Bianca Bosker's Blog, page 12
June 12, 2013
Facebook Introduces Hashtags, Moving Away From Friends
Facebook announced Wednesday that it will introduce clickable hashtags to the site, a move that on the surface seems like a trivial update that will bring a standard social media feature to the world's most popular social networking site. After all, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and Google+ all already have hashtags, which function as tags people can click to see all posts that include a specific term.
But Facebook is a different beast, and adding hashtags to Facebook marks yet another move away from connecting people with others they know, and toward uniting users with the public at large.
In a subtle but important way, the architecture of Facebook is changing to make it easier for strangers to find your stuff -- which in turn, could change what you share.
This, however, wasn't the initial spirit of the site. When it debuted, Facebook sought to be an online extension of offline friendships, and required a bilateral agreement between two users before it allowed them to connect with one another. Users couldn't just "follow" people they liked, as they can on sites like Instagram. They had to "friend" them. People knew who could see what they were sharing, and posted accordingly. The mandate that people use real names only increased the sense that people were socializing in the online equivalent of a college campus -- a place filled with friends and friends-of-friends -- not wandering through crowds and bumping up against tourists at a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
As Buzzfeed's John Herrman notes, "Public posts with searchable hashtags are truly public and discoverable; they give your posts a larger but less familiar audience, and give you the unmistakable feeling that you’re no longer just talking to friends, but subject to the crushing scrutiny of the entire internet."
In a blog post unveiling the new feature, Facebook heralded the dawn of a new age of "public conversations" on Facebook, noting that the new tool would allow users to search for hashtags via the search bar; view posts with hashtags that originated on Facebook, as well as other services; and click on hashtags in status updates to see other posts with that tag.
"Hashtags are just the first step to help people more easily discover what others are saying about a specific topic and participate in public conversations," wrote Facebook's Greg Lindley. "We'll continue to roll out more features in the coming weeks and months, including trending hashtags and deeper insights, that help people discover more of the world's conversations."
Making it possible for anyone to converse with everyone underscores Facebook's ongoing push to be the social network for everything.
It wants to be the primary place for checking up on friends -- in keeping with its founding ethos. But it also wants steal Twitter's spotlight as the go-to destination for breaking news (On Twitter, hashtags have long been used to keep tabs on evolving news stories, like #ArabSpring or #NSA, in real-time). And those "public conversations" Facebook wants to foster suggest Mark Zuckerberg hopes his service will evolve to encompass both a social network and an interest network -- a Pinterest- or Tumblr-like place where people who don't know each other find each other over a shared interest in knitting, comics, brownies or any number of hobbies. At the same time, a tool that more quickly directs people to a destination where they follow chatter on a set topic they're interested in, be it the #Superbowl, #AmericanIdol or #XFactor, offers up yet another place for Facebook to place its ads.
A 15 year-old girl interviewed last year succinctly described what Facebook lacks, and what it's counting on hashtags to help address: "Facebook is good for staying in touch with people who you know in real life," she noted. "Tumblr is better for fiding people who share your interests." Facebook's hashtags, by making it easier for people to see what others are saying about a topic that's of interest to them, could bring together like-minded people who may never have known they'd like each other.
But can one social network really be all of the above -- a breaking news site, a social network and an interest network? It seems like the online equivalent of expecting a Michelin-star restaurant to be a shooting range, concert venue, strip club and nail salon, all in one. Is Facebook turning itself into a cruise ship? It appears more and more determined to be a one-stop socialize destination, with something for everyone and anything.
Ultimately, Facebook's latest feature risks not only watering down its value proposition and introducing an identity crisis, but also highlighting for its users just how messy the site has become. Facebook has struggled lately with spammers, fake accounts and offensive sub-communities, like those making light of rape. Though Facebook will undoubtedly work to weed out spam from its hashtag feed, its clickable hashtags could also more easily surface the wealth of strange and scammy status updates plaguing the social network.
By embracing public conversations, Facebook could evolve into another destination for rich dialog and breaking news. Or it could rain on its own already-messy parade.
But Facebook is a different beast, and adding hashtags to Facebook marks yet another move away from connecting people with others they know, and toward uniting users with the public at large.
In a subtle but important way, the architecture of Facebook is changing to make it easier for strangers to find your stuff -- which in turn, could change what you share.
This, however, wasn't the initial spirit of the site. When it debuted, Facebook sought to be an online extension of offline friendships, and required a bilateral agreement between two users before it allowed them to connect with one another. Users couldn't just "follow" people they liked, as they can on sites like Instagram. They had to "friend" them. People knew who could see what they were sharing, and posted accordingly. The mandate that people use real names only increased the sense that people were socializing in the online equivalent of a college campus -- a place filled with friends and friends-of-friends -- not wandering through crowds and bumping up against tourists at a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
As Buzzfeed's John Herrman notes, "Public posts with searchable hashtags are truly public and discoverable; they give your posts a larger but less familiar audience, and give you the unmistakable feeling that you’re no longer just talking to friends, but subject to the crushing scrutiny of the entire internet."
In a blog post unveiling the new feature, Facebook heralded the dawn of a new age of "public conversations" on Facebook, noting that the new tool would allow users to search for hashtags via the search bar; view posts with hashtags that originated on Facebook, as well as other services; and click on hashtags in status updates to see other posts with that tag.
"Hashtags are just the first step to help people more easily discover what others are saying about a specific topic and participate in public conversations," wrote Facebook's Greg Lindley. "We'll continue to roll out more features in the coming weeks and months, including trending hashtags and deeper insights, that help people discover more of the world's conversations."
Making it possible for anyone to converse with everyone underscores Facebook's ongoing push to be the social network for everything.
It wants to be the primary place for checking up on friends -- in keeping with its founding ethos. But it also wants steal Twitter's spotlight as the go-to destination for breaking news (On Twitter, hashtags have long been used to keep tabs on evolving news stories, like #ArabSpring or #NSA, in real-time). And those "public conversations" Facebook wants to foster suggest Mark Zuckerberg hopes his service will evolve to encompass both a social network and an interest network -- a Pinterest- or Tumblr-like place where people who don't know each other find each other over a shared interest in knitting, comics, brownies or any number of hobbies. At the same time, a tool that more quickly directs people to a destination where they follow chatter on a set topic they're interested in, be it the #Superbowl, #AmericanIdol or #XFactor, offers up yet another place for Facebook to place its ads.
A 15 year-old girl interviewed last year succinctly described what Facebook lacks, and what it's counting on hashtags to help address: "Facebook is good for staying in touch with people who you know in real life," she noted. "Tumblr is better for fiding people who share your interests." Facebook's hashtags, by making it easier for people to see what others are saying about a topic that's of interest to them, could bring together like-minded people who may never have known they'd like each other.
But can one social network really be all of the above -- a breaking news site, a social network and an interest network? It seems like the online equivalent of expecting a Michelin-star restaurant to be a shooting range, concert venue, strip club and nail salon, all in one. Is Facebook turning itself into a cruise ship? It appears more and more determined to be a one-stop socialize destination, with something for everyone and anything.
Ultimately, Facebook's latest feature risks not only watering down its value proposition and introducing an identity crisis, but also highlighting for its users just how messy the site has become. Facebook has struggled lately with spammers, fake accounts and offensive sub-communities, like those making light of rape. Though Facebook will undoubtedly work to weed out spam from its hashtag feed, its clickable hashtags could also more easily surface the wealth of strange and scammy status updates plaguing the social network.
By embracing public conversations, Facebook could evolve into another destination for rich dialog and breaking news. Or it could rain on its own already-messy parade.
June 11, 2013
Why Siri's Voice Is Now A Man (And A Woman)
Apple this week unveiled a new side to its much-maligned Siri that may make "her" appear more capable: The sassy personal assistant will soon be able to talk like a man.
According to Stanford University professor Clifford Nass, who studies people's interaction with technology, research has shown people apply gender biases even to digital voices, and iPhone owners in the U.S. might be more inclined to overlook a male Siri's shortcomings than a female's. Starting this fall, iPhone and iPad users who speak English, French or German will be able to choose whether Siri answers in a woman’s voice or a man’s, Apple announced at its annual developer's conference on Monday.
“Female voices are seen, on average, as less intelligent than male voices,” noted Nass, author of The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships. “It’s safer in a sense to have a male voice in the sense that you’re not going to disappoint people as much.”
While Siri's new male persona may make the assistant seem more reliable, the shift more likely marks an effort by Apple to help users personalize their virtual personal assistants, helping iPhone owners forge a closer connection with their devices, said experts in human-machine interaction. Like customizing a phone ringtone or using a family portrait as a computer desktop photo, choosing between a male and female Siri will give Apple users one more way to make their devices uniquely theirs.
“The option is important because your phone has been so beautifully designed, and you want some flexibility to make it feel like your own,” said Blade Kotelly a lecturer on design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and chief executive officer of StorytellingMachines. “You do create a deep relationship with the things that you talk to, and a lot of them want to have a different kind of quality.”
The male voice Apple will use for the U.S. version of Siri may sound familiar. It relies on the same voice actor who greets callers on the United Airlines help line and the Apple Support hotline, among other call centers, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokeswoman for Nuance, which powers Siri’s speech recognition technology, declined to comment, noting that Apple "licenses Nuance’s technology for use in some of its products."
The idea of developing multiple personalities for Siri stems back years to the startup that created the first version of the assistant, which was later acquired by Apple. Siri’s original creators envisioned a suite of different Siri characters, and planned to integrate technology that would allow the assistant to mimic its user’s manner of speaking.
Yet the new, customizable Siri isn’t without its risks, said experts, who noted that giving iPhone owners more control over the assistant could erode some of the “magic” of the technology and may alienate users if Apple fails to give the male voice its own set of masculine phrases.
Men and women not only sound different when they speak, but typically employ different terms and words, Nass noted. For example, men are more likely to use definite articles, such as “two” or “five,” while women are more likely to use general terms, such as “some” or “a few.” An artificial voice that sounds male, but uses female-sounding phrases, won’t seem reliable to the human speaking to it.
“If Apple uses the exact same comments for a male and female voice, they’ll undermine trust in the interface,” said Nass. “You can’t just slap a voice on. “
Apple did not respond to a query seeking confirmation that Siri’s English-speaking male voice would have its own suite of answers. Without it, said Nass, “they’re making a big mistake.”
Rolling out an adjustable Siri, which has become a pop-culture icon in its own right, may dilute the assistant's personality in the eyes of Apple users. Garmin’s GPS systems can speak to drivers in more than a dozen different voices, from Darth Vader to the Cookie Monster, a feature that makes the gadget more personalized, but may also make it seem more generic.
Siri in turn may come to be viewed “more like a technology than a personality,” said Leila Takayama, a research scientist and manager specializing in human-machine interaction at Willow Garage, a personal robotics firm. “Before it was just this magic female being inside our phone and now that you can mess with it, it becomes more of a tool.”
In some countries, including France and the U.K., Siri debuted with a male voice. The dominant gender stereotypes in different nations helped determine whether Siri was endowed with a male or female voice, experts surmised. In the U.S., researchers have found users more accustomed to feminine avatars. Virtual personas with female voices can be seen as less knowledgeable than their male counterparts, but female voices are preferred in avatars that serve in a helper or assistant role, said Nass.
In other roles -- and other countries -- female voices may not fly at all. In The Man Who Lied to His Laptop , Nass documents how BMW was forced to recall one of its cars because male drivers in Germany didn’t trust the female voice offering directions from the car’s navigation system. In Japan, a call center operated by Fidelity would rely on an automated female voice to give stock quotes, but would transfer customers to an automated male voice for transactions, Nass explained.
Researchers speculated that changing Siri’s gender could actually alter how people use the device. Though it’s doubtful anyone outside of Apple will see the data, Takayama noted she’d be keen to examine whether people would be more or less direct when speaking to a male voice rather than a female voice, whether Siri's gender would change the nature of people’s queries and which Siri voice keep us engaged longer. Which Siri we trust more -- male or female -- may ultimately depend on what we ask, Takayama added.
"If you're looking for an action movie, you might more easily persuade a user if it's a male voice because it's a stereotypically male category of movies," said Takayama. "If you're looking at recipes, that might seem more credible from a female voice."
According to Stanford University professor Clifford Nass, who studies people's interaction with technology, research has shown people apply gender biases even to digital voices, and iPhone owners in the U.S. might be more inclined to overlook a male Siri's shortcomings than a female's. Starting this fall, iPhone and iPad users who speak English, French or German will be able to choose whether Siri answers in a woman’s voice or a man’s, Apple announced at its annual developer's conference on Monday.
“Female voices are seen, on average, as less intelligent than male voices,” noted Nass, author of The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships. “It’s safer in a sense to have a male voice in the sense that you’re not going to disappoint people as much.”
While Siri's new male persona may make the assistant seem more reliable, the shift more likely marks an effort by Apple to help users personalize their virtual personal assistants, helping iPhone owners forge a closer connection with their devices, said experts in human-machine interaction. Like customizing a phone ringtone or using a family portrait as a computer desktop photo, choosing between a male and female Siri will give Apple users one more way to make their devices uniquely theirs.
“The option is important because your phone has been so beautifully designed, and you want some flexibility to make it feel like your own,” said Blade Kotelly a lecturer on design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and chief executive officer of StorytellingMachines. “You do create a deep relationship with the things that you talk to, and a lot of them want to have a different kind of quality.”
The male voice Apple will use for the U.S. version of Siri may sound familiar. It relies on the same voice actor who greets callers on the United Airlines help line and the Apple Support hotline, among other call centers, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokeswoman for Nuance, which powers Siri’s speech recognition technology, declined to comment, noting that Apple "licenses Nuance’s technology for use in some of its products."
The idea of developing multiple personalities for Siri stems back years to the startup that created the first version of the assistant, which was later acquired by Apple. Siri’s original creators envisioned a suite of different Siri characters, and planned to integrate technology that would allow the assistant to mimic its user’s manner of speaking.
Yet the new, customizable Siri isn’t without its risks, said experts, who noted that giving iPhone owners more control over the assistant could erode some of the “magic” of the technology and may alienate users if Apple fails to give the male voice its own set of masculine phrases.
Men and women not only sound different when they speak, but typically employ different terms and words, Nass noted. For example, men are more likely to use definite articles, such as “two” or “five,” while women are more likely to use general terms, such as “some” or “a few.” An artificial voice that sounds male, but uses female-sounding phrases, won’t seem reliable to the human speaking to it.
“If Apple uses the exact same comments for a male and female voice, they’ll undermine trust in the interface,” said Nass. “You can’t just slap a voice on. “
Apple did not respond to a query seeking confirmation that Siri’s English-speaking male voice would have its own suite of answers. Without it, said Nass, “they’re making a big mistake.”
Rolling out an adjustable Siri, which has become a pop-culture icon in its own right, may dilute the assistant's personality in the eyes of Apple users. Garmin’s GPS systems can speak to drivers in more than a dozen different voices, from Darth Vader to the Cookie Monster, a feature that makes the gadget more personalized, but may also make it seem more generic.
Siri in turn may come to be viewed “more like a technology than a personality,” said Leila Takayama, a research scientist and manager specializing in human-machine interaction at Willow Garage, a personal robotics firm. “Before it was just this magic female being inside our phone and now that you can mess with it, it becomes more of a tool.”
In some countries, including France and the U.K., Siri debuted with a male voice. The dominant gender stereotypes in different nations helped determine whether Siri was endowed with a male or female voice, experts surmised. In the U.S., researchers have found users more accustomed to feminine avatars. Virtual personas with female voices can be seen as less knowledgeable than their male counterparts, but female voices are preferred in avatars that serve in a helper or assistant role, said Nass.
In other roles -- and other countries -- female voices may not fly at all. In The Man Who Lied to His Laptop , Nass documents how BMW was forced to recall one of its cars because male drivers in Germany didn’t trust the female voice offering directions from the car’s navigation system. In Japan, a call center operated by Fidelity would rely on an automated female voice to give stock quotes, but would transfer customers to an automated male voice for transactions, Nass explained.
Researchers speculated that changing Siri’s gender could actually alter how people use the device. Though it’s doubtful anyone outside of Apple will see the data, Takayama noted she’d be keen to examine whether people would be more or less direct when speaking to a male voice rather than a female voice, whether Siri's gender would change the nature of people’s queries and which Siri voice keep us engaged longer. Which Siri we trust more -- male or female -- may ultimately depend on what we ask, Takayama added.
"If you're looking for an action movie, you might more easily persuade a user if it's a male voice because it's a stereotypically male category of movies," said Takayama. "If you're looking at recipes, that might seem more credible from a female voice."
June 10, 2013
Apple's New iOS 7 Features Fresh Colors -- And Much, Much Less (PHOTOS)
At Apple's annual developer conference in San Francisco on Monday, the company unveiled a revamped look for its iOS software, earning standing ovation -- and one "I love you" -- from the several thousand developers in attendance.
The latest version of Apple's iOS software, which powers its iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, marks a move away from Apple's trademark skeumorphic design, which relies on digital illustrations of real-world objects, and toward a "flat" design aesthetic that's recently become en vogue among tech companies.
"It's like getting an entirely new phone, but one you know how to use," said Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi. Apple CEO Tim Cook dubbed it the "biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone."
Apple's iOS 7 boasts a brighter color scheme; simplified icons; a "cleaner" design for some of Apple's tools, such as iMessage and Calendar; and several new ways of controlling the device. For example, users can swipe from the left edge of the screen to navigate back to a previous page, rather than tapping a back button, or control basic phone settings from the phone's Control Center. The phone's screen will also tilt in the direction it's being held, allowing users a glimpse behind the icons.
What's most noticeable about iOS 7 is what isn't there: gone are the extra shadows and lines on apps like Weather, iTunes and Notes. The existing icon for the Camera app has been swapped for a simple illustration of a camera. The shadows on the text bubbles in iMessage have been traded for a flat blue-and-gray look, and the iPhone's phone buttons have gone from contrasting colors of gray to an almost entirely white screen.
"We completely ran out of green felt and wood, as well," joked Federighi as he demonstrated Apple's new Game Center, which previously looked inspired by the leather and green of a pool table. "This has got to be good for the environment."
In addition to highlighting a fresh suite of features, such as photo filters, that will set iOS 7 apart from its predecessor, Federighi highlighted how the "clean" update would allow applications to occupy greater real estate on the screen, and how applications such as iMessage, Mail and Contacts had traded their grayscale design for a whiter appearance, one that bears some resemblance to Google's own revamped suite of applications.
He also noted that iOS 7 would be translucent in places to give users "a sense of your context," so that they could see bits of their phone's background through the keyboard when composing emails or checking their notifications.
Apple's iOS 7 demonstration opened with a video -- one of several shown during the two-hour keynote -- that panned slowly over an Apple laptop while Apple design chief Jonathan Ive offered an overview of Apple's design aesthetic.
