Mark Krynsky

Not many of us like thinking about death — especially our own. But making plans for what happens after you’re gone is really important for the people you leave behind.

I concur with this statement that Google opens their blog post announcing a new tool they’ve developed called the Inactive Account Manager. This tool is designed to let you assign people to access your data or delete it after you die. The way it works is that you setup a timeout period for signing in to your account which if exceeded will send an email (which you compose yourself) to “trusted contacts” (up to 10). The email notifies them of your inactive status and grants them access to selected Google data if you choose. You also have the option of not assigning anyone and having Google delete your account and all of your data. The process begins based on a timeout period that you set for sign-ins (3-18 months). You will get an alert 1 month before the expiration date hits as a precaution as well.

While having a tool such as this is good, every social service varies with regards to their policies and have different ways of providing access and what you can do with the data. Managing this across multiple services can be challenging. There are many stories of people that struggle gaining access to social services after a loved one passes. According to this story from last year there were only 5 states that had estate laws around digital assets last year. It’s definitely an issue with law catching up to technology and there will continue to be lots of issues and confusion until it matures. In lieu of this the government has even written a blog post encouraging people to create a social media will along with tips on how to do it.

I agree that taking control over your wishes around digital data is very important. I’d recommend creating a legal document that lists your wishes with regards to online accounts and data and assign a “digital executor” with access to all of your online accounts to execute your wishes after you die. There are some great password tools and services out there like Lastpass and 1Password you can use to provide a single protected way of storing all of your login information. By having a document with your wishes and a single entry point with all of your login data you are taking a great step at preserving your wishes for data.

You can learn more bout the importance of planning for your digital legacy at this dedicated section on the site for information on digital preservation.

This week I came across this video interview with Quantified Self co-founders Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf that was conducted by Thomas Goetz at the Wired Living by Numbers conference last year in New York.

The interview begins with them explaining the origin of QS which was born in 2007 with each of them coming at it with their own perspectives. Kevin has a blog called cool tools where he writes about stuff that betters your life and met a doctor that was conducting an experiment to only eat organic food for a year. He asked the doctor if there were any tools for him to test his own blood and they were lamenting the fact that there weren’t. So he came to the realization that it would be great to start something were people could share the tools they used to track their own bodies and health because there wasn’t a single repository of that information on the web. Gary’s take was to apply his past experience on how he approached writing for Wired by thinking about the culture and participation around how we used technology to determine what are the questions we should be asking about personal tracking to determine what it should it be called. He states that by naming something you need to determine why it matters. This concept was about the language of computing and the counting (quantification) but it’s also about bringing that all the way in so close that it’s almost indistinguishable from your own (self). This is how the naming of this concept came to be.

So they began by creating a blog to cover some of what they were discovering but decided they wanted to try something more personal and posted an announcement at Meetup where about 30 people came to Kevin’s house to talk about QS.  This ended up becoming the most amazing moment for Gary because he realized that it was much more interesting to see a person do a show and tell about how they were measuring themselves to gain insight from the human side of how people are using tools. They were able to catch the new emerging culture of how we were applying technology to ourselves in the wild by having people share their stories. To manage the meetups efficiently and gain the most from them Gary came up with 3 principles for people that attended as a guide. Each speaker at a meetup is to focus their talk on these principles which include (1) what did you do? (2) how did you do it? and (3) what did you learn? With these principles in mind the meetups are very effective at providing insights for people to share.  Since 2007 these meetups have grown to about 70 groups across 15 countries which has been a pretty amazing growth.

I’ve been able to attend a few meetups and can tell you that they are amazing ways to learn about how people are finding unique methods to track ways to help improve their lives. It’s really the culture and community that QS has fostered which makes it an amazing group to be a part of. To get an idea of what you can expect from a meetup you can read my recap of the last meetup we had in Los Angeles and you can see a full listing of meetups and should be able to find one near you.

Here’s the full video interview

Wired’s Gary Wolf & Kevin Kelly Talk the Quantified Self from WIRED on FORA.tv

On Tuesday Jawbone which makes the Up activity tracking wristband announced it had purchased BodyMedia for an estimated $110 million. With the boom of activity trackers hitting the market there would no doubt need to be a consolidation. I didn’t expect this to start so soon and more importantly I feel Jawbone chose very wisely as BodyMedia is an early pioneer that started in 1999 and has some serious chops around data accuracy, a portfolio of patents and FDA approval for products.

BodyMedia provided my first experience with an activity tracking device two years ago. Since then we have seen many companies enter the space competing for a top spot among consumers. Jawbone struggled with their initial launch but has since come back very strong and is usually mentioned in the same breath as other top trackers. I feel Jawbone made a fantastic strategic decision here. They bring in the hardware and data experience of BodyMedia under their wings where they can bestow their design and marketing which I feel are much stronger with regards to their devices and apps and appeal better to consumers. Those are my thoughts after simultaneously testing both of the devices along with a Fitbit One and Nike Fuelband which I hope to provide my full comparison very soon.

As if the Bodymedia acquisition wasn’t enough news, Jawbone used the stage to also announce a bi-directional API in the form of the “Up Platform” and initial integration with a slew of services that included Withings, RunKeeper, IFTTT and others. They’ve already updated the iOS app with support and hopefully the Android version will be updated in the near future. This is another huge win as being able to have portable data that can be integrated into aggregation services is becoming extremely important and a major distinguishing factor as we move on from data tracking to data insights that are drawn across multiple data points. Any device that plans on surviving in the future will need an API…period.

“The reality is that you’re never going to have one app, or one thing, that’s the only way you look at [health and wellness],” says Travis Bogard, Jawbone’s VP of product management.

This quote is taken from Fast Company which illustrates the importance of having this mentality in which Jawbone recognizes that “openness is the gateway to a strategic advantage in this space.” They also wrote another great piece with thoughts on the announcement here. This has just been some great news and I can’t wait to see what Jawbone and Bodymedia has up their sleeves over the coming year based on this partnership.

I’ve finally gotten into a groove using the multiple trackers and learning how to use their web and app reporting services. Below I’ve provided a spreadsheet that displays several of the data metrics across all of the devices for a single day. I’ve also created screenshots from the web services and apps. I’ll share more updates as my testing continues for another few weeks and will eventually provide a post that will have a detailed summary and comparison.

Coincidentally Danny Sullivan began testing all of the same devices as well and today he wrote a post detailing the beginning of his journey. He will be writing posts summarizing his experiences with each of the devices so be sure to check those out. Interestingly enough he has come to the same conclusion as quickly as  I have, noting that each of these devices has their own set of pros and cons and no single device is perfect. Choosing one is more about the guidance it provide in having a positive impact changing your behaviors than it is about the accuracy of data.

One more thing. Martin Sona who is a member of the quantified self group in Aachen Germany reached out to me. He told me of someone doing a similar test (link is to english translated post) to what Danny and I are doing but shames us because he’s testing 6 devices at the same time! He’s added the Basis Smartwatch and the Lumoback sensor. Martin provided the data analysis and graphing for that test and offered to do the same for my testing after I’m done. So I  look forward to adding that to my summary post as well.

On to the numbers and reporting!

