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The future of personal finance

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GROUP 6

The Last....

This will be my last post in this blog in this course. It has actually been a great fun to blog so I might keep on doing it, but maybe for another purpose.

This will be a bit of a nostalgic post, the last post, the course is over…..It´s with split feelings when I say that the course is over. It has been a great course with loads of fun. None of the lectures were alike and it has been with excitement that I’ve entered the lectures.

The final presentations today were great. It started off with, I think, one of the best presentations, except ours (group 6, the future of personal finance). The first group had made a great video. The fun thing was that all the presentations were very different in their ways. The biggest laughter was when a group showed a picture of Magnus looking like Borat. I won’t describe in detail what all the presentations were about, I will just say that the evening was really great, all groups had done a great job, some better than others.

I really hope that people will look at our blog after the class especially Magnus, because that´s were all the great information is. The videos that we showed in class were only previews of what our blog contains. Our presentation in class yesterday was only a presentation of the presentation. So, like I said, I really hope that people and especially the jury and Magnus are interested enough to spend some time scrolling around our blog, it´s really good and interesting. I also hope that we dazzled Magnus enough with our presentation.

I would like to end with giving a big big thank you to Magnus Lindkvist for making this course possible and making it so fun. Also a big big thank you to Caroline, who has been great all ten weeks. She´s a lifesaver….

Like I said I’m sorry to say that this course is over…..

That´s all for now and unfortunately for ever…..

I´d like to end with repeating what the chines girl Anna said in our film, A M A Z I N G….

Parking houses...

Yesterday evening I was watching I robot on TV3. It´s a futuristic movie about robots, where one is a bit different from the others. This special one can feel anger and other human things which lead to it getting a suspect in a murder. This blog post isn´t about the plot of the movie, it´s about different interesting things that I saw in the movie, especially a type of parking house. It would be great for the cities if they could offer more parking spaces, and if we could offer them in a way where they don´t need much space then we could build more apartments in the central city and so on.


The type of parking house that I saw in the movie was a kind of robotic parking house. You just park your car outside the parking house and a big claw takes the car and puts it in a free space, but with the front down. This is a kind of space optimization. This kind of parking house could be build underground. This kind would be great central in big cities, for example in Stockholm. If we could build the NK parking house underground with this space optimization method then we could have more stores or more apartments in the central of Stockholm.

I have actually seen a parking house in Vasastan that uses a similar method. It´s not underground and it doesn´t space optimize like the I robot one, but it´s similar in the way that you just park your car in the entrance and then just press a button and your car will be placed automatically.

A thoughtful thing to think about, how we can develop smarter and more spaced optimized parking houses.

That´s all for now….

The future of downloading.....

This is a subject that I have to talk about. The question is how will it look in the future, will we still be downloading? Do we need to download? Will it be legal to download? These are all good questions that I don’t have an answer to.

If we look back, downloading has existed nearly as long as the internet has “lived”. But it has escalated throughout the years. More and more sites have popped up on the net. But is has developed into a more and more legal problem. The music writers and artists wants to get paid for their work, the film writers and studios also wants to get paid. The problem here is that the new sites that have developed have this new system that makes it hard for the authorities to catch the downloader’s. A question here is if this will escalate? Will we have more charges on people who download? Will downloader’s face jail time?

I think that it will be impossible to stop all the downloader´s. The solution will be that they will meet half way. There is a solution on the idea stage. The idea is that when you buy your internet contract you choose if you want to download or not. If you say yes, then you choose how much you want to download, suppose you have three alternatives there. Then you pay a specific sum of money each month and you can download legal thereafter. The money will then be divided fairly to all the artist and screen writers and so on. The more they get downloaded the more percentage they will get. If you choose not to download then you will give the internet company the full power to check that you don´t download, and If you do, then you will be punished. This is a very good solution. The downloader´s can download with good conscious and the music and film companies will get some money. The companies have to think that it´s better than nothing, because today they don´t get anything from the downloader´s.

The downloading itself will be more and more accepted and it will be more and more used. Today people download everything from programs to television shows. Today you can even rent movies on the net, by just paying a sum of money, this means that you don´t need to go to the video store, you can just sit at home and rent your favorite movie, this means that your movie will always be in stock. This is not the same as the downloading that I talked about before, but it shows that more sites wants to use the escalation of downloading. But the big downloader’s don´t rent movies, they just download it without paying anything, and that´s where the idea that I talked about before enters…

A thought that I have is that we maybe will be able to download directly on the TV, the future televisions will either have a built in computer in them or they will be directly connected to the computer. So instead of choosing channel you can choose whatever movie or series you want to watch.

That´s all for now from my thought about downloading…..

Another way to use your phone...

With this you play retro games on a jumbotrone with your phone. "The essential appeal is audience participation on a massive scale". The megaphone is another example of harnessing cell phones to enhance a marketing effort. I´ll let the pictures and video speak for itself....

http://www.playmegaphone.com

That´s it for today......

The end of travel angency shops?....

Today I visited some travel agencies to book a trip. In the first agency that I visited I found a lot of catalogues that you could pick and take home. But when I reached the second one, there they didn´t have any, the only thing they had was a smaller version of the real catalogue where they had picked their favorites. This made me think. Is this the next step, no catalogues and only internet?

If we look back, we had no internet and only travel agencies with a lot of catalogues but after time has passed by, internet has gotten bigger and bigger. More and more people have gotten used to order their trip on the internet. They have even gotten used to paying their trip on the net. There are seldom people in the travel agency shops, most people sit at home and choose their trip. Today we have travel agencies that only occur on the net.

So where is this heading? he people who visit the travel agencies are mostly old people who don´t rely on the net. What are they going to do if the agency shops disappear? Will they disappear?

I think they will, but at the same time I think that the internet will be easier to use. Today you can apply to internet courses for old people so it´s getting more and more accepted by everyone.

This was just a short spontaneous post…..

Now it´s time to have a Friday beer……

Last but not least....

Last night we had our last guest lecturer and I must admit, it was one of the best and the most fun presentation. Why did I think that, well because I´m a gadget nerd and Sven talked a lot about gadgets in the future. He showed us a lot of cool things that will come. For example the virtual reality games in real life, the GPS soccer game was really cool.

At first he started to talk about what micro trends are and what they should involve. Micro trends are small changes cases of changes and they have to have four things, they have to be eye-catching, new, intelligent and structural change. That led to the next topic, the 5th screen. Nobody knows what the 5th screen will be, but there are a lot of guesses out there. To clarify, the first screen is the cinema, the second is the television, the third is the pc and the fourth is the mobile phone, but what will the fifth be…..

My guesses of the 5th screen are maybe something with our eyes, like the lens that Sven talked about. A lens that can zoom in stuff and get information from people that you zoom in. It will also have a night vision.

Sven also talked about some things that will reach the internet soon. The new search engines, you will be able to search with pictures instead of words. Also if you see a cool watch in an ad, then you can just copy that picture and print it in the search engine and you will get all prizes of the watch, you will even get cheaper alternatives and where you can buy them. The next thing will be to combine internet series with the search engine, So for example, if you´re sitting and watching entourage and you think that Vincent Chase has really cool shoes, then you can just press the menu and choose his shoes , and you can instantly buy the shoes. This sounded really cool and useful and I think it will reach us very soon. That will be a new big trend in on the internet.

Another interesting thing that Sven talked about is the future of the cell phone. The phone will be a gadget that will control everything, well not everything, but the electronics in the home, the car and a lot of more things.

So, will just have to wait and see if Sven’s guesses will be true….

One thing that´s true, is that the presentation was very interesting and giving…That´s all for now….

An interactive bar.....

Will this be a new trend? A was reading a newspaper where I saw this interactive bar. It looks really cool and I think it´s something that can come in handy in the future. You don´t have to wait for the staff to help you. You just press on the screen what drink you want, then you just place your card on top of the screen and the deal is finished, then you just have to wait for your drink. This doesn´t take away any jobs and you can order whenever you are ready, you don´t need to be disturb by the waitress any more asking if you want something to drink. The downside is, if the waitress is pretty, then you will see less of her with this new system, but I can we can manage that….

The guys who invented this thing are hoping that it will reach the bars as soon as forthcoming summer…. So keep your eyes open for this new invention….

That´s all for now…

Here´s another example of an interactive bar

The future of cellular phones.....

The future of cellular phones, will there even be a future containing cell phones? Like I posted in an earlier post, everything is getting smaller and that contains the cellular phone business as well, but I think that we have entered a new era in the cell phone industry. I remember when Ericsson released their Ercisson hotline phone, it was black with orange buttons and it was very, very big. After the years have gone by, the cell phones have gotten smaller and smaller, with more and more gadgets and in them. We have gone from enormous phones to small ones, from black and white screens to color screens, from only being able to print in your number to small personal computers, the development have gone by very fast. But now I believe that we have entered a new era.

The cell phones have gotten bigger again, I mean look at the iphone and compare that one to Nokias smallest one. The big difference is that we have entered a new trend where the phones are all getting touch screens. The result of that is that the phones can´t be too small. So where are we heading. Will the phones keep on going getting bigger or will the small phones return, will we like I said even have any cell phones?

I think that we will always have cell phones, but that it will go in a two way direction. One way will be cell phones that are in a quite normal size, like the iphone, that will contain enormously many gadgets and stuff, and one direction where the phones will be as small as the Bluetooth headsets. I also think that the future phones will contain many more things than the phones we have today. The phones will be like a computer. That we have today but a think that we will be able to do all the things that we can do in the computer. Maybe we will have a combined phone and paying system. We might be able to pay with our phone, and maybe be able to do money transfers.

