MomoLondon: Demo Night 2014

Amazingly enough this demo night finished on time and even a little bit early. Thanks to Julia Shalet for keeping things running smoothly on the night and Jo Rabin too for the varied selection of demos — lots of great ideas.

Pictures and more commentary on the Mobile Monday Blog.

5 Tiles

Android keyboard app

Previous demo night success

• Christian Lindholm now an advisor & investor
• available on Android Wear (Samsung Gear)
• soon available on iOS

Grabyo

Benjamin Bourdin, http://grabyo.com

• realtime video sharing
• get any IP feed, apply title, edit
• save & share using twitter, facebook, ooyala, brightcove etc
• monetize through in-stream ads
• initial customers are broadcasters
• done deals with ITV & Sky Sports
• also did wimbledon & big brother
• also have a consumer platform: if a broadcaster wants to get people involved in sharing content

Good Food Talks

Matt Wadsworth, http://goodfoodtalks.com

• web app to let visually impaired people read restaurant menus
• a very few menus offer braille but only 1% of visually impaired people can read braille
• surveyed 5000 people — main complaint was difficult navigation
• web app has simple navigation
  • search/near me > restaurant name > menu
• free for users
• various ways of getting data in
  • restaurants pay for input
  • API ingest, full service, etc
• commercial for just over a year
• 400 venues
• biggest so far is Carluccio’s, then Pret

Swytch

Chris Michael, CEO, http://www.swytch.com/

• additional mobile numbers on your phone
• just closing alpha tester list
• free credits to alpha testers
• only service that allows you to have multiple UK mobile numbers on your phone
• aiming for worldwide too

QuizTix

Ian Masters & Albert Marshall, http://quiztix.co/

• mobile quiz games
• opt-in adverts for rewards
• all four versions are available on iOS, Google & Amazon
  • movies, pop, world football, video games
• targeting around existing passions
• also want to target venues with seats

Mylo

Martin Sandstrom & Mark Lee, http://mylo-app.com/

• split your bill when you live in a house share
• direct connection to various providers
  • energy, TV, phone, etc
• push notifications to other housemates
• settle bill with paypal (peer to peer is free)
• no business model at moment
  • aiming for future paid features
• aiming to attract lots of users first…
• app available for iOS and Android

Viewmaker

Douglas Robb, http://www.scramboo.com/

• location-enabled augmented reality
• Android & iOS apps, CMS for template-based content
• content discovery & engagement
• can control timing of content as well
• also support image-recognition-based AR
• first commercial partner is Jockey Club
• prototype app for Sandown Race Course
• involving novice race-goers in the racing
• planning to roll out to other Jockey Club venues

Pronto

James Roy Poulter, https://www.prontoapp.it/

• food to wherever you are
• don’t need an address
• only get a choice of four options (different each day)
• authenticate through nexmo API by voice call
• credit card payments only
• launched 100 days ago in Trento, Italy
• initially iOS only, then Android, + Windows coming next week
• launching next week in London (now available in the City)
• won an accelerator in Italy
• worked with restaurants in Italy, but difficult for food in 10 minutes
• aiming to get own centralized kitchen as margins are incredible
• also get drivers — performance based pay
• but made easier with centralized kitchen with limited delivery range

Adsy

Frederick Tubiermont, http://www.adsy.me/

• create mobile web apps on mobile for mobile
• can now create apps on desktop too
• web apps are square shaped
• magic touch swipe to choose link destination
  • includes email, telephone
• can embed videos, twitter feeds, etc
• can embed adsy apps in web pages or just view on mobile
• use case:
  • kids & teens making a web app about a concert during a concert
  • then sharing the evolving content
• meant to create snackable content
• will announce a product based on the platform in 2-3 weeks

IFS

Matthew Bridge, http://www.ifsworld.com/en/

• business critical messages to smart watches
• useful feature: view on device — opens up more detail on the phone through quick selection on watch
• driven from enterprise resource planning
• staff can subscribe to specific notifications

OpenTRV

Mark Hill and Damon Hart-Davis, http://opentrv.org.uk/

• 60% of your energy and 20% of UK emissions flow through TRVs
• 50% of that energy is wasted
• one thermostat usually controls whole house
• target price £10 per radiator: save £300 in the first year
• production samples coming mid-November
• hotels losing £50 per room per year on heating bills

MomoLondon: Cloud Computing & Mobile

A new venue tonight — up on the 9th floor of Google’s Central St Giles office. They even provided good food for the hungry mobile mondayers…

The evening’s focus was on Cloud Computing and Mobile, and the questions seemed to focus mainly on the cloud with not much discussion about how it related to mobile. The chair, Camille, kept the discussion moving along briskly, but we didn’t really get into any depth on any of the subjects. Maybe the audience could smell the food!

