Jonathan Mitchener's Blog

CES - driven by the absentee

2012-01-15T23:45:00.004Z

So CES 2012 has been and gone and each year it seems it is less important for gadget watchers and those who want to bet on innovation success in the technology marketplace. It is increasingly a place that sales folk stand in front of new stuff only to acknowledge later that it is just a technology demonstrator. An example of this last week was Sony's "Simple Wireless Connection (SWC)" which at first seemed to be a market response to Apple's Airplay (found on its shipping iOS devices) but was later admitted to be simply a technology demonstrator.

But it wasn't the top companies at CES that were driving the tech product agenda for this year; it was indeed the Cupertino company that wasn't there. The publicity was all about 'connected televisions' not driven by the what people are asking for or buying and using but by what the rumours say the next market Apple is targeting... TV. All the data says that people who have already bought connected TVs do not in fact connect them to the net and the few that do rarely use it to display web content. Of course that is not the innovation that Apple will bring to television viewing. The companies driven by focus groups are missing the point once again. They need to innovate instead on how the users of a TV can get a proper a la carte choice of channels they want without all the rubbish that they don't and how to interact with the device in the lounge. You only have to compare the standard Apple remote with any other remote control for traditional TV sets. And of course, at CES there were plenty of companies who had TV remote control apps on mini-tablets to show off. CES was their chance to lead on innovation ... I fear that by 2013 they will be chasing from behind once again.

Speaking of Technology

2011-11-18T21:25:00.002Z

So my wife now has an upgraded phone, the iPhone 3GS (my old one) and I have my new iPhone 4S. So we could move to iOS5 together. One of the unique features of iOS5 on the iPhone 4S is Siri. Siri is not just voice recognition; it is contextual language understanding. Voice recognition on most other devices relies on you speaking particular words or sometimes phrases, which are recognised, matched and cause actions to be carried out. With Siri, you don't really have to think what the phrase is that you have to use; you simply say what you want. And you can usually rely on Siri using previous voice commands when interpreting subsequent ones. For example, if you ask something about weather for one location, you do not have to mention weather again when you want that information for another location; you simply say "and in London?".

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Siri was demonstrated the first time I ever tried it. After removing it from the box, and the SIM card was inserted, I instantly loaded my mail, address book, and calendar information via MobileMe. I then used Siri for the first time by saying "Call my wife". I expected it to ask who my wife is, at least the first time. But instead my wife's phone rang! The only way I can think that this was possible was from multiple lookups to my Address Book. My own entry in it gives my spouse's first name. There are two records in my address book that have that first name, only one of which is my wife. A match between surname of that person and me would have correctly led Siri to the correct person. The mobile number in that person's address book record was then selected from the three numbers listed for her. It's therefore not only the speech recognition of Siri that is impressive, but the actions taken according to the meaning of the words recognised.

I have seen many speech recognition systems, some very good. Siri is an order of magnitude further forward. It is certainly not perfect and does make mistakes. But it is still the best speech system I have used. Many of the actions you can ask Siri to take are quicker to do that way than without Siri, such as setting a reminder call. That is ultimately why I (and many others) will use it - not because of the quality of the technology but because it is more efficient.

A sad day

2011-10-06T08:24:00.002+01:00

The world has lost a great innovator who was always prepared to think and act different.

The fall '11 device technology landscape

2011-09-17T12:40:00.002+01:00

Being somewhat busier these days, my posts here tend to have bigger gaps between them .. but they will still happen! And they may be a little longer when they do.

As summer disappears and the leaves begin falling, more froth is bubbling on the technology landscape as many await the next move by mobile device leader Apple. Yes the next generation iPhone is coming and my 3GS is due for replacement so I await with interest. It's likely that this time the range of iPhones will be increased by a choice of high-end and less expensive models in order to broaden market appeal. The storage capacity of a lower priced model could certainly be smaller, given the imminent simultaneous launch of iCloud and the storage/streaming/download features it supports. The latter will also open the door for a couple of innovations, through its instant app-sync across devices facility.

The first is that when Apple decide the time is right to introduce NFC (Near Field Comms) to their devices, this will likely support multiple features/services, and not just the small-value contactl-less purchasing that most commentators talk about. I expect the sensing and proximity aspects of NFC to feature in a number of distinctive ways. The seconds is in the mapping space and especially how people locate and track other people and things that they care about, in a secure and privacy-aware way.

Away from Cupertino, what else is happening? Well RIM have continued to see BlackBerry sales drop sharply and are shedding jobs ... not good for the major corporate smartphone supplier. Its 200,000 PlayBook tablet sales have also disappointed investors. Travelling by train a lot recently, I see many employees juggling the corporate BlackBerry and their personal device of choice (Android or iPhone). This is an unsustainable behavioural situation and I believe that change will continue to happen in favour of the consumer/personal devices, especially as IT managers, CTOs and employees become more aware of the way that corporate security policies can be automatically and securely deployed remotely to protect company data while leaving the users happier and more productive with an experience/device they enjoy using.

Microsoft have begun to show people what Windows 8 will look like. Something tells me that many Windows users are not yet ready for another new operating system upgrade, they just want their existing PCs to work better like the smiley "I'm a PC" folk shown in Microsoft's recent TV advertisements. (Note that the Redmond company never used to have to advertise PCs a while ago!) And for those that do yearn to embrace the next Windows experience, they may be a little surprised to find that it may not be so happy to run some of the software they traditionally rely on. They may also be wary of the latest layer of user interface to be slapped on top of the system. But that is all in the future.

Samsung are having a hard time in the courts, with rulings in increasing numbers of countries that they cannot sell their Galaxy Tab models which not only compete with iPad but also look so similar in most design aspects that lots of non-geeks could be confused. HTC and other Android system smartphone makers must be still reeling slightly from how Google appeared to get into bed with Motorola last month, and looking for additional alliance options for mobile operating systems, either by partnering or acquisition in order to mitigate risk. However there aren't too many competitive options out there. You might expect the LinkedIn profiles of a few ex WebOS designers to be updated with new employment details soon.

Finally for this time, Intel has announced more about their roadmaps including extra support for even lower power processors that PC manufacturers may use to attempt to compete with the MacBook Air which continues to sell in huge numbers. Intel have also announced support for OpenCL in such processor families coming soon which should increase further the performance of future lightweight Air models. Then, like their bigger notebook siblings, they will be able to ship out some general processing tasks to the GPU (graphics processing unit) when it is not busy painting pixels on the screen.

More of a roundup and opinions of it soon!

Google, Motorola, HP & Autonomy

2011-08-19T21:29:00.010+01:00

OK so it's been a while since the last post ... I've been pretty busy enjoying a new role at the TSB, but I couldn't ignore the recent corporate announcements...

So Google buys Motorola Mobile, acquires alot of patents, and says that its Android eco-system for third party hardware partnerships is intact, well maybe for now, but it will be interesting to see how long so called partners like LG, Samsung and HTC feel that they are as equal as Motorola, and stick with Android or cross the bridge to Microsoft and do deals like Nokia have already done. Even the patents Google has bought are not in the important areas of innovative user interface or hardware/software integration (which can be used to defend innovation in the marketplace). Instead they are in the areas of radio and network technology which like Nokia's portfolio can really only be used to extract royalties from others who use those technologies in their products. In 2007, Apple reinvented the phone and changed the mobile industry for good. This week, Google has changed the marketplace again, by effectively dis-incentivising a whole set of traditional mobile phone hardware vendors from having Android as part of their mobile strategy.

And then HP gives up its PC and mobile device businesses. This effectively wipes the traditional lineage of PC vendors (Apollo, DEC, Compaq, and Palm) off the map forever. HP have taken action to stop the haemorrhaging caused by selling large volumes of barely profit-making devices. You might think this is so that they can switch focus from PCs of the past to mobile computing devices of the future. However, with $100m being written off to pay distributors that are resorting to giving away HP tablet products in order to shift inventory, HP have also announced that they are killing off their mobile devices too, to focus on software and printers. They have also been spending by acquiring innovative firm Autonomy, although how HP's remaining hardware will benefit from this is yet to be explained. The ex-Palm employees must feel the most hit upon, having had their distinctive hardware and WebOS system software destroyed, the latter having been strangled by poor quality hardware that no-one wanted to buy. The PC landscape changed today.

Sensors in the home ... mass market?

2011-06-17T16:54:00.004+01:00

My home is instrumented with over 30 sensors. These provide information on temperature, movement, doors & windows, alarms (such as smoke), and visual information through lamps and cameras. Some also measure power consumption and allow control of electrical devices. They all connect to a central hub controller using the ZigBee wireless standard, and are completely user installable by non-technical people very easily. The hub self organises and configures the network as you add more components to the system. Batteries in the smallest sensors generally last about a year. The hub has battery backup from mains and also a GSM data SIM if the ethernet connected broadband should fail. The system is managed / configured through a web browser on any computer operating system or via an iPhone/iPad app. The system can use the same set of sensors and other components to provide a number of services including security, energy monitoring and home automation.

The user installable aspect and ease of retro-fitting are the main reasons why this system (AlertMe) has the potential to be mass-market. However I believe this will only happen when the product is available and showcased in home improvement stores (such as B&Q and HomeBase in the UK, and equivalent others across the globe). The fact that it can be fitted in a matter of minutes by almost anyone, and is as simple as un-boxing it and inserting batteries and then fixing the sensors with sticky pads, means that it needs to be on the shelves of retail stores nationwide in order for this innovation to have a bigger impact on the marketplace.

IoT: The built environment - a workshop

2011-06-16T22:04:00.003+01:00

It was great to attend the KTN workshop on the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Built Environment today in London. A number of interesting issues were raised.

A major outcome in one of the syndicates that I witnessed at the event was the need for incentives for the construction industry to add support for smart sensor infrastructure in new build sites. It seems that characteristics of this particular industry sector mean that there is a lack of enablers for say, implementing Ethernet or similar network points in each room next to 13A mains power sockets in new buildings, whereas in the consumer electronics industry there are few such inhibitors in for example adding a new A/V socket to new devices (such as HDMI).

Since construction companies typically build and then sell the property to another organisation to take forward, maybe it is these customers of construction that can lead the requirements for new innovation rather than trying to regulate. It seems to me that the building industry has quite enough regulation already!

A second important point made in the workshop was the need to encourage opening up data so that others will innovate and offer services that people will want. It is necessary to make it simple and cheap for people to acquire data and add some value to it. As I said in a previous blog post, it is imperative that a marketplace is established that takes away the pain of developing innovative solutions.

In the same way that the iOS App store free's developers from having to do marketing (all apps are brought together in one searchable, place with user reviews and ratings), payment transactions (all the credit card accounts/validation etc is done) and other 'pain' or hassle, an InfoStore marketplace would spur the innovation of applications that could access the data made available from 'things'. Such an InfoStore would provide potential innovators and developers with not only data feeds with defined descriptions, but also scope, terms & conditions, and a price (value) of the data. This would then allow developers to innovate and produce applications and services for more traditional App stores for end customers to realise benefit from and pay for.

Thanks to all those who organised and attended the workshop which was a pleasure to be a part of.

An Internet of Things Future

2011-06-12T16:46:00.003+01:00

The premise for the Internet of Things (IoT) community is that the number of addressable devices on the Internet will be over 7 times what it is today by 2020. Already we are seeing a wide range of consumer devices that have internet connectivity. Such devices when also able to tap into sensors around buildings (e.g. movement, temperature, light, sound, etc.) can bring a new dimension of comfort, security, environmental consciousness including energy saving, to the people who use or indeed manage the use of the space. Outside of buildings, but still in the environment, such devices can make a huge impact on such areas as congestion, pollution control, communications, and service provision.

In the home, for the masses, it is the point at which automation and intelligence in technology also makes a difference to the human sense of security, comfort or cost control which is the tipping point for wide adoption of it. Outside in the street, it is the corporate cost of managing the public space that provides a key driver. Many services and facilities then follow from the deployment of such systems, provided that the interfaces are open and a market for using the data is created in an economic way.

Rather than setting the cost of access so high that only a few large corporations can take advantage of it, the market should look to a volume based model which encourages innovation and grows the potential market. A good analogy to this would be how software developers have vastly reduced the price of applications software which is appearing in App Stores now compared to the much higher prices that were previously charged. The profit per sale has decreased but the volume of sales has more than made up for that. The end user feels that the cost of the service is reasonable and so many more people take it up. And the platforms behind the most successful App Stores have taken the pain out of selling, marketing and distributing for sellers as well as simplifying processes for buyers.

Digital Locker or Lightener?

2011-05-27T11:42:00.004+01:00

Apple's acquisition of the iCloud domain name suggests that their soon to be revamped MobileMe online services will be re-titled as well as re-purposed. But what purpose will the Cupertino company put its huge data server farms in the 'Cloud' to? Much has been written about the idea of a digital locker to securely store and stream content (such as music libraries) to any devices. But the cost of licences that Apple are paying for to rights holders of the content will have to be clawed back and I don't see them going down the advertisement route. So if the streaming part of iCloud is to cost users, then the value proposition will need to be very clear. I don't think the secure storage (i.e. backup) aspect of the digital locker is enough. Neither do I think that the ability to stream content to various devices will be enough. Users will compare the benefits of iCloud streaming with what they are already able to do. For most people, syncing and carrying the content they own on their devices is not an issue. It's there, it works so why pay more to achieve the same? One additional possible benefit is if the cloud based versions are better quality (e.g. higher bit rate, hence larger files). Well I'm still unconvinced. Most people cannot tell the difference in the quality beyond a point and they won't therefore see much value in paying for higher quality which is hard to perceive. That's not to say that all of these benefits would be rejected or complained about. I just don't think that the general masses will perceive enough value to pay for the service if they don't already!

But there is one thing which would cause a large number of those people who currently don't pay for MobileMe or other content streaming services to do so. If Apple were to launch a lightweight iPhone 'Nano' which has very little flash memory for content at a massively cheaper price, then it would put an iOS device in the hands of many more people, and allow those owners to effectively spread the cost of device ownership via a content subscription service. It would also fit the pattern of Apple later launching a cut-down version of successful high end products, and also be a model which is hard for many competitors to copy, requiring the server farm / data warehousing, licence agreements etc. to work. This would signal a shift, a digital device lightener, shifting content from devices towards the network. For quality to be maintained, better streaming/buffering technology will be needed than is currently used.

But I would be surprised if such a device came as soon as the revamped service ... rather it is likely to follow a while later. The initial marketing impetus for iCloud will be the benefits already mentioned as well as some additional facilities such as iWork.com finally making it out of beta status, and a family/friend location tracking service which people explicitly trust to keep them in control of their privacy, whilst letting their loved ones follow their progress.

The Privacy thing again...

2011-05-27T11:11:00.003+01:00

Quite a lot has been happening in the privacy debate recently. There was the froth about Apple iOS and Google Android based mobile phones tracking users' every moves. Well of course the smart device in your pocket knows where you are and stores it internally from time to time. Anyone who has either owned one of the early standalone GPS units (and knows how long it took to get a decent accurate reading) or who understands the idea of 'assisted-GPS' will realise that more information is required than simple GPS from Satellites to instantly show you your location on a map on your smartphone. People also need to understand how much of their movements are tracked in all sorts of ways in the modern age (ATM machines, CCTV, credit card payments, etc.) in addition to their mobile phones.

Of course there is a debate to be had about how this information is stored, where it is used and who can get access to it. But users have to understand that in order to benefit from technology they have to give something up too. And most people won't worry about this; they have nothing to hide and their location information is not leaked to anyone, and certainly not to anyone they would be concerned about. But some US senators seem to be having a good time asking representatives of Google and Apple to explain themselves. I suppose it's an easy way to look as if they are attempting to protect the people who elected them.

Then in the UK recently we have had examples of how privacy afforded by secret court injunctions has been shown as farcical when 70,000 people have twittered online about something which national newspapers have been barred from printing to their readers. It demonstrates nicely how the legal system and current legislation is outdated in all sorts of ways, due to the changes that new technology and the Internet has brought about. This will continue to get worse as more cases of irrelevance happen in law. It's a part of the social change which is happening in society and which is leaving the established old laws of the land behind.

Microsoft Musings ...

2011-05-27T08:34:00.001+01:00

Most of you reading this will have read by now about Microsoft's purchase of Skype. I would think the recipients of the cash they paid are quite overjoyed to have sold the company which was/is losing money for such a hefty price tag. I somehow think Microsoft will struggle to turn this around. Despite vague signals that the cross-platform availability of the popular communications package will be maintained, one has to wonder if the Windows (especially Phone) versions won't be updated with more features earlier and at the expense of others... Skype on X-Box comes to mind, despite the uncertain effectiveness of a gaming interface for communications. Anyway we will see if Skype is safe in their hands as time goes on.

Then we had the retracted Ballmer statement! Most CEOs are careful about what they say as head of their companies, but last week Steve Ballmer declared that Windows 8 was to be launched next year in 2012. More recently the Redmond PR machine has corrected the "mis-statement" by their CEO as not in fact being true. It was hardly a technical detail so one has to wonder what Steve was thinking about? Either way I am not sure the world is ready to change the Microsoft operating systems out there again just yet, especially given the time it takes most Corporate IT departments to do in-house testing and deployment and at a time where economics are tough. WIndows upgrades of the past have tended to require significant shifts in hardware specs too, now in a world where both desktop and notebook sales are declining. Ballmer looks and sounds clumsy in his operations at the top of Microsoft, and key investors in the city have noticed and started to comment on it. Maybe change from the top is what the company needs. Then in my view it needs a complete revision of its business strategy for the future.

And finally on the topic of Microsoft, following its strategic deal with Nokia, the latest Windows Phone adverts seem to have taken a slightly new direction, including the notion of X-Box on your phone. Well, certainly the processing power of Windows Phone and the OS layered on it will make it hard to create an exhilarating experience for users and an attractive environment for developers. Interesting in passing that the Ovi branded Nokia app store has died a death. Microsoft's biggest success recently was Kinnect for X-Box ... people love the idea that was 'borrowed' from Nintendo's Wii ... but its not an interface that is easily imagined in conjunction with a Windows Phone ... so why would a marketing message raise expectations of X-Box on that platform. It all seems a bit muddled and slightly desperate.

Catchup from hiatus!

2011-05-26T22:27:00.000+01:00

Hi all. This blog has been quiet for over a month and a half due to some professional commitments of the author, but I hope to put this right from now as I return to comment on aspects of the tech scene. There are some interesting activities going on in the world of the leading companies ... Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft for example. I'll cover most of these in some separate articles. Anyway those of you reading this in the UK, I hope you have been enjoying the early dry and warm summer weather. This is bound to change now that the England Test Cricket season is beginning!

Apple's current plate-load ...

2011-03-16T16:12:00.005Z

Last time, I discussed the Tech scene more generally. This time I'm looking at Apple's possible moves for 2011 in a bit more detail. Their new range of ThunderBolt-enabled MacBook Pro notebooks and the previews of Lion have been rather quickly overshadowed in the tech press by the successful launch of the iPad 2, which seems to have sent competitors reeling back to their drawing boards. Microsoft has also recently quietly announced that its range of Zune music players which were originally intended to rival the iPod are not to be developed anymore; instead they intend to focus on including Zune technology into Windows Phone 7 (WP7).

But lets look at what Apple has on its plate at the moment. iPad 2 distribution & logistics, iPhone 5 and iOS version 5 development, finalisation and launch, OSX Lion finalisation and launch, a major Final Cut Pro update in the works, and a MobileMe makeover and relaunch including the complete commissioning of its cloud computing infrastructure to name but a few.

Firstly, iPad 2, which seems to have again been received better than even Apple had hoped. Just a two week window between the US launch and many other countries seemed ambitious to me at the time of its announcement but it remains to be seen whether they can meet this or not. Compared to its hardware product launches of not so long ago, the Cupertino company now has a much wider distribution network in place, which has both pros and cons in terms of logistics. Eager buyers of iPad 2 can go to a number of different retail outlets (including but not limited to the 3G network carriers' stores) in addition to Apple's own stores and the online store. Not only that, iPad 2 distribution is also complicated by the fact that there are 18 variants of the product to choose from. iPad 2 is the first iOS device to be available in two colours as well as just WiFi or GSM 3G or CDMA 3G, as well as three storage capacities. Someone in Apple has some interesting choices to make about how many of which variant go to which outlets. The permutations will be a little simpler in most other countries where the CDMA version is not needed. Getting these all produced and sent to the places where they can fly off shelving and into customers' hands across the USA and across the globe is no simple task.

Next is the iPhone 5 hardware and iOS version 5 which will come in versions for the phone, iPad and iPod Touch. Despite rumours recently about Near Field Comms (NFC) being delayed until iPhone 6, I still wouldn't be surprised to see it make it into this summer's refresh ... if I were Apple, I would quite enjoy putting out some confusion at this stage amongst my competitors. Apple have the NFC expertise (just look at recent job hires), they have the chips, and most importantly they have the tens of millions of one click credit card accounts on their books. Any standards issues could be handled in software later like 'n' WiFi was. Its about time their Liquid Metal acquisition was exploited so I wonder if that will lead the change from a glass back to a new material for iPhone 5. In the same way that they used thinner glass on the iPad 2 screen to make it lighter despite all the internal additions (cameras, bigger A5 processor, more RAM, gyro, etc) over its predecessor, a non glass back may slice a few ounces off iPhone 5.

The introduction of Lion will usher out support for a number of early Intel Processor driven machines as well as all PowerPC emulated application support with the absence of Rosetta. I still feel slightly underwhelmed by Lion so far ... and wonder if the new desktop candy borrowed from iOS will encourage people to upgrade. Maybe something significant is as yet unannounced! It is possible that some nice new features in iOS 5 will also make their way into the final builds for Lion, especially if both are fully revealed together at the Developer's conference.

The next Final Cut is due sometime soon ... probably during the broadcasters conference season and is likely to make a splash there. It also presumably impinges on the team who update the iLife suite etc too.

And then there is the MobileMe makeover... to give Apple a lead in the cloud computing space. Syncing and streaming media wirelessly between OSX and iOS devices, as well as potential walk-up instant personalisation at any OSX machine would seem to go hand in hand with system updates (Lion and iOS5). The cloud access to personal media and documents would also fit very well with a smaller iPhone (nano) which has much less onboard storage than its older sibling, and which could be priced accordingly much lower. Anyway the switching on live of their huge data centre is going to keep many Apple folk's minds focused in the coming months. Altogether a busy time for what is still a relatively small company.

Tech Industry overview 2011

2011-02-11T12:56:00.009Z

As 2011 revs up into full steam, I'm taking a look at various sections of the tech industry. In January the year began with the once amazing Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas but it took place with barely more than a whimper. Facebook continues to lead the pack in the social networking arena, with Apple having failed to tie it's Ping music network into the social giant at the back end of last year. News Corp more recently has launched The Daily, a news service designed solely for online consumption via mobile devices such as Apple's iPad. It is hoping that people will pay for up to the minute news services which are provided by paid professional journalists - we will know by the end of the year whether its hopes are realised. Meanwhile AOL has bought the Huffington Post, taking the opposite view to Murdoch that free web based news content will prevail.

A day or so after an astonishing internal memo by Nokia's CEO was leaked in which he likened the company to a burning ship and catalogued major corporate in-house failures, the company announces a tie-up with Microsoft and its Windows Phone operating system. This virtually signals the end for the old leader Symbian and perhaps Nokia's latest Meego operating system too, as both companies try to catch up with Apple and Google in the mobile devices space. They have a lot of ground to make up and I am very sceptical that they can make it. HP's buyout of Palm has seen it describe a new push in the same marketplace with the inherited WebOS system but they similarly have a huge challenge ahead.

Google is now leading the pack in terms of Android devices sold but Apple remains the leader in terms of money-making in that market. Being a profit-leader is not just a good business statistic. it also gives them a huge cash reserve which is key to strategic purchasing power of components for the next generation of mobile devices. This in turn means that the highest quality devices can be marketed at lower purchase prices which helps drive sales in the longer term.

And meanwhile, on the streets of Cairo, yet another previously dictator-controlled country is suddenly teetering on the brink of overthrow, as people attempt to claim some form of democracy. It is indicative of the Internet's support of people-power that the first clamp down reaction of the incumbent Egyptian regime was to try and cut off the Internet and prevent the mobile social networking being employed by the people organising the protests. And Egypt will not be the last. Gradually over decades, we will see many other dictatorships around the world fall, as technology not only enables people to act on mass with a global voice, but also shows many of them for the first time the freedoms that those in other countries enjoy, and which they then aspire to for themselves.

The rest of 2011 will see some more players in the tech industry merge or otherwise disappear as the strengths of the leading players' platforms increase. Google will continue to suffer the challenge of a continually fragmenting Android system across so many device manufacturers as each of them attempts to differentiate their products. Apple will announce and ship updates to its iPad and iPhone, probably introducing a 'nano' version of the latter to compete at the lower end of the smartphone market. Their high end mobile device replacements will incorporate near field technology to facilitate payments as they take on the banks in the next phase of the iTunes account based eco-system. I see parallels from how the network operators in the mobile phone business have seen their power and value-add services diminish since the original iPhone arrived, appearing in the banking sector as they become bit shifters in the same way as the network providers.

Apple will also want to eventually condense the separate recently launched CDMA iPhone (and later iPad) for Verizon in the USA and other CDMA operators globally into a single worldwide phone which just works anywhere on anyone's network. I think the company is well aware that the international data roaming charges cartel between operators is the single biggest obstacle for users getting the great iOS device experience when travelling overseas. A new open-SIM approach which the operators are already fighting will also be on the Cupertino company's agenda.

The success of iPad shipments in its first full year was absolutely astounding for a new class of product, surpassing the statistics of the previous launches of DVD players, VCRs and other consumer devices, and I think surprising even Apple. The take-up of the iPad in major corporates with hardly any encouragement has also surprised many. This has the potential to really ignite the consumerisation of IT in organisations longer term.

And in the Summer of this year we are promised the next major revision of Apple's computer operating system, OSX (Lion), in which they will begin the transition of many old style computing ideas to the iOS-like mobile computing approaches. I believe the iPad is an embryonic symbol of how computer hardware will almost disappear in the decades to come, as people just get on and do stuff, working with information and media in far more natural ways than the stepping stone technology of the mouse gave us. As mobile networking speeds increase and devices are increasingly sharing information and media between each other, it is likely that Apple will considerably enhance their cloud-based services using infrastructure which is already built.

I doubt very much that 2011 will be boring technological year!

Conference in Arundel

2011-01-28T12:39:00.003Z

Been a busy couple of weeks with different clients .. I particularly enjoyed the chance to talk to folk at the after-dinner conference I attended on the 19th January in Arundel, Sussex. It is a lovely part of England and the setting was very pleasant. Thanks to all those who were there and who listened/asked some great if sometimes complex questions afterwards. I look forward to meeting you again sometime - I know a number of you said you read the blog here. Hope the rest of your conference went well.

CES 2011 been and gone...

2011-01-11T10:44:00.002Z

Well, I've had a break and left you all in peace over the Christmas & new year period for a few weeks. Now it's time to review the main stuff at Vegas's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year. Even though Apple doesn't attend CES, yet again this year most of the talk seemed to be dominated by one of their products and this time it wasn't phones but tablets. It's not as if they haven't appeared at CES before; in fact there have been concepts and vapourware from lots of companies over many years. However this year everyone it seems was trying to come up with the "iPad killer". So how did they do?

The most likely competitors expected to achieve any moderate success in the market are the RIM PlayBook and the Motorola Xoom. However one of the biggest problems for competing devices to iPad may actually be the sheer confusing number of devices, with around 40 different ones likely to appear in 2011.

Most analysts and commentators still seem to overwhelmingly believe that Apple are likely to continue dominating as market leader with iPad with around 70% share as these competitors come to pass. The PlayBook will try especially to appeal to those corporates that already run Blackberry devices, however the iPad has already become a consumer-led trojan horse in many large global corporations. The PlayBook seems to suffer some power management and browser/scrolling performance issues, the latter apparently common amongst many of the Intel competitors at CES. Many competitors also have too small screen sizes, and the promise of later larger models will worry potential buyers in case the apps each device is trying to build up will not look so great or function well on a different sized screen later.

Apple still leads the way in aesthetics and design, although a new even sleeker upgraded iPad 2 is expected in the next month or two. They also have advantages in hardware-software integration and hence a better user experience, and their massive app store ecosystem. On the profits side, Apple also have cost/volume advantages in component supplies not only due to the number of iPads being made but also some of the components that it shares with other Apple products. This will make it difficult for competing companies to match quality and price of device.

The rise of personal pocket power...

2010-12-10T20:32:00.002Z

I have long said that we will in future see a world where personal computing devices that we can carry in our pockets change the way we go about doing many of the rudimentary activities (working, playing, shopping etc.) we currently undertake. This is slowly being borne out by the amazing range of apps that smartphone and now tablet users have access to anytime and any place. ComputerWorld has now predicted the historic shift that in the next 18 months, shipments of app-powered smartphone and tablet devices will reach and pass the number of PC shipments. Given the ubiquity of the PC over the last few decades, this is indeed an important shift.

I believe this is just the start. Tablet formats are finally changing the idea of what a computing device has to look like and how it has to be used. The mouse is disappearing. File systems are being conveniently hidden from users. Adding new software apps is becoming a new easy affordable activity rather than the laborious, expensive and technical process it has often been on the PC.

The trend in gaming, started by Wii and now being copied by Playstation's Move and XBox's Kinect, of gesture-controlled computers is also developing fast. As with the iPad, we will see the computer slowly disappear from the user's consciousness as they simply get on with doing stuff! And the development of wearable and environmental computing will take this further in the future.

The Smartphone licensing race

2010-12-09T18:05:00.004Z

So Windows Phone 7 (WP7) is now out there on some handsets attempting to compete with the increasing raft of phones running various versions of Google's Android operating system and Apple's iPhone with its iOS. There is a difference however. Phone manufacturers using WP7 or Android have to license that operating system from Microsoft or Google.

They have to decide in the first place which phone models to bring to market with which features and then which system to licence on top of it. While there is a huge marketing budget behind Microsoft's push for WP7, the manufacturers do not have a bottomless pit when it comes to releasing new models of handset. With the increasing competition in the marketplace, Android and WP7 will be vying with each other in the handset producers' minds. And then once they have made their choice of system for a handset, then they have to decide what version of that system software to release on it. There is already significant fragmentation of Android software versions out there across different devices, and WP7 will likely go the same way once later versions appear to support more features. Because some of these features depend on hardware, not all devices will be able to run or upgrade to all versions.

Apple do not have this problem of licensing iOS on iPhone. They can also more easily plan and control the evolution of the hardware and software features on their devices. Handset producers do not have the option of having iOS on their devices and so when choices have to be made for new handsets, it is one of WP7 or Android that will lose out. As the turf wars begin in the future smartphone market, Apple may end up benefitting from the competition between the other two. This benefit is additional to their ability to provide a simpler user experience and higher build quality from the in-house design and integration of hardware and software, and their superior model for developers to earn money from apps.

Not so simple tablets ?

2010-11-14T20:52:00.000Z

My father loves his iPad. Evidence from sales figures and customer satisfaction surveys so far released suggest that most other owners do too. Toshiba were one of the quicker large established companies to try and compete with an iPad lookalike product. However their problems have only just begin it seems.

