The Self-Driving Future: Part 5

April 1, 2018 ~ Mr. Rantastic

Once we have self driving cars, will there be any privacy left? Probably not. We will have to go to extreme measures to prevent Grandma Google and Frère Facebook from following every journey.

It used to be that you were anonymous in a cab. The driver didn’t know your name and you paid with cash.

Then they started letting people pay for cabs with credit cards, and your anonymity was left at the curb. Still, they weren’t really tracking where you went.

Then Uber came along and tracked everything. Where you came from, where you went, what time of day you traveled and more. But if you didn’t take Uber and drove yourself you still had a chance at privacy.

Self driving cars are likely to be unlocked by a phone app, so the car will know who you are. The car manufacturers are going to track how and where the car drives itself to protect themselves from liability if there is an accident. At this point, the car will know your identity and where and when it went. Do you really think they won’t be linked?

Even if you drive the car manually, all of the sensors required to track you will still be there. Services like Amazon’s Alexa will be riding shotgun with you. Do you really think you’ll be able to turn them off? Even if you could, your insurance company will probably give you a big break on rates if you leave them on.

Especially if you buy it from Amazon Auto Insurance.

Gun Securement Insurance

March 27, 2018July 5, 2018 ~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

The discussion about guns has unfortunately been twisted into a right vs. left identity politics debate: if you are on the left you are ‘against’ guns and if you are on the right you are ‘for’ them. While this is nonsense, it is a testimony to the effectiveness of the NRA that they have been able to turn the question of gun ownership into “us vs. them” at a gut level.

The reality is that the issue is not about whether you are for or against guns. The issue should be about responsible ownership. No one is against cars, even though they kill tens of thousands of people every year. Ooops – cars don’t kill people, drivers kill people. The NRA is right – guns don’t kill people, shooters kill people.

If you want to drive a car, you need to prove that you are a proficient driver. The same should be true for guns. Local governments administer driving tests and issue driving permits (licenses). They should do the same for firearms. Oh wait, they already do, but only if you want to carry a concealed weapon. This should be expanded to owning any gun. In addition, it should be tightened up. In some jurisdictions all you have to do to get a permit is squeeze one round off and you are “qualified.”

You cannot drive if you are under age, mentally impaired or a convicted bad driver. The same is true for guns – the federal government has a program to check the background of gun purchasers. It is imperfect and should apply to private sales, but it exists.

The one thing that has no parallel in gun ownership is insurance. Drivers are required to have a minimum amount of liability insurance in case their car damages a person or property. The private sector provides this insurance.

The private sector offers insurance to gun owners, but it is about replacing their guns if they are stolen which is not the same thing. Gun owners should be required to secure their guns, and the private sector should sell insurance to cover this.

High risk drivers have high premiums. Gun owners with a high risk of being careless about securing their firearms would also have high premiums. How do you define high risk? Let the private sector work it out the same way they worked out who are high risk drivers.

The bottom line is that gun owners should have to show that they have firearms securement insurance, just like drivers have to show that they have automobile liability insurance.

The Next Surgeon General’s Warning

March 12, 2018 ~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Back in the 1990’s Microsoft was the Wicked Witch of the tech world. The techies were upset that the company made substandard software and then forced everyone to use it. For example, Internet Explorer was not as good as Netscape Navigator, but because Microsoft had tremendous clout in the market it could cut business deals that made it hard for consumers to use anything else and muscled Netscape out of business.

The government finally got involved went after Microsoft and got very close to breaking the company up, just like it did with Ma Bell in the early 1980s.

The current captains of tech learned their lesson. Google, Facebook and Twitter make pretty decent software. More importantly, they (mostly) don’t cut business deals that force you use it.

Instead, they work on your addictions. The employ behavioral physiologists and their techniques to get you hooked on their services. The smartphone and ubiquitous internet was a godsend to these companies, because you can feed your addiction to these services anywhere, not just at your desk – in your car, walking down the street, in the toilet, .

What they did not learn from Microsoft’s experience is that anything that gets too big and indispensable will eventually generate backlash. First, politicians from the left railed against these companies for allowing themselves to be used by fake news to influence the election of Donald Trump. Next, politicians from the right are upset that these companies are over correcting.

When both sides of the political aisle have you in their sights, it cannot be good.

