Original photo by trialsanderrors
OK, I admit it; we’ve kind of backed ourselves into a corner. For our December 31st/Jan 3rd show, we wanted to try something different. It’s called 27 Ideas in 27 Minutes, and the idea was just that: make a Spark “special” that would present 27 intriguing ideas in one 27 minute episode.
We have some good ideas.
We just don’t have 27 of them. That’s where you come in, I hope.
We’re looking for ideas about the unintended consequences of technology; how a bright idea or a happy accident can put technology to a whole new use. We want your story of bending the rules with technology. How have you improved on or modified the technology in your life? Maybe it’s as small as using your shiny black cell phone as a lipstick mirror; maybe it’s a new way of using a keyboard to avoid repetitive strain.
Leave your comments here at the blog, send an email to spark [at] cbc [dot] ca, or call our fab new toll-free (in Canada) line: 1-877-34SPARK. If we use your bright idea on the air, we’ll send you a sassy Spark reuseable grocery bag to start 2009 off right. (If you phone us, be sure to leave your name and contact info).
Thanks! Our reps are on the line!
How about using your cell phone as a flashlight? I’ve seen all kinds of people do this.
i have used my ipod for all kinds of situations. Commuting to and from work. At work. This past summer i did henna tattoos in small town manitoba festivals and thanks to my ipod and semi-portable computer speakers: i had great music to listen to. I have also used it while in a car, getting up in the morning(metal usually) or even while trying to fall asleep(anything by Miles Davis).
I also listen to Podcasts (including yours) and even Audiobooks(borrowed from the local library and ripped as well as bought off itunes) needless to say i am a much BIGGER star wars fan because of my ipod.
it may not be the newest generation ipod or the shiniest or have the coolst loking cover or skin but my ipod just that…my ipod. previously i did own a cassete player and even a few different cd players that anti skip functions and or mp3 capability. I even owned a minidisc player for a short while back in 2003 when i thought it was the easiest to use(not) the latest craze and would supposedly offer freedom in ways cds and cassettes did not: playlists and quantity of songs meeting user friendliness. Au contraire mon frere.
I will say this: there is a very VERY good reason why the ipod takes a huge % of all mp3 player/ portable music player market.
As a feelance illustrator, I keep a photo gallery of my artwork on my iPhone. I use it as an emergency portfolio in the event of a chance encounter with a prospective client or employer at a party, conferences or similar events.
i use my ipod or phone as a flashlight.
Some of the most interesting ‘happy accidents’ around technology for me are the ways in which the grotesque amount of money spent on military technology can subvert those technologies on multiple levels. Explosive payload rocket technology from WWII eventually put U.S. astronauts on the moon. The internet as we know it grew (in part) due to adoption by the U.S. government and U.S. military.
I’m sure there’s lots of other examples, but I always like it when something built for a dubious purpose can be subverted or redirected. Not that the internet is exactly ‘good’, but it’s certainly different than what it started out as.
In University I shared a house with friends, in which the landlord split the master bedroom into two rooms. Without knowing I took the room where there was no heater (silly me.) Anyway in the winter time I overclocked my processor and video card and let my computer be my little space heater. So I would do work and heat my room at the same time.
I use a microwave oven to slowly stabalize green wood for wood turning. Instead of using expensive chemical stabilizers, or waiting months I have cut the process down to a day.
I have also used dish soap and a replacement for the chemical stabalizers, but the Microwave is definatley a cooler option.
http://www.weirdbc.ca http://www.353review.com
My digital camera has a note recorder feature which allows me to add a 30 second recorded audio message to photos. Although I’ve never actually used this feature for this purpose, I have used it for other applications. One of these is for birding. Identifying bird species is most commonly done by observing them – visually. Another method is to listen to their distinct calls. In the past, I would try to memorize a call or write it down as a mnemonic (cool word eh?). Not anymore. I now use the note recorder on my digital camera to record the call and play it back later at home with my computer. Even when the call is quite faint, the recording can be isolated and amplified using basic software.
I also use the note recorder to make short clips of my daughters singing. The quality is actually amazing and I can edit these clips or drop them into my MP3 player in seconds. These clips can also be emailed and of course stored and cherished forever. Very similar to movie clips but much much better. Thanks digital camera!
