Lavadero Primero

While all routine and mundane tasks will eventually be relegated to software and robots, some tasks are sufficiently far off that a little short-term compromise might be necessary. One of these tasks falls in the realm of laundry. While the atomic operations of cleaning and drying have been automated for so long that the legacy manual operation is no longer even attempted by most, chaining these operations into a single compound automated system seems sufficiently out of reach. While some systems are starting to bridge cleaning and drying, the operation that seems hopeless to automate is the dreaded folding step.

Clothing is a unique substance in that each item is made up of fibers which are solids with one key property; extreme flexibility in a single dimension. The processes of looming and stitching exploits this property and makes a three-dimensional object which has a general shape but still remains quite flexible in all dimensions. The flexible properties of clothing are what make them appealing as garments as they allow for a wide range of body sizes, shapes and motions. The flexible property is even exploited in the automated cleaning and drying steps of laundry as clothing is fluidized and agitated to encourage the respective dirt and water separations. The flexible nature of clothing is requisite for these reasons but has enabled a dark side of clothing manufacture that is diametrically opposed to and essentially prevents any efforts to automate the folding process.

Fashion dates back to the 12th century as tailoring guilds began forming in Europe. At this point in history there was no concept of automated washing so no naturally clothes were designed with no consideration for the practice. The automated washing machine would not begin to appear for six centuries meanwhile fashion continued spiraling out of control generating garments of immense complexity. Today garments produced by high fashion defy categorization and look like nothing when not being worn.

I guess she couldn't stop chewing her leg?

How is this a bathing suit?

While most people won't wear the clown suits that model's wear on runways, the products of high fashion act as a north star for fashion design whereby the Old Navy's and Gap's of the world attempt to walk a fine line between practical and fashionable. Very little consideration is paid to how well these garments lend themselves to automated laundry. In fact the "north star" products mentioned above normally can't even be subjected to conventional laundry processes and instead have to be dry cleaned which is still a semi-industrial process which is not meant for the home. The bottom line is clothing is thought of a personal statement rather than the utility it is which is a detriment to its longevity and efforts to automate it's maintenance. 

It is because of this that clothing manufacturers focus on how the clothing looks on a mannequin/model and then settle on what an acceptable number washes is before it disintegrates. Where does this leave automated folding? The sad state is that due to the insanity that is the fashion industry, clothing varies so much that even the best computer vision and robotics we have today (and likely will have for many years) will be confounded when that one hot skirt/body wrap/cabbage/small dog that is all the rage is picked out of the pile. The robot arms that could perform a quadruple bypass surgery on a muskrat will end up ripping a frock/sweater/ski mask/basket of muffins to pieces, the owner of the confounding garment will blame the machine and we'll have wasted everyone's time. 

The proposal on the table is (temporarily) abandoning aspirations of high fashion and embrace the AI we have today. If the variety in clothing is limited to a degree, then a robotic folding system of today could have a success rate of  >99% and the ultimate laundry machine would be possible. A single machine that would accept laundry from the hamper and produce neatly folded piles of clean laundry could be in every home in 2 - 5 years. 

I stress this is only a temporary solution. AI will accelerate itself and soon computers will be able create and maintain garments that we never thought possible. The point i'm stressing is we don't have to wait until then. For many the time and sanity that is saved by automated laundry is worth the sacrifice in fashion.

Engineering a Merry Christmas

Everyone knows that services and facilities can experience deviations from the normal quality and availability of service during holiday times. This results from anomalous stresses being applied to affected services and facilities. These stresses come in two main forms; increased demand for services and products, and decreased labor supply due to vacations. All services and facilities experience the labor shortage while parcel services, food preparation, and retail experience also experience a sharp demand increase. These services are squeezed so hard that to meet the demand they have to engineer out the labor supply shortage with seasonal labor and conditional employment clauses. 

When a service or facility is stressed logistically, this stress is translated to physical and emotional stress on the labor force which supplies the service or operates the facility and the consumers who rely on the service or facility. Since most of the population fall into one or both of these demographics, everyone shoulders a piece of this stress. The origin of the stress is the lack of sufficient turndown in all affected services and facilities. Examples:

• Retail stores are not built to accommodate a daily traffic equivalent to Black Friday or else they would look more like amusement parks or convention centers. 
• Medical offices don't keep 1.5X the needed doctors on staff so their appointment traffic is unaffected by multiple concurrent vacations. 
• Restaurants don't maintain extra dining rooms, kitchen space, and cook staff to ensure their wait times on New Years Eve are similar to any normal time.

These examples come off as absurdities, however they are what would be required to diffuse the above-mentioned stresses given the current model of concurrent holiday celebration. The historic benefit of the concurrent celebration model is it maximizes the probability that one will get to visit with all their family and friends in one occasion. This has always been the "reward" for shouldering the above-mentioned stresses. 

The concurrent celebration model developed from superstition that specific dates had legitimate significance but remained because it solved the logistics problem of coordination. In the past where communication with distant friends or relatives was difficult or impossible, the concurrent celebration model was the crutch that ensured people would see each other if they returned to a habitual place on the right dates. It suffices to say that these coordination problems, for which the concurrent celebration solved, have been solved with current technologies. Meetings can be arranged and even rescheduled to accommodate attendees' needs quite easily. Yet we still shoulder the stress of the concurrent celebration model.

It is with these considerations that a new model is being proposed. The dispersed celebration model removes the service and facility stress of the concurrent celebration model while relying on modern communication tools for self-organization of celebrations. In this model, the same number of holiday leave is given to workers under the concurrent celebration model however they will be given as floating holidays. In this model floating holiday overlap is minimized to prevent the labor supply impact. This will naturally force people to organize within their family/friend groups to move holidays around to accommodate the overlap clause. In this model Christmas will be celebrated all year by someone but never at once by everyone. The trickle down effect of this will be the services and facilities that experience an increased demand during holidays in the concurrent celebration model will see this demand redistributed across the calendar and turndown will no longer be an issue. 

Redistribution in the time domain is the only logical solution to the problems the concurrent celebration model presents. It is a no-cost solution which will benefit society as a whole by removing the stresses presented by the concurrent celebration model. The first step will need to be revoking state acknowledged holidays. Second will be getting the largest employers to agree to redistribution of holidays and eliminate service level impacting floating holiday concurrency. Holiday pay can still exist if employers offer comparable compensation for those who abstain from floating holidays. These two steps cost nothing to anyone and will put society on the fast track to eliminating holiday stress. 

The great idea that Capitalism will kill in the cradle

Build-a-Phone






















I mean obviously it is appealing, PCs are very similar to this in a respect. I personally would love it if this were the case. However, I can't see this happening for three reasons.

1) The phone OEMs (Samsung, HTC, RIM, Microsoft via Nokia, and most of all APPLE) will never let this happen in the way Dave Hakkens imagine it. This disintermediates them because component manufactures like Qualcom and others enter into very detailed and binding contracts with the above OEMs. Some of these contracts limit who the component manufactures do business with; exclusivity clauses if you will. Just like the iPhone was an AT&T exclusive for several years. If any of the major component manufactures indicate that they might bypass the OEMs and release one of their top of the line processors or sensors directly to customers in a form that is compatible with this lego style phone, the OEMs would retaliate. They would threaten to ditch them as suppliers. Since the OEMs have all of the marketing power and carrier deals this could be a death sentence for their main business. Which leads me to reason two.

2) The one component that makes or breaks this idea is the 3G/4G radio. A stand alone plug and play radio would have to get blessed by the carriers that it plans to connect to. Due to the lack of common carriage laws in the US there is no regulation that says any carrier has to allow a device on to there network. So since this will not only bypass the OEMs, but also the carrier's handset retail business (which is just as lucrative as their service business if not more so), no carrier will approve a modular radio to connect to its network.

The result of these first 2 will relegate these modular devices to wi-fi only handsets with medium to low quality parts from small component manufactures. This may find a place with niche consumers, but will never come close to replacing anyone's main smartphone. It would be a companion device at best and therefore likely never get made. Now you might see a form of this but only in a form that doesn't threaten any of the established players. I could see Samsung releasing a line of modules that will work together, the catch will only Samsung parts will work together. The component manufactures would still ship the raw components to the OEMs, and then they would add encase it in the swappable module. This would allow you to upgrade your Samsung branded processor with another Samsung branded processor. If you wanted to use parts from say HTC if they started doing the same thing, you'd have to start over and get all HTC parts thus defeating the purpose.