"We've always thought of design as being more than how something looks. It’s the whole thing. The way something works on so many diferent levels," Ive said. "I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity."
Compare iOS 6 with iOS 7 below:
The latest version of Apple's iOS software, which powers its iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, marks a move away from Apple's trademark skeumorphic design, which relies on digital illustrations of real-world objects, and toward a "flat" design aesthetic that's recently become en vogue among tech companies.
"It's like getting an entirely new phone, but one you know how to use," said Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi. Apple CEO Tim Cook dubbed it the "biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone."
Apple's iOS 7 boasts a brighter color scheme; simplified icons; a "cleaner" design for some of Apple's tools, such as iMessage and Calendar; and several new ways of controlling the device. For example, users can swipe from the left edge of the screen to navigate back to a previous page, rather than tapping a back button, or control basic phone settings from the phone's Control Center. The phone's screen will also tilt in the direction it's being held, allowing users a glimpse behind the icons.
What's most noticeable about iOS 7 is what isn't there: gone are the extra shadows and lines on apps like Weather, iTunes and Notes. The existing icon for the Camera app has been swapped for a simple illustration of a camera. The shadows on the text bubbles in iMessage have been traded for a flat blue-and-gray look, and the iPhone's phone buttons have gone from contrasting colors of gray to an almost entirely white screen.
"We completely ran out of green felt and wood, as well," joked Federighi as he demonstrated Apple's new Game Center, which previously looked inspired by the leather and green of a pool table. "This has got to be good for the environment."
In addition to highlighting a fresh suite of features, such as photo filters, that will set iOS 7 apart from its predecessor, Federighi highlighted how the "clean" update would allow applications to occupy greater real estate on the screen, and how applications such as iMessage, Mail and Contacts had traded their grayscale design for a whiter appearance, one that bears some resemblance to Google's own revamped suite of applications.
He also noted that iOS 7 would be translucent in places to give users "a sense of your context," so that they could see bits of their phone's background through the keyboard when composing emails or checking their notifications.
Apple's iOS 7 demonstration opened with a video -- one of several shown during the two-hour keynote -- that panned slowly over an Apple laptop while Apple design chief Jonathan Ive offered an overview of Apple's design aesthetic.
"We've always thought of design as being more than how something looks. It’s the whole thing. The way something works on so many diferent levels," Ive said. "I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity."
Compare iOS 6 with iOS 7 below:
June 7, 2013
Internet Shrugs Off NSA Data Mining: People 'Numb To The Fact That They're Being Watched'
Judging from talk on social networking sites, few people are terribly surprised -- or too upset -- to discover that the government may have been reading their email.
Reports in The Guardian and The Washington Post that the National Security Agency and FBI tapped into Internet and telephone data may seem like an appalling affront to privacy. At the same time, people have understood for years that Google scans their email to deliver hotel promotions ahead of a vacation they’re set to take, or that Facebook monitors their activity so it can advertise rings to a 20-something planning to propose. News that yet another large organization has been tracking their online activity -- though it’s a government agency, not a private company –- has been greeted with a shrug by many of the very users whose personal data the U.S. has been secretly gathering.
“I think people have become numb to the fact that they’re being watched,” said Alan Webber, an analyst with the Altimeter Group, a research firm.
Webber added he doesn’t expect disclosure of the government’s data-mining efforts will spur users to demand changes in the way companies handle the personal information they collect.
“I don’t think there will be any sort of outcry that would push things in a different direction,” Webber said.” I know I’m sounding fatalistic, but you’re on Facebook, you’re on Twitter, you’re on LinkedIn, and we’ve become numb to giving up our personal information. It’s not that big of a deal anymore.”
When Instagram changed its terms of service to allow the company to feature people’s photos in its ads, irate users erupted in protest online, declaring they planned to boycott Instagram or delete the app outright, while encouraging others to do the same.
“Fire is catching..and if we burn you’ll burn with us,” read a typical Instagram user's reaction.
The nine companies named as participants in the NSA surveillance program, dubbed PRISM by the government agency, have so far escaped that level of outrage. (Some of those firms, including Huffington Post owner AOL, have denied aspects of The Washington Post report that said they provided the government agency direct access to their servers. Other companies named in the report said they had no knowledge of the PRISM program.)
In the 24 hours following The Washington Post story, only about 20 tweets had been posted calling for a boycott of Google over its cooperation with the NSA. There were even fewer tweets from users encouraging others to boycott Facebook -- and many were duplicates of the posts calling for a Google exodus.
On Facebook, there was barely a murmur. Though the companies may be censoring the posts that appear on their pages, Facebook profiles belonging to Microsoft, Facebook and Google together had only a handful of comments about the PRISM affair.
“It doesn't worry me. If you have nothing to hide why care?” wrote Facebook user user Diana Notaro in a comment on a Facebook status update posted by Think Progress, an advocacy blog. “I am in the phone book with my address. I belong to organizations who have my name. I am on Facebook. Everyone we do business with knows our credit reputation. Neighbors know us. The church knows us. Why is everyone so worried? The only thing I would not want to share with everyone is my medical information, but even that is no big deal.”
Others cracked jokes about being watched by the NSA.
"PRISM: Your Gmail, Google, Facebook, Skype data all in one place. The NSA just beat out like 30 startups to this idea," tweeted Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box.
Those troubled by the NSA data mining took issue not with the tech companies -- seen as having been forced to comply with a court order -- but instead largely blamed the Obama administration and the NSA.
“The outrage, by and large, has been directed to the Obama administration and NSA, which is right at first glance,” noted Justin Brookman, the Center for Democracy and Technology's Consumer Privacy Project director. “It’s really hard to say how culpable they [the companies] are. You got what appeared to be a legally and binding court order to do this and not talk about it.”
People worried about the NSA’s data mining can look to the past for numerous examples of times when governments, including the U.S., have used data to oppress populations.
As Webber noted, during World War II, the U.S. Census Bureau handed over census data detailing the names and addresses of Japanese Americans, which was in turn used to identify and imprison Japanese American citizens in government-run internment camps.
Unlike updating the layout of a site, adding advertising to an app or revamping personal privacy settings on a social network, changes that have all sparked massive user outcry, the NSA news “really doesn’t change [the user] experience,” said Webber. The threat to freedom and privacy posed by the NSA appears more abstract than the threat from Instagram changing its terms of service changes, or, say, Facebook redesigning its News Feed, resulting in a more muted reaction from users online. In addition, government officials, including President Barack Obama, have said that the data gathered from Web companies focuses on citizens overseas.
“People don’t fear this unless they understand the long-term implications of this and how the data can be used,” said Webber. “This is one of those things where our freedoms are slowly and methodically being eroded.”
Reports in The Guardian and The Washington Post that the National Security Agency and FBI tapped into Internet and telephone data may seem like an appalling affront to privacy. At the same time, people have understood for years that Google scans their email to deliver hotel promotions ahead of a vacation they’re set to take, or that Facebook monitors their activity so it can advertise rings to a 20-something planning to propose. News that yet another large organization has been tracking their online activity -- though it’s a government agency, not a private company –- has been greeted with a shrug by many of the very users whose personal data the U.S. has been secretly gathering.
“I think people have become numb to the fact that they’re being watched,” said Alan Webber, an analyst with the Altimeter Group, a research firm.
Webber added he doesn’t expect disclosure of the government’s data-mining efforts will spur users to demand changes in the way companies handle the personal information they collect.
“I don’t think there will be any sort of outcry that would push things in a different direction,” Webber said.” I know I’m sounding fatalistic, but you’re on Facebook, you’re on Twitter, you’re on LinkedIn, and we’ve become numb to giving up our personal information. It’s not that big of a deal anymore.”
When Instagram changed its terms of service to allow the company to feature people’s photos in its ads, irate users erupted in protest online, declaring they planned to boycott Instagram or delete the app outright, while encouraging others to do the same.
“Fire is catching..and if we burn you’ll burn with us,” read a typical Instagram user's reaction.
The nine companies named as participants in the NSA surveillance program, dubbed PRISM by the government agency, have so far escaped that level of outrage. (Some of those firms, including Huffington Post owner AOL, have denied aspects of The Washington Post report that said they provided the government agency direct access to their servers. Other companies named in the report said they had no knowledge of the PRISM program.)
In the 24 hours following The Washington Post story, only about 20 tweets had been posted calling for a boycott of Google over its cooperation with the NSA. There were even fewer tweets from users encouraging others to boycott Facebook -- and many were duplicates of the posts calling for a Google exodus.
On Facebook, there was barely a murmur. Though the companies may be censoring the posts that appear on their pages, Facebook profiles belonging to Microsoft, Facebook and Google together had only a handful of comments about the PRISM affair.
“It doesn't worry me. If you have nothing to hide why care?” wrote Facebook user user Diana Notaro in a comment on a Facebook status update posted by Think Progress, an advocacy blog. “I am in the phone book with my address. I belong to organizations who have my name. I am on Facebook. Everyone we do business with knows our credit reputation. Neighbors know us. The church knows us. Why is everyone so worried? The only thing I would not want to share with everyone is my medical information, but even that is no big deal.”
Others cracked jokes about being watched by the NSA.
"PRISM: Your Gmail, Google, Facebook, Skype data all in one place. The NSA just beat out like 30 startups to this idea," tweeted Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box.
Those troubled by the NSA data mining took issue not with the tech companies -- seen as having been forced to comply with a court order -- but instead largely blamed the Obama administration and the NSA.
“The outrage, by and large, has been directed to the Obama administration and NSA, which is right at first glance,” noted Justin Brookman, the Center for Democracy and Technology's Consumer Privacy Project director. “It’s really hard to say how culpable they [the companies] are. You got what appeared to be a legally and binding court order to do this and not talk about it.”
People worried about the NSA’s data mining can look to the past for numerous examples of times when governments, including the U.S., have used data to oppress populations.
As Webber noted, during World War II, the U.S. Census Bureau handed over census data detailing the names and addresses of Japanese Americans, which was in turn used to identify and imprison Japanese American citizens in government-run internment camps.
Unlike updating the layout of a site, adding advertising to an app or revamping personal privacy settings on a social network, changes that have all sparked massive user outcry, the NSA news “really doesn’t change [the user] experience,” said Webber. The threat to freedom and privacy posed by the NSA appears more abstract than the threat from Instagram changing its terms of service changes, or, say, Facebook redesigning its News Feed, resulting in a more muted reaction from users online. In addition, government officials, including President Barack Obama, have said that the data gathered from Web companies focuses on citizens overseas.
“People don’t fear this unless they understand the long-term implications of this and how the data can be used,” said Webber. “This is one of those things where our freedoms are slowly and methodically being eroded.”
June 6, 2013
Why Even Cisco's CTO Takes A Digital Detox
As chief technology officer of Cisco, Padmasree Warrior oversees more than 20,000 people, is charged with developing new technology and is on the hook for two-thirds of the company’s $46 billion in annual revenue.
Yet even Warrior finds time to put down her smartphone and ignore the Internet for a full day each week.
At Arianna Huffington and Mika Brzezinski's Third Metric conference in New York City Thursday, Warrior explained that two years ago, a nonstop work schedule prompted her to “pull back” and make a drastic change in her routine. Instead of working seven days a week, as she had been, she decided to set aside every Saturday for a “digital detox.” That means no email, no voicemail, and plenty of time dedicated to painting and writing haiku.
“Two years ago I found I was working all the time -- entire Saturdays and Sundays -- to the point where I wasn’t being creative and I felt like I was not making the right decisions,” Warrior explained. “I was trying to keep up with the pace, and I was so focused on the quantity of what I was doing rather than really making quality decisions.”
Now, for 24 hours every weekend, Warrior says she “stay[s] away from technology almost completely.”
“I’ve taken Saturdays to be the day I pull back completely,” said Warrior. “I do things that are more creative and I’ve actually found that helps me when I get back into work to be more thoughtful, and I truly believe that feeding your creative soul is really important to being more analytical.”
Warrior also noted that she takes at least 20 minutes each day to meditate, even while traveling, and requires that every member of her team takes his or her allotted vacation for the year.
Warrior's fellow panelists, who included Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, Sen. Claire McCaskill, Vice President of Google[X] Megan Smith, The Energy Project CEO Tony Schwartz and Co-Founder of the Penny George Institute of Health and Healing Penny George, echoed Warrior’s sentiments about the merits of helping employees make time to take breaks from their work, arguing that doing so helps them to be more successful.
"If you can bust up and find those moments that are so memorable, that’s my form of self-renewal," said McCaskill, who said she and her college-age daughter woke up early Thursday morning to watch "Sex and the City" reruns while eating breakfast in bed.
"We will never forget that," said McCaskill. "I had my renewal moment at the crack of dawn this morning watching Carrie and her shoes."
Yet even Warrior finds time to put down her smartphone and ignore the Internet for a full day each week.
At Arianna Huffington and Mika Brzezinski's Third Metric conference in New York City Thursday, Warrior explained that two years ago, a nonstop work schedule prompted her to “pull back” and make a drastic change in her routine. Instead of working seven days a week, as she had been, she decided to set aside every Saturday for a “digital detox.” That means no email, no voicemail, and plenty of time dedicated to painting and writing haiku.
“Two years ago I found I was working all the time -- entire Saturdays and Sundays -- to the point where I wasn’t being creative and I felt like I was not making the right decisions,” Warrior explained. “I was trying to keep up with the pace, and I was so focused on the quantity of what I was doing rather than really making quality decisions.”
Now, for 24 hours every weekend, Warrior says she “stay[s] away from technology almost completely.”
“I’ve taken Saturdays to be the day I pull back completely,” said Warrior. “I do things that are more creative and I’ve actually found that helps me when I get back into work to be more thoughtful, and I truly believe that feeding your creative soul is really important to being more analytical.”
Warrior also noted that she takes at least 20 minutes each day to meditate, even while traveling, and requires that every member of her team takes his or her allotted vacation for the year.
Warrior's fellow panelists, who included Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, Sen. Claire McCaskill, Vice President of Google[X] Megan Smith, The Energy Project CEO Tony Schwartz and Co-Founder of the Penny George Institute of Health and Healing Penny George, echoed Warrior’s sentiments about the merits of helping employees make time to take breaks from their work, arguing that doing so helps them to be more successful.
"If you can bust up and find those moments that are so memorable, that’s my form of self-renewal," said McCaskill, who said she and her college-age daughter woke up early Thursday morning to watch "Sex and the City" reruns while eating breakfast in bed.
"We will never forget that," said McCaskill. "I had my renewal moment at the crack of dawn this morning watching Carrie and her shoes."
June 5, 2013
The Top Reasons People Don't Want Google Glass
Google Glass hasn’t even launched publicly, and already it’s been proclaimed the new Segway: a costly, crazy-looking device that’s too weird to be revolutionary.
It turns out that comparison isn’t so unfair, according to a survey of 2,000 Americans commissioned by Rackspace and the University of London’s Goldsmiths’ College. The research, which investigated attitudes toward Glass and other wearable computing devices, found that people who don’t want Glass are indeed turned off by its price and see little use for the device, though they aren’t as concerned about its “freakish” appearance as pundits have predicted they’d be. (The survey also polled 2,000 U.K. residents.)
Forty percent of the U.S. residents surveyed said they wouldn’t buy Glass when goes on sale, while another 38 percent said they were undecided.
When asked to name their reasons for not wanting Glass, the top three explanations offered were: the cost of Glass (37 percent thought it would “probably be too expensive"); their general lack of interest in using wearable technology of any kind (37 percent); and the perceived uselessness of Glass (31 percent said they “wouldn't know how to use it or what to use it for”).
Glass’ privacy issues were also a turnoff for potential Glass buyers, though they were more concerned with their own personal information than with spying on strangers. A quarter of anti-Glass respondents said they worried about sharing their own personal information with Google and other third parties. By contrast, just 16 percent said they disliked Glass because they’d be concerned about “infringing other people’s privacy with the camera function.”
When asked about objections to wearable computing more generally -- rather than Glass specifically –- a greater number of U.S. respondents cited privacy fears: 53 percent worried about sharing their personal information, 45 percent worried about the security of their information and 45 percent deemed the technology too “Big Brother” to be desirable.
Forbes’ Karsten Strauss recently dubbed Glass a “fashion failure,” yet only around a fifth of Glass-versaries (18 percent) said they had concerns about how they’d look wearing the device. Sixteen percent disliked Glass’ design, and 13 percent said they’d wait to buy it until it was more mainstream.
Although the majority of respondents weren't convinced they'd buy Glass when it became available, by and large they weren't allergic to the idea of wearing -- or even being watched by -- Glass. According to the survey, people's objections to Glass have largely to do with cost and utility, two issues Google should be able to address through better marketing and less expensive manufacturing processes. In short, Glass could still avoid a Segway-like fate. Whether Google can move quickly and nimbly enough to address those concerns is another matter, however.
People were also asked about their attitudes toward wearable cameras, more broadly. It turns out these gadgets, such as Glass and Memoto, may have a small, but avid group of champions: Eight percent of all U.S. respondents said they were ready to accept wearable cameras in any and all situations.
Nearly one in five took the opposite stance: Seventeen percent of the Americans surveyed called for wearable cameras, like Glass, to be banned outright.
Google has responded to privacy concerns by noting that "social cues" and "social contracts" will keep bad Glass behavior at bay, and a quarter of the people surveyed actually agreed that use of the technology should be controlled by social etiquette.
It turns out that comparison isn’t so unfair, according to a survey of 2,000 Americans commissioned by Rackspace and the University of London’s Goldsmiths’ College. The research, which investigated attitudes toward Glass and other wearable computing devices, found that people who don’t want Glass are indeed turned off by its price and see little use for the device, though they aren’t as concerned about its “freakish” appearance as pundits have predicted they’d be. (The survey also polled 2,000 U.K. residents.)
Forty percent of the U.S. residents surveyed said they wouldn’t buy Glass when goes on sale, while another 38 percent said they were undecided.
When asked to name their reasons for not wanting Glass, the top three explanations offered were: the cost of Glass (37 percent thought it would “probably be too expensive"); their general lack of interest in using wearable technology of any kind (37 percent); and the perceived uselessness of Glass (31 percent said they “wouldn't know how to use it or what to use it for”).
Glass’ privacy issues were also a turnoff for potential Glass buyers, though they were more concerned with their own personal information than with spying on strangers. A quarter of anti-Glass respondents said they worried about sharing their own personal information with Google and other third parties. By contrast, just 16 percent said they disliked Glass because they’d be concerned about “infringing other people’s privacy with the camera function.”
When asked about objections to wearable computing more generally -- rather than Glass specifically –- a greater number of U.S. respondents cited privacy fears: 53 percent worried about sharing their personal information, 45 percent worried about the security of their information and 45 percent deemed the technology too “Big Brother” to be desirable.
