User Expectations for Tech Experiences?
Elliott's CES Report #2
Hello again from our Virtual Computer Electronics Show Updates. Reports from analysts and journalists in Las Vegas at the show, along with video interviews with industry innovators shapes my comments and perspectives on this very different CES technology show.
User Expectations for Tech Experiences? The last 2 years have shifted users and learners expectations for how, where and why technology fits into their lives and work. CEO’s keynotes at CES have been sensing or projecting these changes in what users want:
Simpler: Users want less and less complexity to their screens, choices and layers of options. They want to make simpler and more intuitive actions that drive the technology.
Common & Connected Standards: Users want to connect and coordinate their use of different technologies with common standards and actions. For example, a user sitting down for a video meeting from home wants to press one button that turns on the camera, lights, microphone, silences their mobile phone and integrates into their calendar.
Privacy and Data Use Explicit: Users want to know what data is being accessed, shared and redeployed. A visual dashboard of data privacy has been suggested to reflect all systems a user is engaged with.
Non Disruptive, Continual Upgrades: Users want their technology to upgrade continually, with a low disruption factor. Going back to “class” for upgrades will be rare - replaced by user friendly visibility about changes and updates.
Here are some of the Technology Innovations and new products coming to the CES 2022 floor that caught my eye:
Visualization of Info & Data: LG introduced a contact lens that displays information, simulation and other visuals - overlayed on the user’s vision. Imagine if one could wear these on a manufacturing environment - displaying processes to fix or adjust parts. Imagine how it might be used by a learner of a foreign language - to provide prompts for the situations currently being views.
We were also pitched for a wide range of Augmented Reality (AR), VR, “Smart Glasses” and other approaches to adding a layer of content to the user in an everyday situation.
Integrating Camera, Lights, Speaker and Echo Cancellation Microphones: Here is a new addition to a home or office workstation from Ankerworks. It provides the user with a dynamically lit video experience, with dual speakers and microphones that will filter external noise.
Other innovations included a new “earphone-free” headset alternative. The device takes the audio from a source (computer or media tech) and sends an signal that the nearby user can hear but is not heard by others in their space. Intriguing. But, did not get to see it in action. As always, some of the CES announcements may not actually be released as presented.
Cars with eInk Color Changes: Here is an announcement that got a load of press and video coverage. BMW announced a car with an eInk coating, that allowed the color and appearance to change on demand. They were pitching it from a weather/climate perspectives. I saw an earlier mockup of eInk on a police car years ago, that would allow it to look like a civilian sedan on the side of a road, until the driver pressed a button and it looked exactly like a police car.
The take-away is to imagine the ability for items to be able to change color based on a condition or use need. A bottle of prescription drugs could shift to pulsing red when the drugs should not be consumed. Or, a seat controls on an airplane could shift their color based on use situation. We may see a new design skill around situational color allocation.
Continual Blood and Body Health Devices: This is just one of the wearable devices that has a 5-millimeter-long needle to gauge your blood’s glucose, ketone and lactate levels. It could also be calibrated to monitor a person’s alcohol level as a permission to start an automobile. Tele-health will foster a radical increase in the ability of a person and their health providers to monitor data interactively.
My New Freestyle Projector: Here is a new gadget that I just ordered for our tech lab experiments. Samsung announced a freestyle projector that can rotate 180 degrees to turn anything into a display, from your floor to your walls and ceiling. An optional accessory lets you screw it into a standard lightbulb socket then project an image—up to 100 inches in diagonal—to a desk, a table or the floor. It is about $800 and could be used throughout a workplace to provide content, visual decoration, real time video and other projected images.
Emergency Medical Training Robot: Here is a robot that emulates a child as a patient for health care training and simulation. A Japan-based robotics company called Tmsuk Co. Ltd. created a doll that mimics a child’s reactions! It bites, squirms and gags. It kicks and screams in fear and pain. The 3-foot-7-inch Pedia_Roid child simulator has cheeks that change color and arms and legs that flap around, and it can perform various head and chest movements. It even bleeds fake blood.
Immersive Experiences, Work and Fun - A Video:
More Perspectives from Elliott: Looking at these technology announcements from the perspective of corporate workplaces and employee training, learning and development, it was clear that the “knowledge industry” needs a deeper presence in the innovation field. Learning departments of major corporations would be interested in venture or start-ups that focused on these opportunity areas:
Knowledge to the Field Worker: A mobile device, perhaps linked to a wearable camera, that would provide content, graphics and even a live coach to an employee working on a utility line, a plumber fixing a furnace, a construction site or more. Curation on the belt is the image.
Personal Curation Tools: Allow an employee to integrate their learning activities from corporate and external sources into a personal learning and curation cloud.
Data into Graphics: Technology that could take complex data from workplace actions and convert it into actionable graphics for employee “dashboards”.
Conversion of Published Content into Metaverse Ready Formats: How do we take the wide range of published words, graphics and video content and convert it easily, with technology assistance, into formats that will fit into the evolving “metaverse” on so many supplier’s minds.
AI and Machine Learning Meets Real People: The phrases AI and Machine Learning were used endlessly and without specificity at so many of the presentations. We need to force ourselves to define and clarify what these “smart technologies” are all about.
Yours in learning,
Elliott Masie
MASIE Innovations
Learning COLLABORATIVE
emasie@masie.com
www.masie.com