The panel

• Chair: Camille Mendler @cmendler
  • Principal Analyst at Informa
• Rob Easton @Cloud_Easton
  • Head of Google Cloud Platform UK & Ireland
  • Eurovision app used App Engine for back-end
• Dr Janko Mrsic-Flogel
  • CEO of Private Planet — personal cloud
  • 7 out of 10 carriers are providing a personal cloud solution
• Caroline Van Den Bergh @GoldenGekko
  • Golden Gekko mobile agency
  • 85% of apps we build are based on Google App Engine
• Jonathan Raper @MadProf
  • CEO at Placr/transportapi & Visiting Professor at City University
  • purchasers of cloud services
  • mostly built on memset

outages & availability

• JR: best service providers are those that communicate well when things go wrong
  • one provider went down and didn’t tell us anything for an hour

looking forward

• RE: google datacentres include a new one in Taiwan at 15 hectares
  • green computing
  • Google can provide very low latency
  • enables reaching out to new business areas such as the film industry
• JR: still talking quite aggregated performance measures
  • can’t ask for X many transactions for Y pounds
  • not that detailed
  • next step may be platform products
• CVDB: mobile enterprise software saving two days a week
  • managing remote teams
• JR: sometimes blame is shifted between telcos & cloud
  • would like to have better tracing
• JMF: Private Planet have a totally green datacentre in Telecity in Holland for T-Mobile

internet of things

• JR: the problem is trading information
  • automatically discovering different feeds & blending them
  • spend 3 weeks integrating code and 3 months arguing over terms & conditions
• CVDB: best successes have been smaller ones
• CM: find my yak in nepal
  • the yak’s don’t talk back — so there’s no privacy issues!
• RE: getting electricity usage feeds every 10 minutes
• CVDB: there has been scaremongering around Google capturing data
• JR: all our data is royalty-free downstream
  • makes it much easier to deal with
• CM: Copenhagen have bike devices to share traffic information
  • provide individual exercise info
  • but also shared with municipality
• JR: Waze has lots of complicated terms & conditions
  • data is available but locked up

the next generation

• CM: has been proved conclusively that 3D gaming improves your cognitive ability
• JR: …minecraft
• JR: it’s still a bit like early 2000 — mobile operator walled gardens
  • want to take down the barriers and bring the data silos together
• CVDB: working with Saga
  • older people have more time, want to delve deeper
  • tablets more popular than mobile phones

data scientists

• CM: shouldn’t we moving towards everyone manipulating their own data
• JR: digital literacy is very shallow, especially in highest decision-making tiers

security issue — data protection

• safe harbour in tatters
• can’t use the cloud at all if we have any secure data
• JMF: Private Planet always has data centre in the specific country
  • but are governments the biggest problem? what about the corporates?
• JR: if you need to do it, in-country encrypted solutions are available
• RE: sure, there are some workloads that Google can’t take on
  • e.g. we won’t let you audit our data centre
  • so can’t work under FCA regulations
  • over time, some of these regulations are going to change
• JR: all have to do as much as we can to help the government make the right decisions
• JR: sometimes the safest place to do something is in the cloud — e.g. running Windows
  • we don’t allow it on any of our machines
  • but it’s great in the cloud!

what if cloud provider company goes bankrupt?

• JR: escrow
• JMF: most agreements done via a channel partner — so that partner will continue the service
  • single party relationship is much more complicated
• RE: cloud business could be bigger than ads for Google
  • SLA penalties are often a percentage of what you pay
  • but if you pay less and less, the SLA means less and less…

is it becoming like supermarket wars?

• RE: Google reduced prices — and if you use an instance more than 25% per month then get a discount
  • terabyte of storage is $26/month
• CM: just like a loyalty card…
  • who will be Lidl and who will be Waitrose?

will we still be waiting in several years?

• JR: overestimate change in the short term and underestimate in the long term — change is stepped
  • sometimes have to wait for the step change in technology or regulation
• CVDB: business are going to grow up quickly
  • first digital generation CEOs will be around in the next few years

third party dependencies

• JR: Apple reviews can be capricious
  • if Apple fall out of love with Dropbox, then that could cause a problem for lots of apps
• JMF: was a huge debate on mobile medical health a while ago
  • then suddenly there was an app that just works
  • and the issues can just disappear
  • gadget-led terms and conditions…?

speed & access?

• RE: check out server density review
  • blog by someone who reviewed lots of providers and switched to Google
• CVDB: Golden Gekko mandate that all backends must be on Google App Engine
  • mainly so that clients can scale

new innovations in infrastructure?

• RE: Google build our own servers
  • apparently they would be the 3rd biggest manufacturers in the world
  • they value new innovation

where is the next growth to make it easier?

• RE: focused on the developer
  • acquired StackDriver to manage cloud capabilities
• JMF: If This Then That
  • making cloud development open to the consumer
  • certain mobile operators are understanding this and joining up devices in the home
• CVDB: finding that parse.com doesn’t suit
  • one size doesn’t quite fit all
  • prefer google’s flexibility

inviting consumers to get more involved

• CVDB: user testing
  • avoiding ivory tower
  • developed O2 Priority Moments
  • built packaged solutions based on it
  • incentivized behaviour also used in enterprise apps
• JR: designed a first location bank
  • your own location storage — that you can choose to share
  • (Ed. see also fireeagle)
  • next generation have a different approach to privacy
• RE: snapchat is a massive google customer
• audience: teenagers using technology completely differently
  • using snapchat to have a whole conversation
• RE: snapchat consumes more IT than any banking industry
  • JDI has 10 petabytes on Google cloud
  • consumers of IT will be well away from the enterprise
  • can have failure at a much cheaper cost — can learn more

what financial services are possible in the cloud?

• RE: restricted by FCA regulations, but other options possible
  • e.g. datasift to search across twitter
  • big challenge to attract IT talent in financial services as there are so many restrictions

skills

• JR: right now it’s hard to hire — ruby on rails developers are hard to find
  • constraint on development right now
• CVDB: couldn’t agree more — mobile skills are in short supply

tools for analytics & loyalty/crm

• looking at how data can be analysed
• wanting to drive revenue per user
• wanting to get the right tools in place to complete the feedback loop
• CVDB: iris solutions company
  • built the backend themselves
  • ?? http://www.iris.co.uk/
• JR: “build it in the cloud, but just don’t tell IT”
• RE: tableau, BIME, etc. working on top of Google Big Query
  • now a lot cheaper

After the panel discussion

As often happens with Mobile Monday, the discussion after the panel was richer than the panel itself. Some discussion points that came up when I was talking to people afterwards included:

• How do you balance keeping data on the device and in the cloud, to deal with intermittent network availability?
• Will the banks get clobbered by more agile personal finance companies that don’t have to worry about so many regulations?
• Why has it taken Google since 2008 to move from basic App Engine web apps to a full cloud platform?
• How will Google make more money from Cloud Computing than from Ads? There’s a big market, but the price is dropping…
• …and on a completely different note, several people were interested in setting up Code Clubs in their local primary schools, but were stretched for time — perhaps they could work together and contribute part-time?

Over The Air 2013

Building an Internet of Things for Everyone

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino https://twitter.com/iotwatch

• get the work you want
• if you get work just for money, you’ll get more of it
• won’t get you the work you want…

good night lamp

• originally in 2007 people were unsure about it
  • it uses Wi-Fi: isn’t that a health risk?
• restarted in 2010 — no longer a problem

IoT is now accessible

• hardware & software is easily available, documented + supported with lots of forums
• lots of hackspaces around to make thing
• idea to making something that looks pretty and works: “I give you 2 weeks — and 1 of those is waiting for things to be delivered”
• still hard to get something to production scaling, but getting support for that:
  • Fritzing, DesignSpark, etc

IoT vs big business

• wanting to bridge concerns of small business and large corporations
• both want the same reach of
• standards & security
• british gas https://twitter.com/connectinghomes & #connectinghomes 26/09/13
  • 25 startups in energy sector
  • bobo the polar bear: changes colour depending on how you manage your home energy
• need to get corporates who are interested to actually meet the people who are doing stuff

Telling the right story

• journalists will make stuff up…
• make sure you tell a good story
• e.g. onesie for a child with sensors
  • great for children with health conditions
  • but could be creepy for parents
• you have to be completely clear about why a customer would want to buy what you’ve made
  • create a press release and a dropbox full of well-lit, decent pictures

Investment

• investors < 60 years old will probably have never invested in anything other than the web…
• they need to see more hardware things
• new https://twitter.com/bg_ventures incubator

Retail is interested…

• Staples want to be an #iot retailer
• https://twitter.com/Works_Shop — Alex’s office is a pop-up shop in the evenings

Building Complex Web Apps with Dart & Web Components

Chris Buckett https://twitter.com/chrisbuckett

• V8 is as fast as they can get for javascript
• dart is faster for some benchmarks already

dart language

• optionally typed
  • when Dart runs, it pays no attention to the type information
  • use types for annotations
  • used for communication and validation
• classes are also interfaces…
  • like duck typing
• has privacy: just prefix with underscore
  • also has package shared equivalent
• concurrency & async support
  • works with web workers in the browser
• supports libraries by default
  • a single repository of libraries
• built-in support for DOM
• DartDoc is markdown based :-)
• Dart VM not in any browser other than Dartium (special Chrome build)
  • but has been designed to compile to javascript
• the language is still a beta, some restrictions
  • e.g. can’t modify variables on the fly

web components

• Polymer is Google’s implementation of web components
• polymer.dart is the dart version
• polymer elements consist of a template & a script
• elements get created and added to the shadow DOM
• polymer elements have double-barrelled names
  • first part is namespace
  • hyphen is mandatory

Designing for diversity

or How to stop worrying and deal with Android fragmentation

Stephanie Rieger

a bit of history

• port of leith, edinburgh: cruise ships stop
  • crew come out and use the internet
  • mostly filipino (25% of crew are filipino)
• massive change in devices in a short time:
  • 2010: massive laptops
  • 2011: netbooks
  • 2012/13: tablets/phablets
• and this is a change for people who send most of their income home
• mobile phones were getting smaller, but needed large teams
• started to change in 2005:
  • mediatek started offering reference design chipsets
• went from giant companies to tiny ones
• lots competed on price, but others went with regional specializations
• by 2007, these had captured c.10% of global device sales
• started experimenting wildly
  • e.g. 4 SIM phone with a project
  • could try out with tiny production runs
• then Android changed things again in 2008
• these companies could now switch from low-end feature phones to mid & high range
  • e.g. Lumia lookalike, running skinned Android, sells for £56!
• other chipset vendors have emulated MediaTek reference designs
  • e.g. Rockchip, even Qualcomm
• all the components are now tuned to work with Android by default

hardware diversity

• variations at different levels
• low-end: all off-the-shelf — around £56
• slightly more customized: nice case, slightly customised Android, off-the-shelf chip
  • e.g. Xiaomi Hongmi
  • dual SIM, gorilla glass, highly customised Android (MIUI)
  • just £83
  • sold out first batch of 100,000 in 90 seconds…
• we’re used to having customisation all the way down
• but even larger companies are experimenting
• Japan - KDDI Infobar: highly customised design & Android
  • fashion product
• Oppo: Bluetooth LE camera trigger, touch panel on rear of phone
• Yota e-paper rear display: can retain image for weeks without power
  • also has a capacitative touch strip
• India: Aakash 2 is now c.£30
  • govt aiming to subsidise & distribute to 20 million students
• it’s increasingly likely that devices will be made by “other manufacturers”

platform diversity

• Android lets you change the keyboard
• as a developer you can’t rely on the user having a standard keyboard
• also lets you change the default app for intents
• Paranoid Android lets you change the resolution of the device at the app level
  • as apps adjust to resolution & screen size, this lets you choose the way the app behaves on your device
• MIUI is particular popular as it’s actively crowd-sourced
  • also because there are thousands of community build themes
  • including metaphor-based themes with virtual navigation
• Oppo now lets you choose your ROM when you order your phone: Oppo’s Color or CyanogenMod
• Cyanogen aiming to create a one-click installer
• manufacturers are supposed to include the default Holo theme
  • but some small manufacturers don’t
• manufacturers will also select OS versions and not update for a while
  • we will always see multiple versions live at any time
• also multiple app stores especially in different countries
• unofficial app store booths (e.g. in a Bangkok mall)
  • owner will recommend and install apps for you

how do we design for this?

• design strategies will apply to Android IoT devices as well
• basic principles:
  1. be flexible
  2. provide assets for all
  3. optimize layouts
  4. enable diverse experiences
• can use weighting to scale cleverly
• use asset grouping to enable variation
• google publish screen density stats every 2-4 weeks
• as screen gets bigger, letting the UI stretch doesn’t work so well
• very similar to responsive design
• set breakpoints in your layout where you change layout
• want to avoid have three versions that you swap
• instead aim for a continuum where content adjusts itself
• Evernote is a good example
  • list view switches to grid view on larger screens
• see also Google IO & Wordpress apps
  • Wordpress portrait tablet has list and detail side by side
• lots of qualifiers
  • touch screen type: capacitative/trackball/finger
  • UI mode: car/desk/television/appliance!
• not necessary to account for all combinations!
• enabling intents allows future-friendly behaviour
  • don’t have to worry about new social networks in different countries
• official android devices reached 1 billion last week
  • doesn’t include non-Google devices
  • probably doesn’t include cars, etc
  • doesn’t include experimental Android IoT devices

“diversity is not a bug, it’s a feature”

