April 4, 2007
In case you were wondering why there was no posting last week, I took a working vacation around CTIA Wireless 2007 in Orlando. I really like spring CTIA as far as large trade shows go. It’s big enough to command a position as an industry focal point while not being so big that taking it in within the alotted days becomes physically impossible without an elite team of ninja bloggers or at least a Segway. Unfortunately, I have neither.
This year I moderated a panel at the Smartphone Summit on smartphones and media with panelists from Nokia, Microsoft, WiderThan, Sling Media and MediaFLO. The panel consensus seemed to be that, while both smartphones and wireless media are gaining consumer momentum, they’re not moving toward each other, at least not yet. Why?
- the relative newfound popularity of smartphones, particularly the QWERTY Windows Mobile variety, which are starting to move well under the $100 price tag
- the fractured state of smartphone operating systems, which make native development less profitable
- the focus on the mass market by carrier initiatives such as VCast and easy to use quick access features such as the “TV” button used by MediaFLO-enabled handsets.
Why develop media optimized for smartphones? For traditional broadcast media, there isn’t much financial incentive, but there’s surely an opportunity for one of the Web 2.0 companies out there to bring some aspects of community and interactivity to a wireless media experience
Will the iPhone goose this market? Well, depending on how you define “smartphone” — and my personal view of the term is liberal — it’s the first high-end device to focus on a consumer media experience, However, much like the WinMo phones, the experience is still based on sideloading, which carriers are at best tolerating and which fail to capture the true flexibility that wireless is supposed to bring us.
Incidentally, this is the 150th post that I referenced in the Out of the Box birthday post.
March 2, 2007
This week Sony unveiled more of its lineup for 2007, including a number of traditional audio products such as boomboxes and a variety of shelf systems that can use Bluetooth to stream audio from a cell phone or Sony Network Walkman. Bluetooth has also been shown as an option for Sony’s digital media port on its receivers and new Bravia (nee DreamSystem) home theater systems.
It’s good to see Sony getting a jump on Bluetooth for home A/V integration. The company arrived late to the iPod speaker dock game, ceding much of that market to the likes of Bose and Altec Lansing, but has an opportunity to capitalize on A2DP Bluetooth audio. Bluetooth is a standard, of course, but implementation of it has had a disproportionate share of incompatibilities. A cheap example is the Fossil/Sony Ericsson Bluetooth Caller ID watches, so there’s room for optimization, particularly with Sony Ericsson mobiles.
Since Bluetooth audio is streamed, it avoids some of the messy DRM file transfer issues on memory cards. Meanwhile, the memory card format wars have reached detente, with Sony supporting SD in more products such as the PlayStation 3, Sony Reader, and of course Vaio PCs.
Speaking of Bluetooth stereo audio, I believe Apple will support it in the iPhone even though it has been reluctant to do so in the iPod. The competition here is too great and Apple has traditionally executed well on standards such as USB, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in Macs. Consider it another carrot for today’s iPod user.
January 30, 2007
What’s left to say about an operating system that’s been hyped about, griped about, embraced, embattled, and beta tested by what Microsoft claims is five million people? Apparently not a lot. At last night’s official launch of Windows Vista and Office 2007, even Michael Sievert, Microsoft corporate vice president of Windows Client Marketing, admitted that most of those in the audience had probably seen most of Vista’s highlight reel before.
Probably the most interesting part for me from a research perspective was more detail than I had heard on the “Windows Vista families” and the “Burn to CD” button that some mom had insisted appear in Vista’s photo gallery application. Ethnographic research is all the rage but you rarely hear much insight into it as it’s usually done on a custom basis. Having kids launch the Times Square signage was a cute touch.
It was quite a contrast from Apple’s iPhone unveiling in January. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there but all accounts described the crowd reaction as if they were watching the Beatles reunite — yes, with John and George back from the hereafter — and win the World Cup for their country. In contrast, despite the synchronized light show from nearly every large-screen display in Times Square, the Vista launch was very anticlimactic. As someone I’ve known a good while in the industry spun it, “Another year, another Windows.” He works in PR.
December 19, 2006
John Rizzo, former MacUser editor and publisher of the excellent Web site MacWindows has written an informative piece at MacCentral regarding some of the options for running Windows programs on a Mac. After writing a book in the early ’90s about Mac telecom that included a chapter on working with PCs, I actually started a more reference-oriented cross-platform site back in the mid-’90s with the domain xplat.com. I probably could have fetched something decent for that goofy domain name at an auction. Easy come…
In his article, unlike on his site, John doesn’t discuss Win32 API products such as CodeWeavers’ CrossOver. These don’t run Windows on a Mac, but do what most users would probably prefer, which is to run Windows programs on a Mac. However, he does mention an interesting option that will be offered with the VMWare technology for the Mac that will enable “appliances” — preinstalled Windows apps ready to run at nearly native speeds on Mac OS.
Apple has accurately juxtaposed the tradeoff among Boot Camp, virtualization products, and API-compatibility products as one that progressively sacrifice compatibility for convenience. It continues to stick with the most compatible approach in Boot Camp and must tread carefully in terms of supporting its native developers. However, I still think that, for most Mac users, virtualization technology is a better tradeoff than Boot Camp, and Apple would benefit by selling Macs with more RAM to accommodate two simultaneous operating systems.
Regardless, I don’t agree with the point that, “at some point in the not-too-distant future, most Macs—especially those in business and educational environments —will be running multiple operating systems.” Many? Sure. But not most unless Microsoft offers some aggressive pricing to Mac users
November 22, 2006
;)
One of the sad things about format changes is that there is inevitably music left behind. Ripping provided an escape clause for the current generation of music. However, if DVD and its successors as well as the various DRM schemes are any indication, , it will be a lot harder to do format-shifting should any future sanctioned music format come to dominate, particularly given current legislation.
Incredibly enough, though, we are still seeing albums re-released as CDs. During a brief liaison with country music in junior high school, a friend introduced me to a Canadian group called The Irish Rovers; their career has spanned 40 years. Most of their fare is Irish folk music, but they did put out a self-titled album with a more pop country sound and song choice. Probably the most popular song from it was the track, “Wasn’t That a Party?,” a funny piece about a soiree that gets far enough out of control to include a drag race.
in any case, after not being satisfied with the results of various attempts to digitally record a copy of the LP bought off eBay, I was shocked to find out a few months ago that it had finally been reissued on CD some 30 years later. Even so, the new CD was backordered for a month. I’m pleased to share that I received an email from a Canadian store today and it is on its way! This CD thing could really catch on!
November 17, 2006
In the days before Internet ubiquity, I remember a conversation with a friend of mine and an executive from one of the major consumer online services of the day about interoperability and musing how wonderful it would be if there were just one network. There was only one network, he huffed, and that was his. Well, unfortunately for those of us not using CompuServe, there’s no way for us to send e-mail or obtain online information these days.
The latest “One-Net” hails from semiconductor concern Threshold. It’s a low-cost, low-power, medium-range control scheme that will compete with ZigBee and Insteon, but for some reason ignores Z-Wave, which seems to be the market leader in terms of vendor support. Even though these standards are wireless and therefore by definition require less of an installation burden than some competing technologies, the home controls market remains something that requires way too much consumer navigation. The cost of infrastructure components — especially for basics such as lighting — is negligible compared to the cost of labor, and there doesn’t seem to be any way around that.
How long has this market been on the cusp of the mainstream? Well, at a dinner event around DigitalLife that included Michael Miller, editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, he noted that the first article he ever wrote was on home automation. That was in 1979!
November 5, 2006
Via Handtops.com, which seems to have transitioned to a user-generated blog (nice work if you can avoid it) comes a post about some of the next-generation UMPCs they showed a while back at IDF. The model pictured to the right feels like a cross between a messenger bag and a One Laptop Per Child prototype. Yes, the keyboard is a welcome addition for actually getting something done with a UMPC (note to Intel and Microsoft: don’t forget that even small PCs can be productive and not just glorified portable video players). However, how is this different from an utraportable such as Fujitsu’s LifeBook series? Because it has a removable screen? Well, if I can get this thing for $500 and it has more than five hours of battery life, I really won’t care.
On the other hand, this little guy with the 5″ screen captured by TGDaily could be the big brother of one of those Samsung DMB handsets from Korea, but its family tree is even stranger, being a collaboration between Intel and Yahoo! as a platform for its Go! strategy. I’ve written before about how Yahoo! should embrace native client platforms better with Go! instead of embracing niche platforms such as this one and the Meedio platform that it picked up last year. Even Yahoo! can’t help the Web drive device categories before they are ready.
September 25, 2006
With much discussion regarding Intel’s continued downsizing potentially affecting the VIIV initiative, it’s becoming increasingly important for the chip manufacturer to articulate what VIIV’s value is. With today’s announcement of Netgear’s VIIV-certified Digital Entertainer, it’s a bit more clear that VIIV is a certification somewhat akin to THX. However, VIIV does not guarantee quality of experience, so perhaps a better analogy is the Wi-Fi Alliance certificaiton, but more concerned with what happens within the PC. If that’s the case, VIIV may compete for consumer mindshare with DLNA.
August 31, 2006
It’s good to see that John Dvorak hasn’t lost his appetite for baiting Mac users.
August 30, 2006
In meeting with the HD-DVD promotion group yesterday, I discussed some mandatory features that the specification has that could be advantages, but perhaps not, if we see prolonged format war. One good outcome of the meeting was that there was no awareness of either the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray camps seeking to restrict licensing of dual-format drives, which seems like an inevitable outcome of the format war.
One reason that Microsoft and Intel claimed that they supported HD-DVD over Blu-Ray was the former’s support of “Managed Copy,” a feature that would enable consumers to back up movies to their hard disks to perhaps stream across home networks or “sideload” to portable media players. However, it turns out that the group that would be responsible for such a feature, AAAC, will not decide on the fate of Managed Copy until mid-October. All that the HD-DVD group has done has been to pledge support for the feature if it’s ratified, and then who knows whether studios will buy in. The Blu-Ray camp could include the feature as well, although BD+ would need to support it as well
