that are free. What many of us don’t seem to appreciate is how those services are paid for. That in itself might seem like a silly question to some, that have come to expect that services are generally free.

Take, for example, your electricity supplier. Look at the bill, and you’ll note a number to call in the event of needing help. Help could be something serious about having no power or merely having a query on your bill. When you call you will no doubt fall on a human being (eventually) whose role it is to help you through the process.

That human has to be paid, the equipment the person uses (computers, telephones, databases, headsets, etc.) have to be purchased, and the building in which the person is located, along with the associated insurances and taxes need financing too.

A small number of years ago, these types of services all had a cost. The cost was published before you used them (sometimes). Then these services started to be offered as part of the price of the “product” being purchased (tagged on to your electricity bill), but something changed. Now services like these are expected and are expected to be offered for free.

The Internet is the same. Most services, particularly social networks, are entirely free, albeit that they have employees. They possess enormous, phenomenally-expensive datacenters and telecoms bills that would make entire countries cry over. And yet they are free to use.

Most of us are led to believe that the data they collect on us is being sold, paying for everything. In most instances, this is simply untrue. Facebook doesn’t sell your data. To my knowledge not never has. What they sell is access to some of the meta-data employing a bidding platform that is ultimately used to sell advertising. You see the difference. If Facebook sold the data, it would quickly devaluate as it would be out there for everyone to use freely. Freely as in when they want, but also without cost.

Companies are inventing subtle ways of exploiting data for two reasons; one is to keep the services free at the point of consumption and the second, to prevent loss in the value chain.

10 November 2019 — French West Indies

We're not going to get to Level 5 autonomy anytime soon for a whole host of reasons. That's why it's interesting to see a new idea about self-driving cars.

Car manufacturers have carefully studied the pain points for drivers and, I'm guessing by using Jobs To Be Done Theory, have set out to solve an exponentially simpler problem that point-to-point or start-to-finish autonomous travel. They're concentrating on highway driving only, in what they call on-ramp to off-ramp. The basic premise is to allow the car to take control as it gets on to the highway and relinquish the same as you move off the highway.

As a majority of distance and time spent driving in the US involves highway driving, this is an opportunity to reduce friction for drivers without overly complicating the technology required to achieve the goal.

Autonomous driving will not happen overnight, it’ll take a generation or two to fully get used to the prospect of cars deciding what they do on a road, and this is a very good way to help,take part on that change management.

9 November 2019 — French West Indies

A long, but informative article, on redef from Matthew Ball. Really worth the read.

I was thinking about this and other ideas around Fortnite. 12 Million people attended a Marshmello concert hosted by Fortnite. Then 12 hours later, they did it again with almost as many people attending.

Think about that for a minute. A 12 million person concert! In less than 24 hours it was possibly something like 20 mIllion. That’s phenomenal, for the phenomenon called Fortnite.

I began wondering what it’d be like to hold more educative or informative events based on the same idea. Not only could it reach more people, but precisely because it could reach more people it could make more money. The biggest Conferences attract tens of thousands of people. A similar structure to the one used by Marshmello could provide a rich conference experience to millions.

Instead of buying a 10$ dance or a 10$ outfit, how about a 10$ concert?

We’re living in interesting times.

8 November 2019 — French West Indies

… Just look at what it happening in the world of photography.

Digital camera sales have fallen off a cliff and are unlikely to rebound to the highs of 2008 to 2011.

Why?

Smartphones are a simple answer. Smartphone photography has gotten better and better in recent years, with advances in lens and sensor technology allowing them to almost compete with quality DSLR cameras.

It’s the next wave that has already started that shows us what to expect.

Computational photography is here, and it is getting better results out of technically limited hardware. With computational photography, you no longer need to understand the photography triangle to produce stunning images. You no longer need a fast lens (read: expensive) to produce sharpness and bokeh that make your photos pop.

And very soon, computational photography will produce compositions that are not far off those of all but the most talented. All in a device that were buying anyway because it does so much more than take photos.

The computational in the sentence is the most essential part.

Self-serving cars are the computational-driving of driving, and it will be a better driver than you, me and everyone else other than the most highly skilled and trained drivers. Manual car sales will fall off a cliff when it happens.

But as with cameras, boutique or specialised models will become valuable and highly sought after, allowing the development of niche markets for these products. There will probably be driving leisure centres springing up in or around large cities that, for a fee, will allow you to drive a “real” car for fun.

The industrialisation of the combustion engine did this for horses, digitalisation is already having an effect on photography and computation will have this effect on cars.

7 November 2019 — French West Indies

Had a great time recording this. I hope to do it again soon. You should check out the work Kadia is doing and follow her on all the channels.

We talked about the human side of Digital Transformation and the issues and fears surrounding change in a changing world.

Enjoy!

Episode 13 – The Human Cost of Digital Transformations with Matthew Cowen