Tag: tv

Quantified self heads into the mainstream

Quantified Self Europe 2013

Thanks to Rosie on Twitter, for alerting me to the BBC’s Science Club programme better known as the Dara O Briain’s Science Club. I had never heard of it before and to be fair when I watch it, I thought it was going to be crappy. However it was good, almost like the BBC had taken science very seriously. And now I understand why people are comparing Dr Helen Czerski to Brian Cox.

Science Club explores how powerful, affordable technology is ushering in a new era of DIY science that everyone can get involved in. Science journalist Alok Jha is in California to see how citizen science is being used to save lives in the early detection of earthquakes.

Dr Helen Czerski goes to Brazil and discovers an ingenious innovation – in an attempt to eradicate a killer disease, mosquitoes have been modified to self-destruct. In the studio, Dara and Professor Mark Miodownik get to grips with an inflatable crash helmet, a beat box made from vegetables and capture lightning in a box. And the team delve into tech hacking to see how stripping down and re-using technology promises to change our world

The whole theme of the show was DIY science and there was plenty of it including a whole piece on the Quantified Self. The piece wasn’t the amazing but did a good job of explaining the basics, what you could do and what people are already doing. As I said it wasn’t bad at all. Well worth watching…

Then…

Jasmine today (Monday) tweets about BBC Horizon: Monitor Me.

Dr Kevin Fong explores a medical revolution that promises to help us live longer, healthier lives. Inspired by the boom in health-related apps and gadgets, it’s all about novel ways we can monitor ourselves around the clock. How we exercise, how we sleep, even how we sit.

Some doctors are now prescribing apps the way they once prescribed pills. Kevin meets the pioneers of this revolution. From the England Rugby 7s team, whose coach knows more about his players’ health than a doctor would, to the most monitored man in the world who diagnosed a life threatening disease from his own data, without going to the doctor.

The likes of these shows talking about what people are doing with the quantified self in a more public setting is certainly driving adoption in the mainstream. Hopefully the core principles will stay…

Celebrity and Sports Gossip

Copyfight / Lawrence Lessig

Another one of Mark Mason’s blogs… this time 12 Stupid Things People Care Way Too Much About. (a point of clarification, there all really good but this is the ones which really stood out for me)

On the list number 2 – Celebrity and Sports Gossip

These people directly affect your life in absolutely no way whatsoever. Your obsession and investment in them is worse than harmless entertainment, it is a way to live vicariously through the idealizations of who you wish you could be — if only you weren’t so afraid to get off the couch and actually do something. Yeah, there, I said it. Or as Lil’ Wayne once said, when asked if he was concerned that people may look to him on how to live: “If you need a rapper to tell you how to live your life, then maybe you ain’t got no life.”

I almost clapped when I read this one the tram today…

There have been dates in the past who have gone on and on about celebrities. To the extend I wrote on my Okcupid dating profile.

I have little time for the mainstream garbage of pop music/fashion/celeb driven nonsense.

I swear to you the amount of messages I’ve had from women saying something like… I was interested then I read your comment about celebs and was turned off. I usually reply with “yeah well I’m sorry to hear that but it simply wasn’t to be…”

It goes for sports too. I can see how you get wrapped up in the moment, heck I have before but I don’t then follow these people on twitter and facebook trying to get a word in edgewise hoping they will spot and say something back. Screw that. There are millions of interesting people who I can have meaningful interesting conversations with, why waste your time?

Maybe I’m missing the huge amount of joy you get from following celebrities around?

I was walking back from Booths supermarket the other day and someone pointed out that the girls sitting opposite the Holiday Inn in Media City UK were actually there to see Jedwood? I was taken a back. Jedwood? Those guys I’ve seen on TV a few times? What did they do again? Oh yeah, pop idol or something? Those guys have groupies? Wow, I really hope they grow out of it soon. Maybe its part of growing up? Although to be fair its not part of my growing up…

I grew up with rave flyers on my wall not popstars or sports stars, not sure what that says about me…

I’m also in conflict about celeb culture, if its for something noble or worthwhile then I can’t complain about it. For example in the internet world the likes of Lessig, Doctorow, Rose, Shirky, Gladwell, Pink, etc are the modern equivalents but it feels different…

Is it about empowerment? When you walk away from a Jedwood concert you feel happy but when you walk away from a lessig talk, you feel empowered… This question is important because as we get more TED like conferences and people pointing the finger grumbling, we need something more concrete to avoid the celeb culture black hole. Even I have suggested in the past that celeb culture might be useful to encourage the next generation and I tend to shift my view on that one everytime I think about it. For example, how can we forget NerdTV. The Charlie Rose of Geeks? Certainly not the Paxman of Nerds…

I guess there are parallels to how Films use to be about the art of cinematography, directors vision, etc. Recently its changed to who’s in your film than the vision and cinematography its self. Dare I say it, maybe its natural conclusion of all things popular?

Need any more #YOML proof?

Useful tweeting from MuzikSnob,

If you need any more proof about the kind of people who signed up to the Year of Making Love.

Darren wasn’t just on Take me out series 2 ep 3?, but also involved in the year of making love episode 3.

You got to wonder how many other things he and others have been on? YOML attracted a number of people who seemed to be attracted to the limelight for maybe the wrong reasons? Who knows?

At least he didn’t mess around with single mother-of-three Olley and had the guts to tell her why. Maybe putting a massive dent in her confidence? Shame for her really

Times review of the Year of Making Love

Year of Making Love Times review

Thanks to Teknoteacher for the tweet… alerting me to the Times review

Just as I feared…

Unfortunately very little airtime during new series “The year of making love” is given over to actual “science” involved

Science…! Yes science we all shout…!

@zeonglow  said something interesting while I was watching the latest episode.

#yoml isn’t science. They should have matched up half of them at random. That would have been interesting.

All the science in the programme is 2 scientists looking pretty saying comments like, “oh there a good match…” I would suggest the title is quite correct, biology lessons minus the science.

Yes most people who watch BBC Three would yawn but thats part of the reason why I personally took part…

The whole post is online as you’d expect. But I leave you with this fun section…

Unfortunately, very little airtime during new series The Year of Making Love is given over to the actual “science” involved. Essentially, personality-profiler Thomas and behavioural-psychologist Emma have analysed the assembled single masses and paired them off with one another. Imagine Yente, the matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof, if she exchanged the layered shawls for a lab coat.

A year of making love redeems its self?

Year of making love

If you don’t already know my own personal experience of BBC Three’s year of making love and the crazy things which have followed…

However last night it was time for the whole thing to be played out on BBC Three. I had feared the very worst but what was churned out on TV wasn’t so bad. Nope the TV magic or the beauty of editing pretty much cleaned away the slate of last year. With it also the grand claims of a record breaking attempt, 500 couples, blah blah, etc…

Interestingly during the show there was no official hashtag, so we used the #yoml hashtag which a few of us had been using during last years recording. Most of the comments were reasonably positive about the show which seemed to focus more on the couples than the experiment and process.

Even Laura said…

Looks so smooth, sleek, quick and efficient.. The magic of television!

Was I in the show? Yes I saw myself twice but only really passing shots. The clearest is when Cherry Healy is talking to a guy and there’s me in background.

Most of the shots for the show focused on the start of the day when everyone was happy and still expecting great things to happen. However there are some shots where its clear the audience has thinned and are a lot less enthusiastic about the whole thing. In actually fact there was other signs of the conflict which was unveiling…

Loved seeing all the empty seats – that looked really really good……. Not

Steve G said on the unofficial YOML Facebook group

Nicely edited…the only evidence of the farce that day turned into was when Cherry and the scientists were discussing the matches you could hear the unmatched being called out like cattle like we were…
Yes I remember that moment too.. Being called out like Cattle lead to the sides and then being told they’ve changed their minds.
The scientific nature of the show was played down, because frankly it would have been a major sticking point for me. No matter what they say on the programme, we have the producer on camera talking about speed dating the leftovers. Once again you can’t claim science and then throw people into speed dating…

Ian Arundale said…

YOML is a good advert for online dating algorithms! isItscienceOrLuck

To which I said no its not… Actually the science or luck is a interesting one… Being TV and the heavy editing they will show a selection of couples with a bias to the ones who last the longest. If we go on the first week, a possible one serious relationship out of 4 isn’t too great. I would suggest luck is in play more than science at this moment. This is why I’m very interested in the science behind it all as it gets to the bottom of something much greater…

With enough Big Data can algorithms work on some of the most human of things… falling in love?

Unforgettably, this show isn’t going to provide any answers…

Matthew S and Matthew K pointed out…

They didnt talk about the compatibility test at all!

Yeah, very true, the science was brushed over very quickly. TV has really strict guidelines about faking things, and we know there was lots of manipulation going on so they clearly had to be very vague about it!

Actually we were asked to make personal videos which you will see popping up on the show now and there… Of course I did my own and I have now made it public here.

BBC Three turned a smouldering wreck into a tiny little pebble which will satisfy the BBC Three audience I’m sure.

My part to play in it was minimum which was good because frankly Laura is a great woman and I have to say my match which I finally got after many months, seemed slightly off on the face of it. Actually would you like to know who my match was? Well it was woman called Olivia Pinder. I did write to her once but never heard anything so just decided she wasn’t interested or she was as fed up of the whole shame as myself. Then my YOML friend Cristina Conti asked if I had heard anything from my match and convinced me to give it one more shot. Of course I didn’t hear anything, so that was it. Plus frankly I had enough of it by a certain point…

Would I ever do anything like this again? Well if its a dating show/experiment no. I felt like I brushed close enough with those people who have words like “model” and “promotions” in their résumés & had been on other TV shows! Just there looking for stardom?! This so isn’t me and I am still very surprised they let me take part at all.

Almost at blows

Steve G posed a interesting question,

Gotta feel for the people who had sat through until 8pm (like myself and it was 9pm) and didn’t get a match however I don’t know whether I would of preferred that and not knowing then having being matched last minute…

Personally I always wanted to know who my match was… the not knowing was frustrating because I knew someone knew but didn’t want to tell me unless it was in front of broadcast cameras. The moment I knew, it wasn’t such a big deal anymore. Even when I heard nothing back, it wasn’t a problem. I think the not knowing was the problem.

My brush with mainstream TV has been too close for comfort, to date I’ve gotten away with it. Maybe thats a sure sign I should avoid at all costs from now on… I’ll keep watching just to see if some of the friends I made are on there but otherwise this is one experience I can mark up as a close shave.

Broadcast or Perceptive Media?

I was half watching Newsnight and working on my laptop, on Thursday 31st January on BBC2. Newsnight finished and the weather came on. Now the #uksnow is pretty much out the way, I’m not so interested in the weather.

Anyway as the weather man ran through the upcoming weather forecast, I looked up when the man mentioned Manchester. A few moments passed and I thought well its related to rain, so Manchester is a obvious target. A few moments later, Manchester was mentioned again and I looked up again. My glance become more of a stare as I thought about perceptive media.

The moment of attention or as I like to think about it, a moment of deja vu. Was powerful enough to make me lift my head and divert my attention to the weather for a few more moments at least.

The ability to connect and engage with people using slight differences in narrative. It doesn’t require huge sweeping changes, just clever well written narrative.

Year of Making love – Monday 4th Feb

image

Well here it is (sent via a email to me this morning)…

The programme maybe they shouldn’t have made (imho). Monday 4th February 9pm on bbc three, hopefully I wont see myself in the crowd because there’s certainly no way you will see me with a partner.

If there is any mention of scientific I will be laughing to myself knowing the truth…

Perceptive Media in Wired UK’s Top Tech for 2013

Perceptive Media in Wired Magazine

Someone from the BBC’s Future Media PR pointed out to me that I was in the latest issue of Wired UK. The whole thing isn’t online yet but I’ve made a manual copy (thanks to Laura Sharpe for buying the ipad version on my behalf)… Till its up online

Advertising Displays, Television and consoles are hooking up with recognition software to second-guess our hidden desires. By Ed White

Televisions, computers and retail displays are increasingly watching us as much as we’re watching them. They are likely to be the catalyst for a shift from mass to personalised media. Broadcastsers, game developers and tech companies have long dreamt of knowing who’s watching, and then making content relevant to each viewer.

Cheap cameras and sensors are making “perceptive media” a reality. First was Microsoft, whose Xbox gaming peripheral Kinect, launched in 2010, has put a perceptive-media device into more that 18 million homes worldwide. By linking people to their Xbox Live identity using facial recognition, it has made the gaming experience more tailored. But perceptive media is wider than gaming. Over two years, Japan Railways’ East Japan Water Business has installed about 500 intelligent vending machines that recognise customers’ age and gender via sensors and suggest drinks accordingly. Intel’s Audience Impression Metrics suite (Aim) users data captured by cameras on displays in shops to suggest products. Kraft and Adidas are early adopters. The software will also monitor responses to improve brands’ marketing.

But the real winner will be the entertainment industry. Samsung and Lenovo announced at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show that their new TVs will recognise a viewer by using a camera incorporated into the set, and bring up their favourite programmes; Intel is working on a set-top box with similar  capabilities. Face tracking software is also making our screens more intuitive. Japanese broadcaster NHK is experimenting with emotion-recongnition software which can suggest, say a more exciting TV show if it detects boredom. But where perceptive media gets really exciting is in using viewer data to change narratives in real time. US-based video game company Valve software is experimenting with biofeedback systems, measuring physiological signals such as heart rate and pupil dilation in players of Portal 2 and Alien Swarm. If the zombies aren’t making you sweat, the AI director can send in more. And television may follow, believes Ian Forrester senior producer at BBC R&D. Sensors in your TV would pick up who’s in the room and subtly change the programmes’s details, live: for example the soundtrack could be based on your Spotify favorites.

If that sounds Big Brother-ish, that’s because it is. Perceptive media’s biggest hurdle will be privacy. But advocates such as Daniel Stein, founder CEO of San Francisco based digital agency EVB, say that if brands can prove the value of data sharing, they’ll win people over. Here’s looking at you.

Ed White is a senior writer and consultant at contagious communications, a London-based marketing consultancy

 

Perceptive media in wired magazine

What Cinema can learn from TV?

Adopt the internet

A few blog posts ago I was talking about Cinema and the audience using their phones in the cinema to share the experience and hinted at some other things Cinema can learn from TV.

Me and Hugh were arguing in FYG, Television has gotten the cluetrain like the film industry hasn’t yet. (it has a long way to go, to be at one with the internet but alas…). Live TV is the new fashion and teamed up with Twitter its giving TV a way to do explicit feedback like never before. I’ve attended so many talks where twitter integration is taken as the norm, actually what was weird was hearing our European public broadcasters talking about using Facebook instead of Twitter hashtags.

So generally…

Live TV + Twitter = Good experience

I wonder if Cinema and the film industry can learn something from this?

Cinema + Twitter = ? experience

I already expressed an dislike of people using there phones in the cinema due to the light but if you could tweet without ruing the darkness of a cinema, now that would be interesting… Of course the ability for people to be able to take pictures of the screen is a massive problem but tweeting about scenes could maybe increase the engagement (specially tweeting alongside premieres). Maybe theres a way to replay a hashtag in real-time along with a film?

This could work if films adopted something like status.net along film releases rather than using twitter per-say. Being in control of the microblogging means spoilers can be moderated and that replay feature can work. However your never really going stop people using Twitter oppose to using your own backchannel system? If it did work, imagine what you could do with the DVD, Bluray, digital download releases. Replay the best/insightful comments, add the directors comments, tweets from the actors, staff, etc… Who knows?

Maybe the whole aping TV is a distraction and there is something which it can do which is more interesting and more native to films? I had thought about using sensors within the cinema, perceptive media style? But its strikes me Hollywood is never going to allow customisation of films. Just like TV doesn’t want to see the same. Maybe sending the stats to the Internet and visualising them could be somewhat interesting? But hardly ground breaking… Sure a few people are thinking about this and will make a killing…

The Year of Making Love needs me…?

a year of making love band

Fever Media, the Year of Making Love… (remember that crazy dating experience I had) have been in touch again…

They want to use my video diary for the show which looks to go live in time for Valentines day 2013…

However…

They need my signature to use it… They need a licence for existing material.

I later got a email from them with the contract.

Year of Making Love (Working Title) (the “Programme”)
For the purposes of this letter, the “Material” shall mean any and all material in whatever form including without limitation audiovisual so called ‘video diary footage’, and mobile phone screen grabs/footage uploaded by you onto the Year of Making Love web capture site ‘http://yoml.tv/’ (the Website’) and / or otherwise provided to the Year of Making Love Production Team at any time whether prior to or subsequent to the date hereof

We write to confirm our agreement as follows:-

  1. You hereby grant to us and persons authorised by us the non-exclusive right in perpetuity to record, copy, reproduce, broadcast, transmit and perform all or part of the Material for and/or in connection with the production, exploitation, promotion and/or advertising of the Programme throughout the world for the entire period of copyright in the Material and all extensions and renewals thereof by all means and in all media whether now known or hereafter discovered or developed. For the avoidance of doubt and without limitation to the forgoing you agree that the Material may be embedded in the Website.
  2. By submitting the Material to us, you thereby grant to us a worldwide, royalty free, irrevocable licence to use, copy, exploit, manipulate, distribute, reproduce (and to sub-licence such rights) the Material.
  3. You warrant that you are entitled to grant to us the rights referred to in paragraph 1 above and that the exercise of such rights will not (a) infringe the copyright or any other personal or property rights of any person or be in breach of any statute or regulation or (b) entitle any person to claim any payment from us or from any of our licensee.
  4. In full consideration for all rights and benefits hereby granted we shall pay to you the sum of £1 receipt of which is hereby acknowledged.
  5. You are solely responsible for the content of any material submitted, and any consequences of the further publication of such by us. We shall have no liability whatsoever and howsoever arising in respect of Material submitted.
  6. You agree that you shall not submit any Materials which are unlawful, defamatory, offensive or in breach of third party rights.
  7. We shall not be obliged to include the Material in the Programme.
  8. We shall be entitled to assign the benefit of this agreement to any third party but we shall remain liable to you for all of our obligations under this agreement.

What do people think I should do?

If I say no, they will just go and use someone elses
If I say yes, I have no idea how they will edit or mess with it.

Remember the show “how to have more sex” (I chalk that one up to how TV sucks!)

What should I do?