Category: Technology

‘The Magic Roundabout’ and the tech industry…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Diversity, Human Resources, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Life, Online Services, Technology

The  Magic Roundabout was a beloved children’s programme on UK television between 1965 and 1977. It was produced using stop-motion animation, and it achieved cult status with children and adults alike. Its human characters were Florence, a young girl, and Mr Rusty, the elderly operator of the roundabout. The other main characters were Zebedee the talking jack-in-the box with magical powers, Brian the snail, Ermintrude the cow, and Dylan the hippy-like, guitar-playing, dopey rabbit! It was essential tea-time viewing at the time, and it’s use of stop-motion animation was groundbreaking.

Children’s television programmes, and the technology creating them, have changed vastly since the last episode aired in 1977, and the Badger recently found himself unexpectedly engaged in a conversation comparing ‘The Magic Roundabout’ with today’s tech/IT industry! The conversation happened while visiting a local shop that buys and sells vintage vinyl music records. It’s a lively, friendly establishment, where browsing is encouraged while the owner plays vintage records on turntables behind the till. The Badger’s visit was ostensibly to enquire if any of the vinyl he still has from his youth is of interest to collectors. Before asking, the Badger browsed the shops offerings and a disc from 1975, ‘Funky Moped’ by Jasper Carrot with ‘Magic Roundabout’ on the B-side, caught his eye. It was hard to supress a grin!

Enquiring about the Badger’s own vintage records ultimately led to two things. Firstly, a realisation that some of them are rare and have notable value. One, for example, is his mono Rolling Stones ‘Let it Bleed’ LP in pristine original condition with its original poster. Secondly, it started a discussion with the shop’s owner that ended up not only comparing ‘The Magic Roundabout’ with the tech industry, but also agreeing that Jasper Carrot’s irreverent ‘Magic Roundabout’ routine was, let’s say, of its time!   

It felt surreal comparing ‘The Magic Roundabout’ with the tech industry in a vintage record shop, especially when more similarities emerged than expected. The television programme, for example, featured diverse characters with unique traits and perspectives, and it’s whimsical scripts led to surprising outcomes. The tech industry also features diverse characters with unique traits, skills, and perspectives, and the industry produces surprising outcomes. Both employ advanced techniques embodying creativity, innovation, adaptability, and cross-generation interconnectedness. Both also evoke nostalgia. Who, for example, doesn’t fondly recall their early tech devices and their first forays accessing the internet?

The Badger eventually left the shop reminded that a face-to-face conversation with another person is always an interesting and thought-provoking experience, regardless of what you talk about. Face-to-face conversations are something we should all do more of in today’s world. Walking home, the Badger had the phrase ‘Boing, said Zebedee’ rattling in his head. Hmm, perhaps ‘Boing, said Elon’ might be more apt for today’s world…

Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience. You need experience to gain wisdom…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Delivery, Human Resources, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Learning, Technology

It’s not unusual when having met a senior leader or company executive for the first time to come away feeling either impressed and respectful, or underwhelmed and sceptical. Of his many such encounters, the Badger always remembers one because it involved ‘age’ and ‘wisdom’ !  

The CEO of a niche tech company approached the Badger’s CEO to ask if they could talk informally to ‘someone with experience and wisdom’ about IT delivery. The two CEOs knew each other through being on the same committee of a trade body. Out of good will, the Badger’s CEO asked him to meet with the individual to share some wisdom gleaned from his IT delivery experience. The Badger duly met the tech CEO, and after a few opening pleasantries, was told by the latter that he was probably too old to provide the kind of wisdom they were looking for! The 35-year-old CEO believed that wisdom provided by anyone older than themselves was outdated and irrelevant. The Badger, a decade or more older with some grey hairs, managed to suppress his irritation!

The CEO was polite but dismissive of the Badger’s experience and guidance. They believed that someone younger and focused on every facet of the latest hot trends would provide more valuable input. This rankled, but the Badger simply pointed out that if they didn’t want his advice, then that was, of course, their prerogative. The meeting soon ended. The Badger’s parting shot was to say that he was proud to have reached an age, maturity, and independence that’s so neatly expressed in Einstein’s quote, ‘I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to’. The Badger reported back to his boss that he was unimpressed. His boss wasn’t surprised, admitted to disliking the individual, and expressed an opinion that the tech CEO wouldn’t last long in their job. They were right!

