The Day that Google Died

Posted by admin on February 22nd, 2010

The Day that Google Died 831

It was a frenzy of activity as workers scurried from office to office, making their final checks, gathering books, papers, and personal belongings. Many were still stunned over the announcement that Google was closing its doors. The final minutes before the deadline were reserved for tearful hugs and remorseful goodbyes, but for the people of the world these brief moments of stunned silence would soon be replaced with long term anger and outrage.

A mere three weeks earlier this one-time tiny search engine company that overnight had grown into a goliath on Wall Street had appeared to be an invincible force on the global business stage. But now after wave upon wave of well-orchestrated attacks, the giant corporation had fallen to its knees, and in true medieval form, endured the equivalent of a public beheading of its data, its once stellar revenue streams, and its corporate integrity.

Teams of their best data-smiths and strategy people worked around the clock to plug the holes in their sinking ship, but were woefully unprepared for this kind of assault. After weeks of sleepless nights, witnessing one crippling blow after another, a grim new reality began to take hold. In the end, all data had become mangled to the point where it was irretrievable, and all backup systems suffering a similar fate.

TV cameras from around the world watched in horror as a single hand reached up and turned off the final power switch.

With the power turned off, an eerie silence filled the room.

The former giant of global business had breathed its last breath. This was the day that Google died.

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The Great Bank & Credit Card Backlash

Posted by admin on February 8th, 2010
The Great Bank & Credit Card Backlash
The pungent odor of corruption is offending more than few nostrils
Recent attempts by Congress and the Federal Reserve Board to curb the excessive fees being charged by credit cards, banks, and finance companies have resulted in a punitive industry response with interest rates and fees climbing in almost every category. This action has resulted in nothing short of a full-scale revolt by a victimized-feeling public.
Consumers are slamming on the brakes. Revolving credit — largely made up of credit card debt — fell by nearly 20% in November, the largest drop on record, according to the Federal Reserve. Through October, the number of new credit card accounts dropped 46% from October 2008, according to Equifax.
“Washington doesn’t get it,” says a DaVinci Institute researcher who asked to remain anonymous. “People now view banking and credit cards as some of the most corrupt industries on the planet. The length to which they are willing to abuse their own customer base to improve profits is astonishing, and congress has been condoning this practice for years.”
The smoldering flames of animosity behind the credit card backlash are being fueled in part by an equally malicious banking industry. Controversial banking fees have fattened banks’ bottom lines at the expense of our most vulnerable consumers.
At first glance, the arrangement posed by banks seems reasonable enough: Overdraw your account, and the bank will cover the transaction — for a fee. Problem is, consumers don’t get a choice in what transactions get covered and how the fees get assessed. In recent years, as bankers have begun to drool over how lucrative these fees can be, they’ve devised even sneakier ways for consumers to overdraw their accounts, to the tune of $36.7 billion in revenue last year.
Banks have done this by covering debit card transactions as small as $1 and charging a fee as high as $39. Some also charge fees before consumers are overdraw by deducting a purchase when it’s made, instead of when it clears. The timing trick alone has been worth billions. And they’ve nefariously learned to order transactions from highest to lowest dollar amount, emptying consumers’ accounts quicker and trigging more overdrafts.
On average, consumers will pay a fee of $26.68 every time they overdraw their account, according to data from Moebs Services, an economic research firm. That means that if consumers overdraw their account by $100, they’d pay an annual percentage rate (APR) of 696%, if the credit is paid back in two weeks.
Another casualty of this war is declining credit scores. From the 3rd quarter of 2006 to the 2nd quarter of 2009, the number of consumers considered “deep subprime,” with such low credit scores they qualify for credit only at steep interest rates, if at all, rose from 34.4 million to 39.8 million, according to Experian.
While lending companies are quick to say they have no incentive to lower credit scores, they indeed do. Lower credit scores mean higher interest rates and potentially higher fees.
As the burden of repayment climbs, higher risk individuals paying a higher interest rate will have a higher default rate. Higher payments increase the likelihood of failure. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, where an industry can point and say, “I told you so.”
Yes, the interest rates, overdrafts, and declining credit scores are fueling calls to reform the entire industry. But banks and credit card companies form a powerful lobby, and as distrust over any action taken by Washington grows, and campaign contributions are being dangled by the industry to blunt the outcries for reform, consumers are left with few options and have resorted to taking matters into their own hands.
The backlash is in full swing. Credit cards are being cut up, houses are being walked away from, and the industry is now left holding the bag. In the process, few tears are being shed over industry losses.
So where do we go from here?
Major industry players have set themselves up as easy targets. In the midst of this chaotic backlash lies some tremendous opportunities, and smart entrepreneurs will figure out ways to capitalize on them.
The cornerstones of the next generation financial service industry will be based on attributes like trust, openness, ethics, and credibility. Players that base their company on these founding principles will quickly gain favor among fee-weary consumers.
Long-term winners will forego near-term profits in favor of establishing themselves as a major contender.
Credit cards will be replaced with a variety of easy to use, bank-on-a-chip devices, complete with biometric security and the ability to monitor account activity real-time. Other devices will give consumers real-time access and monitoring of their own credit report.
Look for foreign banks and foreign credit card companies to make a serious play. Some will even come with easy forms for establishing a foreign corporations through which your money can be channeled.
In the end, consumers are okay with paying small fees and service charges. But when customers feel victimized by the companies who have been placed in a position of trust to guard and protect their money, change is inevitable, and it’s happening now.

Credit Card Backlash 782

The smell of corruption is offending more than few nostrils

Recent attempts by Congress and the Federal Reserve Board to curb the excessive fees being charged by credit cards, banks, and finance companies have resulted in a punitive industry response with interest rates and fees climbing in almost every category. This action has resulted in nothing short of a full-scale revolt by a victimized-feeling public.

Consumers are slamming on the brakes. Revolving credit — largely made up of credit card debt — fell by nearly 20% in November, the largest drop on record, according to the Federal Reserve. Through October, the number of new credit card accounts dropped 46% from October 2008, according to Equifax.

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10.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – The Coming Explosion of Single Use Devices

Posted by admin on January 18th, 2010
The Coming Explosion of Single Use Devices
Over the past couple decades the World Wide Web has been growing by leaps and bounds with huge amounts of new data being added on an hour by hour basis. Accessing this information, however, has always required an interface device which has traditionally been the computer. A computer was a computer and for most of us if we had a screen and a keyboard we were good to go.
However, as gamers are quick to attest to, there are huge differences in the gadgets we use to interact with the data, and these gadgets often determines the speed, ease of use, and even our willingness to interact with it.
Until recently, the push among device manufacturers has been to create one awesome super cool piece of equipment that could do everything, although nothing particularly well. That, however, began to change when Amazon and Sony started getting traction with their electronic book readers.
The reason book readers began to catch on was because they provided a better user experience. The way a person reads a book is vastly different than the way they interact with a computer. People who studied the humans-to-book interface realized that generic computers provided a rather poor book reading experience and that if a specialty device were to be constructed, it would open the doors to very niche marketing opportunities that were currently getting lost in all the noise of Web.
They concluded that the optimal book interface would have to be a book reader with a paper-like reading surface that allowed people to read for long periods of time while lying in bed or sitting on a plane without the slightest hint of eye strain. It needed to have wireless download capabilities, batteries that last as long as the person doing the reading, the flexibility of changing font sizes, making notes, marking up the pages, and saving the changes for later access. It had to be light and portable, and to really make serious inroads, it had to be less expensive than a computer.
With Amazon’s success in selling the Kindle, others have been quick to jump onboard with their own book reader products. Recently my wife Deb and I visited several dozen of the companies who were launching new book reading gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. (Notes on these companies below)
What’s most important to understand here is that Amazon didn’t just create an opening for book readers. They proved a market for many other single use devices, provided they have a superior interface than multi-use devices.
With this idea in mind, I began to think through the world of possibilities, speculating on the next big idea for single use devices, and what the applications might be. I’m sure I’m only scratching the surface, but here are a few ideas that came to mind:
• Airline Booker: Travelers in airports have a tough time accessing the Web. Currently it is very difficult to use an iPhone or Blackberry to surf the web and make an airline reservation and airports tend to be a rather unfriendly setting for someone sporting a laptop. The trend here will be toward branded airline bookers with names like Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia taking the lead. Individual airlines like Southwest, United, and British Airways will be quick to follow, with some offering free devices to their “gold club” members.
• Day-Trader Portfolio Manager: People who have money to invest are often too busy to sit behind a computer monitoring the minute by minute changes in a stock. They need a device that is lightweight and portable with super fast access to specific pieces of data. Perhaps what’s most critically important is a feeling of control where the user has the feeling that they are in command of any given situation. Again, look for branded devices to surface with names like Ameritrade, E*Trade, and Charles Schwab.
• Courseware Taker: Students immersed in online education know the current limitations of sitting behind a computer all day. And the people creating the courses know all the limitations of channeling a learnable experience through the Internet. People who carefully study the student-learning interface will quickly find hundreds if not thousands of ways to improve upon it. These improvements will then manifest themselves into a device that is lightweight, portable, and inexpensive, with book-reader screens and audio-video capabilities that allows students to do all the things they like to do on the side.
• Health Checkers: Our ability to understand the inner workings of our bodies is creating a greater need to monitor and manage certain conditions. Athletes in training, people with restrictive diets, and those with diabetes, heart problems, and other reoccurring conditions are all seeking more timely information as well as access to solutions, experts, and the location of nearby medical facilities should problems occur. As a way to extend their brand, look for HMOs and insurance companies to put their name on these devices to create a branded health experience. Future heath care companies will be judged by the devices they offer to their customers.
• Facebooker:  Many social networkers don’t want to be left out of a conversation, not even for a little bit. Devices for managing multiple accounts, allowing for quick audio and video segments to be both produced and reviewed, may unlock even larger audiences. Although some believe the world revolves around Facebook, the interface will also need to accommodate other social networking platforms like MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and much more.
• Buyer-Seller Device:  People who engage in online auctions know the importance of a timely bid. Others who are involved in buying and selling products online have an ongoing need to stay plugged in to the marketplace. As a way to separate themselves from the free services like Caigslist, look for Amazon and eBay to take the lead on this one.
Certainly there have been many single use devices in the past like pocket games, address books, and music players that have failed to get much traction. The difference here is the level of sophistication and the deep understanding of user interaction.
The advantage of a single use device is that it is less complicated, and far less distracting. It caters to the specific needs of an individual and helps focus their attention with a superior operator experience.
I should make one clarification though. Certain kinds of data require a unique and different interface. While I have been referring to them as single use devices, they can in fact be multiuse devices based on a newly established interface. The inputs and outputs will start out as industry specific applications, but additional applications may give end users far more latitude.
At CES it was very easy to imagine how existing components like keyboards, screens, and touchpads could be combined to make an entirely new device. Whether it has a flexible screen, head-mounted displays, flip-down lenses, or embedded Pico projectors, or the user requires a touch screen, gesture controls, or sensory monitoring components, the advantage will go to people who best understand the specific user interface.
In the end, the best device will be the one that is invisible to the user, an imperceptible doorway between the user and what they are hoping to accomplish. Final results far outweigh the look and feel of the metal and plastic clenched between one’s fingers, but we have a few more evolutionary steps before the physical interface goes away.

