innovation playground Idris Mootee

The New Battlefield Between iPhone, BlackBerry and Android Smartphone: The Keypad.

Apple iPhone has officially become the “defender” instead of the “attacker”. The battlefront so far has been on the screen and apps and now the battlefield is switching back to the keyboard. There are two camps: physical keyboard and virtual keyboard. I definitely belong to the group that I needed a real keyboard and therefore I use Blackberry. And there are those who can type at lightening speed on iPhone virtual keyboard.

Since last week, there were rumors that the next generation of Blackberry will come without a physical keyboard (which Blackberry CEO Heins reassured that RIM is not getting rid of its tried-and-true physical keyboard) and this is no easy decision.

One exciting new feature for the BlackBerry 10 is the redesigned user interface. The clean design features "cascades," which let users flip through apps with a simple swipe gesture, replacing a back key or physical button. It will also feature an intelligent virtual keyboard that takes touch-screen keypads to another level. It learns the words that you often use, your typing style and compensates for sloppy typing (I admit I am one of those sloppy typers). If they solve this problem, another good reason for me to stick with Blackberry. I currently have three BlackBerry and a Playbook.

There were reports that now Apple is considering offering a real keyboard for the iPhone 5. While this is highly unlikely, it will be a smart move for them to change the game again if they can completely rethink the design and engineering of a physical keyboard. The next competitive front will not be the camera, screen size or processor speed, it will be battle of the keyboard.

I speculate that RIM is betting (and committed) on winning the keyboard battle because they know it well, typing for BlackBerry users is everything and this is the last defense.  And now RIM is properly equipped with the smarter, faster QNX platform.

Let the battle begins…..and here's a few free advice:

• BlackBerry should seriously push the design front and explore the BlackBerry DNA and go against Apple’s simple design and opt for more sophisticated European asthetic.
• BlackBerry should turn up the keypad battle and bring in new function and keys to allow new document management capabilities. 
• BlackBerry should stop engineering creeps and hold back innovation on those features to reduce distractions.
• BlackBerry should drop the Apps race and give that up completely. Don't fight a battle that you cannot win.
• BlackBerry should turn BBM into an open software and get mass adoption including all Android phones.
• Blackberry should explore innovative features on “identity” management. I think there are lots of rooms to innovate here.
• BlackBerry should innovate around “security” features (not data security) but real security and design service around it.
• BlackBerry should leverage the 200+ million cars are on the road using RIM's QNX operating system and create the most sophisticated integrated features. Most BlackBerry users like me take calls in the car for hours everyday.

I can go on and on for hours and give BlackBerry another 100 ideas to compete for the future. The big strategy is to ignore “Apple”. I mean completely ignore Apple.

Microsoft's Next Big Innovation: Google Maps Meets Grand Theft Auto

What's new with GPS? There were the 3D maps, then traffic information with live refresh every two minutes so to help others to avoid heavy traffic jams and GPS watch? What’s next?

Surprise the next big innovation will come from Microsoft. It is Grand Theft Auto meets Google Map. The company just granted a patent that is designed to make its maps more pedestrian-friendly meaning not only just when you’re driving, even walking. I think this is a truly innovative idea. This feature is designed to help you t avoid certain dangerous area. You know two blocks can make big differences in many cities.

This "mind-the-ghetto" feature will be killer applications in future Windows phones. So while you’re roaming the streets of LA or Chicago, your smart phones will send GPS into to a system that maps the crime statistics as well as nature of crime, day of time happened and frequency. Not sure how this will impact real estate prices or retail rent.

And they may allow you to do a trial run in the neighborhood as downloadable scenes in Grand Theft Auto on your X-Box? I am sure there is a disclaimant that you need to click ‘accept’ meaning if you do get mugged in what was identified as a safe area would not be their fault.

It is definitely a useful feature for parents to make sure the kids are not allowed hanging out in those areas and it will prompt them and send a message to the parents? If you use a little more imagination, there is so much untapped innovation with LBS and GPS.

GPS is not legal everywhere. Apple will be selling its iPhone in Egypt, people there will have to go without one of the star features: GPS navigation. Yes, because GPS is illegal in Egypt (Can you believe this?) and I think it is the only country in the world but I might be wrong. Apple is forced to take out the feature because there is a ban on the import of all GPS-enabled devices into Egypt. The ban has been in effect for years.

The Egyptian govertment considers GPS a military-grade technology that can be used to help pinpoint the location of government facilities. But if you so happen to be travelling in the desert, you’re advised to buy one, but only from the black market which you need a GPS to locate.

The Tablet War Is Moving To The Next Level. It Is Not Just A Game Of Interface And Content, It Is A Service Platform Game. It Will Be Google, Apple And Amazon.

Idea Couture San Francisco was excited to sponsor and host the Tofu event last week. The Tofu Project is a nicely curated boutique program created by TokyoMango journalist Lisa Katayama and designer Tomo Saito that brings 10 of the most innovative young entrepreneurs from Japan to the San Francisco Bay Area for a 7-day design thinking and innovation boot camp.

These isn't just another Silicon Valley-meets-Japan tour or incubator. It is not just a start-up meet and share, it is more of collaborative think tank where cool Japanese people and experts on Japanese culture from all different sectors gather together to re-imagine the future of Japanese innovation and globalization. I wish I was there. Here are some pictures to share.

A busy day driving to Waterloo for a several meetings and everytime I stopped at a book store I wonder how the tablet war will evolve in the next 12 months. The tablet war is moving to level two and there are only 3 finalists. Samsung and Amazon are the only two that are strategically qualified to play this game. Sony’s new tablet may have a small chance; if it does it will be domestically. Sony has been sleeping at the wheels and has no idea what the world is like.

Amazon's forthcoming Kindle Fire tablet will be hurting the sales of iPad and put price pressure on Apple. They might end up having to reduce the price to keep shares. I don’t see any new features that can keep iPad ahead of the game or sustain the growth. Many will hold off the purchase of iPad for themselves or chose to buy Fire because it is a great alternative.

Kindle Fire, launching next week at a price of $199. They are using a Gilette strategy of subsidizing the tablet and make money from content. Apple will never do that. And for the Nook, I am not sure. It is nicely designed and engineered product, a lot of good thinking on the UI level too but lacking a strategy to play this game. Yet the sales jumped 140% the first quarter due to overall demand growth.

Amazon Fire will have a dual-core processor, a fast browser, a good display, and lots and lots of content. Preorder is already tracking to exceed a million. Amazon will build a big user base and leverage this to launch a service platform. They are not viewing the tablet as an eReader game like Nook, they see this one piece of a larger emerging strategy to go against Apple. Amazon just purchased a voice startup Yap few months ago, a technology that could transcribe voice commands into text. Amazon is quietly building out its voice-recognition service platform and will be competing with Apple Siri. That’s the next big game.

Interactions Design Will Enable New Social And Cultural Behavior. How Do You Research These Emerging Behavior And Their Implications?

Back from London and a very productive week. Many are still sadden by the loss of Steve Jobs. I quote Ginsberg: "I saw the best minds of my generation... angelheaded hipster raging or the ancient heavenly connection, in the machinery of night...". The world misses Steve Jobs.

Apple said he had been "the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives" and had made the world "immeasurably better".VC and ex-Apple executive Jean Louis Gassee - who Jobs recruited to Apple - said that Jobs should have 'seven statues' built for him - 'One for the Apple II, one for the Mac, one for Pixar, one for coming back and reviving Apple and the Mac, one for the iPod and iTunes, one for the Apple Stores and one for the iPhone. This picture of Steve was taken in an emotional moment knowing this was his last keynote.

Everyone is obsessed with Apple and how to disrupt the master disrupter, but what everyone is doing is either copying each other or try to make small changes to Apple’s designs without the power of the Apple brand/user experience and the powerful Apple ecosystems behind them. Let’s say if your army has the same uniform, equipment and the same Hummers as the US military doesn’t mean you can compete with the powerful military intelligence system linking everything. Apple is a system with central command and control with highly sophisticated logistics system and deep R&D budgets. It is truly a textbook example of sustainable competitive advantage.

Most companies got it wrong when they believe 1/They think Apple is only about clean design and nice features 2/They think what they do is easily replicable 3/They think people are willing to save some money buying a non-Apple substitutes. Look around how many MP3S out there and how cheap they are, anyone buying them? The same can be said about tablets.

We’ve spent a lot of time on researching the future of ‘devices’ or ‘personal technology’. It will be the single largest growth opportunity for the coming 10-15 years and will eventually be bigger than the PC business. It is the next game. I am not talking about mobile phones, smart phones or tablets. I am talking about a convergence of these portable devices that utilizing haptics, gestures, facial, biophysical, voice, movement or any combinations that could create novel ways of interacting with a devices or entertainment appliances.

There is simply no way to predict what would become the dominant interactions paradigm of the future and which one will prevail and which one is transitional. Is multi-touch transitional or something will come and leapfrog this intereaction paradigm?

Apple is milking everything ‘multitouchables.’ One of the latest idea is the Apple's Magic Mouse may include multitouch display. Earlier this year Apple filed a patent application on a multi-touch mouse that can display information and allow users to input directly from the mouse such a number keypad. The screen would then change to a different functionality for each application when they're switched between active and non-active and depending on whether you’re play games or chatting with friends. I think the next one would be a multi-touch Macbook cover that let you do things without opening the laptop. That would be a nice crossover to bring some tablet functions to a laptop. If I want to play music with my Macbook I may not need to open it.

And Apple is getting close to offering cloud-based movie streaming,working with Hollywood studios to get movies streaming through iTunes. LA Times this week said that Apple was hoping to get that service off the ground by the end of this year, or early next year. Apple now streams TV shows and movie to devices like the Apple TV, but Apple TV has small penetration. This would add that feature to purchased content, and widen the range of devices that could stream and most importantly iPads.

Functionality available through the input device is something worth exploring. When we do research work on how devices (or tools) from both an anthropological and design perspectives evolve and how they shape our everyday interactions, we see emerging complex cultural artifacts that connect different kinds of social and cultural practices.

The increasing emerging interactions and sociability makes the behavior hard to research using conventional research approach. The three main central affordances of the personal technologies for social actions are 1/the very personal nature of these devices (at least more so in the west) and getting more personal with increasing access to critical information and 2/ the idea of anytime anywhere always on, everyone and always connected 3/ the sensing and reacting capability of future devices. Like many I carry my Blackberries around in the office, at home and everywhere I go. Many of us are tied to our iPhone/iPad/Android phones/Blackberries and must carry a functioning smart phone at all times. For our research, we focus on how multitouch can interact with geospatial information and on how other modalities can be combined to enrich the interaction with spatial differences. We have a lot of very interesting findings. I may share some here next week.

Cisco Did The Right Thing Resetting Their Focus. Also The Right Time To Rethink Their White Space.

The news today about Cisco decided to get rid of the Flip video business came as no surprise to me. When I first heard that Cisco was purchasing Pure Digital (maker of the flash-based camera Flip) I was wondering what was the strategic logic behind it. 

Not sure how much $590 million paid could be recovered. Looking back, it was not difficult to play out thescenario that HD video feature would eventually be equipped in every smart phone, point and shoot camera and even watch and even keychain. Why Cisco wanted that company? What were they planning to do with it? John Chamber’s decision to get rid of that business was a very smart one. There is nothing worth keeping and it brings up the question of whether it was a white space move or unrelated and unstrategic move?

This is where the art and science of white space mapping and analysis that can be applied to help making these decisions. People are concerned about the unknowns of white space because they lack the tools to help them to seewhat conclusions can be drawn. The two extremes are:

1. No one wants to take any risks and naturally retreate to their core and reject anything that does not belong to the core. Deciding what's the core is an art and then deciding what's considered adjacencies is another art. Do we look at the core from competencies, access, brand or assets?
2. They simply look at pockets of high growth markets and quickly point to it and say we need to move into that business. It is never that simple and people are not looking at strategically enough and these acquisitions are often based on false logic and most of all missing foresights. This is what strategic foresights is key when making acquisitions to compete for the future.

Case in point, was Intel’s acquisition of the Infineon Technologies AG Wireless Solutions business strategic? What foresight was the decision based upon? WLS is a leading provider of cellular platforms to top-tier makers, and forms part of Intel’s strategy to accelerate the always-connected computing platforms that span a variety of device and market segments, including laptops, cars, smart phones, tablets and smart TVs. It is move for Intel to secure their competitive position in the continuously proliferation of connected devices including device category that has yet to be invented. Complimentary assets, distinct capabilities and growth potential are all part of the logic. That makes perfect sense.

Back to Cisco, I am guessing the logic for them was to expand into media-enabled consumer lifestyle and to capture the consumer market transition from photo to video sharing and social networking. But why do we think that the video camera needs to be standing alone device?  The low end of video is the most vulnerable and before we know the Flip camera is a $30 promotion gift. And the Wi-Fi enabled memory card, still not hitting critical mass, can network enabled any camera. Why a Flip?

It is easy to say Cisco can develop a next generation of consumer video gadgets?  You need to first answer the question of what and why? Even combined with Linksys and other consumer products, it still lacks a strong customer value proposition for Cisco consumer business.  Cisco made the right move cutting their losses.  I think they should continue to focus on enterprise and there are plenty of attractive white spaces around it. It is time to redefine the core and reexamine the white space.

 

The Future Battle Of Seach Will Be In Social Mobile. Does Social Search Make Any Sense?

A friend of mine visited me from Japan and our conversation was around mobile search, since Apple’s acquisition of Siri, a company that makes voice-operated personal assistant app for the iPhone, people wonder what’s Apple intent was. This move has big implications for the future of mobile search and is just a first step into the game.

This space is where Google is not winning as generalized search is not working and so people have to resort to specialized apps. It can be super-local for hyper-specialized and need-based. It is more than just getting information but getting some jobs done. It is two steps within minutes versus most online search is the first step. Whether it is about finding a nearby pub, getting a movie ticket or getting a dinner reservation through OpenTable, context is crucial. So business model is pretty much based around affiliate commissions from partners.

There are still a lot of usability issues to solve and there is little tolerance to sifting through irrelevant search results and they include: How to create clear quick access action buttons? How do you combine motion and gestures into the usability language? How to use limited real estate particular there are a lot of information to display? How to meet the user’s needs quickly? He or she has less than 3 minutes to get what they want. How to deal with user mistakes? It is not just a backward button?

Is social search the answer? I don’t know and I am not sure. There are apps that go out there and search for rankings and aggregate them and translate them into usable data. I think there are some apps that simply go through social networks and find out what people are recommending. Adding social layers onto search results is one option but I don’t think it is an effective solution. I am not sure I know what is the best filtering technique? I think location matters. What people are tweeting is often irrelevant. Searching for ‘likes’ in Facebook can’t be too useful. We are still a few years away from AI search.

Researchers at IBM have been working on a machine called Watson that can sift through a terabyte of data and crank out answers to complicated questions in a few seconds. A version of the software that runs Watson could reside on a doctor's tablet computer in 3-5 years, analyzing test results to proffer a diagnosis, according to Dave Ferrucci, a senior manager at IBM.

Smartphones are getting more prevalent and powerful enough to handle complex tasks. More than 70% of Americans will own a smartphone by the end of 2013 and mobile tablets sport more powerful processors that let users run complex artificial intelligence apps on them. Ai will be available at the palm of your hands.. .in no more that 2 -3 years I hope.

In the meantime, Google will be buying up anything that helps the to colonized the mobile space. Anytime you need to use any of these services on your Android devices, you need to log into your Google account. That means all your location history, browsing history, and preferences are available for Google to use so that they can show you send advertisements your way.