McDonald's Acquisition of Dynamic Yield - Software Continues to Eat the World

Last month, McDonald's made headlines by announcing it's largest acquisition in over 20 years, dishing out $300M for seven year old Dynamic Yield. A noteworthy move by the fast food giant that requires a second look:

Below listen to CEO Steve Easterbrook speak about the acquisition:

Items that stand out:
1. Mass personalization as opposed to mass generalization is the future of the service industry. No two menus will be the same, each customer will see entirely different ordering options much the same way two users see different Google search results now. This applies to all customer facing applications... on mobile, at a self order kiosk in a physical store, or on the drive thru.  

2. Software continues to eat the world. Algorithms replace repetitive human labor. What was once run entirely by labor intensive humans will not be digitized. The future looks something more like: Driver A's autonomous vehicle moves into McDonald’s drive through lane, a video monitor recognizes the car license plate or face of the driver. Software then quickly determines the personal preferences favor healthy options and there is only one occupant in the car. As the vehicle approaches the ordering screen, the menu will display salad options more prominently. 

3. Buzzword BINGO will never die. Listen to the video above to hit your letters... 'intelligent menu boards' / 'data mining' / 'digital platform' / 'personalized experience' /... even Amazon got a name check! 

Below is the original article written by Marc Andreessen in 2011:                                                       "Why Software is Eating the World"

Google 2016 Year in Review

I find this video fascinating every year.... Enjoy.

And for reference, here is 2015 in review:

Fitbit: The True Oppurtunity

On news that a Fitbit has helped save a man's life and with the stock being up over 10%... Today I want to talk about the true potential of Fitbit.

Right now, Fitbit is a fitness company. The company has a focus on helping people get in better shape. The social platform allows users to interact and compete against each other. However, the great opportunity for the company lies beyond fitness, it is in overall healthcare and corporate wellness programs. 

A Fitbit may help insurance companies save money. If people wearing Fitbit devices lead healthier lifestyles, insurers may pay out less in health care costs in the long run. Health insurers may begin subsidizing Fitbit devices to their customers. After all, just a few days ago it was reported that a Fitbit saved a man's life. The doctor was able to utilize data from the Fitbit to administer medical treatment properly.

I see three points of focus for Fitbit to transition further into being an overall healthcare company.

1. Greater analytics & appealing visual dashboard

2. Statistically proven health benefits of the device

3. Increasingly accurate sensors

Fitbit is doubling R&D spending for this year. CEO James Park has mentioned they view themselves as a "digital health and wellness company" and 2016 will be a year for increased
"software improvements, more algorithms, and coaching". This speaks beyond getting people up and running more, he is looking beyond the hardware and seeing what these devices can tell us. 

Analytics provided to healthcare insurers can help them understand how a Fitbit leads to a healthier lifestyle, what level of activity or heart rate can lower the chance of heart disease. Actionable insights from Fitbit will force the hand of insurance companies. It will become clear that they must find a way to get these devices into the hands of their customers. At that point, not only will sales from the physical devices soar but also Fitbit will begin to monetize additional aspects of the business. The data and analytics they provide can be monetized. 

Of course, for all of this to occur, the sensors on the devices must improve. It's a safe bet that Fitbit engineers are working hard to do just that. If you believe that this is a possibility, it may a worthwhile investment while the company is valued at just over $3 Billion. After all, the healthcare sector is a $1 Trillion plus business per year.

Tesla Model 3: 115,000 pre-orders within 2 hours

Last night, Tesla finally unveiled its planned electric car for the masses, the Model 3. The presentation was reminiscent of early Apple launches, with people lining up outside the company stores just for the right to put a $1,000 deposit down on a car that they had not even seen yet. 

The most striking aspect of the presentation was how Elon Musk began by talking about climate change. Before even mentioning the car or showing it off, he put up two graphics on the screen. One, showed carbon emissions from the beginning of time to present day. The other, showed how global temperatures are rising over time. He then spoke about how this car is important to the future of humanity; that it is important for the world to switch away from the internal combustible engine and to clean electric transport.

