Future of AI and Hollywood

 It has been a long time since I have posted here. So many thoughts about AI and how it is going to change our society. Some of it is gloom and doom but I really think most of that is overblown. We are not likely to just take all the human out of humanity, we will protect ourselves as much as we can.

A thought about movie making and AI.

What makes a movie? A script, sets, actors, lots of money, promotion, etc.

If AI makes the script, AI can create the sets, AI can create the actors, and AI can do the music and all of the voices. What's left?

Movies are made to show to audiences, why not have the audience make the movie. Have an open set, lots of well know "famous" people, and then sell tickets for people to come and help create the script real time and watch the movie be made in real time. Then the crowd sourced movie can be done over and over again with different audiences. AI can't do that. Its real life!

Method to Bypass MFA

We all get those phishing emails trying to trick us into going to a website with a login that looks legitimate. Such as a Microsoft 365 authentication page with a URL that looks close enough to be right and a very convincing web page. If you have MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) then no problem! If you do manage to put in your email/username and password, because if a thief gets that information they still need to get the code from your phone.

So what if I was to just setup a proxy site that tricks you into inputting that information. What I mean is to trick you into inputting data into a form that passes that to a remote computer in real-time and then you get the code and put that in as well. Now I have access to your account and can change your password and even lock you out by changing the MFA method. Here are the steps. Note I have not attempted this proof of concept, this is theoretical but needs to be addressed as a possible way to bypass what we believe to be a very secure methodology.

Step 1: Create a fake login site, this is done all the time and instead of recording the username/email  address and password that gets passed back to another computer in real-time.

Step 2: If the account does not have MFA then no problem, your in. The attacker sets up MFA on your account and changes the password. Or they do what they do most of the time and just send out junk emails or steal data. BUT if you do have MFA then another screen pops up asking you to put in the authentication code you received to your cell phone or the time of use code from your authenticator app. You type that in and it gets sent immediately to the perpetrators computer where the authentication process is successful and they now have access to your account.

Step 3: You are provided an error page of some sort that there is an issue and you are none the wiser that you just gave someone else in the world access to your account. This can even redirect to an official Microsoft error page so that the URL is legit.

In addition a VPN proxy can be setup so that the perpetrators computer looks to be in the same area you are really located. Using geo-location based on your IP and then fake their IP to be in a similar area. So the log files will show that the authentication came from where you are or at least close. Thus causing an even bigger issue with tracking down what happened. How frustrating when your admin says it came from your location!

Fixes

If you use an authenticator app that does not use a code but rather ask you to approve the login but you are asked for a code, that should be a tip off that there is something wrong.

Ultimately the better fix would be to start the authentication process from a known secure deceive such as your phone. The authenticator app could log you in on a computer by having you go to the Microsoft site and then scanning a QR code. That code then interacts with the authenticator app and authenticates you securely. This would not be able to pass through a proxy as the authentication is not actually taking place on your computer. If the QR code was on a illegitimate site it fail to work with the authenticator app itself.

Capped Spend Reverse Discount

Just finished watching Ready Player One last night, it was a great movie and I very much enjoyed it. One of the primary premises of the story line is having to do with money; and in the virtual OASIS if you die and lose your "shit", in real life you actually can lose your "shit" and so many do.

In real life this problem already exist where the game is "free" but if you want to get very far you need to spend real money on coins and upgrades. Problem is a lot of the players already have an addictive personality and have trouble controlling their spending. That's where I started thinking about setting up a system that encourages spending still but at the same time encourages responsible spending.

Read though this whole idea first before you say to yourself or outloud how stupid it sounds.

The numbers in my examples are all arbitrary and are not based off of any real-world statistics, for this to be the most profitable the thresholds would have to be moved around. I am going to make up a fictitious game called "Mo Money" (nothing to do with Notorious B.I.G.) but you can imagine that if you wish.

Mo Money is a free download on the app store and lets you run around a city as a real estate investor and making your millions. You can also do in app purchases and get things going faster to buy coins so you can buy that virtual apartment building and start charging rent. You can play the game without spending any money but it takes a lot longer.

Now the company looks at the real-world money being spent and the average is $64 a month per player and the median is $31 a month per player. BUT there are a lot of players that spend nothing or less that a few dollars here and there. This might make up almost half the players. So how do you get those players to spend more money in Mo Money???

This is where the concept of a Capped Spend Reverse Discount (just made this up, might not be the best name) comes in.

• A player selects a tier where they cannot spend more than a limit of money set in that tier.
• A player can only move up tiers but not back down except once a year.
• They must provide a form of payment that can auto-recharge like a credit card.
• The account is fully funded up to the max at the beginning of each month.
• There is a discount applied to each tier but the discount is greater for a lesser maximum balance.

Now this may not sound like the best way for a business model to make money. But remember you are trying to get players that don't spend money to spend some money and it all adds up really quickly.

Here are some sample tiers to give you a better idea.

Tier 1

$20 per month MAX

30% discount on all purchases

Tier 2

$40 per month MAX

20% discount on all purchases

Tier 3

$80 per month MAX

10% discount on all purchases

Tier 4

No MAX and no discounts but can purchase some items that discounted tiers cannot.

So the casual gamers are mostly going to pick the Tier 1. Then if they find that $20 a month just is not enough to satisfy their thirst for renting out scummy apartments, they can move up to Tier 2. And so on until they are so addicted they just spend spend spend with no regard for discounts or limits BWAAAHAHAHAHHAA. When moving up a tier you must read and agree to terms and every once in a while the game will remind you that you should play responsibly.

Pros to the consumer:

• Controlled spending, if you don't spend anything then you just have the $20 sitting in your account forever and if you ever stop playing you can close your account and get a full refund.
• Discounts for beginners, so you can get playing faster without such a commitment up front. Also an advantage to catching up to those that have been playing longer.
• By being "locked" to a tier except to move up it encourages your to think about how much money you are spending.

Pros to the game maker:

• More monthly revenue all around.
• Can advertise that you care about responsible playing and want to make sure your customers don't spend themselves stupid.
• Players that did not spend anything may spend a few dollars here and there plus you have a minimum of $20 in possibly millions of accounts just sitting there!
• Ability to have flash sales for those that are enrolled in the tiers. Such as 50% off of any single purchase once a month or something like that. Then you make the real cool things more that $41 so Tier 1 would never be able to get those cool things even at a 50% discount. They just have to move to the next tier to get those cooler items.

A few other notes thoughts, you could even have a "roll-over" tier where $10 a month is debited every month until your account hits a max of say $100 with a discount of 15%. You cannot add more than $10 every month and if you don't use it you lose it. So after $100 you still pay $10 a month but it does not build your account balance up any more. Kinda like a subscription.

This makes a lot of sense for gaming but can be applied elsewhere in an ongoing spending/subscription model.

Hope I was able to sell you on the idea of Capped Spend Reverse Discounts, lets see if someone ever uses this model.

