Today we go between ancient history and the future, which is now. We leave the market to its own devices, as it is again behaving as if it wants to go up. Maybe it is the tepid economic data coming out that has the market believing the Fed will remain sidelined until at least late in the year, or maybe it likes that spring is here. Whatever …

Greece is ancient history, you know Plato, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer, et al, but in today’s world, it appears the good folks of Greece do not want to become ancient history, again.    

  • “The Greek people are absolutely clear that they want to stay in the euro come what may,” … “They’ve understood that it will require hard compromises, even austerity.”

I guess the fickleness of voters is not just a problem here in the US. There as well, political wizards can convince voters to ignore the man behind the curtain, to believe he, and he alone has the power to cure what ails them. Tsipras sold the Greek voters some snake oil, and they now know it. He cannot heal them with charm, bellicosity, and, above all, threats to the EU.

  • Two opinion polls published over the weekend showed a continuing drop in support for the government’s confrontational stance in talks with the euro area and the International Monetary Fund. More than half of respondents in an Alco survey in Proto Thema newspaper said the government should compromise even if creditors reject Greek demands.

And there you have it. The market understands what has been clear all along. The EU would not cave on its demands that Greece do it’s bidding, and the demands from the newly elected Greek government would fall on deaf ears. And now to the future, which, as I said, is the now.

  • GSN Games, which designs mobile games like poker and bingo, collects billions of signals every day from the phones and tablets its players are using—revealing everything from the time of day they play to the type of game they prefer to how they deal with failure.

Yes, that little device you carry around everywhere is the transmitter of signals that can offer possibilities for all sorts of commercial entities out there in the ether.

  • Yet GSN does not simply track customers’ preferences and customize its services accordingly, as many digital businesses do. In an effort to induce players to play longer and try more games, it uses the data it pulls from phones to watch for signs that they are tiring. The company can predict with a high degree of accuracy just when you are likely to lose interest—giving it the chance to suggest other games long before that happens.

In effect, the little device in your hands measures finger pressure, rate of key strokes, and how fervently you press to assess your state of mind, and it works.

  • The games are free, but GSN shows ads and sells virtual items that are useful to players, so the longer the company can persuade someone to play, the more money it can make. Its quickly growing revenue and earnings are a testament to how well this strategy works.

Yes, you and I and our phones, the team that we are, are making money for an industry that is now growing in leaps and bounds from an idea that has been around for a while,

  • The idea that computers, mobile phones, websites, and other technologies could be designed to influence people’s behavior and even attitudes dates back to the early 1990s, when Stanford researcher B. J. Fogg coined the term “persuasive computing” (later broadened to “persuasive technology”). But today many companies have taken that one step further: using technologies that measure customer behavior to design products that are not just persuasive but specifically aimed at forging new habits.

I believe the term used in the height of the Cold War era was brainwashing, convincing people to believe in a new idea, in short, to think differently. If you ask me, it is all a bit insidious. But, hey, what I think does not matter in the world of commerce, mobile phones, and apps – it is what it is, and this is what it is – companies have a direct line to our mind via our fingertips.

And now a startup in New York wants to get to our mind via our eyes, albeit the motive is good – inexpensive and efficient eye exams.

  • A service called Blink (EyeNetra is the startup), is launching today in New York that will bring an eye exam to your home or office for $75, administered by a technician who uses a trio of handheld devices that take the place of the bulky autorefractor, lensmeter, and phoropter you may have seen in an eye doctor’s office.

Nevertheless, the phone is the centerpiece device in a process that takes a deep picture of your eye and then sends it out there into the ether.   

  • A smartphone running the Blink app is placed in the device (which looks kind of like a space-age staple gun), eyeglasses are slid between the phone and the device, and a picture is taken of a pattern beneath the eyeglass lens with the phone’s camera.

Okay, so much for biometrics, you know, using your unique eye to open secure doors.

Trade in the day; invest in your life …

Trader Ed