The Best of SXSW 2016

SXSW • 2016 • PAGE

BESTOFS SW2016


The start of SXSW Interact ive 2016 was marked by the arr ival of President Obama in Aust in , Texas . The s ignif icance of the POTUS del iver ing an opening-day keynote says a lot about the status that SXSW Interact ive has achieved in i ts 23 years . I t a lso marks the degree to which technology, market ing and social good have converged . This was to be seen at SXSW, for sure , but is a lso increasingly evident in the debates we are having around cryptology, robot ics , art i f ic ia l intel l igence and VR/AR.

The theme was neat ly captured at SXSW by Max Levchin’s def init ion of ‘benef icence’ . Levchin , the former CTO of PayPal , ser ia l investor and currently CEO of dig ital loans provider Aff i rm, referred to benef icence as one of his ‘Unstoppable Trends That Are Changing the World ’ . Where legacy businesses fa i l to put customers’ interests ahead of their own, technology innovators wil l identi fy and f i l l those gaps , and consumer expectat ions of the service and exper ience from digital businesses continue to r ise – in a v irtuous cycle of benef icence .

Levchin’s further advice for innovators was to pursue opportunit ies created by ‘ regulatory arbitrage’ . This const i tutes both the avai lable government funding for renewable energy or environmental transportat ion , but a lso the inadvertent opportunit ies created by compliance legis lat ion such as the Affordable Care Act , which in turn dr ives innovation in medical technology across wearables and IoT.

The unique combination of music, film and interactive that is South by Southwest (SXSW) generates a kind of energy that sets the stage for connected thinking. SXSW

2016 has lived up to that promise – a world of concepts collided in Austin. Each year’s sessions represent the zeitgeist of the industry. What exactly are we

thinking about? What’s at the heart of ‘interactive’ and how is it playing across different industries? To help us lead our clients to what’s next, we went along to

SXSW 2016 to bring you our thoughts and highlights.

Returning to POTUS, Obama’s appeal to the SXSW delegat ion was to lead 21st century c iv ic engagement . “ I t ’s easier to order a pizza than to do your most important c iv ic duty and vote , ” said Obama. “The reason I ’m here is to recruit a l l of you . We can start coming up with new platforms, new ideas across disc ipl ines and across ski l l sets to solve some of the big problems we’re facing today. ”

1

The hottest topics at SXSW Interactive 2016 were virtual reality, mobile apps, robots, 3D technology and AI. Sysomos, a social media analytics company, analyzed social media chatter during the first few days of SXSWi. The most active themes, measured in terms of Twitter impressions, were:

Virtual Reality (Vr) – 102.4 MILLION

Mobile Apps – 32.6 million

Robotics – 30 million

3D – 8.8 million


ENCRYPTION A THIN LINE OF DEFENCE

Cryptology, pr ivacy and security (of both the personal and nat ional var iet ies ) have more in common than what sets them apart . They are al l part of a family, a lbeit at the moment a part icular ly quarrelsome one .

Edward Snowden blew the l id off mass survei l lance in 2013, and had SXSW abuzz when he addressed the conference remotely the fol lowing year . In 2016, the conversat ion has moved on to the issue of encrypt ion and whether Apple’s resolute stance against FBI legal demands to create a “backdoor” to access iPhones is r ight or wrong. Or both .

While President Obama tr ied to tread the middle ground between c iv i l l ibert ies and making ‘concessions’ on personal pr ivacy, warning against taking an ‘absolut ist ’ posit ion , e lsewhere at SXSW the debate was consciously polar ized . In ‘Cryptowars 2 .0 : S i l icon Val ley vs Washington’ , a panel sess ion including former General Counsel for the National Security Agency Stewart Baker , the c lue to where the debate is at is very much in the t i t le . As government uses emotive language and nightmarish scenarios around terror ism and paedophi l ia to forward the argument for access , the tech community recognizes that cryptology is not robust enough to al low the weakening of i t – and that , contrary to intent , opening the door to data r isks lett ing in wrongdoers .

@wesmtthws

2

We don’t know how to build secure and robust

systems. We have two tools that work – making systems

as simple and as small as possible to limit the attack surface, and crypto, which

makes it possible to reduce the number of elements in a system that you can trust.

