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Friday, May 7, 2010

iPad - Part 4: What You Can Not Do

There are many things you can do with the iPad and we are only at the beginning -- but there are some things you can't do. Although I have been accused in jest that my enthusiasm for the iPad makes some wonder if I am on the Apple payroll. I am indeed very bullish about the iPad but this story is to highlight some of the things that -- at this stage -- you can do or not do very well with the iPad. Will the iPad replace the laptop? At some point, yes, but at this point I am writing this post on my ThinkPad (running Ubuntu Linux with the Google Chrome browser and WordPress).

There is a reason why I am unable to write the story on the iPad. Inhiibitor #1 for the iPad is the browser. Steve Jobs has said that Safari is the world's best browser and the iPad was introduced with no other choice. Many people think that Internet Explorer is the #1 browser -- some think it is the only browser. Let's start with some facts. In 2005 IE had 65% market share -- even though many people, myself included, think it is the worst of all browsers. Fast forward to March 2010. IE8 had 15% share, IE7 had 11%, and IE6 was at 9%. The total for IE was 35%. Firefox was 46%. Google Chrome (my primary browser) has gained every month since it was introduced in 2008 and now stands with a 12% share. Apple Safari is at 4% and Opera Software at 2%. I think Safari is a good browser but not a great browser. Perhaps it will become great if Apple continues to invest in it but based on the numbers they have a long way to go. When it comes to the iPhone and iPad the Safari share is 100% since that is all that is offered. One exception is that Opera Mini is now available on the iPhone. If they can get an iPad specific version approved that would be nice. So one thing you can't do with the iPad is surf all the sites you can surf on the desktop. I have found a number of sites that do not work properly with Safari. That is what forced me to be writing this story on the ThinkPad.

Even if Safari worked flawlessly with WordPress and MovableType, writing any significant blog post (or other document) is not as productive as using a PC or laptop with a large flat screen. I typically have a dozen tabs open on my flat panel -- gmail, iGoogle, calendar, a few spreadsheet projects, WordPress, wikiPedia, etc. It is easy to copy paste links and info from other pages into the blog post. You could do it on iPad but it is a lot more tedius.

I also have discovered that a number of iPad apps that have come from the PC or Mac world are not inclusive. For example eBay on the iPad is very nice but there are things like adding a reputation or preparing an invoice for the buyer, etc. that are not there. The Apple calendar, contacts, and mail applications are very nice and freshly updated from the iPhone versions. They are a joy to use but they do not have the full functionality of the PC versions -- can't send to groups in gmail, can't add group designations in contacts, can't add text message reminders in calendar. I use usps.com to do a mailing and stamps.com to mail packages. They both require printing. The iPad can't print. Although it can handle pdf files in emails, it doesn't support creation of pdf's which is what both the mailing apps do. I did find one iPad app called PrintCentral that boasted that it enables the iPad to print without installing any printer software on the iPad. I bought the app ($9.99) and then found out that it does require software to be installed on your PC and then that enables the iPad to print to any printer on your LAN. Not even as easy as it sounds however, and to use it your PC or laptop has to be on and connected to the LAN. Handling of files, generally, is not a strong suit for the iPad. The file system is closed so you have no visible directories, you can not detach attachments and put them somewhere (except for pictures). Everything is handled through iTunes which is clearly not optimized for file sharing. I expect this to get easier as clever app developers find ways to get around the various impediments. GoodReader for example is a great tool for managing PDFs. You can access the GoodReader app from a PC, create folders on the iPad from your PC, and upload PDF files into the folders. This gives you a repository for documents to read offline on the iPad. I use it mostly for board papers and find it extremely valuable. Others at the conference tables are attracted to the idea -- I should get an Apple commission!

Meanwhile I finished reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough using the iPad iBook reader. What a great book. After reading a few books on the iPad I can confidently repeat my enthusiasm for the Kindle. The light weight really makes a difference. It is also superior when reading out in the sunny weather we have been having lately. For now at least the optimum reading for me is to use the Kindle app on the iPad while on the treadmill and x-trainer or at the reading stand in front of my easy chair, to use the Kindle on iPhone while in a supermarket line or killing a few minutes at the train station, and the Kindle while curled up in bed. Once the iPad iBook novelty and fascination of the curling page flips with text on the back of the pages wears off, one thinks about the reason you read books -- the content, not the page flips. the Kindle wins hands down -- for now. On Wings Of Eagles was recently released on Kindle and that has been my read this week. Ken Follett doesn't write much non-fiction and he did a spectacular job of taking a factual story of the EDS rescue in Iran in 1979 sound like a legitimate novel. One can't wonder how the mission would have gone differently if iPhones had existed back then.

Bottom line, the iPad is a great device and I love it. It can't do everything -- no camera, no phone, no usb keys, weak printing and file handling -- but it can do almost everything. And, it is very personal. You show it to friends and family but you don't let it out of your site. You let them play with it, but not much. It contains your personal information of all kinds. It knows where you are. In time, it will be watching you and you will be watching others with it.

iPad stories on patrickWeb

Gadgets, Internet Technology, Mobile, Personal Computing, iPhone May 7, 2010 10:26 PM

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

iPad - Part 3: Other Reading

Many of us have weighed in on the various aspects of e-books and e-readers. The jury will be out for quite awhile as the publishers, Apple, Sony, Google, Lenovo, Dell, and numerous others refine their strategy for what goes into a book, how it is displayed, and how it is priced. While the book war heats up, there are other dimensions of the e-readers to consider.

Reading magazines and newspapers on the Kindle can be quite convenient -- especially if you travel a lot -- but I can't say it is enjoyable or even natural. On the iPad reading magazines and newspapers is enjoyable and increasingly will seem the natural way to read them. The New York Times got good press at the launch of the iPad but I find it weak. The WSJ, however, is quite good. Easy to navigate and you get the full "paper" as it was published in the morning plus updates during the day. The ads are annoying and it doesn't take long to realize that it takes two swipes to go to the next page if the page you are leaving is an ad. I would rather not have the ads but having them is the publishers only hope of making money which they need if we want good journalists. The NPR and BBC news apps are pretty good also. The Zinio ipad app is home to a large number of magazines. A few are free. Pricing is reasonable -- Popular Mechanics, for example, is $7.99 for tweleve issues. Flipping Zinio pages is smooth and natural. Bottom line is that reading newspapers and magazines on the iPad is a pleasing and natural experience. My friend Jim Kollegger at Genesys Partners says "the iPad will do for publishing what the ATM did for cash".

Aside from books, magazines, and newspapers there is an infinite amount of material to read on the iPad. Even the uninitiated organizations of the world are distributing their documents in PDF format. Not my long term favorite format but it is far better than receiving a doc file that wants to open some "bloatware" to be read. In cases where I must receive a fax I have it sent to my efax number and it shows up in the gmail inbox as a PDF. When checking out of a hotel I ask the desk to fax a copy of my room bill "to my office, no cover sheet required". The PDF in my inbox can then be archived or used for reimbursement purposes. For more significant PDF's that are important for future reference or even a board packet for a meeting I use the GoodReader iPad app to store and read the files. I would prefer that things were synced in the cloud rather than iTunes but the process of moving PDF's from my ThinkPad to the iPad over the home LAN is easy now that I have done it quite a few times. The storage of the iPad allows nearly unlimited documents for most of us and having the documents "local" is nice for travel plus partaking of the great zoom and pinch features lets you have whatever the optimum view for you may be. This is especially important for charts and graphs.

In preparation for a board meeting this past week, I received the normal FedEx package containing the agenda and board papers. It was 38 pages, and including the binder clip, weighed a half-pound. I emailed the person organizing the meeting and asked for a PDF. After saving the attachment on the ThinkPad and uploading it over the LAN to the GoodReader app on the iPad I was good to go. Both reading the papers in a comfy chair the day before the meeting and following as needed at the conference room table were a welcome approach compared to fumbling with the paper. I reminded some people about the time, cost, and environmental impact of the old approach. In theory the same thing could be done with the iPhone but I have to admit that it is difficult with tabular information and graphs. It has certainly been feasible with the laptop but then you have to worry about battery life and the bulk of the device on the table. The iPad fills the bill really well. Another handy document reading tool on the iPad is the Memeo Connect Reader which syncs your Google Docs folders to the iPad app. This is really nice when you are on an airplane or somewhere that doesn't have a WiFi signal.

And then there is reading what bloggers have to say and the thousands of news feeds. I am using both NewsRack and Early Edition on the iPad. Both are evolving, listening to feedback and continuously improving their products. You can read patrickWeb, BusinessWeek, The Economist, Engadget or any of the millions of feeds that are out there. You can add new feeds on the iPad or use Google Reader on the desktop and have the feeds automatically sync to your iPad reader. The size and clarity of the iPad makes it quite enjoyable to scan through the feeds and read stories of interest. Another nice iPad app is the Wiki (squared). You enter a word of interest, read the article about it just like an encyclopedia but then follow the links and read to your heart's content. A real bargain for 99 cents.

How about creating documents? There are more tools to read than there are to write but there are some incredibly sophisticated writing tools available on the iPad. Apple itself features Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. I was skeptical about creating and manipulating a spreadsheet on the iPad but with Apple Numbers and no training I have learned how to do it. It is mostly intuitive. What surprised me is the breadth and depth of the functionality. I have a couple of other favorite iPad tools for writing. First is the CarbonFin Outliner. I have always liked outliners as a way to organize thoughts for a meeting or discussion agenda. You can add bullets and sub-bullets and then move them up or down or promote or demote them in the outline. The Outliner is available on a web site and you can sync your outlines. That enables you to make a change on any computer or on the iPad and everything is synced. This is the beauty of the Cloud and the way all applications should be (and will be). I have been using the Outliner for more than a year with the iPhone and I can highly recommend it. Another nice app is Things. Aside from being way overpriced ($19.99), Things provides a well organized way to capture your to do's in buckets -- Today, Next, Scheduled for a specific date, Someday, and Projects. As things get completed or moved around they show up in the Logbook. I have tried dozens of task list managers over the years and end up using scraps of paper and email as the dominant tools. Maybe Things, with the personal relationship people will have with their iPad, will make it a winner. I especially like the "Someday" category as a way to capture those things you think of that you want to do but you know you are not going to do anytime soon.

Meanwhile I am still reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough. Among my friends and recent acquaintances it seems I am the only one who has not read this great epic book. Both the political and engineering complexities encountered in the project are mind boggling. Even though I can't seem to find the time to finish this great book in a timely manner, I am getting used to reading on the iPad.

iPad stories on patrickWeb

Gadgets, Home Automation, Internet Technology, Media, Music, Personal Computing, WiFi, iPhone April 27, 2010 09:30 PM

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

iPad Thoughts

Part 1: Initial Thoughts

Part 2: Reading Books

Part 3: Other Reading

Part 4: What You Can Not Do

Gadgets, Home Automation, Internet Technology, Media, iPhone, Music, Personal Computing, WiFi April 21, 2010 10:05 AM

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

iPad - Part 2: Book Reading

If the financial analysts are right, Apple may soon have a market capitalization of more than $250 billion -- that is one quarter of a trillion dollars. Apple stock is up seven-fold in the past five years. People were skeptical of the stock price then and some are now but it is quite possible that the iPhone and the iPad have changed the game for the company in a very positive way. The "spillover" effect is that Mac sales are also booming and half of the buyers are first-time Mac buyers. Can Apple sustain such a high growth rate? The world is a big place and more than half of the iPhone sales last quarter were outside of America. The iPad sales outside the U.S. have not even started yet. The potential is very large -- many billions of dollars.

