#massrefinement

The topic of this session is inspired by how our FB Newsfeeds are growing less diverse and how FB are tracking our activity on other sites – which in turn will make our input even more uniform. We believe this is a dangerous development. Our physical lives are often made up of relationships with people that are similar to us and our digital lives could be a very valuable counterweight to potential groupthink.

Instead we see that the similarities are overstated and the differences of opinion are hidden. It happens with our FB Newsfeed and our Google search results. This is especially evident and problematic during serious and tragic events like the ongoing conflict in Gaza. If we’re never exposed to different opinions and everything confirms what we believe, it’s not very strange if we think that everyone feels the same way we do. Then how will we react when we do meet someone who disagrees with us? Will we be able to have an open discussion, or will we shy away from conversation and brand them as deviants not worth our time?

This is why we want to talk about «The filter bubble and the problem of conformity» and our goal for the session is to come up with potential solutions and methods on how to avoid being stuck in a filter bubble.

To get you thinking we've collected some articles and talks we think are worth checking out:

Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles" (TED-talk):

This TED-talk is over three years old, but sadly it's still relevant.

«[…] And this moves us very quickly toward a world in which the Internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessarily what we need to see. As Eric Schmidt said, "It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them." So I do think this is a problem. And I think, if you take all of these filters together, you take all these algorithms, you get what I call a filter bubble. And your filter bubble is your own personal, unique universe of information that you live in online. And what's in your filter bubble depends on who you are, and it depends on what you do. But the thing is that you don't decide what gets in. And more importantly, you don't actually see what gets edited out. […]

But we really need you to make sure that these algorithms have encoded in them a sense of the public life, a sense of civic responsibility. We need you to make sure that they're transparent enough that we can see what the rules are that determine what gets through our filters. And we need you to give us some control so that we can decide what gets through and what doesn't. Because I think we really need the Internet to be that thing that we all dreamed of it being. We need it to connect us all together. We need it to introduce us to new ideas and new people and different perspectives. And it's not going to do that if it leaves us all isolated in a Web of one.»

Israel, Gaza, War & Data: Social Networks and the Art of Personalizing Propaganda

If you don't have time to read the whole article, you should definitely try this experiment:

«Facebook's trending pages aggregate content that are heavily shared ("trending") across the platform. If you're already logged into Facebook, you'll see a personalized view of the trend, highlighting your friends and their views on the trend. Give it a try.

Now open a separate browser window in incognito mode (Chrome: File->New Incognito Window) and navigate to the same page [copy-paste this: https://www.facebook.com/topic/Gaza/107601032603195]. Since the browser has no idea who you are on Facebook, you'll get the raw, unpersonalized feed.

How are the two different?»

Sweeping Away a Search History

This article from The New York Times gives you some handy tips on how to erase your search history which will, if not pop your filter bubble, at least give you some more space.

«Even with your history turned off, though, you are still sending a lot of personal data when you surf or search from all three, especially if you are logged in to your Google, Microsoft or Yahoo account when you search.

Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive at the alternative search engine DuckDuckGo, says there is a different way, and it can still involve making money from search-related ads.

DuckDuckGo collects no personally identifying information (like your I.P. address) as you search and doesn’t save any search history that can be tied to you. But DuckDuckGo still makes money on ads.»

Check out DuckDuckGo's explanation of the filter bubble at dontbubble.us

Tim Berners-Lee: A Magna Carta for the web (TED-talk):

«What sort of web do you want? I want one which is not fragmented into lots of pieces, as some countries have been suggesting they should do in reaction to recent surveillance. I want a web which has got, for example, is a really good basis for democracy. I want a web where I can use healthcare with privacy and where there's a lot of health data, clinical data is available to scientists to do research. I want a web where the other 60 percent get on board as fast as possible. I want a web which is such a powerful basis for innovation that when something nasty happens, some disaster strikes, that we can respond by building stuff to respond to it very quickly.

So this is just some of the things that I want, from a big list, obviously it's longer. You have your list. I want us to use this 25th anniversary to think about what sort of a web we want. You can go to webat25.org and find some links. There are lots of sites where people have started to put together a Magna Carta, a bill of rights for the web. How about we do that? How about we decide, these are, in a way, becoming fundamental rights, the right to communicate with whom I want. What would be on your list for that Magna Carta? Let's crowdsource a Magna Carta for the web. Let's do that this year. Let's use the energy from the 25th anniversary to crowdsource a Magna Carta to the web. Thank you. And do me a favor, will you? Fight for it for me. Okay? Thanks.»