They are all we’ve got. -Matt Blaze, University Of Pennsylvania


In the commercial world , one impl icat ion of any rol lback in OS-level encrypt ion is whether i t would place new demands on busi-nesses to t ighten up their own security and pr ivacy standards . An unanswered quest ion is whether the consumer has a voice in this and what that voice would say with regard to the concessions people are prepared to make as a trade-off for nat ional and personal protect ion , or perceived value del ivered .

In his sess ion ‘12 Inevitable Tech Forces That Wil l Shape Our Future’ , author and Wired founding editor Kevin Kel ly observed that “anything that can be tracked , wi l l be tracked” and argued the case for ‘ co-vei l lence’ – a k ind of symmetry where “you know what they know about you, can correct i t and benef i t f rom it ” .

Silicon Valley’s decision on privacy is a new form

of Imperialism. Apple are saying yes, you have a

warrant. Screw your warrant.

– Stewart Baker, former GeneralCounsel at the NSA

@heliane_es

3


Kevin Kelly, author and founding executive editor of Wired, was at SXSW to lift the lid on ‘12 inevitable tech forces that will shape our future’. Here, in

extreme summary, are his top three. Asked by an audience member whether he could share the other nine, Kelly was unequivocal – “No”. His book ‘The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will

Shape Our Future’ goes on sale in June.

4


MedTech today keeps the doctor away

The use of data to determine and predict health and performance was at the heart of the sess ion on ‘The Future of Medic ine’ , in which Daniel Kraft of S ingular i ty Univers i ty/Exponential Medic ine showed the extent to which we wil l leverage technology and AI to minimize direct physic ian interact ion . When i l l , you wil l submit your symptoms to a f ie ld of AIs to col lect ively diagnose your problem. I f they cannot agree upon a solut ion , the pat ient wil l then be routed to a doctor to resolve the issue .

I t is becoming cr i t ical that , as individuals , we move from being ‘organ and blood donors’ to being ‘data donors’ . Crowdsourcing health data in the future wil l change the way we understand health and the treatment of d iseases . Control led studies provide data on hundreds of individuals , but crowdsourcing this data could generate mil l ions of sources . We are using only 5% of the data that we wil l use in the future . I t seems that big data hasn’t had i ts b ig bang just yet .

In the sess ion ‘Consumer Reports : What ’s Our Health Data Worth? ’ , we learned that when people are i l l they want the data to f low, and att i tudes toward data and pr ivacy rapidly shift . The altruist ic v iew, in which your data can be used to help other people , i s very powerful – 9 ,500 out of 12 ,000 pat ients diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease openly agreed to share their data for research .

‘Home Sweet Home: The Health Hub of the Future’ was a ranging discussion between doctors , technologist and an architect , which envisaged the role of the home in measuring

and improving people’s health . David Rhew MD, Samsung’s Head of Healthcare , argued for connected devices such as the proverbial smart fr idge , but in this case in the context of tracking the volume of food and water consumed, over la id by s leep and health metr ics as wel l as outdoor temperature . “Mult iple data points a l low smart insights and the opportunity to become more proact ive on pat ient act ions and behaviors to prevent things from happening . ”

Angela Mazzi of GBBN Architects posed the quest ion of how we can generate wel lness at every point , through br icks and mortars supported by tech . “We are hardwired to respond to environment . For chi ldren with ADHD, being in nature helps our abi l i ty to manage behavior , so we can design homes accordingly. For a pat ient with diabetes , i t is more manageable to make l i festyle changes i f , through technology, we can place him/her in an atmospheric café in Par is , or share recipes to promote cooking and eat ing healthi ly. ”

HEALTH & MEDTECH

@merekinsman

5


Messaging: A Command Line for Brands

MESSAGING CONVERSATIONAL UIA couple of decades ago, text and the command line were the only way you could interact with a computer. Command lines were hard because they forced people to understand code to accomplish the things we now

do through the graphical user interface: dragging, clicking and such.

The continued use of text messaging and the explosion of new messaging apps – a command l ine of sorts – is becoming a dominant way to interact . Some stats to focus the mind: 257 bi l l ion text messages are sent per day and, by 2020, smartphones wil l of fer Internet access to four bi l l ion people .

