*michael parekh on IT*

ON SOME WIRELESS INNOVATION

STRETCHING COMFORT ZONES

Looks like the U.S. wireless carriers are finally trying to innovate a bit on the wireless broadband front, judging from the latest from David Pogue.  Well, at least one of them is, as the review goes on to explain:

"...imagine if you could get online anywhere you liked — in a taxi, on the beach, in a hotel with disgustingly overpriced Wi-Fi — without messing around with cellular modems. What if you had a personal Wi-Fi bubble, a private hot spot, that followed you everywhere you go?

Incredibly, there is such a thing. It’s the Novatel MiFi 2200, available from Verizon starting in mid-May ($100 with two-year contract, after rebate). It’s a little wisp of a thing, like a triple-thick credit card. It has one power button, one status light and a swappable battery that looks like the one in a cellphone. When you turn on your MiFi and wait 30 seconds, it provides a personal, portable, powerful, password-protected wireless hot spot.

The MiFi gets its Internet signal the same way those cellular modems do — in this case, from Verizon’s excellent 3G (high-speed) cellular data network. If you just want to do e-mail and the Web, you pay $40 a month for the service (250 megabytes of data transfer, 10 cents a megabyte above that). If you watch videos and shuttle a lot of big files, opt for the $60 plan (5 gigabytes). And if you don’t travel incessantly, the best deal may be the one-day pass: $15 for 24 hours, only when you need it. In that case, the MiFi itself costs $270.

In essence, the MiFi converts that cellular Internet signal into an umbrella of Wi-Fi coverage that up to five people can share."

The thing to note here is that this is really far less about technology, than Verizon's decision to tinker with it's existing business model for wireless broadband and offer something that may at the margin compete with some of it's own lucrative offerings in the space.  Indeed, not too long ago Verizon specifically frowned at sharing one of their wireless broadband data modems, as the piece goes on to note:

"Sharing a cellular-modem account was something it strenuously discouraged only two years ago."

Hopefully we'll see more of this kind of thing from the wireless carriers going forward.  Fingers crossed.

ON A DIFFERENT TAKE ON MEDIA

OUT OF THE BOX

As always, Robert X Cringely has something different to say about where TV might be going in the world of bits and iPods.  He focuses first on Apple's cash reserves:

"Apple has at this moment just under $29 billion in cash and not many good ways to get a reasonable return on that money.  Only Microsoft has more cash than Apple and Microsoft is being pulled in a lot more directions so Microsoft doesn’t have Apple’s flexibility.

What will Apple do with that money?

Most of it will remain unspent is my prediction, but I’m guessing we’ll shortly see $3 billion or so per year go into buying Internet rights for TV shows — not old TV shows but NEW TV shows, shows of all types.

TV production in the U.S. is approximately a $15 billion industry.  An extra $3 billion thrown into that business would change its dynamics completely.  Most production isn’t done by networks but by independent producers who are hungry for revenue and risk reduction.  Three billion Apple dollars spread around that crowd every year would buy Internet rights for EVERY show — more than every show in fact.  Whole new classes of shows would be invented, sapping talent from other parts of the industry.  It would be invigorating and destabilizing at the same time.  And because it is Apple — a company with real style — the new shows wouldn’t at all be crap programming.  They’d be new and innovative.

And just as the artistic heart of TV shifted to cable with HBO in the 1980s, so it will shift to the Internet and Apple."

Worth reading the piece in full.

ON RAMPING UP RAIL

BACK TO THE FUTURE

America may get serious about high-speed rail again, given the perfect storm of events that now seem ready to propel a spate of rail investments around the country.  As the Wall Street Journal reports:

"President Barack Obama on Thursday called for spending at least $13 billion to launch a "new era" of high-speed passenger rail transportation, sparking competition among states and providing a potentially rich new market for rail equipment makers.

Besides allocating $8 billion in stimulus funds for high-speed rail, Mr. Obama said he would seek to budget $5 billion more over the next five years.

Sounding an ambitious theme akin to President Dwight Eisenhower's push for the interstate highway system, Mr. Obama spoke of "a new system of high-speed rail in America" that "will be faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or adding to an already overburdened aviation system." The interstate system contributed to the growth of the U.S. auto industry in the 1950s and, along with cheaper air travel, consigned passenger rail to third-class status in the U.S. transportation system."

So far so good, but that's the analogy only goes so far.  The highway system of course was far more extensive than the proposed rail systems.  Even the goal of emulating the high-speed rail systems in Europe will require far greater investment, as the article goes on to highlight:

"Building a high-speed rail network like the one in Western Europe would likely cost hundreds of billions of dollars, but Mr. Obama called the $13 billion effort "a first step."

And it'll take a few years to get rolling.  Hope they don't forget to equip the trains with broadband wireless.

ON THE WEB IN PICTURES

DIFFERENT TAKE

I've been warming up to a new Firefox extension from a company called Cooliris of late (Most other browsers also supported).

It's turning out to be of increasing use browsing the web, both on the computer, and on the iPhone, with the new Cooliris App.  This recent review by Macworld explains:

"...the minds behind the pictorial browser Cooliris believe there’s still benefit to the image as a means for relaying information. That benefit comes in the form of Cooliris’ 3D Wall—a three-high, ever-expanding string of related images and videos that link to locations around the Web.

A look at the free browser plugin gives you an idea of what Cooliris is all about. After installing Cooliris, its icon appears in the Web browser on your computer. Click the Cooliris icon in that browser and you can enter a search term in the Search field and browse sites such as Flickr, Yahoo, YouTube, and Amazon.com for pictures associated with your search..."

And what’s it good for? When looking at current events it’s an easy way to get a general idea of what the hot events of the day are based on the number of related images you see. Cooliris is also a wonderful way to browse image-centric sites such as Flickr as the interface is beautiful and shows off images to their best advantage. And, like Cover Flow, it’s a good way to browse catalogs of items as you would at many online emporiums.

The Cooliris iPhone application works similarly to the desktop client, though it’s not as full-featured as it doesn’t currently include a Shopping component. But its general operation is the same."

Think about it as a very visual StumbleUpon, an old favorite to serendipitously discover cool content on the web.  Cooliris is a different way to experience the torrent of content on the web.  And yes, they do have a blog.  The company has done a particularly good job making the software and service easy to install and figure out for first-timers.  Recommended.

*Image source.

ON LIVE PRODUCTIONS GOING DIGITAL

THAT'S SLOW BIZ

One of the last bastions of entertainment may finally be dragging itself slowly but surely, from the real world of live performances on to our TVs and eventually onto the internet.  As Variety reports in it's own lingo:

"As legiters seek footholds for old-fashioned live entertainment in the world of new media, the Metropolitan Opera has struck a profitable balance between stage and screen -- and theater orgs have begun to take note.

"The Met: Live in HD," the successful series of live hi-def cinema transmissions of current Met offerings, continues to expand even as the company has been forced to downsize some of its programming ambitions in the current economy.

The growing momentum of the program -- with more than 1.5 million tickets sold so far this season -- has caught the eye of legit orgs looking for ways to boost their brands. Earlier this year, London's National Theater announced a similar series of live cinema broadcasts clearly modeled on the Met's pilot program."

The rub to date has not been anything to do with technology or potential receptivity by the market, but business model issues having to do with union contracts.  Variety goes on to explain:

"Performer and stagehand unions were initially wary of the "Live in HD" program as a potential exploitation of its members -- but they warmed up when a deal was worked out that has union members sharing in revenues once the broadcast's production costs are recouped.

"It's a model that works," Gelb says, adding that sales easily outpace the costs of production and distribution, which average around $1.3 million per transmission."

And as one might have theorized, the experiment is broadening the audience for live productions:

"Part of the benefit comes in bringing Met fare to new auds -- a goal shared by an array of Gelb's aud-building programs, including free dress rehearsals and live telecasts in Times Square on the season's opening night.

