Clips from Thursday’s thought leaders

Telecom plumbers and interior designers — there’s still a gulf between hardware and software.  It’s clear that the “over the top” software players are demonstrating that phones and, at some point, televisions, are about more than our traditional expectation for a dial tone or a live screen:  people want equipment that will work anywhere, sound great and remain easy to use.  This means the big telecoms must think of themselves as platforms that enable applications.  Without an orientation to user oriented applications, their traditional business models will be eclipsed.  Of course, telecoms must relinquish control of communication to the user.  Perhaps the bridge across the gulf is the user since… Read More

An IKEA In Every Basement

by Christopher Carfi

AT SUPERNOVA 2009, Chris Anderson (Wired, @chr1sa) “beta tested” his newest thesis: “Atoms are the New Bits.”

Here is the presentation:

Supernova 2009: Chris Anderson (Wired) – Atoms are the New Bits
View more presentations from Supernova Conference.

Here is the video (@chr1sa presentation starts at the 10:00 mark in this clip):

In his presentation, Chris noted that personal “3-D printers” can now be had for about $750, down from about $25,000 in 2004, which puts them in the range of a mid-quality wide-screen TV for a typical household.  So, what does this mean?

Here are seven implications that I see:

1) The rise of an App store for designs

In the same way the… Read More