Convergence Conversation

A colleague recently sent me the following link: http://tinyurl.com/nvrwf9 describing a project by MIT's Fluid Interfaces Group, related to next generation interaction solutions. Besides being an interesting (and occassionally amusing) presentation, it reminded me of some thinking I participated in on a similar front, which I thought was worth sharing. For ease of reading, I'll break the subject into multiple posts, starting with image recognition.

Wouldn't it be great if my computer could see what I saw, tell me everything I want to know about it? I'd look at a product on a shelf and know everything about it. More...

A data point: Ofcom's communication market report showed 3G increasingly substituting for DSL in the home. The data is presented in a slightly obtuse manner - 32% of 3G "dongle" users are using the service to sub for DSL - roughly 2m dongles in the UK consumer market, so 600k 3G from a total of 15m broadband connections - 4% market share captured in 18 months.

Interpretation (after 2 seconds of thought!):

Revenues from (mobile) broadband are massively disproportionate to the bandwidth used - same as in fixed line. Outwardly, this is another nudge towards netco/ servco separation - MNOs are becoming more like last mile data carriers, although they retain a strong presence in "products" for now (primarily because of the British public's obsession with free handsets). More...