It's time to give an update on my orthodontic braces! I have been wearing 24 hours a day my headgear to get rid of my reverse bite (thus move my lower canines behind the upper canines). It took me 10 weeks to tilt the lower canines to the correct position.
Now I have a total different feeling when taking a bite. In addition I broke my personal record in the number of orthodontic bits and pieces in my mouth. My 26 teeth (some were extraced to create space) are tight together by 65 orthodontic pieces, and this without counting the glue and cement.
The telecom industry combines services into quadruple and even multi-druple plays. The major driver for this trend is to cross-sell services, which aims to increase the average revenue per user (ARPU). The consumer perceives the lower cost of the bundle compared to the sum of the individual services as a benefit. However, nowadays are the telecom services now perceived as expensive, given the visibility on the total price of the bundles.
A new trend is the increase of consumer spending for additional services brought to him over the internet from by over-the-top (OTT) providers. This kind of divergence occurs in three different perspectives, from a content perspective, from a service perspective, and from a business model perspective. Additionally, the divergence is accelerated by a flood of smart devices that is thrown on the market by consumer electronics manufacturers.
Media companies have been granted spectrum for broadcasting, initially for the broadcasting of radio and later for the broadcasting of television. Over half a century improved the audio and video quality, increased the number of channels, which resulted in the use and saturation of the assigned spectrum. The landscape changed since the middle of the 90s, and we can distinguish two trends. The first trend, the technology of broadcasting evolved from analogue to digital (which resulted again in an increase in quality), and additional channels were added within the same spectrum. Most important is that less spectrum is needed to provide the current services. Examples of digital broadcasting technologies used are DAB for radio and DVB-T for television. The second trend, the telecom industry moved to wireless communications and therefore was in need of spectrum. Initially, the spectrum was used to provide voice and texting services. Nowadays, this evolved to IP-based wireless connectivity services. Examples are 3G and 4G networks providing broadband wireless connectivity. The telecom industry paid to the government large amounts of money for the use of the spectrum, something highly welcomed by many governments in difficult economic times.
Over the past decade the telecom industry has been growing. Nowadays, the business models in place become stressed. I take here a brief look at the five drivers of growth over the past decade and five different ways to go for revival in the near future.
Our colleagues in the Media & Entertainment industry from Latin America faced a challenge that required a totally different approach. The colleagues had access to a large amount of information on how they could help their customers in the new digital era. The challenge was to find the right answers to specific questions, in particular in the area of how to drive innovation opportunities in the ongoing digital revolution. Going through the pile of information was probably not an option in the short timeframe.
I blogged before about my braces. People still ask me a lot of questions. I am not an orthodontist, but will give it a trial to report on the progress. First I post a picture of plaster model of my mouth and highlight the corrections the orthodontist is trying to resolve.
Major corrections required:
1. Upper molars are tilted to the ouside + are rotated
2. Lower molars are tilted to the inside + Scissor bite.
3. Lower molars are tilted to the inside.
The combination of the lower molars tilted to the inside with the upper molars tilted to the outside results in a cross-bite.
NAB 2011 was somewhat different compared to the previous years, or maybe I departed with the wrong expectations. Herewith two observations:
First, I was missing the 2011 next ‘big thing’. I spoke to a lot of people and asked for their highlights of this years show. Many of them could not express something they perceived as a highlight. Maybe is this caused by latest economic downturn, over the past years fewer investments might have been made in research and development of new products and services. Companies could present last year their innovations resulting from investments made before the economic downturn. This year looked somewhat different, although I must admit that many things they have been working on have been improved.
Second, the entire show lacked customer centricity. Consumer electronics manufacturers demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in January how an exceptional user experience might look alike, through end-to-end integration of device capabilities, network capabilities, and rich content. A new trend was definitely the multi-screen experience, synchronous viewing and interactions on different screens. For example, consumers can view linear programming on TV and access synchronous additional information and interaction possibilities along the linear program on a tablet. It seems that the content industry still neglects this trend, and does not organize itself to counter the lead taken by electronics manufacturers (and telecom operators).
I wrote a blog long time ago on how painful it was to write a book. I creped forward during months and months .... and now the book is completed. I choose the cryptic title 'Cloud Content Contention'.
Yesterday was the big day. I had the challenge and honour to defend in public the results of my work in front of the jury in the aula of the Tilburg University. I was quite nervous, and would have preferred to skip this part of the day. My highly esteemed opponents launched questions in different directions, which I answered despite the nervousity. I presume the answers satisfied the jury as they awarded we me the PhD degree.
This time not a long textual blog, but a photo-blog
During my visit to CES I took the opportunity to walk around and herewith my Top 5. I also added a curiosity.
Tablets
Tablets overwhelmed CES, available in multiple sizes and an endless combination of different features. Most tablets were presented by a bunch of different Chinese manufacturers. Remarkable is that the majority of these tablets used Android as an operating system. The trend towards Android might push the Android Apps-development and could result in an alternative to compete with the Apple Apps-market. Competition will bring prices down, and the more affordable devices will impact the consumers buying behavior. Tablets were not only used as an entertainment device to watch content or as replacement for the net-book to surf the internet. In many cases were tablets used as remote control, for example application that manages your house, applications to consult on-line information from your car, or a second screen to control your television.
IBM private room. with open standard based demonstrations of Smart Home, Connected Vehicle, and Smart TV.
