Category Archives: 21st Century Human

Avatars – My Digital Selfie

29 Friday May 2020

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The ability to create avatars has been around for sometime, but more recently more platforms have provided this ability to create them. Facebook being one of the latest to introduce a create an avatar based on some standard forms that you can then modify to your nearest look. This has caused a recent splurge of posts on the social media channel as everyone is keen to show off their new avatar.

Some people find using an avatar more comfortable than using their real picture

Other systems use a photo of yourself either uploading or taking a selfie to create your avatar and try to make the avatar more realistic to you.

Most avatar systems are based on a set of generic shapes and colour choices. One of the challenges with using a fully custom avatar in channel where the avatar is an active part of the actions, such as in Virtual Reality and Gaming is the downloading and rendering of the images. Multiple versions of avatars may have an impact/slowdown on a system as it tries to cope with the additional images and polygons to render and process.

I have brought some of my avatars together below to show the different types. These are by no means a comprehensive list of avatars, but a sample of whats available.

In brining these together the differences in how the systems either see me or allow me to interpret my face and features. There is quite a difference across all the systems.

Ready Player Me

The avatar from Ready Player Me is my latest one and create as I needed a virtual version of myself for a virtual experience. Running the web page from your PC/Laptop or phone and take a selfie or use an existing photo creates an avatar that you can then change appearance and colour on.

The output is a .glb file that can be used in creating virtual environments.

Avatar in https://readyplayer.me/

Spatial.io

The avatar from spacial produces a floating version of yourself using a photo of your face using this as a skin to the model. Out of all my avatars this is the most realistic, but is platform specific.

Avatar from Spatial.io

Samsung

The Samsung Avatar runs on a Samsung phone (Using an S9 to create these). Taking a selfie you can create a set of AR Emojis/stickers for use in your social channels. It creates a avatr that you can then customise.

Avatar from Samsung Phone

Facebook

Using the facebook avatar creator within the Facebook application you can choose from a number of face shapes and skin tones to set your initial version that can then be customised to be as near as it can to your image.

Avatar from Facebook

X-Box

The X-Box Avatar is built up from a standard avatar set that you can then customise the look. This was the nearest I got to myself using the platform.

Avatar from XBox

There are lots more platforms out there that you can set and customise your avatars in. For me there is a lot of variation in the avatars and only a couple are near realistic for me. The others are good fun though.

The future may see the option to standardise on a set of avatars. Until then happy avataring.

Covid-19 and the World of the Digitally Disadvantaged

09 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by in 21st Century Human, Governance

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Adjusting to life at the moment can be hard, for many they can turn to the internet, face time, news, online entertainment, statistics etc. A world outside at our fingertips. For some however this isnt an option as they dont have the technology or means to buy it.

mindthegap

Bridging the gap to the Digitally Disadvantaged is a challenge that modern society faces but often ignores. Its easy to concentrate on the mainstream and push aside those challenges that are hard to address. In normal times access to technology through a library, a friend or  internet cafe type place was possible, but current measures means these are not available.

For some a TV and Radio are a lifeline that provides them the information they need and they can rely on a landline phone to speak to people, family and friends. For others they may rely on a newspaper. Not everyone has a smart phone, laptop/computer they can use.

The UK Government sent out letter to every household with information in to help those who cant access it. A move that some questioned as to why, probably as they have access to technology. For some people this is the information that they need to help understand what is going on and why we need to take these drastic measures to keep everyone safe.

Digitally Disadvantaged doesnt have to mean that you dont have access to technology either, just the types of technology you have. For example parents who are now home schooling having homework set by teachers and some of this may be to make and build things, print things out etc. Lots of people have smart phones and do alot of their daily lives on it, but not everyone has a printer they can use and in times like these not everyone has everything at home to complete the work they need to do and some things needed are not classed as essential items so cant be easily purchased. There is a mindset that this issue highlights of  “I can do this so others must be able to” or naturally assume that everyone can do it. This is just an example I have seen though some social media posts over the past couple of weeks.

There are no easy way’s to address these issue and many issues to address. It will take time, however as a Society we must think about these issues going forward and look for solutions to help others.

There is some help at hand if you know anyone who is over 70 and is isolating and doent have any TV/Radio, the BBC has teamed up with and organisation called Wavelength to provide digital radios to help fight loneliness, and you can nominate people for help.

https://wavelength.org.uk/

Six Lessons on Bouncing Back

07 Saturday Dec 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Human, Scouts

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Occasionally I have written about supporting STEM and Scouting in my blog around computing and science, however this piece from Bear Grylls in the Times newspaper in response to a Young Peoples survey has swayed me to write about it.

At a recent Scout meeting the context of this survey was explained to the Scouts, then I read out the article.

Bounce-Backers

We then went on to explain how we were meeting each of the six points at our group.

The response was amazing from the Scouts as they all reflected on what they had done in Scouting that related to each of these points.

I wanted to share this incase you havent read it.

Encouraging Young People to join youth organisations is a great way for them to gain experiences and learn new things.

Its not just Young People, Adults can join as leaders or helpers. Youth organisations need adult volunteers in order to run. Don’t worry if you feel you don’t have the skills that are needed. You learn these on your journey as a volunteer.

These are Six great lessons for anyone – not just Young People.

Yes even spending a night under the stars. A great time for reflections.

 

Moving to a world of Interactive Viewer Choices

06 Saturday Jul 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Human, Smart Home

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tvWhether it be books, visual or audio, we have been kept on the edge of our seats by gripping storylines and turned off by uninteresting ones that don’t grasp our attention.

The ability to choose storylines has been around for sometime now with adventure books. My favorite was “Deathtrap Dungeon” by Ian Livingstone from the Fighting Fantasy range of books.  These were my entry level in to gaming, however there are earlier versions of this type of themed book.

A couple of experimental programs have been broadcast on TV where the viewers choose the next actions are taken. This input can be via an mobile application or smart TV and the shows editors broadcast the next scene as per the votes. We have had this ability for a while though with voting for winners of a program or to send someone home. These types of viewing does bring pressures into the lounge with who has the controller or who asks the voice assistant to vote.

On-line content is easier to collect the choices and stream out the next scene. This allow each viewer to make their own choices and stream choices to individuals.

The BBC Click on-line program has now offered content based on choices and starts with a Fighting Fantasy book as their introduction before allowing you to choose which content you want to view.

Are we ready for interactive programs or will there be a increase of arguments over Eastenders or Love Island. For me this works well with on-line content, until we get to a general population of Smart TV’s with the ability to stream individual outcomes to households.

Our choices will also be a good indication back to content producers as to what works and what doesn’t.

 

 

Digitally Fit 2018 Roundup of posts

24 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Human, DigitalFit

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DigitalFit2018The end of the year is almost upon us and as I start to plan my next set of Digitally Fit posts for 2019, here is a roundup of the Digitally Fit posts from 2018.

Links and short snippets from the posts are listed below. Click the links to read the full posts.

Digital Fit in 2018: Start Blogging

“To Blog or Not to Blog!”, Blogging isn’t for everyone and may not come naturally, however it plays a big part in the Digital Era, whether you are reading them or publishing them, you will read blogs at some point. Your reading this one!

One of the biggest issues with starting a blog is what content should you be writing about. Having an idea about what your blog is going to be about is the first step.

Digital Fit in 2018: Get Social

There are many different social platforms available and some are more mainstream than others. Some are new and some have fallen out of favour with people and usage has decreased on them. Which ever platforms you use will be down to how you want to evolve your usage of them.

Social tools provide an abundance of information that you can consume real time and through historical views. Choosing what to view will be down to personal preference.

Digital Fit in 2018: Build up a Readership

Have you ever Googled yourself? (other search engines are available). Did you appear in any of the search results or not? Did you check the images as well?

If you already have a presence in a blog or social channels the chances are that the search engine has found one of these – unless you have a name that competes with someone with a stronger profile, where if you go through the results you should be there.  If you do not have any social presence its most likely you will not feature in the results.

Digital Fit in 2018: Balancing the Noise

We have many forms of information streams that can be tapped into such as email and social media platforms. It can take time to keep looking at each stream in turn and scrolling through the history. Many of the streams change at a very fast rate – for example how many people you follow on twitter and who you follow can make a difference. If your following a bot that basically picks up other tweets about a subject and re-tweets them you will be picking up a lot of traffic from many accounts.  This can be to coin and old phrase “drinking from the fire hose”. You are only able to take in so much information.

Digital Fit in 2018: Social Data Security

When you mention personal data at the moment, most people think straight away of the recent Facebook/Cambridge Analytica new story and how your personal data is being used. However when you take a step back from this story and look across your own digital ecosystem you are generating a lot of data across a lot of systems. Are you really secure and do you help yourself over data security?

Digital Fit in 2018: Build on your skills

Keeping your skills up to date is a key part of being Digitally Fit. There is no definitive list of training that should be undertaken to become “Digital”, it depends upon your role requirements, however there are some topic areas that should be considered as a base set of skills to expand on.

Digital Fit in 2018: Pack Learning

We have learnt as a pack at School and gained benefit from each others insight. As we move onward’s in our life, we loose some of opportunities to learn in a pack. The days of going on a classroom based course have been few and far between as these day’s the use of the internet and online courses makes solo learning an easy option, but how many of us actually go further and interact with the message boards behind the courses to help others out, perhaps only venturing there when you have a problem that you don’t understand.

 

 

 

 

Journey to 21C Human – Getting your head space sorted

11 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Human, Productivity, Uncategorized

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MeditationFollowing on from Episode 4 of Technologist Couch Podcast with Lewis Richards I have started the 10 for 10 that we discussed using Headspace.

However the service has had an upgrade and the Basic Level now includes 3 Basic sections so I’m going to spend the next month doing 30 for 30 instead.

The Headspace website describes these packs as:

  • Basics
    • Train your mind for a happier, healthier life by learning the fundamentals of meditation and mindfulness.
  • Basics 2
    • Discover more about your mind and start to deepen your practice.
  • Basics 3
    • Overcome some of the more common obstacles in meditation and learn how to apply mindfulness to your everyday life.

You can set these for 5 or 10 minute long sessions. 5 seems too short so I’m going for the 10 minute sessions and see what happens.

Andy Puddicombe, the man behind Headspace has a good 10 min Ted Talk as to why you should take 10 mins out a day.

Have you managed to clear 15 minutes in your busy schedule lately?

To confirm, I am no way associated or getting any funding/promotions from Headspace.

Journey to 21C Human – Refueling my Body

09 Monday Jul 2018

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FoodFollowing on from Episode 4 of Technologist Couch Podcast with Lewis Richards I have decided to give Huel a try for a while to see what it can do for me.

Huel is a powdered food that you mix with water and contains all the nutrients that the body needs. I like the fact that there is no food waste afterwards.

Huel is a nutritionally complete powdered food ​that contains all the proteins, carbs, and fats you need, plus at least 100% of the European Union’s “Daily Recommended Amounts” of all 26 essential vitamins and minerals​. So you know you won’t be deficient in any essential nutrients.

Huel contains a carefully chosen blend of Oats, Pea Protein, Flaxseed, Brown Rice Protein, MCTs from Coconut, Sunflower Oil, a bespoke Vitamin and Mineral Blend, Vanilla Flavour and a Sweetener.

We are in the middle of a food crisis. Modern food production methods are inefficient, inhumane, and unsustainable. The world produces 1.5 times enough food to feed every person on the planet, yet over 800 million people do not have enough food to eat. In the UK, 30% of all food is thrown away. 100 million children in developing countries regularly go hungry and are significantly underweight.

On top of that Britons are getting fatter and more unhealthy. 64% of adults are overweight or obese and obesity related conditions are on the increase. Over 4 million people have diabetes, and over 15 million are classed as borderline diabetics. “Almost two in every three people in the UK are overweight or obese and are therefore at increased risk of Type 2 diabetes” Chris Askew, Chief Executive of Diabetes UK . Something has to be done!

– Source Huel website

I am going to work on a 1-2 meal replacement to begin with to bring my body round to this way of eating and see how it goes. My goals are to loose some weight, get a bit fitter and energy levels.

I have already been using the Huel product for a few days and I can feel some change in energy which is good and some weight loss too as I am watching my food calories correctly.

Following some good advice from Lewis on the breakfast mix:

  • Breakfast: I have Vanilla flavoured Huel in the morning with 2-3 Ice Cubes and a shot of espresso which does make a nice ice coffee drink.
  • Lunch: I have is a Vanilla flavoured Huel with ice if possible. I find it nice slightly cool, or left in a fridge before using.

I have Vanilla and Coffee flavoured Huel and they have now launched a new berry flavour which I might try in the next order. you can use the Huel product as a flour to cook with as well, or add your own flavourings to it.

Will be good to see how this works out over a couple of weeks.

To confirm, I am no way associated or getting any funding/promotions from Huel.

Having the Right Digital Mindset

04 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Human, Digital, Innovation, Productivity, Social Media

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Digital BrainDigital is used as a title to cover the current business and computing era. Being Digital is about having the right mindset. There is no magic course or exam that you can take that will pronounce you as being “Digital”. Its how you apply yourself against the changing landscape of business and technology.

There area many areas that could be included to help shape your Digital Mindset, however for me these fit into six main areas:

The Digital Era is enabling “A Growth Mindset in the Age of Abundance”.

Business

The business area covers the skills and thinking that are needed in your workplace and what you need to succeed. Businesses are being constantly challenged in the way that they operate today and look forward to tomorrow against what their customers demand, the market wants and competition are doing.

There may be a number of business processes that are in place that have been there for a while and are expensive to change constrained by a number of factors. This has meant that the processes haven’t grown. The changes that the digital era is bringing helps to remove these constraints and costs, allowing business to rethink how they achieve these processes. With the constraints being removed through innovation and advancements, with costs coming down, how can you change/transform these processes to meet the market challenges of today. What can you change/transform/automate?