The US Presidential Election has put age in the spotlight. Both candidates are much older than the averages for Fortune 500 company chiefs, FTSE 100 CEOs, and 2024 UK Members of Parliament (59.2, 55, and 50 years old, respectively).  The average age of workers  in tech and IT is much closer to that of the 35-year-old tech CEO, and so for those working in these dynamic sectors, it’s worth remembering that we aren’t born with wisdom, age alone doesn’t imply wisdom, and that those who have it acquire it over time through work, personal, educational and social experiences, and exposure to the behaviour of others. That’s why for a long career and to acquire wisdom  you must continually expand your real experience and real skills rather than academically fixate on the latest hot trend. Einstein, after all, said that ‘Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience. You need experience to gain wisdom’, and he was right…

Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Light underpin the digital world of tomorrow…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Batteries, Change, Education, Information Technology, Learning, Obsolescence, Science & Engineering, Smart & New Technology, Technology, Transformation

A trip to the supermarket provided a reminder that without physics, chemistry, and mathematics none of our modern tech, internet, and online services would exist. Hardly a revelation, but what triggered this heightened awareness? Well, just the simple act of taking a small bag of spent disposable batteries to a recycling bin in the supermarket’s checkout area. The bin was full to overflowing with used disposable batteries from toys, clocks, TV remotes, cordless computer keyboards, wireless mice, and a myriad of other sources that use replaceable batteries as a power source. The act of depositing his spent batteries reminded the Badger that each one is actually a little capsule of physics, chemistry, and mathematics, and that our digital world depends on these subjects and batteries of one form or another.

On returning home, the Badger reflected on the science, materials, manufacturing, and recycling of these disposable batteries and whether they’ll ultimately be made redundant by newer power source innovations in the decades ahead. After all, the Titanium Citizen Eco-Drive watch on the Badger’s wrist uses solar and artificial light for power rather than replaceable batteries. It’s a technology that dates back to the mid-1970s, so it’s not new. Furthermore, the 1980s pocket calculator sitting on the Badger’s desk is also solar powered with no replaceable batteries. It’s a memento from a major 1980’s software development project and it works just as well today as it did back then! The Badger thus found himself wondering why power derived from light sources hasn’t rendered the disposable battery redundant in the last 40 years. Well, to make a functionally reliable, manufacturable, commercially viable product that has physics, chemistry, and mathematics at its core takes years of research to come to fruition. The good news is that it looks like lengthy research is bearing fruit and we may soon see a revolution that makes natural and artificial light the power source for a wide range of our devices, see here and here.

We should not be surprised that the coming years are likely to see a significant change in how our in-home devices, smart tech, and personal computing devices are powered. The use of replaceable batteries looks destined to decline. There’ll ultimately be no more charging cables, and no more trips to the supermarket to recycle spent batteries! Things, of course, are never that clear cut, but if light photons hitting panels on a home’s roof can generate electricity for household use, then it’s inevitably just a matter of time before light will power our gadgets and render disposable batteries redundant.

Fundamentally, power sources – and everything else in our modern digital world – are determined by physics, chemistry, mathematics and years of research. We should never shy away from being educated in these subjects because they – and light – are the seeds that will determine whatever we want the digital world of the future to be…

Communication is at the heart of everything…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Digital devices and the environment, Information Technology, Internet of Things, Smart & New Technology, Smart City, Space, Technology

Electric lighting has revolutionised our lives by illuminating our homes, streets, and cities. It was only after the end of the First World War that electricity began to find its way into most of our UK homes. Rolling out electricity supply across the country took time. In 1919 only 6% of homes were wired up, and it took until the late 1930s for this number to grow to ~66%. By then all new homes in urban areas were being built with  electric lighting as standard. How things have changed since! Today the flick of a switch, a tap on an app, or a voice command will light up rooms in our home providing instant artificial light for reading, cooking, and hobbies even on the darkest of nights. It’s something we take for granted today, largely oblivious to the fact that light at the flick of a switch was an unthinkable luxury for the vast majority of people a century ago.

