Smart Economy

WARNING....The 'smart life': How connected cars, clothes and homes could fry your brain

Keith Wagstaff         NBC News  

Jan. 13, 2014 at 4:03 PM ET

MICHAEL NELSON / EPA file

It's all coming together: The Samsung smart watch and smart phone interact with the BMW 3i electric car to both simply and complicate your connected life.

Welcome to the "smart life." Brain cells, beware.

It's an entirely wired existence where your Pebble smart watch is connected to your smartphone, which communicates with Google Glass, which can send commands to your Internet-enabled refrigerator and robotic vacuum — all from the comfort of your iOS-equipped car. Sound like a bit much?

Sure, that vision of the future might seem like an amalgam of over-hyped tech trends. But it's probably coming sooner than most people think.

Take "smart homes," connected houses filled with light bulbs, security systems, appliances and TVs that talk to each other and their owner, either through a smartphone or directly through voice and gesture commands. They aren't a "Jetsons" fantasy; in fact, they could be relatively common in five years, said Dr. Sanjay Sarma, director of digital learning at MIT. 

And while "wearables" — including wearable gadgets like Google Glass, smart watches, fitness trackers and even sensor-equipped socks — aren't the norm right now, Juniper Research predicts that the size of the market will explode from $1.4 billion in 2013 to $19 billion in 2018.

The car of the future will also probably be connected. Google announced partnerships with Audi, GM, Honda and Hyundai to bring Android information and entertainment systems to dashboards starting this year. Apple announced a similar deal with BMW and Mercedes-Benz in June. By 2020, 60 to 70 percent of cars sold in the United States could be equipped with Android, iOS or some other operating system,  said Dr. Egil Juliussen, a principal analyst at research firm IHS.

This is on top of the smartphones that are already out there. Smartphone subscriptions are expected to jump from 1.3 billion last year to 5.9 billion in 2019, according to a study from Ericsson.

It all seems like a techie's dream, but the "smart life" could have unintended consequences. 

"The problem is that your brain didn't evolve to process all of that information at the same time," Earl Miller, professor of neuroscience at MIT, told NBC News. "We evolved in an environment where every new sight or noise was important — it could mean a predator was about to leap out of the bushes and eat you."

Ethan Miller / Getty Images file

An attendee uses an interface on a refrigerator using LG's Smart ThinQ technology at the LG Electronics booth at CES in Las Vegas. 

An email alert on a person’s smart watch isn't life or death. But the human brain can't help but pay attention to it, which could be a problem when five other devices are vying for its attention.

Even when people think they're multitasking, what they are really doing is switching between tasks, not doing them simultaneously. And constant exposure to multiple devices at the same time isn't making people any better at it. 

"The more stuff you have, the less you are able to focus on individual things," Miller said. "There is very limited bandwidth for conscious thought."

That assertion has been backed by several studies, including one from Stanford researchers that found that heavy multitaskers were worse at filtering out distractions and focusing on a single task.

Not to condemn the "smart life" as entirely bad thing. Organizing the household, communicating with friends and family, and accessing information — whether it's maps or obscure facts or whether or not there is any beer in the fridge — will be easier than ever before. 

"Personally, I'm a technophile," said Edward Vogel, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Oregon. "There are a lot of positives to this technology. Google Glass and other devices have the potential to augment our world and help us quickly make more informed decisions."

The problem, Vogel said, was that tasks that require more contemplation and sustained focus could become more difficult.

That’s particularly bad news at high speeds.

The dangers of texting and operating a vehicle are obvious. In 2008, texting was the most likely cause of a train accident that killed 25 people in Southern California.

But studies and multiple experts have claimed that even hands-free communication distracts drivers from the road. That is because people overestimate their ability to multi-task, Miller said, causing them to believe that that the highway is clear only to crash into another car while giving voice commands to their smart glasses. 

In the end, however, the only solution to technology overload, especially when driving, might be even more technology. 

"People love technology and having this constant connectedness to the rest of the world. We are never going to put that genie back in the bottle," Vogel said. "The only way we are going to be safe when it comes to transportation is once Google perfects the self-driving car."

Keith Wagstaff writes about technology for NBC News. He previously covered technology for TIME's Techland and wrote about politics as a staff writer at TheWeek.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @kwagstaff and reach him by email at: [email protected]

Smart Bottom-up assembly through molecular nanoweaving

 Traditionally, chemical reactions can be initiated by targeting individual molecules using sophisticated tools such as lasers, atomic force microscopes, and scanning tunneling microscopes. However, such bottom-up molecular reactions are typically limited to lab experiments rather than the creation of a commercially viable macroscopic material.