Technology

The technology area covers existing, new and emerging technologies in your life. What you use in everyday life and what you could use or imagine that would help you complete tasks and achieve goals quickly and efficiently. Defining which technologies you should be using and learning will depend partly on what your job role is and the road maps and trends for the industry/sector. The aaS (as a Service)  economy is providing the ability to consume technology at a faster easier route with an abundance of choice of service to go with. The need for a growth mindset is key to navigating a direction and path through this and making decisions on which technologies best meet your needs. The key is to understand and keep up with the trends and technologies.

Social

The social area covers how you interact with the rest of the world, including your work and family life. Reading everything that is going on Social Media is literally “drinking from the fire hose” – so much happening you can get easily swamped with noise.  Building a Personal Knowledge Management System is one way of keeping in touch with what is happening and trending on topics that you are interested in on Social Media. Setting yourself a series of Social Media Rules will help define when and what you should put in the public domain and when not to.

Personal

The personal area covers yourself. Ensuring that your health is good and you are living life to the full or best you can helps. Eating well and keeping fit help keep the mind fresh and positive.

Understanding that change is happening everyday and we need to embrace this with a positive attitude and work through the ambiguity that it presents. A blog post by Richard Branson recently wraps this up nicely “You can’t control what happens to you but you can control how you react”

Fear of failure is another area that often lets us down and stops us from trying things, however we can learn from our mistakes so it is important to experiment and innovate. Doing small things and trying them – Theory of small bets – allows you to fail fast if things don’t work and keep any cost/consequences small. “Successful entrepreneurs don’t begin with brilliant ideas — they discover them.” ~ Peter Sims

Application

The application area covers how you apply these mindset areas into your everyday life using method that are well documented such as Agile and Design Thinking. The key is choosing the right method for the situation you are in. Using aids to help you may be one way of doing this – Playing a game with innovation and thinking.

Learning

One of the biggest areas is learning. Keeping your skills up to date with the latest advancements in all the areas above. You should be looking to do 50 to 60 hours learning a year as a minimum (some professions require higher number of hours). Learning is easier with the internet through online courses, videos and podcasts allowing it to be undertaken at anytime. Re-enforcing your learning through explaining it to someone else or blogging about it is part of  The Nature and Cycle of CPD.

There are arguments for and against learning to code, however having an understanding of what is going on in the coding world helps with today’s advancing technology.

 

Further Reading

Twenty First Century Digital

Having the Right Digital Mindset: Business (Change, Agility and a Growth Mindset)

** (Blog post updated with links to latest series of blogs on Having the Right Digital Mindset)

 

 

A-Z of Digital – T is for Twenty First Century Digital

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Human, Digital

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DigitalFollowing on from my blog post outlining an A-Z of Digital, here is “T is for Twenty First Century Digital”.

The term Twenty First (21st) Century Digital applies to the current century and how you are using Digital to better your organisation and yourself.

Being Digital is not necessarily about having the latest and greatest gadgets, but how you use the hardware and software within your everyday work ad home life. It is also about a mindset of being Digital and looking at.

How Digital are you? Lewis Richards from the LEF (Leading Edge Forum) has created a Digital Test which shows you how Digital you are.  The LEF also has information that covers the topics of the 21st Century Organisation and 21st Century Human.

What can you do to be more Digital? Here are 8 things to start you off:

1.  Be Social

By far the easiest area is to look at your social presence and how you are using tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc. Follow people that are digital and read what they are doing. One of the great things about being social is the ability to interact with people. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of people you are following if they post something that peaks your interest.  Develop and evolve your social profile and networks to show what you are doing around digital and don’t forget to post at least twice a week.

2. Use what you have

Look at the capabilities of the devices you have today and look to use them to their full potentials using features such as integrated Voice Activated Assistants.

3. Automate

There are many automation tools available that can be used to create simple automation with. Start with a simple automation one of your daily tasks such as sending a text to your significant other when you have left work.

4. Create a Personal Knowledge System

Using the information on trends and digital shifts in the market place is important to learn what is happening today and future developments and innovations coming out. Creating a Personal Knowledge System will help you manage the flow of this information and filter what you want to know.

5. Develop your  Skills

Create a development plan that includes things to help you become a 21st Digital Human and undertake the training. Put into practice what you have learnt to increase your digital knowledge and footprint.

6. Learn to Program

You don’t necessarily need to know how to programming in order to be digital, however having an understanding of how things work helps with looking at connecting applications together with API’s or scripting a task to automate it. Learning a programming language will help you with this and also with experimenting.

7. Experiment

Experiment and try new things like IoT (Internet of Thing). Computers such as the Raspberry PI are making experimenting easier, and now with the release of the Raspberry PI Desktop with some inbuilt emulators, you can try things without having a PI initially.

8. Use what you have learnt and encourage others

Passing on what you have learnt to others is a great method of checking your understanding of a subject and bringing others up to speed and encourage others around you to become digital.

Consider becoming a STEM Ambassador to pass on your skills and experiences encouraging Young People into STEM subjects.