Will
Video from your brain
This is pretty cool. Berkeley scientists are starting to be able to construct videos based on brain activity.
They are very loose approximations based on existing video footage, but still cool.
The left clip is a segment of the movie that the subject viewed while in the magnet. The right clip shows the reconstruction of this movie from brain activity measured using fMRI. The reconstruction was obtained using only each subject’s brain activity and a library of 18 million seconds of random YouTube video.
(In brief, the algorithm processes each of the 18 million clips through a model of each individual brain, and identifies the clips that would likely have produced brain activity as similar to the measured brain activity as possible. The clips used to fit the model, those used to test the model and those used to reconstruct the stimulus were entirely separate.) Brain activity was sampled every one second, and each one-second section of the viewed movie was reconstructed separately.
Reconstruction from brain activity – YouTube.
Link to Gallant Lab at UC Berkeley
Two great books on Google
I recently read 2 great books about Google. I love to read books about the early days of companies.
Check out these two – they are both worth reading.
This is a great all-around Google book with details on different parts of the business. From what I can tell (I have skimmed others) – this seems like the best in-depth Google book.
This one is written from the perspective of a Google (Marketing) employee. Well written and a lot more on the personal level than In the Plex. You get stories at a really personal level from early in the life of Google. There are funny moments and stressful moments. Entertaining.
Gumption
A quote I find interesting from ZAMM.
Everyone’s just about out of gumption. And I think it’s about time to return to the rebuilding of this American resource—individual worth. There are political reactionaries who’ve been saying something close to this for years. I’m not one of them, but to the extent they’re talking about real individual worth and not just an excuse for giving more money to the rich, they’re right. We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance and old-fashioned gumption. We really do.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Tomorrow’s Trends will have a new owner
Hundreds of posts and several years since its inception, I have moved on from my blog: Tomorrow’s Trends. The last couple years have been a whirlwind as I worked on launching a major technology product and I have more in the que. I just have not had time to keep up with Tomorrow’s Trends for a while now. Other things took priority.
When I launched the blog many years ago, I meant for it to be an interesting place for people to find cutting edge business and technology items. Things that might not be covered heavily in major media – but were potentially world changing or simply interesting. I have had some success, as it was inducted into the Forbes network of blogs and also Alltop network of top blogs. It has been fun, but it is time for me to move on.
So, in order for me to move on and for the quality and quantity of posts to improve, I decided to find a new owner. It did not take long. For anyone who would like to keep track of me – you can always follow me at my personal blog (here) on Twitter, and on CrowdPlace.
So, enjoy Tomorrow’s Trends. I look forward to its progress in the future.
Is a lack of boredom hurting innovation?
Creativity often requires a single individual to have some solid uninterrupted time to themselves. With iPhones, iPads, laptops, and the ton of other devices distracting us from our thoughts we are possibly becoming less creative and less innovative.
Scott Adams noted in a recent WSJ article:
Lately I’ve started worrying that I’m not getting enough boredom in my life. If I’m watching TV, I can fast-forward through commercials. If I’m standing in line at the store, I can check email or play “Angry Birds.” When I run on the treadmill, I listen to my iPod while reading the closed captions on the TV. I’ve eliminated boredom from my life.
Exposure to a lot of diverse information and viewpoints is healthy for creativity, but so is taking time away from distractions. If the theory that more distractions decreases creativity is true – then society overall is becoming less creative as more devices distract us more often.
I think this may be one of the reasons I like the Kindle so much – when reading on this gadget there is no pop up to notify me of an email or Tweet – just me, a book, and my thoughts. Other activities, like running, may be good times for creativity if you can leave the MP3 player off. Unplug for more creativity. After the last couple years – I am going to be find some time to be less distracted this next year.
Virtual Subway Store
This is an interesting concept.
YouTube – Tesco Homeplus Virtual Subway Store in South Korea.
Optional: Business plans and market research
Inc. has a great article concerning the differences in thought processes between big corporate leaders and entrepreneurs.
Corporate leaders, dealing with known markets, and incremental innovation – are much more plan-focused and step through more solid, mathematical, logical process. Innovative entrepreneurs – working with a lot of unknowns in customers, markets, designs – and seeking ground-breaking innovation – seek immediacy and flexibility. Less time is invested in the academic exercises like market research and business plans – more time is invested in building stuff.
Sarasvathy likes to compare expert entrepreneurs to Iron Chefs: at their best when presented with an assortment of motley ingredients and challenged to whip up whatever dish expediency and imagination suggest. Corporate leaders, by contrast, decide they are going to make Swedish meatballs. They then proceed to shop, measure, mix, and cook Swedish meatballs in the most efficient, cost-effective manner possible.
That is not to say entrepreneurs don’t have goals, only that those goals are broad and—like luggage—may shift during flight. Rather than meticulously segment customers according to potential return, they itch to get to market as quickly and cheaply as possible, a principle Sarasvathy calls affordable loss. Repeatedly, the entrepreneurs in her study expressed impatience with anything that smacked of extensive planning, particularly traditional market research. (Inc.’s own research backs this up. One survey of Inc. 500 CEOs found that 60 percent had not written business plans before launching their companies. Just 12 percent had done market research.)
I'm Will, a Principal within the Innovation group of a Fortune 100 company. I am a corporate entrepreneur and Innovation expert.
