Connecting the Dots

Ray Kurzweil, Inventor & Visionary: Why is he invisible?

I'd heard about Ray Kurzweil and his synthesizer invention many years ago due to his collaboration with Stevie Wonder. His invention also spawned a new music technology business. Then the invention of his reading machine for the blind created a new education technology company and so on. This is a man that has accomplished a *great* deal in his life to date...and I'm convinced there's a lot more to come.

A PCWorld interview with Ray Kurzweil introduced him like this: "Technology pioneer, entrepreneur, and futurist Ray Kurzweil, 56, invented the flatbed scanner, developed the first text-to-speech reading machine for the blind, helped develop omnifont optical character recognition, and was the first to market large-vocabulary speech recognition technology, among many other achievements. He has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Lemelson-MIT Prize, the nation's largest award for invention and innovation, and the 1999 National Medal of Technology from President Bill Clinton. In his latest book, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever (Rodale Books), Kurzweil and coauthor Terry Grossman, MD, explain how new technologies will push human life spans into virtual immortality."

His book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines" is one of my favorites. After reading it I was compelled to explore more about this man so as to add to my own understanding of him and gauge the credibility of his predictions. This search took me to his KurzweilAI web site (AI for Artificial Intelligence) and I've spent some quality time there.

My point? Kurzweil is a visionary and he has the credentials and achievements like this and this that, in my mind, lend credibility to his prognostications. Some are interesting, others delightful, and still others disturbing. We should at least pay serious attention to him.

One more thing: how come hardly anyone I know has any clue who this man is or what he's accomplished? For example, my 10 year old son is doing a school project where he's supposed to choose from four "heroes" biographies from which he'll choose one, perform additional research on this person and complete a packet. The list includes numerous historical and current figures in athletics, science, politics, medicine, space, etc.) that have made an unquestionable impact on humankind (Jackie Robinson, Alexander Graham Bell, Marie Curie, Louis Pasteur, Mother Teresa, Sally Ride). Only a handful of those on the list are currently living and I submit we have heroes in our midst right now.

Curiously, there are only a handful of scientists on the list and, most disturbingly, no living ones. I'm going to send my son's teacher a note and ask why. I'm also going to suggest Ray Kurzweil is added to the list for the future as well as inquire as to whether or not the definition of heroism and hero is being discussed so these kids have a context from which to judge heroism and heroic acts. For me, Ray Kurzweil has made a considerable impact and is a hero in my book.

Also, it's disturbing that my son could rattle off -- from a high level though -- what most of the people on the heroes list did and for what they were known. He does, however, know details of the top ten video games. The hottest kids books. The must-see-TV. All the superheroes. But he'd never heard of Ray Kurzweil.

Have Gates and Ballmer become timid? Is the browser dead?

Are Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer afraid of the open source Firefox team and unable to make Internet Explorer competitive? Is Microsoft rolling over and acquiesing to governments embracing open standards and open source software? Are they becoming weak and terrified about the open source paradigm shift?

Hah...don't believe it for a second.

Increasingly I've watched as Microsoft continues to deliver ways to tie their cash-cow OS and desktop tools and drive them toward functioning as primary gateways to their own back-end apps & infrastructure (server products and .Net strategy) as well as enterprise applications and the internet as a whole. I've also observed the momentum with open standards and open source software -- and the number of articles published implying that Microsoft is really, really frightened.

But think about it. Why has MSFT let Firefox gain browser market share so fast and why aren't they embarrassed by this gain? Could it be that they no longer see the browser as a strategic, controllable gateway and don't really care? Maybe they have something else up their sleeve that is more profound, say, tying the OS and Office to back-office applications, infrastructure, the 'net, and everything else with the Information Worker Bridge? Will we soon see an acceleration in tools capability within Visual Studio to access the Information Bridge Framework making development of wide ranging and wholly encompassing killer applications a reality?

