Swiped this from Daring Fireball
Among the items that could be connected: a garden planter (so it could be watered from afar); a coffee pot (so it could be set to brew remotely); or a light bulb (so it could be turned off remotely). Google said in May that by the end of this year another team planned to introduce a Web-connected light bulb that could communicate wirelessly with Android devices.
I’m with Gruber on this. A coffee pot? A light bulb? This is embarrassing. How the fuck did this get on NYT, let alone the front page?
“New devices have become purely ‘personal assistants’ that fit into our lives rather than the other way around. Future of technology is to become far more immersed and subtle, even hidden. Something that is so intuitive that when used it is so natural we don’t even register the use,” says Wilkinson.
I find this analagous to print media. When the average reader reads a book, they don’t concern themselves with the details of the book (the binding, the paper quality etc.). They just read. The physical book becomes irrelevant as they consume the content the book holds.
I believe this is the correct model. I also believe all awesome product design revolves around this idea. It’s the content of what the technology holds that matters the most. The technology should fade into the background.
If Pinterest can (1) get its users to take pictures of things in the real world with its mobile app and post them online with data and (2) leverage image-tagging tools such as Stipple and help bypass intent-based search on just a small fraction of online transactions, it could be a huge cultural and financial success. This is the promise of Pinterest. Of course, there’s a long way to go and there will be other opportunities to create discovery engines for different types of users, whether broad or niche.
Love. it.
What a simple and a great way of disrupting consumer-based search. And it’s nice to hear something NOT Siri-related when it comes to search these days …
All this recent talk about Apple TV is bothering me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not even vaporware, considering Apple hasn’t even acknowledged its existence.
But the rumors have started to link Siri into the picture. How voice rec. and AI will influence the way we watch TV. This is where I have to stop and say:
… what.the.fuck.
SiriSeriously?
Forget about the Kinect. Forget that it already has a voice/motion control interface. Forget that Microsoft is bringing live TV to the Xbox. Forget that 8 million Kinects were bought in its first 60 days.
You want a game-changer? We already have it. It’s called the Kinect.
As I’m collecting my thoughts on the differences between iOS and Android, I can’t help but be bothered by the mockery of Android that is this new ‘phone’.
Bottom line is this; Motorola makes shitty products. The original Droid was a piece of crap. Xoom was a failure. Nobody picked up on the Atrix (though, I’ll have to agree it was an awesome concept). Worst of all, I absolutely hate the abomination that is Motoblur. It’s ugly. It’s not intuitive. In fact, it confuses the fuck out of people.
Please. I don’t even understand why they even bother. Isn’t this any indication that you guys suck?
Just received my iPhone 4S over the weekend and have been spending a lot of time with it, hence the lack of posts in this blog. Over the next few months, as I get accustomed to iOS, I’ll be blogging about my observations and thoughts in comparison to Android.
Just some background; I used the HTC Droid Incredible for almost 18 months. Unlike a lot of current iPhone users, I was very satisfied with my Incredible.
But why did I switch over?
A mixture of reasons:
a.) Despite the Incredible being less than 2 years old, and having been updated to 2.3; it pales in comparison to latest and greatest Android offerings. That and HTC sense on the Incredible was outdated, not having been updated by HTC (another grip of mine which I will later elaborate on) to the latest version of sense. Why (I believe my Incredible would have been able to handle it), I shall never know …
b.) Curiosity got the better of me and I finally got an iPhone. Simple as that. I would like to try the Windows Mobile platform when it becomes a maturer platform.
c.) Siri. Yeah yea yea, Android has a host of apps like that - but honestly, none of those apps have anything on the natural context technology that is the core of Siri. GVS/vLingo type apps take instructions. Siri understands instructions. That’s the difference.
Hope to place my thoughts soon. It’s been an exciting last 3 days, I’ll tell you that!
“So Houston must combat a MySpace-like implosion by spending a lot of his war chest on ubiquity. He’s protecting his flank against Google via a new deal with phonemaker HTC, which will make Dropbox the default cloud storage option on every one of its Android phones. Deals with six other phone firms are almost inked; PC and television makers are next. Houston has hired a team to tailor Dropbox to businesses. A couple hundred outside developers are making apps for Dropbox.”
The Forbes profile on Dropbox.com has the generic rise-to-greatness form.
However, it’s still fucking inspirational. I hope anyone starting a start-up has half the innovation, passion and determination of both Houston and Ferdowsi.
A $250 million series B round is a fucking lot, however considering the competition includes box.net, ubuntu one, and the recently released iCloud, they face the challenge of - as the article highlights - ubiquity. While dropbox is getting synonymous with the cloud, 50 million users is paltry compared to the 200+ potential iCloud users.
I really hope they keep on going strong. Don’t want Apple being the big brother now, do we?
Om on New versus Old
…
The demise of tech companies occur not because of competition, but because of their inability to continuously innovate.
After all, what’s the point of old tech?
