race you to the television.

"Think about this scenario: You see someone at a party you like; his social profile is immediately..."

jaimewoo — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:49:43 -0400

“Think about this scenario: You see someone at a party you like; his social profile is immediately projected onto your retina—great, a 92% match. By staring at him for two seconds, you trigger a pairing protocol. He knows you want to pair, because you are now glowing slightly red in his retina screen. Then you slide your tongue over your left incisor and press gently. This makes his left incisor tingle slightly. He responds by touching it. The pairing protocol is completed.”

- This is what happens when technologists “reimagine” flirting. Or, we could walk up and say hello and smile. :)

New technique reveals an invisible world

jaimewoo — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 14:54:18 -0500

New technique reveals an invisible world:

WOW. “Scientists Uncover Invisible Motion in Video” to show blood flow and pulse in faces. Really cool stuff.

Yes! The role of self-awareness in success: the lesson learned from Momofuku Noodle bar.

jaimewoo — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:50:28 -0500

Yes! The role of self-awareness in success: the lesson learned from Momofuku Noodle bar.

Watch out Scotland, American single malt whiskeys now playing for keeps. Looks like I have a new list of fun to try!

jaimewoo — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 12:38:30 -0500

Watch out Scotland, American single malt whiskeys now playing for keeps. Looks like I have a new list of fun to try!

Soap maker Method had been sold for $200M. An interesting look at the company's growth, er, methodology.

jaimewoo — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 11:52:44 -0500

Soap maker Method had been sold for $200M. An interesting look at the company's growth, er, methodology.

DNA and how we act: study discovers mouse behaviour, like digging escape tunnels, strongly influenced by DNA regions.

jaimewoo — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 16:23:50 -0500

DNA and how we act: study discovers mouse behaviour, like digging escape tunnels, strongly influenced by DNA regions.

Disney Infinity sneak peek

jaimewoo — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 13:59:58 -0500

Disney Infinity sneak peek:

Wow Polygon has the scoop on Disney Infinity and my interest is definitely piqued!

Ha, of course the season premiere of Girls features...

jaimewoo — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:21:23 -0500

Ha, of course the season premiere of Girls features Solange’s Losing You. Here’s a live version on Jimmy Fallon.

Manufacturing comes home

jaimewoo — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:11:12 -0500

Manufacturing comes home:

GE is betting $800M that outsourcing everything was a mistake. How innovation is coming home via insourcing.

Taylor Swift face.

jaimewoo — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 23:24:24 -0500

Taylor Swift face.

Xo in the office

jaimewoo — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 12:26:06 -0500

Xo in the office:

Women are 4.4 times likelier to use xo on Twitter than men. What’s the etiquette of using hugs and kisses in office email? http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-xo-factor/309174/

Amnesia and the Self That Remains When Memory Is Lost

jaimewoo — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:20:04 -0500

“We were students together at Stanford,” I continued. “We took a couple of psychology classes together.”

“Oh, yes, I have a degree in psychology.”

“We were in Professor Pribram’s class, and we worked in a lab together, Roger Shepard’s lab.”

“Who?”

“Roger Shepard. He had a music and perception lab.”

“Wow. That sounds like it must have been interesting. What did I work on there?”

“I don’t know. I guess … I guess I was absorbed in my own work. I’m really sorry.”

“That’s okay. Did I like being in the lab?”

“Yes, I think you did. I mean, you never complained. You always seemed pretty focused.”

“That’s good. I’d hate to think that I was doing something I didn’t enjoy.”

—From The Atlantic

The evolution of taxis through locative services

jaimewoo — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 18:59:00 -0400

On a recent trip to London, I fell ill. I received some treatment, but it has left me low energy and not yet able to walk far distances. I should be back in tip-top shape in no time, but for now, home in Toronto, I face a week of meetings and events that are complicated by my reduced mobility.

This isn’t a woe-is-me post. Luckily, during this time, Uber, the town car service you order directly from your smartphone, launched its taxi service and was giving away rides. If you’re unfamiliar with Uber: instead of hailing a car on the street, you summon a vehicle using either the app or SMS, and because your credit card is on file, there are no transactions. No fumbling for coins, no wondering if credit cards are accepted. The payment is automatically taken off the card, so once you arrive, you’re on your way, creating a very smooth user experience.

Using the locative services on smartphones was a natural evolution for cab service. Frankly, the old system was inefficient. Drivers used to circling around looking for passengers made for a poor use of time, let alone money given the cost of gasoline. For passengers, waiting at street corners only makes sense if there is a high-enough density of taxis available all across the city such as in Manhattan. In Toronto, although it has double the number of licensed drivers per capita than most cities, I’ve always felt there are dead zones as drivers tend to clump up. Overall, there was no coordination between drivers and passengers to maximize both of their time. (For more on this subject, Megan McArdle wrote a fantastic piece about the economic inefficiency of taxis over at the Atlantic.)

Using a smartphone app to coordinate driver and passenger made perfect sense and helped close some of that efficiency gap. Sure, previously passengers could call for a cab, but, in my experience, this mostly happened when people were leaving from a home, where they could wait out the cab’s arrival in comfort. This need for comfort was exacerbated by the vagueness of cab arrival times: always seemingly five to fifteen minutes. Now passengers using Uber (or other similar apps such as HailO, which I’ll discuss later) could watch the progress of their car en route. This made passengers more efficient with their commute, since they would be able to see how near or far taxis were and decide for themselves whether to choose an alternative option, such as walking or taking public transit.

