Where are the users?
Information technology is supposed to benefit people. Not all people, necessarily. But some people, some of the time. Very frequently engineers are looking to solve a problem, but there are few or no end users involved in the design of solutions. There are many explanations, including lack of knowledge of the options, political agendas and...
Skin in the Game
Those who read this blog are more than likely among the group that shares some level of conviction (maybe not as strongly as I do!) that Augmented Reality is going to be important. We are a small minority, but April 2012 will represent an important historical milestone. Perhaps it is as important as the June...
Intel’s First Full Acquisition of Korean Firm, Olaworks
The Korea Herald is not where I normally get my news. Nor do I regularly visit The Register (whose tag line is "Biting the Hand that Feeds IT"). But today I visited both in order to learn more about Intel's $30.7M acquisition of Olaworks. In case you are not familiar with it, Olaworks was one...
Searching for a Viable Business Model
Customers value what they pay for and (usually) pay for what they value. If customers do not pay for value, is the business model at fault? This basic question is at the root of a current polemic facing Facebook. Companies in other markets as well, for example AR, must answer the question or die. I...
Project Glass: The Tortoise and The Hare
Remember the Aesop's fable about the Tortoise and the Hare? 11,002,798 viewers as of 9 AM Central European Time April 10, 2012. Since April 4, 2012 Noon Pacific Time, in five and a half days, over the 2012 Easter holiday weekend, the YouTube "vision video" of Google's Project Glass has probably set a benchmark in...
Augmented Real(ity) Estate
I would like to live in a world in which the real estate agent [information finder (an "explorer" that uses AR)] and the transaction platform are all (or nearly all) digital. Funda Real Estate, one of the largest real estate firms in the Netherlands, was (to the best of my knowledge) the first Layar customer...
IoT via Cloud Meetup in Zurich
The other day I traveled 2 hours and 45 minutes from Montreux to Zurich and 2 hours and 50 minutes home following a 2-hour meetup group meeting at the ETHZ. It was a classic case of my desire to meet and speak with interesting people being sufficiently strong to outweigh my feeling that I have...
The Air We Breathe
In IoT circles, air is a popular topic. There is so much of it and, at the same time, it is so fundamental to the quality of life on our planet. During the IoT-4-Cities event Andrea Ridolfi, co-founder of SensorScope, presented about the use of sensors mounted on buses and trams to measure air quality...
Augmented Reality SDK Confusion
I don't feel confused about AR SDKs but I wonder if some of those who are releasing new so-called AR SDKs have neglected to study the AR ecosystem. In my depiction of the Augmented Reality ecosystem, the "Packaging" segment is at the center, between delivery and three other important segments. Packaging companies are those that...
Time Under Pressure
In my most recent post I wrote a bit about what happens when I leave my office. At events I meet a lot of new people, and when out on the road I encounter objects that aren't familiar to me. It can be enlightening but it can be also dangerous and costly if time is...
Where EVRYTHNG Connects
Over the past 10 days I've been traveling and participating in important workshops and events in the US so writing and posting to this blog has been infrequent. My recent face-to-face meetings involved those attending the AR-in-Texas workshops, followed by the participants of the Fifth AR Standards Community Meeting that I chaired in Austin. Then,...
In digital anima mundi
Each year the producers of TED bring beautifully-articulated, thought-provoking content to the world. Those of us who are not invited or choose not to attend the event in person get free access to these talks in the weeks that follow the end of the live production. My first session from the 2012 TED program was...