Lighting our homes, community, and city streets has become more high-tech today than ever before. Streetlights come on when it gets dark, help to keep road users and pedestrians safe and secure, and help to extend our activities outdoors. However, they have downsides. Light pollution from urban areas is one of them, as we can readily see in images taken by satellites and astronauts. There’s always a glow on the horizon which dilutes the visibility of stars in the night sky when walking through suburbs after dark. Furthermore, street lighting’s energy consumption is a matter of global concern because lighting accounts for ~19% of global electricity usage. With resources limited, climate change, and the world’s population forecast to be largely urban by mid-century, it’s not a surprise that ‘smart street lighting’ has progressed over the last two decades.

‘Smart street lighting’  – a connected, sensor-heavy, lighting system allowing individual or groups of lights to be controlled remotely in real time – enables public areas and thoroughfares to be lit more considerately based on their use. Motion detectors, for example, mean that areas can be lit only when people or moving vehicles are present. It’s energy efficient, climate friendly, sustainable and a component within the broader umbrella of ‘smart cities’. At the heart of ‘smart street lighting’ is a fundamental capability, namely the ability to communicate data between disparate and spatially separate entities – an ability which has been at the heart of technological progress for many, many, many decades.

‘Smart street lighting’ and Voyager 1, currently 15 billion miles from Earth in deep space, thus have something in common – both fundamentally need to communicate information to be useful. They are not only both testament to the talent of the scientists and engineers of their eras, but also to the fact that communication in one form or another has always been at the heart of everything in our lives…

A walk in the woods, swarms of drones embodying AI, and fly spray…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Drones, Information Technology, Life, Public safety, Security, Technology

A walk in the woods is good for body and soul, especially in the Spring when bluebells abound. Every walk is memorable in some way, as a couple of encounters reminded the Badger recently. The first encounter involved wildlife. A vixen with two cubs emerged from the undergrowth and sat in the middle of the path to stare at a stationary Badger drinking from his water bottle. They were ~3 metres away, unfazed by human presence, and nonchalantly disappeared back into the undergrowth after about a minute. The second encounter happened ten minutes later as the path bisected an open expanse of scrubland. It was with a police officer landing a drone which had been used in a successful search for someone who’d failed to return from walking their dog in the area. ‘That’s a useful bit of kit’, the Badger quipped to the officer. ‘Yep, but a drone swarm would be better’, the officer responded adding that whereas people knew that individual drones are routine tools for many, swarms embodying AI warrant greater public awareness.

Drones vary in shape, size, function, and sophistication. Everyone has some awareness of them through their appearance in many movies (see here for example) over decades. The capabilities of drones imagined in such movies are today either a reality, or soon to be so. Drones are a growth area. Indeed, the UK Government has envisaged  that 900,000 commercial drones could be operating in UK skies by 2030.  Drones have long been tools in many commercial sectors (e.g. agriculture, energy supply, and property marketing), in the media/broadcasting, and with hobbyists and the TikTok generation, and so this vision seems possible. Drones are also already key tools in law enforcement where they help in monitoring major incidents, events, suspects, crime scenes, traffic, and in the search for missing persons. Military use of them is common and rapidly expanding for reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, and lethal force, as readily illustrated in the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts. Military drone use continues to expand (e.g. see here ), and swarms of drones embodying AI will eventually transform  military operations even more dramatically. It thus seems inevitable that drone swarms will eventually become a regular facet of civilian life too.

Personal security and safety advice for when you are away from your home has long centred on being aware of your environment and listening to and observing the behaviour of those around you. With drone swarms on the horizon, we should now be observing and listening to what’s in the sky too! Of course, someone will eventually produce a drone countermeasure for personal use by anyone in the general public. Now that’s an off-the-wall thought to end with, probably triggered by learning that fly spray and insect repellent are essential when walking through woods in the warm Spring sunshine…

Air Canada and the ‘hallucination’ of a chatbot…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Business, Chatbots, Information Technology, Legal matters, Technology

An email arrived from the Badger’s car insurance provider recently. It advised that a renewal quote was in his online account. Logging in revealed a 25% increase in premium! A check using market comparison sites provided quotes for the same cover within a few pounds of his existing premium. The Badger thus used the provider’s chatbot within his account to signal his intent to take his business elsewhere. The chatbot dialogue, however, ultimately resulted in the Badger staying with his provider with the same cover at the price he currently pays!

This is a commonplace renewal dynamic, but the Badger found himself musing on his experience. Apart from being irritated by his provider’s attempted 25% price rise when they were obviously prepared to retain their customer for a much lower price, using the chatbot was easy, efficient, and quick. However, it  wasn’t obvious at any stage in the chatbot dialogue whether the Badger had really conversed with a human in the provider’s organisation. This meant that both he and the provider were implicitly accepting the validity of the chatbot’s deal. A number of ‘what if’ scenarios regarding customer use of AI chatbots started bubbling in the Badger’s brain. And then he read, here and here, about Air Canada and its AI chatbot!

An AI chatbot on the Air Canada website advised a passenger that they could book a full-fare flight to attend their grandmother’s funeral and claim for a discounted bereavement fare thereafter. Guidance elsewhere on the website was different. The passenger did as the chatbot guided and subsequently claimed for the bereavement discount. Air Canada refused the claim, and the parties ended up at a Tribunal with the airline arguing that the chatbot was ‘responsible for its own actions’. The Tribunal ruled for the passenger and that the airline was liable for negligent misrepresentation. The case not only establishes the principle that companies are liable for what their AI chatbots say and do, but it also highlights – as noted here – broader risks for businesses when adopting AI tools.

The amount of money for the discount claim was small (<CAN$500) but the Tribunal’s findings will reverberate widely. The case also exposes something which is commonplace with many big companies, namely the dominance of a legalistic behavioural culture regardless of common-sense within an organisation. This was a bereaved customer complying with advice given by the company’s AI chatbot on the company’s own website, and yet rather than be empathetic, take responsibility, and apply common-sense, the company chose a legal route and to hide behind ‘the hallucination’ of its chatbot. So, bravo to the passenger for fighting their corner, bravo to the Tribunal for their common-sense judgement, and yes bravo to Air Canada for making sure that we all now know that companies cannot shirk responsibility for the behaviour of their AI chatbots…

A world without Google…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business Continuity, Information Technology, Life, Online Services, Risk, Smart & New Technology, Technology

A feature entitled ‘Where would we be without Google’ appeared on the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) website last week. It’s an insightful, entertaining article that takes a wry look at how Google (or more properly Alphabet) has become part of today’s critical infrastructure and why we must let it stay that way. The Badger nodded in agreement when reading the author’s words that the world created by Google should more accurately be described as the world that we – consumers, society, and legislators – have allowed Google to create. The Badger also sympathises with the feature’s conclusion, that for the sake of humanity Google must never be allowed to stop because  nobody knows what might happen if somebody switched its services off. The consequences would be awful in ways that we haven’t envisaged.

Since every facet of personal, public, and business life involves risk, believing that Google could never be ‘switched off’ seems foolish, especially when big tech wields more power than governments, and global instability is on the rise. Switching Google off would be a digital earthquake that shakes the very heart of today’s connected world. Its likelihood may be low, but it’s clearly an identifiable risk and so it’s worth thinking about the impact if it were to happen? Do you know what the consequences would be? Do you know what you would do if you woke up one morning and Google wasn’t there? Probably not, because it’s doubtful that most people have this eventuality on their personal radar. To tickle your thoughts, therefore, here’s a brief sense of the impact if Google was ‘switched off’.

