Off Course-On Target

Seeing is believing 2.0?

Microsoft stock and business may be rather cold but their research work is HOT from what I’ve been seeing the past year. Let me bring but two recent examples to your attention and see if you don’t agree.  These are also more examples for my ongoing quest around “What if the impossible isn’t?” or WITII?

PIVOT

The first is one called MS Pivot which tries to enable us to see the web almost literally as a web rather than just a set of pages.  It works primarily with photos right now and I originally came across the underlying technology over a year ago when they were working on Photosynth, which is also equally worth checking out BTW, here is my previous post with my thoughts of how I see Photosynth technology being used.

As you watch, start to rethink your understanding of what search and filtering are really about and see some of the new possibilities Pivot enables.

SecondLight

The other bit of MS research to bring to your attention today is called SecondLight and for a metadata guy like me, this really catches my attention as a way to enable some truly powerful ways of visualizing underlying data, meta or not.  This one is really a case of where it is much easier to learn by watching rather than reading so check out the video below and you’ll quickly see what this is all about.  The first half of the video will show you what it does and the second half will show you how it works.  I’m pretty sure by the end you too will be excited as you start to imagine the possibilities for use and especially for learning.

Whatever you may think of Microsoft, this is a great pair of examples of the kind of research which major corporations can contribute to and which bode well for our future innovations and discoveries.  I hope that by bringing these capabilities to your attention we can collectively get better at “readiness for the unexpected” an the premature arrival of the future.

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See What if the Impossible Isn’t? in action

I believe it is now clear that the rate of most change is exponential and this certainly includes how technology is almost always on dual exponential curves of decreasing price and increasing performance.  We can therefore often see the future quite literally by looking towards the high end of the market where new products and technology are typically introduced.  Think for example of how much sooner we could have seen, admittedly when illuminated by the brilliance of hindsight, the coming of telephones, personal computers, mobile phones and most other innovations by looking at the first versions when they were introduced as very high priced products, with limited functionality and for limited markets. 

As the rate of change continues to increase exponentially we need to become better and better at not just seeing these as innovative technologies or products but to begin to imagine the impact, both positive and negative, on our lives, our behaviors, our learning and our society by getting better at imagining the impossible.  This is why I continue to wonder and ponder about WITII? “What if the impossible isn’t?”

It is in this light that I recommend you read the Singularity Hub blog for stories such as “Z Corp – The Lamborghini of 3D Color Printing and Scanning (Videos)”  Here is the lead in to the article:

While Z Corporation products are out of the price range for most individual users, they represent amazing technology that is commercially available to anyone. I doubt the average person even knows that 3D printing technology can produce color models in just hours. Likewise, 3D scanning an object is probably outside of the everyday citizen’s concerns. These products are still in the early generation paradigm: expensive and used almost exclusively in industry. But they won’t stay there. Technology gets cheaper and more democratic as it is improved, so we should look forward to a time when the kind of 3D printing and scanning we see in these videos would fit in anyone’s budget.

As this technology becomes more widespread and powerful, the ways we purchase and exchange goods are going to be different. When you shop online for a coffee mug, the vendor could just send you the CAD file, allowing you to print the mug rather than have it shipped. Free information (like open source design specs) will translate to free objects.

Even more than reading the article I would strongly encourage you to watch all the the videos embedded within (see but one example below) as they will truly open your eyes as to what is already possible and available to commercial business in the form of 3D printers and 3D scanners for use in the office and the field.  It will only be a matter of months before these levels of accuracy, color and materials are available at prices for the rest of us.  The question is will YOU be ready?  How will these types of capabilities affect you?  How will you take advantage of them?  How will these enablers help us all to find and release the promise within ourselves? 

Just keep asking and imagining “What if the impossible isn’t?”

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3D Printing now in Stainless Steel

As I’ve noted previously one of the current limitations of 3D printing is the limited materials that can be used to print with, mostly plastic, paper, wax and others up to now.  The ability to create molds which can then be used to create castings of metals and other materials expands the range considerably but the ideal of course is to be able to create objects of any material.  And in keeping with what seems to be the norm where the rate of change is exponential, we are now much closer to this ideal now that 3D printing can be done in stainless steel.  The big news and change is not just that 3D printing can be done in stainless steel but that YOU can do it!  The article below will give you more details.

I’d also recommend reading this article for the note about how Shapeways has done such an admiral job of being very up front and clear about their service.  Read for example the Shapeways stainless steel page titled “expectation management.” I want to join Aaron in pointing this out as a great example that all companies and organizations would do well to emulate.  As Aaron put it:

“I would like to take a moment and applaud Shapeways for having both guts and common sense. Listen up Internet, if you want to sell us something cool, put the limitations right up front.”

I can’t help but like a company with the tag line: “Passionate about creating”

Shapeways also has some excellent tutorials on their site (one included below) which are very instructive and well worth watching if you are as fascinated by this rapid evolution of 3D printing and DIY manufacturing. 

Overall I see these developments as some of the most compelling evidence of The Snowflake Effect and how we are headed for a future where we can increasingly realize the promise within us all as unique snowflakes by increasingly being the designers and creators of our the manufactured part of the world we live in.

Stainless Steel Printing from Shapeways

August 6th, 2009 by Aaron Saenz

As if 3D printing wasn’t cool enough, you can now “print” objects in stainless steel. That’s right, dust off your old Transformers designs, make room in the Monopoly box for a new piece, and get ready for the model budget at your office to sky-rocket. Shapeways, an European 3D printing website that has traditionally worked in plastics and resins, has upped its game by giving you the option to take your airy artistic concepts and fashion them into cold hard steel. Except for some reasonable constraints on size and detail there are no limits to what you can create. Even if you’re not a model enthusiast, stainless steel printing holds the promise of machines that can replicate themselves and build anything.

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Crowdsourced manufacturing?

Here is an interesting twist to the whole 3D printing and DIY manufacturing I've been following and writing about. Makerbot is unable to keep up with demand for their very cool $750 3D printer and so they have turned to their customer base and asked them to manufacture some of the parts for them.  Read on and I think you too will see see a whole new dimension of of both the crowdsourcing phenomena and on an even larger scale the beginnings of a new era in manufacturing and what some are calling the next industrial revolution.

Certainly this is all in the very early stages and has a long way to go before this is mainstream, but I think the implications are enormous and NOW is the time for us to begin thinking about how this will affect us and how we will be prepared to take full advantage as it evolves as I'm equally convinced that the rate of this change will be exponential like almost all other change.

As but one example, I am of the opinion that this and other changes are ushering in a new industrial revolution that will be as dramatic a change of our world as was the first industrial revolution and the move from an agrarian society to an industrial one.  One of the most important requirements will be an equal amount of change in the education and training required of the new workforce. Just as it was the demands of the first industrial revolution which drove most the educational and pedagogical models and systems we have still have today and I think we will see this same degree of influence from this next new industrial revolution.

MUCH more to follow ......

Makerbot is Asking You to Help Make More Makerbots

August 17th, 2009 by Aaron Saenz

So here’s a situation we’ve all been in. You just started a new company that builds and sells table top 3D printers. To save money, and be a badass, you use your 3D printers to make parts so you can build more 3D printers. Then, too late, you realize that you can’t keep up with your production schedule because your printer is too popular. Man, if I had a nickel…

Read more

via singularityhub.com

Lego + 3D Printing = Incredible Robots, Competitions & Learning

What could be better than a mashup of several of my favorites: Lego, Mindstorms, 3D printing and learning?! Check out the photos and video below and I thing you too will soon be imagining many more applications and implications.  Note too how, at least in my estimation, this exemplifies a wonderful integration and merging of the information age with the new/next industrial revolution.

Robotic Spider Melds Legos and 3-D Printing

• By Priya Ganapati   February 5, 2010 

Lego’s programmable robotics set Mindstorms is a fun toy for computing enthusiasts but if you really want to take it to the next level, check out Mark Weller’s project.

Weller, a machinist and technician at the McCoy School of Engineering at Midwestern State University, combined milled plastic pieces with the basic Lego Mindstorms set to create a robotic spider that can crawl and turn.

“I wanted to open students’ minds to go beyond ‘let’s put the parts together and program the robot,’” he says. “This project is more than sticking the wheels on a Lego set.” The school uses Lego Mindstorms to introduce freshman students to robotics.

The spider robot’s legs are based on a concept called the Klann linkage. A single leg has a six-bar linkage with a frame, crank, two rockers and two couplers connected with pivot joints. This transforms rotating motion into linear motion.

Weller says he created the spider’s legs from 3/8-inch plastic sheet stock on a 3-axis CNC mill. But it can also be made by a 3-D printer such as Makerbot and RepRap.

As the video shows, the robotic spider moves with grace and turns around with flair, even on a smooth surface.  Miller has posted the details of his Lego spider project and says he hopes 3-D printing enthusiasts will try it out.

Photos: Mark Weller

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10 Profoundly Personal Future Innovations

Here’s a list of innovations that really caught my attention as this list takes a refreshingly human and personal look at the future and also manages to live up to this headline of being both profound and innovative.  Well worth your time to read though I’ll warn you in advance that there are lots of links and each one is worth following and using up even more of your valuable time and attention.

Notice how many of the innovations featured in this list are already happening and add to my What if the impossible isn’t? list.  As you reflect upon what you read here I think you will see how this adds to my conviction around The Snowflake Effect and that our future is a giant snowstorm of extreme mass customization for every person every day by making everything deeply personal and unique.  Read on and see what you think?

10 Profound Innovations Ahead

By Jeremy Hsu TechNewsDaily
29 January 2010 1:11 PM ET

Today's world looks increasingly like the future. Robots work factory assembly lines and fight alongside human warriors on the battlefield, while tiny computers assist in everything from driving cars to flying airplanes. Surgeons use the latest technological tools to accomplish incredible feats, and researchers push the frontiers of medicine with bioengineering. Science fiction stories about cloning and resurrecting extinct animals look increasingly like relevant cautionary tales.

Canadian Thought Control? Winter Olympics to Demo Thought-Controlled Lighting

Thought control is definitely on my What if the impossible isn’t? or WITITT? list and here is a recent addition to the list of examples.

I suspect we will do our usual underestimation on this whole area of brain direct or thought controlled interfaces in that we will underestimate how long it will take to mainstream but more so we will underestimate the impact it will have.  In any case while it is early in the development don't forget that history shows clearly that adoption and most every other type of change increased exponentially.  We therefore need to be thinking of things much sooner than in the past so we we will be ready to adopt and leverage these new enablers as they emerge from the lab and head increasingly quickly towards everyday use by the rest of us.

Consider this latest example and start pondering how we will use this to interact with and control our environments and interactions with information, technology and each other.

Winter Olympics to Demo Thought-Controlled Lighting

• By Priya Ganapati
• February 3, 2010

Read More Wired GadgetLab

Along with the figure skating, ice hockey and snowboarding, another event will compete for attention at the Winter Olympics in Canada this month.

A Canadian company has created what it calls the “largest thought-controlled computing installation.” It’s an experiment that lets visitors to the Olympics use their brainwaves to control the lights at three major landmarks in Canada, including Niagara Falls.

“When people put on the headsets and find themselves increasing the brightness of the lights by just thinking about it, you can almost see their brains explode,” says Trevor Coleman, chief operating officer for InteraXon, the company that has created this installation.

As consumers get more comfortable with going beyond the keyboard and the mouse to interact with their computers, companies are looking for alternate ways to make the experience better. Already, touch and voice recognition have become a major part of the user interface in smartphones, and harnessing brainwaves or other biological data is slowly emerging as a third option, especially in gaming.

Most Likely to Succeed? Is it possible to predict & hire great teachers?

Most Likely to Succeed

How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job?

by Malcolm Gladwell December 15, 2008

I really enjoy Malcolm Gladwell's writing and more so his curiosity and how he "thinks different".  I try to read as many of his columns as I can as they find a sweet spot for me of being long enough to explore a topic in some depth and let him tell a good story, yet be short enough that I can read them in one sitting along with the many other articles and posts I'm reading each day.

This New Yorker article focuses on the very tricky art of hiring practices, especially for teachers and exposes a lot of common myths about hiring and spotting of true talent for a given job or task.

You'll need to make it through his initial telling of the challenge in American football he refers to as "the quarterback problem" before you will get to his comparison and coverage of the importance and challenge of how to choose good to great teachers.  However it is well worth your time and I highly recommend reading the full article and see what you think and take away.

 Effective teachers have a gift for noticing—
 what one researcher calls “withitness.”

via www.newyorker.com             Read more

At the risk of spoiling the story for you, Malcolm makes that point that effective hiring practice for complex and critical roles such as teachers takes years and requires observation of the results achieved over this time.  This would suggest an apprenticeship type model and a radical shift from the way we currently recruit, reward and retain great teachers.  To be effective we need to treat each teacher as a unique individual and hire at this same level of uniqueness; one at a time.

Many would therefore probably place this into the "impossible" category but as you can likely guess I'll add it to my "What if the impossible isn't?" list.  And indeed Malcolm goes on to describe at least one example, financial planners, where this is both possible and being practiced.  For me this is yet another example of why we need to treat each situation, each job and each person as a unique individual.  Hence I see this, no doubt through my frosted glasses, as another excellent example of why The Snowflake Effect is so important and how it is affecting almost everything in our world.

Here are some of Malcolm's points which really got my attention:

"with enough data, it is possible to identify who the very good teachers are and who the very poor teachers are. What’s more—and this is the finding that has galvanized the educational world—the difference between good teachers and poor teachers turns out to be vast."

"Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects.""After years of worrying about issues like school funding levels, class size, and curriculum design, many reformers have come to the conclusion that nothing matters more than finding people with the potential to be great teachers. But there’s a hitch: no one knows what a person with the potential to be a great teacher looks like.""Test scores, graduate degrees, and certifications—as much as they appear related to teaching prowess—turn out to be about as useful in predicting success as having a quarterback throw footballs into a bunch of garbage cans."

"The equivalent of that approach, in the N.F.L., would be for a team to give up trying to figure out who the “best” college quarterback is, and, instead, try out three or four “good” candidates.
 In teaching, the implications are even more profound. They suggest that we shouldn’t be raising standards. We should be lowering them, because there is no point in raising standards if standards don’t track with what we care about. Teaching should be open to anyone with a pulse and a college degree—and teachers should be judged after they have started their jobs, not before. That means that the profession needs to start the equivalent of Ed Deutschlander’s training camp. It needs an apprenticeship system that allows candidates to be rigorously evaluated."

"What does it say about a society that it devotes more care and patience to the selection of those who handle its money than of those who handle its children?"

I hope you will take the time to not only ready this article but to reflect upon it and contribute your reactions and ideas.  Is it possible to hire and retain great teachers?  Is it possible to raise the quality of teaching staff overall?  Would this "apprenticeship" type of model work for the teaching profession?

I think my favorite quote from Malcolm's article is:

"A prediction, in a field where prediction is not possible, is no more than a prejudice."

In the Next Industrial Revolution Atoms Are the New Bits - Wired and WITII?

As you've been reading here in many of my previous posts, one of the best examples of the Snowflake Effect and my constant quest around the theme of What if the Impossible Isn't? (WITII?), is that of the extreme mass personalization of the manufacturing process.  This is essentially democratizing manufacturing and therefore most of our physical world of human designed and made "things".  This all ties in nicely or is part of the often called the "Internet of Things".

Of course this is pure delight for me as The Snowflake Effect hits manufacturing and represents a huge surge forward in the transformation from mass production to mass customization.

IMHO, the importance and the long term effects of this new industrial revolution will be no less than and likely more than that of the previous.  Consider that most of our society, our education systems, our design models, our assumptions and our way of life are indelibly permeated by a mass production orientation and the influences of the initial industrial revolution.  Imagine, as I do, this is changing and doing so exponentially rapidly.  The future is a much more “Do it Yourself” DIY model, based on groups of individuals, access, collaboration, crowdsourcing and centered around great ideas.  Brace yourself for the future, it is already here.

I can therefore heartily recommend that you spend the time to read this recent Wired article in its entirety, watch the video and click on some of the many links in the article to learn more and likely convince yourself just how real and how big this coming revolution is. I’m confident you’ll agree it is a good use of your time.

The video is below and below that I’ve pulled a few quotes out which caught my mind’s eye.

Atoms Are the New Bits

Added: January 25, 2010

In an age of open source, custom-fabricated, DIY product design, all you need to conquer the world - and to profit - is a brilliant idea. Welcome to the next Industrial Revolution.

Some other significant out takes from the Wired article include:

"Within minutes, you have a whole new physical object: a rip, mix, and burn of atoms."

“Transformative change happens when industries democratize, when they’re ripped from the sole domain of companies, governments, and other institutions and handed over to regular folks. The Internet democratized publishing, broadcasting, and communications, and the consequence was a massive increase in the range of both participation and participants in everything digital — the long tail of bits.”

“Now the same is happening to manufacturing — the long tail of things.”

“Three guys with laptops” used to describe a Web startup. Now it describes a hardware company, too.”

“Hardware is becoming much more like software,”

“As Cory Doctorow puts it in his new book, Makers, “The days of companies with names like ‘General Electric’ and ‘General Mills’ and ‘General Motors’ are over. The money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people.””

“For a lens into the new world of open-access factories in China, check out Alibaba .com, the largest aggregator of the country’s manufacturers, products, and capabilities. Just search on the site (in English), find some companies producing more or less what you’re looking to make, and then use instant messaging to ask them if they can manufacture what you want. Alibaba’s IM can translate between Chinese and English in real time, so each person can communicate using their native language. Typically, responses come in minutes: We can’t make that; we can make that and here’s how to order it; we already make something quite like that and here’s what it costs.”

Personal projects are often worth more than professional ones. What's stopping you? - Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

The Snowflake Effect is all about extreme mass personalization for every person every day.  Making things uniquely matched to ourselves and our context so they fit us just right  This often involves the personalization of products and services but what about the personalization of the person?  The Snowflake Effect enables us to be our authentic selves and THAT may well be the most exciting and powerful result of a world full of snowflakes.

Check out the post from Ewan McIntosh's edu.blogs.com and the video of Ji Lee telling the story of how he Snowflaked himself by putting his personal projects in front of his professional ones and ended up having them become one and the same.

Personal projects are often worth more than professional ones. What's stopping you?

It's all too easy to relegate our personal projects to the bottom of the pile until "the day job" is complete. The result? We nearly always end up having to leave creative, fun, new projects behind in the interest of ticking someone else's boxes, when those same personal projects could be the very innovation that make the difference.

Ji Lee was fed up with his life as an ad exec when he decided to engage the public in parodying that very same world, printing out 50,000 speech bubble stickers and placing them over ads around New York City. Over time, the public took the lead in inventing political or comical speech to make the parody. The ultimate parody in this project is, of course, that ad agencies used them to further promote their products. He spins a good yarn in his 99% video.

via edu.blogs.com