s2e13: The Watsons; 2015 (2)
0.0 Sitrep
Technically, it's Saturday 1 August, at 12:36am. But because I haven't gone to sleep yet (which itself is because of all the caffeine), this still counts as Friday July 31st's newsletter. So there. A short one today, because Foocamp.
Content and trigger warning: Low. There are zero or trace references to advertising in this episode.
1.0 The Watsons
IBM has a thing called Watson Developer Cloud[0] that "uses cognitive computing to solve complex problems". I tried giving it yesterday's episode to see what its personality insights[1] and tone analyzer[2] would make of my off-the-cuff writing.
Here's how the Watsons described my personality:
Your Personality*
You are inner-directed, skeptical and can be perceived as inconsiderate.
You are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys. You are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time. And you are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them.
Your choices are driven by a desire for efficiency.
You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done. You consider independence to guide a large part of what you do: you like to set your own goals to decide how to best achieve them.
*Compared to most people who participated in our surveys.
For tone - and even after reading the docs, I'm still not quite sure how to read the results - the Watsons thought that 88% of yesterday's newsletter was in "social tone", of which I was "open", "agreeable" and "conscientious", and then 8% of it was in "writing tone" (240 analytical words, 28 confident words, 115 tentative ones) and only 2% "emotional" (71 cheerful words, 25 negative words and 11 anger words) which I have to admit seems a bit surprising given that I was writing about advertising, but there you go.
If you know me, feel free to send me a note as to how right you think the Watsons were.
[0] http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/
[1] https://watson-pi-demo.mybluemix.net
[2] https://tone-analyzer-demo.mybluemix.net
x.0 2015 (2)
People are wearing tiny computers on their wrists that instantly tell them if the security of any of their online accounts has been breached[0]. A new software framework based on a distributed ledger that enforces contracts and payments has launched with a tutorial that includes creating a democratic autonomous organization[1]. Computer security is still hard, which means that the network-enabled computer in a sniper rifle has been exploited to allow remote control[2]. Aggregated location data from smartphones now helps people understand when businesses are busiest[3]. A concert was shut down because it posed a significant public safety risk despite the performer appearing via hologram[4]. We might be closer to figuring out how people who were born with 95% of their brain matter missing able to lead normal lives and score IQs over 100[5]. The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded a USD 4.3 billion contract to rebuild medical records[5]; about double the total venture funding that the world's biggest social network received[6]. A well-known actor is funding a private effort to use satellite imagery to monitor human rights abuses in Sudan[7].
[0] http://macrumors.com/2015/07/30/dashlane-one-tap-password-changer/
[1] https://www.ethereum.org
[2] http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-can-disable-sniper-rifleor-change-target/
[3] https://plus.google.com/+google/posts/QY1c97V25Tz
[4] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chief-keef-hologram-concert-20150725-story.html
[5] http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116
[6] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/facebook
[7] http://www.satsentinel.org
OK. 12:45am. Bedtime. Up early for super busy weekend.
Notes, as ever, welcomed.
Best,
Dan