Stories 20-23

20. Wearable Computing

Thanks to Google Glass, rumoured Apple iWatch, the recent released Samsung Galaxy Gear, we are witnessing wearable computing entering mainstream. This is foreseen as the next big step of the consumer technology, after we clip Walkman on our belt, put iPod in our pockets, or carry smartphones with us everywhere.

However, there are a number of myths yet to be busted. The No. 1 on the list is safety. No one wants to wear a potentially explosive device anywhere near your wrist, your eyes, or your chest. Moreover, people will be constantly cautious of the radiation level from the transmission. Another often neglected threat is distraction. Mobile devices have been proven to engross drivers and cause most accidents.

No. 2 myth is privacy. It is from two sides. On one side, you will be worried about if you get constantly monitored as your devices may send out your location and other logs. On the other side, it is not overly paranoid to keep an eye on someone who may secretly record video or take picture with the 007 gadget.  

I would say the No. 3 myth is the easiest, as prices is never a problem in the long run. In the beginning, it may seem that a thousand dollar titanium gear is only for the affluent second generation. But we have all seen that the prices of the consumer electronic devices keep going down over the years. Regardless, they won’t be dirt cheap, but you probably won’t have to whip out your Platinum card to purchase.

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Another food for thought: Although we carry gadgets of 2013, our clothes are designed for the gadgets of 1913. For example, that tiny pocket upper right in jeans – that’s for a pocket watch. This is not quite acceptable to any gadget-obsessed geek. Just consider how often you have lost your phone or your iPod because you misplaced it or forgot it. After all, we are carrying more and more computing devices these days; and they cannot be organised as your keys in the key ring.

If there is some sort of jacket that is designed to keep our devices safely from theft, enable Bluetooth signals, provide power recharge, and make our touch-screen devices accessible, I believe Steve Jobs would be happily revived to wear it and show it at WWDC. Moreover, if those clothes were to be branded as Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren, it will significantly improve the attractiveness of the geeks.

21. Stable Marriage

Last Friday, I was dining and drinking with my friends. After a delicious meal, I was walking down the street and reading my Weibo feeds. The piece of news from Faye Wong’s divorce broke out all sorts of feelings from everyone. My first thought was the Stable Marriage Problem.

It is a classical problem in mathematics, economics and computer science. In this application, we have a group of boys and a group of girls. After knowing each other, every boy will rank the girls with a unique number between 1 and n in order of preference; so will the girls. Now the magic happens: we can always find a way to set up the pairs between the boys and the girls such that there are no two people of opposite sex who would both rather have each other than their current partners.

The solution is guaranteed and the Gale–Shapley algorithm for finding a solution has applications in a variety of real-world situation. In 2012, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Lloyd S. Shapley and Alvin E. Roth "for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design."

Then why can’t we find out the stable marriage and make the world a better place? Because we have many practical constraints. Let me list just a few. First, although there are only finite number of boys and girls on the earth, we do not have the complete information of them. As a result, there is always someone outside your designated group that could be more desirable. Second, our ranking may vary from time to time; and there is still no maths for love. Third, monogamy is an ideal case even today. And unfortunately boys can choose to marry a boy and so can girls.

Such a complicated human world!

22. Personal Online Brand

It hasn’t been a good time for those Internet celebrities recently: One has been found involved in prostitution and lived in a prison cell; one has to fight against the cancer cells. Actually they belong to two types of Internet celebrities. The former became famous after he actively branded himself online. The latter had been famous before he adopted his online identity. But for both of them, they have been successful in promoting themselves on the social media.

Why to brand. As an ordinary person, although we do not necessarily want to be famous whatever in a good way or in a bad way, we still want to have a reasonable online profile so that when our employer, our partner, our friends search online, we remain within their perception.

Where to brand. The list of social media is growing. Basically, blogs and twitters are the most effective ones. However, never underestimate those community forums which are specialised in one area. People with professional background who have earned fame amongst peers are more welcomed in general.

How to brand. There are many methods and rules. I cannot reveal them all; otherwise those online PR consultants will hate me. Just a few easy tips: 1. You are what you say; so try not to say something that is not what you think or believe. It hurts you. 2. Be consistent; that will earn you trust. 3. Help others whenever you can. Interaction with your online buddies will significantly increase your fan base. If you help others, your fan base increases more. 4. Keep blogging.

Well, we assumed above that you want a healthy personal brand. If you don’t care, scandals plus indecent pictures are always your best shot.

23. Touch ID and Mobile Payments

With the announcement of the iPhone 5s, the Touch ID technology has moved the world quite a leap forward with security. But where is it going for Apple to introduce the fingerprint identity sensor on a mobile phone after almost 7 years of R&D? I would say the answer is mobile payments.

After integrating Walkman, PSP, GPS, and your personal assistant into your iPhone, I believe Apple is trying to make it your credit card as well. In fact, the move has been taken since the release of iPhone 5 where Passbook became one of the default apps.

Now the rationale for the Touch ID is clear. To make a payment with your mobile phone, you will require some method to identify the payer. Usually it can be a PIN or the signature. But that is not fancy enough for a modern iPhone; biometric signatures are more appropriate as the keys to your credit account. It appears easy and safe to just press on the home button, touch some payment sensor and complete the transaction.

The idea behind an A7 chip with 64-bit architecture is clear too. It is not to impress the gamers; it is to help boost the performance when the mobile phone has to process the encryption of a large amount of biometric data. In fact, the A7 chip is optimised for crypto calculations.

That much being said, Apple’s best move in this release so far is to generate another “gold hunger” around the world, especially in China. If you have got a Golden iPhone 5S, let’s be friends.