It’s The Design Stupid – Or Why I Think Autonomous Car Driving Adoption Will Depend on Innovative Design

It appears to me that when it comes to the consumer side of this new IoT phenomenon, style, usbility and design of the devices is critical. If the given device is both attractive and intuitive, it will also sell for a premium. Some of the examples that come to mind is the Nest thermostat and of course Google Glass!

I think it all started when Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPod. That design and usability were so completely new, simple, easy to use that it blew our minds. We now want this from all our devices.

In my opinion, autonomous cars will need to follow that trend to gain acceptance. They will need to have such compelling design, style and usability that will make driving secondary, and we will prefer to be inside the car to do things other than driving. I think that Mercedes might have come up with just that sort of vehicle design which was unveiled at the recent CES:

 

The challenge will be to add to the beauty of the style reliability of the technologies that will enable the vehicle’s autonomy to make us completely comfortable to enjoy the ride!

Daniel Obodovski explains IoT

My good friend Daniel Obodovski wrote a very good book, The Silent Intelligence, that provides an excellent overview of the internet of things phenomenon. He and his partner, Daniel Kellmereit, discuss topics such as connected cities, connected homes, connected healthcare, connected cars, and various other connected things, both industrial and commercial.

There are some key points that Daniel and I have discussed often which are well summarized in this video interview he did last year. The day Google acquired Nest (yes, the smart thermostat company!) for over $3 Billion Dollars, made everyone start pay attention to IoT, even though Daniel and I have been involved in this high tech area for over 5 years now!

 

 

TomTom, Your Multi-Sport GPS Watch is Unfinished!

Although the overall wearables market, according to Reportlinker, as reported recently by MarketWatch, “will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43.4% from around $5 billion forecast for 2013 to $9.2 billion in 2014 and more than $30.2 billion forecast for 2018.” , the sport watches have been around for a long time now. My old Garmin Forerunner 305 finally died after close to 8 years of constant use!  However, because of the heated wearables market, the sports watch products need to really compete in this new era, and need to produce well designed and thought out products in order to either retain old customers or attract new ones. I recently bought the TomTom Multi-Sport with the heart rate monitor (the chest strap kind). I train for triathlons, and while I was waiting for my production ready Bia, which was not quite ready yet (I’ve been a loyal supporter and field tester), I needed a replacement for my old Garmin. TomTom has been a real disappointment, and I really wanted it to do the job! Competition is a good thing! In case of the TomTom, unfortunately, the Cons outweigh the Pros! I would not recommend this to any of my triathlon friends! It’s like the TomTom product management got just so far, and then quit and shipped it with bunch of features just not fully baked! Pros:

1. Good visibility display and intuitive way to go from one sport to the next on the watch. User Interface is well thought out.
2. Easy bike mount. I like how you can take it off the wrist band and easily put on the bike and then back on the wrist. Well designed. The wrist strap is also comfortable.
3. Quick satellite connection, don’t need to wait forever
4. Easily connects and transfers data from watch to MySports TomTom smart phone app!
5. Nice integration with MapMyFitness – automatically transfers my works out from TomTom app.
6. Good battery life! Lasts for a very long time!

Cons:

1. Swimming – no GPS tracking in open water, so as a triathlete, this is really disappointing. I swim in the ocean, and this is a must have. I didn’t even think about checking before purchasing, because if it tracks running and biking, why would it NOT track swimming?
2. Swimming again – it counts pool laps, but badly. It doesn’t track when kicking with kick board, or doing some other drills that don’t necessarily involve a regular stroke. Swimming portion is not well implemented for either open water (which it doesn’t do at all) and lap swimming also.

Software/Website – You would think this was a website designed for Kindergartners! Can’t manually edit the workout data on MySports.tomtom website. Can only edit some of the data that was transferred to the MapMyFitness site. Swim data in particular – on MapMyFitness I just delete the workout and enter it manually because the only data that is useful is the time it took to do the workout. Can’t edit the distance when doing open water swim – would like to be able to at least change whatever the distance it calculates, which is completely wrong. I don’t even know how it can calculate the calories burned if it gets the distance wrong by about 100%. Can’t manually change number of laps swam – either on the watch or on the website, so the distance here can’t be adjusted in any way. Total time v. actual work out time – this is very frustrating. The Garmin Connect website reports both the Total Time (the total time of the given workout, including stops, etc), and then subtracts time used for stops and breaks, and gives you these as averages as well, so you get the following as an example for a bike ride: Total Time 55 minutes Actual Time 50 minutes Total Average Speed – 15 Mph Actual Average Speed – 16 Mph Here is a detail page from Garmin Connect that shows the various stats: I wish TomTom calculated these as well. It can’t be that hard to do, just delete the time you’re not moving and then run the calculations the same as Garmin does. MapMyFitness should do it too, and they don’t! Bottom line for a triathlete who is interested in keeping track of the swim workouts either in the pool or in open water, this is useless. Wish I knew that before buying. To TomTom product management – I don’t know how you could not get few swimmers together to give you their opinions and suggestions! And that you didn’t really do a good competitive analysis for the types of reports you should provide on the website. As I stated before, it’s as though you got done part way, and then just gave up and decided to ship before really finishing all the features, and then took repurposed MapMyFitness to have fewer features and look like something drawn with crayons!

IoT: To Be Open or To Be Closed?

I love all my Apple products, I really do! Our Apple TV was so easy to set up, and works seamlessly with my iTunes, and my iPad and iPhone all work in lovely harmony! Not to mention my old and tired, yet still perfectly happy Macbook! Yes, in 2009 I drank the Koolaid, and have not looked back. Occasionally I will try another system, like the Samsung Galaxy mini-tablet, and discard it for it’s poor user experience. But still, I do use Google apps, Google Maps being far superior to Apple’s, and Chrome is a much better browser than Safari or IE! And I’m sure that most of my mobile devices have Qualcomm’s chips in them!

But back to IoT… Apple recently announced their new IoT platform or standard, HomeKit. I suspect that like iTunes, it will be closed for just it’s own ecosystem developers and users. Google in the meantime, with the acquisition of Nest (the smart thermostat and fire alarm gadgets) now has it’s own IoT platform, which they will use for attracting developers to create cool apps for the IoT in Google’s image!

But wait, that’s not all! There are now also various consortiums being started for the IoT. One of them is based on Qualcomm’s own Alljoyn! Qualcomm decided to make it into an open source framework, now part of the Allseen Alliance and is is a project of the Linux Foundation. It has attracted quite a “who’s who” as members, such as LG, Ciscos, and most recently Microsoft. What does all this mean? Well, it means that IoT is becoming mainstream! Apple, Google, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Cisco need to sell more devices, and now that between 2013 and 2017, mobile phone penetration will rise from 61.1% to 69.4% of the global population, they need the consumers to use these devices to manage all the other devices they want us to integrate into our lives. The vision that Ericsson painted in their video not too long ago, “Social Web Of Things” is almost here.

IoT and Security – Commnexus Panel Video!

Thank you Commnexus for uploading the video from last week’s M2M SiG panel discussion on the topic of “Making M2M Secure and Economically Viable”. We had an excellent and interactive discussion with the audience and the panelists. Sunvir Gujral from Qualcomm’s Alljoyn organization did a great job as moderator. I was very fortunate to be able to bring together panelists from companies like Viasat, Verizon Wireless, Intedigital, and my friend Neeraj, the CEO of Tagnos. I wanted to get perspectives from people like Neeraj Bhavani, who is actually deploying hospital M2M solutions, Viasat’s Ian Alison, a “hacker” who knows how to break into M2M systems, Verizon’s David Prill representing the carrier perspective, and Interdigital’s Phillip Brown who is in charge of standards in M2M.

 

 

 

 

Please see the video to get a good feel for the various views, and also to see the very interactive participation with the audience! Again, thank you to Commnexus, Latham and Watkins for hosting, and all the panelists for a great event!

IoT and Legacy Enterprises

“International Data Corporation (IDC) has looked at the components, processes, and supporting IT and connectivity for the Internet of Things and expects IoT technology and services spending to generate global revenues of $4.8 trillion in 2012 and $8.9 trillion by 2020, growing at a compound annual rate (CAGR) of 7.9%.”

These are very impressive growth predictions. One of the big questions for legacy enterprises is how to incorporate an IoT (Internet of Things) into their existing infrastructure to get the benefits of IoT that we all hear about. In a recent article in Computerworld, “The Internet of Things figures into this IT leader’s five-year plan”, ATS IT Director, Chris LeBeau answers several questions on his company’s 5 year plan for implementing an IoT strategy, and trying to figure out all the implementation issues and then how to articulate the benefits. And they have to migrate from mainframes! LeBeau admits that “The data coming off these [networks] would be significant, so how would you process and store that? You need to think about categorizing, correlating, giving it context and meaning so it’s not just data but information you can make decisions from.”

Enterprises that suddenly want to be part of the IoT wave really need to figure out their strategy. They need to understand what areas can best benefit from being part of the IoT system, it can be anything from self-reporting vending machines, to tracking your drivers’ behavior and tracking your assets in real time. It’s drones and self-driving vehicles!

On the back-end side, it’s all about the data, however, and, as Mr. LeBeau points out, how to make sense of it; the data analytics and contextual relationships between data elements!

In order to reach that predicted growth by 2020, there really needs to be a way to enable these large enterprises to more easily migrate from their legacy systems to these new IoT paradigms so that the benefits that we all envision can be made possible. This could be data aggregation and analytics engines, plug and play devices that can be easily deployed on any network, and of course we need to answer the interoperability and security issues.

 

Internet of Cars

In San Diego Car2Go has become very popular in the last couple of years. The other company offering similar service is Zipcar. In both cases the underlying premise is that you can use a car on as needed basis, which if you live in a city, seems like the perfect way to leave the city without having to buy a car.

For me, the obvious evolution of this concept would be if I could be able to have access to different cars for different uses. I may want to own a small car for getting around, but select a car as a service to get a mini-van or a SUV for when the kids come home and we want to all go to Disneyland, or get a small truck for that trip to Home Depot, and then get a luxury vehicle for when we want to attend the Opera that one time a year!

Today’s younger generation, like my son who is 22, aren’t that interested in car ownership. They see the ever increasing gas prices, and insurance costs on top of what a new or slightly used car costs, and it’s a turn off for them. They no longer see having a car as a status symbol. They live in the digital world, and expect things to be available on demand and on as needed bases. For them the idea of Internet of Cars is obvious. That’s probably why Zipcar grew mostly on college campuses.

With all the recent telematics developments and the idea of the Internet of things and the connected cars, the use based insurance and Google’s self driving car in addition to the Car2Go and Zipcar, I think we are closer to the realization that car individual ownership may be a thing of the past.

But then what? What will that mean to the auto insurance industry and car manufacturers who today depend on you having more than one car per family? And who will they sell cars to? Will Verizon Wireless and Sprint be selling you the next telecommunication device which will drive itself to your home and all you have to worry is your one data plan?

I, for one can’t wait!

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/01/forget-the-internet-of-things-here-comes-the-internet-of-cars/

Perfect stocking stuffers, perhaps for next year, courtesy Kickstarter!

I have followed a couple of start-ups that got their beginning on Kickstarter, even gave one some of my own cash!

The first one is Ninja Blocks, , which peaked my m2m interest with their open source m2m blocks that you can program to do things like turn your lights on/off, run your thermostat, let you know when the door opens, etc. I’m not a developer, just an enthusiast/evangelist, but it looks simple enough even for me, so I’m seriously thinking of getting one of their kits to tinker with… will report on my progress, because if I can do it, then anyone can do it!

Second is Bia Sport, a very innovative GPS Sports Watch designed mainly for women, by women (Cheryl Kellond is the founder and CEO)!! Girls so rock in this case!! Not only is it beautifully designed, but it’s finally a device that works in the water as well as on land, so for a Triathlete like me, it’s an ideal sports device! And again, it’s sooo cool looking! Can’t wait for mine to be ready later in 2013!

M2M Data and Product Quality

One of the key uses of the “big data” that is generated by the devices connected to the Internet of Things is something that you may not have considered so far. As a former QA guru who relied on metric and statistics to determine whether a product was ready for deployment and then follow the standard improvement processes for new feature additions, I see M2M data as a great way to measure the quality, reliability and usability of the products out in the field.

Imagine that the new refrigerator you just launched is now connected and you’re getting logs of data as to its functionality, frequency and time of use, energy used, maintenance information, etc. that you can now incorporate into your next product development cycle to add to your test plans and product development plans and to prioritize next feature upgrades.

You now have a real-time connection with your customers and can respond to problems before they are even aware that the problem exists. In this new world of IoT, you will be the one proactively contacting the customer to let him know that the new refrigerator they just bought needs a replacement part, and that it’s already being shipped, and a repair person has been notified to arrive and replace it tomorrow!

Internet of Things, M2M, Facebook, and Asimov’s Solaria

I’ve been an avid Science-fiction enthusiast for most of my life, gobbling up most of the well known series from the early Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, to Lem’s Solaris and The Invincible, to the entire Asimov Robot and Foundation series, and on and on. Asimov in his Robot series created a world, Solaria, which specialized in the construction of various robots. Ultimately, Solaria became totally dependent on robot labor and roughly 10,000 robots existed for every human. Over time, Solarians became extremely isolated, living on their estates, surrounded by robots anticipating their every move, and becoming completely isolated from other Solarians and other humans, communicating via a sophisticated telepresence viewing system. Eventually, they genetically engineered themselves to become hermaphrodites, hereby removing the need for even sexual contact. I am often reminded of Solarians and their evolution, and amazed by Asimov’s vision and perhaps pre-scient view of our own future. We already have automated farm equipment to ensure proper watering, manufacturing is done mostly by robots, and even in our personal lives, we are starting to have sensors ensure our living environment is set to the optimum conditions. We even have sophisticated viewing systems (FaceTime, Skype) so that we can see each other without being there, and our social interactions on Facebook are in isolation, so that you can interact with your friends, without actually being together.

So my worry is that with the technological advancements and connectivity, what are the social implications? In our politics we hear about the class warfare of the 1% v. 99%, but what about classes being defined by whether you are the isolated, Solarian-like group, who can no longer relate to the lives of those who are part of real social circles, or worse, not be able to relate to issues of those communities that don’t have access to proper food and education, let alone technology!