Last week was a bit of a busy one, but I still had chance
for a bit of reading. Here’s a brief roundup of stories from the TMT industry
that caught my eye.
This week: Google vs Facebook in Internet Risk, goodbye Google TV, cars drive
themselves (but not in Canada), kids break Murdoch’s tabs
Traditional business models
FT says that its print product will henceforth derive from
the digital. I’m not so sure that’s really practical. There’s a big difference
between the fast twitch, unlimited word count world of the web and the more
structured, quality-first print product. There’ll be two newsrooms for a long
time yet. http://gigaom.com/2013/10/09/financial-times-our-print-product-will-derive-from-the-web-offering-not-vice-versa/
BT bows to the inevitable and goes back into mobile. I think
they’ll do well, since BT Retail has seemingly figured out how to do product
marketing. Bad signs for O2 though, who now have the poorest spectrum asset in
the UK and seem to be going backwards from a proposition perspective. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24480956
Goodbye Google TV. Sure this was the future two years ago? http://gigaom.com/2013/10/10/google-tv-rebranded-android-tv/
(In case you filed it under “bullshit”: http://www.theguardian.com/media/interactive/2011/aug/26/eric-schmidt-mactaggart-lecture-full-text)
You don’t need a PC to do real work… especially if it’s as
bad as the one I have to suffer on a daily basis. http://www.citeworld.com/mobile/22542/mobile-productivity-fallacy
New business models
Great little graphic showing the most visited website by
country. Note how popular Facebook is… although not in the major Internet
geographies. http://d25i0vq4k5x7z4.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Age_of_Internet_Empires_final.png
Amazon has bought education startup tenmarks for an undisclosed
sum. Given the giant retailers publishing aspirations, this makes a lot of
sense. http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/10/heres-why-amazon-just-acquired-ed-tech-startup-tenmarks/
First deployments of Newscorp’s Amplify education tablet
show that kids break them. A lot. Um – are we surprised by this? Perhaps some
ruggedisation is required? http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/10/07/10-amplfiy-tablets-broke-first-month-one-north-carolina-school-district-reports/#.Uluh2NJeaSo
Study on brands’ social engagement shows that consumers want
openness and honesty, not the ability to share brand-related stuff with each
other. That was my supposition. Useful to have it confirmed! http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/traditional/only-1-in-10-consumers-feel-that-brands-are-doing-well-at-connecting-with-them-where-are-brands-failing-most-37199/
Technology
A nice summary of how optical sensors can be used for
non-invasive monitoring of various chemicals in the human body. In combination
with wearables, this would really enhance the potential of wearable technology.
http://www.insideactivitytracking.com/computational-biology-tracking-the-biology-of-our-bodies/#lightbox/0/
Autonomous vehicles are the future, particularly in long
range, low involvement applications like road trains. This article suggests
that Canada needs to accelerate its progress in this area. http://www.thevaultmag.com/archives/5944
Toyota is the latest auto manufacturer to launch a practicable
self-driving demonstrator. The key technology here is co-operative cruise
control, which synchronises multiple vehicles’ speed. Since it’s speed
differentials (often very big ones!) that result in accidents, cause traffic
jams and consume fuel, multiple manufacturers working on an interoperable
system would be hugely beneficial. I doubt they will. Perhaps the EU should
make it mandatory for all cars to have a system fitted… http://www.slashgear.com/toyota-to-exhibit-automated-highway-driving-assist-system-next-week-11301001/
…we’d just need to convince people to trust the cars.
Self-evident, really. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/10/us-autos-driverless-idUSBRE99902D20131010
Sprayable energy? I really hope this is some sort of fakery…
http://sprayable.co/
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