innovation playground Idris Mootee

In Algorithms We Trust. Do We?

Let's try to paint a likely not-too-distant future. In this future, everything around us will be managed by algorithms. They manage and recommend what we want to watch; they control traffic of our driver-less cars; they control those drones which deliver our pizza; predict for you which one of your friends will become your future spouse, etc. They will make our life effortless and predict what things will happen next or what's best for us. We all wish that it is that simple.

As we are picking up massive data every second, algorithms are critical to how we make sense of them and our reliance on algorithms is growing by the second. But how much faith should we put into those algorithms, and how reliable they are depends on who you talk to. The accuracy of the algorithmic differentiation (automatic differentiation) is key in dealing with data volatility in many complex cases where accuracy of data is critical to the final outcome. I don’t know when we can have statistical evidence comparing how often driverless cars mistakes and how often human drivers make mistakes or how well a software program investing in stocks makes mistakes and human making investment mistakes.

We need to develop programs to check whether algorithms are working as they were intended and monitoring algorithms by the results they produce based on machine performance metrics. Vetting algorithms in advance isn't practical at all as many are too complex for their outcome to be predicted. Algorithmic differentiation is used to fine tune algorithms that are complex to optimize. We will be placing our faith into the accuracy of these algorithms and trusting that they will deliver. I think we may be over-optimistic and mining a lot of data using statistical analysis still has a very strong random component to it. To optimize these models we need algorithmic differentiation and sometimes it feels like a scientific random number generator. The more data we have, the more simulation is needed and the more reliance on the significance of data, and significance means sensitivities. We’re in the midst of a transformation when industries are exploring how to use big data to create new business models.

There’s one certain thing in big data, it’s that all algorithms are not created equal. The biggest question is how many jobs will disappear when algorithms take over human jobs? People ask the same question during the first industrial revolution when machines started making goods a lot faster and cheaper. Are we entering a world in which the algorithms themselves will be competing with humans? Honestly, I just don't like it when algorithms make decisions for us. They can help me analyze my options and probabilities, but not making a decision until they prove that they can think smarter than me. And so the game begins…

Virtual Reality Is The Next Big Thing. Beyong Shocking And Disruptive. It Will Create Tens Of Billions Of Value. Who Will Win This Game?

The world is becoming crazier and more exciting as Virtual Realities are becoming more real and the lines between our physical world and virtual word are fast becoming blurred. Next year 2016 will be an important year as companies are finally making virtual reality real with only 2 main players participating on the race: HTC/Valve, Facebook/Oculus will be making VR products available. Microsoft is partnering with both Valve VR and Oculus while Sony is pushing hard not to miss the bandwagon with Morpheus.

The user behavior of VR has yet to come to shape and will be evolving for the next 5 years, the idea of information conveyance is interesting and playing a special role in the realm of virtual and augmented reality. We are learning to design cues in the VR world to tell users where to move or go or to touch. This is still a challenge as don’t think about it that much in the physical world. We walk into a room assuming the chairs are moveable and the cabinets are not. That sense of reality has changed in the VR world. Anything can happen to everything. It is like living in a dream.Those who have experienced the HTC/Valve Vive were completely fascinated by the experience. HTC Vive is clearly ahead of the game.

For VR, unlike 2D gaming or in the real world, we have arrows and signage to tell people where they can go. In the VR world when user is wearing a head-mounted display, the users are actually operating in two realities – the real, knowing that the user is wearing these gears and the virtual, which is so immersive (more so for the HTC/Vive roomscale technology that allows you to walk around the room) and therefore difficult to find a frame of reference.

The question is do we want user to have the feeling of wearing a space suit or simply feeling they are acting as normal with no gears on them? The awareness of wearing a suit will remind people they are in a VR world unless the suit is a normal suit. While body motion sensing is great when body movements are being interpreted by motion sensors as perceived input and turns it into commands and controls. Basically, with this technology, you are the controller.

KOR-FX is making an interesting gaming VR vest that uses acoustic feedback that, in turn, is processed into haptic feedback. Its software analyzes the feedback felt by the user, depending on what’s going on with the on-screen and what the user is doing it with. The controller “acousto-haptics” is to define acoustic feedback that is being felt.

Sixense is another company currently developing a wireless solution to hand input in virtual reality with the STEM System making use of alternating current (A/C) electromagnetic field to accurately track body movements in terms of position and orientation within a radius of a stationary base.

In designing VR experience, the haptic side of things is perhaps the most difficult to address. Oculus has yet to demonstrate an “official” control mechanism for the Rift, instead letting each developer use the peripherals they find most suitable. I am speculating they may end up figure out a visual hand-tracking technology from a front mounted camera. So what is the best way to navigate in the VR world? Input is still a key challenge for VR as a pure look-based movement (turning your heads) supported with some analog input (mouse in your hand as an example) but sometimes the head is looking at a different direction and the hands are not in sync. This can causes problems as if the system is receiving two very different commands.

Expanding information conveyance is still early in the usability learning curve and we are a few years away before arriving at a dominant model. There are still many creative options we can explore and they are not mutually exclusive either. A voice based system guiding the user as an example. Once we start adding social interaction in shared virtual environments, it will explode. Social VR means social presence and this is a $20 billion dollar business at a minimal.

The inevitable evolution of inputs in some form of controllers will keep coming. Xbox and Playstation will need to think how to migrate their current controllers to take advantage of the new requirements (not easy) and we can expect to see more innovation from start-ups including companies such as Razer Hydra from Sixense, or camera-based systems which are limited by the camera’s line of sight. HTC/Valve is also working on some cool solutions aiming to provide the best and not just the first.

Immersive VR systems that alter your sense of physical reality can give user the illusion that you are located inside an unreal virtual environment – or a telepresence - the ‘sense of being there’ or ‘feeling of being there’. In the early 1990s this idea was transplanted to virtual reality, where instead of being at the remote physical environment, the participant was in a virtual environment with a sense of being at the place depicted by the virtual displays.

A Swiss healthcare hybrid MindMaze announced its pioneering move into the VR and gaming spaces with MindLeap. Combining headset-mounted neural sensors and motion-capture cameras, the system is designed to “facilitate neuro-powered immersive virtual and augmented reality” on consoles platforms as XBOX, PlayStation and Android. This is still in development and I am not sure if it can be done soon. They leverage technology developed by the company for a range of medical applications in treating neurological deficits, such as helping amputees control robotic limbs. Neurologial control is still a bit of science fiction and will be a long way before it can be mass commercialized. I like to dial my HTC M9 with my brain some day.

For now, we will be sticking with head-mounted and handheld controllers. They are enough for us to re-create boundaries and rethink presence. Every time you pick up a HTC Vive,  you are about to enter a virtual boundary that didn't exist before. Exciting and also scary!

Thank You Robert Downey Junior For The Nine Creative Short Films You Created to Celebrate The HTC M9. Honestly, I Don't Quite Get It.

Thank you, Robert Downey Jr, for the nine inspirational short films you created to celebrate our all-new HTC One M9. Honestly, as HTC's CMO and the client who commissioned you the project and telling everyone it is a great idea, I am really not getting it. At least not all of it. I just want to be honest about it.

I am considered a very creative person and, as a designer, I appreciate all kinds of art from surrealism to post-modernism. I understood the concepts explained to me by team RDJ before we started this project and I deeply appreciate all the effort and enthusiasm you put into this. It was a lot of hard work and you did it for love (I will keep that secret between us). Thank you RDJ! But I still don’t get it! Ask the Internet?

Yes, I have my official explanation captured in a video of these nine playful vignettes juxtaposing the sleek, color-changing attributes of the new HTC One M9 with timeless pop-culture inspirations, from The Prisoner to Andy Warhol to Charlie Chaplin. I believe you drew inspirations from the features that I explained to you before you started your ideation process, and I can see those connections. The official launch of the films at SXSW last week was a great success, and we received very good feedback from folks in the creative industries. Whether they are viewed individually or as a whole, these nine films are not only entertaining, but they get us thinking.  And hopefully they inspire us to go out and make something!

The important question for me is, do these very creative short films improve brand presence, brand preferences, and brand relevance for HTC? Those are the right questions, and I don’t have all the answers yet. To put it in context these are not expensive productions, so to get our ROCA (Return on Creative Assets) is not an issue. 

Let's start with the first one brand presence; with millions of people viewing these videos within the first 48 hours, and now spreading across the Internet, the first one is not a question after all. It gets HTC the awareness we needed without spending any money buying paid media on TV or social platforms. So, it is a very effective way for maintaining awareness in an already noisy world. It is a lot better than chest thumping to get noticed. We don’t want to be Tarzan. We’d rather be Charlie Chaplain.

The second question is, does it create brand preference for the HTC brand? This effort itself is no easy undertaking. To make a brand more preferred over others in a defined category (in our case, the smartphone) is an expensive and long-term undertaking, and there is no short cut. The most common approaches involve highlighting certain unique selling propositions to make the brand more attractive; focusing on incremental performance (such as battery life) or improved service (extended warranty programs, and so on) as differentiators. These things don’t change brand preferences at all, and even highly visible sponsorships, celebrity endorsements, and more engaging social media programs rarely change it. Shaping brand preferences is not an overnight thing.

The problem is that over-investing in advertising (beyond the minimum level) rarely changes the market share structure. Customers are less inclined or motivated to change brand loyalties in established markets – emerging markets are a very different story – unless it is a low involvement purchase. Over-spending on marketing usually hurts margins, profitability, and, ultimately, results in a decline into irrelevance. HTC made that mistake before with the big TV campaign. Internal numbers showed an increase of just 10 to 15 percent of improved brand awareness. In short, it doesn't do anything at all. It was a disaster and a laughingstock. Sony made the same mistake by pouring out big ad dollars in 2014. Sony overall generated $17.4 billion in revenue, but posted a net loss of $1.2 billion during its fiscal second quarter last year. Sony smartphone units saw revenue rise 1.2% year over year to $2.8 billion, but slid to a $1.6 billion operating loss and effectively wiped out all the profits Sony made from other business units during the quarter.

The average tenure for a CMO is very short. Samsung and HTC burnt through a few CMOs in a short period, and so do many other companies. For CMOs to succeed, they must sit at the top of an ASS – “Agile, Scientific, and Social” – marketing organization, and new capabilities need to be built from the ground up based on these new requirements. The art and science of marketing is advancing towards the ASS model. Advertising agencies are further behind the curve than clients, and clients are demanding more.

The third question is, do these films create Brand Relevance? This is a question for debate. These short films are irrelevant on their own at least for some, including myself. But does it matter? Apple and Samsung are known to everyone as two market leaders, and so they need to market to everyone. They need to appeal to their served customers. But HTC is different. We are definitely not selling to everyone, even though it is fair to say that our products are for everyone. The reality is that awareness is not the main driver in increasing brand strength and relevance; how relevant your product is in the minds of your customers, and how your brand is being perceived to be unique is more important. The world is desperately moving towards being more individualized and personalized. Mass advertising works based on appealing to the lowest denominators and it has its place. 

