LIFT08 - Stories — 07 Feb 2008

Warning: the following notes were live blogged on Thursday by session, so please forgive the typos and semantic errors, I'll brush it up later. Some day. Maybe. Watch the videos.

This track is aimed at hearing the stories of entrepreneurs and communicators, their successes and failures as well as their motivations

Rafi Haladjian

Remember the Minitel? Rafi was involved in its development and founded Violet and invented the Nabaztag. Sweet.

Lets get to meatspace. Calm technologies. Bandwidth of attention is critical. People have small amount of attention. More things on a screen is not a solution. Ambiant lighting? Spray info in the air? Reaction of things?

Moore's law and natural evolution. In the beginning, chips were expensive, etc. smaller, cheaper, PC, etc. now we can embed them everywhere. 1 user w/several computers.

Something was happening in the rest of the industry. Why do teddybears sing? bathroom scales moved from analog to digital. All makers have this problem: obsolescence of what they do. Chips everywhere. Just for the sake of innovating. Yeah.

Soon, we'll have communicating versions of all these objects: wifi bathroom scale. DRM teddybears anytime soon?

Domotics, interaction homes, but it never happened. Why? Not appealing. Sucks. No fun. not sexy. Price tag sucks. Too much effort. Proprietary technologies. Strangers in their own home.

One day, okay. But how do we get there? From the Flitstones to the Jetstones. Stop doing cheap stuff, but affordable, don't make it too useful = boring. Include fun factors and features that interact with other people. Keep it simple with open standards. Expand the internet to object. Put the user in the middle and empower him. Don't think you can do everything. Open it up to the world. Build a community.

DAL Lamp: 1st internet connected lamp. Changed colour with traffic info, etc. turned red when an email left with the word "love" in it. Here came the Nabaztag in 2005, and the Nabaztag/tag in 2006

Why a rabbit? If you can connect a rabbit, you can connect anything. It was random, really. The idea was to show that you can even connect rabit, not to connect rabbits. There is a life after the PC.

Ambiant Informstion Device. Nabaztag is good at things that are "good to know" but not worth the effort.

Nabaztag + Galimard Jeunesse: children book with RFID tag. Show the book to the rabbit, and the rabbit starts reading the book. Bookmarks. Pause, forward, backward.

Exploring new way in which objects don't have to disappear to exist in an interactive form. Use the book as a book which becomes interactive. Network building in the next version, choose your voice, share with friends.

Ztamps: use of RFID tags and stick them on everyday objects and select triggers and actions.

Let things be connected. First connect rabbit, second connect everything else.

Check out the book called "Material World"

Eric Favre

Nespresso co-inventor. Passion. Talk in French. On stage with his wife. History of the Nespresso capsule (1976) and foundation of the Nespresso S.A. company (1985). Monodor.

The idea came from a misuse of an industrial coffee machine: foam = air + water + coffee oil.

The N of Nespresso is born through the desire of seducing the women who found this virile product appealing (two high heel shoes).

Monodor patent: 15 years, 30 countries, € 400'000.

Nespresso represents approximatively 1% coffee drinks in the world. Aims 20% soon. Out with the aluminum, in with polypropylène.

TPresso: 15 years of research, will be launched this year. Tea in capsules. Tea from Chamong, Darjeeling.

Jasmina Tesanovic

Feminist, political activist, translator, publisher and filmmaker gave a presentation about blogging, genders and politics exemplified by Balkan examples.

Starting blogging before the name was coined. B92 blogging opened in 2006. In Serbia only 30% have access to internet. Blogger about war crimes.

Open stage

(more later)