TQP 020: The Cloud and Our Future Part II

by | Dec 8, 2016 | The Question Podcast

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Very soon, 100% of our digital lives will be stored and monitored inside the cloud.

Anyone that has an iPhone is probably using or very tentatively using the fingerprint ID feature on the phone. Fingerprint ID technology is perhaps the most familiar biometric utility that we encounter. Apple has promised that your fingerprint information is encrypted, and will never be uploaded to their Cloud.

But aren’t you already inside their house when you activate the phone? And even the most benevolent and courteous landlords still have the only master key to the whole house, don’t they?

You may also know that biometric identification is currently being applied to a much wider list of body parts and activities. Facial recognition – Facebook has a facial recognition algorithm, and there’s lots of facial recognition in law enforcement. Retinal and iris scans. DNA verification. Voice recognition. Walking characteristics and gate analysis. Keyboard typing rhythm and mouse clicks.

All these biometric measures, including fingerprint ID, are currently in use, and are being actively catalogued in databases everywhere – from the FBI to Facebook.

There is a developing tech science called multimodal biometrics that seeks to correlate individual biometric characteristics like fingerprint, iris scans, and voice recognition into a much more complete virtual profile of a subject. This virtual profiling, using our biometric data, will become more possible as this information is steadily gathered, uploaded, and stored in The Cloud.

Utilization of this data will depend on how users like the FBI and Facebook choose to apply it, but it’s The Cloud that makes it possible.

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TQP 019: The Cloud and Our Future Part I

by | Dec 7, 2016 | The Question Podcast

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We love our personal technology. We love it in all its forms – desktop, handheld, mountable, wearable, drivable, virtual, and imaginable.

General technology is difficult to love. Just like a great cheeseburger is much easier to love than the greedy industrial food complex that made it possible. If general technology means the underlying technological foundations, the complex supporting infrastructure, the precisely engineered functionality, and the unbelievably intertwining operations that make our personal technology work, then it’s not surprising when we talk about general technology, the word “love” doesn’t immediately spring to mind. Like it’s often said, we generally don’t want to know how the sausage or burger is made.

We only love that our personal tech works, not how it works. Or even more importantly, not why it works. But “why?” is the question that takes us further down the path.

So, we can admit that we really don’t love everything about technology. But sit us down in front of a cheeseburger, the latest iPhone, the newest 4K Ultra HD TV, Oculus Rift virtual reality, Google Glass, or an autonomous vehicle, and we fall in love.

It may even be a condition worse than love, because our relationship with our personal tech resembles something closer to cult-like or dangerously addictive behavior.

In this episode of The Question podcast, you will hear highlights from Frederick Tamagi’s presentation on technology, The Cloud, and our future, as well as the music of Jonathan Ferguson.

Thank you for listening!

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