Digital trends: hardware category obsolescence?

PC and tablet ownership, January 2012-August 2012

(image from Mintel Report Digital Trends 2013)

In a Mintel Report that came out last month, Senior Technology Analyst Billy Hulkower, says "Convergence has been en route to the tech market for two decades, but now that it’s fully arrived, its overriding impact is clear: hardware category obsolescence” (Hulkower, 2013). 

A couple years ago I had bought a really nice digital camera (very expensive) because I wanted to take quality pictures and videos of my son's arrival into the world as well be able to capture memories throughout his life. I stopped using that camera last year when I upgraded my phone to a really nice smartphone (even more expensive than the digital camera) because it had the same capabilities, plus more.

"The rise of smartphones and tablets has pummeled sales of cameras, personal audio, desktops, televisions, gaming consoles, PC peripherals, and the companies whose brand names were staked on them..." (Hulkower, 2013). Nowadays, there is one device that has the capabilities of multiple devices. I not only use my phone for normal communication like talk and text, but I use it for email, social media, gameplay, and so much more.

The metatrend, "Access Anything, Anywhere," is identified by Mintel to "greatly affect consumers worldwide in five to ten years" (Hulkower, 2013). I could not agree with this metatrend more. Not only do we access the Internet from the usual places for example, home or work, but we also use it while we are commuting in between the usual places.

“Devices are becoming remote controls for our lives, helping us access things we want to buy, control things we already own, and analyze things we want to better understand" (Hulkower, 2013). We are already beginning to see our smartphones becoming the remote controls of our lives. Not only are digital trends influencing us, but we are also creating the trends through the way we use digital technology.  

Hulkower, B. (2013, March). Digital trends. Retrieved from http://academic.mintel.com.flagship.luc.edu/display/637616/?highlight=true

Making technology work for you

I ran across TIBCO’s blog post last month and the post was basically advertising its Application Integration Platform for companies.  I was more interested in the story of Marc’s “perfect” morning.

We constantly interact with technology throughout our day, so why not make the technology work for us? It is hard to believe anyone has a “perfect” morning. For me, perfect would mean stress-free and everything goes as you planned. Sometimes I am able to live this ideal morning but not as often as I would like, due to the high unpredictability of my toddler’s behavior. The more responsibilities we take on, the more we have to organize, reorganize, and prepare for the unexpected.

New digital technologies surely have benefitted my typical morning to help make it the ideal one. But having the technology in your hands does not mean it will magically transform to make your life into the way you want it to be. It rests on how you choose to use the technology.

Although the author of the blog post considered Marc to be the “typical citizen and consumer,” we all know this could not be further from the truth (see the criticizing and negative comments at the bottom of that blog post). But the point here is that Marc uses digital technology to make it easier to reach his goals, organize his day, efficiently use his time, and make technology work by setting and planning according to his preferences.

“Marc’s mornings are the cumulative effect of his investments in seeking out solutions and improving his life through thoughtfulness and feedback” (Lau, 2013). As new media and digital technologies emerge (and if we have the opportunity to use it), we should use it wisely. Hopefully we do not just use it to program our selfish preferences, but use it to effectively communicate with the world around us.

Lau, L. (2013, March 14). How to have a perfect morning, every morning. Retrieved from    http://www.thetibcoblog.com/2013/03/14/how-to-have-a-perfect-morning-every-morning/

Future of mobile: knowing which exact dollars are effective

Crumbling cookie image from:

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Cookies which have been long used in digital advertising will no longer be the “lifeblood of digital advertising," said in an Adage article by John McDermott. New technologies that are emerging will eventually replace them. The announcement of a mobile ad startup company, Tapad, said “it closed a $6.5 million series B funding round led by venture capital fund Firsthand Technology. By analyzing hundreds of data points including device type, browser type and content source, Tapad says that it can target consumers across devices with 70% to 75% accuracy.”  This is unreal!  Tracking people’s behavior on a laptop will no longer rely on cookies and go beyond this basic form of tracking. 

Something that I was unaware of is that “all web-enabled devices have a media access control address that can be tracked by a Wi-Fi receiver.” This is more than frightening.

“The future [of mobile] is that we’ll know which exact dollars are being effective,” said Nihal Mehta, CEO and co-founder of social intent targeting startup LocalResponse.

Consumers can be targeted based on what they share. For example, if I use my twitter account to announce that I am pregnant, more than likely I will be served an ad soon that is related to the topic of pregnancy such as an offer to subscribe to Parents magazine. 

Tapad will try “to replace cookies by aggregating information from the billions of ad requests sent through ad exchanges and analyzing the data across hundreds of categories including device ID, IP address, language settings and time of day.” But even with millions of bits of data and thorough analysis, tracking users across devices has not been perfected. Drawbridge claims it can identify users across various devices with a 60 to 70 percentage accuracy while its competitor, AdTruth, “says its cross-device tracing accuracy is between 80 to 85 percent. 

As tracking becomes more accurate, consumers need to be aware of the tools and techniques being used to target them and to what extent do these technologies invade their privacy.

McDermott, J. (2013, March 21). Can mobile targeting ever be as accurate as cookies on the desktop? tapad, drawbridge, localresponse and others hope so. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/digital/mobile-targeting-accurate-cookies-desktop/240464/

Digital cannot win every battle against paper

Everything seems to be going digital but yet, I still find myself at times holding onto what my classmate who sits next to me would call, ‘archaic tools,’ which he asks to borrow sometimes for in-class activities that require writing. Although I love the convenience and efficiency that the digital age brings, there is still something about the good ol’ pen and paper that I am just not willing to completely give up.

To all digital book readers, do you remember the smell of a new book’s pages when you crack it open for the first time, feeling the paper as you turn the pages (and an occasional paper cut), and using fancy bookmarks with tassels? All of this is replaced by the swipe of a finger on a screen or a click/scroll of a mouse.

What happened to writing with pen and paper before typing that paper up? It seems like a waste of time but for me, it is not. Writing with a pen and paper is more intimate whereas, writing a paper on a computer, I feel a sort of disconnect. The font is not mine, there are no scribbles, it just looks too clean. My ideas are not clean and organized so why should my thoughts look like they are? By writing out my ideas and thoughts on paper first, I can clean it up and organize it later when I am typing it up.  

As I was browsing and reading articles on adage.com, I came across a unique commercial for a French toilet paper company that uses slice of life humor to convey the shortcomings of digital.

 

Video from: http://adage.com/article/creativity-pick-of-the-day/french-toilet-paper-brand-shows-shortcomings-digital/240247/

Do not get me wrong, I LOVE digital, but I still feel the need to cling onto ‘archaic tools,’ such as pen and paper, that serve a part of me that cannot be replaced by digital. Same idea is portrayed in the commercial for the French toilet paper company, Le Trefle. Digital can win a lot of battles against paper, but unfortunately not all of them… especially when you are on the toilet!

Bypass the body, control a machine with your thoughts

It is days like these and when I mean days, I mean days that I watch TED talks, where I think we live in the twilight zone. In one of my classes we briefly talked about brain control, a new kind of communication. After watching Miguel Nicolelis’s TED talk, I am convinced that something that was considered sci-fi before is now nonfiction.

In Nicolelis’s presentation, he talks about his experiments with a monkey that learns to control a robot arm by using its thoughts. Also another experiment shows how the monkey is successful by using its thoughts to control a monkey avatar in Japan while the monkey’s body itself is in the US!

Before jumping to the implications of these experiments, I will let you finish your shock moment. Yes, we will be able to use our brains to directly control machines.

Brain control and the research behind it will help the once paralyzed people to be liberated, restoring motor functions. A different kind of mobility will be available for quadriplegic people but it does not stop there. What else can you think of that the power of brain control will affect? A new form of communication will bring new meanings to everything.

“Allowing the brain to send motor commands to move the avatar and the feedback that comes back from the avatar is being processed directly by the brain without interference of the skin,” says Nicolelis. He explains about one of the experiments how the monkey is able to move the avatar without moving his physical body. “Liberating the brain,” says Nicolelis.

In another experiment, the monkey is in the US and is able to move an autonomous robot, six times the monkey’s actual size, that is in Japan just by its cortical activity. This blows my mind. I definitely think everyone should watch this astonishing TED video.

TedMed Miguel Nicolelis: A monkey that controls a robot with its thoughts. No, really. [Web]. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/miguel_nicolelis_a_monkey_that_controls_a_robot_with_its_thoughts_no_really.html 

Communication after death?

Some things just refuse to die…like those zombies in movies that take several bullets to the chest but it does not seem to stop them from chasing you. Now, would you want your digital persona to be like one of those zombies?

Did you know that there are online services available that help you decide what happens to your online profiles and social media accounts after you die? Who knew. We spend countless hours posting, sharing, updating until we die, do we really want that to continue AFTER we die as well?

In Adam Ostrow’s TEDtalk: After your final status update, he mentions, “[with new technology]…it is going to become possible to analyze an entire life’s worth of content.” Personally, I find it awkward to be forced to think about someone’s death all the time if I saw continual posts from them after their death every time I scroll through my news feed.

Robots that can interact like humans based on the content that we have created over our lifetimes? Interactive life-like holograms of yourself after death? Does anyone else think this is a bit creepy? Is it necessary? I think lives, even digital ones, need an expiration date…preferably the same date as your physical life.

Ostrow asks us to reflect on the reality of our digital personas living on and what it means for a definition of life and everything that comes after it. Our Facebook generation, unlike the generations that come before, will have access to some new technology that needs to be reflected upon. Do we embrace this new technology or not? Does it fit in with our religious views? How will it affect the people who are closest to us? Will it provide a false reality to our friends and families and prolong their mourning? There are many things to consider other than ourselves before deciding to let our digital persona live on.  

Tedtalks Adam Ostrow: After your final status update [Web]. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/adam_ostrow_after_your_final_status_update.html  

4D technology in entertainment needs some patience

 

“An attempt at visualizing the Fourth Dimension: Take a point, stretch it into a line, curl it into a circle, twist it into a sphere, and punch through the sphere.” –Albert Einstein

Einstein’s quote explains how we can visualize the fourth dimension geometrically, but when it comes to 4D digital media technology, it is much easier to experience it than explain it. Feeling wind blow through your hair, vibrations from your chair, drops of water on your skin, the smell of gunpowder…these are all possible effects that you might experience depending on what 4D movie that you are seeing. The effects are synchronized with the movie so your senses are stimulated to immerse you.

Adding a fourth dimension in entertainment includes anything from effects that we can physically feel and smell, to strobe lights which excite our senses. 4D technology is most often used in medical imaging devices and has not been popular among the masses when it comes to cinema entertainment.

One of the reasons for this may be that it is pretty darn expensive to build a theater that is capable of offering the 4D experience. The only 4D movie experience I have had was at the Shedd Aquarium. According to Wikipedia, 4D films are most often presented in custom-built theatres at special venues (e.g. Lego 4D Cinema) and there are “…some movie theaters have the ability to present 4D versions of wide-release 3D films.”

Although 4D technology is widely used in the medical field, it probably will not be as widely used in the entertainment industry for a pretty long while. The hype of 3D technology in advertising is only just the beginning, as advertisers realize the opportunities that will make their brands stand out. We have not even reached the peak of consumption of 3D technology in entertainment and advertising yet. 4D will have to wait a little while.

4d film. In (2013). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4D_film

Quotationsbook. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://quotationsbook.com/quote/40865/