 | Issue: | Asia-Pacific II 2007 |
| Article no.: | 2 | |
| Topic: | Personalization of technology | |
| Author: | Professor Lye Kin Mun | |
| Title: | Deputy Executive Director, Industry, Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) | |
| Organisation: | A*STAR Singapore | |
| PDF size: | 372KB |
About author
Professor Lye Kin Mun is the Deputy Executive Director of Industry at the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), A*STAR Singapore. He is also an adjunct professor in the Electrical Engineering Department of the National University of Singapore. He has a rich and varied background in communications technology R&D, working with government agencies and world-class R&D laboratories. Dr Lye was previously the Director of the Centre for Wireless Communications, CWC. Under his leadership, CWC grew to become an internationally recognised R&D organisation in leading-edge wireless communications technology. In 2006, the title of ‘Officier dans l’ordre des Palmes Academiques’ was bestowed on him by the French Government. Professor Lye Kin Mun holds a PhD and a Bachelor’s degree, both in Electrical Engineering, from the University of Hawaii, Honolulu and University of Alberta, Canada respectively.
Article abstract
Info-communications and media, ICM, technologies are changing consumer habits and users are personalising the use of technology in unforeseen ways. The growth of iPods, Blu-ray, the Xbox, the PC itself, YouTube, SecondLife, and many others is being driven by the new uses that have been invented for them by users. This personalised adaptation is not convergence, which fits many clearly-defined features into one system. Personalization is about pushing the boundaries of systems past the functionality built in by the designers.
Full Article
It is increasingly difficult today to predict what will or will not be successful in tomorrow’s markets. A new generation of consumers has crept quietly into the markets of today, led by a more affluent younger population spoilt by the Internet, computer games and mobile phones. Certainly, rapid advances in technology, especially info-communications and media, ICM, technologies, have shaped and will continue to shape individual and enterprise behaviour that will, in turn, create demand for innovation and surprises. The new environment is decidedly a digital one masking an analogue world and, at the same time, extending beyond the physical into the realms of virtual reality. This new world is almost experimental in nature where revolutionary business models flourish and ‘disruptive’ technologies upset seemingly entrenched incumbents. Notwithstanding all of the above, there are trends I have observed that may be useful in developing next-generation strategies for the development of products and solutions in the ICM marketplace. Bestselling new products today are cool and rich in features. It is not so much the one-button-does-it-all thing that we have been led to believe makes up user-friendliness. It is the cool, intuitive control over myriad features that allows me to do my thing! I suppose the iPod and Nokia phones are overused examples, but they do prove the point. Of course, a lot of good, if not great, technology needed to be developed to build these products, but the technology is driven by the product design and concept rather than the other way around. Do not get me wrong, features are important but the question is not so much whether I can do a million things more with the audio on this machine than on the other one. It is really the fact that I can take, store and transmit 3 mega-pixel pictures and 1 mega-pixel videos, listen to my favourite MP3 songs, watch TV and play my son’s games on this mobile phone now. Oh! By the way, it is a super smart mobile phone as well, and everything comes in a package that hangs comfortably around my neck on a designer chain. This is the true expression of ‘convergence’ to the people on the street. Oops! I almost forgot to mention that it also pays my bills, allows me to read the radio frequency tags on that nice shirt, which tells me how much it costs – not to mention the entire chemical composition of the shirt’s material – and it can also turn on the air-conditioner at home before I get there. Today’s products are cool, but they would not sell if they were not supported by the invisible systems that take full advantage of their features to make even more money for the system operators. Without iTunes, iPods may well have been a passing fad. What would we want Xboxes and PS3s for without the games? Incidentally, it is instructive to realize that the adoption of the Blu-Ray disc format is being overwhelmingly driven via its inclusion in the PS3 game console rather than the CE player or PC route; i.e., the product is driving the technology. It is also true that cool services drive cool products. The notable example is the infamous i-mode service launched by NTT of Japan when their WCDMA (predecessor of 3G) service was not attracting enough subscribers. The world sat up and watched with disbelief as i-mode drove subscriber statistics off the chart. It was interesting to note that when NTT tried to export i-mode to Europe, the results were disappointing, driving home the point that mobile phone services can be culturally sensitive. It is also interesting to note that enterprising users have turned the Xbox into a PC, for which they could and did write their own programmes. Remember that the price of the Xbox, being a console, is subsidized – the real money being made comes from the games. These smart consumers have thus effectively bought powerful hardware cheaper. It was also used to emulate other game consoles, such as Game Boy, Genesis etc. After the Xbox came the iPod and, by now, people have figured out ways to not only install an OS on it but also play 3-D games such as Doom, using the controls of the iPod. There is even a version of Wikipedia available for the iPod, a project known as Encyclopodia. This trend can best be described and understood thus. Consumers no longer want their devices to do only pre-defined, pre-approved and thus ultimately restricted tasks. Instead, they want devices that allow personalization of usage. This could be through modifying the hardware/software or via an optional software solution, added to the system. This trend goes beyond convergence because convergence is typically understood to be fitting many clearly-defined features into one device. The personalization trend is about users being eager to push the boundaries of their devices well past even the multi-functionality built into it by its manufacturers. Users seemed to be thrilled with the prospect of implanting their own signature ‘coolness’ into the devices they buy off the shelf. This is particularly true in software. YouTube began as a video-sharing site for anyone to upload videos of their own lives and interests. What led though to its mass-appeal and, thus, its sale to Google was not that particular usage. Instead, the content responsible for bringing YouTube into the consciousness of the general public was cable TV material, typically comedy clips and clips from popular dramas etc. Another important use of YouTube was by bloggers. Bloggers found great value in uploading videos to YouTube and then linking to them. Thus, they were able to provide explanatory and contextual video content without having to pay for bandwidth. YouTube benefited, the bloggers benefited, and blog-readers were able to enjoy video in addition to text. Thus, YouTube went from the idea of personal video-sharing anyone could use to an entertainment hub for netizens and revenue savings for bloggers, amongst many other things. YouTube even made celebrities of some of its up-loaders by exposing them to a massive audience. This large audience was only made possible by the various non-standard uses of the site and not the original narrow intent. The story would not be complete without mention of ‘Second Life’ of Linden Labs. It would be hard to imagine ten years ago that software that allows one to ‘live’ a virtual life in a virtual world shared by five million other real virtual people would be a roaring success. It would be even harder to believe that this unreal world has allowed some real virtual people to make significant amounts of money – and I do not mean the folks at Linden Labs. Unlikely as it may seem, corporations have now paid real money to venture into this virtual world not just to establish a presence, but to advertise and offer their services. Second Life has delivered a technology that empowers individuals to personalize themselves and their surroundings in a virtual world that is at the same time linked to the real one we live in. This trend has been in the making for some time now. However, like the inventors of so many of the most popular products today (PCs, Walkman/MP3 players, phones, etc), the inventors of today’s revolutionary products and services are probably walking the same difficult paths and dealing with disbelievers and nay-sayers. Great technology today is not enough, creativity in the fullest sense in terms of defining the product and service must take the lead. Creators’ must also take care and pay attention increasingly to what consumers want – an avenue to exercise their own creativity through the products they buy. They want to personalize their own play rather than just use products in ways dictated by the inventor. I expect that this sort of attitude will be seen more and more in the workspace as enterprise customers realise they need personalization to differentiate their businesses’ offerings. So yes, it is a crazy world out there and it is going to get crazier. The more we digitalize our environment the more we want total control over it. The company that gives me what I want, and allows me to use it and play it my way, with applications I discover along the way, is going to take my money.
