Innovation Management

It's likely that some of the words such as "netbook", "smartbook", "tablet", etc. will sound funny and obsolete in the near future. However, it is always like this during paradigm changes. Industry is now trying to understand what comes after the PC, and no product architecture and usage process has yet emerged as dominant.

An interesting article on the battle being fought by Apple and Google, arguably the companies that are more likely (maybe with Facebook) to shape the future of IT and media. The article shows the two competing visions and philosophies, with Google focused on information management and Apple on user experience. Not by chance, the once dominant Microsoft is not even taking part in this game.

Attention on e-books is growing. However, there still are uncertainties on the future business model for publishers, and on the way they will be forced to shed part of their assets. Another doubt is related to the "dominant design" of the reader (specialized e-book reader or general-purpose tablet?).

Cellphone rivals Motorola Inc and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd have reached a technology licensing agreement, ending more than two years of litigation. Motorola shares rose 4 percent on Friday as investors turned their focus to the value of Motorola's technology patents, for which RIM will make a one-off payment and pay ongoing royalties.

As the row between Apple and Adobe over Flash on the iPhone OS continued to grow, we thought circumventing the issue entirely might be disruptive. If we could seamlessly deliver a site that uses Flash in Mobile Safari without installing any additional apps there'd be tons of potential uses, especially for large organizations trying to leverage existing content. Today, we're sharing a few videos of an early proof-of-concept. One of the best parts of this implementation is that there's nothing Jobs can do about it without castrating the web experience on the iPad/iPhone altogether. It's not jail-broken and it doesn't require an app or a plug-in: Just the default Safari browser.

Fujitsu and Toshiba are in talks to combine mobile-phone operations and create Japan's second-largest handset producer, two officials at the companies said. Fujitsu and Toshiba are likely to set up a venture this year to combine their handset operations, with Fujitsu expected to hold a majority stake.

Last week, we announced a new feature that lets you add a favorite photo or image to the background of your Google.com homepage. To provide you with an extra bit of inspiration, we've collaborated with several well-known artists, sculptors and photographers to create a gallery of background images you can use to personalize your Google homepage. Included in the collection are photographs of the works of Dale Chihuly, Jeff Koons, Tom Otterness, Polly Apfelbaum, Kengo Kuma, Kwon, Ki-soo and Tord Boontje, as well as some incredible photos from Yann Arthus-Bertrand and National Geographic. We'll be featuring these images as backgrounds on the Google homepage over the next 24 hours. Of course, since we want your Google homepage to be personal to you, you can still choose an image or photo from your computer or your own Picasa Web Album. Whether you select an image from our new artist collection or prefer to have a more personal touch on your homepage, you'll still enjoy the speed and ease of use that you've come to expect from Google. We're also excited to announce that this feature is now available internationally. We hope you enjoy the new artist collection and making Google feel more like your own!

E' pacifico che alcune scelte di Microsoft non siano risultate brillanti, ma alcuni asseriscono che la società possa stare tranquilla in vista del contrasto Apple v.s Google, i quali ancora non hanno le sue stesse quote di mercato. Tuttavia, come sappiamo, la situazione è destinata a cambiare, perciò nel leggere questo articolo ci si chiede se la scommessa di Bill Gates, vuoi tradizionalista, vuoi vincente finora nell'espandere la propria tela fra i consumatori medi (che poi siamo quasi tutti), possa spuntarla sul lunghissimo periodo. Microsoft è nota per aver trasformato le difficoltà dell'informatica in un pacchetto appetibile e pronto all'uso. Ma se pensiamo alla co-creation, alla specializzazione sempre più acuta delle persone, quanto vale davvero ostinarsi nello standard, nelle piattaforme, quando accanto a te c'è chi, con il cloud computing e l'open source, propone leggerezza di terminali, indipendenza dalla piattaforma, mobilità? Per ora tra i due litiganti Microsoft sta più o meno bene, ma l'innovazione ci insegna ad adeguarci, come lo stesso ingegnere IBM notava al seminario.

