Killer apps can lead to great broad success.
For AR, I can imagine that sticky notes could be of great use.
For example, you notice that cold air is entering your home through a gap in the window frame. You can make an AR note at that very spot, and next time you look at it, you will be reminded.
Even better, attach notes to people. Like their names. Or something you shouldn’t mention. If that note is in your face when looking at them, you should be OK
This is a serious concept.
I predict that physical art will be huge once robots take all our jobs.
That art needs a marketplace, where anyone in the world can buy it.
The business model:
If a local, physically present person buys it – zero fees – sale price goes 100% to the artist
If someone remote buys it – 30% surcharge – the platform keeps that.
The incentive of the platform is to show the item well, and promote its existence, worldwide.
Augmented reality will almost certainly contain a camera.
So it is not inconceivable that if you decide someone is not nice, others can get that via facial recognition.
That guy raped me = his life destroyed.
This can go in so many directions, but the clear result is twofold:
Such IDing is illegal
Underground networks doing this cannot be stopped
I think this is an original idea… I am reading a book about quantum physics and time…
We have let time dictate what we do, and when. But a few hundred years ago few people had a clock or watch, and few people needed one.
I think we are heading back that way, and I think precision timekeeping will disappear, aside from being an odd artefact useful for only a few things.
Remember when people had 90210 or Sex and the City parties, and you had to be there before it started?
With hybrid office work, I have noticed people caring less about start and finish times. Where I work, we are in the office every other day, but people staying at home on those days, occasionally, matters not. And it is not unusual for sometime to do an hour of work at home, and then commute for a 9am start. Today a colleague turned up at 4 – he was going out in the city and the office was nearby, so he popped in. This is new and accepted. The cornerstone of time x society, the 9 to 5, is disappearing.
Some things rely on time, and I can’t see that changing. For example 3x 8 hour shifts at a factory. But they will become less common, very quickly.
What about, say, doctors appointments? Well, a utopian future has sufficient numbers of doctors to making booking unnecessary.
What about the President’s address to the citizens on an urgent matter? Pre-record it and make it available from X time, and whenever after that that suits viewers to watch it. I predict times are said to be from, and not at.
Rock concerts? Guarantee not to start before X time.
I think the loosening of time will be good for society – time currently stresses people.
Most people work 9-5.
Employment agencies are open 9-5.
Makes it hard to go for job interviews.
Surely an agency can take the lead on this, and save people the embarrassment of work colleagues saying “nice suit, job interview at lunchtime?”
Not rocket science.
While we are at it, be that bank that is open on Saturday mornings, or until 7pm on a Thursday.
What I miss is owning an album.
To be able to say I have all their albums.
The choosing which albums to buy, the deciding.
Spotify lets you have everything, at an insanely cheap price. For half what you used to spend on a CD you get virtually all music ever made that is worth a listen, each month.
And that means that your meagre subscription gets split amongst a lot of artists, after Spotify’s cut.
If Spotify doubled the subscription cost, and doubled the royalties, most artists would still feel ripped off.
Current albums: Each month, on the first, you get to choose up to 5 albums as your current favourites. These are the only albums you can play more than twice, as albums, in that month. You can choose less than 5 and add others during the month
Why it works? You have anticipation and preparation for the new month. You get to share and compare your choices. And it is liking owning in the old days.
Lifetime fan: For a one-off fee, dictated by the artist, you get to listen to all of their music, and all of their future music, outside of any other limits.
Why it works? Fans can get exclusive perks. And you can call yourself a real fan.
Free albums: Any artist can have their albums provided for free, without royalties. These are outside of any limits as well.
Why it works? If you are not popular, letting people listen repeatedly and share with others can help launch you. Better than few plays and a tiny income.
Singles: Singles are free to listen to repeatedly, but only until they are available on an album. Then, once they are on an album, there are monthly limits, like maybe 10 plays.
Why it works? It is more like the radio used to be. Hear the single for free, buy the album.
Everything else: The same as the current Spotify model. Except you can’t listen to the same albums repeatedly. Or singles that are on albums repeatedly.
Minor artists get more plays if they choose the free option – because people will be less likely to play the major artists repeatedly.
All artists, big or small, have the ability to get a cash injection from signing up lifetime fans.
Major artists (who arguably make lots of money other ways, like tours) make less – increasing equality.
Subscribers get a more engaging experience.
It began with a minor feature that few people cared about, and became a key player in the digital world. Google Situ un-tethered us from personal devices, and introduced shared devices with interchangeable users.
