Drug deals, sex acts and doctor conversations
What do they have in common? They were all caught by Siri after mistakenly hearing a wake up (and record) command on an iPhone, Apple computer or Apple HomePod. Some 1% of recordings are listened to by humans in order to judge how well the technology understands and follows commands. ZDNet
dis-rup-shun: Consumer research indicates 48% of speaker owners are concerned with privacy, yet the product category has been a smash hit. For many, the assumption is that nothing particularly salacious is going on in the home so there is not much to worry about. Despite the large percentage of concerned owners, the product’s convenience and ‘cool factor’ must be outweighing concerns, as the category is found in 21% of households, a 36% increase, according to Mobile Marketer.
NASA contracts with 13 space companies for Moon and Mars shots
13 companies, including Blue Origin (Bezos) and SpaceX (Musk) have inked deals with NASA to help the agency reach for the moon and planets over coming years. The companies, including Lockheed Martin, will contribute skills such as precise landings and vehicle re-use. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: The future of the NASA program will be a showcase of the free market system, with many aggressive entrepreneurs having to cooperate with competitors and work within a regulation-heavy government program. The collaboration will bring more discipline to the space companies, and will provide NASA with technologies that would take the agency decades to create on its own.
Google may teach us a new set of gestures
Google’s Pixel line of smartphones is now enabling gestures like pinching and swiping in the air, a few inches above the phone screen, to manipulate on screen images. Wired
dis-rup-shun: By now most of us have seen or heard of infants toddling up to a TV screen and trying to pinch or swipe the screen to change it. Fifteen years ago, such behavior would have been insanity, but today, such gestures are as commonly understood as waving goodbye or beckoning someone with hand motions. Apple, via the iPhone, created a new gesture library and now Google may change it, by enabling gesture control without touching the screen. This has many advantages, including cleaner, more sanitary surfaces, and perhaps more immediate success and less screen tapping.
How the Internet has forever changed the sleep industry
Casper started shipping foam mattresses direct to consumers in a box and disrupted the retail supply chain. Within the first month, the company had over $1 million in sales. Many companies followed. Now the industry is being disrupted by gadgets — top mattresses today must be laden with sensors to detect snoring, tossing and turning and heart rates. No evidence exists that smart bedding delivers any improvements in sleep, but the mattress playing field is now raised by smart technology.
dis-rup-shun: The sleep industry is a case study on the speed of tech disruption, first by online sales, then by making mattresses smart even though the technology has yet to improve sleep — reminders that sales channels even for specialty products (food, mattresses, furniture) is ripe for disruption overnight. This industry also displays that “smart” is as powerful a differentiating word as is “natural,” “low-fat,” and “recyclable.”