Non Forbes

Terminal mode or a standard mounting port for mobile phones in cars?

Submitted by brad on Sun, 2011-05-01 20:27

It's very common to use mobile phones for driving activities today. Many people even put in cell phone holders in their cars when they want to use the phones as navigation systems as well as make calls over a bluetooth. There's even evidence that dashboard mounting reduces the distracted driving phenomenon associated with phones in cars.

Topic: 
Technology
Transportation

Selling empty middle seats by dutch auction

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2011-04-25 13:57

I have written before about letting passengers pay for an empty middle seat next to them and recently about ANZ's cuddle class and related programs which partially implement this.

While I believe airlines could sell the empty middle for somewhere in the range of 30-40% of a regular ticket, this still has issues. In particular, are they really going to bump a poor standby passenger who had a cancelled flight and make them stay another night so that people can get a more comfortable seat?

One idea is to allow the sale of empty middles by dutch auction. In effect this would say, "If there are going to be empty middles on this plane, those who bid the most will get to sit next to them." If this can be done, it's a goldmine of extra revenue for the airline. What they sell costs them nothing -- they are just selling the distribution of passengers on the plane. If the plane fills up, however, they sell it all and nobody is charged.

The dutch auction approach would let each passenger make an offer. If there are 5 empty middles, then the 10 people who sit next to them win, but they all pay the 10th highest bid price. If only 9 passengers bid, the 10th highest price is zero, and everybody pays zero -- which is what happens today, except it's semi-random. While this may seem like a loss for the airline, many game theory tests suggest that dutch auctions often bring the best result, as they make both sides happy, and people bid more, knowing they will actually pay the fair price if they win.

(On the other hand, airlines are masters at having two people pay vastly different prices for exactly the same thing and have managed to avoid too much resentment over it.)

There is one huge problem to solve: How do you arrange that matched bidders are sitting together to share the empty middle? Each empty middle benefits two passengers.

Topic: 
Air Travel
Solve this

Google Robocars at TED, Shanghai bubble cars, Robot Week, lives saved

Submitted by brad on Wed, 2011-04-13 13:59

Here's a few Robocar updates.

First of all, the TED talk given by Sebastian Thrun, leader of the Google self-driving car team (disclaimer: they are a consulting client) is up on the TED web site. This is one of the short TED talks, so he does not get to go into a lot of depth, but notable is one of the first public showings of video of the Google car in action on ordinary city streets. (The first was at PodCarCity, but video was not made available on the web.)

Topic: 
Robocars

Guide to a meeting room based videoconference with Skype

Submitted by brad on Tue, 2011-03-29 13:52

If you're going to have a meeting with people in a meeting room and one or more people calling in remotely, I recommend trying to have a remote multi-party video call, or at the very least a high-fidelity audio call, and avoid the traditional use of a phone conference bridge to a speakerphone on the meeting room table. The reality is the remote people never feel part of the meeting, and no matter how expensive the speakerphone, the audio just doesn't cut it. There are several tools that can do a multi-party video call, including Oovoo, Sightspeed, Vsee and others, but for now I recommend Skype because it's high quality, cheap, encrypted and already ubiquitous.

While you can just set up the meeting room with Skype on a typical laptop, it's worth a bit of extra effort to make things run more smoothly in the meeting room, and to get good audio and video. Here are some steps to take, in rough order of importance.

The Basics

  • You should upgrade to the latest Skype. Use "Help/Check for upgrades" in Skype or download from their web site.
  • Create or designate a "conference master" account. (Skype no longer needs a Premium account for this but calls are limited to 4 hours/day and 100hrs/month.) I also recommend you have some money in the Skype account for outbound calling, see below.
  • The conference master should learn the UI of multi-party calling. They must be on Windows or a Mac. (Sadly, for now, only Windows is recommended.) The UI is slightly different, annoyingly. Read Skype's instructions for windows or Mac. They also have some how-to videos. The hard reality is that the Windows version is more advanced. Don't learn the UI during the conference -- in particular make sure you know how to deal with late callers or re-adding bounced people because it can happen.
  • The conference master should have a decently high-powered PC, especially if having 4 or more remotes.
  • Notify all participants of the name of the conference master. Have them add the conference master to their contact list in advance of the conference. Confirm them as buddies. Alternately, if you know their Skype names, add them and get them to confirm.
  • Create, in advance, a call group for the conference.
  • You may wish to refer the remote callers to my guide to calling in to a multi-party videoconference or a similar document. Send them the master ID when you mail them instructions like these.

The problems

Here are the typical problems that we see if the meeting room just uses a laptop on the table for the video call:

  • The camera is low down on the table, and laptop quality. It often captures backlights and looks up at people. Half the people are blocked from view by other people or stuff on the table.
  • The microphone is at the far end of the table, and it's a cheap laptop mic that picks up sound of its own fan, keyboard and possibly projector. When it sets levels based on the people at that end of the table, it makes the people at the other end hard to hear.
  • You need the sound up loud to hear the remote folks, but then any incoming calls or other computer noises are so loud as to startle people.
  • People haven't tried the interface before, so they fumble and have problems dealing with call setup and adding new callers or returning callers. This frustrates the others in the room, who just want to get on with the meeting.
  • Some folks have to come in by telephone, but you can't really have a speaker phone and a computer conference talking speaker to microphone very well.

