Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

#Innovator Summit -- Keynote from @ChrisDancy

Just a suggestion. My comments can be a search term for more information on the subjects I mention.

I got into the registration line with Chris Dancy and got a first hand look at his iPhone apps connected to his very obvious Google glasses. Very interesting. They had us all in a large conference room with tables and lunch for all of the attendees. Box lunches. OK, back to Chris Dancy, he is known as the world's most connected human. From a very short conversation, I can say that the reputation is probably true. The idea here at the Innovator Summit is that FamilySearch is open for business to help people find their ancestors. Story by Ben Bennett about his search for his grandmother.

Andrew Fox, head of design, findmypast.com
Moving to a single platform so that all their users can access the same information from all of the databases. One centralized server. Single platform. They want to partner with more entitles to make more records available.

Meantime, I ended up on Chris Dancy's Google glasses recording out there on the Internet somewhere.

Andrew outlines a capture app for smartphones that will  allow users to capture memories from relatives and add them to a family tree profile. It appears that integration is the goal.

Chris Dancy, BMC Software
Brief video clip about Chris. I believe this is online and I viewed part of it previously. Slide on Facebook for the Dead. He comments that he is covered in Electronics. He talks about what it means to be immortal. Boston University study on immortality. Egyptian Book of the Dead was created for the living. Is immortality confined to what is preserved about an individual during life? People are dying all the time. Culturally we have traditions concerning death and now we are moving into a concept of digital preservation. Digitally it is really hard to die. How do we treat people who have passed away online. Bringing people back digitally from the dead. What does it mean to die today? Now you can have Tweeji, to tweet dead people. The dead's Facebook accounts are kept open. CG recreations of people who have died. There is now an indistinct difference between the living and the dead when websites and Facebook pages for people with tragic deaths.

Amanda @TrappedAtMyDesk is an example of the type of website where people are preserved after death as if the person was still there. Historical Identity can become a digital identity. The Internet of Things. Gero Lab. Deathswitch.com, The Tweet Hereafter, Last words from IfIDie. These are services that will send your last words to whomever you choose. Books Your Digital Afterlife and Digital Archeology. Dancy is totally connected. Is this good?  Maslow's Quantified Digital Self. "The machine is a tool. But it is not a neutral tool". Jacques Ellul What happens when there are more digitally dead people than those who are digitally alive. When you touch a system, you are probably touching a system that is recorded. Minimum Viable Human. Existence as a Platform. Joshua Topolsky said "When you're connected you are connected to everything." Automatic Personal Data Capture. Google word2vec and Stanford Sentiment Analysis. {A} API Commons. Eterni.me, Human API Projects. Humanity as a Platform. Black Mirror. What we tend to keep is flattering. There will be a lot of dead people on RootsTech. There is no more exciting time to be alive of dead.

A very thought provoking presentation. Perhaps a glimpse into all our futures.

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