Posts Tagged: interactive


13
Oct 09

But I Just Want to Be Touched!

A major trend I’m currently seeing in consumer electronics is that we are becoming  much more involved with our electronics. We’re touching more, we’re feeling more and we’re also bringing more technology around with us as ‘life tools’ rather than leaving it at home. Here are some examples to show you what I mean:

Mobile Devices: Iphone, Blackberry Storm, Palm Pre ( and many others)

Computers: HP TouchSmart PC, Microsoft Surface,  and coming up the Crunch Pad, ‘Rumored’ Applie itablet, and Microsoft Courier. Laptops have gotten a lot smaller, much more tactile and are getting additional screens for added use.

Interactive Gaming: the hold in your hand Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, and the Wii. Upcoming Xbox Natal and PS3’s new motion remote.

Other Products: touch screen GPS  and car displays, interactive footwear, Mp3 players with touch screens/internet/ video camera ….(truthfully I have a blank but the list definitely goes on!)

Erin McNaught Launches GPS System

Even more recently I was interested to hear about how some television manufacturers were beginning to make 3d televisions , this is a drastic shift! Television has often been an inactive activity and now you’re getting placed into your shows!  Electronics becoming more tactile and interactive is an interesting shift. Perhaps over the years people have felt a lot more passive and immobile with the use of PC’s and low touch devices.

With the improvement of wireless technology’s, smaller devices  and a more social internet maybe what we are seeing now are people in general wanting technologies that offer them an  experience and further feelings of freedom and attachment. For me thats an important shift to take into account and is something that can be used in terms of business and marketing.  Looking at customer experiences ( whether its interactive or passive ) how products are used ( are there ways to let a person know if they are doing this right? How can this product improve their life experience?)  and what  materials go into these products ( will material X feel better than material Y).

This may all seem very rambly…. or it may put things in perfect sense. I don’t know. Its just been something thats been on my mind for while, driving ideas and thoughts. Am I headed in the wrong direction with this or do I have a sense of sanity in these thoughts ? Let me know what you think.


17
Aug 09

Toronto takes SXSW!

With such a large tech community in Toronto there has been a  lot of growth this year in Toronto applicants to the  2010 SXSW convention ( held in Austin Texas, more info can be found here) as so many have now made it to the voting stages I thought it would make things a lot easier to have all the sessions in one place for everyone to vote and show your support .  I hope to see everyone there!

SXSW

The Sessions:

  1. F#$% Keeping it Simple presented by Dave Coleman, Saul Colt and Jeremy Wright
  2. Community Management : Future Skills You’ll Need to Know presented by Saul Colt
  3. Tweet Your Way to Your Next Job presented by Saul Colt
  4. Putting a Fork in The 30 Second Spot with panelist  Andrew Lane
  5. Life After Wii Fit: Geeks On Fitness presented by Wesley Hodgson
  6. Make Me a Damn Good Manager! presented by Andre Gaulin
  7. Millionaire or Artist? How About Both? with panelist  Amrita Chandra
  8. Distributed Micro-Patronage: The Future of Getting Paid: presented by Josh Newman
  9. Building Blocks of a New Economy For Music: presented by David Dufresne
  10. Colour Trends -Palettes to Pick for 2010 presented by Paige Dzenis
  11. Brilliant Second Acts You Must Steal Tricks From presented by Jaime Woo
  12. How to Recover From  a Brand Collapse panelist  Jeremy Wright
  13. Twitter and Dating in 140 Characters or Less presented by Jeremy Wright and special guest!
  14. Ditch the Old to Build Your Dream Life with panelist Jeremy Wright
  15. Gaming’s Final Frontier- Moving Towards Monetization & Improving Experience presented by Troy Ross
  16. Passionate People: The Key Ingredient to Social Media Success: with panelists  Meghan Warby ,  James Topham and Ryan Taylor
  17. A Different Documentary : Online Story Telling and Social Change presented by Boyd Niel
  18. Documentary Games: Playing with the Truth presented by Tony Walsh
  19. Multi-Platform Storytelling with panelist Andrew Lane
  20. SXSW SARS with panelist Jay Goldman
  21. We are Family: Web Applications Band Together Now! presented by Sunir Shah
  22. How to be  a Customer Support Rockstar presented by Grace Antonio
  23. Experimental Design:Your User Interface is Your Laboratory presented by Mike McDerment
  24. Exploiting Chaos– How to Spark Innovation During Times of Change presented by Jeremy Gutsche
  25. News 2.0 – How Old Media Companies Are Inventing New Models presented by Maggie Fox with panelists Laura Conway, Mathew Ingram,  and Candice Faktor.

Have any questions/comments ? Contact me at kevin@kevrichard.com or send me a twitter message .