Voice - its beginning to be everywhere

Voice. And by Voice I mean the advent of a Voice based UI for systems is beginning to be everywhere. Since exploding onto the scenes in 2006 based on mobile phones its grown almost exponentially. Looking at its latest incarnation - the smart speaker (Amazon Alexia and Google Home are examples) recent estimates show around 50 million American’s have access to one of these in their home, although true sales figures are a little hard to come by but various estimates indicate that around 34 million smart speakers were sold in 2017 and we are heading for a further 57 million this year...!

OK its accepted that some homes will have more than one (we for example have three) but, there is probably significantly over 100 million smart speaker enabled homes out there on a global basis and the number is only going to continue to increase dramatically going forwards. Amazon Echo as first to market is comfortably in first place with around 70% market share. A bit more research to share with you – around two thirds of smart speaker owners interact with their speaker on a daily basis and three in four on a weekly basis.

This is now taking us down the path to where smart voice initiated conversations can become the default interaction point which is a significant shift from where we have been over just the last couple of years. So what does this mean for us, businesses and their customers?

And.. I'm back!

I can't believe its been over two years since last wrote an blog entry, for a blog called "A week in IT" which was intended to be a collection of weekly discoveries that's a bit poor - and for which I can but apologize. I have spotted I have a number of"draft" entries waiting to be published so those will be tidied up and slotted back into their correct weeks over the past two years.

However - to the current and June 2018... And, how to get started and "catch up" on 113 missing weeks... Well, a lot has happened over that time some of which will make great topics for blog entries too as and when the time is right.

As a key update - After 9 years in retail (with Tesco and Marks and Spencer) it was time for a bit of a change, and I'm now the "Head of Software Engineering" at the BBC for the BBC Platform. The next question everyone typically then asks is - what does that mean?

What do customers really want..? Is the web now dead..?!

I'm discussing on Thursday at the NEC as part of a panel at IRX (Internet Retailing Expo) the topic: "what customers want?" And it's had me thinking...

We all know data wise what customers (for retail) want, countless surveys and research articles have shown its:

• Cheapest price.
• Best quality.
• "Free" shipping.
• Loyalty bonuses.
• As convenient as possible.

But.. What do they *really* want..? I think and this is where I'm focusing is that it's actually a subtle play on the last one of these - "convenient"...

Bash on Windows

Sometimes as a Windows user, and particularly a Windows 10 user you can feel a bit out of place within the developer/engineer community. Years ago when Mac's were actually trendy to have, most people developed on Windows and had a a bit of a sneer about anyone who used a Mac.. There was also always the set of people who were the other extreme with a Gnome or KDE linux desktop but those were rare. And, currently Elementary is the latest trendy OS to be different with...

Now I work in a trendy office fully of trendy people all with shiny silver Mac laptops, there is a debate as to if an Air or a Macbook is the best choice - and the new Macbook is very close to an Air to blend the line between them and I myself am one of only a couple of Windows hold-outs left. I have my Dell XPS 13 laptop which weighs less than an Air, has a 4K touch screen and is more powerful than most Mac's - so I smile smuggly at them whilst thinking that I am in fact already on the next trend wave and ahead of the curve of a switch back to developing on Windows. And maybe this is getting a step closer to reality...

Windows 95 - happy 20th birthday

Is it really 20 years since I spent what felt like a day feeding 13 floppy disks into a computer to nervously upgrade my trust 486 running Windows 3.11 to Windows 95. The new all fangled, all shiny brave new world of a "Start Menu" that replaced the classic "Program Manager" that we had all been used to in the past. Wow what a legacy it has produced.

Windows 95 also introduced the most distinctive change that I think stood the test of time even better than the Start menu, the Task Bar, often neglected and overlooked it sits there quietly at the bottom of the screen allowing a visual clue as to what is running and allowing easy application switching.

Welcome to Windows 10 - the last version ever...?

I've actually been looking forwards to Windows 10 coming out for quite a while. Having been exploring "Internet of Things" (IoT) and the concepts that could offer I was quite keen on the new version of Windows arriving as its the first one that can run on micro computers (like the Raspberry PII 2) and I liked the idea of a harmony operating system across all devices. The concept of the Universal App framework as a means to speed up development and maybe do away with that need to create the same thing multiple times in various different ways to handle different devices abilities.

I tried an early Windows 10 RT version a few months ago and felt it was all a bit buggy (as you would expect for a preview version) and thought that I would wait for the consumer version to be released.

I have a lovely Dell 24-inch XPS (see a different post!) which being the latest form factor of a portable yet powerful tablet it seemed a perfect candidate to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to 10.

My XPS doesn't have anything (apart form Microsoft Office) installed on it, so being the closest I have to a vanilla PC available I hoped it should be a smooth and seamless upgrade and once complete I can then add Visual Studio 2015 onto it and then start exploring the Universal App capabilities.

This post is one I've decided to update as it goes along so lets start at the beginning...

Commodore Amiga at 30 : reflective thoughts - where it all began

The Commodore Amiga what a computer. It is 30 years old today (23rd July 2015) having originally been released as the Amiga 1000 back 1985 (and that itself was a fantastic year for other reasons - Back to the Future possibly (probably) the most iconic, and arguably best films for a generation - but that's another story).

I had an Amiga, it wasn't my first computer - that honour went to the ZX Spectrum (a British classic) - however it was the most significant computer I owned and kick started my love of technology and create software in general.

My Amiga was one of the roughly 6 million Amiga 500's produced and it arrived in December 1990 a slick all in one computer not a unique form factor at the time but it was still clever in its concept and inside it approximately contained all the cleverness that was the Amiga 1000 (the one that's 30 years old today).

The Amiga introduced custom chips for graphics, sound and other activities that meant the rather limited 68000 processor from motorola could focus on other tasks, and with its "huge" 512k of RAM it was capable of at the time producing some outstanding games.