I always said that it would be very difficult for competitors to match the iPad, particularly on quality of user experience and application availability. It also seems that price will also be hard to beat for the same sized screen of device. And its not just the size of the screen but also the clarity, both resolution and angle. The battery life is the final parameter which is also demanding to copy, while providing similar performance. Those competitor organisations that thought they could simply add a camera to the specification of their iPad lookalikes and take a significant share of the market are very much mistaken. That's why I always said that comparing specifications is futile.

Flying cars ... a social step?

2010-11-10T20:03:00.000Z

I was asked recently about the prospect of flying cars. This often happens to futurologists! And it's so often the case that people are interested in the technology angle. However the technology is not really the major factor in when we will have these. We are already capable of building cars that can drive themselves. For the masses to fly/drive, this is in my view pretty much a pre-requisite. The technology needs not only to keep the "car" in the air and navigate it to where it needs to end up, but also prevent the average driver from doing daft, undesirable or dangerous things. We have seen the same thing happen in traditional cars, where technology has been incrementally introduced to prevent such things as skidding, collisions, parking accidents etc. Once vehicles take to the air then there are further undesirable actions to guard against.

We already have a test that people undertake before being given a licence to drive on the public highway. There needs to be something equivalent for individuals who will be ultimately responsible for vehicles that leave the ground, however automated the vehicles might be. And as with driverless cars, the infrastructure doesn't really support the concept. Infrastructural development always takes more time and money than the technology that operates within it. An analogy here is the development of cellular network technology consistently failing to be deployed to keep up with the smartphone devices that could utilise them.

Yes, personal transport that can leave the ground will be developed, but it won't be soon so don't hold your breath ... and the delay is unlikely to be due to the technology needed. And in the current climate, it would need a very green propulsion system to gain traction in the marketplace. We are likely to see radical changes in the fuels used for cars before the latter take to the air. This is because of where we are today, not because of the technology required.

Consumerisation of IT in Leeds

2010-10-22T14:53:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to the BCS Elite Group of senior IT Directors and Managers in Leeds, about the on-going consumerisation of IT within organisations. Along with the 2 other speakers that followed, we had some debate about the pros and cons of this from both the user (employee) and the IT department's perspectives. I have blogged on other occasions about my views in this area and will doubtless do so again. I just wanted to say thanks to all those in the audience in Leeds yesterday, and apologies again for having to leave before the end of the event in order to travel to another engagement that evening.

The emergency catalyst

2010-10-13T09:45:00.004+01:00

The Chilean miners plight and rescue is a great example of how an emergency situation, in a smaller but similar way to times of war, can act as a catalyst for technology development, deployment and exploitation. There are many examples of how high technology has been used in the rescue of the Chilean miners, not least the smart belts that each man is wearing during his ascent to the surface, which measures the vital life parameters in the body and transmits that to the medics on the surface.

Innovation is often driven from such emergency situations. In the case of this particular emergency/disaster, it is the deployment and exploitation of technology rather than the development which is most prevalent. However, as with war, it is likely that many of the technologies brought to bear on this context will now be used in other, perhaps less urgent and more day-to-day situations and that is usually a very good thing.

RIM's tablet approach...

2010-10-06T23:14:00.002+01:00

My previous article looked at Dell's strategy for competing with the iPad. This time I look at Canadian firm Research In Motion's (RIM's) approach to the tablet. The Blackberry manufacturer, who has been very successful selling into the Corporate mobile IT marketplace resisted the urge to try tablet form factors pre-iPad but has recently joined the bandwagon of announcements of products aimed at challenging the iPad. However as with Dell's approach, there are some things that cause me to doubt their potential for success.

First they are squarely aiming at the market they know best - the corporate IT sector. The device, the "PlayBook", however sounds more like a consumer device in name, and indeed includes multi-media features more associated with consumer products. This is seemingly trying to address the well-established idea of consumerisation of corporate IT, but from a backwards perspective. I have written much about this consumerisation, and have always emphasised how I expect it to stem successfully from consumer to corporate rather than the opposite direction! Microsoft have already tried and failed in this strategy and I remain unconvinced about the RIM attempt too.

Secondly, the main attraction (and indeed strength of the Blackberry) is the way RIM understand the integration corporates like with business enterprise systems (BES). But for the PlayBook to achieve BES, it will need to be tethered to a Blackberry! The decision to do this seems bizarre. It kind of admits that the Blackberry form factor is inadequate; otherwise why launch the PlayBook at all? And in addition, this decision by RIM means that business users will need to carry around two devices instead of one, and IT departments will need to manage twice as many devices and all the heartache that brings them.

Finally, the PlayBook will not arrive until early 2011 at the soonest. By then, the iPad will already be in its second generation and the number of business and productivity apps have exploded from the thousands that already exist today. RIM system apps for PlayBook number zero today. Also as I mentioned in the article on Dell, the selection of a 7" screen for the PlayBook really misses the point of how different apps and the internet look when they are on a 10" screen in your hands. Those extra 3" really make the difference between the feel of a smartphone and the feel of a new class of device.

Both the Dell and the RIM responses to Apple's iPad seem to suggest that companies in the sector are frantically scrabbling around to identify a new product for their portfolio which can match the competition, and in my opinion coming up short. We shall see...

Dell's tablet approach...

2010-09-29T16:45:00.003+01:00

Today, there are numerous media reports of the tablet PCs that Dell has announced. So far we have had the Dell Streak, a 5" model which has hardly set the world alight. This is unsurprising in my view, since it will be regarded by many as simply a bigger heavier smartphone. Now Dell has announced there will also be devices in the 3inch and 4inch range of screen size. If they are trying to compete, as most commentators suggest, with the iPhone and the iPad then this strategy seems flawed in the sense that it just seems to flood the market with different models. It seems as if they neither know what size is optimal for a particular purpose nor understand what people will want. The consequence will be limited sales of all of them.

However the most imminent arrival to join the Streak, is to be a 7inch model in the next few weeks. This is presumably in terms of the USA, which usually means a European and Worldwide rollout sometime afterwards. But I won't be buying one. The iPad is the right size for a tablet and smaller devices as a way of trying to meet a cheaper price point (the screen is a big percentage of the bill of materials for a device) is no way to compete with it head on. The larger screen of the iPad makes a difference, you just have to hold one in your hands to understand that. I believe that Apple will later compete with a smaller model themselves but that the larger existing one will remain the standard device that most people want.

Dell have additionally announced a 10inch model for 5-6 months time. This is an admission that it is the ideal size so why not launch that one first? By then the iPad will have consolidated its leading position ever further than the march it has already stolen.

And on software ... Dell have also announced that their tablets will run Android OS but that they will also launch models with Microsoft Windows. As with screen size, this seems rather muddled. They evidently can't decide which of the two systems will provide the best experience for users. And it will complicate the ability to run consistent apps across the various devices. With Android, we don't know which versions will be available, and once we do, the plethora of Android "open" devices hitting the marletplace will dangle a carrot that the nasty malware and virus creators will find hard to resist for long.

So the whole approach, hardware and software, seems to be muddled and confusing for the average man/woman in the street. Contrast this to the simplicity of iPad which it wishes to compete with. And that is before you even turn the device on. Yes, Dell will sell some tablets, as they have sold some Streaks already, but I remain unconvinced that their approach will compete adequately with Apple's iPad.

Aberystwyth session

2010-09-15T14:53:00.002+01:00

Thanks to all those who attended my futures lecture and/or the dinner at Aberystwyth University this week. It was a pleasure to meet you all and to be guest speaker at your event. I hope you enjoyed the talk. Thanks especially to those members of staff there who made all the arrangements for me and made everything run smoothly.

Sensitive skin!

2010-09-13T11:25:00.002+01:00

The news today is covering a great deal about the US developments at both Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley on artificial skin experiments, as published in the journal "Nature Materials". Such a skin could in future form the coving for robot limbs, whether for stand-alone robots or for prosthetics for humans that need replacement body parts. Robots with sensitive skin like this could literally feel the objects they manipulate, allowing them to work with more fragile items, for example.

Both approaches demonstrate yet another area which could be impacted by nano-scale technology in a few years time. Engineering pressure sensors into special conductive rubber materials at such a microscopic level is just one of a huge potential number of ways that nano-technology could enable. The two approaches use Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) which previously have been utilised in computer display technology.

At the moment this is lab-based experimentation but the teams working on it have also identified a fairly low cost method for industrialising the manufacture of such materials. In the future, artificial skin will not only look like real human skin, but also allow machines to sense the feel of the materials they come into contact with. Once such developments are brought together with other robotic advances, the total capability of robots as we understand them today will be revolutionised.

Media Tablet Froth

2010-09-03T11:45:00.004+01:00

So with the advent of this year's Berlin IFA tech show (which i don't ever recall making the general news before), the media seem to be going crazy about some tablet competitors to Apple's iPad. However instead of just reporting fully what the new devices are about, they simply indulge in frothy and supposedly dramatic stories about how other manufacturers are about to attack the market leader.

As usual, most of the stories revolve around tech spec comparisons (cameras, memory, flash, etc) and then highlight price differences. Again they miss the point; it seems as if they never learn! As I have said in many posts here: "it's the experience, stupid!" This means it's about quality... the quality of the design, the quality of materials used, the simplicity of use, the level of eco-systems (services, support and accessories) around the product, and the quality way in which the hardware and software blends together. The latter means that the overall experience will always be better than a hybrid product where different manufacturers build hardware and then slap someone else's operating system on top of it. To make matters worse, most of the competitors are choosing various versions of the Android system which is so wide open that it will permit any nasty coder to distribute viruses and malware through un-verified and uncontrolled third party apps. Anyone want to bet against this ever happening? It's bad enough on your PC, but on your phone?

And so about price... High quality doesn't usually come cheap. The media don't make themselves look foolish by comparing a new luxury model of car (say a Lexus) at a motor show with a lower quality Korean model (e.g. Kia), yet they do it with the tech industry. Most commentators in the latter, even the Apple-sceptics, were remarking how affordable Apple had made iPad for what it was at the time of its launch. Of course others will try to join this market, (which is extremely healthy for all, especially consumers) in a standard product marketing strategy of undercutting the leader on price. But consumers (especially those who are in the market for a device such as a new computer form factor), understand that you don't get cheaper prices without losing something.

Finally, we have to remember that some of these competitors tried this market before. Apple didn't invent the tablet; they simply created a new computerised mobile device form factor that people wanted. The other PC manufacturers tried many times before, using ugly interfaces (e.g. styluses), inappropriate operating systems (e.g. Windows), and without bundled content/application eco-systems, and all failed with early tablets. Some of them still seem to believe that positioning their tablet product offerings as a PC or laptop substitute, rather than a new and different type of device will prove successful; these are often the ones who simply try to pack the tech spec with goodies for the lowest price. Unfortunately average consumers tend to care little about tech spec comparisons, and packing in loads of 'stuff' to a price-point tends to result in low quality.

Some of the media should know better. Luckily, their hyped stories will have been long forgotten as the tablet market matures and the real leaders cement their positions in it.

The next iPod Nano?

2010-08-27T22:44:00.003+01:00

Apple surprised people a few years back when they suddenly killed off the most successful iPod model at the time, the iPod Mini and replaced it with the iPod Nano. Now several years later, with its now traditional September music product launch event approaching, the Cupertino company is likely to have been once again thinking how to revamp its iPod line-up while continuing to differentiate the iPod Touch, Nano and Shuffle models.

In recent times, the Nano has preserved its form factor and simply gained new features such as video recording. This time, I am suggesting there may be a more substantial change. The way to make the Nano even smaller is to remove the click-wheel. However the user still needs a way to control the device. So why not make the current square'ish screen touch sensitive, and when the user needs to change something, superimpose a click-wheel (or tap-wheel) on the screen temporarily on the screen to effect the command. This substitution of the physical interface with a virtual graphical equivalent would mirror what they have already done with the telephone keypad and qwerty keyboard on the iPhone.

The next question is whether the iPod Classic will survive. I guess it depends how many of this last breed of hard disk based music players they are selling compared to the other models. The iPod Touch is already available with 64GB flash memory; doubling that to 128GB would get the song capacity close to the Classic model. The new Touch model is going to have a front facing camera to facilitate FaceTime video calls to iPhone 4's and it's clear that Apple will want to get as many FaceTime compatible devices out into the market as possible. Taking away the Classic option, and leaving the Touch as the highest capacity iPod for those that need it, would assist in this FaceTime strategy.

FInally there is the question of what materials the new iPod line-up will be made from. Apple has recently bought the exclusive rights to the use of a company called Liquid Metal in the consumer electronics space. It's not clear whether sufficient time has elapsed for this to be exploited this time around but it could just be another way that iPods continue to differentiate themselves from other devices.

Email security lagging behind

2010-08-24T09:59:00.003+01:00

With as much as 80% spam and junk email being conveyed over the net, it surprises me that more hasn't been offered to consumers by way of email security by the major email providers. Making it simple and free (or almost free, bundled benefit etc) to create verified digital certificates so that people can at least sign their emails properly would be a differentiator and a step in the right direction. The standard internet email protocols have had this facility embedded for ages, but it is really only security experts, some specific organisations, and hobbyist users that have implemented it. Apple already issues certificates for securing their mobileMe members' iChat video calls, but have not yet made it trivially easy to use with their mail client.

In the future, people will look back and wonder why the world didn't embrace helpful technology earlier.

[sorry to regular readers for the lack of articles recently .. summer months mean breaks!]

The Google/Android slayer?

2010-08-03T16:37:00.004+01:00

It wasn't so long ago that the hype in the smartphone market was on Google, its Android mobile operating system, and a range of Google phone handsets. Well it seems like the latter was a relative flash in the pan. It seems from this article as if Google has sold its last smartphone in its homeland USA, and that the remainder will be carrier-branded phones in some other countries of the world. This seems to be a step backwards for the search giant, a sign which its rival in that space Apple will have noticed. The latter's iPhone 4 is still selling like hot cakes as fast as they can be manufactured in an increasing number of geographies, despite some froth and bubble in the media about antennas.

So for Google, if it's not phone hardware that they are going to take over the world with, what of the Android weaponry? Well, there is another problem showing in the numbers associated with app development on the platform. Android will only be successful if there are quality apps available that rival competitors systems such as iOS. Unfortunately, what the numbers show is that the unprotected, insecure, laissez-faire approach of Android is actually putting off developers from writing new apps, since they can increasingly be pirated and any royalty or developer fee cancelled out. This is particularly a problem since Android specifically appeals to the hobbiest, experimenter, techy-minded market of users, who are more likely to try out hacks than pro or non-tech savvy consumers who just want quality apps that just work. There have also been stories recently of Android apps accessing and passing on user data to third parties. However since the Android app store is relatively unregulated, no-one is going to do anything to protect users against this type of hidden privacy violation. And for the same reason, there is still the possibility that a rather nasty virus or similarly infected app could appear in the Android marketplace and have a devastating effect for Android users. Google may be exiting the hardware market but its name is still very much associated with the system on an increasing number of carriers' handsets, with all the responsibility that goes with that.

Kinetic Power Harvesting

2010-07-21T12:45:00.002+01:00

I have written about power harvesting before but I noticed this article in the BBC Technology section which shows how a shakable power generating mechanism has been built into a normal AA type battery cell body. The prototype currently generates enough power for about 30 presses of the buttons on a typical TV remote control unit. While not earth-shattering, this could pave the way for not needing to replace batteries in those sorts of devices which we have laying around and rely on but don't require a huge amount of power. This also means many fewer dead traditional batteries going into waste/recycling without the inconvenience of always remembering to have more of the right size battery ready charged.

Future devices means paperless?

2010-07-17T11:16:00.004+01:00

The paperless society was mooted decades ago when computers first became widespread but of course they often printed more stuff out resulting in more paper being used. No I don't think paper is about to be wiped out but a new trend with mobile devices is beginning. Devices such as smartphones are no longer simply being used for communication purposes. The additional apps that are being developed include some which allow the device to represent the user as a kind of identification proxy. One example is the supermarket chain Tesco with their clubcard app which simply displays the barcode associated with their loyalty card for people. Thus the iPhone can take the place of the card at the checkout and identify you as a known customer.

The airlines are also taking this on-board, almost literally by developing an app which takes the place of the boarding pass that they or increasingly you the passenger would print out. The relevant barcode can then be scanned at the gate or check-in desk/self-service terminal. This application will save a little paper but will also develop further with the introduction of near field comms (NFC) / RF-ID functionality built into phones and other devices. This will open up a whole lot of more uses for the device. Perhaps media discussions of iPhone 5 will be more about these things than antenna attenuation and performance!

2010 - A face Odyssey

2010-07-07T21:39:00.002+01:00

Well, I can't take credit for the witty title of this post ... it echoes the title of the article written in today's Independent Newspaper by Rhodri Marsden, which included an interview with me. The feature discusses why finally video calls may take off for the consumer after so many years of promise.

Of course the sub-editor of the newspaper got their turn at changing what I said to Rhodri during the interview, but hey .. I knew what I meant at the time ... and that is the perogative of editors! Essentially I was talking about the E word .. Experience ... it is all about the experience the user gets, something I would expect Apple to excel at compared to the various phone companies that have tried this before.

First the network bandwidth on a mobile combined with compression techniques now makes a good video call experience possible. But by experience I mean much more than this. Point and press to initiate calls, just as easily as a normal phone call, with no extra account to set up (as with many pc based messenger type video calls including Yahoo, MSN & Skype), is also important. A video call requires two ends ... and two end devices equally capable of live video without the processor ruining your device's battery life. For success it will require tens/hundreds of millions of devices which have the capability. Apple will have this with iPhone 4's and its successor, iPads (the next incarnation) and iPod Touches of the future. A great video call experience also requires a great blend of hardware (camera, processor etc) and software (codecs, user interface) and Apple have both.

Finally its about the business model. How do you charge for video calls? For consumers, it is by no means essential for a call, and so it has to be very very cheap or probably free. What carrier or communications company is going to offer the service for free? In the past, they have tried in the fixed video call space and not only required you to pay over the odds for the devices but also for the calls ... they just don't get it. Conversely, Apple, a company that makes desirable mobile devices, would. This will be another essential tick in the box for the consumer experience ... no extra cost over WiFi. By the time it is popular with consumers, mobile carriers who want to participate to get some of the traffic on their faster LTE and other 4G cellular networks won't be able to charge much for it either.

It may take a little beyond the end of 2010 for all these things I have mentioned to happen, but 2011 may finally be a facetime odyssey!

Mobile business models

2010-07-02T10:46:00.003+01:00

We all know that the world of devices is going mobile. Desktop PC sales have slowed while those of notebook versions have increased over recent years. The smart phone has also dominated the device in people's pockets and tablet devices are now taking off as a more intimate way to use a computer that is carried with you.

As these trends continue, business models need to adapt to so that users' experiences are good, especially in the context of wireless network connections to the increasingly important 'cloud'. The computing industry has tended to embrace these types of changes more readily than the telecommunications industry. Apple's original iPhone, didn't just reinvent the phone (device) but also the business model that the cellular operators had assumed before then. This included data tariffs, customer support ownership, and connection transparency.

There has been one sorry state of affairs, bolstered by an ugly cartel, that has blighted the mobile cellular network business model for mobile devices however; that is the international roaming charges. These are incurred when you take a mobile (cellular networked) device outside of your home country and continue to want to use it in the same way as usual. In practice consumers have chosen to be very wary of this (on vacations and visiting family abroad) and businesses have endured ridiculous costs when their employees have travelled (for meetings abroad etc.). The European Union has spent a considerable time investigating such charges by mobile cellular operators and have finally come up with a ruling. Unfortunately it reduces the prices that can be charged for calls by only tiny amounts (a few pence for UK users) and states that operators should cap and then cut off data connectivity altogether for users who incur a few tens of pounds (euros or dollars) of data usage when an arbitrary level of use is reached. This is not exactly the radical change that is needed.

Mobile devices with continuous connectivity will continue to be most important in the future. The current system of charging and business models has to be broken across international boundaries. It needs the same radical change that the original iPhone stimulated in other areas of business models. Perhaps it needs to be achieved the same way ... through developments in the marketplace, as it seems like leaving it to the regulators is pointless.

Compensation for machines...

2010-07-01T10:12:00.000+01:00

When designing robots, or machines in general that try to emulate the tasks of humans, it is most often the tasks we find easiest that are most challenging to implement in the machine. Much of this is down to us not understanding the way that the human body works. But just as in the past when it was instead the problem of insufficient computing power, we are catching up fast. Often in the past, it was looking at how some aspect of the human body didn't work correctly that enabled deduction of how it normally does work. Now, in addition, scientists are increasingly able to look directly at how the body (and in particular the brain) is working and are able to analyse its normal working state.

Going a stage further, it is now not uncommon for studies to be done which look at how the body adapts to circumstances when the normal body gets damaged and has to compensate. Robots have been built for some time now which can walk, run and climb stairs. The latter was often a joke levelled at the Daleks who have been ever-popular in the Sci-Fi series Doctor Who. Robots that are agile in movement are most useful, firstly in robot warfare but later more commonly in other applications as the technology passes from military to civil applications in the usual way. Scientists are now already studying, with the help of amputee animals, how the body can compensate for the loss of a limb which is central to movement and thus how the animal can remain an effective mover. One such example is described in an article on BBC News.

In the future, machines will not only be more capable than the human brain in terms of computational ability, but also harness an understanding of strategies which can be employed when their control of a robot device is affected by damage or malfunction. This will put them in an excellent position to cope with situations which are not originally envisaged in their design. Robotic machines are still very much in their infancy, but are likely to grow up quickly.

Future transport - 1936 style innovation

2010-06-29T09:45:00.002+01:00

After a quiet early summer period here on my blog when I have been busy with other things, I couldn't resist a posting on the subject of transport futures, having spotted this Pink Tentacle article; and so it heralds a period of more regular blogging from me again.

I'm sure James Dyson would feel vindicated about the most recent ball innovation he has brought to his range of vacuum cleaners should he see the Pink Tentacle article which highlights spherical wheels for future transportation. [Although I have to say, as good as Dyson cleaners are, it seems a little strange to see the trademark symbol ™ against a plastic ball!] If Dyson were to combine their excellent vacuum technology with some robotics, I would be sorely tempted to upgrade to another Dyson that does the cleaning itself, as is the case with some other brands.

Getting back to transport though, it is interesting how the Pink Tentacle article content from 1936 concentrates on different wheels as defining the future. The reasons given for the spherical wheel innovation (smoother ride & cushioning in an accident) are also different to Dyson's reasoning of better manoeuvrability! A majority of current forecasts for future cars focus not on different wheels but different engine technology and navigation systems. It demonstrates how innovation needs to address the issues of the moment. The problem in 1936 with cars wasn't the number of internal combustion engines polluting the planet but the discomfort of the ride, quality of road surfaces and poor suspension.

It was the same with the innovation of the original iPod. The issues of the moment then were not that playing music couldn't be done on the move (as it was when Sony brought us the original cassette Walkman). Some commentators at the time saw iPod as just the next form of portable media after CD players. Actually the issues of the moment were more about being able to not only take any amount of music with you, but to select any track from thousands simply and easily as well as embracing the moment of broadband internet facilitating the download of music.

And this idea of addressing the right issues of the moment holds true for successful innovation, whatever the product or service. To think about future transport requires though about about what the future issues of the moment might be!

Why iPhone 4 will stay ahead...

2010-06-10T23:42:00.006+01:00

So Apple has revealed the iPhone 4, the fourth incarnation of the device that reinvented the phone. It pushes them further ahead of the competition. They will continue to be even harder to beat. This article deals with some of the reasons why.

The usual pundits are already simply comparing iPhone 4's megabytes, megapixels, and battery minutes with other devices. They miss the point as usual; it's about the complete experience and quality of both hardware and software, and most importantly how they fit together. And they will do the same with FaceTime, Apple's name for the new open standard they are publishing for video calls. They will compare it with other video chat software, again missing the point ... it's about how simple Apple have made it for people to use and the total experience it gives them. If you watch the heart-string pulling FaceTime video Apple have made, there is more time given to showing the faces and feelings of the people using the service than given to video of the service on the phone itself. This is very deliberate and significant.

The pundits will be looking to see what Google do with Android and what others offer in the same space. Actually it will be very difficult for even huge companies such as Microsoft and Google to copy iPhone 4. One of the reasons that few people recognise is that Apple are unique in making both the hardware and the software. Google don't make phones ... they rely on HTC, Motorola and others to do this for Android. Microsoft will also rely on many other big corporations to make hardware for WinMo 7 phones when they eventually launch it. Even if two large corporates do true partnership deals, they cannot achieve the same degree of integration as a single company. And players like Google and HTC are not true partnerships, rather simply contracting customer/suppliers. Moreover, a single large corporation cannot achieve the same efficiency and innovation level as a much smaller company that behaves more like a startup.

The problems of building the hardware and software in different companies is not simply organisational and due to poor inter-company communication. It is also about the two organisations having different end-goals, vision, business models and culture. Even branding is a problem ... neither company would want or agree to be invisible to the end user. If a third party makes an app on top of this two-party device then that is 3 splash screens the user has to endure before they can do anything useful! That is not an experience to die for. Neither are the inevitable inconsistencies that creep into the user interface.

Fusing in-house designed software and hardware does produce a better product with a better user experience. This is the difference between iPhone 4 and the competitors that will try to rival it in the coming months. RIM's market share is falling, Android's is growing along with Apple's. However the Android market is fragmenting with so many different phones, system versions, capabilities and specifications. It's not just simplicity in the user experience that most consumers appreciate but also simplicity in the choice of type of device. It's very hard for the man/woman in the street to understand the difference between the various Android phones... they understand much more that there is an iPhone out there; the Apple product portfolio is also very simple. The competition face a very steep hill climb in 2010/11.

Privacy - Facebook shows future

2010-05-28T09:27:00.002+01:00

The recent furore in some camps over privacy issues on Facebook is unsurprising in some ways, but indicative of the future trend and key new ways that people will need to adapt in how they behave with new technology, how they select providers of services, and how they take responsibility for sharing information online. The future world will be alive with information-passing mechanisms, be they sensors, online servers, databases, or other devices. It isn't a case of trying to ban things, nor to over-regulate so that the benefits are restricted and innovation inhibited, but rather that people learn how to act and make sensible choices, just as humans have historically done in other technology areas.

Firstly, in the same way that most people have learnt what is acceptable in terms of using their mobile phone in a meeting for example, they will learn how to behave with devices that are either giving out information about them or managing information sharing on their behalf. Secondly, in the same way that many people choose suppliers of services based on reputation and sound ethical principles etc, they will learn to choose online providers with similar criteria, possibly with the help of light regulation which makes sure relevant criteria is available. Thirdly, in the same way that people are learning how to take responsibility for monitoring their offspring's use of the Internet, they will learn how to take responsibility for what information they choose to make available about themselves and to whom. They already do this in other areas (most people are pretty clear about who they would give their private bank details to and who they wouldn't) and will learn to do this more generally.

The mechanisms will be in place in the future to allow people to control the inevitable increase in information gathering, sharing and socialising. It will just take time for people to learn that they should (and how to) use them. Facebook's recent issues have simply demonstrated a very small, early step in this education process.

Artificial life...

2010-05-21T21:18:00.002+01:00

The Venter institute in the USA has succeeded in transplanting synthetic DNA into a host cell to create the most primitive artificial life. This has drawn the usual criticism of how much danger this potentially brings when any advance of this type is made. The ethical debates will go on, and the regulations will be reviewed.

But in the end this is going to be commonplace in the future. We will come to rely on organisms that are man-made to do all sorts of clever and desirable things. These could include providing useful fuels or vaccines. Of course there are risks that bad artificial bacteria will escape in the wild either accidentally or due to war/terrorism. But there are risks associated with many other things humans do ... we had the same debates about nuclear power generation for example. But these advances won't be halted. We will all benefit from them in the fullness of time. And yes the debates will go on. I hope the good results of this work will quickly be commercialised into solutions for some of the big problems the world faces. It's just a case of how long this will take.

CILIP 2010 conference, Wales

2010-05-15T21:31:00.003+01:00

Just back from Llandrindod Wells in mid-Wales where I was pleased to be invited to give a keynote speech on the second day of the CILIP conference. I covered many technologies in my talk but part of one was about the disruptive revolution (or not) of social media and service provision and experience. It was great to be speaking to an audience many of whom were simultaneously using social networking tools such as Twitter to take the messages further afield. Currently this use is mainly communicative, however in the future it will become more important in service provision and delivery. Thanks to the audience for listening (should they be reading this blog) and especially those who were tweeting during and afterwards. I'm always pleased when technology is demonstrated rather than simply talked about!

3D Television arrives...

2010-05-09T21:38:00.003+01:00

After a busy time here, I again find time to blog ... and this time about the advent of a 3D TV set in the UK. Samsung have taken the plunge with their UE46C7000 model using the active 3D arrangement where the glasses do some of the work. Like all early technology, it doesn't come cheap at the moment and I don't feel like wearing glasses just to watch TV. Although quite a few models will be prevalent in the stores in late 2010 and 2011, it will be much longer before the systems that do not require any glasses to be worn leave the lab and demo suites and become mainstream, though personally I will wait for them. Meanwhile Toshiba will use their cell processor to upgrade 2D to 3D in their offerings later this year, Philips will offer 3D as a plug-in addition to their 9000 series and Panasonic's TX-P50VT20B will be a plasma 3D TV entrant. For the early adopter, these will provide some choice in the marketplace.

As I have said here before, there isn't going to be too much content produced in true 3D for some time, and the marketplace probably needs to adopt HD first before worrying about 3D too. The earliest 3D HD TVs will at least have greater brightness pictures meantime since the 3D glasses needed block out some light from each eye and the active shutter glasses also make the picture appear darker ... so the sets produce brighter pictures to begin with to compensate which also results in brighter 2D HD content too.

So I wouldn't get too excited about 3D TV yet, but in the future, as with our more general computing devices, the experience will become much more immersive in all sorts of ways ... three dimensions is just one of them!

Future power in your hands

2010-04-27T23:08:00.003+01:00

Computing technology is changing. New tablets such as Apple's iPad are making it possible for the computer to take a simpler form while allowing you to hold the Internet in your hands. The iPod changed the music industry but was simply a music player. The iPhone changed the mobile phone industry but was simply a better way to provide communications (cellular & internet) on a phone in your pocket. The iPad brings a change to the way that we think of a computer. No longer need it be a machine that you have to sit in front of at a desk or a power-hungry, over-provisioned, notebook which either requires a table like the desktop or needs to be balanced on a lap. Portable computers until now have either been shrunken versions of the desktop with all the complexity that entails (an artificial mouse or trackpad pointing device, a hierarchical file system, maintenance of applications and upgrades, etc), or underpowered netbooks (with all the same complexity).

Now there is a new form of computer, which puts power directly and immersively into the users' hands. It abstracts away many of the artificial metaphors that were devised for personal computers. It puts the content that users are really interested in (webpages, email, photos, video, music etc.) centre-stage, and lets the computer seemingly disappear.

In the future, the computer will disappear further ... it will become pervasive and integrated amongst us. The human-machine interfaces we use will become more natural and immersive. Some will be integrated with the human being. Until then, lets welcome the chance to take the power of the Internet into our hands and off the desktop.

The slow death of the floppy

2010-04-26T18:03:00.005+01:00

Well, the floppy disk may be finally coming to its full demise ... Sony are to stop making them as of March 2011. It has been a long slow death. Apple quit including them in their desktop computers way back in 1998. It took a further 5 years before Dell did the same with its PCs. However it has been another eight years before this halt in production. They are finally following the five and a quarter and eight inch floppies which preceded them.

In general, it seems as if the more innovative companies not only introduce more new ideas but are also pre-disposed to phase out older technologies sooner. As the speed of technology change speeds up, future technologies will die more quickly than older ones did.

In the case of long term storage technologies, it is worth people considering the safety and future accessibility of backed up or other potentially valuable data. Not all storage media is as long lasting as some mistakenly believe, and even if the data is still stored, one needs to ensure that the technology to read it is still available and compatible with new computing devices.

The Politician's idea of Future

2010-04-16T19:06:00.003+01:00

And so those of us in the United Kingdom are now in the midst of a general election campaign, with all the politician's trying to woo the public to vote for them. The present incumbent of 10 Downing Street, Gordon Brown, has chosen as a main strapline, that he and his party are for the future! But a politician's idea of future is rather different to mine. They have a very short time horizon, corresponding to the next 5 year term of office. This is a pity, given that many of the big issues that they need to face for the good of the country and deal with are much longer term ones.

None of the candidates have very much to say about the pensions crisis which is simmering. On economics they talk about the current huge deficit but only chip away with token suggestions of how to save a few billion here and a few billion there, when the problem is at least an order of magnitude bigger and will take more than the next few years to deal with. On health, they acknowledge new drugs and treatments but again there is no long term strategy for dealing with what these issues together with the demographic trends are telling us. Financing care of the elderly features in manifestos but in debate is usually left as something important that needs attention ... yes but what? The information technology strategy is also piecemeal whoever you listen to, and rather lacking in ambition when it comes to the penetration of a super fast broadband infrastructure. Energy security and the environment is yet another long term issue that could do with better answers and ideas. In fact most areas featuring in the manifestos of the parties would benefit from consideration beyond the parliamentary timeframe and perhaps some consensus between parties, leaving philosophical and ideological differences clearer and real choices to the electorate more apparent.

My clients, whatever their industrial or commercial sectors, almost always have some foresight to want to explore the possible disruptive futures over the longer term of decades... it's not at all obvious that our political parties either do the same or when they do, make use of it.

Computing for the rest

2010-04-01T19:08:00.007+01:00

So this weekend, the public in the USA finally get their hands on Apple's new iPad, announced amid the usual frenzy back in January. At the time, I blogged about how I saw this as a computer for other people ... like my parents, and others who don't really want a computer... they just want email, the web, photos, and access to the modern media that computer owners have.

They don't want a mouse and keyboard, or lots of cables connecting everything together, nor do they want a computer taking up space on a desk in the lounge, which they have to go and sit at to make something happen. They don't want to have to bother about viruses, trojans and other malware that they've heard about from computer-owning friends and family. They don't want a steep learning curve for the new technology either, and many no longer have a tech wizard of a child at home with them to fix it or help when unexpected things happen.

Instead they want a simple, pleasant and responsive experience. They want to access content without being concerned with file systems and folders and installing programs. They want to share content worthy of mention by passing it around or holding it up, like they would if they saw something of note in a newspaper or magazine. They want to be able to access the content without consciously 'logging-in', or supplying PIN codes or passwords.

Apple are, as of this weekend, providing exactly this type of experience via the iPad. As content providers and app developers understand the new audience they have, and if Apple can manage to market the device to this new potential audience successfully, then a mini revolution will take place. Yes, I have had people continue to tell me since February that the iPad is simply a larger iPod Touch, and yes I have continued to read criticism about no Flash compatible browser, no camera and no third-party app multi-tasking. I still believe these people are all missing the point. The technical spec will not matter to the people the iPad is most suited for.

And now the first reviewers to get their hands on a real iPad are starting to say the same ... this is a new concept in computing, so-called 'computing for the rest of us'. It is revolutionary, not in terms of the tech spec, or even in the things it allows users to do, but rather in the way that people will think of a computer. It puts the Internet in your hands and throws away the paradigm of mouse directed computing that was spawned in the 1980s. It is the very embryonic stage of new computers that look very different and are literally much more engaging and individually immersive for the humans that use them. Ten years from now, we will be in much more intimate touch with our computers; this is only the start.

Delaying the inevitable...

2010-03-30T16:20:00.004+01:00

Oh dear! Here's another example of how the BBC are being held back so that the Internet revolution doesn't kill off lower quality information providers quite as quickly. But it will eventually and the public will have simply been denied a quality offering unnecessarily. The BBC should be allowed to provide whatever Apps they want for iPhone or any other significant platform so that users can decide what to use to access the information. It will be a shame if people are denied the opportunity to follow content from the World Cup soccer tournament in June from the BBC on their phones, while Sky and others who are part of the old guard newspaper/publishing industry face no such restrictions.

And apps are important, because they make the experience simple. And that is important. iPhone owners check the weather using the Weather widget on their phones, rather than going to the BBC site on the web using Safari on the iPhone - hence they get the Yahoo weather view rather than the provider who has a public information role in the UK. The apps that the BBC were planning to launch were simply making their existing content (news, weather, sport) available via the most successful smartphone platform, not straying into new areas of content.

Organisations would do better to work out how to innovate and be the best in the new media world, instead of trying dirty tactics to unfairly regulate and campaign against those who have already embraced the technology, and therefore skewing the market. They will fail, albeit slightly later than they might have done! It's almost as futile as the world's remaining dictatorships who still think that they can survive in an open, free and Internet connected world. They may take longer to die by holding out, but die they will.

Design innovation vs Standards

2010-03-29T14:28:00.007+01:00

One of the obvious aspects of Apple innovation, which I have tended not to blog much about in the past, is the Design work that applies to their products, led by Jonathan Ive. The attention to detail is not just applied to the products themselves, such as computers, iPods and mobile phones, but also to the accessories that ship with those products such as power adaptors. Compare below the Apple power adaptor for iPhone which is built into a UK 13A mains plug (left) with a normal but fatter and bigger ordinary mains plug (right)!

Last year I recall a campaign followed by a fanfare announcement that mobile phone manufacturers had finally agreed a new standard power adaptor that would be interchangeable for many models and makes, instead of requiring a different one for each. This seemed a bit odd to me, given that most people only have one phone and therefore still only need one charger when they travel around. Taking into account the above Apple example, isn't it better to aim for a well designed pocketable adaptor which provides a standard USB power level output, rather than a new additional standard, which everyone again will implement in horrible ugly ways?

Organisations setting expectation

2010-03-25T23:13:00.004Z

Have just returned from a short vacation trip on the Orient Express, hence the relatively quiet period on this blog ... not much reasonably priced internet access on there! Back now and raring to put fingers to keyboard.

I often mention experience here in this blog, as a differentiator in customer service. And I put it much higher than technical specification for the success of gadgets. My recent trip on one of the most luxurious trains in the world has provided me with another example of a great customer experience, with parallels to the more familiar Apple examples. In the same way that delivery times for Apple products have often been bettered by actual delivery dates, the Orient Express organisation mirrored this by setting expectations of a very reasonable level of customer service and then still exceeding it. This is actually a very simple thing to think about and execute but it's amazing how many organisations just don't get it.

People love to believe that they are getting extras or something better than what is promised. Achieving this when your standards are already good is an example of how to make customers feel great about products and services.

Polymer Chip Fabrication

2010-03-17T19:47:00.002Z

As Moores Law continues to prevail, processor manufacturers are continuing to produce faster and faster chips, while basically using the same underlying fabrication science. I have covered before how new nano-science such as replacing copper connecting wires with carbon nanotubes on chips could bring further advantages. Researchers are also experimenting with other approaches not based on current lithography techniques. This would mean that instead of requiring a template like pattern to be used to etch silicon, so-called hitching posts can be established using sparse silicon, to which complex chains of molecules can attach themselves to. The chains are made of very precise copolymers which can form motifs acting as transistors for example. The process of manufacturing would then involve soaking plates in a liquid and letting polymerisation happen, rather than a lithographic process. The technique is still at an embryonic stage but I would expect simpler chips with very regular patterns such as memory chips would be possible first. The properties of the copolymers and the size of the plates would determine the capacity of such memory chips.

Medicine or Modification?

2010-03-12T00:27:00.004Z

Biotechnology is advancing at significant speed. There is plenty of scope for helping people who are blighted by disease or disability through new technology. New and better prosthetics are on the cards as are other means of helping people move, see, hear, or talk to others. However it will soon be a case of getting into the greyer area of whether we are fixing problems that people have or simply enhancing what people lack.

Society will need to make decisions which were previously unnecessary; decisions such as which body parts should be replaced and which should not. Does society want some people to have super-human power, while others do not. Brain implants will be possible. Will that change who a person is and what they can be held responsible for? When do we judge people to be human or simply a machine with some human characteristics? Personal enhancement may be much more than just cosmetic surgery in future. Some employers may want to enhance their employees to allow them to perform better. There will be a new way to categorise people as haves and have nots.

A Journey to London & Back...

2010-03-03T22:37:00.003Z

Yesterday, I travelled with fellow Futurologist Ian Pearson from Ipswich to London by car. It was a journey we could've expected to have completed in just over an hour and a half ... in practice it took at least 3 hours both ways. The time spent in traffic queues caused us to discuss a number of transport related issues...

Firstly we observed that like so many other people, we had chosen to make the trip by car, rather than take the train. Train services are still over-priced and risk unreliability and a lack of punctuality. This means that more people choose the individuality of the motor car and thus add to the congestion problem. It seems strange that in continental Europe, train services are much better and whilst most of our utility companies are now run by 'foreign' owners, our train services still are not.

Secondly the standard of driving, in terms of distance between vehicles, lane discipline, speed regulation, and late braking, was noticeably poor. Future vehicles that can take some of these decisions away from the human driver will improve average throughput of existing road bandwidth. The 'highlight' was at a major roundabout when one car travelling in the left lane decided to go right while simultaneously someone else in the right lane decided to go left. They were left with a complex negotiation to make about how to avoid collision while the rest of the traffic was forced to brake behind them.

Much of the congestion was caused by encountering sets of roadworks one after another after another. It is most frustrating to find some long segments of road coned off and speed limits imposed where no work was actually in progress. It would be better if many of these roadworks could be cleared during the peak rush hour periods when the impact on traffic flow is greatest.

It is still frustrating that road speed limits are still based on what a bureaucrat in a planning office decided would be best decades ago regardless of the road conditions, weather or traffic volumes. The case for flexible speed limits signed electronically in real time, designed for modern cars and taking into account the dynamics of the road as it changes, is stronger than ever.

Nanotech Water Purification

2010-02-27T20:16:00.004Z

One of the problems of some parts of the planet now, and which will be a problem for more of the planet in the future, is the availability of pure water to drink. While the underlying politics of recent wars can be linked to land occupation and control of oil reserves, it is likely that in future it will be water that is the underlying bone of contention. And in many parts of the planet, it is not so much a shortage of water but rather a shortage of usable clean water that is the problem.

One of the many applications of Nanotechnology in the environmental space could be a contribution to the water purification process. The traditional approach to purification is to build large plants which perform the treatment process on large scale. But this is susceptible to attack (e.g. bio-terrorists) much more easily than if water is purified at the point of use in many local places. Once the core technology is mainstream, this local approach is also likely to be more cost-effective. Local purification ideally also addresses the particular contaminates affecting the water in an area.

A whole range of nanotechnology could be brought to bear on water purification. This includes smart membranes, nanocatalysts, nanosensors and nanoabsorbants. Combining these into personal water treatment devices which can be programmed to work at the atomic and molecular level will revolutionise one environmental challenge facing the world.

BBC Technology Bus!

2010-02-22T22:45:00.004Z

Should be an interesting day tomorrow ... I am invited to be one of the experts aboard the BBC Technology Bus to talk about all sorts of gadgets and devices, and to appear as a guest on Steve Scruton's afternoon show on BBC Essex radio, live from the bus. I'm looking forward to meeting the people that visit the bus and to answer any questions raised by listeners who phone into the show between 2 and 4pm. The station streams its output on the Internet too so you can listen from anywhere! One focus will be the BBC History of the World project, and I will be mentioning how current and future technology will help people capture the past and upload content to the BBC History of the World website.

Redfly Video Review

2010-02-12T21:45:00.003Z

Before I left BT last year, I did some video reviews of various products for their Innovate magazine. The final one has just been published on the web, although as it is embedded flash on one page of the e-zine its not exactly easy to provide a link to directly.

The subject of this review was the Redfly ... a netbook-like device without any processing inside it which links to a Blackberry or Windows Mobile smartphone by USB or Bluetooth and effectively gives you a bigger screen and keyboard for the apps on the smartphone. I actually think this is just an admission that some of those smartphones and their apps are pretty unusable. I dont see me ever needing a netbook let alone one of these smartphones and a Redfly. I'll definitely stick with my iPhone! However if you want to see an example of my performances on camera, you can find the Innovate e-zine here. The Redfly video review is on page 15 ... click the relevant link when you get there!

Lingfield Park visit

2010-02-11T18:34:00.004Z

Today I had the pleasure to talk about future disruptive technology at Lingfield Park in Surrey to a group workshopping the future strategy for the South-East of England. I included material on innovation, the environment, employment and devices amongst many others. The session was run by the SE Partnership Board, and brought together a strong set of influencers from that region to work through the issues. I also had an opportunity to run a longer session at the HQ of the Partnership Board in Guildford later in the day. Thanks to all those who attended, and I hope you had a productive day.

Corporate employee provision

2010-02-08T22:51:00.002Z

In the future, it is likely that the workforce will be much more fluid than today. Each individual will be more likely to time share between different employers at the same time. Just-in-time skills provision will be a competitive edge for companies. Social networks may support the matching of near-real-time skills provision. Policies in HR departments will need to change to accommodate multiple employers per employee.

Consumerisation of IT provision will enable people to obtain their Information Technology tools personally but yet attach to multiple corporate networks, and for organisations to pay something towards the cost of provision while eliminating duplication. While some of this happens already, it will be far more widespread and commonplace in future.

3D Printing ...

2010-02-04T09:22:00.004Z

It was June 2008 when I first blogged about personal fabrication, and effectively three dimensional printing. Now I note that a US based company is offering a 3D plastic making printer. And it seems to be at a price that could stimulate the market. It needs to look nice and pretty in your room and be more user friendly. Some folk have problems changing ink tanks in today's printers so there is a challenge to be met still and it's early days. However a number of initiatives in this space now are bringing the idea more into focus. And it brings another application for robotics in the home or office to mind.

iPad - initial thoughts

2010-02-01T18:22:00.003Z

So the iPad is announced. Watching the keynote, I felt that Steve Jobs lost his way a little bit when demoing the new device. The structure of the presentation seemed slightly hurried for a change and I think the was scope for more impact by describing the features that distinguish the iPad from the iPhone and iPod Touch (e.g. iBooks, iWork, Photo-frame) first and then adding that by the way those users will be familiar with how it works and it does photos, music etc too. Why do I think this was important? Well because focussing more on the features that overlap with the other devices, and simply stressing the bigger screen caused many in the media to mistakenly write it off as a large iPod Touch and the impact of the launch wasn't so great. Despite this, given the way certain other companies have reacted, the launch of the iPad at the price point they have chosen has touched a nerve in the industry and I think it will be a success. I suspect that if more deals had been able to be concluded with TV and newspaper companies in time for the launch, we might have seen the emphasis and story of the new iPad put from that perspective instead.

But there are a number of reasons why the early critics have got it wrong ... here's why...

First there were criticisms of the lack of a camera, and other aspects of the specification. These folk just don't get it about Apple. They don't put technology in the product to impress by the technical specification. They put technology in a product which is needed to fulfil the uses and purposes for which the device is intended. If a later version of the iPad is intended to provide a really good video chat experience, then it will have a camera and a multi-touch iChat app. This one isn't and so it doesn't.

Secondly, some critics are comparing iPad to the iPod Touch or to a Laptop PC. This is a mistake. The device is not intended to be one of either of these. People who need a Laptop PC will still use one and likewise for those who want a pocket music player and games handheld. Indeed Apple do not want to cannibalise their own existing product sales by introducing the iPad. But there will be people for whom the iPad fulfils needs, whether that be to consume published material like books and e-newspapers, and those who want to surf the web and do email but not have a full blown computer. I can see my parents in the latter category. They have a digital camera and want to be able to share photos they take, and they use the web and email but not much else. They really don't want to have a computer sitting there... the iPad would conveniently support what they do. They and many other non-technical users will be able to do stuff without that fiddly mouse and keyboard which makes a computer look like a computer.

Thirdly, the iPad cleverly takes the role of a multi-purpose device without being so general as a PC and the complexity that a PC presents to a non-tech user. So it wins as an e-book reader over the single purpose readers like Kindle, and offers extra for the price, but doesn't dilute its role so much that the non techie wonders what they can use it for. It is also different in the whole way it abstracts away from the file system complexity which a PC puts in your face. Apps like iWork and the Photo app will manipulate information as projects within the apps, while the iPad takes care of where the associated files live, either on the device, in the cloud or on another wirelessly networked device. The main thing is that the user need not bother about it.

So I believe although not presented in such a way, except to call it revolutionary, the iPad is a true innovation which leads the way for a new category of computing device, and which will appeal to a different set of people than traditional computers. The other thing we should remember is that this is version 1.0 of an innovation ... there is much much more to come. i think iPad sets a direction for computing innovation as much as being a new product innovation.

Wearable batteries

2010-01-26T23:46:00.004Z

One of the ways we will integrate with our computing technology in the future is to wear it, as I have blogged about before. One important component of this is how to power the devices we wear. Scientists have now presented how a coating of carbon nanotube 'ink' on ordinary polyester or cotton fabrics can store electrical energy. The interwoven fibres of such materials are ideal absorbers for for the billionth of a metre across carbon tubes. Once coated, stretching or washing the fabric leaves the electrical characteristics of the material intact. Previously this type of approach has been identified as working on paper, but fabrics open up a whole new world of wearable computing possibilities. Combined with other wearable components such as solar cells means that the wearable batteries could be charged while being worn.

Next gen mobile phones (IET)

2010-01-23T00:22:00.004Z

The Institution of Engineering and Technology invited me to write a short article about the next 25 years of the mobile phone, which has now been published.

Human-Computer Interaction

2010-01-19T00:39:00.004Z

I think it is time that Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) leaves the realms of the computer science educational syllabus and the job titles of psychology-trained IT-literate professionals, and hits the streets in high tech devices that people want to use. This means expanding the current expectation of how people interact with machines.

As I mentioned in my previous tablet related post, gesture-based interaction is about much more than touch screens on phones. Gestures may mean those made by fingers and hands, but also those made by moving the head or the face. I have met robots that can assess and act on human facial expressions. I have used gestures in free space, rather than on a capacitive glass surface, to direct what a machine should do. That was years ago, and so products could soon launch which use such techniques. Some gaming consoles such as Wii have already shown how human movement can be interpreted. Eye tracking is already used by systems such as flight simulators and also in laboratory test situations when studying human cognition and behaviours. The movement of the eye can convey a great deal of intent.

Voice recognition and synthesis have both advanced to a very usable stage and are also ready to augment humans' interactions with computer devices. I already have a pretty natural dialogue with my car and with my phone/music player. Finally, some wireless systems being developed can not only convey information but also detect movement and presence in a similar fashion to radar.

Some lab demonstrations have also shown how people can control devices simply by thinking about what they want to achieve.
Interacting with devices of the future may never be the same again!

Lessons from Cupertino...

2010-01-18T23:36:00.005Z

Apple has now confirmed their product launch event for January 27th. Their well-disciplined official leak engine would not have allowed city analysts to get so excited about the effect of a tablet-type product on their bottom line, without some truth in it. So the pundits are now focussed on the detailed specification rather than the business model (something I discussed in a xmas-eve post). But lessons of the past from the Cupertino company should give the best guide to what is likely to happen in terms of functions and specification.

First, Apple are very good at scheduling new systems software and hardware innovations. One such lesson here was the quiet inclusion video hardware in their computers which could support Open-CL well in advance of Snow Leopard's arrival which enabled the associated performance increase. Another lesson is how Apple demonstrate their investments in innovations that can be exploited more than once and how good they are at sweating their assets to the maximum.

So what could this mean for the tablet? Apple have not dabbled in web applications such as the suite of mail, calendar and address book at me.com or the experimental iWork.com for no reason. I think we will see more of these desktop class apps available through future hardware products. Second, Apple began a touchscreen revolution with iPhone; but more than this they have begun a gesture based revolution which many competitors have ignored. Copying the touchscreen is one thing but replacing hardware buttons with a touch sensitive button is missing the point. Gestures are the real innovation and these may graduate from the screen to free space. Thirdly, Apple already have facial recognition in iPhoto; what about using that to recognise who picks up the tablet, to avoid that clunky logon process? There has been a rumour running around that the device will have a steep learning curve... I think this refers to the device and not the users! Another rarely mentioned technology in both OSX and iPhone OS is a high quality speech engine. This is ripe for enriching the customer interaction experience. Apple will also want to exploit the millions of existing iTunes credit card accounts they hold by making it as simple to stream purchased content on to the new tablet as it is to add applications or buy music and videos.

Finally, I don't think talk of the release of iPhone OS 4.0 at the same time as the tablet is an accident. There will be some linkage or support in the new iPhone software for the new tablet. I don't see the tablet as an alternative to the iPhone and so some network sharing, syncing of apps and auto tethering for those who have both devices wouldn't be such a surprise. Steve Jobs launched iPhone as a phone, an iPod, and an internet communicator. I would see the tablet as companion to this communicator which brings the connected media experience to a whole new level.

More studio work in 2010

2010-01-09T22:55:00.005Z

Recently I was in the BBC Radio studios in Chelmsford to talk about gadgets for this festive season and next Christmas too. Here's a picture from that session with Steve Scruton...

I'm looking forward to going back again early in the new year when there will be a feature on gadgets and devices.

CES & SuperPhones

2010-01-06T19:33:00.005Z

Well with all this snow about, and airports at a standstill over here the last few days, I am pretty glad I wasn't heading over to CES in Vegas this year, as so many of us Gadget Guys are prone to do. Anyway there are plenty of reports on the web to read from the comfort of my own chair.

So Google have coined the Super Phone term as they launch their Nexus One, hot on the heels of Motorola's Droid phone and indeed all the pretenders to the iPhone throne have had to become a bit more super than the 'Smart Phones' that preceded them. Remember how after the iPhone launch, we were led to believe that any phone with a touchscreen interface (recall the LG Prada for example!) would actually compete. It has taken the two years (that Steve Jobs predicted it was ahead on stage when the iPhone was launched) for the competitors to really become super enough... finally they have understood that it is not just the device and how it's designed but also the software and the apps store ease of deployment that is so important too.

But even with the current crop of super phones, no-one else has really innovated and re-defined the market. Yes they have implemented app stores and touch screen interfaces, and yes they have introduced cheaper alternatives to iPhone, but I'm still waiting to see what really new approach or innovation someone will come up with. We may need to wait until January 27th for Apple to come up with another game-changing device!

The Research & Innovation difference

2010-01-05T13:44:00.005Z

In my previous life, as part of the research and innovation business of a global telecommunications company, I experienced first-hand the challenges of running and reaping the benefits of such a business. The biggest challenge is often getting ideas from research actually exploited and used for benefit either as product or service or internally. Part of the problem with this is how research is seen from other parts of the organisation, and how they interact together. When times are difficult, it is often research which is scrutinised and 'productivity' examined. The productivity of research is clearly driven in large part by the calibre of the people, but the research culture within the organisation is also very important.

The culture of research varies enormously across different organisations and is set from the top management. I have seen good and bad examples in the same organisation depending on the executives and seniors leading research at different times. The key thing I learned is that for success, research needs to be recognised as being different. It isn't the same difference as with other departments like Sales, Marketing, Development, Customer Support etc. For these, one size can fit all in terms of policy and execution. Research on the other hand benefits most when viewed differently. I would highlight a number of examples.

In Human Resources policy for recruitment, you ideally want a very different policy and process for finding new talent. The general HR processes which weed out candidates leaving only well rounded individuals of a traditional profile is wrong for research, where you want to attract and retain people who think different, challenge the status quo and may be rather unorthodox. In finance, it makes very little sense to set budgets on some artificial year boundary and require the same justifications (not none but different) as other operational departments. Research projects don't fit such nicely defined accounting periods, and you will rarely justify them in the same timescales as other departments. And in IT support and purchasing, researchers shouldn't be fenced in by rules that enforce the same vanilla boxes and technology as in the rest of the organisation; instead some need the latest kit or unusual new technology which cannot be corporately approved yet. The final example of many I could quote is accommodation policy. The surroundings for teams of researchers should facilitate the flow of innovative juices, which doesn't mean the use of traditional desks and offices but rather a mix of quiet reading areas and open comfortably furnished areas with unlimited refreshments on tap.

It is the seniors and leaders of research who understand the need for these differences in culture that stand a chance of growing and running a successful business. The people who work in such research organisations will thus feel motivated and valued and ultimately more productive. Their management that will justify these differences for their people to the rest of the business will be those who stand more chance of successfully building a reputation and interaction with the rest of the company.

Happy New Year 2010

2010-01-01T14:43:00.001Z

Happy new year to all readers of my blog!

Chips a decade from now...

2009-12-30T16:01:00.002Z

As we leave one decade behind and enter 2010, I'm looking ahead another decade as to how some of the manufacturing challenges of the silicon chips, which power so many things, are likely to be overcome. Current chip geometry is already at an incredible small scale compared to even a few years ago, at around 45nm with plans to move towards 22nm. But then there are challenges in actually mounting the electronic components onto the chip while preserving necessary structure. One technique, based on research which shows that DNA strands may be used as a kind of scaffolding, could reduce this down to around 6nm. The research shows that the DNA can self-organise itself on the silicon base.

Other research has shown that DNA can also be used to store and manipulate data and perform simple computations. Computing on this biological scale would enable considerable advances in computer performance. The closer together the components on a chip can be placed, the faster and smaller computers can be. Such DNA based chips are 10-15 years away, but many people celebrating new year's eve this year will remark how quickly the last decade seems to have passed!

Apple Tablet Overdose!

2009-12-24T22:04:00.005Z

My last post here about an Apple Tablet was back in July, when I predicted that the Cupertino based company would continue to ignore the cheap Netbook market which everyone was raving about at the time. Instead I said I expected them to position a new tablet computer device between their existing notebooks and the iPhone/iPod Touch. The current overdose of rumours in the Press suggests that 2010 will be the year of the tablet. And I stand by what I said in the original posting... they will innovate for reasons of enhancing the customer experience not just because it is possible, as so many tech companies do.

Clearly Apple have been busy preparing the ground for this new device. As I said before, the key to its success is not just the device but the usage model ... what purpose will it fulfil for people in large enough numbers? One piece of well-trailed prep they have been doing for some months now is engagement with media content companies about making that available on the new device. I believe that e-Book readers will always remain niche devices ... not mass market on a huge scale, because their price point as a single function device just doesn't do it. But a media tablet that has compelling content easily available (e.g. through the iTunes store) either on a streaming or purchased basis and which can do other things too could have a much higher price point and still scale in the marketplace.

The second thing that Apple have been preparing for this new device is display resolution independence in OSX. This will mean in the case of the iPhone/iPod Touch version that it will be very easy for developers to make the hundreds of thousands of apps work on a larger touchscreen device. A new device with all those existing apps available is a very compelling offering.

So if the apps and the content are ready, what else is needed? Given that Apple revolutionised the mobile phone with iPhone, and now all manufacturers strive to offer a touch screen phone which rivals their MultiTouch technology, I wouldn't be surprised to see them innovate and push their lead on user interaction even further ahead.

Does free mean altruism?

2009-12-18T23:26:00.005Z

I am a Google user. This blog is one example. I also have Gmail, use Google Sites and of course Search. And Google PowerMeter is great. And it's all free! Well of course it means I accept some advertising component but free in the sense of paying. But I am also an Apple user. The MacBook Pro I am typing this on is one example. I also pay for MobileMe services which give me Mail, Websites and data syncing. It's a bit like how I sometimes watch commercial (ad-funded) TV, but I prefer the quality of BBC channels. Advertising pays for a lot but often the best or premium content is paid for by the user directly.

Google don't offer their services for free out of altruism, they do it to further the advertising platform that they use which is a legitimate business model. And just like with the TV, it is good that there are non-"free" alternatives in the marketplace, providing that they are actually delivering quality, and quality that is higher than the ad-funded competition. I am a great supporter of the BBC, but the fact that there are commercial ad-funded competitor channels only helps to maintain the quality the BBC strives for. Microsoft have provided lower quality paid alternatives (Vista, WinMobile, Zune) than Apple; Google are providing good quality free alternatives (Chrome OS, Android, etc.). The competition will be good for innovation, the marketplace and the consumer. I look forward to 2010!

Solar powered indications

2009-12-13T19:55:00.002Z

As the festive season approaches, i thought I would invest in some new lights for outside in the garden ... just to decorate the monkey puzzle tree out front since I am not one of those who likes to make the house look like Vegas, Tokyo or Blackpool (depending on your locale)! Since there is no easy electric supply near that particular tree, I decided to try some solar powered lights ... a string of 50 blue LED lamps. They do in fact work very well. The front garden is not in the best position in terms of north facing and in the shadow of the house in the low angle winter months of whatever sun we are lucky enough to get. They charge a battery sufficiently during the daytime to provide about 6 hours of night time illumination.

In the future, we will rely much more on so-called renewables ... not just solar but other sources too ... for much more than Christmas lights of course. But the story of my blue LEDs on the monkey puzzle tree is indicative of the challenges that face us for such forms of energy. The efficiency of storage, be it battery technology or otherwise, has to be much improved. For domestic use and substitution of the power from the national grid, the inverters provided to turn the stored DC into the AC that you expect to feed your electric sockets need to provide cleaner alternating current. It's ironic that most of the devices you plug into these domestic sockets internally convert the AC back to direct current before it is used!

These improvements will be made, the costs of the technology will fall, and the future way we power our lives will change.

Translation technology...

2009-12-04T23:13:00.004Z

I have finally gotten around to adding Google's translator widget to this blog, which may help those who read this from some of the 67 countries we have now clocked up. It wasn't so long ago that translation services required the employment of human beings skilled in more than one language and which would take some time to organise and cost a considerable amount.

We will eventually get to a point where perhaps wearable technology allows us to hear one language and understand it simultaneously in our mother tongue. Just as a few years ago i would have found the costs of translating the amount of posts on this blog prohibitive, the economic impact of the simultaneous realtime translator will be very significant. The annual costs associated with translating public material in a multi-cultural country such as the UK, and also of official documents in the European Union are very large. Hopefully machine automated translation will allow this money to be redeployed into more productive core activity such as public services of health, education or aspects of Government.

Energy monitoring...

2009-12-02T20:59:00.004Z

So on the UK news today there was again a mention of the Government mandating the introduction of smart meters to all 26 million homes in Britain by 2020, costing £8 billion. This seems to crop up in the news every so often. The idea is that if people know more about what energy they are using at the time they may reduce consumption. I have been using the AlertMe Energy system for a few weeks now and it gives a similar type of information about electricity usage. It also interfaces with Google PowerMeter which provides some useful statistics and graphs over time. These allow for comparisons with previous usage.

I have to say that it is interesting to see where the electricity goes and how the consumption varies both with our domestic routine and the outside temperature. We heat the house by gas but the electric pumps seem to make a difference to the consumption. Colder days do result in a higher level of electricity usage. I tend to agree that having more realtime information can impact on behaviour. In the future, more automation in the home and more efficient devices will allow consumption to be optimised according to people's behaviour.

How will employment be measured?

2009-11-28T20:51:00.003Z

Many people now believe those countries who have felt the most recent global economic crisis and subsequent recession have now reached the bottom and are now on the road to recovery, however long that proves to be. As with previous recessions, we have seen employment statistics fall and consequently unemployment figures rise. Previous recessions took more toll on manufacturing and manual workers, such as mineworkers and print workers; the most recent has affected more office and knowledge workers. Could this recession be the last in which we can sensibly use the traditional employment figures approaches, especially for this latter group of workers?

In the future, many more highly skilled people will be employees of more than one company at a time. Both organisations and individuals will expect flexibility in employment conditions to ensure efficiency. Technology will make it simple for people to manage their time and contributions to each. Time-shared employees will make their skills available to more organisations at a time. So when the next recession comes the measure of employment should probably account for these multiple employments.

3D in your pocket ?

2009-11-23T18:21:00.003Z

Conoscopy is the technique which might just bring 3D displays on pocket devices. It's a trick that steers the illumination from the backlight to light up left and right eye parts of the screen. It has been demonstrated on 9 and 2.8 inch LCD panels with LED backlighting, by tape manufacturer 3M. Why? Well because the screen employs a special thin film which does the steering of the light. Because the whole screen is used for each eye's image, there is no loss of resolution. The resulting screens also need no glasses to be worn by the viewer. By applying a single image to the 3D display, it will also show normal 2D images without distortion.

The issue with all 3D displays in terms of mass adoption is not the technology which makes it possible but rather the availability of content in the form required to drive them. Eventually we will see 3D displays, and the most common implementations will differ for different categories of device (e.g. TVs or handheld devices). A thin film approach to steering backlights may well be one of them.

Chrome plated NetBooks?

2009-11-19T22:21:00.005Z

Today Google showed off its new Chrome Operating System for PCs. It also announced that it would be open-sourced to allow developers to partner in its development. This free browser-based system is to be targeted at new NetBook computers, the successful cut-down, underpowered and lightweight laptop PCs. Features of Chrome include fast startup times, no client applications (only web apps), automatic syncing and encryption of users' data.

The more important aspect for the industry is how Chrome will impact on Microsoft's domination of PC systems. Senior executives of the Redmond based giant have recently stated that their strategy is to raise the price of NetBooks by the licensing of Windows 7 on them. Chrome could torpedo this strategy. If the user experience including responsiveness of the browser tabbed applications in Chrome is good enough, this could be a very dangerous time for Microsoft, who need Windows 7 to be a success after the Vista disaster. The licensing model for mobile device operating systems is failing; they can't afford the desktop/NetBook market to fail too.

The androids are coming...

2009-11-10T21:02:00.006Z

The androids are coming ... ok so I have blogged about robots before ... this time I am talking about the Google mobile device operating system! The mobile industry has always been sceptical of success for new entrants ... this was true but wrong in the case of Apple with their iPhone. Will it also be the case for Google with Android?

Well first you need a brand. With its integrated hardware and software approach, Apple specifies and and very carefully controls the brand. Whatever carriers partner with Apple and whichever geography they operate in, the iPhone brand and marketing is very strong and totally controlled. Google has one of the most recognised brands on the planet; so much so in fact that it has become the verb for web searching in our dictionaries. With Android however, Google's brand is practically invisible. Outside of the mobile industry, for the ordinary man or woman in the street, they have a much bigger chance of saying they have heard of iPhone than Android. Android phones have virtually no obvious Google branding. Further, because it is an open free-for-all approach, every Android phone's user interface can look very different, and so far this is the case. As more and more manufacturers bring out Android phones, more and more unfamiliar variations appear. This makes things unrecognisable for users and more complex for third party application developers.

Secondly for success penetrating the mobile market, you need a successful business model. There are three typical approaches. The integrated model which has been a success for RIM with the BlackBerry and Apple for the iPhone (and iPod), the Open model such as Linux and Android, and in between the licensing model used by Windows, and until recently Symbian. The latter has now been taken over by Nokia and is being made open-source. While the Open and Licensing models have worked very well in the computer server and desktop market, they have struggled in the mobile market, where the performance/power balance, interaction through the user interface and integration between hardware and software are all more critical. In fact due to the flexibility of open Android, it is more likely to take share from Windows Mobile than from RIM and Apple.

Google's Android will certainly appear on more phones by the middle of next year. Whether their approaches with brand and business model will mean that Android phones appear in many people's pockets remains to be seen. Android might just become the Linux PC equivalent on mobile devices; an open, flexible, system which appeals to hobbyists and hackers. It could make the mainstream too ... but it will have to change or buck the trend to do so.

The next smartphone sensor...

2009-11-06T22:30:00.003Z

Mobile phones have come a long way in the last few years. The high end so-called smart phones are now equipped with a range of sensors that once upon a time no-one associated with phones at all. There are the obvious location sensors such as GPS receivers so that the phone knows precisely where you are (not just roughly from cell towers). Video CCD sensors have adorned phones for some time but have mainly been confined to the obvious camera picture taking application. These can also sense light levels, read barcodes, and provide the means to recognise gestures and expressions. Many high-end phones also know what orientation they are in and how they are being moved through the use of accelerometers. And some know which direction they are facing through magnetometer sensors. This is important in augmented reality applications as well as useful in mapping. In the former it allows the phone to deduce which buildings the camera is seeing for example, while in the latter it means displayed maps can be automatically oriented the right way for where the user is facing.

So what will be the next sensor that we see incorporated in the high-end phones? It could well be the near field communications technology which can form the basis for radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and readers. This would allow a whole host of new application types. In addition it will enable e-commerce on the phone; ticketing and small value purchasing by simply waving you phone over readers, much like the Oyster card is used by Transport for London as an e-ticketing alternative around the UK Capital. The future for smarter phones is bright.

Business Breakfast Cafe

2009-10-29T12:11:00.003Z

This morning I had the pleasure to present some futures messages at a breakfast meeting of small and medium business enterprises. This type of session is always interesting for me because of the wide range of people and businesses present. The breakfast and coffee was very good and I especially enjoyed meeting members of the group before and after the formal presentation. Thanks to those who invited me and to all those present who attended.

Wearable displays

2009-10-27T21:18:00.004Z

While all the talk these days is about touch screen displays, the form factors of future devices will exploit rollable and foldable displays, before the display is separated from the device altogether. The first instantiation of this separation is likely to use special glasses which the user wears and which projects an image onto the lens. I have already seen some excellent prototypes of this sort of display by Konica Minolta in Japan.

Another Japanese innovative company NEC have now given details of what I expect to be the natural successor to the glasses based displays, a prototype retinal display. The 'tele-scouter' has been described as a tiny retinal projection display and microphone mounted on a frame in front of the wearer's eyes. The application they have described it being used for is to translate and display languages. This seems a bit ambitious even for a prototype at this stage but it is good to see these types of innovation beginning to see the light of day. One quote even states that NEC hope to bring something based on this technology into the market during 2010 so watch this space!

Kindle or kindling?

2009-10-19T18:06:00.004+01:00

The Kindle is Amazon's attempt to do with reading books what Apple did with the iPod with listening to music. It's an e-book reader using a monochrome e-paper like screen which you can hold in the hand. And its strongest point is that it is linked to the Amazon book store machine which has been so successful with paper versions.

However this will not revolutionise book reading like the iPod revolutionised the music industry. Certainly it will mean that more players in the publishing industry release more electronic titles but I don't see it replacing the paper book in the same way that electronic music downloads have replaced the majority of music media forms. It's all about the experience. The actual experience of listening to music is basically similar whether your earphones are plugged into an iPod or a Walkman or a stereo system. The actual experience of reading a book feels quite different when holding a book of paper pages and when staring at a screen and pressing a button to advance pages. I can see that a minority of people who travel and carry around a lot of heavy tomes with them at present might choose the device but its wider attractiveness is questionable.

And then there is the overall experience of using the Kindle device. The screen is quite small. There is less text on each screenful compared to most books' pages. And there is a waste of space on the bottom third of the device where Amazon has found it necessary to put a plastic button keyboard which makes the Kindle look reminiscent of an electronic calculator of old. The Sony e-Reader is at least a better design with more touch screen real estate and no plastic keyboard. However they do not have the relationships and hence volume of media content to bring to their offering.

There is another player in the wings who could combine ease of use, an experience which is much better and a store/portal with content in the e-publishing area. It is also likely that they would attempt a rather different business model too ... the price of a device with the required design and features needs a use case more than just reading books in order for people to buy it in enough numbers to ever become a mass market or revolutionary device. Watch the Apple space!

Danger in the Cloud?

2009-10-13T19:11:00.005+01:00

There is a fair amount of debate amongst computer folk about Cloud Computing. This is where data and increasingly applications run on servers in the Internet 'cloud' rather than the device of the user. The approach is championed by players such as Google and Amazon etc. But other more traditional players are also not to be left out. Both Apple and Microsoft have flirted with the cloud approach too. Apple have their MobileMe offering which even has an icon of a white cloud on a blue background! This provides a store in the cloud for users' data which can be synced between devices as well as other features. In early 2008, Microsoft bought an innovative company called Danger who ran a product called Sidekick. Sidekick stores its users' data in the cloud. On the 2nd October, SideKick users on T-Mobile's network could not access their online services nor their data. Even after service was restored four days later, they still had not access to their data and were later told by Microsoft/Danger that the data had been lost. This is the real danger for cloud-based systems.

There are degrees of cloud computing ... it doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation ... particularly in the case of mobile devices, which generally need charging or other basic processes from time to time. Some less than full cloud computing approaches don't remove all of the users' control of their data but simply automate the use of the cloud as a resource. Apple's approach for example is that all data on an iPhone or iPod is backed up on the user's local PC when it is charged and synced to that device, even though the active use of the device transfers the data to their MobileMe cloud. In this way, if the Microsoft's Danger/Sidekick problem happened at MobileMe, users would at least be able to restore data from their most recent local backup. Microsoft also have a cloud based service called MyPhone for Windows Mobile users. This also only backs up data to the cloud and not a local device.

So users have to be wary of vendors who place all of their data and its backups in the all powerful cloud which of course also offers many benefits for sharing and accessibility from anywhere etc. And users would also do well to understand that not all Cloud services are the same in respect of how much control they are left with for their own data.

Information = power?

2009-10-09T00:14:00.004+01:00

Many organisations today are actually very good when it comes to targeting their marketing information at you and me. Much of what drops through the door is now a product of careful computer-run analyses and increasingly relevant to the recipient. In the future there will be scope for organisations to do this analysis in real time when the customer presents themselves. In the same way, consumers will not need to price-compare the night before they go shopping next day. Instead the consumer will also be able to do an analysis of the product they are interested in, in real time in front of the shop assistant. The richness of the dialogue between customer and sales person will need to be much more to negotiate the deal. These are just a couple of ways that information will result in a different power balance between those who are taking part in retail transactions.

In addition the shop may know when a customer with one of their loyalty cards is passing near the store in a particular mall. And likewise, the customer may be notified when in the mall of special deals on items they have bought before they enter a particular shop. So presence and location will also be important information.

Some information that is available is currently held by third parties will be available to the rightful owners. At the moment your doctor probably holds your health records, although in theory you might argue that they are your personal property. The ownership of new information, not currently available to people may be especially tricky to assign.

The way we regard, share, assign ownership to, and use information in the future will be crucial. And privacy is another story completely!

Unlock your car with your iPhone!

2009-10-05T19:03:00.002+01:00

The Zipcar is a twist on the usual rental car arrangement (more like a car sharing hybrid model) where members pay $50 a year membership fee and then roughly $8 an hour for usage. Cars are left all over cities and once authorised, members can unlock and drive one wherever they need to go. Now members of Zipcar can use an iPhone application to find and book cars on the move. The application even allows the member to remotely sound the horn of a particular car they have booked in order to find it in a parking lot, and to unlock the car once they have swiped their membership card over the windscreen (windshield). About a quarter of Zipcar members apparently have an iPhone already so the market and overlap of the user base is quite good. It's an early sign of what we will see our future mobile phones able to do.

I already have a token in my pocket for my Lexus which unlocks the car when I approach it without the need to press any buttons and allows me to start the engine once inside without any key. The car already links automatically to my iPhone to allow hands-free operation. It will be interesting to see if the integration philosophy of the iPod hardware interface by car producers is repeated at an application level with smartphone platforms like iPhone, and how quickly. So in future, if I have my phone in my pocket, it may not matter if I don't carry the token anymore. Such developments do not need any further technology breakthroughs; rather it just needs the cooperation between organisations in different markets, e.g. phones and automobiles.

Sony Wireless Power

2009-10-02T22:56:00.002+01:00

I blogged before about attempts to power devices wirelessly in the labs at MIT in the USA. Now it seems that Sony has demonstrated the ability to 'transmit' 100 volts over a 50cm range. This was enough to power a small television set wirelessly! Some fairly big (40cm) coils are required to do this using magnetic resonance. There is no indication that this would lead in the short term to applications in commercially available products, indeed it might be prudent to measure and understand what effect the use of magnetic resonance might have on the human body at these field strengths first! However it demonstrates that the last common umbilical cord for consumer electronics is now under threat!

Robot cars sounding fishy?

2009-10-01T23:09:00.004+01:00

Nature has often inspired scientists in the way they look at solutions to problems. The communication and co-operation of ants and the flight and navigation of the bumble bee are two examples of this. Now we learn that Nissan is looking at how shoals of fish manage to move at speed in large numbers together in close proximity without collisions, to inspire how to make robotic cars of the future avoid collisions as well. The car in question is called the EPORO ... which is being shown at the CEATEC technology show in Japan, one which I was able to attend some years ago. They are able to demonstrate 6 EPORO cars travelling as one shoal or group! While fish use sight and lateral line sense, the EPORO interestingly uses ultra wide band radio to "see" and a laser range finder as a lateral sensor. I have blogged before about robot self-driving cars ... these developments by Nissan are steps along the road towards this (sorry for the pun!).

Retail with a difference

2009-09-28T19:20:00.002+01:00

I have blogged about Apple's retail operations before. This time I am concentrating on what some would call hype but what i would call a retail business advantage. I attended the very first opening of a UK Applestore here in Regent Street some years ago now. It was almost a festival, with some Apple addicts camping out for days in advance. i just just happened to be passing through London that day, actually arriving on a long haul flight to Heathrow at 6am that morning. So I stopped off at Regent street and joined the line already a thousand or so long. That was my first  tshirt celebrating a store opening. Since then I have attended many more openings and it is always an interesting experience. The most distant was Toronto at their first Canadian store, since I just happened to be in the city that day.

On Saturday I attended the latest UK opening at the Chapelfield store in Norwich. Again it was fascinating to witness the excitement they were able to generate amongst the people lined up from early when the mall opened. By the time the doors opened at 10am, the queue was winding around the mall central area and almost outside and down the street. Knowing people familiar with the training of new Apple Retail employees, I know the amount of work put into preparation and motivation of the staff is very significant. The result is a pumped up and enthusiastic and happy set of employees ready to greet those people who wait in line for the doors to open. One interesting idea is that the retail staff are actually let out of the new shop to meet the people in line before the people get to enter the store.

Analysis of the line of people is also interesting. Sure there are a number of Apple fanatics and evangelists. But there are also a large number of ordinary inquisitive people who want to see what is going to happen. And looking at the age profile of the people in the line, although there is a mixture, the bulk of people are young adults ... something which is a very positive thing for the future of a company's customer base.

So yet another black tshirt with a different name is added to my collection. It was fun to meet some others in the line last Saturday and good to buy my Snow Leopard upgrade when I got inside the store. And of course my iPhone kept me amused while I waited in line as well! The look of envy on the faces of other retailers in the Chapelfield mall on Saturday was almost palpable. I'm not sure there were as many people in any other stores let alone waiting to go in! Sure there are many things that affect retail success. But seeing enthusiastic and smiling people who are ready to serve you inside is one important one.

Media rubbish?

2009-09-26T16:47:00.000+01:00

In all sorts of contexts, there is high end and low end, expensive and cheap, and high quality and poor. Some laggards of the Internet often just say things like "well it's all rubbish on there isn't it" and similar. I realise that I am preaching the wrong audience here in that since you are reading a blog, you are probably more pro-Internet than not. But I think it's up to all of us to tell it like it is to the doubters we meet.

Sure there is a lot of rubbish on the web. And what is and what isn't is very subjective. But if you look at TV for very long, you find it's much the same there too. Some of the programmes and many of the adverts are just awful. They do nothing to innovate nor advance the media industry they are part of. They are just used as low quality cheap-to-make schedule fillers for 24 hour TV. But most people see through it to the good stuff on TV and don't generalise or denigrate it to such an extent. After all it has been around a lot longer than the Net. It's another example of social changes instilled by technology. It's another example of the relative immaturity of the Net as a media channel. So next time you hear someone say that they don't use the Net because it's all rubbish ... just tell them how it works for you!

Intel presses on with smaller geometry

2009-09-23T23:20:00.002+01:00

Intel is due to start shipping commercial processor chips using a 32nm geometry size by the end of this year but is always continuing to push ahead with reductions in die size in order to push the gap further between it and its competitors. They have already demonstrated a 22nm wafer that is populated with RAM chips at a conference. It contains 2.9 billion transistors in an area the size of a fingernail. The 32nm Xeon chips which will find their way into systems during the first months of 2010 are the sort that Apple typically uses in its Pro tower models. The 22nm process should become part of standard manufacturing by the last quarter of 2011 and a move to an amazing 15nm process by 2013.

The latest hybrid car in the UK

2009-09-22T21:52:00.002+01:00

It was last weekend when I was fortunate to have an in-depth look at and drive of the latest Toyota Prius. This is the third generation of the model to hit the UK's roads and is a significant leap forward from the previous generation. The hybrid performance has been improved and the CO2 emission figures reduced below the magic 100g/cm3 despite the petrol engine included under the bonnet (hood for our US readers!) having been boosted to 1.8 litre.

The high end (spirit) model includes all the previous innovations such as voice control, automatic parking assistance and route guidance integrated with traffic news / incident replanning but a couple of new features caught my eye. The first is the introduction of a fighter-plane style Head Up Display (HUD) projected onto the windscreen (US: windshield!). This really does mean that in driving the car you need to divert your eyes from the road considerably less. The second innovation which is an costly option (probably only worth it if you live in a mainly sunny area such as California!) is a solar powered sunroof and air-conditioning system which pre-cools the car before you get in if left in a sunny spot but without turning on the ignition and without using any petrol (US:gas) fuel. Interestingly if you choose this solar sunroof option, you must have smaller and hence lighter wheels (and no spare) fitted in order that the overall weight allows the fuel efficiency figures to be achieved, which shows how close to tolerances the environmental aims are pushing things.

The new model Prius drives much like the previous one although the throttle response is variable and very obviously different in three new power settings (eco/elec/perf). Externally as well as being a little longer, the most striking change is the redesign of the light clusters. The latter seems to cause the main dislike I have about the new model which is the move to a single reversing and single fog lamp at the rear, compromise too many in my view. Overall the car is great example of pushing the hybrid lead that Toyota have even further.

A new camera

2009-09-21T23:11:00.004+01:00

Recently I was in the market for a new compact digital camera. There are a huge range to choose from. Narrowing down to the features I wanted and the top review comments I could find, I chose the Panasonic DMC-TZ7. This is a very slim model from their Lumix range. It has excellent intelligent automatic settings and picture quality seems great. For a compact it has an ultra wide angle 25mm lens with 12x optical zoom. Storage is via standard SD cards, which fit into most other devices unlike Sony's MemoryStick which put me off some extremely good competitors from their range.

The other distinctive feature of the TZ7 is its video capability in High Definition using the space-saving but harder to edit (except on a Mac!) AVCHD standard format. It takes rechargeable batteries and a metal case (my previous compact had a plastic outer which cracked), and also includes an HDMI output socket. My only real criticism of it so far is that there seems to be a very low level beeping sound superimposed on all video recordings made which is somewhat annoying. Overall its a great camera though and given the small size, will mean its easy to slip in a pocket or bag and great pictures should never be missed.

My summer break! Tech catch-up!

2009-09-20T19:53:00.003+01:00

Well I'm back blogging again after a short summer break. What's happened in the meantime? Well I finally started using twitter ... not to tweet so much as to follow some other people's tweetings ... I still haven't convinced myself that I really have a use for it! I also recently upgraded to the latest iPhone 3GS and am exceptionally pleased with it. I am particularly impressed with the dialogue you can have with it using voice control to find the number of people in your contacts list when there are multiple matches to names you say. The AlertMe system I use at home has added cameras to the mix which also seem to work well. Apple's seasonal music event has been and gone signalling the start of the addition of cameras to most of their music player range further extending the lifetime of the iPod as the iPhone begins to drive significant business. I also bought a new compact camera during the summer and will probably blog my review of it when I get a chance.

Graphene on-chip?

2009-08-11T14:01:00.004+01:00

There is potential to replace the use of copper interconnections on future super fast chips and processors with single layers of graphite molecules. These ribbons of molecules are known as Graphene. The crucial current carrying capability of Graphene is at least two orders of magnitude that of copper at the same sizes. This should allow higher reliability of chips.

Graphene also has a high thermal conductivity, which may allow interconnections to also serve as heat sinks in next generation chipsets. Fabrication is the ultimate challenge although lithography has so far resulted in ribbon widths between 16 and 52nm and lengths of up to 1 micrometre. This is yet another application of nanotechnology that could impact the future generations of electronics which will be inside devices that we all use.

Carbon copy retailing?

2009-08-05T18:20:00.004+01:00

I have written entries here highlighting the innovation of Apple's retail approach before. However now it is Microsoft, their giant rival that seems to have noticed their success. The Redmond company has decided to open its own stores in the vicinity of the Mac and iPhone maker's own flagship retail outlets. And Microsoft has also enlisted the services of a real estate consultant that also assisted Apple in the early days of its stores. But what of the prospects for success? Well that depends on what is inside the stores and how the people in them serve potential customers.

Other computer companies have stores on the high street, such as Sony. Microsoft's problem however is that the physical hardware their operating system runs on is made by many other companies. This dilutes the brand messaging that they can create in-store. Microsoft have the popular X-Box gaming console they can showcase and also the Zune music player which unlike the iPod most consumers on the high street have never heard of. However the PC market is dominated by other players and increasingly those that offer Netbook computers, many of which run Linux and not Windows at all. Then, compared to the iPhone, Microsoft have a whole raft of mobile phone manufacturers to offer products from which run Windows Mobile. While this may seem like an abundance of choice, it actually compromises the simplicity and clarity of the Apple Retail approach. This may ultimately determine the fate of Microsoft's retail venture, especially if they place them so close to their competitors' stores that the contrast is so obvious to the public!

Apple and the Netbook?

2009-07-16T09:41:00.005+01:00

The Netbook generation is now well established. The world is largely feeling the economic pinch. Consumers aren't buying the biggest fastest desktop PCs anymore, but instead tending to buy either full featured Notebook computers or increasingly cut-down, low-end but adequate Netbook machines for basic net connectivity, browsing, email and simple document processing. The user experience on these small screen, small keyboard, underpowered devices leaves a lot to be desired, but hey they are cheap and small and do a job, so many people put up with it. Apple has for some time maintained that they don't believe they could make a Netbook which isn't a crap user experience and so have yet to enter the marketplace. Recent rumours suggest that a new Netbook sized device from Cupertino might be launched this year or early next so what might it look like?

When Apple launched the iPhone, they made much of the problems of tiny button keyboards which took up a third of the real estate on most smartphones at the time. I don't see them launching a NetBook competitor which features a cramped sub-size keyboard either, which suggests that a full size touch screen keyboard would be more likely. This would also define a form factor which differentiates the new device from its hugely successful notebook range and revive images of a mac tablet. Cost permitting, I would expect their alu-unibody design to be re-exploited again in this new offering. But a larger version of an iPhone as a tablet/Netbook? No - however it's likely that Apple will re-invent the Netbook/Tablet PC just like they did with the phone. And like the phone, it won't be the cheapest, but it will be highly desirable and something that others follow and try to emulate.

There are 3 things that Apple are very good at and will undoubtedly apply to this new product:
1. Exploiting existing assets - In this case it probably means the operating system OSX, the AppStore and mushrooming developer community, their online cloud element "MobileMe", and even perhaps relationships with Cellular Operators? I wouldn't be surprised if a rosetta-like layer in the OS allows existing Mac dashboard widgets and iPhone Apps to run without modification on day one, automatically being scaled for the bigger screen size (9-10") and looking gorgeous.
2. Carefully positioning within the existing product range - distinction without cannibalism as I call it. When they launched the iPhone, they didn't cannibalise sales of iPod, and with any Netbook/Tablet they won't risk damaging NoteBook sales. So there will be some distinctive features and a price point which achieves this.
3. Innovation aimed at their customers - this will include innovative features not because they are possible but because they are attractive and useful to the customer base the product is aimed at. And this customer base is often made up of multiple distinct sectors, e.g. education, business, consumer, so it means a feature is there because it provides something for everyone. If a micro-projector was included for example, it would offer business folk the ability to present slides anywhere, but would also allow kids in school to show their work to the class easily. Similarly a slim tablet form factor which makes it extremely easy to carry around during the working day, could also lend itself to being a high-res digital photo frame when idling/charging/syncing at home on the sideboard.

We shall see if any of this happens at all ...

Power from the air

2009-07-15T15:40:00.003+01:00

People often ask me about how gadgets will be powered in the future. In the short term, we will see better chemistry allowing batteries to improve, alternatives to batteries such as fuel cells for some applications, and components within devices which consume less power or manage their power consumption more effectively. In the longer term, power harvesting from natural sources, from movement and kinetic energy will be employed too, and we should make progress on bio-organic solutions that work in a similar way to how nature powers itself. Some recent research by Nokia is one of the harvesting solutions.

The Nokia research describes how they can harvest energy from ambient radio waves. This is similar to how some RFID tags are powered, such as those used in anti-theft applications. Currently experiments have been successful in harvesting 3 to 5 milliwatts of power which can charge a device which is in standby mode. The goal of the research is to harvest up to 50mW, and recharge a device which is turned off. Typically, energy harvesting from ambient radio waves has been done with traditional radio receivers and transmitters which have a limited range of usable radio waves. The Nokia example of extracting power from the air uses a very wideband receiver which works between 500MHz and 10GHz.

Polymer based disk storage

2009-07-14T11:18:00.000+01:00

Imagine the contents of 250 DVDs being squeezed onto a disk the size of an American 25 cent coin. Researchers from two American universities have been able to create error-free arrays of storage cells just 3 nanometres in size. This is possible by exploiting self assembly properties of chemically dissimilar polymer chains and creating extremely dense but perfectly regular formations. Using this cell size, it is potentially possible to reach storage densities of 10Tb (Terabytes) per square inch!

The same technology may also be exploited in the design of circuits, which currently tends to use photolithography techniques. The problem with this is that the limited resolution of light will eventually be reached. The polymer approach also reduces the amounts of acids and other harsh chemicals required.

Storage as a commodity is a journey which seems to be speeding up.

Solar cell efficiency

2009-07-06T10:57:00.000+01:00

The quest to find sustainable ways to power future devices continues. There will be some incremental developments in the photo-voltaic (PV) solar cells but a significant revolutionary step would be ideal. At present many PV cells based on silicon are only 15% efficient at best. A new approach using gallium arsenide (GaAs) cells is claiming over 28% efficiency. Much of the effort at present is going into broadening the absorption spectrum that the cells cope with. The difference in efficiency between Si and GaAs cells means that one square centimetre of GaAs cell should be compared with one thousand square centimetres of Si cell. The current downside is that Si is much cheaper but this may change over time. The use of lenses and mirrors allows light to be concentrated on the cells, typically 500 times. A one centimetre square cell could thus yield around 14 watts of electricity. At a time when the weather has been especially sunny here in the UK, solar energy at an affordable price is something many would look forward to in future.

Apple's iPhone 3GS - Software

2009-06-22T20:28:00.002+01:00

In the Clinton era, there was a well-known phrase, "it's the economy stupid!". I have been using a different form of this "It's the Software stupid!" now for a number of years. In my final blog posting in this sequence about the latest iPhone, this phrase is even more pertinent. Never mind the additional hardware in this device, I still believe that its strongest card is the software within it. This includes the application store which houses orders of magnitude more apps than "stores" for other devices. However more even than this, the core features of the latest 3.0 system update for all iPhones is what will give this device its future strength as a platform, and Apple its leadership in the marketplace of smart-phones and mobile internet devices. Specifically the APIs provided for third-party hardware as well as software apps in 3.0 will distinguish the iPhone platform in that marketplace. Over 40 million iPod Touch and iPhone devices now already exist and the cost of ownership is falling all the time, as more geographical markets of the globe are included. This is a platform for the future, which developers find it simple to design for, and which users find it a delight to use.

Apple's iPhone 3GS - Compass

2009-06-20T17:18:00.002+01:00

My last post looked at the camera specification of Apple's latest iPhone offering. This time I want to focus on the magnetometer which Apple has included this time. The Mac and iPod maker is always very careful about choosing what features to include in its products, and is one of the most disciplined of innovators when it comes to limiting "feature-creep". Because of this, I think it is worth looking a bit beyond the compass application which Apple now includes on the new iPhone displaying heading along with latitude and longitude from the onboard GPS.

One extra value of the magnetometer is already being felt through the user experience of the maps application. The map can now automatically orientate itself for you so that it is facing the way you are facing. After all, one of the first things many people do when looking at a paper based map is to turn it to match the direction they are facing. Beyond this however I think Apple has other ideas for combining this new sensor with others on the phone such as the accelerometer. It is gaming applications where the impact of this could be felt most. The use of the magnetometer will allow even more accurate action gaming movements to be sensed. This is an example of how the use and combination of very many sensors within mobile devices will be used in future to enhance the user experience.

Apple's iPhone 3GS - Camera

2009-06-18T22:21:00.003+01:00

Apple have launched their 3rd generation iPhone. It sports a number of changes to its specification. One of these is the camera, the previous model's 2MP spec having been widely criticised by those who strive to find fault with the phone that has changed the industry! The new iPhone 3GS model sports a 3.2MP camera which is also capable of video and has additional auto focus, auto exposure and auto white levels. This will still be compared negatively against phones such as the Nokia N9x series having more than 5MP.

Some watchers will make the point that millions of extra pixels isn't everything which is certainly true, especially after a point ... unless you are taking photos which will be printed out at huge poster sizes which most people don't! Most users won't notice the difference between a 3MP photo and a 6MP picture, provided that other aspects such as exposure, light level and focus are good. And doubling the number of pixels in the camera increases the bill of materials cost for that component without making a great difference to the user experience. It also means that pictures taken consume more storage space than they need to ... how many people do you know with 6MP compact cameras who bother to reduce the resolution in order to fit more pictures on their finite memory cards?

But there is another more important point for Apple I believe. They understand the market they are in and the people who visit their stores and buy their products. Those people are not so interested in raw numbers, and technical details. They are more interested in what you can do with the product, how easy it is to use and what it looks like. Apple also stress the idea of sharing media like photos and video with others and make it easy to do so. The user experience of sharing over networks is much better with smaller file sizes. Apple are extremely well practised at getting the specification of their products right for their customers rather than competing on numbers with the specification of the competition.