S03E03: Mirror mirror on the wall, are you the smartest of them all?

Monday, 20 November 2017

Sitrep: At my desk in between lots of errands that need being run, with my phone always in sight so I won't miss M going into labor. Looking forward not to have to preface work things with personal details like this so you don't have to deal with it, but given it'll likely lead to some minor service interruptions on my end it seems fair to be transparent about it. Thanks for your patience.

// China as a Preview

For a long time, industry folks in the Western World (TM) have discussed the rise of China—usually framed as a threat to the predominance of Western Businesses (TM) on the global market. That may be as it is, I personally find it the least interesting of all aspects when discussing China.

Much more interesting to me is how Chinese users adopt, use, and hack technology. It's interesting to examine because (a) the cultural, political and technological environment is a very peculiar one that's different than almost anywhere else, and (b) people are super smart at finding their way through and around all kinds of technologies and barriers and censorship tools and what have you. Also, (c) China has lots of young folks who are tech-positive and willing to experiment and consume in ways that allow for all of us to watch and observe. It's fascinating, and we can all learn a lot from it. They're a true pioneer community.

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For regular updates on these things, there's a new favorite go-to source: The ever-excellent Christina Xu & Tricia Wang have teamed up and launched The Magpie Digest. Learn more about Magpie Kingdom in their pre-launch blog post. It's "a weekly exploration of contemporary China, one trending topic at a time", and it's 💯🙌🔥 < That's my super happy emoji. 

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Technology Review writes Alibaba’s AI Fashion Consultant Helps Achieve Record-Setting Sales. They're focusing on how AI blurs the line between offline and online shopping in the context of retail. That's a legit angle, but I'm more interested in the fact that these news come out of China, not the US (or even London, which usually is at the cutting edge of using tech for ads & marketing purposes).

The smart mirror is a category that in the West hasn't gotten much play. But the last two times I was in China, the category of smart mirror (and everything worth noting happens in categories in Shenzhen, or spawns a new one), was all over the place.

For a recent talk at Good School about China, I used smart mirrors as an example, so I happen to have some photos I took at hand. Watch how this starts with fairly traditional rearview mirrors and then goes all evolutionary product development, one iteration and experiment at a time:

The rearview mirror is augmented with some added information (compass, etc.) in a display on the side.

The rearview mirror is replaced by a screen that displays live video feeds from HD cameras both in the front and the back. The smart mirror replaces the original function of the mirror.

The rearview mirror is replaced with a navigation system/map. This map is complemented by a small stick-on mirror wo watch what's going on inside the back of the car. There is no real rearview mirror, but the form factor is the same.

Another smart mirror for a different context: A high res mirror with a built in camera that displays and analyses faces and proposes make-up and other skin treatments.

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For certain things, rather than trying to figure them out in innovation labs, we should just keep a closer eye on Chinese users.

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In vaguely related news, National Geographic's piece on how young African entrepreneurs are bringing life-improving innovations to sub-Saharan communities looks pretty promising. Our Shenzhen Connector-in-Chief David Li has been drumming that particular beat for a while: Africa and China is where it's at, he's been suggesting, and young entrepreneurs are leading the way. He's too polite to say it, but I believe he also implies that especially in Africa many young entrepreneurs focus on stuff that matters over silly gadgets. We'll know soon enough.

// Learning

Through Patrick Tanguay I learned about the Seek, Sense, Share Framework for personal learning. Curious to dig deeper into that. At first glance, this seems to hit a lot of the right notes for me. Also, they mention the "Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM)" as its own framework, and since I like Nerdily Acronym'd Notions (NAN) like Every Day Carry (EDC) and the like, I couldn't just let this one slip by. Apologies

// Crypto all the coin

Recently I shared some thoughts about the opportunities and issues I see with crypto currencies. I took a critical stance in terms of the externalized effects of mining, but also expressed my dismay with the tone of the debate. Not because I think you can't have heated discussions online (although some civility wouldn't hurt), but because it seems to me that there's truly interesting stuff happening in the space, but...

(dramatic pause)

But... the thing is, this is a community scene that cultivates such an aggressive attitude that it undermines its own grand project.

Within a few hours a FB thread on the topic had unfolded into such a scream fest that I shut down the thread altogether. As of today, crypto currencies and the ledger bits of the blockchain are all interesting, but mostly proof of concept.

More importantly, it's a scene, and a speculation environment especially, that attracts the worst kinds of attitude it seems. Between the people building the systems (and hence have a strong stake in it, and who may or may not be great communicators) and those investing in this space as VCs or, more likely, as currency day traders, and the groups with the strongest interests in anonymous, untraceable transactions (from drug dealers to rich folks trying to get their money out of China to the nut jobs who want their own currencies to avoid government issued currencies)... it's just a bit of a clusterfuck, isn't it? It's unsavory company at least, and politically more-than-dubious company at worst. It seems that it's only ever one step and you talk to some Tea Party or AfD or alt-right or what have you dude, and frankly at this point I'm out of there.

I'll keep a close eye on this topic of course, because it's interesting and in tech circles it's blockchain talk is the equivalent of talking about the weather; but for now, my interim conclusion is this: As long as this scene doesn't get their shit together and gets better at allowing, and constructively engaging with the tons of legitimate criticism of crypto currencies, ledgers, blockchains, tenders and all the rest—it's not worth engaging. And I say this not just because it's an energy-draining, life-sapping experience to fight online with these zealots, but also and especially because they're trying (or claiming to try) to build a more trustworthy system for payments and other transactions. But in order to be more trustworthy, this needs to be demonstrably and significantly better than existing services. And that requires trust and understanding on the side of all these potential users/citizens. Which isn't in the cards as long as the main arguments are variations of screamed "you don't get it!" or "you shouldn't be trusting party X, Y or Z!" but our algorithm. So for now, as long as this isn't solved, the technical solutions appear very much secondary to me.

End of rant.

// Cloud Art

You undoubtedly have encountered Cory Arcangel's Super Mario Clouds at some time or another. It's one of the most prominent pieces of digital art/ROM hacking art of probably all times, made in 2002. Here's how Arcangel decribes it: "Super Mario Clouds is an old Mario Brothers cartridge which I modified to erase everything but the clouds."

Here's what it looks like (image source: Cory Arcangel):

Now, 15 years later, game designer and media theorist Patrick Lemieux did a super detailed analysis of Arcangel's claims and process. It's a super nerdy art critique in the best sense of the word. (It concludes that Arcangel made a number of false claims, including not having deleted anything at all but rather programmed the clouds from scratch.) It's almost 20 minutes long and not a life changing experience to watch, but if you're into this kind of thing you'll enjoy it. I certainly did, a lot.

Everything but the Clouds from Patrick LeMieux on Vimeo.

// See you next week

On that note, thanks for reading. Thanks for all the feedback so far, I really appreciate you taking the time. I'm curious to hear if you enjoy this, and why/why not. Also, if you think this might be interesting for others, feel free to pass it along of course.

Have a great week,

Peter