December 29, 2005
December 16, 2005
convergence revisited
gonna be another long one. buckle up... what with '05 drawing to an end, figured i'd do a final mind-dump on this topic.
as said before, there're just too many definitions for convergence. to some it means intelligent swiss-army-knife-like all-purpose devices or, conversely, featherweight, ultra-thin-client browser-like devices that rely on server- or network-based intelligence. to others it applies more simply to the concept of ip-based networks and communications. to yet others, it speaks to the broader integration of the telecommunications, information technology and content industries. truth be told, it means all of these things and more...
but for me, i guess first and foremost, it comes down to "access" evolving into a utility business, a variation of sorts on the ip-based networks theme. a lot of the rest of it cascades down from there.
setting the stage... we all pay a bunch of recurring utility charges on a monthly basis. electric bill, gas bill, water bill, telephone bill, wireless bill, cable/satellite bill (tv/content), broadband bill (internet access via cable, dsl, fiber, satellite, whatever), etc. and...there probably aren't too many of us that have any special brand relationship with the electric co., the water co. or the gas co. (they're utilities after all. just pipes into the house. odds are we didn't even have a choice in who might provide such services). and, the majority of us probably aren't terribly focused on our kilowatt, gallon or cubic foot usage since we have a general idea of what our utility costs should be on a monthly basis and, barring significant deviations from our expectations, we just pay up when the bill comes. oh, and we never have to worry about our water company confusing us with offers to start piping gas into the house.
but when it comes to those other monthly bills - telephone, wireless, content and broadband - we do have choices, we do have brand affinities, we do (in some cases) carefully monitor usage, and we do, increasingly, have one or another supplier offering us services that we already receive from a third party and/or marketing entirely new offerings, e.g. internet services and applications. wouldn't it be simpler if we could just pay an "access" bill to an access provider the way we manage our other utilities and then be free to attach to the pipe whatever device we might prefer in order to benefit from whatever service we might value? after all, in the ip-based network world, access is just another set of pipes into our lives. wouldn't it seem silly to pay one electric bill for your lamps, another for the kitchen appliances and a third for your audio-visual gear?
good news is, with a little help from an evolving regulatory environment, we're increasingly seeing bundled access offerings that do indeed lump together fixed telephone, wireless, broadband and cable/satellite, in effect allowing for that unified access bill.
notwithstanding that, however, access-as-utility isn't perceived as terribly good news by those in the access business who reject the "value" business model of a utility for the promise of the now-almost-mythical-but-really-only-five-years-gone internet-boom-era "growth" business model. but hey, shit happens, right? gotta go with the flow, right? you have a long term - not just short term - obligation to your investors, right? which means the race is on for today's access players to embrace the utility model, deliver a high quality, reliable bit pipe service and cement a nice value business for years to come, right?
nope. 'course not. easier to just muck it all up, try to block and/or replace our preferred services with acesss-provider branded alternatives. so, we get telecoms companies objecting to cable co.s offering voice (voip) services. cable co.s in turn objecting to or blocking virtual providers from offering their own internet voice packages, wireless operators erecting retro-styled walled gardens, blocking third party services and mandating a stingy selection of devices when the existing pool is in fact much deeper. and, again, we get any and all of the above investing in and force-feeding us ill-conceived or sub-par content and service when what we really want are the perfectly good (better) alternatives available from established content and services leaders with which we may already have affinity relationships.
odds are the bitpipes will keep scrambling to drag this out as long as they can, and we can't begrudge them trying to build new businesses (i'm sure some will succeed at least in some measure), but not at the expense of alternatives. see, the thing is, like it or not, access is already a utility, it's just the business models that have yet to catch up. beyond the fact that the debate over a common (carrier) regulatory environment is already underway (which, if done right, should ultimately undermine any advantages that one or another access mode may enjoy over another and, more importantly, knock down the walls the access providers are building to preclude competitive attachments to and offerings over the pipes - check out the net neutrality debate in the Congress), the reality is that over the last couple of years value has been steadily shifting from the pipes to the content and services flowing through them, and, to some lesser extent, devices.
notably, there's a potential threat to the latter once access goes utility and the device business starts to resemble a traditional CPE and/or commodity model. after all, how many people really care who made their fixed-line phone or, for that matter, their PC? often as not, such decisions are made based on cost (although a reputation for quality and design will carry a hardware player a long, long way). and, the jury's still out re: the software/operating system value proposition. what's needed are open, non-proprietary, interoperable platforms (true plug-and-play ala the electricity grid) which may not be entirely consistent with the traditional business model of your average software giant (can "one" be averaged?).
so what's the end game? from a consumer perspective, we get a suite of terminals both fixed and mobile (tv's, handhelds, pc's - some of which we own, some of which are "common") that rely on open, interoperable software/middleware and that "attach" to one or another or a suite of bundled broadband pipes (e.g. cellular, wifi, wimax, uwb, dvb-c/t/h, dsl, fiber, cable, satellite) offered as a utility service (all-you-can-eat or metered or in some cases "free") by individual access providers, aggregators or virtual operators, and through which we'll be able to tap into services (including good old-fashioned "voice") or content offered, again, by independent venders with which we may have brand affinity or by content/service aggregators who may or may not be aligned with the previously mentioned access aggregators...
...ok, so as ugly as that sounds, the good news is that for all practical purposes it's transparent to those of us on the using end.... what it really comes down to is being able to use the device of your choice to connect to friends, read, browse or watch content and access the services you value from virtually anywhere at any time. and yeah, you'll have a monthly bill to pay - same as you do to cover the costs associated with all of those electric appliances you have plugged in all over your house.
phew. a bit long-winded, i know...
as said before, there're just too many definitions for convergence. to some it means intelligent swiss-army-knife-like all-purpose devices or, conversely, featherweight, ultra-thin-client browser-like devices that rely on server- or network-based intelligence. to others it applies more simply to the concept of ip-based networks and communications. to yet others, it speaks to the broader integration of the telecommunications, information technology and content industries. truth be told, it means all of these things and more...
but for me, i guess first and foremost, it comes down to "access" evolving into a utility business, a variation of sorts on the ip-based networks theme. a lot of the rest of it cascades down from there.
setting the stage... we all pay a bunch of recurring utility charges on a monthly basis. electric bill, gas bill, water bill, telephone bill, wireless bill, cable/satellite bill (tv/content), broadband bill (internet access via cable, dsl, fiber, satellite, whatever), etc. and...there probably aren't too many of us that have any special brand relationship with the electric co., the water co. or the gas co. (they're utilities after all. just pipes into the house. odds are we didn't even have a choice in who might provide such services). and, the majority of us probably aren't terribly focused on our kilowatt, gallon or cubic foot usage since we have a general idea of what our utility costs should be on a monthly basis and, barring significant deviations from our expectations, we just pay up when the bill comes. oh, and we never have to worry about our water company confusing us with offers to start piping gas into the house.
but when it comes to those other monthly bills - telephone, wireless, content and broadband - we do have choices, we do have brand affinities, we do (in some cases) carefully monitor usage, and we do, increasingly, have one or another supplier offering us services that we already receive from a third party and/or marketing entirely new offerings, e.g. internet services and applications. wouldn't it be simpler if we could just pay an "access" bill to an access provider the way we manage our other utilities and then be free to attach to the pipe whatever device we might prefer in order to benefit from whatever service we might value? after all, in the ip-based network world, access is just another set of pipes into our lives. wouldn't it seem silly to pay one electric bill for your lamps, another for the kitchen appliances and a third for your audio-visual gear?
