April 9th, 2010
The launch in the US the other day of the iPad was another nail in the coffin towards the extinction of our little wired tail hand held buddy. In fact its what our right has been doing since the rise and rise of the desktop PC. Ok, if we talk sematics the 2 fingered twiddling on the laptop touch pad – (or 1 fingered in the case of the case of the ThinkPad’s nub) has become second nature almost as much as that other textual tool (what was it called again- oh yes a pen)
I can remember back in 1988 first coming across the mouse for the first time and marvelling at the ingenuiuty and subtlety in terminology, and how we have so readily adapted to the apparent eye to hand juxtaposition tween desktop and screen (without realising it you’re doing it now aren’t you?). I remember trying to master freehand drawing for the first time as my precise mouse movements ended up like a scrawl from a crayon which had been clenched between the rear facing parts of my anatomy.
Market leaders and Market followers
Its a case of ergonomics I suppose – I remember watching a programme (15 years ago) on the evolution of the mobile phone and why they could never get any smaller than house brick size- simply because of the distance from mouthpiece to ear had to align with the relevant human audio and sound appendages. We all laugh now at the housebrick mobile but will we look back at out mouse antics one day and snigger?
Seriously there has been an underlying argument to reinvigorate the tactile on screen experience. Sony TRV camcorders I think were ahead of the game on this one some years back. they ditched the multi-multi-multi function button in place for OSD touch screen buttons -and …problem solved! Its all about making life easier and not just quicker, and if toucing the screen instead of the table does it for you its a big step forward in human-digital interaction.
Yes, I know the screen will get covered in butter and marmalade from time to time, but should this hold technology back? Not according to Apple who boldly reinvented where no other dared to reinvent. Enter the iPhone – tara! This little smartphone (there – I got that keyword in) has seen unrivalled success and has been unaparalled in breaking our love affair with ‘proxy button’ gadgetry. Now every other phone is clamouring to keep up in its wake.
Where is this all going?
I know I have been rambling a bit here but there is a serious point to all of this. There are two key drivers - as always is the consumer demand for a quicker and easier to use product, but secondly and more importantly perhaps, the ability to unshackle us from the workstation and do more and more from a mobile device – hence the reason and thinking behind the new iPad.
BUT guess what – the iPad doesn’t multi task and doesn’t come with 3G (wireless only) or Flash suppport (or..or..or)- what a huge DOH moment for Apple! You have to remember Apple has a reputation for doing 99% brilliantly and 1% a bit dopey when it comes to including the obvious (they would substitute the term dopey for protecting its market share)
Now if consumers are likely to access via mobile devices more and more – … you can guess where I am going with this perhaps… our associated thinking in terms of how we frame our offerings visually in the web landscape may also have to adapt .
Consider how an eCommerce site looks on a smartphone? More importantly the liklihood that shopping could be increasingly carried out through smartphone devices and IF (how big is that if) the iPad format takes off and spawns a whole generation of SmartPads. Early days yet, but in our relentless mission to seek out new life (went off topic there for a mo) and anticipate new consumer trends we will have to mark this one in our calendar… or in our iPHone App… or on our iPad…. or whatever screen you are currently touching at the moment.
Also see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/seealso/2010/04/apples_ipad.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8484395.stm
http://www.news.com.au/technology/top-10-ipad-disappointments-and-magic-moments/story-e6frfro0-1225849521318
http://apcmag.com/top_10_reasons_to_hate_the_iphone_3g.htm
Tags: iPad, mouse
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March 30th, 2010
The Chinese debarcle with Google has just escalated a few notches, as Google re-routes its operations to Hong Kong in an effort to try and free up censorship of its Chinese search engine . But you have to question Google for ‘jumping in to bed’ with its unequal Chinese bedfellow , given that they did sign up for all the pre-conditions.
What I don’t quite understand is why Google agreed to the filtering of its searches in the first place. Obviously it was more to do with the urgency to secure a lucrative foothold in the burgeoning online search engine sector in China rather, than a more noble desire to share its information resources to the largest populous in the world.
Possibly Google were a tad naive in thinking it could be bring about a change in the Government’s mindset on censorship. Perhaps Google thought the arena of cyberspace might somehow dilute the resolve of the State over time. The upshot of their actions could result in a massive missed opportunity financially -Google could now lose out against other more commmercially driven competion in a market place that is growing at 40% per year.
Location Relocation
However this location change marks a more subtle retreat as Google seeks to restore its user control rather than an outright withdrawal altogether. The practical implications are that the search results are only filtered according to location rather than at source – so if we type in Dalai lama or Tienanmen in google.cn we are not blocked by the Chinese filters.
Google’s recent actions were triggered by the recent cyber attacks on Google’s Gmail servers – more specifically the accounts of Chinese Human Rights Activists. There is no doubt either way that China is determined to reinforce its ‘cyber walls’ to censor online forays into western liberalism, but also to protect itself against online internal dissident activity.
So perhaps the nature of the dispute does not appear quite as one-sided as initially portrayed by the media (i.e., western government agencies would never hack into emails would they?) and that we cannot always consider the global democratisation of the online environment as borderless and as a ‘given’ in terms of everyone’s human rights.
Further info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8575476.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8582233.stm
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March 16th, 2010
As if we needed another search engine up pops Topsy – Twitter’s answer to Google and Bing.
Well, whoopeee you may say! Twitter now has its own search engine for searching tweets. But as Twitter’s popularity hits exponential levels, we have also seen an equally dramatic shift in the focus and dynamic of web content – i.e., ‘conventional’ websites are no longer the place to look for current topics and information. And after spending just a few moments using Topsy to search you can quickly see its power – not just as a Social Networking Search Engine, but as a powerful market research tool to explore the current buzz,vibe or hot topics.
At the moment its BETA status restricts its focus to the US , but there’s no doubt that we will see its popularity expand globally. The major search engines are already adding this type of functionality in to their existing repertoire of search tools, probably in response to the shift in level and immediacy of user generated content, but is there a big enough gap for a dedicated player in this lucrative market? I suspect this just the beginning, and if I were a venture capitalist I know where I’d be waving my wads of cash!
Square Pies
In an effort to ‘channelize’ what is happening with the WEB, the BBC has come up with another mega series of programs - Superpower which tries to map out what is happening now (the buzz). As always they are, and promise to be, excellent in every way, and how’s this as a Stats representation ? -its a square pie chart of the top 100 companies (as an ex-stats teacher I could hardly contain myself). What’s interesting to consider is how it might look in 5, 10 years time. As you probably know anyway most of the Web is US-centric, with half of the top 26 wealthiest are from the US , only 1 European and only 1 woman in this list. With an average age of 45 and a half, the wealthiest is worth 17.5 billion and the poorest worth 1.5 billion – oh well you can’t win them all.
Keeping up Standards
Somebody once said about Standards: thats the great thing about having standards – there are so many to choose from.
Interesting to read an article then on how Internet Explorer differs from all the would be web browsers out there. While virtually all the others manage to render web pages almost identically IE has always been notorious for doing things its own way. It even has unique syntax in its code so long suffering coders like myself can accommodate its lovable little quirks with conditional comments. In all fairness they did enforce a recent update asking us to choose our preferred browser -which actually messed up my existing browser settings but anyway – long live Open Source.
Tags: topsy
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