Maybe we can have Bluetooth headsets that can connect with your phone from a long distance, for example, when you´re going to town for some shopping and you don´t want to carry your phone with you, then you can leave the phone at home and only bring the Bluetooth headset with you which can connect to your phone at home. There are a lot of maybe´s, we can never now what will happen, but some predictions won’t hurt……

That´s all for now….

Four wheelers.....

Yesterday when I was at work I heard something driving past outside the store. At the same time my colleague opens his mouth and said “I hate this new trend with these four wheel motorcycles”. At the same time as he said the word trend my attentions switch fully to him. When I came home I made some searches on the net to see what he was talking about. Last year a new trend started in the vehicle industry. After the European Union changed their by-laws on motor driven vehicles, the sales of four wheel drive vehicles have risen. The reason is that these are allowed to be driven on public roads. But the drawback is the increase of casualties. However, a new trend has started, the question is, when will it end, and what will replace it. The only thing I hope for is, that it´s something safer.

That´s all for now....

Wall-E

On Thursday evening I had the privilege to be invited by Magnus Lindqvist and the SSES to see Wall-E on the Sergel cinema. I would like to start with saying Thank you” to Magnus and the SSES for the movie. I think everyone enjoyed the movie. A thing that many people don’t know about me is that I love Disney movies. Last summer, my 26 year old friend and I had a Disney day, where we watched 5 Disney movies in a row. I really enjoyed this movie. I´m not going to explain the whole movie, but I will try to link the trailer.

The movie gives a very interesting thought of how the future might look like. Will we have garbage overload, will we get food in cups, and will we be able to take vacations in space. One big question that I asked myself when I was watching the movie is, will we ever be able to live in space? I did some reading about this and the answer is that it´s possible but it will cost too much. The problem is also that for example Mars is more hostile than a climate change would be for us on earth. We also don´t have the resources to move a big bunch of people to Mars. The predictions are though that in the future we will have some research stations on mars, but it will take over 100 years if ever that we can live on Mars. Maybe Wall-E can use Mars to dump all his garbage……

Eva……Wall-E…….

The future of health centers......

Today I needed some exercise, so I went down to the gym and had a nice workout. When I was standing on the treadmill looking at the television that belonged to my treadmill, I started, like always, thinking about the future, and how the health centers will look like in the future. Will we even have any health centers in the future or do we just need to take a pill and we will directly feel healthy and look like body builders? I mean legal pills, not the ones we have today.

So let´s look back in time and see how health centers has developed the last couple of years. At first, the gyms were only for body building. When you thought of a gym you directly connected it to a dark studio where big muscled guys were standing lifting their heavy weights. After time health centers have gotten more and more accepted. People realized that you don´t need to be a body builder to be accepted at a health center. When health centers got accepted more people went to the health centers, but not only to lift weights but to exercise. Then after a while the health centers started different group programs, like step aerobics and spinning and so on. When you go to the health center today, the most people go to the programs or the relax section, less people go to the actual body building section.

What´s next then…. I think the health centers will be very high-tech in the future. I mean look at the health centers today. All the treadmills at my health center have its own television. In my sisters health center in Switzerland you have a card which you put in every machine that you want to use and it will automatically adjust the weight that you have pre chosen. The development of health centers are heading towards a high-tech era, even though it feels like we already entered it. It´s very hard to spot what will come in the future, but I think that the machines will be easier to use. With this I mean that you don´t have to put as much effort as you do today, the machines will help you train your muscles in a more efficient way.

I think that we are heading to health centers where we have machines that do the work for us. For example the thing they have on TV shop that you strap around your stomach and that gives you electric shocks or something. Those electric shocks in 5 minutes are supposed to represent 100 sit-ups. We also have a kind of vibrating machine that you can stand on or lie down on and do different exercises. The good thing about these is that the vibrating part does the work for you, but like my mom said, it has to be fun.

Another thought is that the food section has developed much healthier food which results in that we don´t need to go to the gym. Or maybe we have a bed that makes the body work in peculiar way in the night that we don´t feel that can result in that we don´t have to go to the gym. Or maybe a chair that we have in our home that serves the same purpose as the bed.

So to summarize. I think we are heading to a more high-tech era. We are in one now, but it will develop more and more for every day. We are also heading to a future where we don´t have to do the work ourselves…..

That´s all for now….

Mr.Ronald Jones

I just have to make a small post about Thursdays lecture. The lecture was held by a well dressed professor named Ronald Jones. He talked about trends and the future in education and design. The most interesting thing that he said was that we are heading to a trend where we don´t buy for example a chair for its design itself, we buy the chair for the experience of the design. He also mentioned the importance development of designers in the business area. Today many companies hire designers but not for their skills but for their ability to create something unconventional.

He had many interesting thoughts and I thought that this was a very good and giving lecture, go Donald.

That´s all for now....