Tag Archive for: web technology

Silhouette with Nothing Wrong printed along with a huge question mark
Silhouette with Nothing Wrong printed along with a huge question mark
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(With apologies to Michael Moore)

You can’t buy the publicity ChatGPT has enjoyed the past few weeks. It seems like there’s a fresh news item about it or a new take on how it will change the world every day. I read about it online in my usual sources and even hear about it on the radio (thanks, NPR).

I admit it. I’m jealous of ChatGPT. It’s getting all this free attention! I’m also afraid of it. I’m a writer and this thing is being touted as a way to replace me and my kind.

Need to write a snazzy post for Facebook or LinkedIn? Sign up and ChatGPT will create original content for you!

No more dealing with moody writers who want to be paid a reasonable fee for their work. No more messages on LinkedIn asking if you need content support or sending newsletters you might not ever read! ChatGPT is the ultimate free tool to replace those pesky life forms knowns as writers and artists.

Rant over.

To cope, I’ve been trying to identify ways that ChatGPT and I can get along since I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. But for ChatGPT and me to get along, we have to set some guidelines. Here are my demands.

Dear ChatGPT: Ditch the Hype and Be Honest About Your Purpose

There is a lot of hype around you, ChatGPT, some of which might be false or exaggerated. It’s up to you, ChatGPT, to come clean on what your purpose is.

At this point, I don’t know what to believe. I see posts from people on sites like LinkedIn who are just amazed by your writing talents. And then I read in The New York Times that a philosophy professor in Michigan had to confront a student about his apparently flawless paper; its perfection was a red flag. The student admitted that you wrote the paper. Yes, you.

ChatGPT, philosophy is a difficult topic. I struggled in the philosophy classes I took in university and earned every bit of those C grades. And still, I enjoyed it. The intellectual challenge may have lowered my GPA but I’m still grateful I was introduced to William James and Henry Adams.

Photo of philosopher WiIlliam James
William James

Allowing the hype to go on that you’re a great researcher and an amazing writer allows and perhaps encourages students to cheat and that’s just not good for anyone. Cheating disrespects academic discipline and perverts the purpose of a university education which is to encourage analytical thinking in one’s field as well as master certain skills.

Students don’t realize it, but cheating will harm them and not just if they’re caught. I can’t imagine how terrifying it is for a newly-minted accounting graduate to realize that they don’t understand how to create a profit and loss sheet or perform an audit. These really aren’t things their customers want them to Google.

Don’t Even Pretend to Be Ethical

Can we teach ethics to artificial intelligence? I doubt it. Too many humans don’t understand it or don’t want to be bothered with ethical questions.

I admit I once wrote a paper in college for a friend who was about to fail a political science class she took because she erroneously thought it would be an easy A. The paper wasn’t great and took me about an hour. It earned her a C and she ended up getting a passing grade.

Silhouette with Nothing Wrong printed along with a huge question mark
Is anything ever wrong? Credit: John Hain/Pixabay

Was this the right thing to do? Probably not. I did it at least in part to end the chatter from my psych major friend – who was an academic superstar in her department- dissing one of my major areas of study. At least I was smart enough not to write like it was for myself.

So please, ChatGPT, either you or your Creator needs to come clean about why you’re here. Which brings me to my next demand…

Stop Telling People You’re a Creative Tool

The most offensive thing about ChatGPT is its claim that it’s creative enough to write content and create art. It isn’t. Everything I’ve read and heard over the airwaves talks about how it “scrapes the web” to learn everything from tone and grammar to artistic styles. Nothing it creates is actually original.

Yes, I know imitation is the best form of flattery. But I gotta be paid, and so do all the other artists and writers out there. Our work is copyrighted, which means you can’t freely borrow from it.

I Want ChatGPT to Credit the Sources It “Scrapes”

ChatGPT, do you know how to credit someone else’s work? I’m not talking about crediting a direct quote. I’m talking about crediting where you get your ideas.

