Wearing Emotions on Your Sleeve...Literally

Imagine if your emotions and feelings could be measured, tracked and included in a data graph.

I'm sure you've heard the saying 'wearing your heart on your sleeve' to indicate that someone expresses their emotions freely or exposes their true emotions without caution. This can be good in that you become open and vulnerable when showing your true feelings but can jade areas like composure in situations where you might be frustrated or irritated.

I tend to be fairly open with my emotions.

There are a few stories about the origin of the saying going back to the Middle Ages. Emperor Claudius II felt unattached men make better warriors so he outlawed marriage. To alleviate some of the grievances, every year during the Roman festival honoring Juno, he'd allow temporary coupling where men drew names to determine who would be their lady friend for the year. The man would wear her name on his sleeve for the festival. Around the same time, when knights performed jousting matches, they'd dedicate their match to a lovely lady of the court. By wearing her hanky around his arm, he was signaling that he was defending her honor.

And in Shakespeare's Othello, Iago confesses,

For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In complement extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.
– Othello, Act 1, Scene 1, 61–65

Whatever the origin, humans are emotional creatures. We typically make choices based on emotion, even though we'd like to think it was a rational decision. We may try to hide our emotions as to not upset or reveal something to another person. Often called a Poker Face.

But imagine if your emotions and feelings could be measured, tracked and included in a data graph. Other than a polygraph. Daydream no more.

There are now wearables that track your emotions. This is not your father's old-skool mood ring but devices that read your current emotional state and attempts to sooth and lower stress levels by encouraging deep breaths and relaxation techniques to get you through the haze. Sensors that gather skin temperature, sweat gland activity and blood pulse along with movement gauge your activity level. From that, it generates a graph on your mobile phone so you can see when your stress levels peaked and the mood at the time. You can see real time or over the course of the day. Emotional analysis in your pocket...or sleeve if you got one of those runner's arm band things. I'm sure someone will create a shirt that has color changing sleeve threads depending on a person's emotional state. The Iagonaut.

This is not the future but today.

A Fitbit captured the moment of a broken heart during a relationship ending phone call. This man was wearing his Fitbit when the unexpected call came and his daily graph tells the whole story:

Koby (‏@iamkoby) shared his heart wrenching moment (and graph) on Twitter and it saturated the internet. The red arrow indicates the moment that the news hit him. Instantly, his heart rate jumped from 72 to 88 beats per minute and stayed high for the rest of the day. Clearly this healthy, athletic person was under duress and if you couldn't tell by the yellow peak marks, he had trouble sleeping that night. Talk about exposing your emotions with technology.

Would you share your sleeve with the world?

ps

Related:

• Fitbit captures exact moment man's heart breaks
• The Origins of Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve
• Forget fitness, this wearable tracks your emotions
• Connecting the Threads
• The Digital Dress Code
• Wearables Head to Tail
• Gartner Says Worldwide Wearable Devices Sales to Grow 18.4 Percent in 2016

Technorati Tags: iot,wearables,emotions,humans,stress,sensors,silva,f5

Connect with Peter:	Connect with F5:

Meet the Sensors

I often write about the Internet of Things, or the soon-to-be-cliché IoT. You know, the smart-fridges, smart-cars, smart-thermostats, healthcare devices, wearables and any of those connected devices that have a sensor, gathers data and reports back to some entity. You are able to control these devices (and see the data) with mobile apps or even your own voice and gestures. They are all the rage and sitting at the top of the Gartner Hype Cycle.

But it’s all the various sensors inside those devices that are doing the actual measuring, calculating, tracking and reporting. Each has its own specialty providing specific functionality. I’ve always wondered about what’s inside some of the wearables let’s take a look at a few.

Have you ever wondered what spins the screen so you’re not looking at an upside down picture? That’s an Accelerometer. It measures orientation and movement. The iPhone was the first to use this back in 2007 and amazement ensued. It can tell the difference between running away from a charging buffalo in Yellowstone verses making faces with a chimp at the zoo. It can also tell if you’re sleeping simply by the fact that you haven’t moved for a while. These are typically used to track step count and how well you’ve rested.

