Image credit: Black Mirror on Netflix What are some key learnings this year about wearables and connected things? Here are my key learnings within ten areas of Ubiquitous Computing that keeps me excited and concerned some of the time. The promise of Ubiquitous Computing is counter intuitive, when simply defined, it sounds like a future resembling where computing as we know it is pervasive, in the way, and overwhelming. In reality, ubiquitous computing helps make computers more useful. Pervasive or ubiquitous computing means more connected things with compute power that is secure, private, contextually aware, extensible resulting within i/o that blend in, get out of the way, and maximize utility for the user without complexity. Netflix’s show Black Mirror For me, a world where my “things” knows who I am, securely, and presents information to me when I need it, through a natural interface, means less time staring at the black mirror in my palm or fumbling through remote options for my TV. This singular idea has been my guidepost for things I work on . This year, I have been curating my interest in this space as collections of posts on . To date, these posts have amassed a decent number of fellow enthusiasts and readers. Here’s how the numbers breakdown for followers in each collection: professionally and personally Google+ — Connected Things 34,415 — Connected Mobility 90,356 — Wearables Weekly 75,994 — Connected Health & Fitness Innovation 43,588 So many internet points With a quarter million followers across the various topics I post, it comes as no surprise then, that in 2016, I’ve and shared a ton about connected cars, wearables, and IoT. If you follow my posts, attend my talks or listen to my podcast, thank you! You fuel my passion in this space. had the opportunity to give quite a few talks 10 things learned about the State of Ubicomp, 2016: This year we heard a lot about machine , self driving cars, VR, AR, and Amazon finally shipped an assistant in our living rooms that we actually want to use. A feat has been trying to achieve since the mid-2000’s with Windows Media Center. learning Microsoft It’s an understatement to say a lot happening in ubiquitous computing falls within the ‘emerging technologies’ world. As far as maturity is concerned, it’s good to look at to notice that most of the tech in this space is just getting over the hump of the “peak of inflated expectations”. I think this means 2017 is ripe for continued industry consolidation and the trend of startup exits and failure will increase. There is lots to learn. Gartner’s hype cycle Gartner’s hype cycle 1. State of the market: Special Purpose vs. General Purpose We learned this year that there can’t be one market leader across the ubiquitous computing space. It’s just too broad. It must be stated that even within the various verticals that make up ubiquitous computing, there won’t be the zero sum conglomerates as we’ve had in the past. Being a cog in the wheel, is not just a challenge for larger companies, the affects startups now. Winners may earn linchpin status, but there’s an entire wheel moving so rapidly, constant adjustments need to be made to keep up. There are more technology startups than we’ve ever seen creatively working on how to make computers more aware, personal while keeping utility clear and simple. Industries within Ubicomp have accepted that the pace of innovation is lightspeed. Large corporations are adapting with smaller teams, bigger spend on R&D and a copy of Jake Knapp’s Design Sprint book on a mantle. innovators dilemma The rule this year is to keep up fueling that innovation center or partner. This just how works. the law of accelerating returns The singularity is near, deal with it The concept of one platform to rule them all, is being left behind with the PC era. Within each technology sector, I find it difficult to believe one company, alone, will dominate as IBM, Apple, or Microsoft once did. A specific example: Intel’s role as a general purpose chip maker does not translate well in the special purpose computing era. Intel is a general purpose chips maker, this year are struggling to gain a foothold across the many sectors that dominate the Ubicomp space; Wearables, IoT, self driving cars etc. Meanwhile, ARM continues to crush it as it’s market share, licensing business model, and industry position in special purpose computing grows year over year. ARM’s business model has spurred many leaders like Broadcom, Apple, NVIDIA and others in the world of Ubicomp. Special purpose won the Ubicomp market 2016. I think this is a trend. 2. The world is changing To realize a world where our silicon powered things help us proactively, that is, without too much input from us, computer input and output as we know it, has to change. There has been a spike in discussion about the dangers to the lives of middle class, this rapid pace of change will have. It’s not all bad though, some changes will also improve the lives of users, while drastically blurring the physical and digital world, as well as . As computers become more pervasive, the more our economies will change. This is not something I learned in 2016 necessarily, just something I’ve been reminded of frequently. transform industries and the way we live and work See also: . Humans Need Not Apply, by CGP Gray People losing their jobs to robots is no laughing matter, sorry. 