The Bewilderness

Still walking the digital paradigm

A further examination of the augmented reality market provides indicators for when the technology will hit the market. Unsurprisingly, the military is a follower of head up displays and DARPA has contracted with Innovega for 'AR' contact lenses to be available by 2014. Innovega is viewed as providing the tools for enhancing the information available in training and on the battlefield, allowing soldiers to focus on objects both near and far to the viewer.

The marketplace is being worked upon. The aim is to achieve a seamless marriage of data and reality with constant updates, tagging and manipulation serving the needs of the fyborg. Such a transition, with the attendant wearables, remains some years away:

Today we update our status, favorite a tweet, check into a place we like and really are out to set or make any preferences that make our life more enjoyable. The day of tomorrow will be when our experiences will be more embedded into the real world rather than in this digital life form as they are now.

Why an augmented reality? Our usage of the Internet and these apps will reach a breaking point, and before or right when that happens, we will want all of these technology to be in the background — or at least these major technology companies will want augmented reality to truly be a reality.

Until we see these come to market, we remain focused on tablets, smartphones, apps and the current digital paradigm.

Will I be a fyborg by fifty?

Wearables, 'mediated reality', 'augmented reality' or whatever phrase is used is beginning to move swiftly from activist experimentation to commercial reality. The path has taken thirty years, from bulky headsets to slim glasses. Even if available, it is not clear if people will don a visual complement to their smartphones:

With technology finally catching up to mainstream ambitions, the next challenge is convincing the public that wearables are something they might want to, well, wear. 

When and if they do arrive, such devices will enrich the accessible platform that people utilise through their communications medium. Possibilities will be rapidly enhanced by the strong network of developers, applications and software enhancement. If wearables proves popular, one could foresee a rapid fyborgisation amongst certain communities.

And it will be cool to wear glasses again 

Autopsy on the proto-flash riots

Returning to a singular disruptive and essentially short-term event, the London riots (with their hyped air of ungovernability), how far has this thuggery been blamed on social networking?Articles at the time viewed social networking tools as an accelerant for a social process. Riots have always occurred: but twitter and BBM allowed the rioters to focus, co-ordinate, choose targets and avoid authority. Secondly, the social networks reinforced group norms of validation in unique circumstances: how many times did we hear looters state that they were stealing because everyone else was doing so. Crimes were committed by a far wider range of individuals than expected. Such validation was also spread by more traditional networks: the media, phones, gangs and so on.

The courts have sent down 1,000 criminals for their part in the disturbances: they were mostly white and black, none were over 40 and the government's determination for tough sentencing has been met. Most were prosecuted for burglary, violent disorder and theft. A disturbing trend was the number of juveniles arrested and charged. 

Will we see further opportunistic flash riots in future years?

From IT to Business Technology

You want to respond to a new business opportunity. You want to see if the success of Wikipedia or Facebook can be harnessed for your company. You are tired of hearing that old refrains that the systems or the licence are just not able to do what you want them to do. Aren't we all frustrated that the business outcomes we want are not the business outcomes that we can do.

And for years, that has been the end of the story. This is not a critique of IT departments although some have moved heaven and work to create business process hell. This is to say that theforthcoming changes in technology: responding to the new distribution of the cloud, the greater flexibility of mobiles and the maturing of social networks; all of these will herald radical changes and, hopefully, better business.

Paul D. Hamerman of Forrester Research outlines seven of the trends that makes our life easier. Better processes can only come through testing, innovation and failure. But if the process fails, take your licks, learn and move forward. After all, wise words say,

In the near term - the next one or two years - social collaboration will sit alongside enterprise applications, as only a few enterprise application suppliers will harness it successfully in the context of enabling business processes. Effective use of social collaboration in enterprise applications and business processes will take several years to mature, eventually becoming a relatively ubiquitous and standardised feature.

In a few years, we will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about as we deal with even greater changes kicking in.

Sina Weibo's retweet from the news frontier

Technology Review reported a comparison of Twitter with its Chinese counterpart, Sina Weibo. Twitter has been banned in China since 2009 and Sina Weibo was introduced a month after its prohibition as its replacement. The conclusions of the comparison were a far greater number of retweetings on Sina Weibo. The behaviour between the two systems were similar but Sina's results were skewed by the lack of realtime news.

Yes, the Chinese do not comment on news. There won't be any news from Satellite 2 for Shanghai in the near future.

Social media will invade the workplace

At some time during the past decade, workers began to notice that their domestic computers and communications were surpassing the tools on which they worked. Before the firewall was a boundary of privilege, since only larger companies were rich enough to afford all of the new goodies that came to pass every year (unless one was wealthy or an early diy adopter). Now, it retards progress and more workers notice that their information rich lives are only replicated on their personal smartphones. That will make work a pretty barren place for the next generation, used to more than just email for their lives.

That the current tools of social media will penetrate the majority of workplaces is a given. What form it takes is unknown. Some will build internal models. But the key is privacy versus transparency. Social media is outward looking and has colonised the longstanding kingdoms of brand management and marketing. Reshaping the internal institutions of companies will prove a very different process and extremely challenging to the current command and control hierarchies that have developed to meet corporate and regulatory needs.

Turning the lights on dark networks

An interesting correlation between the Deep Web (also known as the Dark Web) and the "unlit social graph". The author draws parallels between Google's need  to dive beneath the surface of the world wide web to map ringfenced sources of information with Facebook's current dilemma that the majority of networks remain beyond its grasp. Truly, this unlit graphic is only available through mobiles rather than the desk. 

Quite staggering is the size of the dark web to the surface web: an estimate in 2008 was 400% of that which is searchable. The size and depth of this subterranean empire remains opaque. Add in language and culture: suddenly the Surface Web of the West may become a very small place.

Now the attention is turning to dark networks.

Augmented reality remains flat for now

Augmented reality has gradually crept across the world of smartphone applications, with a flatland overlay of the real world in its current form. The Independent is reporting that LG is shifting to a three dimensional browser for augmented reality. You look through the display of your phone as if the camera function is switched on and information overlays the view. 

The technology is slowly maturing. 

More powerful handsets and faster wireless connections will make AR apps far more useful and flexible, providing relevant information about whatever -- or whoever -- is in front of the user. From there, it's not much of a leap to glasses that keep a display in front of our eyes all the time with data superimposed directly on the real world rather than a camera feed.

The technique of squinting through the world via your phone, not even the hold up and click ease of taking a photo leaves this venture in early adopter territory. No doubt the LG application will soon migrate from the phone to a heads up display, built in to your glasses or portable lens. Perhaps this means a comeback for pince-nez?  

A series of six for social networks

Hoovering up social networking predictions commences round December time. David Armano of Edelman Digital has put together a series of six for the Harvard Business Review. Some strike a similar tone to those discussed on here earlier: the downfall of the location specialists like Foursquare as their niche is integrated into the larger players. 

Edelman's predictions highlight some of the larger themes that we can expect to continue during 2011: the inability of any large player to maintain a walled garden for their users; the continued dominance of the first movers and greater innovation in hardware and software to keep people on the go all of the time.

Three of the points do merit further play. The first is the return of the Googleplex, as Google cements its role with search functions that tap into the social networking history of the networked individual. And there will be a market for a Wayback machine for individuals. As the second point is social media schizophrenia: individuals torn and twisted by the informational overload. The answer for this may come in 2011, with an early for of the avatar (where are you when we need you?)

The third issue was the slow take-up of social networking amongst companies. Successes have been limited to PR, marketing and brand management. That is because firms have not had to allow social networking or Web 2.0 to leap the firewall. That may start to change.

A slow take-up for quick response codes

Another understated innovation of 2010  is the QR (Quick Response) code, linking mobile phones and existing logistics chains. It is the invasion of just-in-time to retail and consumers. The history of the QR code is one of catch-up, not creativity. QR codes have been used in Japan since 1994 and are now being utilised in the West.

As with all black boxe, adoption is driven by a purposeful agency:

One Japanese innovation already beginning to enjoy widespread use in overseas markets such as Europe and the US is the QR, or “quick response”, code – a matrix barcode that can give users with a mobile phone or similar device access to information ranging from a restaurant access map to an airline check-in number.

Invented in 1994 by Denso, a Toyota affiliate, and now ubiquitous in Japan, QR codes are being adopted more widely overseas in part due to the efforts of SET, a Tokyo-based but internationally-managed advertising and communications agency.

This adoption only took sixteen years: not all innovation happens in the now. One wonders what other tools from mobile saturated cultures will find their way to our shores.