Mobile Customer Engagement (III)

DICE Vision 2012 (please excuse my straying into semi-fiction. Also, since most of what I describe is available I will place it in 2012, not 2015)

Andy Smith was running late for his flight. As he walked to the car, he activated the browser on his Moto Android and quickly checked-in to his flight with 3 key strokes. When a text with his barcode came back he relaxed - that problem at least was taken care of. Andy had just received an automated notification that his elderly mother had fallen down, triggered by an accelerometer built into a pendant she always wore, and connected to the wireless network. The speakerphone built in to the pendant had turned on, setting up an immediate connection with the emergency response team, and also calling him. He had calmed her down, and she was now heading to the hospital. Although she might have fractured a hip, she was going to be alright.

Andy docked his Android into nav mode and punched in the airport destination. The TomTom app gave him the optimal routing. This was so cool: the routing was based on an algorithm that looked at historical traffic on the route, fed by data from a combination of probes and cell-phone based data, adapted to projected weather events, and he could not believe he ever used the 1st gen nav. He currently was scheduled to get there with 30mts to spare - as long as he could get parked fast, he might just be able to make it on the plane.

Darn! Traffic ahead. "Tom", his friendly nav assistant, automatically re-routed him but he was now down to a 23mt window, and the main parking lot was full. He could upgrade on the fly to premium parking (why $40 a day was not premium, he was not sure), but what was the point since he figured he had lost the flight. Shifting gears (mentally, since he was in an automatic car), he connected his travel agent "Bev". Bev was clearly getting twitchy, since her algorithms suggested that he was going to miss the flight, and she was already mapping out his alternatives. In voice mode, she piped up available options for him. Andy chose the first available - he would still see his mother tonight, and it was probably better that she had some time in the hospital before he visited.

With time to spare, he relaxed. The local radio was uninspiring so he surreptitiously switched on his Android podcaster hoping no cop was looking (this was not voice activated, what a pain!). He listened to some NPR for a while, and when it got too liberal, he shifted to a bit of Talk Radio - a bit extreme but perhaps more satisfying for his mood. [....]

After parking his car, Andy walked into the terminal and straight into security, where they scanned the boarding pass in his cell. He still needed to show ID, though they were talking about putting ID on his phone (not sure about that, he thought). Once in the airport, the Android switched into the WiFi network, and all of his pending big files automatically uploaded (this option was cheaper on his mobile data account than truly unlimited).

His carrier was experimenting with Near Field Communications at the airport, and he thought he would try out his mobile-wallet. He bought a triple-vente macchiato and paid with his phone (wow this is cool!). He tried it out in the bookstore (neat, I could get in trouble, this is addictive).

In the Admiral's Club (when would they get the message that they were competing with the likes of Starbucks and they should upgrade their coffee machines?) he sat down to wait. He opened "Bev" and did some planning for next week's travel. "Bev" gave him a range of available options (it was funny thinking that he used to get on the phone with a real assistant to figure out what now seemed very simple to do on the cell). Since these were tickets above $1000, he authenticated with his unique voice print (pretty neat - to set it up you spoke for about 10 seconds, and then it could authenticate you with the precision of DNA in about 4 seconds in any language or even if you spoke gibberish). He said supercalifragilisticexpialidotious, and that seemed to do the trick.

Since he had time to kill, Andy did a bit of "house-keeping" (funny that he no longer did this at home). Through Android, he checked through his cable, cell, broadband, oil, gas and water bills to make sure everything was ok. He noticed that his eldest daughter was texting a lot (that new boyfriend!), and he decided to upgrade her to unlimited texting (and negotiate a slight reduction in her allowance - yeah like that was going to work). His Mum was on Jitterbug, and he noticed that she was starting to text a lot as well, maybe there was a secret conspiracy between his daughter and mom he should know about! [...]

Late that night, having visited Mom at hospital and made sure that everything was ok, he settled in to his hotel room. He was tired, and was not in the mood for anything much. He had downloaded some movies and games to his Android (it was amazing how much these little devices could store!). He connected the cell to his TV with some TV-out cables he always carried with him. He turned the TV on, paired the cell with his Zeemote, and began to rummage through the entertainment section of his cell while lying down on the bed. This was great - instead of having to work through the hotel's choices, he could pick among his own stuff or even use the mobile-browser, but all projected onto the big screen. He was sure the hotel was not happy, but they would figure out their own economics. He played a couple of games with his Zeemote controller, and then scrolled for a downloaded "Two and a half men". He barely made it to the end..... {zzzz}

Note: All of these technologies are fully functional, though not all have been implemented in the mode that I describe.