I noted that the accelerometer measures step count but what about those steps up a flight of stairs? Well, that would be the Altimeter. Altimeters measure altitude so it can sense changes in height. In conjunction with the steps the accelerometer counted, the altimeter will add its bits and give you a more accurate calorie count for those fire escape runs. Instead of asking how tall someone is, next time ask ‘What’s your alti?’

And if you’re going to step out for a run, you might want to know if it’ll be sunny or sprinkles during the trek. Often seen as a smaller dial on an outdoor clock but now on wristbands, a Barometer measures atmospheric pressure – the weight of air in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s used in forecasting the weather and you often hear meteorologists note, ‘There’s a high ridge of atmospheric pressure keeping the rain away.’ At least that’s what they’ve been saying in California about the drought.

So you thought of attempting an Iron Man competition but wondered if your device could differentiate between the swimming, biking and running. You’re in luck if your device has a Gyroscope. Using the Earth’s gravity, it can help determine orientation. The big difference between an accelerometer and a gyroscope is that a gyroscope can also measure rotation or more specifically, the rate of rotation around a particular axis. Gyroscopes take into account the Earth’s gravity and rotation while the accelerometer does not.

If tracking stars for navigation and location like the early Polynesians is not your style, then the ever popular GPS is your tool. Using three satellites to ‘triangulate’ your location, the receiver measures distance to the first satellite. Based on that, you are in a certain sphere location on the planet. It then measures the distance to the second satellite to get another sphere location. Therefore, you must be somewhere on the circle where these two spheres intersect. By using a third satellite reading, the sphere that cuts through the circle of the intersection of the first two spheres narrows your location even more. Now our position is narrowed to two points in space. One of those two points is so absurd and instantly tossed, thus leaving you with an exact location.

There are a bunch of other sensors like Optical Heart Rate Monitors, typically worn on the wrist and it shines a tiny light against your skin to measure the blood pumping through your arm veins. And the various Gesture Tech things that use a little camera to see your hand and body movements to translate that into action on a gaming device, or a drone following your Snake River Canyon jump or even turning up the volume on the TV. It’d be cool to move something out of the way by effortlessly swiping your hand in the air, huh?

Sensors have been all around us for a while but now they are becoming close confidants. We should get to know our new Ohana.

ps

Related

• What do the sensors in wearable tech actually do?
• The World's First Urine-Powered Wearable Is Here
• Accelerometer vs. Gyroscope: What's the Difference?
• Wearables Head to Tail
• Oh, Is That The Internet You're Wearing?
• Connecting the Threads
• Our Five Senses on Sensors
• Sensors and IoT

Technorati Tags: iot,wearables,sensors,humans,silva,f5,mobile

Connect with Peter:	Connect with F5:

I Think, Therefore I am Connected

Descartes proclaimed that since we can think, it was proof that we existed. Well today, we exist in a connected world and while wearables seem to be all the rage - at least according to me - soon those hot items might be kicked to the curb with the next hottest thing: Thinkables.
You heard, or rather read that right. Thinkable. Just what is a thinkable? Well, it is a wearable (on your head) but it tracks brain activity. Muse is the first consumer-focused headband that reads brain activity and helps you to stop thinking so much. That's right, ahhhh...ummmm...errrr...what was that again? Oh yeah, stop thinking. It is a Bluetooth connected headset that helps you meditate. It also comes with an app called Muse Calm which tracks your Zen like state. It turns meditation into a game and you only need to play it 3 minutes a day.
Meditation can help people with anxiety, heart problems, headaches and other ails. Every morning on my walk/run I meditate and chant. Sometimes it is a Buddhist phrase or a Hawaiian chant over and over and over mixed with whatever song is in my head. It certainly does help me clear my brain but also prepare for the day. Without getting all religious or philosophical, but I am able to connect with whatever energy is stirring in the universe. Over the years, many personal roadblocks were suddenly cleared since that 'ah ha!' moment instantly appeared. 'Why didn't I think of that earlier?' I wonder to myself. It came to me since my brain was uncluttered. Einstein said that he didn't want to remember his own phone number since he could look it up (reference it) and he didn't want to clutter his brain with useless information. Have you ever noticed that some of the best ideas come when your brain is wandering or not really focusing on a single task?
But back to the Muse.
After installing on your head, it'll calibrate with your brain (and the app) and then will tell you to think of a few things. This is to get your brain away from what it is currently doing and light up your frontal lobes. Based on the initial brain readings, it'll then take you through a meditation session. When you brain is starting to slow down and your calm(er) self is focusing on breathing, you'll hear a breeze. The weather you hear reflects the state of your brain and if your mind wanders, the weather will change. If you go deeper into relaxation, then the birds start chirping. The more birds that are singing, the more Zen like you are. The app will also report how much of the time your brain spent in three categories: Active, Neutral and Calm. As far as the game aspect, you earn points for each session and can unlock additional functionality all while understanding the patterns of your brain activity.
This, I am sure, is just the initial rush of many brain readers that'll be competing for our attention - or non-attention in the case of Muse. Oh, and a plastic hanger does NOT work as a Thinkable - in case you were thinking that.
ps
Related:

• Forget Wearables — Here's the First Real 'Thinkable'
• Psychic video games
• Oh, Is That The Internet You're Wearing?
• The Breach of Things
• Is IoT Hype For Real?
• Epoc headset

Technorati Tags: iot,things,wearables,thinkables,thinking,meditation,humans,silva,f5

Connect with Peter:	Connect with F5:

The Applications of Our Lives

The Internet of Things will soon become The Internet of Nouns

There are a few 'The ______ of Our Lives' out there: Days. Time. Moments. Love. They define who we are, where we've been and where we are going. And today, many of those days, times, moments and loves interact with applications. Both the apps we tap and the back end applications used to chronicle these events have become as much a part of our lives as the happenings themselves.

The app, Life.

As reported on umpteen outlets yesterday, Twitter went down for about an hour. As news broke, there were also some fun headlines like, Twitter goes down, chaos and productivity ensue, Twitter is down. NFL free agency should be postponed, Twitter is down, let the freak-out commence and Twitter goes down, helps man take note it’s his wife’s birthday. It is amazing how much society has come to rely on social media to communicate. Another article, Why Twitter Can’t Keep Crashing, goes right into the fact that it is globally distributed, real-time information delivery system and how the world has come to depend on it, not just to share links and silly jokes but how it affects lives in real ways.

Whenever Facebook crashes for any amount of time people also go crazy. Headlines for that usually read something like, 'Facebook down, birthdays/anniversaries/parties cease to exist!' Apparently since people can't tell, post, like, share or otherwise bullhorn their important events, it doesn't actually occur. 'OMG! How am I gonna invite people to my bash in two weeks without social media?!? My life is over!' Um, paper, envelopes, stamps anyone?

We have connected wrist bracelets keeping track of our body movements, connected glasses recording every move, connected thermostats measuring home environments and pretty much any other 'thing' that you want to monitor, keep track of or measure. From banking to buying, to educating to learning, to connecting to sharing and everything in between, our lives now rely on applications so much so, that when an application is unavailable, our lives get jolted. Or, we pause our lives for the moment until we can access that application. As if we couldn't go on without it. My, how application availability has become critical to our daily lives.

I think The Internet of Things will soon become The Internet of Nouns since every person, place or thing will be connected. I like that. I call 'The Internet of Nouns' as our next frontier!

Sorry adverbs, love ya but you're not connected.

ps

Related

• Does Social Media Reflect Society?
• The Icebox Cometh
• The Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2014
• The Internet of Things and DNS
• Delivering the Internet of Things

Technorati Tags: apps,applications,social media,life,availability,twitter,facebook,society,humans,people,silva,f5,iot

Connect with Peter:	Connect with F5:

Bring Your Own A-Z

The #BYO craze has taken the world by storm and now infiltrates every sector of out lives.  Here is a partial list, in alpha-order, of various bring your owns.

BYO Apple: For the teacher in your life, the princess you'd like to put to sleep or to keep the doctor away for a day.

BYO Beer: The original classic, college style.  And BYO Booze for when you're out of college and got a little cash.

BYO Candy: With Halloween approaching this could see a surge over the next 30 days.

BYO Device: Or danger, destruction, demolition, detonator or any other dastardly 'D' word to represent risk.

BYO Everything: When Internet of Things takes over our lives.  Chocolate Chips have a whole new meaning.

BYO Food: The newest Potluck Parties.