Arduino: Robots, WiFi and extreme hacks

David Cuartielles https://twitter.com/dcuartielles

• based in Malmö Uni
• all got into Arduino because wanted something for students
• “as technology grows in our hearts, it gets smaller in size”
• David’s background: worked at Infineon designing chips, then went to teach technology to arts students in Sweden
• had six months to teach people to program
  • had to relearn how to learn
• arduino not just boards:
  • boards
  • dev tools
  • documentation & community
• not teaching about transistors: teaching how to make a light blink
• arduino ide doesn’t have lots of features
  • but gives you feeling that you’re in a slimmed down version of Eclipse
• short run manufacturing (c.10K) so can always change the design
• hacked a full-sized car to be remote controlled
  • will see self-driving car on youtube soon…
• in mexico city only room for 30% of students in university
• instead they have arts centres for students who don’t get it
• David taught electronics there:
  • sorted out electronics sourced from mexico as components not available
  • vimeo: ohoh robochock
  • vimeo: ohoh competition
    • trying to remote control their robotos
    • all interfering with same channel, but they don’t know!
• arduino robot
  • designed with help from kids from mexico
  • 4 times winners of robocup
  • invested a lot of time in the AC/DC converter
  • so that performance is consistent across battery
• educational experiment in Spain
  • 24 schools, over 500 kids (15 year-olds)
  • every week had three sessions: introduction, hacking, sharing
  • each week was thematic: e.g. sports
  • 25 kids, 5 projects: olympic games on Friday
  • 24 different experiments, but kids didn’t do everything
  • instead saw what other kids were doing
  • all details http://cuartielles.com/verkstad/en
• hacked Sony SmartWatch to run Arduino
  • all published on github: underverg?
  • only thing couldn’t get hold of was bluetooth chip
• natural fuse
  • plant lives or dies based on your carbon footprint
  • if it dies your electricity stops
  • can switch between selfish (grab from neighbours) and selfless (offer spare to neighbours) modes
• fukushima
  • pachube/cosm was used for people to map the radiation themselves
  • using arduinos with geiger counters
• open source white goods controller
  • modular: only need four abilities
  • mosfet, relay, pwr, ??
  • added UI module to provide output
• everything is open source
  • pay me to make it: once it’s made, the work is done
  • you can pay me to maintain it

Whitespace Networks: Connect All The Things

Ben Ward https://twitter.com/crouchingbadger - http://love-hz.com

• TV whitespace becoming available as moves from analogue to digital
• however, will still be used for analogue radio mics etc
  • if we cock up they’ve got lots of famous people to complain!
• weightless protocol)
  • 10 yr battery life
  • 5-10km range
  • unhelpfully called “super-wifi” in america (802.11AF)
• needs a whitespace database…
  • being worked on right now
  • need to check every 15 minutes
  • check OFCOM for list of approved DBs
  • then check with your licensed DB
  • but you’re not reserving space, just agreeing to share
  • see also http://uk-whitespaces.spectrumbridge.com
• neul now making a 4.5cm² board
  • expected price $17 (at scale)
  • range: 1-8km
• new phrase: “the fog” — like the cloud but on the ground :-)
• open source boards
  • using software defined radio chip (lime something)
  • myriad RF
  • nuand bladeRF
  • also hackRF?
• has some location capabilities based on triangulation
• ideas?
  • bike theft detector using the frame as the antenna
  • oxford guerilla sensor network for flood detection

Appium: Mobile Automation Made Awesome

Jonathan Lipps https://twitter.com/jlipps

• cross-platform solution for native & hybrid mobile automation
• other options for ios:
  • calabash-ios
  • Frank
  • ios-driver
  • UIAutomation
  • KeepItFunctional
• other options for android:
  • calabash-android
  • MonkeyTalk
  • Robotium
  • UiAutomator
  • selendroid
• wanted to set some ground rules:
  • test the same app you submit to the store
    • don’t want to add additional code into the app
  • write your tests in any language & framework
  • use a standard automation API & spec
  • make it open source and foster a large community
• appium supports:
  • ios, android & firefox os
  • real devices, simulators
  • native apps, hybrids, mobile web
• can write one set of tests that work across multiple platforms
  • if you’re careful in how you structure your app
• appium exposes an HTTP server than allows selenium to run
• selenium webdriver has clients in many languages
• and is a W3C working draft, so nearly a standard :-)
• appium also extends webdriver protocol with additional mobile-specific behaviours
  • talking to selenium to get those changes into
• under the hood:
  • iOS: Apple Instruments & UIAutomation
  • Android 4.2.1 and up: Google UiAutomator
  • older Android + hybrid: Selendroid
  • Firefox OS: marionette
• written in node.js, so npm install appium and write tests in node
• or else have a GUI runner to set flags
• GUI also comes with an inspector
  • so you can see what’s going on at each step
  • (don’t need to be the app developer to write a test)
  • will create some initial code for you from your actions
• find things by:
  • accessibility
  • element type
  • hiearchy xpath
  • android id
• you can use a config dictionary for IDs/xpaths to help cope with platform/device differences
• instruments can only run a single test at once per host machine

• Sauce Labs have lots of devices available across the net

  • provides scaling and device selection
  • can switch to Sauce just by changing appium end point + adding credentials
  • also need to provide app: pre-upload using Sauce API, or host on a server somewhere
  • http://saucelabs.com/mobile

• Q: can you switch between apps?

