Combining Physical and Digital - Q&A with Shane Wall, CTO of Hewlett-Packard

Shane Wall is the Chief Technology Officer of Printing and Personal Systems at Hewlett-Packard. Shane is responsible for leading Hewlett-Packard’s technology vision and strategy, incubating new technology businesses, driving a fully aligned technology roadmap and leading the overall technical community. Before the DIS, he shares his vision of new technologies and what media companies should be paying attention to.

Tell me about the new HP Inc. - what is it focused on? 

With HP Inc. we are building one of the world’s largest startups, that is already a Fortune 50 company, operating at scale. As the market-leading printing and personal systems company we will empower people to create, interact and inspire like never before. We will leverage our number 1 or 2 position in all markets we operate in, to accelerate growth and innovation in technology segments like 3D printing and new computing experiences.  

What new technologies excite you? 

Now more than ever we need to humanize technology and make it more tangible, more intuitive and more immersive.  At HP we have coined the term Blended Reality, which is the fusing of our physical and digital world in order to deliver these richer experiences.  Leveraging emerging technology trends—Hyper Mobility, 3D Transformation, Internet of Things and Smart Machines—Blended Reality enables businesses and consumers to unleash their creativity, turning ideas into physical reality; and connecting people, devices and data to deliver rich immersive experiences. 

What trends do you think should media businesses be paying attention to? 

I think the primary thing media businesses should be focused on is how and where the consumer will be experiencing content.  There are three technology shifts that I believe will have the greatest impact in this:

• Hyper Mobility: As technology becomes smaller and more mobile, computers become things that we carry, wear and even have embedded in our body. How we consume media will be customized to how we access it.
• Internet of Things: Mobile devices, wearables, and sensors that are either standalone or interacting with people capture information about our bodies, our surroundings and our habits, with each technology trying to understand the patterns and elements of importance in our lives.
• Contextual Computing: Acting on information about our surroundings, patterns and environmental influences, contextual computing brings the potential to walk through a content-rich world that recognizes us and responds accordingly. 

Collectively these technologies create opportunities not only for new digital content but also for new business models, platforms, and services.

What do you see as the next big disruption/revolution driven by technology?

3D transformation is enabling the next industrial revolution, moving us beyond factories and assembly lines to complete disruption of supply chain and economics.  This will create a world where if you can imagine it you can build it.  Total lifecycle time from design to output will be dramatically reduced, creative freedom will expand, and users will have access to more and easier to use design tools.  New ecosystems will be created that will transform how things are designed, manufactured and distributed.