Mystic Me 2.0

Last year I made some cowardly custard predictions for 2008 and I was pretty much spot on with all ten. How did I do it? Well they were already occurring trends.

So this year, I thought I'd try much luck with ten more cowardly custard predictions.

These are:-

• Economists at the end of the year will be predicting that the U.K. recession in 2010 will be more severe than previously predicted.
• House prices will continue to fall.
• "Cloud" computing and Open Source Technologies will continue to become major growth areas for IT.
• The FTSE 100 will drop below 3,500.
• Bored with SOA, ROA, WOA, SaaS, HaaS, IaaS and so on? This year new acronyms will be created to describe the convergence of "cloud" computing and service oriented architecture (as if they weren't already part of the same phenomenon). Expect lots of arguments and people getting rather antsy.
• With the adoption of 3G network enabled devices, mobile security and malicious mobile applications will become a serious security concern.
• Camping holidays and knitting will enjoy a resurgence.
• Yahoo will be sold for less than $15bn.
• The use of printed organic semiconducting materials, printed nano-particle solutions, printed OLEDs and the field of printed electronics in general will receive a boost as the first commercial printed OLED displays are released.
• Lots of people will grumble that the new Dr Who isn't as good as "David Tennant".

Blinking cell ...

Need a new watch? Try our bio-watch made from genetically modified cells, powered by photosynthesis, fully biodegradable, 100 year life span and even makes a tasty snack if you're feeling hungry.

Well, we're not quite there yet, but this announcement from UC San Diego is certainly timely news.

Caught my eye ...

I stumbled across two things of huge interest to me, one new and one old.

First, the new news is that a £1.5 million grant has been awarded for investigation into a molecular manufacturing system for diamondoid products.

Secondly, well, just watch the video ...

The printing revolution approaches ...

Back in 2001, I wrote a research report on the future of manufacturing and the commoditisation of the manufacturing process.

I highlighted that we were on a path towards mass customisation and that fabrication technologies (such as 3D printing) would eventually lead to a future were value was predominately in raw materials and design. Eventually 3D printers will print 3D printers and the means of manufacturing will become viral.

All of this is slowly happening and it has been delightful to hear about the recent progress made by the RepRap group in creating a self-replicating machine. Our journey towards these "von Neumann" machines started earnestly back in the 1960's and our journey has been relentlessly steady. My research was not one of prediction but merely of continuation of an existing trend.

I talked about this about EuroFoo '04, where I discussed also the need for open hardware. Personally, 2004 was an important year in the field because it was the first time (to my knowledge) that a concept hybrid printer (capable of printing both physical structure and electronics) was shown to be viable in a research setting. The printing of both physical and electronic structure opens up a world of new possibilities and future development languages.

Printed electronics is still a relatively new field and it has achieved some landmark milestones, such as the first printed polymer thin film transistors in 2000 (Sirringhaus et al.) and the desktop inkjet printing of electronics components (notably from HP, Corvallis). These days we have everything from printed batteries to printed flexible solar cells. It's a fledgling field but it has revolutionary potential.

One question which is often raised is why would consumers want mass customisation. The answer to that is probably because that they've been primed to want it. In order to limit the commoditisation of physical products, advertisers have been pushing the concept of "designed for you" to the public for the past twenty years. The bewildering array of choice in many products is designed not only to engage the consumer in the product but also to make comparison between products more difficult. I suspect that consumers have become comfortable with the concepts of customisation.

Of course in a world of printed physical items, then your average "printing" shop can have a stock of millions of items (without actually having them) and consumer choice becomes vast. This is bad news for the traditional world, as our entry into this digital manufacturing age will allow your average Joe to suddenly become a competitor by publishing their designs. A physical capital intensive barrier of entry into product manufacture (the need for factories, tooling etc) will be significantly eroded by fabrication technology. The nashing of teeth of today's victims (the media / broadcast industry) will pale into insignificance compared to the consumer electronics companies tales of woe tomorrow.

Though we are moving steadily along that path, there is still a long way to go.

It is, however, good to hear of some forward thinking and enlightened companies exploring this area. Now Shapeways, Philips spin-off venture into bureau services for fabrication technology, is hardly anything exciting or new, other people have been doing this for sometime and it is simply provision of SLS, SLA and other well known techniques.

What is however exciting is that Philips, a well funded company which has extensive experience in printed electronics technology, is exploring the cross over into fabrication techniques in the physical world. It is also trying to establish itself close to the centre of this looming design revolution.

The world of printed electronics, printed physical forms and hybrid printers certainly seems to be picking up speed.

Amphilab is born ....

Well, Manolis (of bLink fame) and I have just formed a company to look at commercialising technology in the physical / digital interaction field.

So what does that mean? Printed electronics, books with hyperlinks and everyday objects which do extraordinary things.

I'll be wrapping up my long running talks on utility computing at CloudCamp, finishing with my over extended stay in the world of Enterprise 2.0 at MashUp and saying a fond farewell to Web 2.0 at Singularity. From now on, it's a step out of the mainstream and back into the brave new world of Spimes.

I couldn't be happier.

How big is your spime ...

Yesterday, I spent a few hours in the company of Manolis and his wonderful book. I have long been fascinated by the convergence of the physical / digital and in particular the coming resurgence of printing both in terms of 3D structure, printed electronics and hybrid printers.

A new class of things, called "spimes", is on the horizon and it challenges all our preconceptions of what an object is. Occasionally you see glimmers of this future, other times you walk right past it.

Listen to us ... no, don't listen to us ...

I was asked recently:

"Would the spread of digital fabrication lead to a personalisation revolution?"

"Do you think people will be bothered to print stuff themselves?"

Yes I do. If you don't know anything about fabrication technologies, here is a video of the last talk I gave on the subject. It's from 2006, so it's a bit old.

So, why will people be bothered? Well, for the last fifteen years, most companies have been using choice (along with branding, price strategy and patents) as a way of slowing down the commoditisation of their products. The bewildering array of offerings suited to you, are not for your benefit. They prevent you from making comparisons between almost identical products.

A mobile phone is a mobile phone, except of course in the ad-world. Here, it is a personal communications device which says something about you and your lifestyle. It even has a price plan suited to your needs. Your mobile phone, is your phone and it is unlike any other mobile phone.

After fifteen years of this, we have got very used to the idea of personalisation. As digital fabrication starts to spread, I suspect most people will want to personalise and print their own products, rather than buy someone else's.

I can hear the advertisers trying to convince us that we want to buy XYZ's product rather than products designed and built by you. Too late, we're already far too brainwashed.

A short but long interlude

For the last few weeks I've been buried in research. So today, I thought I'd take a break and make a quick video about my areas of research. Unfortunately, I started with my previous talks and extended from there.

So my quick introduction rapidly turned into 600 slides and lasts over an hour.

Well, it's all very rough but then again it was supposed to be a break from my research. So I've posted the video here today.

What does it cover? All the usual from commoditisation to commodification, from innovation to organisation, from XaaS to agile development, from broadcast media to politics and from P2P to 3D printing.

Click To Play

Mystic Me .....

I scribbled this down a few days ago, however given my posts recently I thought I'd better announce my own Mystic Me "completely redundant cowardly custard predictions for 2008".

These are:

• XaaS and utility computing will become a more mainstream subject.
• Commoditisation of IT will become a hotter topic and there will be increasing concern as to its long term social and employment ramifications.
• More companies will adopt Enterprise 2.0 technology.
• There will be a greater convergence between the worlds of SaaS and SOA.
• There will be a security issue (loss of data or loss of service) with one or more SaaS vendors.
• There will be increased disruption in the traditional media industries brought on by the lowering of the barriers of entry into those industries.
• The rate of innovation of new web products will appear to increase.
• The 3D printer industry will continue to grow with the likely release of personal desktop printers
• Portability between service providers will become a more important discussion point.
• Green computing will be on the radar of an increasing number of execs.

There aren't actually meaningful predictions. Rather, they are continuations of existing trends now with new added vagueness. Enjoy.

Going, going ... moved on.

Brian Suda has just sent me a link to Chris Anderson's keynote at Nokia World 2007 on his upcoming new book "Free".

According to Brian, 'the whole talk is about "free" which is basically commoditization, where things become so cheap you can just ignore and waste it'.

Chris apparently also explores 3D printing, the commoditisation of the manufacturing process and the explosion of choice for end users. This naturally piqued my interest seeing that I've long held similar views.

After watching I can certainly say, it's well worth a look. Chris goes into examples of web services becoming a commodity, the need for a focus on the attention economy, the importance of reputation and how commoditisation will lead to further innovation. He even uses an example of how music performers should give away their music for free and generate revenue from performances.

All of this is stuff I'd agree with. I'd really like to say this is exciting and new, but to be honest having spoken on similar subjects myself it all feels a bit old hat, despite it being well presented. Everywhere I look I now see articles on XaaS, commoditisation, 3D printing and portability between services (i.e. patration or software fluidity).

These subjects have all gone mainstream now, so it's a good thing I've moved on to a new hobby.

Interesting news .... comes in threes.

Make has published an Open Hardware Gift Guide - magic.

Suw is thinking about microeconomics and business models for creative .... aha another person who will slowly succumb to the allure of commoditisation.

Finally, inkjets start being used in LCD manufacture.

Phew .... sanity restored.

These days I do very little in the 3D printing world except keep tabs on how the industry is progressing. Awareness of the field is becoming more mainstream now, though I'm not sure if people have really thought through all the consequences yet.

For anyone who is interested, I've created a video (below) of the last fabrication talk I gave back at EuroOscon in Sept. 2006. It covers the usual suspects of fabrication, ducks, open hardware, environment, commoditisation and spime script.

Of course, these talks are never quite the same without the sound of the audience.

Back in 2002/03 when I undertook a development program at the IMD, I really hammered home the point about 3D printing. Most people didn't believe it then and thought I was somewhat odd. They nicknamed me "crazy guy".

Back in 2000 when I talked about it, people always looked at me as though I was mad, and I mean genuinely "mad".

Before that date, people always acted as though I was telling some sort of joke and had forgotten to add the punchline. We never usually got to the "you're mad" stage.

So I must admit I was delighted to recently receive an email from my tutor saying he was reading an article about 3D printing in the NYT. Also, today, I came across Tom Easton's blog in which he says he is going to look at writing a book on the impact of 3D printing and the effects on business models (aka commoditisation of the manufacturing process).

It's amazing how quickly things spread and sanity is restored.

I really hope Tom puts 3D printing firmly on the map, the same way Nick Carr did with commoditisation of IT.

Can I borrow a cup of silver colloid solution?

Back at EuroFoo 2004 I ran a couple of sessions; one on worth (and commoditisation) and the other on fabrication technologies. Apparently at the latter session, I stated "home printers to be here within three years".

Well it looks like I was out by six months or so. DeskTop Factory has won Popular Science Magazine's Best of What's New Award.

Cool. So the first home 3D printers will be available next year at $4995 a piece.

Still it's not cheap, but then the first mass produced inkjets - the HP ThinkJet (1984) - was priced at $495 which is between $950 and $1,700 in today's terms (depending upon which measure you use).

These days you can pick up a high resolution inkjet photo printer for less than a $100. I expect the same to happen with 3D printers, and over the next decade the capability of these home fabrication machines to include not just form, but multiple materials and electronics.

[Added : Objet Geometries have announced Polyjet Matrix and a 3D printer capable of printing out in multiple materials]

They will become commonplace as well as cheap. Of course the real money will be in materials and design.

With the commoditisation of the manufacturing process itself and a further reduction of the barriers to participation, we will start to see the extension of the consumer as producer into new industries.

I look forward to the day, that my neighbour asks to borrow more exotic materials than sugar.

P.S. Watch the video .... there is a duck in it!

Where's the future bud?

I talk a lot about commoditisation of IT, the application of utility like concepts to computer resource provision, the XaaS stack, the need for competitive utility markets, open standards, open sourced implementations of those standards, the reduction of the barriers of entry (or participation) in marketplaces through commoditisation, the consequences of this (such as news 2.0), the growing phenomenon of 3D printing (the commoditisation of the manufacturing process), the participative manufacturing based upon draw rather than push or pull (see threadless.com) and the importance of conversation over product.

These things are all starting to happen whether its SaaS vendors like salesforce or HaaS vendors like xCalibre or higher orders of the stack already well populated with a growing fight to become the canoncial source for particular types of information.

So what is the next next big thing?

Well, in my view the next progression of web 2.0 (and NO, that isn't web 3.0 or 4.0 etc - it's still web 2.0) is all about the attention economy, reputation and the distribution of the social graph. The following gives you a hint of where we will be going, it maybe for video but in my view the key concepts are all there ....

Hidden in this are the ideas to create reputation networks and a solution to Brad's noble desire to make the social graph a community asset.

Still no video?

Nope

In the meantime, I'll just note that Tim is talking about Atoms, a field which I have taken an interest in for some time.

I've dug up an old presentation from 2003, which I gave a slightly modified version of at Euro Foo in 2004.

It's a bit basic, well it's a bit pants .... but it serves as a very general introduction into the field. So I'll post the slides here.

[Corection - had some problems with slideshare - so I'll just provide a link to download the file or you can go to slideshare directly.]

I should really post up the EurOscon version as a video ... but since I'm going to be combining this with the FOWA stuff - including the different metholodogies needed for CA / CODB, the stack is bigger than just SaaS / FaaS / HaaS and the problem with patents & ROI - all into one monstrous web 2.0 expo talk, I thought I'd wait.

Dealing with the stack

I had intended to create a number of posts about the XaaS stack. However, my recent diversion with the writings of Andrew Keen and my realisation that there were deeper fundamental processes at work here has forced me to postpone ... for a short time.

