Seven Billion Personalized Futures

September 12, 2013, Intel Developer Forum, San Francisco—Genevieve Bell, director of interactivity, described one view of the future that differs considerably from the clean, high-technology look of the commercials. The anthropologist is responsible for defining product directions and the possible technologies that can make them possible.

Their efforts are to investigate the people and the technologies that can change the lives of those people, and make them happier. One obvious result is that different areas and cultures require different technologies. A one-size fits all approach will not work and may even inhibit the adoption of any changes if the technology is not appropriate to the
area.

One common factor is the growth of mobile connectivity throughout the world. Currently there are 6.3B subscriptions for 4.4B people. The various manufacturers are shipping 3.7M new devices a day and the carriers are adding more infrastructure to meet the demands for more bandwidth. Currently, users are passing 5 Exabytes a day through the various towers. These data are from apps and audio-video downloads.

From the human development point of view, becoming bipedal freed up our hands and changed the future of the race. In the same way, other technologies are changing evolution. We saw many technologies developed to augment normal body functions—weapons, transportation, glasses, hearing aids, etc.—and these technologies gave us new places to go to and time to think.

The technologies are not always appropriate. In South Africa, a local bank-equivalent operation is a solar-powered kiosk where a person with a cell phone performs transactions in M-PESA, the country’s mobile-money service for the local population. In developed countries, the cell phone is a distraction from other activities like driving. When handicapped people in wheelchairs cannot get into a normal phone booth, they need a cell phone, but if the cell phone is dead, there are huge difficulties.

Technology people focus on devices, so issues like infrastructure and cloud are top of mind topics. Instead, the issues are related to people, data, play, all of which are covered by security. The future will see increasing urbanization and the technologists will have to find ways to reduce power, size, and cost, while increasing functionality. It will most probably not be like Corning’s “Day of Glass”. New form factors like wearables will exist.

The future doesn’t erase the present. Some of the things that we see now will continue to be available. For example, a kiosk in Tokyo recognizes return visitors and offers suggestions for drinks based on previous purchases. This system reduces the time needed to get a drink in a busy train station. Some places to visit have installed lists of local activities and can interactively help a traveler find special offerings.

They have prototyped information stands that understand that place and space are important. One development is a laptop with an extra outward facing screen that can display an image and 140 characters for the local world to see. The test users all wanted to use the local connections to share their here and now. People like sharing and the tweet on the top of the laptop helped to show others not just your journey but the place where your are.

The mobile environment is diverging. However, there are four common themes: mobile is becoming truly personal. The various sensors and apps understand and know the person. Some women considered the cell phone as equally important as her husband. Three-quarters of all teens sleep with the phone under their pillow, so lower power and security are critical for these users.

Phones make the users unburdened. Technology is a lot of work and takes lots of cables and adapters, etc to make everything work. The technology is weighing us down physically and mentally, so developing mobile devices that can eliminate wires and passwords is better for users.

Mobile is in the flow. Technology tends to interrupt our lives, and is non-cooperative. Smarter interactions would allow the mobile device to defer other contacts when inconvenient. For example, detect when we are watching a movie and send calls to the voice mail, or know we are driving and block all but emergency calls and texts.

The mobile technologies can enable our best selves. We can do more of whatever we are and be better in functioning as an individual.

To make all these things happen will require more innovation to make things real, mobile, and personal. To enhance our experiences calls for a collection of services, apps, middleware, operating systems, and very low power semiconductors. Mike Bell from the advanced devices group showed a micropower, wine-powered accelerometer. Advances like this one will eventually enable energy-scavenged rechargeable devices. Low power is not the same as low performance.

The advances in technologies will help to unburden the users and power the constant sensors and communications that allow the device to understand us. The middleware will integrate the readouts and will apply information of the context of our lives to all interactions. Lama Nachman demonstrated some possibilities of these capabilities. For personalization and context, she showed how sensor data can determine who you are with through audio proximity sensing. Identifying the speaker could allow the device to recommend putting all communications into a silo.

Passwords and security are possible without manual interaction. The accelerometers could verify you through your gait or other movements. The phone would accumulate and refine profiles over time. The context and technology allow the devices to physically recognize you through your body.

Services that use the knowledge of you from your device would need much higher security to enable trust and user acceptance. Peter Biddle from the cloud services group talked about federated identity services. An app would enroll the device and other apps, and have capabilities to display areas of possible issues in apps or permissions. This federated identity can enlist multiple devices operating under any operating system to enable the internet of things and the management of those things. When applied to a social network app, the federated identity would behave as a dashboard for privacy.

As a result, there are many possibilities in a different world. Everyone will see data, and manage all areas of their lives with easy, comfortable, and transparent communications tools. A one-stop-shop for all things mobile will take lots of R&D across the full stack of technology. Intel has the silicon experience, but needs to pay more attention to people. We need to learn how to integrate people and technology to infer mood and intent in a context-aware environment. The world’s 7B people can have 7B unique futures that are personal, safe, and fun.