The ability to translate text directly from a photograph is a perfect example of some of the possibilities that emerge when you have sensor-rich mobile devices connected to cloud computing. Google’s shown that it’s possible, and that practical applications for mobile users might be just around the corner. How cool is that?
What’s happening in the background in this demo, on the simplest level, is that the prototype connects the phone’s camera to an optical character recognition (OCR) engine, recognizes the image as text and then translates that text using Google Translate. Even in small chunks, you can see what a difference having a tool like this could make in a pinch, especially if you’re traveling in a foreign country.
According to Google, right now this technology only works for German-to-English translations and it’s not yet ready for release into the wild. I’m sure you’ll agree, though, that this demo shows a lot of promise for what the future might hold. It’s exciting to know that soon your phone might be able to translate signs, posters and other foreign text instantly into your language.
When it comes to getting things done, the old adage “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is deceptively over-simplified. OK, sure, it’s pithy and it captures why being connected to others is important, but there are a lot of assumptions built in to the expression that we have to implicitly accept to make the rule work broadly.
The thing is, it’s not really just who you know that makes the difference, is it? If you’re going to seek the help of others repeatedly to get things done, they’ve got to know you too, and like you and trust you and actually want to help you when you need them. Not so simple.
Building relationships with others that you can count on to go out of their way to help you when you need it most is hard work. It takes doing the right thing and treating people fairly and going out of your way for others and delivering what was expected of you over and over again that builds trust and gets you what you need in the long run. It’s almost never the single favor that makes the difference. Rather, it’s consistency where the people that matter most differentiate themselves.
Maybe we should change the adage to “It’s not who you know, it’s who wants to help you”
When it comes to our work, wouldn’t we all be happier and more motivated if we were given the freedom to chose what we do, how we do it, when we do it and who we work with? What does having autonomy at work mean to you and where’s the sweet spot?
Special thanks to Daniel Pink for inspiring me to doodle this in my moleskin this morning. I’m half way through his new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us and the “4 T’s” he discusses in the context of autonomy has got my brain buzzing. I thought the sketch I did was worth translating to powerpoint for a discssion this morning.
This makes me wonder if the desire to get to that red dot sweet spot is the very essence of what drives people to become entrepreneurs. What do you think?
“All of our devices – our mobile phones, cameras, toys and media players – will become increasingly aware of where we are. Soon, geographical location, rather than broadcast schedules, will trigger entertainment experiences. Content will be tagged to places, and these will alert you to the proximity of your friends and people of similar interests” – Mike Walsh, Author of Futuretainment
The way we experience the web is moving quickly towards a standard where content is not linear, but relative. When content is linear, one piece of content leads us to another. But when the model is relative, any piece of content can be accessed via contextual triggers anywhere, any time and on any device.
Location is going to be a primary trigger that changes how we experience web content. In fact, it wont be long before a lot of the content that exists on the web will also exist as overlays to our senses as we move through the real world. Sound crazy? It’s not. It’s what the augmented reality movement is all about, and it’s coming fast.
A few days ago at TED, Bing engineers demonstrated that they are going way beyond Google’s Street View technology, using backpack cameras to capture pedestrian spaces, Flickr integration to provide a more diverse picture of a place over time, telescope data to allow people to get information on celestial bodies, and live video to show what’s happening in a place in real time. It’s pretty incredible. If you’re not impressed by this 6 minute demo, I’d take a moment to chew on what you’re seeing for a second, and consider for a second how evolved this still-young this technology is…
What Does This Mean For Us and The Web?
Well, first of all, putting content into context this way gives an unprecedented level of depth of information and understanding about place and our relationship to it. As Blaise Aguera y Arcas told Fast Company in a recent interview…
“If you want to explore, if you want to really understand more about a place, you really need to be able to get right down in there, and see if from the point of view that people actually experience it. As great as it is to use cameras on top of cars for building that visual trellis, that’s not the actual human perspective.”
With a layer of user generated content on top of maps we can look around and explore where we are with a completely new set of lenses.
It’ll be social – other people’s photos and videos will give us a unique perspective of the history and social context of where we are,
It’ll be personal – Our own location-tagged photos, videos and content can allow us to relive moments when we visit places that are meaningful to us.
It’ll be educational – instead of having to read and learn in a linear way, you’ll be able to put yourself at the center of the action, in context of place (and eventually time).
Most importantly, the rise of the Geoweb will open up completely new categories for business and innovation. It’s not hard to imagine a variety of commercial applications for virtual augmented reality tours or rich entertainment, educational and social experiences. With consumers rushing to buy location-aware smart phones, expect to see a lot of movement in the mobile market for these types of experiences in the next few years. Exciting stuff.
This morning I got a pleasant surprise. The mail man dropped off a hardcover copy of Seth Godin‘s new book Linchpin sent from a new friend. Totally made my day. Luke, thanks for reminding me again why I love to write this blog, and why helping others and giving generously are the best ways to connect with others.
I can think of so many reasons why this is a good idea. If this startup can get the security and authentication right with this (and they seem to have) they’re going to make a killing. Check out Squareup for launch details.
I spent a couple of happy, quiet hours last night with my nose in Pamela Slim‘s book Escape from Cubicle Nation. She makes some powerful arguments for why passion is a necessary ingredient to a happy work life. This well worded bit of wisdom stood out:
“What many people don’t realize is that when you force yourself to do something you don’t want to do, you have to deplete the energy from your body to do it. When you make it through a week where you have forced yourself to do work you don’t enjoy, you will feel exhausted, drained, and in need of martinis, industrial-strength aspirin, and/or face-planted-in-pillow rest.”
“When you do things you love, your body generates energy naturally. You may work an equal number of hours, or more, than when doing work you don’t enjoy, but the difference is you will feel spent, not depleted.”
You can’t really say it better than that, can you?
“If the American Dream of the Baby Boomers was all about being able to have a car and a house in suburbia, the new American Dream is having the choice between living in drivable suburban places and walkable urban ones.” -Chris Leinberger, land use strategist at the Brookings Institution
I’ve been reading a lot lately about the concept of smart cities and what makes cities work well for citizens and the environment. Getting the mix of urban planning, design, livability and community right seems to be the key to unlocking a city’s true potential,and there are a lot of cool ideas and design sprouting up around the movement.
Walkability is a concept that comes up repeatedly in discussions about sustainable urban planning that I find completely fascinating – partly because I would love to be able to walk to get what I need the way I used to in grad school, and partly because I hate throwing away hundreds of dollars every month on my car.
Great things happen when communities are designed to be walkable – the real estate market is stronger, people spend less on transportation, neighborhoods feel safer, the environment benefits and the overall health of the population increases. More than that though, there’s something simple and wonderful about living in a local neighborhood where everything you need is just a stones throw away. When you can walk your neighborhood every day to get the things you need, you feel less isolated, you build relationships with others who live near you and you strengthen your connection to the places and community around you – it feels better.
Deep walkability isn’t an easy thing to accomplish, though. A person’s livable, walkable radius is quite small, so getting it right for everyone in the community is a challenge. Good design can help, though, and there are teams of people out there designing new solutions — like the YikeBike — for the urban future. This thing is bit expensive, but it’s seriously cool.
It’s the smallest folding electric bike in the world, it goes around 12 mph and weighs only 22 lbs (my backpack on any given day can weigh 30-40lbs). You can fold it up to take it on trains, buses and cars. It charges in 30 minutes and has a range of 6 miles. It is one-third the volume of any other 20-inch folding bike so it can be easily stored and charged anywhere. YikeBike is the first bike in the world to have electronic anti-skid brakes and also has numerous other safety features like built-in lights indicators and brake lights. Like I said, seriously cool.
What makes me excited about products like this is that it changes the way we think about important fundamentals principals that make cities work. If commuters suddenly have an option to live in more affordable neighborhoods a few miles further away from mass transit, it takes some of the heavy burden away from the government and industry, and allows individuals to take more control over outcomes.
The bottom line is that smart design incorporates important value positions (like those of walkability, sustainability etc), and gives people the ability to change behaviors… and that’s exactly what the YikeBike does. Plus, this thing looks fun. Anyone have $5000?
I spent a couple of happy, quiet hours last night with my nose in