Amazon Kindle 762

In the end, its less about the device and much more about the interface

Over the past couple decades the World Wide Web has been growing by leaps and bounds with huge amounts of new data being added on an hour by hour basis. Accessing this information, however, has always required an interface device which has traditionally been the computer. A computer was a computer and for most of us if we had a screen and a keyboard we were good to go.

However, as gamers are quick to attest to, there are huge differences in the gadgets we use to interact with the data, and these gadgets often determines the speed, ease of use, and even our willingness to interact with it.

Until recently, the push among device manufacturers has been to create one awesome super cool piece of equipment that could do everything, although nothing particularly well. That, however, began to change when Amazon and Sony started getting traction with their electronic book readers.

The reason book readers began to catch on was because they provided a better user experience. The way a person reads a book is vastly different than the way they interact with a computer. People who studied the humans-to-book interface realized that generic computers provided a rather poor book reading experience and that if a specialty device were to be constructed, it would open the doors to very niche marketing opportunities that were currently getting lost in all the noise of Web.

Read the rest of this entry »

business trends, future scenario, new strategy, powerful idea, prediction, technology trends 1 Comment »

9.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – TV-Internet Convergence

Posted by admin on December 31st, 2009
TV-Internet Convergence
Virtually everywhere you look there are video screens. You see them in bars, on elevators, in the back of taxis, and on airplanes. Even most cell phones have now have video screens. Some are connected to the Internet and others are connected to cable television.
In the future, people will look back at this time and see it as very confusing. Corporate turf battles have slowed the promise of the everything display where all content is available through all screens. And in many cases the public wasn’t ready to make the leap. All of that is about to change.
Cable TV companies and the major television networks are not going to like the years ahead as their market shares of the video content world begin to dwindle.
Until now, consumers have felt ill prepared to deal with the dizzying array of options when they enter an electronics store and manufacturers have interpreted that confusion as a marketplace not ready to make the switch.
Greg Belloni at Sony says, “Our stance is that consumers don’t want an Internet-like experience with their TVs, and we’re really not focused on bringing anything other than Internet video or widgets to our sets right now.” A widget is an industry term for narrow channels of Internet programming like YouTube or Hulu.
Bob Scaglione, Senior VP of Marketing at the Sharp voiced a similar comment. “I don’t think that consumers are yet ready to access all content on the Internet on their TV. For now, it’s more important to deliver content consumers want on a TV and let them do their browsing on a PC.”
Industry analysts also make the point that watching television is an entertainment activity where people lean back in their couch and disengage. Browsing the Internet, as the thinking goes, is a more immersive, lean forward activity, where the brain is in both output and input mode.
However, that argument has already been disproved with the iPhone, a do-everything device that has met with raging success.
Most of the problems leading up to the convergence have centered around the design of the interface. Consumers have become well-versed in working with browsers and surfing the Internet. And most have logged time working with game controllers found in the likes of Wii and Xbox. But they feel like they took a step back in time when they try to work the cable TV controls to access a television show or movie.
The Consumer Electronics Show next week in Las Vegas will feature TVs with direct Internet connectivity, or with on-screen access to content sites such as YouTube, Blockbuster and Netflix. As online video becomes intermingled with the living-room TV experience, a new consumer-friendly television interface will emerge, and downloading and streaming content services will take on a major role in the home entertainment ecosystem.
Here are some of the key data points to consider:
• The FCC recently announced it is moving forward with plans that will ensure broadband Internet access is available to virtually all households.
• Computers have penetrated 74% of American homes, but televisions are in 99% of all homes. Adding Internet to television will improve market penetration of the web by 25%.
• A recent survey by Deloitte showed that 65% of Internet users want online content available on their televisions with the younger generations pushing the hardest to switch.
• In Sao Paulo, a consortium of university researchers is nearly finished with a five-year digital TV project that promises to bring low-cost, high-quality broadcasts and TV-internet convergence to 50 million Brazilian households.
• In October, Intel announced its own TV-centric SoC (system-on-chip) chip, and other semiconductor designers and manufacturers are following close behind.
With the economy showing signs of improvement, and people have already started to wash their hands to rid themselves of the past decade, the consumer marketplace is preparing for some long overdue changes.
PREDICTIONS:
• Within 5 years, over 95% of all new televisions will be broadband Internet compatible.
• Within 10 years, cable television set top boxes will no longer exist.
OPPORTUNITIES:
If Apple were to start manufacturing their own televisions, they would quickly dominate the consumer TV marketplace because they know how to build an interface. Significant opportunities will be found in the design and implementation of next generation interfaces.
Video search technologies continue to be an area ripe for innovation. So far no one solution has really risen to the level where video search results are comparable to searching text.
Major opportunities can also be found in the aggregation and delivery of video content, and most importantly, the advertising and marketing mechanisms used to monetize the content.

TV-Internet Convergence 575

Virtually everywhere you look there are video screens. You see them in bars and restaurants, on elevators, in the back of taxis, and on airplanes. Even most cell phones have now have video screens. Some are connected to the Internet and others are connected to cable television, two distinctly different uses for what amounts to the same screen technology.

In the future, people will look back at this time and see it as very confusing. Corporate turf battles have slowed the promise of the everything display where all content is available through all screens. And in many cases the public wasn’t ready to make the leap. All of that is about to change.

Cable TV companies and the major television networks are not going to like the years ahead as their market shares of the video content world begin to dwindle.

Read the rest of this entry »

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6.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – The Turing Test for Avatars

