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• Welcome & antitrust notice

• Agenda review

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I want to make products that people love to use - not just the how (e.g. 

acquired by Palm, became head of Advanced Technologies - normally the problem that this is where products go to die.  Palm very supportive of innovation

At the time not so crazy - Android not there, iPhone not dominant.  3 ideas in UX that made it different

We need some kind of practical magic - something that brings something to life instantly, not deep in the s/w

watched people selling / buying phones - iPhone was like a shrine - where should the palm pre be - if we're in the rows of boxes we'll never stand out and compete.

all old and plasticky, and iPhone was cool  = what if we could do all these things together in a contactless way - not wired, wireless don't know what's the connected, so tapping - the physical process is a trusted experience delivered through the feedback of the tap.

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started with powerpoint to present idea to senior leadership - blunt response - "apple tried this and couldn't get it to work"- so let's move from pictures to demo

"a picture might be worth a thousand words, but a demo is worth a thousand pictures"!

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used it to go from office to office to show that it worked, and the all hands meeting on a tuesday

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So they asked me to commit to making it happen - I agreed! - team of only 2 - no proven power tech, we needed all the electronics in back cover 

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Need to catch up to the device manufacturing train.  

Demo didn't include what was needed in the commercial product

Next - hired the team

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deeply immersed in non-user-centric questions - just pragmatic things

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big debate about things like use of NFC standards for data exchange - 

problem with magnets in phone for example, had to be steel in device and magnets in mate

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impacts UX - what is displayed to do with the orientation of the phone - lots of thought

s/w design, 

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Very complex design

Within 10 months we had designed to product

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remember 'practical magic'

But sadly didn't live to see production - because senior leaders so impressed with Touchstone

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Interesting environment at the time - great response - I wanted more, but 

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But before that could happen - great reviews but 

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Do we correct this ?  but expose margins throughout the chain - seen as $65 profit for palm - but didn't want to betray to apple what it really cost us.  the PR conundrum was interesting.

Urban myth - palm & apple had a lot of execs between 2 teams and so both knew eachother well, and Steve Jobs was well aware of everything but not touchstone stealth team.

So angry he threw a touchstone against the wall - I got the biggest bonus of my career!

Problem - didn't know about data sharing beaming etc - more magic

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Then HP bought palm - and HP most interested in Web OS, responding to Microsoft Windows (still dominant). 

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At HP, touchstone tech was proposed...:

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Now switching from ideal to making it happen - then market explodes - reliance on the chips and whole balance of risks 

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We were pleased with results - you could do magical things.  

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See video for commercial - actually all core tech there - but not shipped as a product

growing up in 90's - so rap fan - and in the real video is a picture of Dr Drey's medical imaging using my tech!

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So much promise!  - but crash - HP changes CEO's and killed the whole mobile computing line

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Sold to qualcomm and really about wireless charging - NFC and payments would come later, but data sharing never really adopted - fragmentation through IP sales

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Epilogue - coming back to life w/apple

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Acknowledgements

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Neil Thomson - the touch is important - mechanism - the human gets it -

Manu  touch is a q that is important in building trust - 

Neil Thomson - in consent pages too long - how do we just agree an

Nicky Hickman

• One of the themes is the story of persuasion in a big organization; the political and sales process and the interaction with the product/design work.
• Another theme: biometrics were tried for accessing restricted drugs in medical wards; they found that biometric signatures worked best because the physicality of the gestures were both more trusted and more understood. Third observation: the relationship between devices and soft services is vital.
  • Manu: biometrics are readily understandable but cautious because once they're not secret, it's for life. 
• Work in ToIP community shows physical objects (tangible cards, certificates) improve perceptions of trust and behavior.
• Q. Do you think Apple's success killed or slowed innovation among device manufacturers?
  • Manu: has suppressed some innovation because of market dynamics / reality - 
• Manu: How do you make cryptography trustable to someone who doesn't understand it - maybe there's a way you can audit e.g. a ballot machine as a lay person - there is a way on the outside to watch the voting machine work - what are the tech we can use to evidence the cryptography in action
• Q. Anything you'd have done differently? Lessons learned from trying to go from idea to market?
• Many things in the touchstone universe were outside our scope to change / control e.g. HP acquisition - in start-ups you can control the focus, so in large corps you have to spend time evangilising the whole time just to stop getting de-funded. You have to be very pushy to get things done in a big company.

Phil Wolff would you have decoupled the charging from the other cool features at time IP was being sold off

Manu: out of my pay grade - they licensed to everyone - so sold a lot of the patents to Qualcomm - very acquisitive - required touchstone so was just bundled up with Web OS.