Hearing without listening

Just for fun, Personalization, Privacy

I’m not a fan of the ubiquitous listening devices. Not that having a virtual assistant always on the standby to serve my every (ok, some) need wouldn’t be handy; it would be fun to be talk to my house. Seriously, I work from home. It gets lonely. But I digress. It’s because of the growing interconnectedness of it all, combined with lax privacy laws and inadequate digital security. They *say* they’re only listening for your action word, but the Ts&Cs prove otherwise; as do recent legal events when it’s been shown that not only

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Our poor planet

3d printing, Apparel, Personalization

Invited to the Coburn Ventures‘ annual gathering as a “thought leader” this week, for the fourth year in a row! – always a fun gathering of the best and most interesting thinkers (thought leaders + investment professionals) from around the globe, pondering the future direction of various technologies on business and humanity. What to wear…always the question. So to the intertoobz I go. And it struck me: why am I internet shopping in exactly the same way I have been since, well, pretty much the beginning of ecommerce? Searching based on some key words,

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Temporary interactive tattoos

Apparel, Customization, Personalization, Quantified Self, Wearables

The ultimate “wearable”; smart temporary tattoos that have functionality. Seriously I think all the gadgets we currently carry – phones, trackers, health monitoring devices will very soon just be stickers that we attach to ourselves (or be woven into our clothing) – wrote about both of those before (http://lindaricci.com/body-stickers and http://lindaricci.com/quantifying-apparel). These are fascinating. Coming out of the MIT Media Lab, these temporary tattoos have different configurations: one iteration has an NFC chip embedded in it (allowing for interaction with nearby gadgets), another lets you use your finger to interact with your computer screen…made out of real

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Pandora’s box: Facebook, Google+, and the future of social networking

Customization, Featured, Personalization, Predictions, Social networking

I’ve been watching the discussions around the launch of Google+ with interest. In the press there’s a definite “Coke vs Pepsi”, “Microsoft vs Apple” flavor to the discussion…I don’t think this is relevant, as much as the press seems to like to hype, speculate and crow over every blow-by-blow “win” or “lose” as if it were a football game. For me the relevant paradigm shift is that Facebook’s monopoly has been broken; Google has opened Pandora’s box, and I think social networking will be revolutionized by it. Because it won’t be about choosing which one

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The Borogoves are a’ Mimsying: Marketing in a hyper-connected world

Best of, Branding, Digital marketing, Featured, Personalization, Predictions

I’ve been thinking a lot about the long term impact an ”instantaneous, on demand” life. Imagine that from birth, you never had to wait for anything, and had everything you wanted delivered immediately. News, entertainment, connecting with your “group” – everything.  Never getting lost. The collective knowledge of the human race there for you at all times. How would this shape your assumptions and expectations? Because this is what’s happening to the generation being born. My nephew is almost 2. What struck me is how – without any real language skills yet (my sister

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Democratizing design: 3D printing and on demand design

3d printing, Customization, Personalization, technology trends

Regina Connell at Handful of Salt writes a blog about gorgeous high end craft and design…as a fan of both craft and technology, she asked me to muse around the intersection between them. Good design is expensive – whether it’s an antique, a handmade statement piece by a modern craftsperson or a luxury post modern statement. Producing a piece of craft takes a long time to learn, a long time to make, and customers who appreciate the cost associated with all of this. The 20th century has seen the slow demise in the desire for “something handmade”;

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