iPhone Activism

A posting on Andrew Sullivan's blog about some ramifications of mobile devices such as the iPhone/iPod Touch. I agree 100%. I think a cool project would be to do some sort of study on how 'connected' users feel. At brunch today, my iPod Touch owning friend and I talked about different productivity apps we were using to achieve our goals. At the end of the conversation, we sorta blinked at each other and said, 'it's a computer.' And it's very personal. 

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Julian Sanchez wonders about virtual picket lines:

...think ahead a couple years to when mobile devices at least as advanced as the current iPhone are as ubiquitous as cell phones.This makes physical environments potentially dense with information, whether through particular function-specific channels (Zagat reviews), socially salient tags (3 of your friends had a comment about this restaurant), aggregative filtering (a comment about this location was voted above your Digg threshold), or some combination thereof. The purpose of this won't necessarily be to facilitate activism -- people are more likely to want to look at reviews or know if there are better prices down the block. But it also means that political information can be embedded in a place without requiring a bunch of people with placards to spend their day marching around in front of a shop.

...the potential here is to drastically lower the information costs of consumer activism. Relatively few people are going to sit down and do detailed research about all the products they routinely buy. Many more, however, may be willing to whip out their phones and click a couple buttons. When the effort required to import political values into consumption decisions is dramatically reduced, the number of politically-conscious shoppers should increase significantly.

Shopping with an iPhone strikes me as a huge boon to both political and economic market efficiency.

My first curry

I've been really busy lately, which is a good thing. One of the things I did was make a curry using the recipe that was given to me by a friend of mine. It's for Chicken Saag, one of my favorite Indian dishes. It was a lot of fun to make, pretty simple in terms of preparation and tasted great. The Dutch Oven is perfect for stuff like curries, just adding to the list of why I bought it. 

Shopping for it was as much fun as making it. I went to Asia Market Corp (link below) on Mulberry Street in Chinatown, which is roughly 10 minutes away. That store is why I love living in NY and why I love downtown. They have a great selection of pan-Asian spices. I'm now prepared to make Indian and Thai food, my two favorite cuisines. This cooking thing is a blast.

Asia Market Corporation

71 1/2 Mulberry St, New York, NY

(212) 962-2020

Link:

<http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=safari&ie=UTF8&q=asian+market+10012&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&ei=2-aESfatCYjWNamHuesD&cid=16923390265584403020&li=lmd&ll=40.721177,-73.999357&spn=0,359.92301&z=14&iwloc=A&layer=c&cbll=40.716088,-73.999208&panoid=nnzjzUw4iSlC-HBU7FFR7A&cbp=12,297.1611929007516,,0,5>



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Jim Beam's 'The Girlfriend'

The creatives nailed this ad. This is what many men dream about when they describe the perfect girlfriend, even if they deny it. Notice that her English isn't that great which means there's not that much conversation going on. You need to check it out.

The YouTube comments were hysterical. Scores of guys agreeing and comparing their girlfriends to the above. Then came this one.

JozzyHBR: Hahaha, good luck with that fellas...

Sally Fields

I just finished watching Brothers & Sisters. I took me a while to get into this show but I'm starting to enjoy it now that the characters are more fully developed.

I must say, Sally Fields looks awesome. She's in great shape. There aren't many 60-something women who can do the 'tip tow' kiss, show off her butt and get away with it. 

New printer paradigm

This design (concept?) turns assumptions about printers on its' head. It uses statics to eliminate the need for the tray by curving the paper just enough for it to remain rigid. I'm also digging the cartridge as design element. Here's the link to the designer.

Hat tip [Unplugged]

Sweet concept clock

Hat tip [Unplugged]

Sharing and Caring

It seems as though all of my friends on Facebook are sending me and one another '25 Random Things About Me.' It's amazing how a very simple exercise can have such a dramatic impact. I've learned a lot about people that I knew but perhaps didn't know as well due to the nature of our connection – friends of friends, co-workers, people I met recently etc. It is also an interesting exercise to undertake.

I wish more stuff like this moved around the Facebook universe instead of the craplets that everyone seems to send. I love the idea of sending a digital stuffed teddy bear but paying for it is insane. 

South Park on the brain

I used to be a huge fan of South Park but got tired of the antics a few years ago. There's only so outrageous one can get before shock value is lost and South Park just seems to get more and more inane as ideas dry up.

