Category Archives: Gadgets and Technology

First American inpatient hospital Internet addiction facility to open

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Internet addiction is a growing topic of discussion and the first hospital inpatient facility to address it is set to open soon in Pennsylvania:

The voluntary, 10-day program is set to open on Sept. 9 at the Behavioral Health Services at Bradford Regional Medical Center. The program was organized by experts in the field and cognitive specialists with backgrounds in treating more familiar addictions like drug and alcohol abuse.

“[Internet addiction] is a problem in this country that can be more pervasive than alcoholism,” said Dr. Kimberly Young, the psychologist who founded the non-profit program. “The Internet is free, legal and fat free.”…

Young and other experts are quick to caution that mere dependence on modern technology does not make someone an Internet addict. The 20-year-old who divides his time between his girlfriend and “World of Warcraft” likely does not require intensive treatment. The program is designed for those whose lives are spiraling out of control because of their obsession with the Internet. These individuals have been stripped from their ability to function in daily life and have tried in the past to stop but cannot…

Last May, the American Psychiatric Association released its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5, or DSM-5, for the first time listed “Gaming Disorder” in Section III of the manual, which means it requires further research before being formally identified as a disorder.

This bears watching. This will likely be a real problem for a small subset of the population and yet critics of the Internet could continue to use it to criticize all Internet use. How exactly this is constructed as a social problem (or not) will strongly influence how this is perceived in the United States.

It would be interesting to know why exactly the first hospital facility is being set up in central Pennsylvania. Why not elsewhere?

Efficiency the reason we have the telephone button layout we have today

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Bell Labs made a number of important discoveries decades ago including making the choice of how telephone buttons should be laid out:

This layout is so standardized that we barely think about it. But it was, in the 1950s, the result of a good deal of strategizing and testing on the part of people at Bell Labs. Numberphile has dug up an amazing paper — published in the July 1960 issue of “The Bell System Technical Journal” — that details the various alternative designs the Bell engineers considered. Among them: “the staircase” (II-B in the image above), “the ten-pin” (III-B, reminiscent of bowling-pin configurations), “the rainbow” (II-C), and various other versions that mimicked the circular logic of the existing dialing technology: the rotary.

Everything was on the table for the layout of the ten buttons; the researchers’ only objective was to find the configuration that would be as user-friendly, and efficient, as possible. So they ran tests. They experimented. They sought input. They briefly considered a layout that mimicked a cross.

And in the end, though, Numberphile’s Sarah Wiseman notes, it became a run-off between the traditional calculator layout and the telephone layout we know today. And the victory was a matter of efficiency. “They did compare the telephone layout and the calculator layout,” she says, “and they found the calculator layout was slower.”

It is interesting that they searched for what was most efficient. This is not surprising; telephones are pieces of technology and the user is likely to want to dial the number as quickly as possible so they can get on with the phone call. But, efficiency isn’t necessarily everything. Imagine Steve Jobs and Apple, an organization known for their designs, made this initial choice: would they have chosen something more elegant or would they have selected efficiency as well? It is a small thing yet it hints at George Ritzer’s McDonaldization thesis where efficient and rational approaches tend to win out in our world.

A side note: Bell Labs should be better known in the United States for their role in developing new technologies.

Born into digital lives: average newborn online within an hour of birth

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The newborns of today arrive online very quickly:

The poll found that parents were the most likely to upload pictures of the newborns (62 per cent), followed by other family members (22 per cent) and friends (16 per cent).

The most popular platform for displaying these first baby images was Facebook, followed by Instagram and Flickr…

Marc Phelps of baby photo agency http://www.posterista.co.uk, which commissioned the survey, said: “The fact that a picture of the average newborn is now online within an hour just goes to highlight the enormous impact social media has had on our lives in the past five years, and how prevalent these pages are in helping to keep loved ones informed on the special occasions in our lives, such as the birth of a new child.

