Great technology is no excuse for a bad idea

...just one of the quote's from today's Contagious Magazine Now Next Why event doing the Twitter rounds. Wise words indeed, and some that should be heeded by adlands all over the world. Just because you can doesn't mean you should!

But as a counter to the many bad, trying-too-hard examples that populate the webs' trends blogs everyday (this week there's been various debates around Nestle's GPS enabled chocolate bar prize promotion for example), sometimes you see an example that just makes you want to applaud. Ideas that combine good insight, with good harness of technology and good design to provide smart solutions: I offer you (via the ever fab Trendwatching) the phone charging handbag. Nice thinking and collaboration from Vodafone UK & designer Richard Nicoll.

Genius. Now if only they can develop a version that means if I throw my handbag on the floor as I walk through the front door and it will charge contact/wire free.... and then it will monitor the charge levels of my phone and kindle and wirelessly charge as appropriate...

Kinect-shopping trolley demo

Convergence of technology and shopping is happening in so many ways.

 Payment integrations via mobile, be it NFC, Paypal, Google Wallet, or carrier billing (Facebook announced more moves in this direction this week at Mobile World Congress) is all driving mCommerce growth closer to scale, and better shopping experiences whether that's sofa shopping via Amazon's very addictive iPad app or Stop & Shop's US instore trial and more mobile enabled websites are all closing the path to purchase.

Microsoft's Kinect platform is also being used in more and more ways and my Microsoft buddies shared this video with me this morning. For sure it's clever use of technology but I have to say it needs a lot of real-time, speedier response magic applied. I can just imagine the chaos it would cause in my local Waitrose on a Saturday morning if trolleys were following users automatically, running over small children and taking an age to talk to you about every purchase! Worth watching though.  Food for thought.

The smart home @ CES: app controlled washer dryer

Last week's CES (Consumer Electronics Show) saw the usual array of new toys being unveiled. It's an interesting week for all of us with an eye to the future, as hardware releases will inevitably start to shape consumer behaviour of the future. I've been fascinated by the "Internet of Things" for a few years now, the way that technology can shape and influence software, hardware, and the homes we live in.  The internet connected fridge has been to many the easiest embodiment of this, but I'm choosing Samsung's connected washing machine / tumble dryer, remote controlled by an app as my IoT pick from this year's show.

Connectivity facilitating better control of our super busy lives, and hopefully helping us make smarter, eco friendlier choices along the way. I'm all in favour of anything that potentially reduces the ironing.

Evolving user interfaces & the internet of things

Of the many things in the digital sphere I am fascinated by, the evolving nature of the interfaces by which we interact with technology has to be up there in the top 3.

The internet of things / connected home is becoming less conceptual and more and more of a tangible reality even if it's just beginner baby steps for most people as they start to use energy monitors as fuel cost increases as much as eco-conscience drive mainstream adoption and behavioural change.

Moving beyond the baby steps, the connected home, cloud based data access, and device neutral data interfaces are becoming less of a mental stretch as today's tablet fans start embracing the notion of companion devices and will become increasingly demanding about hardware neutrality.   With the launch of Siri and Iris (Apple & Android personal digital assistants respectively), the spoken interface has joined touch on the critical mass of credibility table, if only for the innovators and early adopters at present.  With the mainstream undoubtedly following close behind bringing true scale now is the time to start thinking about what interface change means for the way that consumers can and/or could interact with your brand in the future.  This could also have a significant impact on your business architecture for staff : organisational relationships as much as business : consumer ones, as this recent Gartner trends piece highlighted.  I wouldn't be so bold as to consider myself an expert in new UIs (user interfaces) yet but I do believe that there needs to be a happy marriage between insight, extrapolation of existing behaviours, imagination and experimentation with new technologies and interface alternatives so that learnings can be developed. Context as much as attitude will no doubt influence our interface preferences, much as they already do today but with greater inter-changeability between them than is currently present. I wouldn't choose to write anything of  significant length using my iPad, because even with my small hands the keyboard is cramped and the angle on my neck to see over the keyboard is awkward and pain inducing, but the touch / swipe / pinch we've all become used to is intuitive for browsing in all manner of scenarios. I've used voice dialling on my phone for years as it's handy in the car, and voice search is handy on occasions, and yet I'm still an enormous fan of the notebook, post-it and pencil for quick scribbles, or doodles to evolve my thinking. At the minute our range of interface options are often device capability limited but this is a barrier that I expect to erode over the medium term future.

With hints of the Corning Glass futures piece I posted previously, the Microsoft Envision Lab have produced this piece. Whether you believe it'll ever happen or not is up to you but I remind you that Minority Report was released in 2002, and much of the technology that seemed far distant and sci-fi then is already a reality.

Charting the rise of the Internet of Things

I've been following the Internet of Things for a few years now, the wireless home/city with more and more connected devices talking to each other is almost a tangible reality rather than some sci-fi future.

The number of devices connected to the web, sharing data, enabling new behaviours and capabilities is growing at a rapid rate.  So if you haven't watched the video from the IBM Internet of Things project, do so here, and then click to make this nice infographic from Cisco,(who also have a rather nifty data projection graphing tool),  big enough to read properly!

Click to enlarge