The Innovation Junction

Extractor Fan Review

2008-11-17T09:29:00.002Z

I just bought a new bathroom extractor fan. Finding an independent review of the marketplace to allow me to select a good one has proved very interesting and quite difficult. I have struggled to find anything on the Internet. There are a wide range of manufacturers and many different product features but no decent review website for consumers to pick products. I ended up buying a Vent-Axia (despite being 3 times the price of its competitor) because it has a Royal Warrant which suggested that they made good machines.

Not even Which magazine has done a review. Really surprising.

The level and kinds in innovation in the domestic extractor fan area make it quite interesing, new low noise levels, lower energy consumption, slimmer designs. There is a lot going on....

Sustainable Tropical House Design

2008-11-09T19:06:00.003Z

I've just been to Ghana, an up and coming country in West Africa. As part of its development people of course want better housing. And it is coming quickly, I noticed however that people are building US style McMansions. These buildings require huge amounts of air conditioning to make them remotely livable due to the high humidity and local temperatures. I was surprised how few people were designing buildings more in keeping with local conditions and thereby reducing the energy bills from the 24-7 use of air conditioning. Judging by the number of electricity cuts I experienced while I was there a reduction in energy output would not go amiss....

Jean Prouve's Tropical House Design from the 50's might be a good pointer.

Belkin USB Network Hub

2008-08-29T12:50:00.001Z

I love it and hate it.

I have all the peripherals and Western Digital Box hidden under the stairs using a powerline adapter. But its sooo slow ! It takes 2hrs to transfer a 3GB file and that is with no wifi in the chain.

I wish they would make a faster one.

It's a great innovation but too slow.

A call for online innovation

2008-07-11T18:34:00.002Z

Today I tried to send a fax to Paypal. Why I hear you ask did you have to send a fax to Paypal, a poster child of the internet.

Well apparently their account verification systems require a fax to verify certain personal details. Scanning and emailing the required document is not enough ?? Paypal strike again.

Well, I don't have a fax machine so I thought there are lots of email to fax services online so I'll use one of those. Well the concept of Pay as you go email to fax does exist from my quick hunt around the web. If I wanted to buy 100 faxes for $40 then no problem. Send one fax for $1, a problem.

Why is no one offering pay as you go fax to email ?

My solution to nokia battery life issues

2008-07-05T07:32:00.002Z

I now have a Nokia 6120 which I bought for £50, I've upgraded from an e61. This has pretty much all the features I need HSDPA, Email, web access, VOIP and music through bluetooth. Not bad for £50. The battery life though when I 'm using web, music, bluetooth at the same time is about 4hrs..... Not enough to last a day.
It is not enough to justify the extra £300 to buy an unlocked N95. So I bought an external charger and 2, yes two more batteries.

At least I don't need Wifi because of my amazing 1GB data allowance for only £5 a month with 3.

I now have one battery on permanent charging on rotation and my battery life problems have gone away. Not ideal but I can't see the battery life improving anytime soon with the way the services keep getting added. I love to get a phone wih GPS but that would be crazy with the power drain that it would add to the phone.

Bluetooth headsets return to normal

2008-06-09T14:57:00.003Z

As one of those people who resisted looking like I was calling down an airstrike by having one of those large lumps stuck on my ear. I was glad to see a new range of bluetooth clips are on the rise. These devices eg Sony Ericsson's HBH DH-200 mean the earbuds look normal and allow you to control your phone as well if you use it to listen to music as I do. I just switched from the e61 to Nokia 6120, which has amazing features and if you can live without inbuild gps and a bit screen is as good as the N78 or any of their ilk !

I'd love to know whose idea it was to stick all the electronics of a bluetooth headset in the earpiece rather than attached as a clip on. I think on ear "bugs" will die out pretty quickly now.

Adios !

3D Digital Camera

2008-05-30T08:01:00.001Z

I want one ! It seems the next logical step. The processing power is here. Maybe its the technology to view them that is the problem. I am sure they could charge $1000 for one and start making some money in the business again.