Some more on the survey:

The poll by print site http://www.posterista.co.uk, which surveyed 2,367 parents of children aged five and under, aimed to discover the impact social media have had on the way new parents share information and images of their offspring…

The top five reasons cited for sharing these images online included keeping distant family and friends updated (56%), expressing love for their children (49%), describing it as an ideal location to store memories (34%), saying it is a great way to record children’s early years (28%), and to brag to and “better” other parents’ photos (22%).

It sounds like complete digital immersion. The most common reason given for this practice mirror the main reasons users give for participating in SNS like Facebook: to remain connected with others. But, the next four reasons differ. The second and fifth reasons suggest posting photos about newborns is about social interactions, first with the new baby (positive, though the baby doesn’t know it – plus, this could be part of a public performance of how love is shown in the 2010s) but then also in competition with others (negative). The third and fourth reasons are more about new digital tools; instead of developing film or printing pictures, SNS can be online repositories of life (offloading our memories online).

Thinking more broadly, what are the ethics of posting pictures of people online who haven’t given their permission or don’t know they are online? This could apply to children but this could also apply to friends or even strangers who end up in your photos. Some have suggested companies like Facebook have information on people who don’t have profiles through the information provided by others. Plus, if you don’t go online, others might think you are suspicious. So, perhaps the best way to protect your content online is not to withdraw and try to hide but rather to rigorously monitor all possible options…

Will citing the Kindle location, and not the page number, become the norm?

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Nate Silver’s book The Signal and the Noise contains an interesting bibliographic twist: he sometimes cites Kindle locations, not page numbers. Here is an example: footnote 42 in Chapter 8.

McGrayne, The Theory That Would Not Die, Kindle location 46.

Silver doesn’t do this for every book though he does sometimes say a book is the Kindle edition if he is giving the full citation. Is Silver on to a new trend? Will readers and scholars want Kindle locations?

I think we’re probably a long ways from this becoming standard. The problem is that it requires having all of your books in Kindle form. Ebooks are popular but I’m not sure how far people are willing to go to replace all of their older books with Kindle editions. (Particularly if you are dealing with more esoteric published material.) I could see this happening more for new books which are more likely to be purchased in Kindle form. Or perhaps we are headed for a world where everyone has Kindle access to all major books (a subscription service? An expanded Project Gutenberg?) on their phone, tablet, or computer and looking up a Kindle location becomes really easy.

Perhaps this won’t really matter until I see it in a student research paper…

Want better crash test ratings for your car? Have a trunk in the front

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The latest model from Tesla Motors received high marks in crash-test ratings. What is the secret to the safety of this electric car?

The luxury electric sedan earned an overall safety rating of five out of five stars from the federal agency, Tesla announced Tuesday. It also earned at least five stars in every category, a feat that puts it in the top 1 percent of cars tested by NHTSA…

Because the $70,000-plus electric car does not require a large gasoline engine block, there is added room in the front of the car for crumple zones, which absorb energy from front-end collisions. The motor is only about a foot in diameter and is mounted close to the rear axle, away from the most common impact zones. The car’s front section is instead used as a second trunk.

“A longer crumple zone means there’s a longer period of time in which the crash is unfolding,” said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which has not yet tested the Model S. “The vehicle can slow down over a longer period of time, which benefits the people inside.”

In its press release, Tesla compares it to a diver jumping into a pool of water from a tall height. “[I]t is better to have the pool be deep and not contain rocks.”

Didn’t more cars in the past have the engines in the rear? This idea could prompt all sorts of government action: why not require, or at least strongly recommend, the front of the car should not have an engine for safety reasons? Perhaps Tesla is doing some other interesting things with their design to minimize crash damage but this seems like an “easy” fix to the number of injuries and fatalities in cars each year.

Turning Apple’s brand and products into a religion

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A new book lays out how Steve Jobs transformed Apple into a religion:

Jobs’ Zen master Kobun Chino told him that he “could keep in touch with his spiritual side while running a business.” So in true Zen fashion, Jobs avoided thinking of technology and spirituality in dualistic terms. But what really set him apart was his ability to educate the public about personal computing in both practical and mythic ways.

