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Business Insider Intelligence produces Snapchat report

Business Insider Intelligence has produced a report about Snapchat, with some pretty impressive figures. The app has 82 million monthly active users globally, as of May 2014, of whom the majority are female. 70% are aged between 13 and 25, and two-fifths of 18-year-olds claim to use Snapchat ‘multiple times daily’.

 

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-primer-on-snapchat-and-its-demographics-2014-6

 

Future Of Wearable Tech

Sensors, Wearable tech, and personal eco-systems are all the rage, but the craze goes beyond connected eyewear such as Google Glass and smart timepieces such as Apple's rumored iWatch. Wearable technology is an undeniable trend and brands like Nike, Apple, Samsung and Google are all bringing out products to satisfy consumers growing awareness and demand for new products. 

Much has been written about smartwatches in particular due to the Samsung Galaxy Gear watch and the new Apple iWatch - What does this mean the future of wearable technology? Is it all about wrist based devices? Can wearable technology cross over from being an fashion accessory to being a functioning part of our everyday lives? What do you think will happen in the future of this industry?

PSFK Labs in collaboration with iQ by intel created this great report which covers how the latest trends are evolving.

 

Fashion Forward: From The Runway to Ready-to-wear

Designers are creating apparel, accessories and fitness wear that can do everything from monitor your heart rate to charge your smartphone. For the Fashion Forward scene here are some of the latest players in the space:

• Charge It: Someday you may be able to charge your smartphone with your clothes. Flexible solar panels have inspired designers to come up with clothes and accessories that can power electronics. Start-up Wearable Solar is using the technology to make lightweight wired garments that enable the wearer to charge a smartphone up to 50 percent if worn in the sun for a full hour. And New York-based Voltaic Systems makes a collection of bags that can charge a variety of devices.
• Baubles and Bangles: In the future, our own personal air purifier may defend us from all that nasty air outside. Worn on the wrist, the Hand Tree design sucks up and filters polluted air, and recycles it back into the atmosphere. It was created by Alexandr Kostin, a semifinalist in the Electrolux Design Lab Competition. The purifier gas a refillable carbon filter, a rechargeable battery and an organic light-emitting diode screen.
• Rainbow Winters: Some sharp people want to make our clothing to, well,do more.  Amy Winters, the designer of the Rainbow Winters clothing line, makes garments that respond to their environment.  For example, the dress is made with holographic leather and reacts to sound. As volume increases, it begins to illuminate and make what Winters describes as "visual music." The bathing suit reacts to light, with the center panel turning into purple dots in the sun.
• Trackable Couture: Things can get lost pretty easily in those massive walk-in closets. In his fall 2013 collection, fashion designer Asher Levine included tracking chips that let items be located by the owner using a customized TrackR app. Levine, who has created looks for Lady GaGa and will.i.am., partnered with Bluetooth solutions company Phone Halo on the chip.
• Adafruit: City bike-sharing programs such as New York's Citi Bike may be great, but the stations may be a bit hard to find without a map. Adafruit, a company that sells DIY electronics and kits, has built a helmet to help make that process more efficient. It has a built-in navigation system that uses lights that flash on the left or right to let the rider know where to turn.  The interface is still a bit complicated, though: The user has to manually enter the coordinates of a destination, but it is still safer than trying to use a smartphone while riding.
• Ying Gao: Using eye-tracking technology, fashion designer Ying Gao has created a set of dresses that move when someone is looking at them. When the garment is gazed at for a time, tiny motors move parts of it in patterns. The dresses also glow. covered in photo-luminescent thread or featuring glow-in-the-dark threads that make up the base layer of fabric.
• Sounds That Carry: The merger of technology and high-end accessory design is a definite trend. Handbag designer Rebecca Minkoff has made four clutches that encase speakers for Stellé Audio Couture.
• A Sock With a Message: The start-up Heapsylon has a smart sock, Sensoria, that is paired with an anklet to automatically detect the type and level of activity based on pressure signals coming from the foot of the wearer. Sensors in the sock communicate data to the anklet, which then can relay the information to the user via an app. For example, it can track a runner's regular form and send an alert when he or she is making an injurious movement.
• Close to the Heart: Even more intimate than smart socks, intelligent sports bras can track users' performance. This NuMetrix sports bar, made by Textronics, has a small transmitter that snaps to the garment to tracks a user's heart rate.
• Light It Up: Berlin-based label Moon Berlin, which makes luxury clothing, focuses on using technology to enhance the look of its designs. Soft-circuit LEDs are integrated into the garments, connected to an electrical circuit attached to rubber-like materials that are integrated into fabrics.

