On Technology and the Future: Education, IoT, AI, Mobility, Games

Education anyone?

On 29/11/2011

Hello stranger, it’s been a while. So let’s talk a little about education, shall we? And because this is a blog (remotely) focused on the tech side of things, let’s (also) talk about that side of it.

Recent news in the UK made me think about this a little more than I normally do already (bear in mind I am a parent of two and a governor of the Fallibroome Academy, a high-achieving 11-18 comprehensive school). Education is what drives enlightening. Big words but they are true (and sometimes even literally). In almost all Western countries people ponder and wonder (and sometimes moan and whine) about the state of the education systems: is it good or bad? Is it still up to the challenges of this peculiar 21st Century? Will it deliver to my children what they need to cope in the future? Of course, there are other corners of this planet where the luxury problems of the West don’t apply. The question there is often: will I be able to scrape together the necessary to get any kind of education so I can hopefully eradicate my family and me from the dire circumstances of the life we are facing right now?

This was discussed today in the UK and, whilst I haven’t checked, I suspect that in the last/next two weeks, similar or identical discussions will be led in most of the Western world. No other than the formidable Sir Ian Livingstone (he of Game Workshop and Eidos fame) suggested that computer science is essential to today’s education (he suggested computer science was to ICT as taught in the national curriculum as writing was to reading: one thing is to use an application, an entirely different thing is to be able to write one) and bemoaned the fact the English kids lose out on this piece.

Yesterday morning, I delivered a workshop to a group of 6th-form students this morning at our fantastic school who actually have a Head of IT who can code in C++ and embark on various hands-on courses and workshops. Alas, even though they go over and above the national curriculum and can, due to their academy status, do so, they are constrained by the demands of having to prep children for their GCSE’s and A-levels. Too little too late, it seems. I was heartbroken to having to tell a boy who asked me if he could wait till university to learn how to code properly that he probably shouldn’t rely on that (and our C++ sorceress had to watch).

The most amazing bits and pieces of our modern society rely on code (and most of the modern heroes of business – Jobs, Gates, Page, Brin, Zuckerberg, et al) all relied on code. And yet, I have to direct my son to tutorials of C++ if I want to make sure he’ll get the basics (having gone to law school, I only write in BS#).

There are plenty of opportunities out there though. Apps for Good for one help English schools to get out there with coding; they run courses on Android development. In our school, we also have started to work with students on game and app development (I believe that games are a great tool to excite kids about code: isn’t it much cooler to come home to show dad what you’ve done today on an iPod Touch/Android Phone/BlackBerry tablet than to report that you successfully wrote 4 lines of code on some machine at school?

Our schools can use any support on offer to expand on this. Whether or not it is the new Latin, I’ll leave open, but technology is the future of a large part of our workforce, and we should grant our children the chance to participate in it successfully!

Conference: Mindshare Media Summit Dubai

By Volker

On 30/10/2011

In Events

Things heat up, and not only because I am traveling South this week, more specifically to Dubai where, on Tuesday (1st), the Mindshare Media Summit 2011 will open its doors. It carries a heavy focus on marketing and media in a multi-screen world where screens and user experiences converge. The organizers have a great line-up of speakers, including:

AKQA
Nissan
HSBC
LinkedIn
BBC Worldwide
Google
Yahoo!
The MBC Group
(of course) Mindshare
The Arabian Radio Network
and many more (including yours truly).

So if you would like to hook up in one of the most vibrant regions in the world, in one of the swankier settings and soak up some sun before the winter (if you live in the Northern hemisphere, that is), come by! 🙂

Hailo (@hailocab) rocks!

By Volker

On 28/10/2011

Every now and then something comes and just delivers. These moments feel awesome, don’t they? I had one such experience today, so let me share it. Hailo (Crunchbase profile here) solves one of the world’s (well, for the time being, London’s) little problems, namely to hail a cab. You either stand around waving futiley around only to have people being picked up left, right and center (but never you) or you fiddle with phone numbers and hope they’re not busy, etc, etc.

Hailo is the self-proclaimed Taxi Heaven. And you know what? They certainly delivered. Here’s how it works: (1) get their app (for the time being available on iOS and Android). (2) fire up the app, it locates you and tells you how long you’d have to wait (6 minutes in my case). (3) press a button to “hail” the cab and you’re done.

The app keeps you up to date with progress (tour confirmed, updating ETA, etc). You can call the cabbie (who is provided to you by name) if you want, too. You can choose to pay with cash or by card (you can store your credit card in your profile and even add tips automatically). You take your ride. You pay. And if all that wasn’t enough, they even send you a receipt by e-mail.

It works like a poem. B-e-a-utiful! I am a sucker for betas but as you know (if you are equally inclined) that often causes frustration, too, because, well, it’s bloody beta. If what Hailo delivered is beta (and they’re early!), then their “gold” release will have you sinking to your knees.

Hailo is approved by TfL (Transport for London, the city’s transport regulator) and works (only) with “black cabs” (they are the nice, iconic official ones). For the drivers, they seem to be trying to make it easy AND add functionality: no hardware, no subscriptions, no exclusivity. Additionally, they use the drivers’ app (different to what me mere mortal uses) to spread word on traffic, status of any taxi ranks (100 cabs waiting for customers? Go somewhere else…).

Hailo, you guys rock!

The Power of Games / Slides

By Volker

On 28/10/2011

In Events, Games, Slides

Today, I had the great pleasure to attend and speak at the rather wonderful “Games for Brands” conference in good old London town (held near the Tower of London with some lovely drinks at St. Catherine Docks; need I say more?). Great turn-out, great speakers, inspiring discussions and a lot of catching up with good friends and new contacts.

I have been asked to share my slides, which I herewith do. I hope you find them useful.

The Power of Games

View more presentations from Volker Hirsch.

Conference: Games For Brands

By Volker

On 13/10/2011

In Events, Games

A fairly wonderful conference will open its doors on 27 October in London, UK, namely Games for Brands, an event where we will do just that: investigate if and to what extent games may work for brands. Just speak to Barclaycard (their Waterslide Extreme game [done by Fishlabs] did more than 14m downloads on iOS) or Volkswagen (multiple games by Fishlabs [again]) for the Polo and others and a special VW Golf GTI edition of Real Racing by the recently acquired Firemint).

The event features a fairly cool line-up, too, including speakers from:

Rovio (they of Angry Birds fame)
Channel 4
Google
PlayGen
BBC
EMI
King.com
LoveFilm.com
Tate
Wellcome Trust (yes, they’re the Glaxo Wellcome guys)
Aegon
Matmi (they did games and apps for instance for Lily Allen, Gorillaz, United.com and Vimto – the seriously mixed-up fruit)
and, yes, I will be talking again, too (but when don’t I?)

I also have a goodie for the readers of this blog: four of you can get a very special discount and attend for £95.00 only. Tempted? Contact me (either via e-mail or Twitter or through the contact form here).

It’ll be a good one, so come along! 🙂

In reply to @scottjenson: Web or Apps?

By Volker

On 11/10/2011

In Apps, Thoughts

There seems to be a new round of buzz around the good old HTML5 vs native debate or, in other words of web vs apps. We had a Mobile Monday session in Manchester (@momomcr) on this, debate on ForumOxford is flaring up again, and more… So I thought let’s do this again and see – if anything – changed since I posted about this (for the record: here’s the first post from 2009 and the second one from 2010). Where has the battlefield moved to in the interim?

Mobile apps must die

There has been (as you may have sharply derived from this post’s title) a post from Scott Jenson, the Creative Director of Frog Design (they of much Apple fame – you know, they designed the Apple IIc and such), which he entitled – somewhat combattively – “mobile apps must die”. His argument is, in short, that the mobile desktop cannot cope with the plethora of native apps (or app icons?) and that it would be much better to use dynamic “use it and lose it” approaches for which the web is perfectly suited. He starts of on the value vs pain paradigm: if the balance is less than 0 (i.e. value exceeds pain), the solution wins. And he posits, that native apps don’t do that.

I am not doing the intellectual argument Scott poses any justice here (and I will pick up on some more points further below), so please make sure to read his post!

One size does not fit all

The challenge is to find a universal solution, I suppose. Jenson focuses merely on apps that – arguably – make a user’s life better if and when he/she is out and about and is looking for utilities to help mundane tasks/etc. There are tons of fairly one-dimensional apps for that: a retailer app for their catalogue, London tube map, some couponing app, a mobile banking app, apps using NFC, Bluetooth, camera (QR readers) and more. There will also be more complex ones: fancy AR-powered things, things like Foursquare (anyone near?), etc, etc. So, is this painful? Yes, it is. Would it be better if there was a seamless universal (cloud-based) solution that would make it “just so”? Oh, by all means.

BUT… it would not solve all use cases for smartphones (or mobile computing in general). There are tons of applications and use cases that are not the out and about equivalent of a Google search (and, yes, I am fully aware that 40% of Google mobile searches relate to locations), and I would posit that one has to judge each one on its own merits.

The starting point should always be the user experience. Jenson points out correctly that this is not only about the perceived value of the product or service in isolation but it is more of a function: if the perceived value exceeds the pain to use it, it works. If pain exceeds the perceived value, it doesn’t.

But it is this very statement where things with Jenson go horribly astray. There is a reason why Apple has not yet moved Keynote to a cloud-based SaaS solution but keeps selling it as a stand-alone app: because it works better. The perceived value of using the product far exceeds the pain of having to download and install the application.

Tackling the shortfalls

When looking at the UX chain (from product to discovery, maintenance, management and use), there is more than one answer to shortfalls of some of these elements. Rather than moaning about distribution and app management, one can also improve those processes. The OS-based app store model all but replaced the carrier stores for smartphones now, and why? Because the end-to-end solution is less painful (not only for users of the apps but also for its producers!).

It is possible to draw a map of this (and I would if I possessed more artistic skill) where you could derive on what is right for you: if you need access to hardware APIs (camera, 3D acceleration, Open GL ES, etc), native might be your way (one of the reasons why you are not seeing higher-end HTML5 games in large numbers yet). If you capture light-weight information-heavy content that relies on dynamic updates, a web “app” might be good for you, in other cases, a native app with some functionality coupled with a container for web functionality might be the right way.

So there we have it: it still is the old “it depends” answer. Having said that, with webkit and HTML5 adding functionality all the time, ever (?) improving bandwidth and better compliance on the browser side, the usecases for native apps will likely get less over time. Will it happen in full swing in the next 18 months or so? I doubt that very much.

RIP Steve Jobs

By Volker

On 06/10/2011