Block Chain Periodicals Archiving

Many of us older folks (some prefer "experienced") can remember when if you wanted to research anything you had to go to a library. There you could find books and periodicals on just about anything and as an example they had these things called microfiche. These microfiche readers would magnify a 105 x 148 mm piece of film that contained black and white text/images. As well there were many other forms of media to archive articles, books, and various documents.

The point I am trying to make in reminiscing, is these different medias could not be easily altered and would provide long term archival of information. Today most new information is published on a website and can easily be altered. The problems is for purposes of historical reference this is not a good thing.

I propose the following, that would create an international archive of publications in such a way where they could never be altered or at least it would be very difficult.

• Have a purpose build "archival" engine scrape sites containing periodicals from all over the world in all languages.
• Store each article/image/video in a compressed file and then generate a checksum and or digital signature for that compressed file.
• A blockchain would then be used as an index for these compressed files along with their checksum and or digital signature to validate the authenticity of the file.
• Versioning can be done as well with the blockchain index to link documents together that are from the same source/location when modified.
• This archive could then be accessible by anyone throughout the world and be the primary archival index internationally.
• Any entity that has the capacity and proper systems could replicate (mirror) the index in its entirety adding additional redundancy to the system.

Because of possible copyright issues with documents being copied there would need to be agreements between the originating sites and the archiving engine to allow for the archiving process to "scrape" their sites in full. Copyrights on periodicals are different than with, say a book. Since the point of a periodical is to be shared I do not believe the archival of them would be a problem. As long as the capturing of the documents includes the proper references to its original publisher.

Any paywalls would have to allow for the archiving engines to bypass them. As per agreements with sites that charge for content, a time delay would be set before releasing the documents publicly. We must respect that publishers have to make a living.

Sites that allow the archiving service to scrape their sites in full would have a seal identifying that they have the integrity to allow their works to be essentially "etched in stone" for the ages.

An archive would also encourage proper journalistic etiquette in properly documenting any corrections and or retractions.

Authentic historical documents are necessary for all of society. Unfortunately throughout the history of our world; many bad actors have altered these documents for malicious and subversive purposes.

I believe the world deserves historical truth to be preserved for all to see without censoring, unaltered, and in full context as it was originally published.

A Better Way to Advertise

We are bombarded by advertisers on the Internet constantly. Everyone is trying to get you to see their products and services. Problem is that we have become numb to all this marketing and block most of it with ad-blocker (I do). I am a consumer and am interested in new products and services but the majority of the ads I am presented are just wasting my time.

Social media makes money mostly by selling your data and advertising. These companies need ongoing revenue to stay alive and can only keep afloat for so long without these revenues.

The advertising model has gotten much more complex and in some ways more intelligent, but they are still using the same old model that has been around since the beginning. That is to show you an advertisement based off of what they think you want.

So lets flip this around a bit shall we...

To explain my method of presenting the consumer with smart advertising I am going to make up a fictional family and friend chat program called "CrewChat".

Mom, Dad, and the two teenage Son and Daughter are all members of CrewChat and have invited some other family and a few friends into their group as well. CrewChat is using a new way to bring in revenue from its users. They have a choice for each member to pay an annual subscription of $20 for no advertisements OR a brand new method called "AdPick".

• You choose from a list of advertisers that you like and are familiar with. You MUST do this otherwise you would have to pay the annual subscription.
• Those advertisers will then show you ads for their products and services as well as specials that you would not be able to get anywhere else.
• Some of the advertisements you see will be from competing products and services that are related to the the products and services you choose.
• The longer you keep a particular product or service in your AdPicks the better discounts, specials, and coupons you will get.
• There are a limited amount of slots so brand loyalty gets tested...

Here is how AdPick would work.

You choose Levi's, Verizon, Apple, and Starbucks as your preferred AdPicks. Now you will start seeing clothing advertisements, the latest in Smart Phones, Apple products, and all things coffee related. These are brands you already know about and like. Basically you are telling them you like their products/services and you want to spend money with them. Give me something special to keep me as a customer coming back again and again.

So you are chatting with your mom and see a 50% off coupon for any Grande drink at Starbucks that is good for the next 12 hours. Now you can share that with anyone inside the AdPicks program so other CrewChat users in this example.

Then later after you are hanging out at the Starbucks you are chatting with your best friend and up pops an ad for a new pair of designer jeans from May Company made by Tommy Hilfiger, now 40% off for the next 3 days. You love your Levi's and not really wanting to try something new. But you go ahead and share that special with your friend.

Benefits

• Ads that are relevant to your likes.
• Does not waste as much of your time.
• By these advertisers providing specials that are only available through the AdPick program it encourages more use of the CrewChat app as well as any other app that users the AdPick program.
• Allows consumers to see new products and services that they are very likely to learn more about or try a competing product/service.
• Can earn rewards by sharing ads with others as the original ad is targeted to you. So anyone that uses your code is essentially giving you credit. A company may then give you extra discounts on other items.

Bottom line is making advertising interactive and giving consumers a choice will be beneficial to everyone. Those that don't want to be bothered can just pay a subscription. Everyone is a winner!

Automating Food Service

With minimum wage increasing in many states across the country, service staff wages are increasing. This means that either food prices will go up or you will see less service staff. In reality both are going to happen and already are.

I have personally noticed that the speed and quality of food services has decreased in recent years to the point where I either don't want to eat out or expect a long wait for service and food.

When wages go up arbitrarily because of political pressure instead of free market driving the wages you will have many consequences.

First there will be higher prices, and if a business tries to control what they charged, they must cut costs. The biggest overhead for most employers especially in thes service sector are wages. So when your restaurant on a Friday night used to have 7 wait staff but now have 5, those wait staff have to work a LOT harder. Those wait staff may make more money but the amount of work is much higher than the pay raise. This will cause burn out and eventually the quality of the service will drop.

Higher prices will erase much of the wage increase. If prices go up 5 or 10 percent and your wage went up 5 or 10 percent. Will you do the math...

Entry level is too expensive and many people will not be able to get an entry level service job. If you have to pay a dishwasher $15 an hour where you used to pay them $8 or $10 an hour that is a huge difference. Plus they will not be more efficient, they will not do more dishes per house. Same dishwasher more overhead.

Wages need to increase organically with the market. If a waiter or waitress is willing to work for $7 an hour plus tips then let them. If a dishwasher is willing to work for $5 an hour, let them. If you can't get any cooks for less than $14 an hour then that is the market telling you that you must pay at least that much or you will not have any cooks.

FINALLY PEOPLE WILL BE REPLACED BY TECHNOLOGY! People have been replaced by technology since technology existed. Most people used to farm, percentage wise hardly anyone works on a farm anymore. What happened to all those jobs? Technology like combines, tractors, automated picking equipment, planting equipment, processing plants, and on and on. But employement is just as high if not higher today as there are different jobs to fill. As the service sector is continually automated those that used to fill those jobs will do something else. Including jobs that we can't even think of today. Like colonizing Mars?

As wages go up the ROI (return on investment) for automating a service job goes down. That robot burger flipper that costs $60,000 used to be too expensive when you only paid a person $20,000 a year. But at $30,000 a year the robot will be paid for in 2 years. And the robot is never late to work, does not need a break, never sick, and never complains. If your smart your new job will be to program and maintain those robots instead of complaining about them replacing you.


Now picture the future of food service...
You walk into your favorite restaurant and ask for a table for your family of 5. Instead of the typical 45 minute to an hour wait you get an answer of 16 minutes. This is because all the tables are tracked with an algorithm based on how many people there are at each table, what they are eating, and also how many alcoholic drinks they have had. Plus factor in how long it takes to clear a table and how many staff there are to work the tables; with historical data that 16 minute estimated wait time should be pretty close.

You sit down to wait and start deciding what you want to eat and drink from a tablet with a full menu. If you have any questions or have a special request, just press a button on the tablet for help or put in a note.

15 minutes later your table is ready (1 minute faster than expected! YEA!). The dedicated wait staff brings you to your table where your drinks are already showing up from the dedicated drink and table staff. Since everyone has already picked what they want to eat the kitchen has your orders and is preparing them as you sit down.

Back in the kitchen your orders are already being prepared based on how long each plate takes to make, slowest to fastest. Orders are shown on large screens with any special request in bright red so the kitchen staff does not miss them. Once a plate is completed it is set on the counter on top of a large display surface with your table number and a picture of each plate. The plates have RFIDs on the bottom of them and notify the staff when they are all ready as well as update your tablet that your order that it has been plated. When the dedicated drink and table staff comes by to pick up your order everything is ready to go at once and the customers get their food quickly.

Back at your table you already know that your food should be coming out in the next few minutes so you order another drink with a few presses on your tables tablet. Your drink shows up a few minutes later with the food.

The dedicated drink and table staff gets paid based on efficiency of bringing plates and drinks. There is no tipping in this restaurant, instead the staff is paid very well compared to a minimum wage job plus tips. Because the pay is based on efficiencies there is a lot of motivation for being quick and doing a great job. Customers can rate the friendliness of the staff as well by choosing their picture on the tables tablet and anonymously giving them ratings. These are all sent to the managers on staff in real-time. If they see complaints from a table they address the issue immediately.

During your meal drinks never run dry and any request or additional food is brought out quickly without having to wait for a staff member to come around. By the time everyone is finished with their meal the bill gets paid on the tables tablet quickly and easily. Each customer can pay individually or as a group with a credit card or cash.

In the end you have happy customers, happy staff that get paid better for doing a great job, and the restaurant is moving paying customers through quickly bringing in more revenue than ever before.

Sounds like a dream? Shouldn't be. All this technology exist and most customers today will have no problem with not ordering from a person in exchange for a faster and more pleasant experience. After all waiting is the worse part of eating out.

What 5G Networks Should Be Like

5G is the next generation of cellular networks and is already rolling out in test cities across America. I am not sure how cellular networks will look by 2020 when most of 5G is slated to be turned on but here are features I would like to see.

Every device is a cellular device:
This means that your TV, computer, phone, DVR, Chromecast, refrigerator, washer, dryer, and toaster will all have some soft of Internet capability with a 5G device. This is a lot of devices so IPv6 will obviously be used.
I even believe that home and possibly business wireless networks will eventually become unnecessary.

One standard worldwide:
Ok this one might not happen but it should! All 5G networks should be the same standard across the world and work on any providers network.

Backward compatible:
Should be backward compatible to at least 4G if not 3G networks.

Security:
I believe that the 5G radio itself should have a firewall with fully closed settings as a default then the manufacturer or user of the device will open what services need to go in and out. Each 5G provider should have a easy to use tool/service that will run a security check/probe against your 5G devices to look for known vulnerabilities.

Virtual Networking:
Imagine you have 30 or so 5G devices in your home. Now imagine linking all of them to the same virtual network that belongs to just your devices. You can be anywhere on your providers network and maybe even any provider's network and all your devices can talk to each other. This is not a far fetched idea and would have lots of benefits.
From a home user's perspective lets say you have security cameras all over your property, your rental property, your parents house, and even on your car. The physical location does not matter and you can securely access these cameras from your phone or tablet that is also connected to this secure virtual network.
For a business this is a huge plus! Right now there are MPLS networks through a single provider. VPNs between locations, and then there are servers and resources that are accessed through the public Internet. By setting up virtual networks all the business 5G devices could easily talk to each other with minimal configuration.

Customer Control:
You should be able to control each of your devices bandwidth, usage as well as security settings at any time from a user friendly console.

Lots of Services:
Just think how many services ISPs could offer with the 5G and even 4G capabilities. Like content filtering, Intrusion detection, Anti-Virus, advanced firewalls, caching, data compression, and so much more.

Cost is key!
In order for 5G to really get to its full potential the price is going to have to be economical. If you want your fridge to be online a consumer is not going to pay very much but a few dollars and then for usage per device seems reasonable.
Billing by usage instead of speed makes more sense to me. Should be full speed all the time or at least what the network can handle. Devices and users that use a small amount of data will pay less that those that use a lot of data.
Pricing per GB now is too expensive. It should be more like a dollar a GB not the $10 to $20 it is now.

Zero Cost Bandwidth:
This is already done. If a company like Netflix wants to pay to subsidize a user's bandwidth for their streaming then they should be allowed to do that. Since an ISP is there to make money they don't care where the money comes from. I know what many of you are thinking. What about a small company that wants to compete with NetFlix or Youtube. Think of this from the ISP side. Streaming video uses a LOT of bandwidth and is the most expensive data to push through a network. Someone has to pay for all that bandwidth, sorry but that is just how business works.

Bottom line is 5G has a lot of potential with 10 to 100 times throughput, much higher density and lower latency than 4G networks. If the Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T's play their cards right they may quickly put terrestrial based ISPs out of business.

Focused Sirens

How many of us have been woken up by sirens in the night that are miles away and have nothing to do with where you are. Instead of blasting the high pitch sound everywhere it should be more directional.

I believe some ways of doing this would be to:
- Control the shape of the siren horn
- Control the pitch based on distance and atmospheric conditions
- Control the volume

A camera/radar/lidar system can be used to look at distances in front of the emergency vehicle as well as where intersections are and turns ahead. When approaching an intersection the siren can increase the width of the horn/cone as well as volume and pitch.

Volume as well as the focus of the siren can also be increased for vehicles that are not paying attention or may have their radio too loud to notice the siren.

In addition a second siren could be installed to have a dual pitch with one being more focused in front of the emergency vehicle for even more power to alert vehicles in the direct path of the siren.

The concept is to still alert vehicles and pedestrians in the path of the emergency vehicles while minimizing sound pollution in the area. Especially at night when it is generally quiet and atmospheric conditions allow sound to travel further.

So much more sleep for people while still safely alerting those that an emergency vehicle is trying to get through.

Consolidated Billing

Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO Go, and so many more. So many have cut the cord but what about all these new bills. $12 a month, $10, $15, $20 now all of a sudden you are paying almost as much and you can't just simply select a channel or pay a single bill. FRAGMENTED!

Eventually Google TV, Apple TV, or someone will aggregate all these services together and make is super easy to browse through them but there is still the billing. Even if you set up an automatic payment with a credit card you still a lot more services to pay for individually.

How about a consolidated billing service. Here is how that might work.

You go to your favorite consolidated billing service provider and for this example let's call them onebillforeverything.com

You set up an account on onebillforeverything.com and then place checkboxes next to the services you want. So you select Cox, Amazon, Hulu, DirecTV, and Netflix.
Next you put in your billing information and your done. Within hours or even faster all these services will be set up under your email address and a password setup across all the accounts.

Now you can pay one bill, if your payment info changes you can change it in one place.

So why would these companies even want to associate with a service like this?
- All billing and billing customer service issues are resolved by onebillforeverything.com
- The services would be paid on time all the time
- Contracts would be dealt with from the onebillforeverything.com side
- Payment issues are resolved from the onebillforeverything.com side
- If it is as easy as checking a box then more users are more likely to use a service

Why would a customer want to use this?
- A discount can be provided for signing up for multiple services
- Easy single checkbox to sign up
- All in one place account management as well as password resets
- One place to contact for all billing issues

Then to cover costs onebillforeverything.com takes a few percent from the transactions just for being a "broker" to everything.

Could even consolidate basic support to remove burden of simple account issues, password resets, notification of service outages, etc.


This can work for just about any recurring service that you pay for including
- Cellular services
- TV/Cable/Satalite
- Internet providers
- Utilities/Electric/Water/Gas

Keep the lock, replace the tumbler

There are lots of electronic door locks available today but they all have the same problem. They are much larger than a typical mechanical lock and must have a power source.

There are two parts to an electronic lock. The key and the motor to open the bolt or lock itself. The key is typically a RFID badge, numeric code, fingerprint, etc. Then once the user is authenticated the lock has a motor that will open the bolt or unlatch the mechanism to allow the door to be opened.

Because of this there must be a battery for power and most of the time the entire door handle assembly replaced with something much larger. This is sometimes difficult and also more unsightly.

I propose a hybrid of an electronic lock that fits into the same small space as a mechanical lock while still maintaining the same dimensions of a circular tumbler assembly that fits in most door locks/knobs today. It can even continue to use the same old fashion key as a backup.

Simply have a key with an RFID chip on it that is a flat blade like a normal key but smooth on both sides and is a narrower width than a normal key. A normal key would line up the pins to allow the tumbler to be turned thus unlocking the door. The RFID key would also engage a mechanism that uses a very small amount of power that would allow the tumbler to turn regardless of the pins positions and allow the key to then turn and unlock the door.

The power can be from the key itself being inserted like a magnetic generator. If the lock needs extra power the key can be inserted and removed multiple times like a generator moving back and forth. This is used in many non-battery emergency flashlights.

The electronic locks can be programmed with a master key or a fob of some sort that will use a NFC type of setup from a smartphone. If there is an issue a normal key can still be used to open the tumbler providing access.

The unlocking of the bolt itself requires most of the power but since you are turning a physical key that part is done by the user. Thus eliminating a larger lock being needed to house a motor and gear assembly.

Autonomous Vehicles Laws

They are here and eventually everyone will have one and many, many, many laws are sure to follow. Driver-less cars or "Autonomous Vehicles" in my opinion will make the world a safer and better place.

How many people ride a horse or a buggy to work. The correct answer would be very few. But when cars or the "horseless carriages" were new I am sure many people thought to themselves they would never get in one. Here we are over a century later and now the automobile is going to drive us around. I'm good with that once they get the bugs worked out.

But fast forward a few decades or maybe even sooner and as with all technology the laws will play catch up with autonomous vehicles. Here are a few that I think we are going to have and really need to have.

- No one can drive on the highways manually. Meaning eventually once the technology is sound driving without the aid of the computer will be illegal as it will basically be dangerous.

- Software updates will be required as a part of annual inspection. Similar to smog laws. Also critical security patches will be automatic and required in order to be on public roads.

- Drivers license tests will consist of what to do in a computer malfunction and how to operate the computer systems. No more parallel parking or traffic merging.

- My guess is controlling a fully autonomous vehicle while impaired (drunk, high, tired) is still going to be illegal as you are responsible for any malfunction as well as telling the vehicle where to go.

- In the case of an accident all autonomous vehicles will require highly precise "black boxes" for data tracking and telemetry as well as computer debugging. This way the insurance companies can find out who or what is at fault. The entire insurance system may change as it will be insuring computer code instead of people.

- All Autonomous vehicles in proximity to each other must have basic communications with each other in order to make better and quicker decisions to avoid collisions.

- Hacking or otherwise modifying the autonomous code will be a criminal offense.

- Emergency vehicles can communicate with all surrounding vehicles to clear a path. All autonomous vehicles must obey these emergency vehicles as long as it is safe to move out of the way.

- Personal vehicles can be placed in an emergency mode in case a passenger or the driver needs emergency assistance. For example if someone is having a heart attack the driver/person in control (can call them a pilot) can initiate an emergency request to the nearest hospital. Their vehicle would then have priority through traffic and be allowed to go beyond typical speed limits within reason. To prevent abuse of this system a report with law enforcement would be required after each use. Inappropriate use of the emergency mode would be fined with possible suspension of the operators license.


Beyond the laws there will be special trips and vacations where you can actually drive a car or truck for recreational purposes. Like offloading or racing.

Finally security is going to be a major issue and is already a concern. There has to be "air-gap" in place between critical systems and say a wireless hot-spot in the car or the infotainment system. As other vehicles communicate with each other they must follow a strict set of rules and be truthful and accurate in their information. Bad data from other vehicles can cause collisions.

Better Overhead Street Lights for Better Visibility

Overhead street lights provide many benefits.

• Security for pedestrians
• Help see around dark corners when driving
• Help drivers on on/off ramps
• Improves overall visibility to both pedestrians and drivers

There are also a few issues with overhead street lights.

• Glare to drivers
• Power usage
• Light pollution
• Color issues (cannot tell what color anything is with the orange lights)

We need overhead street lights and I have a few suggestions for fixing some of the issues. First of all there are many overhead lights that automatically dim when their motion sensors don't see anyone. This is a newer technology and will be slow to adopt. Also many of the newer lights are LED so the power consumption is much lower. Finally color issues are being resolved by installing white or close to white lights instead of the orange lights that are typically low pressure sodium vapor.

In the past light pollution was dealt with by getting rid of the white lights and installing the orange lights as the wavelength of these lights would not refract as much into the atmosphere. There are newer lights now that appear white but are missing some of the spectrum (filtered) that cause a lot of the light pollution. So you have a nicer light without all the light pollution.

The last issue I listed is glare. This is a hard one to deal with especially because glare has many causes.

• Brightness of light
• Color of light
• Atmospheric conditions such as fog

My solution to all of these is a smart light that can:

• Adjust its brightness based on objects and motion around it.
• Adjust the color of the light based on the time of day and atmospheric conditions.

