The Adventures of Cindy Li

SXSW 2006: Smaller, Faster, Lighter

March 12 , 2006

Speakers…

Love it already. I’ve been described as that. :)

Moderator: Rayasam
Hellweg
McCord
Horwitz, Bull

“Looking back at devices, tech journalism”-Hellweg

Was working for Spin, had mp3 players (heavy bag) in 1999.
I remember the fave player was the size of a brick but it was soooo cool. The hard drive was small enough to fit in a brick. 1G size.Everything was going great but then the turbulence happened and it stopped working. We are now moving away from those and are now going toward flash based. We’ve already seen some road kill. Rocker phone w/apple.
Now Verizon launched a music service w/songs $2 for your phone.
Which is ridiculous. A near future other companies like apple are going to feel the consumer wants one device.

Smaller products don’t start out cheaper… “-William Bull

And make not make it to market faster. Transparent flexible technology, this and that sounds great and it is interesting to see how long something takes to get there.

The commodizitation of hardware and software does not inherently result in a better user experience

its interesting to see how long flash got out.

Social acceptance and agronomics are great factors in determining form and scale.  There is big social changing. “We” are the Cadillacs (USA: peeps sorry Kenneth from Belgium).

While the progress of technology enables innovation.

It’s frequently evolutionary not revolutionary….
It all boils down to old technology, we’re going to see changes in design. We’ll see three trends: no trends (creating devices that are stapled)

Physical design: there will be no industrial design

The future is fashion. Form follows function, user ergonomics. Tomorrow’s innovations in physical design will be informed

Pervasive networking

Your storage is always available. Your body is a networking conduit. communication really is just data.

If Internet2 and 4G networks are any indicator, we’re building a 12 lane highway for a small town. Now we..(darn slide changed)

For every aspect of a product…

Advances in manufacturing design development, biz and social acceptance lead to new opportunities.
Hopefully we’ll see this type of acceptance.
McCord: (hardware designer)
The phone that i carry has a built in gps,phone some of these have more than the computers I started on. Content owners are way more concerned with protecting the rights than having interesting content.

The experiences you have with music have been reduced to data management

Itunes is great. What if we created something that was in addition to improve the interactivity. The content is a booklet that can fold out that is. Who buys albums based the cover?
Horwitz: take content from your home to car? That makes it easier for families. Faster connectivity gets us to the next level. The user ipod innovation. How are users using podcasts thats the next level.
Hellweg: prices are dropping because manufacturing is stepping up.

Build it and they will come

Bull: with all the licensing they dont have to negotiate the terms, the current trend is to become a convergent devices. That is a trap. There is no cost in the small convergence devices. They are trying to incorporate proprietary technology and it costs more.

side-note: those fancy remotes (each company makes you pay… for their code, learned that while working on AOLTV/DirecTV box.. coming soon.. ::cough cough:: not :( )

McCord: The expense of working in China..

if you know how to do it, go to Asia, sign up a team you could have an Mp3 player in months. I spent part of 2004 watching what they are capable of doing it. Once the idea/product gains that momentum/plateau it is easy to create.

Horwitz:Personal created content

Shared over the web, we want places to share the info, its changing the cultural dynamics. Think about music/artists. Digital music its invigorating now I can get more artists economical. Before going to the store now I can experience it easily.
Hellweg: We’ve made it more efficient. I obsess about it.

Files are transferable and its invigorating. Its easier to share

Bull: It’s challenging to find the song I want on my iPod still
(I agree) It’s still the powering device. I’m sure the future devices will be different. Even though Apple is great for iPod.  The public acceptance.  Most people didn’t try it out. It’s a brand.

Rayasam: Consumer areas that are getting touched…

Bull: we are talking about devices are getting smaller, there is different classes that are aware in the consumer land.
Tip of the iceberg that is going on in the industry. There are other things driving the changes. A whole area leveraging for things we aren’t aware of. UPS has a clipboard that tracks your packages talking to a satellite but they are worth noting. They are gaining the most benefit by using that then conventional devices. They cost more but they are highly specialized.

McCord: Drives a Prius, Look under the hood. Reliability is key.
Ipod fails you loose 30g….

Horwitz: they might not want the big multi devices.

They want the highly specialized devices

The small companies aren’t going to have the ability to do the big devices because it is a gated supply chain. The costs are going to get eaten. We suffer from UI loss. Apple has a round trip shop. Larger companies come to small design agencies to solve this product to get away from the politics. You’ll see some middle layers of software in one company.

Questions…

What is the futuristic scenarios?
What do you see happening?
When things get small things get specialized.

McCord: The cell phone GPS, BB, keyboard, look at it.
It doesn’t do any of those great. It does them “pretty good”
Is that enough?
It isn’t for me :)

The breakthrough that needs to happen is

• going to be seamlessly talk to each other
• bluetooth doesn’t do that, it is a start..
• know that it’s yours it works, if you pick it up it should work
• communicate on the phone when you press the button
• there is a limit to the size when you make it smaller to make it usable
• Low cost
• low power
• low size

You are going to want the specialized device.

Horwitz: Price point.
It still needs to add value. It needs to be the components.
The devices might be small enough. Cell phones aren’t going to get a lot bigger. Your world in your pocket.go to your home server. It isn’t that far away. The innovation is happening, the on-line service providers, content providers are pushing us to a new level of innovation to push you to think outside of the 5 meters of space. How are you going to interact.

Bull: I agree with all of you. Business has impact on everything and is driving is a good thing. We will continue to see pervasive micro/macro.. mesh computing. New ways such as light switches and moved.

Guy in audience: got mugged but he was out $1500. two iriver.
we’re carrying devices that are going to make us vulnerable.

Is there a backup?

horwitz: there will be in the future. central server in your home. or on-line so you don’t loose your data/content. digitally in the sky.