Our Utopian Ideas

Just had an idea about a website where you can enter your electronic "last will" messages. You enter a message and an e-mail address to send the message to. But it is not being sent right away. I don't know if it is possible but there should be a connection with the official registries to check for recently perished souls. After you are confirmed *ahem* dead, the service sends all your messages.

Wouldn't it be extra cool to send "I always hated you! You're a complete idiot! And you cannot do a thing about it now Hahaha!!!" to your pointy haired boss?

Or you could e-mail your grand children where you've hidden a treasure.

Or e-mail your server passwords to co-workers.

I'm already getting kicks just out of thinking about my friends' the long faces when they receive post mortem messages from me:

"Hey, Jonas, that's me. It's a big conspiracy. They've buried an empty coffin and keep me captive. I've managed to get access to this computer. Oh God... I think they're coming... I'm at the..........."

Imagine that you hate DRM. Yes, this is a long shot but try hard and you can do this. Or even worse: imagine that you live in a country (like I do) which is silently declared not worthy (technically just ignored by major labels) to have the ability to purchase even DRMed digital music!

So, in my case you are left with just 2 options:

1. Buy CDs and digitize them;
2. Download pirated music.

The first option is just plain stupid. Why should I buy a physical disc when I only want digital music? The second is, well, illegal, unfair to artists, etc.

And here comes my idea...

No-shipping CD eStore

Basically this store would sell you a CD of your choice, then just destroy it documenting the process on video (with your order details physically present in the destruction). Then you just go to your favorite .torrent site and download the album, or copy legal "back-up" MP3s your friend made... or whatever your favorite piracy method is.

This way:

• you have your music in DRM-less form;
• you have proof that you bought a legal CD (from which you "made" these fair use copies);
• you have proof (the video) that you didn't sell or gave away your original CD;
• possibly you even saved on shipping

Well, I'm not a lawyer, but this sounds but pretty legal (maybe a little "gray") to me from both shop's and buyer's perspective.

So, if you launch a shop based on this concept, please, let me know and count me in as customer. And when you make your first million, don't forget about me, too.

Car manufacturers could score big with young customers if they started equiping vehicles with this feature.

A single button named "SEX", or "Intimacy" if you wish, would do the trick. Let's say a couple gets stranded on a supermarket's car lot and feels very intimate. One click of a button and:

a) Windows are tinted to maximum; (I believe they can do that now, don't they?)
b) Amortizators get very stiff, so the car does not give away the action going on inside, by rocking like a boat during tornado;
c) Barry White starts on a stereo (optional)

Dammit, I just for the N-th time forgot what I was about to do!

I immediately though of how cool if it would be to have a monitoring device connected to the brain that would log all the things I intend to do. The monitor would than connect to a PC and show a neatly arranged TODO list on the corner of the desktop.

• Visit stuffonmycat.com
• Take a piss
• Scratch head
• Pick up stuff from drycleaners
• Check bloglines feeds
  

But it would have to filter out all intended actions towards Scarlett Johansson of course.

I wanted to add something else, but forgot what...

I actually had a dream about this tonight. The idea is not very well thought through as there are more interesting things for a guy to dream about at night if you know what I mean.

The idea is to build a community project website where everyone could feed bits of knowledge to build a base for an Artificial Intelligence.


First Stage - Object Recognition

First thing AI needs to distinguish are objects. Community members -- or just casual passers by -- could enter names of various objects. AI would periodically run search for these words on images.google.com and gather a an image base. Users could help identify which pictures are relative an which are not.

By applying well established shape recognition algorythms, AI could start gathering object database and, eventually, start recognizing objects from images on its own.


Second Stage - Composite Objects and Action Recognition

When there would be a critical mass of objects that AI recognizes, the project could be taken one level up - to recognize composite objects and relating them together resulting in action recognition.

A number of possible actions could be related to the particular object. Again images could be used to give AI a clue for a visual distinction of the action.

For example:
milk pours
man runs
building collapses

By relating various objects and action info in a composite image AI could actually start recognizing what's going on in the picture.

I.e.:

girl [object] + bottle [object] + white liquid (milk) [bottle property] + glass [object] + bottle at nonvertical angle (pours) [action] + bottle close to a glass [relation]
=
girl pours milk into glass from a bottle


Third Stage - Video Recognition

Introduction of video brings even more simplicity into action recognition. As AI has not one but numerous pictures to analyze (something like 30 pictures a second).

By relating analysis results of each consecutive image (frame), AI could even easier relate what is going on.

Example #1:

Frame #1: tower [object] + angle 90 [property]
Frame #2: tower [object] + angle 89 [property]
Frame #3: tower [object] + angle 88 [property]

Result: Tower is falling.