I believe in the market of ONE. Industrial economics may not (yet) allow us to produce highly customized smartphones, and mass media is the same. Even though social media is slowly behaving like broadcast media, it is hard to create customized messages due to the economics of content production. Here this is a good experiment to allow people draw on their imagination to create their own interpretations. I hope this encourage more brands to take bolder moves to co-create meanings with customers and not brainwashing the with a message and a reason to believe. That's so 80s.

If you are able to achieve greater customization (through messages and meanings), it will be very relevant to your customers and it will resonate with them. As a result, customers will specifically seek out that brand or product. This is the hypothesis the super short mini-films are based upon. It is an experiment; they are not ads, they are not viral videos, and they are not micro-films. I don’t know what to call them – just some very short films.

Transformative marketing has no cruise control or auto-pilot switch. It exists in an accelerating paradigm: more dramatic changes, more often. Brands of the future will take risks and lead change, not simply respond to it. As marketers we need to have the courage to commit to finding new and bold ways of doing things and being relevant. 

I’ll now take off my marketer’s hat and switch to an art critic’s hat. The literal definition of artist as brand (Robert Downey Jr) is “a creator who has become a unique star, symbol, icon, Mr. Iron Man,” but the idea goes deeper that that. I believe marketing can empower an artist’s authentic purpose, identity and creativity. When an individual’s core purpose and creative talent are synergistically aligned and amplified with a product's design philosophy, they can become “transcendent symbols.” This is not about fame. This is about creative power in the truest sense of the word. Know thyself. The world will recognize it too.

One artist + One phone = Nine visions.

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Design Leadership Is More Than Simplicity. It Is About Design Discipline.

El·e·gant, an adjective and define or characterized by or exhibiting refined, tasteful beauty of manner, form, or style. Marc Jacob? Chanel? Jil Sander? Hermes? All are unquestionably elegant by design in the fashion world. How about smartphones or interfaces? Can they be elegant? Or what about customer experiences? Can you describe a banking or customer service experience as elegant? Most people don’t.

Is elegant a word reserved solely for tangible product? The design world likes to use words such as “elegant”, “simple” and “user friendly”, many designers understand how to subtract in creating simple and elegant design solutions. Human factors usually subtract more than add. Good designers often take away complexity in objects or interfaces. Design is more than just making things simple. They appears simple but not necessarily simple. Design is the most complicated process but least understood.

Design should be strategic. Being strategic also means being human. 9 out of 10 designers barely understand what that means. Most are trained as design craftsman. There are very few design visionary and I only know a handful of them. They are also very few design managers. And that’s the reason why designers never made it to the boardroom and they complain they don’t have a voice. Because they are not strategic. Design becomes a competitive advantage for corporations when it is used strategically. At a meta level, design connects the dots between mere survival and humanism supporting by the underlying economics to make it feasible to produce and sell.

I have been hiring and mentoring designers (including some of the very best talents) for decades and can tell you which typology they belong in 5 minutes. It is very easy to find designers, it is not too difficult to find good designers, it is very hard to find design visionary. Because they are not trained in design schools. They need to be cultivated.

But there are so much business can learn from design. If the best design can be elegant, then can a business strategy be “elegant”? Or can a particular management style be described as “elegant”? Anything elegant is often simple; not everything simple is elegant. Things that are simple are often user friendly, not everything simple is user friendly. Sometimes complexity is needed. Simplicity has different meanings. Good businesses need to be simple and easy to understand, and that’s the investment criteria for Warren Buffet. Businesses are getting too complex these days and same for design. Long gone are the days where a few talented young folks sketching out ideas in a room. That's a mindset that stops designers from growing up to a highly complicated world.

Design process is never simple, it is often very messy as everyone has an opinion. Don't try to make it simple. But the result shouldn't be complicated. Design needs strong leadership and no different from other disciplines. Design never works in a highly politically environment and as a result you get design by committee – which is a recipe for disaster. Design management is to take the politics out and allow the essence remains. And the process is true to the mission - design to delight and make profits - not one but both.

Design needs strong leadership. Design never works if it is not managed. Best designers perform well in a professionally managed environment. Not the most desirable for many, but it is necessary. Apple design team is professionally managed and same for Mercedes and Burberry or BMW. There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence. Strong design leaders are never popular, because they need to cut out the non-sense that designers to hide behind. To force people to unlearn old theories of design.

Designers wants to remain small, fully independent and less disciplined and that’s why most design firms cannot scale beyond certain size and fail after a few years. They want to ignore the commercial complexities and stay pure. I appreciate that too but companies cannot afford it. Unless it is your own business and you don't care about making profits.

Design for elegance is better for design for simplicity. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said, “I wouldn’t give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Elegance is “far side” simplicity that is emotionally engaging, profoundly intelligent, and artfully crafted to be two things at once: simple and powerful. In today's super connected world, the proliferation of digital devices and experiences require designers to create new ways of harmonizing software and hardware with elegant connectivity – connecting humans in an elegant way. Industrial designers, human interface designers and mechanical engineers need to explore new theories for them to make physical products real and meaningful and elegant. Why elegance? It is not an elusive target? Industrial designers should stop thinking about functional ease and simplicity, that is an over simplify way of thinking design. Some times people love things that are not so easy. Think about your personal relationships, you don’t go for the easiest one, you go for where your hearts is. Design is the same. How do you put love in an industrial produced object? That’s our job.

The Most Successful Wearable Design Is All About Balance, Benefit, Beauty And Behavior.

This is the billion-dollar question: “How do we create the iPhone pr Walkman of wearables?” and “How do we create sub-ecosystems around these wearables?” At the CES who this year, you can still see everyone displaying their newest or not-so-new wearable ideas. No one can afford to miss the train but most of the wearables out there now are just toys and eventually will become thrown aways. I can't find a reason anyone would want to buy most these so called wearables. Google glass is officially a failed experiment, or at least for now. GoPro is a stellar success and Apple will enter that game soon. They have been granted a patent for a wearable camera that could possibly challenge action cameras leader GoPro.