good news is, with a little help from an evolving regulatory environment, we're increasingly seeing bundled access offerings that do indeed lump together fixed telephone, wireless, broadband and cable/satellite, in effect allowing for that unified access bill.
notwithstanding that, however, access-as-utility isn't perceived as terribly good news by those in the access business who reject the "value" business model of a utility for the promise of the now-almost-mythical-but-really-only-five-years-gone internet-boom-era "growth" business model. but hey, shit happens, right? gotta go with the flow, right? you have a long term - not just short term - obligation to your investors, right? which means the race is on for today's access players to embrace the utility model, deliver a high quality, reliable bit pipe service and cement a nice value business for years to come, right?
nope. 'course not. easier to just muck it all up, try to block and/or replace our preferred services with acesss-provider branded alternatives. so, we get telecoms companies objecting to cable co.s offering voice (voip) services. cable co.s in turn objecting to or blocking virtual providers from offering their own internet voice packages, wireless operators erecting retro-styled walled gardens, blocking third party services and mandating a stingy selection of devices when the existing pool is in fact much deeper. and, again, we get any and all of the above investing in and force-feeding us ill-conceived or sub-par content and service when what we really want are the perfectly good (better) alternatives available from established content and services leaders with which we may already have affinity relationships.
odds are the bitpipes will keep scrambling to drag this out as long as they can, and we can't begrudge them trying to build new businesses (i'm sure some will succeed at least in some measure), but not at the expense of alternatives. see, the thing is, like it or not, access is already a utility, it's just the business models that have yet to catch up. beyond the fact that the debate over a common (carrier) regulatory environment is already underway (which, if done right, should ultimately undermine any advantages that one or another access mode may enjoy over another and, more importantly, knock down the walls the access providers are building to preclude competitive attachments to and offerings over the pipes - check out the net neutrality debate in the Congress), the reality is that over the last couple of years value has been steadily shifting from the pipes to the content and services flowing through them, and, to some lesser extent, devices.
notably, there's a potential threat to the latter once access goes utility and the device business starts to resemble a traditional CPE and/or commodity model. after all, how many people really care who made their fixed-line phone or, for that matter, their PC? often as not, such decisions are made based on cost (although a reputation for quality and design will carry a hardware player a long, long way). and, the jury's still out re: the software/operating system value proposition. what's needed are open, non-proprietary, interoperable platforms (true plug-and-play ala the electricity grid) which may not be entirely consistent with the traditional business model of your average software giant (can "one" be averaged?).
so what's the end game? from a consumer perspective, we get a suite of terminals both fixed and mobile (tv's, handhelds, pc's - some of which we own, some of which are "common") that rely on open, interoperable software/middleware and that "attach" to one or another or a suite of bundled broadband pipes (e.g. cellular, wifi, wimax, uwb, dvb-c/t/h, dsl, fiber, cable, satellite) offered as a utility service (all-you-can-eat or metered or in some cases "free") by individual access providers, aggregators or virtual operators, and through which we'll be able to tap into services (including good old-fashioned "voice") or content offered, again, by independent venders with which we may have brand affinity or by content/service aggregators who may or may not be aligned with the previously mentioned access aggregators...
...ok, so as ugly as that sounds, the good news is that for all practical purposes it's transparent to those of us on the using end.... what it really comes down to is being able to use the device of your choice to connect to friends, read, browse or watch content and access the services you value from virtually anywhere at any time. and yeah, you'll have a monthly bill to pay - same as you do to cover the costs associated with all of those electric appliances you have plugged in all over your house.
phew. a bit long-winded, i know...
November 29, 2005
mp3 ringtones...
...kills me that people actually pay for these things.
making tones is a snap. got mp3 on your pc? most do. you're almost done...
start by downloading one or another sound editing applications - not vouching for any in particular, but, for example, download the shareware version of mp3 soundcutter (the shareware version is limited to carving out 60 second clips from mp3 files, which is twice what you need for a ringtone so what would be the point in paying/registering for the full version?). now start cuttin' mp3. pretty simple user experience... launch the application, open the file, start playing it, choose where you want to start and end your clip and then save your selection - the app automatically gives you a first and last second fade-in and out. and that's it - you can carve out pretty much any chunk of any mp3 and create a ringtone. if your phone doesn't handle mp3 ringtones, there's plenty of software out there on the net to convert to .wav or .midi, etc. if your carrier blocks content from "third parties" (which i suppose means you too - the so called "customer"), then you're sadly sol..
transfer to the phone should be pretty simple since the file size of a 30 second mp3 is pretty small - a couple/few hundred k. bluetooth, IR and/or cable are all relatively easy options (as described in september 20 post on mobile music). another alternative, for the slightly more sophisticated, is to upload the tones to the web for direct over-the-air download to the phone. check out the mobilestuff link to the right for an example such site.
later...
making tones is a snap. got mp3 on your pc? most do. you're almost done...
start by downloading one or another sound editing applications - not vouching for any in particular, but, for example, download the shareware version of mp3 soundcutter (the shareware version is limited to carving out 60 second clips from mp3 files, which is twice what you need for a ringtone so what would be the point in paying/registering for the full version?). now start cuttin' mp3. pretty simple user experience... launch the application, open the file, start playing it, choose where you want to start and end your clip and then save your selection - the app automatically gives you a first and last second fade-in and out. and that's it - you can carve out pretty much any chunk of any mp3 and create a ringtone. if your phone doesn't handle mp3 ringtones, there's plenty of software out there on the net to convert to .wav or .midi, etc. if your carrier blocks content from "third parties" (which i suppose means you too - the so called "customer"), then you're sadly sol..
transfer to the phone should be pretty simple since the file size of a 30 second mp3 is pretty small - a couple/few hundred k. bluetooth, IR and/or cable are all relatively easy options (as described in september 20 post on mobile music). another alternative, for the slightly more sophisticated, is to upload the tones to the web for direct over-the-air download to the phone. check out the mobilestuff link to the right for an example such site.
later...
November 20, 2005
best "nigerian scam" mail yet...
name of addressee and company excised... complete mail goes on forever so only offering the salutation and introduction. superlatives abound...
SO MUCH CLEVER, CONSIDERATE, CREATIVE, DESERVING, EXCELLENT, GENIAL, HONOURABLE, INSIGHTFUL, PERFECCIONIST, PRESCIENT, PROACTIVE, RESPECTABLE, RESPONSIBLE, RESILIENT, WISE AND VISIONARY MR. XXX; THE CHAIRMAN & CEO OF XXX CORPORATION:
PLEASE FORGIVE ME AND READ THIS MESSAGE, WHOLLY, BECAUSE YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTELY CAPABLE, PROVIDENTIAL AND ULTRA-SKILLED PERSON.
MY NAME IS XXX - I AM A YOUNG MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENTIFIC-TECHNOLOGICAL STUDIOUS, EXPERT, INVENTOR, INNOVATOR, RESEARCHER & DEVELOPER, CONSULTANT, ADVISOR, ANALYST, ENTREPRENEUR, SOLUTIONS PROVIDER, STRATEGIST, ASSET MANAGER, SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY EXPERT AND PHILANTHROPIST; ALSO EXPERIENCED AS, SIMULTANEOUSLY, HIGHEST-END ULTRA-SKILLED PERFECCIONISM-STYLED SOCCER AND BASKETBALL PLAYER AND COACH.
and it just keeps getting better from there...
