“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” – Abraham Maslow, American Professor of Psychology who created Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

It’s no secret that technology is advancing at a rate seemingly faster than we can adjust. Even so, often times we do dive in headfirst to the next big thing, whether it is a device, an app or the technology behind the app and we focus on that as Maslow’s hammer. And everything else becomes a shiny nail.

This concept is exemplified with the Apple integration of Siri in the iOS5. Virtually overnight there was a demand for voice-recognition across products and applications. From phones to TVs, to cars, to homes. We experienced a similar phenomenon and demand for gesture-based controls after the late 2010 launch of Kinect.

There certainly is a real place and benefit for each technology and it is no different with input methods. Be it typing, touch, voice, gesture, visual recognition, and all the way up to – someday – brainwaves, the best application of each will always need to consider the target user, the location and the social context.

User behavior in general has been changing with technology. Take mobile phones for example. Nielsen reports a peak of Average Monthly Voice Calls [1][2] per subscriber up until the first half of 2007, decreasing after that. On the other hand, Average Text Messages have increased continually.

And even though we know that within certain age groups texting has always had the lead, the decline in voice calls has been consistent across all user groups. And we used to believe that phones were made for calls.

But it wasn’t user behavior with phones alone that drove that change. “Mobile” implies that our location changes constantly. Sometimes we are in a private place, but very often we are in public, and our behavior is affected by it, based on our own perception of the need for privacy.

This perception of how private an interaction with a device is has a direct correlation to how close physically, we interact with that device.

People feel more comfortable letting someone use their tablet/iPad than their phone. Even more so if it’s a desktop, or TV. Because the closer it is held, the more we think its part of us.

You may have noticed that Siri’s advertisement portrays very personal interactions with it. And it truly feels that way, even though in public places we won’t use it for private matters. But that is not a problem for the iPhone. There is ‘touch’ for that.

The comfort level that we have in using different input methods is a direct result of the comfort level we have in sharing – or not sharing – those interactions with others. Touch and typing are private interactions, while voice and gesture are more of a public nature. It’s text vs. voice call. Both have their optimal – and not so optimal – application.

This takes us to the last consideration: social context, as looking only to the target user and location may not be enough.

I recently heard about a project involving voice-activated faucets in public restrooms. It was an exciting use of this technology that allowed you to turn the faucet on, off and change the water temperature via voice recognition.

It looked like the perfect hammer and a welcome advancement in an environment where avoiding contact as much as possible is a plus.

What wasn’t welcomed however was having another patron enter the restroom just in time to hear you say: “Hot! Hot! Hot!”

With the Brazilian economy growing, even through the recent worldwide recession, and the IT industry thriving with a large internal market and a growing prospect on exports, Brazil is being recognized more and more as an important opportunity for companies looking to expand their pool of providers or change to a Nearshore model that heavily benefits daily talks without timezone’s constraints.

With the invention of the phonograph and advances in recording and distribution technologies, Recording companies became the largest force in this industry since the 20th century.

But the sheet music market isn’t dead and annual sales’ estimates are over USD$2 bi.

Those who had studied music knows that you’ll acquire a considerable number of scores, that will only increase if you pursue a professional career.

The first attempt at ‘modernizing’ this industry presented desktop software solutions for editing and digitally distributing sheet music. But it hasn’t been that easy to take a computer – or even just a screen – to public performances such as those made by an orchestra.

In 2010, the iPad launch brought new life to this attempt with various apps being developed to display scores on the iPad – many using plain PDFs as a way to make it easy to distribute digitized sheet music.

Even so, a centenary problem would still be an inconvenience: turning the page. Be it paper, or a digital one.

Tonara is trying to solve this problem with an app for the iPad released in September, hoping to be a strong ally to musicians during a performance. And sell scores.

The technology implemented in this app follows the music being played and turn the page at the right moment. It doesn’t matter if the player increases or decreases the tempo. As long as – most of – the right notes are hit.

With an initial investment of USD $750k, Tonara has been able to develop a technology that follows a specific instrument even when others are being played simultaneously at the same place. Each iPad could be able then to follow a specific score, based on the instrument they are following. The app (available on the App Store) have a few free scores and access to an online store to increase your collection.

