Today in Tech: Cockroaches, maths & traffic; Jimmy Kimmel's iPhone experiment; Importance of failure

Cockroaches, maths & traffic At one point in Manu Joseph's Serious Men, the wife of an accomplished scientist complains to her husband about the cockroaches in their house. "What do we do Arvind? These things don't die. What do we do?" Arvind Acharya, the scientist, looks at his wife and tells her: "Like in maths, just because there is a problem, it does not mean there is always a solution."

What applies to maths and cockroaches, applies to traffic as well. But, that hasn't stopped anyone from trying. The latest comes from IBM, which approached this problem by looking at what people have shared about traffic in public, in social media sites such as twitter and facebook. It then used a set of tools - Natural Language Processing, Analytics etc - to study what ails the traffic in three cities: Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore.

The results are summarized in this graph.

So, how do we apply these findings? The examples that IBM shared are underwhelming.

• Take Bangalore, the technology hub of India. Understanding that most commuters prefer private transportation despite negative sentiment around parking and construction may indicate that city officials should consider if it makes sense to advocate for more commuters to use mass transit and invest in infrastructure that will keep up with demand as more companies locate there.
• Since Dehlite’s indicate that public transportation is the preferred mode of transportation, city officials could use this insight to study which areas have high ridership and less road traffic and then implement similar actions in highly congested areas.

Yet, it's important to remember this about technology. We tend to overestimate its short term impact, and thus get disappointed with the results, and underestimate its long term impact, and end up waking up too late. If persistence is the virtue of a technologist, patience should be the virtue of the user.

Jimmy Kimmel's iPhone 5 prank and human nature

Of all the responses to iPhone 5, the most entertaining came from Jimmy Kimmel. His team handed over iPhone 4s to some passers by, told them it's the latest model, and asked them to comment.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdIWKytq_q4[/youtube]

Of course, no one will mistake this for a serious experiment. It's a cartoon. Yet, like all cartoons, it tells some thing about us, about how we judge and make decisions. Take your pick from this long list of cognitive biases.

Failed? Great!
Those who have spent more than a few years in the US, especially in silicon valley, often talk about its ecosystem, comprising of universities, venture capitalists and the cluster of technology ventures. But, most of all, they praise its culture, one that embraces failure as an essential ingredient of success. For entrepreneurship to flourish, that's the key.

In India, failure is looked down upon. Its uses are swept under the carpet. Even those successful businessmen who often make statements worthy of philosophers loath to talk about their failures. In technology sector, it's somewhat better. (Everyone understands the inherent risks in developing a new technology, or even in building a business around a new technology. Venture Capitalists know that to make big money, they have to accept a failure rate of 90%.) ET today has a story on a few entrepreneurs who started their businesses during the earlier dotcom boom, failed, but stayed around to launch new businesses.

Here's Vinod Khosla, on why it's okay to fail, as long as you aim high

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRwYVgFRmUg[/youtube]

And, Tim Harford on how you can make failure a strategy to succeed

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR_mCvb-KyY[/youtube]

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.