Learnlets

Secondary

Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Making ‘sense’

24 February 2015 by Clark 1 Comment

I recently wrote about wearables, where I focused on form factor and information channels.  An article I recently read talked about a guy who builds spy gear, and near the end he talked about some things that started me thinking about an extension of that for all mobile, not just wearables.  The topic is  sensors.

In the article, he talks about how, in the future, glasses could detect whether you’ve been around bomb-making materials:

“You can literally see residue on someone if your glasses emit a dozen different wavelengths of microlasers that illuminate clothing in real time and give off a signature of what was absorbed or reflected.”

That’s pretty amazing, chemical spectrometry on the fly.  He goes on to talk about distance vision:

“Imagine you have a pair of glasses, and you can just look at a building 50 feet away, 100 feet away, and look right through the building and see someone moving around.”

 Now, you might nor might not like what he’s doing with that, but imagine applying it elsewhere: identifying where people are for rescue, or identifying materials for quality control.

Heck, I’d find it interesting just to augment the camera with infrared and ultraviolet: imagine being able to use the camera on your phone or glasses to see what’s happening at night, e.g. wildlife (tracking coyotes or raccoons, and managing to avoid skunks!).  Night vision, and seeing things that fluoresce under UV would both be really cool additions.

I’d be interested too in having them able to work to enlarge as well, bring small things to light like a magnifying glass or microscope.

It made me think about all the senses we could augment. I was thinking about walking our dogs, and how their olfactory life is much richer than ours.  They are clearly sensing things beyond our olfactory capabilities, and it would be interesting to have some microscent detectors that could track faint traces to track animals (or know which owner is not adequately controlling a dog, ahem).  They could potentially serve as smoke or carbon monoxide detectors also.

Similarly, auditory enhancement: could we hear things fainter than our ears detect, or have them serve as a stethoscope?  Could we detect far off cries for help that our ears can’t? Of course, that could be misused, too, to eavesdrop on conversations.  Interesting ethical issues come in.

And we’ve already heard about the potential to measure one’s movement, blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and maybe even blood sugar, to track one’s health.  The fit bands are getting smarter and more capable.

There is the possibility for  other things we personally can’t  directly track: measuring ambient temperatures quantitatively, and air pressure are both already possible and in some devices.  The thermometer could be a health and weather guide,  and a  barometer/altimeter would be valuable for hiking in addition to weather.

The combination of reporting these could be valuable too.  Sensor nets, where the data from many micro sensors are aggregated have interesting possibilities. Either with known combinations, such as aggregating temperature and air pressure  help with weather, or machine learning  where for example  we include sensitive motion detectors,  and might be able to learn to predict earthquakes like supposedly animals can.  Sounds too could be used to triangulate on cries for help, and material detectors could help locate sources of pollution.

We’ve done amazing things with technology, and sensors are both shrinking and getting more powerful. Imagine having sensors scattered about your body in various wearables and integrating that data in known ways, and agreeing for anonymous aggregation for data mining.  Yes, there are concerns, but benefits too.

We can put these together in interesting ways, notifications of things we should pay attention to, or just curiosity to observe things our natural senses can’t detect.  We can open up the world in powerful ways to support being more informed  and more productive.  It’s up to us to harness it in worthwhile ways.

Trackbacks

  1. Exploring Social Leadership – Social Learning Hub says:
    2 February 2019 at 7:16 AM

    […] Quinn, C.  “Making ‘Sense,’” (2015), Learnlets: Clark Quinn’s Learnings About Learning Blog, http://blog.learnlets.com/?p=4220. […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Clark Quinn

The Company

Search

Feedblitz (email) signup

Never miss a post
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

Pages

  • About Learnlets and Quinnovation

The Serious eLearning Manifesto

Manifesto badge

Categories

  • design
  • games
  • meta-learning
  • mindmap
  • mobile
  • social
  • strategy
  • technology
  • Uncategorized
  • virtual worlds

Blogroll

  • Charles Jennings
  • Christy Tucker
  • Connie Malamed
  • Dave's Whiteboard
  • Donald Clark's Plan B
  • Donald Taylor
  • Harold Jarche
  • Julie Dirksen
  • Kevin Thorn
  • Mark Britz
  • Mirjam Neelen & Paul Kirschner
  • Stephen Downes' Half an Hour

License

Previous Posts

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006

Amazon Affiliate

Required to announce that, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Mostly book links. Full disclosure.