August 2015 – Looking Forward

August 31, 2015

The Internet Of Things Spreads And Raises Concerns

Although it’s not growing as fast as some people thought a year ago, the Internet of Things continues to be deployed.

While
we often think of the sensors and other aspects of the Internet of
Things being part of the management of large cities or industrial
enterprises, some of the most interesting developments have occurred,
but gone largely unnoticed, on the farm.

A few weeks ago, two articles about this appeared – “The Dawn Of The Smart Farmer: Sowing Sensors And Connecting Crops” and a blog by Steve Lohr (one of the NY Times very best technology reporters) “The Internet of Things and the Future of Farming”.

The
things that are being connected have, so far, been digital devices. But
the Korean company Naran is introducing a micro-robot, called the Push.
Any non-digital switch, like a light switch, can be controlled by this
nearby device, which in turn is connected to a small Prota computer that
tells the little robot when to turn the switch on or off based on a set
of rules set up by the user. There’s also a smartphone app for
preparing these rules or simply controlling the robot directly.

Perhaps the greatest potential
of the Internet of Things is as a step to other ways of extending the
Internet. The University of Virginia announced a new way to use regular LED lights:

“It’s
like using fiber optics to communicate – only without the fiber.
Imagine connecting to the Internet through the same room lights that
brighten your day. A University of Virginia engineering professor and
her former graduate student are already there… Their breakthrough means
that data can be transmitted faster with light waves using no more
energy than is already required to run the lights.”

Of course,
problems, like security, are always an issue, even in surprising
quarters. Vint Cerf, the unofficial father of the Internet and Chief
Internet Evangelist at Google, worries that the software behind the
Internet of Things has bugs. Last week, he publicly confessed that “Sometimes I’m terrified by it”.

Andy Greenberg of WIRED magazine has been particularly active reporting on these issues. In July, he wrote how “Hackers Can Disable a Sniper Rifle—Or Change Its Target”.

In July, starting with another article in WIRED,
the hacking of cars built by major American car manufacturers made big
news. That led to a recall that was a nuisance, a necessary nuisance,
for car owners.

On a more positive note earlier this month, another reporter at WIRED followed up with an article titled “Researchers Hacked a Model S, But Tesla’s Already Released a Patch”
noting that the same Internet of Things which opened up a vulnerability
could also be used by smart companies to close those doors quickly.

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August 24, 2015

Politicians, Polling, Google, Being Too Smart Or Sympathetic

Continuing my annual round-up of news you may not have seen … about
politicians, polling and Google, and being smart and/or sympathetic.

Have you ever wanted to know when politicians were telling the truth? Fiona Zublin has proposed that
politicians be required to have on some wearable technology that will
continually assess their performance. As she puts it: “We should be
spying on our leaders instead of them spying on us.”

Part of
what drives a request like that is the feeling that politicians seem to
be increasingly out of touch with the public. Yet, one of the
complaints about politicians is that they are too dependent on polls to
determine what they’ll say and do. Perhaps this contradiction can be
explained by the weakness of the polls they depend on.

In the June issue of Campaigns and Elections magazine, Adam Schaeffer poses the question: “Is it time to pull the plug on traditional polling?”
He touches on just one of the ways that polls are not working, which
is their inaccurate predictions about who will actually vote.

And
if you think polling is off the mark, at least you can count on the value of
the actual election results. But those
too can be easily influenced. It’s been
known for quite some time that the order of names on the ballots has an effect –
perhaps a few percent – on how many votes go to each candidate. With people looking for information about
their candidates online, we now have the situation where WIRED writes that “Google’s Search
Algorithm Could Steal the Presidency”.

Robert
Epstein, a psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and
Technology who did the study of the effects of Google’s search algorithm provided
more detail in his article, “How Google Could Rig the 2016 Election: Google has
the ability to drive millions of votes to a candidate with no one the wiser” last
week in Politico:

“Google’s search algorithm can easily shift the voting
preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more—up to 80 percent in some
demographic groups—with virtually no one knowing they are being manipulated,
according to experiments I conducted recently with Ronald E. Robertson…

“Given that many elections are won by small margins, this
gives Google the power, right now, to flip upwards of 25 percent of the
national elections worldwide…

“What we call in our research the Search Engine Manipulation
Effect (SEME) turns out to be one of the largest behavioral effects ever discovered…

“Because SEME is virtually invisible as a form of social
influence, because the effect is so large and because there are currently no
specific regulations anywhere in the world that would prevent Google from using
and abusing this technique, we believe SEME is a serious threat to the
democratic system of government.”

With all the talk these days
about “smart” this and “smart” that, even “smart” politicians, it’s
worth reading James Hamblin’s piece, “100 Percent Is Overrated: People
labeled smart at a young age don’t deal well with being wrong. Life
grows stagnant.”

Being focused on academic perfection all
the time may be overrated, but some experts see the need to train
children in social skills. A summary of this argument can be found in a
NY Times article last month, “Teaching Social Skills to Improve Grades and Lives”.

If many people grow up without social skills, then people may turn to other means, as the Times reported earlier this month, “For Sympathetic Ear, More Chinese Turn to Smartphone Program”.

“She
is known as Xiaoice, and millions of young Chinese pick up their
smartphones every day to exchange messages with her, drawn to her
knowing sense of humor and listening skills. People often turn to her
when they have a broken heart, have lost a job or have been feeling
down. They often tell her, I love you.”

Perhaps
this also reflects a lack of social skills and empathy on the part of
Chinese political leaders as well. I wonder if they’re also using bad
polling 😉

© 2015 Norman Jacknis, All Rights Reserved
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August 17, 2015

Not Your Typical Urban News — Part 2

As part of my summer roundup, this is the second review of unconventional news items about what’s happening in cities, states/provinces and other sub-national governments. Last week, I wrote about urban migrations and urban work/life balance. This week, some stories about urban technology and compassion.

Urban Technology

Many cities claim to be technology leaders, but this story in the Guardian really does stand out: “Welcome to Jun, the town that ditched bureaucracy to run on Twitter – Residents of the Spanish town use Twitter for everything from reporting crimes to booking doctor’s appointments. Is this the future of local government?” The obelisk in the central square is decorated with a Twitter mosaic.

The Mayor is quoted as saying:

“Twitter has created the society of the minute – very quick questions and very quick answers. We now do our paperwork on Twitter,” … “But this is an important point, because who values the work of the people at city hall? The street sweeper? The cleaner? We decided that everyone would have a Twitter account so that they could see that people value their work.”

On the negative side of technology, among all the various scare stories about cyber-attacks, here’s a counter-intuitive argument, “How to hack a city—and why we should”. Its author, Jonathan Keane, notes:

Cities, like any complex system, are potentially susceptible to hacking. The important question is just how susceptible?

“Through smart technologies, wireless connectivity, and the burgeoning Internet of Things, cities and critical infrastructure have been getting a technological makeover in recent years. Amsterdam is exploring several open-source projects and cities like Barcelona, Spain are revamping energy grids and traffic lights. But those new initiatives open up new vulnerabilities.”

Following up on my previous blog post about where people spend their mental time, this research paper in the online scientific journal, the Public Library of Science (PLOS), was of interest — “Do Global Cities Enable Global Views? Using Twitter to Quantify the Level of Geographical Awareness of U.S. Cities”.

The researchers concluded:

“Our findings are that: (1) the level of geographical awareness varies depending on when and where Twitter messages are posted, yet Twitter users from big cities are more aware of the names of international cities or distant US cities than users from mid-size cities; (2) Twitter users have an increased awareness of other city names far away from their home city during holiday seasons; and (3) Twitter users are more aware of nearby city names than distant city names, and more aware of big city names rather than small city names.”

Perhaps their findings weren’t too surprising, although it’s fascinating to see how Twitter data is being used.

Anyway, here’s their ranking of various cities on a global awareness index (GAI):

Compassion?

Finally, perhaps as a counterpoint (or a complement?) to the talk about technology in cities, Louisville, Kentucky is beginning to get noticed for its “Compassionate Cities Mission Statement”. The City boldly states that:

“Compassion is common ground and a unifying force in our polarized world. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect. Compassion is the bridge between internal practice and external change.”

They go on to identify these dimensions of compassion – “Beauty, Inclusion, Empowerment, Transparency, Universally Positive, Social Innovation, Paying it forward, Hospitality, Abundance, Awareness/Understanding, and Intention.”

All in all, some very interesting developments on the urban front.

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August 10, 2015

Not Your Typical Urban News — Part 1

As part of my summer roundup of unconventional news items on various subjects, here are some things happening in cities, states/provinces and other sub-national governments. I’ve organized these items into four categories: urban migrations; urban work/life balance; urban technology; and compassion. Let’s review the first two now.

Urban Migrations

Despite the continuing drumbeat about everyone moving to the downtown of cities, the actual patterns of migration are much more complex.
This story perhaps explains some of the movement of people – “These Are the Top 20 Cities Americans Are Ditching: Soaring costs of living meant residents left New York City and its suburbs in droves”. The story is not just about New York, of course:

“New York City, Los Angeles, Honolulu: They’re all places you would think would be popular destinations for Americans. So it might come as a surprise that these are among the cities U.S. residents are fleeing in droves. …

“Interestingly, these are also the cities with some of the highest net inflows of people from outside the country. That gives many of these cities a steadily growing population, despite the net exodus of people moving within the U.S.

“And as Americans leave, people from abroad move in to these bustling cities to fill the vacant low-skilled jobs. [And live in cramped quarters native-born residents don’t want]”

We also see a recent report from the Brookings Institution, titled the “The end of suburban white flight”. William H. Frey points out:

“As the nation’s white population ages and stagnates, the childbearing population is increasingly made up of minorities, who are increasingly drawn to the suburbs. In fact, whites are hardly the lifeblood of suburban growth anymore. … Suburbs will continue to grow in the future, but increasingly as a result of the rapid growth of the nation’s growing young minority families.”

While you might expect there to be a difference in how people of different ages feel about where they live – with young people, in theory, finding cities hip – that story is also more complicated. Dave Nyczepir reported a few weeks ago that “Wyoming Seniors Don’t Feel Much Better Off Than Younger Generations. But That’s Not Necessarily a Bad Thing. Delaware, by comparison, boasts the biggest senior advantage in well-being, according to a new well-being index.”

The news is not just about people moving from one city to another, but even moving less once they’re there.

Urban Work/Life Balance

For much of the 20th century, commuting was one of the most unpleasant aspects of living in a metropolis. Long commutes were a major contributed to a lack of balance between work and the rest of life, in addition to adding all sorts of bad things into the air.

With that in mind, Wendell Cox wrote recently that “Working at Home: In Most Places, the Big Alternative to Cars”.

There were another couple of articles that carried this idea further. Last week, Business Insider reported that “Startups are opening ‘co-living’ spaces, so you never have to leave home to go to work”, which was, in turn, based on a BuzzFeed report titled “Living In The Disneyland Version Of Startup Life”. These describe several ventures in various cities and suburbs around the US that offer or will offer not only the usual co-working spaces, but co-living as well, all in one shared location.

One consequence of these trends in home working is that Iowa’s state transportation chief predicted the road system “is going to shrink”, as reported recently in a CityLab story “Iowa Makes a Bold Admission: We Need Fewer Roads”.

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