Zag To The Zig #55 :: Going electric, going Helium and going Metaverse
Two weeks, two editions of ZTTZ. Regular. Proud.
Hope you’re all well?
Let’s start in the Tech Room this week
An inconvenient truth about AI. The guy who founded the Roomba cleaning robot has a few non-standard things to say about AI.
Ask not what your AI system can do for you, but instead what it has tricked you into doing for it.
I’ve told you before that I’m very interested in Helium, a p2p people’s network of antennas for IoT data transport. Here in Europe, the project is still in the stage of expanding the network, but in the US companies and cities are starting to sign up for this network.
In San Jose, the city council is funding a project to give internet access to low-income families with the rewards they’re getting from running Helium antennas."55% of Chinese respondents say a virtual vacation sounds appealing”.
Mmmm.
Last week, we talked briefly about the Metaverse. This week I found this decent (and nicely designed) trend report on the how, what and who of the Metaverse.
And yes, companies are experimenting with this ‘thing’. Fashion brand Balenciaga teamed up with Fortnite to make digital twins of their gear. You buy for real, you also get to show it off in Fortnite.
In the Garage
In Norway electric vehicles account for more than 90% of new cars.
On the other hand, in all but 2 of the 50 American States, the bestselling vehicle was a truck/SUV.
In the Economy Room
I loved this simple scenario on one possible future of bitcoin. The blockchain is dead. Long live Bitcoin.
I’m intrigued by how blockchains and web3 can enable people to start working together in more collaborative ways. On the one hand, you’ve got the futuristic concept of on-chain DAOs, promising scalable digital collectives. They’re still clumsy, they’re not easy to design.
And on the other hand, the concept of cooperative stakeholder models has been tried and tested. So this was my favourite read of the week: ‘DAOs are novel but not new’.
In the Twitter Feed.
I spent some time on Twitter this week. It’s been ages. But I wanted to find something inspiring.
It took me forever.
So either my gut feeling of 'stay away from Twitter' has been correct, or I should spend some time weeding out who I follow.
But I did love this anti-Facebook/Instagram bashing tweet thread. Scroll. And stay critical.
Random ZTTZ
So it’s only fitting to end this edition with an Instagram account. What do trainers and cars have in common?