Sunday, November 17, 2002

Camera-enabled Mobile Phones Mitch Ratcliffe comments on the phenomenal growth that's occuring in mobile phone sales with built-in cameras.  Indeed, it's great to see the growth, but whenever I hear about this I wonder a few things: When are these devices going to become interoperable with the existing Web?  I'd like the camera data I capture on the phone to be stored in the web, not inside their networks. Likewise, I'd like to be able to send imaging from the web or Internet applications into these phones, not just phone-to-phone, which is the norm. I'd much rather like to see more PDAs, monitors and laptops include built-in video cameras than mobile phones.  These devices can all be high-speed Internet connected, can render and view full rich media content, and now have software (Flash Player 6) that makes them powerful audio and video messaging clients. In general, though, this trend reinforces the fact that text messaging is a poor subsitute for the emotively-rich nature of real human communications.  Let's get on with it!   7:20:59 PM    comment []

Wireless Amtrak? Kevin Werbach notes his experience picking up WiFi signals travelling the northeast corridor on Amtrak.  It's a really wild experience.  I recently had the same experience travelling from Boston to New York, and counted at least 20 "hotspots" along the rail lines.  Most of them appeared to be small office parks and business, and even included some well know retail operators such as CVS Pharmacy and Home Depot.   Of course, I tried as best I could to use the connection, or even just to see if I successfully received an IP address.  Alas, my efforts were crushed by physics.  At the same time, though, I have frequently used my mobile phone with fast cell switching on a train, and it works pretty well.  It's easy to imagine a few years out where the same kind of roaming and coverage will be there for 802.11. 7:06:22 PM    comment []

Udell and others on Internet Microclients Jon Udell picks up and comments on a piece by Anil Dash on the emergence of microclients on the Internet. I like the microcontent idea. It strikes me, though, that perhaps there won't be a single all-purpose client, but rather a diverse collection of little tools that flourish at the intersection between a services-rich Internet, and an integration-savvy desktop. The concept and reality of web services intersecting with rich and smart clients is right on the money.  But today even these applications are still browser contained.  While folks can build desktop-resident Internet software, it's still too challenging. But it raises other more interesting questions --- will these microcontent applications result in a flurry of new software on desktops, creating management and maintenance challenges for IT and end-users?  To what degree does this fly in the face of the centralized management benefits that have driven so many applications (and nearly all content) into the network? I'd be interested to hear from folks what kinds of content and applications they'd want to use through microclients? 7:00:32 PM    comment []