Earlier today I read a post about the NSA declassifying a bunch of old issues of their Cryptolog magazine – from what I gather, it was an internal magazine for “crypto geeks” if you will. You can download all 136 issues from the NSA website or download the torrent I’m seeding. Enjoy! Don’t sue me NSA!!
Yesterday, the internet was abuzz over the How it Feels Through Glass video. Or atleast it seemed that way from my little place in nerd-dom. But undoubtedly, there were some scratching their head going “why?”. Before I get started on that, let me talk very briefly about the history of computers.
As you probably know, the earliest computers were as big as rooms, prohibitively expensive, and could probably do stuff about as fast as the little old lady in the Buick who can just about see over the steering wheel. Soon enough though, computers started getting faster, smaller, cheaper, better. Sure, adoption was slow, but once companies realized the value, they hopped on board. Then came the era of personal computers, and it brought with it general-purpose use cases. Whereas previously computers were only for companies with deep pockets and individuals with coke-bottle glasses, personal computers were for everybody. There was software for word processing, general productivity and games. In short, you could do cool stuff.
Then in the 90’s came the internet. Sure, it had been around since 1969, but its uses were limited to scientists and the government. The mid to late 90’s is what really saw the broad-scale adoption of the internet as we know it today. Suddenly, those little beige boxes in your house were good for more than just word processing and games. Suddenly, you could communicate with people across the world! A/S/L everyone?
Somewhere during all this came cell phones, followed soon after by smartphones. Computers are great, but once we got over their utility and cool factor and mentally integrated their capabilities into our way of thinking, our thinking itself started changing. It went from “it would be nice if..” to “I can do this on the computer once I can get to one..” to “I need this done yesterday“.
Why the history lesson? To try to figure out what’s going on, to figure out why computers have been so successful, and in particular why certain technologies have caught on so well. What the history reveals to me is 2 main phases – the part where we engineer the latest and greatest, and the part where we figure out what to do with it. More formally, the phases are: making leaps in capacity followed by leaps in accessibility.
This 2nd phase is where I see Google Glass fitting in. Don’t get me wrong, Google Glass is an engineering marvel, but I don’t think it belongs in the category of the initial invention of the computer, or the initial invention of the internet, etc. It’s a technology that makes those things more accessible. In the How it Feels video we see the actors skydiving while video taping, using navigation, taking pictures, etc. I think we’d be hard-pressed to name just one of these things that we cannot do with today’s technology. The process might be cumbersome, but we can absolutely do all of these things with technology we already have. Glass shines in that it makes these things easier to do, and leaves us with free hands. Glass provides more seamless access to the things we already know and love. It will help us make decisions (“Glass, how much is this book on Amazon right now?” vs pull phone out of pocket, unlock screen, hit search and then “how much is this book on Amazon right now”), be more connected (“Glass, share this picture with Facebook”), etc. Imagine hooking Glass up to your connected home and gesturing the door to open while your hands are full. Imagine having your next agenda item gently brought up on the screen, along with the directions. Imagine having Glass tell you if you’re getting warmer or colder to your wallet and keys as you run around the house getting ready for work (by embedding RFID into your things and using some kind of RFID-internet bridge). Imagine never losing a sock again (ha just kidding, you’re on your own for that one). You get the idea. I think a few years ago, Mark Shuttleworth said in an Ubuntu changelog that they fixed “hundreds of papercuts” – Glass will be amazing in the department of getting rid of long-standing papercuts and making technology more available and immediate.
What’s next though? While I generally don’t delve into speculation, I think the next few years will see more innovations in the accessibility department rather than the capacity one; Our computers nowadays are just so darn powerful. It might not seem like it while YouTube is buffering the latest Harlem Shake video, but these things are beasts. The trend seems to be to keep “getting rid of middle men” between information and user. First there was the desktop, but it was on the desk (duh). Then there were laptops (got rid of the middleman of localization), then there were smartphones (further got rid of localization), then smartphones with voice control (got rid of the finger-input middleman), and soon there will be Google Glass (getting rid of the middleman of touch and finger input). I think we’re likely to see many more things on the “technology & reality meshing while getting rid of middlemen” front. There’s a lot of work being done on HCI (human-computer interaction) and BCI (brain-computer interfaces) which should usher in the next era man-machine symbiosis.
That is, until they build the quantum computer, and we’re all left wondering what the hell we do with our brain embedded Watson chips… (other than play Angry Birds, of course).
Edited to fix some grammatical mistakes and and add clarity.
So just the other day after reading about the Dutch dude who’s going to print a house I got to thinking about 3D printers. In thinking about them in the past, they always seemed like a cool gimmick or fad of some sort, and I didn’t really think much else of them.
This other day however, i got to thinking about the last time I got my car fixed and they didn’t have a tie-rod end, and the fellow said he can try to “track one down” for me (I didn’t know tie-rod ends were so hard to come by, but that’s a different story). And then I thought, what if the shop had a 3D printer? I could have waited a little more while the mechanic printed me the part and perhaps went home with the car fixed that day. Woah.
This got me thinking about the whole chain of just that tie-rod end; Not only could the mechanic have provided me better service, how many middle men between Honda and the mechanic could have been cut out by having the 3D printer? Honda could perhaps create and license the specifications for my cars’ tie-rod end to mechanics directly, getting rid of the aftermarket manufacturer, shipping company and a whole host of other people in the middle. Now what if this were the case not only for tie-rod ends but for brakes, and transmissions, and bolts, and the list just goes on. Sure, it’s unfortunate that in my grand tie-rod end at my fingertips universe that whole industries might collapse, but that’s technology, it’s disruptive. And that’s my point – 3D printers (atleast in my laymen’s understanding of them) have this amazing potential to be disruptive. 3D printers will change the world!