 

The Issues and Questions

While some are creating products to enhance and expand your personal eco-system, others are quite skeptical about the trends because of the following:

1. Privacy. One thing is poking finger into a touch screen in a public place, the other is talking to the device. Wouldn't people look like lunatics talking to themselves all the time? 
2. Practicality. How practical is it? Compared to poking an icon, sending and processing a voice command seems to take a lot more time, even with the best processing speed and the best voice recognition accuracy.
3. Data Storage -  Who owns this data? How much of it belongs to the person and how much belongs to the brand? Where do you store all of your vitals?

 

Getting entrenched in the history

As computing moves from our desktops to our phones, we look into the future to see how technology will become increasingly ingrained in our movements and our active lives. Wearables have the possibility to make us more knowledgeable about ourselves and our surroundings, and connect us with each other in an uninterrupted, more intimate way. From DIY wearables to high-tech sensors and smart fabrics, the years ahead will show how integrated technology can impact our lives for the better. 

Any thoughts on this trend?

[Sources: PBS, PSFK, CNBC, CNN, Ted Talks]

Hybrid vs. Native

“Should I go Hybrid or Native?” It’s a question that’s being asked more and more frequently by both experienced and inexperienced mobile developers. What’s decided will have a significant effect on your budgets, capabilities, and the overall reach of your mobile applications.

This great whitepaper provides direction before deciding on a path forward. Proper education and a better understanding of what to anticipate before acting will help ensure your mobile strategy is properly aligned with your overall business objectives.

Click Here To Download This White Paper

Wonder

Wonder is what SAT prep should look like. Studying for the SAT is normally just plain boring. Wonder changes that. It makes SAT prep effortless and enjoyable using game-based learning, addictive mechanics, and cutting edge personalization algorithms.

Check it out at: http://wonderbeta.com/

[via wonderbeta.com & the beta list]

Re-imagining the Affordable Care Acts’s Insurance Exchange

Right as the U.S. government shut down on Oct. 1, the new national health-care exchange went live at healthcare.gov. The digital platform was intended to faciliate 48 million people who want to buy health insurance under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act.  In the first week nearly 9.5 million people visited HealthCare.gov but only 0.04 percent of them actually enrolled in a health plan through the site. Now after 3 weeks nearly 20 million Americans have now experienced the broken HealthCare.gov website first hand.

From Screens that don't load, to long waits via Web chats and disconnected databases the site is one of the most public technology SNAFUs in recent history.  It's important to note that Healthcare.gov isn’t just a website; it’s supposed to be a platform for building health-care marketplaces. Visiting the site should be as easy as it is to purchase car insurance or even purchasing a flight from Kayak.com


After hearing President Obama’s press conference and conducting an initial heuristics examination of the exchange platform, we decided to put the politics aside and unite our networks of digital professionals to help the administration fix and improve our government’s healthcare exchange.

I invite you to take action and join me and our all-star panel of digital design, user experience, and technology thought-leaders who will share their insights and ideas on how - together - we can improve the https://www.healthcare.gov digital experience for 48 million uninsured Americans.

Mark your calendars: On Thursday, November 7, 2013 at 1PM EST via a Public Google Hangout we will share what we have found and give concrete ideas on who this digital platform should be in service to the american people.

 

Research & Information Sources:

