R&D Blog - Erich Hugo

Alea iacta est

By Erich Hugo on 2009-08-27
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The web is maturing. Here are some thoughts on possible business plans for the future.

The die has been cast. So said Julius Caesar after he had crossed the Rubicon river and realized there was no turning back. As a society we are now wading into the safe shallows of our most recent Rubicon, the most devastating economic crisis known to any living person. But the question arises, what is this world we are entering into? Is it going to be a remake of the one before the economic crisis. If it is then I am not quite sure that we are capable of learning. As Gordon Gecko stated in Wall Street, Greed is good, I would like to add , so is responsibility. But what of it?

The 100th Idiot

By Erich Hugo on 2009-07-29
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R&D's Erich Hugo on the Global Village, and why he hopes to be the last idiot standing

"100 idiots make idiotic plans, and carry them out. All but one justly fail. The hundredth idiot whose plans succeeded through pure luck, is immediately convinced he's a genius."

—Iain Banks, Matter

Back from holiday and I have so many new ideas that I feel like I am in a ticker tape parade of impressions. We were in Turkey, and suffice it to say I was very surprised at how western the country is and how far the Paris Hilton-ization of the world has come.

The Evolution of Revolution

By Erich Hugo on 2009-06-08
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R&D's Erich Hugo on Nelson Mandela, his mother-in-law and the communication revolution

Revolutions have become sanitized affairs in the Western World. Far removed from the guts and glory days of the French Revolution, there has been an ebb towards making these socially up heaving events part an parcel of our daily lives. Most people in the west don't even notice the revolutions really; they just go from one default state to another without really prompting or even questioning their own motives. I guess it's all in the packaging.

I have lived through a revolution IRL.

Big Tech

By Erich Hugo on 2009-05-15
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R&D's Erich Hugo on the rise of the benign information dictators

Photo courtesy of Flickr user canonsnapper, CC licensed

I sat in meeting today for the whole day in Brussels. The meeting was to define parameters for the European Union's ICT policy. Kind of like the what/when/how/if/yes/no strategy of Europe on the web. My mind is understandably buzzing. But a few thoughts struck me.

Firstly, government. Everybody wants to have an opinion about how bad government is at doing their jobs but very few people actually want to get involved.

Mashups

By Erich Hugo on 2009-04-27
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Think you've got a great new idea?  R&D's Erich Hugo says you might want to check your sources

"Nothing like the sun."  Those words were written in the 17th century by William Shakespeare, and in 1987 they were sampled by Sting when he released an album by the same name. The album was critically acclaimed by the music industry and the public in general still rates this as probably his best album.

In 1989, an unknown white boy rap artist Robert van Winkle, better known as Vanilla Ice, sampled a baseline (even more diffuse than lyrics) from a song called "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie.  He released it as a mashup called "Ice Ice Baby".

Choice Limits Choice

By Erich Hugo on 2009-04-16
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R&D's Erich Hugo on "choice-iness", or how new tech avenues make us choose away

And so it has come to pass. I have actually closed a tech avenue by choosing an alternative product which gives me alternative choices. And it makes me feel lost.

Land of the Blind

By Erich Hugo on 2009-03-31
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R&D's Erich Hugo wants web leaders to stop out-innovating the consumer

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king—or so the old adage goes.

But what has this got to do with the world we live in today? Well, it struck me last night while I was doing some dishes, using the latest and greatest dishwashing liquid.  It actually contained an active ingredient extracted from cucumber.  And I was like, what??

But the fact of the matter is that the whole webifaction trend is affecting all walks of life.  The web today is conducting a global race into obscurity—hence cucumber-enriched dishwashing liquid.

The End of the OS

By Erich Hugo on 2009-03-12
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R&D's Erich Hugo on the end of the operating system, and why that's a good thing

I am a consumer (not the walrus) and I need to get my daily fix of PopSci. So of course I need to pop into the website and see the latest headlines...If only it was as simple as that, though, because the wish to consume media means I need to get to a lap- or desktop. I need to boot the device up, which is all ready a two- to three-minute plus exercise; I then add some seconds to find and open the relevant browser application.

Fire Upon the Deep Web

By Erich Hugo on 2009-03-11
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R&D's Erich Hugo on the question of your online reputation

For my first blog entry I was asked to say a few words about myself, and right now I am stumped. So instead of me preaching about myself, I recommend that you guys do a search on my name and I will try and track you. I will post the results of anybody searching on my name (which I can find) here on the blog. That way you will get an overview of who I am and we get my first blog post done.