Author Archives: ScarletGeek

May 06 2015
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A.I., Fun Stuff, Robots, The Future, Virtual Reality, VR

VIRTUALLY HUMAN

I love as much as the next person donning a head set and immersing myself in a world of fantasy where I can fly around on my very own dragon and slay my enemies, an experience that envelops my physical and sensory powers, transporting me to a space and time beyond my real identity.

But this is fast becoming just a norm, scary? Maybe… maybe not.

VR is winning over on mere fiction; it challenges the mind, it challenges the perception of reality, I guess you could say therefore that it challenges mankind.

Another technology that I love working with is Artificial Intelligence, the only thing I can imagine more exciting than either VR or AI, is the two working together.

AI is the science of making intelligent machines or programs based on algorithms derived from understanding the cognitive ability of the human brain but not limited to biology. Once taught, these machines can be scripted and controlled, but more exciting they can become autonomous.

We’re not quite at the stage where we characterize what kind of computer procedures we want to call intelligent, but they lean towards those that are maybe less mechanical, or less engineered, i.e. prompted by emotion.

Human IQ is the measure at which human intelligence develops based on; speed, short-term memory and the accuracy of long-term memory. AI is arguably the reverse; programs have plenty of memory and speed but their abilities correspond to inputs and commands.

To this end, currently most work involving AI involves studying the challenges the world puts to our intelligence in order to solve them at an improved return on speed or money, but if we were to combine a world created virtually along with the abilities of AI, then surely we could create a new theorized knowledge source; a new perspective… a new reality.

Information is at our fingertips, the likes of Google sorted that one for us, but new insight, new knowledge, that is far more interesting. So if we could create worlds that anticipated situations of the future and then input artificial intelligence into it, then in this parallel universe we could create a new perception, a new reasoning.

Technology is powerful in the hands of humans, if we enhance that artificially then the virtual world could be our new oyster.

Cyborg Head

Now, where did I leave my Dragon..?

 

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Mar 31 2015
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A geek moment, musings, The Future

Left Brain, or write brain?

For years scientists summarised ‘memory’ as an intricate part of the brain much like an ever expanding filing cabinet, a neural super-computer if you like, but in fact our memory is a brain-wide process. For example, driving a car is reconstructed from several areas; operating it lies in one section, getting from A to B in another and the ‘oh crap that guy just carved me up’ from yet another.

In this intricate system, we have several areas of memory; sensory, which lasts a second, short-term working memory, which last up to a minute and long-term memory, which lasts a lifetime (unless you’re a goldfish). Long-term memory then splits into explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) and that then continues to break down into episodical, procedural and semantic memory systems.

So with all that in mind, who’s to say we couldn’t slip an updated folder into the filing cabinet and start to amend our memories, enhancing them, through neural prostheses…

Neural prosthetic devices are designed to provide artificial reconstruction of neurone to neurone connections where deterioration has occurred, so what if there was a safe way to insert these ‘memories’ into our neural architecture? Could we ‘remember’ that we’re fluent in a language, play guitar or know how to save a life?

If we could work out how to create the file to save it, then could we implant it as a memory? If we could create a common code that works with the electronic impulses in our brain and is understood through computer algorithms, could the future integration of memory be possible?

Gets the cogs pulsing doesn’t it?

data-brain_shutterstock

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Mar 26 2015
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3D, 3D Printing, Virtual Reality, VR

Wake up and smell the hex reference!

Augmented Reality currently taps into our audio and visual senses, but how long before it covers smell as well?

I’m a big F1 fan but can’t afford tickets to fly around the world and experience the sensational atmosphere. So imagine if I could bring the squeal of the tires and the smell of burning rubber, the sound and smell of rain as it hits the hot tarmac, into my living room…

Imagine you’re waiting in a stuffy airport lounge and you can be transported to the first day of spring, the smell of cut grass in the air, you pick a virtual flower and smell it’s scent…

Imagine you’re Skyping your best friend from New York and she’s cooking a bacon sarnie in the background and you can smell it too…

If we could decode the molecules of odour, similar to how we break down colour into wavelengths and sound into pitch and frequency then this could be achievable.

A perfumer creates a palette with thousands of molecules to create a scent, so if each molecule had a reference – just as we have RGB hex references for colour coding that form pictures on a screen – assuming the recipient had the equivalent hardware to release the combination of references creating the scent, then in theory we could send smells alongside pictures and images.

Let’s take it a step further, what if we could digitise taste? Imagine if you could script a cake and send it to a 3D printer…

Hershey’s and Barilla have already trialled printing using chocolate, cookie dough and sugar (you can read more here) so again, once we have the breakdown of molecules and a reference for each… you get where I’m going right?

I could also have the taste of burnt rubber on the tip of my tongue (tastes good with a cold beer I promise), create the taste of a Lindt chocolate bunny to go with spring and 3D print my bestie’s bacon sarnie.

Right, who’s got the HP?

rabbit 3D printer

Just imagine that rabbit is a strawberry cake…

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Mar 17 2015
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Business, Leadership, Team

Dream. Lead. Achieve.

I’m lucky enough have to have a team of rising stars to mentor and see through their careers, and being that time of year when promotions are being considered and reviews are being done, I’ve been asked a lot recently about what the difference is in stepping up from being a manager and about what makes a good leader.

I thought I’d share the principles I choose to lead by;

  1. Always do more than you expect of your team and never ask your team to do something you’re not prepared to do yourself.
  2. Solve problems; the day people stop coming to you with problems is the day you stopped leading and the day you lost their trust.
  3. Make decisions, never make excuses.
  4. Take more than your share of blame and less than your share of credit. Give the credit to the team around you.
  5. Always have a vision.

Early on in my transition from management to leadership, my mentor said to me: “Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.” A quote I went on to find out was from Peter F. Drucker. She was right. She’s still my mentor.

Today, I still have a lot of dreams and aspirations, I’m still learning how to be a better leader and more importantly, how to develop better leaders. Having a great idea, putting a team in place to execute it and committing to making that dream become a reality is what separates leaders from just dreamers.

To do this, beyond principles, I also believe you need certain qualities to be a great leader, for me these are;

  1. Honesty; being open and being true, because in doing so you will earn trust and loyalty.
  2. Integrity; someone described this to me once as ‘standing in your own pool of truth’.
  3. Commitment; once you’ve made your decision, stand by it and do whatever it takes to enable it.
  4. Inspire; you can’t lead if you can’t evoke emotion in those around you.
  5. Always have a dream.

pawn-mirror-chess-king-edit

“If your dreams don’t scare you they are too small.” 

Richard Branson

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Mar 02 2015
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A.I., Digital, new technology

Tell me what I want before I want it…

But stop invading my personal space.

It’s a tricky juxtaposition to deliver seamless personal service whilst not freaking consumers out with a big brother approach. I for one HATE banners, especially the ones that stalk me for days on end, however, I would like my utilities provider to remember who I am and take me to the last place I visited, or a nice welcome back page, rather than straight to paying bills even though I have a Direct Debit set up and they owe me money.

So given we’re seeing the fastest evolution in how we interact with devices ever, and that cloud computing means everything is on hand instantly, how long before intelligent assistants make all of our decisions for us?

The key difference will land when the predictive nature moves from our smartphones into our cars, our homes and eventually our offices en masse. It’s happening already; cars are synced to Spotify lists and traffic lights, in-home devices monitor how many bodies are in a room in order to moderate the heating but, this connectivity is not everywhere, yet.

Wearables are bridging some of the gaps; how long before my GP phones me up because my heart rate is too high when I’m out running or how long before my digital radio wakes me up to Stevie Wonder to sooth the after effect of a bad dream…

I’ve been prototyping with A.I solutions recently and can’t help but wonder when I will be able to curate my party playlists based on who’s attending, when I will be able to book taxis to pick up my guests and drop them off in the most effective order possible, when I will NEVER have to do a tax return again or manage my inbox…

I reckon true anticipatory computing is closer than we think.

Now get out of my cloud.

girl-on-a-cloud

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Feb 13 2015
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Business Change, Business Transformation

Minding Change. Changing minds

One day (pick any day in your career), a client will have said to you ‘We’re not set up to do that, this way is tried and tested’, then in the next breath, they’ll ask for scalability with stability.

Big businesses based on structures that scaled in the 80’s when the price of bread was stable and people had one job for life, find it really hard to keep up with the rate that technology and mindsets develop.

Back then the channels were limited and the organisations structured linearly, now we have to deal with forever shifting landscapes and instantaneous communication flows.

I work for a company that has recently gone through a lot of change, as we equally work to help our clients to change, so for the last 18 months I’ve been deeply immersed in what the theory verses the reality can look like, and indeed feel like.

I believe that long-term structural change needs three things to be considered:

  1. Scale; setting a foundation and building upon that in the right way
  2. Speed; ramping up and achieving significant growth quickly
  3. Stability; an output that can sustain the duration and return, over and above the investment

Yet at the very heart of all of this, the thing that keeps me awake at night, and no doubt my business partners too is that we only really succeed when change works at an individual level, because that’s where the passion comes from.

I was lucky enough to talk to Evan Spiegel yesterday, the founder and CEO of Snapchat, he’s young, smart and not bound by the constrictions of big old businesses, he said this:

‘Success is based on leaders that love their people’

It rings very true to me, and as I make my way up the corporate rungs it’s becoming starkly obvious just how hard it is to achieve the balance transforming requires.

change

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Jan 23 2015
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A geek moment, Fun Stuff, new technology, Robots

Give a girl the right shoes…

I live in a rapidly evolving world where cars can drive themselves, robots can run warehouses and drones can deliver our parcels. A world where virtual reality blends with real reality (the re substantiation of mere ‘reality’) and I can get anything I want, whenever and wherever I want it, in the palm of my hand, so why do my new shoes still give me blisters?

A friend of mine lost a limb, on his road to recovery I’ve got to know him in a very different light this last year, where many would have turned inside themselves and got lost in remorse and pity, he embraced modern technology and now has a pretty cool prosthetic limb. He’s as strong as before, as balanced as he ever was and he argues, able to endure more than his human limb previously allowed him to.