 

This novel University of Chicago patent offers a commercial "free space method" based on field gradients in order to weave macromolecular films.

 

Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of constructing macroscopic films with tailored assemblies of molecules, comprising:

providing starting molecules; and

applying a force selected from the group of a gravitational force, a centrifugal force, a magnetic field force, and an electric field force to the starting molecules causing them to move in space and then chemically react to form tailored assemblies of molecules in a particular pattern in a nanoscale size macroscopic film for removal and subsequent use.

 

see  Molecular nanoweaver- US Patent 7501483

Walter Derzko

IBM endorses smart technology and a smarter planet

A while back when I was at the Idea Lab at the Design Exchange, I remember sitting over a coffee and exploring a thought exercise with some clients.

The question under debate was: What are  the generic elements or activities that would accelerate any new technology platform, (such as smart technologies) and overcome the initial market interia. Simply put, Is there a generic technology evolution matrix?

We came up with over 25 items. (see related Post-Do you know how to spot opportunities?)

One was having cartoonists make fun of your technology ( No, smart technologies aren't on Dilbert's radar screen yet, but any day now I hope)  Another key event would be to have some influential CEO highlight the benefits of your technology in a milestone keynote speech (act as a complimentor-in business strategy terms. )

Well for smart technologies, that breakthrough event may have happened this month on November 6^th, when IBM’s CEO, Sam Palmisano, outlined a new agenda for building a smarter planet - during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relation. (hat tip to Adam Christensen at IBM HQ)

 

 

From IBM's blog:

"In the speech, he outlines a number of the challenges faced today by people, governments, businesses and organizations. A lack of clean water for a fifth of the world’s population. Energy systems that waste more energy than they produce. Traffic in our cities that clogs roads and chokes economic growth. 

Clearly there are no simple solutions for these problems.

Technology can play a big role in helping find answers to these problems. While the Internet currently connects more than a billion people, in just a few years, it will connect more than a trillion objects. Everything from cell phones, cars, roads, buildings, and even objects in nature itself, will have embedded technology and be connected to one another, enabling tremendous advances in how we understand how the world works and make smarter decisions to make it work better. 

But technology is just part of the solution. Without the people, policies and culture to inspire and execute the change, nothing ultimately gets done."

From Sam’s speech:

[...]   These collective realizations have reminded us that we are all now connected—economically, technically and socially. But we're also learning that being connected is not sufficient. Yes, the world continues to get "flatter." And yes, it continues to get smaller and more interconnected. But something is happening that holds even greater potential. In a word, our planet is becoming smarter.

This isn't just a metaphor.I mean infusing intelligence into the way the world literally works—the systems and processes that enable physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold… services to be delivered… everything from people and money to oil, water and electrons to move… and billions of people to work and live.

 What's making this possible?

• First, our world is becoming instrumented: The transistor, invented 60 years ago, is the basic building block of the digital age. Now, consider a world in which there are a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent. We'll have that by 2010. There will likely be 4 billion mobile phone subscribers by the end of this year… and 30 billion Radio Frequency Identification tags produced globally within two years. Sensors are being embedded across entire ecosystems—supply-chains, healthcare networks, cities… even natural systems like rivers.
• Second, our world is becoming interconnected: Very soon there will be 2 billion people on the Internet. But in an instrumented world, systems and objects can now "speak" to one another, too. Think about the prospect of a trillion connected and intelligent things—cars, appliances, cameras, roadways, pipelines… even pharmaceuticals and livestock. The amount of information produced by the interaction of all those things will be unprecedented.
• Third, all things are becoming intelligent: New computing models can handle the proliferation of end-user devices, sensors and actuators and connect them with back-end systems. Combined with advanced analytics, those supercomputers can turn mountains of data into intelligence that can be translated into action, making our systems, processes and infrastructures more efficient, more productive and responsive—in a word, smarter.

What this means is that the digital and physical infrastructures of the world are converging. Computational power is being put into things we wouldn't recognize as computers. Indeed, almost anything—any person, any object, any process or any service, for any organization, large or small—can become digitally aware and networked.

With so much technology and networking abundantly available at such low cost, what wouldn't you enhance? What service wouldn't you provide a customer, citizen, student or patient? What wouldn't you connect? What information wouldn't you mine for insight?

The answer is, you or your competitor—another company, or another city or nation—will do all of that. You will do it because you can—the technology is available and affordable.

But there is another reason we will make our companies, institutions and industries smarter. Because we must. Not just at moments of widespread shock, but integrated into our day-to-day operations. These mundane processes of business, government and life—which are ultimately the source of those "surprising" crises—are not smart enough to be sustainable.

[...]

Leaders will need to hone their collaboration skills, because we will need leadership that pulls across systems. We will need to bring together stakeholders and experts from across business, government and academia, and all of them will need to move outside their traditional comfort zones.

I’m struck by the questions this raises. What investments need to be made by both public and private institutions? What policy issues need to be debated and resolved? What role can individual citizens and employees play in helping bring about meaningful change?

I’m also struck by the potential opportunities inherent in finding solutions to these problems. 

see full text of Sam Palmisano's speech

Walter Derzko

 

From IBM's blog:

"In the speech, he outlines a number of the challenges faced today by people, governments, businesses and organizations. A lack of clean water for a fifth of the world’s population. Energy systems that waste more energy than they produce. Traffic in our cities that clogs roads and chokes economic growth. 

Clearly there are no simple solutions for these problems.

Technology can play a big role in helping find answers to these problems. While the Internet currently connects more than a billion people, in just a few years, it will connect more than a trillion objects. Everything from cell phones, cars, roads, buildings, and even objects in nature itself, will have embedded technology and be connected to one another, enabling tremendous advances in how we understand how the world works and make smarter decisions to make it work better. 

But technology is just part of the solution. Without the people, policies and culture to inspire and execute the change, nothing ultimately gets done."

From Sam’s speech:

[...]   These collective realizations have reminded us that we are all now connected—economically, technically and socially. But we're also learning that being connected is not sufficient. Yes, the world continues to get "flatter." And yes, it continues to get smaller and more interconnected. But something is happening that holds even greater potential. In a word, our planet is becoming smarter.

This isn't just a metaphor.I mean infusing intelligence into the way the world literally works—the systems and processes that enable physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold… services to be delivered… everything from people and money to oil, water and electrons to move… and billions of people to work and live.

 What's making this possible?

• First, our world is becoming instrumented: The transistor, invented 60 years ago, is the basic building block of the digital age. Now, consider a world in which there are a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent. We'll have that by 2010. There will likely be 4 billion mobile phone subscribers by the end of this year… and 30 billion Radio Frequency Identification tags produced globally within two years. Sensors are being embedded across entire ecosystems—supply-chains, healthcare networks, cities… even natural systems like rivers.
• Second, our world is becoming interconnected: Very soon there will be 2 billion people on the Internet. But in an instrumented world, systems and objects can now "speak" to one another, too. Think about the prospect of a trillion connected and intelligent things—cars, appliances, cameras, roadways, pipelines… even pharmaceuticals and livestock. The amount of information produced by the interaction of all those things will be unprecedented.
• Third, all things are becoming intelligent: New computing models can handle the proliferation of end-user devices, sensors and actuators and connect them with back-end systems. Combined with advanced analytics, those supercomputers can turn mountains of data into intelligence that can be translated into action, making our systems, processes and infrastructures more efficient, more productive and responsive—in a word, smarter.

What this means is that the digital and physical infrastructures of the world are converging. Computational power is being put into things we wouldn't recognize as computers. Indeed, almost anything—any person, any object, any process or any service, for any organization, large or small—can become digitally aware and networked.

With so much technology and networking abundantly available at such low cost, what wouldn't you enhance? What service wouldn't you provide a customer, citizen, student or patient? What wouldn't you connect? What information wouldn't you mine for insight?

The answer is, you or your competitor—another company, or another city or nation—will do all of that. You will do it because you can—the technology is available and affordable.

But there is another reason we will make our companies, institutions and industries smarter. Because we must. Not just at moments of widespread shock, but integrated into our day-to-day operations. These mundane processes of business, government and life—which are ultimately the source of those "surprising" crises—are not smart enough to be sustainable.

[...]

Leaders will need to hone their collaboration skills, because we will need leadership that pulls across systems. We will need to bring together stakeholders and experts from across business, government and academia, and all of them will need to move outside their traditional comfort zones.

I’m struck by the questions this raises. What investments need to be made by both public and private institutions? What policy issues need to be debated and resolved? What role can individual citizens and employees play in helping bring about meaningful change?

I’m also struck by the potential opportunities inherent in finding solutions to these problems. 

see full text of Sam Palmisano's speech

Walter Derzko

Switchable bio-adhesion

German researchers have developed a new type of property-changing polymer: It is water-repellent at 37°C, which makes it an ideal culture substrate for biological cells.  At room temperature it attracts water, allowing the cells to be detached easily from the substrate.

See Switchable bio-adhesion

Smart Sustainability Showcase for Toronto and Canada

From: Walter Derzko

Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 12:19 AM

To: undisclosed list

Subject: re Smart Sustainability ShowCase for Toronto and Canada.

Importance: High

Dear Colleagues

I’d like to plant an idea with you – after speaking with a number of designers and vendors, I’m exploring the idea for a sustainability showcase that would feature theme based exhibits with smart technologies from Canadian and international sources-the best from Ontario, nationally and from around the world.

The launch would be 2010, The timing for this seems right.  The target audience would be Canadian business, consumers and school children

I’m writing a book on smart technologies and this would be a logical extension of the concept.

Two years ago I talked to Samantha Sannella and Poala Polletto at the Design Exchange (DX) in Toronto and with several people at the Ont Science Center.  Both groups expressed interest but said that we would need to find sponsors for the project

My business model for this would be three pronged -vendor based revenue, corporate based sponsor revenue and municipality based sponsorship ie city of Toronto or Mississauga and possibly the province of Ontario who may wish to promote sustainable manufacturing.

This concept would be a Canadian, in fact a North American first.

I have a list of 150 potential vendors, and designers from around the world who are working on smart technologies that we can start to approach.

The exhibits would be theme based, --the sustainable kitchen, the sustainable office, the sustainable retail shelf, the sustainable workspace, the sustainable community, the sustainable city etc and would be updated with new technologies every 3-5 years and have a 1-5 year forward focus. (what's commercially available now or in the very near future.

For other exhibits, there can be a regional or national focus ie smart sustainable technology from the UK, Finland, Germany (Fraunhofer Inst), China, Ukraine, Russia, or Singapore, Hong Kong etc

Corporate sponsors might include: Walmart, Rona, Home Deport, Canadian Tire, Loblaws, Sears, Imperial Oil, the banks (RBC, TD, RBC BMO) etc.

The Sustainability Showcase could be housed in a physical location, or it could tour from location to location around the city or province or be mobile ( on a bus the way the Japanese and Korean do- a display bus turned into a demo center that tours from school to school or to fairs and exhibitions.

OCAD students and staff and Beal senior fellows could play a hand in designing exhibit spaces and sourcing new vendors and sustainable technologies.

Several other revenue opportunities could spin off from this as well

Here’s just a few examples of what can be showcased

1) Environmentally sensible packaging such as Mercury-Absorbant NanoSponge packaging for broken compact fluorescent lamps (CFL's) http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2008/06/mercury-absorba.html

2) Concrete Wood (from the example I mentioned June 2 at OCAD, when Bob Logan was bemoaning the lack of durability of pressboard shelving from Ikea.  See Concrete Wood from lodgepole pine trees destroyed by pine beetles (kills two birds with one stone) http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2007/11/concrete-wood.html

3) End of Traditional Heating and Air conditioning Thin-film version of Active Building Envelope (ABE) systems could make conventional air conditioning and heating equipment obsolete http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2006/07/thinfilm_versio.html

4) OLEDs New High efficiency flat light source OLEDs > Almost any surface in a home, whether flat or curved, could become a light source: walls, curtains, ceilings, cabinets, shelves or tables.  Http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2006/04/new_high_effici.html

Lots more like these

For anyone who is interested in exploring the idea of a Smart Sustainability Showcase for Toronto, we are having a meeting on Tuesday July 22 at 11 am at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD), Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, room 600, 6th floor , 100 McCaul St, Toronto just south of the Ont Art Gallery.

Please RSVP, so we know how many people are coming

I have had some positive feedback from several organizations, & I’d like to push the concept forward

I'm sending this nationally and internationally in  case you are aware of any designers, vendors, manufacturers or research centers who have interesting cutting edge smart sustainable technology to showcase.

Contact me by email

----Walter  Derzko; Senior Fellow Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, OCAD 

© 2005-2008 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Lecturer on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

Wearable electronics; Smart Stress Vest--A vest that measures stress

How stressed are we? A sensor vest will soon be able to tell us. From sports training to computer games, the garment registers the electrical excitation of the muscles at any given time and determines the level of physical stress. (picture) Embedded in an item of clothing, the textile sensor measures the wearer’s muscle tension. Courtesy © Fraunhofer IZM

In the EU’s CONTEXT project, companies and research institutes are developing a comfortable vest that will read muscle tension and deduce stress levels at any given time. At the core of the vest is “wearable electronics”. This consists of sensors woven into the fabric that register the electrical excitation of the muscle fibers, and thin conducting metallic fibers that pass the signals to an electronic analysis system. People’s muscle tension changes with their stress level – the greater the stress, the more likely the muscles are to produce a synchronous twitching effect. Though this is barely perceptible, the electrodes register the change. The idea of the sensor vest originated with biomedical scientists at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, who needed an inconspicuous measuring tool for stress studies. Until then, they had affixed electrodes directly to their test subjects’ chests. But this itself induced stress, with the result that the tests delivered very little useful information. The new vest is designed to ensure a more relaxed test environment. The project members are exploring further potential applications such as a special vest for computer games. By selectively tensing the torso muscles, players could use the vest to control figures on the monitor and for instance burst their heroes’ chains and fetters. The vest could also contribute to safety at the workplace – perhaps ensuring that workers do not lift loads that are too heavy for them. And sports coaches could tell from the electronic vest whether athletes have reached their performance limits or still possess energy reserves.

”The most important requirement for everyday use is a robust electronic system,” says Torsten Linz of the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM in Berlin, the partner responsible for the “packaging”.

The entire electronic system has to be resistant to water and perspiration. The electric conductors must not fray even after repeated laundry cycles, and the sensors must be no larger than buttons to ensure that the garment is comfortable. The IZM researchers have meanwhile developed stable metallic fibers, watertight connections and durable sensor buttons.

ETA: 2009

Their task over the next few months will be to integrate the analysis electronics. The project partners have already demonstrated during field hockey training that the vest really works; it enabled players to choose the ideal moment for striking the ball and to hit it much further than usual.

Action Item:

Now is the time to start thinking about how to incorporate this new technology capability into your future products or services and what new business models could result from this. Intellivate (intelligence + elevate) your benign products now. Contact us today

Full story

© 2005-2008 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Lecturer on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

Smart textiles called electroluminescent (EL) yarns create glow in the dark garments

Researchers at the University of Manchester have developed high-tech battery-powered textile yarns that can be used to make clothing glow in the dark, improving the safety for cyclists, joggers and pedestrians.

The yarns have been developed by The William Lee Innovation Centre (WLIC), based in the University’s School of Materials Current high visibility products – such as those used by emergency services, cyclists and highway maintenance workers – depend on external light sources to make them visible.

They can be ineffective in low light situations and require a light source from something like vehicle headlights to make them visible.  This can lead to the wearer being seen too late.

The latest WLIC development, made from electroluminescent (EL) yarns, allows the wearer to be permanently visible and therefore improves personal safety.

EL yarn is a novel technology, which emits light when powered by a battery.  Its development has been based on thin film electroluminescent technology.

The yarn consists of an inner conductive core yarn, coated with electroluminescent ink – which means it emits light when an electric current is passed through it – and a protective transparent encapsulation, with an outer conductive yarn wrapped around it.

When the EL yarn is powered with an inverter the resultant electrical field between the inner and outer conductor causes the electroluminescent coating to emit light.  The emission of light occurs between the contact points between the outer yarn and the inner yarn.

Other potential applications for the yarn include flexible woven or knitted road safety signs that communicate written instructions.

Dr Tilak Dias, Head of the WLIC, said:

“At the moment the EL yarn we have developed is less flexible than conventional yarns.  But it is more flexible than current optical fibres that are incorporated within fabrics to provide illumination. EL yarn can be easily incorporated into a knitted or woven fabric and the resultant active illuminating fabric provides illumination when it is powered."

“The luminance of a single strand of the EL yarn is greater than that of photoluminescent glow yarns, which are currently used in some high visibility applications.

“Weaving or knitting the yarn in a particular manner, so that more yarn per unit area is achieved, improves the luminance of the EL yarn.”

For further information please contact Alex Waddington, Media Relations Officer, The University of Manchester, 07717 881569 or 0161 306 3983 or [email protected] .

The William Lee Innovation Centre is part of The School of Materials in The Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences.  For more information please see www.wlic.ac.uk

(For a competing and more versatile glow-in-the-dark technology, which does not require any batteries or external power source, see Cii-Lite from GnXpert in Chicago)

Smart Clever Clothing not for everyone

The Sunday Times in New Zealand offer a critical piece on why some consumers may pass on smart textiles, ie t-shirts wih embedded beads that release aloe vera to moisterize your skin

Fashion Columnist  Jacqui Myburgh, a former editor of ELLE magazine writes in her column entitled "Not sold on clever clothing"

"Until ‘intelligent’ wear can make me utterly irresistible, I’d suggest retailers shelve the concept"

"I recently bought my first item of intelligent clothing. In fact, I’m wearing it as I pen this column. It’s a fairly average-looking, sludgy green, long-sleeved and over-priced T-shirt that I wouldn’t have bought ordinarily, but its label made it utterly compelling.

If its claims are to be believed, this new top is going to have my skin silky smooth and healthy in no time.

Sound bizarre? It certainly does to me, but this is what the label promises: “We’ve discovered how to incorporate tiny beads of aloe vera, renowned for its moisturising, healing and antibacterial properties, into fibres of this garment. It is gradually released during wear and should last for about 25 washes.”

Full story here>>[...}

...reminds me of the recent article I was reading on: "the dark side of ambiant intelligence (AmI)

Network-enabled Smart Objects & Services or the Death of the Traditional Business Model 07-005

Last year I wrote about how EDS is exploring opportuty windows with Network-enabled smart objects and sevices. Jeff Wacker, EDS's inhouse futurist recently asked a thought provoking question at a talk he gave in Toronto in July 2006 ....."Who would benefit by knowing that my package has just passing mile marker number 26 on route 192 ?" (see Smart Technologies need a New Business Model to be Effective)

In a recent newsletter, Harbor Research Inc makes a compelling case for merging product and service development under one techno-umbrella via a new emerging capability called network-enabled Smart Objects

They propose:

"Products and services, (like peanut butter and jam--my analogy,) while complementary, have historically had opposite strategic goals. 

As a result, each function has had to seek out its own distinct strategies.  Intelligent device networking, however, is initiating a blending of the two models.  The salient characteristics of each model are increasingly coming into question as product development and service organizations re-think their roles and functions based on the impact of networking.  Products alone and services alone will rarely provide any appreciable competitive advantage today.  Both are too easily copied.  Success will come to those companies that realize the combined potentials of both by applying them in specific formats that make it nearly impossible for a competitor to invade."....... ( and create brand new-to-the-world, copy-proof  "clustered" business models)

How is this being driven by today's business pressures and  competitive environment?

As I said yesterday, in my post on Open Source Innovation :

1) Because of rising R&D costs and decreased product revenues (due to shorter product life cycles) — companies are finding it increasingly difficult to justify investments in stand-alone, in-house innovation for new products and services.

2) New Business Models (see Crowd-sourced Manufacuring; Buy-what-you-design) are shifting power away from the OEM toward to consumer/designer.

Harbour Research adds the following observations  to the arguement:

3) The U.S. has created the first post-consumer society in which a majority of people have run out of waking hours to consume. Total consumption of all things is dropping towards the 1% growth rate of the population.

4) Instead of a growing demand pulling products through the channel profitably, many product manufacturers are trying to push too much supply through channels, even at losses, thinking perhaps that someday they will make it up on volume.

5) With today's global-glut supply and saturated demand, end-users express their growing power in many ways. Consumers now expect perfect quality goods and services, unconditionally guaranteed forever. All end users want “over choice” in product selection, flexibility in the types and quantity of services available, convenience, user-friendliness in buying, speed in delivery and lower prices.  End customers are steadily getting more of these needs met by more suppliers.

6) Manufacturing technology and methods continue to move towards the make-anything, in-any-quantity-now factory. This will please end-users, but it creates the growing problem of how to market micro-segmented products through traditional commodity channels and mass media.

7) Instead of selling through lots of small, independent agents, distributors and retailers that could be controlled, manufacturers are faced with selling to big chains or cooperative groups that control market share or shelf space and can push the manufacturers around.

