Tech Archives - Otis Regrets... or not

The IoT is making me paranoid

This past weekend I enjoyed a getaway with family in Washington DC. Beautiful weather, spring flowers everywhere. And an email alert, delivered at 12:42 am Saturday morning, that my Smart Hub is down. That means I can’t access the various smart devices attached to the hub. And, wait a minute, the hub is attached to the router and sure enough, the two Wyze security cams attached to the route are down as well.

Something similar happened the last time we were all out of town together, about a month ago. There was a bright flash recorded on one of the cams, then disconnect. (That time the connected light switches kept working.) I asked our neighbor across the street to peek in our back yard and see if anything was amiss. She said all was fine. When I got back there were no signs of any disruption and I felt like a jerk.

So, not going to bother her this time. The possibilities are:
–some kind of catastrophe like a house fire. I would have heard about this from the neighbor and it might even be on the news, since not much happens in our isolated hamlet.
–electrical failure. This is actually what worried me the most because we have two freezers full of specialty meats. And we do have outages in our area, usually caused by storms.
–a break-in! This would require the thieves to get past the security cams, which would have still been working at that point, then be smart enough to immediately find and disable the router.
–Spectrum internet went down. This is the most likely scenario, of course. Unfortunately I can’t remember my log in info since the account was originally set up in my wife’s name. I could get on the phone with them and try to prove I am who I am, but the blossoms are becoming outside my hotel window

By the way, our home is wired with security system sensors on every window but we did not renew when we moved in because it seemed a needless expense in our town which is very low on crime other than non-professional, nuisance activities. And what would that have done for me? Alerted a live agent who would have gone out to confirm a problem they couldn’t do anything about.

The irony of this, of course, is that before the Internet of Things I would have had no reason to be fretful. Thanks, Al Gore.

UPDATE: got home, restarted router, all fine now. The only sign of disruption was a box emitting a buzzing sound, on a table near the stairs. It turned out to be a “travel alarm”, an item we used before smart phones.

Scary lesson from the WordPress hack

Last night I received about 800 emails confirming my subscription to various WordPress blogs, obviously the result of a hack. After I figured out what was going on I deleted them. No harm done, since almost all of them followed the best practice of requiring the recipient to confirm that they did indeed subscribe.

Unfortunately, two (so far) blogs did NOT require a confirmation and I’ve already started receiving peppy messages from them. Of course, these go straight to my junk mail folder. I am sure the thousands (millions?) of other recipients will do the same which effectively ruins the deliverability of future emails from those addresses.

Lesson: go right now, if you have a blog or a contact link on your company website, and be sure you require the additional confirmation step. If not, fix it now!

How to transcribe speech from a web page

[UPDATE: Unfortunately, Google has disabled the ability described below to transcribe audio from a web page. Now you get an alert to attach a microphone and record from that. Playing audio over your computer, or playing a recorded message from your phone, doesn’t work. Unclear if this is a deliberate move to limit the program or just a glitch. Anyway, I’d like to know if anyone is using anther transcription tool successfully.]

As a copywriter, I often need to capture speech to text from a web page. My traditional method has been to play the video and start and stop it while I type what I hear into Word. Very tedious. Faced with a new project, I decided to find out if there is a better way. And it turns out there is, but it’s not as easy to find as you might think.

Google “capture speech to text” and most of the results will be for the opposite, text-to-speech, an important accessibility feature but not what I was looking for. Word for Mac still has a dictation feature built in (it’s gone from Word for Windows) but it’s only for YOUR dictation; toggle to another application, like a web browser, and the capture stops.

Finally, I found this page for Google’s beta of its Cloud Speech API. You can sign up for a trial of the Google Cloud Platform (they require your credit card, but won’t charge it without your permission) or simply use the widget on the page to translate in 15-second increments. The interface said my video was captured with 94% confidence of accuracy, which I’d say was about right. The transcript required a bit of cleanup, but the process was certainly faster than typing it all. Check it out.

First review of $50 Amazon Fire tablet

Mine arrived today and I wanted to review it on the Amazon website but they said the product has not yet been officially released and can’t be reviewed so I’ll share experiences here. It’s a 2 or maybe 3 star product. Good performance and graphics, but due to interface problems it’s going back if I can’t fix it.

This is basically a delivery mechanism for Amazon products and services. If that’s all it’s good for they should give it away free, not charge $50. It’s very difficult to log in to anything other than Amazon’s own app store. (I tried to access the NYTimes app for which I had a subscription; they wanted me to get it through their Kindle store.) The second problem is that when you try inputting your user info after finally reaching a log in page, it autocorrects to nonsense. Can’t find a way to turn this off.

Not a fan.

Making the most of your Xiaomi Yi camera

I have been having fun with my Xiaomi (pronounced show-me) Yi, a GoPro knockoff I bought online for a little under $70. You can order on Amazon at prices that fluctuate, but always under $100, and there’s no reason not to get one of these and have fun with it and maybe even discover a practical use.

The two things I’ve been doing mostly are time lapse photography (see sample) and as an action cam that allows me to take it with me on forays to sandwich shops, farmers markets and potentially the Saratoga Race Course to document experiences for my food blog. You need some kind of mount for this purpose since your hands will be busy with your smartphone (iPhone or Android) which is how the camera is controlled. (At this price it does not have its own monitor screen.) So far I’ve acquired a head harness, chest harness and underwater mount (which blocks the microphone, so it’s not useful for above the surface work.) You’ll also need a mounting screw (it has the standard 1/4 inch receptacle in the bottom) and perhaps other hardware to attach to these setups. All of these are available at low cost on Amazon from Chinese companies that will take a couple weeks to ship to you. Also, you’ll need a micro SD card to capture your images and a USB external power supply if you want it for power intensive work such as time lapse photography.

I was initially self conscious about wearing the camera but folks don’t seem to care or maybe don’t realize it’s a real camera. I’ve used it on a selfie stick stuck out of my briefcase and on the chest mount, worn under a shirt with just the lens peeking out. Haven’t found the chutzpah to wear the head harness yet.

It’s oddly hard to find good info online about the extensive capabilities of the Xiaomi Yi camera. The manual is in Chinese and brief. The app is very good and frequently updated, but it’s not always clear what all the options are and how to use them. Here are a few random tips which I recorded simply because I didn’t see them anywhere else:

How to know if you’re shooting video or still without looking at your smartphone? When you select video by pressing the front button, an additional light comes on, on both the top and bottom of the camera.
Wireless connectivity problems? Before you start the app but after turning on wireless on the camera, go to your settings and choose its network. You may have to enter a password which is 1234567890.
There’s a function to transfer files from the camera to the phone (so you can watch them when the camera is not connected) but it takes forever. A much better tactic is to use the built-in micro USB jack to access the files from your computer and transfer that way.
What’s the meaning of the colors on the front ring of the camera? It flashes when starting up then turns to a bright solid color. Blue fully charged, purple partway, red low battery. When hooked up via USB it is purple then red if you eject the card.
The HDMI jack is for use with a monitor that broadcasts what the Yi sees, like for a security camera. Apparently it can’t be used to play recorded video/photos.
Use the time lapse function under video, NOT under photo to make a time lapse movie. If you choose time lapse photos you will get a large number of individual stills which I guess are useful as a security camera. For time lapse you’ll definitely need external power (a brick that plugs into the micro USB port, which the Yi uses for charging) because time lapse is a huge memory hog.
It was doubtless a cost compromise to use a removable cover for the area that houses the HDMI and micro USB jacks and the memory card and you are probably going to lose it. Don’t worry too much. None of these items is extremely fragile (no more so than the camera overall) so you’re unlikely to do serious damage if you’re taking good care of the camera overall. But at this price maybe you should just buy a second camera, just in case.

If you can’t read the results, why test it?

FICO envelope front — *Envelope variations for Chase Slate FICO package, plus duplicates received at my address*

My early direct mail copy chiefs beat this mantra into me: only test one thing at a time. If you change the offer and simultaneously change the letter lead, how do you know which change was responsible for any lift?

I thought of this as the drumbeat of “Free FICO Score” offers from Chase Slate continued, and I realized one of the envelopes looked different. Same color scheme, virtually the same OE copy on the front but arranged in a slightly different way. The first really noticeable change is on the back. One says “no annual fee” and the other has a lineup of four unidentifiable awards. (We know which would win in that test, don’t we, since benefits always eclipse chest pounding.)

FICO envelope back — *FICO outer envelope back with testing variations*

Inside the “alike but different” motif continues. One letter starts “Transfer high rate balances from other credit card issuers and save money.” The other, “From balance transfers to new purchases, Chase Slate makes saving simple.” Exact same facts, but one is about “you” and the other about “the card” so again, it’s pretty clear which would win if tested on its own. (That old copy chief of mine would have had the second writer start over, rather than testing the two leads.) However, the “you” copywriter is paired with the art director who put the shields on the back of the OE, so we’re tied.

Two FICO letters — *Which of these letters is more persuasive? Why?*

And it continues throughout the package, with design and copy slightly different without changing the facts or the basic presentation. What’s happening here is that two teams were tested against each other to see which one is “better”—a costly experiment on Chase’s part. This isn’t the same as a direct mail package test in which creative teams come up with completely different ideas from scratch. It’s an expensive waste of time.

My advice to Florian Egg-Krings, who signs both letters (no testing variations there): test spelling out “credit score” on the OE rather than calling it “FICO score”. Take one key benefit—I’d probably go with the reasons you’d want a monthly credit report and how great it is to get it for free—and lead one letter with that, then keep the other about your laundry list of benefits. Now you’ve got something worth testing.

One-of-a-kind at CES 2015

One of the pleasures of attending the Consumer Electronics Show is seeing new concepts making their debut for the benefit of prospective investors and manufacturing reps. Many of these are clustered in the “Eureka Park” area which, unlike last time I was here, was part of one of the main exhibit halls.

Some products are very very niched yet seem like they’d be highly attractive to their intended audience. One example was Easy Sim 3D, a web application that quickly recreates a 3D representation of an event that can be viewed from multiple angles. It’s designed for news reporters. Then there was the GoTenna, an antenna that turns your phone into a homing device if you should be in trouble and out of cell range.

GoTenna — goTenna turns your cell phone into a homing device

But there’s also the “first case for your Mac charger”, probably first because nobody knew they needed it. The first ever handheld dashboard camera. And Belty™, The New Belt Experience.

Mac Charger Case — Mac Charger case solves a problem you may not have realized you have

I wondered about the broad application of Social Media Counter, one of those “visual radio” displays you see in restaurants that scrolls news headlines and sports scores, except this one scrolls your updated count of Twitter followers. Then there’s Smart Sine Food Minder, a collection of little radio equipped scales you put a carton of milk or other staple on; the scales know how much it’s supposed to weigh and send you a message when it’s running low.

Smart Sine Food Minder tells you when you’re out of something. The question is whether this is easier than a shopping list, and I fear not.

But I could be wrong. Or a buyer could be looking for exactly that niche kind of solution.

Witness the interest in Teddy the Guardian (watch the video), the sensor-loaded teddy bear that collects a wealth of information about your baby, then transmits it when you touch the bear’s paw.

You never know when the next big thing will come along in the form of something which you never imagined, but that now makes you say “of course!” That’s the magic of CES.

Smart homes and smart marketing at CES 2015

Oomi Smart Home system — What’s Oomi? Tell me why I should care.

“Smart homes” is a useful topic for a marketing review because, while it’s exciting (or maybe ominous) to think about gadgets turning out the lights, managing security or monitoring our baby’s heartbeat, it’s up to the marketers to tell us exactly what their specific products do. Witness a few examples, good and bad, from the recent Winter 2015 Consumer Electronics Show.

Smart Home famil — Generic smart home marketing

Oomi makes the mistake of thinking others are as interested in their product as they are. “What’s Oomi?” was the headline of their booth at the Showstoppers press event. Without a benefit or point of reference, it’s not likely many will stick around to find out. The subtext “the first smart home that’s actually smart” provides context but is too clever for its own good: I don’t know that there’s a perception of lots of smart home products that are stupid. It’s a solution for a problem that may not exist. And meanwhile, we haven’t learned anything about the product. (Like many others, it’s a set of modules that work together to handle various home automation functions.)

Not much better are a number of OEM booths I passed in the nether regions of the second floor in South Hall. By focusing entirely on technology, these importers make their systems generic. There’s a “home” graphic but otherwise they lean heavily on the “what” rather than the “why”. This is a common problem with marketing at the CES where thousands of new products and unfamiliar concepts jostle for attention simultaneously. In a few seconds as I stumble down the aisle you need to tell me not only what you are selling, but why I should care.

For smart homes, it’s obviously about emotion, and the shoestring display for “Teddy the Guardian” does this very well. In fact, the signage doesn’t even say what the product is but the baby tcotchkes make a strong emotional appeal and you hang around long enough to find out it’s a teddy bear with all kinds of baby monitoring built in. There was a lot of interest in this one.

Finally, WeMo is a family of devices that monitor and automate activity in the home. Belkin created a mock home and then stuck devices all over the places with captions describing hypothetical problems and “can I WeMo that?” Compare this to Oomi, which seems to do the exact same thing, and you can see why Belkin’s marketing is so good. It’s a complete conversation that combines technology and the human factor and is fun to interact with as well. The booth was packed.

The Idiot of Things visits CES 2015 Las Vegas

Internet of Everything Now Open — *Qualcomm’s takeoff on the Internet of Things*

I saw IoT all over Las Vegas on buses and billboards, and asked a booth staffer for an explanation. She said it stands for the Internet of Things and then proceeded to explain what that meant. I already knew the concept, just not the acronym but too late; I felt like a clueless Luddite. Anyway, it is indeed the Year of the Thing at the Consumer Electronics Show with heavy emphasis on apps for connecting mobile devices to all aspects of your daily life.

Pet monitoring gadgets — *Lots of pet monitoring devices at CES 2015*

Over two days I saw many gadgets for monitoring every aspect of your fitness, or your child’s, or even your pet’s. You can buy an electric toothbrush that has Bluetooth that connects to an app to show you how effectively you’re brushing. You can control your home remotely or turn your car into a nerve center for managing what will happen when you arrive while hopefully not getting into an accident due to distracted multitasking. (As a car company executive pointed out in a keynote, one thing that has to be sorted out is liability when a self driving car gets into an accident.)

3D family — *3D printing and printed 3D products are huge at CES. Here, your family miniaturized for posterity.*

What’s hot this year, in addition to things? Drones, lots of drones. 3D printers, and products and services connected to 3D printing. Smart cars that can be controlled with hand gestures (Volkswagen), will park themselves (Hyundai) or run on fuel cells (several). Fitbits and other performance monitoring electronics on steroids, so you don’t have to be because your conditioning is so efficient and awesome. And endless lineups of 4k televisions and monitors, each more vivid and breathtaking than the last.

What’s not? 3D television. (I saw just one at the show, billed as the world’s largest glassless meaning you don’t have to wear goggles.) Google Glass is ice cold… again, just one showing. And very few laptops, tablets or conventional PCs…. This was a gadget show, and it’s fully returned to its roots as a “consumer” show with very little business spillover. (Microsoft, which had an enormous presence in years past, was behind closed doors with a single hospitality suite.)

I’ve got a few reports coming up over the next couple of weeks:

Some interesting “mobility experiments” described in the keynote by Ford President Mark Fields
Best and worst of CES: some niche concepts that fill a narrow but credible role and others that left me shaking my head
Marketing makeover: I look at how, and how not, to present the “smart home” concept based on examples from many exhibitors
A historical retrospective on CES—an institution that would seem to have no history, since it’s always looking for the next big thing

Stay tuned.

Persado is not going to put copywriters out of business. (Whew.)

Persado Try It Page — *Persado “Try It” page; click the image to try it for yourself*

A recent article on artificial intelligence in the Wall Street Journal had me trembling with fear. It described a technology called Persado which writes emails and landing pages for multivariate testing, stating each component of the message in an infinite number of ways which can be mixed-and-matched through AI to surface the result that gets the best response.

“A creative person is good but random,” according to Lawrence Whittle, head of sales at Persado. (Note that the reporter relies on the sales department, rather than talking to a technologist.) “We’ve taken the randomness out by building an ontology of language.” The article goes on to explain how Persado deconstructs each ad into five components including “emotion words”, product descriptors, the CTA, text position and images and then offers up every conceivable option. (Actually I guess it does not offer them up but simply inserts them into an automated test.)

I experimented with the “play with the technology” page today (after taking over a month to get up the courage to visit the site) and am greatly relieved. The static page is shown here; you can click through to the site and try it for yourself. The “free storage” subhead, button and the text in between will dance around as you mouse over them showing all the options Persado has come up with.

However, there’s one thing that’s obviously wrong with this example landing page that Persado doesn’t address, at least in the demo. Any cub copywriter can tell you the biggest problem with the ad, which is that the company’s logo is used as the headline and the true head, a benefit statement about free storage, becomes the subhead. The logo head is actually completely unnecessary since the logo is repeated in the screen shot of the smartphone. (To be fair, Persado lists “image” as one of the things it tests, but it’s not happening here. It would be embarrassing if they put up a demo which does not properly represent the product.)

What Persado is going to kill is not copywriters, but boredom. I’ll certainly experiment with headlines and different button text, and if there’s more than one way to express a key selling point I’ll give my client options. But I don’t have the patience, and you’re not going to pay me, for micro-experimenting with every word in the copy. Persado, be my guest.