THE NERDY REPORT NOTES FROM GMIC 2013 SF This week I attended the largest mobile tech convention linking Silicon Valley with the Mobile Industry. And it was exactly as you can imagine it: nerds, inventors and nerds. Except some of them were millionaire CEOs in their 20’s. A few talks were really into techie lingo but most of them showed awesome stuff. Here are a few notes I would like to share with you.
“If you don’t have mobile in your plans, your plans are not done.” - Wendy Clark, SVP, Integrated Marketing Communications and Capabilities for the Coca-Cola Company, to her brand managers.
INVENTORS SHARED THEIR COOL GADGETS: EMOTIV A headset that reads your brain and lets you control games or apps just as a joystick, but directly with your thoughts. http://emotiv.com/
CANESTA, DEPTH SENSOR CAMERA This is the first camera that detects depth, is going into the new Kinect. http://engt.co/deOiEO
OUYA A really cool new kind of video console: http://kck.st/Mfvs9z
DROPCAM The first IP camera ready to use. Curiously enough, this was built by a software company. Confirming a trend that keeps going strong: companies treat software and hardware the same way (both come from the same concept.) It’s founder invented this while trying to solve the mystery of whose dog kept pooping on his dad’s front yard. https://www.dropcam.com/
COOLEST APPS I SAW: FRIEND TRUSTED An app for home improvement. With just a picture you get quotes from different contractors. You can check their reviews. http://friendtrusted.com/
LOCKET This android app is also a new business model and creates a new media. It rewards the user for having Ads on his/her lock screen. These ads are personalized, geolocated and time-framed, i.e. “Good morning Cameron, from Adidas.” http://www.getlocket.com/
GOOGLE GLASS APPS: First stages of cool apps, like this one for doctors that lets them see all of their patient’s history right in the mini screen. That guy presented the whole thing through his GGlass. Another cool app recognizes how your eyes are working and trains them to work better, improving your sight.
EVERNOTE BUILDS THINGS After reaching 2 billion users, they launched a stylus that really feels and works as a pen. They are also creating socks. The brand wants to be the Nike of smart people. https://www.evernote.com/market/feature/stylus
MY FAVORITE TALK: SECRETS FROM THE FUTURE The speaker, Ed Fries. He created his first video game for the Atari in the 80s, then joined Microsoft and after developing Excel and Word, co-founded the Xbox project and published more than 100 games including Halo. Fries talked about predicting the future, specifically talking about how German Victorian artists predicted what we would have in the year 2000 through really interesting postcards. “Anyone can predict the future, the hard part is predicting when these things will happen.” About products, he said is not only about the idea but when is the right time for it. Overall, the message left by Ed Fries was that “the best way to predict the future, is to make it.” As a funny experiment, he coded Halo back for Atari, you can play it for free here: http://www.codemystics.com/halo2600/ You can watch the whole presentation here (60min): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZFAHOiT9HU
TRENDS Wearable devices facing 2 issues: relevant content and partnering with fashion brands (no one wants to look geeky.) Games and content for tablets going strong. Tablet users are very loyal to their device. All apps/ideas going multichannel (devices). Investors don’t go for single channel ideas. Second screen complimenting TV content dynamically. China kicking ass: Xiomi does in a week what Apple does in a year. For real: http://onforb.es/1a5eMsG More than 1 of 5 mins are spent on FB. In LATAM and APAC 80% of data is used on FB. Successful apps are the ones that really add something or improve the life of their users. Is not about launching it, is about what happens 3 months later with it. Overall, everything linking back to The Internet of Everything. From the connected car, which will become the largest mobile device with geo-located ads and content (i.e. Tesla), to small everyday
things like Tile, getting rid of lost things via bluetooth. And in the center of all these things: mobile devices.