Last night I saw Radiolab @ BAM. The show, “In the Dark,” was really good. There was a mix of dance, creative visuals, and pre-recorded interviews that blended into a very fun night. During the show, the audience was asked to participate by holding an LED light with a battery. I’m not sure how many people participated, I can tell you it was an impressive sight. Imagine 300 or 400 mini-lights glowing in the darkness of a theater. It felt great.
In 1988 a brilliant computer scientist by the name of Mark Weiser introduced a new phrase to describe a new paradigm of computing. That phrase was Ubiquitous Computing and it refers to “smart” and networked devices embedded within our environments. We are living in the era of ubiquitous computing.
Our lives have changed dramatically in the last 10 years. The pervasiveness of smartphones, tablets and laptops has led to instant communication via the web, and that has profoundly changed human behavior. We blog, tweet and share status messages to a global audience with little cost. Information, social or otherwise, is overabundant and cheap. The internet or the ubiquitous platform, has been with us for a while, and all of that is really obvious.
The subtle and more dramatic change, though, is the impact to our environments. Have you heard of Nest, the learning thermostat? Did you know, also, that smartphone app’s can control the lighting, music, the temperature, and other appliances of your home? Such systems are out there, and more of these appliances are coming online each year.
Collectively, these smart devices will compose a “smart environment.” The current focus is to build smart devices to optimize energy consumption by connecting to a smart grid. You’ll notice the term “smart” in this context is limited to the control of a single variable: energy consumption. It is highly likely that more variables will be added, such as social, educational or business. So, at some future state, the smart home will need to have a dashboard function, where one can manage all of this smartness.
From an experience perspective, this dashboard must be extremely easy to use. As for the audience, we’re talking about everyone who has a home, so accessibility will be a major priority. As will readability. The dashboard’s goal will be to display the essence of an environment. Thus, energy and data consumption, will need to be displayed. Also, the social context or mood will also need to be displayed. A desirable educational goal would be to create a more profound understand of cost, as it related to an environment. So, if an environment is Leeds certified, this dashboard will provide a space to do this.
I’m going to create a concept of this dashboard and post it soon.
If you ask most people today about tablet’s, the first thing they’re likely to think about is the iPad. While Microsoft’s recently announced surface tablet has generated a lot of buzz on tech websites, they’re going to have to introduce it to customers in a few months.
So there’s going to be a big marketing push around the Surface, and the main goal will be to differentiate it from the iPad. At this point, all we have to understand how the Surface will be marketed are images and a commercial. Take a look at the commercial:
Here are some observations: where the iPad is smooth, the Surface seems to be more industrial (e.g. sharp corners), where the iPad is a simple tool with 100,000s of apps, the Surface is a machine. Now, what’s interesting about all of this is that, well, its been done before.
When Android was being introduced to consumers via the DROID campaign in 2008, the Moto Droid used the same industrial imagery to compete with the iPhone. Take a look at the following Android commercials:
Motorola’s goal then, is the same as Microsoft’s – to differentiate themselves from Apple. The Droid campaign was largely successful because it was the only real competitor to the iPhone. In the tablet space, Apple is on top and, while there have been worthy Android tablets, Android has not replicated its success with smartphones with tablets.
Perhaps Microsoft, by recycling some of the concepts of from the DROID campaign, can be more successful in the tablet space. Or, maybe Google will launch their tablet at I/O 2012 and Android will continue its conquest of all things mobile. This is going to be an interesting Fall.
Two days ago, while cleaning my house and doing laundry my throat became a little parched. So, I reached into my refrigerator, picked up a package of coconut water, poured myself a glass, and took a sip. A moment later I spit the drink I thought was coconut water all over the kitchen. It turns out I mistakenly poured a glass of chicken broth.
Why would I make such grave mistake? The packages. The packages and their designs. Take a look:
The two boxes essentially have the same design: blueish boxes with imagery framed in white on the front. It’s no wonder I made this mistake.
Now, you might be asking yourself, why don’t I just pay more attention next time? Sure, I can pay attention, but that’s not the point – I shouldn’t have to pay attention to something so trivial. The quicker I can grab something I want from the refrigerator that the better.
There is a problem when two very different products somehow end up looking so similar. The FDA maintains a set of requirements that food preparers must adhere to and these requirements outline how food must be labeled. While I applaud the requirements, I wish the powers that be would go a bit further to be of greater utility.
Foods should be color coded based on their category. For example, juices would be colored blue box, and liquids used for food preparation are yellow. Another example, organic foods would have green labels, while conventional foods would have a brown labels. Creating this sort of visual language would be helpful to customers.
I also think this would be helpful for brands as well. Encouraging a consistent look & feel can help brands differentiate themselves be creatively relating their brand to a category. So, how about it?
This is possibly one of the best songs ever made:
Google Africa recently released a report on the impact of the Internet in South Africa. They basically identify how large the Internet economy is, and advocate for more technology focused policy. The following video provides a nice overview: