Out of the Box

Fall CTIA is the less device-centric of the two annual wireless shows. Some attribute that to it being bumped up close to CES, but I think it has more to do with the spring CTIA show coming on the heels of the even larger European 3GSM show, a handset announcement bonanza. So, there wasn’t that much really new on the device side of the show, but it did provide an opportunity to get hands-on with some recently announced products, particularly from Samsung and LG.

I liked Samsung’s Juke (differentiated form factor and inexpensive) and the BlackJack 2 is a strong contender to the Motorola Q9. I was less drawn to the somewhat chunky and industrially styled i760 side-slider, but a colleague has ordered one and is satisfied so far.

The LG Voyager really brings the ball forward from the company’s successful enV. It is by no means an iPhone-killer as it has been portrayed. In fact, it’s not even a smartphone at all. But it should be. It’s not so much that the Windows Mobile UI would dramatically improve the overall user experience, but getting a few decent communications (IM, Web) and media applications on the Voyager would make it a formidable Sidekick competitor.

LG is the only top-five cell phone company that doesn’t offer a smartphone. It would be interesting if they offered Symbian’s OS (they are a licensee) as it would be nice to have more options for that operating system in the U.S. market, particularly on the CDMA side.

As for the Sidekick, I had been more interested in the Slide than the LX (which I’ve dubbed the “Widekick”), but, having now seen them both, the LX is not appreciably thicker than the Slide. The Sidekick would definitely benefit from a touchscreen, if only to address its longstanding need to reveal the keyboard in order to dial a number.

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Apple today announced the availability of Boot Camp on October 26th and will support the release with a multi-faceted marketing campaign stretching across at least print, the Web and of course its own stores. I wouldn’t be surprised if John Hodgman and “the other guy” reprise their roles in the long-running “Get a Mac” series of TV commercials as well.

One question I’d received from reporters is what happens to Boot Camp under Tiger, which is officially a beta. The straight scoop is that Macs configured with Boot Camp will continue to dual-boot and Windows partitions will remain intact. However, Boot Camp itself will expire at some point, after which the configurability, such as the ability to add new volumes, will no longer be available. This isn’t as ideal as continuing to support Boot Camp under Tiger, but overall is a pretty good compromise.

Now that Boot Camp will be release software, it will be interesting to see to what extent Microsoft will support Mac hardware. Until now, the official company line has been that Boot Camp was beta software and that it would have more to say once it was released.

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On a recent trip, I finally finished my first book on my Sony Reader — John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise. (It definitely had its moments, but I could have done without the hobo name list.) This was actually the second book I had read on a dedicated eBook device. The first was back in the days of the RocketBook/Rocket eBook product that was purchased by Gemstar and eventually disappeared. That book was a late draft of Michael Wolf’s Burn Rate.

Overall, reading on the Sony Reader, which won the Switchie for portable product of the year last year —  was a good experience. I’d definitely like to see better contrast and a background that is closer to paper-white, backlighting, and some kind of map to physical pages in the print edition. I’d also like to be able to jump around bookmarks and footnotes more interactively within the context of the book. While the new edition of the Sony Reader has some of thee benefits and an improved button layout, I will stick with my first-gen product for now.

By far, the biggest frustration with this particular book on the Sony Reader is that the book sometimes presented intricate charts that were simply impossible to read on the device. Improvements or alternatives to the Reader’s book format should overcome this limitation.

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There is an alternative way to send short bits of text between mobile phones! Oh, technology, thou art a fickle muse. I think I will start one of these companies and create a product called, ”I Seek You.” Yes, something like that, but catchier. Maybe there’s some way to shorten it.

Actually, this article doesn’t even come close to describing the real threat du jour. As Facebook becomes the growing Web within a Web, this community is going to hit the mobile world like a freight train with more people on it than the carriers themselves have. It is developing more leverage than AOL ever had during its heyday. AOL was a jail; Facebook is the Hotel California.

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Many thanks to Technobabble 2.0 for naming Out of the Box a global Top 100 Analyst Blog! The ranking is a mix of Google PageRank, Bloglines subscriptions, Diggs, Technorati ranking and a Technobabble subjective assessment based on post quality and quanitity.

Out of the Box debuted at #75. Many of the others so ranked have been around quite a bit longer, are team efforts or can take advantage of several colleagues cross-linking to each other, so I am truly honored.

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I’m going a bit off-topic here; file it under geek culture. The two “beauty and the geek” premieres this fall were Chuck and The Big Bang Theory (TBBT). The former is about an underachieving Geek Squad-equivalent employee who, under a pretty ridiculous premise, becomes a human repository for the government’s biggest secrets and enters into a staged romantic relationship with a CIA agent. The latter is a traditional sitcom about an attractive Cheesecake Factory waitress who moves in next door to two physicist roommates who frequently have their equally geeky friends over for company.

After two episodes of each, Chuck is emerging as the far better show. About the best thing TBBT has going for it is the opening theme song by Barenaked Ladies. TBBT’s main geeks’ buddies are somewhat entertaining, but the “odd couple” scenario has been bludgeoned to death, the writing is often stale and the Sheldon character’s punch line delivery is simply too deadpan; the laugh track is unbearable. Chuck, on the other hand, seems to be effedctively melding elements of a comedy, action and mytharc series, and the triangle among Chuck, the CIA agent, and the NSA agent is dynamic and entertaining. I’m eager to see where this one goes

Incidentally, the blonde “hotties” in each show could not be more different. Chuck’s “Sarah” is strong and resourceful while TBBT’s Penny has been nothing but helpless so far.

Coming up next: pictures of my cat.

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