The R&D Futures project develops our ability to pick up on trends in audience habits and their media and technology landscapes. We try to extrapolate how these trends might play out over the next few years and how R&D and the 麻豆约拍 might respond.
One of the ways we do this is by gathering links to things that we think look like signals of changes in the world and periodically bundling them together for analysis. This is our bundle for October 2021!
The project is run by Libby and Henry and a rotating crew of colleagues from across R&D and the wider 麻豆约拍. If you're interested in collaborating with us, get in touch!
Are smartphones becoming less innovative? | Photo by Onur Binay on Unsplash
The portability of digital goods
have restricted users from moving their in-game purchased digital goods into other systems like the Epic store, as part of a general ban on NFTs and other blockchain based in-game purchases. Advanced users have been using non-fungible tokens to attach digital goods like costumes to their crypto wallets, providing potential portability between game systems.
鈥淭he idea of unique NFT skins that people can dress up their avatars in, and take from place to virtual place, is foundational to the metaverse as futurists most often describe it.鈥� (The Verge)
There is a trend of ownership outside of closed ecosystems and more users are demanding better of their own purchased digital goods, even finding loopholes in systems to provide the experiences they expect. Although these kinds of goods don鈥檛 have to be blockchain-based, that鈥檚 where the current funding is. Potentially there could be an external marketplace for in-game items, where once purchased users could claim ownership of the thing across platforms, and perhaps change the notion of what the game providers can do.
鈥� Ian Forrester
Media v tech, the battle for prominence
Although this trend is not new, some of the recent releases (such as Sky Glass, Spotify Car Thing, Facebook smart glasses) have prompted us to re-evaluate the trend. We know that owning the tech is an advantage, as it enables control of user interactions, control of user data and gives tech companies advantage in favouring their own products and services. Successful uptakes of various devices to date, such as smart speakers, have meant that tech companies can now act as gatekeepers to products and services that users experience on their devices. The government is now considering imposing rules and regulations to ensure tech companies do not abuse their powers.
However, in addition to relying on legislation targeted at tech companies, some global media players are looking to challenge the market by either releasing their own hardware or increasing their physical presence in peoples lives (think Netflix button on a remote control). Sky in this case is at an advantage in that it already owns hardware in form of satellite dishes and set-top-boxes and can leverage on existing experience. It is interesting to note that the Sky Glass TV is being offered as a subscription model.
鈥� Aleksandra Gojkovic
Tiktok鈥檚 algo running amok with true crime
from the excellent by Ryan Broderick talks about Tiktok true crime "investigations" / conspiracies. A young female influencer Gabby Petito was declared missing and users on Tikitok, Instagram and Reddit have all started 鈥渋nvestigating鈥�. The intensity of Tiktok鈥檚 algorithm - designed for fast copying and mutating and reacting, and very rapid consumption of very short pieces of video means that the story went intensely viral and became a font of misinformation.
鈥淭his is 鈥渟ignal boost鈥� culture turned up to eleven, with every random idea that could be 鈥渦seful鈥� being accelerated by TikTok鈥檚 users, and, in turn, the app鈥檚 incredibly powerful recommendation system. Which has given the whole case a deeply uncomfortable gamification鈥�
This very intense signal boosting means that anything can blow up - and no-one know the effects of this on radicalisation or polarisation. Tiktok has already surpassed YouTube for average watch time in the US and UK.
鈥� Libby Miller
New phones are only competing on cameras and batteries or novelty features like folding
New smartphones have few new features, and only seem to be competing on cameras and battery life, and these changes are incremental. The formfactor is same, price is not going down. Why is this? Is it harder to innovate now?
The average number of sensors has increased to about 14 but it鈥檚 all about better photos. Many people are interested in and understand photography, and it鈥檚 amazing to get multiple lens in this things, but there鈥檚 nowhere to really go and improvements are becoming are marginal. Phones could add other sensors, but it鈥檚 not clear that there would be enough interest in sensors currently only available in the lab.
Meanwhile, iPhone prices are going up, and mid-range Android phones are < 拢50 and work well, perhaps 2-3 years behind the top range ones in terms of functionality.
So - Is it harder to innovate? Are people refreshing their phones less often? Are phones competing on software rather than hardware?
On-device machine learning might open up new possibilities, e.g. live transcription, live translation.
Things like the right to repair might be another dimension? (and the Fairphone 4 is a big improvement on previous versions).
Or with 5G, a Chromebook like phone with software on the cloud? (though things are currently going in the other direction).
鈥� Tristan Ferne
Facebook announces funding to back the Metaverse
Facebook is rebranding to expand into their new focus/direction. Funding their Reality Labs segment $10 billion this year, while Facebook鈥檚 main ads business 鈥� a staggering $28 billion this last quarter alone 鈥� will be reported under another bucket. It has also earmarked $50m for funding organisations in Europe as it recognises it cannot do it alone, they are looking to fnd 10,000 specialised engineers.
鈥� Prabhjit Bains