Customisation: Design your own furniture!

Having recently visited the furniture stores around Dubai I realized its almost impossible to find the right fit for your home. Like always all the competitor stores were lined up along one row in the mall and none of them had a clear advantage in terms of differentiation.  

"What if" furnitures could be designed by us? That is what we really need; a website or community webpage where users can design their own furniture and then let the furniture stores build them. A similar idea has already been implemented by a T-shirt design company; a community web-page called www.threadless.com. Yes, this task may seem complex for the average being whose design skills aren't that great but what such a community does do is bring together a pool of interior designers to express and share ideas from around the globe; giving the consumers the best possible deals.

So, the community website user builds the furniture and posts their design on their profile where other users (the commoners) can choose and pick what we like. The stores can even put up a dummy display at their store upon the consumers request to come and view the furniture. This liberates consumers from the being limited to a stock size that is put on display at the mall. We no longer have to buy the same sofa set like the Smiths next door. This is truly differentiation on the next level.   

Youtube please design a repeat or loop button!!

Exams are around corner and music keeps me alive. So here I am doodling a small idea this time.

Listening to Linkin Park's latest ablum on Youtube recharges my soul n body to keep the midnight oil burning; but I realised Youtube could improve features tremendously by just adding a video looping button or a repeat button. That button would make life so much more easier, so please Youtube team make the button.

User experience and the next dimension!

Computers today interact with us primarily through sight and sound. Our primary mode of consumption of data on the net is in the form of either videos or sound. Take yourself a decade into the future and imagine what if computers could also interact with us using the other senses. Where you can taste an exotic fruit from India or smell wild flowers from the Amazon or even feel the fresh water of a stream ripple through our fingers.

Like Plato described a world of forms where everything was perfect, we could very well be heading towards creating a world of our own; a perfect world where we store the perfect form of everything we know. Perhaps this is the future mission for Google; store all known digital copies of taste, smell, touch and maybe even emotion. If the senses are eventually nothing but electrical impulses in our brain, we can very well replicate them in the future. User experience could take on a whole new dimension in the future. 

The implications of this could be tremendous. Imagine walking into a restaurant and actually tasting your meal before you buy it! Or tasting the flavour of a coffee brand before you pick it up at the super market. Imagine watching a movie at the theatre and actually experiencing the sense of smell which was part of your plot.

This might sound like science fiction but research is already being done in this space. For example, Disney Research is working on a technology called Telsa Touch where your touch experience on your touch screen phones could be made to feel as though you are really touching different surfaces.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/10/08/tesla.touch.disney/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Source:http://komar.cs.stthomas.edu/qm425/02s/Lloyd3_files/image003.gif

I think in the next 20 years or so we will very soon be able to walk into Star Trek Holodeck's and experience anything we want. 

Telecom Towers and Universal loyalty, credit cards!

Telecom service providers need to install towers to provide better coverage. Initially Telecom providers took up this task on their own and started putting up multiple towers throughout the landscape. This process of installing and maintaining towers was not an inexpensive one. It was also getting harder to procure space in urban areas to install these large towers. 

Solution: Build one tower and lease it to multiple Telecom providers at a lower cost; this is exactly what many companies did and it was an instant success. Telecom providers no longer had to worry about installing towers as they could rent towers from the service providers. 

So what does this have in common with loyalty cards and credit cards? A lot! 

Our wallets and purses don't have unlimited space to accommodate those lucrative yet space consuming cards! 

Image Source:http://leathercreditcardwallet.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/137-300x272.jpg

Image Source:http://www.i-mockery.com/blabber/pics/wii-target-giftcard.jpg

We need an universal touch screen card! We need the Helix Card! I envision that in the very near future someone will release a card which will be a touch screen card that can store multiple cards on it. So the next time you are tempted to pick up another credit card or loyalty card, simply slot our Helix Card into the retailers machine and your card is downloaded! And then flick through your Helix Card and choose the right card for the right moment! 

MindFlex, Gaming and the future of Hollywood!

Matel released a toy called Mindflex at CES 2009. This is an amazing little toy that reads the beta waves from your brain and then uses it in a game scenario. So, you control objects in the real world using nothing but your concentration power. WOW! If you don't believe me..check it out for yourself at http://mindflexgames.com/

I am surprised that even after almost two years XBOX or Play Station haven't attempted to buy this technology or tried to replicate it. Why should they do it? Think of the numerous virtual world games that could use this technology! Imagine playing Star Wars on a console where you are the Jedi. In the game your power or force is measured by using the Mindflex toy which will interact with the console. This would be a wonderful extension to XBOX Kinect but lets see if any of the consoles value this technology at all.

I believe the future of Hollywood is very much integrated with that of the gaming community. Innovations like MindFlex and Kinect are taking us closer to a world where we wont just be passive viewers of Hollywood movies. Movies in the future would require us to interact with the story lines and be part of another virtual world. 

I remember reading great interactive books when I was young which allowed us to choose the destiny of your heroes as we followed them in the book. For example, as we read through the chapters the readers were given options like 'If you want the Prince to go the palace keep reading, else turn to page 52!' . Just as these books managed to give us a little bit of control and made us feel part of the protagonists journey, I believe movies in the future would also allow us to interact with them. 

Just like James Cameroon was credited for taking Hollywood into another whole dimension with Avatar, very soon someone will rise to the occasion and transform the Hollywood experience from an viewing experience into an interactive one.

Black Boards, White Boards and now Smart Boards!

I was dreaming in class again! I remember starting out school in the days when we had chalk boards. How messy did that get! Then I remember the day I walked into class after my summer vacations to see new white boards.

The world has managed to advance a lot in the past decade or so but we still use boring old white boards. So, I thought of why not have something like a digi board. A board that can actually interact while you write on it. I Googled to see if someone has already thought of the idea and ....YES they have! It isn't called digi board but smart board...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U05WeXPGlk

But why hasn't this productive tool hit the workspace yet! Why are schools and Universities so late to adopt this!! Oh wait a minute I forgot, apple is probably is going to come out with a better model and they might call it   iBoard :D ...a massive iPad in ever cubicle... :D...any buyers?

Apple should really enter the fashion industry! :D

If Apple and all the other big boys in the same space are just trying to make a gadget geek look fashionable, why don't they go the distance and actually enter the fashion market.

I came across this website http://www.shoeblog.com/blog/this-week-in-shoes-24/; a blog dedicated to shoes!
What interested me was this pretty picture in the blog:

This happens to be a miniature shoe city designed for Japanese shoe manufacturer Onitsuka Tiger by design firm Freedom of Creation. 

Now I am not bothered about shoe cities for the moment but what does make me think is why hasn't anyone come up with a T shirt or a shoe that can actually change colours or designs. I am sure its feasible! All it takes is a thin layer of filament that can change designs or colour based on what you choose it to be every morning!! 

So, 'What if' this happens? All the ladies can now finally make some room in their closets! 

Flex! Can this kill the iPad?

Doodling on the blog!
We saw the iPhones, smart phones, iPads and many other; and yet I believe the market's hunger for swanky products is still very much alive!

Yes! I believe there is room for another product in the already crowded mobile devices market space. A product that can merge the smart phones and iPad like devices. Whichever company can pull this off, can essentially kill the iPad and grab a large section of the smart phone market too. I present to you my very own FLEX!

 What if, this could be implemented? I am thinking Why not?! A device that can be folded into a small pocket size phone and can also be opened up as a larger screen. Kill two birds with one stone!

I am sure we don't have to wait long enough to see this hit the market!!