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What I learnt at Google I/O 2015

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The first day of Google I/O centred around the Internet of Things, the next billion and Google Now on tap (read my overview here). However, day two dived deeper into some extremely difficult hardware and software problems Google is trying to solve. Google’s ATAP (a division of Motorola that Google kept - and one of my personal favourites) is tackling some really interesting problems. This year they have made huge strides which will, I think, grab consumer attention - Project Soli and Jacquard - two advancements not just in technology but also material engineering and design... Project Soli Project Soli is truly amazing. It is a tiny sensor capable of 3D gesture recognition with sub-millimeter accuracy. As devices and screens are getting smaller it gets more difficult to accurately manipulate the content on them. This is where Soli comes in - it can detect your hand gestures and motion with startling accuracy allowing you to interact with a screen extremely precisely, without...
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My problem with the Apple Watch

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Right so we all know the Apple Watch is out now but I want to come at this from a geek with some nice watchs point of view. Before I start I want to say as much as I bash aspects of the Watch I will probably end up with one, this post is more about the cost of the straps than anything else. Below is a bit of a brain dump of thoughts I had this morning about it. About 12 years ago I inherited my dad's collection of watches. All of those watches are beautiful with a mixture of materials many are swiss made all of them items that I can keep and pass down to my kids one day. This has made me someone that can appreciate watches and the skill it takes to make them. I am also one of the few millennials that actually wears a watch mainly as a piece of jewelry than a timepiece. I am also a geek who wears ugly devices like the original Pebble every now and then and a nicer wrist watch for say going out to dinner or client meetings. From the watches that I have bought myself my daily...
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My MWC 2015 thoughts so far

Below is just a short email I sent round Somo this morning with my thoughts on the conference so far. All about the knowledge sharing :-) -- Thought I would send round a quick update from MWC with my thoughts on what I have seen so far. Overall there are 3 things that have jumped out at me. FIRST Manufacturers realise you won't wear a wearable unless it looks nice, duh... With LG, Huawei and the other manufacturers making their wearables beautiful. Using premium materials to create smartwatches that are more akin to the classic wristwatch. Now its not about the Geeks anymore its about real people who don't want to look like a character from the IT crowd. SECOND Developing countries need cheaper smartphones Mozilla showed off a $22 smartphone! That is  off contract  and about to be sold in India. Dont forget for some developing countries their first computer and how they will access the internet will not be from a laptop or desktop but from a ph...
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Inbox - What your inbox should look like

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Last night, Google’s Gmail team announced Inbox: its mobile-first reimagining of the email inbox, now available by invitation only. Google has applied its learning's from Google Now to Inbox, transforming your email inbox from a list of messages to a feed with added value by calling out important information. Similarly to the Google Now app, Google’s server will read your emails and use that information to help get you "just the right information at just the right time." For example, when I receive an email with a boarding pass, Inbox will highlight that and show it in my so that I don't need to dive into the email. Google even made a web version but to be honest its nice but just not the same as the app which has all the lovely gestures in it In the screenshot above, the attachment is front and centre for easy access. This makes perfect sense -- why have attachments been at the bottom of emails or tiny icons for so long? For example, I might not read...
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Why is TV shit?

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Why is the experience of using a TV just soooooo bad even down to the UI? I mean really some of these companies Samsung, Sony, LG and Sky are huge companies they can afford at least one good software designer and one good hardware designer right? Or is there so much red tape at these companies they cant even make an easy to use remote? You know what my perfect remote is ... ...we can make this screen into whatever we want. This screen can learn that I never press the red button only use volume and the on/off button showing me only the buttons I need and not the buttons that the company wants me to press. In fact it was one of the reasons I cancelled my Sky subscription (not to mention its ludicrous price) it was just not the easiest thing to use and didn't really give me what I wanted. It drove me crazy flipping between channels searching for something to watch. Isn't the idea of channels crazy? It's all wrong who cares that Archer is on FX I care about the show n...
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Google IO 2014

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Last week, Google held their annual developer conference, Google IO 2014, where they announced major updates for all products including Google Cloud, Android and Chrome. This year, it’s evident Google is slowly but surely making all our dumb things smart, from cars to TVs. They previewed loads of products but below are a few key areas that they focused on: AndroidOne initiative, get the next 5 billion online Android Wear Android Auto Android TV & Chromecast Chrome OS  gets closer to android Enterprise gets a boost Google Fit To give you an idea of the scale and reach Android has to date, Google started the presentation with the following stats: 30 day active users are now 1 billion up from  530 million in 2013 20B text messages are sent every day 93m selfies per day (31 million are apparently duck faces) Users take approximately 1.5 trillion steps per day Phones are checked a total of 100B a day 62% of all tablet shipments ar...
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The impossible task Android doing iPhone

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Now every now and then I move between phones and most of the time (maybe 99%) I usually go between android devices. Last year I used a total of 13 phones in one year, a record for me and one I don't think I could ever beat. By use I mean USED put my sim card in and copied over my whatsapp messages and re-login to everything and use it as my daily driver. Sometimes the playing around would last 2 weeks and other times more, currently the phone I was using the Moto X held the record of 3 months if you include this January. One major reason for this is because as part of my job I need to know my way around all phones and how their UI and use cases differ. Within android all the different skins make each device different whereas the iPhone has stayed pretty static, even the recent update was more a lick of paint in my eyes than a complete rethink of iOS. The second is the fact that it is for me anyway really easy to move across between android devices, text messages, whatsapp, images...
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