Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines

My article from an old Media & Tech blog (September 18th 2011)

There is crowd wisdom. Scores of people have a much greater ability to figure things out and solve problems, than any one person or one company. More specifically, it’s among the millions of nondescript people who are in the trenches of day-to-day life, who come up with the neatest, most useful things, at a small fraction of the cost and time that big companies spend.

How about what the poor in India came up with, for example? Or a clever thing by a working class engineer in the US? How about the fun challenge that Volkswagen got the masses to ‘play’?

This morning I found this article by Amelia Naidoo - UAE students' aerial robot tops world entries -about a bunch of happy dudes, proudly displaying their winning but “weird-looking contraption with several propellers”:

Don’t know today, but can learn tomorrow

These deservedly proud boys hail from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani at the Dubai campus, and they entered the International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) last month in the US. They had to create a flying machine that could think for itself and do its task, as human navigation was prohibited. In order to do this, they of course had to think carefully as well. I was impressed by the fact that they had to grasp cool subjects like “artificial intelligence, control systems, electronics and image processing.”

Some people face a tough problem, and give up, because they don’t know how to solve it. Maybe they’ve never seen such a problem before, and they’re quickly stumped, frustrated or discouraged. And give up. In fact, with just a bit of effort, they can learn something about how to actually solve that problem.

This is my personal rule: Whatever I don’t know or can’t do now, I can learn. With a wealth of information literally at my fingertips, I can get the knowledge or skill I need to figure it out and handle that situation. (In fact, as a secret between you and me [hehe], I’m working on a theoretical and practical framework that will solve absolutely any problem we face. So stay tuned, but hush in the meantime [wink].)

See something cool, don’t you

Maybe like Volkswagen, Intel knows when to search the masses for ideas and innovation, in this case university students. I was impressed that these winning lads got sponsorship from this technology giant. Intel apparently funded their software and hardware, and even wanted to buy one of their prototypes. How cool is that! They were clearly on to something.

For the greater good (yay), for the greater bad (sigh)

IARC set up this competition as a military mission. So I imagined an intelligent but compact flying machine in the future that could disarm enemy arsenal, free hostages, and do reconnaissance. Its being unmanned meant that it could enter restricted airspace and lives did not have to be risked. For the bad, however, I imagined high tech thieves conducting their due diligence and methodically picking off a precious piece of jewelry, an invaluable artifact, or a classified document. Clearly there is a place in the world for both kinds of people.

Flying machines were the fantasy through the 19th century. Then, in the 20th century, they became not only a reality but also ‘old hat.’ Fly me to Singapore (boring). Take me to the moon (yawn). Helicopter me amidst air traffic (been there, done that). Ah, but what everyday people are doing is slip out of their tedium, think differently about things, and solve problems that matter to them. It might be high tech, or it might be low tech.

Any tech is cool, as far as I’m concerned, if it works and serves its purpose!