by Charlotte Allard

What?
In contrast to the ‘traditional’ internet, the Internet of Things does not rely on people. Becoming your eyes and your ears, this super smart network is faster than anyone. Thanks to connected devices, sensors and software solutions, enough data can now be gathered in order to improve products and, in turn, help us lead easier and less complicated lifestyles. The IoT is an innovative game changer for many industries that are now able to know more about their products or internal systems to ensure appropriate changes are put in place to improve results. ​

Longer life-cycles
Most have an old tablet lying around somewhere at home, but is there an incentive to update it? Most still work well enough to check email, scroll social media and watch Netflix. This presents a massive challenge for companies like Apple and Samsung. Tablets have proven to have longer life cycles than smartphones and consumers aren’t upgrading tablets alongside their phones every 2-3 years. Longer life cycles mean fewer sales, and less of an incentive for consumers to get excited about new tablets.
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Smartphones got bigger
The original iPhone had a 3.5 inch screen. To put the number into context, the iPhone X has a 5.8 inch screen. Smartphone screen sizes have ballooned, and tech analysts forecast the 5.5-6 inch range as the “sweet spot” in screen size. Ten inch tablet displays have become a harder sell as consumers are now comfortable watching television shows and movies on their smartphones. The “phablet” sized smartphone is squeezing out the tablet.
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Laptops replace desktops
In terms of processing power, laptops are no longer a liability. In 2010, “desktop replacement laptop” was a phrase used to describe only the most beastly laptops. Today, most laptops can handle intensive programs such as Adobe Illustrator without a hiccup. Laptops have enveloped all market space beyond smartphones. 

​A new USP?
Can tablets find a new unique selling proposition to put themselves back into consumer minds? The basic USP has remained the same since 2010: The smartphone-computer-in-between. As previously mentioned, larger smartphones combined with more powerful laptops have all but dried up this blue ocean. In 2015, Apple released a larger, faster iPad Pro to put some distance between the tablet and larger iPhones. Novel idea, but not exactly a revolutionary pivot for the product. 

What we can learn 
It may be that tablets were simply a necessary stopgap between smartphones and laptops that technology has outgrown. That doesn’t mean it was a bad product — it just occupied a blue ocean that no longer exists. As technology continues advancing at an exponential pace, we will undoubtedly see more product life cycles like that of the tablet’s. Quick maturity and a more rapidly shrinking market that leads to decline — innovators must adapt to this quick product life cycle and reorient their business models to reflect this new technology market.

​United States had the most sought-after users

By Jonathan Lopera

​As a father of two, I have constant thoughts when my kids aren’t around “Are they ok?” “I wonder what they’re up to”. “I miss them”. I recall a hot summer’s day in London as a young teenage boy. I offered to watch a friend’s toddler for 5 minutes at a busy outdoor food market and in a split second I lost sight of the little man as he vanished into a crowd of people. My heart sank in disbelief. As I looked everywhere I’ll never forget his father’s words to me before he broke down in tears; “What have you DONE?? I’ll NEVER forgive you!” he yelled.

Today I empathise fully with that father, who was understandably acting out of nothing other than paternal instinct. To my relief, the boy was eventually found safe and well, but it’s an ordeal I wouldn’t wish on any parent.
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Nowadays we have access to a number of advanced GPS solutions that can help track the whereabouts of our keys, pets or a lost child in a crowded area to the nearest square foot. So when you combine the clever use of smartphone technology with innovative apps and products, you can begin to appreciate how companies like Tile, Trax Play and hereO2 have all helped to pave the way for a more reassuring world for us parents.

I embrace technology all day long. Not just because I’ve built a career around it but because it’s part of an evolving world that supports our, and our children’s, everyday lives. There will be plenty of people who voice their opinion on the destruction that technology brings to our world and how there were much “simpler times”. I prefer to focus on the good that it can provide for up and coming generations looking to build a better future.

Take the Duolingo app for instance. It’s renowned for incorporating gamification with learning languages that include Spanish, French, Russian and Vietnamese among others. Earning points for correct answers and racing against a clock might not be a kid’s idea of gripping entertainment, but it certainly puts the fun back into learning and, more to the point, is reflective of the world they live in. So why shouldn’t I want to be a part of that as a father? And don’t we want language skills to play a vital role in our ever more globalised society?

My parents paid for Spanish tuition when I was a boy. I reap the rewards today but GOD was it boring at the time! Nowadays we have an array of fun ways to learn languages alongside younger generations who are willing and able to understand technology that can help them excel further and quicker. For what? 99p on the app store + in app purchases? Take my money.

Hands up any 80s babies who at one time or another heard the phrase “you won’t have a calculator everywhere you go” at school?

Sorry Mr. Shields, things change.

By Thomas Huxter
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The news that Facebook has signed 14,000 companies including Wal-Mart to its official business chat app, Workplace, got me thinking about how tech – and in particular instant messaging – has once again fundamentally altered the way we work.
Apps such as the ubiquitous Slack have revolutionised intra and inter-office interaction with colleagues many miles and (more commonly) a few inches away.
Slack has raised $841m of investment and is now valued at around $5bn. Which is kind of weird to anyone who went on MSN Messenger every night as a teenager and thought the world had changed a bit more in the ensuing 15 years.
The pervasiveness of office IM has been a learning curve for me. Having come from a more traditional office environment the option of a communicative medium somewhere in between an email and a chat has been refreshing (and as we all know, Millennials really don’t like using the phone).

From the ‘Dumb PRs’ channels used by journalists to mock rubbish pitches to our own ‘Coffee Club’ group, IM is just as valid a channel for watercooler moments as it is to share a vital presentation.
And that’s its problem. It blurs the distinction between formal and informal, important and trivial. In many ways it formalises triviality, yet makes important messages feel somehow trivial.
I’ve regularly started typing an IM to a colleague before realising I should just have a chat with them. Likewise, I’ve sent emails to multiple colleagues that I immediately wished I’d created an IM group for instead. IM complicates simple discussions and simplifies complex ones.
On the flipside, IM allows us to work from wherever we need to more effectively, keeping us in constant and instantaneous touch with colleagues and clients we would otherwise be comparatively isolated from. 90% of the time it makes flexible and mobile working a non-issue (although the lines between work and home have never been blurrier).
But occasionally there are mistakes. The IMistakes:

• Like the time a colleague wrote the most opaque IM ever, and none of us could figure out what it meant.

• The time a colleague and I both completed the same task after one of us misread an IM.

• The time none of us could figure out how to close down a group thread.

• And, infamously, the time a colleague sent me a message – about me – which was intended for someone else…

Proponents of office IM services point to functions that go well beyond simple messaging. Sharing links and documents, setting reminders, integrating with Google Docs, automating tasks… They’re brilliant and I suspect that many of us barely scratch the surface of their potential.
Britain is a country with notoriously poor workplace productivity, particularly in recent years. It’s certainly not because we don’t have workplace tools at our disposal. Economists might argue that it’s chronic underinvestment in the economy as a whole, longer hours for less pay and working in jobs below our levels of education and training. In the service sector, however, I reckon the Millennial employee just sets a lot of store in the art of choosing a well-timed GIF or emoji.
In a few years’ time we might decide that it’s cutting edge to, you know, talk to each other again. At which point services like Discord may have their time in the sun. Until then, /giphy.

By Thomas Huxter
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​In-game microtransactions have been around for long enough to be a gaming staple. Any mobile gamer has considered spending a small amount of real money to ‘earn’ more lives or better items; or just to avoid watching an ad or waiting half an hour to play again.
More recently, microtransactions have inevitably made their way into PC and console gaming, even to AAA games which tend to cost £45-60 outright.
Now I don’t necessarily have a problem with microtransactions on console and PC, even where they create an element of ‘pay to win’ in a game. In my experience, the most skilled players tend to triumph regardless.
For me, a potential issue arises when people, often children and teenagers, are exchanging real currency for a chance at better in-game items.
Amongst others, this is the case for:

• ‘Loot’ boxes in League of Legends, Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm;
• ‘Crates’ in Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds and Counter Strike: Global Offensive;
• ‘Packs’ in Hearthstone and FIFA Ultimate Team.

What unites them is that you don’t know exactly what you’re getting from the transaction, or even what the chance of getting something good actually is. You’re purchasing something on the basis that it could be a pandora’s box, but is more likely to resemble a set of items you recently gave to a charity shop.
There’s a chance that it contains an awesome Knife Skin or a Cristiano Ronaldo player card. In that case, you’ll probably run around your house yelling until your mother or significant other tells you to shut up.
That’s why chance-related microtransactions can be so tantalising – they give players with limited resource the chance to get lucky and access content that is normally the preserve of the top players.
But this is a lucrative commercial enterprise and, for it to continue to be so, more often than not you’ll have to come away disappointed.

​FIFA Ultimate Team – a case study
Let’s look at packs in FIFA; the ‘jumbo rare player pack’ to be precise. It’s one of the most popular and expensive and contains, according to EA Sports “the most unique top-rated players, all in a single pack. Includes 24 items, all players, all gold, all rare”.

Awesome! Right? I mean you might not get Messi in every pack, but surely you can expect to see Boateng or Fabregas pop out pretty regularly.
Well, not necessarily. Because, “rare” is a word assigned to players which can be as low rated as 75 out of 99. And the odds of finding one of these 75s are exponentially higher than one in the high 80s.
This is partly because low-rated players are far more numerous (according to the official database there are currently over 200 rare gold cards rated 75-76 and 12 rated 89-90) and partly because EA assigns a “pack weight” – effectively the odds of finding each player in any given pack. Pack contents are generated automatically at the time the pack is opened and the associated weights may not be consistent throughout the game’s lifecycle.

​A trend that’s here to stay?
This type of microtransaction makes money for the biggest and best publishers. They’re not mandatory – players have a choice whether to engage with them or not. And clearly many, many of us are choosing to do so.
But there was an interesting development in 2016 when China legislated that, from 2017, all publishers would have to reveal the odds associated with in-game microtransactions.
Does this represent an unnecessary, draconian move or is it the start of something that could see Western nations introduce greater regulation of microtransactions? As ever, there are legitimate arguments on both sides.
Making the case for greater regulation, one could argue that whilst gaming has mutated from a children’s pastime to offer something for everyone, games like FIFA are designated for ages 3+ and the associated marketing is probably most impactful amongst teens. Combine this with pack reaction videos and gleeful Tweeting from YouTubers who spend many thousands of dollars each year and the temptation is all too much.
But, again, these transactions are not mandatory. Publishers would argue that their consumers do know exactly what they’re buying. “24 items, all players, all gold, all rare”, remember? They could also legitimately state that in-game items do not have monetary value (this is true in that its terms of service forbid selling of players or account, but there is a thriving black market).
The picture isn’t clear, the lines not clearly defined. Policymaking rarely keeps up with technology. But with products like League of Legends ($1.7bn) and FIFA Ultimate Team ($800m) grossing vast amounts each year from microtransactions and platforms like fixed odds betting terminals attracting public and political interest, I suspect in-game microtransactions will face greater scrutiny as our awareness and understanding of them increases.