User Devices

We are doing a piece of work right now where the evolution of RFID and M2M (machine to machine) services is a part of it. While working on the mobile aspects of this, it occurred to us that most people conceive of the m2m device / agent / whatever as quite dumb - a pallet, a piece of inventory, a truck etc etc, and its main role is to tell something more intelligent about itself.

But what happens if the device itself is (semi) intelligent, and is using the m2m comms as much for its own purposes as much as anything else. One of the interesting insights from work on Artificial Life is that often the combinations of fairly simple rules allow very complex behaviour, and quite a high level of self organisation.

One fairly common example is where the common or garden house vacuum cleaner robot may use m2m comms to tie up with other devices to define when and where it cleans. But as Moore's law progresses these devices can all have more intelligence, and this can allow them to exhibit fairly complex capabilities even for simple devices.

For a start, they could use evolutionary algorithms to learn new tasks - like learning to fly for example:

Learning how to fly took nature millions of years of trial and error - but a winged robot has cracked it in only a few hours, using the same evolutionary principles.

Krister Wolff and Peter Nordin of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, built a winged robot and set about testing whether it could learn to fly by itself, without any pre-programmed data on what flapping is or how to do it.

To begin with, the robot just twitched and jerked erratically. But, gradually, it made movements that gained height. At first, it cheated - simply standing on its wing tips was one early short cut.

After three hours, however, the robot abandoned such methods in favour of a more effective flapping technique, where it rotated its wings through 90 degrees and raised them before twisting them back to the horizontal and pushing down.

"This tells us that this kind of evolution is capable of coming up with flying motion," says Peter Bentley, who works on evolutionary computing at University College London. But while the robot had worked out how best to produce lift, it was not about to take off.

"There's only so much that evolution can do," Bentley says. "This thing is never going to fly because the motors will never have the strength to do it," he says.

.

(report from New Scientist)

That was 2002...today, there are robots that can fly like insects - these tiny robot flies (see pic below) for example. Imagine swarms of these operating using self organising behaviour routines (flocking, direction finding etc), each built with a different type of very simple sensor.



But thats just for starters...how about this one - unmanned Aircraft with Solar cells that can in theory cruise the stratosphere in large numbers, using self organising software to keep their coverage going at high levels of reliability - who needs satellites for TV signals, mobile signals, ground surveillance with swarms of these.....the economics vs satellite (or even mobile base station networks) might be pretty interesting.

(The pic below takes it even further - using these to explore Mars)



Now...mash some ideas together - RoboFly RFIDs, Glider Grids....bears thinking about, doesn't it?

Yes, it is "way out there", but it is (theoretically) doable, and it is Friday afternoon after all.

Rumour of the day....is tomorrow Orange's turn?

Apparently no longer 3G initially....erm...whats the point then - its a tad pricey to be just a phone....?

Postscripts:

Speaking of pricey, it would seem Vodafone baulked at the price Apple were asking....

Also, seems like - as we suggested they should last week - Nokia has taken this kick in the pants to get a bit more radical...except they had even started earlier than the iPhone's release a whole few days - from their website on June 20th 2007:

Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced that it will introduce a new company structure from January 1, 2008. The move, driven by Nokia's strategy, is aimed at creating an organization aligned with the opportunities Nokia sees for future growth, and to increase efficient ways of working across the company.

"The convergence of the mobile communications and internet industries is opening up new growth opportunities for us, both in the devices business as well as in consumer internet services and enterprise solutions. Growing consumer demand for rich, mobile experiences creates an opportunity for change....."

Could've told them that in June 2005 though........

Following on from our blog on the strategic implications of the iPhone, a San Fran based friend has emailed over this review he did earlier......sitting in the UK one can only envy hugely

Overall assessment..."this thing is seriously COOL"

Its worth transcribing his post in full, if only to wallow in the delight of my own misery of not having one

For background, I'm a classic gadget freak. I've had many Macs and PCs, Treos, Palms, Blackberrys - including the Pearl, and many different mobiles over the years. I've been eagerly awaiting the iPhone as my Pearl replacement. I was primarily interested in carrying my phone, Music, podcasts, DVD Rips, iCal, and Gmail with me during the day. Here are my initial thoughts:

- Fantastic, beautiful, elegant design. Very responsive UI in all apps.
- Perhaps I was lucky; moving my AT&T BB contract took ~5 mins
- Had an "invalid SIM" error 30 minutes after activation!? Powered down and reseated SIM to fix. No misbehavior since...
- Typing is initially awkward, but I'm learning quickly. 2 Thumbs will work!
- Email really needs "mark all as read" and "delete marked" commands
- Has a 2 MP camera, but only emails 640x480 resized images.
- Video camera would be great (version 2 I guess)
- Camera image quality (after fetching via iPhoto) is on par with others
- No Vibrate first, then ring. Vibrates and rings simultaneously.
- Silent/Ring switch is very useful.
- No "message waiting" LED (like blackberries have)
- Seamless, excellent WiFi
- Phone is slightly worse than Pearl at holding weak signals. My Pearl is always solid at the house even with our weak signal; the iPhone seems to oscillate from 1 to 4 bars, and drops some calls. The difference is pretty small, however. Might be due to WiFi, bluetooth, etc all running. Will test.
- Audio and Video performance is outstanding, as is the UI!
- 320x DVD rips look great (and save space). I wouldn't bother with 640x...
- Earbuds, mic, and integrated "spongy switch" work great.
- Should have (at least) included a slip case!
- Safari is the best smartphone browsing experience by a wide margin.
- Where is text iChat?!!!!
- SMS interface is a very nice iChat imitation.
- No ability to add "name, address, home phone" to welcome screen. If an honest person finds your iPhone, it's not easy to identify the owner (I put a label on the back, which really detracts...)
- Can't modify sounds used for events other than phone ringer (e.g. - mail), but can turn them off at least.
- Map app is outstanding!!! Useful as yellow pages (like Calamari ad), Used it twice today to locate a store and restaurant.
- Live traffic is cool!
- Widgets are great! We need more...
- Needs a file manager/"disk mode" (I've heard it's coming...)
- Bluetooth in my Lexus 400h worked fine, incoming and outgoing

My overall rating is a 9.5/10. The newness will wear off, but objectively, I really believe this device is a tremendous leap forward! It's the first unified device I've used that really feels truly integrated, and I suspect it will only get better with future software/firmware releases. It is really, really, well thought out, and in case you missed it before, it looks like a piece of art! Apple's competitors better crank up their R&D in a hurry...

The only conciliation is that when (if?) we get ours they allegedly will have 3G, not 2G

The incredible buzz surrounding the iPhone's launch signals great opportunity - and risk - for the European mobile industry, both the operators and the handset makers.

Operators first....

There have been rumours that only certain operators will market the device in the UK, and this means that there is a one-off shape change available in a hyper-competitive market where all the major players have roughly equal shares of the market (c 1/4 of 90% each) and none have managed to pull ahead to get the virtuous circle that dominance brings.

However, the iPhone is the chance to change that - it is the one thing that will make people - serious, high net worth people with contracts, not freebie surfers - switch from one provider to another and stick.

Its not just that its a "good enough" mobile internet device - 3's X series is there already - its because it has a great UI - the sort us "PC" based netheads have been complaining for the last 3-4 years that Planet Mobile has not bothered to build.

Its also because we know and love how the iTune/iPod model works - behind that device is an end to end delivery system that (i) works properly and (ii) does not gouge your pocket, and we know that Apple knows that and trust them to deliver it here as well.

This will mean that the pressure on both content and operators transport costs will be immense*, because - guess what - that iPhone can use other transport mechanisms and can sideload other content - welcome to Arbitrage, guys !

So...pity the operators that don't get early distributors, but know also the ones that do have a tiger by the tail


Handset manufacturers next.....

You have to ask "what were they doing all this time"....its not as if this iPhone device should have taken them by surprise - it was after all announced awhile ago, and mobile customers have clamoured for these sorts of function for years.

Will it give them the requisite kick up their collective behinds? They still have immense market power, and rising to this challenge can only be good overall.

Postscript...just seen that Publishing 2.0 and Umair have made a similar point re US plays.

And as for 3rd Parties....

Apple integrates its systems very well into an end to end delivery chain, from content collection through to end device...other players in more dis-integrated horizontal markets will now have to put together services that are as seamless and efficient - no pointing at each other when the download fails, no racking of profit on profit...

...just as Apple skewered the mobile music market with the iPod, similar shall occur here unless Things Change

It also gives a great opportunity for other highly branded players, as no doubt the other handset manufacturers (and operators not given the iPhone) will be desperate to find counters.

This is the day that the IT industry has taken its first serious swing at Planet Mobile, rather than working within it.

* Not to mention the pressure on the mobile walled gardens to open into the Apple walled garden....

(An afterthought...this fits in with a point I made following the Essential Web conference last week, where it seemed that this year many of the mobile startups were more interested in bypassing the current operators - and even handset makers - than working with them...you could smell gamechange in the air).

Postscript...this post to an extent argues with our hypothesis, but still ignores the impact of a tipping point change that the iPhone can bring in a hypercompetitive market.