One of my favorite websites, LifeHacker, published an article today on how to hack your iPhone so that it can “read your mind.” While the iPhone can’t actually read our minds (yet), the hacks they provide sure seem like it can come close. In short, the hacks allow you to program your iPhone to automatically perform certain tasks during certain times of the day or under certain circumstances (i.e., if you’re in range of your home Wi-Fi network, the screen lock feature is turned off because it’s assumed to be a “safe” location).

While I’m scared shitless of the idea that technology will be able to read our thoughts, motives, and emotions some day, I’m actually a fan of these programmable tweaks. Why? It saves us time that we spend hunched over our glowing little rectangles. Less time spent hunched over glowing rectangles means less time aimlessly clicking through our phone’s menu screens. Less time aimlessly clicking through menu screens means more time for human interaction. Okay, hopefully you see where I’m going with this. The point is, I think we’re finally building tech that’s built around us, not tech that requires us to change our lives to use it.

We’ve all seen them. Ads on the side of our friend’s birthday party photo albums, sponsored tweets breaking up a live feed of what someone is having for lunch, and right on top of the funny cat video I’m watching on YouTube.

The beauty of most of these ads (especially on Facebook) is that they are so incredibly targeted at what you’re actually interested in that they don’t shouldn’t bother you at all. In a perfect marketer’s world, you see the ad, jump up from your chair and fist-pump because you are that interested in what the ad has to offer.

Actually, that kind of excitement may not be too far away — both online and off.  Online, we’ve been working on a remarking platform that goes beyond what Facebook Ads has to offer. Finally, that platform is complete and pairing people with stuff that actually matters to them on the broadest and most specific levels is going to be a lot easier. Ask us if you want to know more about it. It’ll knock your socks off.

GM is working on a little something similar right now in the world of physical billboard ads. Instead of driving by billboards that have no bearing on your drive or decision making, GM and OnStar are going to tag team to serve you relevant billboards based on information you’ve disclosed. Just think about how that will change your next road trip.

The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, my dad suggested I take a course in logic from the local community college.  I forget what else accompanied, something explicit or implicit I’m sure, falling under the general parental-advice-umbrella of “how this would be good for me.”  At the time this advice went through the two stages of my teenage listening process: acknowledgment that I’d heard what was said and then prompt dismissal of what I’d heard.  And, obviously, I spent that summer not logically thinking about anything.

Now, with my Computer Science degree nearly ten years old, I can see value in the suggestion.  Not that if I met my 17-year-old self on the street, I’d do a better job convincing him that his dad had a point, but as a web developer, logic is the tool used most often, not the table-based HTML layouts and laughably simple Javascript I learned in the Fall of 2002.