Commentary

Dancing Around The Bleeding Edge of Technology (Without Getting Cut)

The biggest trend in the digital electronics world has nothing and everything to do with the Internet. The trend is not that devices such as your TV or your telephone are connected to the Web -- they've been doing that for years -- but that the interface for these devices are becoming more dynamic and reminiscent of bleeding-edge digital devices like the iPhone and bleeding-edge platforms like social media.

My wife reads Business Week (admittedly not a bleeding-edge publication) and she tears out the best articles for me: the ones she knows I'll find of interest. In one recent issue (April 13, to be exact) there were three very relevant articles regarding how traditional devices were morphing their user interfaces and how these interfaces were becoming more Webified, ready for search and discovery navigation and expanding beyond their original purpose.

The cable industry has been leading this charge for a number of years now. Recently Canoe Ventures announced a little teaser for where it's going over the next couple of weeks. Cable strategists have recognized for quite some time that their old ways of doing business were going to become slowly extinct, so they've been responding in broad fashion. On the conservative side, they've dipped their toes into online TV, with, for example, Comcast's Fancast site, which is apparently part of a broader initiative with its "skunkworks" group called (simply) Comcast Interactive Media. On the more liberal side, and not always in conjunction with the cable companies themselves, I've seen a glimpse of where the platform could go. About two years ago Alan Schulman of The Digital Innovations Group displayed an example of what he would do to recreate the television "guide" experience, using a graphical, non-linear search model. That example was pretty brilliant -- and even though I know there were a number of cable representatives in the room, I never saw it come to fruition. For that matter, I have yet to see anyone even come close to what he put together -- but I'm holding my breath and keeping my fingers crossed, because it was awesome.

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Of course, this is not all about cable; the telephone industry is doing it, too! Verizon has been running a slew of TV campaigns promoting its new Hub. The Hub is basically a really smart phone. It's disguised as a landline with fun features like contacts, Vcast and weather reports. Of course, none of these are new for any of you with a third- or better-generation mobile phone, but for those of you still holding on to your landline, this just may be your kind of device. To me it feels less like an innovation and more of a desperate last gasp for the home phone.

But none of these innovations even holds a candle to what's going on as a result of the influence from gaming platforms like the Wii and PS3. In that same issue of Business Week there was a story about the impending rush of "gesture-reading" devices like HP's TouchSmart PC and even your home television. These devices are taking the world of "Minority Report" and making it real by bringing you into the interface and having your hand gestures interact with the display, potentially dragging you kicking and screaming into a three-dimensional digital world (something I predict is as inevitable as a sunburn in Maui). If you could sit on the couch and wave your hands in order to browse through the interface of your TV, literally casting aside the less interesting content and dragging the best stuff to the top, you'd be giving the term "couch surfing" a whole new meaning. And just for the record, this isn't the kind of stuff you'll be waiting 10 years just to see in action. HP says these devices could be in your hands by the end of the year,

So, just as I thought people were getting comfortable with technology, the world up and changes again. The creative minds that were jolted by the release of the iPhone and the Wii have been set free and they're out of control, but in a very, very good way. Those of us surface-dwelling minds are using the Apple-design "reflection" in every Powerpoint presentation we do and consider that to be innovative, but people far smarter than us are tackling these challenges and succeeding. I love being a part of it and getting to see it all first. The simple truth is that while the bleeding edge may not be the gathering point for the masses, it does provide insight into where the masses are headed, and that is a place I want to be.

7 comments about "Dancing Around The Bleeding Edge of Technology (Without Getting Cut)".
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  1. Ed Madison from Engaging Media, April 15, 2009 at 11:24 a.m.

    You mentioned, "About two years ago Alan Schulman of The Digital Innovations Group displayed an example of what he would do to recreate the television "guide" experience, using a graphical, non-linear search model. That example was pretty brilliant -- and even though I know there were a number of cable representatives in the room, I never saw it come to fruition." Dish Network purchased Sling Media a while back and they have what you're describing with their SlingGuide -- which is in beta presently. It provides me with graphical, non-linear search and DVR scheduling capability from the web or from my iPhone.

  2. Martin Edic from WTSsocial, April 15, 2009 at 11:38 a.m.

    It will be interesting to see how much apple enforces its very wide-ranging patents on gesture-based interfaces. And, regarding Business Week, they are almost legendary in being so wrong about their predictions of future trends that there are stock traders who routinely trade against their articles.

  3. Robin Zielin from Hospitality Phone Systems, April 15, 2009 at 12:10 p.m.

    Is the Hub from Verizon really "...a desperate last gasp for the home phone" or maybe an invitation for those of us who have abandoned home phones to return? I have not had a home phone for over 4 years now, using only my mobile phone instead. Without having really investigated the Hub, I am intrigued - the benefits of my smartphone on a larger screen without taking up the counterspace of my laptop? Sounds like a good idea to me and I am not the 'stay-at-home mom' portrayed in the current Hub commercials.

  4. Farrell Reynolds, April 15, 2009 at 1:06 p.m.

    "She TEARS OUT the best articles...?"
    In the context of the information discussed, that imagery jangles a bit. All else, as usual, very informative.

  5. Max Kalehoff from MAK, April 15, 2009 at 1:59 p.m.

    Canoe Ventures is interesting, but what's really interesting are some of the small upstart innovators who are influencing expectations of what TV should look like. Boxee.tv perhaps provides the best glimpse of what truly interactive television might look like, and drives tremendous fear into the legacy cable tv and content ecosystem. Foremost, innovators like Boxee demonstrates how good an experience can be when it is genuinely designed FOR THE USER.

  6. Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, April 15, 2009 at 6:07 p.m.

    I like the tearing out part. I do it too for people and for myself. Go as far as the imagination will take you in the tech world, but nothing will ever take the place of holding and giving another person an actual thing or putting an article on your refrigerator. By the way, the hub is a nice looking gimmick. Fine if you really need that kind of extra gizmo, but
    rather redundant. Verizon should better invest in trained service techs.

  7. Alan Schulman from SapientNitro, April 23, 2009 at 2:23 p.m.

    Actually, the guide I showed was created as a joint venture between myself and Visible World. It now exists as the "ZuGuide" at www.zuguide.com. Though every cable operator who saw it was also "blown away" by it, they all said, "cool... but we're building one ourselves". Well, that was 2004 and we're still waiting. Hello FIOS? For more information on the ZuGuide, contact Seth Haberman at Visible World - still one of the brightest minds in our business.

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