The iconography of the Apple computer company, the advertisements, and the device screens of the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and iPad are visual expressions of Jobs’ imaginative marriage of spiritual science and modern technology…

Technology ads provide parables and proverbs for navigating the complexities of the new technological order. They instruct the consumer on how to live the “good life” in the technological age…

Jobs embraced elliptical thinking as a means of promoting technology objects that pose their own paradoxes. In the Apple narrative, the seemingly oppositional notions of assimilation/isolation and freedom/enslavement are resolved by Apple’s invocation of enlightened paradox.

Others have also made this argument: see this 2011 post as well as this 2012 post.  Claiming a brand is like a religion could be an analysis of a secular age (this piece suggests we traded gods for technological progress and consumerism) or it could be a slam against followers who blindly follow a brand (certain brands may inspire higher levels of devotion yet not all inspiring brands are accused of inspiring religious-like followings).

Yet, beyond Apple, wouldn’t most, if not all brands, aspire to this kind of devotion? Religion implies a devoted set of followers who are willing to participate in rituals, of which the most important is buying the new product. Evangelism, telling others about the products and brand, might also be high on this list. Another key is that brand followers and users think they are participating in a transcendent experience.

Misleading graph of Dyson vacuum suction power?

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The latest edition of Time includes a back cover ad from Dyson with a graph of their vacuum’s suction:

DysonVacuumSuctionGraph

From the graph and the numbers below, it is pretty clear that Dyson has more suction power than the two other pictured vacuums: 160 air watts compared to 68 and 43 air watts. Fair enough, particularly for those who need the most air watts. But, I also wonder if this graph doesn’t represent a common problem with infographics: it is confusing a linear relationship, 160 air watts is more than twice as much as the competing vacuums, with volume. Not only does the Dyson have the most suction power, it is clearly the biggest vacuum in this graph. While I don’t think Dyson wants to sell their vacuum as the largest (in fact, they often pitch its manueverability), it isn’t necessarily bad to show that your product visually dominates the competition.

“Sociological experiment” with children using mobile devices

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An Australian psychologist suggests we don’t quite know what will happen with lots of young children now using tablets and other electronics:

Research indicates that almost half of all toddlers up to two years old have played with a mobile device. It also reveals that 15 per cent of that group can also operate a home entertainment system. That rises to 31 per cent of three- to five-year-olds and a third of six- to eight-year-olds.

The study of 750 adults across Australia who have an internet connection included questions about how children interact with technology and was conducted by media intelligence firm Magna Global.

Most frequently used were iPads (27 per cent for three- to five-year-olds and 43 per cent for six- to eight-year-olds) followed by Wi-Fi-enabled laptops (21 per cent for three- to five-year-olds and 38 per cent for six- to eight-years-olds)…

Jordy Kaufman, a child psychologist and founder of the Swinburne BabyLab, has studied how children interact with devices. ”Given the massive uptake of mobile device use by young kids, we can be said to be engaged in a grand sociological experiment where no one knows what the results will be,” he said.

But he cautions that just because we do not know the outcome, that does not mean the use of devices is negative. There are opportunities for learning from iPads that did not exist before, Dr Kaufman said.

I suppose there are three possible reactions to the situation. Go all in and see the use of mobile electronics as simply part of the progress of the modern world. Americans tend to like progress and new opportunities and these devices certainly fulfill these two requirements. This full usage may occur even with evidence that they don’t contribute much to learning. The opposite reaction is to not allow children access to such devices. To some degree, this is helped by the fact that such devices are not yet completely ubiquitous. But, some may want to wait and see how children respond to mobile devices. And, there is some middle ground where children could use new electronics in moderation alongside more “traditional” activities.

It sounds like we need some sort of randomized experiment to help figure this out. But, we are getting close to a time where it would be really difficult to pull this off.

The best civic apps for Chicago

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Finding people to test civic apps is no easy task but here are some of the best civic apps in Chicago, according to the Chicago Tribune:

Foodborne Chicago Many people don’t report food poisoning to the health department, slowing responses to outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. This service scans Twitter looking for anyone complaining of food poisoning and flags anything that appears to be legitimate and local. A real person reviews the flagged tweet and, if it checks out, sends a reply via Twitter asking them to report the poisoning to the health department via an online form. (Developers: Joe Olson, Cory Nissen, Scott Robbin, Raed Mansour, Daniel O’Neil)…

Spothole Do you see a pothole? If so, click “Spot a Pothole” and easily file a complaint from your mobile phone. The app then uses an algorithm to rank the potholes, allowing city crews to address the most critical ones in a given area. (Stefan Draht, Brett Schnacky)

Can I Bring My Bike on the Metra Right Now? Simple question. Simple answer. Plus additional information on bike parking around Metra stations. (Steven Vance, Francesco Villa)

Clear Streets A more muscular version of the city’s Plow Tracker. This site reports which streets have been cleared of snow and includes a “plow leader board” of most active trucks. (Forest Gregg, Derek Eder and Juan-Pablo Velez)…

Sweeparound.us Type in your address and find out when your street will be swept. Register for an email, text message or calendar alert — or all of the above — to remind yourself to move your car to avoid a ticket or tow. (Scott Robbin)

Was My Car Towed? Supply your license plate number and find out whether the city towed your car. (Scott Robbin)

These could be very useful in a pinch. I get the idea that these apps are intended to help residents improve and understand the services in their city. At the same time, the apps listed by the Tribune seem fairly negative (potholes, avoiding tickets, making sure restaurants are clean, etc.) and giving citizens tools by which to complain about or track what the city is doing with their tax dollars. What about civic apps that help residents enjoy the city more? Perhaps this has already been taken by apps like Yelp. Plus, do apps like these take out the randomness of urban life or simply free people up to enjoy the city even more?

Mapping wealth by locating iPhone, Android, and Blackberry owners

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Check out the maps of cell phone owners in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, and a number of other major American cities:

Among other things, cell phone brands say something about socio-economics – it takes a lot of money to buy a new iPhone 5 (and even more money to keep up with the latest models that come out faster than plan upgrades do). Consider, then, this map of Washington, D.C., which uses geolocated tweets, and the cell phone metadata attached to them, to illustrate who in town is using iPhones (red dots) and who’s using Androids (green dots)…

That picture comes from a new series of navigable maps visualizing some three billion global, geotagged tweets sent since September of 2011, developed by Gnip, MapBox and dataviz guru Eric Fischer. They’ve converted all of that data from the Twitter firehose (this is just a small fraction of all tweets, most of which have no geolocation data) into a series of maps illustrating worldwide patterns in language and device use, as well as between people who appear to be tourists and locals in any given city.

The locals and tourists map scales up a beautiful earlier project from Fischer. You could kill a few hours playing with all of these tools, built on the same dataset. But we particularly liked looking at the geography of smart phone devices. As in Washington, above, iPhones are often more prominent in upper-income parts of cities (and central business districts), while Androids appear to be the dominant device in lower-income areas.

It sounds like there could be some methodological issues here. The data doesn’t cover all Twitter users and then Twitter users are already a small subset of the US population. Nonetheless, these are interesting maps. I saw recently that over 50% of Americans now have smartphones – it jumped from 35% to 56% in several years. But, not all cell phones cost the same or aim for the same markets. iPhones aren’t just expensive. They also have a certain aesthetic and set of features that appeals to a certain set of Americans. Samsung had a set of recent commercials that played off the cool factor of iPhones, raising the idea of the phone as (expired?) status symbol. If you asked smartphone owners why they chose the phone they did, how many would admit that the status of the phone significantly factored into their decision?

More broadly, it would be interesting to think about what other common consumer goods could be mapped in ways that show clear patterns.