The early remote toy cars in the 1970s were great fun.
They were big, with cutting edge radio technology and so expensive, only adults could afford them.
Companies manufacturing them thought exactly like we do today.
Add more features and you'll get more customers. And keep raising the price.
What's not so intuitive is to figure out how to make expensive technology cheap.
Until an engineer working at a small company decided to re-engineer the category
He called it 'Lateral thinking with withered technology'
And what did it mean? Using cheap, well tested, easily available technology that other people overlooked or never considered.
Reduce the features and the complexity
Controlling numerous radio channels was the expensive bit
So he stripped it down to one channel where the car could only turn left. Added the steering wheel and a small body to match.
He called it 'Lefty RX' and priced 90% cheaper than any other remote car in the market.
Kids loved it. They didn't care that it was limited. They would left turn their way out of trouble.
And the remote car market took off.
More details in this blog post
Image above from: http://famicomblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/cruising-around-town-in-1972-nintendo.html
From remote cars to calculators, the leap
From cars that could only turn left, a calculator set the engineer off on another chase
Travelling on a bullet train, he saw an office goer take out his calculator and play with it.
Not to calculate but press random keys to beat boredom.
That sparked a thought - what if people could play games with their thumbs?
He asked the researchers at his company to make screens the size of business cards.
To indulge him they made an initial prototype crammed with cheap electronics.
Packed tightly inside, weird rings appeared on the display wherever the screen was pressed.
Separating the layers would be expensive.
He scouted around in other industries that made small separations on objects the size of business cards.
He saw that credit cards were embossed - cardholder names were raised on the surface
He got the machine making them and engineers embossed little dots on the panels to separate the layers.
The screen distortion disappeared. Those weird rings were gone.
The company launched highly affordable game devices you could play with your thumbs - Game Boy.
They expected to sell 0.5 million. They ended up selling 11 million in the first year.
The company? Nintendo, of course. And the engineer -Gunpei Yokoi.
Inspiration is everywhere if you look.
The 60s have returned
Bicycles are back in big numbers after the lockdowns began
The increase in demand has been as much as 50% for premium cycles and 100% for electric ones, according to the Chairman of Hero Cycles.
And that will continue until the vaccine appears or Coronavirus disappears
Apparently, people don't want to get back to public transport anytime soon.
So, will we see bicycle romances blossom again?
The odds are against it. .
Like good deeds, bikes are high on intent and low on follow through.
Once the traffic comes back and the smog rolls in, we'll return to our bubbles.
And shut the world out all over again.
We all know what happens to exercise bikes.
The rationale for buying it is a return to peak fitness.
And cycle away the pastries and pizzas.
But it ends up becoming the clothes stand. Standing forlornly in the corner of a room
Taking up all the space and a guilty reminder of good intentions.
There's no going back to the 60s and group picnics.
That world is over. It lives only on YouTube.
It's like we're walking into memories and pretending they are the present.
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