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Category Archives: General

Facial Recognition Firm Polar Rose gets funded!

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I like Flickr for storing and sharing my online photos (I like Zooomr too, but Flickr is my current home).  Works great, easy to upload, easy to use, easy to share.  I’ve made my sets, tagged some pictures, and organized the majority of my pictures there.  I’ve even taken the time, for reasons yet to be clear even to myself, to “geotag” many of my photos.  Geotagging is cool, but until it’s built-into more cameras, it’s mostly a waste of time.  Why do I say that?  Because, in my opinion, to gain true mass adoption of advanced organizational tools, they need automation.  Enter Polar Rose.

Polar Rose has something in common with my old couch and some shelves in my kitchen – it’s from Sweden.  The company has technology that allows for automatic facial recognition in digital photos.  A more techie version of this can be found here:

Collective intelligence is a key part of the Polar Rose technology. It will be used to improve search for photos and search algorithms, according to the company’s founder and CEO and Chief Technology Officer, Jan Erik Solem.

This all translates to something like this:  the more people who positively identify faces in pictures, the better the whole system works.  This creates a nice rosy image (ugh, what an awful awful pun) of the future for better organization of pictures.  Don’t get it yet?

Imagine you and your friends take a bunch of pictures on your road trip.  Now your well-organized, almost-OCD-like friend takes the time to tag all the pictures.  Then you upload yours, and every picture you are in is automatically labeled with your names.  You never have to touch them.  Ever again.

They received $5 million Kroner US in funding, and if they can even pull off a rudimentary version of what they are promising, I can only envision a… yes… it’s coming… again… wait for it… rosy future!  More on the funding news today at Red Herring, StartupSquad, and Digital Media Wire.

I wanted to get some kind of pun pertaining to the polar part, but it’s not as easy to roll in as rosy was.  One could call it, in fact, the polar opposite.

Web 3.0: the age of agents

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Blake Krikorian at Web 2.0 conferenceJohn Markoff stirred up the pot this weekend by launching Web 3.0, even while good ol’ Web 2.0 is still in beta (or alpha).  And I didn’t even get to go to the launch party, although I did get to spend some time in the halls of the Web 2.0 conference.  And the halls were the place to be for the conference – that’s where all the cool kids were hanging out (although I did cheer on Sling Media’s Blake Krikorian as he spoke with Beth Comstock from NBC – unfortunately John’s moderation of that session left a little something to be desired in my opinion).Nick Carr is applauding the 3.0 upgrade with his own personal style:

Personally, I’m overjoyed that Web 3.0 is coming. When dogcrap 2.0 sites like PayPerPost and ReviewMe start getting a lot of attention, you know you’re seeing the butt end of a movement. (There’s a horrible metaphor trying to get out of that last sentence, but please ignore it.) Besides, the arrival of 3.0 kind of justifies the whole 2.0 ethos. After all, 2.0 was about escaping the old, slow upgrade cycle and moving into an age of quick, seamless rollouts of new feature sets. If we can speed up software generations, why not speed up entire web generations? It doesn’t matter if 3.0 is still in beta – that makes it all the better, in fact.

Now the whole blogosphere is abuzz debating 2.0 v 3.0 v ???  Nick Bradbury states: “This weekend much of the geekosphere was buzzing about the “Web 3.0” article in the NY Times, but from where I stand, Web 3.0 does not validate.”  Tim O’Reilly, Mr. Web 2.0 himself, isn’t on board, and Robert Scoble wrote a fun piece referring to it as Web 2007.  Dan Farber seems to sit on the fence a little bit, but then Nick at Valleywag (nice redesign) goes straight for the jugular:

In short, the Times wants to announce a trend just in case that trend actually materializes in the next few months. But don’t bet on it — Google smelled a dud and didn’t touch this story, and neither should anyone looking for the real next big thing.

