Ian On The Red Dot

1. There really isn’t a need to twist and mangle words and phrases to use the word ‘co-spaces’ or some variation of it to make it seem like your company or product or service is relevant to the vision of Michael Yap and MDA. ‘Co-Spaces’ is about an idea - not word play.

2. This is SingHealth’s vision statement:

To be a renowned organisation at the leading edge of Medicine, providing quality healthcare to meet our nation’s aspirations.

Notice there is no mention about affordable prices. The speaker was smug. Maybe because he realize he can offer health-care and the most of us can’t.

To be fair, a sub-point under the ‘Mission’ header talks about cost-effective healthcare although cost-effective is different from affordable.

3. There seems to be a lot (too much?) focus on representing the physical (is it really real?) world 3 dimensionally online. Is that the only or best way to represent the physical world online? I think there are many ways to visualize data and 3d is only one of them.

I understand why it may seem attractive to represent the world 3 dimensionally online but with software like Microsoft’s Photosynth, I wonder if such efforts will eventually be a waste of time, money and resources.

However, it does seem from research done that avatars do affect how online interaction occurs so maybe trying to work on 3d representations of the world might have its uses although none of it was mentioned beyond the ‘hey-look-its-the-same-as-the-real-world-and-have-i-said-it’s-interactive’ fawnings. Read more about such research over at The Daedalus Project.

Most of the presentations from companies didn’t seem to touch on one of the core ideas (at least as I understand it) about Co-Spaces. No mention of how to pull data in from the physical world and represent it in a way that helps us aggregate, interpret, analyze and contextualize data with online tools. Little mention of how we can pull data from the virtual and make it accessible in the physical world.

I’m trying to leave room that there might have been more companies or demand drivers that talked about the two ideas mentioned above because I could have missed something but I can’t seem to recall any speaker actually saying anything relevant to those two ideas besides the one from DSTA.

4. I’m not sure if I’m getting what the speaker said correctly but here goes.

DSTA’s speaker talked about soldiers on the ground feeding back data to some commander which will aid the commander making decisions that can be relayed back to the users. Yup. I think that works - leave an officer in a comfortable room AWAY from the battlefield and I’m pretty sure he will make the right tactical decisions when his own life isn’t on the line.

The speaker also talked about how the soldier can be outfitted with devices that relay information about the environment and other data. Yup. Carrying more weight and devices will definitely help the soldier’s mobility and on-the-ground situational awareness.

Actually, I’m not sure if he is talking about all these ideas to be used in an actual war or just for training and evaluation purposes.

I think if it is for a war, it will be a big mistake. Imagine if our enemy gains access to the data being relayed back. Now, they know everything about us and we know nothing about them. Good Game guys. We’ll all be so screwed, and not in a good way.

Now, some people will say we will prevent that data compromise from happening. Yup. The same way we will prevent detainees from escaping. Not pointing fingers. I’m just saying.

Side note: You know what we really need for National Service. Every NS man to be stabbed or shot once in a non-critical area which will not lead to permanent physical damage. It is a bit extreme, but I guarantee none of us will ever forget the 3 second rule if we go through that experience nor will we NOT take our unarmed combat seriously.

The thing is, technology could help make us a better army only if the training stops being pussified. You are already taking 2 years of my life, might as well make it worth it.