Over the last year, my writing and speaking has focused on a fairly straight forward thesis:

1. Cheap computation/networking will make nearly any device ‘smart’
2. There will be lots of these things
3. Using ‘an app’ to control each one (what we currently do) just won’t scale
4. Smart phones will be joined by smart TVs, smart glasses, and smart tabletops
5. All the ‘smart devices’ will want to play with all the ‘smart displays’
6. We need to make this happen through open source solutions

I’ve given this talk to thousands of people and it’s so gratifying to get such enthusiastic endorsement. But whenever it comes down to concrete next steps someone almost always says “you really need to sketch out how a company can actually make money doing this”. The intent is good; they are clearly trying to be supportive, but this is exactly the wrong approach. Continue reading →

The Internet of Things (or IoT) is finally going mainstream. Not only do I read about it frequently online, but I’m now talking about it with clients at frog. Unfortunately, as it has become popular, it has also grown to the point where it can span everything from home Wi-Fi networks to smart cities. Much like the story of the three blind men describing an elephant, the essence of IoT depends on your point of view. Continue reading →

Smart devices require a significant shift in thinking

This blog explores how to design smart devices. But these new devices are just so new and require such new insights, that our quaint, old school notions of UX design are completely blinding us. We are stuck between the classic paradigm of desktop computers, and the futuristic fantasy of smart dust. The world is either fastidious or fantastic. The path ahead is hard to see. Alan Kay said the best way to predict the future is to invent it… but what if we don’t know what we want? Continue reading →

Moving beyond the desktop towards just-in-time interaction
So often what passes for vision is usually nothing more than tiny extensions of what is already known and safe.  Of course, it’s only natural as people tend to think within what is most comfortable. I call this “Default Thinking” and have already discussed this in my first post, (it was initially discussed as far back as 1962 by Thomas Kuhn). Continue reading →