"We've seen it go from the core opera fans to a broadening demographic," says Dan Diamond, VP of Fathom, the National CineMedia branch that distribs the "Live in HD" series. "It creates a relevance to younger audiences because it's in a movie theater, and it's more affordable."

That rising profile, in turn, feeds into box office at the Opera House itself. Paid attendance, which came in at 76% before such initiatives began, rose to 88% last season."

Who knows, we may see this trend expand to live theater as well, be it Broadway or Off-Broadway.  One of these days the show may yet go on...line.  Perchance to Dream.

ON YET ANOTHER DIGITAL FIGHT

REAL SILLY

The following op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle is worth some attention involving an initiative called RealDVD* by Real Networks.  Titled the "Movie industry's shortsighted fight", it explains:

"Thomas Edison, probably America's best-known and most prominent inventor of all time, and holder of nearly 1,100 patents, is famously quoted as recognizing that technological advances are the result of hard work more than anything else. He said in 1903 that "genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration."

There is now unfolding in a federal court in San Francisco a lawsuit in which several major Hollywood movie studios are suing RealNetworks - a relatively small but successful company that develops and markets Internet communications technology - in an effort to prevent the company from selling a software product that simply enables consumers to copy their DVDs to their personal computers. If the studios are successful in this Goliath-against-David legal action, Edison's lesson in hard work will have been effectively reduced to, "genius is one percent inspiration, 99 percent permission."

The lawsuit, under the supervision of U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, remains in its early stages, with a hearing set for April, but the studios already have succeeded in securing a restraining order against RealNetworks' effort to market its product, RealDVD. The effort by the studios to hamstring RealNetwork's efforts to bring this latest product to the consumer makes little practical sense, legally or economically, given what the product does (and more importantly, perhaps, what it does not do)."

The broader implications of this fight are notable:

"While the industry lawsuit relies in part on the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998," federal legislation that was designed to thwart the development and sale of products that allow individuals to distribute their own versions of copyrighted material such as movies, the clear fact is that RealDVD software does not circumvent any technology, and does not permit a user to distribute a DVD. The product does nothing more than permit the purchaser to copy a DVD onto his or her own PC or laptop. In other words, the product simply enables the private viewer to watch the DVD they'd already purchased directly from their computer's hard drive rather than rely on the sometimes-cumbersome process of inserting the DVD itself into a player."

Think about how useful something like would be, especially for netbooks that don't even have on-board DVD drives.  More features of RealDVD can be seen here.

The piece ends on the following note:

"Defendant RealNetworks has the law, the facts and common sense on its side. The industry has money and hubris in its corner. Regardless of whether you ever might consider purchasing RealDVD software, this case should concern you; that is, if you wish for fair play and innovation to remain valued commodities in 21st century America. Thomas Edison understood this. Let's hope Judge Patel does, too."

Here's hoping that common sense prevails for once in this instance.  But judging from the history of these kind of tussles in the past, it may not pay to get too optimistic.

* Image source.

ON FULFILLING VISIONS

UNEXPECTED FUTURES

Microsoft over the past few days has gotten some buzz with some cool videos on what technology has in store for us over the next decade.  This piece in BoyGeniusReport elaborates:

"At the recent Wharton Business Technology Conference, Steven Elop, president of Microsoft’s business division, unveiled the latest future montage video from Microsoft Office Labs.

The video, known simply as 2019, provides a sneak peek at the future according to Microsoft. The widespread use of surface and touchscreen devices coupled with ubiquitous wireless connectivity provides a future worthy of any science fiction novel.

It is an interesting watch and will be even more interesting as the future unfolds and we see which of these technologies come to fruition."

The video, running almost 6 minutes is definitely worth watching. 

Microsoft's name comes up only at the very end, implying of course how the company hopes to enable a lot of this future for us, and presumably profit along the way.

The whole thing made me think of a series of ads that AT&T ran in the early 1990s, with the tag-line "You Will".  YouTube has a 2-minute montage of these ads in case you need a refresher:

Again, it's amazing how much in those videos has come to pass, but it's also instructive how much of this future was made possible by companies that didn't pay for those cool ads over 15 years ago.

ON A NEW WAY TO GO WIRELESS

CLOSE AND PERSONAL

Like many geeks, I've been waiting for a new wireless data transfer standard called Transfer Jet to finally get close to being available to consumers.  

David Pogue of the New York Times explains how we may be close to finally seeing this technology deployed later this year, with  this review  of an understated, but cool technology:

"At the Toshiba booth at the Consumer Electronics Show a couple weeks ago, a rep showed me a new technology called Transfer Jet. 

I sure hadn’t heard of it, but apparently it’s an upcoming industry standard. Toshiba, Sony, Canon, Casio, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus, Samsung, JVC and others make up the engineering committee working on it.
It’s yet another wireless technology, like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, but it requires even less power and has even a shorter range—along the lines of one inch.
Yes, I know: an inch? What good is wireless with a range that small?
Once you see the demo, you’ll get it. You bring a camera over to your computer and touch them together—and a whole memory card’s worth of photos are transferred in a few seconds. No wires, software, password, pairing, none of that. Just touch ‘em..."
"...Since Transfer Jet is extremely fast (375 megabits per second), you could also offload videos from your camera or camcorder this way, too. You could also, presumably, touch your cameraphone to a drugstore kiosk to print the pictures on it; touch cellphones to transfer music; and so on."

This short demo by a Toshiba representative at the 2008 CES a few weeks ago shows how cool this could really be.

Of course it'll be a while before the technology is widely available in a wide range of devices across so many vendors, but then it didn't seem to take technologies like Bluetooth and Wifi to take that long to become so ubiquitous and indispensable.  Here's hoping the same goes for Transfer Jet.

ON A WHOLE NEW TYPE OF LAPTOP

DOUBLING UP

Listphobia has brought together 10 futuristic concept laptop designs in one place.  The one that most catches my attention is the first one, a design for a dual-screen laptop of sorts, by Canova.  Here's how they describe it:

Canova Dual Screen Laptop possesses two screens, a multi sensitive touch screen and is very easy to use.

Not only can it be used to handle your daily computing tasks but it also lets you read articles on your laptop in the old-school newspaper fashion.

Who knows, something like this, hopefully a bit thinner, and presumably at affordable mainstream prices, with inexpensive and ubiquitous wireless broadband, might even give the newspaper, book, magazine, and TV businesses a fighting chance in the future.

ON A MUSICAL MILESTONE

STORM CLOUDS AHEAD

As someone who's followed the commercialization of the Internet for 15 years, it was good to finally see this milestone on a long road, well-described in this New York Times piece:

"Atlantic, a unit of Warner Music Group, says it has reached a milestone that no other major record label has hit: more than half of its music sales in the United States are now from digital products, like downloads on iTunes and ring tones for cellphones..."

It's bitter-sweet news for the industry with many clouds on the horizon*, as the article goes on to explain:

"With the milestone comes a sobering reality already familiar to newspapers and television producers. While digital delivery is becoming a bigger slice of the pie, the overall pie is shrinking fast. Analysts at Forrester Research estimate that music sales in the United States will decline to $9.2 billion in 2013, from $10.1 billion this year. That compares with $14.6 billion in 1999, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

As a result, the hope that digital revenue will eventually compensate for declining sales of CDs — and usher in overall growth — have largely been dashed..."
"...In virtually all these corners of the media world, executives are fighting to hold onto as much of their old business as possible while transitioning to digital — a difficult process that NBC Universal’s chief executive, Jeff Zucker, has described as “trading analog dollars for digital pennies.”

A long way to go for many industries, with far less reward...but the benefits for consumers surpass the old way of doing things by a wide margin.  So in the larger scheme of things, it's generally a good thing.
*Image source.