Phil Smeeton's Tech Thinking Blog

With the recent increase in the implementation of video calling services like facetime, zoom, MS Teams it seems that there is a significant need for a large web application that provides discovery services for the users of video calling.  By discovery services I mean the ability to index and look up human users of video calling, the ability to make yourself discoverable within the directory, the ability to provide live availability and have it integrated into other systems like mobile or desk-top computing. The way I see this type of application working shares some similarities to old paper phone books that list names and numbers, the main concern of the user of a phone book is the discovery of an individual's phone number and I see this idea evolving into the discovery of video calling credentials online. The phone number part grows into connection details for zoom, FaceTime, MS Teams, the more impressive part of this application is the live availability of the users displayed wit...

Status of owning tech hardware, the fancier your smartphone the more desirable you are to others, why owning great tech matters. The efficacy of companies like Apple in creating status is a very impressive thing to observe, people seem to love paying sums of money to own a high status mobile device, I think it is worth remembering that Apple's devices are mostly high power general purpose computer devices using a clean UI on top of a Unix kernel. I think Apple's philosophy of clean, simple and elegant products creates a lot of value and I think in humanist terms people like to feel  they  are some of those things, the psychology of being clean, approachable, uncomplicated yet capable, expensive and beautiful. I think it's worth examining what is happening when the user of a smartphone drops and damages the device. The chances are excellent that the user will be in a public place when the damage occurs, other people will very likely see the event, so what is happening here? ...

 Mobile, web, smart apps, bots – A discussion, what's the win? Back in the early 1990's I was driving around the local area one summer evening in my modified ford sierra and I noticed a young lady staring curiously at something she was carrying in her hand, the look on her face was one of excitement, optimism and awe, I thought at the time something special is happening to this person, I think she was thinking about the potential of a mobile device. I still remember thinking that maybe she has some ideas and I ought to talk to her about it. I never did talk to this person although I hope their mobile device lived up to their expectations! What I'm describing here is a certain excitement of possibility, some people describe this as the gift of possibility.  In terms of brain function I think this person in the 1990's was experiencing similar excitement we see users experience today with their new iPhone. Immediately I felt that this hardware could provide a certain unity...

 Community, virtual worlds, virtual techniques. As I write this the Microsoft tech community is around 500k people in size, making it a large community similar in size to the population of a fairly big city. I think most people see tech as an enabler of communities, a host of virtual communities and a method of increasing the flow of information within communities. Tech is very rarely opposed to the idea of community, its often open architectures promote growth, inclusiveness and increase in community. I think that the philosophy of inclusiveness within the tech community is a virtue and strength. The phenomenal potential of virtual worlds is very exciting, making experiences possible that are not possible in our real world. Does this virtual world offer an infinite number of experiences? That's a tough question, it would be easier to agree that the virtual world will be different. Will people someday prefer the virtual world? Possible and slightly likely in my opinion, I think muc...

 Autonomous vehicles in depth If you keep an eye on the media you will notice articles about self driving cars appearing, or discussion about autonomous vehicles, so what is going to happen here? We firstly I would like to state that a completely self driving car is possible and inevitable on this planet, the less certain elements relate to the timing (how long we will have to wait) and how capable (how reliably skilled) the car control system will  have to be  before we trust the autonomous software to drive us to our destination safely every time. Many of the solutions for autonomous cars at the moment relate to visual data together with radar, gps and in fact anything we as developers can think of that will increase the precision of the control system. I think in the end there will be a number of technologies used by the control system probably 3-5 significant different systems in the first release iteration of the driving system. We will think (rightly) that having se...

The default philosophy and what it means for the tech business. Developers love defaults, defaults save us time and help build software that works quickly, what I am interested in here is a little different although I'm using some of the psychology of the word default. This part looks at success and successful living, and I'll start by an examination of what most people want, happiness, health, beauty, riches. Given we are on a planet that is shared with billions of other people there must be some way to ensure success? Well I recommend you think about this defaulting idea it came to me after decades of life experience and study of success. So you want a new car, how about the top of the range Bentley, too expensive, better default to a Ford pick up? In fact it is this defaulting psychology that is of interest and the defaulting usually sets the height of your expectation in this developed world. So am I saying that if you default to a Bentley that's what you end up with? W...

Care of mobile devices  I think it's worth examining what is happening when the user of a smartphone drops and damages the device. The chances are excellent that the user will be in a public place when the damage occurs, other people will very likely see the event, so what is happening here? So glad you asked. The visual stimuli detects an event, the dropping of the phone, the impact of the device and the subsequent damage are usually visible on the device, the device might disconnect from the network making the user less contactable for a while. The investment in money that the user has made has been reduced, the device (as an asset) has been lost to a lesser or great extent. The humans might conclude that the user is a little clumsy or maybe they have been struggling with carrying stuff. Does the user with a broken phone make straight for a phone store, does some kind of emergency mobile phone replacement service appear with flashing lights and a siren, why or why not? One of the...