Ross' Multimedia Journal

HP E-Book Reader

Tue, 26 Aug 2003 17:20:53 GMT

Here's another example of a networked appliance that also has a lot of local storage, the application being reading stuff.

Hi-tech tome takes on paperbacks. US researchers have developed a prototype e-book which can hold a whole library on a gadget no bigger than a paperback. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

National ID System

Tue, 26 Aug 2003 17:16:14 GMT

Japan Launches National ID System. A national computerized ID system that was criticized for its big-brother overtones became fully operational today, assigning Japan's 126 million citizens with an 11-digit number. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: Technology]

Yahoo Blogs

Tue, 26 Aug 2003 17:08:38 GMT

In the slashdot article they reference this "Yahoo Blog" in Kroea's broadband market. http://kr.blog.yahoo.com/ With both MSN and AOL experimenting with blogs, some kind of Yahoo move was inevitable.

Yahoo Experimenting with Blogs?. Tee Emm writes "Sven Latham reports on his Yet Another Blog that Yahoo is (probably) experimenting with its blog services for its general users. The test bench ... [Slashdot]

Surveillance

Tue, 26 Aug 2003 16:59:13 GMT

Ingram spies potential in surveillance. The giant distributor of information-technology products steps into the surveillance market, in a move to provide one-stop shopping for its resellers and customers. [CNET News.com]

Samsumg

Mon, 25 Aug 2003 20:52:45 GMT

From Gilder / Forbes 2003 Telecom Conference in Lake Tahoe, CA. Samsung presented the picture that a 3.5G wireless technology will emerge by ~2007 that would provide a 5-20 Mbps data rate. An interesting application that they are hypothesizing is using 3.5G as a transport mechanism to connect WiFi hotspots

Gateway On The Bandwagon

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 16:38:24 GMT

When you start to see something like this bandwagon of PC and CE guys all converging on the same [entertainment oriented] convergence place, it starts to look pretty ugly. Remember, these are the same guys who brought us 8000 different models of television remote controls with incompatible codes and buttons in the wrong places [not to mention the fact that we can never find the darn things.]

Gateway's Chief Insists the PC Yield to a Digital Future. Ted Waitt, chief of Gateway, plans to transform underused outlets from bland showrooms into touchy-feely retail boutiques. By Carolyn Marshall. [New York Times: Technology]

UNE-P Rules From FCC

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 16:18:49 GMT

The FCC released it's 576 page order on UNE-P yesterday. It's hard to tell whether there are any surprises in such a massive thing, but it doesn't appear so.

This is the link to the order [ http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2003/db0821/FCC-03-36A1.pdf] And this is Chairman Powell's comment [http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2003/db0821/FCC-03-36A2.pdf]

F.C.C. Discloses New Rules for Telecom Industry. The rules elaborate on an F.C.C. decision that local telephone companies must share older equipment but not newer technology dedicated to high-speed data. By Jennifer Lee. [New York Times: Technology]

AOL Video Instant Messaging Ban Lifted By FCC

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 16:06:20 GMT

The NYT wrote another editorial in its news pages by focusing about 75% of the arguments in this article on the anti-monopoly viewpoint and backhanding the logic for why the FCC had no business interferring in an emerging technology in the first place.

F.C.C. Lifts Ban on Video for AOL Instant Messaging. The Federal Communications Commission has granted a request by AOL Time Warner to drop restrictions on adding video to its AOL instant messaging service. By David D. Kirkpatrick. [New York Times: Technology]

PC to TV Blackboxes

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 15:50:43 GMT

Hauppauge [HAUP; Nasdaq] and others are making these devices that the NYT's Mcmanus describe as "bridging the gap" between the PC and the TV enabling consumers to display "media content" that resides on PCs. Curiously, there is no word on the Hauppague website about the MediaMVP product that Mcmanus references in his article [From PC to TV Screen, a Stream of Multimedia. Your PC is brimming with great photos, MP3's and videos. But your family and friends are glued to the television. By Neil Mcmanus. New York Times: Technology] and no indication of its price or feature set.

Among other things, Hauppaauge makes a 350 Meg PC/DVR card that sells for $200.

Low-cost Self-Publishing

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 14:34:12 GMT

NIGHTENGALE PRESS Dedicated to Writers for the 21st Century. Working with Lightning Source, Inc., an Ingram subsidiary, Nightengale Press is able to very cost effectively produce a high quality product and make it available worldwide to bookstores, libraries and online retailers. The cost of creation can be kept to a very reasonable rate because of the advantages provided by print – on – demand (POD) technology. [PRWEB Aug 22, 2003] [PR Web (The Free Wire Service) Top 30 News Stories]

Targeted Television Advertising

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 14:28:06 GMT

There is a significant battle going on for control of the intellectual property surrounding the delivery of targeted television and internet advertising.

Ad firm 24/7 pushing for patent power. 24/7 Real Media wins another patent for delivering digital ads, giving it new authority over the online-ad serving market as it pursues patent licenses to improve shareholder value. [CNET News.com]

WAN vs WiFI

Wed, 13 Aug 2003 19:25:19 GMT

Wide-area wireless broadband targets Wi-Fi. With interest in wireless connectivity growing, proponents of wide-area mobile broadband and Wi-Fi technology are trying to win over end users. [Computerworld News]

SkyStream

Wed, 13 Aug 2003 16:25:57 GMT

A group of investors including Time Warner, Comcast and Shaw invested about $4.0 million in SkyStream, a company that develops IP-Video delivery systems based on a Gigabit Ethernet switching architecture. SkyStream apparently has a number of U.S. patents including several in the area of bandwidth optimization for delivery of IP-video and data services.

Open Source Search Engine

Wed, 13 Aug 2003 16:01:57 GMT

Dave Winer investigated a new open source search engine called Nutch.

DaveNet: Nutch, an open source search engine. [Scripting News]

Online Journalism Review

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:43:16 GMT

The Online Journalism Review is taking notice of blogging and some of the other implications of changing technology. Here are three articles

Participatory Journalism http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060218311.php

Personal Broadcasting http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060223904.php

When Bloggers Commit Journalism http://www.ojr.org/ojr/lasica/1032910520.php

Ultrawideband

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:11:27 GMT

It looks like Samsung is convinced that the standard for UWB proposed by the Multiband OFDM Alliance [http://www.multibandofdm.org/] is likely to win the standards race, so they are trying to get jump on the industry with commercial products. What markets they will go after first should be interesting, but they apparently aren't saying yet.

Samsung to team on ultrawideband. The consumer-electronics company pairs with chipmaker Staccato Communications to develop products using ultrawideband, a technology that's 100 times faster than Bluetooth. [CNET News.com]

Sexiest Man In America

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 19:10:26 GMT

ABC recently launched it's "Search for the sexiest man in America" contest in conjunction with TV show All My Children [ http://amc.tcsinteractive.com/phase3/index.cfm ] . The contest is comparable to some of BSkyB's iTV programs in the UK. Consumers can use their cell phones to vote by sending a premium text message to the show. [This requires a subscription to premium text messaging plus a transaction charge $0.50 per message.]

This is something of a milestone. It is the first time in the USA that we have seen a linkage between a television program and the use of cellular telephone text messaging premium services.

Targeted Advertising

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 17:33:18 GMT

This article is about the expansion of the bid-for-ad-placement concept from strictly the search domain to the general "web-site" browsing context.

If You Liked the Web Page, You'll Love the Ad. Online publishers are beginning to sense the possibilities of having Google or Overture serve ads to their audiences. By Bob Tedeschi. [New York Times: Technology]

Digital Technology

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 17:28:01 GMT

Digital (Fill in the Blank) Is on the Horizon. Despite a slump in some technology sectors, consumers are increasingly turning to all sorts of digital gadgets and services. By Steve Lohr. [New York Times: Technology]

NYT Cable vs DTH

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 17:24:18 GMT

The NYT's latest pontification on Cable vs Satellite. It doesn't really come to much of a conclusion [as usual].

Cable or Satellite? Please Stay Tuned. Cable and satellite companies are waging an escalating battle by offering video on demand, digital recorders and high-speed data services. By Seth Schiesel. [New York Times: Technology]

Video Biographies & Love Stories

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 17:12:38 GMT

Here are a couple of interesting "video applications."

Video Biographies: You can star in the story of your life!. "Because every life is a story" one Twin Cities video producer is helping people preserve their heritage and leave a living legacy with digital video time-capsules. [PRWEB Aug 6, 2003] [PR Web (The Free Wire Service) Top 30 News Stories]

Video Love Stories [ http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/8/prweb75136.ph ] The same idea, but in the context of the story of how you fell in love, got married, etc.

Sony Plasma TV With Wireless Tablet Remote

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 17:04:15 GMT

Sony's new plasma TV adds home smarts. The consumer electronics maker unveils a plasma TV with built-in broadband networking that's linked to a Web pad-like remote control by wireless LAN technology. [CNET News.com - Personal Technology]

SBC WiFi Deal With Wayport

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 16:52:00 GMT

Reacting to Verizon's previous wifi announcements, SBC is now getting into the act.

SBC, Wayport sign hot spot deal. The telecommunications giant becomes the latest major company to ink an agreement that will let its customers use Wayport's 650 Wi-Fi hot spots across the nation. [CNET News.com]

Jane Barbie In Memorium

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 16:18:47 GMT

This woman's name was Jane Barbe. She died July 18 in Roswell, Ga., of complications from cancer. She was 74 years old. Her's was the voice that we heard when we dialed a wrong number, called a number that was out of service or just called to get the current time or temperature. There is something very sad about knowing that we've lost that voice we've all grown so accustomed to.

Motorola Carbon Nanotube Television Displays

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 15:22:55 GMT

Moto Labs apparently thinks it has discovered a viable commercial process for manufacturing television displays based on carbon nanotube technology, which would theoritically provide a CRT quality image at a cost that is significantly lower than current plasma and LCD displays.

"Motorola’s NED [nano emissive display ] approach to displays could enable low cost, flat panel wall-mounted television, greater than 50“ diagonal, and just one inch deep to become a reality in the not too distant future. The technology also could be used for much larger displays, such as those used in billboard advertising or sporting events."