8) Progressive manufacturers would like to sell their fragmenting line of goods to more and smaller segments of potential customers which their existing channel intermediaries haven't pursued and may not be geared to serve.

9)  Most product OEMs have enormous services and value added opportunities surrounding them, but the natural effect of their (conventional ) business mode ( and business models) blinds them from objectively seeing these opportunities."

Natural Consequences -( or what I feel is the Death of the Traditional Business Model)

Enter Smart Products and Services........

"By 2010, the Pervasive Internet (the 24/7, everywhere internet (or what I call the xtranet )and Smart Services could drive a total opportunity in the hundreds of billions of dollars for the companies involved in device enablement, device monitoring, and new services driven by device-generated data. The largest opportunity will exist for value-added integrated product and services providers, and thus access to device information will become a de facto part of most service or sales contracts."

Why should an OEM step up to the plate and network-enable its manufactured objects now?

Harbour Research argues:

• "Because in any given market, the first players to do so will own the information feedback loop to the customer, and it will be very hard for competitors to pull customers out of that loop. ( the lock-in factor and opportunity swtiching costs)
• Inside this “information circle,” a whole world of new, attractive, and more profitable services will take shape.
• Because those next-generation services cannot be offered without device information, and because even traditional service relationships will be made vastly more efficient inside the information circle, channel partners can no longer cut an OEM out of the services action.
• In fact, the real-time enterprise turns “disintermediation” completely on its head. When a company decides to make a smart product that sends out its “heartbeat,” the company owns access to that heartbeat, and thus access to the customer. Now, no third party can sell profitable services to the manufacturer’s customer without making some arrangement with the manufacturer for access to the diagnostic or status data coming from the networked product or device."

"With too much supply and not enough demand, product OEMs in virtually all markets are experiencing profit erosion. So, consolidation via acquisition of players at each step in the chain has been the norm for growth and value creation for some time.  Further, the historical approach of most product OEMs has been to aim for the “center” in designing their products and go-to-market architectures, hoping to maximize their access to a somewhat homogeneous set of mainstream customers. However, as suppliers attempt to meet the increasingly diverse and sophisticated requirements of customers, the middle-ground approach to product and market delivery design has been rendered significantly less rewarding—suppliers are finding a broad, central thrust to be less effective in pleasing any group of customers.  Traditional-thinking market participants are, in other words, putting their heads in the sand.

Ultimately, the worst of it all for most product OEMs is the fact that the consolidation cycle was for so many markets a 1990s phenomenon – that is, most product OEM markets have consolidated and most product OEMs are so large that the size of acquisition required to move the “equity value meter” is either too costly or, more often, not available.  Bottom line, we’ve run out of things to acquire.  Today’s executives are realizing, “Heavens….. this means I will really have to innovate and grow organically."

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Economy Bog: Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"- old Japanese proverb

".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." - H. Mumford Jones

"Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  A. Einstein

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  - Margaret Mead

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Self-cleaning Clothes 07-002

Scientists claim to have created self-cleaning clothes.

A fabric developed by US military researchers can repel water, resist stains and kill off smelly bacteria.

It means children's sports kits and other garments could be worn several times between washes.

The breakthrough mirrors the 1951 film The Man In The White Suit, starring Alec Guinness. He played an inventor who develops a cloth that never gets dirty.

A British firm have now won the licensing rights to develop the technology. John Almond, a director of Alexium, claims self-cleaning sports kits could be in shops within a year of a deal being signed with manufacturers.

He said: "We are expecting sportswear to be one of the biggest areas in which this technology will be used.....We are now talking to some major sportswear brands to use this technology, but there are hundreds of other applications we are investigating."

"These range from hospital bedding and nurses' uniforms to air conditioning filters on planes."

The new technology uses microwaves to fix microscopic particles permanently to the fibres of clothing.

ETA: 2007-2008

Implications ? Impacts?

• what will this do to the sales of laundry detergents ?
• with less wear and tear, will the replacement cycle for laundry washers become longer resulting in loss of business?
• have all potential health concerns (i.e. skin contact, re-application) regarding nanoparticles been addressed?
• will dry cleaners  suffer, steadily loosing of business?

Full story here >>[...]

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Economy Bog: Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"- old Japanese proverb

".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." - H. Mumford Jones

"Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  A. Einstein

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  - Margaret Mead

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page