Example #2:

Frame #1: man [object] + size X [property]
Frame #2: man [object] + size X+1 [property]
Frame #3: man [object] + size X+2 [property]

Result: A man is going towards camera.


Forth Stage - Speech Recognition and Communications

This is the part where I woke up. But I promise to figure that out until someone implements the three previous stages ;)


Promotion

In order for such project to work it should have a critical mass of contributors. Therefore media attention is a must. It should be fairly easy to reach that since many popular sources (like for example hi-tech blog gizmodo.com) tent to feature such crazy projects.

Btw, gizmodo, it's time to feature this site, don't you think? C'mon, you're my third favorite daily read after StuffOnMyCat.com and Pearls Before Swine.

I've always had a fetish about autogenerated content. I also unconditionally love Cyberpunk literature. I think these are the two reasons behind the idea that sick brain of mine generated like eight years ago.

Why can't a computer software be written that generates whole books or at least short fictional stories?

As crazy as it sounds it might prove not that utopian after all. Of course computer cannot generate a readable book if given only a plain word dictionary. Well ... not until at least a proper AI is invented. But then it wouldn't matter 'cause we would be slaves to robots or something.

No - simple dictionary is not enough. A human should feed software with some innitial well structured info, like:

• Fictional business, country and other entities with corresponding descriptions and core values that could be used in determining their relationships with other objects, events, etc.
  
• Non-standard objects, like custom rifles, vehicles, etc. Their relations to business entities.
• Highly configurable plot structural elements - events or connecting points (these could also have many settings, like number of persons participating in it, potential outcomes - death, injury, discovery of a secret, etc.)
• Character names and various stats about them that computer could go crazy randomizing
• English grammar rules, thesaurus, etc.
  
• A database of standard objects, political and business entities, historical events, real people and brands, etc. Each of these DB objects could have a number of config variables that could be used in determining their relationship and relevance to plot and/or other objects.
  

Prior to generating an actual book, an operator -- I don't dare to call him/her a writer -- would have to set numerous configuration parameters to head computer in specific direction, i.e.:

• Violence level
• Plot twist level
• A level of fiction vs real
• Overal freedom for randomness
• Particular characters, objects, etc. to use
• etc.
  

Of course, the output from computer would still require many human editing and final touches. But I like to toy with the idea of the unpredictable twists and crazy text that computer might randomize and provide good base for a real person to finish on.

Pretty simple, huh? :)

I absolutely love to think about the controversy this would create if it ever becomes real. With real writers going all like "This computer-generated stuff will never be as good as ours - it is limited and lacks human touch" all over media. Cool :)

Btw, the reason I mentioned Cyberpunk earlier is that I think it is a perfect genre for this kind of autogenerated content. Cyberpunk plots are fictional enough to allow coputer-generated craziness. Still it's based in pretty real "earthly" settings.

It would be hard to generate something as psychodelic as "2001: Space Odyssey" or as sensual as "Brokenback Mountain", wouldn't it?

The idea is to have an implant somewhere in the blood stream system. It could monitor vital body stats, alcohol level, and provide immediate info and historical log through mobile devices and web servers.

Technology

I'm neither a doctor nor a scientist. But I'm quite positive that there is plenty of energy in human body to power a tiny device.

I certainly not sure if such device is feasable right now. But hey, look at the site name :)


Alcohol level monitoring

The most obvious consumer-grade application of this device is to monitor alcohol level in blood. It could be usefull for all types people. Recovering alcohol addicts could be monitored by their doctors or sponsors. Occasional booze lovers (like me) could get an early warning when they're about to exceeed their "safe limit".

The communicational features of the device would offer many opportunities for drinking self- and enforced control. Several examples:

• Wife gets SMSed when her husband overreaches the limit which they agreed upon
• A blouetooth-enabled mobile phone displays warning when approaching configured "safe limit"
• Device could poll some webservice in order to keep log of your alcohol consumation. You could derive various stats from this data later on.
  
• And even more utopic one: a compatible car reads info from its owners device and refuses to start if alcohol is above allowed limit (just in case someone is wondering - I've never driven while drunk)
  

Besides all the obvious "correct" reasons, there is a lot of potential in using this for fun.


Connectivity

The device should be Bluetooth, WiFi and/or GSM enabled.


Medical uses

Beyond it's primary task - alcohol monitoring - the device potential is limitless in medical scope:

• Emergency teams could read vital stats from victim: drugs he/she recently has taken, etc.
• Doctors could monitor their patients' vital stats (blood pressure, sugar level, etc.) and give early warning

Ethical issues

This device should be by no means an RFID. In fact it should not have any distinctive ID at all. I think that any device to read from the body monitor should at first complete pairing process - maybe even implant-initiated.

I'm sure there are ways to make it a truly anonymous medical device rather than digital dogtag.