Reading Slashdot.org this morning I saw an article about how Microsoft has opened up the XML schemas in Microsoft Office 2003. Besides this move allowing them to potentially fend off the encroaching open source movement and Linux specifically, is this also a strategic way for them to tie the OS and desktop to the open source movement while they're positioning themselves to be the gateway for everything else? This sure seems to me to be a *very* smart, strategic move on their part.

MSFT owns the desktop. In my opinion they're seeing IE and the browser as being a non-issue for a user interface (UI) and they're clearly positioning Office, the OS itself and their applications (leveraging XML and .NET strategies) to be the defacto UI to tie the internet, web services, enterprise applications (and everything digital) to a MSFT management model. Could the web browser be dead? Could a new model emerge -- embedded in Longhorn v. 2.0 -- that leverages all data models and provides the tools and infrastructure to glue them all together?

Even with the visible and public moves by MSFT (competition in public search and the battle of Microsoft vs. Google, alongside the fundamental research they're doing, and the yanking of WinFS search from Longhorn) I'm gonna bet they've got some superUI, new data model builder on the horizon and it'll just take them a bit more time to get there.

Listen to me! Watch me! Read me!

There are more media choices now than ever before and I, for one, have too many. You got your DirecTV with TiVo; your podcasts; your Web; your books; and maybe soon your "iTunes for movies."

I just finished listening to the latest Gillmor Gang podcast off of IT Conversations, and the discussion "was about the convergence of radio (most notably public radio) and "new media" if that term even makes sense any longer. That convergence is due to digital technologies and the fact that it's now possible for nearly anyone to create broadcast-quality audio with a very small investment in equipment."

Fascinating stuff -- and pretty exciting to anticipate what might come out of people's homes or studios as new content (podcasts are just one type proliferating) as well as how accessible the world of media offerings might be in the near future. Though this on-demand media accessibility is pretty cool, I just wish I had time to listen, watch and read everything I want to consume. Heck...I just want to download and listen to the other podcasts available on IT Conversations (though I must admit to already having about 10 hours worth waiting for me on my iPod right now).

Food for thought: marketing as a conversation...

I'm constantly on-the-hunt for new ways of doing things. The first place I came upon thinking about new ways was Doc Searls discussions about 'marketing as a conversation' vs. one way broad-or-narrowcasting messages to an audience without any feedback loop.

A great introduction to this idea (or set of ideas) is in Doc and his colleagues' book The Cluetrain Manifesto. Well worth a read.

Today Doc linked to a Small Business Branding Manifesto from Michael Pollock as one guiding set of ideas on this subject. Also worth a read and great food for thought.

With so many people depending upon the 'net for communication -- and especially gathering information on product before they buy -- it will be very interesting to see how marketing as a discipline morphs over time to accomodate people's new ways of making buying decisions, molding and changing products themselves, and ensuring their voices are heard (other than simply voting-with-their-pocketbooks by not buying).

Besides all of the review sites that test and rate products and services, there is a new "back channel" comprised of bloggers who are posting rage, feedback and/or observations about product and services. For many years I've been very interested in beta programs for software....download and try it and give user feedback to the company or group developing the software so they can make it better. It's a great way to put a product through its paces. But the intriguing part of this is finished product and how even *it* is kinda, sorta beta and being increasingly influenced by the instant observations and opinions that fly around the Web by bloggers.

A great example of this is how the cellular telephony providers are allegedly forcing mobile phone manufacturer's to cripple Bluetooth (supposedly so users can't use the cell network for hooking up their laptop for data access). I understand why they're doing this (to preserve their bandwidth and upsell stuff like ringtones vs. allowing PC users to Bluetooth transmit midi files of their own creation to their mobile phones). A lot of people are upset about this as evidenced by this and this and this. I haven't yet seen any manufacturer respond to the base of upset customers, but if it impacts adoption of particular Bluetooth-enabled phones, they will.

I fully expect that this new model of the masses weighing in on products and services -- in effect engaging in a marketing dialogue with the creators and deliver's of these products and services -- to fundamentally alter and shape what ends up on real or virtual store shelves.

Are we killing our future?

I promised myself that I was going to stay away from religion and politics on my blog and instead concentrate on technology and other future trends -- and leverage my own happy-ass optimistic side and write about fun stuff.

But I've been doing a lot of reading tonight. When I think about the future -- and especially the one my kids will inherit -- our accelerating budget deficit scares me. Offshoring and the possibility it will be two or more generations before the world experiences equilibrium with wages and skills and the U.S. creates new industries that will accelerate full employment of American workers (like my children) concerns me. Sarbanes Oxley causing business leaders to bend over for regulatory anal probes causing cost concerns and roadblocks to innovation gives me pause.

When it comes to technology and the future trends I get jazzed about, the network effect helps ensure that knowledge, innovation and the means for producing it becomes less and less dependent upon geography and more upon discovering 'openings' in markets and opportunities to disrupt or take over markets as they are maturing. Those who are doing this disruption and takeover are not necessarily in the United States of America.

Hmmm...not sure where I'm headed with this post or these thoughts. But without a strong dollar, an economy continuing to be open to innovation, and the infrastructure and workers with skills to take us in to the future, then it's likely the future bloggers connecting the dots will have names like Pramadur Rangnekar, Yong Hahn, or Takumi Shou.
         

Macintosh in 1983 (Wait! Wasn't it intro'ed in 1984 on the Superbowl?)

Today's article on Slashdot about Steve Jobs introducing the Macintosh in 1984 really brought back memories!

My recollection wasn't just about the Superbowl ad in January of 1984 -- though that was really cool and the top ad ever -- instead it was about my being in Hawaii in November of 1983 for the Apple International Sales Meeting called "Leading the Way" (I was a manufacturer's rep for a firm that setup dealer distribution for Apple before they were able to hire their own direct sales force). Besides this event being really fun with my colleagues hanging out in Honolulu, we were learning good stuff and getting ready to sell more Apple products upon our return.

On (I think) the second day there, Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh to the company, showed us the soon-to-be-famed Superbowl ad, and had Bill Gates, Mitch Kapor (of Lotus fame) and Fred Gibbons (Software Publishing...a big PC vendor) on the stage talking about their support for this new, cool computer.

Right after the introduction, we had breakout sessions. Susan Kare led my breakout session. Steve Jobs led my buddy Eric Johnson's session (fun fact to know-n-tell: Steve wore the same thing every day: hunter green Ralph Lauren polo shirt; jeans; sandals).

That evening we took buses to a beach location where the company had set up a M.A.S.H setup like the TV show -- complete with tents, nurses, jeeps, and great food. WWII helicopters landed with Steve Jobs and John Sculley...that's how they made their appearance.

A couple of months later and knowing that the 1984 Superbowl ad was going to run, I eagerly anticipated its arrival. It so happened I was at a friends house for a big Superbowl party when the ad came on. The room went silent and everyone watched. The reaction was pretty dramatic!

All I can say is that -- as cool as the Macintosh was -- I was still more enamored at the time with the power of the Mac's "big sister" and predecessor the Lisa. At $10,000 it was overpowered and overpriced...and it was never going to make it as a mass market product.

It'll be fun one day to tell my grandchildren about being there at the beginning (sort of...woulda been cooler to have built the product!). Things have sure changed in the computing arena and my kids already are unable to fathom a floppy-disk based computer printing to a dot-matrix printer.

Even when *I* think about it, I recall my Dad in the 1970's talking about my Grandpa's first Ford which, even then, felt like ancient history...kind of like me talking to my kids today about a Macintosh in 1984.

Are you naked? (Your WiFi network, that is)

WiFi exploded on to the scene in July of 1999 when Apple introduced the "Airport" 802.11b WiFi products, at an unheard of price point ($299) and a nice user interface allowing normal humans (i.e., non-propellerheads) to get the thing configured and operable.