Mr. Joshi (the head of Hewlett-Packard's $24 billion printing empire) has spent years disputing the notion that people will print less as they do more on their hand-held devices. This week, he will see his ideas put into action as H.P. introduces a fleet of printers with Web access, their own e-mail addresses and touch screens. These products should open up new ways for people to print from Web services like Google Docs, and from smartphones and devices like the iPad from Apple. Mr. Joshi is going back to his roots as an engineer - as a young H.P. researcher, he figured out a way to make ink cartridges fire 45 million drops - and relying on new technologies, not slick marketing. But still, he will have to prove that customers will change their behavior and print more if given the right tools. That, Mr. Reitzes said, is crucial to how investors will evaluate the long-term prospects of H.P. "Investors are worried about printing," he said. "It's really important that they get this right." As the world's largest technology company, H.P. sells a wide variety of products but got much of its profit from printers and their pricey ink. More recently, H.P. has built up a large technology services arm as well, which has helped round out its business. But the printing division accounts for about a fifth of its revenue and a third of its profits. The new printers - which build on a limited experiment last year - will range in price from $99 to about $400. Every one will come with what H.P. executives billed as a breakthrough feature - its very own e-mail address. H.P.'s engineers hit on the e-mail address as an easy, familiar way for people to send print jobs to the Web-ready printers. You can, for example, take a photo with a phone, e-mail it to your printer's address and have the printout waiting for you at home. Or, you can share the printer's e-mail address with family and friends. This means that someone can buy Grandma a Web-ready printe

We can't say if there's an actual rule or not, but we're pretty sure that anyone in the e-reader business has to, at one point, make a prediction about when e-books will overtake actual books, and it looks like Sony has now come through with a big one of its own. That comes courtesy of Sony's Steve Haber, the man responsible for the company's digital reading business division, who says that: "within five years there will be more digital content sold than physical content." Note that he says "digital content," not books, so we can presume that also includes magazines and newspapers, but it's still a fairly ambitious statement nonetheless. What's more, Habar also insists that there is a place for standalone e-readers alongside multi-function devices like the iPad, saying that, "it's just like digital imaging, where you can take pictures with a cellphone - and many people take pictures with cellphones - but if they want the best possible picture they'll use a point-and-shoot camera or a digital SLR."

An interesting comment on the way with which technology is likely to shape the concept of home entertainment in the near future. As it appears, it will be based on bringing "intelligence" on board devices rather than adopting a single do-it-all server. Implications on competitive advantage for the many potential competitors are pretty obvious

Apple has just trotted out its latest sales milestone for the iPad: two million devices have now been sold since the slate's launch on April 3. We promise we won't bother you with sales figures every time another million gets rounded, but it's notable that the company has managed to maintain the rapid pace it achieved with its hero tablet during its first month on the market. Of course, that big international launch just a couple of days ago would surely have had something to do with it as well. Ah well, good for them.

For years now, hotel chains have been toying with alternative ways to letting patrons check-in, access their room and run up their bill with all-too-convenient in-room services. Marriott began testing smartphone check-ins way back in 2006, and select boutique locations (like The Plaza Hotel in New York and Boston's Nine Zero) have relied on RFID, iris scanners, biometric identifiers and all sorts of whiz-bang entry methods in order to make getting past a lock that much easier (or harder, depending on perspective). This month, InterContinental Hotels Group announced that they would soon be trialing OpenWays at Chicago's Holiday Inn Express Houston Downtown Convention Center, enabling iPhone owners to fire up an app and watch their room door open in a magical sort of way. Other smartphone platforms will also be supported, and as we've seen with other implementations, users of the technology will also be able to turn to their phone to order additional services, extend their stay or fess up to that window they broke. There's no word on when this stuff will depart the testing phase and go mainstream, but we're guessing it'll be sooner rather than later. Video after the break, if you're interested.

Look around you. Are you at an electric vehicle charging station? If so, good for you! If not, that's okay, because the things are still mighty rare. California-based Coulomb is helping to change that, expanding its operations with deals that will see its ChargePoint networked charging stations appear in Poland and in Australia. The Warsaw-based station is powered by juice from 365 Energy, while the Sydney one is being run by GoGet, a sort of Aussie Zipcar, if you catch our drift, mate. They join the 600 stations that Coulomb deployed in 2009 and are part of the thousands the company hopes to scatter about in this year. Both forward-reaching press releases are included for your enjoyment after the break, either of which make for great reading while your Tesla hungrily sucks down the electrons.