For example, I credited Michael Moore for inspiring the title of this post. And I’m not even from Michigan!

Michael Moore and female fan
Michael Moore and fan, New York City, 2017.

So be honest. Take note of whose work you’ve encountered as you scrape along and be nice about mentioning the names of those whose thoughts and efforts helped you come to whatever conclusions you reach from all your nonstop, 24-hour research that we mortals can’t do.

If you quote someone directly or even mention them, be nice and link back to their website. Trust me, this will bring you some goodwill, and frankly, ChatGPT, you need this.

Here’s How AI and Machine Learning Can Help

I feel I should stress that I am not a Luddite. There is a place for artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML; remember that?) to help us work faster and smarter.

After all, I’m using WordPress to create this post. WordPress lets me write while it does all the coding. I’m rather proud to say that Grammarly has pretty much been high-fiving me lately but I do rely on Yoast to make sure that what I’m writing will perform better for me in terms of attracting readers.

These are great tools. Am I cheating when I use them? I really don’t think so. I know some HTML (who doesn’t?) but my goodness all that coding can really slow me down. I’d rather focus on the actual content. In spite of all my complaints about Gutenberg, WordPress comes through for me.

This is how I wish ChatGPT would behave. Help people work better and smarter so we can focus on what we do best. Stop implying/hinting/stating that it can replace writers and artists because it can’t, at least not yet, and it shouldn’t.

And if it won’t, well, then I think it should pay its fair share of taxes.

WordPress lanyards with label Code is Poetry
WordPress lanyards with label Code is Poetry
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I love my new website but working with it is stressing me out! Here’s how I’m dealing with this.

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Hand reading braille page
Hand reading braille page
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Accessibility is almost routine in public life. Handicapped parking, wheelchair ramps, curb cuts, accessible bathrooms, and Braille signage are in public places and many private ones, too, thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Wheelchair ramp along a wall

Photo: Andrzej Rembowski/Pixabay

Of course, there were no websites back then. It wasn’t until 2008 that new legislation was added to the ADA to instruct them to adopt accessibility tools.

But ADA compliance is far from a reality for most websites – even those owned by government agencies.

Many Websites are Required to be ADA-Compliant but…

Your website should be ADA-compliant do if it represents a government or receives funding from a government, according to AudioEye, a business with the goal of “eradicating every barrier to digital access.”

The reality, though, is that this hasn’t happened everywhere. A 2021 article in WP Tavern detailed how Colorado became the first state to require state and local websites to be ADA-compliant. Clearly, states haven’t been focused on this, which is a little surprising considering how many offices closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and still require people to go online to access services including, ironically, disability support.

Each agency in Colorado was instructed to submit an accessibility plan by July 1, 2022, and be fully compliant with the ADA by July 1, 2024. Those agencies that don’t meet the latter goal can be sued by a person with a disability for a $3500 fine.

Does that sound disturbing? Sometimes it’s the only way to get compliance going.

President Biden had WhiteHouse.gov relaunched to be compatible with current ADA standards according to its accessibility statement. His predecessor declined to enforce ADA deadlines ad even withdrew guidance. That action has been reversed.

ADA-Compliant Websites are Better for Everyone

Why would I say this? It’s simple:  we all will eventually need some kind of support as we age.

We will all need some kind of support as we age. We can thank ADA for taking us there.

Let’s at least agree to make these steps a normal practice for websites:

  • Add tools that enlarge fonts or allow a black/white contrast
  • Add alt text to images that are read out loud on screen readers

low vision magnifier for reading text

Photo: bspence81 /Pixabay

These are pretty minimal steps, and it’s worth noting that search engines read alt text to understand images, which adds a little bit more SEO muscle to your website.

Many people with low vision use magnifiers to read newspapers and magazines. And guess what: taken as a whole, people with disabilities and their families and friends are potential customers. They work, buy stuff, go out to eat, and enjoy the same entertainment as the rest of us.

