An App for That: The Pedestrian's Rope Bridge App (Priority Street Crossing)

Do you find it so unfair that walkers have to waste precious minutes waiting to cross major boulevards when we're out for a walk?

Hey! Who is not wasting the planet's fossil fuels here? We walkers deserve a special right of way, when it comes to crossing busy streets. At the push of button, and not the one on that light pole that shouts "Wait" until it's darn good and ready to give me 8 seconds to get across a six lane highway, I should be able to get immediately and safely across any intersection I choose. 

And now I can.

With the Pedestrian's Rope Bridge App, the walker rules! With one quick swipe of a finger on my iPhone, a rope bridge comes shooting out of the bottom of my mobile device, springs up from my feet, arcs over busy streets, and let's me down safely on the other side of the road. It's neat, it's easy to use, and it's guaranteed to make others wonder, "Why am I driving when I could be walking?" 

Once I've crossed the street, another quick gesture on my phone and the bridge springs back into the base of my phone. Remember those retractable metal tape measures we used in the old days before we calibrated everything with laser beams? Yup, it slips back in pretty much the same way.

You can call this app a fantasy if you want, but just give it a couple of years...

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Web Resources

Yes, many of my fantasy apps are inspired by other great thinkers. Like those of this author....Smithsonian Magazine - There Was an App for That: Apps That Changed the Course of History http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/there-was-an-app-for-that-75586616/?no-ist=

iPhone Apps Development https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action

But... What Would Beethoven Print? (3D Printing)

You just know the kind of organ
Beethoven would have chosen to print

There's been quite a lot in the media about wonderful advances in 3D printing in the medical field. No doubt about it, these are indeed noble uses for technology. Imagine being able to just pop that new appendix, still warm from the printer, into the fella on the table before you. Sure applications like print-on-demand bodily organs allows for great advances in medical science. But what really strikes my fancy, when it comes to 3D printing, is the creation of our own musical instruments. I'm not so much interested in the bodily organ as I am in the pipe organ.

The idea of a musician being able to design and create that pipe organ is what really intrigues me. Thinking about pipe organs  naturally leads to thoughts of  Beethoven. I'm guessing Beethoven would also have been more interested in printing a pipe organ than a fresh new lung or kidney.

Freude, schöner Götterfunken

Tochter aus Elysium!

(Joy, beautiful spark of the divinity,

Daughter from Elysium!)

These lyrics, from Beethoven's famed 9'th symphony, enhance one of the most beloved classical music pieces in the western world*.  Beloved by people, that is, who have access to classical music training. Outside of choral singing, for those who come equipped with the right sort of vocal chords, that training requires access to a musical instrument. 

Though this symphony has words, the emotions that stir in the hearts of the performers as they come together to make this music happen, can't be accurately described. In fact, it spoils the experience if you try.

Yes indeed, there are musical folks working on rolling their own instruments. Check out the beautiful creations on Six 3D-Printed Musical Instruments, and what 3D Printing Could Do for Musicians. Sure 3D print-your-own-instrument technology isn't yet exactly at the affordable-for-the-masses stage, but neither were cell phones just a few years back. Maybe it won't be too long before that day, a few autumns from now, when the kids line up to pick up this years social studies text, the math workbook, and their sixth grade instrument. There just waiting for Mrs. O'Houlihan to come back from the staff room with that replacement box of liquid brass for the classroom 3D printer.

Any parent who has ever ponied up for an organ, clarinet, french horn, string bass, or flute knows that a child's access to an instrument of her own can make all the difference, when it comes to  being exposed to the wordless and wonderful joys of making her own music. Will many kids give up before the age of 10? You bet. Is there any guarantee that an individual will make it to even third chair violin in a small local symphony? Nope. 

But I know that if, at the age of 8, more kids are given the opportunity to play a hundred renditions of Frère Jacque on that french horn they printed at home, then one day the freude! of Beethoven's 9'th symphony is going to be waiting out there for one more kid looking for a little wordless wonder. 

And one more kid is going to get a chance to be a part of a wordless spark of divinity, at one with the daughter from Elysium.

* Classic western music is extremely popular in Asia as well.

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Web Resources

3D Printing Organs, Other Medical Applications http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/12/opinion/lungs-chip-3d-print-organs/

Wikipedia: 3D Printing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing

Six 3D - Printed Musical Instruments and what 3D Printing Could Do for Musicians  http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/10/six-3d-printed-musical-instruments-and-what-3d-printing-could-do-for-musicians/

Beethoven's 9'th Symphony Rules Supreme, as far as I'm concerned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_(Beethoven)

An App for That! Plumber's Friend App Saves the World

I'm in the final throes of finishing up my Edgewood Secrets iPhone app. Today I'm beginning the job of submitting it for approval. 

I created Edgewood Secrets as a companion for folks hiking at Edgewood Nature Preserve, here in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. I hike at Edgewood quite regularly and I'm also a wildflower docent there.  In the app, I share stories of different experiences I've had in the preserve, as well as tales I've been told by other folks. 

As great as it is (and I should know!) Edgewood Secrets is a pretty straightforward app. Like most developers, I have plenty of plans for other mobile device creations along similar lines. It's not challenging coming up with ideas for great apps, it's challenging doing the work involved to get those ideas implemented. And despite the typical claims of the folks who create the software development environment I use, the technology isn't easy.

The ideas, however, spin away. I keep lists of course. Yes, I have lists everywhere on my laptop, and iPhone. Most of them are quite practical. It's a matter of getting on with them. Then there are those....hummmm what can I call them? Speciality apps, I guess.

One of my favorite specialty app plans is the Plumber's Friend App (PFA).   Here's the user experience I envision...

Have you ever been brought up short while speeding out the door - your laptop zipped into it's case, your lunch packed in that outside pocket (so the avocodo doesn't mash onto your keyboard),  your teeth (hopefully) brushed, your hair at least looking brushed, and shoes that more or less match on both feet - to the call of "Mom, the toilet's backed up again!". Why oh why, you wonder for the hundred thousandth time, are we stuck with the retro fifties, only-one-bathroom apartment model? (Surely it couldn't be affordability.)

What to do? The metro isn't going to wait while you get out the plunger. And the folks at work aren't going to keep a chair warm for you in the 8:15 meeting. In fact... if you arrive late at that meeting, you're going to get volunteered to put on the Friday night Management Achievement Awards banquet. How fun will that be in addition to getting your already-behind-goal project fully functional before the project status meeting next week?

PFA to the rescue. You simply pull out your iPhone - now which pocket did you put that in? - aim it vaguely at the wall, and with one swipe of your finger you launch the Plumber's Friend App. PFA does it all for your. As you streak along making a beeline for the metro station, you hear from the open window above, that blessed sucking of air, a mighty flush, and the noise of your teenage daughter cheering (I did say this was pure fantasy, right?) as PFA once more saves both the world, and your day.  

I haven't quite identified the foundation kit classes I'm going to need to write this app. Perhaps they haven't quite yet been created. But you can be sure once they're out there, you'll be seeing a new app in the store. 

Do you think I'll be able to charge more than 99 cents for it? 

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Web Resources

Hiking Edgewood http://www.hikingedgewood.blogspot.com/

Yes, many of my fantasy apps are inspired by other great thinkers. Like those of this author....Smithsonian Magazine - There Was an App for That: Apps That Changed the Course of History http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/there-was-an-app-for-that-75586616/?no-ist=

iPhone Apps Development https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action

Dark Side of the Force - Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing can be beautiful. In fact, it's got a touch of classic fantasy sci-fi charm about it. I'm thinking Alderon, before the Death Star (back in the first Star Wars release) blew up the entire planet.

Massive numbers of photos need the human touch.  A volunteer army of citizen scientists peruse these images working to differentiate cancer cells from normal blood and tissue cells. Can't you just see the people of that one-time tiny peaceful planet making similar contributions to those that are being made today in our own world?

Crowdsourcers contribute vital genetic information to Alzheimer research by contributing their own memory and attention test data. Other folks share information that is pooled in a database used by breast and ovarian cancer research. This isn't fantasy. It's reality.

Thousands of volunteers scour detailed satellite photos of the Indian Ocean, helping hugely in the effort to find a missing Malaysian Airlines jet. Crowdsourcing helps rescue workers to both avoid less likely search zones, as well as target areas where they are more likely to be successful. It's not just in movies when people come together in response to the suffering of others.

Other folks are involved in massive translation efforts. The goal of Duolingo is to “… get millions of people worldwide to translate the Internet.” (*). C-3PO himself, couldn't have done better.

People in Santa Cruz – ten percent of the population in fact – pooled their ideas and abilities to eliminate a $9.2 million shortfall for their city. The plans these people made continue raise money for the city and benefit local programs. Several other cities, both large and small, follow these same successful citizen government crowdsourcing patterns. Government of the people isn't a leftover from old time films.

Crowdsourcing sounds like a wonderful dream come true. We’re harnessing the good energy of thousands or even millions of people to create a righteous universe. It's something Star Warrior heroes like Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia would totally get behind. We are talking the power of The Force here!

So what’s not to like about crowdsourcing?

How about the ability to send work offshore to be completed by desperate people earning a dollar or even pennies an hour? The author of the “Digital Sweatshop” Wikipedia page says “…digital sweatshops represent a phenomenon in a recent trend that offers workers and the employers the freedom to accept and request services. However, some believe that completing repetitive tasks for very small amount of money is an act of exploitation, hence the term sweatshop. A notable example is the Amazon Mechanical Turk, a marketplace dedicated to crowdsourcing.”

With Mechanical Turk, amazon has access to an unlimited labor pool that will almost literally work for peanuts, doing basic tasks a machine can’t do, but that doesn’t require skilled human labor. And amazon isn’t the only player in this outsourcing field. Crowdsourcing of cheaply paid labor, has become a huge part of the digital economy. 

Who’s doing the work? Desperate people who’ll do whatever is required to survive. And yes, the potential for slave labor and child labor is there as well. Oh of course it isn’t only these folks. Skilled digital laborers in a number of third world countries are just as determined to make money. It’s not too hard to figure out that a lot of our software development, and tech support have been driven off shore. 

I can hear some funny breathing headed down the hall. Darth Vadar is on the loose. This kind of energy harnessing isn’t drawing Earth’s citizens into a collective sense of accomplishment. Nor is it a righteous universe we’re building here. It’s more like we’re headed straight into a real life sci-fi fantasy world, complete with an evil emperor.  

Do previously well-paid western workers plan to go to battle with their determined competitors in other countries? We all 
need to make a buck, a rupee or a yen. It’s a matter of coming together and figuring out how to we can all earn a decent living. 

Sounds like we need to get busy on some citizen-of-the-world crowdsourcing techniques to kick Lord Vadar and the dark side of The Force right back into fantasy land.

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Web Resources

Thanks to Fantasy Planet Art for making this postings image freely available http://www.mrwallpaper.com/Fantasy-Planet-Art-wallpaper/

3 neat ways to participate in crowdsourced cancer and Alzheimer’s disease research http://medcitynews.com/2013/11/3-ways-participate-crowdsourced-disease-research/

Crowdsourcing volunteers comb satellite photos for Malaysia Airlines jet
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/us/malaysia-airlines-plane-crowdsourcing-search/

* Five Ways Crowdsourcing Can Transform the Public Sphere
http://www.governing.com/columns/mgmt-insights/col-government-crowdsourcing-five-models.html

GovFresh – Crowdsourcing Citizen Ideas
http://govfresh.com/2009/11/6-government-sites-crowdsourcing-citizen-ideas/

Wikipedia: Digital Sweatshop discusses not the concept, and also names names of companies who make use of the unlimited workforce of very low cost crowdsourcing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_sweatshop

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk 
http://www.utne.com/science-and-technology/amazon-mechanical-turk-zm0z13jfzlin.aspx#axzz2xlJMsraK