Over the next 10 years there will be a lot of change. In fact it will be so significant you’ll struggle to remember just what things were like back in the ‘Tensies’ (2010-2019).
It will arguably be the most technologically progressive decade we’ve ever seen.
The few days I spent at the LeWeb technology and innovation conference in Paris last week reinforced this point.
The first point is what I mentioned last week in Money Morning. That one of the biggest trends of 2014 will spark off an enormous amount of social change.
Distributed networks, driven by technology, will grow in numbers, size and power. You’re already seeing this with the break down of industry. Manufacturing, TV & entertainment and right now banking are all going through monumental change. And what it’s all leading towards is a connected future…a world of ‘immersive technology’.
I’ve been on this topic for a while now, but ‘immersive technology’ will be huge. It will change how you live your day-to-day life.
There will be other big technologies that will reshape our future. But in terms of what you do day to day and how you live your life, nothing will come close to ‘immersive technology‘.
Day two of LeWeb made this more evident than the first day. I won’t run through all the speakers and what they had to say. But many share a similar view of how everything will interact with…everything.
Connected devices and the internet play a role in it all. But what’s really at the heart of this is how your smartphone becomes your primary interface. Well it could be your smartphone, your tablet, Google Glass or whatever connected device you have.
The point is your world is about to be really connected. And the interface you use will be anything that you can use to view, control and manipulate your immersive world.
You’ll first start to see and experience all this change in your own home. In fact it’s possible you’re already experiencing the connected, ‘smart’ home. I’ll take a stab and say you’ve got Wi-Fi. It’s probable you’ve got a smartphone, possibly a tablet and maybe a ‘smart’ TV.
You’ll be able to use your devices to watch TV, maybe even control the TV. You might be a bit more advanced and even have a lighting system you can control from your phone.
Well get ready, because that’s just the beginning of it all. And one man at LeWeb gave a greater insight into the connected home than any other. It was Tony Fadell, Founder & CEO of Nest Labs. And here’s the inside word…Nest Labs is the Apple of Home Products.
Tony helped create the first 18 generations of iPod and first three generations of iPhone at Apple.
Then he left to start Nest Labs. Nest’s first product is the Nest Thermostat. Now they’ve added Nest Protect (the smoke alarm reinvented). These are two products that Nest has reinvented all within the last year and a bit.
But Tony thinks there’s more. Although he didn’t go into specifics. It’s possible Nest has up to ten different products in the pipeline.
While talking to the audience about the connected home he had this to say about the mentality Nest take into the design studio when creating products:
‘How does your person change? How does your car change, how does your home change? And so when we look at that we look at products you must have and how they’re affected by the smartphone and how they can totally change the experience when it is connected.‘
In short, it’s all about how we can connect everything to make life better.
That’s the philosophy at Nest. And it’s with this mentality and approach that they’re disrupting some big markets.
Nest is dealing with what seems to be a common problem for a lot of these revolutionary start-ups. Having the incumbents – their competition – sue them.
As Tony put it, long-standing big players in markets don’t like new competition. In these often monopoly or duopoly markets, innovative start-ups busting open the market aren’t welcome. As Travis Kalanick, founder of Uber put it yesterday, ‘I could definitely wallpaper our office with cease and desist letters.‘
‘If you can’t innovate, you litigate,’ seems to be the way that big business operates when a new, young upstart comes along like Nest (or Uber) to shake things up.
But back to Nest. They decided that litigation was going to come their way. With such good, disruptive products it was inevitable. That’s why Nest decided early on to protect their interests. They’ve got 100 Patents issued, 200 on file and another 200 coming. Because they know that to disrupt these long standing markets, they need to disrupt everything.
And it might sound very simple right now but a connected smoke alarm is the very beginning of your connected home.
Right now, reading this you could look around and see probably a dozen things that haven’t changed over the last 20 or 30 years, but that are about to undergo fundamental change.
When was the last time the power point was innovated? How about the oven? Fridge? The lock on the door? The door itself?
With the connected home, you’ll see a new level of functionality. It will mean greater security and comfort for everyone. Imagine knowing what’s going on in your home from anywhere in the world.
Nest is slowly building momentum. The thermostat and smoke alarm are the first two. But there will be more. In fact, I’m almost certain that this time next year you’ll have a Nest product in your home.
Even if you can’t buy Nest locally, you’ll still have one. How is that possible you say?
Well here’s the thing. In the first nine days of Nest Protect being available something strange happened. Their sales data showed Nest Protect was in over 40 countries which they didn’t ship to. That’s right; some very resourceful people had installed and were using Nest even though they couldn’t buy one in their particular country. When Tony Fadell saw the data he simply said, ‘it blew my mind.‘
This indicates two key things. ‘Immersive technology’ is here. It’s arrived and is coming to your home (if it hasn’t already). It’s just the beginning and a company like Nest will drive it.
The other thing is that in markets that haven’t innovated, great change is coming. And it will be driven by huge distributed networks of people using technology to connect, create and share. And they’ll go around, and past, all existing forms of bureaucratic hierarchy to get what they want.
It’s an exciting time. It will be fun to watch it all play out over coming months and years.
Regards,
Sam Volkering+
Technology Analyst
PS: Kris and I believe we’ve found a company set to lead the way in immersive technology. Later on this week we’ll reveal some details about it. In fact, it’s just one part of an exciting development taking place with our premium investment service, Revolutionary Tech Investor.
I can’t reveal the full details yet because we’re still ironing out a few last minute details. All I can say is, if you’ve liked the idea of subscribing to Revolutionary Tech Investor before but you were put off by the premium price tag, I may have some good news for you.
Stay tuned.
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