Best Kept Secret in Wireless Innovation

I came across an article in Fast Company on a wireless technology standard that I think most people (especially non-techies) have probably never heard of - ZigBee.

ZigBee is a wireless technology that uses significantly less power than WiFi and as a result is ideal for monitoring applications. The application detailed in the Fast Company article was a remote healthcare monitoring solution called AT&T Telehealth, but the technology is also touted for energy management and efficiency, home automation, building automation, and industry automation.

If you are interested in learning more about ZigBee, they have lots of educational information on their web site.

What other uses can you imagine for this technology?

@innovate

Microsoft's Vision for 2019

I found this video showing how Microsoft imagines we might interact with technology in the world in 2019, and I can't say that I agree with what they find to be compelling real world uses for future technology.

As I watched the video, I saw lots of things that were visually interesting but very little that would deliver increased productivity or true value in terms of time or money savings.



Most of what they are imagining I find to be visual noise, that would actually decrease productivity and overload the brain.

The most compelling thing I saw was the digital white board that they quickly skipped over.

Second most compelling was the plant identification by video input example. If you expand that to showing the computer just about anything and receiving back information about what you are seeing, it could be a very valuable educational tool.

What do you see in this video that is compelling?

@innovate