AI will increase effectiveness of mobile commerce
Mobile users are experiencing app and notificiation overload, according to a study by Connecthings. Most mobile users (84%) report using fewer than 10 apps on a daily basis. 40% of men and 30% of women clean up their phones once per week. The majority of respondents open only 25% of notifications, citing lack of relevance as a problem. ZDNet
dis-rup-shun: Information overload, the vice of daily snail mail and email, now threatens the effectiveness and satisfaction of newer communications apps on the smartphone. Understanding what is most important to me requires both access to my personal behavior data as well as an understanding of my context (am I at work, play, home or away?). Consumers seek less annoyance from technology and are willing to trade personal information for better experiences. For this reason, the data sharing economy, despite fears of loss of confidentiality, will continue to thrive.
Amazon employees listening in
Amazon confirmed that employees in U.S., Costa Rica and Romania listen to as many as 1,000 audio recordings per day from customers who have invoked the “Alexa” watch word. The listeners are monitoring Alexa’s ability to properly recognize speech, and the company assures that audio clips are encrypted, protected and unidentified to listeners. CNN
dis-rup-shun: Most smart speaker customers are aware that they have a microphone in their homes and have determined that the risks are less than the rewards. Perhaps the news of employees listening will change the usage or placement of the devices, but one only needs to consider use of social media, Google searches, and online purchases to realize that we have all painted a detailed profile of our lives with or without speaking to Alexa. An unmet business need is an online portal which shows consumers all of the services that are tracking personal data and provides the option to “pull down the curtains.” It may take federal regulations to implement such a comprehensive tool following increasing distrust of our data providers.
Princeton researchers offer a spy app to see who is watching your devices
IoT Inspector enables a person to visually see when and with what cloud service your home devices are communicating. With some detective work, one can figure out if devices are reporting in even when not in use. Download it here (available for MacOS only at the current time). TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: As suggested in the story above, consumers will increasingly require tools that help them see how visible their data is. The majority of people understand that usage of the valuable free tools across the Internet are not free — but require a payment of personal data. A data usage dashboard would likely not grealy reduce participation in online activities, but would encourage users to understand the usage agreements — like reading the labels on food products to see if they contain high-fructose corn syrup.
World’s largest plane takes flight on Saturday
The Stratolaunch, after many years in development, finally took to the skies over the Mojave desert on Saturday. The behemoth, a project of the late Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, is akin to two Boeing 747s fused together. The purpose of the craft is to carry rockets to 35,000 feet where they can be more economically launched into outer space compared to the high fuel costs of boosting rockets off of a launch pad. Gizmodo
dis-rup-shun: The space race is getting more crowded as tech entrepreneurs, including Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos are making strides far ahead of government initiatives. Regulation of space, whether to track presence of crafts or to impose territorrial rights, is a looming problem and will require formation of international, cosmic FAA or NATO-like organizations. Astrophysics, astronomy, jet propulsion and space law may be the hottest careers in 2025 and beyond.