If it is a clear day with very little moisture in the atmosphere then a bright white light is best. As there is more moisture in the atmosphere adjusting the color output as well as applying filters to the light will cut down on the glare that would otherwise make driving more difficult as well as make it harder for pedestrians to see. Just like you don't drive in the fog with your high beams a bright white light from above will make it very hard to see anything in the fog.

Some basic light theory is that we perceive different colors based on their respective wavelength. Purple or bluer colors have a shorter wavelength and are more susceptible to bouncing around or "refract", especially when there are particulates in the air like fog, dust, and smog. You likely have seen some car headlights that are purplish and are annoying from the glare they cause. Think why the sky is blue.

At the other end there is red that has a longer wavelength. You will notice that the military uses red lights or filters on their lights so that they cannot be seen as far away giving their position away.

http://www.beercolor.com/color_basics1_files/image002.jpg

So many fog lights are yellow so they are still bright enough to cover some distance while not causing as much glare and refracting as much.

Color "temperature" is measured in Kelvin. The chart below shows some data points on the color temperature of light. Daylight is generally considered around 5000K.

http://www.venturelighting.com/techcenter/lamps/Color%20Temp%20Chart.jpg

The last piece I want to talk about is CRI or color rendering index, also sometimes referred to as color accuracy. Perfect daylight would be about 100 and some lights are actually negative. The reason I bring up CRI is that you want a street light or any light to have a good CRI as a higher quality of light means you don't need as much of it. So less energy and possibly less glare since it is not so bright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

Conclusion is that with a proper sensor to detect particulates in the air and then the ability for a light to change its color either by mixing different types of light sources (think different wavelengths of LEDs) or filters. We should be able to provide a overhead street light that is "smart" and will make the world a better place!

How to Deal with Junk Mail.. The Paper Kind

Every time I go out to my mailbox about 3 quarters of the mail is junk. We just sort through it and throw it in the recycle bin. What a waste of paper, time, and money. When I say money I mean the advertisers that are desperately trying to get a small percentage of people to look at their products and services.

The reason there is so much "direct mail" is because:

- There can be a return on the investment of printing and sending the mail (normally small)

- The post office loves it as it keeps them from being even further in the red

- Some consumers like it for the coupons and ads to look through

- The recycling companies probably like it for the paper to recycle

There must be a better way for advertisers to spread the word about their products and services. Plus there are many mailing that consumers may want but would rather have an email or something electronic. There does not seem to be anything (that I know of ) that bridges this gap.

Lets look at what is needed to make both the consumer happy and the companies advertising.

- Consumers want to know about new products and services

- Consumers like to know about deals/save money

- Companies need a cost effective way to communicate with potential and existing customers

So lets have a service that can give the customer control over what they get as well as take it out of the mailbox and put it in our inboxes. I know, I know, you are thinking. "Great more JUNK". But wait hear me out on this. There are ways to create a win-win situation, so lets get started...

Take an example of a mailer you get from the Penny Saver. They send it to your home address every week with coupons and deals from local businesses. My wife will quickly browse through this one (unlike most) and spend maybe a minute looking at it. This would be much more useful online and searchable.

Another example of a magazine that I may like but instead of printing it and mailing it the whole magazine can be online and searchable. Complete with the advertisements. Very simple do with a PDF or online viewer.

Most importantly all the waste of paper, time, and money can be avoided by people opting out of the junk.

On the consumer side:

- Go to dealwithjunkmail.com (made up name)

- Setup an account with your name, home, business, whatever addresses and an email address.

- Setup some basic preferences on how often you want emails, etc

- Opt in for receiving mailings electronically vs on paper

- Be able to opt out of any particular mailings by company name or sender

On the business side:

A business or out-sourced direct mail company can upload a list that will run against our list to compare who is on it. The business would then get a simple list in return of names/addresses that wish to receive mailings electronically.

The business/direct mail provider would then send the mailings through dealwithjunkmail.com with the list they received from our database compare. This is so that:

a) The direct mail companies only get to send to those they already have on their list (dealwithjunkmail is not selling any list and never would)

b) The business/direct mail companies can stop sending the paper version saving both on printing and mailing cost.

The business/direct mail companies would also get reports on who read the mailings as well as opt outs (list removals).

Dealwithjunkmail.com would make money by charging a small fee based on quantity of the mailings sent through us. Somewhere in the cents per mailing sent.

So who gets hurt the most? The post office... They really need to re-invent themselves, junk mail is not a good business model in the age of electronic data. As a suggestion the post office should get into this business model before anyone else does.

Signal Idea

How many times have you forgotten about your washer finishing and only to remember a day or two later. Now you have to re-wash your laundry because it is getting a bit funky smelling. What about burning your baked goods in the oven, or the refrigerator alarm is going off with no one to hear it because the door was left open.

In today's connected world we expect we can do just about anything on our pocket computers that can also be used as phones. But for some reason most appliances (very few actually) can be online and communicate with you. There needs to be an easy to install solution that will get your appliances to talk to you wherever you are.

Introducing my idea "Signal". A small, battery powered, WiFi device that will listen to your appliances beeps and boops then alert you when it hears them.

All of our appliances have tones they produce for notification and alarms. When you are too far away, too busy with something else, or maybe not even at home you can still get notified by your appliance without having to connect to them in anyway.

The device
Would be a small device not much larger than a box of matches. Would hold say 2 AAA batteries or maybe AA batteries. I don't believe in sealed batteries where the device has to be replaced when the batteries are exhausted. This makes no environmental sense and is a waste. Plus it makes it more expensive to the consumer. The device would have a small computer, microphone, single button, an LED, and would be water resistant. Only activating WiFi when sending a notification the battery life should be very long.

The Setup
To get the device connected to your network you need the Signal app (free) and when you first turn it on or hold down the button for 5 seconds it will broadcast out a WiFi signal that your phone can connect to and configure. The light will blink slowly while you are setting it up. Put in your WiFi info and save it. Now your set. Name the device and put in a location. It is now attached to your account. Very similar to a ChromeCast setup.

Next is the recording the sound. Hold the single button on the device for a few seconds and play the sound you want the device to listen for. A light will blink rapidly telling you it hears the sounds and is recording it. Press the button when the sound is done playing. Now using the phone app name the appliance it just heard. Have that appliance make the same sound again and it should notify your app.

Great that's it! Your all setup. The online account that everything connects to is free for life. You can pay for a premium account that will let you create advanced notifications, batch actions as well as schedules etc. Batch actions would be like notifying multiple people and also allowing a computer program to be notified that would launch actions. Say for example control your home automation and turn on lights when your oven goes off.

Here is how it works. Lets take the example of your washing machine...
Imagine you are in the living room watching your favorite TV show and your laundry finishes. The machine will beep but you don't hear it. Your phone's Signal app gets a notification that the laundry is done. You can snooze the reminder so you can finish your show. If you don't have the app no problem it can send emails and SMS.