– Tim Berners-Lee

Inspired? Take action and join Tim Berners-Lee's campaign The Web We Want

Hope you all had a great summer, we certainly did! And now it's back to work.

Before the vacation we talked a bit about doing a series of MassRefinements on life hacks, but we weren't quite feeling it. So we discussed a bit and came up with a topic we find very relevant. And it sort of involves life hacking. The topic for MassRefinement #13 is:

The filter bubble and the problem of conformity

In short, our goal for this session is that we come up with solutions and methods that can help us avoid getting stuck in a filter bubble on a personal level, as well as avoid conformity and group think in our society.

To get you inspired beforehand we will share our research and thoughts here and on facebook.

So add MassRefinement #13 to your calendars, we're looking forward to it!

Wednesday, Aug. 27th  at 18:30

The Bachelor days are over and our focus can shift back from thesis to MassRefinements once again. We've started to plan for autumn and have some MassRefinements in mind, but we would love for you to share desired topics.

We’re also changing venue. Emma Lisa and Maren will host us at their space which is called Sørfløyen. It’s a very nice place, smaller and more informal, and with the perfect atmosphere for discussing and sharing ideas.

Sørfløyen is a open venue where you can host events, happenings, exhibitions, pop-up concepts etc for FREE. Just follow them on Facebook and shoot them a message if you're interested. 

We will keep you posted about the dates and topics for autumn's MassRefinement. Meanwhile you can follow us on Facebook to get some inspiration. 

Next week we will continue to talk about The Internet of Things (since there's so much to talk about …), but this time with the following in mind:

How can we make every day situations here in Oslo more effective, easier or fun with a bit of connectivity?

Join the Facebook event here.

We will be posting more inspiration on our Facebook page under #InspirationMassRefinement12, but here you have it all in one place (since Facebook only shows recent hashtags):

Connected devices and kids are hot it seems, here's a company who aims to help you all the way from conception to parenting. But the most awesome part is that it looks like they have an open design approach and will release meshes of the cases so you can 3D print your own.

What would you do with a programmable t-shirt? Make awesome flash mobs or does it have a more useful potential?

A warning system to alert bus drivers when cyclists are close to their vehicle is to be trialled in York. What other ways can you think of to use this technology? 

Smart way to observe vital signs of kids in hospital: "Teddy the Guardian is a plush bear with embedded certified medical sensors that measure child’s heart rate, oxygen saturation, and body temperature seamlessly during the play, capture and send the data using wireless technologies to pediatrician’s app." And here's a version for the worried parents. Would you want to track your child's vital signs or would it make you worry more?

Connected devices can be quite simple. Here's an example of how traffic lights can be used to make more positive interactions between strangers in a city. What other ways can objects in a city create positive experiences for people by being connected?

The Smart Citizen project wants to empower communities to collect data of what's actually happening in their environment. Their open source kit (successfully funded) let's you participate in the deployment of a crowdsourced, interactive, worldwide environmental database—the largest to date. Pretty exciting! What use would you put all this data to?

And here's the #InspirationMassRefinement11 list:

In August 2013 Cooking Hacks launched the new version of the first biometric shield for Arduino and Raspberry Pi: the e-Health Sensor Platform V2.0. The information it collects can be used to monitor in real time the state of a patient or to get sensitive data in order to be subsequently analysed for medical diagnosis. Biometric information gathered can be sent wirelessly.

"If you have more than one Protect, they’ll all speak and let you know which one has the problem. Smoke in the bedroom? You’ll be told in the living room. The units communicate over Wi-Fi, as well as a secondary low-power RF system in case your network goes down. You can check status and get notifications from the completely rebuilt Nest app for the thermostat and Protect on Android and iOS devices, and in emergencies the app will display a What To Do screen with recommended actions and an emergency phone button." … "If you have a Nest thermostat, it’ll use the activity and motion sensors in the Protect to more accurately program when it automatically turns your heat and AC on and off — a boon for people who work at home. And if the Protect senses a carbon monoxide problem, it’ll instruct the thermostat to shut off your furnace."

"The main goal of the Radiation Sensor Board for Arduino was to help people in Japan measure levels of radiation in their everyday life after the Fukushima disaster. Libelium wanted to give citizens the opportunity to monitor these levels by themselves instead of relying on local authorities. The design of the board was open hardware and the source code was released under general public license (GPL)."

"Lockitron. Even the name inspires a feeling of security. Security administered by giant Japanese robots, perhaps, but security nonetheless. Lockitron is a door lock that you can unlock with your cellphone."

"Automate daily routines, like turning on appliances at set times, or use the service's GPS proximity and sensor triggers to automatically activate your devices. Revolv knows when you're close to your home because it tracks your geo-radius to the house. But, for once, being tracked may actually help you: You can program relaxing music to play before you step through the door — or set the oven to pre-heat so you can get a jump-start on dinner."

"Your Nymi lets you use your unique cardiac rhythm to authenticate your identity, allowing you to wirelessly take control of your computer, your smartphone, your car and so much more. As you wake up know that wherever you go the Nymi will be interacting with your devices, creating a smart, password and key-free environment. The Nymi will also have customizable notifications. If you’re the kind of person who likes to be connected to their emails, texts and social updates, you’ll never be behind with the Nymi."

"...the amazing potential of an identity-powered, personalized ecosystem is what will push our connected devices to talk to each other."

In the near future things will talk to the internet and the internet will talk back. It has already begun. Just take a look at Kickstarter and you find a bunch of projects where smart objects does something smart, utilizing sensors and a web connection. Commercialized products like Nest Thermostat and Protect are just scratching the surface of a world where things talk with things and people talk with things.

We are slowly adapting, making more and more smart things, but with Helen Duce's word about the adoption of RFID technology in mind:

"We have a clear vision – to create a world where every object - from jumbo jets to sewing needles – is linked to the Internet. Compelling as this vision is, it is only achievable if this system is adopted by everyone everywhere. Success will be nothing less than global adoption."

We believe that the true power of internet of things is more likely unleashed if we develop a universal communication system. Today's gadgets are a worst case example, with their closed systems, iOS, Android, Windows and so on. The way HTML has been developed and become the standard of websites is on the other hand a good model.

Anyways, there are some great opportunities:

Using your phone as a hub/gateway - where you can control what things you connect with and not. What if each individual hosts their own things in their own cloud?

Quantified eating and drinking. What about glasses, bottles, plates, forks etc, that register what you eat and drink (as well as how much), saves it to an online account and gives you feedback on your diet. Connected to a biometric tracker the feedback could be based on what your body actually needs and what you should avoid to make you more healthy.

Sports- and activity trackers are hot. But they still don't nudge you to get up and walk … As we know, the hardest thing isn't to exercise, it's to get out the door.

Advertising where billboards, and other media channels, are tailored to the person watching it.

Smart homes that monitor heat, light, air quality, dust etc … and notifies you and adjusts your heater, lights, air cleaner and starts the vacuum cleaner and so on.

Find the coolest club based on noise, heat cameras, sensors in the dance floor or other relevant data.

What is your dream situation? If you could decide what the focus would be, what would be the coolest/most useful way to make use of this technology? Join us at the MassRefinement on The Internet of Things and share your ideas and thoughts. It's gonna be fun!

Where & when: Wednesday, October 16, 2013, 18:00 - 21:30 At 657, Fredensborgveien 24D, 0177 Oslo, Norway

On Sept. 19th FabLab Oslo/Fellesverkstedet and a bunch of awesome peeps joined us for a MassRefinement on how to make a successful FabLab here in Oslo. It was a great session!

The situation:

FabLab/Fellesverkstedet have funding to set up shop, they have people who want to use it, but they don't have a steady revenue stream to run the shop. Since they want to let people use it for free.

Giving something away for free isn't easy. Our challenge was to come up with ideas that would solve this. But as one of the participants said, the simplest way would be to charge people in the beginning. When the organization makes enough profit, then they can start offering access for free.

For example, it could be something like this: There could be different prices, depending on what you need to do at Fellesverkstedet or the FabLab. Maybe you only need to 3D-print a small part. Okay, that would be 40 kroner. Or maybe you want to hang out the whole day and work on all kinds of stuff, that's 350 kroner. But what about a membership. Like a gym membership? You pay a monthly fee and can spend as much time as you want at Fellesverkstedet and the FabLab.

After a while when business is thriving you could experiment with different concepts where it's free to use the shop at certain occasions  Like Tuesday Night Hacking or Kids' Saturday where people can use the FabLab and Fellesverkstedet for free.

BUT

Since FabLabs philosophy is built on giving it away for free this is not an option. So we looked on different ways to make money without charging the regular users of the FabLab.

1) Pick and invite companies to a membership with a yearly fee:

The companies should have an interest in innovation and production. They could be private, like an architecture firm, or public, like a university. By paying a sum a year, they get a certain amount of time their employees can spend at the FabLab/Fellesverkstedet – to test things out, get inspired, as team building activities or learn from the people who use the lab on a daily basis.

2) Get paid by the government, not funded:

People who are unemployed, on long term sick leave, kids who quit school … they all have one thing in common – they often lack meaningful activity to fill their days. And the longer you're away from work/school, the more difficult it is to get back. So we think the FabLab/Fellesverkstedet could be the perfect place for people who want to do something, but aren't ready for a full time occupation. And we think a collaboration with NAV could be very fruitful. FabLab/Fellesverkstedet gets people who'd like to work, NAV pays for their salary and the people in question gets something to put on their CV and get to learn new skills. It's a win-win-win!

3) Courses

A third way for FabLab/Fellesverkstedet to make an income is to let people use the facilities to hold courses. For example, one of the users might like to teach a class in upholstery. This person organizes, teaches and gets paid, while FabLab/Fellesverkstedet receives a certain percentage/fixed fee as rent.

These three ideas have one thing in common, and that is that for it to work, FabLab/Fellesverkstedet has to be a kickass product that they can sell.

That means that they have to create a culture of sharing and learning, a social environment, an organized and professional lab/workshop, plenty of engaged users and so on. We know that they are on the right track to making this happen, so we'll just share some ideas that can increase FabLab/Fellesverkstedet's reputation and credibility:

Documentation & inspiration

All users of a FabLab are required to share their learnings with the rest of the community. The FabLab could organize documentation into books and wikis that companies etc could pay to get access to. The FabLab could also prepare lectures they can hold for organizations and companies who would like inspiration and input.

Showroom/gallery

FabLab/Fellesverkstedet could use part of their space to host a showroom for the products that their users make and maybe take a small fee for every sale. They could also rent the space out to a coffee shop to create a social environment in addition to get more income.

TV show

A workshop like this is the perfect setting for interesting television. A TV show could spread FabLab/Fellesverkstedet's philosophy and make them well known to the public who might not otherwise hear about them. In addition it's a possibility to make money, either from the channel or from advertising (for example from tool manufacturers).

Start up help

The FabLab/Fellesverkstedet could also offer start up help. Like a mini "Innovasjon Norge" without the bureaucracy and paper work. They could offer entrepreneurs free access to make prototypes etc in exchange for money/favors etc in the future (if the make it).

So this was just a selection of the ideas that surfaced during this evening. A big thanks to the participants for sharing your thoughts and energy!

If anyone has any input, do share them with us. And don't forget to subscribe to the FabLab/Fellesverkstedets newsletter if you'd like to be kept in the loop.

At the next MassRefinement we will explore ideas and thoughts around making a successful FabLab here in Oslo.

Fabrication laboratories, known as FabLabs, are popping up all around the globe. FabLabs are a place where people with ideas can come to build and manufacture their projects using workshops with many different tools – like laser cutters, 3D printers, CNC machines and so on. The knowledge needed to operate this equipment is also provided, and all of it is free to use.

There are three main topics that we think are essential to make a successfull and thriving FabLab in Oslo:

Creating a community driven environment. The FabLab should have a welcoming environment that people feel comfortable using and encourage sharing and collaboration.

Lowering the threshold for people that don't know much about turning zeros and ones into atoms. Most of us don't know much about designing and fabricating things. A FabLab should embrace the newbies, encourage them to explore and learn new things, as well as helping them out along the way. Gateway drugs projects of all types should be freely available at the FabLab and beyond.

Alternate ways of running and funding the shop. Obviously the FabLab won't run itself, it needs people and funds to keep moving. This FabLab in particular will join forces with Fellesverkstedet which will provide more traditional equipment and machines in addition. We think this collaboration will be a strength to both projects, and that there might be other collaborations which could be mutually beneficial.

So let's dig into it and find some ideas on how to make FabLab Oslo a desired place to hang out, explore and work on your projects.

Designer Jens Dyvik will hold an introduction about Fab Lab Oslo, and we will all discuss and share our ideas.

Tuesday, May 21st we got together with Thuy, Mikkel and Elvis to talk about the future of toys. It was a lot of fun and in our opinion the ideas we came up with meet the criteria we set beforehand.

Fun. 

Versatile. 

Spark the imagination. 

Contribute to development/be educational.

Take a look and tell us what you think! Do you have an idea for a future toy? You're welcome to share on our Facebook page.

Go outside! We'd like to encourage kids to explore the real world more, to be more curious of their surroundings. To do that we need to get them early, while they're still curious. Kids now a days have so many virtual/digital options that are much more exciting than the real world. And this situation is very comfortable for the parents as well, since the real world is much more unsafe than the interactive game world. There's no reason to believe that this development will stop, but we have an idea that can combine the fantasy and safety of the digital world, and at the same time encourage kids to get out and explore more in the real world.

