Ged Carroll

Category: web of no web | 無處不在的技術 | 보급 기술 | 普及したテクノロジー

The web of no web came out of a course that I taught at the La Salle School of Business at the University Ramon Llull in Barcelona on interactive media to a bunch of Spanish executive MBA students. The university wanted an expert from industry and they happened to find me by happenstance. I remember contact was made via LinkedIn.

I spent a couple of weeks putting together a course. But I didn’t find material that covered many of things that I thought were important and happening around us. They had been percolating around the back of my mind at the time as I saw connections between a number of technologies that were fostering a new direction. Terms like web 2.0 and where 2.0 covered contributing factors, but were too silo-ed

So far people’s online experience had been mediated through a web browser or an email client. But that was changing, VR wasn’t successful at the time but it was interesting. More importantly the real world and the online world were coming together. We had:

  • Mobile connectivity and wi-fi
  • QRcodes
  • SMS to Twitter publishing at the time
  • You could phone up Google to do searches (in the US)
  • Digital integration in geocaching as a hobby
  • The Nintendo Wii controller allowed us to interact with media in new ways
  • Shazam would listen to music and tell you what song it was
  • Where 2.0: Flickr maps, Nokia maps, Yahoo!’s Fireeagle and Dopplr – integrated location with online
  • Smartphones seemed to have moved beyond business users

Charlene Li described the future of social networks as ‘being like air’, being all around us. So I wrapped up all in an idea called web of no web. I was heavily influenced by Bruce Lee’s description of jeet kune do – ‘using way as no way’ and ‘having no limitation as limitation’. That’s where the terminology that I used came from. This seemed to chime with the ideas that I was seeing and tried to capture.

  • WWDC 2018 outtakes

    Introduction to WWDC 2018

    This summary of the WWDC 2018 keynote has been re-organised to try and provide a bit more coherence as Apple took things in a slightly different order to try and create ‘surprise and delight‘.
    WWDC 2018 highlighted how cross-platform they’ve evolved Continuity and Siri to try and make them more useful (if, not smarter). All fo the changes outlined at WWDC 2018 represent a slow and steady progression to a more programmatic world.
    I’ve made some notes in green that are designed to flag points of interest to marketers and advertising folk. 

    App Store

    • 10 years old (and the app store search is still not where it should be)
    • World’s largest app marketplace
    • 500 million weekly visitors (might be due to moving away from iTunes for app updates)
    • $100,000,000 developer revenues to date

    Swift

    • 350,000 apps coded in it (no measure of the variable quality though)

    iOS 12

    • Focus on system optimisation
    • Faster app and function launches
    • They haven’t dropped any devices previously supported by iOS 11; a nod to longer device lives

    AR Kit – v 2

    • Adobe Creative Cloud support
    • USDZ format support throughout the system including News app
    • Multi-player AR experiences (demoed with Lego). Attribute digital assets to a physical object – interesting execution

    Measure – digital tape measure

    • Facilitated by MEMs, presumably the software technology comes out of AR work. Handy hack, I could have used this when I was eBaying stuff. I could see it being nice for things like home furnishings retailers and clothing e-commerce

    Photos

    Search suggestions – tries to predict what you want
    • Searches EXIF data for locations, events etc
    • For you function is a bit like Facebook memories
    • Photo sharing – recommended what to share and who to share them with. If its going to another iPhone user it prompts the recipient to share photos that they may have taken. Implications for social photo sharing apps
    • Full resolution over Messages

    Siri

    • Shortcuts to any app. It reminds me a little bit of Apple Script. Allows you to build multi-app behaviours – drag-and-drop
    • Suggestions based on app usage, calendar, locations
    • Possible implications for app usage – content opportunities to suggest ‘Shortcut workflows’ to build. Poses a bit of a thread for IFTTT’s smarthome ambitions
    Default iOS apps
    Stocks
    • Better charts
    • Native iPad and Mac version
    • Integration of Apple news in Stocks
    Voice Memos
    • iPad and Mac native version
    • iCloud support
    iBooks renamed to Apple Books
    • Redesigned
    Car Play
    • Supports third party navigation apps presumably to try and reduce iPhone to Android migration
    Efforts to limit mobile distraction
    • Do Not Disturb – improved view without notifications during bed time
    • Can be triggered from calendar or location (meetings, going to the cinema)
    Notifications – huge pain point addressed, particularly with people used to Android devices
    • Notifications ‘tuning’ – so that you can only see the notifications from apps you care about
    • Grouped notifications: app, topic and thread
    Screentime
    • Tracks device usage for the user
    Child app usage
    • Child locks on mobile device usage

    FaceTime

    • Group FaceTime supporting up to 32 participants. Shows the speaker by making their tile bigger. Challenges to Skype, WhatsApp
    • Integration into Messages, so you can go from group message to Group FaceTime

    watchOS 5

    • Walkie Talkie – push-to-talk app – watch-to-watch. Surely it would make sense on iOS and macOS as well?
    • Web content on watchOS via WebKit

    tvOS

    • AppleTV 4K to support Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision certified
    • AppleTV as cable set-top box for (Salt in Switzerland, Canal+ in France, Charter Spectrum). OTT on iPhone and iPad as well. If cable companies move to just being media content aggregators, how will this affect DOCSIS and FTTH roll out?
    • Zero-sign on for content when part of a cable TV offering
    • 3rd party remotes will work with AppleTV

    macOS – Mojave

    • Dark Mode – dark skin of OS. Nice level of integration and easier to work with during the evening, but not exactly ground-breaking
    • Desktop stacks – arrange by date, kind or tag
    • Contextual quick actions in Finder – can include Automator actions
    • Screen capture for video should make presentations a lot easier
    • Dev tools to make it easier to move iOS apps to the Mac framework – used this time on Apple default apps, Apple will roll out to developers in 2019
    • Beefing up security including app permissions to cover your mail database, camera and microphone use
    Safari
    • Shutting down tracking on likes, shares and comments. Strong focus on attacking ‘Fingerprinting’ – making it harder to track – Macs will be harder to distinguish from one and other (its also in iOS 12). Only providing basic web fonts as data, no data on legacy plug-ins and cutting back on app set-ups
    • Favicons in tabs (this annoyed the bejesus out of me, its a small thing but I am glad to see it)

    App Store

    • Revamped App store allows more content to market your app and improve usage / engagements. Opportunities for in-appstore content marketing (demo videos, ongoing articles with tips etc)
    • Ratings and review API (which will likely be a bit annoying). This will provide an incremental benefit for app marketers
    • Microsoft Office and BBEdit will be in the Mac app store – huge boost for the credibility of the Mac App Store
    Machine learning
    • CreateML – trying to make machine learning training easier for apps
    • CoreML 2 – Improved machine learning performance using batch predictions
    More related content here. More details for Apple developers here.

  • Strategic News Service & things this week

    Mark Anderson of the Strategic News Service; a George Gilderesque subscription newsletter, the likes of which were very popular in the mid to late 1990s. The Strategic News Service process is an interesting ‘anti algorithmic’ analysis in action. A counter point to the world that Google now represents, I don’t buy all that Anderson and the Strategic News Service says, but this is very interesting to watch.

    The synthetic voice of synthetic intelligence should sound synthetic. Successful spoofing of any kind destroys trust. When trust is gone, what remains becomes vicious fast.

    — Stewart Brand via Simon Willison. It seemed very appropriate when considering the Google Duplex demonstrations from the other week.

    It’s Nice That | Gucci and Frieze team up on major new video series, The Second Summer of Love – well worth a view

    Singapore’s utopian clean looking city and high quality Japanese animation are a marriage made in heaven. Makoto Shinkai directed this for the forthcoming Singapore Thomson East Coast Line on behalf of Japanese construction giant Taisei Corporation. More Japan related content here.

    This would usually be the part where I would talk about how I am looking forward to Deadpool. But I won’t. I wanted to marvel at the collective hullucination of Deadpool marketing. Deadpool marketing isn’t trying to get you to go and see the film, but instead brings elements of the film to you. Once you are properly tuned in, it then makes perfect sense to see the film. The problem is that there are so many fragments from DVD rewraps to teasers and TV appearances that it would be impossible to capture or choose a favourite.

    Instead I am going to share a video of the Korean show King of Masked Singer, where Ryan Reynolds preformed Tomorrow from the musical Annie in a unicorn mask.

    Fans in show panel and the audience lost their shit

  • Zuckerberg to testify + more news

    UK parliament’s call for Zuckerberg to testify goes next level | TechCrunch – while taking action to get Zuckerberg to testify is a good thing. It is a pity that the UK didn’t show similar gumption when dealing with the Kraft Foods CEO with regards the Cadburys takeover. Would it be that hard for Zuckerberg to just avoid the UK all together?

    Xiaomi to sell smartphones in UK through Three | Technology | The Guardian – Huawei will be getting worried; especially as Xiaomi has a reputation for making high-specification innovative phones at a lower price point. Xiaomi has been providing good quality handsets for a while and this is the kind of springboard that they need into western markets

    ‘Forget the Facebook leak’: China is mining data directly from workers’ brains on an industrial scale | South China Morning Post – Workers outfitted in uniforms staff lines producing sophisticated equipment for telecommunication and other industrial sectors. But there’s one big difference – the workers wear caps to monitor their brainwaves, data that management then uses to adjust the pace of production and redesign workflows, according to the company. The company said it could increase the overall efficiency of the workers by manipulating the frequency and length of break times to reduce mental stress.

    WhatsApp Co-Founder Leaving Facebook’s Board Amid User Data Disputes – The New York Times – The announcement followed disagreements between Mr. Koum and Facebook’s leaders over the use of people’s data and the social network’s attempts to weaken encryption. Officially he just wants to relax and collect vintage Porsche 911’s with air-cooled engines. More related content here.

    McDonald’s admits app adoption rates are ‘pretty low’ but it will keep investing in mobile | The Drum – not terribly surprising when one thinks about macro trends in app usage and adoption

    How China Leapfrogged Ahead of the United States in the Fintech Race | PIIE – poor infrastructure, lack of access for MasterCard, Visa, Amex, Diners Club etc. Low value of Chinese note denominations

    Eavesdropping on the deep | MBARI – I found it very soothing to listen to with all the white noise

    NightWatch | Subscription – gutted that KGS no longer provide this newsletter it has been a great resource

  • ZFS + more things

    A ZFS developer’s analysis of the good and bad in Apple’s new APFS file system | Ars Technica – this is a good guide by Adam Levanthal. The thing that puzzles me is this. Apple had a working implementation of ZFS running on early beta versions of OS X and then decided not to implement it. Apple adoption of ZFS would be a major boost (it is already supported on Linux and Solaris). It takes about a decade for a file system to mature sufficiently; ZFS has that maturity and is still bleeding edge tech. Apple has a good relationship with Oracle so that wouldn’t be a problem, Larry Ellison is still the shot-caller over there and he still hates Microsoft and Google. Instead they build their own version, which has nice encryption facilities but lacks the data integrity features that ZFS has. It doesn’t seem to be about squeezing the footprint of ZFS for mobile devices either. Apple just decided to go it alone for reasons that aren’t readily apparent at the moment with APFS.

    Huawei sees building alternative to Android as insurance amid US-China trade tensions | SCMP – not a big leap from an OS point of view. The big jump would be the app store since both Google and Amazon’s app stores would be out of reach if Huawei were found guilty. A way around this would be the likes of SailfishOS which would also deal with lingering security concerns about Huawei handsets. More Huawei related content here.

    Someone might’ve hacked the company that can hack any iPhone – BGR – another reason why backdoors are bad

    Mobile advertising represents 91% of Facebook’s ad revenue | Marketing Interactive – I suspect that there is a lot of wasted ads here. Linking through to sites that aren’t mobile friendly or things that don’t work on mobile for instance

    Kraft Heinz works with JKR to introduces quirky new biscuit brand JIF JAF | Marketing Interactive – Kraft Heinz launching product in China going head to head with Mondelez; that spun out of Kraft….

    British adults using Facebook less to communicate with friends | Technology | The Guardian – according to Ofcom there is also a wealth divide in how Britons use the internet, with poorer individuals more likely to rely solely on a smartphone to get online and have “lower levels of online confidence and critical understanding”.

    APAC markets exceed global benchmarks for viewability, brand safety | Digital | Campaign Asia – fraud rates for campaigns that optimised against fraud remained relatively flat, showing optimisation efforts are paying off by keeping fraud rates low. Singapore and Hong Kong had higher fraud risk at 20.7% and 14.0% respectively, because ad fraudsters tend to follow where the digital spend goes and where CPMs are higher.

    Can This System of Unlocking Phones Crack the Crypto War? | WIRED – this sounds dodgy AF. If the US gets access, every country gets access

    Facebook beats in Q1 and boosts daily user growth to 1.45B amidst backlash | TechCrunch – basically people don’t care if Facebook invades their privacy or usurps their government. All of that is a mere bagatelle

    AMD earnings confirm it’s biting into Intel’s market share | VentureBeat – it likely won’t be permanent

    Addressing Recent Claims of “Manipulated” Blog Posts in the Wayback Machine | Internet Archive Blogs – interesting hack that should be in the tool bag of reputation managers

    U.S. DoJ probing Huawei for possible Iran sanctions violations: WSJ – interesting that they are getting dinged for similar things to ZTE. Stopping US vendors from selling to Huawei would be a bit less impactful than on ZTE. But it would retarget the Huawei R&D budget away from innovation to replacing American component technology and engineering services currently provided by the likes of Ciena or Qualcomm. This actually fits neatly with Mr Xi’s China 2025 manufacturing initiative that is designed to free the country from relying on international suppliers.

    Amazon is releasing a new Alexa gadget specifically geared toward kids – Recode – but what about the privacy settings?

    Meet John Hennessy and Dave Patterson, Silicon Valley’s first disruptors | Recode – great read about when Silicon Valley actually made silicon and solved ‘hard’ innovation problems, rather than sociopathic web services. You couldn’t have your modern computer or your smartphone without Hennessy & Patterson

    Nike’s Converse Loses Chief Marketer to Supreme | BoF – not that Supreme really needs marketing with its over-subscribed drops. Unless they are changing direction to become more mass affluent?

    A French billionaire is being investigated for bribing African officials for lucrative contracts | Quartz – this surprised me. France has used businesses like Total and Elf with the likes of Jacques Foccart to keep a relationship and control in the Francophone. Why are they turning on Bollore now? Especially odd when you think about how China is pushing western interests out of the continent

    Electric Autos – Long life – I think it’s more complex, depending on vehicle range and driving patterns will factor into demand. Of course the shit is really going to hit the fan when lithium ion technology fails to provide for transport needs like long distance heavy goods vehicles, becomes too expensive and essential materials become too rare. There is likely to be a pivot to hydrogen combustion engines or hydrogen fuel cells due to superior energy density. The economics around risk, infrastructure and other capital costs will change.

  • RSS renaissance + more news

    Now Is The Perfect Time For An RSS Renaissance | Neflabs – great read and a much needed request for a lean web. There has been a post-Google Reader RSS renaissance in terms of readers out there. My favourite reader of the RSS renaissance is Newsblur

    Here’s What Facebook Won’t Let You Post | WIRED – pretty grim read

    CIA agents in ‘about 30 countries’ tracked by technology, top official says – CNNPolitics – “Singapore’s been doing it for years,” she told CNN following her keynote speech on Sunday morning at the 2018 GEOINT Symposium, hosted by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. Meyerriecks did not elaborate with further examples. – It makes total sense that the CIA is building a ‘Google Maps’-style dead ground map of areas that they operate in using machine learning. More related content here.

    Chinese cult writer Chen Qiufan on pushing the boundaries of sci-fi | FT – good read with the obligatory name check of Liu Cixin (paywall)

    g2g, brb, and what the loss of early MSN language means | Dazed – interesting change in consumer behaviour as time spent online creeps upwards with the move towards ubiquitous connectivity

    P&G returns to YouTube but with a more selective mindset | Marketing Interactive – ultimately brands are powerless in the face of Google, Facebook and Amazon advertising if they insist on not running with a media neutral approach

    China opposes all forms of protectionism, commerce minister says – says market with high levels of implicit and explicit protection

    No, a keyboard app can’t ‘prevent tragedy from depression’ | Advertising | Campaign Asia – quite shocking claims

    Google’s new video ad format doesn’t need YouTube | Digital | Campaign Asia – interesting move

    AI in the UK white paper | House of Lords – (PDF)

    Microsoft gives up artificial intelligence sales over ethical concerns – interesting positioning, it would be good to get an understanding on on what the board would define as a bad actor

    After Sir Martin Sorrell: The Reckoning | LinkedIn – interesting analysis of the marketing sector, I disagree with the way that some of it hangs together

    Gchat could have saved Google the trouble of launching yet another messaging service. | Slate – what this forgets is that GChat ended up having a lot of bots and spam accounts. For me it was worse than Skype or Yahoo! Messenger at the time. I could see business historians highlighting this as a lost opportunity in the story of Alphabet