Cisco and Google to converge at the tablet computer
by Eric Garland
First, a headline from the Motley Fool: Cisco Taps Google for an Office Assault. Sounds serious. We think it is, too, and for a variety of reasons.
You may notice that the tech sector has been experiencing a wave of mergers and acquisitions, all angling to find a future of profitability in a world where our information needs all converge into multi-use devices and mobile infrastructure. Whether it’s smart phones, search, or telepresence, it seems that when one megacompany is involved, they are ALL involved.
Just consider the short- and long-term implications of the Cisco Cius – a Google Android-run tablet computer that will allow entreprise-grade video, video and data collaboration.
Business-wise, does your company just specialize in one form of telecommunication? You had better have a serious commitment to a special niche – finance, healthcare, defense, or other – because the mass market will be eaten by some very, very large players.
In terms of business communications, email, phone, and video will finally come together into one smooth package. Meetings will be infused with all kinds of rich content. Quick email messages (so easy to misconstrue!) will likely be replace by short video bursts in which your facial expression will be transmitted along with your words! Collaboration between colleagues around the globe will finally become easy enough to make telecommuting more of a reality than ever.
In this is just one device – think of what lies ahead in the next ten years, both for the companies involved and for those who will use these products and services.
Giant tablet computers for every kid
by Eric Garland
Tell me that when every kid has one of these that education won’t change forever.
Also, let me know how colleges will keep charging $1000 per semester for books when no printing is required.
This is the stuff that makes you say, “Awesome, I think the future just arrived.”
Kno Movie from Kno, Inc. on Vimeo.
Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion: Robots playing music
Often, I think the 21st century may look increasingly like the 19th. Sure, there’s the dominance of coal in the developing world. There’s unprecedented globalization. European disintegration. Resurgence of local agriculture. All this, plus world health is considerably better. Not a bad future, necessarily.
In the musical world, there is a recent event that hearkens back to the 19th century days of the player piano, but will 21st century elegance and complexity. Pat Metheny, one of the top guitarists and composers in the world, has experimented for years with MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), the technology that allows musicians to connect directly to synthesizers, samplers, and recording devices. This year, his vision has gone steampunk – the Orchestrion project, a centrally-coordinated digital orchestra that triggers actual instruments instead of their synthesized counterparts.
Watch the video – this is an incredibly beautiful sounding vision by a mad professor bent on calling back a more elegant age.
Beats talking about housing and finance for a moment.
iPad: does anyone need another computer?
I answered that question in the negative out of pure instinct, but when you hear that Lulu is already signed on for a publishing distribution deal for iPad, you think – oh yeah, once again Apple doesn’t make devices, they make new business models. And exceedingly few companies are comfortable in that game.
Andy Ihnatko at the Chicago Sun-Times is just flat -out ebullient, in way that transcends fanboy excitement:
In fact, after a week with the iPad, I’m suddenly wondering if any other company is as committed to invention as Apple. Has any other company ever demonstrated a restlessness to stray from the safe and proven, and actually invent things?
Good question: Is your company restlessly invented new things?
The telephone: an even BIGGER threat than I thought
by Eric Garland
With a hat tip to August Jackson, Lloyd’s of London schools us further in the outlandish corporate risk due to the telephone.
Had I not seen this, we might have started using such dangerous technology recklessly.
A video compression standards war
by Eric Garland
Yes, it sounds dorky, but these are the weak signals that portend the coming revolution in telepresence.
Will h.264 prevail? What about Ogg Theora? This may seem like a strange debate for anyone not deeply involved in technology analysis for enterprise-quality video, but consider Cisco’s recent purchase of Tandberg, Logitech’s purchase of strange bedfellow LifeSize – there is a clear megatrend for video becoming a mission-critical technology for running businesses and keeping in touch with friends.
But many chess pieces are about to be moved. Check it out.
Music’s digital decade
by Eric Garland
Courtesy of Forrester Research, a great graphic describing the innovation of the music industry, from 25 billion euros in 2000 down to 10 billion euros today.
Competitive Futures has been using the music industry as the poster child for strategic disruption since the beginning of the decade. I remember discussions with music executives around the turn of the millennium. Mostly, they were caught in the “moral” indignation of “kids” “stealing” music when they should be paying $18 (closer to $30 in Europe!) for static music media.
My favorite discussion was with an industry exec who attempted to sell me on the notion that “Compared with going to the movies, which is $8, a CD is a great investment because you can play it again and again. It probably should be $100 or something.” Nice. Try.
The conclusion: just because you don’t want to face reality doesn’t make it have less impact.
Auto-Tune, Internet memes, and future trend analysis
by Eric Garland
It’s Thanksgiving week here in the United States, and I am very grateful to have found a video clip that features three of my favorite things:
- Music technology
- Weird Al Yankovic
- Analytical tools to understand trends
You’ll admit, the Venn Diagram of such varying interests have a tiny intersection, so personally I’m going to enjoy it.
Here’s why the story of Auto-Tune is of interest to intelligence and decision making types. There’s nothing particularly universal about the software itself – it’s a “plugin” used for digital music production for the correction of vocals. If you sing out of tune, Auto-Tune drags you back into A440 pitch, using effects that range from imperceptible to robotic. As of 2009, the term “Auto-Tune” is a verb, and adjective and an Internet meme, for the reasons given in the video below. Unbeknown to the masses who know the effect through artists like T-Pain and The Gregory Brothers, the effect has been in use since 1997. Only now has it come to the cultural forefront. Why?
- Evolution of Auto-Tune from hardware to a software plugin usable with digital audio workstations
- Drop in price of Auto-Tune
- Increase in processing power and bandwidth of computing and the Internet in general
- Proliferation of free social media sites such as YouTube and MySpace
In short, the technology got cheaper, easier to use, and easier to distribute. This has led to the proliferation of an “Internet meme,” an idea that virally spawns a burst of creativity around the world on the same theme. What I love about this video from Rocketboom is their description of the four stages of an Internet meme, offering us a certain level of predictability for future memes. The stages are:
- Introduction
- Overexposure
- Parody and remix
- Equilibrium
You may not connect Lolcatz or dramatic chipmunk with economic forecasting or product management, but at Competitive Futures, we see significant similarities. Short-term fads and memes regularly invade the public consciousness, and as a decision maker you must understand their dynamics. Is green business a meme created by the media, or is it driven by structural factors? What about “ethical business,” is that just a popular reaction to the scandal in the financial world, or a development in the world of management? Is “collaboration” a marketing meme to describe the same old information technologies, or is it truly a driver of business value in the next decade? We recommend that you collect a variety of data-driven trends to help your analysis – preferably trends that are under-reported and thus immune to the dynamics of Internet- or media-driven memes.
While you consider such heady stuff on the way into a long weekend, think it over with the Gregory Brothers, the world’s most awesome political-remix-Auto-Tuners:
Classic futurist bait: digital androids
by Eric Garland
The future of video conferencing: having a physical representation of you in a room, a mannequin with your face digitally projected onto it.
Creepy? Uh, yes, that’s a word that comes to mind. But people in a few years may look for all kinds of ways to enhance long-distance communications, and this may not be as disturbing.
In the meantime, it’s an interesting technology in a phase of rapid growth.
Nokia on our digital lives in 2015
by Eric Garland
Nokia is the poster child for futures thinking at the corporate level. They pulled off the amazing feat of transitioning their company from logging supplies, rubber boots and toilet paper over to cell phones, spurred by the transformative event of the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union. (How did they pull this off? I detail it in my book “Future Inc.”)
Finland in general, due to their somewhat obscure position in Europe and the humility of being regularly invaded by Swedes and Russians alike for centuries, has become REALLY good at foresight. Thus, it’s no surprise to see Nokia’s vision for our digital lives in 2015 laid out in beautiful graphical scenarios as in the video below.
About Eric Garland
Eric is one of the world's pre-eminent thoughtleaders in forecasting and strategy. He helps leaders of business and government make critical decisions about their futures.Connect with us
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