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Home Automation

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

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Solar

Alternative energy -- sources that have no undesired consequences unlike fossil fuels or nuclear energy -- are renewable and are often thought of as "free". There are billions of dollars being spent on alternative energy but there clearly are benefits compared to conventional energy sources. The alternative sources include biomass, wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric the tides and other things. There is controversy over how much of the world's total energy needs can be met by the collective output of alternative energy sources but I had thought there was general agreement that even if it is 10% or even less that it was a good thing. I had written a story about wind turbines and much to my surprise there was a lot of pushback about whether it was a good thing at all.

It is reasonable to assume that all the various alternatives have their pluses and minuses, but of them all, it seems to me that solar is the ultimate solution. It may take a long time but solar has the potential to be the dominant -- maybe the only -- source of energy in the long run for the entire world. IBM says that energy saving solar technology will be built into asphalt, paint and windows. There could be huge savings by having solar heat embedded in our sidewalks, driveways, siding, paint, rooftops, and windows. The cost of solar is going to drop with the creation of "thin-film" solar cells that can be 100 times thinner than today's materials. The new material can be "printed" and arranged on a flexible backing, suitable for not only the tops but also the sides of buildings.

I had a catch-up call last week with my friend James Marlow -- founder of a solar startup based in Atlanta called Radiance Energies where he is focusing on solar thermal hot water systems for commercial customers. James sees great potential for solar energy. "Solar is not the only solution for our energy challenges but it is a serious part of the solution", he says. We compared notes on the government role in solar and agreed that there is a hodgepodge at the state level. In Connecticut there is an incentive to install solar but the assistance has an income cutoff level. People who could afford significant systems are not eligible for the assistance. People who are eligible often still can't afford the systems. Go figure.

Energy, Home Automation, On Demand, Public Policy January 19, 2010 10:00 AM

Monday, June 9, 2008

Roku

Television About fifteen years ago one of my children worked at Blockbuster. One day I told him that Bockbuster would be history because people would be downloading their movies from the Internet. Yeah, right Dad. Ok, I was a bit ahead of my time. In the intervening years there have been numerous companies started to offer various ways to get movies via the Net but none have gotten much traction. The most successful innovation has been Netflix which offers 100,000 movies and an incredibly efficient distribution system for DVDs. The barriers to a downloading or streaming approach have included technology cost, inadequate bandwidth, complexity, device incompatibilities, and intellectual property concerns.

Then along came the Netflix Roku. The snazzy new device may be like manna from heaven for movie lovers. I have had previous experience with Roku. A few years ago I installed a Roku box for pictures. It enables the display of digital pictures on any TV in the house via the home local area network and can be a nice thing at holiday time. The Roku for Netflix movies is a fraction of the size and allows watching up to 10,000 movies or TV episodes on any TV in the house, if you have a video distribution system, or if you don't then you can use the Roku with the TV of your choice -- home theatre, HD, non-HD, any TV. I took the Roku out of the box, plugged in the power supply, and connected the cables to the video jacks. You then need to connect the Roku to the Internet. You can either plug it into your home LAN or connect via WiFi. The hookup took about three minutes. The TV then displays a code which you enter at netflix.com and you are then activated. A new tab is added to your account at Netflix labeled "Watch Instantly". You make a selection and it shows up on the Roku screen on your TV. You push the play button on the Roku remote and the movie starts streaming. I was watching a movie within five minutes of taking the Roku out of the box.

Streaming is different than downloading. There is no hard drive on the Roku. The movie comes from a server at Netflix directly to the Roku. Some buffering obviously takes place as I detected no jitters or pixelation. I was quite impressed with the quality. Looks like a DVD. Does this mean the end of DVDs? Yes, but it will take quite a while. Music is shifting to digital but there are still a lot of CDs sold. The transition for DVDs will take longer for a number of reasons. Streaming requires a stable and reliable one million bit per second connection. In theory, any DSL or Cable Internet provider should be able to provide that but in practice it is spotty. The trend is certainly in the right direction. HD streaming is not yet available but surely it will soon. That will require more bandwidth. So far only 10% of the Netflix collection is available for streaming. Not sure how fast they will be able to convert the rest.

The pricing is good. If you already subscribe to Netflix under any plan of $9.99 per month or more then you get unlimited streaming at no extra cost. The Roku unit is $99 plus shipping. Movies and TV episodes are selected via the web site just like picking a DVD. All things considered, I think Netflix and Roku hit a home run. Not perfect but you can see the beginning of the end of DVDs.

Gadgets, Home Automation, Media, Personal Computing, WiFi June 9, 2008 06:00 PM

Sunday, June 1, 2008

The Home Office

I have been experimenting with the design of a home office for decades. Since most of my hobbies (except motorcycling) take place at home and also being a longtime believer in telecommuting, the home office is where I spend the most time. It did not make sense to me to have an expensive living room and use it once per year and have an inexpensive home office that gets used every day -- when not traveling.

Even though WiFi is a big help, there are still a lot of wires, cables, devices, and power supplies scattered around an office. In a previous home I had built a false wall beneath a desktop and was able to hide most of the cables. It was not perfect but it convinced me that much more could be doneto make a home office efficient and comfortable.

At the end of 2001 it was time for e-tirement and I decided to design a home office in the new home we were building. With the assistance of Neal Zimmerman, a home office architect in West Hartford, Connecticut, a lot of ideas came together. Neal is quite famous as an office designer and is author of At Work At Home. The project has lead to many press inquiries which in turn resulted in two TV stories and quite a few magazine features about the room where I spend most of my time. There are references to the coverage in both the home automation and "in the news" categories of patrickWeb.

The latest story just appeared last week and is called "Designing a Dream Home Office". The interview and story were done by Diana Ransom at SmartMoney.com.

Home Automation, People June 1, 2008 02:00 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

Thursday, November 1, 2007

WiFi Update No. 15

WiFi Antenna JiWire is now listing 202,894 WiFi hotspots in 135 countries. Where is Wifi headed? I don’t claim to have a crystal ball but I believe the evolution continues to look very much like what we have seen before with the Internet and the World Wide Web. There was a long list of reasons fifteen years ago for why the Web would never turn into something serious -- certainly not into something that could be used for secure business transactions. The same list of shortcomings is at times attributed to WiFi even today – security, scalability, reliability, business model, etc. Just like the Web, WiFi is grass roots, standards based, and very decentralized. Just like with the Web, WiFi has become mainstream. The benefits are compelling. There are active debates about whether WiMax will replace WiFi -- it may or may not. (See WiFi Update No. 8 for more about WiMax). Odds look good to me at this point but not a sure thing. What is a sure thing is the continued evolution and adoption of wireless broadband.

WiFi and other wireless technologies are making the Internet “always on” and extending it to more people and more devices at more locations. This will result in more people doing more transactions which in turn will fuel the continued growth of information technology spending which in turn will provide more productivity to the economy. The constant question over the past fifteen years has been about where the money is in WiFi. The ultimate beneficiaries are consumers but the information technology industry will continue to benefit also as hardware, software and services will be needed to support the growth.

WiFi will have a major impact on the telecommunications industry. The iPhone is the tip of the iceberg. The telecommunications companies have made a quiet embrace on WiFi but don't really want it to catch on too fast so that people can use Skype for a call to Europe for a few cents per minute instead of a cellular call for $1.49 per minute. In the long run the increase in Internet usage made possible by WiFi will mean more “bits on the wire”; i.e. more traffic and utilization of the backbones of the Internet which are provided by the telecom industry. In spite of the slow embrace, the telcos will find that Internet telephony will emerge as a major application on the Net even though it will help reduce "long distance" revenue dramatically. More devices with WiFi will mean more choices for consumers -- something that the telcos don't like. They would much rather see us locked into a two year contract with a phone of their choice. They won't be able to do that much longer as consumers wake up to what is possible.

