Shalom Rotundus

Rotundus, the rolling robot, was designed by the European Space Agency for exploration of distant planets like Mars and Mercury, but now it has found its way into many earthly avocations.

This Groundbot has "eyes" on either side of its roly-poly robotic body and has a unique internal pendulum for maneuvering around.

Currently, Rotundus is deployed for sentry duty at SAAB auto manufacturing plants.

However, as you can see in the video, it can also function comfortably in a home environment as a quasi baby-sitter for the kids.

Already, we see robots in Japan providing service to people from servers in restaurants to caretakers for the elderly.

I appreciated the interview with the CTO at Rotundus who shares his vision for robots that "provide not only security, but also pleasure to people."

Rotundus is a great example of how robots can come in virtually any way, shape or form.

The key is that robots leverage the best of automation and innovation to help ordinary people do things simpler, easier, and more convenient than ever before.

Shalom Rotundus

When The Cheapest Task Is Too Expensive

TaskRabbit is a new way to get odd jobs done by simply posting them online for others to bid on and perform them.

Browsing the list of tasks out there now, I see everything from driver for a day to laundry, matching paint colors to organizing a library, picking up items from the store to installing a t.v.--I suppose if you need it (and it's legal), you can post it. :-)

The service is available in LA, San Francisco, Orange Country, Boston, and NY--so far.

Basically, the way it works:

1. You, the "Sender", go online and name and describe the task, including when and where you want it done as well as the maximum you are willing to pay.
2. "Runners" are alerted and bid the minimum that they are willing to accept to do the job.
3. You review the bids and select one.
4. The runner performs the work.
5. You review, rate, and reimburse for the work.

Wired (August 2011) calls TaskRabbit the "eBay for real world labor," although there are other competitors out there such as AirRun and Zaarly.

In TaskRabbit, "Customers pay by credit card, and the runner's share gets deposited into a TaskRabbit account, with checks cut every Friday."

"TaskRabbit takes 12-30% cut of each transaction."

97% of tasks get a bid from at least one runner and 75% of tasks get completed.

If you want to become a Runner-- you apply through a 3-step process that includes an application form, video interview, and a federal criminal background check.

Gaming mechanics is used to rank top runners, display their experience level and average customer reviews, and provide them a progress bar to show points needed to get to the next level.

TaskRabbit fills an important niche in our society that is increasingly time-presured, convenience-oriented, and service-based and where more and more people hire themselves out as consultants, freelancers, and Guy/Gal Fridays.

While I can see the benefits to people who need to get work done and for people looking for work, there is something about this process where we bid out our labor by the individual task--like in the video where we need someone to pick up dog food--that it can get a little degrading and meaningless. No longer are we hiring people for their knowledge, skills and abilities for long-term contributions and growth prospects, but rather we are tasking out the smallest and most mundane of tasks to the lowest bidder.

Harvard Business Review (July-August 2011) in an article called "The Age of Hyperspecialization" wrote of the new social challenges with companies such as TopCoders that crowdsources out IT work to 300,000 freelance developers in more than 200 countries, such as: "the possibility of exploitation as work quickly finds the cheapest takers, and the opportunity for deception when workers can't see the larger purpose to which they are contributing."

Crowdsourcing or outsourcing these everyday tasks can bring speed and quality to what we are looking for, but the true cost comes in terms of "digital sweatshops" and potentially "dull and meaningless" work.

Is this level of economic efficiency going to cost us all more in the end?

When The Cheapest Task Is Too Expensive

Wolfram| Alpha Reviewed

Here is an impressive video (actually part 1 of 2) introduction to Wolfram | Alpha by Stephen Wolfram.

It is an "computational knowledge engine" ( or answers engine) that was released 2 years ago on May 15, 2009 and was named the greatest innovation of 2009 by Popular Science.

It differs from Google or a traditional search engine in that it does not deliver a list of links to documents or web pages, but rather it delivers computed answers from structured data.

As there are so many web sites that profess to answer our questions--whether Q&A sites like Answers.com and Quora or online encyclopedias like Wikipedia, I am intrigued by Wolfram Alpha's computational knowledge niche.

While the site is useful for getting everything from the GDP of France to the height of Mt. Hermont, I found the Wolfram Alpha site struggling to answer a set of basic test questions:

1) Total amount (also tried "size") of federal deficit -- No, don't want a definition of a deficit.

2) Number of U.S. embassies around the world -- No, don't want the U.S. population, density, language, etc.

3) How many employees at the Department of State -- No, don't want a list of U.S. states.

4) Air craft carriers in U.S. Navy - 11 (okay, yay!, but no list of what these are and no hyperlink, boo!)

5) (let's try this) What are the names of U.S. aircraft carriers - No, don't want the number of passengers and goods transported in 2009.

6) Planned number of F-35 to be produced -- No, don't want the function line F-35.

7) Members of House of Representatives - Yes, 435.

8) Time in Alaska - 3:46 am, thanks.

9) Age of International Space Station - launch November 20, 1998 (12.7 years ago) - informative.

10) Depth of Earth's crust - 0-22 miles - not bad.

11) Volume of Pacific Ocean - big number provided - good enough for me.

12) Largest lottery winnings - No, not the movie, "The Lottery."

While Wolfram Alpha is impressive in mathematical and scientific prowess, too often, the answers just did not compute for the everyday questions posed.

As busy people juggling many different roles in life, it's nice to actually get an answer back when you have a question, rather than have to start searching through thousands or links from the traditional search engine page.

But when instead of getting answers, you see messages that the search engine is "computing" and then coming back with null or void responses, we are left worse off then when we started.

We shouldn't have to think long and hard about what we can ask or how we to ask it; the search engine should be user-centric and we should be able to be ourselves.

As search engine users, I think we have the right to expect that our focus should be on how to apply the answers rather than on the engine itself or else something is wrong.

Wolfram| Alpha Reviewed

Podcast and Slideshare by Andy Blumenthal on Mobility Solutions

Click here for the audio of my speech at the Adobe Government Assembly on Wednesday, November 3, 2010 in Washington, DC. (Subscribe to all my podcasts on iTunes here.)

Andy blumenthal talks about mobility solutions 20101104

View more presentations from Andy Blumenthal.

Podcast and Slideshare by Andy Blumenthal on Mobility Solutions

5 Lessons For Implementing Mobility Solutions

[Pictured from Left Kevin Brownstein, McAfee; Andy Blumenthal, ATF; John Landwehr, Adobe; Jack Holt, DoD]

Today, I participated on behalf of my agency at the Adobe Government Assembly: Engage America on a panel for mobility solutions.

I shared the lessons learned from our experience and pilot of mobile devices, including:

1) Be prepared to give the end users as many apps as possible—they want it all just like on their desktops.

2) In mobile devices, size and resolution matters. Although people like miniaturized devices, they want the display of the information and graphics to be clear and visible.

3) Users did not like using a stylus for navigation.

4) Users in the field don’t have time or patience to decipher complicated instruction guides—it’s got to be intuitive!

5) While security is critical, usability is key and it’s a balancing act.

5 Lessons For Implementing Mobility Solutions

What Stops Us From Going Cashless

How many of you ever wondered why we continue to use dollar bills and coins when we have credit and debit cards that make cash virtually obsolete?

I for one have long abandoned cash in lieu of the ease of use, convenience, orderliness of receiving monthly statements and paying electronically, and the cleanliness of not having to carry and handle the cold hard stuff.

Not that I am complaining about money at a time of recession, but seriously why do we not go dollar-digital in the “digital age”?

Before debit cards, I understood that some people unfortunately have difficulty getting the plastic because of credit issues. But now with debit cards, everyone can shop and pay digitally.

Even government run programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP aka food stamps) now uses an electronic card for purchasing no money paper stamps.

It seems that credit/debit card readers are pretty much ubiquitous—stores of course, online—it’s the way to go, even on the trains/buses and candy machines.

From the taxman perspective, I would imagine it is also better and more equitable to track genuine sales transactions in a documented digital fashion than enabling funny “cash business.”

So why don’t we go paperless and coinless and fully adopt e-Commerce?

An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, 11 Sept. 2009, described a trendy NYC restaurant that was doing just that.

“The high-end New York City restaurant said goodbye to dollars: Tip in cash if you like but otherwise, your money is no good here.”

Others have been going cashless for some time now.

“In the world of online and catalog retailing, credit and debit cards have long been king. And in recent years, a handful of airlines have adopted ‘cashless cabins.’”

As the NYC restaurant owner said, “Suddenly, it struck me how unnecessary cash was…[moreover,] the convenience and security of going cashless are well worth the added cost.”

Further, from the customer perspective, using a debit or credit card lets users optimize their cash flow and earn reward points.

I believe that the day is coming when bites and bytes are going to win over paper and coins.

This is going to happen, when the IRS requires it, the government stops printing it because it always has (i.e. inertia), when retailers recognize that the benefits of digital money outweigh the fees, and when resistance to change is defeated by common sense of modernization.

What Stops Us From Going Cashless

It’s Time to Invest in The Cloud

Cloud computing is "shorthand for centralized computing services that are delivered over the Internet (a.k.a. the 'cloud')."

Cloud computing is to traditional computing as electricity is to rubbing two twigs together to make a fire. Ok. That’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

Years ago, people made a fire in their home or workspace which they continually fed to get warmth, lighting, and cooking; now they get these from centralized utilities that distribute it to them on an as needed basis. It’s a lot more efficient that way!

With cloud computing—it’s very similar. Currently, we have our own computing resources (like a hearth and firewood) that we must purchase and regularly maintain to do basic information technology processes for transaction and analytical processing, information sharing and collaboration. Now, we can get these functions from centralized computing facilities or data centers that distribute them, as needed on a subscription or metered basis. This gives us a predictable, stable source of computing at reduced prices, delivered via the Internet, when we want and need it, and without the hassle of having to purchase and maintain the hardware and software infrastructure. It’s a user-centric model!

Most of us with very busy and already complex lives inherently understand and are drawn to a model that is convenient and cost-effective. Flip on the switch and voila—lights/heat in one case or email, e-Commerce, and online entertainment in another.

To me, if its not a mission-specific or highly sensitive application, the question is why shouldn't it be in the cloud?

Fortune Magazine, 2 March 2009, on the rise of cloud computing juggernauts like Salesforce “a public company with a market capitalization of $3.5 billion, generates revenue of more than $1 billion a year—a 60% five-year annual growth rate—all from providing software subscriptions to business.”

Marc Benioff, their CEO says “We’ve always believe everything’s going into the cloud.”

Even detractors, like Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, has helped fund Saleforce and another major cloud computing vendor, NetSuite. Moreover, “Oracle at the end of January lauched a new version of its online sales-management product…CRM on Demand” —so you see where Mr. Ellison is strategically placing some of his chips.

What about the other major application vendors?

“SAP said it would be releasing a software-as-a-service product in May…and Microsoft also has customer-management software available. IBM just named a cloud computing czar, and Google and Amazon are launching ambitions initiatives.”

So what’s holding up the transition?

Generally, the biggest cited obstacle to moving to cloud computing is security. Yet, “Salesforce has recorded only one security breach, a phishing attack in November 2007.” Moreover, because of the scope, scale, resources, and expertise that these vendors have, they can actually deploy and maintain a level of security that other organizations may only dream of.

Never-the-less, “companies remain committed to owning and hosting their own software and despite the tough economic times, they are loath to try something new, especially if it means making additional investments, however meager.”

But in the end “cost cutting and convenience are expected to prompt more firms to rent software that will be delivered over the Internet cloud.” IDC projects that by the end of 2009, “76% of U.S. organizations will use at least one web-delivered application for business use.”

Further, according to research firm, Gartner, "of the approximately $64 billion spent on business applications in 2008, about 10% or $6.4 billion, was spent on applications housed remotely and delivered via the Net."

The writing is on the wall or should I say in the cloud!

It’s Time to Invest in The Cloud