CES 2018: tighten your 2.5 ppm helmets

So you came back from Vegas with your LG bendable OLED screen (needed to wrap those smart gimbap rolls), your Hushme mask (needed to give Hannibal Lecter a call), and your Plume Labs Flow (needed a cheese grater that doubled as a air quality monitor).

Hushme mask (gethushme.com) allows you to mask your voice using various sounds (Minions, R2D2, rain, wind...).

Plume Labs Flow (plumelabs.com)

And you wonder what CES 2018 will bring you next year. Here's an exclusive preview of the 3 gadgets that will define the event:

• Xiaomi 2.5PPM Helmet: after purchasing Plume Labs and Hushme, the Chinese manufacturer created an air filtering mask with an airbag that inflates around your head as soon as nanoparticle levels hit the roof. In this safe bubble, the air is pure, your eyes don't hurt, and no one can hear you scream. 
• Alphago D-Bunk: this cloud-based A.I. service boosts your messaging and SNS apps, and sorts fake news from verified stories. Or at least it used to until Russia hacked it.
• Samsung Gear Fit Cuffs: clip the smartwatch on your left wrist, the other end of the handcuff on your right wrist. It beeps and flashes LED rainbows as soon as LEE Jae-yong moves 200 ft away from his cell.

mot-bile 2017

Mi Mobile on MIUI - Mi IoT on Your Network

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has awarded over 40 MVNO licenses since 2013. Among the recipients, many service providers (e.g. telcos like YuanTel, Snail Mobile, or specialists like Hainan Airlines, Ping An Insurance, CMBC bank, or Youku Tudou - video sharing), retailers (from the big netcos like Alibaba - who launched 'Qinxin' last Summer - or JD.com, to mobile phone retailers like D.Phone or FunTalk, to mobile service retailers like AiSiDi or Telling, to home appliance retailers like Suning or Gome),  manufacturers (e.g. Lenovo, Hisense, Foxconn, or Xiaomi)...

As of August 2015, 26 of the licensees had launched their services, claiming over 10 million subscribers (up from 8.2 the previous month), including 1 for YuanTel. 9 M subs were on China Unicom, 1 M on China Telecom, 0.1 M on China Mobile, which was just starting in the game... and boasts about 820 M subs.

Xiaomi, who sold 60 M smartphones last year, launched "Mi Mobile" last week on China Telecom and China Unicom networks. Surprisingly for a manufacturer, they offer SIM-only services. This company is used to making little margin on each handset, but also to leveraging its customer base through peripherals and convergent service platforms, particularly around its MIUI platform on Android. 

Among the gizmos found on Mi.com: Mi Pad, Mi Box, Mi TV, Redmi Note, Mi Band, Mi Power Bank, and even Mi Air Purifier:

If Mi Mobile is more the Airpocalypse-fighter than the airtime-killer kind of MVNO, MNOs and fellow manufacturers must beware: even before becoming an operator, Xiaomi had the IoT-ready approach players like Samsung lack. And they have a better focus and drive than local rivals Hisense or Foxconn...

mot-bile 2015

Freebies in? Mojo out!

If you're a frequent flyer on these miserable errlines (believe me, I feel your pain), you've been prepared years ahead for Apple's and Samsung's troubles.

The Apple case is very simple: Cupertino lost the leadership in smartphones the day they decided not to open their platforms to other manufacturers. You can't beat manufacturers and users demographics, and the Android community was bound to catch up very quickly.

For Samsung, the "Nokia Syndrom" hits a leader that can't cover all bases when commoditization strikes. It's not how far you stretch in today's range of products, but how deep you stretch into tomorrow's value chains. Nokia kept churning out great stuff from its research centers, yet didn't convert them into innovations because the leadership forgot to focus on innovation itself. Samsung is very much aware of the need to extend its leadership into fields more sustainable than hardware design, but that's easier said than done (Bada? Tizen?). And as smartphones become commodities, it's getting harder to differentiate from Chinese or Indian players that can themselves sell massively and invest massively in research (Xiaomi, Micromax... Motorolax?).

If plummeting market shares are only sanctions from the market, giving away freebies remains the ultimate sign that a leader is losing its mojo. Significantly, the freebies that signaled the end of the race for innovation leadership came in the form of cash for shareholders (see "Apple - the end of the affair"). Samsung chose to bribe endusers instead, by giving away gifts across Southeast Asia markets (see "Samsung Localizes Southeast Asia Strategy" - WSJ 20140811). 

A quick fix before the next big hit. Maybe the Galaxy Note 4 next month, supposedly a LG G3 killer that could come in flat and curve versions, and preferably unbuzz the upcoming Apple iPhone 6.

But again*, we're talking Fall/Winter collections here, not game changers.

mot-bile 2014

* remember "Apple's Ready to Ware v. Fast-Fashion"?