Teddy 2.0

What sparked this idea was the thought of "SIRI inside". Inside a teddy bear. Sounds kind of sad, but think about how much affection and loyalty you had for your favorite stuffed animal as a kid? Didn't you imagine it with a personality and speech, and wasn't this toy your very best ally in the world? Wouldn't it have been awesome if your teddy could have been more active when you two went on adventures together?

The idea is as follows: Combine classic, loveable stuffed toys with digital wonders including powerful voice recognition, GPS and a database of stories and missions. The parents control the functions. They define the area, location and time of all missions. They can pick the storylines/missions that they think their kid will respond to the most, and also upload new missions. They can also pre-approve missions so that the child can initiate adventures on its own.

So, for example, if a kid is skeptical to the little forest close by, the parents could trigger the toy to suggest that they went on a little adventure in the forest to look for squirrels. And it could give different assignments that would give different badges. Like "find a pine nut that a squirrel has nibbled on" or "take a picture of a squirrel". The toy could have camera and a touch screen incorporated so the child could google things, look at maps, video chat with the parents … Basically be alone and adventurous  but at the same time safe and accessible.

Physical Smartgames Another way to encourage more outdoor activity is to make a new kind of playground, more suited to engage older kids as well. They could be more like outdoor arcades, kind of like what you find at technical museums. We think playground equipment that combines problemsolving and physics challenges is something that would inspire kids to go out and meet their friends, and continue to do so when they get older. Of course if it could spark an interest in science as well, that wouldn't be a disadvantage!

Be creative! Playing with Lego is something we look back upon with longing eyes. Therefore we talked a lot about how to do stuff with Lego to enhance the experience. 

Lego Rewards A community where you can share your creations and get rewarded based on difficulty, complexity and creativity. You share your creation with a smart phone application that scan the building and recognizes the Lego pieces used, based on that you get rewarded. People can also explore other peoples or friends creations to get inspired to build new stuff as well as praising the builder. Of course there should be some kind of level system, where you start out as a novice and progresses onto become a master builder. Lego Missions Lego Rewards could easily expand and become a real game, but with a twist; you have to build stuff with Lego to progress in the game. First you buy your regular Lego kit, build it and scan it with the smart phone app/Xbox Kinect or what not and the story begins. E.g. the car crashed and now certain pieces are missing. Your mission is to make something new out of the pieces you have left to continue to … (new storyline). When you finish you scan and upload again, and get a new score and a new mission.

It's social, fun storytelling, and it gets kids to use Lego the way it used to be used once again. More creative.

Lego XXL With Technic Lego and Mindstorm you can build almost anything. Wouldn't it be cool if you could build these in real size? Of course, everything that's small and becomes big are ten thousand times cooler. So let's just make Technic Lego in human size, then we can build stuff we can actually use. Like for example building a gocart or a crane or a human sized robot...

This commercial  gives us the right feeling …

Combine and compete Competing against friends makes everything more interesting. So we thought about some games that were based on dueling, but with the bonus of being educational as well as encouraging exploration and experimenting.

Spell War Everyone dreams of wielding their own wand, cast spells and do magic of all kinds. What if you could? With the SpellCaster mobile app you get your own wand that obey your orders and cast spells based on your skills.

Imagine you're attending Hogwarts, or some other wizard school, and have to learn lots of different spells. You have a spell book, but you have to learn it by heart. As you go through the book you progress into a powerful wizard. Along the way you test your skills and duel your friends. When you practice or duel you use your phone as a wand. Holding and pointing it infront of you. You have to move the phone in a certain way as well as yelling out your magic words to cast the spell. To cast more powerful spells you combine different spells to make an endless range of spells. 

The fun thing about this is that it leaves room for the imagination. You and your friends make up the story, the goal of the game and the rules beyond the spells.

Robot duels

Programming is fun and kind of like a game, at least if you make it into a game. What about easy programmable robots? Which you have to program to fight your friends robot. Turnbased, each round performes one action. So you have to program based on what your opponent does. When you start the duel you could also add some conditional statements. Eg:

if (hit) {    launchShield() )

A round of robot dueling would look something like this:

Player 1:

for (int i = 5; i > 0; i++) {

   raiseLeftArm();

   moveLeftArmForward(10);

   moveLeftArmBackward();

}

Player 2:

while (beingHit) {

   bringBothArmsUp();

   counterAttack();

}