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

CES 2015 - Sensors and Sensibility - Internet Everywhere, Everyware, and Everywear

This excuse for a blog is starting its Season XI, at its own pace - about a post a month, far from the twice-a-week-routine of its heyday.

And as usual, the new year resonates with echoes from Vegas glitz and the CES.

So far, nothing disruptive, only recurrent stuff looming on a less distant horizon. No brain implants, mind you - Apple won't release iSingularity before a while, but driverless cars (Audi A7, BMW i3...), pervasive sensors, drones, cameras, and virtual reality, and an internet that keeps going everywhere, everyware, and everywear.

Samsung promises IoT on all its devices by 2017, and Tizen on its TVs as early as next month. But still no TTM for Tizen on smartphones.

Intel showed its RealSense 3D sensors, and smaller players their latest face-recognition-enabled cameras, ideal for a family, household, or small community/company: ArcSoft's Simplicam can deal with up to 10 regulars, and Netatmo's Welcome (TTM Q2 2015) can extend its reach through "Welcome Tags". Look how the Simplicam exsudes bigbrotherian power, where welcome plays on a rather 'air freshener' mode (netatmo again on the glam side of the force - remember last year's JUNE? - see "CES 2014: Beep Beep Goes Bling Bling"):

Welcome by netatmo

Simplicam by ArcSoft

Interesting to see how marketers try to give different flavors to similar enablers or functionalities. Camera-wise, for instance, the Narrative Clip 2 proposes a GoAm answer to GoPro - or is it dull vs bull? If this clipable, mini camera can also record everything as you go, it is marketed like a simple diary for ordinary people. Low expectations as a new driver for innovation, I like that.

And yes, we've got the unavoidable collection or more-or-less-pseudo-healthy wearables. At least, from the outlook, Withings's Activite Pop won't appear too obsolete next year, because it pretty much look like a normal watch:



NeuroMetrix's Quell aims at actual medical cure: this Bluetooth wrap-on sends neuro-signals to relieve pain.

But the winner of Day 1 remains Emiota's Belty, a Bluetooth belt that adjusts to your eating record. A must for anyone willing to cope with European austerity measures.

emiota's Belty - austerity rules!

mot-bile 2015

Samsung Galaxy S5, The (Almost) Next Big Thing Is Here

"The Next Big Thing Is Almost Here", that's how Samsung Galaxy S5 is announced on Samsung.com US:

Of course, what you read is "The Almost Next Big Thing Is Here". Here? Barcelona, at the 2014 Mobile World Congress.

Analysts seem disappointed by the last generation of the leader's star product, but it simply confirms the long expected commoditization of smartphones. Like computers before, performances will keep improving, and more enablers shall bring interesting changes in the future, but the device itself has reached a plateau for a while.

Even smartwatches and smartwrists have become commodities*: meet Samsung Gear 2, Samsung Gear 2 Neo, and Samsung Gear Fit.

Boring? Not so much: Gear has switched to Tizen, the - of course Linux based - OS propelled by majors who don't want Google and Android to rule, but don't want to resurrect Microsoft or Jobs either. Samsung already launched a Tizen camera last fall, and continues its low-key approach from minor connected accessories... 

This Tizen ain't the world heavyweight champion yet

I'm waiting for Tizen on a heavyweight boxing ring, not just around a wrist.
Ah, if only Samsung had a iTunes to leverage, that could boost the launch of a Tizen smartphone. And unlike Apple 2007, Samsung 2014 can't afford to launch a technologically imperfect first model...


mot-bile 2014

* MWC confirms CES: see "CES 2014: Beep Beep Goes Bling Bling"

CES 2014: Beep Beep Goes Bling Bling

Very disappointing first day at CES 2014: the long awaited (see "Rise of the Nork Zombies") "Frankenstein Android" and "Headtop iBrain" didn't show up so far.

Following last year's trends*, wearable gizmos keep popping-up, and the screen war between LG and Samsung didn't abate. Now TV giants are not only flexing their muscles, but their screens as well. And if we've already seen "bend it like Koreans" on handsets, with a 85 inch TV, that's quite something:



OK, not as flexible as to wrap you up like a piece of bulgogi in a sesame leaf, but that's a good start. 

Nothing distruptive in DreamWorks' DreamTab (not flexible, but for kids who like to move it move it), just another example of how classic smart devices have become commodities:

Same trend for previously new communicating devices and internet everywhere gizmos**.

Smartwear-wise, more show off stuff from Vegas:

Vuzic V720 video headphones

Razer Nabu: not a wedding ring, but a smartwatch that does ring

LG Lifeband Touch: earn it, burn calories

.. and the Killer Melanomapp of the Year Award goes to the Netatmo JUNE, the ultimate bling-bling UV tracker:



I can't wait for the Geiger or Yellow Dust versions, to track exhausts from my North Korean and Chinese neighbors...

Again***, expect more line-blurring between fashion and smartwear from those who look for ways of escaping the commodity market curse.


mot-bile 2014


* see "I see through you: City of Sin, Screens, and Smartpagers" (January 2013)
** except maybe the Kolibree Bluetooth Toothbrush (bluetoothbrush?)
*** see "Apple's Ready to Ware v. Fast-Fashion" (July 2013)

Apple's Ready to Ware v. Fast-Fashion

So Tim Cook hired Yves Saint Laurent CEO as Apple's VP of special projects.
So nothing changes: Paul Deneve already knows the company, he used to work there. And it's not about future lines of products (we didn't need Snowden to learn about iWatch, the smartwatch market is already crowded*, and smartwear has been in the air for a decade and a half), but about the future of a brand in mature markets where smartphones, tablets, smartTVs, smartwatches, smartaccessories and smartwear have technologically become commodities.

Long time no see! Reminds me  of the Pinault-Arnault web / telecom / luxury wars of the nineties!

Apple is used to conceiving articles that sell with a premium, but design itself won't make much difference for the basics. Anyway, Apple is now lagging in design (iPhone 5 < Galaxy 3), and brand loyalty has been decreasing ever since the company stopped delivering genuine innovation, focusing instead on legal battles, shareholder dividends, and shameless customer retention techniques leveraging purely on proprietary hardwares or softwares**.

Apple needs to revamp itself, to reinvent itself as a leader, and to stretch the brand umbrella beyond its now usual markets in terms of products and services, consumers, distribution channels... without destroying the most valuable parts of its DNA.

Apple won't shrink down to Nokia's Vertu, or even to the equivalent of 'masstige' fashion brands. But it will have to sustainably justify higher price tags.

Of course, differenciation in mature markets remains a much tougher challenge for Samsung.

BTW the company disbanded its strategic foresight unit yesterday: they didn't come up with successful suggestions for new businesses.

At least the family is already familiar with many markets, ranging from top luxury to fast-fashion...

mot-bile 2013

* e.g. "I see through you: City of Sin, Screens, and Smartpagers"
** e.g. "Anovations for Applelatres: Apple has lost its compass", "Omnipatent v. Impatent", "Apple - the end of the affair"...

I see through you: City of Sin, Screens, and Smartpagers

Remember that old 3D classic "Avatar"? Now Navis can say "I see through you" instead of "I see you" on Hisense's latest see-through 3D TV.

CES 2013 is all about screens, and it starts on your wrist. I wonder if Amazon will try to sell haikus on this mini ebook reader:

Pebble's e-paper watch for iPhone and Android does look like a gizmo from the 90s, some sort of Bluetooth-enabled smartpager, but the biggest story about it is the way it was crowdfunded on Kickstarter, smashing the $100k goal and raising $10M within days. 85,000 units have been ordered before the CES, more to come.

Does your handset require a remote control that works on Bluetooth? That's another story:


Moving on to some bigger screens: how do you like your OLED TV? 4K (Panasonic)? 4K and Ultra HD (Sony)? Curved (Samsung - nothing as sexy as its "Samsung Flexible AMOLED" of course -, LG)? Multi-view (Samsung again)?

Sharing your screen, that's also possible on the Lenovo IdeaCentre Table PC, a touch table that may host interesting game applications in a near future.

Nevermind the fingerprints, the dust, or even water. One year after HzO Waterblock, Huawei demonstrated a waterproof Ascend series (Ascend Mate, Ascend D2). I'm still in shock to see a smartphone, with all its connectivity slots open, take a dive and come out just fine.

And how about this schizophrenic Asus Transformer AiO? An Android tablet taking off from your Windows 8 desktop? Will an iPad spin off from it? An Apple, wrapped in a Google, inside an Microsoft?

I still don't know what to make of the Firefox OS (showcased in Vegas). A Plan B for Android makes sense (I'm not even mentioning iOS), and it's nice to start in Brazil, but can the Mozilla ecosystem grow that big?

SmartTVs, smartphones, smartwatches... it all sounds like logistics these days, more about fine tuning delivering processes than about delivering new goods.

Still better than last year's shark lawyer frenzies.

mot-bile 2013