• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Dion Almaer

Software, Development, Products

  • @dalmaer
  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • RSS
  • Show Search
Hide Search

“Hello Siri and Google, I am going to bed”; Are we finally developing tech for good?

June 23, 2014 Leave a Comment

And no, I didn’t name my children Siri and Google.

I love technology, and thinking about how it can improve lives. Recently though I have had a crisis of conscience. I am an engineer, an atheist, and I believe in science and the scientific process. Unfortunately I had fallen into the trap of thinking that, in 2014, humanity is at another level with our science.

This view changed when I started to delve into nutrition and I lost over 100 pounds. Science wasn’t the problem, but the data and results were perverted, leaving many in ignorance yet believing that we knew truth.

Then I started to get into meditation and the like, and realized that I was actively at odds with my new views. Why am I always staring at my phone? How will it look in the future if there is an ecological catastrophe via climate change and our grandkids say:

“Wait, what? you guys were all playing Candy Crush and talking about WhatsApp? Are you freaking kidding me?????”

Entertainment often leads the way with technology, and with the mobile revolution gaming and consumption has jumped into a void to suck away at our time and our consciousness. I felt like I was part zombie going through the motions without being.

I am an optimist

The mobile evolution keeps growing. Having the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy with access to the Internet was amazing. Add to that a screen and experience that made this usable and even a delight, and getting beyond the speeds of edge, and bingo.

We keep adding sensors to the mobile device, and have a way to tie external sensors (BLE). As the base platform can sense so much more, developers can develop new amazing software experiences. Marry this data to the crowd and the cloud and you can go from big data to actual insights personalized for you.

This has me wondering if we are finally entering a time where the technology that we are building will accelerate our growth, health, and education.

There are great new platforms to be made (e.g. HealthKit) and marrying health data with analysis is going to be huge. It is going to mean that all technology is going to have to change to take us and health into account.

I want all devices to have a sleeping state

One silly example is sharing state and controlling devices. We keep learning that our sleep totally sucks, and there are many things that you should do to maximize the restoration that you can get over night. One of the many items is keeping your room pitch black.

To that end, I can’t wait to be able to tell my environment that I am going to bed, and have everything around me adapt to that. Window shutters down. Time on the cable box and the red light… off. It isn’t about laziness, it is about our health.

As a species we are constantly inventing new technology, and some percentage can be used for good and/or ill. I am really hopefully that many in the mobile world will get to put out technology that will truly help us all. Exciting times!

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Twitter

My Tweets

Recent Posts

  • Generative AI: It’s Time to Get Into First Gear
  • Developer Docs + GenAI = ❤️
  • We keep confusing efficacy for effectiveness
  • The holy grail of a Web SDK
  • The rise of the extensible app platforms

Follow

  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Tags

3d Touch 2016 Active Recall Adaptive Design Agile Amazon Echo Android Android Development Apple Application Apps Artificial Intelligence Autocorrect blog Bots Brain Calendar Career Advice Cloud Computing Coding Cognitive Bias Commerce Communication Companies Conference Consciousness Cooking Cricket Cross Platform Deadline Delivery Design Desktop Developer Advocacy Developer Experience Developer Platform Developer Productivity Developer Relations Developers Developer Tools Development Distributed Teams Documentation DX Ecosystem Education Energy Engineering Engineering Mangement Entrepreneurship Exercise Family Fitness Founders Future GenAI Gender Equality Google Google Developer Google IO Habits Health HR JavaScript Jobs Jquery Kids Stories Kotlin Language Leadership Learning Lottery Machine Learning Management Messaging Metrics Micro Learning Microservices Microsoft Mobile Mobile App Development Mobile Apps Mobile Web Moving On NPM Open Source Organization Organization Design Pair Programming Paren Parenting Path Performance Platform Platform Thinking Politics Product Design Product Development Productivity Product Management Product Metrics Programming Progress Progressive Enhancement Progressive Web App Project Management Psychology Push Notifications pwa QA Rails React Reactive Remix Remote Working Resilience Ruby on Rails Screentime Self Improvement Service Worker Sharing Economy Shipping Shopify Short Story Silicon Valley Slack Software Software Development Spaced Repetition Speaking Startup Steve Jobs Study Teaching Team Building Tech Tech Ecosystems Technical Writing Technology Tools Transportation TV Series Twitter Typescript Uber UI Unknown User Experience User Testing UX vitals Voice Walmart Web Web Components Web Development Web Extensions Web Frameworks Web Performance Web Platform WWDC Yarn

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Archives

  • January 2023
  • September 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • November 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • October 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012

Search

Subscribe

RSS feed RSS - Posts

The right thing to do, is the right thing to do.

The right thing to do, is the right thing to do.

Dion Almaer

Copyright © 2023 · Log in