Author: jeffyactive
-
Let us not forget
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in Canada and in many nations around the world, a minute of silence is observed. Remembrance Day, as we call it here, is special this year as it marks the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice of the First World War,…
-
The rectangle decade and the shape of the future
This year marks a decade of the smartphone ecosystem as we know it. While the original iPhone debuted in 2007, it was the introduction of the App Store with the iPhone 3G in 2008 that kicked off the era of a rectangle in every pocket. Coincidentally, this month marks half a decade of Bluetooth Low…
-
Still Place for optimism?
Yesterday we attended our fourth Place Conference, held in NYC a little further uptown than our first Place back in 2014. Back then the conference had a strong focus on all the latest mobile location and proximity technologies that were expected to revitalise retail. There was an air of optimism around the Bluetooth beacon and…
-
Purpose, commitment and accountability
Today is the sixth anniversary of reelyActive‘s incorporation, and to mark this occasion we reached out to all our current and past team members and collaborators, inviting them to record themselves reciting a passage from the Copenhagen Letter. The result is the following: It is becoming an anniversary tradition for us to reflect on our…
-
Self-reflection: rethinking ownership
Can you imagine a near future where social media and the online experience are seamlessly integrated in your daily, physical life? Can you imagine your tweets and public Instagram posts appearing as ephemeral “graffiti” on the growing number of digital displays you encounter on your commute, while shopping, even in public restrooms? Can you imagine…
-
Micro-transactions with macro-implications
At McRock Capital’s annual IIoT Symposium, which took place this week, a panel of experts was asked: Does the ideal architecture for Smart Cities look more like the Internet or more like an operating system (ex: AOL)? Panelists Kurtis McBride of Miovision and Dan Riegel of Sidewalk Labs both argued for the former. —But…
-
Beyond People-as-a-Product?
Often these days I find myself wondering if, when Sergey and Larry were pitching Google in ’98-’99, their investor deck included a prescient slide about AdWords? While PageRank is well known as their disruptive technical innovation, AdWords, which alone likely accounts for two-thirds of Google’s revenues, is the type of disruptive business innovation that is…
-
The IoT finally runs away from home
Last week, in her Stacey on IoT newsletter, the one and only tech journalist who has shared our passion and optimism for the IoT since the earliest days of the hype wave of 2012 finally changed her tune, declaring that “the state of the smart home in 2018 is pretty disappointing.” We’re going to have…
-
RFID Journal Live 2018
Five years ago, reelyActive attended its first RFID Journal Live conference. Back then, we had pioneered simple, accessible cloud-connected active RFID. It’s easy to forget that in 2013 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) had not yet established itself as the de facto standard for active RFID, nor had the RAIN RFID alliance been formalised. This past…
-
Are Care Bears the forebears of an implantaBLE beacon future?
It’s the nightmare scenario of our time: it’s late, you’re alone, far from public transit and need to request an Uber but your mobile phone is dead. “Oh I know, I’ll use my belly badge beacon” – Cheer Bear Wait, did a CGI render of an eighties stuffy just suggest using a beacon? Yes,…
The reelyActive Blogs 