scavnj

I don’t recall where the idea for scavnj came from.

I think it was a train of thought that began at the peak of the Pokémon Go craze in 2016.  21 million people were searching the world every day for Pokémon.  What if, instead of real world locations, people could have fun looking for treasures anywhere on the Web? Not by the tedious job of rewriting web sites and embedding game code, but by making universal layers – windows – on top of the Web browser, that people could choose to view.  Experiences could then be orchestrated across the Web, just like stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia, or through Alice’s Looking Glass, or even into a stripped-down version of Ready Player One.

As I researched, I was surprised to find that this was pretty much how the Web was supposed to be. Practically everything on the Web and social media, even “Web 3.0”, has been cobbled together without carefully considering this big picture and making use of it.

I’m all for adaptation and evolution, but as an example… Facebook began as an app, mainly for male students to judge images of female students. Over the years bits and pieces were tacked onto it in the relentless quest to monopolise our attention.  Does this seem like the way to develop a truly useful and great product?  As a systems engineer, I like to look at the big picture, and Facebook appears to me like a W. Heath Robinson contraption.  No offence to Heath Robinson, I love the quirkiness of his creations, and he designed everything so it could work – however bizarre and convoluted, even if there are better ways of doing it! :

AI’s idea of a W. Heath Robinson invention

Anyway, the concept of this special browser evolved in collaboration with my good friend Wade VanLandingham. I’ve mentioned Wade elsewhere, but I’ll add that he is the only other person I have so far considered to be a “creationeer” – someone who has an open mind about science, engineering, technology, art, creativity etc and who is prepared to put effort into trying different things, from Lego sorting machines to Lychrel numbers.  Perhaps more importantly – taking things from idea to reality.

We decided to call this Web layer “scavnj” because it’s like a scavenger hunt.  Over the last few years Wade and I have bounced ideas around to make it happen. We tried Chrome extensions with the help of a real-world coding genius Claude (unrelated to the AI!) but the apps were limited to PCs.  What we really needed was something that works on mobile.  We might have stalled if not for the other (AI) Claude.  I worked with it to develop a quick demo of an Android browser, which worked nicely. Then Wade picked it up and has persevered to make it fifty times better. The splendid result is here.

We could spend a few more months or even years working on it until it’s just right, but we decided to release it as a work in progress.  I’m sure that some of you  can make it even better, and it has two-way communication built right into it, just for this purpose.

This is where you come in. Try scavnj, share it, give us feedback!

We have some very exciting things that we are planning to do with scavnj, so the more people who try it and help us to improve it, the better it will be for everyone!