3. There's no place like ::1/128 The smart home is the front page of ubiquitous computing. Many have tried . We keep learning that Hollywood-style interfaces but don’t translate well in the home. The trick with a seamless connected thing is a contextual experience that maximizes utility for the user without complexity. Amazon, Samsung and droves of startups dominated home consumer electronics. This may have been expected to some, however the winning interface for the home has been voice. The success of Amazon’s Alexa, with over 1,000 skills and counting, was due to the platforms near-flawless execution of natural language understanding (NLU) and automatic speech recognition (ASR). How awesome would it be if your car infotainment system worked that flawlessly? Funny you should ask, Samsung hedged it’s bets with acquisitions. With an increased pace of acquisitions of startups like , you now have Amazon Echo-like conversational services, powered by Samsung when heading home. over the years over and over look great on the big screen a lot of Intelligence of Connected Things Viv Harman We are still not there yet; brands like the haven’t yet made it into general lexicon but Apple has made some to make the millions of IoS devices and connected things out there secure and extensible under a simple, familiar user experience. Wink Hub strategic partnership bets Image credit: Internet of Shit by Motherboard 4. Wearables balancing special vs. single purpose Users overwhelmingly on what type of wrist worn . When it comes to market share, Fitbit proved that users want special or single purpose wearables as it continued to dominate Apple Watch and Android Wear for wrist real estate. The realization that consumers want specialized wearable experiences also brings me back to my earlier point about Intel. the only logical explanation based on data, is that we get. 2016 has been promising though with the first of many special purpose W1 hardware chips for wearables shipped this year with . In time, industry will continue this trend, building upon specialized low-power chips vs. repurposing miniaturized chips that haven’t been optimized for wearables. voted with their wallets wearables they preferred this year Smartwatch shipments are falling 51.6% YoY as of 2016 Q3 users more utility for the battery life Apple’s Airpods Also, specialized vs general purpose in the wearables space is my reason why Snap may succeed where Google Glass failed. Now, here is Robert Scoble in the shower, again. Image credit: Business Insider 5. Pervasive Computing, brought to you by the cloud. Microsoft, IBM, Google, NVidia for leadership Cloud, Machine Learning/Car Intelligence even Firefox when it comes to the rapid pace of the WebVR platform. Microsoft’s cloud business and their efforts in AI is always a welcome opportunity for independent developers, academics, and startups alike. Standing on the shoulders of giants never felt so good. As a matter of fact, there has been a focused on machine learning, and connected mobility. In order to keep up with the pace of innovation, car manufacturers are adopting new business models, and with technology companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google, NVidia and others for example. led the tech juggernaut’s earnings spike in partnerships across industries accelerating the rate of partnerships For companies like Tesla, owning the bits that make your car see, hear, and move autonomously makes more strategic sense this past summer. I think the former will be the norm, where companies will “stick to their knitting” and leverage the strengths of others where it makes sense. I should mention, Tesla still maintains many strategic partnerships like it’s energy partnership with Panasonic. as it severed its relationship with MobileEye 6. Security: , it is important for industry to rally around IoT standards. It is ever so critical for devices to be built from the ground up with security and privacy in mind. If the hardware and platform then the standards or legislation should ship with a capability of digitally signed updates. OTA’s on connected things in the home or enterprise should not be an afterthought. Now more than ever has to have network access Friends don’t let friends buy cheap internet toasters An unfortunate demonstration of the exponential damage un-patched ‘things’ can cause, happened with . If you’re reading this, you were more than likely affected when in October, this singular event exposed many device manufacturers weren’t implementing standard security practices like the enforcement of personalizing factory-default usernames and passwords during new device activation. Most of the devices affected were off the shelf web cams, DVR cable boxes and every day connected devices. We all learned that as an OEM, if you intend to ship a device that internet access, then the device needs a level of security that gives the user comfort that their information is private, is intuitive to secure and interoperable to update. This reminds me, I need to disconnect my toaster. Dyn and the Mirai botnet needs It is going to difficult “put the toothpaste back in the tube” as it pertains to the the state of security in the “connected things space.” One reason many devices weren’t built with security in mind is due to the costs related to development and maintenance through continuous updates. I think, many will agree that solutions like may take the lead or heavily influence what may become industry standard. Google’s Weave What privacy? Privacy? 7. On privacy I have more questions than suggestions or answers with privacy pertaining to connected things. connected devices in 2016. That’s a lot of smart things gathering what you may consider private information within your home. In my view, recent world events regress efforts in the internet privacy space and this affects ubiquitous computing, bigly. From a macro lens, the U.S. and U.K bought into fear uncertainty and doubt. Some of this FUD was championed by rhetoric, populism and the economic transformation this very industry brings. Gartner predicted there’d be 6 billion American citizens decided to elect Trump, a candidate . Across the pond, the U.K. exited from the EU, and brought in a Prime Minister who , a bill that makes the Patriot Act look like child’s play. With this, I say, bend over folks, our privacy, as it pertains to the millions of connected things with our data, is royally fucked! who sides with the government’s justification to defeat encryption just passed the so called Snoopers Charter Before our liberty burns, however, my hope is that solutions like Apple HomeKit or Google’s , may set the stage for developers to easily solve problems with privacy in mind. Brillo platform 8/9. Interoperability and Extensibility The security scares we suffered this year exposed an even more concerning flaw; the more “things” get connected, the more vulnerable we are. In recent years, the market has pushed so called smart TV’s and DVRs with Netflix apps that never get updated. Building interoperable things that talk to other things is expensive and the underlying platform architecture is even harder. OEM’s have failed to date with a secure unified standard. It’s like everytime I decide: “I’m choosing with Zigbee” to manage my network of things, another standard comes along. XKCD: How standards poliferate — https://xkcd.com/927/ Even Google can’t get their head around it. Google acquired Nest who decided none of these protocols worked and so, they invented Weave. After acquisition, Google starts working on Weave. Sounds sane, until you realize the and will continue on different development tracks. Nest Weave is different from Google Weave Everyone wants their own standard and these ecosystem fiefdoms will continue to make it difficult for interoperable things. Until we figure out the security stuff, maybe that’s a good thing. 10. The best interface is no interface One of my favourite thought pieces by . This year, I got use to interfaces based on natural metaphors. The screen on my Android Wear watch for example, only turns on when I lift my wrist towards my face. How awesome is that? Golden Krishna on interfaces actually advocates no interfaces The only intuitive interface is the nipple Humans are slow to learn new interfaces, we think we want Minority report but in the home and at work, we are practical and rely on existing metaphors and behaviors we’ve come to accept as natural. Keep the buttons, give me Alexa for my car. It’s hard to create interfaces that are easy to use and easy to create interfaces hard to figure out. Even Tesla’s voice actions are shitty, and no, a 17 inch touchscreen doesn’t make it better. Keep the buttons, physical or digital, give me Alexa for my car. Samsung, you better make that Harman deal worth it. If Tesla, can’t execute and Apple can’t either, maybe Google will help us? This year Google kickstarted 2016 with the at the Strand in San Francisco CA. I was fortunate to attend and to be inspired with not just what Google was working on but where the industry as a whole is heading. Maybe I’ll do a review of how they are doing, but here is a look at some of the ubiquitous computing platforms I’m interested in seeing evolve next year: Ubiquity Dev Summit Android Auto, Apple Carkit, Blackberry’s QNX In car: Samsung Tizen, Android Wear, GarminIQ, WatchKit Wearable Platform: Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV: iBeacons, Physical Web, Eddystone (UUID/URL) Sensors: Developer platforms/Context: Google Awareness API, Nearby API, Project Tango, Windows 10 (Hololens), Amazon Alexa, Google Home/ChromeCast Interfaces: In-ear assistants like the , products from Vuzix, Epson, HiMax, devices and interfaces like Google Glass (there is still hope) MagicLeap, Oculus, HTC Vive, Hololens, MetaAR, Cardboard, Daydream/Tango Moto Hint+ Lost Explorer Podcast with Chris Jenkins So where do we go from here? The mission of ubiquitous computing is counter intuitive. It requires infrastructure, platforms, ecosystems, stacks, frameworks and hardware to work in perfect harmony just to deliver things we need when we need it. To sum up we accomplished a lot but there is still a lot to be done next year with: Security and privacy in a Trump’ian and Brexit world Context, awareness and the intelligence of connected things Interoperability and extensibility Simpler, more useful interfaces that delight and the fall of apps. For good or ill, these are a few of the many reasons I continue to be geeked out about emerging tech and ubiquitous computing. It is also why I try to inspire more minorities to get into . science, tech engineering and design Resources My Lost Explorer Podcast Notable thought leaders on Twitter Favourite tech podcasts, pretty much anything on TWiT.tv https://medium.com/@nobleackerson/ode-to-ubiquitous-computing-5eb772459ca1#.fnvlh7vfs
