MWC 2016 Highlights and Takeaways - Part 2

This blog post covers part two of our Mobile World Congress 2016 experience, you can check out Part One here. The second half of the conference brought more great sessions, along with the opportunity to check out some Virtual Reality in the exhibitors booths.

This first session I attended on day three covered the Internet of Things. This was a nice complement to the Machine Learning session we attended the previous day.

There can be several issues with where the computing power lives. If it lives in the cloud, it may work fine for some applications that don’t require immediate answers. However, we were asking to consider the following:

Device connectivity to a network

Bandwidth available to transfer data

Latency that can occur when receiving data

Security around the network and data

This could cause several issues for self-driving cars. If there is latency when receiving data required for a ‘decision’ made by the car, it could be too late. The suggested solution was to use hybrid versions of IoT. Rather than using cloud-computing, you can use a variation of “Fog” or “Mist”. These push the intelligence down to the device at different levels.

Orcado, a UK online grocery store, uses an automated system to pull out the correct food from inventory let the packer know how many of the item is required, and which bag to put it in which depends on the type of product. For example, cleaning supplies are packed separately to food, cool, frozen, or regular items are packed separate to one another. Trucks are packed depending on where the order is heading. They’re about to release a new system which will control 1000 robots. The need for speed, security, and no latency issues is extremely important to ensure robots do not run into one another. This was a great example of Machine Learning and deciding where the computing or architecture power has to live.

Mobile devices are without a doubt a power platform and way to reach users or customers, however, they’re still being under-invested in, says Sir. Martin Sorrell. These were my takeaways from the session:

Ad Agency’s and companies under invest in the mobile advertising world.

Mobile or device engagement should hold more weight than time-spent metrics, we need to reevaluate how we’re measuring mobile metrics.

We need to think of ways to be more creative with smaller device screens to gain full value. Mobile allows for additional ways to distribute images, content, and communicate to others.

Think of mobile as a way to change business or add values in different ways, rather than an extension of digital.

Images are extremely powerful, they transcend language. Having a deep knowledge of what images users are looking for allows you to advertise to them. Choosing the correct imagery, based on a users search, allows you to create a powerful dynamic native ad.

Wearables are a great way to track and improve wellness and lifestyle.This session had speakers from Under Armor, Fossil Group, OmSignal, and FitBit. OmSignal CEO, Stephane Marceau, predicted that “Everything we wear will be connected… but along the way we will all be compared to FitBit” with his company creating smart clothes. These are the highlights from the session:

Wearables are not only about lifestyle, through Machine Learning they can be used to examine fitness, measure health, and coach users based on their previous data and goals the best ways to proceed.

Fossil predicts that every watch they create in the future will be smart and connected to technology

Clothing is currently a wearable, with tops and OmBras reading respiration and step data.

Women are early adopters of wearables, however the majority of wearables have currently been designed with men in mind.

Typically She/He will buy fashion first, even with wearables.

Wearables will have payment capabilities in the future, allowing you to leave your phone and wallet behind

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We had a chance to checkout out the HTC and Steam VR booth while walking around some of the great exhibits from a multitude of different mobile-related companies. This was a great experience, I definitely expect to see a lot more of VR in the near future for not only games, but movies and VR experiences too.