Memex 1.1

Hmmm… Not sure how seriously I take this.

Credit Suisse released a report on Friday about the outlook for the wearable technology market arguing that it’s already a $3-$5 billion market today and claiming that in the next two to three years it could increase to $30-$50 billion.

That means more smartwatches, fitness monitors, shoes, and headsets. 

Smartphones are one of the key driving forces behind the expected growth in wearable tech, acting as a hub that keeps all of our devices connected. Over time, wireless devices will become even more popular as hardware improves, and sensors and batteries get better.

With Apple and Google dominating the install base of smartphone operating systems — iOS and Android respectively — they are in two of the best positions to leverage the wearable tech market.

Here are some key stats and info from the report:

There are more than 250 million installed mobile operating systems that can support wearable technology. 

An iWatch could generate $10 billion a year in revenue with an EPS of $3.30. There are currently only nine smartwatches available today.

Watches are a $56 billion market.

Regarding retail impact, Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour have best leveraged wearables to enhance the fitness experience and efficacy of their products.

The health and fitness market is about $2-$3 billion.

By 2020, batteries are expected to be 2.2x more powerful.

I smell boosterism here.

This morning’s Observer column.

For a long time, the world looked upon quantum physicists with a kind of bemused affection. Sure, they might be wacky, but boy, were they smart! And western governments stumped up large quantities of dosh to enable them to build the experimental kit they needed for their investigations. A huge underground doughnut was excavated in the suburbs of Geneva, for example, and filled with unconscionable amounts of heavy machinery in the hope that it would enable the quark-hunters to find the Higgs boson, or at any rate its shadowy tracks.

All of this was in furtherance of the purest of pure science – curiosity-driven research. The idea that this stuff might have any practical application seemed, well, preposterous to most of us. But here and there, there were people who thought otherwise (among them, as it happens, Richard Feynman). In particular, these visionaries wondered about the potential of harnessing the strange properties of subatomic particles for computational purposes. After all, if a particle can be in two different states at the same time (in contrast to a humdrum digital bit, which can only be a one or a zero), then maybe we could use that for speeded-up computing. And so on.

LATER: Gary Marcus has a nice sceptical piece about quantum computing in the New Yorker.

This morning’s Observer column.

Although there are already some very sophisticated applications of 3D printing in industry (in aircraft manufacture, for example), most of the stuff produced by 3D printing in the public domain looks pretty naff to the layperson’s eye. The Texas gun, for example, looks naive and unsophisticated when compared to, say, a Walther PPK. One can just imagine James Bond’s incredulous sneer if Q were to offer it to him.

But for those who have followed the work of Harvard scholar Clayton Christensen over the years, the sheer crudity of the printed object is what rings bells because it evokes the possibility of disruptive change…

LATER: It turns out that the Feds are onto it:

On Thursday, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson received a letter from the State Department Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance demanding that he take down the online blueprints for the 3D-printable “Liberator” handgun that his group released Monday, along with nine other 3D-printable firearms components hosted on the group’s website Defcad.org. The government says it wants to review the files for compliance with arms export control laws known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR. By uploading the weapons files to the Internet and allowing them to be downloaded abroad, the letter implies Wilson’s high-tech gun group may have violated those export controls.

“Until the Department provides Defense Distributed with final [commodity jurisdiction] determinations, Defense Distributed should treat the above technical data as ITAR-controlled,” reads the letter, referring to a list of ten CAD files hosted on Defcad that include the 3D-printable gun, silencers, sights and other pieces. “This means that all data should be removed from public acces immediately. Defense Distributed should review the remainder of the data made public on its website to determine whether any other data may be similarly controlled and proceed according to ITAR requirements.”

This is interesting — a working handgun produced by a 3D printer. “I’m seeing a world where technology says you can pretty much be able to have whatever you want. It’s not up to the political players anymore,” said Cody Wilson, the head of the Texas-based outfit which made the weapon. Cue Shock! Horror! reactions. For example:

Defense Distributed plans to make the blueprints for the almost entirely plastic firearm (only the firing pin is metal) available online, worrying political players including Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who on Sunday reportedly called the possibility of mass production of untraceable weapons “stomach-churning.” Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., last month introduced the Undetectable Firearms Modernization Act, which would extend the ban on non-detectable weapons and add language concerning 3D-printed guns. “Security checkpoints, background checks and gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print their own plastic firearms at home and bring those firearms through metal detectors with no one the wiser,” Israel said in a statement, according to the New York Daily News. Wilson has said before that he views Defense Distributed’s project as “vital” and a censorship issue.

So is this an example of technological determinism gone mad? Well, maybe. But Alex Hern’s piece in the Guardian takes a more measured stance.

The Liberator is a more serious prospect. All of the necessary parts can be printed from a 3D printer except for the metal firing pin, which is made from a single nail. (In order to comply with US laws, the gun as produced also has a 175g chunk of steel inside it, so that it doesn’t evade metal detectors). It is a fullblown gun, and recognisably so.

But technologically, it’s still simple. That’s because the principle behind a gun isn’t too tricky: load a bullet into a reinforced tube, and whack the back of it hard. That’s an engineering problem street gangs in the 1950s managed to solve with wood, antenna housings and elastic bands, building “zip guns” to shoot at each other; and it’s also the basis for converted air rifles and cap guns. The difficult stuff – getting it to fire accurately, repeatedly and without jamming or blowing up in your face – is still a long way off for 3D printers. And even the best 3D-printed gun still relies on someone else to make the gunpowder.

You didn’t know you needed one? Well, think again. Lovely video by Quentin about how to make one.

This morning’s Observer column.

The Chinese name their years after animals – the year of the goat, the rat and so on. In the tech world, we name years after devices. Thus, 2007 was the year of the iPhone and 2010 was the year of the iPad. It’s beginning to look as though 2013 will be the year of Glass. This prediction is based on the astonishing level of comment, curiosity, excitement, trepidation and hostility surrounding an augmented reality device created by Google and called Google Glass…

My Observer review of The The New Digital Age by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen.

When, in early 2011, Eric Schmidt stepped aside from his position as Google’s CEO to become the company’s executive chairman, some of us were reminded of Dean Acheson’s famous gibe about postwar Britain – which had “lost an empire but not yet found a role”. What, one wondered, would Dr Schmidt’s new role be, and when would he find it?

The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business

by Eric Schmidt, Jared Cohen

Well, now we know…

This morning’s Observer column.

On Tuesday 23 April, a tweet from Associated Press (AP) revealed startling news. There had been explosions in the White House and Obama had been injured. The tweet was a hoax – the AP Twitter account had been hacked via a clever phishing exploit – but it briefly caused havoc. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 144 points between 10.07am and 10.09am, for example. Crude oil prices also briefly tumbled and the price of US Treasury bonds and gold futures spiked. Within minutes, AP disclosed that the tweet was erroneous and things returned to normal, with the Dow eventually rising 152 points for the day to close at 14,719.

Crisis over, then? Er, not quite. The story of the hoax AP tweet resurrects troubling thoughts about systems and fragility…

Lovely Irish Times piece by Shane Hegarty about the implications of Google’s new toy.

Imagine the near future. Sometime next year. You, sir, are standing in a public toilet and a man sidles up to the urinal beside you. He nods at you out of politeness. You notice he’s wearing glasses. Then the guy takes out his phone and snaps a picture of you going about your business.

Something approximating a fuss would, no doubt, ensue.

At some point next year, maybe in a public toilet but probably on the street or on your morning commute, you’ll see your first pair of Google Glass glasses, the internet for the eyes that are currently with developers but have been given an increasing airing in recent weeks.

You’ll look at them. Everyone will look at them. The wearer will be looking at you. And you’ll stick it in the memory bank, tell the office about it and try and describe it.

But the Google Glass owner? He’ll have been able to record the whole encounter, play it back, download it, upload it, save it.

The funny thing is that even the Google bosses are beginning to wake up to this. Here, for example, is the company’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, talking about it at Harvard:

Talking out loud to control the Google Glasses via voice recognition is “the weirdest thing,” Schmidt said in a talk on Thursday at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

People will have to develop new etiquette to deal with such products that can record video surreptitiously and bring up information that only the wearer can see, Schmidt said.

“There are obviously places where Google Glasses are inappropriate,” he said.

Google is making the glasses available to software developers this year but has said they won’t be available more broadly until 2014.

Google has decided that it will pre-approve all apps offered to glasses users, unlike its more wide open market for Android phones and tablets.

“It’s so new, we decided to be more cautious,” Schmidt said. “It’s always easier to open it up more in the future.”

LATER: Turns out that Google’s plans to have Apple-type control over Glass operating system might be a bit optimistic. It seems that someone has jailbroken the device already.

Just days after its release to developers, Google’s Glass headset has already been hacked to give users full control of its Android operating system, according to Jay Freeman, a well-known Android and iOS developer who tested a known exploit for Android on Glass yesterday and announced his success on Twitter Friday afternoon. The “root” or “jailbreak” technique Freeman found would potentially remove any restrictions Google might place on Glass, though it’s not yet clear exactly what those restrictions might be in consumer versions of the device.

IDC says PC sales fell 14 percent in the first quarter on a year-over-year basis. That’s worse than its forecast of a 7.7 percent drop.

This is the worst quarter for PC industry since 1994 when IDC started tracking sales. So, that pretty much makes it the worst quarter in history.

IDC blames Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system for alienating consumers. The new tile-based interface is too weird for consumers, says IDC.

Instead of buying new laptops or desktops, people are buying tablets and smartphones which serve as good-enough alternatives.

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