Lets say you are really bad about changing laundry. You can configure this particular alert to keep bugging you every hour until you press the button on the Signal box. When you go to change the laundry you can press the button to clear the notification, the light will blink 3 times quickly letting you know it's cleared.

Another example, the oven...
Most ovens are pretty loud when they beep but there are times when at my house with screaming kids, a loud TV (to drown out the screaming kids) makes it impossible to hear. So now your phone gets notified. You can even set it up to keep notifying you until you press the button on the Signal box. This way you don't have burned cookies. There is even the ability to customize the notifications to use different sounds for different appliances.

Other concepts that can integrate
- Alarms for detecting water/floods
- Motion detectors
- Alarms for low/high temperatures
- Contact sensors for an open door, gate, cabinet, etc
- Even reminder buttons say by the trash can. When the trash is full press the button and your husband "me" gets notified to take out the trash.

The list is endless. Just a simple Signal box that attaches to your account and you can have the Internet of Things help your house talk to you.

Protecting Data

Recently it was reported the Federal Office of Personnel Management was hacked by the Chinese in December of 2014. It is possible that around 4 million current and former federal employees data was compromised.(1) So how do we protect this data?

Maybe the better question is why do we store this data? If much of this data was not being stored online in databases, files and on a network, then even if the systems are compromised the data is not there to take. How many of these "former" employees of the Federal government have been gone for decades or longer? How long should their records be kept? More importantly how long should their records be kept "online"?

Two words "retention policies".

Oh and here is another important word "liability".

In today's world of storage getting cheaper everyday, everyone seems complacent to just store information forever. Who cares if it is 20 years old. We "may" need it someday.

It is fair to say there is some data that needs to be kept for long periods of time. There is even some data that should never be removed. For example medical records should be kept for the lifetime of that individual and then some. I doubt you want to delete pictures of your kids to save space. What about your family tree, videos of your wedding, music collection. This data needs to be online and easy to access at anytime as well as backed up. (PLEASE everyone backup your data!)

Retention policies need to be setup on all classes of data. From documents, to pictures, video, databases, logs, etc. When it comes to data, content is the key to how long it should be kept. There are laws on how long some data is to be kept. Beyond legal requirements policies should be set based on usefulness of the data. 7 years is a fairly typical number used to hold financial data for most individuals and businesses as an example.

Keeping data too long is a liability to the holder of that data. If that data is breached or improperly used, the company, government agency, or individual holding onto that data can be liable. Not to mention it is never fun to have to tell millions of customers that their private information is in the hands of hackers soon to be on the black market for thieves all around the world.

Here are some solutions to managing data without deleting it:
Setup a tiered system for storage

This means have multiple levels of storage like
- Online
- Near-line
- Archived

Let me explain these in broad technical terms.

Online storage is just what it says, the data is online and easily/quickly accessible. Excellent security should be in place to protect this data. Online storage has many tiers of it's own based on how fast that data is needed (performance). I will not get into the technicalities of tiered storage systems, just look up "tiered storage models". This is the most expensive tier as the data changes a lot, requires fast storage systems/connections, and must be backed up on a regular basis.

Near-line storage is not accessible online directly by users but is easily put online if needed. Typically this would be onsite but on systems that may not be directly connected to the servers or network. Data administrators would need to bring this data online when needed. The advantage to this is that data is significantly less susceptible to hacking or rouge employees. Automated processes as well as manual processes would follow retention policies to move data from online to near-line storage.

Archived storage is the lowest tier and would typically be stored offsite. This would be kept for legal reasons and would be the slowest to bring online as well as the most work. This data would likely be stored on media like tapes or optical that is not easily modified. This protects the integrity of the data. Archived data would be nearly impossible for hackers or rouge employees to compromise as physical access would be needed to get to this data. Archived storage is also the cheapest to maintain.

Every organization should have policies in place already to deal with data retention as well as tiers of storage to comply with these polices. Organizations that do have policies in place and follow them are much less likely to have data compromised and if they do the amount of damage is minimized. As well if data is compromised your organization can show reasonable efforts were made to secure the data. Hopefully this will play out in the organizations defense in their favor - verses negligence.

Another benefit is deniability. If there is data then there is evidence. If there is no data there is no evidence. Plausible deniability. Not saying that there "is" wrong doing but keeping all your data around is just asking for trouble. Organizations must remember to follow the laws on keeping data for the minimal amount of time. Beyond that get rid of that data if you have no justifiable reason to keep it.

Cost is the main reason to get rid of data. Keeping data is expensive. Users don't think of this nor do most executives or bureaucrats. Data has to be stored on storage systems. In large network environments these storage systems are much more expensive than a desktop hard drive. Large storage systems can easily cost more than a luxury car and go up from there. Next you need to back that data up. So now you need an entirely separate storage system (normally cheaper than the primary) to keep a copy of all that data. But wait there's more... When you backup data there is more than one copy. There are hundreds of copies with version history and deleted data too.

Finally there is the space, power, cooling, and the management of all the data systems and backups. There are countless hours of IT employees' time to keep everything up and running so users can keep making yet more data.


References
(1) http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/chinese-hackers-breach-federal-government%E2%80%99s-personnel-office/ar-BBkHFqx

Cloud Caching

Businesses and individuals rely a lot on Cloud services for both work and personal use. The number one issue with Cloud services, applications, data storage, or whatever category they fall in is connectivity. If you have no Internet access you basically have little to no functionality with Cloud services.

You can mitigate the issue with having redundant paths to the Internet. This is very simple to do with a firewall that supports 2 or more Internet connections.

Beyond Internet connectivity there is also the issue of ownership. If your data is hosted by a service; lets take for example Google Docs. Then all your data is somewhere in the ether and you have no physical possession of that data. If Google was hacked, went down, or even worse went away then what do you do?

For a truly better experience here is my though on an approach that would get a lot more companies to trust the Cloud and move more services there.

I suggest an appliance that resides onsite that "caches" all the data and keeps a working copy of the services code local. This would allow users that have network access to this appliance to keep working with or without access to the Internet.

But as you read this you're thinking, how would that work? Why would any Cloud service let you have a copy of their proprietary code?

Create a standard that is secure and will emulate any Cloud based service in a protected virtual machine.

So just think if:
- Google Docs
- Salesforce.com
- QuickBooks Online
- Zoho
- iCloud
- Dropbox
- Office 365 (online office)
- Even email applications such as Gmail, Outlook.com, iCloud, Yahoo
- and many more...

Were ALL FULLY FUNCTIONAL WITH NO INTERNET CONNECTION!

Obviously this is temporary as the email would not talk to the outside world and data would not sync outside your office. But your users could continue to work without any interruption and still have access to data in the event of an Internet outage or a service outage from the Cloud provider themselves. Once Internet connectivity returned everything would sync back up like an offline mode sync.

The next benefit is speed. With a Cloud Caching appliance the code could execute locally in that secure/hardened virtual machine so your users would not send any data across the Internet and wait for that to come back. The load would essentially be "offloaded" from the Cloud service providers to your local network.

I would accomplish this with:
- Open standards and open source code to run the virtual machines.
- Vendors can then supply hardware and support while running the core with open source. Then adding any proprietary software on-top for management purposes, load balancing, etc.
- Each Cloud service provider would upload a new virtual machine or update their current one when they release any new code.
- Cloud service providers would create APIs to sync data into each customers repository.

For high level management owner/operators can set polices on their appliance such as:
- Version control, so if an update comes out they can control when it deploys and also have fail back if there is an issue with the new code. The Cloud service provider can override these polices to prevent corruption with the data.
- Bandwidth control.
- Use applications local or remote when Internet connectivity is available.
- Switch to applications locally if latency or bandwidth usage is high (definable).
- Customize URLs for internal access or to just have external URLs redirect to the internal appliance(s) using DNS control/redirection.

The possibility of even outright purchasing a perpetual license for a Cloud service would be feasible to then host on-site without Internet connectivity. This could also be used for Cloud services that are end of life or where the service went out of business.

The idea of a standard and openness is competition to keep prices low and make it so a proprietary appliance is not needed for each service. ISPs can even implement appliances in neighborhoods to keep access local and fast!

For Cloud services to really capture more business from those that have not yet adopted, this may be the best way forward. Hopefully someone will figure this all out and bring the Cloud home!

Smarter Traffic Control - Part 2

As promised from part 1 of the smarter traffic control I want to discuss stop signs.

These non-tech octagonal, red objects that most of us really don't like but deal with anyways are a daily part of our lives. Do a Google search on stop signs around the world, they are basically the same everywhere. There is no mistaking them, yet there is a fundamental problem with them, actually a few.

1. They are not always needed.
What I mean by this is that they may be put in place just to attempt to slow down traffic. There have been many studies that show more stop signs will actually increase the mean speed on a street(1).

As an example to this, the residential street where I grew up and my parents sill live on never had any stop signs except for one major intersection. The "loud" neighbors demanded traffic calming solutions to slow down the speeders on the street. First they tried speed humps but the fire department complained that it slowed their trucks down too much. So out went the speed humps and in went 4 stop signs at each intersection along the street. Now we have more problems with speeding but the cops seem happy enough to give out tickets for not making complete stops.

They even went as far as to put two stop signs on a corner just so there was an even amount between the street above and our street. As far as could I read into the local laws, that is not even an intersection and the stop signs are not even enforceable! My parents live at the end of the street. So each and every day minutes of their lives as well as all those around them are wasted unnecessarily. That can add up to almost a quarter of a day over the course of a year.

2. They can do more harm than good.
If a stop sign is unnecessary or misplaced it can actually cause more accidents(2). This is because there is a complacency from drivers that approach the intersection. Each driver is trusting that the other drivers will stop and follow the traffic rules. Instead most drivers that stop tens if not hundreds of times a day will make their stop and continue, many times without even checking if anyone else stopped.

3. When they are needed people are tired of them.
As I stated above drivers become complacent and blindly continue through an intersection after a stop. When going through many stop signs on a street drivers become "numb" and are more likely to make a mistake. Whereas on a street that may not be that busy and an intersection say has a two way stops for lower traffic side streets. Those drivers are much more likely to pay attention.

What we should do.
- Local governance should create rules about when a stop sign is required and these rules should used to decide if a sign is warranted or not. Such as:
  * How many accidents does the intersection have each year?
  * Are their blind corners near the intersection?
  * Is it an actual intersection where there is cross traffic?
  * Is there a substantial enough amount of cross traffic to cause one direction or another to have to wait for an extended amount of time?
  * Will it make the intersection safer?
  * Is it just being requested to slow traffic? If so then the request should be denied for this reason alone.

- Use of more yield signs where traffic speeds are slower. This will keep cars from having to stop all the time while still alerting drivers to pay attention for cross traffic.

- More 2 way stops vs all way stops. When there is cross traffic that is significantly heavier than say a side street. Why stop 100% of the cars when you only need to stop 5% of the cars.

- More traffic studies before installing a stop sign. Just do a simple traffic study on an intersection to decide if a stop sign is really needed. If it is determine what type of stop. 2 way, all way, 1 way, whatever way.

- Don't let squeaky wheels influence traffic control decisions. Democracy when it comes to traffic control does not work. Statistics and engineering need to decide how to control traffic, not loud mouth residents.


Lets get rid of stop signs as much as we can. Just think of the global impact all the cars stopping and starting for millions of stop signs around the world has on our environment. Not to mention all the brake pads, transmissions, engines, and anything else that moves on your car. Sure auto mechanics, part shops, and part manufactures love stop signs, but you don't have to.


Last note:
This goes out to all law enforcement that like to sit there and give out tickets to people that don't make a complete stop at a stop sign (California rolling stop). There are much better things for you to do than to prey on your tax paying constituents that "broke the law" by not coming to a full stop. They are not hurting anything and all you do is make people dislike you (law enforcement in general)... Yes it is revenue but it is not making anyone safer. In my opinion it causes resentment and will make people disrespect stop signs and those that enforce them. Now that can be dangerous.



References
(1) https://www.dmgov.org/Departments/Engineering/PDF/FAQ13_STOP_Signs_to_Reduce_Speeding.pdf
(2) http://www.creators.com/opinion/john-stossel/tear-down-the-stop-signs.html

Smarter Traffic Control - Part 1

How many hundreds of hours in our lives have been wasted waiting at stop lights and stop signs!

Yes, they are necessary traffic control otherwise there would be chaos on the streets. But how many times have you said to yourself "there is no one else at this intersection, why do I need to stop". Or "the stupid light turned red and now the other light is green but no one is there".

All this stopping waste not only your time and millions of others but it waste gas, adds stress to our lives, as well as wear and tear on our cars (brakes, engine, transmission, etc). So what can be done to fix this problem while still having safe and effective traffic control?

Lets start with traffic lights. Traffic lights were around in the early 1900s but were manually operated and required a traffic operator to control them. Traffic lights today are computer controlled with inductive sensor loops in the street (you can see these most of the time) to sense if there is a car in that lane. The programming will then direct traffic accordingly and typically in the same pattern from one direction of the intersection to the next. Some traffic signals are smart enough to skip directions where there are no cars as well as adjust wait times based on traffic flow. One of the big problems with the induction loops is they sometimes do not sense motorcycles or small cars. As well as cars that have gone into the intersection too much (passed the line) or are not close enough to the line. To compensate for these issues many traffic signals will allow a direction to go even if it does not sense anything. This is why sometimes in the middle of the night when you are the only one at a light but the other direction is green.

So lets get smarter about this. MUCH SMARTER!
Put cameras on the intersections to watch what is actually in the lane. Not a red light camera, those are lame. I am talking a camera that can actually see things like a motorcycle (or not) as well as cars that are coming toward the intersection (or not). These cameras could be visible, infrared, as well as thermal or all of the above to allow the algorithms to clearly identify traffic. Now how will this help.
- Less waiting for non-existent cross traffic.
- Less stopping of cars that are almost to the intersection but have not tripped the inductive pickup.
- No more having to show a green light to nothing or no one.
- Trigger a light change before an approaching car even needs to stop.

Now for traffic flow there are lights that are designed to talk to other nearby intersections. But it seems like they are being used more for speed control than for traffic flow. I always felt that the purpose of traffic lights is to stop you as much as possible. The real purpose is to (or should be) to get as much traffic as possible through an intersection as safely as possible. With this goal in mind we need smarter code to look at traffic patterns including time of day, day of the week, is it a holiday, is there an accident or emergency nearby, density of traffic in the different directions, speed of traffic between intersections, and so on.

To have an algorithm that can control traffic signals you need a lot more input beyond inductive sensor loops in the street. Cameras are a good start but how about talking to Google maps or Waze for example. How about a calendar so the lights know it is a work holiday, or that it is a weekend. What about when a school gets out 2 miles away? These factors dramatically affect traffic and should be taken into consideration.

Now for action!
None of the above can be implemented for free so there needs to be a justification to cities and other governing jurisdictions to flip the bill for these changes. Plus much of this technology does not yet exist but if the demand was there I guarantee it would. Think of the benefits:
- Better traffic flow
  * Would get more people though the area faster
  * More cars can get in and out of businesses faster
- Less stress on the drivers
- Less pollution from less stopping and accelerating
- Less wear on your car
  * Brakes
  * Engine
  * Transmission
- Happier tax payers everywhere!

In the future there will be autonomous (self-driving) cars that will take the human error out of driving. So will we need traffic control in the future once people stop driving? Maybe not, or at least not as much of it.

Still thinking about stop signs... Will blog about that at another time. That is not going to be a short story.

Feel at Home Wherever your Office is

For many years I had an office or should I say a cubical until I finally became self employed. I would put up a few pictures have some toys to play with on my desk and a few other things that made my daily place of work feel a bit more like mine.

But office spaces are changing. Now there are people working from home, sharing desk, open areas with desk all facing each other, etc. These changes are making it difficult to have a personal space that feels like it is "your" desk.

Here is my suggestion. Create some simple cloud based software (why cloud, I will get to that in a minute) and then a simple adapter that will connect to TVs and monitors with very little to no configuration. Think HDMI, Display Port, DVI, VGA, USB. You can then have a personalized space where you can virtually put up pictures, toys, things to play with, notes, a bulletin board, etc. Think widgets galore that you can download and customize. If you have a touch screen even better! Or you could have a device that connects to the side of the screen that will track your finger to make it a touch screen (these already exist).

Now when you sit down and log in to your work computer a proximity device will activate your profile from the cloud and download all your widgets and settings. Including up to date pictures of your family, friends, dog, cat, what you did on your vacation, just save the inappropriate stuff for home. Your profile would even know what devices are where so that picture of you that really shouldn't exist but you think its funny anyways would only display at home.

Your work could have policies that might only allow approved widgets as well as being able to block some or all of your content if there was a complaint. If your work provided the hardware they could register that hardware under their account thus giving them control over it. The content that you own would not be able to be modified or downloaded but could be censored if there was a complaint. The owner/controller of the hardware would never be able to see much more than a small thumbnail representation of your virtual office screens for privacy. Your company would also likely set policies to limit sharing so that you don't waste all day sharing things on their equipment with your friends outside of work.

Based on where you are you can even share with other people. This can be a shared task list and would be based on your location. You could slide a note over to another co-worker or friend from your screen to theirs. The company itself could have a company wide calendar that is mandatory on all screens they own/control.

Customization does not have to stop with a few screens. It could play music (or share music with others that subscribe to you, think being a DJ at work), control the lighting, temperature, how about if your desk itself was a screen.

Now for the cloud part. Here are the reasons for being in the cloud.

 1. Portability - Does not matter where you are, just need an Internet connection.

 2. Ownership - Do you want your work "owning" or storing personal pictures or communications?

 3. Apps or widgets - Almost like an app store but with widget plugins.

 4. Move data around - Because everyone is connected you could use this to send files to each other. Would be limited to just data files, no executable files.

Now to execute this I would suggest a simple Android based system since that eco-system is already developed and is open-sourced. There are many Android devices that simply plug right into an HDMI port (as an example) that are ready to go. Just need some software and a catchy name...

3D Printers Go Mainstream

In the next 5-10 years I think it will be common place to have 3D printers in the home and to have more advanced 3D printers at businesses printing everything from trinkets to replacement parts.

Instead of having to stock thousands of parts an auto parts store could simply have some 3D printers that can print parts containing plastic all the way to tempered metals. Even as advanced as printing circuit boards. In a home a simple 3D printer that can product plastic pieces for toys, trinkets, parts, etc.

The uses are endless, here are a few examples I came up with:

- Installing a new appliance, instead of including 5 different parts depending on how you install the appliance it could simply come with QR codes to scan where you can download the exact parts you need and print them. You could even customize the color and size of the part. This would reduce waste and make the install more precise.

- Working on your car and you need a special retainer clip. This has happened to me and they are cheap but I have to drive down to the auto parts store to get one. What if I could go online and print a few in minutes. No wasted time or gas.

- Toy broke and it just needs an arm. In the future toys should have a code to scan on them where you can print replacement parts online. Just go to the manufactures website and put in the code from the toy. an hour or so later you have your replacement part and the toy is as good as new.

- 3D printers might even be able to repair cracked or broken items. Just place an item in a printer that can scan the item and patch or fill in the problem areas.

- Custom create ergonomic mice, handles, grips, inserts, and countless other custom items that fit your hands, feet, whatever on your body. Just imagine taking a few pictures or a 3D scan of your hand to print a customized mouse body that perfectly fits your hand. A vendor could sell the internal pieces of a mouse, send you to their website where you can upload a 3D scan of your hand and in return download a 3D model to print the perfect mouse for you.

This technology is rapidly evolving and will soon be mainstream. One of the main issues with 3D printing is what you print. You need a 3D model to print from and either you have to make it yourself or you have to download it. There needs to be money involved otherwise people are not going to spend their time making these 3D models for download.

I am not the biggest fan or DRM (Digital Rights Management) but in this respects I think there needs to be some sort of DRM like system that allows someone to create a 3D model, sell it, and then protect its usage.

Lets say for example you want to print a cool new toy for your kid and there is a 3D model for $39 online. You go online, pay for the model and print it. A few hours later your kid has a new toy. But what is to prevent you from making 40 of these or a 100? What is to prevent you from sharing this with your friends?

I suggest a DRM type platform where the printer itself has a standard it follows to only allow the product to be printed how ever many times you paid for it if there is DRM on the model. The seller would embed a serial number for that download and the printer would redeem that serial number when the print is successful.

Obviously with any DRM they are never 100% secure .But it would keep honest people honest and those that spend a lot of time developing the toys, parts, etc would be much more likely to be paid.

3D printing is already a revolution that is in it's infancy. Mark my words it will be as common as having a microwave or a TV. Everyone will have a 3D printer someday and there will be less and less trips to the store for parts and pieces.