After spending sometime reading up on a number of articles, I've yet to come across a satisfactory exploration of what is happening in the IT industry today.

Now I don't pretend to know, I have some rough ideas.

So I thought I'd write down an initial view (something I scribbled together in Como). I'll use this as a starting point whilst I explore the concepts. I'm likely to change my mind on these fundamentals several times during the process, and I might not even get to a satisfactory conclusion.

Any pointers would be extremely welcome.

Print me a spaceship ...

Back at EuroFoo 2004, I ran two session - one on Worth Based Development which touched on the commoditisation of IT and the other on 3D printing.

One of the things I talked about was the need for open source hardware and how as the technology develops, value will be in the designs and raw materials (even the printers will be ultimately printed).

So it's good to watch how new sites and services are growing in this area.

The well know sites includes Instructables and Fab At Home, however more sites are being constantly added. One I've just picked up on is 3dvia.

Federation ...

I've waxed lyrically for a very long time about the distinction between CODB (cost of doing business) vs CA (competitive advantage) in IT, commoditisation of IT and the need for a "national" grid of utility computing resources.

We covered many of these subject in detail, along with 3D printing & worth based development back in Euro 2004.

So it is interesting to see how things have developed since that time and a lot of the new companies arriving on the scene.

There are so many it is difficult to keep track, but I noticed recently this announcement of a SaaSGrid. The concepts seem similar to our Borg system (which we've been using internally since about 2003) and Zimki (which previously was called libapi and internally is known as fish - more on the naming of Zimki.).

A platform you can build another application on, you charge for it with a utility pricing model and you sell it forward with a utility pricing model. Excellent.

Though they don't seem to have launched yet, it is interesting. However, there is one disappointment for me - "do it all without technological lock-in" and "host it with patent pending scaling and reliability technology ...".

The key to generating a true federated grid and avoiding any lock-in, is and has always been an open and free standard (i.e. running code, an open source reference model for implementation which defines the standard). I'm talking at OSCON this year and most of my talk will be on this matter.

The people behind SaaSGrid seem to be Matt and Sinclair from SaaSBlogs. They seem smart enough cookies, and I wish them best of success.

I hope they consider the whole open standards issue of a federated grid, because this is where the real battle will be fought and is it really to everyones interest to create multiple competing standards?

E-Tech was fab.

As usual E-Tech was an outstanding event - there were some excellent speakers, an interesting crowd and good conversations all round.

I'd like to have seen more, but there is never enough time. The talks I really enjoyed were :-

• Body Hacking, Quinn Norton. This is a really interesting subject matter, enhancing the human body and the potential social impacts of this. Wonderful.

• The Making of Virtual Earth, John Curlander. Captivating stuff on how to go about creating entire 3D images of the environment from a mass of 2D pictures. This is definitely one to watch.

• From Pixels to Plastic, Matt Webb. Well it's Matt and I couldn't miss one of his talks.

• JavaScript: It's Happening All Over Again! James Duncan. I work with James and so I know the talk, but I do enjoy his presentations and yes JavaScript is very cool.

• Spintronics, Kevin Roche. Harnessing quantum spin in modern electronics and methods of creating streams of electrons with the same spin. I was stunned by this.

• Haml: A Semantic Rebellion in Template Land, Hampton Catlin. It's always dangerous to use live demos but building your presentation in your own tool - crazy. It worked, it was great fun and Hampton presents with flair. Shame the room was pitch black.

The list could and should go on, but all I'll say is that if you've not been to E-Tech I would strongly recommend it for next year.

I also gave a talk on commoditisation (with ducks, Zimki and fabbing as usual).

Unfortunately there was a mini gale at the time, so the doors were blasted in on several occasions and also the room was located outside the main area, down a small track, through the woods and past the signs which said "beware of the dragons".

I'm very grateful and extremely surpised that people made the trek. Unfortunately we didn't get many people to sign up for our carbon offset site in Zimki . We'll have to try again later in the year.

Now this is fairly old, but I'd never seen it before until Craig Dwyer pointed it out to me. If you like Lego, you have to watch this.

Printing chips ....

Just to note that Nanoident's printed electronics factory is up and running. Also I'm seeing more and more talk about the need for open hardware. Well, it's all starting to kick off - hybrid printers (both functional form and electronics, something I talked about at EuroFoo'04) are just around the corner ... they've been in some labs I know for a few years now, obviously research stuff.

IDTechEx's printed electronics conference is just around the corner, this will be the first Cambridge one I've missed but I'm sure it will be great as usual.

I notice that Tim is also running a session on "On-demand manufacturing"

... excellent.