Are we reading or scanning?

I spend about 8 hours a day using computer on average, and I read all the time.

Well, do I really?

I was in library last week. First time in about a year. 'Not good' you think, but then you have to realise that I can get any article I need online much faster than the hard copy, plus it will be saved with notes and searchable via my Mendeley database on any device. If I look for particular chapters of a book, I can usually get an e-book or just online excerpt from Google Scholar. Physical library became a dinosaur for me.

But it doesn't just stop here. I noticed I am reading less books every year, but much more journal articles, scientific and technological magazines, and whats most important - internet based publications. I have a RSS Reeder on iPad loaded with over 100 different feeds from areas ranging between physics, genetics and robotics to cooking, neuroscience and role-playing games, constantly updating it's content narrowed to selected keywords I am digging.

I snap, I scan, I copy and paste, I browse, I glance, I google, I wiki, and I usually get the point.

When I don't use a computer and read, I have usually a graphic novel for subway/train traveling or Instapaper on iPhone/iPad to read internet article snapshots that I didn't have time to read in the lab or at home. I capture bits and pieces of information, quick photos, memos, scans and bookmarks with Evernote for keyword-based digi-notebook.

So both the format and the style of my reading changed. Time is precious, so reading entire 40 pages journal article would take me a while. So when new article hits my Mendeley database, I open it on iPad, skip the intro and go straight into discussion, just glance on method and results. Read only first paragraphs, look for contextual info, extracting and coping into digitally-atattched notebook ONLY what is relevant to me. Ten minutes later I know more or less where I am and what it is about, but I don't necessary know details. I rank the article and move on. Later I take the articles with highest rank, and go through them in detail. Or not.

Still I have a tendency to get more distracted when it comes to reading a book, or long journal article. I procrastinate, delay, check some keywords online, make notes on my ideas, procrastinate.

I wonder whats your thoughts on that, did your reading habits changed over the past years?


[photo: Geek On Acid ©]

My (failed) Jailbraking Manifesto

In 1976 iPad would be a size of a building and it would cost you $18 billion (SEMI PV Group, 2010).

It has nothing to do with this post, but I thought I will share some useless infornography with you ;-)

Anyway, after a week of using my jailbroken iPhone, I thought I will give you some ultimate reasons why jailbraking is great, both ideologically and pragmatically...

How wrong I was... it turned out... to be a big disappointment...

Don't get me wrong, you will still benefit when you jailbrake you iPhone, but there are four lessons I learned during last week when exploring unauthorized apps from Cydia Store and Rock Your Phone Store are:

1. They are all expensive (but you get free trial on most of them).

The cost of majority of apps oscillate between $4.99-$9.99... WTF?

2. They crash frequently, and crash your iPhone too.

3. Some of them are very tricky to set up.

For example - getting games for snes4iPhone which allow you to run old Nintendo games on iPhone or iPad (and playing them using Wii Remote) is quite tricky...

4. You iPhone will keep crashing and performance will significantly slow down, if you start installing too many jailbroken apps.

Well, I definitely tested a lot... and had to restore my iPhone to default.

There is one ultimate reasons why I will keep my iPhone jailbroken:

I can use my iPhone as wireless WiFi modem/hotspot - both for laptop and iPad - anywhere with 3G or EDGE connection.

Yes, tethering for free. No extra charges, no bullshit from O2 about additional packages for data transfer. I just run app called MyWi ($19.99 - expensive, yes, but considering price difference between iPad 3G+WiFi and iPad WiFi only (£100), plus data packages for iPad (£10 for 1GB/month), plus paid tethering for iPhone (£15/month) - it's £25/month saving plus £100 in my pocket) and I can create a secure WiFi hotspot from my iPhone anywhere covered by 3G or EDGE. And it works fast, fully integrated with multitasking, including when iPhone is in sleep mode. Best app ever. 

I can also unlock my iPhone and use it in any country with local pay-as-you-go cards, but right now I recon I could do it without jailbraking, just speaking to my carrier.

If you want to jailbrake your iPhone/iPod, it's super simple:

a) run Safari on your iPhone/iPad, 

b) go to JailbrakeMe 2.0 website,

c) slide the slider.

---

That's it, I don't see any other reason to jailbrake your iPhone beside purely ideological (you don't like Apple's technocratic, totalitarian heaven). But in terms of practical application, there is just so much crap in those jailbroken stores, that I just really decided to clean all this shit and only install MyWi.  

[image by Geek On Acid ©]

My Jailbraking Manifesto: Coming Soon

[photo credit: Geek On Acid ®]

We Are Mobile Phones, But Our Mobiles Phones Are S**t

There are currently 4.023 billion mobile phones connected globally with the world population of 6.75 billion people. That's 0.596 phones per capita (per person). It (roughly) means that more than a half of the world population owns a mobile phone. Let's dig it.

More people have access to mobile phones in India (543 million), than to adequate sanitation (366 million) (UN, 2010). 

China is a leading single country with the highest number of mobile phones connected - 547.3 million (with India being second). But lets put it in the context. Population of China is 1.31 billion people. So the estimate is 0.416 phones for a person.  

Europe has 712.8 million mobiles connected. With population of around 593 million, we have 1.2 phones for a person. Even if you look at fine details, countries like Germany, Italy, France, UK, Poland, Spain or Ukraine have roughly between 1.1 - 1.5 phones per capita. So proportionally, we are leading, side-by-side with Russia (which has also around 1.3 phones per capita).

It's a big number. It means statistically every person in Europe has a mobile phone. Obviously, that's not the case, but number is still extremely high.

Mobile phone is becoming a body organ. You can now browse the net, watch TV, listen to radio (ok thats old school), geotagg the reality around you, direct yourself around any place (with GPS coverage), play complex games, shot photos and videos, book a tickets or restaurant with just few clicks. We are constantly connected. You go to the pub and you see 8 people sitting silently around the table, clicking their phones. They eventually come back to conversation, but every social pause will be an excuse to send a text or check/update Facebook/Twitter.

But with all this attachment and expansion of mobiles there is still not that much innovation coming in a field, just redesign and recycling old solutions.

Sure, iPhone redefined touch interface and globalised common app use, and the trend is now evolving very quickly within mobile application development. But hardware development just froze in time, and mobile phones are becoming increasingly clunky. Phones from HTC, Apple, RIM, Nokia are loosing their key features - battery life, sustainability, simplicity of interface, cheapness, signal strength and toughness. And services are also going down with expensive contacts, confusing insurance policies, expensive roaming and data transfer rates. My iPhone can let me send the e-mail, but it will cost me £3/Mb from outside UK, and the battery dies on me after a day. Ten years ago I had Nokia 3310 which battery least for 5 days easily, with frequent use. 

My point is that someone has to redevelop current concept and services of mobile phone. Software is there, but hardware and mobile networks lacks perspective. It's all iPhone-touch-screen-HTC-another-version-clones now, with competition on 'who get's bigger OLED screen' and whether O2 or Orange screws more users on data plans with "free" phone.

So...

I want good battery life (5-7 days, or 2-3 weeks like ebook readers!). 

I want very simple interface (well, Apple kind of succeeded here). 

I want just a few apps I use on the daily bases. Honestly, how many apps that you download from App Store you actually use regularly? 5? 8? I recon that's my personal estimate. And I have about 100 of them kicking around in my iTunes library - most of them just useless crap (for some of which I paid, looser...). 

I want a quality calls (with faces, yes, they have it in Japan already, Apple) and good network coverage. I want cheap roaming rates and cheap data. Not for downloading YouTube movies, but to turn on simple GPS to find some cool bar when I'm chilling somewhere abroad. 

I want simple and clear contract, that I can easily personalise and adjust according to my calling/traveling/data needs with free access to wi-fi hotspots around Europe (especially airports).

Is it really THAT much? ;-)

[All data in this post has been calculated and sourced using Wolfram Alpha]

[Image: Geek On Acid ©]

Noticin.gs

There is a new game I started playing recently - Noticin.gs. The rules are simple - when you NOTICE something interesting in your environment, you make a photo, and then you upload it to Flicker, with geotag for the location where you captured the photo. The other rules are:

• People aren't noticings,
• You can only submit one photo of each 'thing',
• Each player is limited to three noticings per day,
• It must be clear to other players what the noticing in the photo is, using the title of the photo if it's unclear in the picture.

After each day you photos get scored and you are earning the points. That's it.

Why is it interesting?

For the same reason as the reactive music I described here - this is a trick that makes you connect and attend to reality, rather then isolate and disconnect from it. When I am searching for the thing to capture I am more aware of everything around me. Speaking simply, noticin.gs makes you NOTICE things more.

So get your mobile phone set up with Flicker and start playing, and you will notice a lot of cool things surrounding you...

Reactive Music and Reconnected Reality

I have different soundtracks to everyday world, my iTunes library is filled with playlists for different moods, actions and places.

Those playslists also allow me to escape from the surrounding noise, and therefore from the actual experience of auditory reality that I exist in.

However, I've recently discovered reactive music, the type of music that is shaped by your everyday world sounds.


I have two apps on iPhone: Kids on DSP and RjDj, both based on the same engine - that is to play some pre-recorded samples, but morph and mix them with sounds recorded in real time from microphone placed in the headphones. So the software records sounds that surround you and sample them into a continuously evolving soundtrack. As a result you actually listen to your environment which makes you more connected to reality. Your medium returned you to the world that surrounds you.

It is very crude and simple, it needs to be improved, but I see a type of augmented reality here that works like boomerang, that comes back to you with some upgrade of your actual experience of the moment and the sounds of your surroundings. You don't actually cut yourself from the noise, but you use those sounds to make your music.

So I recorded my trip back from work today using different 'scenes'* from RjDj and Kids on DSP and I managed to make a small album out of it, ;-)

*'scenes' are small programs inside RjDj that control how sound is recorded and sampled with the default sets. Those 'scenes' can be programmed and published for users by anyone who make one.

Geek On Acid: Back From Work
[recorded with RjDj and Kids On DSP]

Printing Image on Your Eye

I will be talking a lot about Augmented Reality. This is an exciting feature that recently invaded most of mobile phones running Android or iPhone, with the number of geolocative applications like Layar, Nearest Tube or Accrossair Browser. It is very simple at this stage, you use camera implemented in your phone together with 3G and GPS location information to display various data on the objects surrounding you. Sounds neat, but in practice I found it bizzare. You stand in the middle of the street waving your phone, but then you get access to information quite quickly and visually attached to reality surrounding you. I used Layar and Nearest Places on iPhone, but I found it a short term fascination. Too small, to distractive as an interface, too complex, not exciting enough.

But the potential is there, a massive one.

Augumented reality projected directly to your retina is a very close possibility.

First you got Brother Industries who designed 'retinal image display' (upper image), where a device attached to glasses frame is drawing the image on your retina using a laser.

Second you got those contact lenses from Prof. Parviz at the University of Washington (lower image), who want to print circuits and LED based displays on the contact lens.

Now both devices are certainly in the trial stages, but its a question of 2-3 years before it will be fully developed and tested by the US army, before making it to the market.

Of course that would lead augumented reality into the new stage where you fully incorporate visual display into your daily real world.

[photo credits: Parviz Research Group, University of Washington; Brother]