OpenTech 2015 leaves a lot to think about

OpenTech is a one day conference which I last attended back in 2006 I think. Now in its 10th year, its still a place for the tech focused  culture to be heavily debated.

OpenTech has 3 tracks of talks from people who put themselves forward beforehand. I had thought about doing so but missed the deadline for expression of interest. I learned that I should have done so anyway, as quite a few people dropped out.

Regardless of the drop outs, the conference talk quality was high. Here’s the ones which really spoke volumes to me.

Opentech 2015

The Open Rights Group 10 years on…

I was always looking forward to this one, especially because it was 10 years since a bunch of smart people got together to discuss the idea of why there was no EFF for the UK. In that room somebody pledged to pay 5 pounds a month to something like the EFF. Others followed suit and with  Suw Charman Anderson (whom I’ve not seen in ages) taking up the reins of what ever it was going to be. The Open rights group was born and fostered into the world.

It was great to step back through the history of the Open Rights Group and think about the next 10 years (my question). I had hoped Becky, Danny and Cory might have been there too but alas it was great to see everybody else.

Opentech 2015

Privacy: I do not think that word means what you think it means – Kat Matfield

This was enlightening talk in a string of talks about privacy. It was refreshing to have the view of everyday people on privacy. Especially the idea of peak page padlock aka security theatre, which she explained was a kind of dark pattern. She didn’t get a easy ride with the questioning afterwards about the sample size and how scientific the tests were but it didn’t matter, it was fascinating regardless.

Opentech 2015
The state of the network address – Bill Thompson

What can I say about Bills talk? Well it was great. So much was covered but I loved the idea of…

IP, therefore I connect

Human values in the technology was heavily discussed along with doing the right thing and building systems/frameworks to encourage the best of these values.

Bill outlined a couple scenarios which he uses to illustrate human values. Hearing them made it very clear whats at stake.
Use of personal data for children and young adults who are still finding there way, experimenting with their identity and learning what makes them tick. These years are hugely transformative and can be easily warped by requiring students to submit work through facebook or the rest of a religious family seeing recommendations for atheist documentary’s. Each thing is well meaning but damaging as a consequence.

I don’t know what my parents would have made of me taking out books from the library about drugs. I was curious and as a result learned so much about them that I pretty much embarrassed teachers and friends with my knowledge of drugs. I also never took them as a result of my knowledge. If this was 20yrs later and my parents were getting recommendations based on my book renting it would be a very different conversation!

Ethics and human values need to exist in the systems & algorithms we create. Its beyond a nice thing to do, its essential. Bill highlighted the conflict in the way most startups are funded. He pointed out public organisations like the BBC to develop new models for the public good.

Everything ran nicely into Gavin Starks talk which followed about the state of data and data as infrastructure.

Let’s redecentralize — Irina Bolychevski

I didn’t really recognise redecentralise till Irina started listing the sites which they had listed on there Github repo. At that moment I started thinking this sounds similar to something I blogged about a while ago... and I wasn’t wrong.

Opentech 2015
A mobile web of apps and documents – Adewale Oshineye

I think Adewale is great (no kick for the amount of times I have quoted him even). He thinks long and hard about subjects and I quite enjoy the challenging discussions we end up having when we have time. It was in the last session about decentralisation, that I even quoted him in my question to Irina.

People’s enthusiasm for federated decentralised $WHATEVER seems inversely proportional to the practicality of their plan for achieving it

It was great to hear Adewale on stage. I wasn’t quite sure where he was going at the very start of the talk, when he started asking what the web was but before long it all came clear when he revealed the slightly surprising fact that the biggest mobile user agent is Facebook. Aka people viewing the web through the Facebook app more than any other mobile device or app.

He then talked about Javascript only sites (ones which don’t even deliver a page unless you have JS enabled), apps containing URX’s, The Chrome and Safari tab feature. Pintrest got a bit of kicking for their aggressive stance to use their app over accessing by a browser or any other way.

But its the question Adewale left us which was the kicker….

Is this still the web?

A bit of a debate kicked off but unfortunately there wasn’t much time left to really get into it. However the question still remains and got me thinking, about what I hold dear about the web. Maybe I’m romanticising the history of the web? But I don’t think so… I honestly think theres something important about the open web through open platforms.

Thinking about it now, listening to Brian Chirls earlier in the week talk about WebVR starter kit and the things he did to make sure VR isn’t just for the rich elites but also for the children who might be able to afford a cheap android phone for VR viewing. But its not about consuming! They should be able to create their own VR, like when we used view source to understand how the web worked. Even on a super locked down library PC.

I know there is something essential about using accessing the web from a browser. It might be the shift from consumer to author but I haven’t quite condensed it down to a paragraph yet, I’m sure to tell Adewale when I next see him next.

Opentech 2015
dotEveryone by Paula Le Dieu

I was lucky that the order on the website stayed the same, as I left track 3 with Adewale on the top floor to catch Paula Le Dieu sitting on the stage. As I walked down to the front, she was talking about how things like the Open Rights Group and BBC Backstage were launched 10 years ago and most stood the test of time. I know Paula wasn’t singling me or anybody out (she later pointed out the BBC creative archive project was ended a few years previous to the end of BBC Backstage) I just happened to walk in right on cue. I wanted to clear things up anyway in my question. Some people later asked me what was BBC Backstage, which goes to show.

DotEveryone was a interguing talk and although not a lot was given away. Paula did mention 3 points of focus.

  1. Internet connectivity – Net neutrality?
  2. Diversity in Tech – There was a talk about being female on the internet earlier
  3. New Business models – Very fitting with Bills State of the internet address)

I’ll certainly be looking more into doteveryone.

It was a good conference and it was great having the ODI sponsoring and supporting it. Keep wondering if we could something similar in Manchester, especially with lots of people interested in the effect of tech culture.

The energy in teams and collaborations

https://twitter.com/ade_oshineye/status/573101236083400704

Saw this tweet from Adewale and it got me thinking…

When thinking about collaborations, I tend to seek out people who provide their own energy and drive to overall project. This sounds simple but its surprising how many people don’t. When it comes to the moments when everything seems to be going slightly wrong, that external energy really can make all the difference.

There’s also so much to be said for generators and capacitors, but even more for the switches and resistors.

Best for purpose apps on wearables

Android Wear and Moto 360 Smartwatch

Found via Adewale on Google+ of all places..

Watered-down smartphone apps are spreading like weeds on Google’s new wearable platform.  If you want an example of everything wrong with smartwatch apps right now, just look at all the Android Wear calculators.

Since I got the pebble smart watch, I have been asked again and again why not get a Android Wear?  For me besides the questionable battery life and overkill on screen size, I also haven’t seen much which makes me want one. Yes Google Now is compelling but not enough to fork out serious money.

However the questionable app question does apply across the board. There are some very questionable apps on the pebble too. They can do with looking at the recommend developer list.

  • Does the app provide a useful service in specific situations where taking out a phone is impractical?

  • Does the watch show users something important that they’d miss if they didn’t take out their phones in time?

  • Does the watch app save significant time without sacrificing significant functionality?

These are pretty good points… And some of the examples make sense.

Delta’sAndroid appis another example of a wearable app done right. If you check into a flight on your phone, the watch automatically provides up to date gate information right on your wrist (question two) and presents your boarding pass to use at the gate (question three).

Similarly,Allthecooks’ Android Wear functionscan save time by showing recipe instructions on your wrist. Having those instructions follow you around the kitchen makes a lot more sense than having to constantly look back to your phone or tablet for reference.

The pebble has little to no input but I have already seen apps which try and input data via a bluetooth back channel from a bluetooth headset via the phone. For goodness sake, leave it alone!

The pebble is great for notifications and to be honest I wouldn’t want to see it used for much more. Getting developers to accept its limits should be easier than Android wear but you know what people are like, push and push.

As Adewale says…

The future isn’t about trying to do everything with one device – it is about finding therightdevices to do thingsyouwant to do, and to do them in thebest possible way. Forcing an app onto a form factor it is ill suited for does injustice to both you, the concept of the app, the platform, and worst of all – your users.

Couldn’t agree more…

What happened to Pigeon post?

You might have heard Amazon are serious about their drone based delivery system for certain items, I assume for their prime customers.

In the letter (pdf), Amazon’s head of public policy, Paul Misener, says that “in the past five months we have made advancements towards the development of highly automated aerial vehicles” for its new service, which it calls Amazon Prime Air. Misener says the five-pound limit covers 86% of products sold on Amazon.

Meanwhile, the FAA’s British counterpart told the Guardian that it could foresee a time when, once drones have proven their airworthiness and ability to avoid obstacles safely, they would be allowed to operate autonomously

I wrote about Amazon Prime Air, which myself and many others thought was a publicity stunt (although to be fair Adewale was right on the money). I  also wrote about pigeon post, which something which I thought was flipping crazy but might actually work.

Nathan Rae is the man with the vision and I recently saw him and asked him what he made of Amazon Prime Air? He said it was good news but what makes Pigeon post really special is the protocol. That protocol is physical package protocol (PPP?)

Thats where the magic is…

Choose your ecosystem wisely

Android robot-shaped KitKat bars

In my mind the primeconf online dating talk has a lot of parallels with what I have been looking at in regards to  the different stacks and data ethics.

One of my biggest posts was one about the 5 stacks after listening to Bruce Sterling’s talk at SxSw interactive in 2012.  But came across a really interesting piece while looking into the Google IO.

Its time to choose your religion, Android or iOS?

It’s impossible for Google or Apple to introduce a new feature, let alone a whole new revision, to their mobile operating systems without it instantly being compared to the other’s alternative. The sparks that inflame heated discussions about who’s got the better notifications or smarter multitasking come right from the top of both companies. While unveiling Android L yesterday, Google’s Sundar Pichai took a subtle dig at Apple’s new iOS 8 by saying that custom keyboards and widgets “happened in Android four to five years ago.”

Of course this also applies to Amazon with their recent Firephone, Microsoft with Windows Phone and somewhat Facebook too.

Frankly the copying of each other is boring and getting tiresome. But regardless my bets are still with Google. Although I won’t lie, Google Fit although a better thought out proposition than Apple’s Healthkit, worries the heck out of me. Can you even imagine the insane algorithms which will be built?

Although not a foil hat wearing person, I will say I’m one of those people who removing  Moves app from my Nexus5 when Facebook bought them. And that was for a subset of personal data! I didn’t even stick around to see the EULA change because I had a idea of what they might do with that data.

Life will surely be sweeter once every gadget you own relates intelligently to every other, but to get there, you’ll have to decide where your loyalties lie. And the fact that both Android and iOS platforms are set for their biggest updates in years this fall means that the obsessive comparisons between them will be as salient as they’ve ever been. More than ever, your smartphone preference will dictate your choice of tablet, TV, car, watch, and even fitness tracker.

Its a shame things are this way. For example even Ubuntu are following this route with their Ubuntu Cloud, Phone,Tablet, etc. Whats driving all this besides the money, massive collections of data and customer lock in? User experience…

Last year when Aral gave his talk at Thinking Digital about user experience, I was up in arms again (seems everything Aral says, I tend to get up in arms about).The notion of a single user experience winds me up. Each user (in lui of a better word, citizen, person, etc) is different and although you can build experiences for a bulk of people, we have the technology and experience to build  but enlightening and masterful experiences which don’t trap users in a silky web, where you can only emerge a little lighter in regards to personal data.

What Apple and Google are building is what Nike, Adidas, and all the fashion brands wish they had: a set of concrete reasons to compel people to use one company for all their needs. It’s brand loyalty based on practicality as much as emotional attachment.

There has to be a better way right? Absolutely!

The utopian scenario would be to have one global ecosystem where the communication between Apple and Google was about device interoperability instead of trash talk among execs. In its absence, a few sprouts of hope come from companies like Nike and the Google-owned (but still independently operated) Nest.

Yes, the utopian scenario is what we should be working towards and to be fair, many are. However its very complex to build a excellent user experience across different data sets, APIs and services. Its alot easier to just build your own and force the user experience you think people should have.  As Ade said, people’s enthusiasm for federated decentralised $WHATEVER tends to be very low. I imagine its ever lower when considering the user experience. Getting things working technically is hard enough, so the user experience tends to get shuffled into a later position. I do agree with Aral on this. I would also agree this is part of the reason why the stacks are able to increase their lead and dictate the terms which suit their business model.

The old specter of Apple’s walled garden remains. And the more unified Google becomes, the more it’s beginning to resemble it. The difference with the latest software from both, however, is in the scale of the closed ecosystems that are being built. They are, by design, big enough to fit your whole life into. While the next phone you buy might not last much longer than a couple of years, the ecosystem it plugs and locks you into will likely be the one you use for a long time to come.

I would say its not just about choosing wisely, but also choosing wisely what you do on their platform. Its clear things are more difficult as a result of not being all in with one of the stacks but for the inconvenience and pain of wiring up your own solution between the gaps. It may in years to come make all the difference?

People’s enthusiasm for federated decentralised $WHATEVER

Adewale shooting me

Love following Ade and hearing some of the things he comes out with

People’s enthusiasm for federated decentralised $WHATEVER seems inversely proportional to the practicality of their plan for achieving it

And tell the truth he’s right… but one day someone will crack it and find a new business model which makes it all worth it.

On a related noted, suddenly everyones thinking about federated decentralised services with the discovery of what WebRTC is capable of doing.

One such use is decentralised chat rooms, which for some reason hit some of the smaller press.

The ICT division of NTT Group announced a free trial of the app, WebRTC Chat on Skyway, on Monday. WebRTC, or real-time communications, is a free, open-source project that turns supported web browsers into telephony engines so that devices can connect via IM, video, or voice chat.

Being open source, hopefully some of the enthusiasm will rub off on smart developers, and we’ll finally see non-vapourware?