Over the next several years, growth of wireless devices accelerated in to the tens of millions of units. Virtually everyone I know -- when we discuss having a home wireless network -- always talks about how delightful it is to be laying in bed with their laptop, on the sofa, the deck, or wherever they happen to be.

But there's a dark side.

I can't tell you how often I've been somewhere with my PC laptop (and run NetStumbler) or my Powerbook (running MacStumbler) and discovered the volume of WiFi networks that are *wide open* (meaning someone plugged them in with the factory defaults and didn't bother or didn't know how to set a password). Couple that with the fact that alot of these same people don't have a firewall running on their computers, and this is like leaving your front door open when you're gone for the evening.

I'm secure. I have buddies who give me a bad time about it though since I have WiFi Protected Access (WPA), my SSID not being broadcast so my network is 'invisible', and the MAC addresses from the specific computers I want to allow on my network entered in my systems so I block others. They think I'm "over-secured."

Security is an issue other than just at home...but it's an underreported problem in internet cafes or public places that leave their networks wide open so it's easy to get on them. Without a company Virtual Private Network (VPN) for your personal laptop, or some way to create a Secure Shell (SSH) to another computer for a secure tunnel, you're vulnerable to prying eyes (email passwords go in the clear, etc.). Providers of WiFi access (like TMobile) are adding robust security options to eliminate this threat, but not all.

The punchline? Set your firewall, password protect your home wireless network, and choose a provider that offers access software with built-in security.

Magic Weight Loss?

Doing a report on magician Harry Houdini when I was 10 years old did two things: excited me about magic and made me realize it was all an illusion. As a consequence, I've spent much of my life being an optimist and opportunist...tempered with a healthy skepticism.

Like hundreds of millions around the world who struggle with their weight,  I was intrigued by a 60 Minutes program in November of 2004 that highlighted a seemingly magic way for people to manage hunger and eat up to 1,000 calories less per day. The magic? A somewhat rare and native South African "succulent" (that looks like a cactus) called Hoodia Gordonii.

Seems that the San people of the Kalahari desert (a tribe of hunter-gatherers with a culture and history going back thousands of years using native plants for medicinal purposes) have been using the plant for centuries to help ward off pain, hunger and thirst when the Bushmen made long trips in the desert.

So what happened when 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl ate some?

Apple + Sony = ?

In October of 1999 I was watching a Steve Jobs keynote where he was introducing a new lineup of iMac's. Jobs paid an atypical, reverent, and almost loving homage to Sony founder Akio Morita. At the time, it was crystal clear to me that he'd done an honorable thing -- that was also good business.

Having worked myself for two Japanese companies (Pioneer Electronics and Panasonic Comm & Sys Co), I'm acutely aware of the deep and profound impact such an honorable and public tribute means to Japanese people (especially those who so revere someone of the stature of Akio Morita). Why was this good business? Sony is the closest company on the planet to Apple in innovation, design and aesthetics, Apple outsources all their manufacturing, and no other company could offer an innovator like Steve Jobs the ability to deliver unbeatable world-class products. If Steve Jobs had any intention of one day collaborating with Sony, it was good business to start the relationship strong.

I've thought about the introduction of the Mac mini and that it's probably a product intended for its target: iPod owners who use PC's but haven't considered a Mac due to its expense. It also struck me as yet another example of good business -- inviting up Sony President Kunitake Ando to speak to the assembled masses at MacWorld -- but I instantly recognized it as a simple prelude to bigger things.

I think there are bigger things on the horizon...

Internet Evolution: Fear of Terrorism Only?

Interesting report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project called "The Future of the Internet"  Curiously, publications such as PCWorld have pulled out only one primary area of the report and are focused on the cyberattack prediction only:

"According to a survey entitled, "The Future of the Internet" recently released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, American's growing dependence on the Internet is making it a flashing electronic target for terrorists."

This is only one likely scenario but we'd better accelerate our efforts and funding on combating cyberterrorism or other smart leaders will quit the fight. Most agree that America's internet infrastructure is too open and besides...we can't even fully protect our borders!  How can we truly protect the thousands and thousands of miles of fiber and other internet infrastructure, let alone the insecurity of heterogeneous systems where most people use the same operating system?  I've got more questions than answers -- and I believe it is imperative to protect an infrastructure upon which more and more of our economy and communication depends -- but let's be pragmatic about it.

Where's the good news in the Pew report?
Here's just one other prediction abstract from the same study that optimistically points to a brighter possibility for a richer, diverse information experience in the home (and opportunity for those participating in providing services to consumers): "By 2014, all media, including audio, video, print, and voice, will stream in and out of the home or office via the internet. Computers that coordinate and control video games, audio, and video will become the centerpiece of the living room and will link to networked devices around the household, replacing the television's central place in the home."

I believe and am optimistic about our future on the internet as evidenced by my first post, "Video games and the internet bubble. Is it time for dot com...the sequel?." We have to be smart and prudent about protecting ourselves but I also believe that too many in the media are putting a "the sky is falling" spin on everything -- which I believe PCWorld and others are doing with this relatively benign report from Pew.

Apple's personal production environment...

Though I use Windows XP and Linux at home, my preferred platform is Mac OS X. The primary reason I use it -- and have since it's intro in 1984 -- has been how incredibly well everything works together. Today there are no viruses or spyware, and Apple's guidelines for developers mean applications work seamlessly under a common set of user interface rules just like they have since the beginning.

Applications 'behave' the way I want and expect them to and the manipulation of media is considerably more elegant than on Windows or Linux. I'm constantly struck by how much "bit twiddling" is required on these two platforms -- twiddling that is remarkably minimized or absent on the Mac. With Mac OS X built on top of and based upon unix (BSD and the Mach kernel) it has the robustness of a modern operating system. Delightfully, Apple has married an extremely functional and elegant user interface on top of these unix underpinnings (a friend told me, "..it's like Linux but with a great user interface and tons of cool apps").

Apple's Tuesday announcement of the next wave of products (iPod shuffle, Mac mini, iLife and iWork) are allowing Apple to leverage the momentum they've achieved with the iPod. But to me, the really interesting aspect of these announcement have been how the software has taken the integration and seamlessness in Mac OS X to the next level.

Music and photos are instantly available with your word processor (Pages), presentation program (Keynote) and iMovie (now with High Definition editing capability). What really tripped-my-trigger was that the new 'iWorks' version of Keynote allows output to Macromedia's Flash standard! If you had any idea the hoops I've jumped through to do simple Flash animations (without investing money and huge effort in to learning Macromedia's monolithic tools) you'd understand my enthusiasm.

This Steve Gillmor article pulls together some of the possibilities behind these announcements with a focus on the iPod and podcasting and the even more powerful capability of people producing their own radio shows and much more.

I've not fully digested all of this yet...but when I think about the kids *I* know that are doing cool things with iMovie and GarageBand producing incredibly good stuff with a home or school Mac, I get really jazzed and think "we ain't seen nothin' yet."

Open Source: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

It is always so validating when accomplished, smart people express thoughts about a topic that are 100% in line with your own. Mitch Kapor posted about this question: "Does the open source model apply beyond software?"

For the last two years I've been observing and thinking about what's going on with people and organizations trying to figure out how to embrace (or just deal with) Open Source as a business model. Besides the obvious model (software) that we all know about, two key examples of an atypical approach to "open sourcing" value have been these most recently visible examples:

1. MIT Open CourseWare initiative
2. Slashdot | Open Source Biology Initiative

When I think of the power of the open source model and the application of network effects providing focus, energy and momentum behind areas that have been "open sourced", I become even more enthused about this paradigm shift.

In a strange sort of way and as I implied in one of my earlier posts entitled, "The Internet as our Collective Consciousness", Slashdot is a great example of simply providing a forum for really smart, opinionated, propellerheads to learn about and weigh in on the hot geek topic of the moment. I like to think about Slashdot as "open source conversations". I couldn't find the post on Slashdot, but some time ago a Dad who had a handicapped son posted a plea to the Slashdot community describing his son's physical challenge and asking for pointers to web sites and thoughts about adaptive technologies for his little guy.

The explosion of help and recommendations still sends shivers up my spine. Even I learned a lot about what's available in adaptive technologies and approaches by reading opinions and looking at the web sites recommended by Slashdotters -- and the Dad was *really* grateful for all the energy and knowledge provided to him.

This is just one small example, but imagine if this kind of collective energy is focused on an open source initiative of any kind? If done right, the value to everyone of the open source model for software, biology, books, movies, et al, would be proportional to the level of participation amplified by the network called the internet. Instead of everyone making a buck in the process, everyone receives value from which they can leverage for knowledge or other purposes.

In a letter, written by Sir Isaac Newton to fellow scientist Robert Hooke on February, 5th, 1676, Newton modestly claimed that his success had been built on the achievements of others:

"If I have seen further than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants."

Open source models (for more than just software) hold the promise of letting the world stand on the shoulders of giants and leverage each other and one another's knowledge in new and profound ways..

Missing Link: Milky Way to the Big Bang

Australian astronomers have discovered the so-called missing link that relates modern galaxies such as the Milky Way to the Big Bang that created the universe almost 14 billion years ago.

"The project - called the two-degree field galaxy Redshift survey - involved mapping the three dimensional distribution in space of 220,000 galaxies, using complex astronomical instruments at the Anglo-Australian telescope in north-western New South Wales."

220,000 galaxies!?! Regardless of how often I think about the vastness of our universe, the number of galaxies -- and stars within them and planets circling each of those billions of stars -- makes me continue to contemplate the unlikely possibility God placed only us in the universe.

In a Scientific American article last year it suggested that the big bang was not the origin of the universe but simply the outcome of a preexisting state. Though I cannot remember all details of this article, I do remember one theory that our universe -- and its continuing expanding state -- could've been the result of our universe being spawned out of "the back end" of a black hole.

What that means is in some *other* universe, light and matter get sucked in to a black hole. Then there is an explosion (a big bang) blowing the super condensed matter out behind it thus creating a new universe in some other dimension. Possibly there are then an infinite number of universes being born out of every black hole. Pretty cool theory, heh?

Though when I get all mystical and cosmic thinking big thoughts about our infinite universe, God and the meaning of life, I realize that there is probably some guy, in some other universe, sitting in his underwear right this minute watching their version of The Simpsons.

Two students develop a tsunami warning system

This is pretty cool: two students read a column by Robert X. Cringely about how to build a tsunami warning system in less than a month using data already available on the internet. All that had to be done is to assemble pieces-n-parts together in a deliverable application.

So these two students built a tsunami warning application with a toolset called Konfabulator. This innovative offering facilitates rapid coding of mini-applications called Widgets, and enables them to be run on an internet-connected Windows or Macintosh PC.

Undoubtedly early warning systems like this are but one small step in making a notification infrastructure a reality in the nations impacted by last month's devastating tsunami. With warning systems hopefully the next tsunami will be destructive only for property, not people.

Tony & Jimmy

I trust until proven otherwise...unless it's so blatantly obvious that someone might be worthy of further scrutiny. Unless my Blackberry charger shows up some time this week, I'll have to add two young New Yorker's named Tony & Jimmy to my short list of untrustworthy souls.

My buddy and I shared a cab Friday from the CES convention center back to our hotel with these two and talked about technology and XM radio (Jimmy had the Delphi XM handheld and there was a 50% off CES special he told us about). Seems Tony's Blackberry charger tip had fallen apart and he was bummed he'd run out of mobile phone charge with two days left at the show. Since I had a travel charger along -- and wouldn't need to charge my phone until late Saturday -- I thought I'd be a good guy and lend it to Tony. I gave Tony my card so he'd have my name. All I asked is that he charge his phone overnight and drop my charger in an envelope Saturday at the Bell desk so I could pick it up.

As the two of them walked away when we got to the hotel, I had an inkling I'd never see it again. Whaddya think happened?

Consumer Electronics Show -- My Day 2

While not a thorough booth-by-booth analysis of the CES show in two days, I nonetheless saw about 80% of what there was to see and got a pretty good feel for the major themes (home theatre was the big story), saw some cool gadgets and learned some things.

LCD, plasma and projection TV's were everywhere. In fact, Samsung showed "The World's Largest Plasma TV" in their booth at 102". Like I talked about in my post below from yesterday's visit to CES, there seems to be quite a bit of discussion and design around finding ways to hang these TV's or place them in, on or around furniture. Seems to me a 102" TV would be a bit dominant in the old family room!

My bride (Michelle Lamb) forecasts trends for the home furnishings industry. While discussing my attending this trade show, she was curious about what the "color story" might be at CES. If you like your consumer electronics in black and silver -- you're all set. There was only one major manufacturer of any kind -- Marantz -- that was showing a slight variation and it was a champagne color. Though there was color in CD, DVD players as well as a few other offerings (mainly from non-brand Korean vendors), the largest vendors did not show product that was other than black and silver.

Consumer Electronics Show

Many years ago I used to regularly attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Held in Las Vegas every January and again in Chicago in June, it was the place for the trade to experience the products manufacturer's hoped consumers would covet.

Now with only one show in Las Vegas in January, it's much different. Especially now that Comdex is no longer. So coming out here for CES this year has caused me to remember the shows I attended in the past -- but more so how dramatically CES has changed (as well as Las Vegas itself).

While the blog Engadget is doing a great job showcasing the innovation being displayed at CES -- and I've only seen 25% of the floor thus far -- my first days observations are these:

• The width of plasma TV's are causing vendors of furniture (mostly non-mainstream vendors) to innovative with wall units with new, wide openings for these TV's, furniture pieces where the flat panel TV's rise up out of the piece, and even casual chairs for watching movies
  
• The iPod and accessories for it are everywhere. One company had an in-wall, iPod docking station with an in-wall controller for playing the audio on your iPod in your home. Another (Monster) showed several iPod accessories including the iCruze which replaces a CD changer allowing the iPod to be used within any car already equipped with a CD changer
• A Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) company (BroadVoice) has, in my mind, hit the sweet spot of really cheap and really fully featured internet telephony. For example, they're offering unlimited in the U.S. for $9.95; unlimited world for $19.95 (ahh...most of the world); and unlimited world plus for $24.95 (basically everywhere). They also have a host of other features.
• Bluetooth, USB and other protocols/standards had numerous innovative products utilizing them
• One of THE most interesting startup companies (with a nice presence too) was Control4. These guys are using open standards and protocols (based on Linux and TCP/IP) offering a series of products and a platform on which to build products and services for automating the home. Why was this so interesting? Others like X10 and SmartHome's Insteon are either old protocols or proprietary ones. Open standards and protocols = good. Proprietary = bad (unless you're the troll living under the bridge collecting tolls (i.e., license fees) from all the passersby).

There's a lot more but not much that was jaw dropping. If it hadn't been for today's rain, I doubt my colleague and I would've ducked in to the innovation area and stumbled upon some pretty fun stuff like these really tiny USB thumb drives called iDisks. (...and they are *really* tiny).

WiFi on the frozen tundra

Whoever said that Minnesota is just "fly-over" country (and that all we do up here is freeze our butts off) should note these two developments:

• Minnesota Public Radio reports on a proposal to provide universal WiFi access in St Paul.
• CNN reports on Chaska, MN rolling out wireless broadband for its citizens.

With Voice over IP (VoIP) companies like  Vonage rolling out a WiFi phone, the time of free urban wireless telephony (and, of course, internet access) is at hand.

Now if I could just have always on internet in my car...

Open Source Software to Accelerate?

One of the key obstacles for acceptance of Open Source Software (OSS) -- like Linux, Open Office, and many of the other 93,000+ OSS projects displayed on the OSS site SourceForge -- has been the lack of support for this software.

I.T. leaders have told me things in the past like, "So what am I gonna do if I adopt an OSS application, operating system or application server and I have a problem with it. Send an email to the 'community'? I've got to have a vendor to lean on."

Today there's an acceleration in companies (such as IBM & HP) supporting either an open source stack (web, application servers; database, etc.). In addition, Ray Lane (former #2 at Oracle) along with Kim Polese (former CEO of Marimba) have started a new company called SpikeSource to support the whole enchilada (the entire OSS stack).

So if you're a company that's chosen any OSS offering, now there's a place to turn to for technical and user support. This is a big deal on the way to OSS acceptance. It's going to get more interesting going forward.

What does this blogging phenomena mean?

Thinking about the implications of the blogosphere is staggering. Some believe it is changing the face of journalism, others a fun way to express oneself, and still others ways of delivering video, audio and other media within their blogs.

Regardless of your point of view one thing is clear: blogging is accelerating.

Today the Pew Internet & American Life Project on the "Blogosphere" released a study that said, "8 million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users; 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online; and 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. Still, 62% of internet users do not know what a blog is."

Yahoo Web/Merchant Hosting: Use a PC or go away

Here's another reason why on demand, internet-centric service offerings have to adhere to web standards vs. what any single company is driving.

For the last five years or so, my bride has hosted her small business web site and online store at a company called Bigstep. We loved these guys since their system (written in Java) was fast, worked well, and was browser and platform agnostic (we could use our PC's, Mac's or Linux boxes to manage every aspect of the site). Most importantly all of the functionality of the site, catalog and online store was manageable through a web browser. No special software required.

After burning through something like $30M in venture capital during the dot com days and not becoming profitable, they were purchased two years ago by the fourth largest hosting company, Affinity Internet, Inc.  I was delighted by this purchase since new investment and changes were sorely needed and I was certain they'd make them.

Nada. Zilch. Nothing material occurred (as far as I could tell) except a few brush strokes (i.e., screen graphics).

So I've been on the hunt for a replacement for Bigstep. We want to perform digital fulfillment of ebooks, have more storage space, email that isn't outsourced and works (unlike Bigstep's outsourcing of email to Critical Path) so I finally signed up for Web Hosting Services from Yahoo! Small Business even though they don't do digital fulfillment. It sure looked as though they'd provide the power and features required to move to the next level and we could figure out that digital fulfillment angle later.

What was my experience like and why am I cancelling the service two days after signing up?

Everything on Demand...now includes radio

Most know all about TiVo and other personal video recorders (PVR's) and how these devices have made major changes in how we watch television (when *we* want to see content vs. when it's on!) and now this time-shifting ability has come to live radio.

One of my frustrations with radio is that great things are on (Science Friday, Sound Money, Prairie Home Companion on Minnesota Public Radio alone) and I seem to never be in a position or with the time to listen when they're on.

My team at work gave me a generous gift of a card for the Apple Store for my birthday. One of the items I purchased with it was the radioShark. Connecting it up to a USB port on my computer, tuning in my favorite channels and setting up the recording schedule, I immediately set it up and recorded a couple of shows off the air.

I can easily copy the recorded audio files to my iPod and listen to these shows when I feel like it vs. when they're on. In fact, one thing I enjoy is the ability to set a preference to ensure the radioShark will sample the audio at a high bit rate (by using the MPEG-4 AAC Standard for great quality). Though the software needs a little work to be a true TiVo-like time-shifting experience (an internet-based radio schedule of when terrestrial programs were on by city, etc. would be best) I'm very pleased with it.