La casa tedesca e quella cinese si sono accordate, tramite una joint-venture, per produrre in Cina auto elettriche da lanciare sui mercati asiatici, dove nei prossimi anno dovrebbe proseguire l'aumento delle vendite di automobili. Mercedes apporteranno il know-how relativo alle architetture di prodotto, mentre la BYD si occuperà principalmente dello sviluppo delle batterie. Tramite la joint-venture, Mercedes potrà accedere al mercato locale - infatti attuamente in Cina le case straniere devono fare accordi con le case locali per poter aver accesso al mercato - e sviluppare le batterie, componente costosa e fondamentale delle auto elettriche, con notevoli risparmi.

In Europa la Chevrolet Volt non è ancora stata lanciata sul mercato, ma i tecnici della GM stanno già preparando la nuova generazione della vettura elettrica. Sono tante le proposte allo studio, ovvero affiancare al motore elettrico un motore rotativo oppure un piccolo diesel. Nel primo caso si otterrebbe una modesta potenza aggiuntiva, ma ci sarebbe il vantaggio dell'ingombro contenuto, mentre nel secondo caso ci sarebbero bassi consumi, però il prezzo di vendita sarebbe inevitabilmente più elevato. Intanto GM ha anche affermato che la nuova generazione di batterie elettriche saranno molto meno care rispetto a quelle attualmente montate sulla Volt.

Daimler and BYD (China) plan to establish a development center to combine the German automaker's expertise in automotive engineering with BYD's battery and low-cost production know-how. The companies aim to create a new brand for the vehicle that will be positioned between BYD and Mercedes models. Development time may take about three years. Daimler said last month it will focus on cleaner technologies to take global market share from rivals BMW and Audi.

La presentazione del recente Piano Industriale Fiat 2010-2014 è stata l'occasione per vedere le prime proposte dell'ibrido made in Italy. Il target di Fiat è il mantenimento della leadership nelle emissioni di CO2, da raggiungere attraverso lo sviluppo di sistemi di propulsione alternativi (ibrido e CNG), ma anche con il lancio di nuove tecnologie MultiAir per i motori benzina e MultiJet2 per i motori diesel. In tal modo si vuole ottenere un EBITDA medio di oltre il 10%. Lo sviluppo della seconda generazione della tecnologia MultiAir ha comportato lo svilupp in-house di un sistema turbo (adottato in primis sul motore 1.4) Riguardo il Multijet2, si sono ottenuti minori emissioni di CO2 e NOx, oltre ad una minore rumorosità e migliore guidbilità. Il punto forte della prossima offerta Fiat però sarà il nuovo motore benzina con cilindrata di 0,9: verrà proposto sia nella versione benzina che ibrida. Quest'ultima versione comporta l'aggiunta di un piccolo motore elettrico.In tal modo si ottengono degli ottimi risultati riguardo consumi ed emissioni di CO2. Questo motore sarà lanciato alla fine di questo anno sulla 500, ma nel giro dei prossimi anni l'offerta comprenderà quasi tutti i modelli europei dei segmenti A e B, tra cui Grande Punto, Panda e Uno. E'importante rimarcare che, con pochi ulteriori investimenti, è possibile ottenre una valida linea di motori con varie potenze: da 60 cv a oltre 90 cv.

Fino a qualche anno fa Toyota voleva creare un brand Prius con il quale vendere una nuova faliglia di auto ibride, mentre ora sembra aver cambiato in parte idea: è ancora convinta a voler ampliare la proposta di vetture ibride, ma sempre con il suo marchio. Il prossimo anno dovrebbe infatti debuttare sul mercato un mpv basato sul pianale della famosa berlina giapponese, sempre con un motore ibrido. Sulla medesima piattaforma verrà in seguito sviluppata la versione ibrida del suv RAV4.