Here’s a summary of what I think, in easy to digest bullet form:

  • The term “Web 3.0” will not gain general acceptance.  Web 2.0 is too nebulous on its own, and since it’s more like an “era” than it is a “version number” it makes more sense that it’ll be identified further into the future as we look back on the era past Web 2.0.
  • Agents are coming.  If Web 2.0 is (roughly) all about AJAX, XML, and open APIs, then the logical evolution of implementing these technologies are intelligent agents.  Agents don’t just tell me when a stock hits a price, agents tell me that I should buy some GOOG because my peers and my portfolio reflect that I’d be interested in it.  Agents figure out that this weekend I am most interested in restaurants X, Y, and Z, and should hit a club where the DJ I like (because he spins the same music I have in my collection) has a set.  Agents use the open datasets and figure things out for me.
  • Data mining technologies are important.  Anyone can collect data.  Anyone can present data.  Anyone can sort alphabetically.  Building intelligence requires much deeper data analysis where datasets are viewed as a matrix of data, where seemingly unrelated information finally comes together to make sense.  These technologies become the building blocks for the next generation of web services (agents, remember?).
  • Buzzwords are getting more obnoxious.  Even if there is a new era right around the corner (which seems doubtful), do we really need to label it???

I still miss the days when you had to design your Web site to ask users whether or not their browser could support tables.  Sigh.

Is Good good for Motorola?

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By the time you’re reading this, all the top tech/mobility blogs have already mentioned the fact that Motorola announced today they are buying Good Technology.  If not, find a source you like and read about it: TechDirt, Engadget Mobile, BBhub, Experience Mobility, PDAstreet, CrunchGear, TreoCentral.  Ok, now you are up to speed, right?  Good.  Or is it?

When I think about the future of mobile phones, convergence, and business functionality, I see the world playing out in two camps:  serving the needs of individuals/small businesses or serving large companies’ interests.  Email on mobile phones isn’t really important for the non-business community, as SMS really serves their needs just fine.  Furthermore the average teenager or college kid can’t really afford a powerful smartphone (or its requisite data plan) and thats a hard sell even for their rich parents.  So let’s make it a bit of a given that acquiring Good is specifically to bolster Motorola’s offerings to the business community.

So for a small business, let’s say an individual like myself (or doctor, attorney, etc) or a small startup, what kind of mobile email needs do they have?  They probably do not have a dedicated Exchange server, so they have hosted POP3 accounts.  Furthermore, odds are pretty good they want to save costs on infrastructure buildout, so ideally they can purchase the phone(s) they need without buying huge servers or other back-end technology.  Also, they really need a solution with minimal IT requirements as they are probably handling this themselves, or have a friend or cheap consultant.  Either way, my hunch is they need solutions that work out of the box with as little maintenance as possible.  While I was a huge Palm fan back in the 90s, the OS has lost its way in the broadband era.  This leaves RIM and Microsoft as the other players in the space.  Motorola ships the Q phone, which runs Windows Mobile 5, which is an ideal solution for the above scenario.  While they’ve bundled the Good application with it, it seems like one of those things that doesn’t get used very much.  In my opinion, Good doesn’t seem to add value in this equation.

Next up, big businesses.  Big companies have IT departments.  IT departments generally prefer hassle-free solutions that are reliable and don’t break down on them, because they don’t like getting phone calls at 2am from their executives who are overseas and can’t check their email while bored in Heathrow.  Again, we come down to RIM and Microsoft as two very viable solutions.  With the inclusion of push-email from Windows Mobile 5, and its excellent integration with Exchange, I again fail to see a compelling value-add from Good. 

Maybe I’m missing something here, but I just don’t get the reasoning for this one.  It seems like an unnecessary buy by Moto.  Maybe they plan to ditch WM5 as an operating system?  Maybe there are some key patents?  Maybe they want to prevent the technology from going elsewhere?  Hopefully this won’t be one of those acquisitions that gets looked back upon as simply being Bad.

Geek Dinner 360

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Geek dinner 3Not sure why, but last night was a bit of a crazy one in San Francisco.  The whole city was jammed with traffic, and it seemed like a “full moon” night.  But the reality is that the whole town was abuzz due to it being Geek Dinner night! 

Now the invite list is slowly creeping up, but we ended up with a smaller crowd for this evening.  Our attendees were:

  • Melanie Westlake, from Yahoo!, knows all about mobile media and technology
  • Yours truly, from, well, my living room couch.  I’ve watched Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins three times this week.
  • Noah Wintroub, JP Morgan’s expert on all things digital media.  Let’s face it, Noah’s possibly the world’s expert on digital media.  Although at last check he still doesn’t have surround sound, so I’ve got him on that one.
  • Dave Mathews, Sling Media’s product/technology visionary.  Dave, we’re at 302 and counting…
  • Brian Curtis, currently consulting in the biotechnology space, also a former VC and expert on interfacing between Chinese and US companies.  Currently in possession of the smallest cell phone in the USA.
  • Nicholas Menaker, got stuck in San Mateo.

We had a great meal at Esperpento (my personal favorite Tapas restaurant in San Francisco) in the Mission district, and between roving Mariachi bands, we had some good geek talk.  I asked everyone to list the gadgets they wanted most for the holidays this year: Melanie wants a Slingbox (amazon link) now that they’ve added Mac support, both Brian and Dave want new digital cameras (although Dave mostly just wants a new home in SF… I guess Foster City isn’t so great for the bachelor lifestyle, eh?), Noah wants a connected media player (but he has to wait for me to design a really good one, since the current crop aren’t up to snuff), and I, in a very surprising move, want a new mobile phone. 

UTstarcom SMT5800Mostly because the battery in my current one is dying a painful and awkward death.  I charge it, and by the time it rings, the battery meter is down a notch.  Within 10 minutes of talk time I’m down to zero notches, but then the phone somehow gives up another 45-60 minutes of talk time.  Very weird.  I’ll probably just get a new battery, since my beloved UT Starcom 5800 isn’t out yet.  My precious…

Next up, our chat ranged to discuss YouTube, and can a sequel emerge.  Most of the table felt the answer was yes, reasons given included looking at Friendster v MySpace, as well as the simple fact that there is tons of user-generated content (or UGC as I heard at the Web 2.0 conference trade show summit yesterday), and even if YouTube is the big leader, there’s plenty enough to go around. 

Another interesting point arose here, which was the discussion of how we all use YouTube.  Nobody in our group “surfs” YouTube, we all go based on people emailing us clips or finding them on blogs.  Which led me to ponder: who exactly does surf YouTube?  Kids?  20-somethings?  Really bored people?

Everyone agreed that Ze Frank (pronounced Zay) is pretty darn funny, and one of the most compelling vlogs (which is probably why he won at the new Vloggies awards event last week).  Dave Mathews added a great piece of feedback to all the online video providers: if you are going to throw advertisements before the videos, how about you cache the video locally on our PCs so we don’t have to wait for the same Microsoft SQL Server ad video cache and buffer every time it repeats itself all over the Internet.

Melanie Westlake poses like a rockstarThe conversation continued through some other topics, from “best technology of 2006” (group: targeted video advertising, icon-based SMS services, cell phone bar code recognition, muvee)  to “what’s a good point-and-click digital camera to buy right now” (group: none, because the SD630 is the right size, and the SD800IS is the right feature set -although if you don’t mind the size, it’s awesome).  We also debated if the Blackberry Pearl supports UMTS or not (nope) and talked about mobile video messaging services like Veeker.  And lastly Melanie makes a critical mistake in her decisions to pose like a rockstar for Brian as he plays with my SD700IS in continuous shooting mode.

Thanks for coming everyone, see you in December!

Borat Staged? Seems doubtful!

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Last week I saw and reviewed Borat, and mused on which scenes were real or staged.  Turns out this is a fairly popular topic out there, and I’ve got a few quick updates:

  • Pam Anderson scene: Probably staged (although not definitive).
  • The prostitute: staged and is a known actress.
  • Frat boys: real, and they are suing.  Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, boys.
  • Rodeo scene: frighteningly real.  This article (from Salon) has a ton of in-depth commentary on the “is Borat staged?” topic, and was a great read.
  • Dinner party. real, chock full o Southern hospitality, ‘Bama-style.
  • Etiquette lesson. real, although apparently the teacher had her doubts.

Incidentally, for the least useful source of material on the topic, head on over to Yahoo! Answers.

Gartenberg's tips to build better music phones

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For those of you who don’t know Michael Gartenberg, he covers the consumer electronics space (and a whole lot more, sorry if I’ve oversimplified Michael) for Jupiter.  More importantly, he gets it.  Lots of people in this industry are good at marketing, or good at engineering, or good at products.  Not all of them get it when it comes to making outstanding products that consumers love.  Read his “three laws of consumer electronics” before you go on.

I know Michael gets the chance to play with most new/unreleased phones (yes, even before me!), and I have a hunch he was recently trying out some new “music phone” and had a lousy experience.  Probably one of those cases where the company pitched him on this unbelievable sound quality, “replace your iPod”, etc etc.  And it didn’t.  At all. And if I know Michael, it got him a little riled up.  Riled up enough to write a blog post on “how to make a music phone good enough to use.”

While I agree with all his sentiments, the one that struck me the most was #1: real headphone jacks.  Unless Shure or Bose starts building wireless headsets with the exact same sound quality of their current lineup, there is no way mass consumers will drop their Nanos. 

I’m going to add a few thoughts of my own to his list:

  • Integrated music.  All my MP3s/WMAs should also be ringtones, alarms, etc. 
  • Simple album art. This is a “frilly” feature, but if I had a flip phone with top-panel playback control buttons and the outer LCD screen showed the album art, it would nicely round out the experience.  Remember: the goal is to make a great experience, not one that is worse than the Shuffle!
  • Easy USB synch.  Michael mentions WMP and iTunes, I’d probably add that it should also appear to Windows as USB mass storage.  Furthermore, the USB part must be standard mini-USB, not a proprietary connector (getting that, Moto?)
  • Smart power management. Give me plenty of notice before I run out of juice while listening to music.  Put in an option that auto-stops music playback with a certain amount of talk time left.
  • Internet radio services. Whether it’s Pandora, Last.FM, Rhapsody, or anything else, since it’s pretty likely this new phone has 3G support, give it some Internet radio access as well.

The key thing about both mine and Michael’s tips is this: none of them require significant engineering work by the manufacturers.  That’s right, you could make a Chocolate 2.0 without a major redesign.  In the meantime, I’ll stick with the chocolate I love right now.

PC guy outlasts Mac guy, isn't it ironic?

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I read today that “Mac guy” (aka Justin Long) from the recent Apple commercials is not invited back to the next round of advertising.

A rep for Long confirms that his days as an Apple pitchman are over: “Every ad you see Justin in is for that previous time period only,” she tells Radar. “There’s no long-term deal with him.” She adds (somewhat implausibly, perhaps), “Justin’s a movie star, not a commercial guy.”

It seems that people didn’t really care for Mac guy. I like this theory over at AdJab:

Hey, maybe they’ll make HIM the new Mac guy (JT: him?), and show how a PC guy can become a Mac guy? (there it is)

Both TUAW and Gizmodo are polling readers to find new Mac guy. I’m with Angela and picked Zach Braff, but I think it’d be funnier if they picked that albino dude from Firewall (which was not only a poor movie, but had nothing to do with firewalls of any kind).

I myself am not “a” Mac guy (not even close to “the” Mac guy), but I do think there’s a bit of irony that he’s getting sacked.  Even if the campaign was unbelievably alienating to us PC folks, you’d think they’d just kill it entirely and start fresh. 

While consulting with a company this week, we got into a long discussion of the Mac/Apple brand and personality.  The iPod brand, for example, is cold. Its better than us.  You are, in fact, priveleged that you are permitted to buy an iPod.

I think of the Mac brand with terms like excellence, perfection, and detail-oriented.  As a person, Mac is not, in my opinion, unshaven and mocking. I like my Vaio, but why couldn’t Sony add an automatic light-up keyboard like the Macbook?  I recognize that many of the Mac faithful through the years includes the design/arts community, but I don’t see a shiny new Macbook Pro and think of a struggling artist.  To me, the Mac itself is the art they are creating (I just don’t want one as my computer, personally).

At the end of the day, Mac guy was smug, and smug is not cool or popular.  Smug gets punched in the face, or, like today, fired.

Like.com: great concept, if they can market it

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As is becoming more and more of the case these days, a new site or service launches, and it’s all anyone is talking about.  And here I am, following in the footsteps.  Sigh.

Over the last couple of years I’ve met senior executives from virtually every major electronics (and mainstream) retailer, and have learned a tremendous amount about consumers and how they shop (both online and offline).  For example, did you know that in traditional, married households the so-called “head of household” (read: man) makes less than 5% of all major purchasing decisions alone, whereas almost 90% of the decisions are made solo by the wife?  And I’m not being sexist here, I know there are tons of people and lifestyles that don’t fit this pattern.  But in the majority of US households, most spending in the home is done by the woman, without consulting the husband. 

Want another neat data point?  Men buy things based on features, descriptions, etc.  Women buy things visually.  You know how most online retailers work today?  Lots of descriptions, text, features and benefits, complemented with a few pictures. So what does this all add up to?  Most online shopping sites today are missing out on the majority of buyers.  What’s missing? The visuals.  Welcome to like.com.

Like.com (from Riya) is a visual shopping system.  There are a few hands-on reviews and commentary you can read (pick your favorite: ZDNet, GigaOm, TechCrunch, BusinessWeek, Robert Scoble, Thomas Hawk).  I’m going to skip the usual rigamarole of anaylizing how good their algorithms work, go check out one of the others’ for that.  Whether it’s perfect or not today, I generally have enough faith in engineers and entrepreneurs that they’ll continue to improve it to the point where it works as promised.  And if they don’t, well, someone else will come along instead.  Instead, I’m a bit more interested in the launch itself.

Right now, they have focused on fashion (a move Don Dodge likes).  If you go back and read above and recall that the biggest category of shoppers in the US is women, I think this is a phenomenal move.  I’ve seen other newfangled attempts to launch online stores, with wikis and whatis and kiwis and whatnot, but at the end of the day, in my opinion there is no opportunity for doing this in the tech market.  If you want to buy a digital camera or a Slingbox or a plasma, buy.com + amazon.com + cnet is sufficient for 90% of the market. 

But if a woman wants to buy shoes or purses online, the current offerings are in every way unsatisfactory.  Yeah, there’s some pictures and all, but it’s not enough.  It approaches the sale from a male perspective.  Like.com is the right approach to this huge, untapped market.  So now the question is, can they market the service correctly?

Robert Scoble and Mike Arrington give them praise for their methods of swamping the blogosphere (more details from the CEO himself).  I agree with them, they did hit the bloggers and hit them perfectly.  But my question is – did they hit the right blogosphere?  They sure got the Web 2.0 and technology bloggers abuzz.  And I’ll bet they got a ton of guys to hit the site today.  But I have a hunch their sales numbers are going to be dismal compared to their traffic.

Like.com needs to do some very aggressive viral and traditional marketing, and they need to do it to the right audience.  The traffic from today’s spike may well diminish to nothing very very quickly, unless all us technophiles are out there telling their wives and girlfriends about the site.  I’m sure they’ll own the term “visual shopping” in Google for a while, but who cares?  It’s not as if there are flocks of women googling that term right now (otherwise you’d already see different results from that term than you do today).

So congratulations on the launch, team Like.  You have built a potentially huge success.  Executing on it is a big challenge, and hopefully you’ll set your sights on the right market, because the one you are after did not hear about your site launch today.

UPDATE: Robert Scoble pointed out that in his interview with Munjal Shah, Like.com/Riya’s CEO, Munjah mentions an extensive press tour with fashion and consumer magazines.  Scoble also did a video demo of Like.com which you can check out as well.  But unlike Maryam, my wife does buy stuff online (and sells stuff too), however she didn’t have a great Like.com experience today – but I’m sure I can get her back to try again… 

Shure E500PTH Review: Headphones + a Microphone!?

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Microphone on/off switchWant a surefire way to make the best headphones on the market even better?  Easy, add a mike.  Confused?  Well, Shure (the makers of my favorite E4c and runner-up E2c headphones) did just that, and believe it or not, it all makes perfect sense.It turns out you can divide people into one of two camps when it comes to headphones: innies and outies.  Innies are the people who enjoy wearing in-ear headphones, the ones that go inside the ‘lobe and pump the sound right into your brain.  Outies prefer on-ear headphones, such as the Bose QuietComforts, which sit on top of your ears.  I’ve tried quite a few of both, in a variety of situations, and am quite certain of the fact that I’m an innie.  I like being able to fall asleep with the buds in my ear, I find the Bose set makes my head get a little, sweaty, and I find they simply can’t block out the sounds of a wailing child three rows behind me.

Until a short time ago, the Shure E4c’s were my favorite headphones.  I’d even tried the E5c’s, and while the sound quality was stunning, they just weren’t comfortable for a 13-hour flight to Hong Kong.  The E4c’s were the king of the innies in my world, with only one major nag: the process of removing/inserting them is unpleasant to repeat on a frequent basis.  Welcome to the Shure E500PTH’s.

Shure E500 inner packagingPackaging
As with all Shure products, the headphones are nicely packaged inside a small box.  The box has an inner metallic shell with a very nice finish, and inside that shell is a molded foam case to hold all the pieces.  Nice, simple, luxurious, and not overly wasteful.

Shure E500 packaging Shure E500 packaging Shure E500 packaging Shure E500 packaging Shure E500 inner packaging Shure E500 internal packaging Shure E500 in packaging Shure E500 in foam Shure E500 carrying case in the packaging Shure E500 carrying case in the packaging Inside the Shure E500 packaging Shure E500 carrying case

Shure E500 package contentsContents
When you buy the E500PTH’s you receive:

  • The headphones
  • The microphone
  • A mini-extension cable
  • A 1/8″ to 1/4″ adapter
  • Oval carrying case
  • Lots of extra earbuds

Shure E500 package contents in carrying case Shure E500 headset Shure E500 carrying case Shure E500 headphones

Headphones
I’m going to stay a little light on discussing the headphones themselves this time.  Others like Gary Krakow have already reviewed the overall sound quality of them (here’s Gary’s take on the E4c’s, and he’s about 100x a discerning listener compared to me) and CNet made them an Editor’s Choice.  Suffice it to say – they sound as good, possibly better, than the rest of the Shure lineup.  You’ll have nothing to complain about when it comes to the sound quality, be it at home, on a plane, or anywhere else you are using the E500PTH’s.  They sound great.

Shure E500 ear pieces Shure E500 ear piece 

Jack for headsetMicrophone
Now this is where the E500PTH’s get interesting.  Their noise-cancelling capabilities are tremendous, but as I said above, taking out and shoving in little rubber buds in your ear every time the person next to you wants to share some little detail of their life and why they love their home town can get, well, annoying.  And I have a hunch quite a few of Shure’s customers shared that sentiment with the company, since the E500’s specifically address that situation. 

Through some quite clever ingenuity (in my opinion), Shure added a microphone and a little on/off switch to the headphones.  When switched “on” (which does require a single AAA battery), the E500’s effectively mute the incoming audio source, and amplify the microphone.  This translates to: when you turn them on, you can hear the outside world again.  There’s actually a little volume control dial to adjust the level of amplification, and while it took me a little tweaking and a lot of getting used to, I finally got it right.

The next time the flight attendant walked by my seat (my original fiddling with them was on a plane), I was able to order my drink (and, of course, thank her for it), without whispering or screaming at the top of my lungs.  Again – it takes some getting used to, but once you’ve tried it for a few minutes, you’ll find yourself hitting the switch and carrying on a conversation as if you weren’t wearing the headphones at all. Very very impressive!

Microphone part Jack for headset Warning sticker Volume adjustment Battery holder Microphone clip Battery for the mike 

Shure E500 with iRiver ClixOverall
I have only a single annoyance with the Shure E500PTH’s, which is the size of the carrying case.  Granted, I was spoiled by the “fits in the palm of my hand” size of the E4c’s, and it’s still nothing compared to the mega-case which carries the Bose QuietComfort 2’s (forget the 3’s, they make ya puke).  So chalk that up as the only negative thing I have to say, otherwise, the E500’s are a winner.  Another nice touch is if the microphone battery dies, the headphones still work (unlike most over-the-ear noise reduction headphones).They are now, in fact, a permanent addition to my laptop case, and should be in yours as well.  However, they do cost over $400 (Amazon link), so if you already have headphones you like, you can opt to purchase the “push-to-hear” component instead (Shure site).

I did, in fact.

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Vote, that is. Spent last night making some last minutes notes, finishing off my research. I felt very prepared. Went in with my list of choices, stood in line for far longer than need be, and did the deed.

I’m not sure how it’s been going other places, but they didn’t seem too organized at my site. I felt bad for the workers because it really wasn’t their fault. They had four machines, but only two of them were operating. In addition, the magnetic electronic whatever-the-heck card they had us sliding to access the ballot went a little fritzy sometimes. It would say that people’s numbers had already been used, which makes no sense.

To me, it is no mystery that people don’t vote. Not only do they have to THINK, but they have to take the time, deal with the lines and the problems with the machinery, and our incentive? A cute little “I voted” sticker, and I wonder if some people even get THAT! I’m taking a class right now on constitution reform and one of the issues is elections and voting. Does anyone have any ideas? We’re considering a national holiday for voting (so people don’t have to skip work), possible tax benefits, etc. Let me know what you think!