SO MUCH CLEVER, CONSIDERATE, CREATIVE, DESERVING, EXCELLENT, GENIAL, HONOURABLE, INSIGHTFUL, PERFECCIONIST, PRESCIENT, PROACTIVE, RESPECTABLE, RESPONSIBLE, RESILIENT, WISE AND VISIONARY MR. XXX; THE CHAIRMAN & CEO OF XXX CORPORATION:
PLEASE FORGIVE ME AND READ THIS MESSAGE, WHOLLY, BECAUSE YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTELY CAPABLE, PROVIDENTIAL AND ULTRA-SKILLED PERSON.
MY NAME IS XXX - I AM A YOUNG MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENTIFIC-TECHNOLOGICAL STUDIOUS, EXPERT, INVENTOR, INNOVATOR, RESEARCHER & DEVELOPER, CONSULTANT, ADVISOR, ANALYST, ENTREPRENEUR, SOLUTIONS PROVIDER, STRATEGIST, ASSET MANAGER, SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY EXPERT AND PHILANTHROPIST; ALSO EXPERIENCED AS, SIMULTANEOUSLY, HIGHEST-END ULTRA-SKILLED PERFECCIONISM-STYLED SOCCER AND BASKETBALL PLAYER AND COACH.
and it just keeps getting better from there...
November 18, 2005
WSIS: U.S. to Stay in Charge...
um. well, yeah... whimper (not bang) decision out of tunis - link to full article.
i don't mean to belittle legitimate arguments for multilateralization of the internet (notwithstanding my cyncical october 6 post), but this was a political game from the outset (there's that cynicism again), lacking any real-world, near-time implementable (is that a word?) alternative. said it before, will say it again: i'm not terribly thrilled with the idea of any government mucking about with internet policy or governance, but, of course, we gotta acknowledge (and appreciate) the u.s. gov't's historical role in its creation and management. icann - imperfect as it may or may not be - has been a solid step in the privatization direction whereas the UNternet proposals would represent a few dozen steps back. at the risk of sounding pollyanna-ish (now i know that's not a word), why not strive for "withering away" of government control instead? (easy cynical answer: gee, it worked so well for the soviets). reality is, it's the best we can wish for as, further reality, the usg ain't likely to fully let go in any way other than rhetorically in any event (and at this stage, i'm, not sure that's all bad)...
i don't mean to belittle legitimate arguments for multilateralization of the internet (notwithstanding my cyncical october 6 post), but this was a political game from the outset (there's that cynicism again), lacking any real-world, near-time implementable (is that a word?) alternative. said it before, will say it again: i'm not terribly thrilled with the idea of any government mucking about with internet policy or governance, but, of course, we gotta acknowledge (and appreciate) the u.s. gov't's historical role in its creation and management. icann - imperfect as it may or may not be - has been a solid step in the privatization direction whereas the UNternet proposals would represent a few dozen steps back. at the risk of sounding pollyanna-ish (now i know that's not a word), why not strive for "withering away" of government control instead? (easy cynical answer: gee, it worked so well for the soviets). reality is, it's the best we can wish for as, further reality, the usg ain't likely to fully let go in any way other than rhetorically in any event (and at this stage, i'm, not sure that's all bad)...
October 29, 2005
a melancholy moment...
...saturday night, 11:45. three of the kids still out. brennan should be home from movies at a friend's relatively soon. peyton perhaps a bit later - from a bat mizvah god knows where. and morgan probably yet later from a seasonal "haunted forest" outing with her friends. wow. how did we get to here?
great day for soccer. peyton's team fell 3-0, but no real surprise - there's a bit of a focus issue for that group (but, peyton did have her best game of the season). brogan's team walked all over the other side with an easy 5-0 win, brogan dropping in one (really two, but the ref called the second back) and assisting another. the boys snagged a 4-3 win. cullen pounded in two - one from almost midfield, and assisted a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime goal for luke: cullen's loft from the corner was picture-perfect, but luke's receiving header into the goal was beyond that... good stuff.
and one of these days they'll be staying out 'til all hours as well... sigh. melancholy moment indeed.
g'night.
great day for soccer. peyton's team fell 3-0, but no real surprise - there's a bit of a focus issue for that group (but, peyton did have her best game of the season). brogan's team walked all over the other side with an easy 5-0 win, brogan dropping in one (really two, but the ref called the second back) and assisting another. the boys snagged a 4-3 win. cullen pounded in two - one from almost midfield, and assisted a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime goal for luke: cullen's loft from the corner was picture-perfect, but luke's receiving header into the goal was beyond that... good stuff.
and one of these days they'll be staying out 'til all hours as well... sigh. melancholy moment indeed.
g'night.
October 27, 2005
ShoZu - mobile pix app...
...been playing with this for a few weeks now. quite cool. makes the mobile imaging experience (or, in english: taking pictures with your camera phone) a hell of a lot simpler and, frankly, more appealing.
shozu (linked) provides a little app for your phone (multiple models supported) that, in simplest terms, allows for one-click posting of pictures from your phone to the web (you'll need a flickr account - which is free and easy to get at http://www.flickr.com/). so, again, that's one click to snap a picture, at which point you get a prompt asking you if you want to post the image to the web - one more click, yes or no. done. simple. and, what's further cool, the image is not sent as a multimedia message but rather as simple data - so, no MMS surcharge and, better yet, no file size limitation (e.g. 250k or whatever) so the image posted at flickr reflects the full quality of whatever megapixel capability your camera-phone might have (downside of MMS posting to blogger has always been the file size limitation). it really doesn't get much simpler from the handheld side of things. and flickr's pretty easy to use as well, allowing for image organization, blogging, sharing, ordering prints, etc.
all in all, a solid step in the direction of usability - a sorely under-addressed challenge in terms of the occasionally intimidating (to some) rush of innovation these days...
shozu (linked) provides a little app for your phone (multiple models supported) that, in simplest terms, allows for one-click posting of pictures from your phone to the web (you'll need a flickr account - which is free and easy to get at http://www.flickr.com/). so, again, that's one click to snap a picture, at which point you get a prompt asking you if you want to post the image to the web - one more click, yes or no. done. simple. and, what's further cool, the image is not sent as a multimedia message but rather as simple data - so, no MMS surcharge and, better yet, no file size limitation (e.g. 250k or whatever) so the image posted at flickr reflects the full quality of whatever megapixel capability your camera-phone might have (downside of MMS posting to blogger has always been the file size limitation). it really doesn't get much simpler from the handheld side of things. and flickr's pretty easy to use as well, allowing for image organization, blogging, sharing, ordering prints, etc.
all in all, a solid step in the direction of usability - a sorely under-addressed challenge in terms of the occasionally intimidating (to some) rush of innovation these days...
October 23, 2005
October 08, 2005
nice to come home...
..every now and then. sadly, it's all-too-rarely either. shot of home from the phone.
October 06, 2005
"wresting control" of internet...
...a week after geneva and a month and change before wsis-tunis and suddenly this is news? (link at bottom). gotta love the inflammatory headlines. someone with anti-UN, globalization willies trying to stir up the patriots? please.
first off, for those on both sides of the argument, let's remember that pretty much everyone's in agreement that we'd rather not suffer any gov't running or ginning up policy for the internet. it's been (kinda) in private sector hands for a bit now, and, despite it's, um, "limitations," ICANN has driven more or less business-oriented policy while u.s. gov't (e.g. DOC) oversight has been just that - pretty much hands off (i know, i know - the gov't could step in at a moment's notice, seize the root servers and be in immediate al haig-like command, but hey, like that won't be the case regardless of what happens at the UN?).
ok, so it's probably not been terribly helpful that u.s. law- and policy-makers have occasionally chest-thumped a unilateral tattoo about never ceding control. indeed, no doubt such rhetorical theatrics at least in part prompted the EU, Brazil, UK, various so-called authoritarian baddies, etc. to to mount this multilateralization initiative. in short, this is as much - no, more - about politics than practicalities. except...
...why on earth would anyone propose something as frightful as an "Inter-Governmental Council for global public policy and oversight of Internet governance?" eek. even if i weren't worried about such a creature undoing business-driven policy, the name alone would spook me...
whatever, seems a lot of blather for what i imagine will be little near term change... later.
Europe Lobbies To Wrest Control of Internet From U.S. - Yahoo! News
first off, for those on both sides of the argument, let's remember that pretty much everyone's in agreement that we'd rather not suffer any gov't running or ginning up policy for the internet. it's been (kinda) in private sector hands for a bit now, and, despite it's, um, "limitations," ICANN has driven more or less business-oriented policy while u.s. gov't (e.g. DOC) oversight has been just that - pretty much hands off (i know, i know - the gov't could step in at a moment's notice, seize the root servers and be in immediate al haig-like command, but hey, like that won't be the case regardless of what happens at the UN?).
ok, so it's probably not been terribly helpful that u.s. law- and policy-makers have occasionally chest-thumped a unilateral tattoo about never ceding control. indeed, no doubt such rhetorical theatrics at least in part prompted the EU, Brazil, UK, various so-called authoritarian baddies, etc. to to mount this multilateralization initiative. in short, this is as much - no, more - about politics than practicalities. except...
...why on earth would anyone propose something as frightful as an "Inter-Governmental Council for global public policy and oversight of Internet governance?" eek. even if i weren't worried about such a creature undoing business-driven policy, the name alone would spook me...
whatever, seems a lot of blather for what i imagine will be little near term change... later.
Europe Lobbies To Wrest Control of Internet From U.S. - Yahoo! News
mossberg's mobile guide...
seen such before, but not lately. nice little primer.
The Mossberg Solution -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.
The Mossberg Solution -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.
September 20, 2005
more on mobile music...
this is gonna be a long one, but bear with me...
'been a lot of hoopla in the last week or so about mobile music. don't get me wrong, it's gonna be huge. while there'll always be a market for stand-alone mp3 players - for the most part concentrated at the low end (cheap commodities with limited memory) and high end (10gb+ capacity jukeboxes) -- expect integrated mobile phone/mp3 players to dominate the mid-tier. starting now. in fact, we're already well under way.
fact is, mobile phones with mp3 capability are already well-embedded in the market, dating back to the nokia 3300. indeed, the nokia website lists ~40 mp3 capable phones already out or soon to come ('course not all of those devices are available in all markets) - and that's just from one vender. so, odds are, the average consumer is already mp3 unwired (as it were), but just may not know or might be too intimidated by the technology to make use of the feature.
let's take nokia devices as an example (happens to be what i know best, but this ain't an advertisement). the aggregate embedded base of 6600, 6620, 6630, 6670, 7610 and ngage devices is not a small number. each of these devices - and more to come (and soon) - are built around the open symbian operating system and sport the easy-to-use nokia series 60 user interface...
...and with that sentence alone i may well have just lost pretty much any reader other than the technophile...but wait...
...from a consumer perspective, who cares what the operating system is called or how a vender might label it's implementation? what matters is that these devices either already have an integrated music player or can support one of multiple players being offered online by third parties who have taken advantage of the open nature of the nokia architecture and built their own applications.
where are these third party apps? well, do a google (or whatever) search and you'll find links to multiple downloadable apps. or go to sites like handango or symbiangear (not vouching for anyone, just offering examples) and search for the same. hell (still not vouching for anyone), here's some specific examples: some outfit called viking informatics offers mp3player for symbian phones that features skins, playlist management, etc. some site called lonelycatgames offers ultramp3 with similar features. m-internet offers mp3go. softonic offers mp3gravity. mobile vault offers mp3base 2006. etc. etc.
so you download one of these applications...then what? well, depending on the vender, you may be able to make your purchase online and have the app sent directly to your phone - you get a message which when opened launches installation of the app to the phone. simple. if you've downloaded your app to your pc, it's a different process, but not that huge a deal - really no more complex than transferring mp3s from your pc to whatever stand-alone player you might have or think about purchasing. read on...
first, you need to hook-up your phone to your pc. easiest perhaps if your phone and pc both have bluetooth (increasingly the case), but you can also check your phone vender's website to see if a usb cable is an option - faster than bluetooth, and a connection many already know from their experiences with digital cameras, mp3 players, etc. once you've got your connection, right click on the application file you downloaded to your desktop, select "send to" and then "bluetooth" or usb and then shoot the file to the phone, which launches the installer and away you go...
what about the music? ok. let's figure that the vast body of embedded digital music in the marketplace is in mp3 format. everyone who's ripped cds to a pc has probably ended up with tunes formatted as mp3 files. if your legitimately-acquired files happen to be in some other format there are variety of conversion applications available online. but, in any event, let's just generally assume we're working with mp3 files.
so, again, in the nokia case, if you haven't already done so or lost the cd that came with your phone, you can wander out to the company's website and download a version of "pc suite" for your particular model. pc suite actually lets you do all sorts of things like synchronize your contacts and calendar between your phone and pc, share images, install applications (indeed, you could use pc suite to install your music player app rather than the method described two paras above) etc. - but let's focus on music.
with pc suite running and your phone attached to the pc (see above), you can use pc suite's "transfer files" feature to drag and drop mp3s from whichever folder you've stored them on your pc to whichever destination you want on your phone or its memory card. it's really as simple as that. launch whichever music app you have on the phone, have it search for files and presto, you're golden. your sound quality's likely gonna vary depending on which phone you have, how old it is, which headphones you're using, etc. - but you've got your tunes, on your phone, mobile. go for a jog.
well, ok, not just yet. about the file destination on your phone. resident memory on most embedded symbian devices is perhaps a bit limited from a storage perspective - just enough to store a handful or two of tunes. but, these devices come with/accept memory cards which extend your storage capacity. in the early days, such cards were themselves somewhat limited (in today's terms, that is) - 32mb, 64mb - capable of holding, say, four or five hands full of tunes. but today you can get MMC cards supporting memory of 128mb, or 256mb, or 512mb. 1gb cards are on the way. we're talking storage for 100s of songs, and a bunch of pictures, video clips, etc.
ok. so that's it. and i'm sure that for some following this roadmap might result in potential derailments along the way depending on any individual's unique situation. but, by and large, this oughta work. it's really not rocket science. but, that said, it could probably be a tad bit easier - perhaps not in terms of technology, but, rather, the manner by which the process is communicated to average people who, frankly, may well have never read a blog nor even know what one might be...
later.
'been a lot of hoopla in the last week or so about mobile music. don't get me wrong, it's gonna be huge. while there'll always be a market for stand-alone mp3 players - for the most part concentrated at the low end (cheap commodities with limited memory) and high end (10gb+ capacity jukeboxes) -- expect integrated mobile phone/mp3 players to dominate the mid-tier. starting now. in fact, we're already well under way.
fact is, mobile phones with mp3 capability are already well-embedded in the market, dating back to the nokia 3300. indeed, the nokia website lists ~40 mp3 capable phones already out or soon to come ('course not all of those devices are available in all markets) - and that's just from one vender. so, odds are, the average consumer is already mp3 unwired (as it were), but just may not know or might be too intimidated by the technology to make use of the feature.
let's take nokia devices as an example (happens to be what i know best, but this ain't an advertisement). the aggregate embedded base of 6600, 6620, 6630, 6670, 7610 and ngage devices is not a small number. each of these devices - and more to come (and soon) - are built around the open symbian operating system and sport the easy-to-use nokia series 60 user interface...
...and with that sentence alone i may well have just lost pretty much any reader other than the technophile...but wait...
...from a consumer perspective, who cares what the operating system is called or how a vender might label it's implementation? what matters is that these devices either already have an integrated music player or can support one of multiple players being offered online by third parties who have taken advantage of the open nature of the nokia architecture and built their own applications.
where are these third party apps? well, do a google (or whatever) search and you'll find links to multiple downloadable apps. or go to sites like handango or symbiangear (not vouching for anyone, just offering examples) and search for the same. hell (still not vouching for anyone), here's some specific examples: some outfit called viking informatics offers mp3player for symbian phones that features skins, playlist management, etc. some site called lonelycatgames offers ultramp3 with similar features. m-internet offers mp3go. softonic offers mp3gravity. mobile vault offers mp3base 2006. etc. etc.
so you download one of these applications...then what? well, depending on the vender, you may be able to make your purchase online and have the app sent directly to your phone - you get a message which when opened launches installation of the app to the phone. simple. if you've downloaded your app to your pc, it's a different process, but not that huge a deal - really no more complex than transferring mp3s from your pc to whatever stand-alone player you might have or think about purchasing. read on...
first, you need to hook-up your phone to your pc. easiest perhaps if your phone and pc both have bluetooth (increasingly the case), but you can also check your phone vender's website to see if a usb cable is an option - faster than bluetooth, and a connection many already know from their experiences with digital cameras, mp3 players, etc. once you've got your connection, right click on the application file you downloaded to your desktop, select "send to" and then "bluetooth" or usb and then shoot the file to the phone, which launches the installer and away you go...
what about the music? ok. let's figure that the vast body of embedded digital music in the marketplace is in mp3 format. everyone who's ripped cds to a pc has probably ended up with tunes formatted as mp3 files. if your legitimately-acquired files happen to be in some other format there are variety of conversion applications available online. but, in any event, let's just generally assume we're working with mp3 files.
so, again, in the nokia case, if you haven't already done so or lost the cd that came with your phone, you can wander out to the company's website and download a version of "pc suite" for your particular model. pc suite actually lets you do all sorts of things like synchronize your contacts and calendar between your phone and pc, share images, install applications (indeed, you could use pc suite to install your music player app rather than the method described two paras above) etc. - but let's focus on music.
with pc suite running and your phone attached to the pc (see above), you can use pc suite's "transfer files" feature to drag and drop mp3s from whichever folder you've stored them on your pc to whichever destination you want on your phone or its memory card. it's really as simple as that. launch whichever music app you have on the phone, have it search for files and presto, you're golden. your sound quality's likely gonna vary depending on which phone you have, how old it is, which headphones you're using, etc. - but you've got your tunes, on your phone, mobile. go for a jog.
well, ok, not just yet. about the file destination on your phone. resident memory on most embedded symbian devices is perhaps a bit limited from a storage perspective - just enough to store a handful or two of tunes. but, these devices come with/accept memory cards which extend your storage capacity. in the early days, such cards were themselves somewhat limited (in today's terms, that is) - 32mb, 64mb - capable of holding, say, four or five hands full of tunes. but today you can get MMC cards supporting memory of 128mb, or 256mb, or 512mb. 1gb cards are on the way. we're talking storage for 100s of songs, and a bunch of pictures, video clips, etc.
ok. so that's it. and i'm sure that for some following this roadmap might result in potential derailments along the way depending on any individual's unique situation. but, by and large, this oughta work. it's really not rocket science. but, that said, it could probably be a tad bit easier - perhaps not in terms of technology, but, rather, the manner by which the process is communicated to average people who, frankly, may well have never read a blog nor even know what one might be...
later.
September 11, 2005
September 09, 2005
euphemism generator
as one who spends more than the odd occasion with folk from various lands, i'm fairly regularly amused by creative (and as often as not linguisticly mangled) english language euphemisms made by non-native speakers (and hey, i've done plenty of the same with the couple of non-english languages i've struggled with over the years). i recently stumbled (quite literally - i highly recommend the "stumbleupon" extension for firefox) across the little engine linked here which to some extent recreates the experience, but at no-one's personal expense. fun. a moment's amusement. give it a shot.
weekend. later...
weekend. later...
September 07, 2005
motorola, apple...etc.
phew...finally...cool....um, well, sort of....i guess...well, ok, um...wait a minute...
what we're talking about here is what appears (i mean, actually physically looks) like a competitor clone - but without the high end OS and UI - that supports 100 tracks. oh, and no OTA file transfer. um...whoopee.
seems the (which does indeed imply singular) value-add of this hybrid is its ability to sync with a popular proprietary desktop app to transfer tracks acquired through a popular proprietary on-line service and wrapped in a popular (well, to the extent such could be the case) proprietary DRM solution. ok. so that part's kinda cool, in that it's new, but, well, that's about it. and trust me, it'll be a short-lived novelty - there are or will shortly be alternative solutions and service offerings and/or third party clients or emulators that allow competitive devices with superior functionality and extended memory to deliver an equal - nah, greater - experience.
oh well, i guess there's something to being first outta the gate... 'cept, even that's not the case... i'm really not meaning to knock the parties involved, it's just that i think my expectations were simply way too high.
what we're talking about here is what appears (i mean, actually physically looks) like a competitor clone - but without the high end OS and UI - that supports 100 tracks. oh, and no OTA file transfer. um...whoopee.
seems the (which does indeed imply singular) value-add of this hybrid is its ability to sync with a popular proprietary desktop app to transfer tracks acquired through a popular proprietary on-line service and wrapped in a popular (well, to the extent such could be the case) proprietary DRM solution. ok. so that part's kinda cool, in that it's new, but, well, that's about it. and trust me, it'll be a short-lived novelty - there are or will shortly be alternative solutions and service offerings and/or third party clients or emulators that allow competitive devices with superior functionality and extended memory to deliver an equal - nah, greater - experience.
oh well, i guess there's something to being first outta the gate... 'cept, even that's not the case... i'm really not meaning to knock the parties involved, it's just that i think my expectations were simply way too high.
August 29, 2005
symella (again) - buzz?
as posted a few weeks back, this (link) really is a cool app, notwithstanding potential drm issues. sure, the networks are still evolving and a 3mb file may take ~8 minutes to pull down, but for spur-of-the-moment demand (e.g. once or twice daily), that's more than fast enough. if the balance of embedded smartphones are symbian-based, you'd think this would be getting some consumer-, or at the very least, geek-buzz. and yet, other than the smattering of early notices, not so much as a random whisper of late - traditional or blogwise (at least not per the likes of technorati, icerocket, feedster, blogdigger, etc.). problem is, i'd hazard, your average consumer still doesn't know what a powerful little gadget he/she's got. hmmm. some work to be done there...
monday, must be copenhagen...
...in transit. summer is definitely over. helsinki this week, dallas next, ny the following three, dallas again after that and then, again, helsinki. frankly, i'm just not focusing after that but i think the trend continues. ah well, i s'pose there's always the christmas break... (a little cheese with your whine bill?).
'was watching the airport tube at dulles before takeoff last night. non-stop reporting on katrina's savage intent for new orleans and beyond. never know how much of it is hype these days, but looks like it's got the potential to be a tragic mess. saw a couple of different snippets from different outlets and seems to be some common focus - bolstered by this morning's news online - on the potential cost in terms of petroleum supply (not just the impact on the offshore rigs in the gulf, but the multiple refineries inland as well). a legit concern, yeah, but go figure that one of the more conservative news outlets had the gall to thinly veil a spin to further justify activities in that other gulf region that's had us occupied of late. um. yeah. sure. jeesh. i mean, c'mon...
got a flight to catch. later.
'was watching the airport tube at dulles before takeoff last night. non-stop reporting on katrina's savage intent for new orleans and beyond. never know how much of it is hype these days, but looks like it's got the potential to be a tragic mess. saw a couple of different snippets from different outlets and seems to be some common focus - bolstered by this morning's news online - on the potential cost in terms of petroleum supply (not just the impact on the offshore rigs in the gulf, but the multiple refineries inland as well). a legit concern, yeah, but go figure that one of the more conservative news outlets had the gall to thinly veil a spin to further justify activities in that other gulf region that's had us occupied of late. um. yeah. sure. jeesh. i mean, c'mon...
got a flight to catch. later.
August 26, 2005
August 15, 2005
beach week...
...is over. sigh. it was great. a week i live for on an annual basis. can't wait 'til next august. in the meantime, back to work...
nice shot of the kids.
nice shot of the kids.
August 10, 2005
July 21, 2005
July 15, 2005
July 14, 2005
castpost - very cool...
...way to share tastes, but not files. stay tuned for a sample posting... link: Castpost: Home
July 11, 2005
monday, must be san francisco...
...for a quickie visit, back to washington tomorrow, somewhere in virginia wednesday, back to new york next week, new york and dallas last week... counting the days until beach week in august.
by the way (unrelated), record swim team season continues apace - the kids are just amazing. results at http://www.mcsl.org/results/2005/week4/Div_M.txt
by the way (unrelated), record swim team season continues apace - the kids are just amazing. results at http://www.mcsl.org/results/2005/week4/Div_M.txt
July 02, 2005
July 01, 2005
gnutella client for symbian...
wow. not a surprise in light of the open nature of the symbian mobile os, but interesting timing in terms of the sc's grokster decision. needless to say, that decision and the symella mobile p2p client are as connected as apples and horseshoes, but interesting nonetheless. Symella, a Gnutella client for Symbian Smartphones. p.s. -- you'll want an unlimited data plan...
June 26, 2005
swim meet results...
an impressive showing this weekend. the kids were on fire. morgan, brennan and cullen went 5 for 5 in first, peyton nailed 4 out of 5 blue ribbons (just days off crutches), brogan took first in breast, and the quad boys swept all three events (taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd) in which all three swam. a great day for everyone. very cool. overall team score was second highest in the county. results linked in title.
June 23, 2005
not taking a position here...
but interesting data linked here and added to right-hand column (see counter). might we not have just dropped bags of money?
June 14, 2005
sirius teams with sprint...
as expected, satellite radio's going terrestrial in cahoots with a cellular provider (in this case, looks like sirius will dance with sprint) - forbes article linked in title. should be interesting to see what this does to network capacity if it takes off. gotta presume xm will follow suit in any event. wonder which will be the first to buy their own spectrum and launch terrestrial-based ip radio, etc.? stay tuned (as it were).
June 07, 2005
on a lighter note...
dolan lovin' the pool (from the phone, but not live - snapped this one two days ago)
arrrggggghhhhhhhh... (again)
funny (or not), this arrrggggghhhhhhhh echoes the still-unexplained march arrrggggghhhhhhhh in terms of the source of arrrggggghhhhhhhh-related frustration...
June 01, 2005
May 26, 2005
the yahoo music business model...
interesting take on yahoo! music business model from om malik (linked). the hypothetical scenario he describes - while not a slam-dunk - would seem to be almost inevitable. this may well force the content industry towards the new business model they have been stymied to define themselves. cool. Om Malik’s Broadband Blog � The Yahoo Music Business Model
May 25, 2005
Nokia Linux-based web device...
...been waiting for this for, well, awhile (as contemplated - but hardly for the first time - in final para of march 30 post).
May 18, 2005
May 14, 2005
soccer this weekend...
well, i missed the boy's game to make brogan's (the boys won 3-2 with cullen and luke both making the scoreboard), but man, what a game she had. second week running that she's hat-tricked. won 4-0 today and 7-1 last week. it's fun watching them finally coming together as a team, both on the field and off. it was at about this age that morgan's team truly began to gel (which recollection brings some melancholy). and yet, unlike morgan's team - which stuck together in the rec league until they hit about age 13 (at which point they graduated to the select league and from two-years-running undefeated to virtually winless for the next two) - it looks like brogan's team may well disolve at the end of this season with the more talented rising to select and the balance, well, i'm not sure... kinda bitter-sweet. on the one hand, it's great to see brogan and others rising to the next level and realizing their talent. on the other, there's something socially leveling about playing in the rec league - as said before, it's great to see the team come together, talented and less so, as peers and as friends. next chapter in life, i guess - just wish it didn't have to be so soon. (there's that melancholy bleeding through again)...
May 09, 2005
grokker - this is quite cool...
pretty slick new take on the search engine. grokker. try it out a couple of times and you realize that the groupings feel almost natural. at least in my case, it felt as if the results were grouped the way i would have thought to group them - almost as if the process/outcome were, again, more naturally intuitive than your average yahoo!, google, lycos, dogpile, etc. search. maybe it's just the graphic representation. notably, if you use too broad a search string the results can be a bit intimidating, even overwhelming - but i s'pose that's really no different than would be the case with a traditional search engine/tool - 'cept in this case, again, it's graphic. in any event, with time, this could catch on.
May 07, 2005
morgan...
just showin' her how the mobile blogging works (and, by the way, it is working now - as can be seen from recent entries. folks at blogger have revamped the mms posting - nice job). from the phone...
May 05, 2005
after so much anticipation...
...i almost feel a bit let down. whatever the case, it was a really well-crafted, clever campaign. bovineunite unveiled - check out Tonight, When the Moo Strikes You
May 04, 2005
could be any room, anywhere...
sometimes it just makes you wonder... well, you know. (from the phone)
April 26, 2005
tuesday,must be dallas...
sigh... no, not because i'm in dallas (again). rather, rumor has it that all the brouhaha referenced in the previous two posts may not have been (as assumed, or at least by me) the misguided antics of some low level wh staffer. that, or, perhaps, done-is-done and the administration simply won't back down now that they've taken a position, whether ill-born of some basement drone or dictated from the top down. in this respect, maybe the media attention has been a bit unfortunate - perhaps in a media vacuum a quiet reversal would have been possible. who knows, it may yet happen...
but enough - unless things get weirder.
but enough - unless things get weirder.
April 24, 2005
April 23, 2005
partisan weirdness in washington...
seems the k street project now goes to eleven (somehow a spinal tap reference feels appropriate)...
appears the administration may be denying staff-level technical and relevant substantive experts to participate in the u.s. delegation to a telecom gathering in lta next week (that sentence has got to be greek to the vast majority of sane people out there). rumor has it (and, in light of having been privy to an as-yet-not-public wh quote earlier today, i s'pose this is probably no longer rumor), the administration is checking potential delegate rosters against recent campaign contribution lists. if you gave to the other side, you're sol. not sure what other lists might be getting checked, or which or how many other people might be facing similar blackballing from other activities.
what's wild, at least in terms of the delegation to the lta event, is that those being selected out are, again, staff level folk, working level types, e.g. the people who have the relevant private sector expertise and knowledge that gov't negotiators actually need to best achieve goals that will (perhaps someday) benefit u.s. industry, our economy, etc. let's face it, these are almost certainly not people who could or would somehow be disposed to subvert whatever critical national regional telecommunications priorities we might have. and, frankly, based on the nature of the unfortunately targeted, i don't have the feeling these folk could have given that much to the dems anyway. and yet, and apparently with some pride, the administration is reportedly acknowledging the blackballing (if, that is, the purported wh quote mentioned above is accurate).
don't get me wrong, i'm not taking a partisan position here, just expressing serious concern about what would appear to be wildly petty and painfully shortsighted antics - this would be the case regardless of whichever political stripes anyone (including the current administration) might be wearing.
more on this as it breaks...
appears the administration may be denying staff-level technical and relevant substantive experts to participate in the u.s. delegation to a telecom gathering in lta next week (that sentence has got to be greek to the vast majority of sane people out there). rumor has it (and, in light of having been privy to an as-yet-not-public wh quote earlier today, i s'pose this is probably no longer rumor), the administration is checking potential delegate rosters against recent campaign contribution lists. if you gave to the other side, you're sol. not sure what other lists might be getting checked, or which or how many other people might be facing similar blackballing from other activities.
what's wild, at least in terms of the delegation to the lta event, is that those being selected out are, again, staff level folk, working level types, e.g. the people who have the relevant private sector expertise and knowledge that gov't negotiators actually need to best achieve goals that will (perhaps someday) benefit u.s. industry, our economy, etc. let's face it, these are almost certainly not people who could or would somehow be disposed to subvert whatever critical national regional telecommunications priorities we might have. and, frankly, based on the nature of the unfortunately targeted, i don't have the feeling these folk could have given that much to the dems anyway. and yet, and apparently with some pride, the administration is reportedly acknowledging the blackballing (if, that is, the purported wh quote mentioned above is accurate).
don't get me wrong, i'm not taking a partisan position here, just expressing serious concern about what would appear to be wildly petty and painfully shortsighted antics - this would be the case regardless of whichever political stripes anyone (including the current administration) might be wearing.
more on this as it breaks...
April 19, 2005
clever, and soon explained?...
...but for the moment, curious and, frankly, a real hoot. check out http://www.bovineunite.com
April 11, 2005
classic parental pride moment...
soccer this weekend was all quads, all the time.
brogan's team finished tied 1-1, with brogan having scored the sole goal for our side. she pretty much dominated our offense throughout.
as for the boys - wow. down 1-0 early in the first half, cullen launched a corner kick into the goalbox and luke picked it out of the air with an authoritative boot into the net. but, by the end of the half, we had fallen behind 3-1. early into the second half, luke drove half the field, shot, and then took his own rebound from the bobbling keeper and slid it into the goal. ten minutes later, ryan dribbled the field end-to-end and stuck a beautiful left-footed shot into the top corner of the goal. tied: 3-3. then, with a minute or so left in the game, luke fought through three defenders, falling to and scrambling from his knees at least twice, and again beat the goalie. 4-3. hat trick for luke. game for us. brilliant. talk about being proud of your kids...
monday, must be cambridge, maryland... board meeting.
brogan's team finished tied 1-1, with brogan having scored the sole goal for our side. she pretty much dominated our offense throughout.
as for the boys - wow. down 1-0 early in the first half, cullen launched a corner kick into the goalbox and luke picked it out of the air with an authoritative boot into the net. but, by the end of the half, we had fallen behind 3-1. early into the second half, luke drove half the field, shot, and then took his own rebound from the bobbling keeper and slid it into the goal. ten minutes later, ryan dribbled the field end-to-end and stuck a beautiful left-footed shot into the top corner of the goal. tied: 3-3. then, with a minute or so left in the game, luke fought through three defenders, falling to and scrambling from his knees at least twice, and again beat the goalie. 4-3. hat trick for luke. game for us. brilliant. talk about being proud of your kids...
monday, must be cambridge, maryland... board meeting.
April 09, 2005
April 07, 2005
March 31, 2005
March 30, 2005
wednesday, must be helsinki?
tired (as usual), but it's been a couple of decent days. there's always value to team meetings (which brought me here), but the real value of these visits is in the sidebar chats...
seems when i'm on domestic travel i never watch the tube, but when overseas, i've always got it channeled to cnn or some such. odd assortment of news today, e.g. kofi annan may be experiencing the trashing of one of the world's most valuable brands (his name), and, speaking of tubes (on a couple of levels), seems the big potato has found himself hooked up to a feeder. shades of the ironic aneorexic in florida...
spring break for the kids at home this week. heading that way myself tomorrow. friday together. sweet.
while i'm rambling, convergence (painfully overused) is on the mind again. 'been thinking (again) about access alternatives in the home, and beyond. why do so many people have fully-loaded (and real estate-abusing) pc's at home when all they use them for is streaming, browsing and messaging? might be because the easy-to-use, reasonably-priced (sub $200) portable alternatives don't yet exist. after all, you really just need one thick pc as a server, all purpose application and storage hub. what this world of heavy (and rather rapidly increasing) broadband penetration and cheap and easily-deployed home wireless networks really demands are thin and portable (and relatively cheap) clients for the home as "mobile" alternatives to yesteryear pc's. gonna be a sweet market for whoever grabs it...
homeward bound in just half a day. as ever, can't wait...
seems when i'm on domestic travel i never watch the tube, but when overseas, i've always got it channeled to cnn or some such. odd assortment of news today, e.g. kofi annan may be experiencing the trashing of one of the world's most valuable brands (his name), and, speaking of tubes (on a couple of levels), seems the big potato has found himself hooked up to a feeder. shades of the ironic aneorexic in florida...
spring break for the kids at home this week. heading that way myself tomorrow. friday together. sweet.
while i'm rambling, convergence (painfully overused) is on the mind again. 'been thinking (again) about access alternatives in the home, and beyond. why do so many people have fully-loaded (and real estate-abusing) pc's at home when all they use them for is streaming, browsing and messaging? might be because the easy-to-use, reasonably-priced (sub $200) portable alternatives don't yet exist. after all, you really just need one thick pc as a server, all purpose application and storage hub. what this world of heavy (and rather rapidly increasing) broadband penetration and cheap and easily-deployed home wireless networks really demands are thin and portable (and relatively cheap) clients for the home as "mobile" alternatives to yesteryear pc's. gonna be a sweet market for whoever grabs it...
homeward bound in just half a day. as ever, can't wait...
March 21, 2005
March 11, 2005
been awhile...
...perhaps as a result of the limitations of mobile blogging mentioned before, in that i've been pretty much mobile for weeks.
seems there are some naturally recurring themes emerging in my posts - travel, missing the kids, and mobility in general. by the time it's done, the month of march will have included multiple trips to new york, a couple to texas, one to san franicisco, another to new orleans and yet another to finland. said it before, i'll say it again: love the job, love the people, but the travel can wear on ya at times...
later.
seems there are some naturally recurring themes emerging in my posts - travel, missing the kids, and mobility in general. by the time it's done, the month of march will have included multiple trips to new york, a couple to texas, one to san franicisco, another to new orleans and yet another to finland. said it before, i'll say it again: love the job, love the people, but the travel can wear on ya at times...
later.
February 21, 2005
moblogging - still imperfect...
couple of times over the last week i've tried to capture an image on the mobile and shoot it along to the blog with a pithy caption to immortalize a moment. each time got an error sms from blogger informing me of some unidentified problem preventing the transfer, accompanied by a not-particularly-useful suggestion that i "try again later." i mean, after all, those moments are gone.
interestingly, a blogging client/app resident on the mobile would, at the very least, in a similar error scenario (e.g. something wrong on the server side or elsewhere), preserve the post, if not perhaps the immediacy of the posting. something to that... ala nokia lifeblog, kablog, etc.
in any event, lost a couple of (what seemed to me at the time) humorous posts, as well as a couple of "i'm sitting on an airplane - look at the wing" time-passers. probably no great loss to posterity. one thing about moblogging - it's gonna encourage a lot of frivolous entries.
in dallas for a couple of days. temps in the 80s. in february. wild.
interestingly, a blogging client/app resident on the mobile would, at the very least, in a similar error scenario (e.g. something wrong on the server side or elsewhere), preserve the post, if not perhaps the immediacy of the posting. something to that... ala nokia lifeblog, kablog, etc.
in any event, lost a couple of (what seemed to me at the time) humorous posts, as well as a couple of "i'm sitting on an airplane - look at the wing" time-passers. probably no great loss to posterity. one thing about moblogging - it's gonna encourage a lot of frivolous entries.
in dallas for a couple of days. temps in the 80s. in february. wild.
February 09, 2005
wednesday, must be texas...
nah, it's not that predictable... but, well, yeah, i am in dallas this week.
won't use this post to wax on about how much i hate being away when someone's sick (brogan sporting a monster fever), although, for the record, i do...
sat through an interesting discussion today on convergence in the home. a replay of similar such from the past - except that much of what was surmised then is reality now.
stay tuned.
won't use this post to wax on about how much i hate being away when someone's sick (brogan sporting a monster fever), although, for the record, i do...
sat through an interesting discussion today on convergence in the home. a replay of similar such from the past - except that much of what was surmised then is reality now.
stay tuned.
February 06, 2005
February 04, 2005
wrapping up a week without travel...
what a pleasure. an entire week in the office, time to catch up on paperwork, employee reviews, etc. and every night home to the family, and a fire. sweet.
got feedback this week from a 360 review conducted late last year. i've never been a big fan of these types of exercises - myers-briggs, firo-b, and the like. i don't think that they're terribly accurate and i do think that they encourage people to too narrowly label themselves and others. that said, if you don't take them overly seriously, talking through the results (with whatever consultant you might be assigned) can actually be a bit eye-opening. there'll be some results that repeat output from previous such processes or otherwise validate what you already believe. other results can be a bit confusing, even contradictory. cynicism aside (yeah, right), i s'pose there's some science to all of this and i imagine some accuracy to the trends identified. food for thought, i guess (at which i'm obviously nibbling).
weekend's upon us... later.
got feedback this week from a 360 review conducted late last year. i've never been a big fan of these types of exercises - myers-briggs, firo-b, and the like. i don't think that they're terribly accurate and i do think that they encourage people to too narrowly label themselves and others. that said, if you don't take them overly seriously, talking through the results (with whatever consultant you might be assigned) can actually be a bit eye-opening. there'll be some results that repeat output from previous such processes or otherwise validate what you already believe. other results can be a bit confusing, even contradictory. cynicism aside (yeah, right), i s'pose there's some science to all of this and i imagine some accuracy to the trends identified. food for thought, i guess (at which i'm obviously nibbling).
weekend's upon us... later.
February 02, 2005
January 25, 2005
tuesday, must be new york...
great to have spent the weekend at home, notwithstanding a rather brutal family-wide bout with the flu - 24 hour variety thankfully.
sitting in the hilton in westchester listening to the hoyas-st john's game on-line. not televised, sadly. a nostalgic feeling actually. not that i ever sat around as a kid and listened to sports on the radio, but my dad would have a game or another tuned in while we were driving to practice on ocassion - an almost hypnotic audio experience as i recall. nostalgia aside though, i'd prefer the full audio-visual experience. for what it's worth, the hoyas are up.
having some fun this week trying to undo an unfortunate media misinterpretation/misrepresentation of unfortunately expressed senior exec comments. every day brings something new...
sitting in the hilton in westchester listening to the hoyas-st john's game on-line. not televised, sadly. a nostalgic feeling actually. not that i ever sat around as a kid and listened to sports on the radio, but my dad would have a game or another tuned in while we were driving to practice on ocassion - an almost hypnotic audio experience as i recall. nostalgia aside though, i'd prefer the full audio-visual experience. for what it's worth, the hoyas are up.
having some fun this week trying to undo an unfortunate media misinterpretation/misrepresentation of unfortunately expressed senior exec comments. every day brings something new...
January 21, 2005
in transit...
sitting in copenhagen airport waiting to connect back to d.c. seems every time i travel something goes wrong on the homefront - this time just morgan having her first fender-bender (while having her first driving-in-the-snow experience), brennan somehow melting his mobile, and megan contemplating tearing the front door apart because it wouldn't close due to a jammed deadbolt (a lucky and exceedingly timely phone call prevented that - phew). beats the fire in december, i suppose.
on to other thoughts. have an hour to spare and had the option of using the laptop and wifi connection or just sitting down to a public terminal. could have gone the mobile phone route as well (nokia 9300 actually - far more than a phone), but, am finding that with anything more than 15 minutes on my hands i prefer a richer experience, comfortable seat, bigger screen, full keyboard, etc. this is the difference between being mobile and being nomadic. an important distinction. equally of interest, the choice to go with the public terminal (free) over the personal laptop/wifi connection (pay). not much of a choice, actually. impact on the device business should be interesting when access becomes more and more a utility and public terminals more and more like power outlets or water fountains (an eventuality in my opinion). think: how many times have you plugged something in to the wall in an airport or elsewhere to charge up, without a thought to the fact that someone, somewhere (not you) is paying for the power? thinking access will head the same direction, ultimately device-wise as well. sure, there will always be a business for personal devices, but the concept of broadband water fountains is not that far-fetched. value shifts not only away from the pipe, but from the devices as well. future's in the content and the services?
'nuff said. a bit too much substance for a jet-lagged layover entry (but food for later thought). off to read e-mails and then catch the flight home. can't wait to get there...
on to other thoughts. have an hour to spare and had the option of using the laptop and wifi connection or just sitting down to a public terminal. could have gone the mobile phone route as well (nokia 9300 actually - far more than a phone), but, am finding that with anything more than 15 minutes on my hands i prefer a richer experience, comfortable seat, bigger screen, full keyboard, etc. this is the difference between being mobile and being nomadic. an important distinction. equally of interest, the choice to go with the public terminal (free) over the personal laptop/wifi connection (pay). not much of a choice, actually. impact on the device business should be interesting when access becomes more and more a utility and public terminals more and more like power outlets or water fountains (an eventuality in my opinion). think: how many times have you plugged something in to the wall in an airport or elsewhere to charge up, without a thought to the fact that someone, somewhere (not you) is paying for the power? thinking access will head the same direction, ultimately device-wise as well. sure, there will always be a business for personal devices, but the concept of broadband water fountains is not that far-fetched. value shifts not only away from the pipe, but from the devices as well. future's in the content and the services?
'nuff said. a bit too much substance for a jet-lagged layover entry (but food for later thought). off to read e-mails and then catch the flight home. can't wait to get there...
January 20, 2005
for starters...
january 20, 2005. inauguration day for bush 2. four more years. draw your own conclusions. whatever the case, as good a day as any to get this started...
...and from finland, no less. snowing and frigid in d.c. but rather balmy in helsinki (snowing here as well, mind you, but still unusually warm). wish i were home with the kids playing in the powder.
ah well, off to work.
(not a particularly riveting opener is it?)
...and from finland, no less. snowing and frigid in d.c. but rather balmy in helsinki (snowing here as well, mind you, but still unusually warm). wish i were home with the kids playing in the powder.
ah well, off to work.
(not a particularly riveting opener is it?)
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