loose wire blog

The Size of the Future

(This is a guest post from a friend and long-time colleague, Robin Lubbock of WBUR, who will be contributing to Loose Wire Blog. You can read his blog, the Future of New(s), here.)

Why don't you buy hard-back books? Either they are too expensive, or too big. They are too big to comfortably hold in one hand. So if you're sitting in bed trying to read you've got to find a way to prop the thing up. Not a hurdle you can't overcome. But an inconvenience.

Now think about the reader of the future. It's the same issues. Size, readability, and cost. Any lessons you've learned from book reading, apply them to the electronic book and you'll be imagining the electronic reader of the future.

So why hasn't anyone made a good electronic book yet?

I was in Staples the other day and an assistant asked me what I wanted. I said "I want something about three or four times the size of an iPhone which I can use for browsing the Web when I'm in bed." He said they had nothing like that, but he wanted one too.

So when I saw photos of a group of proposed readers in an article by John Markoff in the New York Times this weekend I thought my dream had come true.

But Markoff has a different view. He says he also used to think he was looking for a mid-sized reader for the Web. He went over some of the issues. But he reached the conclusion that although chip power means that you can't get book performance out of a phone sized reader yet, people could be comfortable reading newspapers on a three-and-a-half-inch screen.

I took his implication to be that if people are happy with a small screen for reading newspapers and blogs, there will be no call for a mid-sized reader.

But I still want one. And I still believe the company that successfully develops a tool that has the same benefits as a novel, in usability, portability and ruggedness, will make a fortune.

My Technology-free Lunch

At lunch today, it took me some time to realise what was different. It wasn't just that my four lunch partners were all quite a bit older than me--15 years, at least, and I'm not as young as you think I am. It was, I realised, that in more than two hours of eating not one of us had answered a phone--or even received a phone call, or text message, or furtively checked our email. I'm not sure any of us were packing a BlackBerry. Maybe my companions weren't even carrying cellphones. It was extraordinary.

I was going to ask, but I didn't want to ruin the moment. Here were five men sitting around a table talking about stuff for about 120 minutes, and not one single interruption by technology or modern communications. They weren't even in sight: Not one of us had put a phone on the table in the usual custom of staking out one's corner of the table. It felt like a flashback to the early 1990s. And it was great.

A recent survey in the UK highlights how mad we've become:

Our liking for modern technology may be disrupting our sleep - and even our relationships, claims a UK survey.

The poll, by The Sleep Council, found that many people admitted checking texts, surfing the internet, or playing games in bed.

It suggests one in four people now regularly sleeps in a different bed from their partner, and many often go to bed at different times.

God I miss the old days.

(And no, it wasn't a boozy lunch. No alcohol in sight.)

BBC NEWS | Health | Gadgets may cause lonely bedtimes

Technorati Tags: technology free, luddism, cellphones

Bye Bye, Laptop?

The day seems to be getting closer when we can do something that would seem to be pretty obvious: access our pocket-sized smartphone via a bigger screen, keyboard and a mouse. Celio Corp says it's close.

Celio Corp have two products: their Mobile Companion (pictured above), a laptop like thing that includes an 8" display, a full function keyboard, and a touchpad mouse. At 1 x 6 x 9 inches and weighing 2 lbs, the Mobile Companion promises over 8 hours of battery life and boots instantly. After loading a driver on your smartphone you can then access it via a USB cable or Bluetooth. (You can also charge the smartphone via the same USB connection.)

Uses? Well, you can say goodbye to coach cramp, where you're unable to use a normal laptop. You can input data more easily than you might if you just had your smartphone with you. And, of course, you don't need to bring your laptop.

The second product might be even better. The Smartphone Interface System is, from what I can work out, a small Bluetooth device that connects your smartphone, not to the Mobile Companion, but to a desktop computer, public display or a conference room projector  -- these devices connect via a cable to the Interface, like this:

The important bit about both products is that the Redfly software renders the smartphone data so it fits on the new display (this will be quite tricky, and, because it will carried via Bluetooth, would need quite a bit of compression. The maximum size of the output display is VGA, i.e. 800 x 480, so don't expect stunning visuals, but it'll be better than having all your colleagues crowding around your smartphone.)

The bad news? Redfly isn't launched yet, and will for the time being be available only for Windows Mobile Devices. Oh, and according to UberGizmo, it will cost $500. The other thing is that you shouldn't confuse "full function keyboard" with "full size keyboard": this vidcap from PodTech.net gives you an idea of the actual size of the thing:

this is the keyboard size relative to Celio CEO Kirt Bailey's digits:

Until I try the thing out and feel sure that the keyboard doesn't make the same compromises as the Eee PC, I'd rather use my Stowaway keyboard.

For those of you looking for software to view your mobile device on your desktop computer, you might want to check out My Mobiler. It's free software that purports to do exactly that for Windows Mobile users.

Technorati Tags: keyboards, celio corp, redfly, foleo, umpc, ultramobiles, smartphones, bluetooth, windows mobile, microsoft, usb

Pocket Lockets

videocapture from myTreo.net

Here's something that caught my eye from CES: D.A.V.E. from Seagate. Despite its awful name (it stands for Digital Audio Video Experience) it's a great idea. It's basically a small 60 GB external hard drive but it's small (65 x 90 x 16 mm) and light (106 grams) and connects to a smart phone via WiFi or Bluetooth. The devices contain a USB port for uploading data (and presumably can use a wired connection from smartphones too, should the need arise.)

As Tadd Rosenfeld of myTreo.net puts it:

We believe DAVE is a game changer. With the introduction of 1 gigahertz smartphone processors (check back for our interview with Qualcomm about their new high end processors for Windows Mobile devices), and with the introduction of DAVE, smartphones are going to have have virtually all of the processing and storage capabilities of laptop and desktop computers. Smartphones will become simply one more way of accessing everything you have on your computers at work and home.

True, but it seems to be taking a bit longer to come out of the traps than earlier expected. ZDNet wrote a year agao that the devices should be available in May 2007. There's no sign of that, and in fact it sounds as if Seagate is not selling them directly, merely selling the technology. And if weight and size are not too much of an issue, Singapore's EDS Lab Pte Ltd has had a similar sort of product in the market for some time -- the wi-Drive, which connects via WiFi (not Bluetooth) measures 112 x 77 x 22 mm, and weighs 230 grams. (I'm trying to get hold of one of these.)

Another option is the BluOnyx from LSI Corporation. Describing itself as a Mobile Content Server, the BluOnyx connects via Bluetooth, SD card, USB and Wifi and allows several people to access content at the same time. The device comes in lots of different colors, is about the size of a credit card and slightly thicker than a Razr (that would be about 85 x 57 mm x 10 mm). Given that the device was announced more than a year ago, and that the BluOnyx was created by Agere Systems, which was bought by LSI last year, the fate of the BluOnyx isn't clear. Doesn't look like you can buy one yet.

Most of the buzz seems to be around accessing multimedia content -- basically turning your device into a sort of iPod, but with the weight elsewhere. I guess that would be the main usage, though I love the idea of being able to take all my databases with me and then access them from whatever device I want. But I can see why these products don't necessarily fly: who wants an extra piece of hardware to lose in the bottom of a bag? And while extra storage would be nice, anything with Bluetooth in it is bound to be a hassle. And, surely, the day can't be far off when our smartphone has 60GB of storage built in?

Love the idea, can see why the reality isn't in all of our pockets. Yet.

60 GB of Treo Storage - Editorials

Technorati Tags: bluonyx, edslab, wi-drive, bluetooth, ces, smartphones, storage, agere, lsi corp, treo

When Good Things Fail

(Update at bottom of post)

I'm never quite sure what to do when something I've raved about in previous columns fails on me. Do I trumpet its failure to the world immediately? Do I go through the normal customer service channels to get it fixed, or do I raise hell with their PR to ensure it gets sorted out by the best and the brightest techies they've got available? Do I keep quiet, assuming it's a one-off?

Here's the latest mishap: My Olympus DS-20 digital recorder died. Just like that. No warning, no long walk in the rain, no circumferentially advantaged person sitting on it. One minute it was fine, the next it wasn't. No power, no sign of a flicker, nothing. And I'd only had it for about 14 months. Barely used it, actually (was supposed to be for my Loose Wireless podcasting project,which, ironically enough, was about to start an hour after I discovered the thing didn't work.) I had recently installed some rechargable batteries in it, approved by the manual.

The thing, well actually three things, are:

• I've long sung Olympus' praises in this field. This was the fourth Olympus I've had; so what happens if someone reads one of my columns or blogs saying how good they are, when it turns out they aren't?
• Now that it's gone bad on me, it's not enough for it to be fixed. How can I sing its praises even if it is fixed?
• More importantly, how can I ever rely on it or anything like it again?
• Besides, I can't really afford to go buying digital recorders willynilly. Do I look like the kind of person who can?

So, I'm troubled. I'm doubly troubled that there's no PR person that I can find online at Olympus who might be able to take a good look at this situation and see whether my problem is an easy one to fix (maybe I'm forgetting to do something like turn it on, or look at it from a certain angle) and whether this is something they've noted a lot of (I notice the DS-20 is no longer being sold. Why?)

So, for the moment I'm rescinding all recommendations for Olympus digital recorders until I sort this out. It's not that I don't think they're great; it's just that I can't be sure whether what happened to me isn't going to be happening to other people's. Given that the recordings are stored in flash memory, this is not the sort of gadget you can afford to have die on you at key moments in your life.

In the meantime I'm going to try to find a PR person to offer some insight on this.

Update Jan 21 2008: Olympus tell me the mainboard has died on the device and it would cost me US$125 to have it replaced. Since it's possible to buy a new one for less than $100 (here, for example) I'm going to decline the offer. I'm also seeking an investigation from Olympus as to why this might have happened. Things do break, and this sort of thing happens. But I'm concerned that this happened without me actually doing anything the manual said I could do, and before I write glowingly about Olympus digital recorders again or recommend them to friends, I'm hoping to get some insight about what happened and whether it's likely to happen to other people.

Technorati Tags: olympus, digital recorders, audio, problems

Sleeping, Frothing, Typing and Sealing

 The Wall Street Journal's holiday gift guide is out. My contributions, some of which would be familiar to regular readers:

Sleeptracker Pro $179. A successor to the Sleeptracker which I wrote about a couple of years ago (Sandman's Little Helpers, Jan 13, 2006), the Pro is a watch which monitors your sleep patterns -- more specifically, your movements while asleep -- to wake you up when you're at the lightest stage of sleep. The Pro improves on its predecessor with a better watch design and the ability to move your sleep data to a PC with a USB cable. Great for sleepyheads.

Aerolatte milk frother (about $30) I must have been through a dozen cappuccino machines, and they usually die slowly and noisily. I even once had a neighbor complain. The aerolatte won't make you an espresso, but it does away with all the milk frothing side of things: a small, beautifully designed whisk powered by two AA batteries, just insert it in warm milk and the froth is delivered in an instant, sans noise pollution. And you can take it with you on trips or to dinner parties where their froth isn't good enough for you.

iGo Stowaway Ultra-Slim Bluetooth Keyboard (about $150) Connects via Bluetooth with most gadgets -- including a laptop -- the Stowaway has the keyboard action, the compact size and the sleek look to merit a spot in your baggage or suit pocket. Makes typing an SMS or email on your smartphone a pleasure. Don't settle for the cheap imitations; the guys behind these spent a lot of time ensuring the feel of the keyboard is up to snuff.

Clip n Seal (above, from $5) Another gadget I won't travel without: the Clip n Seal is a tube of plastic clasped by another -- a sort of clamp. It's simple and will keep food fresh, bug free and unspilled, even in the tropics where I live.

WSJ.com

Technorati Tags: coffee, sleep, portability, keyboards, clipnseal

Foleo, Foleo, Where Art Thou?

Caption competition:

"Is this a dagger I see before me?"