It is not clear what the politicians will come up with, but it is clear that the underlying problem is the addictive nature of these services. If people were not so compelled to use them, they wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

Maybe a Surgeon General’s Warning would help:
Social media and search are highly addictive. Quitting greatly reduces serious risks to your mental and political health.

The Self-Driving Future: Part 4

January 22, 2018January 22, 2018 ~ Mr. Rantastic

So I am driving down the highway in my self driving car and the driver in the next lane pulls a bonehead lane change. We crash. Who is liable?

Of course the self driving car should be smart enough to avoid bonehead moves by other drivers? But how smart? What will the standard be?

On the one hand, the self driving car would probably have a camera recording everything that happens around it, and would be able to show the cops and insurance company the reckless and probably illegal move the other car made that ‘could not be avoided’.

On the other hand, the manual driver might say, “Look, maybe it was an idiot move, but people make idiot moves all the time – that’s part of driving. An alert driver would have been able to avoid an accident and your self driving car is obviously not as good as an alert manual driver.” Sue the manufacturer.

Inventively there will be horror stories in the press about people with unexpected hits on their insurance due to self-driving crashes. Eventually, the government, the lawyers and the insurance companies will work it out. But until they do, look for many folks to be reluctant to turn on the autopilot.

Westin – Upscale Cheap Trick

December 11, 2017December 11, 2017 ~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

I recently stayed at a Westin hotel and was completely underwhelmed. On check in, they asked if we wanted to go green, which of course you say yes to, right? In many hotels, this means that they conserve water and energy by not changing your bath towels every day. At the Westin, this is a trick. It means that they don’t enter your room at all.

There is nothing environmentally green about not making your bed or emptying your trash bins daily. The only green thing about it is the color of the money Westin saves by not hiring the staff to make up your room. It is another name for what the airlines are now calling basic economy.

Speaking of which, I called for a shuttle to the airport, and they informed me that they are not running shuttles “at this time” because they don’t have the staff. Looks like more labor savings to me . . .

Westin charges for the internet at $10 / day for three devices. If you are a couple each with a laptop and iPad, you are going to pay for four devices or $20 / day. Yes, anyone with a certain status at Westin may not have to pay, but why charge more for internet than Motel 6 does? Because they can.

They also had one of those directly overhead ‘rain storm’ shower heads to make the shower seem upscale. Unfortunately, it makes one contort into Cirque de Soleil positions in order shower without getting one’s hair wet or let the hair conditioner soak in while scrubbing the rest of one’s body.

I could go on, but you get the point. I used to think Westin was an upscale treat, but this seemed like more of a cheap trick.

Siri: “You’re Looking A Bit Sad”

October 25, 2017 ~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

With its latest iPhone, Apple introduces Face ID. With it, users can unlock their phones by just looking at them. Microsoft has had a similar feature called Windows Hello for a few years, so Apple is playing catch up here, but Apple has been copying others for a few years now so this is nothing new.

Now that Apple has this capability, the question is how it plans to use in the future. Microsoft has pretty much left it to unlocking devices. But Apple wants to be an innovator and it is hard to believe that is as far as it will take it.

There are already algorithms that can tell your mood from your picture. If you look sad, will Apple automatically open your phone to a happy news story or iTunes song? Or automatically add an emoji to your texts when you are angry? Talk about autocorrect fails – sending a by mistake could really hurt!

On the other hand, if the phone detects that you are angry, Siri could pop a warning for you to cool down before pressing send on that email or text.

The algorithms can also make a pretty good guess of your gender, age, weight, etc. Maybe Apple will use this to ‘help’ you shop. Or find a date.

The worst would be Siri automatically sending a text to you parents if it detected something amiss. Who wouldn’t want their mother calling all the time asking what’s wrong?

What if Apple starts making your face, or some data gleaned from it, available to others, like it does with location? It could all get very creepy very quickly, appropriate for a phone with a Halloween release date.

Gimme Camera 3. Wait, No, Camera 5

July 28, 2017 ~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Watching the game and want to see that goal, catch, etc. again? You don’t have to wait for the replay. Anyone with a digital video recorder (DVR) like a Tivo has the ability to replay the action on their own, in slow motion if they like.

What about seeing the replay from a different angle? Well, that only comes from the broadcast, and you have to hope that the director sitting in the truck outside of the stadium plays back the angle you want to see.

But that could soon change.

Broadcasters are always looking for new revenue sources, and they will probably start charging extra for access to multiple cameras so you can see the game from whatever angle you want.

The technology is already there. The issues are likely bandwidth and business. Are the ‘pipes’ that transmit the video data large enough to handle the extra camera angles? And even if they were (they are getting there fast), is the consumer equipment in place to use it and charge for it?

With the sports associations (FIFA, Olympics, NBA, etc.) looking for more and more money for broadcast rights, it is simply a matter of time before anyone with a few extra dollars can be their own director.

Movies will come next. Take a wild guess which kind of movies will be first.

Microsoft’s Next Device

May 31, 2017 ~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Microsoft recently introduced a version of Windows called Windows 10 S, with the S standing for streamlined and secure. Unlike the Windows we are all used to, it only runs apps that are available from the Microsoft store. Presumably, the security of these apps has been vetted by Microsoft and they also run very efficiently.

Microsoft tried launching a similar version of Windows that only ran apps from the store 5 years ago called Windows RT. It was a huge failure. So why do it again?

The tech press has focused on Windows 10 S as being Microsoft’s answer to Google’s operating system called Chrome, which runs on a number of inexpensive laptops targeted at students.

There is certainly truth to that. However, it is likely that Windows 10 S is the version of Windows that Microsoft sees running on mobile devices. Cellular connected mobile devices. For example, a phone.

Microsoft does have something called Windows 10 Mobile currently for phones, but it is not clear where that is going. There is very little development happening on it. Microsoft has stopped making phones and its partners have pretty much stopped as well.

My guess is that Windows 10 S will be the version of Windows that runs on the next “phone” that Microsoft comes out with. Phone in quotes, because they have already said that they will not make a traditional smart phone like the iPhone or Galaxy. Microsoft is all about productivity, and while the device might be able to do voice calls, it will likely be more about getting work done.

Right now, most folks carry a phone along with a laptop or tablet and keyboard to actually do their work on. With its Continuum feature, Microsoft tried to eliminate the laptop/tablet requirement but did not quite get there. But with a new mobile device running Windows 10 S and a keyboard, it just might make it.

Apple Goes Mobile While Microsoft Stays Deskbound

March 10, 2017April 9, 2017 ~ Mr. Rantastic

Apple took a lot of hits lately in the tech press regarding their underwhelming update to the MacBook line. The thing is, the Apple laptop of the future is not the MacBook Pro, it is the iPad Pro.

First, Google introduced the Chromebooks, a laptop with more or less a mobile operating system. Then Microsoft introduced Continuum, a way to plug your phone into a keyboard and monitor and turn it into an almost desktop. Then HP went one better and started selling a “lapdock” for their phone so you don’t have to find a keyboard and monitor, you can the lapdock with you.

Google is reportedly working on similar technology for Android, and it would be shocking if Apple were not also working on something. The problem for Apple is that they still need to sell proper laptops (and desktops) with their proper desktop operating system macOS because the mobile iOS is not quite ready to do all of the things that a desktop operating system would do. But I am sure that once the mobile operating system has improved enough, they will encourage all of their desktop users to migrate and provide great hardware to help them make the move. Why support two operating systems?

Meanwhile Microsoft is going the opposite direction. It has been doing, and redoing, mobile versions of its Windows operating system for the past decade and none of them have succeeded. So Microsoft is betting big that the mobile hardware will improve enough to let its flagship desktop operating system run on mobile devices with few modifications. From the recent reports about Windows on ARM, they are less than 12 months away from this.

At the end of the day, both Apple and Microsoft will have robust, touch enabled operating systems that work across all manner of devices, one with mobile roots and one with a desktop lineage.

Which approach will win? Well, the advantage of a mobile OS is small footprint and low power consumption. But if the hardware advances to let a desktop OS do the same, then why wouldn’t you want the extra horsepower if it really did not cost that much?

On the other hand, the app ecosystem has been very successful for Apple. Looking forward, one will have to consider future ecosystem needs such as virtual and augmented reality, automobile integration and cloud services. Right now, Microsoft seems to be ahead in these, but who knows what Apple and Google have planned?