Screens and Kids

How negative is the now omni presense of screens on phones, tablets and computing devices?   Now integrated into every part of our lives.

A Dark Consensus About Screens
Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley    By The NYT

 The people who are closest to a thing are often the most wary of it. Technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don't want their own children anywhere near them.

A wariness that has been slowly brewing is turning into a regionwide consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high. The debate in Silicon Valley now is about how much exposure to phones is O.K. ... "

Alexa as the End of Smartphones?

Had never thought of it quite this way. overall a big challenge.  Mobile is still convenience.  Also not enough about the attentiveness of such systems.  Voice/conversation in intelligent dialog is still crude.

For Amazon, The Future Of Alexa Is About The End Of The Smartphone Era
With touch-screen devices like the Echo Show and Echo Spot, Amazon is trying to upend a decade of smartphones, notifications, and apps.    By Jared Newman in FastCOMpany

Picture a hypothetical future in which Amazon’s Alexa renders your smartphone unnecessary.

You tap the “good morning” button on your bedside Echo Spot, and it displays the day’s forecast as the blinds open and the bedroom lights fade on. Downstairs, the Echo Show in the kitchen displays a reminder about your doctor’s appointment at noon, and alerts you to a single urgent email: You’ll have to join a conference call as soon as you get into the office.

In the car, you press the “commute” button on the Alexa-enabled dashboard, which queues up your favorite music while steering you around a traffic jam, and after work, Alexa relays another reminder to your car, telling you to grab milk on the way back. At home, you swipe through a list of restaurants on the Echo Show to make a reservation for the weekend, check in on your folks via video chat, and finally sit down to relax. With one more buttonpress, the next episode of your favorite show starts playing on the Fire TV in the living room.

Far-fetched as it seems, this is the kind of scenario Amazon wants to create as its Alexa assistant migrates from smart speakers to touch screens. Instead of making users wade through a sea of apps to get things done, the goal is to create a new kind of computing that’s simpler and less distracting. And while voice will be the foundation, there may be plenty of times where you use Alexa without speaking at all.   

“The tenet that we believe in is that voice is a simplifier,” says Miriam Daniel, Amazon’s head of product management for Alexa. “And once you design voice actions, then go back to a touch action, you’ve actually removed a lot of friction because you’ve started at a different baseline.” .... ' 

Uses of Thermal Cameras

Why do you need one on your camera phone?  Popular Mechanics looks at some examples.

National Identity By Smartphone

The curious observation that national identity varies by phone type.  And the Asymco article and supporting data and visualizations.

Smartphones Attract Crime

In AdAge:   Always thought that smartphones decreased crime by adding a new element of crowdsourced communications to inform authorities.  But it turns out that smartphones also strongly attract crime: " ... more than 1.6 million Americans were victims of smartphone theft last year and why thefts of mobile devices now make up 40 percent of all robberies in major American cities. The rising street crime is exacting a heavy toll on consumers who spend an estimated $30 billion each year replacing lost and stolen devices, according to Lookout, a San Francisco-based mobile security firm. ... " 

Intel Projects from a Smartphone

In GigaOM: Intel has developed technology to put a multipurpose projector into a phone.  It is also said that the projected image can be scaled up and down.  Still in the prototype phases.    I am involved in a business intelligence project now that specifies that business visualizations be show on a phone,  and such a compact approach would be much easier than zooming into a browser on a smartphone screen. Can use this now.

Physical by Smartphone

Thinking of a smartphone as a sensor driven device.   How might they ultimately be used as a means to give remote physicals?  Still some issues, but the possibilities are evolving.

Drones and Now Nano satellites: Phonesats

Lots of things are getting small and more mobile.   As presented in Computerworld.    What are the implications of smaller and widely ranging sensors? " ... NASA has launched three smartphones into space in what scientists hope will be the lowest-cost satellites ever tested. The smartphones, Google-HTC Nexus Ones running the Android operating system, launched aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Science Corp.'s Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia on Sunday. The smartphones are encased in 4-inch metal cubes and are hooked up to external lithium-ion battery banks and more powerful radios for sending messages from space. The goal of this mission is to see just how capable these tiny satellites, dubbed PhoneSats, are and whether they can one day serve as the brains of inexpensive, but powerful, satellites. ... "

Wal-Mart Expands Smartphone Checkout

It is reported that Wal-Mart will expand its test of using smartphones for in-aisle checkout.  The system they are using is Scan & Go, delivered as an App for popular smartphones.  The idea is becoming more popular and being tested by a number of retailers.