Seoul Digital Forum 2014

Unlike for the 2012 edition*, I decided not to attend SDF 2014 with a "Press" card, but to remain in the audience... which still leaves opportunities to chat with innovators, particularly when they are launching impromptu roundtables at the cafe**, like Alan Mycroft, the enthusiastic father of Raspberry Pi who succeeded in bringing fun back into computer science and students back to both schools and playgrounds. Needless to say, Mycroft wishes Korea's education system were less destructive for creativity.

By the way: this country would be a much better place if failures were recognized as an indispensable component of innovation. In the wake of the Sewol tragedy more than ever, we must learn how to learn from our mistakes, instead of just firing people before they accumulate experience.

And let's not deter those who are willing to try, or turn down a 15 year-old because he's 15 year-old. Let's keep in mind that at that ripe age, Jack Andraka invented his 3-cent cancer detector:

Andraka also called for a democratization of science papers, which should be available for free - knowledge as a human right - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/469346406327529473

And Korea? Please stop looking for the Korean Steve Jobs. Remember that you have Kilnam CHON, who brought internet to Asia and cares for the billions victims of the digital divide. Remember that you never succeed by following the money, but always by leading in values.

1982, Korea's maiden internet network (the first outside the US). Meet its father, Kilnam Chon, at Seoul Digital Forum. twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/468913159601152002

An innovation literally brings something new inside a given environment, which means innovation shouldn't be considered without taking into account its impacts on the said environment, the time factor, the very process of "bringing". Ideally, innovation is simple, cheap, and democratic, and the innovator cares more about helping others than making money. The ideal innovator could well be Alfredo Moser, whose Moser lamp changed the lives of many among the poorest, but didn't change him (see "Alfredo Moser: Bottle light inventor proud to be poor").

Innovators need to be empowered, though, and that's what Mark Randall loves to do. At Adobe, he pushed the suggestion box to the next level by offering a "Kickbox" to all collaborators willing to develop a pet project. Nothing revolutionary, but a concrete message: we give you a process, some money, total freedom, so that you can give your best. And it works.

In any case, never forget to have fun. Like Guy Hoffman when he improvises on piano with his robot. Hoffman's take at anthropomorphy in robotics is not of the 'creepy' kind, like Hiroshi Ishiguro's*: instead of reaching for the most realistic humanoid, he focuses on human-robot interactions, UI/UX, and particularly body language, a universal, emotionally loaded language that speaks volumes.

Travis, Hoffman's latest cute bot was on stage at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, for a closer look and a more comprehensive understanding of his work, check his TEDx talk in Jaifa (more videos on his website - http://guyhoffman.com/category/topvideo):




As computers around us keep getting smarter, and as the best brains collaborate to decypher the human brain and make the next computers even smarter***, it's somehow reassuring to see masses embrace a technophobic human relying on his own intellect. But there as well, it takes a lot of work to make your creation look brilliant: "Sherlock" co-author Steven Moffat confessed that neither Benedict Cumberbatch nor himself were superior minds. And I presume that a robotic arm would have certainly come in handy for Moffat's book signing marathon - this waiting line tells a lot about Sherlock's popularity in Korea:

twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/469293346062495744

Of course, not all crimefighters are created equal. And I'm afraid Homicide Watch DC's vibrant activism could be misinterpreted as crocodile tears. If I second all initiatives to make police and legal systems more transparent, I suggested to Laura AMICO that people who've been wrongly suspected should be considered as victims, not just 'dropped charges' in the 'suspect' column. The more experienced KWON Hye-jin (Newstapa.org - Korean Center for Investigative Journalism, the local partner of the ICIJ / International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) has tamed her passion for truth by keeping her eye on the ball: emotions are one thing, justice and journalism different issues.

Yes, there were a few dull talks too - but again, failures are part of the innovation process. And the young participants to the first Global Hackathon will learn as much from their failures as from their successes. Maybe the Australian leader of the winning team will even learn to share the stage more gracefully in the future - but he doesn't need that if he's looking for a Job(s).

The 11th edition of SDF is over but, as a famous cyborg said, "I'll be back".

mot-bile 2014

* see "Seoul Digital Forum: Return To The Future"
** I wish I had more time to chat with KIM Sangbae, a MIT expert in biomimetics who does amazing things by learning from geckos, cheetahs, meshworms or cockroaches (check the (vi)vids on http://biomimetics.mit.edu/videos). The following day, in his talk, KIM showed the part of BBC's fascinating 'Meat eaters' with the cheetah, pointing out the position and the role of the tail during the hunt, but what strikes me each time I watch this slow motion masterpiece is the eerie stability of the predator's head, like a Steadicam locked on its prey.

*** looking forward to the findings and applications of the Blue Brain and Human Brain projects (Henry Markram - EPFL)... and to tasting the cherry-mushroom mix recommended by Cognitive Cooking (Rob High - IBM Watson).

SDF 2014, the program:
Wednesday May 21
09:00-09:10    Opening Ceremony & Keynote Address Opening & Congratulatory Remarks
09:10 - 09:30    ‘‘The Beginning of ‘New TIME’”
09:30 - 10:00    [KEY1 ‘Connect’] CHON Kilnam
10:00 - 10:30    [KEY2 ‘Capture’] Luis von AHN
10:50 - 11:10    [KEY3 ‘Resonance’] AN Yongil
11:10 - 11:30    [KEY4 ‘Unprejudiced’] WI Euiseok
11:30 - 11:50    [KEY5 ‘Wear’] Eric FRIEDMAN
12:50 - 13:10    [KEY6 ‘Programmable’] Alan MYCROFT
13:10 - 13:30    [KEY7 ‘Working Together’] Lia NAVARRO
13:30 - 13:50    [KEY8 ‘Borderless’] Tony LYU
13:50 - 14:30    [KEY9 ‘Simply Brilliant’]Alfredo MOSER, Illac DIAZ, Claire RIGBY
15:10 - 15:35    [KEY10 ‘Universal’]Sylvia CHAN-OLMSTED, RHEE June Woong
15:35 - 15:55    [KEY11 ‘Empathy’] Laura and Chris AMICO
16:00 - 16:20    [KEY12 ‘Emotional Innovation’] Kwame FERREIRA
16:20 - 16:40    [KEY13 ‘Understanding’] Simon Seojoon KIM
16:40 - 17:20    [KEY14 ‘Radical Connectivity’] Nicco MELE, YOON Youngchul
Thursday May 22
09:00-09:50    Keynote Address
09:10 - 09:50    [KEY15 ‘Uncommon Sense’] Steven MOFFAT & Sue VERTUE
09:50 - 10:10    [KEY16 ‘Brain-reading’] Henry MARKRAM
10:10 - 10:30    [KEY17 ‘Mind-reading’] Rob HIGH
10:50 - 11:10    [KEY18 ‘Moving Design’] KIM Bongjin
11:10 - 11:30    [KEY19 ‘Cure’] YUN Kyongsik, CHO Dongcharn
11:30 - 12:00    [KEY20 ‘Communication & Reflection’] HWANG Kyung-Sig & SON Wha-Chul
13:20 - 13:40    [KEY21 ‘Bridging by Sharing’] LEE Sangchul
13:40 - 14:00    [KEY22 ‘Creativity Within’] Mark RANDALL
14:00 - 14:20    [KEY23 ‘Unwalled Curiosity’] Jack ANDRAKA
14:20 - 14:40    [KEY24 ‘Seeing without Seeing’] Pete ECKERT
15:10 - 15:30    [KEY25 ‘Truth’] KWON Hyejin
15:30 - 15:50    [KEY26 ‘Learn from Nature’] KIM Sangbae
16:00 - 16:20    [KEY27 ‘A Duet’] Guy HOFFMAN
16:20 - 17:00    [KEY28 ‘Amplify’] Daniel Dae KIM, CHANG Tae You, KIM Younghyun, PARK Sangyean
17:10 - 17:50    [KEY29 ‘Hope’] The 1st Global Hackathon Ceremony (“善 Challenge”)
17:50 - 17:55    Closing Remarks · The End
Alternate programs:
SDF DeepDive I - Gaming as Illness and Social Remedies by Graduate School of Culture Technology, KAIST (14:30-17:00 Wednesday May 21) - LEE Dongman, SHIN Yee-jin, PARK Juyong, DOH Young Yim, KIM Huy Kang, SONG Gil-young, Jake SONG, LEE Wonjae, Park Jun Hyun, WOO Jae Joon
SDF DeepDive II - The 1st Global Hackathon “善 Challenge”by AppCenter with SBS Foundation (For 4 days & 3 nights Monday-Thursday May 19-22) - 100 contestants from 16 nations
SDF DeepDive III - Master Class for Media Writing: The Formula for Successful Storytellingby Korea TV & Radio Writers Association with SBS Foundation (14:00-18:40 Thursday May 22) - Steven MOFFAT, Ekuni KAORI

Anovations for Applelatres: Apple has lost its compass

A couple of weeks ago, I changed my Samsung Galaxy II for a Samsung Galaxy III. Hardware-wise, software-wise, performance-wise, connection-wise, they clearly don't belong to the same galaxy. Samsung even managed to made NFC look sexy! The only - minor - default I see was the way the thin back cover vibrates with the speaker, but it's perfectly OK with the flip cover.

If I were (still) an Apple customer, I'd be really disappointed by the iPhone 5: the only real innovation is Lightning, the new dock connector, yet another proprietary marketing trap.

I never considered taking an iPhone because I used to be a Mac user, and I knew Cupertino would do the same with handsets as what they did with desktops:
- start with the sexiest product and user interface,
- refuse to open the proprietary system to other manufacturers,
- progressively retreat to a niche of Appleatres ready to pay dearly even if the product is not the best one anymore,
- get a bounce or two much later, when computers/smartphones are commoditized, just by the grace of a new sexy design (the iMac, the iPhone 69)

This time, they did it all by themselves. Cupertino didn't even need as formidable a foe as Redmond. Mountain View is by no means a small fish, and it learned a lot of sharkisms from Redmond, but if Android claimed the leadership so easily, that's because iPhone refused to hold it by building the largest ecosystem. Actually, to me the last straw was when Apple copied Microsoft by playing short term against long term and dividends against investments, by putting innovation last ("Apple - the end of the affair", "Omnipatent v. Impatent").

So I'm not even disappointed by this iPhone 5. To me, Apple has lost its compass long before and far beyond its first attempt in mapping apps.

Speaking of apps, that's something Samsung seems to be eventually more comfortable with. Not to the point of becoming a reason to be loyal to the brand*, but less an embarrassment.


mot-bile 2012

* my last 4 handsets were Samsung, but I don't feel any special loyalty to the brand. I live in Korea, where their gizmos happen to be the best packages, and the customer service very efficient.

Omnipatent v. Impatent

The Samsung-Apple patent war saw Samsung claim a minor half victory in Korea and Apple a major win in the US. The difference in rulings between the USA and Korea rulings may be the difference between carrying a case and carrying a suitcase.

Samsung lawyers are used to rule the show at home: this army of Seoul University Law School alumnis and former judges know all the tricks of the trade. I don't think there was much jury vetting nor adequate preparation ahead of the US trial, but Apple might have won anyway.

This is not about innovation, but about Intellectual Property management, property meaning that you own the rights, not necessarily that you invented something. Particularly in a system where the date of the patent makes all the difference, regardless of market realities.

As everybody well knows, Apple was built on infrigements: from stealing the Beatles logo to stealing Xerox inventions (no need to remind this audience of Steve Job quoting Picasso about great artists). The iPhone's round square icons mentioned in the trial? We saw them more than ten years ago in early mobile internet portal prototypes. When the iPod, the iPad, and the iPhone hit the shelves, Job's genius was as always in selecting the right existing bricks at the right time more than about inventing something new.

I'm sad to see that what matters now is not anymore to have the best Research and Developpment center and the best inventors anymore, but to have the quickest vultures and to snatch the best patent portfolios. The best product? Look at nowaday's rush for Samsung Galaxy. And anyway, the commoditization of smartphones is already well advanced. Apple is only gaining time*.

I'm interested in innovation. The NTP-RIM farce was not about innovation. Interval Licensing suing Microsoft rivals** was not about innovation. Google purchasing Motorola was not about innovation. This Samsung-Apple war is certainly not about innovation.

mot-bile 2012

* see "Apple - the end of the affair"
** see "Paul Allen v. Rest Of The Web : NTP Redux ?"

Big Fun v. Big Data (Seoul Digital Forum 2012 - Day I)

Over the past quarter of a century, I've survived countless seminars and conferences on innovation, most often as an attendee, sometimes in a different role (organizer, speaker, moderator...), but never with a "Press" badge hanging from my neck. I did just that yesterday. Just for a change, and for fun. What I didn't expect was a trip down memory lane.

First of all, let's set things straight:
0) (to those who knew me in my previous lives) I'm not missing the old times, simply enjoying it, as I've always done ever since I was a teenager. When you're into innovation, you always learn from such fora. And as usual I'm not as much interested in new gizmos (SDF is not the kind of vehicle for that anyway) as in the evolution of the ecosystem, and particularly how it is perceived by its key players, by newcomers, by outsiders.
1) I didn't steal that badge. This is the 9th Annual Seoul Digital Forum, and I happen to blog about Seoul (SeoulVillage.com) as well/poorly as about innovation (mot-bile)*. Besides, ever the caring city for its own diverse ecosystem, Seoul Metropolitan Government recently appointed me as a friendly neighborhood media. For good measure I even brought my old camera (I spared you the press-card-in-the-fedora-hat-band part).
2) I'm an author and a conceptor, not a journalist. I'm not covering an event, just feeding my poor brain with stimulating bits that, at the other end of the system, usually come out as junk as silly and useless as K-pop, only less entertaining, and with more traces of biased opinions in it. If you happen to read it, that's your problem. And if you like it, that's a problem for your shrink to solve.
3) As it turns out, when you have a "Press" badge, your body is also fed with stimulating bits in a cosy Press Room. But you quickly burn the said bits between levels B1 (Vista Hall, Keynotes) and 4F (Art Hall, Press Conferences). And perks are balanced by the fact that if you want to get a good spot, you apparently have to wake up in the middle of the night. My initial spot was really really bad: believe me, you don't want to have Steve Ballmer so close to you.

Seoul Digital Forum 2012 delivered the goods, kicking off with an impressive roster**. Day I started with a guest star who, for a reason that still baffles me, was dubbed a "visionary". Of course, Steve Ballmer is by no means a visionary: this hulk of a boasting salesman is more into products, functionalities and business management than into human beings and vision. Not even convincing as an industry (ex)leader. But life is unfair: nowadays, targeting 450 million devices doesn't sound that sexy when 900 million people are already familiar with the Facebook interface.

Steve B. left to a certain Brad McCabe the Steve J. part of his sales pitch for Windows 8. Tough Jobs, even if Android and Google are the main competitor, not Apple. Brad sounded very happy when he mentioned brand new apps "right out of the box"... but that's precisely a vocabulary Microsoft should ban in places like this. You're not supposed to be shipping boxes anymore, and you don't want people to visualize Skydrive as a UPS truck navigating the cloud (with Google Sky or Google MistView?). That said, Windows n does propose interesting features that Windows n-1 didn't have, starting with the 'blue screen' part of the demo (now a classy grey signals the usual glitch). That was my first stop down memory lane.

I certainly didn't expect disruptive points of view from Warren EAST (ARM) or Mike HARRIS (Gartner) either, only a fair and balanced appreciation of a very wide array of sectors where both maintain a now exoticly limited role in the chain. Both specialists confirmed the obvious market trends (did I mention the cloud?), except of course their own shrinking businesses. For this second station along memory lane, I thought about all those players who managed to survive in such an evolutive environment without really evolving themselves.

Bell Labs also lost some of their luster over the past decade, narrowing their scope to remain competitive in key areas in spite of a struggling mother company (Alcatel-Lucent). But Bell Labs remain a very special player in RD, with a focus on vision and values. And here, at a time when pure research is sacrificed on the altar of short term profits, talent is still measured by surprise more than results. This may sound like happy hypey talk from a Silicon Valley youngster, but Jeong KIM is a bashful, soft spoken leader, truly willing to promote well being at all levels (physical, mental, societal). Yes, technology does save lives, but it's also becoming ever more pervasive (and even intrusive, for instance with somatic network implants), and generating an ever increasing volume of information. All this means a bigger impact zone, higher stakes, higher risks of privacy breaches at the micro level, or massive destruction at the macro level. As an echo to the Big Data promise of managing the unfathomable, KIM quoted Asimov: 'science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom'. In that context more than ever, a sound education proves crucial. Memory lane station 3: in the eyes of Mr KIM, I saw the wisdom I met in so many researchers who really care.

On a lighter note, Phil LIBIN announced that he'd just signed the lease for Evernote's Seoul office, and that new talents were welcome. His 4 year old start-up keeps gaining new fundings and new users (32 millions as we speak), and the founder himself seems to have gained a few kilos in the process. Can LIBIN's "second brain" (that's how he describes Evernote) keep growing at a faster pace than his body? I was almost wondering when I heard him disregard competition as something he should not worry about - a diplodocus kind of reasoning if I ever heard one (and boy did I hear some as a former strategic intelligence nerd - memo lane station 4). But Evernote's CEO seems to be developping new synapses and neurons (or, as he puts it, A.I. as in "Augmented Intelligence") all right, and particularly in Korea, where a local cellco could soon follow NTT DoCoMo, and where a partnership with a major manufacturer covering a wide array of devices could help him develop an even sexier and more seamless user experience. When I asked him up to where he wanted his second brain to grow, LIBIN answered that Evernote would help users think smarter, that soon suggestions would come to them. And as I pointed out the risk of giving in to Big Data, he said, in substance, that it was not compatible with Evernote's DNA. Let's see how Evernote evolves, evolution being a process relying most heavily on genetic mutations.

Speaking of a major Korean manufacturer covering a wide array of devices, Samsung was represented yesterday by CHANG Donghoon: the head of the design team that delivered the Haptic or Galaxy series is confirming the user-centric approach of a company willing to make the most of foldable displays (remember flexible AMOLED?), sensors, context awareness, invisible and transparent technologies, seamless transitions, natural interactions... That brought me further down memory lane: we'll always be staring at exciting stuff, like what Pranav Mistry does at the MIT Media Lab with his Sixth Sense prototype, and for the magic to work and the engine to rock and roll, there must always be some level of reality we've not quite reached yet.

Reality hit home a long time ago for mobile operators, so I was surprised to hear SK Telecom CTO BYUN Jae-woan mention as something new the fact that cellcos were not at the center anymore, and that they had to abandon their telco mindsets, to reconsider their environment, the way they defined themselves. Memory lane, continued: I really enjoyed working on it in the late 90s for a major player, and was saddened to see SKT waste their considerable advance in the middle of the noughties when they forgot to adapt to a more open environment.

Yesterday, the moment I really felt home was when Ben CERVENY (frog design) pleaded guilty: yes, plays and games are major drivers for innovation. Yes, tech design IS game design, and yes, futility can lead to utility (and yes, to achieve that it takes a lot of work and energy). Memory lane: the first start-up I survived (back in 1993-94) was the French leader in online gaming, and the ultimate lab that got me ready for everything that came after. As it turned out, the same company popped up a few stations later: our marketing used to rely on both Big Data and anthropology, and here was Intel's Genevieve BELL, an enthusiastic anthropologist, showing pictures of both the idealized and the actual home environment of TV viewers. One one side, an impossibly neatly sitted Ingals family smiling from their sofa, on the other a pot-bellied couch potato staring from a jungle of a room. Genevieve commented on the way electronic devices were treated very much the same way our anthropologist pointed out the location of the Minitel in a customer's messy living room.

A good forum on innovation must be spectacular and entertaining, and we had the right people for that:
- Hiroshi ISHIGURO and his more or less humanoids (Geminoid, Telenoid, Elfoid, and, as the ultimate alien, Ishiguroid himself),
- Aaron KOBLIN (Google Creative Lab) and his worldwide web of artworks,
- Marc ABRAHAMS (Ig Nobel Prize) and his Miss Sweetie Poo. Note that all forum organizers should use this major innovation: have a 8 year old girl come to the speakers each time she thinks they talk too much, repeating "please stop, I'm bored" until they give up. Low tech, but kawaiily efficient.

Even more spectacular?
- Josh NESBIT's low tech smart(and caring)phones,
- Mikel MARON's grassroot initiatives to put marginalized communities not only on the map*** but behind and all around it (Groundtruth Initiative, Open StreetMap...). Note how, on this photo, Mikel's body language speaks volumes the above mentioned Steve will never read.





Empowering people, making a fair democracy possible, filling all kind of gaps... that's what smart networks should be all about.

mot-bile 2012 / SeoulVillage 2012
* among other nonsensical and poorly written blogules (nothing serious, it simply has to come out of my system).

** program of Day I:
Opening Ceremony and Keynote Address: WOO Wongil (Chief Executive Secretary, Seoul Digital Forum / President and CEO, SBS)
Congratulatory Remarks: LEE Kye Cheol (Chairman, Korea Communications Commission)
Keynote Address:
-"A New Era of Opportunity" - Steve BALLMER (CEO, Microsoft)
-"Technology and the Opportunities for a Better Society" - Jeong H KIM (President, Bell Labs / Chief Strategy Officer, Alcatel-Lucent)
-"The Future of IT: Learning from Coexistence Leadership"
- Warren EAST (CEO, ARM Holdings)
-"Enabling Equal Information Access to All Users" - T.V. RAMAN (Research Scientist, Google)
-"Technology, Film, and the Future" - Chris COOKSON (President, Sony Pictures Technologies)
-"Personal Cloud: The 'PC' of Tomorrow" - Mike HARRIS (Group Vice President, Gartner)
-"Shaping New Hopes in the Smart Era" - PYO Hyun-Myung (President, Mobile Business Group, KT Corporation)
-Special Address - PARK Won Soon (Mayor, Seoul Metropolitan Government)
-"Appropriate Technology: Simplicity brings hope to the digital age" - Paul POLAK (CEO, Windhorse International / Founder, International Development Enterprises - IDE), YOO Youngje (Professor, School of Chemical Engineering, Seoul National University / President, Scientists and Engineers Without Borders) - moderator CHANG Soo Y (Professor, Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, POSTECH / Codirector, Sharing and Technologies Incorporated)
-"Smart life enabled by mobile technology: an industry ecosystem will enable user experience" - BYUN Jae-woan (Head of Technology Innovation Center and CTO, SK Telecom)
-"Big Data and our future"
."The key to popular understanding of data is play" - Ben CERVENY (Founder and President, Bloom Studio / Founder, Experience Design Lab, frog design)
."Extending Humanity with technology" - Aaron KOBLIN (Creative Director, Data Arts Team, Google Creative Lab)
."Making one world through Big Data" - LEE Bong-gyou (Professor, Graduate School of Information and Director of the Communications Policy Research Center, Yonsei University)
."Interface: the window that changes the world" - CHANG Donghoon (Senior VP, Head of Design Group of Mobile Communications Division / Head of Design Strategy team at Corporate Design Center, Samsung Electronics)
-"Interface and Humanity":
."Genealogies of anxiety and wonder: our past and future with computing" - Genevieve BELL (Director, Interactions and Experience Research, Intel Labs, Intel)
."Devices, platforms, and a new way of life" - Phil LIBIN (Founder and CEO, Evernote)
.Initially scheduled: "User Interface Designed to Fix Personal Health" (Aza RASKIN)
-"Robots, games, and humor"
."The future life supported by robotic avatars" - Hiroshi ISHIGURO (Director, Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, Osaka University)
."Behavior-change Games and Habit Design" - Michael KIM (Founder and CEO, Kairos Labs)
."Research that makes people laugh, then think" - Marc ABRAHAMS (Founder, Ig Nobel Prize / Editor, Improbable Research / Columnist, The Guardian)
-"Technology, Humanity, and Collaboration":
."Expanding the reach of technology" - Josh NESBIT (CEO, Medic Mobile)
."Mapping the invisible: Open Source Mapping and Visible Communities" - Mikel MARON (President, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team / Codirector, Ground Truth Initiative)

*** note that yesterday, Seoul Mayor PARK Won-soon also mentioned a collaborative use of the map (on trial before the monsoon season): citizens spot problems, locate and report them on the map to shorten delays and improve accuracy.

---
UPDATE 20120524 (photos) ---
UPDATE 20120525 (dang, forgot Phil's pix as well)

Apple - the end of the affair

When shareholders come first, you know innovation is not the priority. Mirroring Microsoft's decision to fork out billions from its war chest to the market years ago, Apple officialized the end of vision-driven business.

I know the talk of the town is rather if AAPL, GOOG, or PCLN can break the $1,000 barrier, but if I were a long term investor in the compay, I wouldn't feel happy.

My only worry: I hope the stock will not fall too soon. If Apple coughs, the Nasdaq plunges. I don't mind if Wall Street takes a dip, but I'm not okay if it leads to a November defeat for Obama.


mot-bile 2012

tech+ 2011

If I had received one Korean won each time the name of Steve Jobs was pronounced yesterday at the 2011 tech+ forum, I'd probably be a few million bucks richer today.

The thing is, the late Apple founder used to herald the convergence of humanities and technology, and that's precisely what this forum is all about : tech+ stands for technology, economy, culture, and human, wrapped up in / multiplied n-fold by resolute optimism (the final +).

While I'm at acronyms : the event was organized by the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT), and the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE). Overall, 7,000 people showed up at Kyung Hee University's Grand Peace Palace, an impressive cathedral overlooking the splendid campus at its autumnal best.

Day 2 featured no less than 9 keynote speakers and a final wrap-up speech, but time flew seamlessly thanks to perfectly rhythmed transitions. A refreshing change from the usual verbose introductions : dynamic animations on a giant screen launching each speaker like a rock star.

Actually, the most convincing orator happened to be an expert in music : Stanford University's Ge Wang rocked the audience with his musical demos, winning more than a few hearts with his 'Ocarina' version of Arirang. The young Chinese professor delivered the ultimate stevejobsian show : same black top, same beard stubble, same voice pitch, and same gadgets (iPhone, iPad, imCool). Even his Center for Computer Research in Music and Accoustic (Stanford's CCRMA) echoes Steve's sense of Karma. But Ge Wang is a truly original and passionate individual, with an universe of his own (inhabited by such Zorgians as Smule, ChucK, MoPho, or SLOrk*). Bonus: unlike "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", absolutely not arrogance whatsoever ! Bonus redux: an almost Mozartian touch (short high pitched laughters very reminiscent of Milos Forman's Amadeus). In a nutshell : the inspirational leader every innovating team loves to follow.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Hyundai Motors R&D VP's presentation was almost bad PR for the company. Since I've got the charisma of an anvil on stage, I can't blame him for not being as fun as Ge, but innovation is certainly not about repeating 'convergence' like a mantra without obviously understanding the word, and stamping it on every page of the company's catalog (I'm pretty sure these guys recycle always the same slides with a different keyword depending on the flavor of the month : 'well being', 'ubiquitous', 'premium'...?). Likewise, SK Planet's presentation reminded me of countless shows I attended fifteen years ago, introducing the next deja vu netco with a complete line-up of me-too applications (this time: Sundew, musicBunk, StyleTag, DishPal, Facecard, StarCall).

OK. I'm a more than demanding audience as far as innovation is concerned, but the least you expect is people really enjoying and believing in what they do. So everybody welcomed Yon Namgoong, another man of music and member of the Stevejobsian Adventist Church, and a true model for Korean students who massively attended the event: yes, you can succeed and have an impact, even if you didn't go all the way to the university. Yes, Korea needs to make more room for creative people with diverse backgrounds and a contagious eagerness to share. Yon was clearly more relevant when he developed interesting concepts bridging music with technology than when he interpreted corporate strategies, but did he have fun playing drum on stage !

Significantly, Ge and Yon delivered the same key messages through similar quotes about the evolution of technology : Ben Shneiderman for the hairy Chinese (old computing is about what computers can do / new computing is about what people can do), and the power shift for the bald Korean (power used to come from owning the tool, now it's about how you use it). Both pitches were clearly in the strike zone for the forum's "Technology@me" agenda.

Jay Elliot's job was basically to make sure we didn't forget to mention the late Jobs, and his qualities as a true leader in innovation. From a man who worked closely with him and other giants at IBM or Intel, a rather pleasant chat by the fireplace (i.e. Ge Wang's virtual lighter app for iPhone).

Neither Richard Florida nor Zhong Qui Wang brought disruptive insights either, but it's always useful to remind Korean corporations that stress can be counterproductive, and that staff shouldn't be considered as mere cost centers (and not only in R&D units). I guess Zhong must have an even tougher time trying to convince 'nouveau riche' Chinese entrepreneurs of the virtues of frugality and other Lao Tseuities...

What else ? I wish the 'creative space' presentations had reached deeper because there's so much to say about urbanism and architecture in a 'tech+' perspective for this country, but that leaves more threads to pull for future editions.

I don't know about Steve's second coming, but I'll be back.

mot-bile 2011 (also on Seoul Village : "tech+ 2011 - technology@me"

* respectively the company for which he serves as CTO, a sound programming language, the Stanford Laptop Orchestra, the Mobile Phone Orchestra.

Orange Hello, is it me you're looking for ?

Orange Hello is an internet computer for dummies, the word "dummies" covering the minority of techno- / PCphobes who never considered purchasing nor using a computer, and people ready to pay EUR 1 + EUR 39.9 per month for a simple play (internet access) instead of the standard EUR 29.9 per month for a full triple play... Ideally, seniors with a comfortable pension but lacking the courage to join their kids and grandkids in the internet age. Grandkids who mock at their absence of smart screens at home. Grandkids who may even not enjoy staying overnight simply because here, they can't browse the web on a bigger screen than their own smartphone.

Hello is expensive, granted, but delivers, installs, and maintains at your place a PC with an almost iMacish look : a thick 15 inch- screen connected to a keyboard and including a 120 Go hardrive, a webcam, and a broadband modem. Orange makes sure Kids can get their daily fix : features include messenging, video, music, games, web TV... (plus text to speech for their myopic dinosaur ancestors).

A little sexier than Jean-Louis Constanza's first device meant as an entry point to French households : a no-frills fixed phone that would automatically compose the 4 prefix for Tele2 France customers.

Now CEO of Orange Vallee, Constanza (who after the Swede category killer moved on to Ten MVNO) is still working on pedagogy and simplicity for new usages in daily communications, only with smarter technologies, and different budget constraints for the operator... and obviously the customer.

Hello can be considered as the big brother of another Orange Vallee device* : Tabbee, an always on, family friendly, stand alone web terminal featuring a 7 inch touch screen.

But Hello doesn't have a touch screen. So don't even dream about smearing your Hello screen while imitating John King with your greasy fingers. All you may ruin is the supposedly more intuitive and user friendly keyboard. Because believe it or not, even French dummies know how to use a keyboard.

Orange can thank mother company France Telecom for this miracle : most post Y2K seniors are former Minitel users.


* While I'm at it : "Orange Vallee"'s 2009 Summer Collection include mobile platforms (WorMee music platform, Application Shop, TV d'Orange for iPhone, Orange 24/24 news engine), entertainment accessories (Hi-Fi Adapter, Media Remote Control), business / messenging solutions (Instant Messenger for all, Visual Voicemail, Teleconference, Medical Office)... see Orange Innovation TV for details.

Reed Richards follows Sue in Korea

Korean researchers are not only making giant leaps towards invisibility¹: they're also going for thinness and flexibility.

A Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) - Sungkyunkwan University (Pr. Hong Byung-hee) team found a way of mass producing graphene nanofilms via Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD).

I know, this doesn't sound like the sexiest piece of news ever, and it isn't.

But it could mean the end of the silicon, and major disruptions in micro-electronics as we know them.

Not to mention endless applications for silicon semicon giant Samsung (the S in SAIT) : "the wafer-scale graphene is expected to be used in flexible displays, wearable computers and advanced transistors and electrodes. It can also replace indium tin oxide, used extensively in the production of touch-screen panels and solar cells". And as one could have guessed, this team intends "to develop next-generation ultra high-speed nano memory chips, transparent flexible displays and solar cells." (AsiaPulse / COMTEX).

Of course, Invisible Woman and Mr Fantastic will not be available right away. And nowadays, IT are under the spell of other members of the Fantastic Four... The Bear Market Thing and The Bottomline Human Torch ?

But now is the time for leaders to make the difference. Now is the time to invest in R&D. We all know major innovations will come out of this Not-So-Great Depression. And the so called "new technologies" need Change as badly as the rest of us.

Live from Korea's Graphene Valley...



1 - I already mentioned the KAIST and its Transparent Resistive Random Access Memory ("TRRAM : don't miss this one !" - 20081215) but last autumn, the SAIT developped "a fully transparent non-volatile memory with a conventional sandwich gate insulators structure based on a wide band gap semi-conductive oxide of amorphous gallium indium zinc oxide", a.k.a. amorphous GaInZnO or a-GIZO. Even if it's closer to 80% than actually "fully" transparent, that's something. The beauty of it : whether it works or not, a-GIZO GIZMOs are not to be seen.

Meet Al Gore's Granddaddy

According to Carly Fiorina, McCain cannot run a company.

According to himself, McCain cannot even run a HP laptop.

But according to his aides, McCain invented the BlackBerry.

Meet Al Gore's Great Grand Dad : "his" Commerce Committee created the new US telecom landscape.

Before, US players used to rule the world. Now US operators are minor league players and techno giants who dominated the first generation of mobile communications let Europeans win the second and Asia the third.

The BlackBerry is a great technological and commercial success, though, but for... Canada (the Lords of the RIM, frequent visitors to this excuse for a site, are based in Waterloo, ON).

PS : according to me, John McCain cannot run a company, nor a laptop, but furthermore, he should run, period. Because he can't hide who he's running for.