The take away from it all... this company is about more than just a car. Tesla is selling a powerful idea, an idea that they are the ones that will stop climate change. They are going to bring clean transportation to the masses, and on top of that, it will be done with a great car. A car that has the ability to run software updates wirelessly and plugs in to charge just like your phone. Buying a Tesla means you will never visit a gas station again. Musk finished off by thanking the 650+ Model S and Model X owners in the audience for their purchase, telling them they helped to fund the Model 3. Again, the belief that a purchase of a Tesla is about something greater than just a car. Your purchase of a Model S helped save the planet by funding the low cost Model 3. Now, your purchase of the Model 3 will help stave off climate change. 

Whether right or wrong, this belief has already helped Tesla build a tremendous cult following. It is this fervent belief in Elon Musk's dream that may help propel the company to the top in the years to come.

Wearables & Personal Health Data

Recently, the viability of wearable devices has been put into question. Both pundits and consumers alike are asking themselves, "What is the point?" with many calling the devices a "fad". This question is a valid concern, for after all, what does it mean to when users learn they walk 10,000 steps in a day, have a resting heart rate of 60 beats per minute, they slept for 7 hours 50 minutes last night, or see that they gained 6 pounds over the past 3 months?

Latest Fitbit lineup of wearable devices

I can understand these comments. Consumers want products to be simple and easy to use. Right now, these users are questioning whether these devices have a purpose beyond nudging them to exercise more. Let us take a look at the current user interface design for Fitbit:

Here is a chart of my resting heart rate over the past month.

Looking at takes some time to see what is going on. First, I can see clearly that on weekends my heart rate is lower, presumably I am more relaxed. On the 15th of March I was quite stressed at work, which was followed by a week of elevated heart rate. The precipitous decline shows the result of when I made a tough decision. In the future, I think Fitbit will make it easier to ascertain why your heartbeat is above or below normal levels, and suggest ways to adjust your behavior accordingly. Patterns may emerge, for instance, if you exercise 30 minutes per day, your heart rate may show you in a healthier range. If you eat certain foods or follow a certain diet you may see the corresponding results in your heart rate. Right now, the data is not intuitive, patterns don't jump out at you. That will change over time.

Next, Sleep Data.

Again, this gives almost nothing of true, useful value at first glance. It's nice to see how much you sleep, or how little you are sleeping. Although one thing I have found interesting, is that people have found out that they suffer from sleep apnea after they purchased a Fitbit by being able to see how many times they were restless at night. Moving forward, I think that the medical profession will be able to pinpoint certain disease onsets by studying user sleep patterns.

Wearable technology is about more than counting steps and working out. The next step is automatic data analysis for doctors to use and for each individual to have a personalized health assistant. Companies like Fitbit or Apple now need dedicated teams of scientists and doctors to analyze, link, and come up with suggestions based on the user's health data that these devices are capturing. Sleep trends may be correlated to caffeine consumption, stress, or overall health. The timing and duration of weight loss or weight gain can signify the onset of an illness. Our resting heart rate over time may be useful in trying to predict and prevent heart disease. We are just beginning to see this take shape. To count out wearables as nothing more than expensive pedometers is a mistake.

It reminds me of noted economist and NY Times writer Paul Krugman, who penned an article in 1998 in which he claimed... 

"By 2005 or so, it will become clear the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machines."

It is easy for people to be dismissive of new technologies. People may disregard many transformative ideas right up until the point they become mainstream. Wearables today may feel bulky and redundant to your smartphone, but they are becoming mainstream. Continuous improvements will allow these devices to gather valuable insight about ourselves that will help us all lead happier, healthier, and ultimately longer lives. 

The Quantified Self: Mapping Personal Location Data

Putting two days of foursquare data on a map. Visualizing my commute to and from work.

Improving the User Experience on Twitter

For the first time in quite a while, I logged onto my Twitter Account. Let me clarify, nothing special has drawn me back to the app, I'm back simply because I wanted to see if the company had made any product improvements since the last time tweeted. Which turns out, was May of 2015. After a few minutes digging into the platform, I was left severely underwhelmed with any new changes (or lack thereof).

Before going into further details on what I think needs to change, I will make a quick disclaimer and say I have been bearish on Twitter for before, my previous posts on the matter can be found here and here and here. In my view, the company is continuing its trend in the wrong direction. Below I will detail just a few minor changes that the twitter team could implement to make a difference.

