Idea: Utilizing Sense/Stage to Control Crowds
Utilizing it on an individual results in really tightly controlled activity (like the example below, where the music adapts to the dancer rather than the other way around). I’ve been thinking about utilizing the system with crowds.
Why? You can achieve that same kind of tightly controlled activity by aligning the various decision loops of a crowd of individual actors. This can get extremely complex, the Sense/Stage system has been tested with 40 nodes simultaneously running 150 channels of distributed, real time sensor data. Here’s some broad strokes:
- Amusement. Think of a ride where the ride adapts to what the crowd is doing. Multiple possible vectors (say you’re just walking around). Crowd members experience different thrills based on which path they took (a haunted house this way could be a LOT of fun). Would encourage them to come back and do the same ride again… but experience it differently each time! You wouldn’t have to invent Disney Land. You’d just have to work with one warehouse. Huge opportunity.
- Controlling Fear Vectors for Good. Think of an evacuation system that tracks crowd members and adapts itself to the conditions at hand. In the case of a fire, it senses a heat surge, and lights go extremely red and alarm gets VERY loud as you approach it, and only in that area. As you move in the right direction, lights get brighter, alarm fades slowly. Could get more complex: as the crowd runs more (risking trampling) more calming sounds/sounds/lights are cued. If its moving too slowly, a sense of urgency is instilled. In short, a security system that isn’t a mousetrap. Doesn’t provide flat, dead instructions. Instead, the environment is alive and reacting to the situation.
- Controlling Fear Vectors for Bad. An ad-hoc system, deployed just (minutes) prior to an attack. Directs fear vectors by blinking out lights to the evacuation routes that work, emitting negative sounds (screams of pain, gunfire, + just creepy stuff – Joker-esque laughing) that add to chaos. Transforms an environment into a stage that reinforces terror.
Sense/Stage
This is a very cool, very affordable system of sensors that feed into a common operating environment. In this case, they’re focusing on performance arts. Music/effects/lighting that match the performer rather than the other way around. Video below.
Sense/Stage Workshop from Chris Salter on Vimeo.
Afghanistan ‘Awakening’
Hmm. US buys a 400,000 tribe for $1 million. (Hey, that’s a better deal than most PMC’s are offering.) Unfortunately….
In exchange for their support, American commanders agreed to channel $1 million in development projects directly to the tribal leaders and bypass the local Afghan government, which is widely seen as corrupt.
So… to stand up a functioning nation-state, the US has decided the best strategy is to route around that fledgling government entirely.
Idea: Communities Health Network
This model of drone-based-health mapping lends itself to a pretty cool model that would slash costs, drastically, while generating economic rewards for many. (Following sparked from a conversation with gawp in the comments of the previous post.)
Individual franchisees run ops for a particular area. They build (or hire others to) the drones, ensure the information streams are flowing, and seek out clients who want this data (local corporations, governments, that don’t want to risk an epidemic, governments – anyone who owns a public space). That’s their revenue. If they feed their data into ‘larger’ streams (such as regional, state, or national feeds) they get to a share of that revenue as well.
To buy in, they lay down say $10k to start up . That would cover a powerful Mac with a built in web cam, the drones, the software, and they pay a 10% subscription a month to the following services. (Could be just taken from their share of the larger streams.)
- A cloud based storage solution for the data. Hell, open-source it for transparency and to leverage any independent analysis.
- Access to an analytical group of health/epidemic professionals who do the deep science work. They define the baseline, adjust for new systems, or threats etc.
Because this approach incorporates platform logic, embedded both in its information systems and its architecture, this scales up pretty well. There are 273 cities in the United States with populations over 100,000 with potential for several franchisees in each without having to set up a massive hierarchy and plenty of opportunity for reward.
I’m working with a team of technology thinkers/builders that could take this from paper to reality very quickly. That’s true for most of the ideas here. Let’s talk. 😉
Idea: Community Health Sensors
Cheap way to keep track of how a community is doing using fevers as an indicator.
A few blimp drones, equipped with a sensitive infrared camera, circulating around the community (or office, or base, or neighborhood), mapping temperature over time. Alerts you when there’s a change. Coupled with the right video analysis software, it could even track when someone’s temperature is above a certain threshold, say 102.
Add a real sensor network to the equation (each node can be built very cheaply) and the picture becomes much, much clearer.