Yo! How much information container you pack into one bit

 

Yo! How much information container you pack into one bit

Yo! And to mention it once more, yo! There’s a new app techsupportreviews available which does precisely one thing: it sends the unmarried word “yo” to some other consumer. No context, no different message, no longer even “no.” Just “yo.” Yo. Yoyo. Yikes.

How are tons of statistics there in that message? Apparently, one bit (the usual unit of information). The handiest message you can send is the phrase “yo”; the most effective opportunity isn't always sending it. And as device theorist Gregory Bateson once discovered, even “the letter which you do no longer write can get an irritated reply.”

But then, as Bateson went on to say, statistics aren't always simply information of a difference – the presence or absence of a Yo, in this example – however, it's miles a selected distinction that is meaningful in a particular state of affairs, and to a selected observer. In his traditional word, it is a difference that makes a distinction.

And the aspect about Yo that is thrilling is the context in which its miles are used. Because it’s not actually actual that the most effective facts this is conveyed are the presence or absence of the phrase. The app additionally tells you who sent the Yo and when they did it.

The advertising for the Yo app advise a set of uses where the semantics of the Yo are agreed earlier, in order that a Yo from a specific consumer at a selected time has a particular means, such as a Yo from a sports team once they score, or a Yo from a weblog you observe whilst it has a brand new posting available, or even (compulsory slightly creepy geolocation reference) a Yo from the local ice cream van whilst it’s next door from you.

In that admiration, Yo reminds me of the manner we used cellphone earrings after I become a teen, to ship a message among buddies, or infant and parent, whilst averting purchasing a name – “three jewelry way come and choose me up,” that type of element.

It’s utterly contextual. Without pre-agreed semantics, it’s simply a bit of a laugh. But in the right context, it could convey quite loads. Charles Arthur at the Guardian reports that their tech journalists are the use of Yo as a “method of prodding people to examine [a] precise display screen” whilst a message from a colleague is ready there.

There’s a mild hassle with this precise app, in that Yo become hacked pretty unexpectedly. And additionally that the usage of it makes you seem like a hipster with an excessive amount of time to your fingers. But those problems don’t stop the question approximately the content of its records being exciting. As ever with information, context is the entirety. Does Yo send a couple of little bit of information? Yo. And no.

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