Why Wearable Technology is the Future?

(This story is written by a college kid about another kid who dropped out of college. Sorry if you don't find the story interesting.)

When Nelson Zhang and I met in Shanghai last summer, he had already made up his mind to drop out of Cal. With $100,000 Thiel Fellowship money in hand, Nelson was free to spend the next two years on his hardware startup. Nelson won the fellowship with his invention of a 3-D printer that sped up hardware startups’ prototyping and iteration process. 

According to Nelson, his startup would focus on wearable products, the really hot tech area encompassing Pebble, iWatch and Google Glass.

In fact, Nelson has been developing a Google Glass imitator called Prism since his senior year of high school. His team revamped the third generation of Prism in the YCombinator hardware hackathon this year. The new Prism can detect nodding and head shaking, and it enables users to take photos and upload them to Facebook with a few subtle head movements.

Last summer, Nelson planned to visit manufacturers in Shenzhen, Hongkong and Taiwan. His goal was twofold: to learn about the manufacturing capacity of and technology available to the manufacturers; and to ask for advice so as to finish his final product design.

I asked him one question that was hotly debated: why wearable technology is the future? Here’s his answer.

First of all, from the standpoint of a hardware engineer, Nelson sees an obvious trend that the size of wearable devices is becoming increasingly small. ten years or even five years ago, Google Glass was impossible. Hardware-device size was simply too huge.

The “father of wearable computing”, Professor Steve Mann developed a head mounted device in the 1980s that looked like a helmet. Except for Mann himself, no one would wear the device in public. Fortunately, Google Glass has achieved a size as small as a normal pair of glasses, which solves the problem of privacy. When wearable devices are small enough, they become less cumbersome and easier for everyone to adopt.

From the point of view of a consumer, there is only one reason one would use any wearable device: convenience. Take your phone as an example. On one hand, there is an access time to use the phone. It takes two seconds to take a phone out of your pocket. On the other hand, when you are using a phone, you devote all of your attention to it. There is nothing you can do but stare at your phone.

In comparison, Google Glass is always there, and it’s always on. Google Glass integrates much better with your visual sense than a phone—it seems to be the natural extension of your eyes and does not prevent you from doing something else.

This leads to a number of possibilities. Most directly, Google Glass enables every user to take photos or watch videos at any second.

Indirectly, QR codes have been introduced for very long time but have never been popularized. One major reason is that scanning QR codes with a cellphone is extremely inconvenient. You have to take the phone out of your pocket and turn on the app before you scan. This process is short and easy but not convenient. 

However, with Google Glass, all you need to do is stare at the QR code. Google Glass would scan it in a split second. By eliminating the inconvenience of scanning QR codes, Google Glass could boost the popularization of the codes, which in turn would open up a lot more possibilities.

Breaking News: San Francisco Legalizing Airbnb

(This story is written on Jan. 18th 2013.)

San Francisco District 3 supervisor David Chiu will introduce a new legislation by the end of January that legalizes renting residential space for fewer than 30 days. “The new legislation allows tenants and condo owners to rent their rooms to travelers in San Francisco. In this way they can make some extra money”, said Amy Chan, Legislative Aide from Office of Supervisor David Chiu.

With the growth of technology companies that advocate sharing economy, San Franciscans are taking advantages of this opportunity to earn some money by renting out their spare rooms on websites like Airbnb. Airbnb connects tourists who want to have a local experience at a good price to the hosts who want to rent out their spare rooms.

By charging a fee on the transaction, Airbnb is likely to generate 1 billion a year in revenues if the recent Forbes projection of Airbnb booking--100 million nights per year--comes true. The not that great news is Airbnb is operating in a huge legal grey area because San Francisco has a ban on renting residential space for fewer than 30 days. This ban intend to protect long term tenants from being crowded out by short stay tourists.   

The new legislation tackles this problem by only offering the legalization to the hosts who live in the spaces for majority of the year. Moreover, “there would be a cap on the number of days hosts can rent out their rooms”, said Amy Chan. Students who go back home for summer and winter breaks would benefit greatly from this legislation so do people who want their vocations partially financed by their vacant homes.

However, many Airbnb hosts have no idea about whether their income generated through Airbnb subjects to hotel tax or not. Airbnb promised them instruction before tax season even though City Treasurer Jose Cisneros ruled last year Airbnb and the kind are responsible for hotel tax. “The new legislation would not touch hotel tax”, said Amy Chan, “this is settled by the City Treasurer and David agrees”.  

Airbnb spokesperson Kim Rubey declined to comment on the new legislation before it is officially introduced. She added that there are ongoing dialogues between Airbnb and city officials on the issue of hotel tax.    

Besides the city ban, most contracts of lease contain a sub-clause that prohibits subletting. “If there is no subletting clause and David Chiu’s legislation passes, landlords would not make an extra dime,” said San Francisco Apartment Association Government and Community Affair Coordinator Charlie Goss, explaining that San Francisco enforces strict rent control, “but the tenants would collect rents far more exceeding what their landlords could collect.”

“Renting out a spare room on Airbnb is not the same as operating a hotel”, said Hotel Council of San Francisco Executive Director Kevin Carroll, “but Airbnb is competing with us. If it is operating like a hotel, it should provide same protection for its guests and pay taxes.”

David Chiu’s new legislation is likely to put some order in the grey area where Airbnb operates. “Some landlords have evicted their tenants to make more money through Airbnb,” said Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco Director of Counselling Program Tommi Avicolli Mecca. He said, “The vacancy rate in San Francisco is already very low. Airbnb hotels are not a good way to utilize precious housing resource in the city”. 

(Update 9/19/2013: The legislation has not occurred yet since I wrote this story. I need to explain more about the circumstances. I worked as an intern reporter for a local newspaper last winter in San Francisco. I interviewed all the people involved in this story. Every source quoted here is authentic. The legalization seemed to be happening at that time. However, my story was not published for some reason and I just published it here. During the summer, I heard that David Chiu was still dealing with the Tenants Association and the Apartment Association. It's a really tricky piece of legislation.)