The path to mass adoption of wearables will not be a straightforward one. There are numerous technology, user behavior and production economics barriers to cross. With all this buzz and emerging innovative conceptual designs competing for the dominance, there are still many questions to be asked about what the future holds and how consumers will adopt a different product paradigm. Even the smartphone is still shaping our behavior and we are still actively reprogramming ourselves. The smartphone is becoming the operating system of our professional and personal lives, our relationships with the outside world and emerging systems around it. When it comes to the operating system, the main battle will be an OS that will interoperate across all devices. This is the big play. The success of any dominant design for wearables will be based on successfully tackling of the 4Bs:

Balance, Benefit, Beauty and Behavior.

Balance: To design wearables, one must ensure that they are, indeed, wearable. That means comfortable and adaptable to the various places and spaces the body inhabits in the world. To do this, design needs to include studying the anthropometric measures of the human body and of the equilibrium between the various zones of the body. One key to success is ensuring that the form or shape of the wearable fits the body and its actions in the world. Nerdy high-tech designs will not cut it. Balance reflects the highest level of design excellence, seeking an unselfconsciousness in interactivity languages, adding a sense of space to that of place with engineering overtones that are human at the same time.

Benefit: Designers must first determine the real problem the wearable concept is trying to solve, needing to solve, able to solve. Focusing on needs means designers can concentrate on the things that deliver the highest value. The benefit doesn’t have to be a known benefit today and there could be some needs users don’t even know exist until they see them. Sometimes these benefits appear to be small but actually can make a big difference in behavioral change. Contained product moments and the tiniest interactions are important in designing the customer experience of wearables, and designers must try to transform them into opportunity.

Beauty: The consumer needs to love the design. It needs to have visual appeal so, to the user, it doesn’t look like something you see in a Sci-Fi movie. The design needs to be expressive and not only limit to the form factor, but the overall interactive experience. The connectivity piece is key – it needs to allow for seamless wireless connection. The interactions or interface design is the trickiest part. The designers must translate the mass into energy, form and relationship. This is about creating order out of chaos, to put order into things, to make things more simple, to give meaning to objects through the presence of a design language.

Behavior: This is the least predictable part. Just look at all those health tracking devices, there is a tremendous gap exists between collecting and reporting data and changing behavior, there are little evidence to suggest that these wearable is making people more healthier. But for sure, the most successful wearable would be those who can influence our behavior as a mechanism for human behavior change and reinforcement. The subconscious mechanisms by which a human brain forms habits are still a bit of a mystery, and this can let us down a path to come up with devising tools for changing them.  

The “Internet of Useless Things” or IuT Is Everywhere. Not Every Player Has A Plan.

The CES is a good one this year. Everywhere is IoT. And honestly I am little tired of hearing IoT or “Internet of Things” which is estimated to become a $7 trillion industry where thermometers, clocks, garbage cans, toilets, washing machines, watches, smartphones, fridges, baby monitors, garage doors and coffee makers are all connected digitally, allowing seamless interactions and smart living for us. Sensors are cheap and can be deployed everywhere collecting data, unnoticed. Data on how you move around in your home or office, in the gymn, on bike around your community, in a car, in public transit etc. How much water and electricity you use, and when; how much garbage you produce and dispose. And these reams and reams of information will make everyone of us overloaded with big data.

The biggest opportunity is Data Spam Management (just invented an industry). These data streams will drive us crazy eventually if we don’t know how to use them. Might as well turn all of them off. For those who are afraid of cookies that track them on line, it is going to get worse and much worse. When it comes to monitoring individuals and collecting details about their lives, privacy is over. Many people are still uncomfortable and remain to having their data tracked and analyzed. It is hard to define what privacy means in the world of big data. Imagine how much one can find out about you by going through you trash, in this case, your digital trash from sensors and devices that surround you 24 hours.

The world of hyper-connectivity is creating man opportunities for us and also is close achieving the top of a hype cycle. Perhaps itself is a recycled product of formerly known as the Smart Home or Smart Appliances. 90% of new products are merely solutions looking for problems and there are no unmet needs. Nest is a lucky case and there are not that many lucky cases for people to hit the Jackpot. When people enter this industry, they first need to understand the emerging behavior as a result of big data and what does it mean to have them.  And how it can shape our behavior? And what is the behavioral economics at work? What industry will it power up and who will benefit from it? Who owns the data gateway? I can go on and on for a day.

I am not an early adopter but I buy all these tech junks for my friends to try. I am really not interested in the thermostat. I am not interested in an Internet enabled door lock and for this one, I am sure I will be the last adopter. To create devices that can connect is easy and anyone can enable any objects with some kind of connectivity be it Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. But it takes some strategy to make sure you have a real customer value proposition.

The business opportunities for IoT are undeniable, but most of the visions out there were either overly simplistic or flawed and ultimately unworkable. The number of connected devices is expected to grow 18% each year for the next seven years and people couldn’t wait to have their “things” get connected. Beyond the hype, most will question the value and will understand the total costs of ownership. Buying an old fashion clock, toilet or door lock is easy. We can be sure that they will not break (most of the time) and needs very little maintenance. But when these become electronics, it will be a very different game. There is a cost to maintain (making sure they remain connected and receive update etc.) and needs to be replaced in a shorter period as technology moves fast. Way faster than they redesign your toilet or old fashion thermostat. The true value comes from larger companies designing integrated architecture so the orchestration of these appliances large and small can create a new level of convenience and delight. The oppotunties are not for everyone. The rest are just playing in the IuT game.