Note: this was a day with lots of walking and a 2 hour racquetball session. Also, I provided the web services reporting for all devices except Jawbone which doesn’t offer reporting outside of their apps. Also, I didn’t include any of the social / friend leaderboard reporting aspects, just the activity and sleep reporting. Speaking of which, feel free to friend me on any of these services by sending an email request to

Bodymedia

Fitbit One

Jawbone UP

Nike Fuelband

(click for full size)

So I’m one week in on my simultaneous testing of the Bodymedia armband, Nike Fuelband, Jawbone Up, and Fitbit One. I’m learning quite a bit about all the nuances in these 4 devices and can safely say that selecting the one that’s right for you isn’t a simple process. There are many different factors to consider. From the device aesthetics, to the functionality, to the syncing, to the web and mobile reporting, to gamification aspects and much more. Stay tuned for a full review that will cover all of this after I complete my testing in a few weeks. In the meantime below is my activity from yesterday that included 2 hours of playing racquetball to show you the variance in the data tracking.

Stats from each device:

Fitbit One 13,299 steps 3,548 calories burned
Nike Fuelband 5,979 steps 1,573 calories burned
Jawbone Up 11,938 steps 2,672 calories burned
Bodymedia 11,401 steps 3,480 calories burned

I went to the Los Angeles Quantified Self Meetup meeting on March 7th and had a fantastic time meeting like-minded people that are all willing to experiment and share their experiences. The meetup was held at the  artisanal engineering studios of the Two Bit Circus located in the eclectic Brewery Art Colony. This made for a really great venue.

The first speaker was Brent Bushnell who is the Circus ring leader. He walked us through a project his team worked on for the Extreme Makeover Home Edition where they built a relaxation chair for a veteran that suffered from PTSD. They used sensors to track his biometrics to help identify when he may be susceptible to trauma. When certain thresholds were met based on his heart rate the soldier would sit in the chair which would then play soothing sounds and had an aroma therapy device.

This was a great story but earlier I had noticed that he was wearing a Basis watch which was the first time I had seen one and I asked him about it. He had been monitoring the progress and one night he visited the website to find out it was taking orders and was able to place one. Turns out that the ordering process launched prematurely and he got in very early. He told an amusing story about how he walked into the Basis booth at CES and had several people oggle at his wrist wondering how on earth he already had one. I will try to follow up with Brent to see if I can get some details about the device reporting which is what I was really interested in.

The next speaker was Jeff Fajans who gave us a crash course in Positive Psychology which focuses on optimal functioning and well-being by studying people at their best. He showed us his personal experiment in self-tracking character strengths. He described what these strengths are in the context of positive psychology and shared two methods for identifying them. The first method was by using the Gallup Strengthsfinder which is a book that also has an online survey component for $9.99. The other  was a system called Values in Action which has an online survey component that is free. Jeff explained that you would want to identify your character strengths so that you could get a better understanding of how you operate and then optimize to enhance mood, energy and predict activities that were either positive or negative for you.

He used an Android mobile app called Paco which was setup to ping him 6 times a day to fill out a short survey that captured the activity he was currently doing, who he may be with, what his mood and energy level was, what strengths he was currently using, and other items. He then showed the results and insights he gained after using Paco which included when he felt energized, creative, in a positive mood, as well as negative aspects such as low energy and mood. I found Jeff’s presentation extremely interesting and I look forward to learning more about positive psychology, taking a self assessment survey and using Paco to track my strengths. You can also get much more detail by viewing Jeff’s presentation here.

Amanda Tasse, a PhD candidate at USC, followed and she focused her talk on the design, UI/UX and data visualizations around QS. She covered several interesting ways that environment data can provide interesting visualizations. One example was to create a visualization around the temperature and CO2 levels making students aware of the everyday life of a building. Another example she showed was of a Bio/Emotion map. A San Francisco Emotion Map was an art project by Christian Nold that took 98 participants exploring San Francisco’s Mission District using a Bio Mapping device he invented. These people used the devices to go for a walk and it would record their physiological response to their surroundings. The results were then presented on a map using colored dots and the participant’s personal annotations. The end result is an emotional portrait of the neighborhood that allowed people to share and interpret their own bio data. She also discussed the data visualizations of tools such as TicTrac, Rescuetime, and others. You can see her full presentation here.

Marina Zdobnova was up next and she gave an updated talk on more than a year of insight gained from using Inside Tracker which is a blood analysis service that provides a way to visualize the data, address deficiencies and dietary recommendations. I personally have been interested in trying out Inside Tracker or WellnessFX which is another similar service and this helped illustrate some of the great benefits of using such a service that offers so much more than the standard blood data you get from your doctor after getting a physical. Another project that Marina is involved in that she touched upon was the Ultimate Answer which aims to allow people to create their personal happiness formula. This touched similar areas to Jeff’s talk on positive psychology whereby you fill out a survey by providing data to help calculate what makes you happy. Then the system uses a formula to track the data and provides a happiness index.

The last speaker of the night was Aaron Thomen who created a project called MindMIDI that uses an EEG to convert brain waves into music using an algorithm. The music can is also controlled in real-time by the person through biofeedback. Aaron offered to let anyone in the group test the system and of course I raised my hand to be the first guinea pig. The system used a mixing board in which you can specify from your choice of many different individual instruments mapped by categories across 3 different channels. You have the ability to then mix your music by choosing instruments and controlling its volume. After I got wired up it was time to find out whether my temporal lobes had any signs of being a virtuoso. I have to say that testing this myself was very impressive. It seems like he takes the brain activity and applies some logic and quantization so that the music doesn’t sound like a crazy Aphex Twin track. Some folks asked how you could control the music and Aaron stated that it takes practice and that people who meditate seem to be able to master it quicker. Then he told me to cover my eyes and sure enough the tempo went down and the music softened. I then opened my eyes and it regained the original speed. It clearly showed how visual stimulation affected my brainwaves and thus the music. It really was pretty cool. Below is a video demo done by Aaron.

So that’s the recap of what was an incredibly awesome quantified self meetup we had here in Los Angeles. I highly recommend that you try to attend a meetup in your city. There are plenty of them available all over the world and you can find one near you by visiting the official quantified self website.

Going into day one of SXSW Interactive, a tech conference in Austin Texas, the New York Times published a story on how the spotlight this year would be on hardware. The story went on to discuss several devices to make this point which included 3D printers, smartwatches, and environment sensors like Nest.  They also mentioned wearable fitness devices as well as lifelogging, pointing specifically to the Memoto camera. This article from the Time website covering the five themes at this year’s conference list both the Quantified Self as well as wearable tech. Jeremiah Owyang, an industry analyst posted his take on the technologies shown at SXSW citing quantified self as a sector to watch. Google is also showing a talking shoe as a prototype just to continue exploring the possibilities of attaching sensors to objects to determine the benefits of tracking the data. Over the last few days I’ve been monitoring social activity from the conference and have also come across several other stories that confirm these observations.

It would appear that another ho hum mobile app wasn’t going to gain traction and buzz. I believe people have relegated those as utilities and aren’t willing to give them buzzworthy recognition. It’s become clear that QS has become one of the breakout hits of this year’s conference. Well to be fair, nothing could actually trump Grumpy Cat but I digress. In doing a quick search I also found 10 panels specifically targeted at QS and I’m sure many others touched on the subject as well. The signals I got after reviewing device announcements at CES as well as what’s coming out of Austin are clearly in line with QS continuing its push into the mainstream. The other great thing is that these devices and sensors aren’t just being focused on workout activity tracking. We’re starting to see a big push in the diagnosis and improvement of healthcare as well as new devices that will begin to also monitor our environment in addition to the hugely popular Nest.

It’s unfortunate that after going to SXSW for the last few years I had to miss it this year when lifelogging, wearable devices, and other quantified self areas are having a break out year. Well at least that’s afforded me the ability to monitor quite a bit from afar. Actually that’s just the silver lining I’m mumbling to myself in spite of being there. This is truly becoming an amazing year for the movement in devices and software to make our lives better.

Enjoy Google’s video of their talking shoe.