Tim Cook, the COO at Apple, said that he is addicted to his iPad and that he could not live without it. I have to confess I am in the same state of mind. Many friends have asked me why I am so enthusiastic about it. Is it the music, beautiful photo display, dazzling graphics, watching movies, the greatly enhanced iPhone applications that have come to life, a great new email program, effortless web browsing, the elegance of the device, the simplicity of using it? Yes. All of the above and much more. (See "iPad Thoughts" for an index to patrickWeb iPad stories). The main thing about the iPad is that it is personal. A bit hard to describe but the personal factor is what will make people tell their friends about it and proudly show it to them -- but not let it out of their site. Curling up in a comfy chair and being able to do almost anything in the digital world -- almost everything -- but not everything is what the iPad is about. Stories to come will focus on the personal and other aspects of the iPad. The purpose of this story is to offer some thoughts about book reading.

Will the iPad dethrone the Kindle? I don't claim to have the answer but I may have some clues. I would like to share the experience of reading e-books in six ways. The PC is one and categorically not a candidate to be considered, as I am sure we all would easily agree. Second is the Barnes & Noble Nook. I had one of the first and after a couple of books it was sold on eBay for what I paid for it. See the epilogue here. That leaves four -- the iPhone, the Kindle, the iBook reader on the iPad, and the Kindle reader on the iPad. I selected one of David McCullough's outstanding pieces of work and read chapters alternately on the four readers. Following are my thoughts.

Not that many years ago I said in speeches that I "would never read a book on my cell phone". I was wrong. Reading a whole book is unlikely for me but reading a chapter here and a chapter there is for sure. Standing in line at the supermarket or waiting for a subway train or maybe sitting on a park bench offers a chance to consume something you are really anxious to read. The iPhone Kindle app provides a landscape view and it is quite readable and simple to navigate. The beautiful thing is that when you later pick up your Kindle or the Kindle app on the iPad and open the reader it asks you if you want to continue where you left off on your iPhone. The Amazon Whispersync feature is innovative and extends your reading time and enjoyment. Apple will surely have something similar or better before the year is over and Google Android readers will no doubt have a sync feature as well.

One disadvantage of the iPad as a reader is that at one and a half pounds -- not a lot compared to a laptop or even a netbook -- it is five times heavier than a Kindle. The weight is concentrated in a thin flat device and I find it uncomfortable to hold after a while. The other thing is the back-lighting. The iPad screen is actually bright -- perfect for flipping through photos, watching a movie, or surfing the web, but for a couple of hours of reading it can be hard on your eyes. The positive aspect of the iBook reader is the graphical representation of the bookshelf and the flipping of the pages. It is truly incredible that as you slowly "flip" a page with your finger you can see the words on the back of the page. You have to see it to believe it. The processing power to perform the page turning is equivalent to what was called a supercomputer not long ago. The iBook reader also has some very nice content related features. The brightness can be adjusted -- helps with eye fatigue -- and there are five selectable fonts with variable sizes. I really like the display at the lower right of each page that shows how many pages remain to be read in the current chapter. An icon at the top brings you the table of contents of the book and a listing of all your bookmarks. Adding a new bookmark is very simple. You tap tap on a word and a menu pops up asking if you want to look up the word in a dictionary, search the book for occurrences of the word, or make the word be a bookmark. When I show someone the iPad iBook reader I always make sure to place a bookmark so that after they get finished paging around I can get back to where I was.

The Kindle reader on the iPad is an updated version of the iPhone reader. It takes good advantage of the larger screen and also allows you to change the color of the pages -- white, black, or sepia. The content controls are good but not as slick as the iBook reader. Ditto with the page turning. The Kindle reader has the graphical page flip but it doesn't show the words on the back of the page. Certainly not something you need but it makes a distinction for the iBook reader that people find impressive.

Last but certainly not least of the four is the Kindle itself. The Kindle uses e-ink -- it is reflective -- like paper. The more light the better. Like millions of others, I am Kindlzed -- since 2007. The 5 once device never burdens the wrist. The Kindle is monochrome but we don't need color to read a novel. The Kindle is simple and intuitive to use. Not flashy, compared to the iPad, but dependable with long battery life. For extended reading sessions the Kindle remains best, in my opinion --- for now. I expect things to change. The multi-purpose ability of the iPad is important. I find myself jumping over to check or send an email when I think of something while reading. Rather than just look up a word in the built-in dictionary I sometimes want to visit the Wikipedia or explore a web site. The iPad has personal appeal and you get attached to it. Publishers are busy working with authors to create multimedia content to be integral to new and backlisted books -- audio in the background, video interviews with the author or clips of content relevant to the topic of the book may make books more appealing and also may make them worth more -- which brings us to the pricing.

The McCullough book was $9.99 on Amazon and $14.99 through the iBook store at Apple. Same book. No multimedia content. Is Apple's version of the book worth 50% more? Publishers really don't like the idea of people getting used to paying $9.99 for a book. They want a new model. Apple is accommodating them -- so far. Time will tell how things are going to shake out. Ken Auletta's piece from the April 26, 2010 issue of The New Yorker explores the state of book publishing with excellent analysis of the strategies of the two digital behemoths -- Amazon and Apple, and also describes how Google will soon follow with it's readers and online store. There is a very large fight beginning for control of the e-books market.

There will be much more to say about the book market but in the meantime the iPad will be selling briskly. No doubt in my mind that there will be very large adoption -- tens of millions for sure -- and it will make a big dent in PC's. Also, more to say about what the iPad can not do and about the bigger question of iTunes. When will it be in the cloud? The iPhone will continue to be an important part of my life -- for calls and picture taking. This morning I had an appointment at a place that had no WiFi (fewer and fewer of such places) so I turned on the iPad and took a minute or two to download my email inbox and the Wall Street Journal before leaving the house. It was more than enough to occupy my subsequent idle time.

iPad stories on patrickWeb

Gadgets, Home Automation, Internet Technology, Media, Music, Personal Computing, WiFi, iPhone April 20, 2010 10:00 AM

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Neonatal Healthcare

We can all picture a hospital neonatal environment where a plethora of
medical monitors connected to babies are used to alert hospital staff
to potential health problems before patients develop clinical signs of infection or other issues. There are breakthroughs on the horizon for how this will be done. Today the instrumentation generates huge amounts of information -- up to 1,000 readings per second -- which is summarized into one reading every 30 to 60 minutes. The information is stored for up to 72 hours and is then discarded. If the stream of data could be captured, stored and analyzed in real time there would be a huge opportunity to improve the quality for special care babies.

The Hospital for Sick Children in Ontario, Canada has developed such a vision and is acting on it.
Dr. Carolyn McGregor, Canada research chair in health informatics at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology visited researchers at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center who are working on a new stream-computing platform to support healthcare analytics. A three-way collaboration was established, with each group bringing a unique perspective -- the hospital focus on patient care, the university's ideas for using the data stream, and IBM providing the advanced analysis software and information technology expertise needed to turn the vision into reality.

The result of the collaboration was Project Artemis which pairs IBM scientists with clinicians and`researchers to explore how emerging technologies can solve real-world business problems, in this case developing a highly flexible platform that aims to help physicians make better, faster decisions regarding patient care for a wide range of conditions. At the Children's hospital the focus is real-time detection of the onset of nosocomial infection (often called hospital-acquired infection).

Regulatory, ethical, privacy, and safety issues were addressed and then two infant beds were instrumented and connected to the system for data collection. The team then created an algorithm that describes the streaming data. By establishing the impact of moving a baby or changing its diaper those things can be filtered out to help spot the telltale signs of nosocomial infection.

Dr. Andrew James, staff neonatologist, at the Hospital for Sick Children is optimistic that as they learn more they will be able to account for variations in individual patients and eventually be able to integrate data inputs such as lab results or observational notes. In the future any condition that can be detected through subtle changes in the underlying data streams can be the target of the system's early-warning capabilities. It is likely sensors attached to or even implanted in the body will allow monitoring of important conditions from home or anywhere.

Other healthcare-related stories on patrickWeb

Gadgets, Home Automation, Internet Technology, Media, Music, Personal Computing, WiFi, iPhone April 11, 2010 06:59 PM

Sunday, April 4, 2010

iPad - Part 1: Initial Thoughts

I confess -- the doorway did not get out of my sight for the entire day yesterday. I had placed my order early in the morning on March 12 and when the first tranch of thousands of iPads left China for Louisville, KY and then to Orlando and on to Daytona and then onto a big brown truck, I did not want to be the unreliable part of the distribution scheme that Apple had planned with precision. By 4 PM the doubts were arising but at 5 PM my iPhone rang and it was UPS driver at the front door with an iPad in his hands.

If you know how to use an iPhone then you know how to use an iPad. I would not agree with some who say the iPad is *just* a "big iPhone". In fact I see the iPad as the beginning of the end of a lot of things as we know them today. It will not immediately replace laptops, netbooks, magazines, Kindles, and televisions -- not immediately. Over time, however, it is easy to see how the world will change. When we introduced the ThinkPad in 1992 it seemed like a huge deal just to get everyone at IBM to agree with the name. No one, certainly not me as VP of marketing at the time, had any idea that more than 30 million ThinkPads would be sold. The iPad will surely sell multiple times that number but more important the iPad will change the model of personal computing -- not immediately and not for everyone, but for many millions of people the PC will begin to look like a dinosaur. One of my reasons for such a bullish view is the number of skeptics coming forward to say that the iPad is not what it is cracked up to be. Skeptics have been a reliable predictor of the next big thing -- the Internet is too insecure to allow for banking and insurance. WiFi is too expensive and slow and will fizzle. Blogging was to peak out some years ago. Social networking is a fad. The iPad is just a big iPhone. Those with decades of experience with PC's may find it difficult to master the iPad but the younger generation which grew up on Nintendo will find it natural. They will use it not just for games, music, videos, and browsing but for creative work -- writing, drawing, composing, authoring, building, creating documents and web sites and multi-media content.

The extra "real estate" -- roughly seven times more area -- of the iPad has a bigger impact than one might think. It becomes very obvious when you first see a map on it. It is not just the size but the number of pixels. The iPhone is 480 x 320 while the iPad is 1024 x 768. The clarity and brilliance are stunning. You have to see it to believe it. The TV ads and pictures do not do it justice.
It is the applications that will make the iPad (and iPhone) highly successful. There will be hundreds of thousands of them and the larger screen opens up many new possibilities. Magazines will be huge hit -- the screen allows for not only more advertisements (not a feature) but for embedded video and high quality graphical content. You can do have all this on an iPhone but there is really no comparison. There is much to say about the iPad. It has been stimulating to explore it. Many questions in my mind and much more to learn but bottom line -- I love it! There are some things that are not perfect -- more about this later. For now, let me just comment about books and the impact on the Amazon Kindle. Amazon's profit for the fourth quarter of 2009 was $384 million on revenue of $9.52 billion. That is more than $10 million of products shipped each and every day. They are not going away, with or without the Kindle, but will the iPad dethrone the Kindle?

I don't claim to have the answer but I may have clues. There are more than 40 e-book readers out there. Apple may be the largest threat to the Kindle among them, but it is not a slam dunk. At least in the short term, I do not see the iBook reader as a Kindle killer. I read a lot of books and I don't buy any that are not available on the Kindle. I am Kindlzed. The 5 once device never burdens the wrist. The iPad is just one and a half pounds -- not a lot compared to a laptop or even a netbook -- but compared to the 5 once Kindle it is almost five times as heavy. If you spend a lot of time reading you may develop a need for a wrist brace. The other thing is the lighting. The Kindle uses e-ink -- it is reflective -- like paper. The more light the better. The iPad has back-lighting. I was using the iPad out on the terrace today and it was very difficult to see the screen clearly. The Kindle was clear as a bell. (I watched a movie on the iPad indoors later and the quality was fantastic). The journalists that got to see the iPad in person in January reported that the room was dim. Why would that be? I suspect because good lighting makes the backlit screen harder to read.

I am currently reading the biography of John Adams (highly recommended based on first 40%). The Amazon Kindle book was $9.99. I invested $14.99 to buy the iBook version from Apple. It is not 50% better. The iBook is flashy and impressive. I like the feature that shows how many pages remain in the chapter you are currently reading. But we don't need color to read a novel and the iPad becomes heavy after holding it for awhile. For heavy reading, the jury is out and the Kindle wins hands down.

On a positive note, I think the iPad will find very large adoption -- tens of millions for sure -- and will make a big dent in PC's. The netbooks have been very successful but they are basically PC's with Windows. Their only redeeming feature is their low price. That is a good thing but it is not innovative and who needs another copy of Windows? PC desktops and laptops are already in decline and the iPad is going to accelerate the trend. I see the iPad lightening the load in briefcases when travelling. It will also take up a lot less space on the kitchen counter and while resting there in the new iPad case it will double as a picture viewer. In the family room it will be the controller for movies and music. Most of this story was written using the Bluetooth wireless keyboard with the iPad. I need more experience with this before I say it will become my tool for writing. Finally, with most of our data in the cloud why would anyone need a PC or laptop? Many of us will still have a PC and a big flat panel for certain things -- like Quicken -- but more and more of my time will be with the iPad. The bigger question is iTunes. When will it be in the cloud? More on that to come.

The iPhone will continue to be an important part of my life -- for calls and picture taking. And if I am in a location where there is no WiFi for the iPad, the iPhone will be my backup to the Internet. I do not plan to get the 3G model and sign up for another AT&T data plan. WiFi is available at most everywhere I go and the trend of expansion of WiFi will only accelerate. I suspect I will keep my Kindle too. There will be many naysayers and critics of the iPad but I am certain it will be a smashing success and a long-term game changer for personal computing. It will become so pervasive in our lives that even though it is a very powerful computer, it will not be thought of as a computer. It is at the crossroads between technology and the arts.

Index to patrickWeb stories about iPad

Gadgets, Home Automation, Internet Technology, Media, Music, Personal Computing, WiFi, iPhone April 4, 2010 10:59 PM

Friday, February 12, 2010

Knovel Blogs

People at a conference The Knovel Blogs at are all about sharing ideas on engineering information and productivity. You can find things as diverse as an interview with a weatherman to the history of the space shuttle. If you are an engineer or have an interest in engineering, Knovel is a fun place to visit.

Neil Schulman, Editor in Chief at Knovel Blogs recently interviewed me about the 16th Annual Genesys Partners Venture Dinner -- Gen XVI-- which was held at the Union League Club in New York. The event attracted more than 100 venture capitalists, investors, journalists, entrepreneurs, and industry executives. A summary of the after-dinner comments I made can be found here. Neil's interview follows and adds some additional perspective to what I had to say at Genesys. K Exchange is the name of the Knovel Blogs.

Neil Schulman: John is a former Vice President of Internet Technology with IBM, and currently serves as president of Attitude LLC. John is also the author of Net Attitude, an essential primer on e-business strategies. John has served on Knovel's Board of Directors since 1992.

K Exchange: First off thank you for agreeing to interview with us. To start with, I have to get your impressions on the topic-of-the moment, the Apple iPad. To me, it seems way more evolutionary compared to the then-revolutionary iPhone. By extension, is the iPad just a larger version of the iPod Touch but with more bells and whistles? Will this device ultimately mean anything?

John Patrick: I am quite enthusiastic about the iPad and can't wait to get my hands on one. Some people are saying the iPad is just a big iPhone. Yes! I can't wait and it is much more than an iPhone. It has applications galore. On day one it will run 140,000 iPhone applications plus significant upgrades to calendar, contacts, mapping, and email. I see the iPad lightening the load in briefcases when travelling. It will also take up a lot less space on the kitchen counter and while resting there in the new iPad case it will double as a picture viewer. (See complete review by John on his blog at http://www.patrickweb.com/weblog/archives/2010_01_31.php#Amazon and the iPad)

KX: In conjunction with that, do you see mobile devices becoming more important? Or do the limitations of 3G/4G speeds and device memory mean people will be relying more heavily on computers for the time being?

JP: Mobile is taking over. There are hundreds of millions of PC's. There are billions of mobile phones. Today most of them are "dumb" but soon most of them will be "smart". Most people in the world will access the Internet from their mobile device. The PC will become less and less relevant, accelerated by the iPad and the flood of tablet competitors who will follow.

KX: You mentioned in your blog the massive disparity between public WiFi in the US and overseas. Does the possibility of widely available WiFi (or WiGig, as you posited for the near future) make the question moot, and suggest that netbooks will be preferable to mobile devices?

JP: WiFi is growing all over the world. The netbook is just an inexpensive Windows PC. The only thing it has going for it is price. Do we really need another Windows PC? There is no innovation in netbooks.

KX: Switching gears, you also believe that social networking is going to be crucial to collaboration in the future. Are you talking about public social networks? Or about private intra-company or intra-industry networks?

JP: Both. All of the above. The days of just "plain" content are over. People expect to be able to compare notes on things. Inside or outside the firewall. The number one source that people use to pick a doctor or a hospital is not a website per se, it is asking their friends and family. Social networking is a tool to do that. In a corporate sense, the most valuable source of information on a topic may be somebody down the hall but again, social networks is a tool to reach them.

Collaboration is not new but the social networks provide enhanced tools to make collaboration work. It goes deeper than writing on someone's wall. Specialized tools are emerging such as Kindling to make social networking concepts into serious business tools. The largest source of content is user generated content. That is part of social networking too.

KX: Along those lines, we have statistics from Outsell that suggest that while 40% of engineers are on Facebook, only 4% are on Twitter. An interesting fact that may make more sense when you consider the recent stats suggesting that Twitter's growth is stagnating. Why do you think Facebook's adoption has been so much stronger among the engineering community?

JP: They are totally different types of social networking tools. Facebook is a people oriented way to establish a presence and connect with friends or colleagues. It is frictionless to achieve. Twitter is more of a protocol -- a way to send a message or "tweet". Twitter as a company may or may not survive but the concept of sending short messages and following companies or people is a fundamental and new "channel" on the Internet.

KX: Finally, I want to end on the question you asked to finish your post: "will we trust the internet?" You were talking in terms of security, but the question brings up an interesting point, do people inherently mistrust information that comes from the Internet? Obviously Wikipedia is a flawed source, but does a company like Knovel have to fight the impression of being an Internet company rather than an information provider?

JP: The Internet is the communications network. It will be a constant battle against those who want to disrupt it, but I am optimistic that the good guys will stay on top. I don't think people inherently distrust the Internet -- perhaps to the contrary. It is no different than a book. How do you know a book is accurate? The key is to test veracity through cross-checking just like doing any basic research. Knovel has a huge opportunity to leverage the Internet as the delivery mechanism to make engineers more productive. In the long run it will be important to use technology to provide digital signatures and authentication of data.

John's post on Genesys XYI can be found at http://www.patrickweb.com/weblog/archives/2010_01_26.php#Genesys XVI.

Other patrickWeb conference related stories

Conferences, Gadgets, Internet Technology, Media February 12, 2010 10:10 AM

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Amazon and the iPad

Amazon's profit for the fourth quarter of 2009 was $384 million on revenue of $9.52 billion. That is more than $10 million of products shipped each and every day. Retail sales in total in the U.S. was roughly one trillion dollars in the third quarter of 2009. Just 3.5% of that -- $35 billion -- was e-commerce, but of that $35 billion, Amazon was more than $5 billion. Amazon is truly the emerging juggernaut of retail. Of the millions of retailers one of them represented 15% of retail e-commerce. Many stories here on patrickWeb as to why this is the case. What are the threats that Amazon faces? In particular, will the iPad dethrone the Kindle?

I don't claim to have the answer but I may have clues. There are more than 40 e-book readers out there. Apple may be the largest threat to the Kindle among them, but it is not a slam dunk. I am quite enthusiastic about the iPad and can't wait to get my hands on one but I do not see it as a Kindle killer. I read a lot of books and I don't buy any that are not available on the Kindle. I am Kindlzed. The 5 once device never burdens the wrist and it fits nicely on holders I made for the elliptical trainer and treadmill. I tried the nook but was happy to sell it on eBay after a month. The nook is very nice, as I have written previously, one of the issues is that it is heavy compared to the Kindle.

Will potential new Kindle buyers turn instead to the iPad? Many will for sure but I think there are a couple of inhibitors for people who read a lot of books. The iPad is just one and a half pounds -- not a lot compared to a laptop or even a netbook -- but compared to the 5 once Kindle it is almost five times as heavy. If you spend a lot of time reading you may develop a need for a wrist brace. The other thing is the lighting. The Kindle uses e-ink -- it is reflective -- like paper. The more light the better. Reading by a good light or in the sunlight is better than trying to read in the dark. The iPad has back-lighting. I am sure the color screen is brilliant and for movies and pictures and magazines and newspapers it will no doubt be great. The demo by the New York Times at Steve Jobs' keynote was quite impressive. But, for an hour or two of reading I have my doubts about how easy it may be on the eyes. We don't need color to read a novel. The journalists that got to see the iPad in person reported that the room was dim. Why would that be? I suspect because good lighting makes the backlit screen harder to read.

Some people are saying the iPad is just a big iPhone. Yes! I can't wait and it is much more than an iPhone. It has applications galore. On day one it will run 140,000 iPhone applications plus significant upgrades to calendar, contacts, mapping, and email. There will also be advanced word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps. The creative juices of software developers around the world will introduce hundreds of thousands of new and exciting apps that the large multi-touch color screen makes possible.

I see the iPad lightening the load in briefcases when travelling. It will also take up a lot less space on the kitchen counter and while resting there in the new iPad case it will double as a picture viewer. In the family room it will be the controller for movies and music. With the keyboard dock or wireless keyboard I suspect it will become my tool for writing. With most of our data in the cloud why would anyone need a PC or laptop? Many of us will still have a PC and a big flat panel for certain things -- like Quicken -- but more and more of my time will be with the iPad.

We don't need color to read a novel but there is no doubt authors and publishers will develop books with color pictures and video in them. Publishers really really don't like Amazon's $9.99 eBook model. A big war is taking shape. Amazon is offering enhanced royalties but only if the publisher keeps the price low. Apple is telling the publishers to charge whatever they want. The problem for the publishers is that Kindle on the iPhone -- which most readers don't use -- will work on the iPad on day one. I do use the iPhone to read Kindle books when I am in line at the supermarket or a waiting room. I love how the "bookmark" keeps track of where I left off on the Kindle or on my iPhone and soon on the iPad. Will there be two versions of the same book on the iPad? One with the Kindle reader and one with the iBook reader? Maybe. Some books may come in black & white and "enhanced" versions with color and embedded video.

The iPhone will continue to be an important part of my life -- for calls and picture taking. And if I am in a location where there is no WiFi for the iPad, the iPhone will be my backup to the Internet. I do not plan to get the 3G model and sign up for another AT&T data plan. WiFi is available at most everywhere I go and the trend of expansion of WiFi will only accelerate. The iPad demo is great -- the Apple team really has their act together. The iPad is not perfect. It does not support Flash movies, for example. If you read the WSJ and click on a video you will get a message saying that you need the Adobe Flash player. Apple has chosen not to make Flash available on their products. Adobe Flash is proprietary and although nearly all computers support it, the web standards people are developing an open standard for video. Apple seems to be betting that this will happen soon. Apple is also quite proprietary -- more so than Microsoft was in the 1990's and IBM in the 1980's.

The $499 entry price is aggressive but by the time you add the extra storage -- which is the smart thing to do -- plus an extra dock or keyboard or case or car charger plus the three new iWorks apps @ $9.99 each plus 3G if you need it plus plus, you end up spending $1,000 or more. The netbook I bought my wife for Christmas was $249. So the iPad is expensive and although for millions of people it will be their only computer, for many of us it will be one of several. I suspect I will keep my Kindle too. There will be many naysayers and critics of the iPad but I am certain it will be a smashing success and a long-term game changer for personal computing. It will become so pervasive in our lives that even though it is a very powerful computer, it will not be thought of as a computer. It is at the crossroads between technology and the arts.

Gadgets, Internet Technology, Media January 31, 2010 03:39 PM

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Books

While e-book technology is racing forward, the publishers are stuck in the past. Several of them have announced that they will make new best sellers available on e-books only after the physical book has been for sale for at least several months. They think that if a hot new book comes out you will go to a store or online and buy the physical book. It may have been true when there were only a relative handful of e-books to choose from. Amazon now has more than 400,000. Barnes & Noble claims more than one million. With more than two dozen e-book formats (not a good thing) there likely are millions of e-books available. The publishers don't understand or are in denial about how passionate e-book readers are.

Many Kindle owners are so hooked (or nooked) that they will only purchase a book if it is an e-book. Friends and family know better than to give them a "book" for a gift, although at some point receiving a real book will be very desirable (and expensive) as a collector item to cherish. The publishers say if books "deteriorate" to being sold for $9.99 (or less) as e-books that the result will be that consumers will end up with fewer new books to choose from. Their logic is that at the lower prices, publishers will have fewer resources available to assist authors and therefore there will be fewer authors. One would think that after seeing what (predictably) happened to music that publishers would embrace e-books in a major way rather than wait wait wait.

With regard to the music business, more musicians are realizing that even reviled file sharing may not be evil after all. According to techdirt, Shakira, Norah Jones, and Nelly Furtado say "it's ok". The posting says that these well known singers are saying that the industry is overreacting to the issue of file sharing. Sky News talked to three top female singers and found they all recognized that it was pretty much the natural state of the market, and it helped gain more exposure. Techdirt quoted Shakira as saying, "I like what's going on because I feel closer to the fans and the people who appreciate the music. It's the democratization of music in a way, and music is a gift. That's what it should be, a gift." And Norah Jones? "If people hear it I'm happy. I'm not going to say go and steal my album, but you know I think its great that young people who don't have a lot of money can listen to music and be exposed to new things."

Has digital music resulted in fewer musicians? I doubt it. I don't know how many there are -- many tens to hundreds of thousands. And that's people who get paid (though some don't get much). According to the National Association of Music Merchants there were a total of 62 million amateur musicians in the U. S. in 1996. The advent of services such as Pandora makes it possible for "amateurs" to get their music exposed and some of them go on to be famous. Might the same thing happen when aspiring bloggers can avoid the high cost and complexity of "publishing" a book and introduce their creativity via an e'book? The old saying remains -- "everybody has a book in them". Not sure where I got that but I believe it.

e-book readers are here to stay and they will get better and better. The e-textbook is emerging also, but not fast enough for me. I hate to see my grandchildren carry tens of pounds of books in their backpacks and have to bend over to carry the weight. When they tell their children about this it will seem very strange.

Gadgets, Media January 24, 2010 03:39 PM

Sunday, January 17, 2010

e-philanthropy

There are so many ways to help those in need. I wrote a story called e-philanthroy just over ten years ago -- posted below. The number of developments on the Internet since then would have been unfathomable back then. I remember Mary Meeker from Morgan Stanley giving a presentation about eBay back then and have to admit more than skepticism at the time. Needless to say she was right -- results for 2009 not final yet but the year before eBay had revenue of $8.5 billion and net profit after tax of $1.8 billion. My nook auction has 38 followers and 18 bids with the high bidder at $270. Rather than wait, there is $1,000 on the way to Americares for Haiti.

There are many high quality charities but I like to support those that have low administrative costs. FoundationSource posted a list of the ones they recommend. Americares has the highest percentage of funding to programs -- 98.7%. One of the most innovative approaches -- that would be unheard of back in 1999 -- is mobile donations. Just send a text message to 90999 with the message "haiti" and $10 will be sent to the Red Cross -- and the $10 will be placed on your cell phone bill. Not inconceibable that tens of millions of people will do this.

The most powerful part of the Internet that has developed since 1999 has been the social networks. In countless cases this has been the way that friends and family have been able to communicate to and from Haiti. Even though the terrestrial phone systems were mostly wiped out, the satellite-based Internet connectivity was preserved. NetHope and Inveneo are setting up a satellite and WiFi link in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas and Cisco is providing the various relief agencies with WebEx which will enable emergency response conference calls and collaboration. e-philanthropy will grow in importance in the years ahead.

e-philanthropy

October 5, 1999
(edited January 17, 2010)

I think we are all aware of how well the economy has been doing in recent years. The unprecedented growth has resulted in prosperity for many people beyond what they may have imagined was possible. For many people the amassing of a million dollars of net worth was a dream they didn't really expect to happen. Now many of those same people likely dream of $10 million. Those with $10 million dream of $100 million and those with $100 million dream of being billionaires! Much is being written about the wealth of so many. At the same time there are much larger numbers of people who have not been so fortunate. There are many people who go to bed hungry. Even in "affluent" communities there are long lists of people waiting to gain access to barely habitable Federal housing. For reasons of health, location, skills, misfortune, or disadvantage there are large numbers of people in need.

Who is responsible? The government or those who are more fortunate? Many would agree it is at least in part the latter? What can be done? A lot. For those of us who have been fortunate there is a range of ways to help out. Basically, there are so many ways to help that there are no excuses for not doing so. The means to help follow a hierarchy as do so many things. At the base of the pyramid of helping is giving money anonymously. This can be done through the United Way, churches or synagogues, private foundations, various national appeals, or directly to pinpointed charities. Web sites abound. A few links can be found here.

A second level up the pyramid is to not be anonymous; to directly support causes that are meaningful or important to you or your friends and family. A couple of years ago I attended a reception of the Society of Alexis de Toqueville, a group of contributors to the United Way who exceed a threshold of $10,000 in giving per year. At the reception I was astounded both at how many people were there and how many people were not there. It was initially impressive to see a group of 150 or so in the room. Some quick arithmetic suggested that the giving represented was probably greater than $2 million. On the other hand seeing that there were just a very few people (literally) from any one of the major companies represented (GE, IBM, Merrill Lynch, Chase Manhattan, Texaco, etc.) made it painfully clear how small the participation really was. Given that the stocks of all these companies (and many more) has appreciated so much and the additional fact that these companies all provide a corporate match of the employee gift shows how much potential there really is. Suppose, for example, an employee had options to buy company stock at $25 per share and the current price of the stock was $50 per share. A gift of just 100 shares of stock would be worth $5,000. The company match would make the gift worth $10,000 and establish the employee as an Alexis de Toqueville giver. The cost of the donation to the employee would be $2,500 to exercise the options plus a capital gains tax (assuming the donated shares had been held sufficiently) of roughly $750 minus a tax savings of $2,000 (assuming a 40% tax bracket) or a net cost of $1,250. The leverage of the gift: 8 to 1!

A further extrapolation of the leveraged giving idea is the formation of a private foundation. On October 21, 1998 the Senate passed a bill which made permanent the section 170(e)(5) about charitable deduction for gifts of appreciated stock to private foundations. This means that any person can establish a private foundation and use appreciated stock to do so. This can be a very useful way to reduce tax obligations in the event of a bonus payment, retirement payout of restricted stock, or any "spike" in income. At the same time the foundation can be used to provide charitable donations for subsequent gifting or even to receive and distribute charitable donations from others . There are a few catches but they are reasonable. One is that your foundation must give away at least 5% of it's average net assets per year. Another is that you have to file a tax return for the foundation. If all this is too daunting, you can donate to an existing foundation that someone else has established. Some links to resources can be found at http://www.jcdowning.org/ An example of a simple private foundation and links to the tax forms can be found at http://patrickfoundation.org

At the Alexis de Toqueville reception, hosted by Jane Pauley (NBC) and Bob Wright (GE), I was quite impressed with the brief comments made by Jane. She talked about the positive impact people can have by publicly revealing the amount of their contributions. Put modesty aside, she said, and let others know. It will challenge them and spur larger gifts. I think she is right. As the United Way and others publish their gold/silver/platinum giver lists the top categories seem to be growing.

And then there is the most important gift of all -- personal involvement. Your time is your most scarce resource and giving even a small amount of it is often very difficult. In the end however this is the greatest gift and the greatest leverage. An hour of time to a board or committee can be as valuable as the 8 to 1 leverage of a financial gift.

How can we get more people thinking about all this? One idea is e-philanthropy. It is not just "click here to donate". It is a larger idea. Creating a local community of interest, a charity portal, that can enable charities to make their needs known and where those with resources can make their abilities known whether it is an anonymous gift, targeted visible funding, or volunteer time. If the idea were to spread it might mean enabling people to contribute to charities where they grew up, went to school, or have a vacation home. It might also be a resource to help people set up their own private foundations or contribute to existing ones. It might also be a way for the smallest of charities with no executive director, corporate sponsors, nor advertising budgets to make themselves visible.

The bottom line is simple. Incomes and assets are up. So is the need of those less fortunate. Let's give e-philanthropy a chance.

An interesting article about e-philanthropy can be found at http://www.greenstar.org/e-philanthropy/

Gadgets, Media, People January 17, 2010 10:39 PM

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Nook Epilogue

I got "Kindlized" in March 2008. Two years later I got "nooked". The "e-book" idea -- replacing the paper book with something electronic -- has been around for three decades but it is really taking hold now. Over the years there have been various "e-book readers" introduced and now we are seeing a flood of them. The nook is an excellent product but I put in on eBay last week. I suspect that if I had the nook two years ago and then the Kindle came along that I would stick with the nook.

The two products are very similar but also different. The nook is a more attractive product but the Kindle is a little bit lighter. The nook has more functionality but the Kindle is a bit more intuitive. The nook has a very nice color screen which is used to display book covers and to provide navigable menus. The Kindle does not have that. A very nice feature of the nook is that you can "lend" a copy of a book you have read to a friend. The friend has two weeks to read it or they may decide to buy their own copy. The nook is also quite nice if you are a visitor to Barnes & Noble stores. While there you get free WiFi access and some free reading material too.

The auction currently has 32 people following it. There have been twelve bids with the high bid at $152.50. With the sporty Jack Spade case I suspect it will bring at least $250. The auction ends on Monday evening. Whatever the final proceeds are, they will be tripled and sent to Americares for Haiti.

Gadgets, Media January 16, 2010 03:39 PM

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Nook

I first got "Kindlized" in March 2008. Now, nearly two years later I have been "nooked". The "e-book" -- replacing the paper book with something electronic -- is not a new idea. Project Gutenberg started in 1971 and has a collection of more than 30,000 books which have been digitized. Digital books can be read on a PC and there are various software offerings that can enable you to read books on your mobile phone or personal digital assistant. Over the years there have been various "e-book readers" introduced. The idea behind the e-book reader is to have a dedicated device that is optimized for reading. I had never met anyone, myself included, that found reading a book on a PC, a handheld device, or an e-book reader to be a good experience. For years I had believed that the day would come but that so far nothing had compared to a real book. That was before I became "Kindlized".

After reading Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth in a new and comfortable way, I was hooked. I had recently purchased the paperback version of "Pillars" for $14.97 and was about half-way through the gripping 1,000 page novel. With my new acquisition I visited the Kindle bookstore on the device and keyed in "pillars". I selected the Follet novel and in less than a minute the Kindle version was ready to read. The $7.99 charge for the e-book was automatically placed on my credit card. There is no login, user id, password or network connection process. The "Amazon Whispernet" (from Sprint) is totally seamless. At the time there were 100,000 kindlized books -- now there are more than 390,000. You can even get Net Attitude on the Kindle. As for reading books, I have reached the point where I won't buy a paper book anymore. If it isn't on the Kindle, I don't want to read it. Maybe I will miss something but 390,000 books will keep me busy for a very long time.

A year later I migrated to the Kindle 2 -- now known as the Kindle and also got a Kindle DX for use in aviation -- it is great for airport and approach charts. Now along comes the Barnes & Noble nook. I could not resist getting the new gadget. It is similar to the Kindle but different in a number of ways. One very nice feature is that you can "loan" a book to a friend. It is an electronic sharing and the friend can only have it for two weeks and then must buy their own if they haven't finished with it. Barnes & Noble has also nicely integrated their e-book with their stores. Free WiFi and some free reading of the day. I don't spend much time in stores but many people do. I think it is a good feature. As for the device itself, it is very nice but quite a bit heavier than the Kindle and not nearly as intuitive -- at least so far. Getting it out of the packaging and getting familiar took much longer than the Kindle. The nook has a color screen at the bottom of the main display which shows the cover of the book and provides navigation. I need to give it more time but initial impression is that the Kindle is quite a bit better. It is a joy to use. Once I finish the juicy Ken Follett novel I am reading on the Kindle I will begin another novel on the nook and see how it goes. Stay tuned.

The Chinese invention of paper in 105 A.D. changed the way the world communicates. The invention of "e-ink" may change it again. The electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. The screen displays the ink particles electronically. It reflects light like ordinary paper and uses no backlighting. While the technology is racing forward, the publishers are stuck in the past. Several of them have announced that they will make new best sellers available on e-books only after at least several months. They think that if a hot new book comes out you will go to a store or online and buy the physical book. They don't understand or are in self denial about how passionate e-book readers are. They say if books "deteriorate" to being sold for $9.99 (or less) as e-books that the result will be that consumers will end up with fewer new books to choose from. One would think that after seeing what (predictably) happened to music that they would embrace e-books in a major way rather than wait wait wait. I do not see books disappearing but they will become more collector items and niche items for those who want them Books will also become more expensive.

e-books are here to stay and they will get better and better. One e-book holds thousands of books and yet my grandchildren carry tens of pounds of books in their backpacks and have to bend over to carry the weight. When they tell their children about this it will seem very strange.

Gadgets, Media December 17, 2009 03:39 PM

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

DEMOfall in San Diego - 2009

Gadget There was a short overnight in Telluride with some friends and then on to San Diego for DEMOfall. Demo continues to be my favorite conference -- the semi-annual event attracted nearly 600 attendees. The Demo conference allows entrepreneurs to show off new gadgets, software, hardware and business ideas and enables the press, analysts, investors, and technology enthusiasts to assess what they see. Companies like IBM scout for potential acquisitions. The product introductions that take place reveal key technology trends over the coming 12 to 18 months. This year there were 70 companies showing their latest and greatest -- each getting six minutes on stage to tell their story. Chris Shipley, executive producer of Demo and Chairman and CEO of Guidewire Group, screens the companies and introduces them to the audience. After the main tent sessions the attendees get to visit with the companies in the "Demo Tent".

There were some key trends that were reinforced at DEMO again this year. Many companies in some way talked about mobile. Most companies either provide a web service or use web services as their platform. The term "cloud" is gaining traction in their vocabulary. Most companies were media related in some way or provided or used social networking. None of these things are new, by any means, but DEMO confirmed their strategic importance and demonstrated significant implementations. I don't think any of them have cracked the code so to speak but there were many that had exciting visions and demos. There were two changes in direction I noticed compared to last year. First is that nearly everybody at the conference had an iPhone. Secondly, most of the companies either offer their software for the Mac or are planning to.

There isn't time to visit all of companies so I try to be selective -- I visited 25 of the companies this time. Some of the ones I found interesting follow. They are in no particular order.

Local Dirt says they want to be "Everyone's place to buy, sell, and find local food". They have created an e-commerce platform to enable grocery stores or consumer groups to buy from local farmers and farmer markets. Locally grown food is the fastest growing segment of the food business and Local Dirt got a lot of interest.

CallSpark! aims to replace the phone icon in your iPhone with their. The enhancement is that if you want to call Fedex or Marriott or Hertz, CallSpark! finds the number for you even though it is not in your iPhone contact list. Basically, CallSpark! virtually expands your contact list to find people or businesses. I look forward to trying it out when it is on the App Store.

DOTGO enables you to use your mobile phone to quickly, easily, and reliably access any web site -- to read the news, check a train schedule, or track a package by simply sending a text message. For example you could send a text to DOTCOM (368266) and put Coca Cola in the body of the message. DOTGO would have a marketing agreement with Coca Cola that would enable them to respond with information to you such as a link to go to a special offer.

Keen has a really slick commerce program to automate the small printers of the world. Every deal with a local printer? The one is this area does everything manually -- preferably by phone but also fax. No email! Keen takes a broad view of the processes involved and has a comprehensive solution to streamline the process of getting things printed.

Fusebox is a collaborative system that does it all. Instant messaging, annotating or tagging movies with friends, and have online meetings. Take a look.

Gogrok is in this space too. They say they are going to make on-line collaboration easier and more interactive so that people can understand each other completely via the Internet. I found it interesting but suspect it will have trouble getting traction.

Intelius has a "People Search" which they claim is a great way to find and reconnect with family, old friends, relatives -- just about anyone! People Search reports include phone numbers, address history, ages, birth dates, household members, home value, income and more. They promoted it as a date check. Frightening!

Cazoodle is a specialized search engine for buying things. It not only finds things but also organizes the various features and options so you can make a good choice and get a good price.

Digsby integrates instant messaging, email, and social networks into one easy to use application. That is their goal. I did not find very intuitive but it was defintely clever. The idea is to make it easy to write something and place it as a tweet and a Facebook post in a few mouse clicks.

Radioweave says they are the "second century of radio" and they have a system that creates a custom broadcasting "channel". They say that In traditional radio, you tune in to a single channel until you are bored and then you change channels.

This is just a sample. They were all interesting. Statistically, of the seventy companies at Demo probably a half-dozen will survive. Some will get purchased and become a feature in another company's offering. Some will run out of money and move on to another idea. Entrepreneurs never stop.

Conferences, Gadgets, Internet Technology October 13, 2009 01:24 PM

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Brazilian Adventure - Day 1

Airplane It was a great summer and now it seems so long ago. September was a blur with board meetings, charitable events, a high school reunion, the marriage of one of my sons, a trip to Demo in San Diego with a stopover along the way in Telluride with some friends, and then the business trip to Brazil. I would not have predicted that e-tirement would have led to business in Brazil. The origin goes back to 1972 when I got my pilot's license. The interest in aviation was somewhat dormant for a few decades but like motorcycling it came roaring back years later.

The re-kindled interest lead to an investment a couple of years ago in a small aviation charter business in Danbury, Connecticut called Diamond Air Charters. The company started a dozen years ago with one airplane and now has six. Although getting a black eye from Congress and car companies, chartering aircraft can add tremendous convenience and cost effective transportation for busy executives, especially when it comes to destinations that have general aviation airports -- there are 5,300 of them. A major change in the economic model of charter aviation is about to enter the picture with the emergence of a new category of aircraft called "very light jets" or VLJ's. The new jets will typically seat two pilots plus four passengers, can fly up to 41,000 feet at more than 400 mph like big jets, are very quiet, and are highly fuel efficient compared to prior generations of aircraft. The leading producer of the new planes will likely be Embraer. The name means "a Brazilian aerospace company" and it is headquartered in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil.

Check-in for the flight to Sao Paulo at JFK was uneventful although it could have been much more automated. A swipe of the finger or a vascular scan could have validated that it was me and then the online reservation could have been confirmed and an electronic message sent to the gate to be followed by a second biometric authentication. In the future I expect that we will be able to go directly to the gate, authenticate and board. Security was rigorous as usual and I knew the pound of oxiniium that makes up my artificial knee would set off the alarm. The body check was easy but the "please remove your laptop" step proved more difficult. What is a laptop? I removed the ThinkPad as usual but the Kindle and Kindle DX were still in my backpack. Are they laptops? They surely are computers -- the person doing the scanning said he believed I had a DVD player. That must be what the scan looked like. I also had a GPS, a pedometer, a Sony HDCam, an iPod Nano, and a few other electronic gadgets in the bag. None of them are "laptops". The line of demarcation will get more and more blurred moving forward.

My first trip to Brazil was in 2004 when I visited Salvador, Bahia for an IT conference. It was very beautiful there but my visit was just an overnight stay to give a speech. Today's flight was to Sao Paulo, Brazil where I would be spending at least four very full days -- no trips to the beach. Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, with nearly 200 million people and 4,655 miles of coastline and it is the largest national economy in Latin America and the tenth largest economy in the world. Brazilian exports are booming, with major export products including coffee, automobiles, soybeans, iron ore, orange juice, steel, ethanol, textiles, footwear, corned beef, electrical equipment and aircraft. It is the latter product that brought me here. Stay tuned.

Aviation, Gadgets, Travels October 4, 2009 04:08 PM

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Wired Disruptions

Wires I am late in sharing about various activities of the past two weeks. The activities used up the time for blogging! Exiting the train at Grand Central last Monday morning was followed by a nice walk down Madison Avenue to the magnificent Pierpont Morgan Library to attend the WIRED Business Conference: Disruptive By Design.

It was a superb day, featuring interviews and highlights from WIRED editor in chief, Chris Anderson as well as an impressive group of speakers including Jeff Bezos, Jeff Immelt, Shai Agassi, Elon Musk and Vivek Kundra, the newly named CIO of the United States. Alll of the content is available at wired.com.

The speakers were excellent with the exception of Scott Thompson, President of PayPal who was doing a non-stop pitch for how great his company is. All the other speakers shared their vision for the future of various technologies and business strategies and in particular talked about how disruption can be a problem or an opportunity depending on how you approach it. Jeff Bezos, always the consummate visionary talked about how electronic books will disrupt traditional publishing business models. When I see small children carrying 50 pounds of books in their backpack it seems so obvious that an e-book -- which weighs less than a half-pound can hold all of their textbooks -- is going to prevail. Jeff said that books have "had a nice 500 year run". Critics say that the market is limited for devices which can only do one thing, like enable you to read a book. Jeff said "what could be more important than reading". He believes a "purpose built" device serves an important and growing market. Many business leaders in Amazon's position with the Kindle would tie the content and the device in a proprietary model. Jeff says that Amazon plans for the Kindle to be the best device and their strategy is enable the device to read content of any format. In parallel the Amazon format will be made available on competitors e-books. He clearly follows a long-term strategy.

Jeff Immelt also demonstrated strategic leadership in his comments in numerous areas. He said that the Chinese have developed an MRI scanner that is a third the cost of what GE enjoys as their richest market segment today. Many companies would put their head in the ground, but GE is planning to compete directly with Chinese pricing and expand the MRI market on a global basis. I was quite impressed with the comments of Vivek Kundra. The former CTO for the city of Washington DC who is now the first US government CIO. He has a very aggressive approach to opening up government to the people. Today there are more than 20,000 government web sites and most do not make it easy to get data. Vivek is planning to make all non-secret data available to the public through data.gov, His visionary theory is that by making the data available people will find ways to build applications to explore and exploit the data. Privacy will be an issue but the upside is very large. While some people fear the government "watching us", the strategy behind data.gov will allow citizens to watch the government.

Overall, the conference was exceptionally well produced. Upon leaving at the end of the day attendees were given a nice Golla Mobile Lifestyle bag containing a couple of WIRED magazines plus a copy of Chris Anderson's new book -- Free: The Future of a Radical Price. The summer read pile growing already -- but mostly on the Kindle.

As usual, one of the best parts of the conference was seeing former colleagues from years past. It was very nice to catch up with Nicholas Negroponte and Ann Winblad and to compare notes with Jay Walker. Jeff Bezos hung around with attendees at the reception at the end of the day and answered questions from several of us. He is a brilliant businessman that makes it a habit to listen to what people (customers) have to say. I would say that is also why Amazon has a market capitalization of $36 billion.

Conferences, Gadgets, Healthcare June 27, 2009 06:37 PM

Sunday, June 21, 2009

iPhone - Update No. 17

Mobile phone I am sticking to my story -- the iPhone is fantastic. There are issues but Apple seems to be addressing them and has transformed the iPhone from a cool device to a major platform is just two years. The primary change in their strategy is that Apple came to realize that the iPhone is much more than a "cell phone" -- it is a developer platform where thousands of applications can be created that are fun to use and that drive demand for the iPhone. The six basic elements of the platform are the iPhone itself, the network (AT&T in the United States), iTunes, the "App Store", MobileMe and, most importantly, the applications.

With the announcement of more than 1,000 API's (application programming interfaces -- these are commands that programmers can use to cause the iPhone to do something; sense a GPS location, sense that the iPhone was shaken, etc., it is a certainty that there will be many thousands more applications for the iPhone. To get an app you go to the app store. To get the app on your iPhone you have to have iTunes. You are tied to Apple. It is what the industry calls a "lock in". It used to be that when you needed a new cell phone you would go to the store of one of the operators and pick from a multitude of brands and phones. Now that you are hooked on various applications and the data in them you need to have a phone that can work with iTunes which is where your apps and your data are stored. Guess how many brands work with iTunes? Just one.

Apple's new OS 3.0 offers 100 new features including a search capability across the entire phone contents, cut-copy-paste, multimedia email, and landscape mode for all the apps. The most stunning and useful for me is the ability to do gmail in a landscape view. The difference in productivity is huge. There will be a lot of smartphone competition from Palm, HTC, Dell, Nokia, Acer, and many others. The phones will all have great hardware features but it is the app store that ties things together. The other guys are building their own app stores but chances are that they won't do it as well as Apple. Apple knows how to make things easy and people seem willing to pay a premium for the ease of use and they don't seem to mind being locked in.

Crowds waited in line to get one of the new iPhones this week but I practiced what I preach and ordered mine online. I was on the road quite a bit as previously reported but when I got home on Friday afternoon, the little brown box from UPS with an iPhone 3GS in it was waiting for me. Every aspect of the iPhone is quite impressive. The packaging is discreet. No indication that it is a high value item from Apple. After opening the box and turning it on the iPhone showed an animated diagram that made it clear that the next thing to do was to plug the iPhone into a computer that was running iTunes. After doing that a dialogue appeared showing my mobile phone number and asking me for my zip code and last four of the social security number. After entering that information the dialogue said that it was contacting AT&T for activation. Then it said that contact had been made and that activation was underway. I looked over at the iPhone and it said it was activating. After a few seconds it said that activation was complete. I took the iPhone out of the cradle and called my home phone. It rang. I then put the phone back in the cradle and iTunes asked if I wanted to sync my data -- photos, music, email settings, home screen photo, dozens of applications, etc. It took an hour or so to restore all of these things from the latest backup of the iPhone 3G that was being replaced. After it completed, everything worked just fine including all the new goodies that come with the iPhone 3GS and OS 3.0. like voice dialing and platform wide search. It was a totally seamless experience. No technical expertise required. No dumb messages like we have been getting for years from Windoze. No phone calls to wait in a queue.

One of the few negative aspects of the new iPhone 3GS is the pricing. If you are a new customer you can get the 32 GB iPhone 3GS for $299 plus the normal (onerous) AT&T fees. If you are a long term loyal iPhone-AT&T customer (as I have been since the first iPhone two years ago) then you have to pay $499 instead of $299. How can this be? It is irritating millions of customers -- including me. The price gouging of more than 100% is being questioned as to whether it is ethical, sensible, reasonable or even legal. The FCC may be launching an inquiry as to the fairness of the "lock in".

The logic for the premium is that the iPhone 3G S does not really cost $200. The $200 is just a down payment and you pay the rest through the remaining months of your contract with AT&T. I have had an iPhone since day one and have paid the price of being an early adopter. But the arrangement between Apple and AT&T requires that i pay even more. If you haven't paid for enough months then you have to pay a premium to get the newest iPhone early. Most iPhone fans (including me) consider it gouging.

The next step was to sell the iPhone 3G on eBay. What to ask for it? A logical view would be to ask roughly $100 for it but looking at eBay listings it seemed people were asking and getting more. I looked at it from the perspective of a rational buyer and concluded that $169 was the ceiling. For $199 you could get a new 32 GB iPhone 3GS so I started the auction on my 16 GB iPhone 3G at $10 and set a "Buy Now" price of $169. Within less than 10 minutes my phone was sold. All things considered I am very happy with how things came out and now I have the latest and greatest features of the iPhone 3GS. I hope the lady in Minnesota who bought my iPhone 3G enjoys it as much as I have.

At some point Apple will be considered the "evil empire" -- they already are by some people. It goes in cycles. In the late seventies many thought IBM was taking over the world. Then in the eighties it was Microsoft. Then Google. Apple may be next and then probably someone we are not thinking about yet. For right now, Apple is on a major roll with a market capitalization of around $125 billion, just a tad less than GE. For me personally I have greatly enjoyed the many smart phones I have had over the years but at this point I can not imagine giving up my iPhone.

Other patrickWeb stories about the iPhone

Gadgets, Mobile, iPhone June 21, 2009 08:54 AM

Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Kindle 2

e-book And now we have the Kindle 2, the next generation wireless reading device. I am really pleased with so far. At just over 1/3 inch and 10.2 ounces, the new device is very sleek -- as thin as a typical magazine and lighter than a paperback. It is not radically different than the original Kindle but definitely a refinement of the user interface. The faster page turns are noticeable and the sixteen shades of gray instead of the current four makes the already sharp Kindle page sharper.

While the cell phone makers need three years to convert to the new micro USB standards-based charger, Amazon has already included it with Kindle 2. I think they have a winner on their hands. An analyst I heard today said that Amazon was cannibalizing it's book business. I think he missed the point. When Amazon sells a "real" book for $20 their cost will include the printing, binding, inclusion of a multi-color glossy dust jacket, picking the book from the warehouse shelf, packing it in a box, and loading it on a truck. When Amazon sells a "Kindlized" book for $10 their cost includes a server noticing the click on amazon.com or on a Kindle and the transmission of a few hundred thousand or so bytes of data over the air to the Kindle plus an infinitesimal amount of storage to keep a copy on their server. The only question is how many times greater the profit margin is in favor of the non-book book.

Other patrickWeb stories in the gadget category

Gadgets, Media February 26, 2009 04:07 PM

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Universal Cell Phone Charger

Cell phone with charger How many cell phone chargers have you thrown away in the last ten years? Not sure myself but a French study says that 2-3 million cell phone chargers become obsolete every month. The GSM Association says discarded chargers currently generate more than 51,000 tons of waste per year. Closets and drawers are strewn with old chargers and worse yet some of us have chargers plugged in that don't need to be because the phone is already fully charged. Chargers, chargers everywhere, but relief may be on the way.

The mobile phone industry group has announced that 17 wireless operators and handset makers have agreed to standardize chargers by 2012 for most of the cell phones they sell. The chargers would be interchangeable, evenutally making it possible to charge any phone that you own and new phones that you buy with the same charger. Imagine one small efficient charger in the kitchen that all family members could use as needed.

The initial group of companies that have joined the initiative include 3 Group, AT&T Inc., KTF, LG, mobilkom austria, Motorola Inc., Nokia Corp., Orange, Qualcomm Inc., Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefonica SA, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone PLC. The new standardized chargers would use the micro USB interface -- which is smaller than the more commonly used mini USB connector but has already been adopted in a few handsets, including the BlackBerry Storm. The new chargers will also meet higher energy efficiency targets -- with up to 50% energy savings achieved by cutting back power use when on standby. That is the good news. The bad news is that the GSM Association -- which has limited authority over the vendors -- has set the goal to have "the majority of all new mobile phone models" supporting the new chargers by January 1, 2012. That would be triple or more of the product design cycle for introducing new phones. The other bad news is that although an impressive list of companies has commited to the new standard, some key players are noticeable by their absence -- namely Apple, which is clinging to the legacy iPod connector, RIM and Palm.

Why isn't the goal 100% and why can't we get there sooner than 2012? European countries would prefer to use regulation to get the job done and there is certainly an argument for it. It was that line of thinking that created GSM phones that now work in most countries of the world. Standards definitely work -- that is why the Internet is the great resource that it is. It has been the U.S. that has been behind thanks to lack of competition, far too many lobbyists, and an FCC which is a politicial entity. Nevertheless, when it comes to power chargers I prefer a market based approach to a government mandated approach. Some will argue -- probably Apple -- that being forced to have the same power connector as everyone else will eliminate innovation. Maybe they will find a way that by just placing your iPhone near your Mac that electrons will jump through the air and charge the iPhone -- no charger, no connector. Maybe someone will invent a picture that hangs on the wall that emits electrical energy and can charge any device in the room -- no chargers, no connectors. MIT has successfully moved energy wirelessly -- albeit not very much and not very far. In the meantime I think the market will work. Let's say Palm heldout and was the only mobile phone producer that did not use the standard connector and required a unique charger. I would think their market share would decline. I predict Apple will be the only holdout.

Other patrickweb stories about music

Gadgets, Media, Motorcycles, Music January 26, 2008 05:45 PM

Monday, January 21, 2008

iPhone - Update No. 10

Mobile phone According to some people, the most important question about the iPhone is "does it blend?". Although quite amusing, the more important question to me is whether Apple is listening to the feedback of customers. In prior stories I have expressed confidence that there would be continuous improvement in the functionality of the iPhone. For the first six months I would give them a B+. The two big issues remain to be the applications and the network.

On the network side, I am still not very happy with AT&T primarily because of poor local coverage. However, I have learned about a new tower about two miles from my house that is scheduled to be turned on in late February. That could potentially make a dramatic difference for many people in my neck of the woods. In a few weeks I'll be in South Africa and will get a chance to see how the International aspects of the AT&T service work. Stay tuned on that.

The bigger question for most people is about applications. The "standalone" applications such as the calculator, calendar, photo gallery, clock, and offline email have not changed. There is still no "notes" application that syncs with anything and allows cut/copy/paste. The "networked" applications, such as stocks, weather, over the air email, and YouTube have not changed. iTunes has been improved and "maps" has had a huge improvement with the addition of a location function that uses radio signals to estimate your current location. Not as accurate as GPS but pretty good. I used it at the Albany airport this past weekend and it provided very good directions to where I was headed. The "Web 2.0" applications, through the Safari browser, are still a disappointment but I am sure there will be many useful webapps soon.

Webapps are most useful when they are connected to the network, preferably a fast one. The presumption with webapps is that the data -- travel itineraries, frequent flier numbers, healthcare information, personal financial information, etc. -- is on the server. That model only works if you can get to the server. With 16 GB likely on the way for new iPhones, there will be plenty of room for pictures and music and have space for local data. Local data will allow a lot of useful applications even when there is no available network connection.

The other limitation of webapps is the interface. In theory you can do anything in a web browser but the human interface is not always ideal. That is why millions of people use Quicken instead of quicken.com. This will change over time as web standards evolve but in the short term I believe there is a rational need for local applications. There are many applications that could be local applications with local storage on the iPhone. Both the app and data could be synchronized (backed up) through iTunes. What we are all anxiously waiting for are "third party local applications" on the iPhone as a supplement to Apple's apps and webapps. Apple announced that that they will have a development kit available in the first quarter and many are waiting to see what the SDK will allow and what "approvals" will be necessary and whether AT&T will have any say in "certifying" applications. The clock is ticking and I can hardly wait. Following the political scene is exciting but third party apps for the iPhone will be more exciting.

The most subtle change in the latest iPhone update last week was the ability to move the home screen icons around, and to create up to nine pages on which you can place icons or web address links. The iPhone comes with just seventeen icons. The home row plus nine screens of sixteen each will allow 148 applications. One that I am hoping for is Opera Mini.

Other patrickWeb stories about the iPhone

Gadgets, Mobile, Personal Computing, iPhone January 21, 2008 02:54 PM

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Innovations That Will Change Our Lives

The annual "IBM Next Five in Five" is a list of predicted innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years. The list is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s Labs around the world that could make these innovations possible. Following is a sampling of the five areas.

The press is covered with stories about all things "green". IBM believes the technology is actually going to make it easy to be green and save money in the process. A range of "smart energy" technologies will enable us to manage our personal "carbon footprint". As data begins to run through our home electrical system, appliances, air conditioners, lights, and computers, we will become connected to a "smart" electrical grid, making it possible to turn our appliances on and off using a web browser from a PC or cell phone. In addition to alerting you about leaving appliances on when they could be off, we will be able to establish rules to be followed to automatically conserve energy. Reports will show us electrical usage just like we track our cell phone minutes. Intelligent energy grids will also enable utilities to provide you with the option to use only green energy sources such as solar and wind.

The way we drive will be changing dramatically. In the next five years, IBM says our cars will connected to the roads we drive on and thereby we will be safer and remain out of traffic jams. The technology will keep traffic flowing smoothly, cut pollution, curb accidents, and make it easier and less stressful for us to get where we are going. Intelligent traffic systems will make real-time adjustments to traffic lights and divert traffic to alternate routes while our cars will communicate with each other and with sensors along the road -- allowing them to behave as if they have 'reflexes' so they can take preventive actions under dangerous conditions. When traffic is jammed up alternative routes will be activated.

Since we are what we eat, we should know what we eat. With foods being sourced across international borders, the need to know exactly what we eat has never been more important. According to IBM, in the next five years, new advancements in software and wireless radio sensor technologies will enable us to know the exact source and make-up of the food we buy -- the climate and soil the food was grown in, the pesticides and pollution it was exposed to, the energy consumed to create the product, and the temperature and air quality of the shipping containers it traveled in on the way to our dinner table.

In the next five years, IBM says our cell phones will become our wallets, ticket brokers, concierge, bank, shopping buddy, and tour guide. New technology will allow us to snap a picture of someone wearing an outfit we want and will automatically search the web to find the designer and the nearest shop that has the outfit in stock. We will then see what that outfit would look like on our personal avatar – a 3-D representation of our self on our phone, and ask our friends to check it out online and give their opinion. When we turn on our phone in a city we are visiting, it will automatically provide us with local entertainment options, activities, and dining options that match our preferences -- and then make reservations and purchase tickets for us.

Perhaps the most important area where IBM sees major advances is healthcare. Doctors will get enhanced “super-senses” to better diagnose and treat us. In the next five years, our doctor will be able to see, hear and understand our medical records in entirely new ways. In effect, doctor’s will gain superpowers – technologies will allow them to gain x-ray like vision to view medical images and super sensitive hearing to find the tiniest audio clue in our heart beat. Our avatar will allow doctors to click on a part of our body and then visualize the relevant information for that part of us. The hospital system will then be able to compare those visual and audio clues to thousands of other anonymous patient records and be able to be much more precise in diagnosing us and providing us with a personalized treatment plan.

Some of the innovations IBM is predicting may seem like a stretch but the basics of all of them are already in place. If we were to step back five years it is likely most of us would not have foreseen how we would be doing on the Internet today.

Other IBM annoncements made in December

Gadgets, Healthcare, Home Automation, IBM, Internet Technology, Mobile January 6, 2008 12:04 PM

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas 2007

Christmas Tree There is much that could be said about the hundreds of miles of driving to see family and then a houseful of family and good times before during and after Christmas. I won't bore readers of the blog about that but there is one thing I would like to share about one special gift I received. It is called Open It!

Some will immediately be thinking of Open IT as in "Open Information Technology". For example, Open IT Works is based on a simple concept borrowed from Open Source, and is about sharing of IT solutions, best practices, projects, and product and vendor reviews. The Open It I received for Christmas has nothing to do with any of that. My Open It is to open things that come packaged in blisters, clamshells, boxes DVD cases, and numerous other things unopenables that are packaged with the vendor in mind -- and with no thought about how the consumer might open the package without injuring oneself. The Open It is made from hardened and plated precision alloy steel, has has honed, angled, and offset jaws, and an ergo-comfortable handle. It has a built in retractable utility knife and an interchangeable Phillips & slotted screwdriver. (You can click here to get a complete product data sheet). If you have ever suffered "wrap rage", suffer no more. It really works. The only catch is that the Open It comes in one of those packages that you need an Open It to open it! Hopefully, I will not become the technical support department for this product like I did for the PepperBall.

Holiday time also allowed me to finish a couple of books. Indian Summer was an excellent history of India, Pakistan, Kashmir, and Bangladesh. The Iranian Time Bomb
is a wake up call to what has been going on for thirty years. Good investigative reporting went into this. It was a special pleasure to finish Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Prepare yourself for 944 pages. I learned many things I did not know about the civil war and about Abraham Lincoln. He was quite the political strategist and a superb manager. A very long read but worth it. Several new books in the read queue for January. The quarterly update on favorites is here.

Favorites, Gadgets, People, Travels December 26, 2007 01:12 PM

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Internet Phones

Telephone Today's Wall Street Journal story, "Web Phones Go Unplugged", summed it up pretty well. There is a convergence taking place between cell phones and Internet phones. Utopia has not quite arrived but at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month there was a slew of new announcements surrounding Vonage, Skype, and various new handsets. The "ideal" phone is very close.

Imagine that your "cell phone" is on your belt or in your pocket. You are at home. When you make a call, the connection goes through your DSL or Cable Modem over the Internet and through one of the VoIP providers such as Vonage. When the phone "rings", you will hear a voice saying who is calling and if you look at the phone you will see a picture of the person and the person will have a unique "ring" associated with them so you can tell just from the ring. When you get in the car with your Bluetooth headset on, you will be using the same phone that you were using in the house except that phone calls will use the cellular network. When you arrive at the airport, the phone will pick up the free WiFi service being offered and you will once again be able to use Vonage or Skype for unlimited long distance calling.

Some would argue that the environment I have described is already here. There are in fact quite a few products and services available. However, there are a few wrinkles. A seamless 911 system is not quite there. There are still some places you might be that have no reliable signal of any kind. A power failure at home can cut you off from communications if you don't have a good cellular signal or if your phone is dependent on a base station. Some telecommunications providers and airport operators are attempting to block free WiFi services. Finally, some of the devices have so many features that they are hard to adapt to for many people. In spite of the wrinkles, we are getting very close to the point where the Internet is pervasive in our lives for all forms of communications and interactions. I am sure we will see and hear much more about all this at the upcoming DEMO conference.

Other patrickWeb stories about Long Distance

Conferences, Gadgets, Home Automation, Internet Technology, Mobile January 12, 2006 08:29 AM

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The Fly

Fly The fly is quite an amazing creature with wings that can flap 200 times per second, and aerodynamic capabilities at 6 miles per hour that include flying straight up, straight down, or backwards and somersault to an upside down landing on a ceiling. What appear to be two eyes are actually two compound eyes each of which contains 6,000 miniature hexagonal eyes called ommatidia. The fly can outmaneuver any man-made machine at low speeds and do so with very little power. While the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has three shoe-box sized PowerPC-based computers aboard, the fly uses just a few hundred of the neurons in it's brain.

Rafal Zbikowski in the United Kingdom has been studying the fly for a long time with the hope of building a Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV). The insect-like MAV would be a small hand-held flying vehicle that could be used for the purpose of reconnoitering in confined spaces, for example, inside buildings, tunnels and shafts that might be very dangerous places for humans to visit. For example, looking in a dangerous coal mine for survivors of a flood or explosion and other hazardous situations. The military potential is even more dramatic. Imagine a fly-like device intruding a terrorist hideout and hovering while gathering information that could result in saving the lives of innocent people.

The engineering challenges are formidable but there is much focus on emulating the insect-like flapping and actually building an artificial replica of the amazing fly. A workshop on "Reverse Engineering of Insect Flight Control" was conducted to bring the key players together. They are really serious about this and have great respect for the fly.

The rest of us may marvel at the fly at times but their annoying presence also explains the invention of the fly swatter.

Gadgets November 15, 2005 01:37 PM

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

The PepperBall Log

After so many emails about the PepperBall (see below), I decided to establish The Pepper Ball Log to share some of the inquiries. There is also a new link to enable readers to be able to buy a PepperBall. Chef'n is a leading innovator in the kitchen housewares industry and it seems to be a company moving in fast forward with a passion for innovation. An inventive young man, David Holcomb, had an idea in the early 1980's to replace plastic container from which you would shake dry flakes of garlic with the Garlic Machine. It also used to be that the only cracked pepper you saw was if someone dropped the shaker on the floor -- until Mr. Holcomb invented the PepperBall.

Gadgets July 26, 2005 04:00 PM

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Demo@15

Toolbox Of all the many conferences I attend each year, my favorite is Demo. Many conferences offer insight in various ways. All conferences offer a chance to network with friends and colleagues from the industry. Only Demo offers the chance to meet with the top couple of people from dozens of technology companies, see their product in action, and discuss their plans and strategies with them. The conference is attended by analysts, consultants, editors, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs. This year was special because it was the fifteenth year of Demo. There were several people there who had attended fourteen of the fifteen (I have been to thirteen of them). There were 73 companies showing off their new offerings.

Various stories have appeared in the media about Demo this week and news about the conference will reach 250 million people around the world via print and online media. Chris Shipley is the Executive Producer for DEMO Conferences and she always opens the conference with her vision of where things are headed and what technologies will have the biggest impact. Half or so of the companies get six minutes to tell their story and do their demo on stage -- others get one minute. During half of the morning and half of the afternoon, the 750 attendees get to mingle at the company booths. Needless to say, a lot of networking occurs and much of it leads to new relationships and in some cases financing.

Chris says that she gets to be like a kid in a candy store - she looks at more than a thousand companies in order to select the ones that present at Demo. At breaks, colleagues always ask each other "see anything you like?". I always do. It is hard to summarize the excitement I felt for what I saw. I'll highlight a few things I saw but you can see a one page summary and link for each company on the list of demonstrators. (read more)

Conferences, Gadgets, Internet Technology, Personal Computing February 17, 2005 05:43 PM

Monday, January 10, 2005

Heathkits: A Walk Down Memory Lane

I got a note from Harry Schultz in Tennessee about the Heathkit story from this past May. For Harry (and me) the story brought back many good memories. Harry grew up in St. Joseph, Michigan and, like me, enjoyed putting together many Heathkits while a teenager. After graduation from the University of Michigan, Harry actually worked at Heath Co and became a charter member of the initial computer group that brought out the H-8. The Heathkit H-8 was an early entry into the personal computer market. Harry says that is was more like the Altair and Imsai systems of the day than the more complete Apple, Commodore and Radio Shack entries. The H-8 consisted of a "power supply and a number of slots into which processor, RAM and IO cards were plugged". The user interface was the front panel which consisted of a small LED display and a 16 key keypad for data entry. Harry wrote some of the original software for the H-8. For both Harry and I, a brief reflection on Heathkits was a walk down memory lane.

Original Heathkit story
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Gadgets January 10, 2005 10:57 PM

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

iTrike Riding

Trike It was not exactly a sunny and warm day but, as long as the roads are dry, I like to go out for a motorcycle ride on Sunday afternoons. Winter riding is actually very nice and refreshing -- as long as you have the electric vest and gloves plugged in. They really did the job today when the wind chill was in was single digit territory. Today's ride was on the trike through lower Westchester County, New York and was especially enjoyable because I listened to some great music from the Harley-Davidson MP3 player. The music came from iTunes, hence the term "iTrike Riding". First I will review the motorcycling and digital technology involved and then discuss some of the issues and implications. (read more)

Gadgets, Mobile, Motorcycles, Music, Personal Computing December 15, 2004 10:06 AM

Tuesday, January 6, 2004

Personal Medical Technology

The Body Fat Scale has prompted as much feedback as the future of the Internet! This will be the last story about it though. Perhaps it is holiday gadget gift giving that is behind the interest or perhaps it is a desire that many people have to focus on their physical condition at the beginning of a new year. One reader reports that he has had a body fat scale for some time and found it to be "reasonably accurate, consistent, and reliable". He pointed out that the key with body fat measurements is the trend line, not the absolute number. More importantly, the reader related the measurement of body fat to the much larger issue of measuring other things about our bodies using personal medical technology. Being a member of the technology committee of a hospital board, I immediately related to his comments. (read more)

Gadgets, Healthcare January 6, 2004 09:27 PM

Monday, December 29, 2003

Body Fat Scale - Reader Feedback

Feedback about the Body Fat Scale has ranged from "why bother" to "wow, didn't know about that". There was also constructive feedback from Tony, who endorsed the need to monitor both weight and body-fat. "I'm 46, with a family history of heart disease. I have mild hypertension, Type II diabetes and I'm slightly overweight and over-fat", he said. Tony cautioned that one thing to be aware of is the reliability of body fat impedance measurements. (read more)

Gadgets December 29, 2003 10:22 PM

Sunday, December 28, 2003

Tanita Body Fat Monitor/Scale

I can't say that I am in the best possible physical condition, but I do work hard at staying fit. When I received a Tanita Body Fat Monitor/Scale as a gift this week, I hope it was more about my love of gadgets than a different implication. The theory behind having a way to measure how much body fat you have is that it is an important element of your fitness. Weight alone is not a clear indicator of good health because it does not distinguish between pounds that come from body fat and those that come from lean body mass or muscle. Too much fat is often called obesity, and most health experts would agree that obesity puts a person at risk for many serious medical conditions. (read more)

Gadgets December 28, 2003 01:17 PM

Thursday, November 27, 2003

The PepperBall Log

After so many emails about the PepperBall (see below), I decided to establish The Pepper Ball Log share some of the inquiries. There is also a new link to enable readers to be able to buy a PepperBall. Chef'n is a leading innovator in the kitchen housewares industry and it seems to be a company moving in fast forward with a passion for innovation. An inventive young man, David Holcomb, had an idea in the early 1980's to replace plastic container from which you would shake dry flakes of garlic with the Garlic Machine. It also used to be that the only cracked pepper you saw was if someone dropped the shaker on the floor -- until Mr. Holcomb invented the PepperBall.

Most people that visit patrickWeb are looking for stories about WiFi, blogging, or Internet technology, but the subject that results in the most emails is the PepperBall. I hope you enjoy the log that follows. Fortunately, I have been able to help all those who have written. (read more).

Gadgets November 27, 2003 11:46 AM

Sunday, October 12, 2003

WD-40 Origin

Thanks to Chris Forbes at Knovel Corporation for explaining what the 40 in WD-40 means. He says, "It took them 40 attempts to get the water displacing formula worked out". Chris also says that the name came from "Water Displacement perfected on the 40th try". They obviously did a really good job because the original secret formula for WD-40 is still in use after fifty years. I always have a few cans around the shop.

Gadgets October 12, 2003 11:11 AM

Saturday, August 2, 2003

Anyone Remember Heathkits?

In the late 1950's and early 1960's, when I was a teenager, building electronic kits from Heathkit was my favorite hobby. During the Heathkit era which lasted from the late 1940's through the mid 1980's, it was possible to build a wide range of things from hi-fi/stereo and ham radio to computers, radio control, and home electronics. Heathkits were first marketed by mail-order, with advertisements appearing in electronics and amateur radio publications such as Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics, CQ and QST. I eagerly awaited the next issue of these magazines to see if Heath had introduced any new kits. Even more exciting was the arrival of a new Heathkit catalog. The largest kit I ever built was the TX-1 "Apache" Ham Transmitter. (read more)

Gadgets August 2, 2003 12:37 PM

Friday, August 1, 2003

USB - What Next?

There is no end to the creativity of the technology industry. The USB (universal serial bus) had the primary goal of creating a more compact, instant, hassle-free way to connect a keyboard, mouse, printer, digital joystick, scanner, set of digital speakers, digital camera, or PC telephone to a PC. Prior to the sleek and simple USB cables we had big and bulky serial and parallel cables. If you had more than one serial device, then you needed a special box with multiple cable connections and you ended up with a mess of cables. Adding a non-USB peripheral device to a PC can be a non-trivial task that requires a lot of technical savvy and a certain amount of luck. First you have to figure out which port to use and then, in most cases, you have to pry open your PC to install an add-in card, set special switches, and figure out various "settings". USB makes adding peripheral devices really easy. First, USB replaces all the different kinds of serial and parallel port connectors with one standardized plug and port combination. With USB-compliant PCs and peripherals, you just plug them in and turn them on. What's next? (read more)

Gadgets, Personal Computing August 1, 2003 09:53 AM

Saturday, May 24, 2003

How To Fill A Pepper Ball

Gadgets May 24, 2003 03:15 PM

Saturday, May 10, 2003

Wind Chill

It was supposed to be a warm and sunny day. I had a long ride ahead of me from Pennsylvania through New York to Connecticut on Interstate 84. The temperature barely got above 55, and there was no blue sky or sun to be seen. A slight drizzle was in the air, although fortunately, I did not encounter the scattered showers. Riding a motorcycle in 55 degree weather may not sound unreasonably cold until you consider the wind chill I have always been curious about exactly what wind chill means, so I did a bit of research on it. Basically, it has to do with how cold a person feels due to the effect of wind. Not a big revelation. The calculations are based on a formula, which was arrived at through empirical means. The literature consistently makes the point that the calculation of wind chill is just an approximation but you would not think so based on the formula. (read more)

Gadgets May 10, 2003 02:06 PM

Friday, April 18, 2003

Always On -- almost

For a number of years I have been talking about the next generation of the Internet -- Fast, Always on, and Everywhere. (There is a chapter on each of these characteristics in my book, Net Attitude). Although we have a long way to go, I think we have now reached the tipping point. WiFi is a major contributor to that. It doesn't�t seem that long ago that I was at the Holiday Inn in Beijing and felt relieved that I could get connected at 1,200 bits per second and in Prague with a pair if pliers and screwdriver re-wiring a wall jack to get connected. We all have many similar stories from throughout the world � including in America. But, times have changed. (read more)

Gadgets April 18, 2003 04:48 PM

Sunday, November 10, 2002

Stupid

We arrived at our destination for the night and unloaded the car. When I removed the key from the ignition switch, the car beeped to warn me that the headlights were still turned on. It was my wife's car and I am not as familiar with things as with my own car and I wondered if the lights would go off automatically after a minute or two like many other cars. I decided to find out so I shut the door and went inside and sat down. Then I decided to turn on my ThinkPad and since WiFi instantly came to life I was soon checking email and soon thereafter had forgotten my experiment. The next morning the car was as dead as a doornail. I felt stupid. Ok, it was a stupid mistake. (Webster: stupid = "acting in an unintelligent or careless manner"). Things went downhill from there. (read more)

Gadgets November 10, 2002 10:25 PM

Saturday, November 9, 2002

Speedpass - part 2

Recently my speedpass stopped working as I described in a prior posting.The nice folks at Speedpass sent me a replacement for the broken one and my others too. I was surprised to find that the Speedpass had a battery in it and still wonder why they didn't just tell me to go to Radio Shack and get a replacement battery. I will call them today and give them the serial numbers on the old Speedpasses so they can't be used. The speedpass from one of my motorcycles (picture of card tag on Harley) had the serial number worn off and so I decided to destroy it. I was really curious to see what was inside of it anyway. After a half hour I would have to describe the Speedpass as indestructible! It finally took a pneumatic saw to peel back the electronics inside. Fairly simple -- in addition to the battery, there is an antenna, a small circuit board with one electronic element on it. Built to withstand nuclear attack. Here is a picture of the remains.

Gadgets November 9, 2002 11:49 AM

Sunday, July 14, 2002

Some Assembly Required

I have been struggling to rehabilitate my knee for more than a year now. After running for so many years, it is really hard to do without it. Doctors have recommended swimming but I am not a good swimmer and swimming has never appealed to me. I finally took the plunge and bought a Nordic Track Model CXT-910 elliptical cross-trainer from the local Sears store. I asked the sales clerk if it had to be put together. Yes, he said, "some assembly required". You have to "attach the arms to the base". That didn't seem like much -- until I got it home, opened the box, looked at the parts list in the owner's manual and found out that there were 249 parts! (read more)

Gadgets July 14, 2002 02:45 PM

Thursday, January 3, 2002

The Pepper Ball

One of the joys of having a personal web site is the feedback received from people all over the world. Through the years -- since 1994 -- this has been a source of much learning for me. Once in a while I receive a flame or barb or criticism or crazy question but for the most part the email has been very sincere and thoughtful. Of the many subjects I have written about on patrickWeb, the one thing that elicited the most feedback is The Pepper Ball. (read more)

Gadgets January 3, 2002 01:25 PM