1. The "Noise" and Increased Personalization

One of the first things that stood out to me is how much junk there is on twitter. There are plenty of interesting people and accounts out there that I want to "follow" but I also don't want to see 100 tweets from them about the avocado they had for lunch. My timeline, granted I only follow some 200+ people, was filled with junk that I could care less about. Twitter should be able to solve this for me. If I want to follow the Wired Account, I should be able to without being bombarded by 100 tweets that I am uninterested in, only to sift through and find the one thing that I am. Say I have an interest in Renewable Energy, well then I may only want to see Wired articles about new technologies in renewable energy, not about new video games or movies. A different example would be if I was someone into the NFL or Fantasy Football and wanted to follow Adam Schefter. His account has around 30,000 tweets, and once you follow his account, your feed will be clogged with his tweets. As a member since 2006, his tweet total of 30,000 puts him at an average of 15 tweets a day. If you follow 200 people like him, you are looking at 3,000 tweets PER DAY that you will have to sort through. If you are only interested in 10% of what is being said, that leaves 2,700 garbage tweets to find the 300 you actually want to see. 

So there is a classification of tweets. Let's break it down.
1. Tweets that are useful to everyone.
2. Tweets that are useful to me and only me
3. Tweets that are useful to others but not me

For instance, if I am a Jets fan, I may only want to see his tweets related to my team, or if I have Tom Brady on my fantasy team, only put through a tweet about him, save me the tweets on the rest. Cowboy fans may want to see tweets related to their team but don't care about the New York Jets. We both should be able to follow the same account and not have to look through tweets we don't care about. Changing this can benefit Twitter by making the platform more user friendly. When accounts tend to tweet hundreds of times a day, my reaction is to unfollow them just to clear away the junk. But this defeats the purpose of Twitter. Shifting through the "noise" out there and allowing me to personalize my twitter feed content would allow me to follow more people without being overloaded with the unimportant information that I have no interest in.

2. Search your Timeline & Create your Own History

Twitter should do a much better job allowing me to go back in time and see my past tweets. Not only that, there should be milestones and other important tweets that will stand out to me... Twitter is attempting this with the "pin your tweet" idea. So you can choose to have a tweet pinned to your front page. When someone visits your profile they will see that tweet first before your most recent tweet, even if you pin something from 2010. One thing I actually enjoyed was going through my old tweets. This allowed me to reminisce on memories I may have previously forgotten about. It was as if the tweet has forever minted a memory for me, the tweet itself brought back recognition of an experience or time in my life. However, others were embarrassing and I deleted a couple hundred useless tweets. There should be an option to turn a tweet private, similar to how Facebook allows users to post something to a private audience. Twitter should implement something similar, where users are be able to determine if the tweet is viewable only to themselves, or only to certain viewers. I wanted to keep my old tweets for myself but I also didn't want my followers to see them. Yes, you can make your account private, but that still allows your current followers to see the tweets. More personalization and security over the tweets is a necessary step for Twitter. 

3. Moments

This new feature is a step in the right direction and needs to be a continued push for Twitter. I don't have much to say about this. The interface needs improvement, but overall an emphasis on a "what is happening now" page that moves beyond just trending hashtags is positive. 

Twitter's New Moments Feature

Conclusion: 

The bottom line is, Twitter has to start improving quickly or it risks being overrun by the Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat crowd. There is nothing proprietary about Twitter over any other social media service. 140 characters has run its course, no one cares anymore. Right now, the Twitter platform still benefits from celebrities and newscasters posting information to Twitter, and making a big splash when something silly/stupid goes up. If that's the only reason your platform has traction, something isn't right. Left uncorrected, this could spell doom for Twitter. Celebrities and Newscasters are already moving to Instagram and Snapchat. What's to stop everyone else?

Word Count and Historical Trends: What Google Can Show Us

Discover a great new tool that Google has, allowing you to search any English word or phrase you'd like. Google then searches through books, articles and all other publications for that phrase and returns the data in a visual format. Below are some of the more interesting results I wanted to share... you can also test the feature for yourself by following this link: https://books.google.com/ngrams

American Civil War

The lead-up to the Civil War and it's aftermath, with a slight tick up heading into the 20th century. Notice another upturn during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Fall of the Berlin Wall

The use of the word "Communism" rises in the early 20th century before coming crashing down as the Berlin Wall falls in the later quarter of the century.

World War Two

The end of WW1 makes way for a political party known as the Nazi Party, giving rise to the word "Nazi." Ultimately culminating with the Nuremberg war crime trials in the 1950s. Notice it has remained mostly level ever since.

Something called "Google" begins...

The phrase "Google it" enters popular lexicon, like a rocket ship in the 1990s.

The American Revolution

The use of the word "Tyranny" rises dramatically as the colonists decide to break away from the British. A steady decline in tyranny ever since the birth of United States America.

Terrorism

A slow build in the use of the word over time. Worth noting the rise before 9/11 as well as in the aftermath.

Money

Looks like the birth of America gave rise to a fixation on money.

Past vs. Future

Seems like people have always been fixated on the future. But more recently, the past has been creeping up on us.

Jawbone Coffee App Tracks Your Caffeine Intake

This one's for all you daily coffee drinkers out there.

With the rise of wearable technology, it is only inevitable that there is now an increasing amounts of data you can keep track of. The Jawbone Coffee App allows you to enter, you guessed it, your coffee intake. Though you do have to manually enter the information on the app every time you drink a coffee, the app does simplify this by having pre-programmed options from two of the more popular coffee chains, both Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. So, after you stop off at Starbucks for your morning Americano, all you have to do is choose 'Americano' and pick a size from the menu. It will also save your most recent inputs, so if you have a routine drink everyday there's no need to go through the menu again, it will be right on top. What's the point? The app knows precisely how much caffeine is in that cup you just had. Next time you go to the doctor, and once more data points are recorded, your doctor will have a substantial amount of personal data to go over. And why not add caffeine to the analysis? 

The interface could use some improvement, but the overall idea is there. This is another example of the push for the 'quantified self' that I've mentioned in previous posts.

 

 You can also see a graph of your sleep readiness, which Jawbone calculates based on caffeine intake and body statistics such as height, weight, and level of reaction to caffeine. Sometimes I'll test this by entering a coffee into the app and seeing what time I'll be sleep ready. It can help someone gain awareness about how long the caffeine will be in their system for. Perhaps you will now be able to correlate with certainty that your sleeping pattern is affected by your caffeine intake. Give this app a whirl if that is something that sounds interesting to you.

Apple Pay & Health Kit: Furthering Medical Data

I've finally adopted the use of Apple Pay on my Iphone and the experience has been pleasant. Yes, if you compare pulling out your phone with the act of pulling a credit card out of your wallet, it may not seem that different. Before the Apple Watch makes payments as easy as a wrist movement, let me iterate some tangible benefits of Apple Pay usage on a mobile phone.

1. Security. Lose your wallet, and someone will be able to take your credit cards, forcing you to get new cards and put through fraud activity. Lose your phone, and they cannot access your cards without your fingerprint.

2. Convenience. It is easier to move a phone towards a payment reader and use a fingerprint to pay then to take out a wallet and remove a credit card. Swipe and put everything back. Let’s be honest, your phone was probably already in your hand while you waited on line. Just leave it there.

3. Receipts. Never worry about the annoying paper receipts that end up in your pocketbook or pants pocket only to be thrown out later on. The Apple Pay app keeps your payments listed neatly under each card. So you can quickly check whether the charge was correct or not. Without logging on to your bank I might add.

Receipts neatly featured within Apple Pay.

With these features in mind, let me describe a situation where Apple Pay benefits consumers beyond just convenience. It will also make us healthier. Here's how.

I began my use of Apple Pay by purchasing breakfast at Duane Reade. Some mornings I will grab an orange juice, banana, yogurt or some combination and head to the register, where, instead of taking out my wallet, fishing out a credit card or cash, I simply take out my phone, click passbook and hold it up to the reader. My phone buzzes and prompts me to verify payment with a fingerprint scan. A split second later, the transaction is complete. Afterwards, a notification tells me that the payment was processed and I now have a mobile receipt on my Iphone. Simple enough, but what if the items I purchased were instantly integrated into the health kit application. So the vitamin content, sugar content, caloric content is all seamlessly recorded in my personal account. People today looking to keep track of what they eat and drink must manually select each item, at the most they can hope to scan a barcode and have it enter, which is what FitBit’s app achieves. However, that is cumbersome and annoying, especially for those in a rush. With this setup, each mobile device user will have an entire history of their nutritional intake in the health kid app. Doctors will be able to pull up the profile of a patient and get a clear picture of their habits. Researchers will be better able to discern what diets and what foods cause disease. Or what foods and drinks prevent disease.

It is obvious mobile payments are going to become more and more prominent in the future. A small convenience can go a long way for consumers. However, the real takeaway so far is this thought of how to interconnect mobile payments and the health kit. That sounds like a healthier future for everyone, as each person is better able to understand what they are eating and can speak to the doctor about how their diet effects them. Not to mention the enormous amount of data this will provide medical staff, making it much easier to correlate factors that may cause various diseases. Mobile data and new technologies will revolutionize healthcare, how many times have we heard that? Every day it becomes clearer that this will indeed become a reality.

Instagram Rolls out Live Trends: Competition for Twitter

The New Discover Page

The Wall Street Journal User Account

Instagram is rolling out a new feature for to make finding trends easier for its users. Today, in a blog post from the company, Instagram declared that users will now be able to "See the World as it Happens". Might sound familiar. Social Media is becoming more and more about the live event. What was once Twitter's advantage, is now everyone's ballgame, both Instagram and Snapchat have been updating their products consistently to advance the real time activity of their app. And, if you thought hashtags were exclusive to Twitter, you'd be wrong. Check out the front page of this feature on #Instagram. This goes to show, once again, that there is nothing distinctive about Twitter that cannot be quickly adopted by other services. Right now, the biggest draw to using Twitter is to find out about ongoing events, live action events. Users also follow celeberties and news anchors accounts to get updates, however more and more of those users are moving towards Snapchat and Instagram instead of Twitter. If Instagram and Snapchat continue to move onto that turf, Twitter (with it's CEO on the way out) could find itself battling to stay relevant in this fast paced duel of social media giants. 

Personally, give me a reason to go check my Twitter feed or search a trend when I'm already on Instagram or Snapchat. Just the other day I noticed (thanks to Instagram's fantastic prediction algorithm of what I might like) the Wall Street Journal had started two Instagram accounts. I now follow both. And I haven't checked Twitter in quite a while now....

Tesla Unveils Home Battery to Store Power

Tesla announced an entirely new product line yesterday that, surprise, was not a car. Owner Elon Musk showcased Tesla's new push into home power storage with the unveiling of what is called, "The Powerwall." Essentially, it's a large $3,500 home battery that homeowners and businesses can use to store excess power for use when they need at a later time. This ultimately provides savings on energy costs.

As Elon Musk put it during his presentation, this product may have the potential to, "fundamentally change the way the world uses energy, at the extreme scale." However, before that becomes a reality, and considering this is an entirely new market for Tesla to be entering, there will obviously be speed-bumps as this technology progresses down the road into mainstream use. Just as Teslas are hard to spot on the road today, Powerwalls will be tough to spot in the garage. Let's take a look at a list of some immediate concerns and benefits that comes to mind:


                1.  The life span of the battery itself. After what period of time will owners have to replace the battery due to the diminishing returns on efficiency? Over time, the battery will lose efficiency and each charge will add less and less power to the battery. Think of the first charge you get on your new phone compared to one year into use. If you find yourself constantly having to charge your phone, that's because the battery inside has lost a portion of it's energy capacity. The same would hold true of this home battery. Tesla is offering a 10 year warranty on the product, so I'm assuming that they will replace the battery for free during that time if any issues arises. So $3,500 may be good for at least 10 years. 

                2. How much money will this actually save the consumer? The average cost of electricity in the US is somewhere around 10-12 cents per kWh. If your house consumers 1000 kWh per month, you're paying a little over $100. That's $1200 per year in electricity. So, even if you can sell back electricity to the utility companies, installing a battery and solar panels on the roof still costs many times what you would be saving. The building of the Gigafactory is one way Tesla is going to bring down installation costs, but until there are substantial improvements in cost reduction on both products (or further tax subsidies), these products are only possible for a select market. It is just not economically feasible for the average American household. 

                3. Environmental Benefits. This could potentially save large amounts of waste energy that is produced on the grid. Power plants have no storage capacity, and a power plant is constantly cranking out energy. If demand is lower than supply, that excess energy is being wasted. However, if there is a place to store that energy in batteries, this energy can be used later at night or some other date. Thus, energy is being used more efficiently.

                4. Backup Power. With Hurricans and large storms becoming more and more frequent, the need for backup power will increase. Can batteries take the place of what gas generators provide now for those worried about losing power during a storm or blackout?

               5. Efficiency for Utilities. Is it possible utility companies put up some capital to have these installed in residential homes? Thus, instead of drawing power from the grid during peak hours, homeowners or the utility company could draw energy out of the batteries. There would be less strain on the energy grid as there is less demand on "just in time" energy delivery. This would be a way in which both utility companies and homeowners could save, as the cost of electricity is more expensive both to consumer and produce during peak usage hours, so a reduction in usage during peak hours is a benefit to both.

Overall, this is a great step in the direction of a sustainable future. It's not hard to imagine a world where each home has the ability to generate electricity from the sun and store excess during the day with the ability to use that stored energy at night or during cloudy days. A world of renewable, off the grid energy, that is freely captured from the sun. I do like the sound of that.

Amazon Dash: April Fools?

Apparently this is not an early April Fools Joke. Amazon has made shopping on their site even easier. One click checkout wasn't enough, now it's quite literally going to be just one push of the button away. Dash will be available only to Amazon Prime subscribers, furthering Amazon's push to get people to sign up for their service. Essentially, Dash is a system of buttons that will be attached to certain spots in your home, when you run out of or are close to running out of a certain product, you hit the corresponding button and Amazon will ship you more. Simple. And don't worry about hitting the button multiple times and having 200 laundry detergent bottles show up at your front door -- hitting the button more than once still results in just one order being processed. You also will have 30 minutes to cancel the order and a notification immediately pops up on your phone to confirm the order. 

Let's think about the upside to owning a product like this. If I need a refill of toothpaste or razors quickly, I might run to a CVS or grocery store. But if I see myself getting low a day or two before and am busy with work, I can hit the Dash button to preempt me running out. By the time I use my last razor, a refill pack will be sitting at my door. Easy? According to Amazon, they believe this convenience will work for lots of other products, everything from laundry detergent to Kraft macaroni and cheese. On Amazon's side, they will get you to buy more products off their site more often. For someone who normally would go to a store to buy these products, this will eliminate impulse purchases you make at the grocery story. Say you head out just to pick up more toilet paper and while heading down the aisle spot some chips, and then some soda and say "I'll just grab that while I'm here." When you don't even have to leave your house, this won't happen. But for those that were going to buy the products off of Amazon already, how much more of a convenience is this? I can already scan bar-codes of products using the Amazon app, and with a few clicks I'll have that product shipped. That's just it, the scan and the clicks. Dash eliminates that. Just as someone might wonder why there is a need for an Apple Watch when I can already do everything from the Iphone, why get a Dash button when I can already order products from my phone? It seems, technology is closer and closer to making it as easy as possible to do more than ever. Dash is a further move in this direction.

On the other side of the coin, there's obviously some negative aspects we should take a look at. The author of this Wired article brings up one point I want to elaborate more on. The information that these devices will provide to Amazon, giving them more opportunities to market specifically to you. As the author mentions, say you have been buying toilet paper every 2 months using Dash. Amazon would be able to tell if you are low on fiber content, they would then market certain dietary products specifically to you. We can expand this further, say you haven't been buying razors as often, they can speculate you've started to grow some facial hair and begin showing you ads pertaining to products dealing with facial hair hygiene. The bottom line is Amazon will gather more information about you and be able to use it to their advantage. There is also the button itself to think about, how that might look in certain parts of your house. I sure wouldn't want some Gatorade logo on my refrigerator. They must be out of sight from the visible eye, say in the pantry or behind the coffee maker. It also might be annoying if your child hits the button every day, forcing you to cancel orders over and over again. However, I'm a tech optimist, I think a niche product like this will probably be useful in some circumstances.

At the end of the day, to those of you that are skeptical about this product, I'm partially with you. It will be interesting to see if and how this catches on. However, with the introduction of 2 hour shipping by Amazon in NYC and now Dallas, this is ultimately where we are headed in the future. Making it as simple as humanly possible to order goods off their site is a goal for CEO Jeff Bezos and co. This is just another extension of that. Or it could just be another Amazon shot at free publicity, Happy April Fools Everyone.