Bug Blogger

The Social Life of Ideas

Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures (an investor in Bug Labs) just posted an interesting piece on their blog about the "weird economics of information".  Specifically, he's talking about ideas and how entrepreneurs who share their concepts and plans with others tend to fair better than those that don't (based on his 15 yr experience as a VC). 

I believe that ideas, like genes, have certain inherent characteristics that, when sent out into the world, help determine their chances of success.  No idea exists in a vacuum.  Ideas are social.  The worst punishment for any idea, just like a human, is solitary confinement.  Every seed needs a garden.  The real trick is trying to figure out, ahead of time, and in a systematic way, which memes will be successful.  As Brad suggests, the best way I know how to do that is to take raw ideas out into the open and see how they fare.   It can be scary but I'm always emboldened by Marshall McLuhan's famous quote - "Only puny secrets need protection.  Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity."

Is there a Grand Unification Theory of ideas and their behavior?  Unlikely.  But that shouldn't stop us from thinking hard about ways to better understand them.  Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene", which introduced me to the concept of memetics, presents some interesting arguments.  But it's no where near the final word on the topic.

Quiet! The King shall make a Proclamation!

I sincerely love Apple.  I own a ton of their gear for all the reasons everyone else does.  So it's ironic that I feel a little tweaked by all the hoopla surrounding the next iPhone unveiling. But here's why I do.

I feel powerless.  I feel like a subject awaiting what the good (?) King will bestow upon us this time.  The result could be pleasing, boring, useful, useless.  It doesn't matter really because it has nothing to do with me.  I am a minion.  Now, if I don't like it I can simply ignore it, which is a type of power I admit.  But that's the rub.  On the one hand I am a tech acolyte.  I deeply believe that technology can and will help us all live better, longer and richer lives.  So I listen and watch, like the rest of you, hoping that the powers that be give/bequeath upon us something that justifies that belief.  Most of the time I'm let down.  Feeling powerless.

Which is why we started Bug Labs.  We don't intend to compete with the big kingdoms of CE on their terms.  We want to arm the subjects! :)

JCP Too Heavy to be Fully Open?

Frank Sommers had a very interesting post on JCP/FOSS topics at JavaOne earlier this month. Essentially the question is; do the JCP processes (specification, implementation, and test suite) impose too much overhead such that purely FOSS-based JCPs do not make sense? It's certainly worth considering, and also fills out for me some of the ongoing issues surrounding the issues surrounding TCKs with PhoneME. So the interesting question that follows is; if the JCP as it exists is not suitable for FOSS communities, what if anything should be done? Change the processes? Work on a new community-based system for defining open source standards based on Java?

Pelago shows the way

With Kleiner Perkins announcing their first iPhone fund company, the world takes one step closer to a vision many have had since the first time portable GPS's came available - sharing your location and what you think about it with others.  Congrats to Pelago.  Their app looks great.

What makes this exciting to me is the notion of wrapping user created content around the output of a specific sensor - in this case a location sensor (GPS).  It's a very powerful model.   Interestingly enough, Flickr grew by creating a community around another sensor type - the camera or image sensor.  I would argue you can build a community around just about any sensor - smog levels, speed trap detection, temp/baro pressure, RFID scans, etc.   In fact, the combination of these is where things get most interesting - witness geo-tagged photos. 

The limitation has always been the hardware.  Notice how Pelago came into existence.  The hardware came first.  For the founders to achieve their vision they needed to wait.  This is never fun for an entrepreneur.  But they had no choice.  We'd like to imagine a world where the software/service and hardware platform can be developed together, in tandem, with an economic model that makes sense.  In essence, this is exactly what Apple does and the results speak for themselves.

Part of our mission is to collapse the separation between software and hardware design.  You should be able to design both simultaneously.  At the end of the day, users want applications.  The best product experiences are when the software and hardware become invisible, something the iPhone does brilliantly.  The keyboard, mouse, and screen was the first frontier.  The mobile phone created a second.  With BUG, we hope to inspire the creation of countless others.

Building a CrowdSourced Security System

One of the most frequent questions I get is "what are you supposed to build with a BUG?" to which I typically respond "whatever you want!"  When pressed, we have a few different examples we use to illustrate the importance of programmable, open gadgets.  During CES this year, we often used an example of a fully controllable home security system, built using the BUGbase, a motion detector module and a camera module.  The idea, in a nutshell, is a security system that could take pictures when motion was detected, and direct those pictures to a selectable location.  But that's not where the idea stops for us, it actually extends much further.

The key here is to think well beyond the static/automatic nature of an off-the-shelf consumer electronics device.  A static device is designed to do its task very specifically.  When it comes to communication and photos, however, there are too many options to build into any one product.  For example, what if I want my security system to send pictures to my cell phone during the day, and archive them on a local PC at night?  Or what if I want the pictures sent to my Flickr account?  Easy so far, except the next 20 "customers" might want different combinations of photo sharing services, different motion detector sensitivity settings, and numerous options beyond.  Gets a bit trickier.  Now let's explode the concept out to think about the "crowd".

What if I am on vacation, and while I'm gone, I want the system to really work for me.  I'd want my friends or family to know someone's in my house, right?  So one option is to have the photos emailed to them, but another, much more powerful one would be to integrate with Twitter or Facebook.  Now the "crowd" who knows me is able to work as a group to notice the motion event.  Think of the impact of a community of users watching out for one another and each other''s valuables (house, car, etc) using social networks and automated alerts/notifications. Simple stuff. 

This week we decided to try it out.  We set up a BUGbase with camera and motion detector modules and placed it in our office in a place where it detects someone coming in the door. We then configured it to send out a Twitter and start logging pictures to Twitxr whenever motion was detected.  The application is now available on BUGnet here (please note we are making improvements to it - it's fun to tinker!).

It's dawned on us that this example is more interesting than just "another gadget".  In essence, by setting up a Twitter feed triggered by a motion sensor we're extending the online conversation to include machines - let's call it a Social Gadget Network. This has potentially useful implications.  Now, anyone can subscribe to our security camera Twitxr feed (hence the name "crowd-sourced security").   The BUG community can now help us keep an eye on our office.

We're still getting our heads around the concepts of ever-connected gadgets that do more than the functions at hand.  Shared data. Shared feeds. Shared inputs and outputs.  The impact is going to be big, and it's exciting to think about!

"Imagine all the other stuff you aren’t thinking about"

This is a quote ascribed to legendary VC Roger McNamee from the Churchill Club's latest Top 10 Tech Trends event.  He was talking on a panel about his surprise at how many people were caught off guard by the popularity of the iPhone.  His point was "imagine all the great things that are still waiting to get done with network connected devices".  And, no surprise, we completely agree.  He (as well as the other panelists there) also predicted that the mobile phone/smartphone will be a major disruptor.  He goes on to say (according to this post at Barron's Tech Trader Daily) that in "...five years, half of what we think of as phones will do something far more profound than what we think of a phone as doing."  Again, completely agree.

What's missing is an upgrade in the vernacular.  Phone, smartphone, blah.  There will be an explosion of net-connected devices and gadgets, all with new names and functions, that will make the current selection of "cell phones" seem positively paltry.  The Kindle is a good example.  But where the panelists were strangely silent is on where all this innovation will come from.  Do they believe that big companies like Apple, RIM and Nokia will do the disrupting?  If history is any guide it will come from somewhere surprising and will be from a company no one is talking about right now. 

Open House II

We are swinging our doors open wider than normal for another Open House on Tuesday, the 20th, from 6:00-8:00 pm.   Come by and chat, check out BUG and tell us what you think.  We'll have a couple fun BUG applications on display to see in action and to play with, and a brief demo/app building Q&A/collaboration session.  We'll also have a big board listing popular applications for you to rate, and we'll solicit your ideas for modules and new applications - in fact, the best idea come 8:00 will get a BUG Tee.   If you create an app on BUGnet and walk us all through it at the Open House, you'll get a T-Shirt, job interview, and six pack from the fridge :-). 

Hope you can make it!  We're still at 915 Broadway (between 20th and 21st) on the 11th floor, at the end of the hall in Suite 1109.

Kids Can Hack Too

There's a good post up over at O'Reilly's Radar talking about the challenges and opportunities of teaching kids with hardware.  I agree with all his points.  It's particularly apropos for us because we really want to find a way to get kids interested in what we're doing.  Not because we have our eyes on that market segment, but because we think kids are best equipped to think in entirely new ways.  A BUG is a new concept and the children I've introduced it to always surprise me with their insights. 

One of the key "Aha!" moments for me was when I realized that most people/kids don't really care about hardware per se.  They care about the information it gives them, or the job it performs.  We buy cameras not because we want a hunk of metal, plastic and glass.  We want pictures.  I think it's telling that the first really popular robot did only one thing - but it was a useful thing - it vacuumed your floor. 

So the challenge is to use the hardware as a means to an end, as a window into a set of data/information that the user is interested in, and not just momentarily.  In essence, it has to spark a feeling in the user that the more they learn about it, the more real, tangible benefit they will receive.  It's obvious to think of that 'user' as a software programmer or a gadget junkie, but what about a 10-year old?

At Bug Labs, getting this right is something we're spending a lot of time on.  We've started with our BUG+EDU program, but have a lot more envisioned for the future. I'd love to hear everyone's feedback and suggestions! 

A step in the right direction

Today's announcement that a consortium of companies is investing $3.2 billion in a new wireless broadband company is big news.  While the details are just coming available I am hopeful.  Sure there is still a lot of golf to be played in the match but, if nothing else, it seems like the spirit of the deal is right on. 

We desperately need more and better wireless broadband options in this country.  I firmly believe that there is a hurricane of innovation just waiting to happen if someone can provide an open, fast, affordable and unrestricted (to the extent that's responsible) wireless network.  Just look at the countries that have this in place now (S Korea, Japan, etc). 

I'm really hoping the naysayers and worriers are proven wrong.  If you recall early days of the Arpanet, there were many ways it could have gone (and that was a closed system built by the US Government).  How'd it end up? Open.  Think about services like Google Maps/StreetView, which the company could easily charge for and lock down tightly.  Instead, they are effectively open to virtually any type of reuse, even commercial implementations. 

Anyone who follows what we're doing here won't be surprised that we eager to get something like this in place.  Cloud-enabled gadgetry will be huge.  And you can bet we're working hard on making it happen.

Fun is good!

This is a very encouraging graph -   We need more fun in our too-techie lives.