Why Samsung Gear is not completely a success ?

In less than 1 month, Apple will launch its Apple iWatch. And the question is : will it be a success?

This is always difficult to know if a new product will be a success or not … But there is 1 thing to understand when we launch a new product : what are the main failure of the competitor products?

And Samsung Gear, the main competitor is not completely success. Do you see nowadays, in the subway, in the street, people with the Samsung Gear Watch? … And the problem is not that the Samsung smartphones are not the leader, isn’t it? In 2013/2014, the average Worldwide market share of Samsung was about 30% ; in January 2015, nevertheless, the market share was reduced to 20%, decreasing from 30% (in ratio).

But, nevertheless, Samsung with Samsung Gear is the leader of smartwatches sold in 2014 with 1,2 millions of units.

Is people satisfied by their smartwatch ? … No!

3 main topics are not relevant for the Samsung watch:

• Autonomy : with 1 day of autonomy, you always have to recharge the battery of your watch … And if you are using your connectivity at the maximum, it is less than 4 hours …
• Apps: there is not a lot of usage for the Samsung watch : we are speak about 20 to 30 Apps, and not all of them are good
• Connectivity: with Bluetooth, the connectivity is not good and not secure …
• Sensors : camera, sound, … nothing incredible ! Less than a smartphone !!!

With Apple, what do we know:

• Autonomy : 18 hours … probably in the same condition as Samsung ; in full usage of connectivity, 3 hours … as rumor said !
• Apps : 34 Apps advertised on Apple Store for the moment ; and nothing that seems to be a revolution. What is the real interest to have a new connected object with a computer inside with so few Apps. To be dramatically upgraded!
• Connectivity : with Wifi in addition of Bluetooth, we can expect better connectivity, more secure than Samsung … Nevertheless, this connectivity between a smartphone and a watch will remain via Bluetooth … This is only connectivity with public Wifi area that could accelerate the connectivity; not so sure that it will be sufficient !
• Sensors : no revolution compare to Samsung Gear ; how to measure diabetes, arterial pressure, temperature, virus and batteries overview  … and more!

To conclude, Apple could probably sell around 1 million of iWatch in 2015 … but not more than Samsung Gear in 2014. You will not see 100 millions of iWatch sold, as for smartphones.

Why? No revolution of this object …

What could be the future of the revolution ?

• Autonomy : 1 month, 3 months, 1 year or … without any recharge! How to do that: reduction of energy usage by 10 or 100 by thinking the OS differently than for a smartphone. And use the energy to recharge with heat of the skin, solar and moving of the hand. If the autonomy is not the same or better than for a non connected watch, what is the real interest to
• Apps : minimum of 1000 Apps to have a real added of these connected objects with connection to bank, credit card, insurance, police, hospital …
• Connectivity : without 3G / 4G direct connection with military encryption is a must do for this type of objects
• Sensors : measure of health situation is a must do

Of course, Apple iWatch will not be completely a failure. And having 1 million of iWatch sold this year is not so bad. But this is not the revolution that Apple is pushing with its marketing. The connected revolution is not really ongoing with this object ; Apple just not would like to be outside the competition.

And the real revolutionary smartwatch remains to be invented with, this time, a lot of innovations. 

What Makes Samsung Such An Innovative Company?

There are critics of Samsung who argue that its success is mostly due to copying and then tweaking the innovations of others. There is a good deal of truth in this, especially around the early Galaxy designs.

But Samsung is a global leader in screen technology, TVs, batteries, and chip design. So in terms of innovation it is doing a lot right. But we know very little about how.

We know how its competitors innovate – we look at Google and see the 20% time, the big adjacencies, the search for disruption, the bold statements about the future of autos, for example.

We know that within Apple when a project gets to a critical stage, the company assigns three teams to its development, each of which competes against the other. We know the importance of design thinking, an attribute Google is learning about. And of customer experience.

What does Samsung do in comparison? How does it line up against these American masters or conversely are Google and Apple good enough to compete against Samsung?

There’s no doubt that patent circumvention is an aim when Samsung innovates. From its early forays into innovation, competing against Toshiba in washing and drying machines, Samsung has chased patents in areas where its competitors appear to have protection and has oriented its innovation efforts to find new patentable ideas in its competitors’ backyard.

Samsung has nurtured a close relationship with the Russian Academy of Science since then. There is a framework agreement between the two parties. And the Korean Government has its own agreement under which it funds Korean small businesses to develop projects on the back of Academy research. Samsung meanwhile appears to help the Academy to increase its patent count and to exploit its inventions.

The relationship with Russian science was the introduction of TRIZ, an innovation method that Samsung adopted from 2000 onwards but which only reached American companies from the mid-2000s onwards.

TRIZ is a methodology for systematic problem solving. Typical of its origins in Russia, it asks users to seek the contradictions in current technological conditions and customer needs and to imagine an ideal state that innovation should drive towards.

Samsung had early successes with TRIZ, saving over $100 million in its first few projects. It was also adopting Six Sigma at the time.

But it was TRIZ that became the bedrock of innovation at Samsung. And it was introduced at Samsung by Russian engineers whom Samsung had hired into its Seoul Labs in the early 2000s.

In 2003 TRIZ led to 50 new patents for Samsung and in 2004 one project alone, a DVD pick-up innovation, saved Samsung over $100 million. TRIZ is now an obligatory skill set if you want to advance within Samsung.

At the Samsung Advanced Institute for Technology, Hyo June Kim, who wrote The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, a foundation text on TRIZ published in Korean, trained over 1,000 engineers across Samsung companies in 2004 alone.

At Samsung even the subsidiary CEO has to take TRIZ training. From looking at the various presentations I estimate that engineers get about 15 days of training plus 7 days specific project work. That’s quite an investment in method and people.

So the answer to why Samsung is so innovative – with at least two major product announcements this month – is that it is heavily invested in its people, it goes in search of special talent wherever it can find it, but specifically made astute moves into Russia early on; it targets its innovations towards specific competitors and patents that it wants to overhaul (as Apple did under Jobs); and it has an innovation culture based on extensive training, repeatable methodology and creative elite formation, backed by the highest levels of management.

Je suis Charlie : no innovation without free ideas

There is no way with integrism and destruction of people and ideas.

There is no innovation without free idea and ability to think what women an men want to think.

There is no possible solution if there is not the indignation of every citizen facing human barbarity.

Freedom of thought must be defended by all.

Happy new year 2015 with the 777 wishes!

During this first day of 2015, I would like to wish everyone: “happy new year 2015”.

777: 7 wishes for 7 days on 7

1. May this year be full of innovations

2. Creativity better released in businesses and companies

3. Error really allowed by the management

4. Failure an opportunity to learn

5. More people able to think out-of-the-box and start over

6. Digital age taken as an opportunity and not as a tragedy

7. Unthinkable ideas allowed to anybody anywhere…

I thank everyone who helps me every day with their creativity through their knowledge, their ability to go beyond the yellow line, to update this web site and to promote innovation whether technological, industrial, organizational , structural or moral.

I also thank the detractors, those who question our thoughts, our ideas, our views, and that helps me to see things differently, with a different angle or with new analyzes.

To all, a very good year 2015.

The third industrial revolution and the digital age

French version

I had the chance, on Thursday December 4th 2014, to participate to a lunch, organised by a French consulting company named Weave. This lunch was led by Frédéric Simottel from BFM Business and Gilles Babinet invited to the lunch. Gilles Babinet is the Digital Champion, representing France to the European Commission. Gilles was the first president of the National Digital Council, French organization set up by Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France at that time. As part of this lunch, Gilles Babinet, developed themes of his book “The digital era, a new age of humanity“.

Indeed, in the 18th century, the invention of the steam engine, starting with prototypes, produced in the 16th century, leads to the first industrial revolution. This revolution is characterized by the mass production of products, more and more sophisticated, and makes possible the industrialization of increasingly complex processes, in all sectors of activity (goods production, transport, …). In the 19th century, mining large quantities of oil, and the invention of internal combustion engines and electric motors using electricity produced from coal, results in the second industrial revolution, with power machines, which completely change the functioning of the economy and boosting the exchanges.