One episode that has been on my mind – well the song more than the episode – is when the boys became a boy band with their hit single 'Finger bang.' That song echoed in my mind yesterday and in an effort to purge it, I am posting it here. Hopefully a karmic transfer will take place and it will echo in someone else's mind instead of mine.

Tag you're it. 

iPhone vs. Pre patents

Engadget did a pretty exhaustive analysis of what the iPhone patents really are and how Palm could respond with patents of their own. Great article.

Financial utilities

One thing that I did manage to do during my sleepless night was catch up on my blogs. It was time well spent. I ran across this blog post in the WSJ's Real Time Economics blog about the "new financial world order." 

The line that stuck out at me most was that this crisis will divide the financial community into two parts – financial utilities and financial risk takers. Now I was under the impression that things were divided in such a fashion anyway with investment banking and retail banking playing very different roles in our economy. But I digress.

The term financial utility stuck with me. I lived in London in the late 90s and the one institution that I marvelled over was the Post Office Savings Bank, which had been in existence in one form or another since 1861.  It was originally created to offer banking services to rural and impoverished customers. And to provide the government with a source of cheap capital. It has long since been privatized but the idea that a government institution provided banking services sounded strange to these 'free-market' ears. Oddly enough, the U.S. had a similar system, from 1911 to 1966. As one can imagine, this system was relentlessly attacked by private banks, who railed against government competing against the private sector. This article here in the NY Times from 1912 discusses this conflict.  

Now that most of the major banks in this country have been 'nationalized' in all but label, how will that change the way they interact with their customers? What changes will financial institutions need to make in order to regain the trust of their customer base? 

This brings me to the idea of illegibility that I've discussed before. It is impossible to have a conversation about banks without fees being mentioned. Part of the anger behind fees is how unpredictable they can be and how difficult it can be to avoid them. In other words, the fee structure is illegible. It will be interesting to see what changes in finance in the months to come. I have a few thoughts but I need to develop them further. 

One of those days

For some bizarre reason, I just couldn't sleep last night. I think I notched about three hours. It's not as though I'm worried about anything in particular. In fact, I had a great night hanging out with a friend of mine at our local. Maybe it was the wine. Regardless, very little sleep.

Of course, sleep deprivation does not go unpunished. My dog took 3x as long for his walk with nothing to show for it, so to speak. I dropped one half of an english muffin into the a pot soaking in the sink. My coffee maker spat coffee all over the counter. 

In the esteemed words of Pink – "I'm a hazard to myself / Don't let me get me"

Is the Palm Pre in danger?

The tech world is going nuts over a pretty broad patent that Apple JUST won [like to Google news... chose the one that suits] on multi-touch. It covers not only the iPhone but could also be applied to PCs, such as the latest in multi-touch goodness on the aluminum MacBook and MacBook Pro. How I am dying to buy one!

Palm and Apple have exchanged saber rattling with Palm convinced the patent app will not effect their phone and Apple intimating that they have the IP upper hand. It will be an interesting few months ahead. If Apple truly has a lock on multi-touch, it's over for not only Palm but others. 

Personally, I think we're going to see an entirely different paradigm from Apple this June with the introduction of Snow Leopard. I say this because the goal of Snow Leopard is optimization and system file size reduction. These are nice to have benefits for sure but only worth it if there's an end product that warrants it. Exciting times ahead!

Time Machine annoyance

So I'm a big fan of Time Machine [link to Apple site] the automated backup that's part of Mac OS X Leopard. I've never experienced a disk failure but I know so many people who have that it's worth the peace of mind that it offers. I actually purchased a Time Capsule, which is basically an Airport networking base station with an integrated server hard drive. It's mainly for backup but I do keep some stuff on the drive for safe keeping.

The automated aspect of Time Machine is great. However the process often slows down my workflow. Backups occur every hour. In theory that's great. In practice not so great. It takes about 20 - 30 minutes to complete a backup. This means my computer is always backing up. Since my 'landline' is a VoIP Skype phone, the constant backups interferes with my phone service and other forms of network traffic. It is not uncommon for me to have to wait while my browser catches up. I would love to set it to backup every other hour but I can't. 

I hope Snow Leopard, the next OS X, improves Time Machine's efficiency/controls. I don't want to switch it off but sometimes I have to in order to get stuff done. This defeats the purpose, I think. 

Cottage in a Day

Cottage in a Day sells green prefab structures of various sizes and applications. They call it Cottage in a Day because the structures can be assembled in a day [duh] in as little as five hours. I like the design and I especially love the emphasis on outdoor space; the exterior deck is almost as large as the interior living space. 

You can adjust the design to include or exclude facilities and kitchens, perfect for occasional rooms or office space away from a main house. You can even add a loft. The prices are reasonable; the smallest with a kitchen and bathroom is $56,000. 

Hat tip [PreFabCosm]

From bench to sofa

This intriguing design from Olivier Grégoire. This is an inflatable bench that converts to a sofa when you unzip the back. I'm not sure how comfortable it will be to sit on but I like the idea. Check out this French site for more pictures. 

Hat tip [Crib Candy]

Run screaming from the room

A curious thing has happened recently. I'm just tired of information. 

I have a bazillion RSS feeds that I keep an eye on – as you can probably see from this blog – and aside from a core few, I haven't been in the mood to check them. Part of the reason is that I am busier than I was when I started this blog. Thankfully. But I'm also overloaded, it seems. 

I'm not sure what the remedy is. I know I will eventually clear up the backlog. The last time this happened was when I was on a working vacation in Europe this summer. I wonder if my brain is trying to tell me something. 

Social networking traffic up in NY

In keeping with the theme that social networking traffic is being added by our current downtown, I call your attention to an article in Crain's NY Business. 

The article 'Jobless and lovelorn rush to network' mentioned that the professional site LinkedIn reported an 11% increase in NY area traffic, no doubt coinciding with the bloodletting that is taking place in the city's core industries.

Illegibility and empathy

The Futures Company – the rebranding of the combined Henley Center, Yankolovitch and Headlight Vision – has a email newsletter they publish throughout the year. The last issue of last year was titled 'Managing in a downturn.' In it, Will Galgey discussed a few key issues for brands to watch. One of them ties into a topic I blogged about a few weeks ago – empathy.

His point is that in a downturn, brands need to be outspoken in taking the consumer's side and be empathetic to their trials and tribulations. This means making their customer's priorities the brand's priority. If people are spending wisely, talk about how your product supports that. 

Of course, this effort extends past the marketing message. Many packaged goods companies have been caught with their finger on the scale, discretely increasing prices by packaging less for the same amount. Consumerist.com calls it the 'Shrink Ray' and has a long and growing archive of offenders. To me, this is a perfect example of brands acting in an illegible fashion; the brand's actions work against the customer in an opaque way. While I understand the motivation for these packaging machinations, actions like these can really weaken long-term trust in the brand.

Palm Pre and the Instinctive Web

One of the tech blogs that I follow is jkontherun.com run by James Kendrick. It's a great blog because although he's a gadget freak, he's also a pragmatic user first and foremost. The insights on using the device in his day to day personal and professional life is unique among the popular tech blogs. 

One of last week's article stood out. I know I've gone on record to say that Palm's impact on the market will be an upward climb in light of the iPhone. I may need to revise this stance as more about the Palm comes to life. JK's stance is the Pre will deliver the 'Instinctive Web' [blog post] in a way never seen before and more along the lines of 'Minority Report.' 

The Instinctive Web knows where you are and senses (or learns) what needs to happen before it takes place. One great example JK uses is if you are going to a meeting at 4pm, the Pre senses it is on your calendar and gathers all the relevant information automatically – wiki profiles, sales data, relevant contracts, etc. If you are late for a meeting, your phone's GPS estimates how far away you are, projects your ETA, and alerts the party you are meeting. 

How Palm is able to do this I am not sure but I imagine the rules behind it are relatively simple. If they are able to pull it off, it will revolutionize task management/GTD. 

I also wonder how Apple will answer this. One obstacle is Steve Jobs is a privacy freak. He added 'Private Browsing' to Safari early in the browser's history, putting a mainstream face on something that people added on after the fact. In the introduction to the iPhone 3G, he made sure to not that GPS is off unless switched on by users and it is done on a case-by-case basis. I actually appreciate not being tracked every minute, at least by GPS. 

Would I be willing to accept surveillance if the benefit is productivity nirvana? I imagine I will but I'm not entirely happy about it. 

Murphy bathroom

I like the idea for this bathroom. This design concept by Michael Trudgeon won the Bathroom Innovation Award 08. The housing masks an integrated water recycling and purifying unit. 

Green and gorgeous. This would be perfect for that Hong Kong apartment I wrote about last week.