Securing Mobility
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| SKT at MWC2019 |
Last year SK telecom announced our True Innovation program (www.true-inno.com) at MWC. True Innovation was founded to make collaborations with SK telecom fast and effective, whether you are a large technology-driven company or an innovative startup. In our first year, we had several successful collaborations in Korea and with global partners.
But more about True Innovation's inaugural year accolades later, having just returned from MWC '19 I wanted to share one of those collaborations in particular: our V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) Secure Central Gateway. As one of the founding members of True Innovation, I was personally inspired by the overwhelming interest this collaboration received from some of the world's leading auto manufacturers, mobility service operators, and tier-one suppliers. Based on the feedback from several industry insiders, it's fair to claim the V2X Secure Central Gateway is several years ahead of the competition.
The collaboration combines the innovative prowess of two of Korea's high-profile startups Gint and FESCARO, as well as SK telecom's subsidiary ID Quantique. In addition to representing a technological breakthrough for mobility, the collaboration is a symbolic culmination of the past 12 months as both Gint and FESCARO came through SparkLabs, True Innovation's strategic launch partner and Korea's No. 1 Accelerator; while SK telecom also announced the acquisition of IDQ at MWC last year.
The V2X Gateway ensures the safety of passengers by monitoring in-vehicle networks (called CAN buses) in real-time and without omissions for abnormalities. If any unusual activity is detected, this is immediately sent to the cloud where it is analyzed along with information from every other vehicle in the fleet to determine if it is a security threat, and to determine an appropriate course of action. The gateway encrypts both the in-vehicle networks as well as end-to-end communication between the gateway and the cloud, enabling features such as initiating emergency calls, or secure OTA (over-the-air) updates.
Will We Live Forever?
The future is bleak or brilliant depending on who you ask. Whether you consider the displacement of hundreds of millions of people due to rising sea levels, or droughts so severe they force us to abandon entire cities, or food shortages, or the extinction of bees. The list of dystopian outcomes to our collective failure to resolve the most important challenges facing our species is long and intimidating.
Providing a contrary view, futurists like Ray Kurzweil, pioneering entrepreneurs like Peter Diamandis, or visionary researchers like Aubrey De Grey, and ordinary folks like yours truly believe we have a lot to look forward to. Enough to want to live forever, or at least a really long time.
Is this possible? Is it just a dream deferred from a pioneering generation of western yogis and siddhas and vegans? A misplaced optimism instilled in the children of baby boomers throughout western civilization? Can we really live forever?
All Cataclysms Held Constant A Doomsday Lurks
If we hadn’t brought the environment to the brink; if we hadn’t rationalised the deployment of nuclear weapons; if we hadn’t socialised (in the USA that’s subsidize) industries that undermine natural alternatives to chemicals, plastics, coal, oil, etc; if we had been a perfect inhabitant of Earth… we would still be doomed.
Antibiotics have saved lives, tens-of-millions of lives. Penicillin alone is attributed with saving more than 200 million lives. Microbial diseases which plagued families, killing or disabling untold millions of children, have been… well, cured. Today we hardly think of pneumonia or meningitis as life-threatening, and most diseases mean a day-off from work for additional bed rest, tea, and a regimen of antibiotic medicines.
But those days are numbered, the bugs are evolving. As early as 2005 researchers estimated 4% of hospital deaths were caused by antibiotic resistant disease. 25,000 people died a couple of years ago in Europe due to antibiotic resistance strains of disease causing bacteria. More than 10 million people could die each year due to antibiotic resistant disease according to some estimates. Pneumonia, Gonorrhea, Tuberculosis have the potential to be resurgent killers to name a few. In addition to disease, common life-saving procedures become impossible (or life-threatening) when antibiotics fail such as transplant surgery, a burst appendix.
Are we really on the verge of losing our gains in extending life and greatly improving its quality? If we are entering a post-antibiotic era than it seems likely.
