Modern Artistry - This Week's Digital Themes

Last night I went to a BCS (British Computer Society) event on DevOps with the title "Fast Forward - Catch the Buzz!". The speakers were mainly from a company called Infinityworks. As was to be expected with anything to do with DevOps, this was a popular event with a good turn out and a diverse audience.

They presented 2 case studies on assignments they are working on for clients. In the first, they had taken over the management of a legacy website and its associated app to support engagement with a sports betting site. This they moved from dedicated hardware to a cloud platform, upgraded and then modified to produce different versions for new european markets, all in a matter of months. It was a great exposition on how modern tooling and automation, combined with agile and DevOps approaches can be used to do things quickly, safely and at scale. They also had interesting things to say about how elastic a cloud platform really is, if your loading is massively peaky on, say, 1 day per week. A key message which came across is how the culture of modern professional service providers is aligned to working intimately in genuine partnership with their customers.

The other example, discussed an unloved legacy application within the NHS, which had been delivered under a controversial national programme, had been taken in house, re-platformed and co-developed with them to make it more economical, performent and fitter for purpose using DevOps style techniques and some automation. The interesting thing being that the application did not need to be moved to a cloud platform to get these benefits and that suitable investment in tooling could achieve identical cloning and continuous integration. One of the salient lessons coming out of  the exercise was that design decisions should favour the optimisation of operability over ease of development as applications spend more time in operation than they spend in development and this is where the value is delivered.

It was also good to hear afterwards, in discussion with some of the presenters that the NHS is genuinely engaging via patient workshops in understanding the "customer journey" and using insights to feed into product management of its key applications. This is huge sea change from the previous central government driven approach which mandated things for politically dogmatic reasons.

Anyway, today as I was still reflecting on last night, I opened my email Inbox to discover an invite from the iconoclastic people at "The Register" to a lecture enticingly called "Sex, AI, Robots and You". Tbe format being a talk, Q&A and networking event. As this obviously has some overlap with digital topics, wearable technology and (wo)man machine interfaces, I just had to investigate a little further. When I followed up on the speaker, it turns out that she is a lecturer at Goldsmiths College and this is one of her research areas. Interestingly, she has started to hold hackathons called the SexTechHack. There were links from a review ( see: https://www.girlonthenet.com/2016/12/21/amazing-inventions-from-the-goldsmiths-sex-tech-hack/ ) to Youtube posted videos on presentations from the various groups at the hackathon. Overall they were surprisingly innovative and wide ranging. The content, however, only served to reinforce my thoughts discussed in my last posting on Post Digitalism. The key issues to address in the next generation of post digital technology are cultural, psychological and legal.

Post Digital Dawn: The New Human Computer Interface

As an expression, La Interfaccia Uomo Macchina sounds a lot more sexy than HCI (or human computer interface), but then english speakers have often been suckers for Romantic Languages. Recently, however, the whole topic has become much more interesting as Elon Musk has started to hint about his interest in Neural Laces or direct brain to AI links.

He has now come into the open and announced his investment and interest in Neuralink, a startup specialising in brain to compute interfaces (see: http://bit.ly/2naV4sB ). This builds on progress in a number of areas around understanding the brain and development of a significant number of devices which interface with the central nervous system to enable things such as control of artificial limbs and to help manage the impacts of neurological conditions such as Parkinson's Disease. 

Basically we are seeing the start of the next wave of Information Science and the next big thing after Digital. Although Digital is powerful and will continue to change the way the world operates for quite some time to come, it is limited by the siloed nature of current technologies. True they operate together, with a little integration effort, but they are constrained by the limits of the internet and existing graphical interfaces.

Others have also come into the open with their plans for human computer interfaces, e.g. Brian Johnson of Braintree discussed this at the Recode code conference and Steve Hoffman at TED.

Musk has now lit the fuse for next revolution. Although to be honest this will take a long time to mature in terms of capability, safety and comfort in using the technologies involved. There are a lot of issues to resolve before Neural Laces become something that people are comfortable to adopt.

