Smart grid tech gets a boost from Apple

January 22nd, 2010  |  Darrell Corriveau

Apple has recently moved to grab a piece of the burgeoning home energy management market – an integral part of the smart grid. According to Patently Apple, the company is working on a system using HomePlug certified adapter technology – a technology that will transform “every power outlet in your home or office into a conduit for audio, video and data,” as well as giving a boost to wireless signals. More importantly, this technology will also make it possible to control most of the electronic activity in your house with one central interface – something Apple is calling the Smart Home Energy Management Dashboard System. It could be a logical ’killer app’ for the much anticipated multi-touch Apple tablet (iSlate?) due out soon. This system, and others like it, is intended to help reduce demand and contribute to the reliability of the electricity grid.

We’ve been hearing the promise of a smart grid for some time, but so far this powerful idea has not captured the attention of the masses. Perhaps a popular consumer brand like Apple entering the market will make the smart grid concept hit home for many more people.

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

September 9th, 2009  |  Peter Scott

Speculative work (doing work for free in hopes of landing a job) and the design profession have met once again, this time with a fancy new name called “crowdsourcing” (seemingly coined by Wired Mag and now a Wikipedia entry). U.S. ad firm, Crispin, Porter + Bogusky crowdsoursed a logo for their client Brammo, a manufacturer of electric ‘powercycles’. Posting the job on crowdsourcing Web site crowdSpring they offered $1,000 to the winning logo design and received a huge number of entries from which to choose. A variety of blogs have taken up the discussion on the pros and cons of this new way to reach out to the masses for creative ideas. It is an age old dilemma and still seems to divide those of us who believe that to do the best strategic work for a client, you need thorough and thoughtful analysis and the group that believes more is better (and cheaper).

Tracking Ontario’s Wind Output

August 31st, 2009  |  Darrell Corriveau

Ontario is at the forefront of wind power generation in Canada with almost 1,100 MW of installed capacity on the transmission grid. This little widget q30 designed and built for the IESO tracks the collective electricity generated by Ontario wind farms on an hourly basis. Learn more about wind power in Ontario and also spread the word by posting the widget to your blog or Web site by visiting the IESO page on wind power.

Competition is good

June 16th, 2009  |  Justin Hope

For those of us who like to draw a line in the sand between such companies as Microsoft and Google, here is something to keep in mind: competition is good. Since Microsoft released its new search engine Bing, there has been a deluge of reviews. Most say that even though Bing is not a breakthrough in terms of technology, it is a solid product with value of its own. And that fact has Google’s attention.

I decided to try two simple searches on each to compare what I found. I searched for “Google” on Bing, and then “Bing” on Google. The results are slightly different in tone. Whereas Bing brought up news about google as the first result, Google brought up the Bing home page. The Bing result was a little more personal by showing me what news about Google is available via some quick links, followed by short descriptions of news items. The Google result just gave the nitty gritty.

Both search engines are good choices. What I find important is that competition has potentially put a small fire under Google to start adding further improvements to its own product, perhaps even further than it may have if Bing never existed.

YouTube and the Domino’s effect

April 17th, 2009  |  Darrell Corriveau

A recent report in the NY Times presents an interesting dilemma for organizations and the management of their brands.

A “prank” video from two Domino’s Pizza employees shows them preparing delivery orders in various unsavoury ways. Despite the fact this is a really bad way to gain your 15 minutes of fame, the video received more than a million hits and the result is major damage to an otherwise strong and well-regarded brand. The article notes “References to the video were in five of the 12 results on the first page of Google search for Domino’s, and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter”. Despite the two offenders being charged and admitting it was a fake, the Domino’s name was tarnished in record time. The brand will presumably rebound, but the adage that “no publicity is bad publicity” might need to be rethought.

A vision of the future, by Microsoft

April 4th, 2009  |  Darrell Corriveau

Microsoft Sustainability is an ultra-slick infomercial that provides a glimpse of where information technology, and presumably Microsoft, is heading. Their vision of the future is a world where virtually every surface, from desks to coffee cups, can be manipulated to connect, collaborate, and create. The concepts look like friendlier versions of things you’ve seen before in movies like Minority Report and Iron Man. It’s all pretty seductive – the people in the video are imbued with a sense of freedom and relaxation as they go about their information-gathering business. But is this really what will happen? Aren’t we already maxed out on how much information we can reasonably take in and diseminate? Anybody with a smart phone and multiple social media accounts already knows that these technologies offer many things, but the promise of achieving zen calm probably isn’t among them.

What’s smart about GE’s Augmented Reality?

March 18th, 2009  |  Darrell Corriveau

GE, maker of everything from light bulbs to jet engines, is also developing technology and products for smart grids – the next generation of the electricity system. To help explain the smart grid concept, they’ve produced a nifty website that includes a component they are calling Smart Grid Augmented Reality. To make it work, the user prints a simple black and white image on a sheet of plain paper and then holds it up to their computer’s webcam. 

Then, in a truly ‘how did they do that?’ moment, an image of wind turbines and houses on a grassy landscape seems to unfold in a three-dimensional manner from the paper image on the computer screen. The image can then be moved and turned by manipulating the paper in the users hands. And that’s not all. By blowing into the computer microphone, the user can actually increase the speed of the wind turbines. It’s a neat bit of tech trickery from a massive company known for its innovation, but really, the presentation is not of much use. You will learn very little, if anything, about the concept of smart grids by giving it a try. But maybe that’s just fine. Despite the absence of social media links of any kind, the site has still managed to go viral to some degree – and if it’s not deepening the understanding of smart grid technology, it certainly is creating brand awareness for GE. The technology could also serve as a springboard for other more meaningful applications in the future.

U.S. media content is getting stuck at the border

February 6th, 2009  |  Darrell Corriveau

This is a time of unprecedented access to all forms of digital media, so maybe it seems ungrateful to complain about the times when that access is denied. But that’s what I am going to do. The Web offers an embarrassment of riches to help keep us connected, informed and entertained. And the best part is that this content is readily available to everybody with an Internet connection. Except, increasingly, us poor Canadians.

I’ve always noticed some licensing restrictions limiting content originating in the U.S., but lately it seems that roadblocks have been thrown up everywhere I go.

I first went to Hulu, because it’s perfectly reasonable to me that I should be able watch the Turkeys Away episode of WKRP in Cincinnati at 10:00 pm on a Tuesday night in 2009. But guess what? Not a single bit of Hulu’s content is available in Canada (or anywhere else outside the U.S. for that matter). They assure me however that they are working on the issue. They say that making content available worldwide ‘requires clearing the rights for each show or film in each specific geography and will take time’. Probably A LOT of time is my guess.

Next up is Pandora. Pandora, like Last.fm, is an automated music recommendation and Internet radio service where users enter a song or artist that they enjoy, and the service responds by playing selections that are musically similar. Sounds great – sign me up! Alas, I can’t even get past the deeply, deeply apologetic letter on the homepage. They will notify me via email when the service is activated in my area. I’m not hopeful. Last.fm seems to work well for now, but even they have been in and out of deals with Warner Music and Sony BMG, so you never know how long this will continue.

The intellectual property hurdles that need to be cleared are vast, and this is why Apple’s greatest technological achievement was not the iPod or the iPhone, but the intricate licensing deals they were able to secure with media companies enabling worldwide distribution. Let’s hope others can follow suit soon. After all “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”