Here's how to solve many of these problems:

Getting good audio in the conference room

Topic: 
Telecom

Guide for remote video participants in a group meeting with Skype

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2011-03-28 20:59

Having a group videoconference, or participating by video in a group meeting (where several people are in a meeting room, and one or more others are coming in via video) is quite useful. It's much better than the traditional audio conference call on a fancy speakerphone. The audio is much better and the video makes a big difference to how engaged the remote parties are in the meeting.

There are many tools, but right now I recommend Skype and Google Hangout which are both free. Hangout does 15 people and Skype 25. You want people using the latest versions.

Topic: 
Telecom

Review of standalone wand scanner

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2011-03-28 01:13

Back at the start of this blog, in 2004, I described a product I wanted to see, which I called the Paperless Home Scanner. Of late, several companies have been making products like this (not necessarily because of this blog of course) and so I finally picked one up to see how things pan out.

Because I'm cheap, I was able to pick up an asian made scanner sold under many brand names for only $38 on eBay. This scanner sometimes called the Handyscan or PS-4100 or similar numbers, can also be found on amazon for much more.

The product I described is a portable sheetfed scanner which runs on batteries and does not need to be connected to a computer because it just writes to a flash card. This particular scanner isn't that because it's a hand scanner you swipe over your documents. For many years I have used a Visioneer Strobe, which is a slow sheetfed unit that has to be connected to a Windows computer. I found that having to turn the computer on and loading the right software and selecting the directory to scan was a burden. (You don't strictly have to do that but strangely you seem motivated to do so.) The older scanner was not very fast, and suffered a variety of problems, being unable to scan thermal paper receipts (they are so thin it gets confused) and having problems with even slight skew on the documents.

I was interested in the hand-scanner approach because I presumed there had been vast improvements using the laser surface scanning found in mice. I figured a new scanner could do very good registration even if you were uneven in your wanding. Here are some of my observations:

  • While it does a better job of making an undistorted scan than older hand scanners, it is still far from perfect, and any twists or catches can distort the scan, though not that much. Enough that you wouldn't use it to print a copy, but fine for records archiving.
  • It's exactly 8.5" wide. Since it's hard to be exactly straight on any scan, that's an annoyance as you will often drift slightly from a page. A scanner for letter paper should really be about 9" wide. I'll gladly pay the extra for that.
  • Even today with Moore's law it's too slow scanning colour. Often the red light comes on that you are scanning too fast in colour. In B&W it is rare but still can happen. Frankly, by this time we should be able to make things fast and sensitive enough to allow scanning as fast as anybody is likely to do it.
  • While it is nice a small (and thus good for travel,) for use in the home, I would prefer it be a bit wider so I can get it on to the paper and scan the whole page with no risk of catching on the paper. And yes, there is always a risk of it catching.
  • It also catches on bends and folds in the paper, and so ideally you are holding the paper with one hand somehow and swiping with the other, but of course that is not really easy to do if scanning the whole page.
  • This particular scanner resets every time it turns off. And it resets to colour-300dpi. I wish it just remembered my settings.
  • In spite of what it said, it does not appear to have a monochrome setting, such as bitmap-600dpi or even 300dpi. That turns out to be fine, and even what you want, for records archiving. Sure, why throw away information in this era of cheap storage, I agree. On the other hand if it allows scanning-super-fast it may be worth it. A trick might be to start in grayscale and get levels, and then switch to bitmap/threshold
  • One huge difference with swipe scanners is they don't know where the edges of the paper are. You can scan on a black background and have software crop and straighten, but feeding scanners do that for you because they know where those edges are. Again, having a bit of the background there is fine for archiving bills etc.
  • Overall, I do now realize that not having a view of what I scanned is more of burden than I thought. Particularly if you are thinking of disposing of the document after scanning. Did you get a good scan or not? Though it would add a lot to the cost and size, I now wonder if a very small display screen might be in order.
  • Instead of a display screen, one alternative might be bluetooth, and send the scan image to your smartphone or computer directly. Not required, so you can still scan at-will, but if you have your device with you, you can get a review screen and perhaps some more advanced UI.
  • Indeed, the bluetooth approach would save you the trouble of having to transfer the files, or of having a flash card. (A modest number of megs of internal flash would probably do the job of storing until you can get near the computer.)
  • While it does plug into USB (to read the flash card) that would be a pain if you wanted to scan to screen. Bluetooth is better.

Hand swipe vs. motor fed

Topic: 
Review
Tags: 
digitizing

Turn-key Democracy

Submitted by brad on Wed, 2011-03-23 22:30

Around the world, revolution has been brewing, and new governments are arising. So often, though, attempts to bring democracy to nations not used to it fail. I don't know how to solve that problem, but I think it might be possible to make these transitions a bit easier, with a bit of modern experience and technology.

