The Rise Of The Ephemeralnet. In the aftermath of the dot-com crash, a new era for the web began to take hold – a turning point whose seismic shift was hyped under the moniker “Web 2.0.” The concept referred to the web becoming a platform, a home for services whose popularity grew through network effects, user-generated content and collaboration.
Blogging, social media sites, wikis, mashups, and more reflected a changing consciousness among the Internet’s denizens – one which Tim O’Reilly, whose Web 2.0 conferences helped solidify the term as a part of our everyday lexicon, once described as a “collective intelligence, turning the web into a kind of global brain.” Since that time, because of humans’ intrinsic need to apply a structure to amorphous things to give them a semblance of order – things like the web, for example – there have been many attempts to define what “Web 3.0″ might be. At one point, the assumption was that Web 3.0 woud be the “semantic web.” So what will come next? A Rebellion But we did it anyway. The human body as interface, and a new language of interaction.
By Joseph C Lawrence: Columnist on 18 April, 2013 43 As it stands, we have moved through a few core paradigms in terms of how we interact with computers and software. From the earliest days of physical levers and punchcards, through text (DOS etc.), onto the GUI and windows/Mac OS type interfaces, and recently now touch, gesture and voice. These last three have signaled a major shift towards a more natural way of interacting — making use of the kinds of behaviours we understand intuitively, either because we have evolved to perform them, or because we learn them from a young age, as useful behaviours in a range of contexts.
Touch interfaces are able to mimic real world interfaces, as was the case in the original skeumorphic design trends apparent in Apple iOS apps. So then what is the next frontier? There is a world of complexity and psychology just waiting for interaction designers to get stuck into, and the future, as is often the case, appears to be just around the corner. 43. MakerBot - 3D Scanning & Printing. Leap motion. Google+ Now Using 'Computer Vision' to Identify and Index Photos by Content. Google I/O brought with it a lot of exciting updates for Google+, not the least of which were a slew of automatic improvements to Google+ Photos including Auto Highlight, Auto Enhance and Auto Awesome.
But the updates didn’t stop when I/O ended last Friday. Today, Google’s Search blog announced that the company has started implementing some impressive technology that will allow you to search for your photos based on what they contain visually, even if there’s not a tag in sight. This new ability is apparently based on two types of tech: “computer vision and machine learning.” Together, these will recognize not people, but things in your and your friends’ photos, allowing you to search for those photos visually.
For example, you could type in “my photos,” “my photos of cars,” “sunset photos” (above) or even “Aaron Feinberg photos” and get tailored results (assuming you’re friends with photographer Aaron Feinberg on Google+): (via Engadget) The Maker Movement Disrupts Brands, Provides Opportunities. For my third year, I spent yesterday at the Maker Faire, in Silicon Valley. Unlike any other year, the crowds were overflowing, suggesting this movement was growing faster than the cottage industry before. To put this into context, the maker movement is yet (another) disruption to brands, here’s the lineage: [Disruptions Summarized: 1) The Internet democratized knowledge, 2) Social Media empowered crowd, 3) Collaborative Economy endows crowd to buy once, share many, 4) the Maker Movement aims at buying from brands no more.
I must honestly confess, I struggle to keep abreast of all the new technologies, and I suspect corporations are experiencing the same. [The maker movement empowers people to build their own products, and share with each other --rather than buying from brands] Those involved in the maker movement are creating their own goods and products, using recycled materials, or improving on existing products. Brands are disrupted by the Maker Movement. Above: 3D Printed Wood. Five Ways Digital Disruption Will Impact The Customer Experience. Google's conversational search arrives with new Chrome. Google is enabling a more naturally spoken question-and-answer interface to its search service for people with a new version of Chrome. Google demonstrated conversational search at Google I/O a week ago, a style of search designed to be more like natural human speech than the technically constructed search queries that people often use today to retrieve information from a search engine.
It's all part of the gradual arrival of Google's vision to build a Star Trek-style search engine, in which the computer grasps what people want and answers them. Eventually, expect Google to let people initiate a query by saying, "OK, Google," as with Google Glass voice commands. It's not clear yet how broadly the service is available. Some reported receiving errors that said "no Internet connection. " Google confirmed the move Wednesday. "Conversational search has started rolling out on Google.com in the latest version of Chrome. Updated 8:55 a.m. Via Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land. Four Disruption Themes for Business. By Altimeter’s Research Team Analysts: Susan Etlinger, Charlene Li, Rebecca Lieb, Jeremiah Owyang, Chris Silva, Brian Solis; Consulting: Ed Terpening, Alan Webber: Researchers: Jon Cifuentes, Jessica Groopman, Andrew Jones, Jaimy Szymanski, Christine Tran Over 30 Technologies Have Emerged, at a Faster Pace than Companies Can Digest.
If you think social was disruptive, it was really just the beginning. Altimeter’s research team recently convened for our annual research offsite and found over 30 disruptions and 15 trends that have emerged (see below for the full list in our Disruption Database). These disruptions and trends will affect consumers, business, government, the global economy; with accelerating speed, frequency and impact. Four Major Business Disruptions Emerge – Business Leaders Must Prepare. Out of these disruptions and trends, Altimeter identified four major themes that will be disruptive to business. Altimeter’s Disruption Database Photos from Altimeter’s Research Offsite.