Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Cell Carriers to Add Push-to-Talk Services - Computerworld In advance of CTIA it looks like 3G talk has largely subsided and the next big thing is now push-to-talk. The four top operators of national cellular networks in the U.S. last week all said they will offer push-to-talk services that make cell phones work like walkie-talkies, although their plans to do so remain unsettled.
Brunel's annual design review showcases another set of very interesting technical objects. From the school that brought you the internet information toaster and the Orange Intelligent Table (ahem, which we at Ambient worked on), comes another decent year of innovation. Included in this years set are underwater goggle-based MP3 players, automated baby gates that let adults through but hold back babies, and designs for improving web usability for dyslexic surfers by designing.
The underwater MP3 player is the perfect product for Sony, but it looks like Newlands is intersted in picking it up from student Sam James. His inspiration? "I got quite bored just swimming up and down."
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
VW Gets a Phat MP3 Option A testiment to exactly how long it can take for industries to adopt new technologies. The first in-dash MP3 player came out in 2000, as an after-market product. Basically a hard-drive playing all your favorite MP3s in the car, the budding industry targetted the car dealers as an add-on option. Since after-market stereos make up a miniscule percentage of stereo sales, the goal was always to have in-dash MP3 as an add-on option to your car. The first (and still best) of in-dash player was empeg, later sold to Rio and renamed the RioCar, targetted this exact market but simply died before it ever got there. It never got the chance to be sold as an add-on option, and who knows how successful it might have been.
Dogged persistance by Phatnoise has landed them the chance. Too bad they've got a mediocre product, and are essentially doing for in-dash players what Rio did for portable player. Namely, slow-start a market so that the iPod could come along and make the portable player for the masses. iPod is now about to crest a million units, as Rio begins to struggle and was just sold to D&M Holdings in April.
So, what will it take before in-dash MP3 is a natural add-on?
In a Business 2.0 article on the VW/Phatnoise partnership the Phatnoise CTO, Dan Benyamim gets it right. When guessing about full integration of in-dash players, Benyamin says "seven years." However he's answering for the wrong question:
2000 - First MP3 In-dash player (Empeg)
2003 - First MP3 player option package (VW/Phatnoise)
2007 (est) - Industry acceptance of MP3 in-dash players
It'll be seven years from the first Empeg player in 2000 for industry adoption, and the company to do it will likely not be Phatnoise.
Dogged persistance by Phatnoise has landed them the chance. Too bad they've got a mediocre product, and are essentially doing for in-dash players what Rio did for portable player. Namely, slow-start a market so that the iPod could come along and make the portable player for the masses. iPod is now about to crest a million units, as Rio begins to struggle and was just sold to D&M Holdings in April.
So, what will it take before in-dash MP3 is a natural add-on?
In a Business 2.0 article on the VW/Phatnoise partnership the Phatnoise CTO, Dan Benyamim gets it right. When guessing about full integration of in-dash players, Benyamin says "seven years." However he's answering for the wrong question:
2000 - First MP3 In-dash player (Empeg)
2003 - First MP3 player option package (VW/Phatnoise)
2007 (est) - Industry acceptance of MP3 in-dash players
It'll be seven years from the first Empeg player in 2000 for industry adoption, and the company to do it will likely not be Phatnoise.
Monday, June 23, 2003
Ethernet: The Big Three Oh (Economist) The longevity of Ethernet has lessons for today's information technologists. Few imagined that this particular networking protocol would last as long as it has. Indeed, the landscape is littered with better-financed, better-backed rival protocols that failed against Ethernet. So the case of Ethernet is worth examining: the reasons for its longevity may offer lessons to the information-technology industry.
Thursday, June 12, 2003
What is Waste? While a bunch of hack journalistists immediately claim that Justin Frankel's latest program, Waste, must be the next great product aimed at destroying the music and video companies, Technology Review actually takes the time to get it right. Frankel, famed programmer of Winamp, Shoutcast, and most notoriously of Gnutella, is on no political mission to destroy music. By looking at his work it is clear his aim is to create programs that are about the easing our use of the convergence of art and technology. AOL freaked out by making Frankel pull Waste, just as they had done with Gnutella. And because of that they've lost a visionary programmer. If Napster was the decentralized version of FTP, Waste is the decentralized version of Instant Messenger. AOL just lost what may turn out to be the application that will undermine AOL Instant Messanger's force in the market.
Philips to bring first HomeLab project to market, the Mirror TV HomeLab Philips is set to bring it's first R&D effort from HomeLab to market. The polorized surface can adjust between 100% relfectivity (mirror) to a display. The Mirror TV is basically a two-way mirror with an LCD screen behind it. When the LCD is activated, you see the display. When it's turned off, you see your reflection. A special lamination developed by Philips makes all of this possible. Target market? Primarily I would imagine the amazingly space-conscious (or vain) - European boutique hotels might be a good start. Also see the article in PC World.