Firstly, the operating systems of current technologies are just not robust enough. Anything that is intended to operate closely with the human brain should be as least as reliable as the human brain. Secondly, no only must it be safe to attach and integrate Neural Laces with the human brain, there needs to be a robust path for maintenance, upgrade and removal. As it is highly probable that some people's bodies or brains would reject such technology, no one would want to be locked into an inevitable obsolescence as the technology improves, and there are bound to be faults which need rectifying. So "graceful failure" must also be built in. Thirdly, there needs to be a high level of security and privacy built into the Neural Laces, otherwise the risk of being hacked, swamped with unwanted information or interrogated by thought police is too high. Fourthly, the Neural Lace needs to be able to take power from biological processes within the body and to operate at a temperature which will not damage the human brain. Finally, the Internet will need to be completely re-engineered to work safely and effectively with people. There already is a known challenge for the IoT, but this represents a complete step up for networking capability. This all assumes that the basic interface technology can be developed in the first place.

However, the biggest challenges are likely to lie in the human and societal arena. Putting aside the fact that some people would always oppose such technology as being against their religious beliefs, there is a need to address questions around ethics of use, legal issues around IPR, liability and things such as acceptability of evidence sourced via a Neural Lace. There may even be issues of disability if someone is not capable of adopting such technology. Finally, there is a need to develop psychological understanding of how to deal with the vast amounts of data (as opposed to information) associated with using a Neural Lace. If appropriate filtering of data and information feeds is not designed into a Neural Lace, the danger is that it will cripple its host or drive the person insane.

So it may be that the real beneficiaries of developing this technology will be the psychologists and lawyers needed to make it fit for people and society.

Weaving Digital Dreams and Innovation

In my last post I chucked in a throw away line about how Adoption of Wearable Technology would probably be driven by the Insurance Industry. I was actually thinking about something I saw on one of the vendors for Digital Health Platforms who had cheerily suggested that a Use Case for the technology might be monitoring drivers to ensure that they were not falling asleep at the wheel. A bit Big Brother in concept, but the industry is trying other things such as in car breathalyzers and monitoring individual people's driving habits to determine risk and set their premiums.

Anyway, whilst I was thinking whimsically about what someone from outside the insurance industry might do to disrupt the insurance market, some things clicked into place. If an insurance company were to partner with Rythm, the developer of the Dreem headset for monitoring and improving sleep, they could jointly go to market with, say, a 20% discount on driving insurance for drivers who buy and use the headset. Improved sleep should lead to improved concentration and less accidents. So a driver who uses a Dreem headset, should in principle be a safer driver.

Then I read a paper produced by Firstbeat Technologies, about their method of monitoring hear rate variability and its use in monitoring stress and recovery, which has applications in exploring health and well-being to support possible lifestyle changes. The paper states that it is difficult to monitor brain actvity in the long term, however the Dreem Headset does this so the 2 technologies could be combined to assist in improving general health. Again this would be an opportunity for selling discounted life insurance, based on expected improvement in user's lifestyle and health.

Then there would be further opportunities in general corporate insurance for industries involving use of potentially dangerous machinery and operation of sophisticated plan. If employees were required to use these products, overall outcomes in operating oil platforms, nuclear power plant, chemical factories, airliners, trains, trucks etc. should be better. This shoud produce a Win-Win-Win-Win situation:

• lower premiums to the corporate customers and less fall out from less incidents,
• more sales by the insurer from lower prices and less costs from payouts,
• reduced societal risk from reduced frequency of major incidents,
• better health and life expectancy for employees and the opportunity to access lower cost personal insurance     

So, it's not all big brother. It could be quite progressive.

The Fashion of Digital

This week, The Wearable Technology Show hits London's Excel. This is the show where fashion meets technology. It also confirms that wearable technology is moving up the curve from exotic toys towards main stream adoption. Over 60 wearable technology companies have taken stands along with around 40 digital health companies  Accompanying conference streams cover wearables, health, smart cities and general IoT. To a large extent this points towards a future where individual people (and their pets) become completely meshed with the Internet and Digital becomes a way of life.

As this show focuses on the state of the art, it is about currently available and soon to be available technologies, rather than a distant future where people's brains may be augmented and assisted by implanted biological computers and AI based control technology harnesses slave robots to enable us to do so much more. It's more about cool stuff you can buy now. Though I am still waiting for clothes which you just program with the latest downloadable fashion designs, there is a lot of foundational stuff in place already.

Being a man and recognising the inner eight year old trapped within my body, the coolest play thing at the show was not really digital. It was the vests which you can paint with lasers ( see: https://www.illuminatedapparel.co.uk/ ) and make glow for 10 minutes or so, until the luminescence has worn off. I can imagine lots of fun at parties with them.