Dirt And "Bones"
Doomsday scenarios are both relevant and critical to mobilising people to innovate new ways to cure disease and extend life, and they are successful at doing just that. There is hope, in dirt and "Bones."
First, dirt. More than 10 billion bacteria and fungi live in a single gram of soil. Penicillin comes from one of these, as well as “many other well-known antibiotics.” The challenges has been how to discover new antibiotics from this abundance of microbial life. In fact all the medical achievements of antibiotics have come from just 1% soil bacteria. 99% remains to be explored, and if that is any indication of future discoveries (fingers-crossed) we should be able to combat antibiotic resistance for hundreds of years. Imagine 100 years of drugs without resistance for each 1% of soil we explore… doomsday seems really far away.
A new technology called iChip promises to deliver hundreds if not thousands of new antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, anti-virals, anti-cancer agents, and immunosuppressives. This simple innovation has inspired “citizen scientists” to submit dirt samples from around the United States, soon the world. Combinatory innovation at its finest, a simple new device for sampling dirt combined with unprecedented connectivity to crowdsource new soil samples, thereby exponentially accelerating the process of discovery. Undoubtedly we will have to reform regulatory bodies to facilitate new drugs to become commercialized more efficiently.
So we will overcome resistance, can we live forwever? Well, it is a key part to extending life. There are additional advances in other types of treatments, prevention, and procedures which will help us achieve immortality.
Diagnosis by a medical doctor are only correct 55% of the time, according to the team at Tricorder X Prize, sponsored by Qualcomm. And that’s after you wait 3 weeks to see your doctor, feeling sick and getting worse. Often we are forced to take higher doses of medications to combat diseases that have fester for weeks, and nearly half the time we are being treated for the wrong condition.
Enter “Bones,” Doctor McCoy from Star Trek. Among the new procedures on the verge of emerging from sci-fi lore to real-life are diagnostic tools that promise to make anyone with a smartphone a better diagnostician than a medical doctor. The famed character from Star Trek has inspired inventors to create the solution, a real-life tricorder that can diagnose up to 21 conditions including vital signs, allergens, TB, stroke, and more. The prize has existed for about 3 years, and today there are 10 finalists competing for $10 million. It may be unlikely that any of these companies succeed to diagnosis all 21 conditions this year, but within 5 years it is conceivable our ability to treat disease will radically change.
Will We Live Forever
Undoubtedly there are challenges ahead of us, but the rate of innovation… rather that speed at which sci-fiction is becoming reality… gives us much to be hopeful for. The next gen tricorder could even administer treatments, using programmable nanites. Not to mention regeneration to replace failing organs… but will we live forever?
Maybe, if we can effectively extend life to 95. Some researchers have found that aging effectively stops after 95 years old, and today billions of dollars are being invested to understand how. But living forever at 95 doesn’t sound appealing next to living forever at 25, so researches like Aubrey De Grey are trying to understand if it be stopped sooner. The techno-philanthropists of Silicon Valley including Larry Page, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, are all invested in efforts like the Palo Alto Longevity Prize and ventures like Calico.
In other words, it is entirely possible that a healthy person today could live significantly longer, and that the first person to live to 1000 years old has already been born. Assuming other calamities don’t end your life, the potential you will live well into your hundreds seems pretty good. Indefinite supplies of effective antibiotics and other treatments, dramatically improved diagnostics, and a host of new tech like nanotechnology, bionics, and regeneration mean that we will at least live long enough to know for certain whether or not we can turn-off aging indefinitely.
Ditching Our Wallets for Mobile
I’ve been a fan of brick-and-mobile for years, and looks like the competition to win that space is getting more interesting. Paypal, Amazon and Google, have all been making major strides toward mobile payments. Apple is expected to make announcements soon, with rumors flying about NFC support and a new mobile wallet. Apple has also been working with Qualcomm’s Gimbal to deploy a BLE platform reportedly for brick-and-mobile commerce.
SK Telecom’s own subsidiary SK Planet --disclaimer, this is where I work-- has also entered the fray with the new Slyde app in the USA and Syrup in South Korea. Both of these are using a mix of awesome proprietary BLE technology, and in Korea Syrup is using NFC (which is an old hat in Korea, I could live with just NFC here if I tried) as well.
Amazon’s Buzz Kill
Jeff Bezos is faltering… at least for now. The fire phone (or whatever) is terrible, even if it wasn’t a blatant maneuver to get consumers to buy even more on Amazon. This mobile play is accompanied by a new Amazon Wallet, which is available for Android devices and let’s people upload gift cards to manage their stored-value payment arsenal. Nice move by Amazon, but seems like many consumers are peeved that Bezos Co. keeps coming after their personal information en force. Several people can be seen complaining about Amazon on various forums, and they are not alone.
Even Walmart is annoyed at Amazon. Perceiving the Kindle Fire as a “trojan horse” the company hasn’t been selling them... apparently since 2012. And given Amazon’s history the new mobile wallet could get a reputation for using payment and gift card purchase history in order to… yup, get you to buy more recommended stuff on Amazon products.
Google Wallet Lackluster
I like Google Wallet and there is a lot of potential there, but so far it is lackluster. However, the super-tech-star is really smart about their payment rep. Unlike Amazon, Google is positioning their payment solution along-side all the others… including Carrier Billing, and now PayPal.
While there isn't a lot of talk about Android and BLE in the US (Apple gets most of the coverage it seems), Android and NFC go together like peas in a pod. And if South Korea is any indication adoption will accelerate soon. A host of devices have NFC support, so it is really a matter of time before enough retailers have an NFC enabled POS in the US.
Apple Bites...
…on some of that smartphone market share. Or that would be my prediction for 2015. I think it is likely Apple is going to nail mobile payments in the next year and that the superior experience could lead to a slight bump in market share. Despite the naysayers, if Apple nails the mobile wallet… yeah a lot of people are gonna want it.
With the rumored introduction of NFC and the rolling-out of a massive BLE network with partners such as Qualcomm and a host of retailer partners we could see Apple pave the way for real mobile wallet adoption in the USA.
SK Planet
A fairly large player in Korea, and lot’s of experience in commerce here, SK Planet is making a mobile commerce push into the US. Though the combined population of Los Angeles and the Bay Area would probably be about the same as the population of South Korea… that doesn't mean you can ignore it. NFC payments and smart chips in credit cards are old hats here (to the tone of at least 8 years) while neither technology has real traction in the US. After years as part of SK Telecom, and the fact that everyone who works here uses NFC and smart-chip credit cards everyday (as does just about everyone in Korea), I believe what the company lacks in market presence it can make up with experience.
Currently in beta, SK Planet's US affiliate's mobile wallet, the new Slyde app (www.slydenow.com), could be more broadly available later this year. In Korea the Syrup app (previously called Smart Wallet) just launched BLE enabled services in limited locations near Seoul, adding to the already successful loyalty card wallet and coupon clipping features available since June this year.
Haters Gonna Hate
There are still lot’s of naysayers who believe the traditional wallet will not be replaced by the mobile wallets. They all seem to be in the USA, while almost anyone in Korea agrees that it is just a matter of time. That’s because of two realities here: smartphone penetration, and nearly ubiquitous NFC payment options.
Naysayers claim that cash is available everywhere and that mobile wallets on smartphones “haven’t even come close” to the same level of acceptance. That may be true in the US, but consider that in Korea smartphones enjoy 90% penetration and 100% of people riding the subway are using NFC payment already. Not to mention probably 100% of young consumers are using either T-Money, Cashbee, or some other method of NFC payment at a host of places everyday.
In fact the problem isn’t getting people to move from cash, the problem is getting people to move to an app when they already have a card or phone or both that is enabled via smart-chip or NFC to make payments just about anywhere. So enough with the C.R.E.A.M. defense against mobile wallets. If Korea is any indication of a mature "mobile" economy, and arguably it is more so that the US, the future is bright for mobile wallets.