(In a very similar way, locative services made meeting people more efficient, such as the gay social networking app Grindr, which is the subject of a book I’m working on. The specificity of location in real-time helped closed the efficiency gap between men seeking other men that occurred for online interactions. The proximity of men also helped nudge users of Grindr to meet more often, given the convenience going from online introduction to face-to-face introduction.)

One new ripple to the Uber story is the expansion into taxis. Part of this stems from competition from services like HailO (exclusively cabs, but contracted out similar to Uber) and Beck, which has built its own iPhone app.

Uber built its name on higher-end town car service with a promise of professionalism unseen in cabs. (Often, a town car would come equipped with bottled water and an assortment of newspapers and magazines.) The company has less control over the user experience with taxis, because different cab companies are contracted out the fares. Generally, my cab rides have been professional, comfortable, and friendly: all adjectives I align with Uber.

Sometimes, outliers exist however. My first Uber cab ride was a disaster: the driver wouldn’t meet me at my location, shouted loudly into the cell phone so that I couldn’t understand him, and the cab had a displeasing odour. Here’s where the smartphone app that hails cabs and town cars comes in handy: I was able to submit feedback about the driver and hopefully improve the service by sharing what I expect as a customer.

This feedback I think is extremely important and a missing part from the pre-existing cab experience. Taxis in Toronto generally do a good job, but everyone has stories of frustrations around rough driving or haphazard service. I don’t mean to align taxi drivers, who have a difficult job, especially having to deal with drunk jerks. Instead I want to highlight that there hasn’t been a lot of communication between passengers and drivers, leading to an overall worser experience than possible.

With the ability to provide instant feedback through services like Uber and HailO, passengers can elevate drivers that are calm, professional, and friendly, and improve those who aren’t. As a cyclist, I feel it’s important to let drivers know that I wish them to drive considerately—a fairly reasonable customer request. Those who exhibit aggressive behaviour toward cyclists will then be rated lower. The drivers benefit as well since higher rated drivers will get more rides and thus more income.

I’ve now had the chance to try both the Uber and HailO apps and they both work seamlessly. They both cost the same as a standard taxi ride, except for gratuities: Uber automatically tips 20%, while HailO allows a range from 15% to 25%. The big job for these companies now is to differentiate themselves: mostly this will be done by convenience and service.

The more cabs each company can sign on, the more availability the passengers will be able to access. It can get tricky: for example, Uber is giving away cab rides and during peak hours there aren’t enough cars for demand. This is understandable when the rides are free, but only the company with the smarter algorithm will be able to predict when demand will happen and place cars near enough.

Service will also become a big deal. Cars will become cleaner. Driving will become less aggressive. Interactions will become more professional. It only takes a few bad experiences to turn a customer off. Uber will have to be careful to keep the cab quality high as to not dilute its other services.

You may have noticed that I didn’t mention price. That’s because a price war between the two companies won’t be much benefit to them in the long-run. It would only work if one company were able to bankrupt the other through aggressive pricing. At the same time, as I mentioned in the beginning, these services will make the taxi-finding process more efficient and thus make drivers more money with greater number of rides and less wasted time and gasoline.

In a survey done by UBS comparing major cities [PDF], Toronto’s price for a five-kilometer ride around the inner-city ranked 33% above the average, $13.31 versus $10 USD. It ranked the 20th most expensive out of 72 cities. Chicago, by comparison, was $12.50, Montreal was $12.98, and New York, $8.50. One hopes a more efficient system will help lower fares as drivers make more money through greater efficiency. It would then truly be a case where a new technology helped create a win-win for everyone involved.

Cloud Atlas from the Wachowskis and the director of Run Lola...

jaimewoo — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:20:15 -0400

Cloud Atlas from the Wachowskis and the director of Run Lola Run looks like one of those films that will make no sense but be chock full of interesting parts. Chills:

An amazing share by Mare Sheppard—the architecture is too cool.

jaimewoo — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 13:48:45 -0400

An amazing share by Mare Sheppard—the architecture is too cool.

Thought this New Yorker piece on online fashion shop Yoox would amount to an insight, but doesn't—still worth a read

jaimewoo — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:57:08 -0400

Thought this New Yorker piece on online fashion shop Yoox would amount to an insight, but doesn't—still worth a read

Super TIME Force stills from the amazing trailer. (Tumblr only...

jaimewoo — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 23:55:00 -0400

Super TIME Force stills from the amazing trailer. (Tumblr only allows 10 shots, so here are the last two.)

TIME OUT! with Super TIME Force Trailer! from Capy! on Vimeo.

Some funny stuff here, including a few Canadian references, a couple of Capy inside jokes (like, Steak Lords), some videogame nods, and a lot of tongue in cheek. :)

"Bonnie Brooks, aka that woman you always hear on the radio talking about the Bay, is the guest judge..."

jaimewoo — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 19:38:43 -0400

“Bonnie Brooks, aka that woman you always hear on the radio talking about the Bay, is the guest judge for this week’s Project Runway. Cool!”

Sarah Polley won’t be doing interviews while her personal...

jaimewoo — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 19:04:00 -0400

Sarah Polley won’t be doing interviews while her personal documentary Stories We Tell is on the festival circuit. The film details her realization that her father was not her biological one. Even though journalists knew, they held quiet about the story. Love the key point here is that sometimes journalists giving an artist space — not pouncing on that 24-hour news cycle — can lead us to beautiful works.

I’ll take this Nella Bella bag, thanks.

jaimewoo — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 18:46:27 -0400

I’ll take this Nella Bella bag, thanks.