Being a geek with one eye on the internets at all times, I am finding that there are a lot of technical marvels that are slowly sliding into mainstream acceptance. Okay, lest you think I’ve forgotten, I definitely qualify as an early adopter. No question. But take a look at this bicycle hubcap, that makes any standard bike an electric hybrid:
This. Is. So. Cool.
Is it mainstream? Okay, not per se, but let’s talk about how technologies are adapted here for something ordinary and everyday commonplace–a bike-to create fitness, tech, and ecological benefits. All by fitting a hubcap to your bicycle to create a smart electric hybrid. It’s controlled through your smart phone and can give you real time feedback for fitness, traffic, road conditions, and pollution levels. It connects to social networks so you can network with your friends.
Ladies and gentlemen, these are all things I already do. I have my phone everywhere I go; I track the time and distances I exercise so I can track improvement; my bike’s odometer data can be uploaded and saved, as well as my bike routes. So this *smart* bike is simply pulling all of these things together for me and funneling the data into my social network, which CLEARLY I do on occasion. What it would do that I don’t currently do, in point of fact, is probably get me out on my bike more. And that would be a great thing. It would benefit me. My health. My environment. My motivation. My quality of life. (And you may ask yourself, well… how did I get here?)
Do you see a pattern? Over the last decade, we’ve seen data explosion that can pull data from pretty much anywhere. Now we are seeing how to apply this data to our lives in ways that are actually positive and useful. And putting things together that are unexpected, but now suddenly make sense. Talk about mobile computing! The techie inside me gets excited about this kind of merging input, but the real life test is to see it in use, every day. And of course, have Oprah tweet about it.
From early adopter to mainstream use. Talk about converging paths.
(via @cliffyballgame; full story at Core 77.)
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