The telecommunications industry needs to start thinking differently about the Internet. Especially in the U.S. they still think that the Internet is one of the many services that you can get via a telecom service. Unfortunately, they have it backwards. Internet telephony (a voice conversation) is one of the many things you can do with the Internet! “Voice” is just another Internet application. The handwriting is on the wall.

WiFi hardware for home and business has become very affordable and reliable. Doesn't seem that long ago that a WiFi access point was more than $1,000, required a lot of electricity, and had limited speed, poor security, and utilized a very early version of the 802.11 standard. Last month I installed a Linksys "Wireless-N Gigabit Security Router with VPN". The standard has evolved from "b" to "g" to "n" with increasingly better security, speed, and range. What I like most about this new device is the VPN feature. A Virtual Private Network is not a new idea but the implementation of the VPN in the new Linksys device is impressive. A second unit is installed at the "getaway" house in Pennsylvania. A simple procedure lets you create a "tunnel" between the two houses directly from one router to the other. You can be in either place and have access to everything on a computer int he other place just as though it was plugged into the local area network. It basically allows a LAN (local) at each end to be connected by the WAN (wide area network aka the Internet). All the trafic through the "tunnel" is encrypted. There are many uses but most important to me are security and HVAC control. From either house it is very simple to check the temperature at the other, turn the heat up or down, set or reset security, or "see" what is going on through a web camera. You can also install a VPN client on your laptop and have "local" access to both homes while you are on the road.

Meanwhile, computer engineers at the University of Massachusetts have built a wireless communications network called TurtleNet which includes waterproof computers attached to the shells of snapping turtles. Without disturbing any of the daily activities, the turtles can swap information whenever they within 500 feet of each other. The biologists believe that the data gained will help the species in the long run.

Subway Surfing (first patrickWeb WiFi story)

Archive of other patrickWeb WiFi stories

Pringles Can (The Famous)

WiFi Antennas

Wireless Communities

Home Automation, Internet Technology, WiFi November 1, 2007 09:46 PM

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

New Home for patrickWeb

Server It was time for patrickWeb to get a new home. The original site -- ibm.com/patrick -- was setup in 1995 and IBM has been kind enough to continue to maintain the link. Then, after e-tirement at the end of 2001, I setup patrickWeb. For the first year I rented some server space in New York and then in 2003 moved patrickWeb over to Interland which was subsequently acquired and became Peer1. The dedicated IBM server at Peer1 in Miami has been very good for the past four years but managing it has become a bit complex and time consuming. With all the bad guys out there trying to hack into anything and everything there is a need for near constant surveillance -- even with all the automated tools. I decided that having a shared server with constant and professional monitoring was better than having a dedicated server with part time security inspections. patrickWeb's new home is at DreamHost.

DreamHost is an employee owned company. They seem to have a passion for providing solid web hosting at a very affordable price. For $7.95 per month you get more capacity than I can imagine using. They have no telephone support but the combination of a really good interface to their hosting environment plus a good Knowledgebase and normally responsive email support makes me feel confident. One thing I like is their status page where you can always see what is going on. Adding and managing databases is a piece of cake and Dreamhost includes full backup "snapshots" of your data at various regular intervals -- hourly, daily, and weekly.

Last weekend I bit the bullet and began the move of patrickWeb and other sites and related email that I manage over to Dreamhost. I changed the DNS servers at Network Solutions to point to the Dreamhost servers in Los Angeles instead of the Peer1 server in Miami. The change propagated through the Internet in a roughly a day and most everything works. There are a few glitches on patrickWeb that I haven't figured out yet. If you see some pages on the site that have a missing menu, that is one of the issues I am working on. Feedback on broken things is always welcome.

The cost, speed, and reliability of DreamHost is just one more reminder of how much the Internet is being woven into our lives. Not that long ago it was necessary to get a CD and install software on your PC to be enabled to utilize an application. Now you can get almost any application online. In the early days of dial-up modem connections to the Internet it wasn't practical to depend on the Net for applications. With "always-on" connections, high speed, dramatically low cost storage, and impressive new Web 2.0 interfaces (such as kayak.com), the Internet is really becoming the computer. The next phase is surely going to move that capability to our handheld and mobile devices. The Nintendo Wii with WiFi and the Opera browser offers a glimpse of the future that is right in front of us.

Home Automation, Internet Technology, Personal Computing April 18, 2007 02:12 PM

Friday, March 23, 2007

Home Automation (update)

Thanks for all the feedback on the BusinessWeek magazine and video pieces. Seems to be a lot of interest in home automation. I will continue working on the series of stories that I promised. I just realized that BW has archived the video version of the story. It is still available and I have updated the link below. Unfortunately, you have to watch a short video advertisement at the beginning. I don't like this as you may have gathered from my various stories about advertising.

The story ran in the January 22, 2007 issue of the magazine, pages 82-83.The follow-on filming ended up on BusinessWeek Weekend (carried by ABC-TV) on the Sunday after Christmas. Here are links to the story and video.

King Of His Digital Castle (magazine)
Ultimate Wired Home: A look at a computer-controlled home (video)

Not so sure about "master" and I certainly don't think of my home as a "castle" but now that the cat is out of the bag, I have decided to write a series of stories to share the details about the home automation system in the hope that it will be useful to others. I will include what went into the planning, what technology choices I made, the design choices, and what I have learned. Stay tuned.

Home Automation March 23, 2007 03:40 PM

Friday, January 26, 2007

Home Automation - Part 2 (Planning)

Home automation planning The most important step in home automation is planning. You can spend more than all of your money in addition to getting very frustrated if you don't have a good plan. The great thing about home automation is that you can do almost anything. That can also be the greatest pitfall and turn into a money pit. The first step in developing a plan is to establish the scope.

Home automation is a broad term. I would define it simply as automating things in your home. The age-old and most trivial example is the "automated" coffee pot that comes on automatically at a certain time and when you arrive in the kitchen the coffee is ready. At the other end might be an automated home theatre. When you push the "Watch a movie" button in the kitchen, the lighting begins to dim behind you and light up in front of you on your way into the theatre. As the screen comes down from the ceiling, the projector rises from a cabinet in front of it. As the projector bulb warms up the lighting in the theatre synchronously dims until it is movie time. There is a wide range of things in between these two examples. I would break the scope into the following areas below. Any one of them can add a lot of fun and functionality.

System design
Security
Lighting control
Audio distribution
Video distribution
Universal remotes
Home theatre
Appliance control
Spa control
Sensors
Remote access

These are the nine areas I will be writing about and then will conclude with stories on project management and changes and upgrades. I don't mean to imply by the outline that I have all the answers on the topics. My intent is to share what I have learned in hope that it will be useful to others.

It is also important to think about what is not part of the scope of your home automation endeavors. One example that we decided to exclude is irrigation. The Irritrol Total Control system has four independent programs which offer concurrent operation seven days per week or only odd days or even days. It is totally reliable and totally flexible. It is tied to a roof sensor so it doesn't irrigate when it is raining. In other words, it does everything you could imagine and it is really easy to use. Why would anyone want to automate something that is automated? There actually are some examples that I will explain in the security and spa control areas but for something as self-contained as an irrigation system there is really nothing to be gained by tying the irrigation sub-system into an overall system.

You actually can tie an Irritrol system to your PC and do the control from there. Unfortunately, most sub-systems that are "PC Controlled" require Windows. One of the decisions I made as part of my scope was not to use Windows. Have you ever had to re-boot your PC? Would you like to re-boot your house? Me neither. If you decide to go with a Windows approach I highly recommend using a dedicated system. It doesn't have to be the latest or greatest and does not require a big video display. For less than $500 you can get a PC and put it in the basement or out of the way.

The other area that we excluded from the overall system is digital door locks. I investigated this quite a bit and found some interesting technology, including fingerprint activated locks. There are advantages to having a system know when a door was opened or closed but that can be accomplished in other ways that I will describe when we get to "sensors". Bottom line, based on the technology available and the appearance of the locks, I decided that getting into the house should not be dependent on a central system, no matter how reliable it is. We chose the Weiser Powerbolt Digital locks for all the doors.

Not sure how long it is going to take me to write the remaining dozen or so stories and there will likely be other topics and stories interspersed. Stay tuned.

Home Automation January 26, 2007 10:07 PM

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Home Automation

Home automation has been one of my hobbies for more than twenty-five years. In the early days it was mostly lighting control using X10 technology. There was a PC program written by a researcher at IBM's Almaden Research Center that calculated the precise time of the daily sunset and at that time signal went across the electrical wiring of the house and turned on some exterior lighting. At midnight the lights would turn off. Since that time I have learned a lot about home automation and after Year 2000, when I began to think about e-tirement from IBM, I also started planning a new "smart home". It became home at the end of March 2002.

I have not written about my home up to this point, somewhat out of modesty but also not sure how many people are interested in home automation. I ran into Steve Hamm from BusinessWeek last April in Rome at the Business Leadership Forum and he convinced me to open up about the subject. Steve visited in September and I was confident he would write something thoughtful. There was a follow-on visit by BusinessWeek TV and Greg Clarkin. Their filming ended up on BusinessWeek Weekend (carried by ABC-TV) on the Sunday after Christmas. The story ran in the January 22, 2007 issue, pages 82-83. Here are links to the story and video.

Ultimate Wired Home: A look at a computer-controlled home
King Of His Digital Castle

Home Automation January 21, 2007 11:14 AM

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, May 10, 2005

CoolSentry Paging

Pager You would think by now that there would be no pagers in use - it seems like everyone has a mobile phone. In fact, traditional pagers and paging services are on the decline, but there is valuable paging bandwidth that can be used for other purposes -- like the CoolSentry program. Today, a technician from SolvIt stopped by the house and installed CoolSentry devices on the compressors of our air conditioning system.

Like many parts of America, Connecticut has an electrical distribution system that is not designed to cope with the increased demands that are placed on it from growth of business and residential needs. In the event of a surge in demand, such as during a blistering hot summer afternoon, the result can be a blackout. The CoolSentry program is designed to help prevent blackouts through better management of electrical usage. If a surge in demand occurs during the summer, the power company will use a paging signal to activate the devices attached to air conditioning compressors and turn off the compressor for 20 minutes per hour. Some power is left running to keep the compressor fan turning even though the compressor itself is not running. The result is less electrical demand in the system with little or no noticeable effect on the air conditioning. The installation technician told me that he and eight other technicians were each doing 10-15 homes per day. CoolSentry is a good example of wireless technology at work to stave off potentially very negative problems. Paging lives on even if the pagers don't!.

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Home Automation May 10, 2005 10:48 AM

Wednesday, July 9, 2003

Cable Distribution

Today was the day to get some home automation projects wrapped up. There is a lot to write about on the subject of home automation, but that will be for another day. This story is about the impact of the Internet on manufacturing and distribution. Completion of the home automation project required a very special cable -- DB9 Serial with some wiring modifications on one end and RJ-11 on the other end. The cable is not the center of the story (for those interested in details about the cable, click here). The story is about how to procure this arcane cable. I was going to go to Radio Shack, buy a blank DB9 connector and make the cable myself but when I realized how long it would take to get to the store, do the splicing, test it out, and probably do some re-work, I decided to look on the web and see if I could find the cable and get overnight delivery. (read more)

Home Automation, e-Business July 9, 2003 06:48 PM

Friday, August 23, 2002

Gadgets 'R Me

Years ago I was into hot dog cookers, pasta makers, and other bizarre gadgets which my wife has gotten rid of at garage sales! Since my first TRS-80 Microcomputer in 1977 my gadgets have mostly been electronic. Gadgets go way back to the beginning for me. As long as I can remember -- tinker toys, Lincoln logs, erector sets, chemistry sets, and ham radio. Too bad they didn't have LEGO's when I was little. (read more)

Home Automation August 23, 2002 08:43 AM