Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: Innovation

  • How form factors evolve as tech affects design

    How form factors evolve as tech affects design

    Technology often dictates design. As tech evolves, we can rethink the design of many things we take for granted.

    While out helping a friend shop for computers this morning, it occurred to me how the keyboards of laptop PCs have changed.

    For many years, notepad keyboards were restricted to roughly 80 characters as the 4 x 3 ratio of screens have dictated the dimensions of of the keys. Here’s an example.

     80-character-keybaord

    In recent times though the wider screen dimensions of laptops has seen the resurrection of an older layout — the 102 key layout with an added numerical pad.

     102-character-keyboard

    What’s interesting about this is how technology form factors evolve.

    Not so long ago mobile phone manufacturers were competing to create the smallest handset. Cellphones like the  Motorola Razr pushed the limit on how small phones could be.

    With the arrival of the smartphone, the size and shape of mobile phones changed. Now the limiting factor was a screen big enough to read the internet on and display a thirty key keyboard.

    Now reliable handwriting recognition software means that some phones can eliminate the use of keyboards at all, which means we may start to see the race to create smaller cellphones restarting.

    The layout of all of the items we use, from cars to computers, is largely determined by technology limitations. As the tech evolves, we can start to rethink how a device is designed, just as the laptop and iPhone designers did.

    With whole new display, input and sensing technologies being developed, there are many household items that may well look different in the near future.

    Similar posts:

  • Smart cities and the sensors in your pocket

    Smart cities and the sensors in your pocket

    National Public Radio’s Parallels program has story on how the Spanish city of Santander is wiring itself as a ‘smart city’ with a network of sensors wiring everything from garbage bins to parking spots.

    The hope with the sensors is they’ll will improve local government’s services, allowing things like more efficient garbage collection and better pricing of parking meters.

    What’s notable about the story is that smartphones are included as ‘sensors’ with Santander residents being able to submit data from their handsets.

    The idea of smartphones as sensors isn’t new — pothole reporting apps were early to the iPhone — the increased sophistication of handsets and improved tracking technology is making them more powerful.

    So we have another Big Data problem with local councils being flooded with information.

    Processing all this information is going to require the community pitching in so the data is going to have to open.

    Once governments make the data open it also creates opportunities for smart entrepreneurs to create new services and technologies.

    Creating new opportunities is a hope of government sensor programs around the world, including Tasmania’s Sense-T project .

    With factors like water quality and weather being monitored, existing sectors become more efficient and new industries are being created.

    Hopefully the urge to hoard this rich, community data will be resisted by governments.

    Similar posts:

  • Steve Ballmer’s big platform change

    Steve Ballmer’s big platform change

    All Things D today reports that Microsoft is considering a major restructure to reflect changed computing markets.

    One of the big messages from The State Of The Internet report is we are seeing three simultaneous changes to the computer industry – the shift from personal computers to smartphones, tablet computers and wearable systems – and Microsoft is at the centre of these transformations.

    One graph, first released by Aysmco and expanded in the Meeker presentation, illustrates how fundamental these shifts are to Microsoft’s business.

    mary meeker computingmarketshare-640x480

    Microsoft’s domination of the computer industry was almost total at the beginning of the century and remained so until the iPhone was released in 2007. Then suddenly things changed.

    With the success of Android and the iPad, the market shifted dramatically against Microsoft and the WinTel market share is now back to 1985 levels when the Commodore 64 was a credible competitor.

    The change that Microsoft faces shouldn’t be understated, although the company’s strengths with products like Office, Azure and Hotmail (or whatever this year’s name for their online mail product is) give the once untouchable incumbent some opportunities, particularly in the cloud.

    At the end of Mary Meeker’s presentation at the D11 conference, Walt Mossberg asked her about Microsoft’s view that tablets and smartphones are just new computing platforms. Meeker dismisses that with the observation that the data is clear, the market has shifted to Apple and Google.

    “Google and Apple are driving innovation,” says Meeker. “Microsoft is not.”