This got me thinking about the tech available that could be used for solving every day irritations (not that I’m comparing blisters from new shoes to wearing a prosthetic limb!) but we could adapt the thinking…

Why not develop shoes with materials that are electronically charged, materials that transform from being soft to hardy through electro static charges? What about exo-skeletal hiking boots that enhance our ability to scale mountains like gazelles?!

Imagine shoes that transform to your feet, imagine dancing the night away, foot loose and blister free.

Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world!

ruby slippers

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Jan 06 2015
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Consumer First, Digital, User Experience

Concierge for all

I spent 94 minutes on the phone to British Gas on Saturday morning, trying to set up paying for my bills for the 3rd time since I’ve moved into my new home, and couldn’t because of system issues their end. The guy at the end of the phone could not have been less bothered, and all I wanted to do was be able to go online and set up everything myself, but I couldn’t.

Going online is always my first port of call, anything that spares me giving my D.O.B umpteen times and spelling my postcode out more so. For the duration of the call, I sat in a state of denial, hitting the refresh button at 10 second intervals hoping some magical 5xx error state would relieve me of my frustration, trust me, this user experience gives 418 I’m a teapot a run for it’s money!!

This isn’t the only awful experience out there though, I mean there are so many, I’m sure as you’re reading this, you’re nodding your head and recalling a twitchy ‘I AM CALM’ online moment… So it got me thinking (not for the first time) what would make me happy, make you happy, and therefore all users of the World Wide Web… happy.

I’m the kind of person who will choose a restaurant with good food and excellent, personal service, over an excellent culinary experience but average service, every time. Over the last year or so I’ve started doing the same with shopping, I avoid shops with bad layouts and moody checkout chicks, I will pick theatres with nice door-staff and bar-staff and I will stay in hotels that have good concierge.

That’s what I believe we’re missing online; an online concierge service as standard, what could that protocol look like? As someone who obsesses with the detail when designing experiences, how could we democratise the luxury unrivalled personal service and exclusive privileges to save time and effort for everyone…

Well if I told you, I’d be out of a job, but you want it don’t you?

Now where’s my FAB 1… Home James!

Lady Penelope

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Dec 03 2014
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A geek moment, Digital, Fun Stuff, gaming, musings

In the beginning

We simply had our imaginations.

Then Thomas T Goldsmith Jr and Estle Ray Mann came along with the first interactive game, the ‘Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device’, developed in 1947, renowned for their simulation skills and not their wordsmithing, you’ll be glad to know.

Soon after, we saw a burst of simple interactive programs such as; ‘Mouse in the Maze’, ‘Bertie the Brain’ and Alan Turing’s ‘Chess’ capable of computing two way problems but not complex algorithms. This was shortly followed by ‘Spacewar’ in 1962; a two-player game where you try and destroy each other’s starship… arguably the first true video game, it took around 200 hours to code and was done by some students at MIT.

Where am I going with this?

Well, if we fast forward through the Odyssey’s and the varying intergalactic games to the Atari release of ‘Adventure’ in 1980 where we saw text adventure visualised, albeit crudely, in a plethora of dragons, monsters and sword slaying, through to the help of RAM and better joysticks into the world of Sega Dreamcast and NES where imaginary friends like Sonic and the Super Mario Bros helped us through the 90’s and into today, you’ll see my ramblings are leading to a pertinent question…

In a world where we now have technology that scans brain activity to read our minds, technology that creates worlds that don’t exist and technology that maps us to our surrounding climate, how long before we live in our imaginations, in a virtually real world.

Or, what if I’m already living in it and the world we think we live in is actually virtually imagined.

Wait, what…?Living inside my head

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Nov 11 2014
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Beyond Broadcast, Brand, Client questions answered, Consumer First, Content, Conversation

Does your Ad Add?

Because if it doesn’t, then it’s just pollution.

Brands broadcasting their message online; from TV ads whacked on YouTube to tiny irritating banner messages (that are frankly a bit like an annoying buzzy mosquito), have been the advertising stance for too long.

Before you ask, yes, I hate banners. (Oh c’mon, when did you last click on one??).

Give me a brand genuinely willing to listen to their consumer, rather than trying to out shout their competition in a vanity exercise, any day of the year.

It’s refreshing when you finally get to ‘engage’ with someone in their moment of need online and help address that ‘Oh Crap, I just need to cook something quick, scrummy, yet healthy for the kids’ moment, or the ‘Bugger, my skin is rivalling a prune this morning’ moment… or the ‘What the hell is twerking??’ moment (yep, I’m in Google’s annual report for this one).

Taking that first step to move beyond an arbitrary KPI that doesn’t prove a thing, to owning a moment that lasts beyond the search result is the single bravest decision any brand can make.

So as a brand, are you ready? Not sure? Then simply ask yourself; as an individual, if you were a brand, what would you want people to say about you if you weren’t around to broadcast yourself?

The power of impression influences the conversation. Conversation is a two way thing. Oh, and it often happens ‘offline’.

Add, don’t Ad.

Think consumer first.

A Cool Add

This is a cool Add

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