The Come Back Of Hardware. Is Software Becoming A Commodity?

The world is suddenly obsessed with smart technologies and this time around it seems unstoppable. Our everyday electrical and mechanical industrial object will now be occupied and ran by software and connected to the cloud. It also means each object (as small as some smoke detectors and as large as automobiles) will now be equipped with tons of sensors and can be able to adapt to different environment and individual needs.

It is essential that the next wave of industrial revolution will make us more efficient and empowered (and more human I hope), and data will be at the heart of this revolution. That's another big conversation. All the Nest, GoPro and Beats received multi-billion-dollar valuations through private investments or acquisitions and everyone is wondering why these hardware companies suddenly in such high demand. Because hardware and software are going through different commodity lifecycles and now software is becoming a commodity. They used to be difficult and expensive to develop and even to deploy, that that is changing. It is hard for software company to get into hardware much as hardware companies struggle to get into software. Hardware cannot be done by a few geeks in the basement, and involves massive R&D and specialists including megatronics engineers, electrical engineers, industrial designers, wireless engineers and usually takes a longer time to develop.

Software you can fix it with a download, and hardware you can’t. They are massive supply chain challenges when it comes to logistics and component supplies. The value of firms who can marry software and hardware will have a competitive advantage over their competitors. Essentially everything we use today will be fitted with some sensors, processors perhaps, and may be a screen and will recarnate and become of Internet of Things. For the last three decades, software engineering has advanced to a state that sophisticated codes can be embedded into machines. And the availability of cheap sensors and super powerful processors is powering this cycle of data revolution. All of a sudden, software, hardware and communications infrastructure are advancing us into a new era. Old world manufacturing + low cost computer processing + ubligious computing + cloud = smart new world and many cool products.

It sounds like the Apple story all over again, does it? The hardware and software integration capability of Apple, the ecosystem, the brand and user experience are now not only inspiring consumer gadgets company, not it’s influence is beyond its own industry. I know this is an overused story, but he Apple influence is still here, and perhaps it will be here for a long time even when the company stop creating great stuff one day. Microsoft ex-CEO Ballmer saw that coming in 2012 in a letter to shareholders. "It's important to recognize a fundamental shift under way in our business, we see ourselves as a devices and services company." Microsoft had the strategy right but couldn’t execute it fully with the exception of X-Box. Microsoft’s future revenue will still be coming in from software and it isn't going to change anytime soon. The transformation from software to hardware is harder that you think.

The idea that hardware is now the new software is pretty real. There is a business model implication here. These hardwares are mostly priced between $100 to $250 and they a gateway and great way to sell software. We are seeing a revival of hardware and this time, it is hardware first and software and then date on the cloud, it will bring new technological advances in cloud-powered hardware that boosts productivity, efficiency and manifests as beautifully designed objects that fit into our hands and homes.

Action Cam King GoPro Is Turning Our Life Into A Movie. HTC and Others Also See The Opportunity.

When I was at a GoPro event earlier this year I saw how the crowd reacted to it and it is more than a product, it is now a movement. The little mountable camera is a brilliant example of how innovation can shape the industry structure of digital imaging and created a new path of growth under the radar screen of all big players from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Lumix and others for cameras and the Logitech, Microsoft, HP and others for video cam.

This little wearable camera company did an amazing job (now a US$10 Billion market cap company) invented a completely new category. The digital camera business is in decline while smartphone replacing low end cameras and more affordable DSLR and micro-four-thirds are driving margin out of the industry. GoPro managed to innovate based on a simple unmet needs. A perfect example of taking advantage of a corporate blindspot.

GoPro has been developing wearable technology devices "before they were cool." Nick Woodman developed the first GoPro camera in 2004; it was a film camera that could conveniently be strapped to a person's wrist, allowing users to easily snap a photo of memorable moments in action. So people don’ t need to put their cameras inside a waterproof bag. It’s the age of the selfie, GoPro are enabling video and action selfies. They are the best (and until recently the only) tools to be used to bring authentic and extreme actions to share with everyone. It is an answer to our needs to share moments and capture experiences. It is the defacto adventure broadcast system. The accessories system is impressive and that is part of the reason for their success.

GoPro's success stems from its ability to use consumer experience as advertisement. Customers are basically marketing their products. Otherwise it cost tens of millions to produce those. Now the National Football League is launching a digital streaming network, called NFL Now using GoPro. This NHL season, you'll be able to experience hockey from a whole new perspective -- the players'. The NHL is teaming up with GoPro to provide footage of certain plays from the perspective of goalies and stick handlers. Now you'll be able to experience hockey from a whole new perspective - the players'. Yes, they've just reinvented sports broadcast. Think about it, it is more than a hardware company selling a commoditized product (video camera) that can be easily produced at half the price, and GoPro is not just a sports cam anymore.

GoPro is as much a content and media company as it is a hardware company. GoPro's lightweight HD devices and content management/sharing platform - through GoPro Studio and the GoPro App - enables users to capture, edit, manage, and share. So it is offering a full solution. The barriers for entry to compete with them is very high, it is not just hardware anymore but also brand, content and full suite of editing software. It is in fact in the business of content capture and delivery. In addition to the Xbox, new platforms have enabled GoPro to stream its videos on airline Virgin America through a dedicated channel.

Companies including Garmin, Polaroid, Sony and HTC are all joining game. Their products would have to be overwhelmingly better than GoPro’s for GoPro users to abandon their brand loyalty, which is hard. HTC is playing a different game and the product is uniquely different targeted for the non-consumers. This is a way smarter strategy than Sony and Garmin who try to compete head on. Panasonic's 4K solution was a joke.

HTC’s strategy is like Nintendo’s strategy with Wii in the early days (huge success unfortuantely they couldn't sustain) competing for the non-consumers. They opened up new markets not targeting extreme gamers but for family and casual gamers. HTC RE is playing a similar game and stands a good stance to carve out their niche. Or perhaps that niche is 80% of the market that are non-consumers. How many people actually do extreme sports? 10% or 20%? HTC RE will need to compete on a different model.

The HTC RE is a clean and simple product which is the opposite of GoPro. HTC's design philosophy is that users are all trapped behind the screens of our smartphones when we capture important moments in our lives, whether that's a sports game or a fashion show. HTC RE is lightweight, simple, and out of the way so that allegedly, documenting your life doesn't stop you from missing the experience. It is still very early stage in the game and whether GoPro will continue to dominate the category or it will fade away like the first MP3 player Creative Technology Ltd., we will have to wait and see.

Porductwsie GoPro range has a fixed f/2.8 aperture, the same as the HTC RE Camera, which should good enough in most lowe light conditions. Both feature an ultra-wide angle lens to capture a broader view than point and click cameras or smartphones. Both are supported by a good range of accessories. Both pair up with apps that can be used as remote control and viewfinders. In terms of look... that depends on what you wear. If you wear Roxy, Nike or Columbia you most likely will buy a GoPro. If you wear Y3, G-Star, Converse, Anthropologie or AX, you will most likely buy a HTC RE. Or you can have both.

It's a Bird! It's a Drone! It's Amazon's 3-D Smartphone? It Displays 3D Images, 3D Maps And 3D Gaming!

Amazon has been working on a number of cool devices for a while. The temptation of playing the hardware game has always been there beyond just the e-reader. This month they will finally be unveiling a new device and there are plenty of rumors out there on what it actually is.

It is most likely going to be a Smartphone. Mostly made by Foxcom. Most like not producing any profits for Amazon. Most likely supported by a suite of Amazon Cloud based services. Most likely to be below the standard set by Apple, Samsung or HTC. But it will be a Smartphone that has some distinctive features, including 3D capabilities projecting 3D objects as part of its interactions. It will be using gyroscopes, accelerometers and other sensors to power the experience. Most likely mid-range specs such as Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and 4.8 inch display (keeping cost down) and many advanced camera functions; likely using 3-4 cameras and a Sony sensor. It will be a futuristic experience with 3D gestures controls. Gimmicky or not, we will have to see.

Smartphone adoption has reached its maturity but everyone is pushing new ways for consumers to use mobile devices. Average prices will drop a further 15-20% and the top end will come under pressure. Android market share will stabilize around 70%-73%. Amazon certainly thinks it is not too late to play the game. Every player will not give up on it and will try innovative ways to jump-start a new S-curve for the Smartphone. Even Apple is struggling. What new applications and new interaction paradigms can they think of that are considered unthinkable today? We are working hard 24x7 on these ideas.

Back in 2010 there were around 180 Petrabytes a month of data moving through the networks from a single user and it was mostly voice, and today with streaming video, social media use and mobile gaming - now averages 1,900 Petrabytes a month and is expected to grow at least 40%-50% every year thanks to additional wearable devices. It means by 2020, in a week’s time, five Exabytes of information will be sent by the average Smartphone user. Traffic problem ahead.

On June 18th we will find out. And suddenly everything makes sense.

The Biggest Idea These Days Other Than "Wearables" Is "Destructables". We All Need It.

I think the biggest idea today other than “wearables” is “self-destructables” and it is exactly what we need these days. OK this is the first time you hear this. "Destructables: is the biggest unmet need because privacy just might be the biggest enemy of big data and googleglass. This trend is gaining momentum - think “ephemeral media” which is a way to make any digital assets including photos, texts, emails, posts that can self-destruct once they’re delivered, read or triggered by an event. I would pay for that service.

With the big government always watching and with teenagers having a little too much fun doing silly things, there is something about what we used to see in Charlie’s Angels when the boss messages the Angels about their mission;  they were briefed on a radio that would destroy itself after being played. I think this should be a key feature for everything these days. Yes, there's SnapChat.  But we need more than that.

Encryption Company Silent Circle has a Silent Text app available for Android, which includes a “Burn Notice” feature that self-destructs the message from the sender and recipient’s phone. Startup Burn Note launched its vanishing text and mail service. It allows you to set a timer for how long you want your information to live on the internet before it explodes—virtually, that is.  And even Boeing, yes the airplane manufacturer, has launched a Smartphone that will erase all data and deactivate if tampered with or pried open.

Not sure why Boeing is getting into the cell phone business, BlackBerry should have thought of that feature long time ago.The Boeing’s device which runs on Android and will be sold primarily to government agencies and companies engaged in defense, intelligence and homeland security. The heads of the screws will be covered with tamper proof guards to identify attempted disassembly, breaking open the casing of the device would trigger complete deletion of the data and the device will render itself inoperable. But it will not generate smoke and physically self-destruct - I'm a little disappointed. They should put a bit of drama there as part of the customer experience.

China Is Pushing The Frontiers Of Innovation. It Needs To Move Beyond Just Technological Progress. China Is Behind In Commercialization And It Is A Big Gap To Fill.

There were lots of interesting debates about "new thinking around innovation and future development of enterprises in China.” With almost three decades of sustained economic growth and orchestrated government support for advance technology research resulted in a large talent pool (but still not large enough) and many are well trained by foreign univerisities and companies.

China has made impressive achievement in many areas including network technologies, article physics, structural biology, genomics, human space exploration, supercomputing and high-speed rail which is part of China's centrally designed and state-led innovation model. Moving towards a more innovative economy is one of the main challenges facing China's President Xi Jinping. He understands what is important for China to sustain prosperity and development. China has developed a range of policies to create "indigenous innovation" to reduce dependence on foreign countries for advanced technologies including government procurement, competing technology standards, and requiring technology transfer from multinational corporations in return for access to Chinese market. Is this enough?

At the same time there is more proof that the western style of management is becoming more and more less effective and sometimes even becoming a barrier to innovation reform. To achieve China’s vision and development goal, China must produce and support innovators whose ideas and execution will enable China to create greater and broader economic wealth beyond manufacturing, infrastructure and real estate development. For most companies in China I've talked to, they are a long way from understanding what it takes to make innovation real beyond basic R&D and to compete outside of its demestic market.

China’s innovation cannot just rely on progress in science and technology but in both education and research; the most crucial piece is to be able to own the core technologies and design applications (let me stress - technology alone is not enough, without design), which China is still reliant on foreign companies. The most important strategy is to acquire innovation skills as a core capability so China’s companies will be less dependent on foreign IP and can create ecosystem of technologies that local companies can build upon.

Innovation goes beyond idea generation but also commercialization. It requires a new level of thinking and cross-industries and collaborative-competition that is currently not happening in China. Currently, the model of business education doesn’t deliver on innovation training as they basically modeled after the west.

Most of today's Western style of management and business problem-solving is primarily made up of prescriptive remedies still very much rooted in decades-old conceptual frameworks, developed in the 80’s as a response to pressing events then. They not only have long outlived their usefulness for Fortune 500s, they were not designed to handle today’s unprecedented pace of continuous disruption nor are they irrelevant when applying in emerging economic power such as China which has a very different historical, political and cultural values as well as a unique operating environment and a well deserved national aspirations.

My guess is that 80% of what they teach in business schools MBA’s curriculum today are not applicable for managers in China. Despite managers in China being thirsty for management development training, the net results are less to be desired. In short, we are beyond the point of questioning the effectiveness of western management practices; we need a China approach to management. Or perhaps China should take on the role to reinvent management.

Now 3D Printers Will Become More Affordable. Can You Think Of Something You Want To Print At Home?

There has been a lot of hype on 3D printers at last year CES and now this year I saw tons of competitors offering low-end models as well as high-end professional desktops. XYZprinting Inc. from Taiwan, a new entrant revealed their da Vinci 3D printer with a starting price of just $499, cost as much as a color laser printer a few years back. It is a simple plug-and-play design for small business and personal use. Now I am not sure how often if you need to use one if you’re not a designer. The nice thing is it allows access to a database for free 3D models and 12 different color filaments to choose from. I guess you can print your iPhone case, earings or even chess set. Still hard to think of a reason to own one at home other than novelty.

On the higher end,ChefJet 3D printer and the ChefJet 3D Pro printer costing between $5,00 to $10,000. There is the Solidoodle’s 4th generation printer priced at $999 which I have not tried out. And there is the MakerBot’s Replicator priced at $2,899 but this year they introduced a compact Replicator Mini which will cost $1,375. Another 3D printer maker Cube will be introducing a new model which will be priced under $1,000. We can see these printers selling below $500 in a year as they will get aggressive in pricing to gain market share. The quesion remain what is the reason to own one?

I don’t think the business is in home 3D printers, the real money is in the business market such as the ability to print spare parts, or complete part without assembly and complex inner structures too difficult to be machined. 3D printing makes it possible to manufacture pretty much anything in just 5-10 hours depending what you’re printing, and, as you can surely imagine, this capability would come in very handy in product parts which sometimes take days to locate and ship due to inventory supply issues. A piece of equipment breaks and your repair technician can print it for you.

3D printing has attracted a lot of interest but still at it's infancy, the material science necessary for a lot of these claims about printing tooth or even human organs just isn't there yet. You can't use the same plastic or metal for different parts. It comes down to different tolerances and they are critical. So we’re a few years away. And we will get there.

Not Another Fitness Bracelet Please. So What's New? Or You Want To Wait 10 Months For the Apple iWatch?

It is easy for anyone to have anticipated that werables would dominate CES this year. It is quite predictable that we can expect a sea of health and fitness gadgets in all sizes and shapes to be introduced, but the value of these gadgets are diminishing even their level of accuracy and designs are improved, the hype is simply not sustainable.

Companies that are joining the bandwagon include Garmin (the GPS maker) who just introduced its Vivofit bracelets and the unique selling proposition is the battery can last for a year for a single charge. Something is not right here if the key selling point is the battery life. It would be if it is for my smartphone.

And there is a new product which is a toothbrush that tells you on your smartphone how well you're brushing, as well as a watch that keeps an eye on your health when you put it on. And Pebble introduced Pebble Steel, which is a sophisticated version of previous product but using a stainless steel body and Gorilla Glass. It is working for them as 300,000 Pebble smartwatches have been sold worldwide today.

The watch form factor is still a novelty and the idea that the small screen is being used to support the smartphone is a weak one. Taking photos and talking on your smartphone will not become a mainstream behavior. If someone who can have a better chance to pull this off, it would be Apple. I bet their chance of success is still 50/50. They have yet solved the display problem which is the biggest hurdle and then the battery life problem. I think there is a good chance that they will launch one later this year (they have to), but it won’t be a killer product. But it is an Apple product, so it is cool and will sell. It will start with a metallic silver one and then launch 3 more colors subsequently. They will price it around $350-390. You need to wait 10 months.

Will 2014 Be A More Exciting Year For Consumer Electronics? Consider 2013 Was A Disappointing One. More Next Week.

2013 was a disappointing year for consumer technologies. The 3D television push was as I've expected a disaster and who on earth would walk around at home with 3D glasses and the lack of 3D programming etc. created all barriers necessariy for mass adoption. And for smartphones as there were lack of any real innovation from the industries.

Perhaps the dominant design pioneered by Apple is really reaching the end of its S-curve, even the iPhone 5S has only incremental changes (ok a better processor) in design and software. I am ready to bet that the fingerprint sensor will be dropped within 3 years. What is so great about a fingerprint sensor? It is so old school whether it is finger print or facial recognition. The iOS still remains the most polished, stable, and well-designed operating system for smartphone. May be people aren’t even expecting more from smartphones at all. The camera needs some improvement for sure. And the screen size is an interesting discussion.

China is watching and Lenovo is gearing up for the next game or the world game. Lenovo, currently the second largest smartphone vendor in China and aspire to become market leader. Apple is at threat and at this point they may not be afraid of any. They are at its peak. And they are busy with the new headquarters, refreshing the retail experience, designing the iWatch and finding the next color for iPhone whether it is blue silver or rose gold.

Android now accounts for more than 80 percent of smartphone sales, while iOS is down in the mid-teens. Apple need to change the game or someone will. Smartwatches is still a toy category. But that could change when Apple fixes many of the challenges. They will and can. And it will cost $300-$350 and people will buy. It is easy one from a strategy perspectives but also a lazy one. Have they run out of industries to reinvent? At the Consumer Electronics Show this week, I think Samsung will have the biggest, most new products and most populated booth. Apple’s main threat is Samsung, Microsoft, Google and Lenovo are all attacking Apple from behind. The whole wearables will be driving the new game and 2014 will be a more excited here. I do believe that we will see wearables showing signs of becoming mainstream this year, and we've been monitoring and prototyping all kind of ideas for 20 months. 2014 I expect te see different dominant designs emerging, there will be no winners anouncement this year, not until 2016 earliest. But I already know who definitely won't work.

What Is Happening To Sony? Can Sony Be Saved?

2013 was a good year and a very busy one for me. Having been on the road for over 120 days; delivered some great projects and worked with some of the smartest and most creative people around the world was all fun and also exhausted. Now is the time to think about what the future holds?

I really don’t know what to write these days, I want to write about a lot of things from economics to politics and from luxury brands to consumer electronics and from rethinking management to education, so much to do and so little time. I hardly find time to write for my own magazine these days.

2014 will be a year of big change or beginning of one for many.. We’re seeing most dominant designs of our everyday technologies reaching the end of the S-curve and it will hard to see any breakthrough unless we change the way to look at the industries. Some big innovation is needed to create demand. Not speakers and headphones and other accessories although it helps retailers a bit.

Innovation is hard to come these days and most innovations today are mostly incremental in nature. In the world of consumer technologies, from smartphones to tablets and PCs or digital cameras to TVs, everyone one of them is facing serious challenges whether you’re the market leaders (defenders) or followers (attackers). It is hard to drive new behavior and predict on their adoption rate and the low end is flooed with commodty players. On the other side of the coins, opportunities are plentiful. Microsoft, Sony, HP are all in the process of rethinking their business strategies.

Sony was once the most loved and most innovative company. The company is both strategically vertically and horizontally integrated; once designed and produced the best TVs, video cameras, music players, home audio systems and game console, today they are struggling on all fronts. Sony was my no. 1 brand for a long time. For many, Sony is already dead or what turned into I call a zombie brand. It might seems like an overly pessimistic view given the size of the company and they still have a lot of good products, strong brand (in some markets) and a lot of technological innovation, but then what went wrong?

Sony used to be the synonymous with Japan and innovative products. They even considered buying Apple at one point and decided it not worth acquiring (Can't imagine if they've done that and there would be no Apple today). In 2012, Sony’s net loss of almost US$6 billion mainly came from heavy losses in its TV business. Of all eight divisions, only music and financial services units managed to boost a little profit from a year ago.

When I visited Sony stores the last time a few weeks ago, they were so 1990s even though some of the products are pretty impressive. In fact, I was very impressed with the latest camera line-up and I use a RX100 along my Leica M. I am not sure if good products are enough these days.

Sony have made a lot of mistake including alienated smaller retailers, limit itself to internal innovation capability insteadn of using outside consultants to come up with new ideas and heavily rely on local markets (30% of their sales) and as a result ignore what’s going on out there. Sony CEO Kaz Hirai has proclamed that Sony must chart a new course, his quote: "I believe Sony can change." So far it is not happening.

This Japan's technological prowess, wowed the world with the Walkman and Trinitron TV and PS2 and PSP is now struggling to stay relevant. Is it just Sony or "Japan Inc." that is in trouble?  They missed the while digital music wave, missed the smarphone wave, missed the tablet wave, missed the social face and now probably will miss the next whatever wave. Even Google missed the social wave and left the door opened for Facebook and Twitter, but they do have a few wins such as Android.

And for Sony, my advise for you is to stop behaving like a Japanese company. Adopt new practices and move fast. Speed kills. The world has changed and you need to wake-up. Play catching up is not enough and you’ve been doing a good job producing a decent tablet, a nice phone and a set-top box, a not so smart smart watch and whatever, does it matter?

You don’t have a strategy. You want to win in every product category and that's impossible. You should get rid of at least 50% of your product lines. And at least make 10% of your product spectacular ones - iconic. Rethink if you want to play in the smartphone game, may be you should exit it for now.  Your strategy of “One Sony,” will not work, it is an ideal strategy only on power point or paper. Apple works with “One Apple,” but if you consider the context of Sony's situation, it may not be the best move for now. Sony needs to think different and should not make the mistake of try to replicate Samsung or Apple, those two companies are unique in their own ways. The two will own the market (already did) and eat you dinner, since they already took your breakfast and lunch. 2014 is a critical year for Sony.