    The numbers aren’t lying for Microsoft. That’s why Steve Ballmer has to move fast and think creatively about the company’s future.

    Similar posts:

  • Dicing up the mobile web

    Dicing up the mobile web

    Last week we had a series of reports on the changing web from Cisco, IBM and Ericsson along with Mary Meeker’s annual State Of The Internet presentation.

    One thing all the reports agreed on was there is going to be a lot more data pushed around the net and the composition is changing as business and home users adapt to smartphones and tablet computers.

    Cisco’s Visual Networking Index forecast online traffic would triple by 2017 while Ericsson’s Mobility Report predicts mobile internet traffic will grow twelve times by 2018.

    What’s notable in those predictions is the amounts and types of data the different devices use. Cisco breaks down monthly traffic by device;

    • Smartphones 0.6 GB
    • Tablet computers 2.7 GB
    • Laptops and PCs 18.6 GB

    In one way this isn’t surprising as the devices have differing uses and their form factors make it harder to consume more data. Cisco also points out that data consumption also varies with processor power. As PCs are the most powerful devices, it makes sense they would chew through more information.

    Ericsson breaks down data use by application as well as device and that clearly shows the different ways we’re using these devices.

    internet data traffic by mobile device

    Notable in the graph is how file sharing is big on PCs but not on tablets or smartphones while email and social networking take up a bigger chunk of cellphone usage.

    What’s also interesting in Ericsson’s predictions is how data traffic evolves. It’s notable that video is forecast to be the biggest driver of growth.

    ericsson-by-data-traffic

    Both Ericsson’s and Cisco’s predictions tie into Mary Meeker’s State Of The Internet presentation at the D11 Conference last week.

    It’s worth watching Meeker’s presentation just for the way she packs over eighty slides into twenty minutes with a lot of information on how the economy is changing as the internet matures.

    What all of these reports are telling us is that our society and economy are changing as these technologies mature. The business opportunities – and risks – are huge and there isn’t any industry that’s immune to these changes.

    Similar posts:

  • Does closed government hurt business and the economy?

    Does closed government hurt business and the economy?

    Earlier this week I interviewed Vivek Kundra, the former US Chief Information Officer and now Salesforce executive, on innovation, technology and government with some of the Australian business perspectives run as a story in Business Spectator.

    Something that stood out for me from the interview were Vivek’s views on the effects of governments making both innovations and information freely available.

    “Two policy decisions that transformed the future of civilisation – GPS opening and human genome project through the Bermuda Principles.”

    While it’s probably too early to draw conclusions on how the opening of the human genome data will change business, it’s certainly true the Global Positioning System has allowed whole new industries to evolve and it’s an important lesson on making technology available to the masses.

    The Global Positioning System was, like the internet, a US military technology developed during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

    After Korean Airlines flight 007 was shot down by Soviet fighters in 1983, President Reagan approved civilian use of the GPS – then named Navstar – to prevent similar tragedies.

    Such a decision was controversial, this was military technology being given over to the general population which could be used by enemy forces as well as airlines and truck drivers.

    No doubt if the GPS technology was developed in the UK or Australia, there would have been demands to monetize the service. It almost certainly would have been sold off to a merchant bank that would have charged for the service and stunted its adoption.

    By making GPS freely available, the US gained a competitive advantage which maintains the nation’s technological and economic lead over the rest of the world.

    This openness isn’t just an advantage for technology companies. While US governments are no means perfect, the relatively open nature of local, state and Federal administrations is an advantage for the United States economy and society. As Vivek says,

    Making data available provides three concrete functions; it allows citizens to fight corruption, it allows you to build the next billion dollar companies and it transforms government functions by breaking down silos.

    When the default position of government is to classify everything as secret or ‘commercial-in-confidence’, there’s little chance of an entrepreneurial culture growing in that society – instead you have a business culture that favours connected insiders who can trade off their privileged contacts within government.

    A culture of closed government reflects the business culture of a society and the reluctance of both the private and public sectors to openly share knowledge is why countries like Britain and Australia will struggle to emulate the United States.

    Similar posts: