A bit pricey at the moment, but when these things go full-scale, mass market, mesh networks may take on a whole new reality.
Specifications
- dimensions: small cube (7 x 5 x 7 cm)
- no moving parts
- low power consumption (ca. 4W)
- 100Mbps ethernet
- power over ethernet (802.3af standard)
- up to 2 WLAN (802.11a/b/g) interfaces (RP-SMA connectors)
- 400MHz MIPS processor
- 32MB flash
- 64MB RAM
- USB
Consulting group Strategy Analytics’ study points to technology creep as a bigger threat to jobs than outsourcing:
The first wave of job-killing technology occurred in manufacturing in the 1990s, when computer-driven robotics introduced across industries from automaking to steel made it possible to produce more product with fewer people, Strategy Analytics said in a recent analysis of emerging technologies.
In the second wave, workers in customer service, help desk, directory assistance, and other support activities in businesses will be replaced by computers that have enough intelligence to handle repetitive tasks that occur during human interaction.
In the manufacturing sector in the 90s, companies sold $100 billion worth of software and hardware for robotics, said Harvey Cohen, president of Strategy Analytics. While the technology increased productivity and added to companies’ bottom lines, it also eliminated 10 million jobs worldwide.
I wonder if, by implication, we’ll be able to harness this power at our desks to enable small/home businesses to do more. Suddenly, being a small business doesn’t seem so small anymore.
Bob Frankston said it best (about the future of education, intellectual property, R&D, and the future of technology):
From: Bob Frankston
Date: April 24, 2004 12:13:11 PM EDT
To: dave farber
Subject: RE: [IP] more on Losing Our Edge?This reminds me of the fears about Japan getting the lead in AI because of their fifth generation project. What I fear most are the attempts to keep “the edge” by clamping down on education and assuring that it is highly tuned for the past.
Our lead over the long term is dependent upon not trying to over-tune the educational system for a narrow vision.
It’s our incompetence at imposing the one true solution that has kept us from getting caught up in the local optima.
While the Nobel Prize is far form a perfect indicator I do note that Japan, for example, has very very few in the hard sciences.
This is one reason why I point out that the first amendment is an economic mechanism — it is a way of providing opportunity for stupid ideas. It’s only with enough stupid ideas that we discover the brilliant ones.
I don’t want to defend ignorance but neither do I see a focus on big R&D as the necessarily that much better than a focus on quarterly results. Both are optimized for the present.
The question is what environment is best for leverage individual initiative. Very few such efforts will succeed but that might be enough to seed the future.
Necklaces, snow-boarding jackets, a wristwatch that uses your bones as part of the phone… new technology posing as mobile phones. Ok, the jacket is also an MP3 player. Will this make people who are talking on their cell phones in certain public places less annoying? Businessweek reports:
Now, get ready for another big makeover: In the coming year, you’ll see cell phones that are cleverly disguised in watches, bracelets, jacket lapels, backpacks — any imaginable place that will make gabbing a fashion statement (see accompanying Photo Essay for examples of several wearable devices discussed here). In the past year, European and Asian consumers have had a taste of wrist watches, pendants, and powder cases — all doubling as cell phones. Such wearable devices already account for between 1% and 5% of all cell phones sold worldwide, says analyst Michael King of consultancy Gartner. U.S. consumers, always behind the Old World in most things wireless, have been left out.
Holographic computers take a step forward in Japan:
Researchers from Chiba University and the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) in Japan have built a hologram generator on a single circuit board.
The device could eventually be used for three-dimensional television, three-dimensional visualization of statistics, and three-dimensional medical imaging.
The researchers’ system consists of a special-purpose computer chip and a high-resolution liquid-crystal display panel. The system generates holograms on the screen with a half second delay for an object that consists of 1,000 points, according to the researchers.
Helpful explanation at http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2004/06/16.html
Pirate radio takes on a new meaning. Now with a couple of tools (iPod mini, iTrip mini) you can broadcast radio signals from your car. Or office. Or home. Or… Engadget reports:
We thought we might be able to make the range of Griffin’s iTrip mini a little better if took it apart and exposed the antenna, turns out we could. And then we thought, hey- we could use a couple iPods to broadcast something we wanted to get out there, perhaps not “should” that is, but could. So that was our motivation, and here’s the How-To. …
Getting Started
First, to become your own pirate broadcast station you’ll need to increase the range and signal of your iTrip mini. Turns out, there is an antennae built inside the iTrip mini. All you need to do is remove the top sticker-like protection which hides the antennae and then using tweezers or your fingernail, pull the antennae out. We’ve found a 20% to 30% increase of range on average. This likely voids the warranty, so there, we said it.
The signal is reported to travel about 150 feet. Not enough to challenge radio stations (especially in light of the fact that the signal can be mobile), but enough to share your tunes with the person next to you.
Beattie noted that a couple of important conferences had significant gaps in their programs:
I first noticed that the leaders of Silicon Valley are *still* behind the times when I saw the line up for O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 conference. Not a single member of telecom industry there and only one session that talks about telecom – and its focus is VoIP. Are you kidding me? Anyone who doesn’t realize by now that the Web 2.0 is going to be dominated by mobile devices must be living on, well, here in the U.S. Not that Yahoo and Google aren’t going to play a role, but there are going to be *billions* of mobile devices on the web very soon now and that’s going to change things fundamentally. The Web 2.0 is going to be dominated by XHTML-MP – why isn’t this the number one topic of a conference like this?
You’d think that maybe that conference was just an aberration, but I just got a link to SuperNova 2004 in June. A decent lineup of speakers – the so-called ‘thought leaders’ – yet again there’s only one mention of ‘wireless’ and it’s about WiFi and WiMax. It’s almost criminal. I mean, these conferences are *expensive* and supposed to be about exploring where we are and where we are going when it comes to technology in our homes and businesses, yet the most profound piece of technology to come into our lives for the past century is being completely ignored.
Business Analyst Michael Gold comments:
Beattie is the one who is behind the times. What he’s saying was all the rage in 1997. Notebooks w/Wi-Fi have already happened and there isn’t that much to talk about there. The fact is that for smaller devices, usability of mobile Internet solutions is very, very poor. Security stinks too. It might get better, but what’s the point, considering that the telcos are the gatekeepers for everything mobile. Bottom line, if a telco can’t make money on something then it doesn’t happen. Who do you think is going to roll out WiMax, etc? It’ll be a telco. How are we going to use things with tiny screens and tiny buttons? If there’s a way, it has to be found by a telco. Not likely to happen, sorry. And whatever happens, it costs by the bit, by the minute, by the mile. PDA market is in crisis, smartphone markets are hardly better, handheld Internet apps are not looking good right now, 3G is a disaster, and Beattie is out of touch.
A USB key drive with a 32-bit processor that lets you run programs–and leave no trace behind that it was ever there! Cool for road warriors that want to leave the laptop behind.
Xkey 2.0 allows users to work on all aspects of their Exchange system – mail, calendar, contacts and Public Folders – from any PC. Xkey synchronises directly with an Exchange server. The solution embeds a microprocessor, relational database, SSL engine, Java application server, security applications and a cryptographic core to deliver access to Exchange without leaving any valuable information, including temporary files, on the host PC. Where the host system requires files to exist physically on the PC, ‘shortcut’ pointers or stubs are employed that point to files held on the USB stick.
It should be noted that the Xkey blocks malicious spyware applications such as key logging and removes all traces associated with a Web browser, such as cookies, history and temporary files. Furthermore, Xkey encrypts all information on the device. Without the user’s password, data on the device cannot be accessed greatly increasing the security of the mail information should the stick be either lost or stolen, eventualities that are by no means unlikely.
As one librarian said, “Can you imagine the look on librarians’ faces when patrons start bringing in devices like these and expect to be able to plug them into our public access computers?”
Threateninig to go around service provider revenue with your new mobile handset? Bad customer, bad suppliers, say telco consultants.
New mobile devices based on a version of the Symbian OS are a serious threat to mobile operator revenue streams, according to consultancy Mako Analysis. Savvy users can use devices running on Symbian’s Series 60 operating system (OS) to completely bypass a range of services that are normally charged for by their mobile operator, the UK-based consultancy warned on Monday. While the threat is currently minimal, the loophole has the potential to cause major headaches for operators.
‘The increasing sophistication of high-end mobile devices opens up a range of additional problems and will continue to undermine the data revenue streams of mobile operators at a time when they desperately need them to be increasing,’ a Mako spokesperson said.
One less set of Palm handheld devices in the market…
Sony has issued a press statement in which they announce they are going to reassess the direction of the conventional PDA market and will not introduce any new Clie handheld models in the us this fall.
Sony says they will take this time to examine the conventional PDA business and how it will transition in the future. New Clie product development and sales will continue in the Japanese market only. Sony continued to elaborate that they view wireless communications features as a key pillar to their business strategy and that they plan to continue their collaboration with Sony Ericsson.
Sony has pledged to continue the same level of service and support for Clie handheld users and will honor all existing limited warranties. The current Clie lineup will continue to be sold and supported which includes the TJ27, TJ37, UX50 and the TH55 handhelds.