3) Getting past 1 and 2 are not impossible but will require significant regulation reform in the US to prevent these types of exclusivity contracts and require wireless carriers to act as common carriers with mandated connection requirements. When/if this happens it will be years from now, in addition to make all the modules work well together, someone (The FCC maybe?) would have to put out strict interoperability protocols and then enforce them. Each component would have to have it's own FCC filing which will increase the cost of going to market with new components. This is all possible, but the time to get it in place is staggering, and my prediction is if/when it is, smartphones will no longer be the main computing paradigm. These components are getting very small very fast, and wearables/implantables are right around the corner. So unless you want to assemble the component modules of your smart contact lens with a microscope, the smartphone is likely the last chance for modular computing in the macro sense and due to the lack of regulation on US capitalism it will never reach its full potential.

Driverless Cars...

RE:Google's Trillion-Dollar Driverless Car -- Part 2: The Ripple Effects

In part 2 of Chunka Mui's series on how the driverless car will shape society he expounds on how many business models will be disrupted in the near future by the technology. While he also predicts some opportunities that will emerge, reading the first 2/3 of the article left me deeply concerned.

While i have considered many of the implications of an economy of driverless cars in the past, Mui's assembly is a much bigger and more far reaching set. I agree with most all of the claims but what has me concerned is not "what" will happen but how arduous the transition will be. If the past 100 years and even the next 5-10 years of disruption in the information system economy is any barometer, the industries that stand to loose in Mui's predicted disruptions will look to block the transition in every way they can. Instead of looking to capitalize on the opportunities this new and revolutionary technology presents, they will lobby heavily against laws that will allow driverless cars to do more.

There have been laws past so far allowing driverless cars in some states. I believe that this will become a harder battle in other states as the implications that Mui has outlined become more and more real. There will likely become a huge argument over who is to blame when a car that is driving its self is responsible for an accident. Just because i hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't. This responsibilty question is almost trivial in that the frequency of this happening will be in the six sigma range, but the fact that it can happen will be fuel for the opposing argument, especially from insurance companies.

To build on the that thought, the implications of having a vehicle drive it's self has significant implications when you apply it to shipping. If large trucks could be automated, why have a driver in the truck at all? This adds one more group that stands to loose, truck drivers. The labor unions will lobby heavily to make it illegal to operate a vehicle without a capable driver in the vehicle. If states go different ways on this matter i can image trucks going stopping at state borders just to pick up a driver so as to operate legally in the next state. How do you enforce this? What happens when a vehicle get's pulled over and there is no person in it? I can see the trucking company getting fined and having to send out a driver to move it. All to satisfy a law that was put in place to keep a dying profession alive. Small indications of this are already starting to crop up in the case of NYC banning Uber to keep the taxi's in business.

Another thought I've had relates to the transition and the interaction between automated and non-automated vehicles. How long will they be allowed to co-exist on the same road. The benefits Mui highlights about lighting and road construction are great but only apply if "ALL" the traffic is automated. The answer is certain roads will have to become "driverless only" roads. The opposition will argue against tax dollars being put toward infrastructure that can't be used by all. This is a ridiculousness argument but it will be made by a subset of the population that will refuse to use driverless cars. There is still a subset of the population that even refuses to use cars.

To be clear I want driverless cars right now. I don't ever want to drive a car ever again. The benefits Mui has presented so far are real and can change so much. I am just very concerned about how we are going to get there. The linear thinking that has been so pervasive in industry as of recent does not lend it's self to such step changes in technology. The industries that will be threatened by the commercialization of driverless cars have a lot of money and a lot of friends in government. I don't think they have really seen the writing on the wall but they will and when they do, things will come to a screeching halt.

