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Entries in Getting Started (31)

Thursday
Jul252013

Saga: the first true mobile lifelogging app

Saga is the first true mobile lifelogging app. That is, this is the first time I can see my complete lifelog with location, photos, calendar entries, notes, and health information all unified right on my phone. Saga gets it right by making most of the logging automatic, including ingesting social media posts and taking a stab at places I've been (without having to remember to "check in" at the moment). During our years of lifelogging research, we dreamed of a commercial smartphone app like this and Saga has nailed it. 

To the right is a screenshot from my lifelog, showing an event that was imported from my calendar ("daily standup"), lunch at Chevy's, and travel back to the office. Below, you can see how Saga renders my drive on a map.

They support BodyMedia, Fitbit and Withings data; they sync my gmail calendar; they load my trips from TripIt. They really get the power of bringing one's data together in one place.

This is the mobile app I wanted to build for MyLifeBits - and then some. 

 

 

Tuesday
Jun252013

FileThis|Fetch - another "keep it forever, keep it together" play.

Check out FileThis|Fetch. They will download your documents from banks and utilities and store them in your repository of choice: Evernote, Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, or Personal.com. They are following two trends that will be growing this decade as life-logging emerges and changes society: "keep it forever" and "keep it together."

The first trend is "keep it forever." Way back in the stone age of the 1980s, PCs were for geeks in business, and backups were only done by accountants on floppies. The rest of us had more fun to attend to. Then we hit the day when our family photos existed only digitally and had that aha moment: last year's status reports can get fried, but not my personal photos! More and more people are realizing that they want to keep their bits forever.  Backup services have moved from the fringe of geekdom to mainstream TV and radio ads, and using them has evolved from typing arcane commands to signing up for automated cloud-based services. 

The second trend is "keep it together." One of the first wins we discovered back in the MyLifeBits project was the power of bring data together. Instead of photos in the photo app, email in the email app, location in your GPS app, and so forth, we brought everything together. The result was potent. Now you could find photos taken at the same time as a calendar appointment or look for a document you emailed on the day you were in Boston.

FileThis|Fetch is part of both trends. You can keep access documents after the institution no longer makes them available to you online, or even after you have closed your account. And now you can find, say, all your financial statements from last March without having to login to each institution (your credit card, your bank, your 401K, etc.) individually.

This service is not the first and it won't be the last in this growing space. For example, it has a cousin in the social area called SocialSafe that will back up all your social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) to your hard drive. 

The pitch of FileThis|Fetch says it is "fulfilling the promise of paperless." Back in 1999 when Gordon Bell started his effort to go paperless it opened the door to the world of life-logging and the digital life. Now we can see mainstream culture beginning to follow down his path.

Keep it forever, keep it together!

Monday
Mar112013

CubeSensors

 

Available "Summer 2013," CubeSensors are "small, cordless and connected devices that continuously measure temperature, humidity, noise, light, air quality and barometric pressure."

See TechCrunch for a nice article about them and another article about competitor Lapka

Monday
Jul092012

Wearable cameras finally look cool with pivothead sunglasses

Check out pivothead's cool looking sunglasses - complete with high def 1080p video or 8MP still image capture. The field of view is 75 degrees with a number of focus settings including automatic and fixed. A USB connection charges and transfers files.

Friday
Jun152012

DriveCam

This week while travelling I noticed that my Limo had a special camera - a DriveCam. Actually, this device has cameras both front and back - watching what is going on in the vehicle as well as the view out the front. When unusual forces are detected by sensors in the camera, for instance due to hard braking or a fast turn, a video of the event is kept and tranmitted via a celluar network. Speed, location and forces are all tracked and compiled into reports on the driver. DriveCam boasts improvements to safety, fuel efficiency, and a reduction in fraudulent claims.

DriveCam isn't only for Limosines and other commercial drivers - the product is also being used for teenage drivers.