WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: a very good update on wearables digital monitoring technologies. Not surprised to see the explosion of sensors, solutions and metrics monitored.

WHY IT MATTERS: been a while since I wrote about wearables, wellness and transhumanism. This article is a bit too futuristic but does provide some useful solutions.

With health concerns on the rise and social distancing a "thing" now, I keep thinking that wearables will find their killer app moment. If I am concerned about who I come in contact with - either because I am concerned for my personal health or I am concerned about insurance premiums as a company - then wearables become a great solution. As Bernard Marr highlights, the privacy concerns are never too far away in those use cases.

WHY IT MATTERS: wearables went through a terrible hype cycle a few years back (remember the Apple watch). Looks like, as with many hype cycles, the promises were real but it just took time for the technology to catch up with the hype. One of the wearable promise was wrt to health care.We've seen in recent years a number of studies that prove for example that apple watch can detect heart attacks hours or days before they manifest themselves. So there are killer use cases (pun intended) with wearables and this poster highlights some of them.

WHY IT MATTERS: we often think of fitbits as gadgets. They are but are also paving the way for future products that have huge potential.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

Digital transformation often starts with innovative new technologies. This technologies has been in development for many years and thus we should keep them on our radars for when they spring out of the lab as commercial products. Not just yet though but keep that in mind when strategic plans are being drawn...

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
Wearablesbubble has burst in recent months, when the hype of Apple watch has died down. But this technology remains important but still looking for the killer app, better battery life and lower price point. Expect this to reappear within a few year with, possible a low cost device with lots of sensors and a battery life of many days.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

Wearing a device such as a fitbit does something way bigger than providing you with insights: it provides a HUGE trove of data to be mined for trends and insights. I wrote about the jawbone big data analysis in the past, but recently found that fitbit has started to provide a similar service, analyzing data its millions of devices capture every day.

More insights:

www.fitbit.com/fitscience

fmcs.digital/?s=jawbone 

Perfect Sunday morning reading which is guaranteed to make you reflect and ponder for the next weeks. The article is a typical New Yorker one, very well researched and written. So captivating that it got me to start reading the book which appears to be as captivating and surprisingly easy to read and understand. I love those finds and have the feeling this book will be the best complement to "Singularity is Near" and "On Intelligence" that I wrote about in the past.

- book "singularity is near": http://fmcs.digital/blog/singularity-is-near-an-essential-read-to-understand-why-technology-evolves-so-fast/ 

- book "on intelligence": http://fmcs.digital/blog/on-intelligence-mustread-to-understand-frontal-cortex-architecture-what-makes-us-intelligent/ 

- article "Why the future does not need us": http://fmcs.digital/blog/why-the-future-doesnt-need-us-a-reminder-that-ai-may-have-a-bad-side-via-wired/ 

- related posts: http://www.scoop.it/t/digital-transformation-of-businesses/?tag=Singularity+is+Near 

Below are some articles that describe AmazonGO technology in more detail, including a video animation. As you can see, we know very little and everyone is guessing at this time based on patent filing and an article from a consultant now hired by Amazon.

• 2013 detailed report by Brittain Ladd, ex-consultant now Amazon employee, that may be the source of some of the concepts behind Amazon GO: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beautiful-way-save-woolworths-brittain-ladd 
• Amazon 2015 patents that supports the GO store technology: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=(Steven.IN.+AND+Kessel.IN.)&OS=IN/Steven+and+IN/Kessel&RS=(IN/Steven+AND+IN/Kessel) and older one http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=%22DETECTING+ITEM+INTERACTION+AND+MOVEMENT%22&OS=%22DETECTING+ITEM+INTERACTION+AND+MOVEMENT%22&RS=%22DETECTING+ITEM+INTERACTION+AND+MOVEMENT%22 
• Very good analysis - in french - of what we know and some interesting tidbits about how Amazon may use it in the future: http://www.le-furet-du-retail.com/2016/12/amazon-go-comment-cela-marche-technologiquement-ce-que-l-on-sait-du-systeme-just-walk-out.html 
• Amazon GO website announcement and video: https://www.amazon.com/go 
• 2015 recode article that unveiled the concept a year ago - but went under my radar: http://www.recode.net/2015/3/30/11560904/we-may-have-just-uncovered-amazons-vision-for-a-new-kind-of-retail 

Various other articles:

• http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/6/13856158/how-amazon-go-stores-work-patent
• http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/139650-what-is-amazon-go-and-how-does-it-work
• http://www.usatoday.com/videos/tech/2016/12/07/how-amazon-go-work/95111660/

A very good review of the human computer interfaces and what the future may hold for us.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

We cannot hold a mouse and keyboard in our hands to interact with physical world objects that have been digitized. Think of a warehouse employee that needs to interact with an automated shelves to fetch a specific product. Today we would use buttons on a mobile phone touchscreen. But would it not be simpler if we could simply interact with the shelves itself in ways that our body would recognize, then send appropriate commands to the devices we interact with? 

In the article, the far fetched story about the couple in a bar may not be very realistic but it provides some very useful insights about how to leverage our bodies to do things we cannot with our devices today, for privacy reasons for example. Very interesting.