Over the years I’ve struggled with how I could provide links to news, tips, and other information that I come across related to what I cover on this blog. In some cases I merely want to share, but in others I may want to add a little commentary or create a mini-post around the link.

I run this site on WordPress and initially was considering using the Press This feature to create posts for a single category and then create a page to just display posts from that category. But then I also had a challenge as to how to display these newsbites on my home page and incorporate them into my RSS feed without burying my long form posts. In the end I kept it simple and just continued to use Delicious to bookmark the pages and use an RSS widget to display them in my sidebar. The bummer being that I don’t have a dedicated page and these posts don’t make their way into the blog database / archive.

Last year I reviewed Rebelmouse which is a great service that can be used as a Lifestreaming aggregator. The services continues to evolve quickly and they are continually adding features. I’ve continued to use it and like many of the new features they’ve been adding. I’ve decided to use Rebelmouse to power my new curated news page. Here are some of the reasons I chose why to use Rebelmouse.

Integrates well with my current workflow

I was able to create a separate dedicated page for Lifestream Blog in addition to my personal page. I then was able to uniquely define what content would power this page. I provided my existing RSS feed from Delicious (Yes I still use it & they’ve updated it recently) that I use to save these stories with and they create the entries for my page. As a huge added bonus it parses the title, my comments, and tags into the entries it imports. I can then tie logic to the tags to populate separate tabs on my page.

Some other nice features

You have the ability to share your posts to a Rebelmouse page that prominently displays the item which can then be reshared or have the post closed to display your full page. In addition to that you can edit your commentary which also allows you to add links and formatting. You can view both of those examples on this post of mine. Posts can also be manually re-arranged on the page and even frozen to a location. I can supplement the feed items by easily adding items manually by pasting a link or using their interface to create posts of my own on their service.

Another key reason why I chose Rebelmouse is that it offers a very clean embed of my home page which I can then integrate into my website. You can see what I’ve done on my curated news page. Unfortunately the embed doesn’t offer my additional site tabs and there’s no way to remove the widget for other user pages but hopefully they will offer more options for embedding in the future. They also offer a WordPress module but I didn’t find it flexible enough.

Rebelmouse has many other features beyond these that I’m detailing for my curated news page. I read this recent interview with their CEO and they have some great plans for updates ahead. If you haven’t checked out the service you really should.

This week I came across a memorial service called Living Headstones. This company is trying to transform cemetery headstones to incorporate today’s technologies. They state that headstones haven’t changed in 5000 years and they offer internet connected memorials to create an innovative approach to memorialization.

What they’ve created is an added value service to their existing headstones. They add QR codes to them that take users to memorial websites they create. The archive websites contains “information you and friends add about your loved one, such as: an obituary, family heritage and history, photos, comments by friends and relatives and even links to share content on popular social sites such as Facebook or Twitter.” The cost for this service is $75 in addition to the headstone.

Take a look at this video which provides more information on the service they provide:

This is just one implementation and I’m sure we will see many more methods and services using technology to create memorials in the coming years. I’ve written quite a bit about how I feel Lifestream data will eventually become the journals of our lives for future generations. In 2008 I wrote this post giving 4 reasons why you should be Lifestreaming. Here’s what I wrote for reason #4 - Create a personal digital archive of your life:

Lifestreams are becoming interactive digital diaries of our lives. While we still have a ways to go for this to become a reality, I see it coming. I can envision a future where I’m reminiscing about my past, going through my Lifestream and re-living old memories. You could locate notable dates in history to see what you were doing & what was on your mind. After we have passed, our great great grandchildren could get a much better understanding of who we were by navigating our historical Lifestream. I can see amazing future applications where you navigate a digital family tree and can drill down on individuals and then start navigating through their Lifestream.

This still holds true to me and I see memorial services being created around the data we generate. I recently wrote two posts for The Next Web around this area. Social data covers the more public aspects of our lives. One way to supplement that data is by using a Smart Journal. Several services are starting to also be created or add features with fun ways to review our old data which I wrote about as well.

Earlier today I saw this Gizmodo post asking users whether they backup their social media accounts. Some comments clearly show how I believe many people consider what they post on social sites to be disposable data. I don’t think most people are taking into consideration how they can use tools available to them to create digital journals for future generations. Hopefully this will change and I’ve dedicated a section on this site to provide information on tools and methods to do this.

Interestingly enough, today I also saw a post by Kevin Kelly about how he created a memorial book for his father Joe Kelly last year. All of the children and grandchildren contributed old photos and remembrances from his life. They then used Blurb to print out copies to pass out at the memorial as the perfect memento. I’m sure we will continue to see new and creative ways to create memorials using today’s technology.

Last year was a good one when it came to the growth of health gadgets and services.  A digital health year end funding report that was done by Rocket Health showed how fast the sector is moving. Venture Beat broke down the report and said the following:

Investors funneled 46 percent more money and made 56 percent more deals in health care in 2012 than in 2011, with the cumulative funding totaling $1.4 billion last year…The most common theme for investment was health consumer engagement, which represented $237 million in funding…About $150 million in venture funding went toward personal health tools and tracking last year. The quantified self movement is taking off as people are scoop up devices like the Nike FuelBand, Jawbone, and FitBit.

You can also view the presentation Rock Health created on Slideshare.

So with this report it’s clearly evident why there were so many existing companies with new announcements along with new companies entering the digital health space at CES. Here are a few of the highlights that I saw reported from the show.

Wristband Activity Trackers Rule the Market

Last year’s release of the Jawbone Up and Nike Fuelband took the existing model of drab devices to track activity and disguised them as a fashion statement. Those devices garnered lots of attention and helped propel activity tracking to become more mainstream. Existing competing products and companies that weren’t even in the sector took notice and came to CES to join the party.

FitBit Announces a Wristband Called Flex

Fitbit was one of the first activity tracking devices released for consumers. Their original tracker is a small device that used a belt clip to attach to a pocket. They announced new evolved versions of their original tracker last year and they’ve also added a scale to their product mix. At CES though they finally announced a wristband tracker to compete with the Nike Fuelband and Jawbone Up.  The Flex will be released in the spring at an aggressive price point of $99 which is cheaper than the competition. Based on the lower price point and Fitbit’s strength on the service side to display tracking data, I think it will be a hit.

Product page | Fitbit Flex Video Demo

LG Enters the Wristband Market

It felt a little bit out of left field to hear that LG was entering the activity tracking market with their announcement at CES but after viewing details and a demo of the product it looks strong. First off this device is much more similar aesthetically and functionally to the Nike Fuelband than the Fitbit Flex. It looks great and has a similar LED display but whereas the Nike interacts via button, the LG has a touchscreen. The tracking app for iOS and Android looks very polished and feature rich. It also has the ability to sync with your phone via bluetooth both for gps tracking as well as having the ability to display incoming calls and text messages. LG also discussed that their still working on trying to add heart rate monitoring to this device which would be killer. All of these features together make it very versatile and could place this unit on top if it can deliver. It’s planned to be released in the summer and pricing is yet to be announced.

LG Activity Tracker Video Demo

Basis Watch Demonstrates their Data Collection Dashboard

The Basis which was announced last year has been a highly anticipated new player to the wristband market. Its distinction to other devices is that it not only has an accelerometer, but also has a heart rate monitor, body temperature and galvanic skin response sensors. This allows it to track your body temperature and sweat along with heart rate. These are in addition to tracking standard activity level and sleep. It’s the galvanic skin response and body temperature sensors in the BodyMedia armband I use that adds much more value for me than the Fitbit, Jawbone Up or Nike Fuelband. Those devices track steps (or in the case of Nike a metric the created called fuel) but can’t tell you more details about how vigorous your workouts are. This is something my BodyMedia armband and the Basis can. The Basis which is priced at $199 is the first consumer device I’ve seen to now offer this as well. Beyond creating an attractive device, Basis has focused their efforts on creating value around the data it collects. This will be done by a free web service along with Android and iOS apps which are in the works.This is extremely important as these devices are useless if they don’t provide insight from the data to help you improve your health.

Product Page | Basis Dashboard Video Demo

BodyMedia Announces New Armband and Shows Disposable Patch

BodyMedia is a great activity tracker that has more sensors than competing products as I mentioned above. They announced a new armband called the Core 2. It’s smaller and is more fashion conscious than their previous models. The new one makes the armband which contains the heart rate monitor optional and several different faceplate styles will be available. The unit contains 4 sensors that track body temperature, heart rate, sleep, and other biometric data by capturing 5,000 data points per minute. The new armband will be released in August and doesn’t have an official price but it should be around the current one which is $119. BodyMedia also showed their upcoming Vue patch. This will be a similar tracking device to their Core 2 which you wear for ~7 days and is disposable and will upload data via bluetooth. It’s slated to be released in the second half of 2013 but no pricing information is yet available.

Product Page | BodyMedia Core 2Video Demo

Withings Announces an Activity Tracker

Withings was the first company to release a wifi scale that collected your weight data over time to their cloud service. They also later released a blood pressure monitor. At CES they’ve decided to join the activity tracking sector with the announcement of a new device. Their device has some interesting features which include a pulse monitor and an OLED touchscreen display. Beyond pulse it also tracks activity and sleep. It uploads data over bluetooth to its own app. No details were provided around its release date or price. I find it interesting that this device is similar in size and functionality to compete with the Fitbit Ultra. Ironically Fitbit added a wifi scale to their product line last year to compliment their activity tracker.

Withings also announced a new scale which it deems a “smart body analyzer” as its new high end model with more features. The new model has added sensors to track heart rate and air quality oxygen levels in the room in addition to weight, BMI and body fat. The scale uploads data to its app and web service over wifi. It will be released in Q1 and will be priced at $150.

Withings Activity Tracker Product Page | Withings Smart Body Analyzer Product Page | Activity Tracker Demo Video | Smart Body Scale Demo Video

Other Announcements at CES for Activity and Health Tracking

Those were the top announcements of interest to me in the activity and health tracking sector. There were however some other announcements:

• The Pebble smart watch which was a top kickstarter product announced Runkeeper support to come in March
• The Hapifork is a “smart fork” which is surely not the first smart utensil to be headed our way. It has a sensor and bluetooth to track the speed at which you shovel food into your mouth and vibrates if you’re going too quickly
• The Scanadu device can track your vitals by holding a device to your head and then displaying them on a mobile phone app. It should be released in the 4th quarter of 2013 for $150. You can learn more here (Disclosure: Scanadu is competing for the Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE and I work for the X PRIZE Foundation)
• The Quantified Self website covered some of the same devices I did as well as some other. They did it in two parts with the first post here and the second one here.

The increasing number of entrants to the digital health sector is a great thing to see. We are seeing new sensors being used in many different ways along with great apps and services to take advantage of the data. I’m sure 2013 will continue to push these devices more into the mainstream. There will no doubt be a shake-up to see which activity trackers are the ones to survive over time. I feel that beyond the aesthetics of the wristbands, it will be the apps and services built around them that will ultimately distinguish which ones break out. A nice looking device isn’t enough. These companies need to provide a nice visual interface to access the data as well as provide insights to help people improve their lives. For the geekier at hearth they also need to have API’s to allow their data to be imported into other health tracking aggregation services like Runkeeper or MyFitnessPal. 2013 is going to be a great year for this sector and I can’t wait to watch it play out.

How My Search for the Ultimate Media Streaming Solution Began

Over the years I’ve been in search of the perfect combination of hardware and software to stream my personal media and internet content to my TV. I’ve tried many different systems for this, and for the first time I’m starting to see the perfect solution emerge. My journey began on that glorious day when I first discovered XBMC. This prompted me to buy a modded Xbox just so I could run that software. This became the first elegant hardware / software solution allowing me to easily stream music, photos, and videos from my computer to my big screen tv.

How it has Evolved

I’ve continued to monitor advancements in hardware and sofware to stream media to my TV.  Over the years I’ve continued upgrading to new systems. When I upgraded my Xbox to a PS3 I discovered the PS3 Media Server to do this but the features and functionality was actually a step down from XBMC. I then bought an Aspire Revo which is a full fledged PC to run XBMC again, but dealing with the overhead of an OS (in this case Windows) that you have to maintain and all the configuration issues quickly made me revert back to the simplicity of the PS3. Streaming personal and internet media across my multiple devices continued to evolve and I even created a map to help illustrate it.

I then tested out both a Roku and a Boxee box. The Roku just isn’t suited very well to stream my personal media and the Boxee box is basically dedicated hardware that runs a custom version of XBMC. I was very happy with the Boxee and this was now a solution that got me to switch over from the PS3. Then when Logitech decided to have a fire sale for $99 on the Revue (Google TV) I bought one to check it out. Initially it was like an Apple TV in that it only came with a handful of apps and features and it didn’t have the ability to stream my personal media. But when Google announced an upgrade to allow access to the Android Market I got pretty excited. Now with access to an app marketplace I felt that the device could truly become a contender. So I kept watching for new apps and with the release of the GTVBox app along with Plex (another app built on XBMC) I could now stream my media. Then I recently purchased a Nexus 7 and discovered the Able Remote app which when connected to a Google TV, acts as a universal remote to control all my devices as well as the apps. Since the Google TV runs as a layer over my cable TV box, I’m now using this primarily over the Boxee. Google TV is starting to really become a strong contender but wait, there’s more.

Android TV Device Explosion

Over the last few months I’ve seen an explosion of new Android options becoming available for TV’s. The MK802 mini Android device for $74 has really made waves ushering in many similar devices including the CX-01 pushing the price down even further to $48. These thumbstick Android devices then spurred more dedicated devices for TV’s which included the $99 Infinitec Pocket TV and the $69 Equiso Smart TV. These were both Kickstarter projects that were very successful. Then came the announcement from XBMC that they were officially going to release a version for Android with development being done on yet another Android TV device called the XIOS DS. While this was happening the $99 Ouya which is an Android device for gaming expanded out with announcements that it will also include support for XBMC and Plex. Ouya raised almost $8.6 million becoming the 2nd most successful Kickstarter project ever. Along with all of these devices, several second generation Google TV devices are appearing and the one announced by Vizio for $99 has been heralded as a great device and sold out during its pre-order phase. Lastly, Airplay is one of the hottest features of iOS that has prompted people to buy Apple TV’s. This feature is also coming to Android. And speaking of Apple…

So What About the Apple TV?

Business Insider referred to the Equiso being a device that might change TV forever but what’s really at play here is Android is clearly on its way towards getting a stronghold on the TV from many different angles. I feel Apple has to move quickly into this market. Unlike Google’s strategy which is to layer the Google TV over cable tv boxes, Apple is trying to replace them with their own device. This would give them control of the broadcast content delivery and would be an amazing coup that could really put them in the driver’s seat. But reports are that Apple’s plans to strike a deal with cable operators isn’t going to materialize. This prompted a great post by Janko Roettgers at GigaOM on the state of Apple, Google, and Microsoft’s attempts at entering the TV market. Also some more good insight into this situation at Mashable. I think the only hope for Apple towards keeping up with Google will be to open up the Apple TV to the iOS app market. If they don’t at the very least do that soon, it’s looking like Google is poised to get a huge lead as this battle rages on.

So Where do I Stand Now?

For now I’m primarily using my Logitech Revue but will also check out the Vizio Co-Star once it becomes available. I also backed the Ouya and will have to determine whether a full Android OS ends up being a better choice than Google TV or perhaps even use both. I’m very happy with my Nexus 7 and future mobile plans are playing a role in this decision. I am also eager to see what Apple announces but up to this point the Apple TV just doesn’t compete at all with these other options. I also find it amazing that Sony’s PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 just haven’t found a way to capitalize on their devices. Perhaps their next generation devices will once again do battle here.

Ever since I owned my first smartphone, which was an iPhone 3G, I’ve kept an eye on Android phones to see if they could compel me to switch over. My first experience was borrowing the original Google Nexus phone for a month when my iPhone 3G contract was about to expire. At that time the OS just wasn’t up to par (I think I was using Froyo) and many of the apps I used on iOS just weren’t available. Then I tested out a Samsung Droid Charge last year which was running Gingerbread. The OS still wasn’t up to par and while there were more apps available, there still were some that hadn’t been ported to Android.

The OS and App reasoning are the two major reasons that have prevented me wanting to switch. However, I own an iPad 2 but have been intrigued by the 7″ form factor so this month I decided to purchase a Nexus 7 and my experience with it has been fantastic. Jelly Bean (aka Project Butter) has finally gotten the OS to a level that is very satisfying for a longtime iOS user. Also, the majority of apps that I’ve wanted are now available on Android. Now I’ll point out the additional reasons that are causing me to consider switching now that the OS and app issues have been removed.

Screen Size
As I’ve reached mid life and am now in my 40′s, my eyes aren’t what they used to be. Over the last 2 years using a 3.5″ screen hasn’t been a pleasant experience. Testing 4+” screens on Android has really opened up my eyes to a much better experience. Android phones have matured to where they have balanced the aesthetics and battery life consumption to be adequate on these larger screen phones. At this point there are rumors of the iPhone 5 having a 4″ screen. We’ll have to wait and see.

No Contract / Lower Monthly Service Charge
For my Son’s eighth grade graduation I decided to buy him a smartphone as a gift as he heads into high school. He originally wanted an iPhone so I looked into what it would cost to get him one on my current Verizon plan. I currently pay ~$80 a month for 350 minutes of voice with limited texting and data. I would have to upgrade to a family plan with a combined 700 minutes, unlimited texting, and data for ~$160 a month. That monthly cost just seemed ridiculous to me so I looked into other options. The best options I found were to just buy him a no-contract phone and get him service through either T-mobile or Virgin Mobile. He chose to get the HTC Evo V for $299 and a plan that gives him 300 minutes of talk time with unlimited texting and data for $35 a month. Virgin uses the Sprint network, and supposedly they get limited access to towers and have bandwidth restrictions but so far my son has been happy with the service.

I recently read this story about purchasing a Google Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ for $350 with a $30 a month plan for 100 minutes of voice and unlimited text and data on T-mobile. Another interesting development is that Virgin also recently started offering iPhone pre-paid plans now as well and offer that same monthly service I got for my Son for only $30. For tethering there are several easy workarounds such as this one available to Android users to avoid getting nickle and dimed additionally from the major carriers. The ability to buy a no contract Google Nexus or iPhone has become extremely appealing to me. I’m tired of getting locked in for 2 years and overpaying for service.

Data Speeds
Pretty much every carrier now offers faster data speeds that are available to Android phones on their network but the current iPhones don’t have the hardware to support this yet. Once again, this may change with the release of the iPhone 5 but we’ll have to wait and see.

Android TV Integration
This is a new up and coming development. I see many signs that Android is about to really get a grip on being the best device to use on a TV. I currently own both a Boxee and a Logitech Revue (Google TV) and for years have tested many solutions to stream media and access internet services on my TV. There is a new breed of “pocket tv’s” coming out that use the Android OS by Equiso and Infinitec and many others that look to be amazing products. On the consumer end the recently released Vizio Co-Star which is a 2nd generation Google TV box for $99 and sold out in the first 12 hours of release. Then you have the announcement by XBMC, which is regarded as one of the top media players, announcing support for Android this week being developed on another interesting Android box for a TV. Another great option that I’m also testing is Plex which is a fork off of XMBC. While it’s available for both iOS and Android. The iOS version is limited to running on iPhone and iPad while the Android version is available for Google TV as well as the Android devices I’ve mentioned.

Sure this isn’t a phone specific feature to sway me from iOS to Android but my goal may also be to have a single OS and app environment to support and this functionality may play a role in that decision. Android is moving so quickly down this path that Apple better seriously consider opening up the next generation of their Apple TV to support their app ecosystem. Without that I think they will fall behind very quickly in this area and releasing a bundled hardware tv solution alone won’t do them any good. I’ll be writing a more comprehensive post on Android’s move to the living room very soon.

Next Steps
So I’m anxiously awaiting the next release of Google’s next Nexus phone as well as the iPhone 5 to determine what will replace my current iPhone 4 when my contract expires in January. I’m starting to lean towards the next iteration of the Google Nexus. It’s doubtful that no matter how mesmerized I become with the iPhone 5 / iOS 6 release, that I’ll allow Verizon to bamboozle me into another 2 year contract. However if the iPhone 5 becomes available for purchase through Virgin Mobile or another carrier without a contract, it might weigh in on my decision more. If Google’s release though is impressive and I continue being enamored by Android past my current honeymoon phase I might just finally make the jump from iOS to Android. Only time will tell.

I’ve recently returned from DrupalCon Denver 2012 and had some thoughts I wanted to share about the conference and the state of the Drupal Community. I’ve been a long-time fan of Drupal and became very acquainted with the system back in 2007 when I migrated the X PRIZE Foundation website from static html to Drupal 5 (version at the time). It wasn’t a very user friendly CMS and it took me quite some time to get the hang of it, but once I did it was clear how flexible and powerful the system was.

The Similarities between the WordPress and Drupal Communities

Before I began using Drupal I was a longtime WordPress user. I still use WordPress to power my personal websites (including this one). I love both of these open source projects and often get asked which one to use and the answer is still the same it was back in 2007. It depends on what your site is for. For most people who just need a blog or a very simple website I still often recommend WordPress. But if you need a website that requires deep permission levels, commerce, sophisticated caching, and more complex functionality, I recommend Drupal. This is just a high level recommendation and by gleaning more into a sites’ requirements it becomes easier to recommend one or the other.

The evolution of WordPress and Drupal have gone in somewhat similar directions. They both started as open source projects. The founders of both of these projects have created for profit company’s based on their open source software. Matt Mullenweg of WordPress created Automattic and Dries Buytaert founded Acquia. Both companies have also created free hosted versions, as well as fully managed business service versions of their software. Automattic created WordPress.com and Acquia created DrupalGardens. Both projects also host “Cons” and or “Camps” throughout the year were users gather together to share information and help further their respective projects. I just wanted to point out some of these similarities between both of these companies and how their for profit arms have also been instrumental in helping insure the health of their projects. Both Automattic and Acquia also do a great job of contributing back to their open source communities.

Acquia’s Mission and Roadmap Towards Improving Drupal

So back to DrupalCon. I went into this year’s DrupalCon focused on the ways that I can extend the platform to help enable people to more easily create and publish content across our websites. The areas that specifically have been challenging are setting up simple wysiwyg interfaces both for page creation and media asset management, publishing workflows for multiple members on a team, and the ability to publish content between staging and production environments. Our current methods for these have pain points and I was on a mission to find ways to improve them and look to what the future of Drupal had in store to address these issues. Beyond my needs in these areas, I also feel that they are obstacles for other people who are potential users of Drupal.

The first keynote at DrupalCon by Dries spent time focusing on weaknesses in Drupal and specifically 3 things the community needs to focus on what he referred to as “A rudimentary authoring experience”. In a nutshell this referred to to several elements that require work to improve the usability of Drupal for content creators and site publishers. Some other key takeaways from the talk are that Symfony will be used for the framework in Drupal 8 and mobile needs to be addressed much better. This seems to already be in motion as there was no shortage of talks on responsive web design at DrupalCon. Dries’ keynote was the beginning of a pattern I saw emerge from many Acquia employees that spoke on panels at DrupalCon.  They continued to echo and elaborate on Dries’ thoughts about what they need to work on to ensure the successful future of Drupal.

Click the slides below taken from the keynote

Acquia Employee Talks at Drupalcon

The first talk I saw along this theme was with Angie Byron and Chris Strahl titled “Five things we need to create an awesome experience for content creators” which focused on the following issues:

• Authoring and editing for multiple (mobile) devices
• Media management and content repositories
• Content staging and publish / subscribe models
• Page layouts and authoring tools

The talk covered how they had done research around usability among competing CMS platforms from a content creator standpoint. They showed how many of these features are handled on 4 competing systems including Squiz, Plone, CQ5, and Squarespace(v6 beta). They demo’d each of these 4 competing systems and showed where they excel over Drupal with the features and ease of site content creation and editing. In the end they plead their case to the development community to look at these systems and find ways to implement many of the usability improvements within Drupal in the near future as they ready Drupal 8 for release next year.

Another talk I attended was with Kieran Lal & Barry Jaspan. The approach of their talk was from a startup perspective on how Acquia was born and they provided many insights. They discussed the challenges encountered along with the multiple pivots from the original Acquia business model concept. They began by providing simple Drupal hosting solutions and evolved over time into a much more robust managed hosting platform for Drupal. What I liked about this talk is how Acquia has been nimble in learning what the needs of the customer base they’re trying to attract and how they’ve shifted their business model to accommodate them. Many nuggets of wisdom here for startup entrepreneurs can be gleaned from their talk. Acquia now has a very impressive list of clients that they can service much better.

Then I went to see Jay Batson do a talk that was similar with regards to the first one by Angie and Chris except it was done more as a first person view from the eyes of a site publisher. You can learn more about the profile of the “advanced content creator” role he describes here. He explains how the term “Web Engagement Management” is starting to trump CMS and is now being used to describe the overall feature-set associated with the users that fill these content production roles. These features are now essential to people who continually create and manage the content for websites. More and more it’s the marketing department that owns the responsibility of websites and are now the decision makers for web platforms. This is a switch from years ago when IT would own that decision making process. So the critical motive behind all of this is to make sure that the marketing and site content departments needs are met by Drupal moving forward.

The sum of all of these talks by Acquia left me very impressed. They are uncovering the major issues potential clients are stating as they try to sell Drupal and formulating a plan to solve them. By rallying the community around these issues, I feel that they are focused and have a plan to continue being competitive and mature based on the needs of today’s site publishers.

Other DrupalCon Highlights

The “How to build a scalable platform for today’s publishers” talk by Dick Olsson was another stellar talk I found to be extremely helpful with my goals of learning about better methods for content and site publishing. Dick provided a case study and recipe for the modules and methods he’s been using to build out sites for Al Jazeera. He needs to accommodate massive traffic and the ability to publish content quickly in a very intricate caching environment. You can watch his talk regarding those issues, but my focus was more on how he uses Workbench, Deploy, and Panels modules  to effectively manage content workflow and publishing. It was a good talk that showed how these tools can all be used in conjunction very well. I also saw a talk on Panels showing some great new usability features coming soon.

I attended several of the BoF (Birds of a Feather) talks along the content publisher theme and got a lot out of the “Support the Content Creators” talk that was run by Melissa Anderson. Lots of great discussion and sharing of tools and practices which were captured in a great notes doc by Kat.

I love watching case studies from the ground up where an agency covers every step of a web development project with a client. The folks at Treehouse Agency are excellent at telling these stories. I really enjoyed how they provided the under the hood details of their approach and tools used to rebuild the Zagat.com website. They also did a talk on their work to relaunch Energy.gov on Drupal which I didn’t see at DrupalCon but was able to see a more in depth Drupal implementation of the Energy.gov project at BadCamp last year. Here’s the slide deck from that presentation.

Well there you have it. I see nothing but clear blue skies ahead for Drupal.

March is almost upon us and as you monitor social sites you can feel the buzz that is “Spring break for geeks” start to build. I went to my first SXSW in 2009 and really soaked it in and chronicled the pilgrimage. I had a great time and it lived up to all the expectations I had read about it. Last year a backlash was born surrounding the conference and I posted my thoughts defending it.

While I still maintain my feelings from last year, I feel that logistics are now a major concern with SXSW that will be a tough one to overcome. The block of hotels reserved for this year were sold out months ahead. I had to book in January and let me tell you it was slim pickens. Beyond hotel accommodations, my experience last year was that panels have spread out considerably since my first attendance. They now cover fairly long distances that aren’t short walks (or quick shuttle rides due to congestion) and can be challenging to navigate in between panels. Also, if you do make it to your panel there’s a chance that it may have already reached capacity and you’ll have to wait outside with hopes of people vacating so you can enter. There’s no doubt that these issues will be even greater this year. In any case keep this in mind as you plan your schedule for the conference. If there’s a panel you really want to see, make sure that you’re there 20 minutes before it starts.

Don’t go in Blind. Have Your Comprehensive Schedule Ready!

Speaking of planning, this year I’ve setup and tested 3 different web services to do just that. There’s the official SXSW site that offers you the ability to create your own schedule and also has an accompanying mobile app for iOS or Android. I’ve also setup Sched.org which I’ve happily used in previous years. A newcomer I’m trying out this year is Lanyrd. Both Sched.org and Lanyrd have a nice social component where you can connect it to your Twitter account and it will then show you the panels your friends are attending within the service. This can serve two purposes. Both giving you the ability to identify some panels you may not have considered which they’ve shown interest in, as well as a chance to find a location where you can stalk connect with them. So using both services is a good way to let your friends know where you’ll be. Another good reason to use all 3 is that I’ve seen panels, parties, and events that are unique to each of them appearing. So between the 3 you should have the best overall picture. Oh, and I forgot to mention I’m also using Plancast just in case.

When using the above scheduling services I highly recommend that you select at least 2 if not 3 panels per each session during the conference.  The first year some of the panels were hit or miss. In later years I got smarter by planning ahead and giving a panel 5-10 minutes to determine if it was worth remaining or whether I should find another one. By having 2 or 3 selections you have backups in case of a bad panel, congestion, or logistics issues. By having these selections readily available on your mobile device you’ll be ready to act quickly in the event of a bail. Speaking of mobile for a second, make sure you’re more than ready to supply juice to your device to make it through rigorous usage. I bought a Mophie Juice Pack last year for my iPhone which more than provided enough power for me to make it through every day. You don’t want to lose your bloodline to navigate the conference so make sure you’re prepared.

Great All Day Lounges at the Convention Center

There are several areas within the convention center that have on-going activities which make for a great place to network with like-minded folks. I highly recommend the Blogger Lounge which I’ve been attending since my first SXSW. This is a great place to pop in and out of in between sessions or during breaks while at the convention center. You are bound to meet some great folks there. If your work or interests are in the non-profit / philanthropy space then you should head over to the Beacon which similarly will have a dedicated space for the duration of the conference with a schedule of events and ability to network with lots of good folks.