Aereo case is huge turning point

Latest on Aereo Case

Very soon a decision will be handed down that will decide the fate of television as you know it. Although Barry Diller and his co-horts at aereo won't admit it, the company is more about forcing change than making money. As you'll read at the end of Greg's article; the opposition to Aereo is claiming that if left alone Aereo's service will kill "free" television. This is the most misleading statement ever. What he really should say is that it will kill cable television. If aereo can deliver the same content as cable without paying for it the business model of cable collapses. The cable companies will loose subscribers in droves as aereo expands to other markets and won't be able to pay as much for content from the providers (CBS, ABC, NBC...). To preserve revenue these content providers will have to do what the cable companies have been holding them back from doing; sell there content directly to consumers over the internet. Advertisers will follow the content providers and some of the biggest advertising cash cows in television (reality shows, American idol and pro sports) will be free but instead live streamed from FOX or NBC directly. This outcome is what the cable companies fear since it is a future where they are reduced to mere conduits for data. This future is nothing if but a huge win for consumers in that all the possibilities of TV will become available to anyone with an internet connection. Consumers will then get to select what connect to pay for and what to watch with adds. The first wall that will break is HBO. They are poised to do it today with their HBOGO service.

 The aereo court case is about way more than a round about way to not pay for cable. It's is a landmark decision that has the potential to usher in a new era of content delivery that is long overdue. It's the "boss stage" of a game that has taken almost 2 decades to beat. It started with the music industry and mp3s (music stores died off in the process). More recently the same happened to books with the kindle (books stores died). If aereo is allowed to continue to operate it will mark the start of the grand finale. In the end aereo won't last either way. If cable collapses and the content producers make their content available online it will render aereo unnecessary. However, letting it persist now will have the most profound and necessary effect on the industry since broadcasting was conceived.

Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T invest $100 Million in Isis; prepare mobile payment battle with Google

Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T invest $100 Million in Isis; prepare mobile payment battle with Google

So this headline would have you thinking that Google is the Behemoth and these guys are just trying to keep up, but that couldn't be further from the fact. In reality Isis is nothing more than a cow on the tracks that has been put there by these wireless and credit card companies as a form of collusion.

Wireless payments are not a priority for the wireless and credit card companies. The last line of the article says it all "ISIS has not yet announced a national rollout plan" and if if weren't for Google why would they ever. The wireless companies are not merchants accounts. They have no history making money off point of sale transactions so this is extremely new territory for them. The credit card companies are scared about disintermediation of the all of the merchant account companies (hanger-ons) that have gotten rich off of playing middle man every time a card gets swiped. Square has shaken things up and merchant fees have gone up because these companies are hearing the death bell and are scared. The best thing for all of these companies to do is to stop mobile payments dead it it's tracks until they find a way to make sure all of the intermediate companies get paid; Enter ISIS.

Google has already demonstrated that mobile payments in action with the Google Wallet, hell Japan has been doing it for years. So why is ISIS trailing so far behind with out any goals or ambitions? Because they have the weight of most credit card companies and wireless companies saying "we aren't sure this is good for us right now" so they all make a deal to sit on their hands and call this anti-competitive deal ISIS. The ISIS website is ironically deceptive because it displays exactly what it's supporters don't want right now, a mobile payment system.

So why do they need ISIS? If they didn't have this deal, then any one of the players could be lured to join the Google bandwagon which would drive up competition. Mobile payments would hit the street sooner than later and threaten the established payment system. By keeping all of the biggest players in credit cards and wireless in a deal to do nothing, they all can feel safe doing business as usual.

I should have been born like 2 years ago.

A Perfect Example of the Law of Accelerating Returns

For the longest time i have walked past these adds at the grocery stores that are on back list scrolls behind glass. If you don't pay them much attention they look like LCD screens but up close it's just paper behind glass. Ever 30 seconds or so the scrolls rotate and a new add replaces takes the frame. I always thought "How restrictive? if they want to change the adds they have to take the damn thing apart and put a new scroll in there. The possibilities of such adds are so limiting. It saddened me to know that the the grocery store had invested in this old medium instead of just waiting. Well today i was extremely relieved...

The slight of this was fantastic. This is a sign that LCDs have gotten so cheap that the obvious benefits of having a dynamic remote controllable screen are enough to justify the costs. Now if they want they could simply flash a store specific add for a sale item like fish or blueberries in between the paid adds for branded products. The grocery store is like a garden of eden for tech innovation. I'll go ahead and say in 5 years this LCD TV will be replaced with a static symbol. At first this would appear to be a step backwards but in actuality this symbol will be an anchor for an AR (Augmented reality) add that will only show up in people's glasses and contact lens. In fact the add will be different for each viewer. Personal buying habits based on customer loyalty program data. Today's display is just another glaring reminder that i was born way to early.