Our go-to source for answers, information, translation, scholarly articles, and academic papers (Google Search, Translate, Scholar) would vanish. A billion or more email inboxes, virtual meetings, and chats would fall silent (Gmail, Google Meet,  Hangouts). Travellers and delivery drivers would become disoriented and wander aimlessly (Google Maps). Online collaborative work would grind to a halt and documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and critical business files would disappear (Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides). Similarly, YouTube creators and viewers would lose their stage and access to content, smart homes would lose their brains, and thermostats, house cameras, and doorbells would lose connectivity. Marketeers and advertisers would find their strategies undermined, and businesses using Google Cloud would be disrupted. Your Android phone would need a new operating system. Just imagine the turmoil as you and a billion others try to adjust at the same time!

It’s unthinkable that Google would ever be switched off, you say. Maybe, but thinking about the unthinkable is at the heart of good risk management. What can we do to minimise the impact on ourselves? Well, the saying  ‘don’t have all your eggs in one basket’ comes to mind. It’s as relevant today as it was before big tech dominated the world…

Future-gazing while eating fish in Riyadh…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Change, Delivery, Digital Transformation, Information Technology, Life, Outsource, Tech for social good, Technology

The Badger visited Riyadh with some members of his London-based project team. The team was developing the SARIE Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) computer system for the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA). We stayed at the Riyadh Intercontinental Hotel, the normal base for short visits to meet client staff and Kingdom-based project staff. The work schedule for the visit was intense because the project was at a crucial stage in its delivery. On the penultimate night of the visit, the hotel had a ‘fish night’. The Badger and his companions duly booked a table for what turned out to be a memorable meal. It took place outside under a night sky full of twinkling stars in near 30C heat. Riyadh is in the desert 250 miles from the nearest seaport, and so it felt a little surreal seeing not only unfamiliar fresh fish on a mountain of crushed ice, but also choosing one to eat! This was more than 25 years ago.

Unsurprisingly for a group of relaxing IT professionals, we future-gazed while eating our fish and drinking alcohol-free fizzy apple juice – ‘Saudi Champagne’. Mobile phones at the time provided voice communication and SMS messaging. They were rudimentary compared with today’s smartphones, and we knew that the new one in our hand would be usurped by a newer model within weeks. Communication network technology, internet use, and IT were high growth areas, and the PCs and laptops of the time, see here for example, had nowhere near the capabilities taken for granted today.

Three areas dominated our future-gazing during the meal. The first was MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). Would it actually arrive, be useful, and popular? (It arrived in 2002). The second was off-the-shelf, reusable, software products and kernels. Would they decimate bespoke software development and speed up systems development for clients? (They did. Software has become commoditised). The third was outsourcing. Would it change the IT industry and stifle innovation and technical creativity? (It has, although views on innovation and creativity vary). We debated affably as we ate. We did not foresee the tech and online world that has emerged to be the global critical infrastructure of personal, business, governmental, and military life today!

With the Middle East in the headlines and tech CEOs savaged while testifying at a US Senate hearing, the Badger wonders what discussion he and his companions would have during a ‘fish night’ in Riyadh today.  One area would inevitably be AI and given the history of the last 25 years of digital revolution, whether its dark side would eventually overwhelm its benefits. With general points from the Senate hearings like ‘Because for all the upside, the dark side is too great to live with’ (made by Senator Lindsey Graham) rattling in his head, the Badger thinks that the dark side of AI alone would dominate the discussion and make the conversation even livelier than it was 25 years ago!  

Protecting your privacy…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Online Safety, Online Services, Privacy and Surveillance, Risk, social media, Technology

The arrival of a scam email, a television programme on Banking Scams, scurrilous AI generated images of Taylor Swift, news of a fake robocall using President Biden’s voice, and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre’s warning that the global ransomware threat will rise with AI, made the Badger think about protecting privacy this week.

The following facts underpinned his musing. LinkedIn, Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok were launched in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2011, and 2016, respectively. Amazon was founded in 1994, Netflix in 1997, Google in 1998, Spotify in 2006, and WhatsApp in 2009. The first smartphone with internet connectivity arrived in 2000 when life was very different, as neatly illustrated here. Over barely 30 years, tech and these companies have changed the dynamics of daily life, and what constitutes personal privacy, for everyone. These companies, fledglings 25 years ago but now more powerful than many countries, harvest, hold, and use vast swathes of our personal data. What constitutes privacy for an individual has thus inevitably changed, and, the Badger feels, not for the better compared with 25 years ago. What other conclusion could you make when huge data breaches and scandals like Cambridge Analytica expose individuals to security threats and privacy risk like never before? And along comes AI making the risk to individuals much, much worse!

Everything done online today is tracked and used for some purpose. If you use an internet-connected personal device then the world’s plumbing knows where you are and what you’re doing. When it comes to privacy, therefore, the old saying ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle’ was much more relevant 30 years ago than it is today. With vast swathes of our personal data held online it’s hardly surprising that bad actors want to get their hands on it for nefarious purposes. As Channel 5’s  ‘Banking Scams; Don’t get caught out’ programme recently highlighted, just a small amount of your personal data in the wrong hands can make your life a misery. AI just adds another dimension to the potential scale of that misery.

With online interactions a norm of modern life and AI manipulation of images, video, and speech becoming more widespread, the Badger wondered if there’s something other than good cyber security practices that anyone can do to bolster their personal privacy. Well, there is. Don’t post photos, videos, or voice recordings of yourself on social media platforms! Your face, your body, and your voice are part of your real identity, so why make them easy pickings for anyone of a wicked disposition? The Badger’s lost the plot, you may think, but his fundamental point is this. Think about your privacy the next time you post photos, video, or voice recordings on a social media platform. After all, the responsibility for protecting your privacy fundamentally rests with you…  

The biggest challenge of 2024 and beyond…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Life, Online Safety, Online Services, Opinion, Press & Media, Public Institutions, Public safety, Risk, Smart & New Technology, Technology, Wellbeing

This year, 2024, will bring many challenges of one kind or another. Every new year, of course, contains challenges, some which already feature in our awareness, and some which don’t because they tend to emerge from leftfield in due course. The online world, the traditional press, and broadcast media provide plenty of opinion on forthcoming challenges at this time of year, but they tend to highlight things that are already the larger blips on our awareness radar. To start the year off, therefore, the Badger set himself a personal challenge, namely, to decide on the world’s biggest challenge for 2024 and beyond, one that deserves to be a much bigger blip on everyone’s  radar.

The following reality provided the backdrop for the Badger’s deliberations:

  • Life today is dominated by digital technology, global connectivity, the internet, automation, and an addiction to smartphones whose applications provide immediacy of information, anytime, anyplace, for ~75% of the world’s population.
  • Digital evolution continues apace, AI is advancing rapidly and cannot be ignored, international conflict is on the rise, politics is increasingly polarised, and the world order is under considerable strain.
  • Unforeseen natural, humanitarian, financial, and economic crises, are an inevitability.

A front runner for the biggest challenge of 2024 and beyond emerged quickly in the Badger’s thoughts, ostensibly because it had already been bubbling in his mind for months. He quickly concluded that this front runner was indeed the world’s biggest challenge. So, what is it? Put simply, it’s to stem the rise of distrust.

Trust is a fundamental component of cooperation, relationships of all kinds, business, service, and interactions between social groups and different cultures. Society is on a slippery slope to failure without it. Unfortunately, research over the last decade or so shows that our levels of distrust have been progressively rising. Distrust in politicians, governments, corporates, and their leaders continues to rise. Similarly, distrust of the internet and social media continues to grow as we all become more aware of data breaches, fake and weaponised news, misinformation, disinformation, online safety, security and privacy issues, swindles, and cyber-crime. AI seems unlikely to change the trend. The Badger thus feels that stemming the rise of distrust  warrants being the world’s greatest challenge if we want a better society for our children and grandchildren.

Addressing this challenge is not easy, but change starts when lots of people make small adjustments to their behaviour. This year the Badger has resolved to stem his rising distrust of  ‘pushed’ online content that has become the norm in our 24×7 online world. He’s breaking the mould, taking back control, and engaging with it differently and more selectively in 2024. New Year resolutions, of course, have a habit of falling by the wayside. It’s early days, but so far so good…