Extending Senses 🏃 🚚 👂#41

Extending Senses 🏃 🚚 👂#41

21 Nov, 2017

It was the “latte” in this Tesla semi post that made me grin.

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Books that you miss upon finishing.

I was entranced and entertained listening to Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

VR/AR leaders often recommend it to experience one of our possible futures: ultra-simulation (in 2045). The impressive narration by Wil Wheaton often had me chuckling, the detail in the book astounded me and of course it was fun to hear the vast number of (familiar) 1980’s references.

It’s also a Spielberg movie to be released next year.

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Kevin Kelly in Recomendo.

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Favourite reads & listens

  • What senses would you extend?Neil Harbisson talks about going from full colourblindness to installing an antenna so he could hear sound. Apparently the cleaning product isle in the supermarket is like a fun nightclub! It’s an uplifting, fascinating, futuristic, 9:35min watch. Actually even the first few minutes is worth it to imagine a new dimension for you.Photo credit: Ted.com
  • Rolling Stone followed Elon around for months.Here are a few quotes that struck me:



  • “The world is getting better at a stunning rate“. This report has “evidence of abundance” graphs and insights. Big thanks to Peter Diamandis and his team for showcasing how the world is improving. Here’s to balanced news.

 

 

 

 

 

  • Using algorithms and radical transparency at work may make your workplace even easier. (thx Jacqui Hocking)
  • The Websummit opening remarks are a great call for designers, creators, entrepreneurs and technologists to focus on building tech that is useful and fair for society. Included are: Stephen Hawking on AI, Bryan Johnson on HI, a regulator’s view of Facebook and other ultra powerful tech companies.

Great presence

  • Thanks for the laugh David Roberts (of Innovation and Disruption at Singularity University). Here is his bio: “His fascination with technology began In fourth grade after building a hovering electric drone, to carry his younger sister to the bus stop, powered by what was formerly his mother’s vacuum cleaner, and fortunately limited by the length of an electric power cord.”Have you added humour to yours?
  • Good fun at the London tube:

Have a wonderful week,

~ Sam

RunwayDigital.com

 

PS. One of the companies and experiences that have most impressed me in the last couple of years is Manly Ocean Adventures. Knowledgeable, exceptional value, and thoughtful, they’re advertising their incredible experiences (with or without whales) as great Christmas gift ideas. If you’re near Sydney or your people are… this could be for you!

 

 

PPS. in a previous email I wrote about the Apple Airpods. My update from a month of using them is that I’m still loving the earphones quick change between computer and iPhone and watch phonecall pickup. I am missing the ease of the Jaybirds hanging around my neck. The Airpods are a bit more of a cognitive load for me. They’re fiddly to remember where they are / to put in my pocket when I’m on the move and I sense I’ve a higher risk of losing them. Jaybird X2 Sport were around my neck all the time and I could use one or two earphones and never think about the battery or getting into the practice of taking out one Airpod during a long phonecall to make sure I have enough battery. The tech of the Airpods is beautiful and clever and it’s wonderful they can be used across many bluetooth devices – not just Apple’s. Airpods around the neck!?!

Bitcoins 🌿 🐼 🌐 #40

Bitcoins 🌿 🐼 🌐 #40

7 Nov, 2017

Loads of fascinating developments have happened since I last wrote, including two blockchain tech conferences (Ethereal and Devcon) as well as bitcoin prices going through the roof (US$7,343 /AU$9651 when writing this) and masses of mainstream media attention. This new tech is really starting to touch our lives.

And another rocket went up and down.

How lucky we are to witness these happenings. This time is amazing.

You’re so Ethereal.

Jump onto YouTube to watch the Ethereal conference, specifically:

  • Here, Bryan Johnson fast forwards twenty years and links human intelligence with Blockchains – this is a quick watch and the bonus is: it’s in layman’s terms.
  • Joe Lubin starts the conference with Blockchain tech’s current state and future possibilities.
  • Peter Diamandis raises the concern of the linear nature of government and the exponential growth of technology. So apt.

The first link here is to the playlist of all videos. Enjoy and hit reply here with any questions you have.

Omotenashi.

Deliciousness + Learning = here.

“Omotenashi is the Japanese culture of treating a guest. It blends a welcoming spirit with warmth, understanding, and above all respect.”

Favourite reads & listens

  • Take a fun and fascinating tour of the international space station.
  • Great thinking on the rising Bitcoin prices from Laura Shin ~“The reasons for the jumps are unclear, but unless there’s negative news, every day, at minimum, the price is likely to rise because of new money coming into the system. Every day on Coinbase alone, about 35,000 new accounts open — a figure that sometimes reaches 50,000 — and thousands of people in South Korea and Japan, two countries where Bitcoin has taken off, are also bringing new fiat money [cash] into the system.”
  • Signup for rocket updates.
  • Here’s a great shortcut to reading Option B book mentioned in the last email. Watch the video on this page.
  • It was fascinating to learn about inserting signals in the brain so people can move prosthetic limbs and even turn on taps at the Stentrode Story event in April. To start with it’s accident victims who can’t move limbs. We may be next: imagine if you can get your mind to turn on a tap. Connecting humans to machines – it’s coming. Putting my order in for wings and flight now.
  • Jonathan Harris has returned with a fabulous tilt on Virtual Reality…

For your CEO and senior leaders

  • Nice one Jeff Bezos:

Great online presence

  • Impressive service, live chat and website that quickly answered questions ~ well done Aussie Broadband.

Reply to let me know what you want to read about.

Have a wonderful week,

~ Sam

Self-Driving Cars 👀 🚘 🎰 😊 #21

14 Feb, 2017

Deep Work, Self-Driving Cars, Automation & Great Online Presence

Hi,

Welcome to the 21st edition of this email. Did you know you can read all past editions in our archive?

The subject this time round is Deep Work.

Ready? Let’s focus…

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Deep Work

Hi from Torquay, overlooking the waves rolling in. I’m freshly inspired from listening to Cal Newport’s “Deep Work”. These words are interesting:

“In this new economy, three groups will have a particular advantage: those who can work well and creatively with intelligent machines, those who are the best at what they do, and those with access to capital.” 

“To remain valuable in our economy, therefore, you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work.
If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.”

Cal’s book is fascinating with quickly actionable tips and this is a great list by Ryan Holiday on how he does deep work. Fascinating.

Things getting too heavy?

“Piaggio recently unveiled the company’s first product, a personal cargo robot named Gita. The bot can carry up to 40 pounds autonomously using maps, or by following a human operating the bot’s path… It’s fast enough to keep up with you on a bike (22MPH), and [has] the “human agility” needed to navigate sidewalks.” via Peter Diamandis

Gita and other helpful-to-humans technology excites me! You too?

 

Self-driving cars: coming sooner

Recently in conversations I’ve suggested we’ll use self-driving cars sooner than expected, for a couple of reasons:

  1. With so many other things to do, see, read, watch, catch up on (including sleep), car driving will start to be less of interest compared to other things we could do.
  2. As more images of newly designed car interiors (movie cinema, sleeping pod, working space / shared office) appear the idea of the car being a location to do other things than drive will grow on us… quickly.

Automation and employment

This graph shows job titles and their probability for automation. It’s worth reading the sidebar too. It’s from this month’s Oxford University and Citibank Report (good article to read).
“the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.” Stephen Hawking

I’ve also recently heard the entrancing term the “post-work economy”. Universal Basic Income anyone? What do you think?

Favourite reads & listens:

Great online presence:

 

Happy week!

Sam