However as an excited adult consumer, the product which really took my mind was Rythm's Dreem Headband (see: https://dreem.com). This is still in beta test, but promises to revolutionise the way you sleep and ensure that you get the deepest, most fulfilling sleep possible. For the potential to massively improve most people's lives, this is truly amazing. Although Philip K Dick would probably have had a field day writing a book about unexpected consequences and mishaps associated with over use or abuse of such technology.

For sheer practicality, I was very taken by RealWear's HMT-1 headset. This is a working man's version of what Google glasses should be. By working man, I mean any engineer or technician who has to go into the field or into hazardous environments and needs a hands free method of referring to technical drawings or recording video images. The head set fits neatly under protective head gear. It is totally voice controlled (in multiple languages) and the display, goes under one eye and is adjustable so that you look down onto it, so it does not block your vision. The set I tried, filtered out the background noise of the exhibition hall. (anyone who has been to the Excel exhibition centre will know how noisy it becomes). It also required absolutely no voice training, which is unusual for me. I had never come across a voice technology which understands me first time until today. The display was clear, unobtrusive and responsive.

The exhibition also included lots of other wearable technologies including smart rings, watches, sports bras and shoe insoles which underpin health and ports monitoring and analysis technologies. Additionally there were several home automation / IoT products and a device for remotely monitoring and interacting with your pet dogs and cats. The device targeted at dogs will even dispense treats to your dog, whilst you are calling in and talking to it from the office (or wherever you happen to be).

If you are looking for insight however, three things come to mind:

• Jonny Voom, talking about Smart Cities and IoT, said that its not about the physical things or the software. It's actually about the people. People make a city. They define its success and cause its problems (traffic jams, pollution etc.) The trick is to integrate everything around people to drive better outcomes.
• A lot of the adoption of wearable technology is going to be driven by the health and insurance industries. So there is a danger that this could become the instrument of over intrusion.
• The reason that Google expect smart watches to become the future and replace what's in your pocket today (money, ID cards, payment cards, loyalty schemes, keys, smart phones etc.) isn't because they have a great interface, but because being small and strapped to you, they provide very rapid access to many daily functions without having to fiddle around. It's easier to read your time and heart beat frequency from a watch whilst running, than from almost any other device. You don't have to fiddle in your wallet or pocket to find an oyster card or ticket when going through a train station's ticket barriers (just wave your watch in the right direction). You are less likely to drop it or be pick pocketed than with old world cardboard tickets, cash or mobile phones.

 So we are not quite in Sci-Fi territory yet with wearable technology, but it is about to become grown up.

Hey Dude Where's the Data Analyst Gone!

Sitting over a couple of Margaritas the other week with a friend, she moaned to me about 2 of my chief grouches: No one appears to do data analysis anymore and the hijacking of the word Architect into every job title.

The data analysis issue is a serious threat. Digital depends upon data and if you want to be continuously evolving and moving, getting the data structure right so that it accommodates likely future changes and enhancements will only make you more agile and responsive. Not doing it means rewriting almost everything when you change your data requirements slightly.

There is more to it than that, another friend who was a leading methodologist in his day, used to drum into every business analyst that he met that functional analysis, when conducted independently of data analysis, is at best incomplete and at worst totally skewed from reality. He was right. anyone who has done 2 activities in parallel, knows how much data analysis makes you think things through. It also produces a very useful diagram which if you draw and read it correctly will concisely articulate a lengthy essay on the requirements of the business system being analysed.

So why is it that so few analysts actually learn the technique and use it? It's a fairly easy and straight forward technique to master and essential for getting your application right. It works well when used alongside structured interviewing to help the analyst gradually build a picture of the overall requirements and helps identify essential questions.

The other rant of the day was the over use of the word Architect, especially in the job title Solution Architect. This is often coupled with a misunderstanding of the role. It seems that everyone thinks "Architect" is a sexy word and inclusion of it in their job titles will boost their importance (& pay) by at least 20%. The trouble is that a lot of people trying to do this are really designers, working at a different level of detail.

An architect is interested in the overall framework, which ensures that all the major components integrate into a coherent solution. The designer mainly focuses on how the individual component will work. There is an overlap, of course, but there is a danger in confusing the roles, because people tend to be biased in nature to one role or the other. If only one of the roles gets performed, then the solution will probably be sub optimal. This is very important in agile delivery teams, as architects need to know when to back off and let the developers do their thing. This allows the Architect time to anticipate any major future technical decisions and address them before the lack of direction impacts on the developers ability to deliver usable code within a coherent and complete framework.