Ged Carroll

Category: gadget | 小工具 | 가제트 | ガジェット

What constitutes a gadget? The dictionary definition would be a small mechanical or electronic device or tool, especially an ingenious or novel one.

When I started writing this blog the gadget section focused on personal digital assistants such as the Palm PDA and Sony’s Clie devices. Or the Anoto digital pen that allowed you to record digitally what had been written on a specially marked out paper page, giving the best of both experiences.

Some of the ideas I shared weren’t so small like a Panasonic sleeping room for sleep starved, but well heeled Japanese.

When cutting edge technology failed me, I periodically went back to older technology such as the Nokia 8850 cellphone or my love of the Nokia E90 Communicator.

I also started looking back to discontinued products like the Sony Walkman WM-D6C Pro, one of the best cassette decks ever made of any size. I knew people who used it in their hi-fi systems as well as for portable audio.

Some of the technology that I looked at were products that marked a particular point in my life such as my college days with the Apple StyleWriter II. While my college peers were worried about getting on laser printers to submit assignments, I had a stack of cartridges cotton buds and isopropyl alcohol to deal with any non catastrophic printer issues and so could print during the evening in the comfort of my lodgings.

Alongside the demise in prominence of the gadget, there has been a rise in the trend of everyday carry or EDC.

  • Google I/O 2016

    Google I/O 2016 happened on May, 18 – 20.  There had been a lot of pieces of coverage about the different products and services released. But I wanted to spend a bit of time reflecting on what Google I/O 2016 told us about their viewpoint on technology.

    Giving apps a second chance

    Google knows as well as anyone that the app moves towards a maturity model where consumers stick with the core apps that they want and then don’t go any further.
    apps
    Data shows that consumers use their top five apps 88 per cent of the time. So why would Google care when it knows that 60 percent of the top apps on the Android platform?

    The reasons for an expanded app usage include:

    • A proportion of Google’s advertising (like Facebook) is derived from the promotion of app downloads
    • Android devices are reaching market maturity in many markets, growth is likely to come from new uses – at least some of which will be derived from third party platforms
    • Google has staked its ambition in the PC sector on its Chrome operating system being able to run apps from the Android eco-system. In order for that to happen there needs to be a healthy community of developers
    • In the same way that DoubleClick’s ad network greatly expanded the inventory of Google’s advertising business, third party applications offer Google an additional source of usage for its own services. If you want to see the future of Google Apps look at the the way the likes of Baidu and Tencent allow third-party integration with their own tools

    Streaming or ‘instant’ apps is part of Google’s efforts to encourage consumer trial of new apps and enhance relationships with developers. Firebase, it’s new analytics platform for mobile developers helps them have a better relationship with their installed user base allowing them to use data to target notifications and campaigns.

    More faith in wider area networks (WANs) than personal area networks (PANs)

    Android Wear’s updates were interesting. Put simply Google has more faith in data being delivered in a timely manner over cellular or wi-fi networks than it does for inter device transfers over variants of Bluetooth. Both the Apple Watch and Android Wear products suffered from performance lags when the watch was a thin client of a phone. Having a cellular radio on board the phone presents challenges with battery life, but speeds up real world performance.

    The original design failure wasn’t down to network performance, but is likely to have implications for personal area network technology like Bluetooth in its different variants or ZigBee. These technologies are all about scale, lose a scale advantage and it poses a problem for future adoption by others. This can happen in a virtuous way. Apple’s adoption of USB benefited the standard greatly and drove interest in peripheral development for both Mac and PC. Apple’s abandonment of FireWire and the 3.5″ diskette marked their decline.

    Lots to be concerned about from a privacy point of view?

    Google Home moved yet another pair of Android powered ears into our environment. It was obvious from Google’s description of services that a paid marketing model to be the ‘car booking’ or equivalent service of Home could be very lucrative for the search giant. How this device could be used for market research, tracking brand mentions or government surveillance also poses some conundrums moving beyond smartphones to brown goods.

    Android N features file based encryption rather than treating the whole device as an encrypted disk. This raises questions around the comparative ease of access from a privacy perspective. Secondly, SafetyNet allows Google to reach into a phone to remove pre-existing applications without user permission. There is no explanation if they also have write privileges to the phone as well. If so, expect law enforcement and intellectual property owner interest. From the way it reads this would affect apps and content that have been side loaded as well as got from an app store.

    Android is giving the high ground to Apple on privacy presumably because it considers its own customers don’t care about it that much.

    Reference designs in VR to drive adoption and commoditisation 

    Google’s Daydream project looks to provide standardisation in hardware. By going down this route, Google hopes to spur on the sensor market required for improved AR experience and drive uptake. These will likely be a very different experience to the computer workstation powered Occulus Rift. Driving this technology into the smartphone market may combat the current stagnation in phone sales growth.

