Lately I have been looking at how Sxip will make money. We have done a great job of raising awareness, the video of my Identity 2.0 keynote helping with that quite a bit. But I digress. I have been using the labels of vitamins, painkillers and Viagra to classify product opportunities.

Vitamins are something we all know we should take. Vitamins are preventative. They don’t provide any immediate feedback. It is a good idea, and when the stars are aligned we take them. It is really hard to sell vitamins.

Painkillers solve an immediate pain. When I have pain, I want painkillers and I want them NOW. Painkillers are easy to sell to people that have pain. It is not that they want the painkiller though so much as they DON’T want the pain.

Viagra lets you do things that were not possible before. Viagra gives you new powers! Once someone understands what Viagra can do for them, they want it. Even if they don’t really need it, they would like to try it!

At Sxip, we are looking for what the Viagra in the Identity 2.0 world.

Philips illuminates IFA 2006 with production-ready Lumalive textile garments
The future has arrived. The “@” that you see above is LEDs embedded in the garmet. (click the image to see a high res version). The LED image can also be video and other colours. Philips is getting ready for these to be shipped.

I remember reading many sci-fi stories where clothing is illuminated. Here it is arriving. I think this will ripple through society allowing people to dictate a fashion statement. I can imagine it being pretty interesting party/rave wear and connected to other environmental inputs, puts a whole new twist to mood rings.

Last night at foo camp the Chumby folks showed off the Chumby.
It is a general purpose information appliance. Here it is running a clock application:

Here is a shot to get the scale …

and since it has a clothe enclosure, it can be customized …

The applications on the chumby are widgets that are flash applications. You configure which ones are on the Chumby on the Chumby website. Real-soon-now you will be able to put your own flash apps on your Chumby. Here are the ones I have on my Chumby right now:

This is one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. Still in pre-alpha mode, but if these guys rapidly evolve the product on feedback, I could see lots of geekie types having them littered around their homes, and then some killer applications may emerge that brings them more mainstream.

globeandmail.com : Google eyes bigger Canadian office

Google Inc. wants to create a mid-sized research and development office in Canada with as many as 200 staff.

“We’re looking to grow aggressively. We think there’s a real opportunity for a Southern Ontario R&D centre,” Shona Brown, the company’s senior vice-president of business operations, said in an interview in Toronto.

The foundations of that office are already in place, following the acquisition last summer of Reqwireless Inc., a startup in Waterloo, Ont., that makes Internet browser and e-mail software for wireless devices.

Google’s website now advertises for just two positions in Waterloo, but Ms. Brown said the company is actually hiring across the board, from directors to fresh engineering graduates.

“We would like to grow a fairly sizable R&D centre there,” ranging between 100 and 200 people, she said. The company is also adding sales and marketing staff in Toronto. Google doesn’t disclose its local headcount, but in Canada it is still small. In Toronto, it doesn’t have its own offices, but rents executive space downtown. Worldwide, the eight-year-old company has about 6,000 employees.

At first blush, these seems like a good thing. One of the most powerful internet companies is wanting to grow in Canada! It shows that Canada is a world player in technology R&D. But those of us in Canada already know this. There are many R&D labs here in Canada. We are turning out lots of great engineers. But are we creating lots of indigenous Canadian technology companies? Many of the top engineers are being lured to the US. Those that do now want to move are now being lured to convenient R&D labs where they live so that they don’t have to move. Sure, they have jobs, but there is a shortage of those people.

By setting up an R&D lab in Canada, Google is exasperating the supply problem. They are able to attract top talent — who would not want to work for Google? But these R&D labs are not teaching this talent how to build a business. Canada is not building wealth. We are repeating history and once again exporting our best resources for others to monetize. This time it is human capital.