Poor man's Itelligence Amplification

The concept of Intelligence Amplification (AI) has been receiving some media attention lately thanks to the growing hype of the Technological Singularity .

The main idea is to enhance human intelligence by tight coupling with computer devices for augmented memory, enhanced senses, computer-brain interfaces, direct connection with ambient sensors and with the internet for immediate information access.

However, while we wait all this technological wonders to come a reality (or in some cases, to be widely available), I've found that some pretty simple tools can be used to boost our day-to-day productivity some orders of magnitude just by helping us to keep track of all the information we generate and consume. Actually, the key concept is to allows us to generate even more information (mostly in the form of short notes) and the allows us to access it in a smart way.

Here is a short list of tools I've just started to use:

• Tomboy: a note taking desktop application. Allows to create notes and put links to web pages, emails and other information sources and to other notes. It can be then used to annotate information. Has some interesting plugins to export notes to diverse formals and also to show links among notes.
• View Your Mind: is a tool for creating mind maps. Interestingly, there is Tomboy pluging to export notes to VYM.
  
• Gnome-do: is an intelligent application launcher that use search technologies to find items like files and applications and allows you to execute actions on them (e.g. open, run). Also comes with many plugins for common applications like music players, google applications and this one to interact with Tomboy.
  

I hope these tools allows me to free some time to keep this blog updated!

When less is more and simple is beautiful

Recently, there has been a great shift towards cheap subnotebook portables like Asus' eeePC, Everex's CloudBook and E-lead's NoahPad. These portables, which might result under powered and far from the "state or the art", have been received with enthusiasm by potential tech savvy customers and have even made its way into the general audience (to the extend that general media have started to cover them)

I personally found these cheap portables, targeted to a specific function, more attractive that those over priced "high end" portables which are neither a good desktop replacement, not portable enough. Actually, I'm just waiting impatiently to put my hands on a NoahPad.

One interesting conclusion from the general reaction is the discovery of a new category of users, for whom a simple, affordable and ultra portable device to surf the web is a real gain. But these devices are also appealing for the millions of home uses that only want to read email, print some photos and little more.

But even more important, such portables seams to be the killer devices for the final Linux take over of the desktop.

Open source appliance

I've been struggling since one month ago to decide on a device for "mobile digital entrainment" (sorry, I've been unable to find a better name for this). What I basically need is a rich web experience (including web 2.0 sites, video, Internet radio) and access digital content (music, video) stored locally in the device or other storage devices.

My first candidates are the Nokia Internet Tablet N800 and the Archos 605. Other option I briefly considered were the Sony PSP and the PapperPad 3. I ruled out the PSP because its web experience is istill far behind of my needs. The PaperPad,in the other hand, seams to be a good product but its form factor makes it less attractive fro mobile usage.

Both candidates has "similar" capabilities, like integrated wifi access, full flagged web browsers and rich multimedia applications. However, they differ in one significant aspect: the Nokia N800 is, in this moment, more an open source device, very appealing to developers and savvy users, while the Archos is more an appliance, close but fully functional and usable by any user.

What I would like to have is the best of both worlds: an open source appliance. An open device for developers and hackers, but ready to day to day usage. Why is this so difficult? I believe that in this question resides the key for the success of open source outside the niche it is now (a big niche, sure, but a niche after all).

Dr. Ari Jaaksi, Nokia's director of open source has an interesting document about "Building consumer products with open source" and here we found a key "The open source culture is very much for trials, hacking, innovation and other creative aspects of software development. Meeting deadlines, dropping your latest crazy idea, and making compromises to gain stability are not what many open source communities or developers naturally do. In addition to us, the Linux project, Debian, and others seem to have difficulties making a final good quality release on time".

However, I must admit that I found more appealing the N800 because the open nature of the device is attracting a lot of interest and just recently I've seen a couple of developments that improves its usability a lot: both an iPhone like on screen keyboard and a kinetic scroll. By the way, both improvement ideas come from iPhone . . .

So, at this point the question is: will these two open source projects change focus from hacking to usability, from innovation to stability or is here where they will fail, as many other such projects.

The computer desktop . . . finally

After some 20 years dealing with the unintuitive concept of pc desktops from mac, windows and more recently Linux, we have finally got the REAL desktop . . . or table top. It is the Microsoft Surface. Before anyone jump on saying that MS didn't invented most of the technology behind it, and that they are as always stealing ideas, the reality is that they bundle all the required items and came with the product and this is what matters. And by the first time in the last decade, they came with it the first-

Let me say this stright: It has been a long, long time since any news in the computer industry excited me just a little bit, but I think that the Surface is going to be the next big thing in the computer market. Really big. It actually will define an entire new market. Or more than one market, maybe.

To start with, they will be real home PC. Forget about media centers (ah, I see, you've already forgotten them. Me too) and home servers. Ordinary people don't want them. Even most of the geeks out there (including me) don't want them because it is too much a hassle for too little benefits. The Surface, on the other hand, brings the usability to a new, higher levels.

Secondly, at the office, I foresee a no so distant time when knowledge related workers (managers, programmers, designers, researchers, physicians, and the like) will use this kind of work surface as its main desktop. Even more, I'm pretty sure that the surface will replace the conference room tables very, very soon. The possibilities for collaborative working are endless.

Enter the future desktop.

Web sites to take

I have just came across Raccoon, a mobile web server that can be used to expose to the web the functionalities of a Symbian S60 based mobile device (like my Nokia N70).

Putting a web server into my phone sounded at first glance as either the more stupid or the geekiest think to do with a phone.

But as Just a Traveler said on onee one of his interesting blog entries: "you can now create Apache modules to access all the phone’s resources, use mod_python along with Python for S60 to create dynamic web pages ... and the possibilities are endless!". (thanks Just a Traveler for pointing me into this direction).

I could then create a nice web based user interface to make appointments or enter contacts directly to the phone from my desktop using a browser. Man, I just can't wait to start working on this. I can fell the geekness becoming stronger in me!

I could also publish the latest photos I just took one minute ago with my phone without uploading them to my Yahoo Photos site, provided that I have enought bandwith from my phone to the internet.

Raccoon's web site has an interesting reflection about the consequences of this technology:
We believe that being able to run a globally accessible personal
website on your mobile phone has the potential of changing the
Internet landscape. If every mobile phone or even every smart phone
initially, is equipped with a web server then very quickly most
websites will reside on mobile phones. That is bound to have some
impact not only on how mobile phones are perceived but also on how
the web evolves."

Suppose now that instead of just putting some web pages to access the phone I put web services in there? Then, I could make any other web service capable device to talk to my phone. Ans hey, my phone can also make this trick and talk to other devices using web services. I could make them cooperate and create a sort of personal area grid!

"possibilities are endless!" Sure they are.

it is the usability, stupid

I have just bought a Nokia N70 mobile phone, but on the contrary of what can be expected after having a new gadget, I'm far from been happy. Actually, I'm pretty much upset. Why? because this is probably the more annoying device I've ever seen in my life. Man, if this phone is smart, I don't want to see the dumb one!

I'll give an example: to block the keyboard, you need to keep pressed a tinny button at the top of the phone(which happens to be the power on/off button) until a menu pops up, on which you must then choose the second option using the cursor! But be careful because if you keep the button pressed, the phone will be turned off without further confirmation. Just imagine how many times I have turned the phone off by accident.

Besides this, the phone is just plainly slow performing almost any action: it takes almost 30 seconds to boot (after you have accidentally turned off!).

Remember that feeling of anxiety when we accessed the Internet using a 28Kbps connections and we called it the "World Wide Wait"? Well, this is even more frustrating because a phone is basically an appliance, a device that you expect to do something and do it quickly and flawlessly. Imagine if you have to wait 30 seconds for your microwave oven to "boot" before you can defrost your dinner?

The true be said, this phone has a lot of functionality. But its user interface couldn't be more complex and unintuitive, rendering it almost unusable by anyone but a true geek "technology enthusiast".

Therefore, I find the discussion about the features the iPhone lacks almost irrelevant: it is more important what you will actually be able to do, than what the phone could potentially do . . . if it were just smart enough to make it for you.

update 10-May-2007
After some extensive research in different blogs and forums, I've found that the phone is actually quite nicely customizable. For instance, I discovered that in some cases (but not always) the keyboard protection can be activated using a sinple combination of keys, without using the power on/off button.

Here is a list of blogs you might be interested to take a look at:
Optimizing Shortcuts in S60 Phones
Making the most out of Nokia N70 - Part 3
S60 Navigation - Tips and Tricks

The disappearing Internet

I recently read the excellent novel from Cory Doctorow, "Down and up in the Magic Kingdom", which is available for free download under the Creative Commons License. Besides the interesting main story, a depth reflexion about the human nature, the identity and the pursue of a destiny, I found particularly interesting that the characters in the novel had a brain implant to access the Internet directly. They can access the Internet transparently at any moment and they certantly do it.

I was struck by such idea. I wondered how such an interface will definitely change how we interact with information and will remove any distinction between what happen "on-line" and "off-line", as we do now. We will be on-line all the time. We could make a post to our blog while we are witnessing an event, or start a chat with our wife to decide to buy that home appliance, or read that important email in the middle of a meeting just in time to avoid a unthinkable error. . . options are endless and the impact impossible to foresee.

But having ubiquitous, seamless, access to Internet could change more dramatically our lives and even our society, as the author portraits in one brief but nevertheless disturbing passage in the novel:

He cocked his head again, and gave it some thought. If it had been any of the other grad students, I'd have assumed he was grepping for some bolstering factoids to support his next sally. But with him, I just knew he was thinking about it, their old-fashioned way.

"thinking about it, the old-fashioned way". What a powerful image: People who is so used to go to the Internet at any moment during a conversation to find information, that doesn't think about things anymore.

My first reaction was to consider that such reliance on an "external" source will lead to mindless people. But, latter I realized I was considering just a part of the picture and missing a very important one: that information taken from Internet would very probably come from a social network, "a la web 2.0". Therefore, will be more that just raw information, but the result of a social process, full of interactions, discussions, refinement.

But this is even more disturbing: we will then end-up replacing our personal, immediate (and non mediate) thoughts about a situation by the corresponding "social thoughts". Will we then lose any change of dissension on the commonly accepted criteria? Will we be transformed in mere ants is a connected society?