Posted by admin on December 27th, 2009
Turing Test for Avatars
The recently released James Cameron thriller “Avatar” has set an entirely new standard for moviemaking, and in the process has given us a visualization of what the evolution of the avatar may lead to.
The term “avatar” was first coin by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. The translation for avatar is ‘a form of self’- a virtual clone that has long meant nothing more than an intangible visualization. However, in the movie Avatar the envelope of understanding has been pushed far beyond the virtual world into a life-breathing physically-interactive being.
The power behind the movie is in its portrayal of the future. Much like DaVinci’s portrayal of human flight 400 years before the time of the Wright Brothers, the images became a visual goal, a rallying cry if you will, for a future yet to come. In Avatar, audiences become fully immersed in this exciting new vision of the future, and in doing so, begin to mentally plan for the technology that will take us there.
But, as much as we’d like to ratchet forward in time and move to that new level of sophistication, the movie glosses over many of the key technological stepping stones along the way.
An avatar today exists as little more than a cartoonish representation of ourselves, sent as our personal emissary to experience online, virtual worlds. Think of today’s avatars as the Model T version on a pathway that will eventually lead to flying cars. With each new generation of the avatar, they will become more life-like, growing in realism, pressing the limits of autonomy as we become more and more reliant on them for experiencing the world.
Eventually we will pass the Turing Test for Avatars.
In 1950, computer visionary Alan Turing proposed we would reach a time where a person entering a room with a human and a computer placed behind separate curtains would find it impossible to distinguish which was which through mere conversation. This idea of “passing the Turing Test has long served as a benchmark for bestowing humanoid qualities on a computer.
Raising the stakes even further, the Turing Test for Avatars will be a realism test with multiple stages of accomplishment.
• Stage One – An avatar become indistinguishable from a human on a two dimensional screen. Our visual and auditory senses will make it impossible to differentiate.
• Stage Two – Avatars will only live in the computer world for a short time longer. It is only a matter of time before they emerge from the computer and appear as visual beings, walking around among us. The Stage Two Turing Test for Avatars will yield a tree dimensional representation that is impossible to distinguish without touching.
• Stage Three – Once an avatar goes through the radical metamorphosis from an image that we see on a screen to a three dimensional being that joins us for dinner, carries on conversations with our friends, and serves as a stand-in for us at meetings, we will see work start on an even more realistic avatar, one that we can touch. The long held ideas of humanoid robots, and more recently cloned humans, will be superseded by organic avatars with human mannerism and capabilities so lifelike that they become indistinguishable from real humans.
The avatar of the future will become an extension of ourselves. The pain that we feel is the same pain that they feel, and vice versa. Like symbiotic twins separated only by a dimension or two, we are destined to become one with our avatars.
One key issue that will arise will be the autonomy with which our avatars can operate. How much freedom should an avatar have?
While some might envision the avatars to be the perfect clone of ourselves, the reality will be much different as frictions develop between us and the autonomous avatars that represent us. Men will find their girlfriends are more attracted to their avatars than to themselves, even having affairs with them. Avatars will eventually get their own apartments and start buying things for themselves. Some may even go off the deep end and start stealing money, even taking on insane addictions and diseases that only avatars can experience.
A series of self-help books will emerge that discuss “how we can improve our relationship with our avatars”, “how to keep our avatars from reproducing without our consent”, and “how to breed avatars for fun and profit”.
Only after going through all these technological evolutions will we get to the state of avatars portrayed in the James Cameron movie. We have a long ways to go.
PREDICTION:
• Within the next five years a series of prize competitions will emerge based on the Turing Test for Avatars
OPPORTUNITIES:
Great opportunities lie in our ability to create storylines, images, movies, and other visualizations of each of the intermediate steps leading up to stage three avatars.
Along with each new generation of avatar will come an exponential growth spurt of innovation surrounding the tools, games, and other forms of technology spawned by the avatar economies.

Turing test for avatars 564

The recently released James Cameron thriller Avatar has set an entirely new standard for moviemaking, and in the process has given us a visualization of what the evolution of the avatar may lead to.

The term “avatar” in the context of a digital computer-self was first coin by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. Before that, the concept of avatar within Hinduism was associated with Vishnu, the preserver or sustainer aspect of God within the Hindu Trinity. The translation for avatar is ‘a form of self’- a virtual clone that has long meant nothing more than an intangible visualization. However, in the movie Avatar the envelope of understanding has been pushed far beyond the virtual world into a life-breathing physically-interactive being.

The power behind the movie is in its portrayal of the future. Much like DaVinci’s portrayal of human flight 400 years before the time of the Wright Brothers, the images became a visual goal, a rallying cry if you will, for a future yet to come. In Avatar, audiences become fully immersed in this exciting new vision of the future, and in doing so, begin to mentally plan for the technology that will take us there.

But, as much as we’d like to ratchet forward in time and move to that new level of sophistication, the movie glosses over many of the key technological stepping stones along the way.

Read the rest of this entry »

business trends, future scenario, new strategy, powerful idea, prediction, technology trends 3 Comments »

5.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – Bookless Libraries

Posted by admin on December 25th, 2009
Bookless Libraries – Many people regarded the September 2009 headline, “Cushing Academy
Goes Bookless” as more of a curiosity than a serious trend. The way Cushing Headmaster James Tracy put it, “Instead of a traditional library with 20,000 books, we’re building a virtual library where students will have access to millions of books.”
But underlying this blip on the radar screen lies a groundswell of innovation that promises a revolution in books. The book industry along with authors, publishers, and the online giants: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo are still arguing over the rights conveyed to each member of the value chain. Consumers, however, are simply looking for faster, cheaper, quicker access to books and information.
Beyond the issues of digital rights an entire new industry is emerging around interface devices with electronic book readers gaining tremendous market share. Amazon’s Kindle broke the ice in 2006 and is now joined by Sony, LG, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and others. 2009 saw the price of bookreaders drop by 50% to under $200. 2010 will see a similar plummet with some being offered for under $100. In less than 5 years bookreaders will cost less than $20 and become ubiquitous. The result will be a very chaotic downward spiral for the ink-on-paper publishing world.
In spite of the dwindling interest in books as a physical object, books themselves will flourish. The demand for well-produced literary works will continue to grow, but will transition in style and form as technology creates new ways for people to interact with authors and experts in the field.
Despite the objections of book lovers, the days of wandering through the stacks are coming to an end.
As the popularity of books in the printed form begins to dwindle, libraries will be faced with rethinking their role and the way they interact with their user constituency. Their purpose will still revolve around being a point of access for information, but will evolve into a center of culture, a media archive for the community, and a place where great ideas can spring to life.
Even with expanded services through the web, their greatest value will lie in their sense of place. They will remain a place where questions get answered but will also become a gathering place for people to meet people and teams are able to plan, network, and interact with the information before them.
Future libraries will become fluid structures for causing positive human collisions. Next generation tools and equipment will be a source of intellectual spontaneity, giving people the ability to produce audio, video, graphic, and other sensory works as a way to breathe life into their thinking.
The ultimate “library of the future” will be the home for highly relevant informational experiences, where great ideas are born, and people have access to the tools and facilities to act on their ideas.
PREDICTIONS:
• In less than 20 years, the majority of libraries will no longer have traditional printed books in them.
• Since digital libraries have a much smaller labor component, the demand for traditionally trained librarians will drop over the next 20 years to less than half of what it is today.
OPPORTUNITIES:
Along with the transformation of libraries will come a great opportunity to help them reinvent themselves. The technology component will continue to increase and support for the technology will create many new openings.

Bookless Libraries 726

Many people regarded the September 2009 headline, “Cushing Academy Goes Bookless” as more of a curiosity than a serious trend. The way Cushing Headmaster James Tracy put it, “Instead of a traditional library with 20,000 books, we’re building a virtual library where students will have access to millions of books.”

But underlying this blip on the radar screen lies a groundswell of innovation that promises a revolution in books. The book industry along with authors, publishers, and the online giants: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo are still arguing over the rights conveyed to each member of the value chain. Consumers, however, are simply looking for faster, cheaper, quicker way to access books and information.

Read the rest of this entry »

future scenario, powerful idea, prediction, social trends, technology trends 3 Comments »

4.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – The Personal Mobility Explosion

Posted by admin on December 23rd, 2009

Audi-snook-concept5

Personal Mobility Explosion
Pay close attention, there is a revolution brewing on the personal mobility end of the transportation spectrum.
Nothing symbolizes personal freedom more than our ability to travel from one place to another quickly, and efficiently. But for the most part, we’ve been putting all our eggs into one basket – the basket of automobile transportation.
In this post I will try to spell out the reasons why transportation is on the verge of dramatic change, and show you photos of a few of the unusual personal mobility devices that will play a key role in this revolution.
Transportation varies tremendously based on the country. As an example, in China, non-motorized transportation accounts for roughly 50% of all trips, and in India, the number is around 30%. But when it comes to public transportation, over 60% of the Indian population use bus and trains compared to 25% in China. The China and India statistics are vastly different from the U.S.
Some will argue that an efficient transportation system in the U.S. has led to a healthier economy. The US Bureau of Transit Statistics now shows over 243 million registered passenger vehicles in the US, which amounts to more than one for every licensed driver.
But cars are expensive. The average cost of car ownership in the US combining payments, maintenance, insurance, and licensing has mushroomed to over $10,000 per year, with California and Hawaii pushing the high end of $12,000 per year.
According to the U.S. Dept of Transportation, commuters in 2007 drove their vehicles over 3 trillion miles on a road system consisting of over 4 million miles of roadway. This is a dramatic increase from the 458 billion vehicle miles on 3.3 million miles of roadway in 1950.
The average car in the U.S. is driven 12,345 miles per year, or about 34 miles a day. Assuming an average speed of 30 mph, the average car is only in use 68 minutes a day. That means the remaining 95% of the time the car is sitting idle. From the standpoint of how well we are utilizing our natural resources, cars represent a hugely under-utilized resource.
As of lately, people and their love of cars has been shifting to a craving for something better. However, the “perfect car” doesn’t seem to exist. The perfect car is one that doesn’t pollute, is highly efficient, is only as big as necessary for the demands of the moment, makes virtually no noise, is extremely safe, and collapses into the size of a suitcase when not in use.
It is this quest for something better that is priming the market for unconventional vehicles. Below are a few of the alternative transportation vehicles coming out of the woodwork.
Since these vehicles fall outside of the current requirements for automobiles, many cities have chosen to ban them altogether until they can figure out what to do with them.
Our current infrastructure, the highway system, is all about cars. Whenever a smaller alternative transportation vehicle drives onto a highway, it’s at a significant disadvantage in terms of safety and risk. Currently there is no infrastructure – roads, trails, or pathways – designed for non-traditional forms of transportation.
Most importantly, any city that does not actively promote alternative transportation, will by default, encouraging more car usage. The one-size-fits-all thinking about cars has left some gaping holes in the transportation market, holes that some very ingenious entrepreneurs are attempting to fill.
Manufacturers and distributors of these vehicles are search desperately for alternative transportation friendly communities to work with. Therein lies the opportunity.
PREDICTIONS:  Within the next 5 years we will see over 1,000 new alternative transportation vehicles hit the marketplace. (Non-gas powered, light weight, smaller than car vehicles)
OPPORTUNTIES:
Create a classification scheme around size weight and speed of vehicles.

The Audi Snook – concept vehicle

Pay close attention, there is a revolution brewing on the personal mobility end of the transportation spectrum.

Nothing symbolizes personal freedom more than our ability to travel from one place to another quickly, and efficiently. But for the most part, we’ve been putting all our eggs into one basket – the basket of automobile transportation.

In this post I will try to spell out the reasons why transportation is on the verge of dramatic change, and show you photos of a few of the unusual personal mobility devices that will play a key role in this revolution.

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business trends, future scenario, new strategy, powerful idea, prediction, technology trends 5 Comments »

iTunes U – The Rise of the 800 Pound Guerrilla

Posted by admin on December 18th, 2009
In April 2009 Stanford University announced that its iPhone Application Programming course had broken the 1 million download mark from the Apple iTunes site. And it did it in record time – less than seven weeks.
The course is nothing more than a series of classroom videos being taught by a team of Apple engineers. But the price was set at that very attractive price point of “free.” One catch though, only people who were enrolled at Stanford University received credits for the course.
With over 200,000 courses from over 200 different institutions to pick from on iTunes U, and all of them free to anyone who wants to take them, Apple is quickly becoming the world leader in courseware aggregation. The obvious question to ask is “what is Apple’s motivation for doing this?” and “how do they intend to make money?”
History of iTunes U
Shortly after Apple opened its iTunes Store in April 2003, the company started receiving requests from colleges to post courses on the site. Initially the requests were directed to the podcast section, but as the numbers grew, Apple devised a strategy for adding an entirely new division.
iTunes U was formally in May 2007. The service was created to manage, distribute, and control access to educational audio and video content for students within a college or university as well as the broader Internet.
In October 2008, Apple hired Dr. Joel Podolny, the Dean of Yale University’s School of Management, to run what was quickly becoming known as Apple University. This move, while very curious to most Apple observers, signaled a much farther reaching strategy than what most were anticipating.
The Missing Pieces
While Apple is doing a good job of aggregating existing courses from existing institutions, they haven’t made any moves to open the floodgates, and we are talking serious floodgates here, to engage other potential courseware providers.
In our way of thinking, communications and search have been the two dominant forms of use for the Internet. However, the one application that could become far more dominant that either of those uses is education. What’s at stake is the creation of the largest and most influential site on the Web.
Here’s what’s missing:
* Easy Authoring Tools: Currently the realm of online course creation has been reserved to learning professionals, not topical experts or passionate amateurs. In much the same way Wikipedia started, a simple online system for creating new courses could cause a tsunami of new content to flood the Internet. Some will be good, but most will be below average. In the middle will be a few shining examples of unique new ways to present course content, and these will be the ones that the pave the way for the next wave.
* Courseware Standards: Existing college courses are too long, too dry, and too boring. While we may not be able to create standards that prevent boring content, we can certainly do something about the length. All courses need to be standardized around 60 minute (one-hour) course units. Standards can also be created for testing comprehension, student records, transcripts, pricing standards, and a variety of other variables that will help streamline an emerging new system.
* Profiling Engine: The system needs to know the student before it can recommend courses. Profiling software has been used for many things and can be easily adapted for this. The trick will be to imbed learning objects that can read the learning style and adapt the course to the precise level of student’s skills, knowledge and confidence.
* Recommendation Engine: After the completion of every course a recommendation engine needs to list several options for the next course, but the options need to be closely synced with the whims and desires of the student.
* Feedback System: Courseware authors need to have a real-time understanding of student engagement, confidence, achievement, and enjoyment.
* Credits and Certification: Every course that is completed needs to be accompanied with a system for marking the progression of the student. And the system needs to lead to levels of accomplishment as certified by the organization that bestow them.
* Courseware Monetization System: If iTunes can change $1.29 for a three minute song, they can easily charge $1-$5 for a one-hour course. Money can be parceled out to the course author, distribution system, recommendation engine, profiling engine, record-keeping company, and possibly a few more. A little friction in the system will help deter the spammers and those intent on disrupting the system.
Apple has dabbled some in the courseware authoring arena with the Woolamaloo Automator, but it’s still a far cry from the fully integrated modality agnostic, language agnostic system that we see coming. You can see a more extensive look at the future of colleges and universities.
Colleges are on the verge of a significant transformation, and Apple is currently in the driver’s seat. But as we have seen so many times in the online world, new players can spring to life over night, and one that is positioning itself as one of the key players is a little startup in Denver called SatoriEDU.
Newspapers, travel agencies, yellow pages and record labels are all industries that have been greatly affected by the Internet, and each of them tell a different version of what may lie ahead for colleges.
The current system was designed for slower times and a different culture. In a world going through major upheavals in technology, culture, and lifestyle, our current college system has continually rearranged the deck chairs, but has shown virtually no ability to grasp the bigger picture. The next couple years will indeed be fascinating to watch, and for Apple, it’s currently theirs to lose.

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In April 2009 Stanford University announced that its iPhone Application Programming course had broken the 1 million download mark from the Apple iTunes site. And it did it in record time – less than seven weeks.

The course is nothing more than a series of classroom videos being taught by a team of Apple engineers. But the price was set at that very attractive price point of “free.” One catch though, only people who were enrolled at Stanford University received credits for the course.

With over 200,000 courses from over 200 different institutions to pick from on iTunes U, and all of them free to anyone who wants to take them, Apple is quickly becoming the world leader in courseware aggregation. The obvious question to ask is “what is Apple’s motivation for doing this?” and “how do they intend to make money?”

Read the rest of this entry »

business trends, future scenario, new strategy, prediction, technology trends No Comments »

The Future of Colleges & Universities – Part Four

Posted by admin on December 16th, 2009

Future of Colleges and Universities 543 Disruptive Scenarios

NOTE: The following is the fourth in a four part series title: The Future of Colleges & Universities:  Blueprint for a Revolution

Most of us have great difficulty translating ideas of what the future holds into useful stories and concepts. For this next section, I have chosen to describe the upcoming changes in terms of scenarios. Each gives a brief description of one element of change, explaining how it will unfold and what the likely consequences will be.

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future scenario, new strategy, people making a difference, powerful idea, prediction, technology trends 2 Comments »

The Future of Colleges & Universities – Part Three

Posted by admin on December 15th, 2009

Future of Colleges and Universities 552

Disruptive Technologies

NOTE: The following is the third in a four part series title: The Future of Colleges & Universities:  Blueprint for a Revolution

Even though learning technologies will ascend to the realm of the virtual world, there will still be interface devices that connect digital learning with the human mind. In this section I will focus on five disruptive technologies to give you a sense of the ingenuity about to be unleashed. There will be far more, perhaps hundreds of new categories, and thousands of such devices.

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future scenario, new strategy, powerful idea, prediction, social trends, technology trends No Comments »
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