Quantified Self: Privacy Risk

Here's a really stark piece in PandoDaily (a story aggregator about start ups, I think -- see here) about the risks of sharing personal health and other data via activity trackers, dietary logs, loyalty cards, social media check-ins, etc.  

You are your data: The scary future of the quantified self movement (via Pando Daily)

By Michael Carney On May 20, 2013Few if any consumers who fell behind on their credit card payments in the early 2000s thought that half a decade later employers would use their credit report to determine their job worthiness. Few avid social media…

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Google Design Guidelines

Fast Company's Co.Design presents Google's "visual assets guidelines." Be sure to follow the link in the excerpt below, and review the slides at the top of the full story in the Co.Design story itself (by Kyle Vanhemert). 

A Rare Peek At The Guidelines That Dictate Google's Graphic Design

A PAIR OF "VISUAL ASSETS GUIDELINES," POSTED BY ONE OF THE COMPANY’S SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS, OUTLINE PRECISELY HOW GOOGLE DESIGNERS ARE SUPPOSED TO SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF.

In April 2011, Larry Page took the reins as Google’s CEO. He didn’t waste any time getting down to business. On his very first day on the job, Page launched an incredibly ambitious effort to redesign the company’s main products, including search, maps, and mail. He wanted them to be beautiful--Google had never been known for its visual polish--but he also wanted them to be cohesive, more like a true software suite than a jumble of disparate digital tools. In the years since, Google’s products have improved leaps and bounds, aesthetically speaking, largely while working within the same shared design language. Here’s how they’re doing it.

The rare glimpse into the company’s design process comes in the form of two documents--"Visual Assets guidelines"--freshly shared on Behance. Compiled over the last 18 months by senior graphic designer Roger Oddone and art director Christopher Bettig, along with designers Alex Griendling, Jefferson Cheng, Yan Yan, and Zachary Gibson, the guidelines focus on iconography, covering both broader principles and pixel-level details as they relate to both app icons and UI elements. The aim, an introductory blurb notes, is to set down the "solid, yet flexible, set of guidelines that have been helping Google’s designers and vendors to produce high-quality work that helps strengthen Google’s identity." 

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Checkout the guides in full here and here.

Story continues at link. 

Tech Trends Higher Education Cannot Afford to Ignore

Via Education Drive (". . . an industry dashboard designed to keep education professionals connected with information that is critical to their jobs."), Davide Savenije summarizes the keynote address at the July 2013 Campus Technology Conference by Lev Gonick, the VP for Information Technology Services and CIO at Case Western Reserve University. 

12 tech trends higher education cannot afford to ignore

Gonick: "The challenge I’m going to present to you, as the revolutionaries out there, is that it’s not anymore—or perhaps never was—simply sufficient to say that we were there at the beginning," Gonick said during his opening remarks. "What really needs to be considered here is, what are the challenges that we face and how can we remain engaged in that vanguard role while, at the same time, figuring out what we want to hold onto from the past. Not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of the core services that our institutions provide to the broader initiatives in society, because, as these mutations unfold, there are certain things we want preserved and we have to be very clear about what the value [is] of the things we want to preserve along the way."

Here are the trends, as reported by Savenije:

1. The death of the personal computer. [I'm not so sure; I don't know that I would write this blog piece on a smartphone or tablet.]
2. The proliferation of mobile devices
3. The rise of social networks 
4. The next generation of networks Lev Gonick
5. The privatization of the cloud
6. The valuation of _____-as-a-service. (For example, research computing.) 
7. The promise of big data
8. The implementation of the flipped classroom
9. The future of the learning space
10. The legitimization of online learning
11. The evolution of the college campus (that it links more with the communities around it)
12. The adnent of the urban operation system

 Story continues at link. 

(More on Gonick.)

Social Media Facts and Trends 2013

Via jeffbullas.com -- very worthy to follow if you're interested in social media marketing -- a summary of a recent study by GlobalWebIndex of social media facts and statistics: "12 Awesome Social Media Facts and Statistics for 2013." See the piece for for the full summary -- and of course try to find the original report somewhere at GlobalWebIndex -- but here are the twelve:

1. Google+ is catching up to Facebook in terms of popularity 
2. But Facebook is still the largest social network (approximately 50% of the world's internet users are active users)
3. Pinterest is the fastest growing social network
4. LinkedIn is the most popular for older users 
5. More old people are using social networks
6. Google+ dominates on monthly visits [notably skewed because Gmail use generates hits on Google+)
7. Facebook dominates social media engagement 
8. Facebook usage is highest in North America 
9. Asia-Pacific dominates the social media landscape generally 
10. Uploading photos is the most popular activity on Facebook
11. Twitter is about daily activities
12. Google+ is a lot to do about photos

Disruptive Technologies

The McKinsey Global Institute is the business and economics research division of the McKinsey & Company consultancy. In May 2013, it issued "Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy." The executive summary and full report are available here.  

Disruptive technologies are described as those that are rapidly advancing or experiencing breakthroughs, have broad potential scope of impact, or have significant or disruptive economic impact.

What twelve disruptive technologies are listed? From the executive summary:

1. Mobile internet
2. Automation of knowledge work (e.g., call centers --"Advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural user interfaces (e.g., voice recognition) are making it possible to automate many knowledge worker tasks that have long been regarded as impossible or impractical for machines to perform. For instance, some computers can answer “unstructured” questions (i.e., those posed in ordinary language, rather than precisely written as software queries), so employees or customers without specialized training can get  information on their own.")
3. The Internet of Things (see tag) 
4. Cloud technology -- for applications and data
5. Advanced robotics 
6. Next-gen genomics 
7. Autonomous and near-autonomous vehicles 
8. Energy storage (including batteries) 
9. 3-D printing
10. Advanced materials (e.g. those that are self-healing or self cleaning) 
11. Advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery 
12. Renewable energy

The report also lists five technologies that nearly made the final list (next-generation nuclear (fission), fusion power, carbon sequestration, advanced water purification, quantum computing) and other "interesting and often hyped" technologies that weren't close in the final running (private space flight, OLED/LED lighting, wireless charging, flexible displays, 3-D and volumetric displays).