  • we could use a second app to turn on/off wifi
  • A: doesn’t work on iOS — when you jump to another app then UIAutomation loses its context and quits
• Q: can you fake location?

Programming is terrible

Lessons from a life wasted

Tef https://twitter.com/tef

• Watch out for The Group Project: getting together to work on a project that individuals have not made time for themselves…
• make your code easy to replace more than easy to extend
• people often learn more from maintenance than from building from new
• people tend to teach in the way that they learned best
• C, Java, C# are not a great starting point for new programmers
  • they require concepts to figure out even before you can make things happen
• learning programming should be a side effect of doing something exciting
• girl at MIT struggling with English grammar
  • Seymour Papert asked her to write a sentence or poetry generating programme
  • after a few hours, she exclaimed “I know what nouns are!”
• view source
  • one of the best features of Scratch online
  • learn by seeing something you want to copy
• computer anonymous
  • support group for everyone
• for a starter, introduce constraints if they’re not already there

dConstruct 2012

Catching up on publishing my notes from the last few months… Here’s dConstruct 2012 — a conference more about inspiring and provoking new ideas than specific technology.

The highlights were Scott Jenson demanding we come up with a better way to discover UIs for the Internet of Things; Tom Armitage telling us why we should build toys (and why they are different from prototypes); and James Burke (yes, that James Burke) taking us on a tour de force whirlwind journey through the history of technology. Not to mention Seb Lee-Delisle turning the entire audience into a giant fireworks display!

The audio for all the talks is available from the dConstruct archive. What follows is my rough notes covering the points that caught my interest.

The Flower, The Field and The Stack

Ben Hammersley @benhammersley

• “if your code isn’t elegant, it’s probably wrong”
• levels above individual UX:
  
  • social UX
  • what the experience does to the rest of society
• how do we make those layers beautiful & elegant?
• media does affect society
  
  • we deny the Daily Mail fearmongering
  • but build gamification, add marketing, etc
  • you are changing society in some way
• what messages can or should we put out?
• first generation in the history of humanity to have exponential growth in our capabilities (Moore’s law)
• yet we are ruled by people who don’t quite understand that…
• government wants us to be individual billionaires
• but it’s not like that — the web is all community based
• think about how to expose the interconnectedness — the symmetries

Cure for the Common Code

Jenn Lukas @jennlucas

• http://girldevelopit.com
  
  • started in NYC but now spreading across the world
  • two UK movements are Code Club and The Goto Foundation
• lots of reasons for people to learn to code
  
  • even people who do not have code involved in their jobs
• http://codeyear.com run by codecademy
• lots of sites coming up…
  
  • mozilla’s school of webcraft (harry potter theme…)
• http://girldevelopit.com/
  
  • 4 two hour sessions
  • set up expectations: make a basic web site, learn terminology
  • won’t become an expert
  • importantly: where to go for further information (bad education hurts!)
• w3schools comes up at the top of search results a lot, but it has a lot of mistakes (see w3fools…)
• Khan Academy computer science - videos bring on the excitement
• In Time movie: time is currency, people gambling for minutes etc

Beyond Mobile - Beyond Web

Scott Jenson @scottjenson

• no way that 60s mainframe guys would understand mobile phones
  
  • even if we told them about it they still wouldn’t understand
• default thinking
  
  • e.g. when TV first came out, they read radio plays in front of the camera…
• Scott was first mobile designer at Google
  
  • worked on Google Maps
• felt tectonic plates changing from mobile OSes, to apps, to web
• built a simple test and sent it out to a google mailing list
  
  • got 90,000 results in a few hours…
  • web-based — viral spreading
• whole new world opening up and apps is an old world model

what’s happening:

1. app glut: is there really going to be an app for every different thing?
   
   • the apps are like the Hitchhiker’s Guide mice – experimenting on us
   • value must be greater than pain
     
     • SMS: great pain but bigger value
     • Google making page load 0.4s faster: reducing pain
     • if you get pain down to zero then people usage
2. size & cost reduction
   
   • e.g. pill bottle that calls your phone if you don’t open it each day!
3. smart devices leverage other platforms
   
   • e.g. withings scale has interface on your phone

seen this before? where’s it going?

