Rant on personalised operating systems

The operating system is becoming irrelevant but at the same time more personalised. No wonder Microsoft acquired 6wunderkinder, a todo list company. A possibility for Microsoft could be to enhance the ‘personal’ nature of the Windows eco-system on all platforms. Microsoft Windows has long been criticised (especially from the Mac camp) for not having simple tools like a todo list, a decent word processor and mail client, out of the box. Apple revamped its set of productivity tools (Reminders, Notes, Calendar, Mail, Photos, Movies, etc.) recently (rather cosmetically) as well. App Stores for android, iOS, Windows (desktop and mobile) are filled with very good quality productivity tools. Yet every year, there comes a new contender that wins the Apple Design Award or a similar acclaim in this category. Apple made its operating system, iWork and iLife suite free. Microsoft follows. Google is already free.

Why? And more importantly, why now?

The industry is currently going through a personalisation and (ir)relevance revolution. Technology is slowly moving toward peak ubiquity. Our products increasingly want to be relavent, personalised, ubiquitous and invisible. What it means from a personal perspective is that we are living in the most exciting time of computing ever.

Our brains are being exploited on the dopamine hits we get when we see something relavant.

All this is leading to personalisation so advanced it will be invisible. I belive the future is right here and we missed the inaugeration confetti party.

Imagine Microsoft Cortana, Apple Siri, Google Now (and Now on Tap) learning your tasking patterns, writing styles, email reply behavior, typing behavior and even sleep cycles. I wouldn’t be surprised if these apps can, in near future, recognize mood swings. Facebook might have taken lead into Deep Learning, it will not hold the top place for very long. There is a gold rush towards deep machine learning. What was envisioned as the future of autonomous robots will be more like human 2.0.

The shot has been fired and its a race to your brain.

What does it mean for our cognitive evolution? What does it mean for the education we take from colleges about computer science? What does it mean for our relationship with ourselves, family, friends, colleagues? Is it just a wishful utopian thinking?

While most of us would disregard this because we still strugle to find that one excel sheet we edited two weeks ago in a plethora of folders, self learning systems are continuing to implant themselves in more important ways in our work and psychology. These ways are subtle, but at a scale can have far reaching effects. For example, remember Facebook’s experiment on people’s moods by changing the news feed?

What does it means for our normative virtues? Our ethics? Our laws? Security? Privacy? Decency?

Who knows. But there is one thing to love about the summers. Google I/O, Microsoft Build, Apple WWDC and so much more! Can’t wait to oogle at all that can be but isn’t.