Personally, once a mobile wallet app is ready which truly makes my credit cards go away, my wallet is going in the trash. We are getting closer every day to when we only need our phones, and I can’t wait. It’s so close that the last time I went to the airport I consciously decided not to buy a wallet, because I knew it would be outdated soon.
Amazon's future could be acquisition...
Well, it's a gloomy Monday but don't let the weather keep you down. It just means some makeoli and Korean seafood pancakes are waiting for you somewhere. ;-)
Last week most of us witnessed Amazon's unveiling of the new Prime Delivery drones. Bezos says the service will be running in 4-5 years, despite the challenges and many skeptic reviewers it is entirely possible that will happen. The doubters claim three major issues: vandalism, safety, and theft.
The real BIG THREE challenges have nothing to do with these challenges (which anyone with a mild imagination can figure out how to solve). Rolling out a drone delivery network takes... well, first a (1) NETWORK! Creating any kind of network, software or hardware, is not small task and requires lot's of really smart and creative folks from all levels of abstraction to get down. The next REALLY BIG challenge is the (2) OS. What will run these systems? Android? Not likely. Which leads me to the FINAL BIG challenge, the (3) battery. Even if you manage to get the right network, and the right OS... you still need a battery -- of course, if you read my email about Graphene you might not consider this to great a challenge!
Enter... the entrepreneur.
Matternet is an awesome startup that will be either the next big platform or, at the very least, a significant acquisition down the road. Backed by Andreesen Horowitz (two guys who have a knack for early-stage investing I'd say) the company is rolling out it's network where the walled gardens have the North can happily get involved... Africa. How do you convince an unwilling populace to adopt the technology? Make it about helping people (since it is ultimately anyway!). How do you get your medicine in 30min instead of 5 days? Drones.
The company was founded way back in 2011, and has since developed it's first drone which can carry a small package. Their ultimate goal is to deploy delivery drones which can carry up to 1000kg.
Enjoy... and BTW if you're from Seoul watch the video for a neat surprise.
https://mttr.net
Bio-hacking, the end of Jolt, and the future of retail
A few years ago I wrote a short essay about “Flow” and how the ideas in that book apply to a world where mobile computing enhances every moment of our lives. I never published it or anything, just showed it to a few friends. However, I did mention those ideas in my first post this year where I said that photo-sharing apps (and other “time-wasters”) are giving people a false sense of productivity and hence happiness.
My point is that mobile computing is going to make us happier, assuming Mihaly’s book is true. We can maximize the output of our day, improving our knowledge about things that interest us, and also ourselves. Apps that allow us to track (or check-in) to routines or habits -- like Lift, backed by Evan Williams -- are becoming very common and fairly popular. Even smarter tools like the products Nike has been pumping out for iOS users, or some of the new health care applications that can track all sorts of data about your body, are getting enough traction today that one can easily envision them becoming part of mainstream medicine within a few years.
Bio-Hacking
Along with all this new technology, an avalanche of information about diet and health has been hitting the bookstores and blogs for the past decade. And it’s only getting better/worse(?). One of my favorite sites, the bulletproof executive, comes right out and says they update the site every few months at new breakthroughs occur (and are hopefully confirmed). This trend have a new name, that’s “bio-hacking” or the idea of hacking our own bodies to improve productivity at home, at work, in the bedroom, on the field, etc.
Are the days of Jolt-powered nerds at an end? It looks like it, sort-of. While there will always be the more cosmopolitan nerd who craves espresso romano, wine, and gourmet cheese -- yours truly ;-) -- the impact of a new generation of super-nerds who are hacking software AND their bodies could be something incredible. Most people will go through a super bio-hacking phase, and return to a better (though not totally ideal) lifestyle. However, the interest in itself means we’ll see more and more software integrating with our lifestyle goals, helping us overcome craving for example, or somehow infusing us with positive reinforcement when embarking on the challenging endeavor to break.. um create new habits.
How this will impact marketing
Data will become more accurate and more specific, of course. Imagine we have these really awesome applications which “speak” to machines at retail shops, and instead of promoting whatever junk-food is the craze… it knows we are on diet (it should even know what our streak is) and it recommends we purchase items that support that diet. Great right!? Furthermore, with the right technology installed at the store your software could be alert when you veer too close to say… the ice-cream, sending some kind of notification that “hey, you should get some apples” or “if you are craving something cold and sweet, why not a fruit popsicle!” You get the idea.
This could transform the image of many retailers, and could really improve the happiness of millions.
Investing In Education
Investment in education startups has boomed since early 2012, with a range of investors pumping in more than $1B into companies and funds. The number of investors in the space is staggering, even Ashton Kutcher is hip on Ed Tech with an investment in Y-Combinator graduate Clever back in 2012.
While Paul Graham’s Y-Combinator has worked with only a few Ed Tech start-ups (other than Clever), a cohort of new incubators and accelerators focusing on Ed Tech are emerging, led by Imagine K12.
Imagine K12
Decades ago schools spent millions on technology (CD ROMs galore), but nothing really changed… just the medium. Today everything from publishing to management systems are up for grabs. Imagine K12 is looking to grow the companies of the future in the space, becoming the first incubator for Ed Tech to support entrepreneurs who all share a vision for truly impactful technology innovation for education.
Founded by a few big names in Silicon Valley who saw the next wave of school reform as Ed Tech’s new moment, Imagine K12 graduated their first cohort in 2011. Their portfolio includes hapara, NoRedInk, LearnSprout, Class Dojo, Bloomboard, and so many more. Awesome.
The “Most Active” Investors
While the list of firms and funds investing in Ed Tech is long, there are some standouts. In addition to the new incubators or accelerators focusing on Ed Tech, including Imagine K12, lot's of funds specific-to education exist in addition to older VC firms.
Some of the more active investors in Ed Tech are:
NewSchools Venture Fund
Founded way back in 1998, this fund is unique because it operates as a non-profit. The fund has invested “nearly $180 million” in “more than 100 nonprofit and for-profit organizations” and claims that through its investments reaches 12 million students in the United States. Impressive… most impressive.
Relatively recent investments in companies that I think are pretty neat are edSurge, hapara, and NoRedInk.
500 Startups
So much can be said about 500, it’s pretty much just awesome. Some recent investments in Ed Tech have been MindSnacks, Magoosh, and Motion Math. Looks like 500 is focusing on Game-based Learning and (the cash-cow of education) Test-Prep.
Learn Capital
These guys are rocking Ed Tech, boasting the most impressive portfolio of investments. No kidding, the founders of Learn Captial are seasoned Ed Tech entrepreneurs who have exited several companies to big players like HMH, Marvel.
Investments by Learn Capital are truly press worthy, check out their coverage including Edmodo, Coursera, Udemy, ClassDojo, Kalibrr, and more.
ReThink Education
New York City is in the Ed Tech game too, that’s where ReThink Education is leading the way to east-coast incubation for the next big-win. While a new fund, they have made some exciting investments including Bright Bytes, Education Elements, and Smarterer.
Sequoia Capital
Finally, the world-renowned iconic VC of Silicon Valley. Sequoia has not been too active in Ed Tech. However, they did invest in one of my absolute favorite companies: Inkling.
Inkling has been around for awhile now, having been developing interactive content for education since 2009. You could say they are the leaders in the space.
Endless Fun With KPCB’s Next Big Winner
My son, 27 months, read my t-shirt the other day. Sure, he has no idea what “unsweetened juice” means, but he was reading it phonetically.
As you know, Ed Tech is booming -- or ballooning in the opinion of some who believe there is a bubble. Among the famous investors joining the fray is the acclaimed Venture Capital firm Kleiner Perkins (KPCB), and they have once again backed the right horse: Callaway Digital Arts.
Endless Alphabet
For the past 6 weeks or so my son has been thoroughly enjoying Callaway Digital Arts flagship application, Endless Alphabet (or Endless ABCs). Like most parents, particularly those with bilingual children, there is a sense of urgency around getting language learning started early. Loads of development data shows us that this is critical for future achievement. So my wife and I scour the web and app stores for the latest new applications for learning literacy.
However, most of the time they fall short. Either they are too much fun and not enough learning, or they are too much learning (too difficult for that early age when we parents are anxious). Enter the Endless Alphabet.
Endless Fun AND Learning
The application has received critical acclaim from every “kids apps” review site, has been featured by Apple, and written up in Wired’s Geek Mom section. Geek Mom’s Kelly Knox said her daughter “squeals in delight when a new” word is ready in the app.... same here. And it deserves all the praise.
Children absolutely love the application, and play with it for as long as you will let them. Replaying the hilarious and brilliantly animated definitions, and giggling through the touch-and-drag letters as they transform into ridiculous monsters that spew phonetics repeatedly until they are placed in the correct position.
See it for yourself, and try it with your own children. My son continues to be enthralled by Endless Alphabet, and more words are being added all the time.
But most importantly, it works. Not only is he trying to read words that have never appeared in the application (thanks to the fun phonetics) he is using new words he learns via Endless Alphabet in the correct context (thanks to the brilliant animations).
For example, the other day when he ate some food he didn’t find particularly appealing he said “yucky!” Excuse me? Yes, and he never learned it from me.
About Callaway Digital Arts
Callaway (CDA) is fastly becoming a serious player in the vastly lucrative educational content market. To date they have received $6M in funding from a list of A Team investors led by the iconic Kleiner Perkins. Founded back in 2011, the company has released several successful applications in the Ed space, with partners indicative of their investors’ network value such as Sesame Street and Hasbro.
Penguin's New Breakthrough
In case you haven’t noticed, Ed Tech continues to boom. Last year Ed Tech startups grabbed more than $1B in funding -- ONE-BILLION-DOLLARS... just looks bigger that way. Since my first passion in business was actually educational technology, from time to time I’ll post about Ed Tech applications. Here’s the first!
Penguin Publishing is an old company, they’ve been around since 1935. Most people probably consider publishing a dull and non-innovative space. Some may even believe that with advent of Amazon Self-Publishing traditional publishing companies are already in decline. I beg to differ... and Penguin’s new app really blew me away.
Poems By Heart
This is probably my new favorite app, really!
Why? I guess some people are forever hopelessly romantic long after high-school. Poems By Heart is a really fun and simple way to memorize poems. You can impress your friends or, if you’re like me, someone special to you by reciting to them poems of all kinds, from William Blake to Emily Dickinson, and more.
This app isn’t just my favorite because if the value it gives me -- that is, my wife loves it when I recite to her a romantic poem -- it is my favorite because it is one of the most innovative ideas I’ve seen in a long time. Penguin Publishing has taken something many people probably had forgotten about, and made it interesting and modern all over again. Truth is, we all wish we could rattle-off poetry like they do in the movies, don’t we?
Poems By Heart is a game, with levels of difficulty for different poems. The app takes you through stages, removing words from stanzas or lines to help you memorize. You select the correct words from several below the stanza or line you’re memorizing. For your final mission you have to recite the poem by heart to the app, and it records it for you. You get points for doing missions quickly and filling in the blanks with the correct words.
Not only is it fun, it’s educational since you are engaging with literary history (the poem) multiple times, learning vocabulary and usage -- not to mention learning about the poets themselves (or just poets period!).
But it gets better. From a business perspective, this app is a brilliant innovation. It’s clear that Penguin invested a lot of time and talent to leverage it’s massive store of content to generate new revenue through mobile. While the app offers new users with two free poems, to memorize more poems -- or specific poems that you love -- you have to purchase sets. The sets are sold as poetry genres now, but you can imagine with all the poetry in the world the possibilities for Penguin are endless.
Hat’s off to Penguin... then again, “He who binds to himself a joy / Does the winged life destroy....” We’ll see if it sticks, but so far looks like a big win for Pearson and for poetry all around.