• Key Facts about the Uninsured Population: http://kff.org/uninsured/fact-sheet/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/
• Percentage of Americans Lacking Health Coverage Falls Again:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/us/percentage-of-americans-lacking-health-coverage-falls-again.html
• US Census: http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb13-165.html
• 48 Million Americans Are Uninsured Ahead Of Obamacare Changes:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/census-uninsured-2012_n_3941339.html
• Health Care Law Fails to Lower Prices for Rural Areas:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/business/health-law-fails-to-keep-prices-low-in-rural-areas.html
• How to navigate the Healthcare Marketplace website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXf55gQibdk&feature=share&list=PLJ8SvCQNRCK7-hBp5nIhbHabh0dgNmq4f
• Problems with healthcare.gov: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsC7J7oTE-s&feature=share&list=PLJ8SvCQNRCK7-hBp5nIhbHabh0dgNmq4f
• Congress investigating Obamacare website problems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIYpcZQ8rvc&feature=share&list=PLJ8SvCQNRCK7-hBp5nIhbHabh0dgNmq4f
• Obamacare technical problems continue beyond sign-ups:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb3jCZWLJv8&feature=share&list=PLJ8SvCQNRCK7-hBp5nIhbHabh0dgNmq4f
• Weekly Address: Enrolling in the Affordable Care Act Marketplace: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o1N3ko4wPE&feature=share&list=PLJ8SvCQNRCK7-hBp5nIhbHabh0dgNmq4f
• The Obamacare Website Didn't Have to Fail. How to Do Better Next Time: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-16/open-source-everything-the-moral-of-the-healthcare-dot-gov-debacle
• Traffic Didn’t Crash the Obamacare Site Alone. Bad Coding Did Too. http://swampland.time.com/2013/10/24/traffic-didnt-crash-the-obamacare-site-alone-bad-coding-did-too/#ixzz2j5P9oHWG
• FEDERAL OFFICIALS PREVENTED LENGTHY TESTING PROCESS OF OBAMACARE WEBSITE: http://www.fastcompany.com/3020204/fast-feed/federal-officials-prevented-lengthy-testing-process-of-obamacare-website
• CRITICAL HEALTHCARE.GOV DATA CENTER CRASHES:http://www.fastcompany.com/3020746/fast-feed/critical-healthcaregov-data-center-crashes
• OBAMACARE IS HERE, BUT FOR MANY, HEALTHCARE.GOV IS NOT:http://www.fastcompany.com/3019012/fast-feed/obamacare-is-here-but-for-many-healthcaregov-is-not
• U.S. Government Fixes Copyright Violation in Healthcare.gov Code:http://mashable.com/2013/10/24/obamacare-code-copyright/
• Obama Plays Tech Support for Healthcare.gov: http://mashable.com/2013/10/21/obama-healthcare-glitches/
• White House Recruits Tiger Team to Fix HealthCare.gov: http://mashable.com/2013/10/21/healthcare-gov-fix/
• LESS THAN 1 PERCENT OF HEALTHCARE.GOV VISITORS SUCCESSFULLY ENROLLED IN AN INSURANCE PLAN: http://www.nextgov.com/health/2013/10/less-1-percent-healthcaregov-visitors-successfully-enrolled-insurance-plan/72041/

 

Video & News Coverage:

 

 

 

Do Agile Demands Short Circuit An Insightful Design Method?

Now more than ever design matters. Now that I am back to my roots of video and mobile I have realized that Agile is here to stay. The economic difficulties of the past years as well as the focus on tangible innovation has almost shoved waterfall under the perverbial bus; now more than ever, long requirements phases and vaporous up-front documentation aren’t acceptable. Software must be visible and valuable from the start.  

The teams and clients we work with are undergoing their own dramatic changes. The shift of development processes removes the notion of "big design upfront." Instead, we sprint towards an incremental design process that lets us learn what our users need throughout the development process.

Adapting our design methods to fit this new way of developing brands is presenting some interesting challenges. The roles of "sprint zero" and the idea of staying one step ahead of the team is only taking us so far. I think we need to learn to create a driving vision and research-based principles that guide every decision from the team, not just those we have a direct hand in, to ensure a unified, thoughtful design that delights our users. 

In a world where best-to-market usually beats first-to-market how do you fuse data and insights into a new breed of design studio?  

Would love to hear your thoughts.

 

 

 

Moqups

Moqups is an unique app based on HTML5 and SVG that allows you to quickly create crisp looking vectorial mockups.  Get in on the beta at: http://moqups.com

Brilliant! Holler Sydney Betas Pinterest As An Agency Platform

Holler Sydney decided to put their main agency site on Pinterest. 

View their clients, peer around the office, and see some of their work – as this site within a site gives keeps you solely browsing on Pinterest. 

 

Check it our at http://pinterest.com/weareholler/

Beatswitch

Calling all artists, booking agents and promoters!  Beatswitch enables to manage all of your bookings & events in one place.  Just got in on this Beta and i am loving the minimalist design and functionlaity.

Interested in getting in on the Beta?  Sign up here

StockTouch

The stock market is now officially demistified because of StockTouch.  Using color heatmaps, which are dynamic graphics that illustrate stock price movements, Visible Market's StockTouch for iPad nails making these maps both more useful, and simple to understand.  

Some of my favorite functions are the search, a US/World stocks switch, settings for how you wish the stocks to be measured (including vs. sector or S&P 500, and the timeframe required) and displayed, and access to a list of your designated favorite stocks.

This scientific visulazation of the markets makes playing the market fun.

Try it out at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stocktouch/id445170859?mt=8