What these aspiring new governments and nations could use is a ready-made, and eventually time tested set of principles, procedures, services and people to take the steps to freedom. One that comes with a history, and with the respect of the world, as well as the ability to win the support of the people. I am not the first to suggest this, and there have been projects to prepare draft constitutions for new countries. George Soros has funded one, and one of its constitutions is being considered in Egypt, or so I have heard.

Eventually, I hope that a basic interim constitution could be created which not only is well crafted, but wins the advance support of the global community. This is to say that major nations, or bodies like the U.N. say, "If you follow these principles, really follow them, then your new government will get the recognition of the world as the legitimate new government". This is particularly important with a revolution, or a civil war as we are seeing in Libya. Big nations are coming to the aid of those under attack. But we don't know what sort of government they will create.

Today we assume that a people should self-determine their own constitution, to match their own culture. That is a valid goal, and a constitution just have the support of the vast majority of a people. But the people must also interact with the world, and the government must gain recognition. There are many lessons to be learned from the outside world, including lessons about what not to put in a constitution, even though it matches the local culture. Most new nations still find themselves wracked with sectarian, tribal and geographic divisions, and in this situation, impartial advice and even pressure can be valuable down the road.

Temporary constitution

I believe that each new country needs first an immediate, temporary, minimalist constitution. This constitution would define a transitional government, and put strong time limits on how long it can exist. This constitution would establish the process for creation of the permanent constitution, but also put limits on what can't go in it without a major supermajority vote. Right after a revolution, a new nation may have a huge, but temporary sense of unity and devotion to principle. That devotion will fade as various factions arise and pressure is applied.

The temporary constitution should be minimalist, as should be the government. It should have strong principles of transparency and accountability, because in turbulent times there is often rampant corruption and theft.

It should also, ideally, bring in principles and bodies of law almost word-for-word from other countries. While this is temporary, it provides an immediate body of precedent, and a large body of experts already trained in that nation's law. It isn't that simple of course, since some laws are not meant to be enforced if it is known they are temporary, otherwise people will exploit the expiration.

Possibly the temporary constitution would define an executive with broader power than the permanent one. There may not be the bureaucracy in place to do anything else. It could be that those who serve at the high levels of the transitional government will be barred from standing in elections for some number of years, to assure they really are just there to serve in the transition, and not become new autocrats. This may also be a useful way to make use of the services of the middle echelons of the old regime, who may be the only ones who know how to keep some things running.

Imported, sometimes remote, jurists

If there is some standardization to the system of laws, the new country can import the services of impartial foreign jurists. Some will volunteer and come. Some will come for pay, even though the payment might be deferred until the new country is on its feet. And some might serve remotely, over videoconferencing. Modern telepresence tools might encourage volunteers (or deferred payment workers) to take some time to help a new country get on its feat, providing justice, auditing and oversight.

Topic: 
New Democracy

Holding an election over SMS

Submitted by brad on Tue, 2011-03-22 20:35

In 2004, I described a system that would allow secure voting over an insecure internet and PC. Of late, I have been pondering the question of how to build a "turn-key democracy kit" -- a suite of tools and services that could be used by a newly born democracy to smoothly create a new state. We've seen a surprising number of new states and revolutions in the last few years, and I expect we'll see more.

One likely goal after any revolution is to quickly hold some sort of meaningful election so that it's clear the new regime has popular support and is not just another autocracy replacing the old one. You don't have time to elect a full government (and may not want to due to passions) but at some point you need some sort of government that is accountable to the people to oversee the transition to a stable democracy.

This may create a need for a quick, cheap, simple and reliable election. Even though I am generally quite opposed to the use of voting machines, particularly voting machines which only record results in digital form, there are a number of advantages to digital voting over cell phones and PCs in a new country, at least in a country that has a digital or mobile phone infrastructure established enough so that everybody, even if they don't have a phone, knows someone who has one.

Consider:

  • In a new country, fresh out of autocracy, powerful forces will oppose the election. They will often try to prevent it or block voters.
  • A common technique is intimidation, scaring people away from voting with threats of violence around polling places.
  • The attacks against digital voting systems tend to require both sophistication and advanced planning.
  • For a revolutionary election, the digital voting systems may well be brought in and operated by disinterested foreign parties, backed by the U.N. or other agencies.
  • An electronic system is also immune to problems like boxes of ballots disappearing or being stuffed or altered.

It may be judged that the risks of corruption of a digital or partially digital election may be less than the risks of a traditional polling place election in a volatile area. It may also be hard to build and operate trustable polling places in remote locations, and do it quickly.

The big issue I see is maintaining secret ballot. It is difficult to protect secret ballot with remote voting, and much easier in polling-station voting. If secret ballot is not adequately protected, forces could use intimidation to make sure people vote the right way, or in some cases to buy votes. I am not sure I have a really good solution to this and welcome input; this is an idea in the making.

Topic: 
New Democracy
Solve this

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