Copia announced the first socially enabled ereader at the Computer Electronics Show (CES). While a new ereader isn’t significant news the social networking component is and if the company can live up to its CES announcement ereaders many finally be evolving into something useful. This is definitely one to watch…
Archives For Innovation
The Chronicale of Higher Education points to an innovative web-based service Memorial University in Canada has developed called Yaffle which is essentially a matchmaking tool designed to bring together researchers at the University with the public and business. The goal of the project was to improve the Universities ability to communicate the breath and impact of its research. Yaffle has been running for just under a year and Memorial is considering commercializing, licensing or perhaps even making it available for free. This is one to watch…
[youtube]rDu2A3WzQpo[/youtube]
Wonderful 2 minute explanation.
Observations, thoughts, musings….
Wave is what email would be today if it were created from scratch. Yes email has been around for over 40 years but most people have really only been using it for the last 5-10 years or less and it took them the 5-10 years to get used to it so a change–even if it is a good one may not be that welcomed.
The Wall Street Journal has posted the above video that was developed by CourseSmart which reveals their vision of what Apple’s rumored tablet may be able to do.
Lots of questions:
- Will we see the Apple Tablet announced at CES in the next week or will Apple wait until the end of the month?
- How much of a lag will their be between the announcement of the device and its availablility?
- Will it be a closed platform?
- Will its focus be purely consumer and what will that mean for the academic environment?
- If announced who will Amazon, Sony, Microsoft and all the other ereader developers respond?
Looking forward to the next few weeks.
Poll: What was the most important technology product of 2010? | Tech Sanity Check | TechRepublic.com via kwout
Jason Hiner the Editor in Chief of TechRepublic offered this quick poll to the readers of his Tech Sanity blog and while I am not surprised by the results I am surprised at how limited the choice are for innovative technologies. If you really look at the rest of the list you will see that the iPad is really the only technology on the list that could even be described as a disruptive innovation. The other smart phones on the list are simply copies of the iPhone and one could argue these phones don’t even qualify as examples of sustaining innovation because they only provide additional choice in this market space. Furthermore, at a response rate of 2% the Windows 7 phone is clearly not even in the race. Similarly the Google Chrome Notebook should not be considered innovative because it is simply a laptop running a Linux based OS. Other than coming from Google there is nothing innovative there at all.
I also have to agree with Hiner on his caveat in choosing the iPad as the most innovative technology of 2010. I know from reading Hiner’s blog post The truth about iPad: It’s only good for two things and other articles that he is a skeptical supporter of the iPad. It is a 1.0 technology and he argues that it is really only good for two things: reading and viewing and multitouch interaction. I use the iPad daily and wouldn’t want to work without one but it is a very immature technology. It does hold enormous promise and most importantly as a truly disruptive technology it has, as Hiner aptly states:
revealed how tablets can replace netbooks and laptops for light computing while also serving as e-readers and media players.
Disruptive innovations do come into the market place at a 1.0 level and often are not as powerful and feature rich as the mature technologies that they replace but the key fact is that they do change people attitudes and actions. It is clear that the iPad does this. It will be interesting to see how 2011 shapes up with the release of the upgraded iPad and hopefully more competition from the imitators. As these technologies mature and competition increases we should continue to see the impact of this latest example of disruptive innovation.