• yahoo: catalogued links — grew too big
• google: just search
• RFID & sensors in everything (Bruce Sterling spimes)
• triggers from physical locations
  
  • e.g. at bus stop want to see that departure board, not the whole app…
• just in time interactions
  
  • use it, then lose it

paradigm shift

• kuhn cycle:
  
  1. normal science
  2. model drift
  3. model crisis
  4. model revolution (because old science still works for most stuff)
  5. paradigm shift
  6. and back again…
• software: if it’s so important, you have to reuse it
• need to move to experience: discover, use, discard
• trapped in the browser:
  
  • awesome experience with a command-line on top!
  • doesn’t really work so well on mobile without a proper keyboard…

suggestion

• asking for a detente between native and web
  
  • phones should have a discovery service
  • google my room rather than my world
  • access a list of nearby services
• get the pain down to zero so I can get to the web as soon as possible
• but web apps suck!
  
  • native is awesome and will always be more so than web
  • but talking about basic small things that can’t do apps
  • toasters, movie posters, etc
• smart toaster, really?
  
  • because pain is low, the value doesn’t have to be high
  • change the “done” sound
• use my phone all the time?
  
  • once you’ve got the “digital soul” of a thing
  • you can access it from anywhere
  • e.g. Sonos system: only accessible from phone with app…
• no company will do this, no money…
  
  • have to think in layers
  • discover
  • interact
  • export/communicate
  • organise

chicken & egg

• need to start building it from both ends
• are we all going to be using iPhones 30 years from now?
• no company will make this:
  
  • we are the next Apple!

The Hacker’s Guide To The Galaxy

Ariel Waldman @arielwaldman

• black holes are like super-massive hackerspaces
  
  • spewing out all sorts of stuff
• SETI are starting to look for light pulses as well as radio waves
• planethunters - find exoplanets using human pattern detection
• instead of discovering life in the universe, what if we put it there…?
• astrobiology
  
  • water bears can survive for several days in the vacuum of space
  • lichen good at breaking down bare rock surfaces, and can live in the surface conditions of Mars
• citizens in space
  
  • cubesats: 10cm^3 mini satellites
  • gathering ideas to send into space
• university rover challenge
  
  • annual competition for universities to build next-gen robots
• beard detector at science hackday
  
  • USB microscope connected to OpenCV
  • picked up by particle physicist to detect cosmic rays in a cloud chamber

Pixels People Play

Seb Lee-Delisle @seb_ly

• PixelPhones
  
  • synchronizes phones across wifi
  • then detects positions using camera
  • open source on github
  • nyancatch — catch the nyan cat as he goes past your pixel phone
• MMOsteroids (multi-player asteroids)
  
  • but not actually real…
• digital fireworks based on motion detection at the bottom of the screen
• using digital media to bring people together in interesting ways
  
  • phones normally put you in your own private world
  • pixelphones makes a gathered experience using the same
• putting power in the control of the audience
• web-based games: playing with the audience
  
  • your expectation of the other players changes your experience

Imagined Futures

Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes

• “those who can’t imagine the future are doomed to fuck it up”
• the Cosby Show laid the way for Nelson Mandela
  
  • he made it possible for racist white south africans to see black people as people
• Novel: Moxyland
  
  • looking at the gaps between the rich and the poor
  • how an apartheid state might come into being again
• science fiction’s imagination
• makes the future personal
  
  • Jeff Noon: skull flowers
• focusing on a single person allows you to get close and understand a shocking event
• fiction allows you greater empathy than journalism
• re-imagining monsters
• “the universe is made of stories not atoms”

The Save Button Ruined Everything

Backing up our digital heritage

Jason Scott, Computer Historian, owner of @sockington

• “when my cat was being interviewed for People magazine…”
• the floppy disk icon has no meaning to kids these days
  
  • they don’t know what it is
• Timeshare system designed at MIT 1964
  
  • based on IBM 7094
  • SAVE command to save status
• originally saving was a slow process
• http://archiveteam.org
  
  • saving geocities etc
• don’t delete things just because you think you’re done with them
• it’s a responsibility
• always provide an export function

Making Friends: Toys, Toying and Toymaking

Tom Armitage @tom_armitage, http://infovore.org

• father worked as an amateur woodworker — made toys
  
  • very impressive ones too — I’m jealous!
• “I wonder if I make toys today because my dad made toys for me”
• what is a toy: something you can fiddle with — a simulation
• SimCity: not actually a good simulation of a city
  
  • but does expose the moving parts
  • stuff left out also important
• caricatures:
  
  • twit4dead
  • Markov Chocolates
    
    • use chocolate descriptions as a source corpus for a markov chain generator
• Toys as Culture: Brian Sutton-Smith
• modern day
  
  • The Demoscene
  • elevated by RGBA (4k program)
  • craft by Linus Åkesson (runs off a 9V battery)
• free of work constraints
• restricted by other constraints (file size, hardware, etc)
• often have no utility
• but definitely have purpose
• Ghostcar
  
  • a foursquare account of yourself - timeshifted from a year ago
  • made Tom checkin more ‘cos he wanted good data
• a time lapse video, with the scrubbing controlled by how close the viewer is to the screen
• “we expose purpose and meaning through the making”
• seamful design
  
  • emphasising the edges and transitions
• LEGO is seams everywhere
• so is twitter: it’s a messaging bus
• tower bridge twitter account
  
  • exposed seams by its interactions with other people
  • followed by cab drivers so they knew not to drive across when it was open
• Toca Boca: helicopter taxi
• Chris O’Shea: makego — incomplete car
• Makies: custom dolls
  
  • extended to transformer versions by http://mechkies.tumblr.com
• Toys are finished, not prototypes
  
  • they have seams but not rough edges
• Thomas Heatherwick (designer of the Olympic Cauldron):
  
  • get things into the world quickly
  • don’t keep things in your imagination
• Toys are small scope — that’s important: it means you can finish more stuff
• when you’re making a toy, you have to imagine the player
  
  • you have to play with it while you’re making it
• problem-solving is convergent but it’s obeying the problem
• toy making is divergent… creative
• making is playing is making

Does Prediction Have A Future? Admiral Shovel and the Toilet Roll

James Burke

These notes in no way capture James’s talk. Please listen to the audio recording and marvel!

• focus is for computers
• creativity and imagination is humans’ strong point
• Burke working on a learning system
  
  • 2800 historical figures, events & ideas
  • connected 35,000 ways
• Laplace: you want me to predict everything? fine! tell me everything
  
  • may soon be possible to gather, look at links and spot inconsistencies
  • but institutions often exist to maintain the status quo

Scarcity

• representative democracy
  
  • invented because roads were slow…
  • now we have much faster comms
• most of our social and organisational systems are based on scarcity
• but the nanotech cornucopia machine will turn that into abundance
• what happens to us socially? all the organisations and processes?
• we may have only 40 years to work it out!

Geeky August

This was the first Geeky event that I’ve attended (I think it was the second one so far…). I found it intriguing and inspiring — there were no massively new ideas, but just people celebrating the ideas that interested and excited them.

The venue helped too — Forward Technology have very impressive offices with a bar that almost rivalled the Brewdog round the corner.

detached heads and the practice of empathy

Evgenia Grinblo, @grinblo

• how to design error messages…
• don’t do it like this: http://errorwallofshame.tumblr.com
• Talk human
• Don’t blame the user — users already assume they messed up!
• Tell the user what to do next

Little Printer

Alice Bartlett, @alicebartlett

• Little Printer from BERG — http://bergcloud.com/littleprinter/
• More personal than an email — a physical message arrives in your space
• First units available to the public in October
• Lots of publications available
  • BBC Worldwide: foods in season this week
  • Lanyrd, guardian, instagram, etc
• Daily feeds / stories in parts / collections
• API takes HTML and prints at 200.3 dpi
• Also running “after school clubs” at BERG to test out the printers

when zeppelins ruled the earth

Simon Willison, @simonw

• Norge: Italian zeppelin flew over the North pole
• British Airship R100 had a smoking room… lined with asbestos to be safe!
• USS Akron had a biplane inside it
  • They could launch — and be picked up later while the zeppelin was still flying
  • The “landing” was by matching speeds and being hoisted in from below
• Hangar One “Hangar One (Mountain View, California) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”) near San Francisco is a beautiful Art Deco building

crochet & pixels

Ruth Jones, @rumyra

• comparing crocheting and pixel design
• both done using squares of equal size but different colours
• crochet can be done at different gauges, going down to really fine thread
• crocheting starts with a 4” square swatch: allows you to measure before you start
• crocheting has a limit of the smallest thread you can manipulate — do pixels have the same?

See how dense you are with Rumyra’s test page

Internet of Things Saves the Day

Jessi Baker, @jessibaker

• Using internet of things (IoT) to help us make better choices
• choosing to be selfish or selfless?
• we’re becoming a society of quantified selves
• Jessi worked with the people who made http://sourcemap.com/: open source map of supply chains
• She then went on to design Open Object: digital shadows of real things
• when we get to out-sourcing part of your mind… (creating your digital daemon?)
• …how would you calibrate it with your morals?

Jessi gave a similar presentation at mLove: see it here.

5 Lessons from the ZX Spectrum

Meri Williams, Geek_Manager, http://blog.geekmanager.co.uk

• learning is fun
• creating is even more fun
• creating it together is awesome
• making stuff and sharing it with your friends is something we should all experience as children
• break something apart, mess with it and make it cooler than it was

Meri’s notes give a lot more detail on her talk