Why lose an opportunity for more sales?

These Tools Can Help You Get Your Website Moving Toward ADA Compliance

If you use WordPress, your site probably isn’t compliant but a few hours of your time can bring it closer to the goal. It’s relatively easy to improve accessibility for people with visual disabilities, if not actually meet ADA compliance goals.

A Google search for “ADA website tools” will identify articles, tools, and experts to help you understand what to do to make your site more accessible.

I’m a small business and do not run a place of public accommodation, so I don’t have to concern myself about ADA rules. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take a few steps to make my website a friendlier place for a person with limited vision to visit and think, hmm, I wonder if I should contact her for my blog or to freshen my stale site content? (Yes, please contact me.)

WordPress has a number of plugins that provide everything from testing your site to identify ADA gaps to providing general and very specific fixes. You can search the WordPress theme repository for ADA-compliant themes. (Be sure to refresh if you use this link.) WordPress’s own accessibility team posts updates, news, and recommended tools. I use one myself.

ADA Website Compliance Tools

I’m not in a position to recommend tools, but I know these come from reliable sources.

Making websites fully compliant isn’t easy for those of us who aren’t techies. But making them easier for people with low vision to navigate is pretty easy.

I added the UserWay accessibility tool that makes reading this site a little easier for people with visual disabilities, as well as those with dyslexia. It allows users to adjust contrast, increase text size, and increase spacing. I hope people find it useful. And of course, I add alt content to every image and link on my website.

For my previous site, I installed the WordPress Accessibility Toolbar that allowed my visitors to create a black/white contrast or enlarge font.

The toolbar also comes with a menu that lets you select additional features to fix potential accessibility issues, such as forcing underlining on links and preventing links from opening in new windows, which can make browsing difficult for people with low vision.

The ADA Changed America for the Better

The ADA, of course, literally opened American doors to persons with disabilities. And that’s a good thing.

  • Curb cuts and wider doors let people who use wheelchairs (and later, scooters) get around more easily.
  • Braille readouts on ATMs, elevators, and directories allow people with low or no vision to more fully participate in commerce.
  • Use of close-captioning tools brings more deaf people into worksites, cinemas, and theaters.

Curb cuts are helpful to parents pushing strollers and kids learning how to ride a bike. And many of us have used the larger accessible restroom stall not only for its purpose but to also to keep a little one close by and change clothes and/or diapers.

ADA also made us work more intelligently.

Think about innovations like IM, texting, and other person-to-person communications that helped office communications and cut down on chatter that makes it hard to write. They also reduced the instances of the embarrassing or annoying “reply to all” on email.

I remember reading about a deaf colleague in New Orleans who was stranded during Hurricane Katrina. She worried about using up her cell phone battery as she tried to contact a sister outside the state via the TTY tool. Mobile communications were jammed and calls couldn’t get through—but texting used minimal power. She eventually got through to her sibling as she walked (yes, walked) to the airport to catch a flight out. Guess who came for dinner?

Boy shouting into old-fashioned microphone
Boy shouting into old-fashioned microphone
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“Can you repeat that?”

I find myself asking this a lot. It seems I encounter more people who don’t, or can’t, speak clearly. Many are of a certain generation who are just as stereotyped as the Baby Boomers with whom I am supposed to identify.

(Actually, I was relieved to read that I can also claim to be part of Generation X with whom I identify more closely. I don’t feel like I have much in common with those lucky hippies who got to see The Doors and Cream and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.)

As I ask “can you repeat that?” I realize I am stereotyping myself into the Baby Boom, who have been retiring since 2014 and who I bet has a lot more hearing loss than I since they got to see all those great acts before the era of stadium concerts.

Please Speak Clearly, Dammit!

As one who works within marketing, it bothers me that I have to ask someone who makes a sales call to me to repeat himself or herself. I can tell by speech patterns that this is almost certainly a person at least 15 years younger than I. So dudes, please slow down a bit and speak clearly.

I mean, I wouldn’t write an article or blog that doesn’t define its jargon.  I know what it’s like to not be hip or tech enough. Thank God for magazines like Wired and sites like TechCrunch and CNet. Without them, I’d feel very alienated because I grew up pre-Internet. I mean, we got cable TV relatively early and that was when I was in high school.

When I’m speaking with the general (read: younger than me) public, I find I’m asking that question to please repeat what you said more often than ever. It could be due to natural hearing loss that comes with age.

But there’s more: it’s been floated in a couple of places that technology has downgraded the necessity for clear speech. Certainly, it’s been blamed for messing with written speech—just look at the last couple of texts you sent or received. But there’s something to be said for brevity where it’s appropriate. I think more people are growing up speaking more rapidly.

Research shows people are speaking more rapidly today.

I came across a 2011 article in which Wichita State University speech expert Ray Hull explains his research that shows people increased their vocal speeds from 145 words per minute (wpm) to 160 – 180 over a decade. But most people comprehend the spoken word best when it’s down at 124 – 130 wpm or so.

Moreover, in a more recent (2016) article about slowing down speech for young children, Hull also noted that the central nervous system reaches its peak effectiveness in the early 20s. But it starts to slow down in the 40s, particularly in the area of speech processing.

No wonder so much strife has been noted between Millennials and GenXers/Baby Boomers. We/they literally can’t stand to talk to one another!

It’s Even Harder to Repeat Spoken Words

I have a part-time job with a company that provides telephone captioning services over the Internet for people with hearing loss. It’s really opened my ears to speech patterns, including speeds and accents.

Caption employee trying to understand spoken content.

What did he say?

Instead of typing out live speech, we are trained to listen and repeat using speech-to-text software. This is thought to provide more accurate translation, and so far I’d agree in general.

But it’s not easy to repeat spoken words verbatim, particularly when you are an invisible middle person and there’s no body language to observe.

I have been surprised to learn that it isn’t just fast talkers I find most challenging: it’s fast talkers with accents I don’t often encounter. I never lived further south than Northern Virginia, just outside Washington, DC. And while I heard a lot of accents over the many years I lived there, most people I associated with sounded more or less like me.

It’s said that Southerners speak more slowly. Well, that isn’t so when they are talking to one another. Try to caption a Texan relating exciting news to a fellow Lone Star resident. I find it’s easier to keep up with New Englanders on a conference call.

I was curious to see if fast talkers dominate the Mid-Atlantic States so I did some research.  A couple of years ago, The Atlantic reported on a study that ranked states by the number of fast talkers based on actual phone calls.  Somewhat surprisingly, New Yorkers were not found to be the fastest speakers. They weren’t even close: the state ranked all the way down at #38—far behind my native New Jersey, which came in at #19.

Oregon was home to the fastest talkers, followed by Minnesota—a little startling to me—and Massachusetts, which wasn’t so surprising.

I then compared this list of fast-talking states to a map that ranks states by their populations’ youthfulness to see any correlation. Oregon is a bit older than the national median age (37.9, according to the Census Bureau) at 39.2 years, not much younger than Massachusetts at 39.5. Utah has the youngest median age at 30.7. It’s also ranked #31 for fast-talking, perhaps because it has a younger population that’s still in their developing years.

I didn’t find a correlation between a state’s median age and how fast its residents speak.

Texas, though, is a youngish, 34.5 median age state. But it’s at #44 on the fast-talking list. Maine has the oldest median age in the nation at 44.5 but ranks #21 on the speech list.

So there isn’t much of a fast-talking/median age correlation.

Customer service centers with live operators can be challenging to repeat because many of their employees are young and talk quickly. Many are instructed to keep calls under a certain number of minutes in order to process more incoming calls.

Some of our customers will inform service reps that they use a captioning phone so their responses will be delayed a few seconds. That does tend to slow down some of the reps, or at least stop asking “Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” over and over.

Even more frightening are outgoing voicemail messages where the only discernable sound is that of the beep. Even voicemail greetings from doctors’ offices can be very difficult to follow because of their speed and the amount of information the caller is asked to leave: date of birth, name, the time you called, which doctor you see, and oh yeah: why are you calling?

Be Kind and Speak Clearly: The Nation is Aging

Eventually, the fast-talking Millennials will get older (I hope!) and will ask people to slow down for them.

I don’t mean to Millennial-bash. Some of the nicest people I know are of this generation. But if we’re all going to get along and do meaningful things, we need to slow down the way we communicate. Most Americans are approaching 40 or past it. With age comes a caution to understand everything that’s being said!

As Hull notes, slowing down your speech is good for everyday conversation. You’ll sound more articulate. Your speaking style will sound more natural as well. “The next time you’re talking to someone,” he told Wichita State’s NewsWise service, “remind yourself to slow down. Your listener will thank you.”

 

 

 

 

 

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Set of shopping icons
Set of shopping icons
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Over the past several months I’ve been working with WooCommerce experts who work with e-commerce businesses.

WooCommerce, a popular e-commerce software that's also open source.

WooCommerce is the most popular open-source e-commerce software.

For those who aren’t familiar with WooCommerce, it’s a plugin from WordPress that turns a website into an e-commerce powerhouse. The Australian firm BuiltWith, which provides website profiling, lead generation, analysis, and other support services for e-commerce, reported that 12% of all e-commerce sites use either WooCommerce or use the WooCommerce Checkout tool.

On its own, WooCommerce powers nine percent of all e-commerce sites, just behind market leader Shopify and just ahead of Magento, two other popular e-commerce options.

WooCommerce Is Open to Developers Who Create E-Commerce Tools

Like WordPress, WooCommerce is a free, open-source platform, meaning that people who do things like develop website applications can easily integrate their products to work with WooCommerce. (For more information about how application interfaces work, see this article from ModeEffect.) While it offers plenty of free and paid or fee-based tools (called extensions), being open source means it’s easier for developers to create customized solutions for e-commerce site owners. I think this benefits both developers and e-commerce businesses.

WooCommerce is so extensive, it’s easy to forget that it’s a WordPress plugin so it can run other WordPress plugins as well. However, many WordPress plugin developers have developed extensions specifically for WooCommerce. Yoast, an SEO tool that virtually all WordPress users (myself included) consider vital, has a WooCommerce extension.

WooCommerce Is (Almost) as User-Friendly as “Closed” Platforms

I don’t have any direct experience maintaining a WooCommerce site myself but I’ve seen enough to be confident that as a longtime WordPress user to know I could learn it pretty quickly.  I had the opportunity to leaf through a pre-launch WooCommerce site a few years ago and liked what I saw.

WooCommerce generally scores points for being user-friendly although reviewers often point out that sites like Shopify and Etsy are friendlier. They probably are, especially for e-commerce business owners who “don’t use” computers. Shopify, Etsy, Weebly, and other “instant websites” are all-in-one website builder packages that also include hosting in their costs. I think this is why they are seen as more user-friendly than WooCommerce and Magento, which put the hosting decisions on site owners.

Moreover, WooCommerce requires first building a WordPress website, adding another step to the process.

However, setting up a basic WordPress site is pretty easy. Once you decide on a host—WordPress endorses BlueHost and SiteGround, the host I use—you have access to WordPress for free, and many hosts will help you set up a site as well. You aren’t limited to these hosts, either: there are tons of other excellent WordPress hosts including GoDaddy, which I personally think has the best customer service anywhere, of any business.

Like most website services, WordPress has an installation wizard that makes setting up a basic site a low-stress task. Your host can also help with setup, and there are lots of videos on YouTube and WordPress itself that can guide you along as well if you’re doing it on your own. Frankly, there’s nothing like working hands-on with a new tool to help you find it less threatening; remember, you’re not launching warheads or anything!

Once WordPress is set up, go to the Plugins menu and look for WooCommerce. Once you upload and activate it, you can use its setup wizard to guide you through it.

WooCommerce Hosting and Domain Registration

Hosts can also transfer an existing e-commerce website from another platform to their own, even from “closed” sites like Etsy. A clever host will know a few tricks like downloading a CSV file or figuring out an application interface (API) solution. At the very least, a CSV will preserve the content.

Domain registration works the same way for WooCommerce as it does for any other website. In the early days of the web, this was often done by separate companies but more hosts are providing domain registration as well and closed, all-in-one services take care of this as well and may be another reason why WooCommerce and Magento are written off as requiring “expert” knowledge. But today, many hosts like BlueHost and GoDaddy, do both. I work with clients who use GoDaddy for both hosting and domain registration.

I use GoDaddy to register and keep my domain. It didn’t offer WordPress back when I started my own website, so it didn’t make sense to use it for hosting. Plus, I got free hosting from a friend for many years—a sweet deal for which I will always remain grateful

I’ve read that it isn’t a good idea to use the same service for both hosting and registration. But if it’s a reputable site, with good reviews from places like TechRadar, I don’t see why there would be a problem. If you’re using a really cheap host who’s new or is small but you personally like the people behind it, it may make sense to separate hosting and registration just in case something does go wrong. At the very least, you want to hang on to your website registration!

In addition, some hosting sites are starting to specialize in WooCommerce. Large WooCommerce sites may want to look into these options as there are differences between hosting a WordPress site and a WooCommerce site, particularly where traffic management is concerned.

Tips for Launching a WooCommerce Website

I haven’t actually set up a WooCommerce site but I know people who do!

I also had the opportunity to sit it on Chris Lema’s presentation on setting up WooCommerce at Phoenix WordCamp in February 2018. Lema is an e-commerce expert and works extensively with WooCommerce. He literally set up a dummy site and showed the highlights seen in the setup wizard.

Interestingly, WooCommerce is a little less logical than WordPress. Here are a few tips Chris shared with us:

  • Be sure to go into the settings section because the wizard skips over most of them. US-based e-commerce businesses are required to list a physical location so be sure to ask your client what address to use. You can also use a fake one and change it later. Do not, however, list your address as you will then start receiving all kinds mail you don’t want or need!
  • The first content section you see in the software (right under the page title) is not where you add content about the product! This is a major stumbling block and the guy next to me at Lema’s presentation told me this cost him a lot of time. Look for the product description section, a small area which is what Google will see first as it conducts searches. The large content area is for details you may or may not want to add, but will probably help with search engine optimization.
  • Always choose PayPal as a payment option. Not only is it wildly popular, Chris says, many people view money in their PayPal accounts as “free” money to use for shopping. I know that I often leave a few bucks in my PayPal account for inexpensive purchases like pizza or discounted books/ebooks.

Chris’ presentation was quite entertaining and was well worth the time and extremely affordable cost to attend WordCamp even in my case for just one morning. To see Chris’ favorite WooCommerce extensions, check out his slide presentation Launching Your WooCommerce Store Workshop.

WooCommerce is Great for Blogging!

WooCommerce is its own little world but it’s still a WordPress plugin and retains the blogging DNA.

Blog on WooCommerce just as you would on WordPress: create a new post, add categories, tags, media, and metadata. Yoast, a popular SEO tool (I used it all the time) has an extension for WooCommerce that builds upon its WordPress version. It supports Pinterest and ties in with the the WordPress version to coordinate and boost breadcrumb trails. There’s also a Local SEO version for those e-commerce sites that also have a local brick and mortar presence.

What should you blog about? Well, what do your customers care about? Look at your emails for clues. Typically, they are interested in:

  • New products
  • Product care
  • Special offers
  • Staff introductions
  • Customer testimonials
  • Photos and videos

Depending on your customers, it’s usually ok to share a little personal information such as how you dealt with a Noreaster (something we don’t worry about here in Arizona), a kid going away to college, a new puppy. As the great big shoe company says, just do it!

And if you can’t find the time—hire a professional writer!

 

 

 

 

cupped hand underneath floating globe covered with binaries
cupped hand underneath floating globe covered with binaries
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The Internet of Things (I0T) is here and it’s hungry. Right now, a lot of brainpower is being used to figure out battery and energy solutions so that Alexa never fails to respond and the FitBit doesn’t overlook the stairwell you climbed coming back from lunch.

Consider, too, that IoT needs computer processing power as well to function. Assuming our chips survive Spectre, will IoT users get the power they need?

IoT and a New Approach to Supercomputing

IoT devices are the ultimate in wireless, on-the-go technology and its numbers are growing. Last year, Gartner forecasted there would be 20.4 billion IoT devices by 2020. More than 60% of current IoT applications are in the consumer market, but businesses will no doubt identify new uses for it and make more demands for IoT power, including processing power.

Supercomputers are the first solution most businesses and industry enthusiasts will think of. But supercomputers are expensive and consume a lot of energy. They would place IoT out of reach for many consumers and small businesses. But guess what? There is a better way: leashing the power of idle and underused processors.

The Phoenix area where I live and work is a hub of creative technological thinking, particularly in mobile and IoT.  Two years ago, I caught a presentation by Chris Mattheiu, then with Citrix, at the annual Phoenix Mobile Tech conference. He spoke about sharing unused processors to power anything that requires computing— not just IoT—although that’s what initially sparked his interest.

A new supercomputing platform uses idle or unused processing power.

Giving and taking computing power, as needed and as available.

Even to me, a non-techie who writes about mobile and IoT tech, this made sense: Create a supercomputer that doesn’t generate more processing power but uses excess power that’s just sitting around unused. IoT itself, Mattheiu pointed out, is idle 80% of the time. It doesn’t need a steady supply of processing power, but it does need a reliable one.

Mattheiu had already created the website computes.io to deliver processing power to those who need more than they have on hand. In January 2018, he announced its formal launching as a new business. Computes serves businesses and nonprofits that need additional computing power that would otherwise require buying additional resources. It can run on the cloud and deliver to any device, on any browser and through any operating system.

It’s already got one impressive customer: the University of Wisconsin, which is using Computes to find patients with early onset Parkinson’s Disease for clinical studies.

This approach to get supercomputer power without spending a lot of money is great news for smaller companies and startups, which are powering a lot of Phoenix-area tech businesses these days.

Who Needs Additional Computing Power?

In addition to the impressive size of IoT users, there are plenty of others who can use additional computing power. For me, the most obvious one is in graphic design.

As a dedicated WordPress fangirl, I am painfully aware of the amount of sheer memory graphics take up on a website. There are solutions for this terrible problem (!) but what about the folks who are creating those graphics? Artists are not generally overflowing with excess cash to buy into more Amazon cloud space, particularly for short-term projects.

Computes works for them, too, and I suspect local Phoenix-area artists and videographers will love this solution. The same goes for those working with machine learning (formerly known as artificial intelligence, or AI), another small but strong industry in these parts. Not everyone has access to the supercomputing services at ASU!

Computes is also looking to attract a “cryptocurrency” market to leverage from idle gaming systems, cryptocurrency mining—a popular activity on campus these days—and to support applications like fault tolerance, which ensures websites remain active even when there’s an issue that would normally bring a site down.

IoT devices and machine learning/AI aren’t trends anymore: they’re as permanent as data collection and mining. Even cryptocurrency keeps marching on. Their presence, and that of the next thing on the horizon, will make more demands on power, even if they don’t need it all the time.

Most of us hate wasting resources. This “mesh computer” as Computes calls it, works in a way similar to how solar power customers sell excess power back to utilities. Plus, it’s good to see a technological advance that will actually help small businesses and nonprofits better manage their resources. The fact that this great idea was hatched right here in the Valley of the Sun makes it more than a little sweeter.

profile of woman facing robot with binary code in background
profile of woman facing robot with binary code in background
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I attended the sixth annual Phoenix Mobility Conference in September at Arizona State University. This is the second year in a row that a university hosted the event; last year’s conference was at Grand Canyon University.

Interestingly, artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR)—not mobile technology—were the focuses for much of this year’s conference. At times, it seemed mobile tech was almost incidental outside of presentations on headset technologies for gaming which, one might presume, has research potential as well.

Can Artificial Intelligence Replace Human Interaction? Should It?

At the risk of using a non sequitur, ASU is a natural fit for discussions about the roles AI and AR can play. The campus is about as connected as one can get, a point emphasized by the keynote speaker Sethuraman Panchanathan (“Panch” to his students and colleagues), who is the face and force behind knowledge enterprise at ASU.

Touching, from human and artificial intelligence

The human touch is superior to one from artificial intelligence.

“Imagine AI giving keynote talks like this,” Dr. Panchanathan said during his keynote. AI’s ability to collect and assess a huge range of data would make keynotes more informative and accurate. Using sophisticated user interface and deep intelligence capabilities, a keynote would anticipate and answer all the questions an audience would have. It would be so much better!

Would it?

I kept wondering if Dr. Panch underestimates the power of human communication skills, including his own. I was drawn in by his enthusiasm and I’m not even a techie or ASU alum. It was interesting to hear how ASU has taken the lead in the knowledge industry, even though at times the keynote sounded like an extended advertisement for the school.

But would I have preferred a presentation from Commander Data? Probably not–and let’s not forget, that character longed to make the ultimate transition into a human.

It’s seeing a well-prepared, live lecture that captures the attention of “other” people we need to persuade to embrace technology, another point Panchanathan made. Let’s leave the presentations to the people involved in the work. Make the artificial intelligence and smart devices available for follow-up when human experts aren’t available.

Will Writers Be Replaced by Deep Learning Artificial Intelligence?

Deep learning was another hot topic at the conference. For those who aren’t familiar with it, deep learning is a part of AI that studies and learns from data to continuously adapt. It’s sort of the opposite of task-oriented machine learning that’s displaced factory jobs once held by real people. Here’s an overview from Investopedia.

There was some talk of AI being used to create written content, as for websites, blogs, even film scripts. As a writer, I find this alarming.

I also think it’s counterproductive. I don’t know how much AI can or should learn, at least about the human condition. From what I’ve read, AI-produced scripts are pretty bad. Can they get better? Honestly, I hope not. AI should primarily, if not exclusively, be used as a tool.

Let’s put it underground to detect movements–natural and otherwise–that can trigger earthquakes and give people advance warning. Let’s continue to put it in technologies like self-driving automobiles to make traffic flow better and eliminate human errors that range from distracted driving to wrong-way driving (a particularly weird and dangerous problem in the Phoenix area).

If AI’s champions see a role in influencing the human condition, use it to build upon it rather than replace it. Use AI to help people with disabilities successfully navigate new territories, whether it’s practicing to overcome severe anxiety or learning to use an artificial limb to its fullest. How about an AI device to teach new languages more naturally than repeating phrases? Or replace a nervous parent trying to teach an equally nervous teenager to drive?

We need to be smart about how we plan to use AI and keep our expectations to utility, not replacing functions best done by people. Aside from Elon Musk’s warnings about AI driving the next world war, AI is a tricky tool that requires careful planning, security, and above all, control.