In a couple of SXSW sessions – ‘The Next Mult ibi l l ion Opp: Market ing in Messaging ’ and ‘Get the Message ! The Rise of Conversat ional UI ’ – i t was noted that that messaging is powering more and more interact ions between brands and consumers and becoming the entry point for dig ital exper iences . Across the world , messaging apps are evolving into the next central communicat ions , media and commerce hubs .

Conversat ional UI provides a convenient way for people to access and interact with services – with no app fat igue , the abi l i ty to a lways respond, voice conversat ion and not just typed text . Furthermore , ‘bots’ are powering many of these conversat ions . WeChat is probably the most wel l -known example , with 900 mil l ion registered users as wel l as 10 mil l ion businesses that users add as buddies and then use messaging to transfer money, book travel or dr ive a host of other interact ions .

We are going to see more of these types of services adopted by other social messaging platforms – for example , booking and paying for an Uber r ide through Facebook without instal l ing the Uber app . Beyond the more wel l -known examples of WeChat , Amazon Echo and Sir i , Uber ’s Developer Exper ience Lead and SXSW panel ist Chris Messina has produced a growing l ist of companies that offer conversat ional UI apps . Give them a try : https : / /www.producthunt .com/@chrismessina/

@victoria_odell

6


Bod or ‘bot’? The ethics and aesthetics of robotsROBOTICS

Robots and robot ics made a big impression on SXSW 2016. Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro bel ieves we wil l l ive in a robot society in the next three to four years . His sess ion ‘Androids and Future Li fe’ took us deep into Uncanny Val ley with his personal c lone Geminoid android .

People want robots to be human; we l ike robots to look and act l ike us . Voice is a key method for making robots more human and, i f you can, add another human tact i le modal-i ty that makes the robot more human. People are more l ikely to speak to a human interface than to a human – no embarrassment , no judgement . Robots have a posit ive physiological impact on humans . In Japan, chi ldren who hug the Hugvie robot focus better at school . The act of hugging reduces stress and cort isol levels .

Ishiguro is on a f ive-year mission to develop robots with intentions and desires . He is t rying to answer quest ions such as ‘what is beauty? ’ and ‘what is conversat ion? ’ A better robot wil l incorporate cognit ive pr inciples and a better understanding of humans . After a l l , robots are better than people . They never get grumpy and don’t need to use the bathroom.

Over at ‘The Holy Grai l : Machine Learning and Extreme Robotics’ another robot , Sophia , was very much on display as part of a panel explor-ing the potential of genius machines – potential which , we don’t think she wil l mind us saying , Sophia is st i l l some way from real iz ing .

While Sophia – compris ing upper torso , ‘ f rubber ’ skin , fac ial expressions and an ‘open head’ – did answer quest ions , they were very much of the canned var iety. Her creator , David Hanson of Hanson Robotics , nonetheless had high aspirat ions for her : “The Holy Grai lis superhuman capacit ies for machines – learning the big picture in the context of the cosmos , with benef ic ia l outcomes for the future of c iv i l izat ion . ”

The robots are fragile. We have to treat the head as a carry-on.

@interruptdelivers

7


AUTOMOTIVE THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION

In ‘Looking Forward to Rush Hour : Future of Transit ’ , we learned that the Hyperloop con-cept could evolve transportat ion in high-traff ic c i t ies , with Altuit ’s Chipp Walters outl ining a conf igurat ion for a Hyperloop between Dal las to Aust in . The SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competit ion (http : / /www.spacex .com/hyperloop) is tapping into minds from al l geographies to engineer innovative transportat ion systems.

There are already 22 mil l ion connected vehic les in the world , r is ing to 82 mil l ion by 2022 – yet there is a brake on progress in this area , as car companies do not want g ive up their services layers to the l ikes of Apple and Google in the way that has happened to mobi le phone manufacturers . Panel l ists in ‘How Si l icon Val ley Is Reinventing the Auto Industry ’ noted that the average American spends $10k per year on their car . We treat the car l ike an appl iance but in fact i t is the most expensive computer we own. And i t ’s the only computer that is not ful ly connected .

Car companies are interested in Si l icon Val ley, but on their own terms – as GM’s acquis i t ions of S idecar and Cruise Automation have evidenced . I t is possible that in the future people wil l buy cars based on the car platform and i ts app ecosystem – “There are better apps for this car companyso I wi l l dr ive i t .

@interruptdelivers

Many minds at SXSW were focused on the possibilities offered by innovations in transportation such as Hyperloop and connected cars. Although some were of the view that there is more ‘hype’ than ‘loop’ in

Elon Musk’s idea of passenger pods propelled at high speed between cities inside low-pressure tubes, others are committed to progressing

the idea in reality or in spirit.

8


In ‘Hacking Your Ride : Transportat ion Safety and Risk ’ we learned that , whi le connected vehic les could reduce traff ic accidents by 80%, unti l their security is robust there is a real threat that someone might hi jack your car and ransom it back to you. Automotive manufacturers have a long history of safety engineer ing , but not security engineer ing .

Put another way, there are 82 mil l ion hackable devices dr iv ing at a speed that can do real damage to the real world . Some groups , white hat hackers , want to hack vehic les for the good of mankind, improve the exper ience and the ut i l i ty. Anonymous people break the law through hacking , but don’t d irect ly benef i t themselves . However , there are organizedgangs of cr iminals who do hack for commercial gain . The mil i tary and security services can hack your vehic le and, last but by no means least , so can terror ists .

Help is at hand. Companies such as Zendrive are using your dr iv ing data to improve road safety and give you advice and feedback on how to improve your dr iv ing . Turns out , 90% of col l is ions are caused by human error , and 25% are from using your phone while dr iv ing .

The growth of connected vehic les and the economy of companies bui lding businesses from data have raised concerns on data security. The solut ion , i t is proposed , is a re-engineer ing of the value chain of insurance . Today, you can buy cyber insurance , to protect yourself f rom hacking . But this ra ises very important quest ions , such as who owns the data (your data ! ) , who has access to i t , and who is analyzing i t for what purpose?

@bemadthen

9


VR/AR ALTERED REALITIES

Virtual and Augmented Real i ty had a strong presence this year , with SXSW running i ts f i rst ever VR/AR track . McDonald ’s and Samsung were showcasing their own VR exper iences : the McDonald ’s Loft was running HTC Vive demos that turned the room into the inside of a Mc-Donald ’s Happy Meal , whi le you could ‘ r ide’ ro l lercoasters at the Samsung Gear VR Lounge .

At ‘Five Ways AR Wil l Change The World ’ , Vufor ia VP Jay Wright and Sony’s Head of Partner Outreach Troed Sangberg , observed a fork in the road for VR and AR. While VR is increasingly serving consumers and dominating gaming, AR wil l f ind i ts best use case on the enterpr ise s ide and evolve from there – a l low-ing remote guidance and step-by-step instruc-t ions for engineers or in medical procedures . Sangberg pointed out that , with the hologram optics technology of Sony’s SmartEyeglass , in-struct ional information in the f ie ld of v iew was already a real i ty.

When AR f i l ls a use case for the masses or “eyewear tech is good-looking enough” , whichever comes f i rst , Wright and Sangberg predict i t wi l l be f ive years before an explosion in mass usage among consumers with eventual ly one AR device for every person. AR wil l be replaced every two years , s imilar to smart phones today.

At ‘Virtual Real i ty and the New Sales Exper ience’ we learned that businesses’ VR investments are growing exponential ly ; at the end of 2015 over $4bn had been invested , most ly in hardware , whi le software wil l increase expenditure levels at a greater scale .

Marketers from The North Face , Hasbro and Lufthansa shared examples of how they are trying to innovate with VR exper iences , rather than viewing VR as s imply another sales channel . The North Face doesn’t use VR to have you try on c lothes virtual ly ; instead they want VR to inspire you to push yourself , explore and give a sense of what sports are l ike by part ic ipat ing alongside athletes in the virtual space . For Lufthansa , the goal is to br ing back the joy of f ly ing and give permission to go beyond borders ; a i r t ravel shouldn’t a lways be about best pr ice/shortest t ime.

Despite the level of investment (and interest at SXSW) VR is st i l l in the exper imental phase . Companies wil l need to exper iment with ‘unf inished ’ exper iences to test and learn ; i t ’s OK to fa i l .

@laureneheffern

10

Documents

The Best of SXSW 2016