Gilles Babinet says that, in the 20th century, the advent of computers in 80-90 years causes the transition to the digital age, the third industrial revolution. The computer starts at the beginning of the 40s, with the radar and after the transistor in the 50s. But the revolution is actually happening 60 years later, in the 2000s, when every employee has a computer and a smartphone to communicate with his business. Again, all means of production are affected: there are no longer produced well without computers to manage production, to drive robots, to compute the accounts of the company or to boost innovation of them. No sector is spared: producing agricultural crops through computers (in tractors, for the weather forecast, for the accounts …) or producing goods through computers (to control robots, to communicate between people a company, to communicate by producing adverts…). Innovation, exponential, through simulation that allows the digital age, is totally boost by the third industrial revolution; This is why we hear so much of it after this revolution.

All sectors, all company departments, all people are affected. Gilles Babinet is exciting; these analyzes are very interesting. Summarizing the situation, we can estimate that currently there is an industrial revolution emerging each century. And it takes time between the emergence of the new revolution and its application in the industry at every level of the company.

It is interesting to imagine what could be the next industrial revolution. I have my idea about it … I think things will start to emerge within 30 years; and it will take 30 years for the fourth industrial revolution take shape. Until then enjoy the 3rd, transform our businesses to make maximum use of capacity through permissent this 3rd revolution and trying to anticipate the 4th.

IBM Watson, the beginning aware artificial?

IBM’s Watson is a cognitive computing system, one that behaves like our brain, learning through experiences, finding correlations, and remembering — and learning from — the outcomes.

First hitting the spotlight when pitted against two of Jeopardy’s biggest all-time winners Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, IBM’s artificial intelligence machine names Watson threw these two off their throne in quick fashion – showing that artificial intelligence was a real thing and IBM has the technology.

Artificial intelligence is here now. This doesn’t mean that Cylons disguised as humans have infiltrated our societies, or that the processors behind one of the search engines have become sentient and are now making their own plans for world domination. But denying the presence of AI in our society not only takes away from the achievements of science and commerce, but also runs the risk of complacency in a world where more and more of our actions and intentions are being analyzed and influenced by intelligent machines. Not everyone agrees with this way of looking at the issue, though.

First, although Watson includes many forms of text search, it is first and foremost a system capable of responding appropriately in real-time to new inputs. It competed against humans to ring the buzzer first, and Watson couldn’t ring the buzzer until it was confident it had constructed the right sentence. And, in fact, the humans quite often beat Watson to the buzzer even when Watson was on the right track. Watson works by choosing candidate responses, then devoting its processors to several of them at the same time, exploring archived material for further evidence of the quality of the answer. Candidates can be discarded and new ones selected. IBM is currently applying this general question-answering approach to real-world domains like health care and retail.

This is very much how primate brains (like ours) work. Neuroscientists can recognize which brain cells monkeys use to represent different hypotheses about how to solve the current puzzle they are facing. Then, he can watch the different solutions compete for influence in the brain, until the animal finally acts when it is certain enough. If the puzzle has a short time limit, the animals will act for a lower threshold and will be less accurate. Just like us. And it wouldn’t be hard to reprogram Watson to do the same thing—to give its best answer at a fixed time rather than at a fixed level of certainty.

How about understanding? Watson does search text in various Internet sources (like Wikipedia) but didn’t during competition. It had to read the text in advance and remember it in a generalized way so that it could access what it had learned quickly by all different kinds of clues. Jeopardy! questions require understanding jokes and metaphors—what Hofstadter calls “analogical reasoning.” Being able to use the right word in the right context is the definition of understanding language, what linguists call semantics. If someone blind from birth said to you “I’ll look into it” or “See you later,” would you say they didn’t understand what they were saying?

If you’re looking for a thumb in the pie, IBM are now offering up part of Watson – their breakthrough natural language-based cognitive service called Watson Analytics. This analytic service is reported as a powerful predictive and visual analytic tool for businesses and can now be rented through a beta program.

There has already been 22,000 who’ve registered for the beta of this service, with IBM’s official explanation and release reading: “IBM Watson Analytics automates the once time-consuming tasks such as data preparation, predictive analysis, and visual storytelling for business professionals. Offered as a cloud-based freemium service, all business users can now access Watson Analytics from any desktop or mobile device”.

IBM was totally “as been” during the last twenty years (1994 – 2014),  going slowly towards the end of the company. But Watson, IBM could revolutionize the management of semantics which is currently lacking treatment ‘Analytics’ and take the lead on a niche again.

For the moment, it is really artificial intelligence but not more, as we can imagine with aware artificial…, for the moment. But it is probably the beginning. Aware artificial will be probably the next disruptive industrial revolution before the end of the 21 century…

Solar Impulse 2: On the way round the world

Solar Impulse is the only airplane of perpetual endurance, able to fly day and night on solar power, without a drop of fuel.

The chances of succeeding at the first attempt to build a solar airplane capable of flying around the world were judged to be slim, so a more rudimentary prototype, HB-SIA (Solar Impulse 1), was first constructed. Lessons learned from this prototype are incorporated in Solar Impulse 2, the Round-The-World Solar Airplane.

Whereas the prototype uses existing technologies, Solar Impulse HB-SIB (Solar Impulse 2) requires the development of new materials and new construction methods. Solvay has invented electrolytes that allow the energy density of the batteries to be increased; Bayer MaterialScience is allowing the project to make use of its nanotechnologies; and Décision is using carbon fibers that are lighter in weight than any previously seen.

The first wing spar section was delivered to Dübendorf in March 2012. However, during the final test of this central part, the structure of the wing spar succumbed to the load and broke. The initial shock soon turned out to be an opportunity: the flight around the world had to be postponed which opened the door for going to the United States and completing the epic journey across America.

After the official presentation of Solar Impulse 2 to the public on April 9th, the airplane will be rigorously tested during 2014, and the Round-The-World flight will be attempted between March and July 2015.

Below, the first flight of Solar Impulse 2.

Apple Watch release late February 2015?

Everything you need to know about the Apple Watch

The Apple Watch is the Cupertino firm’s first foray into wearable tech, and will be launched late February.

Apple unveiled its fledgling smartwatch at a launch event on September 9, padding out its product roster alongside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

The Apple Watch features a custom-built UI that proffers a host of wrist-borne apps, as well as a pressure-sensitive touchscreen, ‘taptic’ haptic feedback, and the Digital Crown – Apple’s wristwatch-inspired winder input.

The smartwatch will come up against tough competition when it lands, facing off with the existing raft of wearable Android fare like the Moto 360, the LG G Watch R, and the Samsung Gear S.

Latest estimates tip the smartwatch to tout sales figures somewhere in the region of 20-30 million with Apple rumoured to have anywhere up to 40 million units ordered in time for day one.

Apple Watch development kit and model types?

Prempting the wearable’s upcoming arrival, Apple made its WatchKit SDK live last month. Giving early play time with the Apple Watch expereince, the wrist-based SDK is allowing eager developers to prep bespoke apps in time for the device’s release.

When the Apple Watch does eventually go on sale, there will be three model options to choose from – each with two display sizes to complement varying wrist sizes.

The standard Apple Watch model comes with a stainless steel silver or space black colour scheme case with the screen protected by sapphire crystal.

If you’re looking for something to keep up with you as you train, the Apple Watch Sport features an anodised aluminium case in silver or space grey with the screen protected with strengthened ion-X glass with colourful, durable band options.

Lastly, the Apple Watch Edition features an 18-carat gold face in yellow or rose, protected by sapphire crystal. It’s the premium edition of the Apple Watch.

Apple Watch Specs

To start off with, there will be two different sizes of the Apple Watch to choose from. The smaller option for dainty wrists is 38mm tall, while the larger option is 42mm. That’s something that we haven’t seen from any of the Android or Android Wear alternatives so far. Each Apple Watch is kitted out with a Retina display.

In terms of resolution, the developer kit revealed the smaller Apple Watch will tout a 1.5-inch 272 x 340 display, while the larger variant will boast a 1.65-inch 312 x 390 display.

The Apple Watch display can sense force via a new feature call Force Touch. This will allow the device to distinguish between a tap and a press for more contextually specific controls.

Reacting to that, there’s also the Taptic Engine. The Watch also features a custom built heart rate sensor that uses infrared, visible-light LEDS and photodiodes to detect your pulse and heart rate. Combining this with data from the accelerometer and the GPS and Wi-Fi found in your iPhone, the Apple Watch can track your physical movement.

Under the hood you’ll find the Apple S1 processor. There’s no specific specs for the S1 yet, but it is protected from the elements, wear and impact by resin.

7 Ways to Create a Culture of Innovation

How companies can nurture innovation and motivate their talents to bring innovations forward?

Each company is destined to get the results it gets. What I mean by this is that poor organization, lack of solid and sustainable innovation culture lead to poor results, and more than before, to a company’s trouble or death.

Smart business leaders shape the culture of their company to drive innovation. Success and constant positive results come from the implementation and execution of strategies, business models, structure, processes, technologies and incentive systems that encourage innovation.

1. Define your company’s mission around innovation

Many companies don’t have a mission statement, but for those which do, often times statements use generic terms, such as “best product in the world”, “best customer service”… They do not inspire employees to innovate. A strong and inspiring vision should be framed around how the company works to change its customer’s world, for the better.

2. Create the structure to allow employees to experiment new ideas with unstructured time

Successful innovative companies give time to their employees to get away from their daily tasks, to work on personal or company projects not directly related to their work. Then tap into this creative process.

3. Recognize employees’s contribution to the innovation process

Some companies offer monetized incentives. It is hard to assign a $ value to innovation; this is good for sales teams. Some companies give annual innovation awards; it is a good initiative for a short term, but it creates more competition than it encourages collaboration and creates emulation.

4. Return to the past

No new idea is completely original. Some concepts may not have materialized for various reasons, but it is always good to look at the past and understand why it did not work out. You avoid future mistakes, you can find ways to better the products (new technology, new process, new skill…). Start-up companies which by definition don’t have a past can look at what’s be done in the industry, what did not find success, and bounce off this to create something new.

5. Pay attention to culture, not trends

Culture is mass ideology – a system of values and beliefs that runs so deep we don’t question it. There’s an American belief in personal invention and reinvention. You see that in social products like Snapchat and Instagram, which allow us to invent ourselves in the moment. They may seem like a trend. But they reflect a deep underlying value.

6. Continuous education

Self-development is the key to employee’s success. In the same system where company should create a structure for unstructured time, those same companies should create time for continuous education. Allow employees to seek new interests, learn and develop new skills.

7. Allow failure

The essence of innovation is that it takes multiple experiments to successfully create new products, solutions, services.  Failure is part of the innovation process. When employees are not afraid of failure, they will feel empowered to take risks and be “crazy”.

 

Initial article: http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2014/08/10/7-ways-to-create-a-culture-of-innovation/

Nigerian scientist wins MIT’s World Top Young Innovators Award

Yemi Adesokan, 35- year based Nigerian born researcher, has put his country’s name on the map of nations of innovation.

Adesokan’s discovery which has potential to change the way mankind responds to disease pathogens, according to experts, may bring an end the era of increased burden of drug resistance in the world particularly, in sub Saharan Africa.

When he moved to United States in 1996, little did the young innovator have realise that he was going to rub shoulders with some of the greatest names in scientific technology.

But today, Adesokan who has been listed by Technology Review, an independent media company owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT) USA. as one of the TR35 Award of the 2011 World top innovators. Past recipients have included Sergey Brin (Google), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), and Konstantin Novoselev (later a Nobel Laureate in Physics).

Adesokan is being so specially honoured for his work in the application of next generation sequencing to clinical diagnostics. Adesokan, who is also the founder of Pathogenica Inc., was selected as a member of the TR35 class of 2011 by a panel of expert judges and the editorial staff of Technology Review, who evaluated more than 300 nominations.

This work is being carried out by a biotechnology startup that I founded with Prof George Church of Harvard Medical School DNA technology. The Pathogenica’s test kits are able to identify the presence, allowing for physicians to screen for multiple diseases with accurate results and a rapid turnaround.

Sequencing technologies have improved a million – fold in the past seven years, bringing scientists a wealth of individual genomics and the key now is to employ the data to improve clinical practice. The DNA sequence of each individual or organism is unique, and is the most detailed signature for identification.

This year marks one decade since the completion of the Human Genome Project, a three billion-dollar effort to sequence a human genome.

A major issue in Nigeria today, is that some sterilised water may contain harmful pathogens. The technology is useful in screening a range of pathogens in water, livestock (poultry, etc.), and in food manufacturing. The key point for this technology is its high multiple. As it scales up, we actually see a reduction in price.

With the innovation, the cost of DNA sequencing has dropped more than 40,000_fold since that time to just $5,000 today. The price continues to drop. We are applying this fast, inexpensive technology in a unique way to improve routine clinical diagnostics.