Month: April 2019

While reading the text talking about waze application, the ideas were interesting to me to read but an application that looks at the traffic and tells you the best route didn’t seem new to me because from what I remember theres an application like this in Iran. This idea of the app becoming more useful the more people were using it was interesting to me but made me wonder if there were privacy issues with it. (The house price increases it talked about would be a perfect example of a privacy issue. Using people’s data against them.) It might be an obvious thing to others but what caught my attention was that at one point referred to this increase in effectiveness with the increase of users as the “network effect”. And it made me think back on the fact that social media networks are very much dependent on this. The best social media platform would be nothing without a network of people. You go on Facebook to connect with other people but if those people weren’t there it would serve no benefit.

I love the statement that design depends on constraints. It was also very interesting to read about origins of plywood, because we are currently making skateboards in another class, which are made of plywood. In the case of fashion vs. disability, I feel that even though it is unfortunately true that disability is seen by some as something to be hidden, and fashion could definitely be a tool to embrace each person’s unique attributes, fashion can also sometimes be too over the top. I’ve had 3 different glasses designs over the years and had never thought of glasses as design meeting disability, but this is definitely true, and each design can make a person be perceived completely differently.

“Digital information isn’t just the lifeblood for new kinds of science; it’s the second fundamental force (after exponential improvement) shaping the second machine age because of its role in fostering innovation”

This reading really delved into the importance and rapid development of digital information and databases, and how they’ve become defining forces in the shaping of a more innovative modern age. Analyzing examples regarding GPS location information, and in particular the Waze app, proved how extensive the effects of using a digital data are. GPS apps like Waze nowadays, follow really intricate digital processes; providing their users with accurate data, routes, estimated arrival times, etc. Their extensive use of sensor data is quite essential to the success of these apps, and can prove quite advantageous to their users, as it can prevent them from going over speed limits and being late to work. It was also quite interesting how these modern apps could possibly overcome the shortcomings of traditional GPS systems, due to their reliance on user-provided data.

Something that I have personally notices, is that when we use the GPS system back home in Jordan, the data regarding routes might not always be accurate. This is due to the nature of the infrastructure in Amman, since it is constantly changing, and routes are often redirected. Hence, I believe it is vital in some cases to use apps like Waze in a dynamic and continuously developing world, which heavily rely on input from users, in order to ensure the accuracy of data.

I’ll start of with a quote: “[Hal Varian] keep saying that the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. And I’m not kidding.”. Hal Varian is Google’s chief economist. He may be right since the data in the world is growing exponentially which make the good job to take this data in account and keep track of it. It doesn’t mean that the person will just be keeping track of the size of the data, it also means that he will be working with this data, which can be photos, statistics, bank information and etc. I personally have never used Waze, since we have an alternative back in Russia (2GIS). I don’t personally know how it work (could be that they are just taking an existing database of traffic and uploads it to the app.

 

The main goal of this text is to create awareness of the importance of digitalization in these times. Digitalize everything uses as evidence the examples of digital applications that have affected our lives such as Waze, an app that can tell you the current best route possible to your destination, and google translate, an app that translates text among different languages.  Also, the text shows examples of the current uses of digital applications, just as how it is possible to predict the success of a movie in the box office by analyzing the tweets made about that movie.

The main take away of the reading is that we are currently living in the second machine age and digitalization lies in its heart.

One compelling idea, amongst many, stood out to me in today’s readings. The idea that digitization restructures the capitalist nature of artistic production. It’s written that “The old business saying is that ‘time is money, ‘ but what’s amazing about the modern Internet is how many people are willing to devote their time to producing online content without seeking any money in return”.

In an ever growing society, and subsequently, an expanding database of knowledge, one must consider the worth of their work. Often, as creative people, we are placed at the lower end of capital, because of monetary desire. Physical money or work to be exchanged for money become the centre of the conversation of production. What makes me happy about the process of digitization, is that people need a more sustainable resolve for producing work outside of monetary value. With the volatility of the art market, and the whims of large financial powers, the monetary value of what we produce is unstable, but the impact of work on people, their thinking, and being, transcend this instability.

 

Here is my data visualization for this week.

It takes a list of three values and uses them to create the x-position, y-position, and diameter of a series of circles.

 

//DataVisualization_Nisala

int data[];
String things[];
int radius = 200;

void setup() {

  size(600, 800);

  things = loadStrings("data.csv");
  // This array has one element because the file only has one line. 
  println(things.length);
  // Convert String into an array of integers using ',' as a delimiter
  //string array is returned, which we cast to an int array


  //println(data.length);
  noStroke();

  //noLoop();
}

void draw() {

  background(20);
  noStroke();
  strokeWeight(1);
  
  stroke(255,80);
  noFill();
  ellipse(width/2, height/2, 400, 400);


  for (int i =0; i<things.length; i++) {

    data = int(split(things[i], ',' ));

    float distance= dist(width/2, height/2, data[0], data[1]);
    if (distance<radius) {

      float c = map (data[0], 0, 600, 0, 255);
      noStroke();
      fill (50, c, c, data[2]);
      ellipse(data[0], data[1], data[2], data[2]);
    }
  }
}

 

 

Although Waze is not the focus of the paper, I actually find that part very interesting. As someone who drives in NYC, I’m not sure I agree entirely with how efficient Waze is. Technically speaking, traffic moves and there’s a chance that by the time you get to the point with traffic, it has already subsided. If you are rerouted to a route that is further away, the time you spent to get there might be equivalent to the time you spend in the traffic. Similarly, if you are spending a lot of time in local traffic, with all the lights, in the long run, you might actually be spending longer on the road than if you spend a short time in traffic.

Besides that point, I think the question “But what would happen to the digital world if information were no longer costly to produce?” the author poses is interesting. It’s great that users are creating data that can be used by other technologies, but if technologies like Watson are using such data, those data are not necessarily accurate. How do we know when to trust these data since it’s not actually proofread? Regardless, I agree with  Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson about how great digitalization is and how it’s provided a lot of data that are very useful for other technologies. Despite some inaccurate information, overall, those data probably do not skew conclusions that are formed from user data.

Right from the start, this reading made some great points. For example, the idea that word of mouth is one of the best advertising strategies. You can advertise as much as you want and spend as much money as you want, but people trust their friends and family. If someone they trust recommends a service or experience, they’re more likely to buy into it. That’s something to keep in mind for IM, but also in whatever I do in the future, with my career, with SIG events, with everything, really.

It was funny reading about Waze, because I use Waze when I’m home and my mom absolutely hates it. I find it really useful. It keeps me really focused on the road, especially when I hear “object in the road ahead” or “heavy traffic in 2 miles”. But my mom finds it so distracting. She doesn’t trust what it’s saying so she tends to overthink what she should do. Instead of slowing down and paying more attention to what could be on the road, she panics and stops thinking. It’s interesting how the same app can cause such different reactions in people.

But in its function, one of the coolest things for me is that, yes, it does follow set traffic patterns, speed limits, and general data inputs, but then it also grows in efficiency as more people use it and add information in the moment. This is one of the most fascinting subjects to me, this user-generated content, because it really stimulates this need for interaction between humans that the reading points out. While the reading focuses on Wikipedia, I find its application in Waze to be even cooler. Frustrated drivers and passengers sitting in traffic, logging in that they’re stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. And then that sets off a little signal to all of the Waze users that there’s heavy traffic up a few miles, or the route redirects. It’s an incredible feeling of “well I’m suffering in this traffic, but I’m helping the people behind me”.

On another note, I found a connection with the idea that information used to be very costly to produce, but easy and cheap to reproduce. I feel like we’re starting to experience this with our processing sketches. We have to take the time to create the classes and functions, but once we do, we can easily reproduce them with almost no time.

This chapter was a very insightful read in terms of showing me a different way to look at IT advancements in regards to economy and profit.

The interaction between computers was of particular interest to me. We tend to frame the discussion about interaction just around people and objects – not between two objects. That’s why the experiment regarding the searches for housing and consequent increase in the prices introduced a new way to look at it for me. It sounded a way too familiar to the experience I – and pretty much everyone – keeps encountering when buying flight tickets.

Under no circumstances can I let the algorithms know that I need the tickets for a specific day, to a specific destination – otherwise the prices always skyrocket the next time I search for the same thing. Therefore I always feel like an ultimate criminal, using a different browser in an incognito window to look for and compare flights. I never looked at it from the perspective of interaction – that pretty much with no human interference whatsoever, the portals are able to communicate and exchange the information of when and where I want to go and make a profit out of it. This a force that was not even thought of a couple of years ago.

It’s fascinating how such advancements in the field of IT can be transferred into the advantage of economic profit. This is also reflected in the approach the authors take at the beginning of the chapter when describing how innovations in software can be costly initially, but replicated and reproduced with almost no cost. The analogy of atoms in products and products made of bits made it very easy to understand.

What is more, the redefinition of “time is money” really resonated with me. As discussed in the chapter, since people can publish anything pretty much anywhere online, a lot of them do it without seeking profit and produce information freely. However, the world of the internet created new conditions that laws have troubles adjusting to – especially in terms of copyrights. Since anyone can create, copy and share, when it comes to actually claiming what is supposed to be yours, it becomes increasingly more difficult.

The main theme of this chapter of the book The Digitization of Just About Everything by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee (which I would like to note is a digital book, with PDF copies on sale for 8.95) is that the easy replication and distribution of digital information is the backbone of modern information systems such as the internet. Building off of this, they comment on how this creates a system in which it is difficult to produce information and digital products, but easy to reproduce them (there is nothing quite as useful in life as the copy paste function). I think their argument applies heavily to the work we do in class in multiple ways. For one, it applies literally. It takes time and energy to write code, but using functions such as classes, we are able to duplicate information that we have designed and spent time processing.

In a more metaphorical sense, however, This theory applies to students as well. There is a lot of effort needed to learn how to code. Once we have learned how to code however, we are able to more easily replicate, and even alter based upon what we have learned. Each of these systems evolves and grows over time as new information is added.

Another thing that the chapter details is how the immense amount of data on the internet (already measured in terms of zettabytes even in 2015 when it was written) serves to continuously allow the second machine age to progress, as more information equals the ability to further develop technology. As databases from academic search engines to wikipedia and even services like yelp expand, they become more accurate and expansive. Information is available at the press of a button, and it keeps getting better.

I’ve noticed it myself over the years. I was born in 1999, and was just barely able to understand the significance of the smartphone when the first Iphone came out in 2007. Since then, the effects of  Moores law have continuously unveiled  before my eyes. Sometimes it feels like I am growing at the same time as the internet. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish the internet from a living, thinking thing. This is partly because of the similarity between how humans build information and experiences over the course of their lives, and how this web of interconnected information gathering processes does the same over the course of its life.