    More information
    Google I/O 2016 event page
    A16hz on Google I/O 2016
    Everything Google just announced at its I/O conference
    Palm, Apple, Google and the whole mobile device thing
    The Limits of Google
    If Google’s right about AI, that’s a problem for Apple – Marco.org
    ISIS’s Mobile App Developers Are in Crisis Mode | Motherboard

  • The New Nokia

    The New Nokia can rise from the ashes of the old. Microsoft finally let go of its licence for the Nokia brand license on May 19, 2016.
    Slide03
    There is a lot of logic to this move:

    • Microsoft has already written down the full value of the business acquisition
    • It has got the most valuable technical savvy out of the team and moved it into the Surface business
    • It removes problematic factories and legacy products

    For the businesses that have acquired the rights to use the Nokia name and the factories the upsides are harder to see.

    The factories may be of use, however there is over supply in the Shenzhen eco-system and bottlenecks aren’t usually at final manufacture, but in the component supply chain.

    There is still some brand equity left in the Nokia phone brand. I analysed Nokia along with a number of other international Greater China smartphone eco-system brands using Google Trend data.
    Slide06
    There has been a decline in brand interest over the past 12 months for Nokia of 37%
    Slide07
    Nokia still has comparable brand equity to other legacy mobile brands such as BlackBerry and Motorola
    Slide08
    The brand equity is comparable to other value mobile brands. Honor; Huawei’s value brand has had a lot of money and effort pumped into it to achieve its current position.
    Slide09
    But it’s brand equity doesn’t stack up well against premium handset brands from Greater China. The reason for this is that smartphone marketing and fast moving consumer goods marketing now have similar dynamics – both are in mature little differentiated markets. Brands need to have deep pockets  and invest in regular advertising to remain top-of-mind across as large an audience as possible. Reach and frequency are more important than social media metrics like engagement.

    In addition to advertising spend needs to be put into training and incentivising channel partners including carriers.

    They are entering a hyper-competitive market and it isn’t clear what their point of advantage will be. Given the lock down that Google puts on Android and commoditised version of handset manufacture, the best option would be to look for manufacturing and supply chain efficiencies  – like Dell did in the PC industry. But that’s easier said than done.

    Garnering the kind of investment required to seriously support an international phone brand is a hard sell to the finance director or potential external investors.

    Slide13
    Growth is tapering out.
    Slide14
    The average selling price is in steady decline
    Slide16
    This is partly because the emerging markets are making the majority new phone purchases.
    Slide15
    Consumers in developed markets are likely holding on to the their phones for longer due to a mix economic conditions and a lack of compelling reason to upgrade.
    Slide12
    All of the consumers that likely want and can afford a phone in developed markets have one. Sales are likely to be on a replacement cycle as they wear out. Manufacturers have done a lot to improve quality and reliability of devices.

    Even the old household insurance fraud standby of dropping a phone that the consumer was bored with down the toilet doesn’t work on the latest premium Android handsets due to water-proofing.
    Slide20

    More information

    The answer to the question you’ve all been asking | Nokia – Nokia’s official announcement
    Gartner highlights a more challenging smartphone sector for Nokia than when it “quit” in 2013 | TelecomTV
    Nokia is coming back to phones and tablets | The Verge
    So the Nokia brand returns.. with a Vengeance | Communities Dominate Brands

    Supporting data slides in full

  • Smart home is stuck + more ideas

    The smart home is stuck – Recode – interesting analysis on the nascent smartphone market. Will we move beyond Nest, Hue light bulbs and IP security cameras? Will consumers see utility in the modern smartphone and be ready for the upgrade cycle. Or will smart home is stuck morph into just a fad like 3D TV sets? More on the web of no web here as the internet meets the real world in ways that make the technology invisible and integral to everyday life.

    New Chinese online payment rules take HK e-shoppers by surprise | HKEJ Insight – looks like controlling capital flight measures. It represents a serious cramp in Alipay and WeChat Pay opportunities. There also must be come work around as these services are expanding abroad to meet the needs of high spending Chinese travellers.

    Xiaomi opens stores | Shanghai Daily – interesting pivot in distribution channels. Previously Xiaomi was famous for popularising flash sales online of its handsets a bit like Drop.com do now. Its model now looks closer to that pursued by the likes of Huawei and Apple in China. It will also be interesting if Xiaomi uses these stores to sell its range of home appliances alongside handsets

    Why a staggering number of Americans have stopped using the Internet the way they used to – The Washington Post – Nearly one in two Internet users say privacy and security concerns have now stopped them from doing basic things online — such as posting to social networks, expressing opinions in forums or even buying things from websites, according to a new government survey released Friday (paywall). All of which belies the influence that social platforms seem to have in shaping popular opinion and building grass roots groups. There is obviously a missing piece between consumer behaviour and this research. I am not quite too sure what it is though.

  • Digitas teams with Facebook + more

    DigitasLBi Teams With Facebook To Launch Live-Streamed Morning Show 05/09/2016 – interesting agency as brand. I wonder if we’ll see ‘NBC teams with Facebook’ any time soon?

    Objective-See – handy ransomware blocker for OSX. The Mac has become a major target for hackers and crackers now.

    Japan moves to protect ‘copyrights’ of AI creations | Japan Times – prescient move by Japanese government – it is only a matter of time before other countries have to find ways of dealing with creator / owner issues (paywall)

    Amazon launching YouTube competitor Amazon Video Direct – Business Insider – threat to Facebook Video as well. Things are about to get interesting. It contrasts with Facebook’s move into original content with DigitasLBI

    (2) Tom Stocky – My team is responsible for Trending Topics, and I… – found no evidence that contractors had affected conservative content. It’s probably true, but that won’t stop the doubt seeded in the minds of conservative supporters

    Ten Years — The Year of the Looking Glass — Medium – Reflections on working over the past ten years at Facebook

    Free Microsoft Windows 10 upgrade campaign hasn’t been blowout success – Business Insider – it depends how you consider success

    The Vintage Watch Boom | Intelligence | BoF – part of this is also down to Swiss watch makers treating the industry like fast fashion rather than heirloom designs

    WeChat Campaign Spotlight: Montblanc Gives Chinese Fans a Digital History Lesson | Jing Daily – smaller more discrete items like pens and wallets still do well in gift giving – more on luxury related items here.

    Huawei V8 leaked also gets a dual camera design – Gizchina.com – Honor device looks like it would cannibalise sales

    Why the Home Wars Aren’t the Phone Wars — The Information – not a zero sum game (paywall)

    JD.com sees 47% rise in Q1 revenue | Shanghai Daily – I wonder how much is due to WeChat integration?

  • Gucci apologises + more things

    Gucci apologises for sending warning letters to Hong Kong shops over paper handbag offerings – context, context, context. Paper items are burned as offerings for the dead to take them into the next life. It tends to be things that they loved or are likely to need. Gucci apologises because it got context wrong, there is zero cannibalisation of Gucci bag sales. More on luxury-related items here.

    Facebook drives more traffic to articles, but Twitter users spend more time reading them – Do small screens translate to shortened attention spans? Not so, suggests a new report from Pew Research Center. Turns out mobile users are spending twice as much time reading long-form articles

    Majority Of Germans Think The Media Is Controlled By Political, Economic Elites – According to a recent survey, the majority of people in Germany view the news media as simply a pillar of the government and the powerfully elite – which will have an impact on trust

    China’s Internet Giants Back A Smartphone On Four Wheels – smarter cars a la Tesla

    Canada cites espionage risk from two Huawei employees, saying it plans to reject their immigration applications | South China Morning Post – Huawei still has a trust gap. Canada might be especially sensitive given how throughly pwned Nortel was by China based hackers in years prior to their bankruptcy

    Dentsu Aegis Network Buys Hot Chinese Agency With Focus on Mobile, Retail, WeChat | AdAge – congrats to VeryChat

    Killing an American icon: Fuel delivery start-ups could downsize U.S. gas stations | SiliconAngle – something about this feels iffy to me. Service stations have a lot of safety restrictions for good reason, that could fall between the cracks in the ‘Uber model’. The margins in running gas stations are actually about the convenience store part of the business, not the fuel. It may make more sense in electric vehicles with easily swappable battery packs???

    Apple to Revamp Streaming Music Service After Mixed Reviews, Departures – Bloomberg – if the sub-editor had honesty tourettes this would read, ‘Veterans scarpered, Apple strives to make streaming service less shit’. ★ Apple Music and Coherent Product Design and Marketing | Daring Fireball – John Gruber on Apple Music, he is less negative than Bloomberg

    BlackBerry brings video calls to BBM on Android and iOS; North America only for now | VentureBeat | Apps | by Paul Sawers – way too late for many people to care – way behind Skype for Business let alone LINE, WeChat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger etc etc

    Huawei G9 Lite released in two versions in China | Gizchina – interesting positioning as it seems to sit awkwardly between Honor and Huawei’s P series

    The Who, What & Why of Activist Investors’ Attacks | EE Times – McKinsey seem to have incredibly rose-tinted glasses about this, presumably not to disrupt business in other practice areas such as banking…

    The truth about social media algorithms – and why marketers should welcome rather than fear them | The Drum – basically the spiel that he gave at We Are Social last week