Forbes’ Karsten Strauss recently dubbed Glass a “fashion failure,” yet only around a fifth of Glass-versaries (18 percent) said they had concerns about how they’d look wearing the device. Sixteen percent disliked Glass’ design, and 13 percent said they’d wait to buy it until it was more mainstream.
Although the majority of respondents weren't convinced they'd buy Glass when it became available, by and large they weren't allergic to the idea of wearing -- or even being watched by -- Glass. According to the survey, people's objections to Glass have largely to do with cost and utility, two issues Google should be able to address through better marketing and less expensive manufacturing processes. In short, Glass could still avoid a Segway-like fate. Whether Google can move quickly and nimbly enough to address those concerns is another matter, however.
People were also asked about their attitudes toward wearable cameras, more broadly. It turns out these gadgets, such as Glass and Memoto, may have a small, but avid group of champions: Eight percent of all U.S. respondents said they were ready to accept wearable cameras in any and all situations.
Nearly one in five took the opposite stance: Seventeen percent of the Americans surveyed called for wearable cameras, like Glass, to be banned outright.
Google has responded to privacy concerns by noting that "social cues" and "social contracts" will keep bad Glass behavior at bay, and a quarter of the people surveyed actually agreed that use of the technology should be controlled by social etiquette.
Software That Knows You're Suffering: How SentiMetrix Sees PTSD With Artificial Intelligence
When Dr. David Yusko speaks with people who've suffered traumatic experiences -- roadside explosions, gunshot wounds, rape -- he sometimes has difficulty coaxing people to open up. Patients will shrug off questions, give one-word answers or decline to discuss issues like difficulty sleeping or nightmares.
So Yusko, associate director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, is now considering another way to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder, one that may at first seem crassly impersonal: software.
SentiMetrix, a data analytics firm specializing in sentiment analysis, has developed a computer program that can identify symptoms of PTSD by scanning soldiers' blog posts and online musings for evidence of anxiety, depression and other traits associated with the condition.
The work has at its core a seemingly counterintuitive notion: that the impersonal, sterile combination of a screen and software could more effectively uncover someone's mental state than a face-to-face conversation between a patient and doctor.
Yet the goal, according to SentiMetrix co-founder V.S. Subrahmanian, is not to replace clinicians’ diagnoses, but to more effectively identify PTSD sufferers who may not be aware of their condition and encourage them to seek treatment.
The algorithms may eventually be able to more quickly find and process blog posts than a human physician, allowing SentiMetrix to potentially identify PTSD sufferers who have until now gone undiagnosed. A computer program's more uniform analysis could also allow clinicians to better track how their patients respond to different therapies.
“We’re not trying to say we're better than clinicians. We’re not, and I doubt if any system will be better than these people who’ve spent their whole lives looking at PTSD in great detail,” said Subrahmanian. But, he notes, “It’s difficult [for clinicians] to figure out who should be brought in for treatment if they’re not in front of them.”
The burgeoning field of sentiment analysis uses software to analyze text -- such as tweets, Facebook status updates, or online reviews -- in order to identify the intent, emotional state or even political affiliation of the person who wrote it. Companies have tapped the technology to keep tabs on whether their customers are satisfied, and it’s been pitched as a way for Wall Street traders to track attitudes toward the stock market.
Though Yusko isn't intimately familiar with SentiMetrix's research, he sees potential in its work, noting that veterans may reveal more about their mental state in blog posts or journal entries than they will when asked questions directly by a clinician. In addition, veterans’ writings, authored over a period of time, could provide a more detailed view of their health than a doctor could glean from a 50-minute session with a patient.
“What this has the ability to do is really access people’s natural language via their writing, where they’re expressing these symptoms and may be more willing to seek help and become aware of it,” said Yusko. “Sometimes when you’re asking direct questions, people aren’t ready to talk about it or do something about it, and they say, ‘no.’ But in a blog or online journal, people are more likely to express what they’re really going through in an uncensored way.”
As it scans a written passage, SentiMetrix’s algorithm looks for evidence of any one of thirteen symptoms associated with PTSD, including feeling “jumpy or easily startled,” “distant or cut off from other people,” or a “loss of interest in things that were enjoyable in the past.” Though the software can also pick up on physiological symptoms, such as sleep trouble, there are four symptoms associated with PTSD that SentiMetrix cannot yet extract, such as “feeling as though your future may be cut short,” or avoiding situations that recall a stressful experience from the past.
The SentiMetrix program rates each symptom on a zero-to-one point scale, with a higher score indicating the software has greater confidence that the text’s author suffers from that symptom.
The algorithm relies on natural language processing technology, which allows computers to deduce the meaning of someone’s writing, even if certain key terms haven’t been mentioned explicitly. For example, thanks to natural language processing, Apple’s Siri knows to deliver a weather report if asked, “Do I need a sweater today?” or “Should I bring an umbrella to Paris?” -- there's no need to ever mention "weather."
SentiMetrix has a database of “stressful past experiences” frequently discussed by PTSD sufferers, such as car accidents or explosions, that it looks for in the passages it “reads.” Subrahmanian notes that the company trained its algorithm by teaching it to mimic clinicians’ thinking: They had two clinical psychologists review several hundred publicly available -- but anonymized -- blog posts penned by veterans, which they then annotated by noting which symptoms were present.
The most recent version of SentiMetrix’s software, one of four algorithms it plans to develop for PTSD analysis, boasts an 80 percent accuracy rate, meaning its diagnosis accords with a human clinician’s in the majority of cases. The program has been in development for two years and, earlier this year, received funding from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command.
If the technology progresses enough, Subrahmanian predicts that veterans’ groups could eventually decide to set up online forums where returning members of the military could blog and, with their permission, that writing would be monitored for signs of PTSD. SentiMetrix’s research could also be applied to identifying civilians with the condition.
Yet Yusko notes that diagnosing PTSD is only one challenge: according to a study underway at Veterans Affairs hospitals in Minneapolis and Philadelphia, a substantial number of veterans refuse treatment, even after they’ve received their diagnosis.
“The biggest difficulty has been convincing young veterans to attend to their symptoms,” said Yusko. “While finding out that they do [have PTSD] is useful information, we often can’t do anything about it.”
So Yusko, associate director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, is now considering another way to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder, one that may at first seem crassly impersonal: software.
SentiMetrix, a data analytics firm specializing in sentiment analysis, has developed a computer program that can identify symptoms of PTSD by scanning soldiers' blog posts and online musings for evidence of anxiety, depression and other traits associated with the condition.
The work has at its core a seemingly counterintuitive notion: that the impersonal, sterile combination of a screen and software could more effectively uncover someone's mental state than a face-to-face conversation between a patient and doctor.
Yet the goal, according to SentiMetrix co-founder V.S. Subrahmanian, is not to replace clinicians’ diagnoses, but to more effectively identify PTSD sufferers who may not be aware of their condition and encourage them to seek treatment.
The algorithms may eventually be able to more quickly find and process blog posts than a human physician, allowing SentiMetrix to potentially identify PTSD sufferers who have until now gone undiagnosed. A computer program's more uniform analysis could also allow clinicians to better track how their patients respond to different therapies.
“We’re not trying to say we're better than clinicians. We’re not, and I doubt if any system will be better than these people who’ve spent their whole lives looking at PTSD in great detail,” said Subrahmanian. But, he notes, “It’s difficult [for clinicians] to figure out who should be brought in for treatment if they’re not in front of them.”
The burgeoning field of sentiment analysis uses software to analyze text -- such as tweets, Facebook status updates, or online reviews -- in order to identify the intent, emotional state or even political affiliation of the person who wrote it. Companies have tapped the technology to keep tabs on whether their customers are satisfied, and it’s been pitched as a way for Wall Street traders to track attitudes toward the stock market.
Though Yusko isn't intimately familiar with SentiMetrix's research, he sees potential in its work, noting that veterans may reveal more about their mental state in blog posts or journal entries than they will when asked questions directly by a clinician. In addition, veterans’ writings, authored over a period of time, could provide a more detailed view of their health than a doctor could glean from a 50-minute session with a patient.
“What this has the ability to do is really access people’s natural language via their writing, where they’re expressing these symptoms and may be more willing to seek help and become aware of it,” said Yusko. “Sometimes when you’re asking direct questions, people aren’t ready to talk about it or do something about it, and they say, ‘no.’ But in a blog or online journal, people are more likely to express what they’re really going through in an uncensored way.”
As it scans a written passage, SentiMetrix’s algorithm looks for evidence of any one of thirteen symptoms associated with PTSD, including feeling “jumpy or easily startled,” “distant or cut off from other people,” or a “loss of interest in things that were enjoyable in the past.” Though the software can also pick up on physiological symptoms, such as sleep trouble, there are four symptoms associated with PTSD that SentiMetrix cannot yet extract, such as “feeling as though your future may be cut short,” or avoiding situations that recall a stressful experience from the past.
The SentiMetrix program rates each symptom on a zero-to-one point scale, with a higher score indicating the software has greater confidence that the text’s author suffers from that symptom.
The algorithm relies on natural language processing technology, which allows computers to deduce the meaning of someone’s writing, even if certain key terms haven’t been mentioned explicitly. For example, thanks to natural language processing, Apple’s Siri knows to deliver a weather report if asked, “Do I need a sweater today?” or “Should I bring an umbrella to Paris?” -- there's no need to ever mention "weather."
SentiMetrix has a database of “stressful past experiences” frequently discussed by PTSD sufferers, such as car accidents or explosions, that it looks for in the passages it “reads.” Subrahmanian notes that the company trained its algorithm by teaching it to mimic clinicians’ thinking: They had two clinical psychologists review several hundred publicly available -- but anonymized -- blog posts penned by veterans, which they then annotated by noting which symptoms were present.
The most recent version of SentiMetrix’s software, one of four algorithms it plans to develop for PTSD analysis, boasts an 80 percent accuracy rate, meaning its diagnosis accords with a human clinician’s in the majority of cases. The program has been in development for two years and, earlier this year, received funding from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command.
If the technology progresses enough, Subrahmanian predicts that veterans’ groups could eventually decide to set up online forums where returning members of the military could blog and, with their permission, that writing would be monitored for signs of PTSD. SentiMetrix’s research could also be applied to identifying civilians with the condition.
Yet Yusko notes that diagnosing PTSD is only one challenge: according to a study underway at Veterans Affairs hospitals in Minneapolis and Philadelphia, a substantial number of veterans refuse treatment, even after they’ve received their diagnosis.
“The biggest difficulty has been convincing young veterans to attend to their symptoms,” said Yusko. “While finding out that they do [have PTSD] is useful information, we often can’t do anything about it.”
June 4, 2013
Beyond Verbal's New App Tells You How Cheating Politicians Really Feel
When former governor and current U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford admitted during a press conference that he'd been unfaithful to his wife, his 20-minute apology was panned as a "rambling," "meandering" "train-wreck" that was "almost as messy as the mess he was apologizing for."
It turns out, even computers can tell it was bad: According to Moodies, an app capable of identifying a speaker's mood, attitude and personality from his voice alone, Sanford's mood during his press conference was "authoritative," but "short-tempered," and the tone of his voice betrayed his feelings of "dislike" and "impulsive rejection."
Moodies, released Sunday, was created by Israeli startup Beyond Verbal, a company developing software that can be used to recognize emotion in people's speech. Beyond Verbal describes its technology as an "emotional analytics engine" and aspires to license its algorithms to third-party firms, from app developers to hardware manufacturers, to create a new breed of devices capable of detecting not only what we say, but also how we say it. The first such third-party app is slated for release in the coming weeks.
"Our goal is to introduce emotional understanding into practically everything we do, including human-to-human interactions, driving cars, playing games, improving service, or getting better commercials," said Dan Emodi, Beyond Verbal's vice president of marketing and strategic accounts. "We’re going from our cognitive communication -- what we say -- to our emotional communication, which is our body language and vocal intonation."
Emodi describes how human resources departments could one day use Beyond Verbal's technology to screen candidates. An applicant might be asked to read, out loud, the job description for the position she's applying for, and Beyond Verbal algorithms could rank her enthusiasm for the role. The software might even gauge whether she seems more introverted or extroverted, more curious or more methodological, and whether her personality would be a good match for the company's.
Apps could also use Beyond Verbal's software to evaluate a person's mood and suggest a playlist of songs that suit how he's feeling in the moment, or listen in on someone's voice during a call to track which people leave the speaker in a good mood -- and which leave her feeling drained and demoralized.
Moodies, which Beyond Verbal built to showcase its technology, asks users to speak into their computer's microphone for 20 seconds, then promises to identify their primary and secondary moods. Since the software analyzes vocal cues and intonations, not the content of the speech itself, the startup claims it can analyze 26 different languages.
Beyond Verbal belongs to a growing number of companies that seek to help computers better understand what humans are feeling, a field known as affective computing. Affectiva, for example, uses facial cues and physiological responses to measure how viewers respond to marketing messages, and nViso tracks eye movement and minuscule movements in people's faces to track peoples' emotional response to what they're seeing on a screen. Though Beyond Verbal can't capture body language, Emodi claims devices can more seamlessly track moods through vocal signals, as they don't require careful positioning in front of a camera.
We decided to put Beyond Verbal to the test by having it assess the moods and emotions of unfaithful politicians apologizing publicly -- or making excuses for -- their marital indiscretions. We played 20-second clips from YouTube videos, and let the Moodies app assess the men's feelings.
In nearly every case, Moodies picked up on the fact that the men were under duress. Yet it seems that politicians everywhere should perhaps study Bill Clinton when preparing to apologize for their infidelity: Clinton, who not only recovered from the scandal but was recently rated more popular than ever before, managed to exude "happiness," "warmth," "love" and "satisfaction" in his apology. Other politicians, like Sanford, Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer, were judged by Moodies to be "resentful," antagonistic" and "short-tempered."
At a White House press conference in 1998, Bill Clinton famously denied having sexual relations with "that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."
According to Moodies, he demonstrated a "strong internal conviction" and "desire to convince," along with a "need to fulfill creative or primordial cravings" -- an interesting and quite apt conclusion given the nature of the scandal and Clinton's desperate need at the time for Americans' approval.
When Clinton addressed the nation several months later with prepared remarks -- and an apology -- he was in a better mood, Moodies found: his emotional state was characterized by "happiness" and "harmony."
Moodies captured the speech following the 48-second mark of the video.
New York Representative Anthony Weiner admitted to, and apologized for, sending graphic photos to women on the internet during a strained press conference in 2011. "This was a very dumb thing to do and it was a destructive thing to do, but it wasn't part of any plan to be hurtful to my wife, deceitful to you," Weiner said during the clip we played for Moodies. "It wasn't part of a plan. It was a destructive thing I did that I accept responsibility for." Beyond Verbal, it should be noted, cannot detect lies, but only measure emotion.
Moodies captured the speech following the 6:57 mark of the video.
In his first media interview following his arrest in New York City on rape charges, Dominique Strauss-Kahn addressed the charges and admitted regret for what he saw as not only a moment of weakness, but also as a moral failing. Though Strauss-Kahn's words were contrite, even in French, Moodies picked up on the fact that he was "assertive" and exhibited "great self-confidence" and "possessiveness."
Moodies captured the speech following the 1:15 mark of the video.
Unlike Weiner and Sanford, Moodies listened to Eliot Spitzer delivering prepared remarks, not speaking off the cuff. Though Spitzer seems quite composed during the video, Moodies picked up signs of "emotional outburst" and feelings of "jealousy or hatred." The company notes, however, that its software is still being refined to recognize and judge actual emotional outbursts, such as crying or laughter.
Moodies captured the speech following the 40-second mark of the video.
Moodies delivered the same analysis both times it listened to the same part of Sanford's speech.
Moodies captured the speech following the 7:34 mark of the video.
It turns out, even computers can tell it was bad: According to Moodies, an app capable of identifying a speaker's mood, attitude and personality from his voice alone, Sanford's mood during his press conference was "authoritative," but "short-tempered," and the tone of his voice betrayed his feelings of "dislike" and "impulsive rejection."
Moodies, released Sunday, was created by Israeli startup Beyond Verbal, a company developing software that can be used to recognize emotion in people's speech. Beyond Verbal describes its technology as an "emotional analytics engine" and aspires to license its algorithms to third-party firms, from app developers to hardware manufacturers, to create a new breed of devices capable of detecting not only what we say, but also how we say it. The first such third-party app is slated for release in the coming weeks.
"Our goal is to introduce emotional understanding into practically everything we do, including human-to-human interactions, driving cars, playing games, improving service, or getting better commercials," said Dan Emodi, Beyond Verbal's vice president of marketing and strategic accounts. "We’re going from our cognitive communication -- what we say -- to our emotional communication, which is our body language and vocal intonation."
Emodi describes how human resources departments could one day use Beyond Verbal's technology to screen candidates. An applicant might be asked to read, out loud, the job description for the position she's applying for, and Beyond Verbal algorithms could rank her enthusiasm for the role. The software might even gauge whether she seems more introverted or extroverted, more curious or more methodological, and whether her personality would be a good match for the company's.
Apps could also use Beyond Verbal's software to evaluate a person's mood and suggest a playlist of songs that suit how he's feeling in the moment, or listen in on someone's voice during a call to track which people leave the speaker in a good mood -- and which leave her feeling drained and demoralized.
Moodies, which Beyond Verbal built to showcase its technology, asks users to speak into their computer's microphone for 20 seconds, then promises to identify their primary and secondary moods. Since the software analyzes vocal cues and intonations, not the content of the speech itself, the startup claims it can analyze 26 different languages.
Beyond Verbal belongs to a growing number of companies that seek to help computers better understand what humans are feeling, a field known as affective computing. Affectiva, for example, uses facial cues and physiological responses to measure how viewers respond to marketing messages, and nViso tracks eye movement and minuscule movements in people's faces to track peoples' emotional response to what they're seeing on a screen. Though Beyond Verbal can't capture body language, Emodi claims devices can more seamlessly track moods through vocal signals, as they don't require careful positioning in front of a camera.
We decided to put Beyond Verbal to the test by having it assess the moods and emotions of unfaithful politicians apologizing publicly -- or making excuses for -- their marital indiscretions. We played 20-second clips from YouTube videos, and let the Moodies app assess the men's feelings.
In nearly every case, Moodies picked up on the fact that the men were under duress. Yet it seems that politicians everywhere should perhaps study Bill Clinton when preparing to apologize for their infidelity: Clinton, who not only recovered from the scandal but was recently rated more popular than ever before, managed to exude "happiness," "warmth," "love" and "satisfaction" in his apology. Other politicians, like Sanford, Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer, were judged by Moodies to be "resentful," antagonistic" and "short-tempered."
At a White House press conference in 1998, Bill Clinton famously denied having sexual relations with "that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."
According to Moodies, he demonstrated a "strong internal conviction" and "desire to convince," along with a "need to fulfill creative or primordial cravings" -- an interesting and quite apt conclusion given the nature of the scandal and Clinton's desperate need at the time for Americans' approval.
When Clinton addressed the nation several months later with prepared remarks -- and an apology -- he was in a better mood, Moodies found: his emotional state was characterized by "happiness" and "harmony."
Moodies captured the speech following the 48-second mark of the video.
New York Representative Anthony Weiner admitted to, and apologized for, sending graphic photos to women on the internet during a strained press conference in 2011. "This was a very dumb thing to do and it was a destructive thing to do, but it wasn't part of any plan to be hurtful to my wife, deceitful to you," Weiner said during the clip we played for Moodies. "It wasn't part of a plan. It was a destructive thing I did that I accept responsibility for." Beyond Verbal, it should be noted, cannot detect lies, but only measure emotion.
Moodies captured the speech following the 6:57 mark of the video.
In his first media interview following his arrest in New York City on rape charges, Dominique Strauss-Kahn addressed the charges and admitted regret for what he saw as not only a moment of weakness, but also as a moral failing. Though Strauss-Kahn's words were contrite, even in French, Moodies picked up on the fact that he was "assertive" and exhibited "great self-confidence" and "possessiveness."
Moodies captured the speech following the 1:15 mark of the video.
Unlike Weiner and Sanford, Moodies listened to Eliot Spitzer delivering prepared remarks, not speaking off the cuff. Though Spitzer seems quite composed during the video, Moodies picked up signs of "emotional outburst" and feelings of "jealousy or hatred." The company notes, however, that its software is still being refined to recognize and judge actual emotional outbursts, such as crying or laughter.
Moodies captured the speech following the 40-second mark of the video.
Moodies delivered the same analysis both times it listened to the same part of Sanford's speech.
Moodies captured the speech following the 7:34 mark of the video.
June 3, 2013
How Zynga Became Master -- And Victim -- Of The Disposable Game
In the end, Zynga may be undone by same thing that made its online games so wildly popular: People seek out the new thing, find it, and then quickly move on to the newer thing. Especially in online gaming.
"One of the riskiest aspects of doing a mobile gaming -- or any gaming -- business is holding the consumer's attention," explained Nikoleta Panteva, an analyst with IBISWorld, a market research firm. "That can sometimes be very unpredictable, given that you can't tell what's going to cause consumers to lose interest in something."
As Zynga announced plans to lay off nearly one-fifth of its workforce on Monday, analysts saw in its troubles the same sort of problem that afflicts pop stars like Rihanna or Justin Bieber: The gaming industry is driven by hits, putting constant pressure on companies to conceive of and quickly develop one runaway success after another.
Companies like Zynga that target casual gamers, who can try new apps for free and without investing in any kind of hardware, must work especially hard to keep these more fickle users' attention. Zynga's massive audience of casual gamers is easily distracted by the company's proliferating competitors, and they have little reason to be loyal to Zynga. These users frequently view its wares as an enjoyable, but disposable, form of entertainment.
"To a large degree, the gaming industry is hit-driven,” said Brian Blau, an analyst with the Gartner Group. “It's not like productivity software that you'll buy and use over a long period of time. You're going to play that game, love it for hours and hours, then you move on to the next one. Game companies have to keep making games to keep you coming back to their brand."
In a move that seems to underscore the difficulty it's had retaining casual gamers' attention, Zynga recently announced that it will attempt to attract a more dedicated group of "midcore" gamers with games that "blend the depth of hardcore games, traditionally played on a PC or console, with the approachability and accessibility of casual games that are mobile, free-to-play and social," according to a Reuters interview with a Zynga executive.
Zynga has gone on an aggressive acquisition spree and embraced a data-driven game development strategy. But like a washed up pop star, the gaming firm has had trouble churning out blockbuster hits the way it used to, even as its competitors have moved quickly to develop their own suite of games aimed at the same audience. In the past year, Zynga's monthly active users dropped by 13 percent.
In part, Zynga's rivals have successfully copied the company's social approach, eroding its lead as one of the first to understand how to meld social media with games.
But Billy Pidgeon, an independent analyst who previously covered the games industry for market research firm M2 Research, blames the recent dearth of hits on Zynga's emphasis on quantity over quality in game development.
Indeed, past Zynga blockbusters have included games that take inspiration from classic board games or game shows, only updated with a social component: Words with Friends borrowed a great deal from Scrabble; Scramble, another word puzzle, bore more than a passing resemblance to Boggle; and What's That Phrase would look familiar to anyone who's ever watched "Wheel of Fortune."
Zynga chief executive Mark Pincus has said that his company takes pride not just in its invention of new games, but in its ability to reinvent old ones.
"We don't define innovation by whether or not our Words With Friends game looks different enough from Scrabble," Pincus said at a conference last fall, according to Business Insider. "For us, innovation is about making games more accessible, more social, more fun, and more free -- giving you more value for your time and money."
Pidgeon argues that this approach to game development has led to applications that appeal to the "lowest common denominator" of gamer. "It's more of a cynical take on gaming: 'What's the minimum we can do and have it work,' which is a bad philosophy for games," he said.
Faithful gamers have similar complaints. In a post published last December, John Sweeney, an avid Zynga player who runs an independent site called the Facebook & Zynga Blog, attributed Zynga's dwindling popularity to its failure to take time to address users' concerns. He also complained that its games were becoming less fun and more work.
"Zynga likes to blame the market for most its problems but in reality it is due to the company not caring about its player base, refusal to repair game issues, listen to the player base and game content overload that forces the players to be more like beggars," wrote Sweeney, who has served as a member of Zynga's Mafia Wars Players Advisory Committee. "They have taken the fun out of playing games and made it so if you want to be competitive and have fun you cant because now the games are more like a job and require too much time to get things done and the player base just refuses to be play the games anymore."
Ultimately, the initial lure of Zynga's games -- their social nature -- amplifies the impact of a user exodus, demonstrating that network effects can work in reverse: Words with Strangers wouldn't have been nearly as appealing as Words with Friends.
"You need other players to play," said Panteva, the IBISWorld analyst. "So if your friends stop playing, you stop playing as well."
"One of the riskiest aspects of doing a mobile gaming -- or any gaming -- business is holding the consumer's attention," explained Nikoleta Panteva, an analyst with IBISWorld, a market research firm. "That can sometimes be very unpredictable, given that you can't tell what's going to cause consumers to lose interest in something."
As Zynga announced plans to lay off nearly one-fifth of its workforce on Monday, analysts saw in its troubles the same sort of problem that afflicts pop stars like Rihanna or Justin Bieber: The gaming industry is driven by hits, putting constant pressure on companies to conceive of and quickly develop one runaway success after another.
Companies like Zynga that target casual gamers, who can try new apps for free and without investing in any kind of hardware, must work especially hard to keep these more fickle users' attention. Zynga's massive audience of casual gamers is easily distracted by the company's proliferating competitors, and they have little reason to be loyal to Zynga. These users frequently view its wares as an enjoyable, but disposable, form of entertainment.
"To a large degree, the gaming industry is hit-driven,” said Brian Blau, an analyst with the Gartner Group. “It's not like productivity software that you'll buy and use over a long period of time. You're going to play that game, love it for hours and hours, then you move on to the next one. Game companies have to keep making games to keep you coming back to their brand."
In a move that seems to underscore the difficulty it's had retaining casual gamers' attention, Zynga recently announced that it will attempt to attract a more dedicated group of "midcore" gamers with games that "blend the depth of hardcore games, traditionally played on a PC or console, with the approachability and accessibility of casual games that are mobile, free-to-play and social," according to a Reuters interview with a Zynga executive.
Zynga has gone on an aggressive acquisition spree and embraced a data-driven game development strategy. But like a washed up pop star, the gaming firm has had trouble churning out blockbuster hits the way it used to, even as its competitors have moved quickly to develop their own suite of games aimed at the same audience. In the past year, Zynga's monthly active users dropped by 13 percent.
In part, Zynga's rivals have successfully copied the company's social approach, eroding its lead as one of the first to understand how to meld social media with games.
But Billy Pidgeon, an independent analyst who previously covered the games industry for market research firm M2 Research, blames the recent dearth of hits on Zynga's emphasis on quantity over quality in game development.
Indeed, past Zynga blockbusters have included games that take inspiration from classic board games or game shows, only updated with a social component: Words with Friends borrowed a great deal from Scrabble; Scramble, another word puzzle, bore more than a passing resemblance to Boggle; and What's That Phrase would look familiar to anyone who's ever watched "Wheel of Fortune."
Zynga chief executive Mark Pincus has said that his company takes pride not just in its invention of new games, but in its ability to reinvent old ones.
"We don't define innovation by whether or not our Words With Friends game looks different enough from Scrabble," Pincus said at a conference last fall, according to Business Insider. "For us, innovation is about making games more accessible, more social, more fun, and more free -- giving you more value for your time and money."
Pidgeon argues that this approach to game development has led to applications that appeal to the "lowest common denominator" of gamer. "It's more of a cynical take on gaming: 'What's the minimum we can do and have it work,' which is a bad philosophy for games," he said.
Faithful gamers have similar complaints. In a post published last December, John Sweeney, an avid Zynga player who runs an independent site called the Facebook & Zynga Blog, attributed Zynga's dwindling popularity to its failure to take time to address users' concerns. He also complained that its games were becoming less fun and more work.
"Zynga likes to blame the market for most its problems but in reality it is due to the company not caring about its player base, refusal to repair game issues, listen to the player base and game content overload that forces the players to be more like beggars," wrote Sweeney, who has served as a member of Zynga's Mafia Wars Players Advisory Committee. "They have taken the fun out of playing games and made it so if you want to be competitive and have fun you cant because now the games are more like a job and require too much time to get things done and the player base just refuses to be play the games anymore."
Ultimately, the initial lure of Zynga's games -- their social nature -- amplifies the impact of a user exodus, demonstrating that network effects can work in reverse: Words with Strangers wouldn't have been nearly as appealing as Words with Friends.
"You need other players to play," said Panteva, the IBISWorld analyst. "So if your friends stop playing, you stop playing as well."
May 31, 2013
Meet The Society Of Glass Enthusiasts: What Happens When Google's Biggest Fans Get Drinks
Dario Laverde, a developer evangelist at HTC, has been wearing Google Glass for just five days, and he’s already concerned its melding of man and machine doesn’t go far enough. Thanks to Glass, he now has a screen he can speak to suspended in front of his right eye. But he’s already started plotting how he could pair Google's device with mind-reading sensors that would give it direct access to his thoughts.
“I could control things with my mind without having to say anything, without having to reach up and look silly and tap this [Glass]. Because ideally, you want to look up information without it looking so obvious,” explains Laverde, the small cube on his Glass pair glowing on and off, on and off, as he speaks. “Then we’ll become the androids.”
It’s a Wednesday evening in late May and nine people -- mostly male, mostly in T-shirts -- have gathered for the first in-person meeting of the Society of Glass Enthusiasts, or SoGE, a loose affiliation of New York-area tech lovers who are self-proclaimed “explorers, pioneers and fans” of Google Glass.
They are not, however, actual Glass users: Google’s wearable computing device won’t be publicly available until later this year, at the earliest, and only a few of the Glass “enthusiasts” assembled at this dark East Village bar have ever actually held Glass in their hands. Most are here for a chance to briefly try out the device and to snap a photo of the futuristic-looking headgear that they can show off to friends.
“This is your new avatar picture for all your social networks. Like, legit,” Jennifer Levine, a freelance publicist and the leader of the New York/New Jersey chapter of the Society of Glass Enthusiasts, tells someone posing for a picture. The fan group, which is not affiliated with Google, boasts more than ten regional chapters around the world and over 800 online members who connect through the social network Google+.
These aficionados already have faith in Google’s vision and are eagerly awaiting the world Glass aims to usher in, one that would tether technology even more seamlessly to everything humans do, all but fusing algorithms with our brains. It remains to be seen whether Google will convince large numbers of people to wear Glass -- a newfangled, expensive and strange-looking device -- but it already has generated so much intrigue that it's spawned communities, like this one, of people who’ve banded together for no other reason than to celebrate this unfinished, unreleased product.
“The community has taken it upon itself to defend Glass and be the Glass ambassadors,” Levine says. “People were very against the television, the radio, the phonograph -- all those things. They had horrible press before they were widely accepted, so I’m not worried personally [about Glass].”
Over drinks, Levine and the other SoGE attendees trade stories about what they’ll do with Glass when Google sees fit to give it to them. Levine, a “professional fangirl” involved with Harry Potter, Dr. Who, the “Hunger Games” and Steampunk groups, among others, hopes to broadcast her experience from fan conventions. A New York University sophomore plans to document his work on augmented reality. Tal, a lab technician who asked to be identified by his first name only, looks forward to being able to answer questions almost as quickly as he can think them up.
“As information becomes so readily available to you, what’s the point of learning anything?” muses Tal, whose gray T-shirt is emblazoned with a picture of Pac-Man in the shape of the Star Wars Death Star.
As the SoGE members see it, the biggest unknown isn’t whether Glass can transform life as we know it, but whether non-enthusiasts can be convinced to embrace the all-seeing, head-mounted cameras. A bar in Seattle recently banned Glass wearers, and Levine says she phoned this bar’s manager ahead of time to be sure he’d allow people wearing recording devices. (He was cool with “the Google thing.”)
Laverde, the only Glass owner in the group, offers a helpful tip: Clip the optional lenses, which come with Glass, onto Google’s device, and it can pass for normal glasses. He's asked whether it makes him feel self-conscious to wear Glass in public.
“It is, it is,” Laverde acknowledges. “In the subway, I started getting worried about someone -- “ he reaches up and grabs at his face.
“You need ear loops on it or something,” someone suggests.
The awkwardness of wearing Glass could soon be remedied by even smaller, more camouflaged computers: The enthusiasts are sketching out a timeline of digitized contact lenses and pondering the possibility of implanting microchips in their skin. Levine and Tal sport wearable computers on their wrists -- a Nike FuelBand that tracks steps, and a Pebble watch that displays messages, respectively.
Some have even fantasized about life on "Google Island Beta,” a techno-utopia where Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin would call all the shots and, presumably, no recording device would be unwelcome.
“If Google became a country would you not join it?” John Lee, a mobile app developer, asks the group.
“Would I have to move?” Tal wonders.
“I’d move,” someone volunteers.
“I'd probably do that,” another person chimes in, adding, in a robotic voice, “Google is my master.”
“I’ll tell you right now, for me, I'd sign away any citizenship I ever had,” says Lee. “I’d be, like, ‘Done.’”
“I could control things with my mind without having to say anything, without having to reach up and look silly and tap this [Glass]. Because ideally, you want to look up information without it looking so obvious,” explains Laverde, the small cube on his Glass pair glowing on and off, on and off, as he speaks. “Then we’ll become the androids.”
It’s a Wednesday evening in late May and nine people -- mostly male, mostly in T-shirts -- have gathered for the first in-person meeting of the Society of Glass Enthusiasts, or SoGE, a loose affiliation of New York-area tech lovers who are self-proclaimed “explorers, pioneers and fans” of Google Glass.
They are not, however, actual Glass users: Google’s wearable computing device won’t be publicly available until later this year, at the earliest, and only a few of the Glass “enthusiasts” assembled at this dark East Village bar have ever actually held Glass in their hands. Most are here for a chance to briefly try out the device and to snap a photo of the futuristic-looking headgear that they can show off to friends.
“This is your new avatar picture for all your social networks. Like, legit,” Jennifer Levine, a freelance publicist and the leader of the New York/New Jersey chapter of the Society of Glass Enthusiasts, tells someone posing for a picture. The fan group, which is not affiliated with Google, boasts more than ten regional chapters around the world and over 800 online members who connect through the social network Google+.
These aficionados already have faith in Google’s vision and are eagerly awaiting the world Glass aims to usher in, one that would tether technology even more seamlessly to everything humans do, all but fusing algorithms with our brains. It remains to be seen whether Google will convince large numbers of people to wear Glass -- a newfangled, expensive and strange-looking device -- but it already has generated so much intrigue that it's spawned communities, like this one, of people who’ve banded together for no other reason than to celebrate this unfinished, unreleased product.
“The community has taken it upon itself to defend Glass and be the Glass ambassadors,” Levine says. “People were very against the television, the radio, the phonograph -- all those things. They had horrible press before they were widely accepted, so I’m not worried personally [about Glass].”
Over drinks, Levine and the other SoGE attendees trade stories about what they’ll do with Glass when Google sees fit to give it to them. Levine, a “professional fangirl” involved with Harry Potter, Dr. Who, the “Hunger Games” and Steampunk groups, among others, hopes to broadcast her experience from fan conventions. A New York University sophomore plans to document his work on augmented reality. Tal, a lab technician who asked to be identified by his first name only, looks forward to being able to answer questions almost as quickly as he can think them up.
“As information becomes so readily available to you, what’s the point of learning anything?” muses Tal, whose gray T-shirt is emblazoned with a picture of Pac-Man in the shape of the Star Wars Death Star.
As the SoGE members see it, the biggest unknown isn’t whether Glass can transform life as we know it, but whether non-enthusiasts can be convinced to embrace the all-seeing, head-mounted cameras. A bar in Seattle recently banned Glass wearers, and Levine says she phoned this bar’s manager ahead of time to be sure he’d allow people wearing recording devices. (He was cool with “the Google thing.”)
Laverde, the only Glass owner in the group, offers a helpful tip: Clip the optional lenses, which come with Glass, onto Google’s device, and it can pass for normal glasses. He's asked whether it makes him feel self-conscious to wear Glass in public.
“It is, it is,” Laverde acknowledges. “In the subway, I started getting worried about someone -- “ he reaches up and grabs at his face.
“You need ear loops on it or something,” someone suggests.
The awkwardness of wearing Glass could soon be remedied by even smaller, more camouflaged computers: The enthusiasts are sketching out a timeline of digitized contact lenses and pondering the possibility of implanting microchips in their skin. Levine and Tal sport wearable computers on their wrists -- a Nike FuelBand that tracks steps, and a Pebble watch that displays messages, respectively.
Some have even fantasized about life on "Google Island Beta,” a techno-utopia where Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin would call all the shots and, presumably, no recording device would be unwelcome.
“If Google became a country would you not join it?” John Lee, a mobile app developer, asks the group.
“Would I have to move?” Tal wonders.
“I’d move,” someone volunteers.
“I'd probably do that,” another person chimes in, adding, in a robotic voice, “Google is my master.”
“I’ll tell you right now, for me, I'd sign away any citizenship I ever had,” says Lee. “I’d be, like, ‘Done.’”