Considering that the Book Publishing market has been changing based on an increasing number of self-publishing authors and On-demand Publishing, Tonara’s store could be an opportunity to expand into a self-publishing platform for independent composers. Given that composers earn today in royalties around 10% of the printed list price, having the right platform and a powerful viewer tool (app) could be a good positioning for this company.

I’ve performed a quick test of the app using one of the available scores and the results were quite good, following me play through various changes of tempo and full stops. At times though the app would seem to be carried away for a few seconds until finding its place again. A few tweaks for what is already a great technology.

In 2009, Jack Dorsey (from Twitter) started to work in a new project after hearing that a friend was unable to complete a sale because couldn’t accept credit card as payment. In May 2010 he launched Square.

Square is a service that allows anyone to receive credit card payments. Without having a business or a merchant account. Imagine various freelancers, small business and everyone taking credit card. Square has a great market potential.

Earlier this year I’ve joined the service. You can just download the app (iOS or Android) and receive the card reader at home.

And that was the first innovation. The reader can get the data from the magnetic strip and transfer it to the phone throught the mic input. A simple reader, an accessible service.

Business Model? Square charges a 2.75% fee per transaction. In the United States, merchants pay a transaction fee between 0.50% and 2.25% plus monthly fees. And you have to go through the merchant account option, which may not justify the cost specially with an alternative now.

But Square didn’t stop to innovate after that. This past May (2011) they’ve launched the Card Case app for consumers, where you can register your credit card and use the app to make payments in places (Merchants) that already work with Square. It’s paying by credit card, without the card. Without even requiring the Square card reader.

As new business models appear and get traction faster than ever, it’s important to face the risk known as the Innovator Dilemma, where it lay out the great risk for a company to keep it doing business as usual even when identifying a new opportunity that may kill it’s own business.

When you hear about innovation in the payments’ field, the subject most talked about is NFC (Near Field Communication) where a chip is added to the phone (or into some credit cards) that allows it to exchange information with a reader just by getting close to it (a few inches). Google is one company betting on NFC in Android phones to be used as a payment system: Google Wallet.

So instead of taking the credit card from the pocket (and the wallet), you’d just need to take the phone from your pocket and use it to pay.

But why should we imitate the process of taking the credit card from the wallet, just swapping it for a phone, when we could just leave it where it is? Square presented this past week a new functionality in the Card Case app for Geo-referenced payments. By joining the service and opening a tab in a particular store/restaurante, when it’s time to pay I just tell my name to the cashier. My info will show up, with my picture. And the payment is processed.

As I have the phone with me, Square can validate that I’m near the store (GPS) and the cashier – through my picture – can confirm that I’m the same person. To add to the security, I receive a message on my phone right away that the payment has been done. Everything without taking my phone (or credit card) out. At this point, the purchase doesn’t feel it cost anything. And that is the greatest danger of such innovation.

The best technology won’t be the one with the most Acronyms or features but the one that is transparent to us. Completely weaved in our lives. So intuitive and simple. And this simplicity can change an entire industry.

Since Qwiki was announced last year, it’s been constantly gaining momentum and media-share. As most describe it, it’s a “Visual Wikipedia” or “Information Experience” as the company defines it.

I’ve had different views on it since they first announced it – and today I wouldn’t be surprised if the Qwiki website feels like smoke and mirrors to you. It does to me – and it maybe intentional: so that they can improve the underlying technology.

Now – what technology?
I hope their main technology is not putting images and video together in a slide show but really the information curation process.

How do you select the best piece of information from a large source?
After looking through a few subjects I believe they use something close to this to classify what to show from a Wikipedia article:
- First (one or few) paragraphs
- First sentences under sections mentioning something like “History”
- Sentences that have the most proper names and/or dates.
- Pieces of content that from Wikipedia that seem to be replicated a lot in other places

In a sense, Qwiki could have created for Content what Google’s PageRank was for indexing relevant Pages.

Take for example, a look at the Time’s qwiki: http://www.qwiki.com/q/#!/Time
- It will read the first paragraph from Wikipedia;
- Then the last paragraph of the introduction as it’s the next phrase with the most number of other people’s name;
- Then it reads something that seems totally out of place, but is part of the book of Ecclesiastes – which is highly replicated in other websites making Qwiki think it’s very relevant for the topic.

Now, where could they take this beyond a “Wikipedia Slideshow”?

IF (and a big IF) their technology is capable of:
- Content Summarization: semantic analysis, classification and relevance(ranking) identification
- Two-way Speech: recognizing voice commands and interaction
- Geo-contextualization: transform the content analysis based on your location

then they have great applications…

Examples:
- integrated in car systems: if you ask about the Empire State Building, it won’t start saying that it’s a landmark in New York if you are already in New York, but would give you some basic info/history, how to get there and perhaps opening/visitation times. Now, if you are NOT in NY, then it would explain a little bit more about it and not give you visitation times if you are very far from there.

- home systems: when you wake up, it’s able to tell you that you need to leave 10 minutes earlier today because traffic will take you 5 minutes more, and you’ve got 20% more emails than the average that you’ll probably want to read before heading into that 9AM meeting…

And there are many more applications of similar technology. So I really hope the current Wikipedia-driven slideshow is smoke and mirrors to perfect this algorithm through crowdsourcing. Many people looking through subjects they are interested on and providing feedback into how relevant the summarization was.

Now, if they focus only as a “wikipedia-replacement” to be used at home/work planning to include ads in it later, that’s passive consumption and they use to call that TV.

I guess this is very similar to the process of writing. In creating a writing habit, more than discipline, you need different topics to write about – so everything around you is a potential topic.

The date now is July 4th, 2009.

Invited by a friend to watch the fireworks in NYC, it was were the first idea for Marching Bells came to me.

I know that music, as other forms of art, is interpreted differently by every one who experience it. So I’d suggest you to listen to it and get your first impression before I write the details, or what I should call: the “Composer’s Cut”

The main line (melody) was what I had that day. The full arrangement was put together 2 days later, on July 6th.

Now if you focus only on the main melody, those are the fireworks I saw – and heard – that day. In slow motion. And expressed in music notation.

Inspiration can come from different places, people, situation or words. We just need to listen more.

Feel free to download and distribute!

Marching Bells by Lucas Persona is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Each one seems to have followed a different path. Some were created over a long period of time. Others came to me at once.

Park Sonata is my first attempt at composing – partially because I didn’t want to follow something that was ready, as well as I was intrigued to explore this possibility of creating.

A sleepless night in May-2009 was what triggered the first few notes of it. And I’ve kept playing the first part of it as in a continuous cycle that night to relax.
The rest of the song came a few days later.

This song is literally, a walk in the park.
Unpretentious at first but increasingly involved in that atmosphere. Until it fades. And peacefully ends – just like another day in the park.

Feel free to download and distribute!

Park Sonata by Lucas Persona is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

And a new update to my site (www.lucaspersona.com.br) which now includes an English section (www.lucaspersona.com) has been part of many new year’s resolutions.

But there was always something to improve before a launch. A small detail, a new technology, another tool. It had to be perfect!

Really?

One of the key barriers that each person has related to delivering – be it at work, at home, a personal project or social interactions – is the idea that it needs to be perfect to be worthy.

Great painters have hundreds of works – and a few masterpieces. Architects, musicians, entrepreneurs and technicians are the same. One way to create a masterpiece is to increase production and delivery. To make the process of delivering something constant and confortable.

And after a long recess in delivering, today I finally launch a new version. Maybe it’s not perfect – but it’s delivered.

From all resolutions you’ve made this new year, which can you deliver today?

As a scuba diver (PDIC Advanced OpenWater + Nitrox + Rec Trimix) since 2004 I’m still discovering little by little this new world.

And every discovery needs to be registered. To keep the emotion alive and stronger.

This site will allow me to share some of these moments with others. Be it to encourage, or simply open a small window to this world hidden by waters. Vibrant and unique!

In the beginning of 2009 after years without a constant piano practice, the frustration of not having the same agility in reading music as before led me to a key question: how to play without having to reproduce/follow a music?

The best way is to create. A new music has the liberty of not following an original score. Interpretation is also free at this moment. You just need an inspiration.

The main objective of this area in the site is to publish my experiences in this fascinating process of composing. To me, a discovery.