My New World of Old Technology

Dear my new world of old technology,

This is why you make my life so difficult.

 

Damn, people get pissed when you don’t respond to their emails immediately these days. But, you say, everyone these days has an iPhone or an Android so they can check their emails like they check their text messages: instantly. Well, I’m living in the year 2006, before the release of the first iPhone, before touch screens were put into cellphone technology, and when the term “smart phone” referred exclusively to a Blackberry. Folks, I’m currently using T9 texting technology; there are no such things as Apps on this phone; taking a picture with its “camera” may as well be capturing in bit-mode as that’s the pixilation quality.

Why am I suffering through this, you ask? I had my phone stolen about a week ago and I had this old one as a backup in case something like that ever occurred… now I hate my life.

Honestly, I feel like such a pussy for missing my Android. I went 23 years without owning a smart phone, all four years of high school, all four years of college, and now I can’t go two weeks without one. My group members are pissed I can’t read emails while I’m driving to our meetings, my parents wonder why I’m suddenly out of the loop on world news, and my daily existence is music-less without my Spotify app!  I’m drowning over here in a sea of antiquated technology and I can’t even place a call for help! I lost all my contacts and T-Mobile stores them retrievable only via a 4G connection. My phone lacks that and everything else. That’s some excellent planning right there.

So along with my phone, I had my debit card and driver’s license stolen. I had to go to a DPS location to replace my license, and what I thought would be a quick trip turned into a major excursion and total headache thanks to my dumb phone.

I had forgotten (forcibly and gladly) the days when we had to lookup directions before leaving the house, so I started my journey thinking I knew where I was going. Well, I got to the location and there hung a sign out front that read: location closed, please see newest location in Pflugerville. Um, what? Of course a QR code on the banner wasn’t helpful to ME, but it was nice of them to provide assistance to those living in the current decade. What could I do? We don’t carry around city maps anymore, I couldn’t ask anyone where to go…I drove all the way back the fuck home, looked up the directions to the next closest location (30 minutes away) and pouted the whole time. Had I had a smart phone, I could have just looked up the location while sitting in the parking lot and saved myself about an hours’ worth of gas and drive time.

As you can see, smart phones are vital. They are not simply nice little gadgets we carry around for when we’re bored. People (and by that I mean our parents) may say we’re being spoiled, that we’re a generation growing up with an unhealthy reliance on technology, and that we have missed out on what it is to be part of the real world, but I disagree. Look, we’re a generation that takes what we are given and make the most out of it. We may spend an inordinate amount of time on our handheld devices and on the interwebs, but guess what? We were also born in to a fucking recession where we are forced to take unpaid internships and minimum-wage jobs while paying off student loans we racked up while earning our college degrees. So fuck off older generations. You guys had the 80s, the tech boom of the 90s, the dot-com boom of the late 90s, and YOU caused the recession we’re in now. So, yeah, we youngins like our $500 smart phones. It’s the one thing that can’t be taken away from us…oh …wait. Fuck.

Ye old Facebook.

There isn’t a day that goes by that the vast majority of us don’t use a computer to surf the web, be it on a desktop, laptop, cellphone, or tablet. It’s pretty difficult to picture life before computers and the internet. How else did people find answers to life’s pressing questions like “How do you ask someone on a date?” or “Do fish ever sleep?” ?  But just think about how young the technology really is–the first Apple came out in 1984, the internet went live in the mid-90s, Facebook hit the web in 2004, and Twitter in 2006. Despite it’s few years of existence the technology is evolving and developing at lightning speed. This concept is brilliantly showcased in a series of print ads for Maximidia, a Brazillian company that holds an annual seminar on developing media.

Without telling too much the ads do a great job of getting the point across that technology is constantly going out of date and you’ve got to keep yourself informed to stay on top. Do you think the ads are effective? Do you think we’ll see technology in the next decade that really could make these popular sites obsolete?

Hope You Don’t Leave Your STITX Somewhere

Because then you’ll have lost everything.

I don’t like forgetting things on my desk at work. I hate realizing I left something at school and can only hope that everyone else is too busy to realize my headphones are there to steal them or that humanity is not lost and they leave them there.  While it isn’t true that I MUST have my computer with me at all times, I do need it for work and certain classes. It would, in fact, be easier for me to just reach around my computer (rather than reach down and dig around in my backpack or purse) and pull out my headphones.

Thanks, designers of STITX in Singapore, who created cute little pockets that stick to the back (front) of your laptop, to make carrying all your important stuff with you when you’re running around, being busy and whatnot.

It’s an interesting approach to the one-case-for-everything since cases don’t usually include laptops and tablets. The (mostly) natural materials used (including leather and wool) are in stark contrast to the metal of the laptop and tablet, rather than a plastic pouch or snap-on version, which is what I would have imagined designers might navigate towards on a first pass.  Hopefully, they can get the funding they need to get these things produced and sent out. As a fellow student, I say HELP THESE PEEPS OUT!

 

STITX Stuff

Augmented Reality Apps—IN; QR Codes—OUT

According to AdAge blogger B.L. Ochman, we can expect to see QR Codes disappear completely within the next few months, as they are quickly being replaced by new augmented reality apps that are much more efficient and easy to use.  The new apps allow consumers to simply wave a smartphone over content and immediately have access to digital features.

For example, a Japanese newspaper has already launched an augmented reality app that allows young children to scan specially-marked articles with a smartphone to get access to a more kid-friendly, simplified adaptation of the story, along with pictures and explanations to help them understand the content.

Another emerging technology that Ochman predicts we’ll soon be seeing more of is an invisible, electronic linking code called Touchcode.  Once printed on paper, the code can be programmed to link any touch-screen device to an interactive display relating to the content on the page.

For example, advertisers could use the code to link readers of a gaming magazine to a free demo of a game mentioned in one of the magazine’s articles.  All a person would have to do is place a smartphone or tablet on top of the article and wait for the demo to appear on the screen. The technology could also be used to show visual demonstrations of products in a catalog, give out coupons and special event tickets, or even allow consumers to “try on” clothes in an virtual fitting room.

While QR codes did have a few very successful campaigns, they were often too difficult to access from the locations in which they were placed.  They often ended up on billboards, or worse yet, license plates, which made it practically impossible to scan the code successfully.  Plus, marketers didn’t do a good job of explaining how to use the codes to begin with, leading many potential consumers to simply ignore the codes entirely.

The good news is, we can learn a lot from the failures of QR Codes:

1. For one, the technology needs to be easy to use.  Consumers don’t want to waste time trying to figure out a complicated app.  It should be self-explanatory and obvious.
2. If the app is not completely self-explanatory, then marketers need to explain how to use the app in a very clear, simple manner.  If it can’t be explained simply, it’s probably too complicated.
3. Make sure you place the technology on media in areas where cell phone service is sure to be available.  The app is worthless if consumers can’t access it.  Subway tunnels and other obstructed areas tend to have block or lower service.
4. Only place the apps in locations where using it makes sense.  People probably won’t be interested in scanning the table to play a branded game at a fancy restaurant on date night, but they might be interested at a McDonalds when they’re looking for a way to occupy their hyper kids.

These new technologies are bubbling over with potential, but now it’s up to agencies to learn from past mistakes and use them more carefully this time around.  If done in a smart, creative way, these apps could stick around for a long time.

Don’t Get Ahead of Yourself, Technology

I, too, have replaced many things with electronics. Each year one additional little piece of my life gets absorbed by my smartphone. But while our world hurtles toward digitalization, here’s a playful little reminder from Leo Burnett, Paris that there are some things to which we simply can’t say “there’s an app for that”.