I'm watching stereovision.com in hope....

How technology is sold to the public. Freesat vs Freeview

2008-05-15T14:49:00.003Z

As any marketeer knows there any many ways to sell technology to the general public, often the feature touted may not be the best feature about the technology. It gets very interesting when one observes how technology innovations are marketed to the general public.

Here in the UK, there has been a recent launch of a new Satellite based multichannel television delivery system, Freesat from the BBC and ITV. The official marketing blurb I saw give its selling point as allowing those homes who can't get freeview (the current multichannel delivery system) where they live.

What was interesting was that as a footnote they also noted that High Definition channels will also be available on the platform for free and there will be 200 channels. Which is great considering that Sky and Virgin Media both charge for the privilege of HD and a large number of channels.

For me this is the truly compelling benefit of Freesat and I immediately went out and bought a set top box and and am now the proud viewer of HD television for free. Apparently I am not alone since the HD boxes are already sold out in most stockists in the UK.

I am at a loss as to why the BBC and ITV are not more heavily pushing it as a HD platform which Freeview can only deliver by compromising the system. This means that Freesat will be the majority viewing platform in a few years. Under 3 years I think if they get the HD programming right.

I know politically due to the license fee they need to get Freeview to everyone and that's fine but the HD and 200 channels (Freeview has around 50) is the real killer application.

The subscription based TV model of Virgin and Sky may well be damaged by this move in the medium term.

Stealing bikes - An environmental crime ?

2008-04-21T19:38:00.005Z

I live in London, don't have a car and cycle around a lot. I have to admit to a certain sense of relief every time I return to the bike stand and my bike is still there ! It got me thinking, with all the issues around global warming bike crime needs to be taken more seriously.

Its not just the theft of a £200 machine but an environmental crime which reduces cycling around the city and thereby harms the planet.

It is election time here in London for a new Mayor but none of the major candidates have hit upon this as a policy issue. It's a hot button for me. I'd cycle more if there was a better chance my bike would actually still be there when I'm finished !

Please someone put GPS on bikes so I know I find my again ! I've had three stolen in as many years.

Intel and the cosmic ray

2008-04-15T20:30:00.002Z

Listening to Material World on the BBC I was interested to learn that Intel now have a patent for a chip that also has a cosmic ray detector attached to allow the new superchips that are sensitive to cosmic rays to be told to do calculations again.

Apparently is more elegant that building huge amounts of shielding. Super computers have some many chips a cosmic ray can cause a computational error a few times a week !

I like the fact that the engineer thought around the problem rather than just working on more shielding.

What a year !

2008-04-02T08:27:00.003Z

My start-up is at a critical phase and I just too the IoD certificate of company direction exam which took up all my time. Hopefully I'm a better board member now. Innovation Junction wise, I was interested to see that all the VCs are complaining that internet start-ups don't need their money any more. They invest $1m rather than $20m in start-ups these days and alongside angels more often.

The economics of book selling in the UK.

2008-01-03T15:02:00.001Z

From the Times of London 3^rd Jan 2008

"Of 200,000 books sold last year, 190,000 sold fewer than 3,500 copies. More damning still, of 85,933 new books published, as many as 58,325 sold an average of just 18 copies."

These figures make depressing reading for anyone in business. Maybe a decent ebook reader will change this. Kindle mark 2 maybe ?

Books cost around £7 ($14), it's too much. The right device will completely change the publishing model in this age of P2P everything.

The economics of book selling in the UK.

2008-01-03T15:02:00.000Z

From the Times of London 3^rd Jan 2008

"Of 200,000 books sold last year, 190,000 sold fewer than 3,500 copies. More damning still, of 85,933 new books published, as many as 58,325 sold an average of just 18 copies."

These figures make depressing reading for anyone in business. Maybe a decent ebook reader will change this. Kindle mark 2 maybe ?

Books cost around £7 ($14), it's too much. The right device will completely change the publishing model in this age of P2P everything.

Best of the year 2007

2007-12-31T11:56:00.000Z

HereInnovations of the year in my opinion

Consumer: iPhone, It's not perfect and the tariff is terrible but it shown the way to the next level of computing, shame on Nokia for not doing it first.

Science: Changing skin cells into embryonic stem cells, if this pans out it will solve a lot of problems, well done Harvard Stem Cell Institute

Industrial/Business: I had to think about this but I settled on the trend towards replacing hard drives with flash memory. This trend will accelerate into an avalanche next year.

I hope next year I get to nominate some real innovation in the cleantech area.

All the best for 2008.

Bin your oven

2007-12-27T19:19:00.001Z

Its becoming increasingly obvious to the medical community that the way we cook our food on a daily basis is not exactly great for our health. Cooking meat at high temperatures for hours on end to create these roasts we love creates chemicals in the food that cause cancer apparently.

In 20 years people will shake their heads at how we used to cook meat and then wonder why cancer was rising. That is why I'm really please to see the Turbochef oven coming to the consumer market.

The patented Airspeed technology is the key apparently, Using air it cooks the food in a fraction of the time it used to take and the food looks pretty good too. Up to fifteen times faster. That Xmas turkey will be a lot less hassle in the future.

Soon all ovens will be this way. Click here to see the future of cooking.

Their premium pricing it right now, but when it comes down a bit I'll be in the queue.

Lifestyle or supernova ?

2007-12-27T19:05:00.000Z

How do you find the right kind of high tech start-up to create/work for ?

There are a couple of common types:-

Service: Take existing businesses to new distribution channels, eg the Internet and use it to take the service to a new level. eg Streetcar, zipcar, cars for hire by the hour. Perfect for the internet. Can be low risk but it's hard to find the business that you can hit out of the park. You can start these in your backroom.

Underlying IP: eg Google, novel search technology or 23andme, novel medical technology. High risk but with strong defendable IP it's possible to hit these businesses out of the part. Generally you need VC or background investment from the inventor for years.

The underlying IP businesses can have big exits but are harder to make lifestyle businesses, the kind that earn a decent salary that enables you to do other things with your life.

Of course it's possible to move from one type to the other or merge the types and that is where the innovation junction comes in. If you can do that you might even have a Microsoft on your hands !

I personnally have tried both types and find the fast, furious nature of the product business to be my favourite.

I love working on the supernova type buiness, burning brightly for a short period of time and then moving onto the next one.

Armchair Astronomer

2007-12-24T12:05:00.000Z

I'm a Founder Member of Slooh. The online observatory which to date has had an observatory in the Canary Islands. I've always loved the idea of being able to see sky objects that I couldn't otherwise observe and have been a big user.

It's made me into a bit of a night owl though because to date the only site was in the Canary Islands (I live in the UK). The site of course has a US focus. I'm really pleased that they are now opening sites in Australia and Chile to allow someone anywhere in the world to observe the night sky at any time.

This is true innovation because it will advance the already strong tradition of amateur astronomy and open the hobby to many more people, roll on 2008 !

The rise of the flat rate dataplan

2007-12-21T10:13:00.000Z

When will voice plans be gone ? Not long now, Three's dataplan is 1GB, Vodafone a less generous 125MB, 1GB is plenty 125mb is nowhere near enough. Vodafone's network is more robust than three's so take your pick. Now you can get anonymous dataplans on pay as you go cards. So people can surf through their phones and be more untraceable since the connection is not tied to an address. Another headache for law enforcement.....

Innovation at the level of Cities

2007-12-19T21:49:00.000Z

Can Cities innovate ?

Can a mayor like Bloomberg (NY) or Livingstone (London) enable innovation by their policies ?

Maybe we know that when a critical mass of infrastructure is put in place exciting things are can happen. eg Silicon Valley

But can Cities with fast transport links (eg Crossrail) and great leisure facilities (Olympic park), or new car policies (Congestion charge) create an environment which moves cities to the next level.

I think we are moving to new levels of cities where the ability of a city to satisfactorily enable up to 10m people to efficiently live together will enable it to take a lead over it's competitors.

As someone who struggles around London every day I look forward to better links and the benefits of living in a 21st century city.

The end of inclusive minutes

2007-12-10T10:46:00.000Z

I've just taken an inclusive data plan from 3, my UK mobile network on my E61. 1GB per month.

It has completely changed the way I use my mobile phone. Voice is now completely secondary. Direct sync of calendar, direct podcast downloads and internet radio, real-time weather updates and GPS. I can't stop using the phone.

If the iphone was unlocked I'd pay the money to use it on 3. I really hope the new range of smart phones next year can compete with the iphone.

I think the phone is now moving from where the money is in the hardware and networks to the money is in the software just like in PCs. Who will be the Microsoft of the phone age ? Will it be symbian, Android or Windows mobile ? Maybe the platform will be irrelevant. It's going to be interesting to find out.

Do tech companies worry about R&D too much ?

2007-11-19T15:01:00.000Z

I've been wondering if technology companies worry about R&D too much as a route to innovation. I know from experience we tend to underestimate the importance of marketing in the overall mix in a tech company.

First like emergeconsulting.com are tapping into the need of techie types in improve their marketing.

Mentoring entrepreneurs

2007-11-03T15:37:00.000Z

I'm getting to the point of my career where I can actually help other entrepreneurs with advice. It's a nice feeling to believe that I might be able to help the next generation of start-ups in medical devices get moving. I do though feel that my exposure to other entrepreneurs at the same experience stage is limited. I've been wondering how the European younger med-tech entrepreneurs network. I go to the investor events but why are not we not sharing our tech ideas in a more structured format. EU medical device entrepreneurs, lets get together and create a momentum to build the business !

Will Africa industrialise ?

2007-10-22T08:48:00.000Z

I often wonder when I look at the lists of where multinationals have their offices whether Africa will ever industrialise.

So often you see, London, NY, Tokyo, but never Lagos, Nairobi or Accra. In the search for low cost manufacturing we have seen firms rush headlong to China and India, Brazil and Eastern Europe. Wages and prices there are starting to rise, its ever so slightly but it is noticeable. The move to these countries staved off large scale automation of manufacturing in the West by a couple of decades but it can't last forever. Will we now finally see firms move production to Africa to take advantage of the low wages or will they consider the political risk too high and instead decide to automate ?

I hope that the low wage economies of Asia stop being so in a decade or so and that firms have the will to move to Africa.

I wish funds like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation would channel some of their money to aiding companies to invest in Africa by removing the political risk premium. The world would be if all continents got to participate in its economic activity.

Sony Vaio, marketing over innovation ?

2007-10-20T07:26:00.000Z

I bought one of these beautiful looking, light machines 3 months ago. Now it sits in a draw unused.

Why ? First the sound stopped working, then the touch pad stopped working, then the screen stopped working. Since I made the mistake of buying it in the US and not taking a global warranty I was in a corner. So I "invested" £300 to get the screen fixed by a local repairer. One week later I found my entire online life had been password compromised and the machine also now refused to boot up, so that was a bad idea. £50 of premium calls to Sony later it became clear my best bet for to put the machine in a draw and forget about it.

I recently bought a Samsung Q45 which has solved all my problems.

The point of this post is to complain about the direction of innovation in some products. Why are people so focused on chip innovation and not focused on robustness, reliability and ease of use. The some goes with flat screen TVs. Huge amounts of innovation in resolution but factors like, contrast and refresh speed are not getting a fair mention. I think we need unified marketing measures, like an overall score that factors in all the relevant technical factors so that firms can't focus on one factor like processor speed over memory to the detriment of all. Intel led this charge and need to move on quickly.

Boston VC medtech event

2007-10-05T15:51:00.000Z

Just presented at a Boston VC medtech event. It's impressive to see people committing over $40m to start-ups accessing $1 billion markets. As the CEO of a UK based start-up I can only watch in envy. I hope the appetite for trans-atlantic deals grows so we can access some of this formidable cash. Another interesting thing was the number of companies put together by VCs around outstanding individuals rather than great ideas. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues.