Yesterday my 6 year old son was in awe and asked me ‘are there cars that drive themselves?’. I thought that was great he was learning from the world and is interested in technology. We got to watch the BMW Concept 100 Car video. The coming years are intriguing and awesome.
Many companies are invested in automated driving – Tesla, Uber, Apple, Ford, GM, BMW, et al. By the time my 6 year old is ready for his driving license in 10 years, perhaps he will be applying for the ‘sitting license’, who knows!
Innovations have driven the comfort for all of us and in turn created growth for all of us as well. In the past decade the most realistic game changer has been the arrival of a new era of smartphone with iPhone and similar devices. What are likely other big innovations that can dramatically change the everyday living for everyone?
Here are a few that will be awesome from an everyday life perspective.
- Automatically Driving Cars – already in the works. Arrival with quality, safety, and affordability is important.
- Automatic photo/video devices. Integration of cameras into the smart phones has been a great benefit. Still why would we need one person in the family constantly be the designated the photo or video taker. Why not make this automatic – seems like drones fitted with cameras like Nixie will be great.
- Automatic Cooking devices. Everyone desires good food. Fortunately plenty of ingredients, cook books, etc. are available. Yes, we can eat out. Still the world economy probably spends about 10% of the waking life in preparing food. Why not simplify this. Insta Pot Pressure Cookers and related innovations are good start.
- Automatic Cleaners. We desire clean spaces. Thanks to vacuum cleaners and moppers most of us doing good. And a few folks probably benefit from Roomba’s of the world. Still I find that often I have to clean the roomba. Why not rethink this space completely. (yes Janitors are used commercially, again that is like the ‘cab drivers’ in the auto world)
- Automatic Launderers. Thanks to washing machines and dryers, the last century has been dramatically different. Now there are still some simple annoyances that can be handled better. For starters, why not have washing and drying happen without requiring us to move them from one machine to another (which is lost opportunity from reading more on the internet), how about sorting clothes and accordingly using the right settings (they say machine learning can come to the rescue), and please fold the clothes. Again, one can dry clean or outsource this … which is not cost effective for 99% of the population all the times.
And there are many more possible in the coming years. As computing disperses into everyday fabric of life we have rich life ahead of us with the small devices connected through always on network.
Soon after watching the concept car video, my son asked me: ‘Daddy, what will you do if you are not driving the car?’. Perhaps there is more time to think and do other innovative things
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