I use a something called rockbox (“Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players”) on my Sandisk mp3 player and love the various plugins that are out there that will let my mp3 player do all kinds of things. I mostly like it because it a better UI than the stock version. It will also let play file types that you couldn’t play before.
I know alot of iPod lovers out there will say why not just use an iPod, but I just like the idea that my mp3 player is running on an open source system.
jimmy
When you call tech support and you’re forced to wait, you shjould be asked your phone number and to hang up, the tech support person can then call you when it’s your turn. That way you don’t have to hold the reciver to your head as you wait.
One gadget I re-purpose is the simple business voice recorder. These little flash devices are intended to facilitate business or school setting voice note capture. I find, though, that they work best for me as devices to capture sound samples for musical purposes. For example, I recorded a sample of a mallet tapping a glass ashtray with my little voice recorder, and then sampled that sound into my software synthesizer, Sawcutter 2.0. I incorporated the resulting sound as the melody in
the song “Slanted Voices”, in which it accompanies a spoken word track by Creative=Commons-friendly artist Colin Mutchler. Another use I’ve made is to create field recordings of birdsong with the recorder.
Like a lot of gadgets, an “expert” might tell one that the fidelity is inadequate to the task–but in fact, little digital flash recorders have fidelity those same “experts” would have raved about a decade or so ago.
I believe strongly in the re-purposing of “last year’s technology” to create tomorrow’s
art. My other favorite thing lately is to use the old computer language Logo to create geometric abstracts to upload to my flickr account. This helps me discover my inner child is probably closely related to the same chlidren who learned their first computer language by making a turtle draw sketches on the computer.
TWO IDEAS
1. Beyond Buy-ology
Buyology is a nano-segmentation technique, an extension of traditional market segment labels that move from measuring people to measuring the cranium. The technique is expensive and cannot claim that the cause of the crainium lighting up is always the same, indeed it will change. Persona masks prove that from the start of time. http://neuropersona.wordpress.com
2. Wistling Wikis
Wikis are nice and appeal to the ego but lack context from both the perspective of the author and viewer.
Weakness in Wikis–writing is person and process specific and whatever value that can be extracted cannot be found
Bryan Davis http://www.kikm.org and I are working to combine Personae and expertise for Wiki 3D.
I also know the co-founder of Cerado.com and the HAYSTACK social network plaform.
Hope one of these two ideas help!
Cheers,
Nick
http://www.scenario2.com
@André, I love that bird identification idea!
One thing I’ve always loved is how people do random things with video games to make them more fun. Not just the modifications you’re allowed to do, but adding new rules and new “games” into the games!
My brother, for example, noticed that in one of his games, the cut scenes were generated to show anything you were holding… so he “enhanced” the game by finding a huge potted plant and carrying it into conversations every chance he could. End result? All the cut scenes looked like the other characters were talking to a potted plant with legs. And watching him try to avoid talking to anyone until he found a potted plant was jsut as funny.
One we used to do as teenagers was to place handicaps on the more experienced players when we did quake deathmatches. I’m a *terrible* first person shooter player, so one of my friends took it upon himself to only kill me if he landed on my head and ran a circle around me first (in the game!). It gave me more of a fighting chance to hit him, and it looked pretty funny every single time.
More in the vein of “useful” modifications are some contests we used to run when I played World of Warcraft. The game itself doesn’t allow much for people of different levels to play together, but when you run a guild full of different level players you want everyone to get to know each other, so we had to come up with guild events that everyone could do. I really enjoyed the “race to 10″ where everyone created new characters and saw who could get theirs to level 10 fastest (I think it took about an hour?), but the most memorable sounding one was the “naughty naked night elf run” where everyone created level 1 characters, stripped them of all their equipment, and saw who could get to the lighthouse fastest. (hint: it involves some strategic dying, since you have to run through high level areas!)
I asked some of my students about this earlier this term, and found out a lot of them do the same sort of thing to add challenge or just make the game funnier. One group talked about how they play super smash brothers with the TV turned off, or all try playing one-handed. So I know I’m not the only one who modifies the games she plays!
Cell phones are now used at concerts the way lighters used to be – held up in the air. Of course, a lighter couldn’t record the concert. Also, I know lots of folks who don’t even own a watch any more – they carry a cell so don’t need a watch. The other use for a cell is that when shopping for an item that will need approval from someone (client, spouse, etc), just take a photo and let the person choose their preference.
@Maureen,
I think that’s one of the things I find most fascinating: the plasticity of cell phones. It’s almost like they’re this platform that people project new uses onto based on need. In stories we’ve done on cell phone use in Kenya for instance, people are developing all kinds of novel ways of using them based on local needs.
Speaking of other uses for iPods and cell phones, it just occurred to me that a lot of the really cool stuff that is going on with web apps, cell phones and other technologies is how people stitch them together in unique ways. You can set up twitter to post to your calendar or other services, or use your voice in Jott to set a to-do in Remember the Milk. And there all sorts of other interesting combinations.
It seems to me someone needs to develop a web-app (our “cloud-app if you like) set of building blocks so that the average person can put the pieces together to do what they want, whether it be email, calendar, microblogging, their finances, or any combination thereof? It seems everyone is trying to piece these services together, but why not provide a structure explicitly for people to do this? Web-app Lego or Mechano? That sounds like fun!
well, there's the simple idea of using old CD's as coasters.
My wife has an idea (that we haven't tried yet) of fastening a bunch of old CD's to a curtain of some sort and hanging it on a wall to help bring some light into a darker room in our house. If we ever get 'round to it, I'll let you know how that turns out.
Going back to older technology, we had one of our kids' religious education classes (like Sunday school but for Unitarians) making chip bowls out of old record albums to sell at a Christmas re-gifting sale. I remember someone buying one of the bowls because they thought the song titles were funny – it was Bo-day-shus by Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper…
I use an old hot air popper to roast coffee at home, but then a lot of home roasters do that, and it's not really high tech, is it?
My ipod has turned into an essential part of working out for more than just musical reasons: instead of running for twenty minutes, I’ll run for four or five songs, and then check my pulse using the last ten seconds of whatever song I end with.
Apart from using my MP3 player for exercise music, I use it to download audio tours of popular sites for our travels in Europe. You are learning while meandering through the building – more efficient than reading from a guide book. My player also has a recording feature that I use for quick reminders or landmarks to help find our way back to the hotel or to remember an interesting restaurant we might return to, even a phone number. European cities have complex road networks often without names. It's a wonderful tool to help navigate through the maze. I also store PDF files of our travel documents (i.e. passports, airline/train tickets, credit cards, ATM cards) on a USB key in case the originals get lost or stolen during a trip.
None of this is high tech like some other entries, but I hope someone out there can benefit from these ideas.
Thanks!
@Katherine,
I do something similar on my walk to work. I’ll have a set of songs I love that I’ll listen to for a week and try to beat my time, judged by how much of the last song I can listen to before I get to the office.
THe more I use technology the more I like paper.
A couple of things come to mind:
1. This isn’t my idea, but I’ve seen CDs linked together as a shiny room divider. They were placed front-to-front – shiny side out – and linked in a grid pattern by wire, creating a privacy screen. I have also seen people microwave CDs and make jewellery out of them.
2. I’ve used CDs as part of my artwork, among other materials. I have made earrings and jewellery out of the components of a radio alarm clock. I have a piece that I have just done that uses microwaved and broken CDs as part of a surface for a mixed-media piece.
3. I use my DSLR camera not just for photography, but also for note taking. If I see something cool or something I need to take notes of for school, I’ll take a picture of it. Even if it’s just a texture or a blob or a person’s shoe or something. Later, I’ll look back and remember that random idea – and if I don’t, I’ll use it as a writing prompt.
4. My brand new iPod nano is an indispensable workout tool, timer, and podcast-holder, but it is also a very good sharp edge for cutting or scoring things for cutting. I’ll also use it as a ruler in math class, on occasion. My headphones are also useful as earmuffs on cold winter runs.
5. I also download MIT physics lecture vodcasts which I watch whenever I need a concept in physics class clarified. (The lectures are first year university – I’m in grade 12.)
6. For our school newspaper, we’ve decided to eschew paper formats in lieu of a wiki. And lo and behold, it is wicked. (Wikid? Ha. Haha. No.)
7. My white Asus eeePC doubles as a thing to set the white balance on my camera when I’m outside and haven’t got the time to go in there and change stuff manually.
None of this is really high-tech, but it’s stuff that I find pretty useful.
To increase voter turnout, on election day make ATMs “voting terminals”. People can go anywhere, anytime on the day and put in there info and select their candidate (and do their banking!). All the voting “booths” are already in place, they just need to be reconfigured for this one day event.
This use for a cell phone won’t make any sense unless I explain what I do and what it involves. My job is installing high end home theater and automation systems. Many times we have to pull wires from location to another while making a minimum of holes in the wall or ceiling. One of the tricks I use is to remove a pot light and stick my cell phone into the opening click a flash photo to get an idea of what obsticales are in the ceiling or wall.
A couple of things I’ve done with my high tech gadgets over the years:
I’ve used my (older generation) palm pilot to boot/configure an Enterprise class server when a customer wouldn’t let me bring a laptop into their server room.
An old server in a previous residence actually raised the temperature in its corner of the basement high enough so that I could lager beer at the correct temperature, and not have the wort spoil.
We have used our digital cameras to record the childern’s artwork after it fills the designated viewing wall. The kids then dispose of the artwork knowing we have a record, and they can have a copy when they get older and want to show their kids.
Because I don’t have a blackberry or iphone I can’t check my email form my phone. This isn’t a problem except I’m a substitute teacher and sometimes teacher will send out a mass email looking for a sub. The first person to reply generally gets the day, so it would be nice to get these emails on my phone.
My cell phone provider allows you to send a text message to an email address on their domain and recieve it on your phone. So I set up a filter in gmail so whenever an email comes from the domain of the school division, it is forwarded to my phone. I only get the first 140 characters, but it’s enough to tell me to check my email. This has helped me get a few days that i would have missed out on otherwise.
My mom has always had an idea about a product that I think could easily come to fruition now, but I’m not sure how. She’s always forgetting where she parked her car (and let’s face it – in 20 years this will be a huge problem with all boomers being 65+), so she thought there must be some way to make a device that could tell you where your car is.
So – my idea would utilize the GPS transponders people have, along with cell phones. If you could get your cell to understand the frequency of the signal that the GPS sends out to locate itself, it would be a matter of programming a GUI into your cell phone that would bring up a compass-like arrow to point you in the direction of your car. No doubt that 20 years from now this will already be realized to be a problem, and major car manufacturers will be building compass-like keyrings that come with the car… but maybe we could tweak today’s tech to work the same!
I’ve got this hunch (tongue a little in cheek) that Spark is in cahoots with the information technology/communications industry that drives much of the so-called global economy (ok, broaden that to toilet bowls on a recent episode) . You want listeners to provide the content, but notice how you’ve framed it in a non-value-neutral way: “How have you improved on or modified the technology in your life?”
Dare I utter it, Spark is an infomercial? With due Canadian deference to plurality could you compress some influential thinker’s nasty critique along these lines into one of those 27 idea-lets? From people who maybe see through all the techno-glitz, its assorted, constructed mythologies and promissory utopian futures, and wonder if we ain’t just going around in circles.
It’s like another CBC Radio One show, Quirks and Quirks, the basic premise is, I think, that “technology (or science) isn’t going away anytime soon so we might as well talk about it, and hey, isn’t it kewl what people discover practically every day, and what you can do with it … [smiles all round] … I rest my case.” I guess it goes back at least as far as those chipped flint arrowheads and hand axes, some now sitting in museum vitrines.
So here’s the thing: all the posts so far for 27 Ideas are basically pro-technology, if maybe a little alt-technology. No naysayers, skeptics. Like, is there no “idea mill” for detractors, or Luddites, if it must be put so crassly? Could one or two of the 27 ideas be something like: “Ditch your computer, and don’t ever buy another one. Just use public access computers at the library when you need one. You’ll save a lot of money, and be friendlier to the ecosphere. You’ll have more free time for quiet walks and contemplation or just sitting around chilling”. (In most of south Asia and Africa, people just time-share mobile phones, likes from Grameen Bank-funded women in Bangladesh). Or another one: buy a small shortwave radio for fifty dollars: you’ll tune into a world of ideas for free, the thing’ll last decades with care, with no upgrade, maintenance or connection fees, ever. Disembedding technology, I guess.
Recently I’ve been reading Harold Bloom’s book “Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds”, sort of a culmination of five decades’ close study of works of fiction from the past several millennia. He doesn’t discuss any living geniuses (though he gives a nod to Canadian poet Anne Carson!), and he’s like really doubtful about groupthink, his term for Web 2.0 I guess. And then I hear another Spark installment about how to increase hits on your blog, I’m like, right on Harold Bloom, let’s cut the cyber-babble, and re-equilibrate what Richard Lanham calls the economy of attention, that most precious of commodities: I have roughly eighty years on this planet, and the minutes are ticking by, so how might I most profitably spend them?
I made a similar slightly subaltern/heterodox proposal to Quirks and Quarks for their annual listener questions programme and was told “sorry to say, but telling Canadians what has just been discovered, based on the latest articles in the scientific press, is actually the mandate of our program”.
Well, let`s hope that Spark is a little less ideologically rigid, eh? Mercifully, another CBC programme, Ideas, ran last season a multi-part feature questioning the very underpinnings of Western science. It lasted for like twenty-four hours all told. I bet you could fish a few choice sound clips out of it… The best thing Spark could do is try and bridge these two communities of listeners.
@ I. Young,
By all means, offer up some techno-critique! Permit me, though, to make two comments. I think that by asking people what hacks they’ve applied to the technology in their lives, there is an implicit criticism of technology, which is that as designed, it often doesn’t suit our purposes very well. Also, admittedly, the show usually talks about new technology, but in general, I define technology much more broadly. A pen is a fabulous technology, after all, as is a book. I’d love to hear about ways people have used older technologies to solve a problem that their newer technologies can’t.
I am a crafter, and one of my favorite new uses of technology I have noticed is the selling of sewing patterns via PDF files. This has advantages for the pattern writer and the user. The writer does not have to pay a printer to print out the pattern, nor do they have to go to the post office and send you the pattern. They save a lot of overhead and time that is invaluable for a small company or etsy shop owner. The customer benefits because they pay a cheaper price (7 or 8 dollars Pay Pal, vs 12 – 15 dollars plus shipping) and they get the pattern within the next day. You can keep the instructions and pattern saved on your computer, and just print out the pattern pieces you need to cut out. No worry about losing pattern pieces or instructions, ripping or mis-cutting tissue paper patterns or having to buy a whole $25 book for one pattern you like.
A few sites that are doing this:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=36900
http://weewonderfuls.typepad.com/wee_wonderfuls/
I think its a great and innovative use of technology. Thanks.
I also use my ipod as a flashlight since my boyfriend goes to bed before me so I find my way the the bedroom with it.
I use my cellphone for a boss alert.
Here’s how it works. I have software loaded onto my smartphone that sounds an alert whenever a specified bluetooth ID comes into range. In this case, it’s configured for my boss’s cell phone bluetooth ID. Presto! Whenever my boss comes near, a siren goes off.
Back when I was younger (and more mischievous) I came up with an idea to spy using my cell phone.
Most phones have the option to answer calls automatically (without anyone pressing any buttons). So I had this clever idea to leave the phone at my girlfriend’s house, well hidden under the couch and with the silent mode and auto answer enabled. I left it there after leaving her house and called it using another friend’s phone.
I was able to hear the conversations in the house, between her and her mom. As you can imagine, they were talking about me
I’m not sure this is what you’re looking for, but how about
E-mail to yourself
as a new use of technology? E-mail was originally thought of as a way to communicate with others.
But now for me it serves as an all purpose memory aid and catch-all. When someone tells me something that I need to remember or something that I need to follow up on, I often send an e-mail to myself with the details, and possibly a tag or two to help find it later.
Later when I want the information, I just search my gmail account for it.
I know there are plenty of other ways to save this information, but my gmail is always on and easy to get to via computer or phone. So it’s better that any word-processor or note program for quick messages, because those are all specific to a particular machine.
When I’m unpacking a box of a newly purchased item that has lots of pieces to it, I take a picture of the contents working backwards from each piece I take out. That way, if I have to repack it to return to the store, I can remember where the pieces go.
Also use my digital camera to take pics of the inside of my computers tower. If I need to change hardware, and wonder where some plug goes, I just look at the pics. I fix computers for friends as well and take pics of their innards. This way if they want to add something, I can take a look at the pics to see what slots / ports they have available.
Like Dianne, I also scanned my credit cards, passport, etc. before our family vacation – but I don’t keep it on a USB key – I email it to myself using my web based email. This way I can retrieve the information anywhere I can access the Internet, and I don’t have to worry if the USB key is lost or stolen…
Cheers!
Fred
My son is loco about lego and also star wars lego – cheers for the insight!