Steve Wozniak, wireless and, well, me
Steve Wozniak announced a few days ago that he formed Wheels of Zeus (wOz) to develop wireless location products for consumers. That was the heart of a rather sketchy announcement. The concept is sound. There are indeed a myriad of uses for wireless location technology, such as being able to find a child or, even, a pet. Don't laugh at the latter, there are many pet owners who would pay a reasonable amount of money to clip a GPS device onto their pet's collar.
NTT DoCoMo in Japan, which has developed i-mode, the most successful wireless data system in the world, wants 300 percent penetration cellular in Japan. How will it achieve three cellular devices for every person? Put wireless device into machines (vending machines, for example) and on animals (as I mentioned, pets).
I said as much in some quotes in a Computerworld article about wOz.
Wireless location makes sense to me. That's why I'm doing a wireless location roundtable discussion as part of a day-long workshop, Wireless Data University on March 17 in Orlando, the day before the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association's (CTIA) annual Wireless 2002 conference and exhibition -- the largest wireless show in the U.S.
I even invited Wozniak to participate in the panel. Last year, we had about 650 people at Wireless Data University. The CTIA Wireless 2001 show had about 40,000 people.
At Wireless Data University I'm also doing co-moderating a roundtable discussion on wireless local area networks (802.11) and personal area networks (Bluetooth). Also, I'm conducting a three-hour presentation in the morning about how the wireless industry is doing an awful job of building a viable wireless data business, and how they can do better.
6:03:48 PM 
|
