Let’s Talk About Sex

Actually, we’ll get back to the headline in a minute. For now, let’s talk about techs. Rolling into 2018 and everyone is asking the usual question – what’s the next big thing in tech? An easy answer is Artificial Intelligence, but ironically it’s not an intelligent answer, because it’s the wrong question.

AI will deliver unprecedented pace of engagement, hyper-accelerated data management, offer decision-making services, freeing human brain power to do what it does best – add personality, creativity, strive for success and push boundaries.

But it isn’t answering a question that needs to be asked right now. Those of us that ‘make stuff’ – either physically or virtually – and provide more than a service find ourselves delivering an experience, heightening sensations and making us all feel better as humans – even if only for a second, we’re asking the most important question – what’s the next big platform?

It’s mobility. Not just cars, it’s bigger than that. This is a platform that has history, heritage and a solid technological background, so it doesn’t fall at the first hurdle.

The automotive industry has spent forever telling an audience (drivers) that they can’t be distracted from their main objective – driving. This hasn’t been an opportunity to sell, as with most ‘platforms’ or deliver information overload. We have specific data to process when a vehicle is on the move – speed, obstacle avoidance, range and comfort and little beyond.

Although systems are already being integrated into the latest generation of cars, most visual information is still processed by us and acted upon in the most appropriate manner.

Entertainment has come in the form of audio-only broadcast or playback and nothing can encroach on our main focus. The industry is about to experience seismic activity.

With the introduction of the autonomous vehicle this ALL changes. From zero distraction to channelling the outside world. All of it.

I’m in the fortunate position where I get to test a lot of emerging technology at a very early stage. It makes a fundamental difference when you experience the future, rather than simply read about it. Take it from me, if I’ve been hands-on, I will tell it like it is – not just a sanitised relaying of the facts, but how we’ll feel physically and emotionally about what’s around the corner.

I’ll write a lot more about mobility as a platform as we deliver it in 2018 and beyond, but back to that headline…

If the car moves from a focused driving environment to an empty vessel bursting with promise, how do we fill our time and fulfil our potential? Well, you tap into the obvious first – social comms, localised information, entertainment (movies, music and gaming) and deliver the mobile office. But it’s in moving beyond this where we really tap into the benefits of a controlled environment.

I spent time with Renault recently, testing their autonomous SYMBIOZ EV. This performed on the expected levels – driving itself and in silence, but with the additional element of VR. Wearing a headset seamlessly built into your vehicle, displaying content that moves and turns in sync with the movement of the car doesn’t just immerse the occupants, but enhances the experience beyond that of a simple VR HMD. Control and comfort (both physical and psychological) are key ingredients to acceptance of VR as a viable medium. This is incredibly effective in a car.

So what content do we make?  I’ve long held the belief that we’ve neglected the psychological aspect of being human when designing a vehicle. Many people around the world use their cars as a personal and private space. A symbol of independence in an increasingly impersonal and overcrowded world. This naturally brings us to the elephant in the car – sex.

Drivers and passengers have sex in cars, but manufacturers refuse to publicly acknowledge this. As we head towards a world where we’ll be offered alternatives to ownership and ‘self-driving’, how will mobility brands entice their passengers in? They’ll need to offer comfort, personalisation and access to the things we all take for granted outside a vehicle.

So, admit it or not – sex happens. And it’s something that will increasingly occur in new virtual environments. Not to replace the real thing, but to enhance it, or extend the long distance (and potentially socially-driven) relationships.

In a data-hungry world, the connected car is only relevant if it’s actually connected. We demand this in our everyday lives and 2018 is a big year for building the foundations of the new mobility platform so we’re ready for the next technological revolution.

I’ve spent enough time with Huawei over the last 12 months to realise they’re poised to make this future platform a reality. They have a new partnership in place with PSA Group to connect vehicles to the outside world and each other but Huawei is once again playing its trump (small T) card with their future dominance of the 5G market.

I’m more than along for the ride with Huawei, I’ll be pushing for everything we hope for to become reality so we’re still driving the future, even if the cars are driving themselves.

If you'd like to hear more on the subject matter in this post, this Alexa Stop Podcast Innovation Social CES Special delivers.

Me, Myself and i: The Eternal Avatar

We talk about personality, be that for brands or individuals, as if it’s something that comes naturally. Actually, in an ever-growing digital environment where we face a multitude of platforms and networks, it’s all too easy to lose your voice in a maelstrom of white noise. 

If you believe Mark Zuckerberg, the future of VR is Social. Of course he’s going to say that with the backing of the world’s largest social network, but what does this mean?

Last week, Facebook revealed a set of much better looking avatars for their foray into social VR as part of their expanding Oculus lineup. It’s an important second step – the first being ‘Spaces’ earlier this year and other established networks such as vTime and Altspace offering a few customisable features to allow visitors to feel comfortable in their virtual skin.

Whether you want to accurately represent yourself or an ‘alternative you’, the audience needs to overcome the fact you can’t currently broadcast your own face thanks to the lump of plastic and a screen in the way, so let’s not get hung up on that. Think about the avatar itself and how it needs to become platform agnostic – not just across VR environments, but also into AR, regular digital screen content and even an audio signature.

We have yet to witness VR’s Pokemon moment as the platform still doesn’t fit into many people’s lives. It is taking hold for enterprise but consumers still couldn’t give a crap as it requires too much effort and is too easy to put down. This is why personalisation and realistic avatars are a vital step on the road to success.

The concept of lurking in alternate worlds and sharing quality time with others will be experienced by a mainstream audience when Stephen Spielberg brings Ready Player One to life in cinemas next year. Although HTC has plans for actual VR content, you won’t need to watch the film with a headset on so there will at least be more eyeballs on the VR lifestyle. Let’s see how many like the idea of the real thing.

I’ve been tackling the significance of avatars in general but they’re more of a branding exercise. What happens when you add real substance, with AI sitting behind the facade?

With a recent death in the family, mortality is something close to my heart right now. This was brought into focus a few weeks ago when I received a LinkedIn status message “Wish Matt a happy birthday” – from a colleague and friend who died in 2015. You could say he lives on through social channels but this isn't really true is it? 

I've pondered the social and emotional benefits of preserving VR snapshots in time with family members for future generations – those no longer with us or simply to remember magical moments with your children and loved ones. The true measure of technology is when it exists for a reason, rather than simply existing. 

We talk about Artificial Intelligence and automation stealing jobs from the rest of us but they'll be freeing up precious time for us to be more productive in other key areas. What if we use AI to deliver immortality? Sounds far-fetched, but it isn't. 

When we have perfected digital personalities, mimicking real individuals and 'thinking' as they do, why wouldn't the LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook status of the future be delivered from beyond the grave?

Of course there are ethical and religious issues and a few technical hurdles to overcome, but I’m not suggesting we take control of someone else’s personality, rather it becomes a box-checking exercise to ‘live on’ or ‘delete persona’ beyond death. This throws up the question of whether erase means erase or we’re merely placing our personalities in a ‘recently deleted’ folder.

It’s easy to see how a grieving relative could be tempted to have one more conversation, or ask the questions you never seemed to find time for. Does this become a path to acceptance or a way to normalise post-life interaction? For some it will be a simple choice, others may decide on both.

Filming VR moments offers us a virtual time machine, with the ability to relive events as if we were there again, albeit passively. Add layers of interaction across multiple devices and platforms and you begin to see how this becomes about the persona, rather than the delivery mechanism – like real life.

In a deluge of indiscernible Fake News, a hacked personality in VR will offer the ultimate brain-washing medium so there are some enormous hurdles plus new levels of digital encryption and authentication required.

We could potentially face a transitionary period where we’re testing AI avatars as a direct replacement for genuine social accounts to see if audiences notice the difference. It’s these standards that bots and personal assistants need to strive for, proving this research is essential.

Avatars are the ringtones of the future and will be a huge growth market over the next decade. Control the supply of these and you own the gateway to digital personality, the most comprehensive database on earth. You’ll make yourself useful in a world of useless and provide a service as a brand or build a business driven by data, insight and creativity.

I plan to add more substance to this subject over the next few months through the written word and on the global conference circuit. It deserves the widest possible audience.

The Uncomfortable Middle Ground: Part 1

Call it what you will – the Internet of Things, enchanted objects, or the connected world – most of us have been plugged into the digital network for longer than we think.

This week I’ve been immersing myself in all things connected as IBM opened the doors to their stunning new Watson IoT Center Munich. Actually, IoT doesn’t go far enough – they call it the Genius of Things.

We live in a time when a connected kettle can sit on the same network as our telephone, television, baby monitor, washing machine and every light bulb in the house. In theory, a chain of events can occur when we pull into our smartwatch-sensing garage in our connected car, unlock our smart-door and enter our digital domain, or ‘home’ as it used to be known.

This networked utopia isn’t a new concept. 1950s visions of the future foretold just such a connected world where all these wondrous gadgets were living in harmony, alongside their human masters. But who’s really in control – us or the machines?

Currently, Artificial Intelligence isn’t that intelligent and we haven’t handed over the reigns just yet because they’re not all playing nice. With so much emerging technology trying to piggyback legacy systems, we’re living in the ‘Uncomfortable Middle Ground’.

The what? UMG is that awkward grey area between the creation of platforms and devices and realising their potential. With great arm-waving comes great responsibility and the need to deliver on a promise. In order to achieve this, our connected world needs to be truly connected.

Much of the public IoT fanfare comes from existing personal assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google, Apple, Samsung and Microsoft’s OS voice-botherers, but it’s what’s under the skin that really counts or you’re left with a pretty shallow experience.

I was invited to the Genius of Things Summit as a Futurist by WIRED Insider for Watson IoT. It was here that IBM and 20 clients showcased some of the stunning technology that interacts beautifully with the outside world, but does something meaningful with the data. Ricoh’s intelligent whiteboard, Panasonic’s interactive mirror and Bragi’s new Dash hearable for enterprise with built-in language translation were all perfect examples of effective IoT partnerships.

I may have an abnormal interest in future platforms and their potential impact on business and our lives as consumers, but the only time IBM has been on my radar since their early PCs is with a misinformed opinion of Watson, a chess and Jeopardy-playing super-brain. This week changed all that.

The huge glass towers project an impressive facade but the ‘FAB Lab’ and client ‘Collaboratory' inside Watson’s Head Office have a playful air about them. The work environment feels very much like a high tech college, where the IBM’ers and co-working clients all exude a genuine sense of child-like wonder and possibility.

IBM positions Watson as Cognitive Computing – a step above Artificial Intelligence, which is in turn a level above Machine Learning – and this is apparent in the Munich HQ. It’s like Stark Industries, but the Pepper and Nao robots aren’t weaponised.

The smart elevators really do talk to the smart doors, room and desk reservation system, the lights, windows and aircon. If you ever wondered what they say to each other, visit machineconversations.kone.com

We’re nudging closer to that connected vision of the future and we’ll see good (and plenty of bad) ideas fall by the wayside in the rush to offer a seamless experience. In order to be ground-breaking, you need to break a few heads, hearts and rules along the way. That top layer will always face the most criticism as it’s our first touch point but the rewards for perseverance are high when the information backbone delivers results. After my visit to Munich, I’m convinced the future’s in safe hands.

IoC: Internet of Cars

What’s the biggest auto show in the world? Geneva, Paris, Frankfurt, Detroit? Nope, with 180,000 attendees spread over 2.5 million sq ft, it’s CES in Las Vegas. Isn’t it full of robots, drones, augmented reality, touch screens and IoT? Yep, and so are the cars.

I’m not about to write a preachy outsider’s view of the automotive future or an insider’s defence of the industry – rather uniquely, I have feet placed firmly in both camps and a tattoo across my skull that reads ‘petrol head’.

OK, the tattoo’s on the inside and I actually like electric propulsion as well as exhaust sniffing. It’s a good job too as the main headlines at CES were all made by cars fuelled from the wall, not the pump.

Faraday Future made a triumphant return to the Nevada stage with their FF 91 at a glitzy live-streamed event. Last year they revealed a concept resembling the Batmobile, twelve months later, it was a far more practical SUV.

For all the glamour, slick branding and live theatre, the focus was on a record attempt – could the new FF 91 beat the Bentley Bentayga, Ferrari 488 GTB and Tesla Model X from 0-60mph? It did, by 0.01sec, hitting the mark in 2.39 sec. I’m not convinced many in the audience bought into the line that someone torn between the Ferrari and the FF 91 would choose the SUV over the supercar based on a straight line dash. Show them both a series of twisting corners and see who emerges at the other end with a smile on their face and who has their half-digested lunch in their lap.

Speaking of smiling faces, that’s exactly what I’d had earlier the same day as I spent quality time with the team from Lucid Motors – another EV startup focused on disrupting the automotive industry. Their forthcoming ‘Air’ also makes a fast dash from 0-60 but the story behind it is one of driving dynamics, rather than straight line bragging rights. Lucid’s CTO Peter Rawlinson, formerly Chief Engineer at Tesla and Lotus, put forward a strong case for his passionate team of 300+ employees and why they’re convinced driving and design appreciation will be just as important as battery range and autonomous tech to the Lucid audience.

Rawlinson believes their battery, developed in partnership with Samsung SDI, is a genuine differentiator in a new world of range anxiety. “It’s not just about distance, but sustained range. The breakthrough cell density is resistant to battery charge depletion usually experienced with repeated fast-charging.” The automotive industry faces many of the issues we already encounter with our personal technology, such as connectivity and mobile phone batteries caught in a recharging memory cycle of decreasing shelf life – not something we’ll tolerate when spending $100,000+ on a luxury car.

VP of Design, Derek Jenkins, former Director of Design at Mazda and VW told me he’d relished the creative challenges when starting with an automotive clean sheet. Sensors for autonomous driving need to be integrated, rather than added to a familiar silhouette and the interior design maximises the space around the electric drivetrain, rather than one inherited from the mechanical components of a traditional combustion engine.

It’s Rawlinson’s engineering appreciation and Jenkins’ design skills that brought the aforementioned smile to my face as we headed out onto the dusty Vegas roads in a development prototype. Peter eagerly hanging the back end out at every opportunity, putting that passion for driving into action!

Lucid now needs to start work on their $700M Arizona factory. This has been previously misreported as a similar model to Faraday Future’s, with funds coming from their own Chinese billionaire – not so, as Rawlinson stressed “this is an American company.” Despite their intentionally understated message, they seem to be heading in the right direction at the right speed as the Air is slated for production in 2019, with first year projections of 8-10k units, rising to 50-60k.

Although Lucid seems to be on track, Faraday’s FF 91 still lacks one important ingredient – money. Vital funds need to be released by Chinese backer, Founder and CEO of LeEco Jia Yueting so work can resume on their Nevada factory. Many keep referring to Faraday Future as the ‘Tesla killer’ as if this is a good thing. It’s not, and Elon Musk has frequently said the industry needs many EV-first players to shake up the competition, not kill it!

So where does this leave everyone else? Ford, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes and others had CES concepts to show off their latest vision for the future of vehicle connectivity – inside and out – and how they’ll all drive themselves, but BMW took out the most real estate.

Here I put my cards on the table as I drive a BMW, but it’s a petrol model and I haven’t made the jump to hybrid or electric yet as I’m still addicted to their turbocharged straight six. However, this doesn’t stop the Bavarians from trying to tempt me into an ‘i model’ every year at CES. In 2015, I piloted BMW’s petrol-electric supercar around the streets of Vegas. This year, they drove me to the ‘Speed Vegas’ desert racing circuit in an i3, then let me loose in an i8 around the track!

Compared to Faraday Future and Tesla’s unnatural obsession with straight line speed, this track session was a superb way to demonstrate the benefits of a car that is just as comfortable in the corners as the straights – and that’s a fun vision for the future!

And that future isn’t all about speed and performance. All manufacturers need to connect – with devices, the consumers that use them and the world around us. We already have a reasonable expectation that our phones will talk to our cars and in doing so, will add functionality. When our cars become fully autonomous, the safety restrictions fall away and we’ll demand entertainment, office functionality and more.

More? Well, I spoke at FutureFest in London last year and Cindy Gallop was on stage before me, talking about the statistics for sex in cars. It’s higher in countries where larger families share smaller houses as the car naturally presents an intimate space – but auto manufacturers continually fail to recognise this. Imagine the potential to relieve the boredom of a long autonomous journey with some connected sexy times. Auto brands take note, if the car is rockin’ time to come knockin’.

The very public message from the car companies at CES was “we’re in control”. This is true to a point, but it’s mostly tinged with an air of panic as they all know the future can’t be delivered overnight. Many believe their music and movie-streaming audience will no longer wish to drive or own cars and this is increasingly the message from industry analysts. But this is mostly educated guesswork and the future isn’t predetermined so the automotive business needs to give its customers a reason to love their products, want to drive them (when not having sex) and make them their own.

The only way to do this is to connect to the future audience – the ones who currently have no concept of car ownership and have never even gripped a steering wheel. Don’t neglect existing customers, but enlist their help as they’re the drivers, owners and brand advocates that can help to share the reasons we choose a Union Jack roof for a MINI, spec 20” alloys on an Audi, tick the box for red stitching with black leather on an Alfa, and take a deep breath of ‘new car smell’ when we drive away from a dealership.

I’m a petrol head for life, even if we replace the petrol with a plug socket, the dashboard with an iPhone and the dealership with a VR headset.