Thursday, January 15, 2004
EE Times - Consumer push gains steam at MIT Media Lab - The MIT Media Lab was the first technology-related academic research facility to look to corporate money as it's primary funding source while still remaining staunchly independent of their sponsors goals. Nicholas Negroponte used to say that the company's R&D facility, which included such sponsors as Kodak, Samsung, and Motorola, was for doing traditional R&D. The Media Lab was for doing the out-of-the-box research that a corporation would never have the guts to do. The same kind of research that leads to game-changing advances.
Their recent foray onto the floor of the industry's largest electronics trade show, CES, reflects the growing importance of media technology research to the commercial sector. Now that the MIT Media Lab has decided to move closer to market, it faces a delicate balance between its hallowed place beyond corporate R&D and its desire to produce quick results in market.
Their recent foray onto the floor of the industry's largest electronics trade show, CES, reflects the growing importance of media technology research to the commercial sector. Now that the MIT Media Lab has decided to move closer to market, it faces a delicate balance between its hallowed place beyond corporate R&D and its desire to produce quick results in market.
The instant-on PC - When 70% of laptop travellers use their laptops as their primary means of music and DVD playing, who needs the rest of the OS? Intervideo has released LinDVD, a linux based dual-boot system for PCs that is to be built into laptops.
From a user-interface perspective it makes perfect sense, there are two clear modes of operation for my laptop on the road, and when I happen to be using it as an MP3 player being able to boot it up in 1 second to switch the playlist or do other operations is key. I used the
Sharp Mebius laptop for a while, which had a hardwired switch to go between multimedia mode and normal Windows XP mode. When in media mode it booted up in about the time a TV takes to turn on, and then gave me fast access to MP3s, then of course I could flip the switch and have it load normally.
It was hard to leave that simple feature behind, and good to hear Intervideo is going to work on bringing it to more laptops.
From a user-interface perspective it makes perfect sense, there are two clear modes of operation for my laptop on the road, and when I happen to be using it as an MP3 player being able to boot it up in 1 second to switch the playlist or do other operations is key. I used the
Sharp Mebius laptop for a while, which had a hardwired switch to go between multimedia mode and normal Windows XP mode. When in media mode it booted up in about the time a TV takes to turn on, and then gave me fast access to MP3s, then of course I could flip the switch and have it load normally.
It was hard to leave that simple feature behind, and good to hear Intervideo is going to work on bringing it to more laptops.
Thursday, January 01, 2004
License to Profit: "License to Profit - Could licensing your intellectual property provide the extra capital you’ve been looking for?" A little piece on licensing that uses Ambient Devices' wide-ranging patent portfolio and widely usefull wireless network as a prime example.