Don’t Do it Wrong

Most of the mystique that revolves around SXSW is based on the surrounding events and parties that occur outside of the convention and panel schedule. Once again your best bet to find these are using the services I’ve already mentioned. But how do you know which one of them are worth going to? Well prior to the conference you’ll see people and friends that have shown interest on those services. But the real proof in the pudding is in people’s actions. Here is where having the right tools to monitor real-time streams becomes invaluable. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of larger than life parties but I have found that many of the big ones aren’t worth attending. There’s long lines, once you get in they are super crowded, and my biggest pet peeve is that the music is blaring and you can’t hold a conversation with anyone. I do make some exceptions here but my goal is always to connect and communicate with great people. My strategy on parties is similar to panels. There’s tons of them going on concurrently so if you’re not getting anything by connecting with people at the one you’re at within 10 minutes it’s time to plant your head back into your phone to find where to head to next.

There are several things I recommend doing. Make sure prior to heading out that you have befriended people who will be attending on Foursquare. One year I realized that I had many friends on Twitter that I hadn’t connected with on Foursquare. That was a mistake. It has become the defacto standard for location at this point and will help you determine where the people you want to hang out with will be. Speaking of Twitter you should also create a list of attendees you want to connect with and have that list at the ready on your mobile device. Every year there seems to be an app category that gets hype leading up to the conference. Strangely enough and in a meta sort of way, it’s one that you can utilize at the conference. Twitter and Foursquare were born at SXSW and last year it was group messaging / texting that were hot. I successfully used these last year to get a hotel room which I was without upon the plane landing in Austin last year.

This Year’s Breakout App Category

This year’s app category that I”ve gleaned having the most hype around are what I would call passive or ambient location apps. These apps will track your location and then passively push alerts to your mobile device based on your proximity with other people near you. The trigger for the alerts are based on factors that could include one degree of separation friendships (A person that’s a friend of a friend on Facebook) or common interests (Also based on Facebook likes). So the point here is that instead of explicitly checking in or monitoring your friends checkins you can be somewhere and have a very serendipitous encounter with an existing friend or someone new you may want to meet. Before you go all crazy with privacy or stalking concerns you both have to be using the app and opt-in for this magical human collision to transpire. Robert Scoble who’s always on the pulse of top apps at SXSW wrote a good post on the two top contenders in this space called Highlight and Glancee. I’m trying both of those as I’m curious to see the results. You can find other recommended apps Scoble recommends to use at SXSW over on Google+ here.

I can go on and on and this post has already gone on for too long and an area I didn’t cover much of (besides being prepared to torture your mobile device) is other “survival guide” tactics. There are plenty of them out there if you just Google them but I came across this pretty cool one this year which even has an innovative design based on this year’s social darling Pinterest. Well there you have it, my ramblings trying to provide some experience to help you out. I hope that SXSW is as magical for me this year as it has been in the past. I’m worried about logistics and am curious how we shall all fare regarding that once we’re there.

Hope to see you there and here’s a guide to what I recommend and where I’ll be:

My Sched.org
My Lanyrd
My Official SXSW schedule
My Plancast

The iOS address book fiasco that originally broke last week has gotten several new legs over the last few days. I originally covered the issue with a slightly different angle in my post on how Path’s misstep may hurt their upcoming health data features. Path quickly responded and apologized in a blog post but the story hasn’t ended there.

Path’s apology has been received in a mixed way. Many have applauded them on the quick and swift action, while others felt it was disingenuous and only resulted because they got caught. The truth of the matter is that apparently this was a standard practice that was being used by many more apps besides Path as Jennifer Van Grove covered on Venture Beat today.

But this story has taken another turn as well. It has spurred a volley of blog posts that attack tech blogging in general and have me likening the situation to something of a cross between conspiracy theories and a comedy roast. Ben Parr has done a good job curating these posts and trying to put some perspective behind the rhetoric which while in some cases has been amusing, has made my head spin a bit. Interestingly enough, Jennifer’s post illustrates everything that’s right about tech blogging.

Neither of the fires behind these two stories are flaming out just yet. While Address Book (gate?) continues to burn, I think there’s still more fuel that will be sprayed on the tech blogging credibility argument. This will be interesting to continue to watch.

*gets popcorn*

I’ve been on the hunt to find a web enabled media streaming box to add to my home theater. After much research I narrowed down my decision to 2 devices I feel that are the best out there. Those devices are the Roku 2 XS, the Boxee Box. The Roku and Boxee have a set of common features between them so I wanted to thoroughly test both to determine which was the one I’d like to keep. The Roku is a cheaper and simpler device to setup and use, so in my comparison I decided to focus on the  distinct features that the Boxee box offered to see if it was a better choice for me. Below I’ve identified the unique features Boxee offers.

1. You can stream your own videos, music, and photos on it I feel that this feature is a must for any home theater today. We have all now amassed personal collections of photos, music, and home videos. Some of you may have setup other boxes you already have such as an Xbox 360 or PS3 for streaming these files. I was streaming using my PS3 and the PS3 Media Server. But as you may have found, this method isn’t ideal. The Boxee was built for sharing your own media from its inception. They also offer you several different ways to get the content from external sources to it. I’m using the built in SMB sharing to access the files from my NAS. It’s nice not having to have a program running on a computer that needs to be on to share content. So while there isn’t a native way to do this on the Roku, if you’re willing to hack a bit there are several third party apps (private channels) to do this. Probably one of the best options is Plex which is also based on the same XBMC software that powers the Boxee.

2. The remote has a keyboard I feel this is a very important feature that shouldn’t be underestimated when considering a streaming box. I have experienced the frustration of the single letter hunt and peck process of virtual keyboards on enough systems to know that I don’t want to continue wasting time using that process in the future. You will need to type words more often than you think on these boxes. Whether you are logging into a service, or trying to type in search words for a movie you want to find on Netflix, or if you need to type in the url of a website into the browser. You will need a keyboard to do this without losing your hair. And speaking of browsers…

3. It has a web browser So you have a box connected to the internet. Might as well offer the ability to browse the web too right? Well with a Boxee Box you can do this and with the keyboard on the remote you can rest assured that it won’t be an awful experience like it is on other devices without one.

4. You can bookmark videos on the web to watch on it Boxee offers a bookmarklet for your browser that provides a feature called “watch later” which allows you to be on any web page and when you click on the bookmarklet it will add any videos on the page to a view later area of the Boxee box to watch next time you fire it up on your couch. These videos can also be accessed via the iPad app. Wait what? They have an iPad app?

5. They offer a full featured iPad app add-on for free There’s an iPad app that provides access to some of Boxee’s features. This includes the “watch later” videos you bookmark functionality I mentioned above as well as accessing your personal movies, photos, and music. Another feature offered here (and also on the Box) is the ability to see all the videos shared by your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. You can also start watching something on the iPad and easily resume where you left off on the Boxee Box or vice versa.

6. You can send video to your Boxee Box from an iOS device using AirPlay This is an experimental feature and I’ve had some mixed results but it’s pretty cool. I’ve successfully sent videos from apps that support AirPlay to the Boxee box and this is a great feature that I hope improves over time. I also am not sure if they’ll support the mirroring function that came with iOS to send content to a TV but that would be great too.

7. You can watch live broadcast TV Boxee just announced their LiveTV $49 add-on which adds the ability to watch local broadcast stations (like ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC) for free. This feature will go a long way to attract cord-cutters whose primary concern for eliminating their cable subscriptions is the loss of being able to watch live news and sports programming.

There is one major feature on the Roku that the Boxee doesn’t have. The Roku 2 XS comes with a remote that includes a gyro built-in accelerometer for gaming. Included with Roku is the ever popular Angry Birds. It was lots of fun to kill the piggy’s on my big screen. Roku also aims to bring many more games to utilize this remote. So if this is appealing to you it may be something to sway you into the direction of a Roku.

So there you have it. A little deeper dive into the unique features of these devices. One thing to keep in mind when comparing them is that the Boxee does require a little more work to setup and access all of these features. The Roku is almost half the price so you need to determine whether these features offer enough value for you. Also, If your household has children or slightly less tech savvy users, the Roku may still be a better choice.

Over the last year I’ve started an on-going initiative to try and streamline and simplify my life more. There are many different facets to this which involve taking a look at both physical and mental inventories. I’m consciously analyzing all aspects of my real-world and online behaviors to see where I can improve, consolidate, or remove anything. Now that’s a pretty high level goal that covers many areas and could sound ambiguous so I’ll try to explain it in more detail.

One thing I began doing was trying to determine if I could sell, donate, or throw out many physical objects that I own. I started by focusing on the tornado of strewn things that lived on my bookshelves. I took a look at my books and donated a large number of them. I then started going through all the other non book objects that occupied them. I threw out some of the souvenir and other cute trinkets that lined some shelves. I read on one of the many resources that I frequent that helps with this behavior that we get attached to the memories of many objects and that one way to maintain those memories without clinging these items is to take a photo of them. That’s good advice. I moved on to many other areas throughout my office like cables and old pc gear I had in boxes and many other items and was able to clear out a good deal of wasted space. This is still a work in progress but things now look more organized and neater which I believe also help me reach a calming state without so much chaos strewn around me.

I don’t know about you folks but the file libraries that occupy my multiple hard drives across my network are also an area that can grow pretty unwieldy. I’m actually pretty good at this now but it took some time. I have a dedicated folder where all new content I download ends up. From there it gets distributed to various other directories that are provide organization methods. The same goes for all media (photos and videos) I create. They end up in a holding zone when transferred from my camera and then I go through this raw dump and delete what I don’t want and then distribute to proper directories setup by year and month. Then nightly my local media gets backed up to my NAS as well as an offline backup service I use.

Then there’s the active software and web services that we use. I always determining whether I need to use all the memory resident apps I use and keeping an eye on alternatives. I look to web services that can help me save time and optimize my life. Mint.com has become one such example of such a service. I tie all of my financial accounts to it which make end of year taxes and monitoring of cash flow and investments in a single location a breeze. I was also a very early adopter of online baking services. I remember the days of sitting down for a half hour to write checks to pay bills and put them in envelopes and mail them out. Now I pay bills in less than five minutes. I’m always looking for existing things that I can do which can be optimized. Time has a huge value in life for me and the more I can do to reduce the amount you waste, the happier I am.

So those are just some examples of methods I’ve employed to try and streamline things in my life.  Another area that I can often get lost in, and have had to work on, is the distraction of consuming online content. This takes many shapes from the firehose of daily generated social content and all the link journeys that I’m taken on, to all the great blog and editorial content generated as well. I’ve recently seen posts that discuss the distractions described above.

• Finding Focus by Chris Brogan
• Apparently it’s called Social Network Fatigue by Luca Massaro (with wisdom from Brian Solis)
• The above story is also based on the Attention Crash concept coined by Steve Rubel that has been around for a few years now.
• I also recommend taking a look at the book Focus: a simplicity manifesto in the age of distaction

I recently read this article in the New York Times about a “Haunting Old Photographic process. It was a story about a current photographer who researched a photographic process called wet plate collodion. This photo process apparently was made famous during the Civil War by battlefield photographers. The San Francisco photographer wanted to learn this process so he could apply it for photos he was taking of current veterans that have returned home after serving in the Middle East.

The article showed a few photos of the process and described how it has gained a resurgence over the last year. I found this pretty interesting so I decided to dig a little deeper to learn more. I was able to find this video that shows each step of the detailed process to take these photographs.

This looked very interesting to me and so I decided to keep looking a bit to see if I could find any ways to simulate this digitally in photoshop. I was able to find this link to the Photoshop fine art effects cookbook that provides a tutorial on how to manually create this effect in Photoshop. So that’s a great tutorial for creating the effect using a manual process within core Photoshop but dug a little deeper.

I then came across some pre-built actions for Photoshop by Totally Rad that creates a very similar effect which you can see here. These looked pretty interesting but then I also discovered Alien Skin’s Exposure 3. So I downloaded the free trial to test it out. It’s very simple to get an initial effect using their “B&W – Vintage” filters which offer several varying Calotype presets with the ability to tweak the settings using color, focus, tone, grain, IR, and age. So I played around a bit and was able to get some pretty nice effects as you can see. I didn’t choose the most applicable photo, but you’ll get the point.

As you can see the Alien Skin filters do a pretty nice job. In an age of Instagram I have become fascinated with filters and the various methods to modify photographs to try and get an artistic look from them. I’ve stated before that HDR is the auto-tune of the photography world. I’m sure the purists are notably pissed by all these new wannabe photographers that are sprouting online nowadays but photo manipulation is fun and I only see it getting bigger.

I can tell summer is over, not from the weather or the calendar but when my commute returns to the progressively worse effed up state it was in prior to summer. That’s not to say that summer offers much of a break from it, but even a 10% improvement is noticeable.

I live in Los Angeles and my commute includes what has been ranked as the #1 worst freeway bottleneck in the whole nation. It’s amazing to me as a geek to watch the advancements in technology from my Atari 2600, as a kid to my first brush with a computer the Radio Shack TRS-80, to how online has changed from the single line BSS’s when I was a kid to where we are today.

How is it though that ground transportation hasn’t really gone anywhere in that same timeframe? It’s amazing how much of our lives are consumed moving from point A to point B nowadays at a speed that is even slower than it was 10 or 20 years ago. We’re actually going backwards.

The only saving grace to help with this antiquated non-innovative transportation issue are the technology innovations like, GPS, realtime traffic, and mobile phones which provide some comfort by letting us listen to podcasts or frikkin audio streams beamed over the air.

Being a geek I’m amazingly happy to have grown up during the emergence of computers and the web but I find this lack of innovation in transportation logistics or technology amazing and don’t see how it’s going to improve anytime soon. I think what this all boils down to is that I’m pissed that Back to the Future was a lie. There’s no way in hell we’re going to have hover cars in 2015.

A few weeks ago I was honored to be a guest on a podcast that I’ve been a listener of called Tummelvision. The podcast has 3 great hosts which include Kevin Marks, Deborah Schultz, and Heather Gold. Here’s the topic of the show in their words:

Tummelvision is a weekly salon-style podcast about the art and science of engaging and collaborating in a networked age. Each week we explore how to connect and create a world that puts people at the centre of business, technology and culture with the smart folks creating this new world.

Each week they invite a guest from varied areas to discuss how they “tummel” and share other interesting information about their roles for work, personal projects or other areas. They have varied guests from different fields which make for an eclectic show that both stays fresh and offers interesting topics to learn about. The hosts always make for a very engaging discussion around the topics that surround the guests that often go on welcomed tangents that branch off to other areas surrounding their discussion. It’s definitely a source of delicious brain food that is fed in different tasty chunks each week. I highly recommend it.

When I joined them we covered quite a few varied topics during the first half of the show including higher education, name spaces, and influence. The second part of the show I peel back the curtain to offer some insight to what we do at the X PRIZE foundation. You can visit their website and listen to my show here and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.