Random Thought

A tale of email

I won

Three years ago I started on a quest to get rid of all newsletters, retention emails and other commercial (to me) non-relevant emails. My inbox was overflowing with emails I did not care about and I noticed I was mostly idly swiping away to delete these emails without ever reading them. It was time to do something about it.

Market saturation on a different scale

Peak attention

We've reached peak attention on the internet. Time spent online is not significantly growing anymore. The internet has generated 4 champions (Google, Apple, Facebook & Amazon) who together dominate for the most part how you spent your time online. These companies are now at their peak and they have the momentum to buy, absorb or change their tactics to fend off any competitor. 

Future platforms

The major platforms emerging at the end of 20th century were computers and the internet. Both are approaching maturity levels. Each platform created new champions. Let's explore a bit on possible future platforms and what they could be.

Copy. Download. Live Forever.

Download a human

I do not believe in a Star Trekian future. Seriously I do not think it is a plausible future that we space travel as humans beyond our solar system. I think even Mars is quite a stretch.Instead I think it makes much more sense to download our human brain into a computer and send that computer instead.

Growing startups

The hardest thing is giving away

You always end up with less when working at an early-stage startup. The company grows and you've to give away roles and responsibilities to others. It is inevitable for a growing company. But it's ok.

Amazon’s platform for products

In 2002, Jeff Bezos send around the following within Amazon. He realized that Amazon needed to be a platform to be grow and scale. He did not use the term Service Orientated Architecture, he did not care, he just wanted to move Amazon as a company in a certain direction. AWS was born out of this.

Volumetric displays can get people into 3D design

I am super excited about volumetric displays. I think they will be a big game changer. Volumetric displays project an object or environment in 3 dimensions. It gives the viewer complete freedom in viewing the object from every angle.

Holograms you can feel

Professor Hiroyuki Shinoda of Tokyo University says: “Up until now, holography has been for the eyes only, and if you’d try to touch it, your hand would go right through. But now we have a technology that also adds the sensation of touch to holograms.”

Sometimes I feel like I work at NASA

While I am analyzing these pictures at work today I got the feeling I work for NASA instead of Shapeways. Take a look!

Nokia Microsoft marriage is the end of Nokia’s handheld business

Nokia and Microsoft announced a partnership today. Together they will form a smartphone alliance. The high end profitable market of Nokia smart phones is moving to the Windows mobile platform. Nokia will move the Symbian platform which they used exclusively up until now to power the mid and low range models. The effect of this […]