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STUPIDITY & TECHNOLOGY

Is information technology making us stupid? As we rely more and more on mobile phones, tablets, and video streaming devices, are we thinking less? Are we less aware of our surroundings?

If we can believe a poll commissioned by WGBH Boston, stupidity may indeed be advancing as technology advances. The poll, with 622 adults participating, was conducted in late March. Nearly half- 49%- of those surveyed said that technological development fosters stupidity; 46% said it makes us smarter. Only 51% of Americans said the benefits outweigh the risks.

Younger respondents were more likely to link technological advance with stupidity. Millennials and Generation X (53% of each) were more likely than their elders to link technology with stupidity. Just 38% of those born before 1946 did so. Dr. Lee M Meringoff heads the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the WGBH poll. Meringoff said, “If you think young people are all in for technological revolution, think again. This national survey shows surprising differences among generations and their appreciation for innovation.”

Nearly three Americans out of four said technology improves education. A narrow majority (54%) said it makes us more productive. However, 71% said it makes us less human. And 54% said it undermines relationships with friends and family.

Our own view is that technology doesn’t have to make us stupid. Certainly it can tempt us to mire ourselves in trivia. We can waste our time on porn, cat videos, and interactive games. Social media can encourage vanity, and we all know people who text while driving or walking. Some people seem to be wholly unaware that a world exists outside of their electronic devices.

Our parents and our grandparents warned us about TV and radio, citing most of the same concerns, but most of us managed to lead normal and productive lives anyway. If we are wise, we will use information technology to inform ourselves and enhance our productivity. We don’t have to be oblivious to our surroundings. Our machines don’t have to rule us.

(To get the most out of information technology, you need a reliable internet connection. Is yours adequate? If it isn’t, talk to us. We can help.)

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WARRIORS WIN WITH DATA

Winning in professional sports, we’ve long been told, is a result of talent and hard work. Lately, it also requires information technology.

Nobody knows this better than the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, who’ve used advanced analytics to pull themselves up from near the league cellar in the 2009-2010 season, when they finished in 13th place in the Western Conference. Last year, the Warriors posted a blistering 67 wins in the regular season, and went on to win the World Championship. This year, they won a record 73 games in the regular season, eclipsing the previous record (72) set by the Chicago Bulls in 1996.  They have stormed through the playoffs, and are heavy favorites to win their second straight title.

The dramatic reversal of Golden State’s fortunes began in 2010, when Joe Lacob, a venture capitalist, and Peter Gruber, a Hollywood producer, bought the team. At the time, the NBA had just begun experimenting with analytics, much as professional baseball had been doing.

The team installed SportVU, a six-camera motion-sensing system, which could track each player’s movements 25 times per second. It enabled tracking and analysis of each player’s shots, passes, dribbling, defensive moves, speed, distance between players, and distance run during the game.

The Warriors were slow to figure out how to wring victories out of the data. In the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 seasons, they won fewer than half of their games, and failed to qualify for the playoffs. Eventually, though, they learned how to use the data to improve training and game strategy. For the 2013-2014 season, they won 57% of their regular season games. The following year they won 62%. In the 2014-2015 season, they won 82%, and this year they won an eye-popping 89%.

The Warriors are noted for unselfish play. The team’s use of video, electronic sensors, and analytics have been instrumental in enhancing its style and its performance on the court.. Marc Spears, a senior NBA writer for ESPN, said, “In some  shape or fashion, every team has become heavy on using tech. But the Warriors are having tremendous success with it.”

Coaches and team managers need to monitor every player’s level of fatigue and potential for injury. To get this information, they have the players wear small sensors that track their movements during practice. The monitors, worn between the shoulders under compression shirts, sense pressure on ankles and knees, and whether the players are moving at normal levels of fitness. Klay Thompson, a shooting guard, said, “Back in the day, we were just able to say, ‘He’s breathing hard; he might need to rest.’ Now they (the coaches) can actually see if you need a day of rest, or if you need to go harder.”

Golden State coaches believe brain function is as important as physical condition. With this is mind, their have players fitted with electrodes on their faces and hands. The electrodes measure neuron activity in the brain– data that’s critical in measuring physical and mental fatigue, which the players themselves might not recognize.

The team constantly explores any electronic technology that might provide a competitive advantage. This includes sleep masks that combat jet lag; smart clothing that measures breathing, heart rate, and muscle use; and head phones that improve muscle memory by transmitting electrical signals to the brain.

Golden State’s minor league team, the Santa Cruz Warriors, is often a guinea pig for new technologies, and it, too, benefits from the data. Last year, the Santa Cruz Warriors won the championship for their league.

To win in life, you also need data. If your internet service isn’t keeping up, talk to us. We can help.

(Editor’s note:  As we post this, the Golden State Warriors are ahead 3-1 in the NBA Championship Series. With one more win, they can take their second straight title.)

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Will robots replace us in the labor market? With accelerating automation, it may sometimes seem that our jobs are doomed.

Robots deliver pizza. Google has developed cars that drive themselves. This is only the tip of an emerging iceberg.

Two years ago, Momentum Machines developed a robot that could provide freshly ground and grilled hamburgers to order, with freshly sliced vegetable toppings, and customized meat or seasoning combinations. If a customer wants a meat patty with one-third bison and two-thirds pork, the robot will provide it. And it can produce 360 custom burgers per hour.

A few years ago, the Los Angeles Times began using an artificial intelligence application to write weather and earthquake updates. Afterward, the AI app wrote sports articles. The newspaper tested the app by asking readers to compare articles written by the robot with articles written by human reporters. Very few could tell the difference.

If these examples aren’t daunting enough, some researchers believe that artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and virtual reality will make most human jobs obsolete within a decade or two. Robots, we are told, will handle so many of the tasks that now require human labor, very few jobs are likely to survive. Machines will be able to learn, and will constantly become more competent. Eventually, they will know so much that they won’t need human supervision. Some analysts argue that we’ll need a universal minimum income, so the hordes of displaced workers can survive.

These frightening prophecies, though, are out of touch with reality. We’ve been through technological revolutions before- and they’ve paved the way for more jobs, not fewer.

By inventing mechanical molds and the movable type press, Johannes Gutenberg drove thousands of European scribes out of their vocations. But his invention created new industries. It made the mass production of books and pamphlets possible, and without it the newspaper industry would never have existed. The movable type press killed thousands of jobs, and created millions more.

The automation of agriculture was even more disruptive to labor markets. In the nineteenth century, four out of five American jobs were on ranches or farms. Today, fewer than 3% are. Automated farming freed millions of people for other, less onerous work at higher wages.

We are at the verge of the next great leap in technology. It will, no doubt, destroy tens of millions of jobs. Some workers are likely to be displaced for months, some for years. Transitions to the new information-based economy are going to be difficult. For every job the robots destroy, though, they’ll create several more. A 2011 study by the International Federation of Robotics found that the use of one million industrial robots led directly to creation of three million jobs. Increased use of robots usually fosters lower unemployment

The jobs that survive the robot revolution are likely to be the ones requiring creativity, empathy and human connections, negotiation and persuasion- and repair and maintenance of robots. We are certain to see more job openings in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. As robots handle more of our repetitive tasks, we will have more opportunity for easier and more interesting work.

Welcome the robots. More than likely, they are your friends.

(To benefit from automation, you need current information. For this, a reliable internet connection is necessary. Talk to us. We can help.)

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SOCIALIZATION VS SCHOOLING

If you think about removing your children from the formal school setting, you are likely to be peppered with questions about their social development. Regardless of how well your children fare academically, you are sure to be told that home schooling will retard their socialization.

What does socialization mean, though? Into what kind of setting will your children be socialized? What are the social  norms your children will be expected to adapt to?

Children who attend public schools may have little in common but age and the zip codes they live in. In school, they have little contact with people much older or much younger. The adults they meet are authority figures, who tell them what to do and how to do it. The students don’t develop social relationships with the adults. In such a setting children will learn the dominant values of their classmates, then- the values of people who don’t know more than they do. They soon learn about social conformity, bullying, toadying, cliquishness, and gossip. Is this what we want them to learn?

In the formal school setting, few children can escape becoming peer-dependent. Peer dependency undermines creativity, empathy, and independent thought. As children become more peer-dependent, they are likely to lose respect for adults, themselves, and even their peers.

Standard schooling leaves little opportunity for socialization, anyway. Children are in tightly-controlled environments for most of their waking hours. They are in class from 7:30 to 3:00, in after-school activities from 3:30 to 5:00, and forced into homework from 5:00 to 7:00. While in school, they are forced to sit down and shut up, walk in line (single file- arms at sides), and raise their hands for permission to speak or to go to the bathroom. They compete with each other for grades. Laggards are ‘slow’ or ‘stupid’. Children who learn easily risk being called ‘teacher’s pets’.

In workplaces and other adult settings, we are not segregated by age or last name. We are not required to raise hands when conversing or answering calls of nature. Many of our activities are unscheduled, or we control the schedules. In most adult settings, we’re not in direct competition with almost everyone we meet. Can formal schooling, then, prepare us adequately for the social settings we will face as adults?

Given the way formal schooling actually functions, shouldn’t we at least question its value as a tool for socialization?

In a future post, we will explore alternatives- and their impact on social development.

(To get the most out of alternative education, you need a good internet connection. Talk to us. We can help.)

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IS TECHNOLOGY ACCELERATING?

It may seem to you that the pace of technological development is moving faster than your ability to keep up. Are you just imagining this?

According to some of the world’s leading experts in technology, it’s not all in your head. Our tools and industrial processes are changing at an ever faster and faster rate. Ten years ago, you didn’t own a smart phone. Video services on mobile devices were unheard of.  Thirty years ago, very few people owned personal computers, and digital information was nearly the exclusive possession of government and business elites. Today, you carry the entire store of the world’s knowledge in your hand.

According to Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, the pace of technical innovation really is gathering speed. You may have heard of Moore’s Law. It’s named after Gordon Moore, who said in 1965 that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit would double every two years. So far, his prediction has proven to be accurate.

Kurzweil says that Moore’s Law applies to more than computer circuits. The same principle, he says, applies to technology development in general. For example, DNA sequence data has increased about ten million times since 1982, bandwidth in the internet backbone has grown by about 10 billion times since 1985, and the performance-to-price ratio for wireless devices has increased by nearly a million times since 1990. There are many more examples. A wide range of technologies increase capability by millions, even billions, of times, in just a few decades and at dramatically lower prices.

Kurzweil calls technical development an evolutionary process. As in biology, ‘natural selection’ means that advantageous development is passed on to our technological ‘offspring’. Not having to start from zero, we build on what’s been done. Our tools, like living organisms, become increasingly complex and increasingly capable. As Kurzweil put it: “Evolution applies positive feedback. The more capable methods resulting from one stage of evolutionary progress are used to create the next stage.”

Technology follows the iron law of accelerating returns. Each generation stands on the achievements of its forebears. Each generation adds its own improvements, enabling the next generation of even greater achievement.

(To get the most out of technology, you need the right information tools. Talk to us. We can help.)

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THE THIRD GREAT LEAP

Are we on the verge of the third great technological leap in human history? Some economists and inventors say we are.

The First Great Leap, about 7, 000 years ago, was the development of agriculture. The hunter-gatherer societies that had existed until then were small, unstable, and at the mercy of the elements. People had to move frequently to follow game.

With agriculture, the human race developed a degree of control over nature. In planting and harvesting crops, we could build up food surpluses. The surpluses became a foundation for credit and trade. In domesticating animals, we had predictable supplies of meat, hides, milk, eggs, and wool. With predictable food supplies, permanent dwellings became practical, and man built the first cities. As trade accelerated, we built up further surpluses, which encouraged greater division of labor and some leisure time. This fostered sophisticated religion, philosophy, entertainment, scientific inquiry, and the arts.

The Second Great Leap, the Industrial Revolution, occurred about 200 years ago. Man’s output would no longer be limited to the product of his own muscles or the muscles of his livestock. With the invention of reliable steam engines, then electrical power, man could multiply his productivity many times beyond what was possible with muscle power alone.

The Industrial Revolution multiplied wealth for the masses. An ordinary citizen in America or Western Europe now enjoys comfort, leisure, and mobility that were unavailable even to royalty two centuries ago.

The Third Great Leap is the information revolution. We are on the cusp of it now. Computer technology has come a long way in the last forty years, but still is primitive compared to what it soon will be. The internet, scarcely dreamed of a generation ago, is still in its infancy.

The third leap is the use of information for more than training and education. We are about to use encoded information routinely to manipulate physical reality. With a VR headset and a control console, someone in Spain controls an earth mover in Sweden. A surgeon operates on a patient remotely, with robots cutting more precisely than his hand. A factory manager in Phoenix controls production in Tucson, with no staff on site in the Tucson factory. He can monitor and address any problems in real time.

Some of the most important emerging technologies include virtual reality, 3D printing, gene editing, and the ‘internet of things’. Sensors will be nearly everywhere. If we want, we can have nearly constant feedback about nearly everything in our environment.

Some experts believe the Third Great Leap will multiply average productivity more than fifty times within a few decades. If this happens, nearly all of us will be much richer. We could easily pay off the national debt. We would have cheap and abundant energy. We could solve problems that seem intractable now.

We cannot know now exactly how the Third Great Leap will affect us. We can make only the vaguest of guesses. It will, no doubt, bring us many new problems as well as opportunities. At any rate, we can be sure that our lives will be very different.

(To get the HughesNet data service that’s right for you, talk to us.)

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IMMORTAL INFORMATION

Can information be immortal?  Scientists at the University of Southampton (UK) say it can be.

For most of us, this claim would sound preposterous. We know that any medium we write or draw on, or encode our data on, will be destroyed over time. Heat, humidity, and chemical breakdown will rot paper. Clay tablets crumble. Stone breaks, and is eroded by the elements. Ferrous metals will rust. Celluloid melts under high heat, and decomposes as the chemicals that form it break down. The substances that form our DVDs and hard drives may last longer, but they too are subject to the relentless process of decay.

Finding a truly permanent data storage medium has been one of the great quests of the Information Age. A few weeks ago, scientists at the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Center demonstrated just such a medium. It is by far the most permanent and versatile data storage and retrieval method yet.

The new storage medium is a nanostructured glass disc made of fused quartz. A femtosecond laser writes the data onto the disc. The US ORC team calls its new data-writing method “five-dimensional”, based on the three position dimensions, plus orientation and size.

Each disc, slightly larger than a U.S. quarter, can hold 360 terabytes of data. It will last for 13.8 billion years, approximately the age of the universe, at 374 degrees Fahrenheit. At room temperature, it will be nearly immortal. The molecular structure of the disc will remain stable at up to 1832 degrees F.

Reading the disc requires shining a light through it, then measuring the resulting data with an optical microscope and a polarizing filter. Experiments in 2013 proved the feasibility of this method with a 300 kilobyte file. The method has been refined since then, and now can accommodate files more than a million times larger.

It is possible now to record the entire history of civilization, without concern about limits in storage capacity, or decay of the storage medium. The Southampton ORC gave UNESCO an immortal ‘5D’ disc with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Christian Bible (KJV), the Magna Carta Libertate, Newton’s Opticks, and other important historical documents have been stored on ‘5D’ discs.

Does this mean the story of your life will be immortal? It might. Be careful how you live. Your cat videos, your social media posts, your financial records, and your behavior at bars may be preserved for future generations to puzzle over.

It isn’t just glory that could live forever. Embarrassment could, too.

(Do you have enough bandwidth for your data needs? Talk to us. We can find the plan that works best for you.)

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MEMORY BY GOOGLE

Have you ever forgotten a business appointment? Have you ever forgotten your spouse’s birthday? Have you ever forgotten your most important point while briefing your boss about a critical project?

Memory often fails us when we need it most. Within a few years, though, you might not need it. Machines will remember what you need to know.

Last month, IBM patented an algorithm it calls an “automatic Google for the mind”. It could track your behavior and speech, analyze your intentions, and, discerning when you seem to have lost your way, offer suggestions to prod your memory. Dr. James Kozlowski, a computational neuroscientist for IBM Research, is the lead researcher for the automated memory project. Kozlowski says he helped develop his company’s new ‘cognitive digital assistant’ for people with severe memory impairment, but it could help all of us with research, brainstorming, recovering lapsed memories, and forming creative connections.

IBM’s new cognitive tool tackles the most common cause of memory failure: absence of context. Memory, for most of us, is a web of connections. Remembering a single aspect of an experience, we can call up others. To remember is to find the missing piece in a puzzle. If you can’t find the first clue, you can’t find the second, and you don’t have a mental map for the information you need.

Dr. Kozlowski says IBM has found the solution for our memory failures. His cognitive assistant models our behaviors and memories. It hears our conversations, studies our actions, and draws conclusions about our intentions from our behavior and speech patterns, and our conversations with others. From this data, it can discern when we have trouble with recall. It then will guess what we want to know, suggesting names and biographical data within milliseconds. By studying our individual quirks, it will learn what behavior is normal for us, and when we need help.

Synced with your phone, the automated cognitive assistant would search its database of phone numbers to find out who’s calling you. Before you answer, the assistant will display the caller’s name, highlights of your recent conversations, and important events in the caller’s life. At a business meeting, your digital assistant will, on hearing certain words, recall related points mentioned in past meetings, and your research on the subject. It will display them on your mobile device, or ‘speak’ them into an earpiece.

It’s likely to be several years before IBM’s automated cognitive assistant is in common use. A few bugs stand in the way of commercialization, but it’s still an impressive achievement.

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REPLACING THE PASSWORD

Security is one of our most important concerns in use of the internet. Carelessness can expose our devices to malware and hacking, and we risk our bank accounts and our identities.

The password is a partial solution, our best attempt to limit the risk in internet use. It’s not a perfect defense, though, and it brings its own drawbacks. Passwords that are easy to remember may also be easy for hackers to guess. More difficult passwords we can forget more easily, and we can be locked out of our devices or our secured sites. With multiple passwords, we compound the burden on memory.

In the future, even the best, most complex passwords may not be adequate defenses. As hackers gain access to ever more processing power, brute force attacks could overcome even our most sophisticated encryption efforts. What, then, can we do?

In the long run, replacing the password may be our only realistic chance of protecting our data, our money, and our identities. But what will you replace your password with?

One of the most promising new security protocols is use of biometric data. Replacing your password with a fingerprint, a facial scan, or an iris scan would save having to remember a complex code. A hacker can’t duplicate your features, your fingerprint, or your retinas. It wouldn’t matter how much processing power he had. Without physical access to your computer, he couldn’t break the code.

Dell, Microsoft, Digital Persona, and a few other vendors sell fingerprint scanners for computer security. All sell at retail for less than $80.00. One sells for less than $20.00. After installing your scanner, you can log in just by pressing your finger in the designated slot. You’ll never need a login password again.

Iris or retinal scanners are commonly used for airport and military security. They are too expensive for most consumer uses, but this is expected to change. Improvements in sensor technology will drive prices downward.

One of the most important technologies replacing the password will be machine learning. Ray Kurzweil, one of the most famous computer scientists, as well as a prominent author, inventor, and futurist, said that in the future “the machine will learn you”. Advanced software algorithms will learn the habits of computer users. Eventually, your computer will know your patterns of use and the cadence of your keystrokes. Your computer could detect attempted hacking simply because the hacker’s use patterns will differ from yours. No other security protocol will be necessary.

For now, replacing your computer passwords with more advanced security tools requires time, effort, or money. Before long, you won’t need to expend extra effort or money, as all computers and (legitimate) websites will have adequate security tools built in.

Meanwhile, you may have to rely on your memory.

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PASSWORD MANAGERS

You know the drill for logging in to your computer. You have to enter a password. You also need passwords for your internet service, for specific websites, and for online commerce.

The use of passwords for online security comes with certain drawbacks. If your password is easy to remember, it may also be easy for a hacker to guess it. If your password is more complex, a combination of letters and numbers, you’re more likely to forget it, and you could be locked out of your computer. If you have several passwords, you’re almost certain to forget one sooner or later.

Some people use password managers, installed browser plug-ins that track all of the passwords the user needs for all different online functions. If you have the plug-in and you log in to a secure site, it offers to save your password and any other credentials. You need to enter the information only once. With every subsequent visit, the password manager offers to fill in the information automatically. If you have saved multiple logins for a particular site, the password manager will show you multiple login options. Most password managers display a toolbar menu with a list of saved login credentials, so you can visit any saved site and log in automatically.

If you need to change a password, or you need login credentials for a new site but don’t want to think of a new password, most password managers will generate and save new passwords automatically.

Most password managers will also fill in personal data on internet forms: name, address, phone number, e-mail address, etc. This could save you considerable time.

Most password managers are free. The better ones cost between $12.00 and $39.95. You don’t have to shell out a lot of money for a superior product, though. One of the top-rated password managers, Lastpass 4.0 Premium, costs just $12.00.

If you want your online activity to be secure, but don’t want to remember multiple passwords, consider installing a password manager. And for the best internet service, talk to us.