TechnoArk 2012 conference

The speakers of the TechnoArk conference have been announced. Event happens on January 27, 2012 and I will be presenting the speakers as usual. Find out more here.

•  Prof. Federico Casalegno, MIT, Boston, Mobile Experience Lab Director.  Technology
  His new book at MIT Press « Research on Forms and Flows of Communication with Mobile Media».
  
• Jan Horsager, Alexandra Institute, Aarhus, Denmark, Head of communication
  The new Internet of things comic book  and  a model for Innovation : the Alexandra Institute
• Guy Weiss, AndVista Consulting, Genève,  Supply chain traceability expert
  Nature de la traçabilité, éthique et prérequis.
• GS1 worldwide, Global Office, Brussels
  The new report “Beyond the label : providing Digital Information Consumers Can Trust”.
• Prof. Laurent Sciboz, Instituts de recherche du TechnoArk
  De l’internet des objets vers les services, illustration de Print-To-Mobile
• Philippe Cloux, Importexa, Lutry, Directeur
  Smartphones et  services mobiles, gestion de la traçabilité dans le domaine du Textile
• Prof. Schumacher et David Werlen, Institut d’informatique HES-SO // Valais, Institut de recherche Icare
  Fairtrace, les technologies mobiles au service de la fiabilité des données, exemple d’un projet de recherche.
• Bastien Sachet et Julien Troussie, The Forrest Trust, swiss office, Crassier
  Chaines de traçabilité et mise en œuvre de la fiabilité des données à l’aide de services mobiles.
• Renaud Francou, Fondation Internet nouvelle génération, FING, co-animateur de l “Expédition” Nouvelles approches de la Confiance numérique
  Lancement du projet européen MesInfos, axé sur le partage de données personnelles et les applications pour les usagers et les entreprises.
• Henri Barthel, GS1 Global Office, Bruxelles, Technical Director EPCglobal
  L’internet des objets état des lieux en Europe, présentation de la nouvelle plateforme IOTStandards.org.

The death of cash (yeah yeah…)

Starbucks released a mobile payment system, and the Huffington’s post runs an article on how this payment system will “kill” any other form of transactions.

Banks beware — if by July this year you are still issuing plastic cards, or still opening checking accounts — you are about to be in a world of hurt!

Link

A quick look at the history of innovation (DVD vs cinema, mobile vs fixed internet access, etc) tells us that innovations rarely replace what was here before. They usually reshuffle the balance of power (in this case: mobile payment becomes one of the possibilities) and increase the size of the global pipe (more payments happen overall).

Now to this particular technology: it is likely that this kind of systems will be adopted differently depending on generations (and 37% of the world’s population is above 45 years of age), depending on the penetration of smartphones, etc. I am pretty sure my grandma will still be using cash for the years to come.

And from the demo (video below) mobile payment is still more painful than handing bills to the cashier. Launch an app, click, wait.  In fact there are plenty of reasons that plead for our good old bills: cash is anonymous, cash is a habit, cash is a symbol, etc.

What we see here is the typical hype cycle, we are embarking to the famous peak of inflated expectations. In the coming months, we will hear lots of predictions about the end of cash and the ubiquity of mobile payments. Truth is it will take several years to develop a solid use case, and spread that technology to the mass markets. Don’t believe everything you read ;)

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/or6U0GeZ4j0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

TeslaTouch, the touch screens that touches back

This is the graal of touch technologies: a screen that feels like real keys when you touch it. Nokia has been experimenting with such technologies since 2007 (project Haptikos), and came with another solution last fall (electrovibration), but no product has yet reached the production stage.

TeslaTouch, developed by the Disney Research Team at Carnegie Mellon University, is another technology using electrovibration that could change the way we experience touch screens.

TeslaTouch lets your fingers actually feel what the screen shows. When you move a file on the screen with your finger, you can feel how big it is. Because TeslaTouch can provide a wide variety of tactile(or haptic) sensations such as textures, friction and vibration, Disney calls it the “future of feel.” [...]

A virtual keyboard on a touch screen equipped with TeslaTouch would allow users to feel the location of the keys and learn how to touch type. When users click on a file to drag it into a folder, they would be able to feel the weight or size of the file and know when it had successfully reached its destination. Larger files such as movies could also be made to feel heavier than smaller text files. Artists drawing on their touch devices could feel paint and paper.

But just like the Nokia technologies, TeslaTouch has big limitations, and does not seem ready for mass production just yet:

Currently TeslaTouch only works to provide tactile feedback for a sliding finger, not a finger at rest, and it does not work with multiple fingers — so multitouch capabilities such as that found on the iPhone is out of the question for now.

Link

Conférence TechnoArk 2011: Internet + Mobiles = Nouveaux Consommateurs?

La Conférence TechnoArk revient le 28 janvier 2011 à Sierre pour une sixième édition consacrée à l’équation: Internet+Mobiles = Nouveaux Consommateurs?

Origine des produits, informations nutritionnelles, comparaison de prix, achat par mobile, partage d’avis ou d’expérience au sein de ses différentes communautés, consommation de médias, chacun de ces nouveaux services innovants fait naitre chez les consommateurs de nouvelles questions, de nouvelles exigences, voir de nouveaux arbitrages et donc autant de nouveaux défis pour les fabricants et distributeurs de produits de grande consommation, comme de contenus médias.

INTERVENANTS

Venez résoudre cette équation avec les acteurs les plus avancés de l’Internet Mobile:

Stéphane Hugon, sociologue, professeur à l’Université Descartes Paris V (Sorbonne)
Diane Taillard, solution director – GS1 Global (Bruxelles)
Georges Edouard Dias, digital corporate – groupe L’Oréal (Paris)
Philippe Azan, innovation manager – The Nielsen Company (Cincinnati)
Laurent Sciboz, responsable des instituts de recherche IT du TechnoArk
René Le Caignec, CEO MoWo Technology (Sierre)
Jean Christophe Hermann (TBC), directeur marketing digital – Groupe CARREFOUR (Paris)
Scott Poynton, directeur de l’ONG TFT- Genève
Xavier Comtesse, directeur romand d’Avenir Suisse
Laurent Haug, fondateur des conférences Lift, assurera la modération de l’événement

More information and registration.

“I’ll be on vacation until I find my cellphone”

Published in The New Yorker 8/16/2010 by William Haefeli. Buy a reprint here.

Diversity in mobile usage

More reading on “connected people”, the theme of our upcoming Lift10 conference. The Economist details some of the differences between cultures when it comes to mobile phones, their place in users’ lives, the differences in etiquette and expectations, type and length of usage, etc. A strong reminder that there is no such thing as a “user”, but almost as many habits and norms as there are cultures, regions or generations.

Japan is a crowded place with lots of rules. Harried teenagers, in particular, have few chances for private conversations and talking on the phone in public is frowned upon, if not outlawed. Hence the appeal of mobile data services. […] In 2002 the average Japanese mobile user spoke on it for 181 minutes each month, about the global norm. By early 2009 that had fallen to 133 minutes, then only half the world average. […]

Others are quiet, too. On average Germans—who are fond of saying that “talk is silver, silence is golden”—spend only 89 minutes each month calling others for Handy-based conversation. […]

In contrast, Americans won’t shut up. Their average monthly talk-time is a whopping 788 minutes, though some of this is a statistical illusion because subscribers also pay for incoming calls. Yet talk is cheap: there is no roaming charge within the United States. Americans are often in their cars, an ideal spot for phone calls, especially in the many states where driving and talking without headsets is still legal.

The chattiest of all are Puerto Ricans, who have by far the highest monthly average in the world of 1,875 minutes, probably because operators on the American island offer all-you-can-talk plans for only $40, which include calls to the mainland.

Link (thx Nico)

Game changing technology

This is great, one of these moments when you see a number of technologies converge into something big. Google just launched their Mobile App for iPhone with voice search. Pick up your phone, talk, and it will fetch the results for you, taking into account the type of request you are making and your location.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/lYLTiecN-EE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

In itself it’s not really a technological innovation (search, geolocalization, voice recognition, Google has been using these technologies for a while) but the usecase is game changing. Take your phone, talk, get results on the move. It makes information more personalized, easier to browse to access. In a word, it’s Google getting one step closer to our life flow. With amazing new advertising possibilities…

Play Megaphone!

This is one of the presentation that struck me the most at this Lift Asia. What Jury does is really amazing, and opens up so many possibilities. Check it out, especially the demo she does around 2 minutes 50 seconds.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=7667600769302301416" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

Mobile phone concept

This phone could send the iPhone back to the ranks of old, undesirable brick. Seen in Japan by the Csout team.

Link

It is about time innovation starts again in this business. The iPhone is the first step of a revolution, by far not perfect. Good to see new idea again.

Casual cinema

After casual gaming – brilliantly explained by Guy Vardi at LIFT08 – comes casual cinema made of “little, cute things to do while waiting for a bus”. Mobile screens are finally getting the attention of big names after being nailed by David Lynch (explanations here).

Isabella Rossellini: “It’s proven that people don’t have a very long attention span on a small screen, so we decided to make them not longer than two minutes and with a very defined look – paper cut-outs and high-contrast colour. They had to be flashy because it’s a new form that’s trying to call attention to itself. [...]

The project was masterminded by Robert Redford, who said recently at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the mobile phone is the ideal new medium for short movies. “The only thing I know will keep going is change. [...] There are new forms of storytelling coming”

Telegraph: Isabella Rossellini, sexual creature

Looking at commuters in the Seoul subway – most of them watching live TV or downloaded movies – it looks obvious there is a future in mobile cinema.