There are two important factors that led to Situ:
Devices and screens with the minimum acceptable functionality are getting cheaper and cheaper – for example a Chromebook. It doesn’t need to be any better than it is now, for most things it is used for. So as technology improves, it will become cheaper. Likewise any tablet version. We are starting to see such devices used as menus and ordering systems in restaurants. They will become so cheap and ubiquitous that nobody will steal them because everybody already has one or three.
Personalization of devices keeps expanding. When we turn on Netflix it asks which profile to use. That is just the beginning. Soon we will have profiles for the family car, depending on who is using it. The home Spotify stereo system will ask who is using it, so as to access their playlists. The thermostat will adjust according to who is in the house and what their preference is…
Phase 1 – the cross device Chrome experience
For some time it has been easy for a Chrome browser to use multiple profiles, and you can easily switch from one to the other. So far, that has been aimed at people wanting to, say, switch from their business persona to their personal one.
But before long, when people hire an electric car (or use a share car) and of course it has Android Auto, they will want to log in and have it knowing who is driving. And logging in will be cumbersome.
But before that, so as the competition didn’t see it coming, Google started with the browser experience. And adjusted it to suit the new hybrid work models. Millions of people are now suddenly expected to cart a laptop from work and back, because sometimes you work from home. How does that fit with after work drinks, or going to the gym before work?
Google Situ frees you from bringing your laptop with you. It is a dongle with 2FA that carries where you are at, your “situation”, with you. Plug it in to any Chromebook and carry on where you left off. So that means one Chromebook at home, and one at work. It is especially suited to hot desking and pooled computers – just grab any one from the stack at the entrance.
Going overseas? Just use any Chromebook when you arrive, no need to bring it with you. Need to work on the plane? Use the one that comes with your seat.
This will be a hit with people who work in tech and early adopters. It will be known to some degree by most of the public, but not used by them.
Phase 2 – recognizing you
Dongles are OK, but Chromebooks are notoriously short on places to plug in something, so Google will offer multiple ways of letting a device know it is you whose profile/situ they should be using. Each will need some form of bio-identification in case someone steals it. Face scans would be fine.
All do the same job, and some people might own one of each, to use depending on the environment. Going to a rock concert or for a run, you’d probably choose a wearable. Each could have other functions, but they also have Situ functionality, which when brought up close to a Chrome screen (which before long will be a Situ screen), will adjust everything to what your needs are.
I expect such devices would be initially registered by jumping through some hoops, but otherwise, as long as they regularly bio-identify you, nothing more needs to be done. Maybe a pin code needs to be entered onto the device you are using – easy.
Phase 3 – the fun begins
Now you have something as simple as a ring to identify you… use your imagination:
The key is easiness. No need for apps, no need to carry a phone, no logging in.
Screen = monopoly
If the experience is dependent on a Situ screen, a monopoly can occur (security can be an excuse, as Apple does currently). For example, every train and plane will have a screen on the back of the seat in front of you, to login and use In Situ. It won’t have an Apple screen and a Google screen and a Microsoft screen. It will have one screen.
Now keep in mind, this is just hardware, unlike the app and browser wars of the past. You can access anyone’s product within the Chrome experience. For Netflix and Spotify it is simply knowing who you are for convenience, not changing the experience or who you pay.
But because Google is controlling an entire ecosystem, it can milk aspects of it, just as it does now.
I think this is the first time I have predicted a product, and its name 😉
We have satellites which can see all corners of the globe, at quite high resolution. Enough to discern a QR Code that takes up all of each roof.
The QR can be fixed, or change with something like ePaper.
Each building can use smart home devices to store data around its contents:
Each building can provide as much or as little data as they wish, however more gets rewarded, and regular updates get rewarded, and minimums are required if people are wanting to fully participate in society.
Data around people is non-identifiable. Age and gender, basically. But anything is possible.
Data is stored on local secure servers, the address of which come from the QR Code on the roof.
Satellites keep track of all the latest QR Codes and their geolocation.
Which means that we have a continuous census of Planet Earth. And the data is used in the same way as manual censuses every 5 or 10 years.
A movement not unlike that of Elon’s Mars mission, but here on Earth:
Science geniuses make these habitats (barely) liveable, and at the same time try new forms of society. They argue that they have a right to be there, seeing as nobody else was using that part of Earth.
There’s always someone buying treasure from poor folk. In the 1800s it was iron. In recent years there have been stalls in shopping malls buying gold (“best prices”).
When robotics booms, I expect two things:
I foresee a Star Wars scenario where robots are treated like scrap metal. I have decided to be a first mover, and I have registered anyoldrobots.com 🙂