In the three months that I have not written on this blog, HP killed webOS, Amazon became a real device maker, and Steve Jobs passed away. Technology really does move fast – I already have to eat my words regarding HP. I still think HP’s strategy held water, but it was Mark Hurd’s strategy and not in Leo Apothekar’s playbook.

The thing that got me excited enough to write something again was the announcement of nest labs' thermostat. Now that the edges of technology have pushed communication forward, it’s time that it helped the every day activities with which we are already familiar. nest is a great name because, to me, it obviously implies the grandiose nature of the company’s goals: to change the technologies used within our homes every day to be more efficient.

A direction I think nest will go in the future is fridges. 30% of food is wasted, and a good portion comes from fridges at home. Remember being promised a fridge that would know when food had gone bad and ordered more groceries? Seems like something that could be done in the future.

I’ve got high hopes for nest: The world needs people who are willing to bring design and usability to products that live in perpetual mediocrity. We can’t wait for Apple to get bored with media consumption to go start building smart lamps.

~s