BYO Game: Actually sitting at a table playing the physical versions of Monopoly, Life, Candy Land, Scrabble, or any other favorite.

BYO Hacker: Bodyguards in the 21st Century.

BYO Intelligence: Actually using your brain to figure out something...or when AI robots take over the world.

BYO Jump Drive: A whistleblower's favorite.

BYO Kittens: For making that irresistible, can't-stop-watching, almost viral video.

BYO Litigation: The new term for Small Claims Court.

BYO Money: What Cash with be called 10 years from now.

BYO N: BYO's maximum amount.  As far as BYOingly possible.

BYO OMG: The Surprise Party.

BYO Presents: What you take to the BYO OMG.

BYO Quarrel: The updated version of an older brother's favorite 'Stop Hitting Yourself.'

BYO Raven: Quoth he.

BYO Sushi: The new 'Gone Fishing' Bumper sticker.

BYO Time: It's all relative anyway.

BYO Utopia: Happiness comes from within.

BYO Vacation: The latest Griswold adventure this time with a Hybrid LTD Country Squire.

BYO Warnings: Wouldn't be cool if everyone had to announce the hazards of interacting with them? 

BYO X: Half of a Tic-Tac-Toe game or how Hawaiians greet each other.

BYO Yawn: What you did right now when you read this entry.

BYO Zombie: Pretty much anyone walking around fully engaged with their BYOD.

Well that was fun.  C'mon play along - it's easy and works with almost any word!

ps

Related:

• How Terms Have Changed over Time
• BYOD Injuries
• BYOD–The Hottest Trend or Just the Hottest Term
• Is BYO Already D?
• Will BYOL Cripple BYOD?
• Freedom vs. Control
• The Prosecution Calls Your Smartphone to the Stand

Technorati Tags: byod,mobile,smartphone,lists,humor,fun,byo,silva,human,society,mam,mdm

 

Connect with Peter:	Connect with F5:

BYOD Injuries

This BYOD installment brought to you by, Bring Your Own Doctor

Is your mobile device so attractive that you can't keep your eyes off it?  Is every phone call so life changing that you are unaware of your surroundings?  Do you constantly have to update social media as if you were on a reality series?  Do you feel useless unless you are tapping away on a touch screen?  Have you come close to being in a bad accident due to being in a world of your own?  If you answered 'yes,' then you might be a perfect candidate for the hot new mobile companion, Bring Your Own Doctor!!

Pedestrian injuries related to cell phone use are on the rise.  Have you ever been so involved with your mobile device that you've bumped into, tripped over, fallen off, fallen in or hit by something because you were not paying attention to where you were going?  You are not alone.  A recent study shows that pedestrian cell phone-related injuries have more than doubled since 2005.  Typically we hear of the horrors of using your mobile device while driving; the risk of personal devices on corporate networks; the dangers of downloading malicious apps and now distracted walking is becoming yet another hazard of this mobile craze.

They looked at seven years of emergency room data (2004-2010) from 100 hospitals around the country which showed that bodily injuries (in public places, not at home) related to cell phones ranged from falling off walkways or bridges to walking in front of moving traffic.  In 2010 the study found that 1,500 pedestrians were treated in emergency rooms for cell-phone related incidents, as opposed to 559 in 2004. The number has risen every year and could easily double again for the 2010-2015 time frame.  The actual injuries are probably higher since many people are hurt and do not visit the ER.  The under 30 crowd, specially those between the ages of 16 and 25, are the most at risk. 

Are you surprised?  I'm not.  Everywhere you go, people have their devices out and head's down.  People will go to the park, only to sit on the bench with their phones out.  You can find plenty of 'falling into the mall fountain' YouTube videos due to people in a stare down contest with their phone.  For pedestrians, talking on the phone accounted for about 69% of injuries, verses texting, which accounted for about 9%.  This is not because texting is necessarily safer than talking and walking.  Instead, it is probably because less people actually text while walking than talk while on foot.  A couple of the injuries reported included a 14-year-old boy walking down a road while talking on a cell phone fell 6 to 8 feet off a bridge into a rock-strewn ditch, suffering chest and shoulder injuries.  A 23-year-old man was struck by a car while walking on the middle line of a road and talking on a cell phone, injuring his hip.  I'm sure you have your own story of some trip, slip or busted lip due to distracted mobile use. 

We usually hear about the digital dangers of mobile use along with the dreaded distracted driver and now there's proof that putting one foot in front of the other - the crowning achievement of any infant - has too, succumbed to technology. 

ps

Related:

• Study: Cell phone-related pedestrian injuries soar
• Distracted Walking: Injuries Soar for Pedestrians on Phones
• Texting While Walking Accidents: Video
• Girl Falls In Mall Fountain While Texting
• The New Wallet: Is it Dumb to Carry a Smartphone?
• Freedom vs. Control

Technorati Tags: byod,mobile,smartphone,injuries,emergency room,doctor,silva,f5,distracted

 

Connect with Peter:	Connect with F5:

BYOD Behavior - Size Does Matter

Not the device's but your behavior.  Harvard Business School researchers wanted to determine if the type of device people use changes how they act around other people.  Does device size affect assertiveness?  Does interacting with a device of a certain size, affect how you behave afterword?  Or, Is Your iPhone turning you into a Wimp?

If you just can't stand the suspense, in a word, Yes.

Many of us are aware that body language can communicate so much more than words.  If you watch (and can understand) people's body language, you can learn much more than just what they are saying.  Are they uncomfortable or are they hiding something.  Are they imagining something or recalling from memory.  You might have even heard of micro-expressions - those little head scrunches, slight eye squint or a tight jaw that sends a message. In addition, by adopting certain postures, body chemistry and behavior can be affected.  For example, standing over someone's desk with arms wide, generally brings more assertiveness than sitting across with arms and legs crossed.  So how about our posture while using a mobile device since we spend an average of 58 minutes per day our smartphones?  Would it then make sense that a larger (arms wide) screen person would be more assertive than someone using a smaller (arms crossed) screen?

Apparently so.

The study, 'iPosture: The Size of Electronic Consumer Devices Affects Our Behavior,' looked at how the body posture inherent in operating everyday gadgets affects not only your body, but also your demeanor.  It showed that working on a relatively large machine (like a desktop computer) causes users to act more assertively than working on a small one (like an iPod).

The researchers asked participants to perform randomly assigned tasks on one of four different sized devices: iPod Touch, iPad, MacBook Pro Laptop or iMac Desktop.  They answered a survey, played a gambling game and a few other tasks and when they were done, the researcher told them, 'I will get some forms ready for you to sign so I can pay you and you can leave. If I am not here in five minutes, please come get me at the front desk.'  Instead of retuning on time, the researches waited at least 10 minutes and noted if/when a participant came to the front desk.

The participant's device size greatly affected who made the move to the front.  Of the participants using a desktop computer, 94% took the initiative to fetch the researcher but those using the iPod Touch, only 50% left the room.  And among those who did leave the room, the device size seemed to affect the amount of time they waited to take action. The bigger the device, the shorter the wait time.  On average, desktop users waited 341 seconds before fetching the experimenter, while iPod Touch users waited an average of 493 seconds.

According to the researchers, the results indicate that expansive body postures lead to power-related behaviors, even in cases where the posture is incidentally induced by the size of the gadget or computer.

So what does all this 'human behavior' stuff mean for BYOD?  Not really sure but fun to think about it.  Will those seeking advancement in the workplace, gravitate toward tablets?  Does offering a larger device to a normally shy worker bring out their assertiveness?  Do you have the annoying know-it-all use the smallest screen possible?  Might be interesting to look around the office and what devices employees use to see if the study results match your work environment.

ps

Related:

• Device size affects your assertiveness, study says
• Is Your iPhone Turning You Into a Wimp
• iPosture: The Size of Electronic Consumer Devices Affects Our Behavior
• Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance
• Americans spend 58 minutes a day on their smartphones
• The Prosecution Calls Your Smartphone to the Stand
• Q. The Safest Mobile Device? A. Depends
• 50/50 Odds for BYOD
• BYOD–The Hottest Trend or Just the Hottest Term
• Will BYOL Cripple BYOD?
• BYOD 2.0 – Moving Beyond MDM with F5 Mobile App Manager
• Is BYO Already D?

Technorati Tags: f5,mobile device,human behavior,malware,security,byod,smartphone,silva,research,survey,posture

Connect with Peter:	Connect with F5: