Fisher Information Technology Center
Sofcon 2008
The Mobile Future:
Technology Revolutionizing Our Lives
Fisher Center and CMU Sponsor Major Conference on Mobile Technology
Acknowledging the rise of handheld mobile devices as a dominant computing platform both in the United States and abroad, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California at Berkeley sponsored “The Mobile Future: Technology Revolutionizing Our Lives.” a conference gathering leading academics, researchers, pundits and industry experts to discuss their visions of this mobile future, along with technology and business models for achieving them. The conference was held on April 22 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California, and attracted widespread press and blog coverage.
2008 Conference Highlights/News and Blog Coverage
2008 Conference Overview
“The Mobile Future” represents the combined efforts of Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley campus and The Fisher Information Technology Center at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. The universities attracted industry executives, such as Nokia’s Bob Iannucci, and researchers, such as Ted Selker from the MIT Media Lab, who led interactive discussions on the issues and trends that will significantly alter how we live and do business. “The Mobile Future” addressed a central question: What if the future of computing was something you held in your hand? In the morning, conference participants and attendees focused their attention on how the new mobile devices, applications and services will change the way people work, play and relate to each other. Bob Iannucci, VP and CTO of Nokia, gave the lunch keynote titled: “We’re Just Getting Started: Gearing Up for the Mobile Revolution to Come”. After lunch, the focus shifted to how the mobile visions discussed in the morning can be turned into reality.
“Mobile technologies are creating the computing platform of the future,” said James Morris, dean of Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley campus. “We’ve seen the rise of Web-based computing open up many opportunities for companies like Google to step up and offer standard PC services in new ways, built on new business models. The platform change driven by mobile technologies will have the same impact, opening up opportunities both for people offering mobile-specific services as well as for people offering a better way to deliver established PC and Web services.”
“Soon, the computing platform of choice for many will be a handheld device,” said Jack Grantham, executive director of the Haas School’s Fisher Information Technology Center. “This trend is already apparent in Asia and Scandinavia, transforming the personal and professional lives of individuals in ways that are both chaotic and enriching. Despite the diversity of global communications mechanisms, network operators, software vendors, and handset providers have the power to facilitate and accelerate this evolution.”
2008 Conference Presentations
Timothy Chou: Mabel and the Cloud (ppt)
Ted Selker: Human Interfaces (pdf)
Bob Iannucci: Gearing Up for the Mobile Revolution to Come…(pdf)
Didier Diaz: Mobile Platforms and Services (ppt)
Dan Siewiorek: Virtual Coaches (pdf)
Leonard Waverman: Key Results from ‘The Connectivity Report’ (ppt)
Leonard Waverman: ‘The Connectivity Report’ (pdf)
Highlights from the Conference: News and Blogs Coverage of the Conference
The New Global Playing Field
David Pogue: The New York Times
comments by Khamla Bhatt:
David Pogue of NY Times spoke from an American consumer user’s perspective and provided a whole different dimension to the future of mobile . Pogue opened the conference with his hilarious and entertaining speech. He had original video advertisementa and musical tributea laced into his speech. Pogue’s speech came from a mobile consumer’s perspective, where he highlighted various services ranging from Grand Central to Cell Wave to iPhone. I videotaped Pogue’s speech that you can watch on YouTube. (more)
Mabel and the Cloud
Timothy Chou
comments by Tom Krazit:
Timothy Chou, author and a former executive at Oracle, thinks that as businesses adopt mobile computers, they'll dramatically expand the need for cloud computing infrastructure.
"The deep Web is about 10,000 times the surface Web," Chou said. He's referring to the amount of data buried inside corporate networks, as opposed to the "surface" Web accessible by Google's search engine, estimated at about 100 terabytes.
Extracting that data is going to require more than just Web servers, currently being added to data centers like Google's and Amazon.com's at a frantic pace. That build-out is extremely important, as truly mobile Web-surfing computers could produce billions of transactions a day, as compared with a typical 200 million transactions a day at Google, Chou estimated.
But it's the tricky stuff--business models, privacy concerns, and bandwidth issues--that will dictate how quickly mobile computers are embraced by those of us who haven't yet drank from the pitcher of iPhone/MID/smartphone Kool-Aid, Chou said. (more)
Innovative Mobile Applications
Panel Discussion
comments by David Needle:
During a panel discussion about innovative mobile applications, Dan Siewiorek, director of Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute, said he's particularly excited by the concept of mobile devices used as virtual coaches. Some of the research at HCII make use of accelerometers in a small computing device attached to an arm band. The device detects, for example, when a weight lifter is struggling and can generate encouragement in the computer-generated voice of a drill sergeant or "a sexy female voice" depending on the user's preference.
Another virtual coach example is where a portable device with "machine learning algorithms" might guide a wheelchair user to use the correct stroke to move the wheels so as to avoid carpal tunnel injury. "I think the virtual coach concept takes us to the next round of mobile computing," said Siewiorek.
(more…)
Human Interfaces
Ted Selker, MIT Media Lab, and Stuart Card, Palo Alto Research Center
unsigned comment:
Designing a user interface for a mobile computer isn't hard; all you have to do is think like a person.
Sounds simple, but it's taken a long time for that realization to set in, said Stu Card, manager of the user interface group at the famed Palo Alto Research Center. Card joined fellow researcher Ted Selker of MIT's Media Lab at Sofcon 2008 to discuss human interfaces for mobile computers, and just how differently engineers have to treat these devices than their older PC brothers.
Card focused on the look and feel of the software that accompanies smartphones. He used Apple's iPhone as his example, and examined how the iPhone was designed according to four different human factors: social, rational, cognitive, and biological. The different factors represent the amount of time one spends on a task or problem; you might take a second to page through a library of pictures, but spend months or years developing a network of friends.
…
As you move to the higher levels of mobile computing--the rational (problem-solving) and social (in short, event planning)--the computer itself takes on the role of a sensor, Selker said. "(It's about) using sensors and virtual sensors to understand and respect human intention."
Selker created the ThinkPad's TrackPoint for IBM, and has been working on human-facing design for years. Right now, he's working on adding sensors and computing capabilities to all kinds of commonly used devices, from bike helmets to toy pets. (more)
We’re Just getting Started: Gearing Up for the Mobile Revolution to Come…
Bob Iannucci, Sr. VP/CTO, Nokia
comments by David Needle:
One of the big problems facing mobile developers is the lack of a standard platform. Iannucci recalled earlier mainframe, minicomputer and PC computing eras that started with competing, incompatible units. In each case, the industry eventually migrated to a standard platform for software developers and service providers. For now, he said the mobile industry has achieved billions of sales, but is held back by the lack of a standard platform.
As those standards develop, Iannucci and other speakers agreed that a new wave of applications will flourish, starting with location-based services. In the near future he said some mobile devices will be differentiated by how much information about the user they can sense. Just as cell phone makers already produce more embedded digital cameras than standalone digital camera makers make, Iannucci said soon there will be more embedded GPS units in mobile devices than standalone units. (more)
The Carriers: How is the US Changing?
Panel Discussion
unsigned comment:
According to EFF co-founder, John Gilmore, speaking at SOFCON, one of the reasons that the San Franscisco municipal WiFi project fell apart was that it was tied to tracking the location of everyone using the network and keeping that information forever in big Google database in the sky. And in addition to creating that privacy violation, trying to make money selling ads to those people.
…
more comments by Gilmore:
The Internet was created by going around the carriers. And what enabled that was that old Carterfone Decision that let you plug whatever you want into their network. The result was that people could innovate at their own speed instead of the speed of the carriers wanted to see innovation happening. And I'm afraid that we've lost that principle in the wireless market. (more)
Business Models and Investment Opportunities
Panel Discussion
unsigned comment:
After the panel on "Business Models and Investment Opportunities" at the Mobile Future conference, I caught up with Kleiner Perkin's partner, Matt Murphy, the point person for the $100 million iFund for iPhone Application Developers.
In the 5 weeks after the creation of the iFund, Murphy received more than 1,500 business plans and proposals from around the world but is actively "engaged" in about 70.
"Out of the 70 or so companies we are engaged with, over 95% are domestic... The international proposals are the most raw, like a few people and an idea out of Hungary for example. But the projects from outside the U.S. need to be more mature projects before we can invest. Domestically it's different. We'll do early stage, incubation, series A, etc... About 85% of the proposals are consumer applications (location-based services, social networking, communication...) and the rest is enterprise", said Murphy. (more)
The Connectivity Scorecard: the US Results
Professor Leonard Waverman
Dean, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary
Visiting Fellow, Fisher IT Center, University of California-Berkeley
The last session of the conference was a special presentation by Dr. Waverman concerning his new analysis and ranking of national connectivity and technological sophistication. Dr. Waverman’s analysis went beyond previous measures (ITU, WEF, EIU) to consider the potential for broadband connectivity and mobility to transform 1)business growth and efficiency, 2) government productivity, and 3) quality of life for citizens. The study, which ranks developing, intermediate, and highly developed economies on different measures, utilized more extensive measures and economic theory to create the indexes.
The US was the high scorer among “innovation-driven economies’, but scored only 6.97 out of a possible 10. The US score was diminished by its well-known limitations on wireless infrastructure, but also by limited government and business usage and skills. According to Dr. Waverman, “other countries are smartening up their acts, and the USA’s leadership is precarious.
Some unexpected findings from the survey showed that, in spite of its tech sector excellence, India scored very poorly (considerably lower than China), because of its poor overall infrastructure, and that South Korea, which scores well in simpler indices, is not reaping the productivity benefits of connectivity that it should.
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