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio"

Now you see it, now you don't

Photo from BusinessWire

It has the grim predictability of a company that doesn't seem sure of what it's doing, and what people want. Ever since Ed Colligan unveiled the Foleo -- a Linux-based sub-sub-notebook -- a few months back, folks have been saying it was a mistake. Now it's dead.

I liked the idea, but felt it was the wrong solution: the iPhone and the Nokia N800 seem to prove people now want something that isn't just a workhorse, but another onramp to the social web, whereas the Foleo seemed to be aimed simply at business customers. Such folk have long been used to lugging heavy stuff around, so it made no sense.

Anyway, Ed has done the right thing and knocked the project on the head, taking a $10 million hit (while sparing a moment for the poor third party developers who committed time and resources to software to run on the dang thing). What is most telling, though, are the comments left on his blog post announcing the gadget's demise. They reveal the frustration and supportive passion of Palm users around the world, and to me illustrate what people really want from the once-great company:

• a better interface that isn't so buggy and unreliable.
• better battery life (the Foleo boasted six hours. But remember the IIIx: days and days on a couple of AAAs. How far backwards have we gone?)
• more durable. The IIIx also survived a lot of bashing about.
• a phone that isn't a sop to the phone companies -- in other words, so it can do VoIP, work on WiFi networks as well as cellular ones.
• find a way of getting a bigger screen onto a Treo. How about projection?  
• GPS. Things have moved on, Ed, and nowadays we expect our devices to fit a lot more in.
• Like good cameras. Not just for snapping, but for scanning.
• And 3.5G.
• And probably WiMAX.
• And big storage.
• And decent software that can handle PDFs, flash, browsing and interactive stuff.
• And decent keyboards (get back in bed with the ThinkOutside guys, or whoever bought them.) I still love my Bluetooth keyboard and can't understand why they're considered such an afterthought.
• Voice commands and voice recognition.
• USB connectivity

The bottom line, is that we've been thinking the PDA is dead, whereas we should be thinking the other way around: The smartphone is just a PDA with connectivity. A good PDA does all these things we've been talking about, and while we take calls on it, that's a small part of what it is about. We just want the things we did on our PDA to be connected, that's all.

That's not just about being able to take calls, it's about SMS, email, browsing, and of being able to meld into our environment -- GPS to know where we are, cameras and HSDPA and GPS to take photos that go straight to Flickr, tools like Jaiku to wrap us into our social network. It's still a digital assistant, it's just a connected digital assistant.

As one commenter put it, it's still a Getting Things Done Device.It's just we do lots of different things these days, so a to do list shouldn't be where you stop.

del.icio.us Tags: palm, foleo, pda, treo, iphone, smartphone, mistakes

The Gadget Gap

This week's WSJ.com column (subscription only, I'm afraid) is about what I call The Hole -- the absence of decent devices in terms of size, weight and functionality between the smartphone and the notebook. To me it's not just about cramming everything you can into a smaller device, it's about making something that people enjoying having with them when they're away from their computer:  

The recent excitement about the iPhone illustrates, among other things, that we have a more emotional relationship with our gadgets than some manufacturers allow for. It's all about an experience -- the physical feel of the device, the elegance of its interface, the interaction with it. The more connected we become, the more important this will become, because those devices serve as conduits to the worlds and communities we inhabit online. The lesson? Filling the Hole means taking the lessons we've learned with cellphones, iPods and iPhones and applying them to devices that are a little larger, not the other way around: trying to cram our workshop tools into something smaller.

I'm a bit slow off the mark posting this, so I've already received some interesting mail from readers. One points me to the the Pepper Computer (pictured above), saying they covert the device because they:

Typically watch TV with the family in the evening. There are many times I want to check out email or want to follow up on something I see while watching the news, etc. Instead of lugging out the laptop plopping it on the coffee table and making it look like I'm not paying attention to the family, I thought it would be cool to just pick up a small web device and do it right there on the spot. Plus you have the convenience of it being a remote control. No remote clutter and it serves a valuable purpose earning a coveted space on the coffee table. (With high end remotes costing $500+, the Pepper Pad seems even more reasonable!)

Another, Daniel Gentleman of Tabletblog.com, points to the power of instant-on in such gadgets as Nokia's N800:

This is why people still use the awful browsers and email clients on smartphones. They're simply ready to work as soon as you pick them up. This feature is often overlooked yet critical in that gadget gap.

Very true, and something I'd omitted to mention in my piece.

Technorati Tags: umpc, tablets, nokia, portability, pepper computer

Foleo, Surface, Stumbling etc

There’s lots of news out there which I won’t bother you with because you’ll be reading it elsewhere. But here are some links in case:

• Palm has a new mini laptop called the Foleo. I like the idea, but I fear it will go the way of the LifeDrive, which I also kinda liked.
• Microsoft has launched a desktop (literally) device called the Surface. Which looks fun, and embraces the idea of moving beyond the keyboard not a moment too soon, but don’t expect to see it anywhere in your living room any time soon.
• eBay buys StumbleUpon, a group bookmarking tool I’ve written a column about somewhere. I don’t use StumbleUpon that much but I love the idea of a community-powered browsing guide. Let’s hope eBay doesn’t mess it up like they seem to be doing with Skype.
• Microsoft releases a new version of LiveWriter, their blogging tool. Scoble says Google is planning something similar. True?

Oh, and Google Reader now works offline. Here are my ten minut.es with it, and a how to guide at ten ste.ps. This is big news, because it’s the first step Google have made in making their tools available offline. I’ve found myself using their stuff more and more, so the idea of being able to use the Reader, Calendar, Docs and Gmail offline seems an exciting one. (We’re not there yet, but Google Reader is a start.)

This brings me to again plead with anyone offering an RSS feed of their stuff, to put the whole post in the feed. Offline browsing is not going to work if you can only read an extract.

Tags: rss, google, microsoft, surface, foleo, stumbleupon, ebay

The Shift to a Mobile Web

This more than anything else, probably, will push the shift from desktop browsing to mobile browsing. The more restrictions workers face on their office computers from blinkered employers, the more natural it will be to turn to their mobile:

A nationwide study by T-Mobile UK has revealed that over a quarter of the UK's workforce, still deprived of web access, are now turning to the Internet on their mobile - as employers enforce blanket bans on net usage.

A few points worth making here:

• It’s an umbilical thing: offices misunderstand the use of the Web, which is probably why they ban it. It’s no longer just about surfing for information, shopping or football scores (although it’s still that). It’s about staying connected. The Internet is no longer just a resource of information (and, cough, images) but of “checking in” with one’s network, whether it’s on FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, Skype, or wherever. Offices need to cope with this somehow, or they’ll lose the attention of their workers.
• A different screen, a different app: the shift to the mobile web because of this negative pressure from the work place will create huge demand for mobile web apps that work quickly and efficiently. Indeed, it’s not the only pressure: Browsing is a quite different experience on the mobile phone. Browsers are already developing ways to reshape information to fit on a screen, but a smarter way would be to find new ways to deliver the information via the mobile phone (Widsets have made a start in this direction.)
• Toilets: the unsung productivity hive Techdirt rightly points to the part of the survey which shows that 15% of users “resorted to hiding in the toilet just to get online.” Working from home, I do this with my laptop, frankly. But it’s not really about resorting to anything: it’s what the mobile world is. We used to read the newspaper on the john; why not a mobile phone?

History will find it weird, not that we connect to the Web on the john with a device once designed to make phone calls, but that for 15 years we had to do that via a big hunk of metal, plastic and wires sitting in the middle of what used to be a big open space called a desk.

Tags: mobile+web, toilets, browsing, offices, restrictions, UK

Clock Shock

For those of you who can’t get out of bed in the morning, the alarm clock that outwits you is finally here. I mentioned Clocky in a WSJ column more than a year ago in talking about the problems of ignored alarms:

Efforts to overcome this problem have been inventive, but rarely successful, says Gauri Nanda, a 26-year-old graduate student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. "Just last week a man told me he currently uses three alarm clocks and then asks his friends to hide them," she says. Ms. Nanda's solution: an alarm clock called Clocky equipped with outsize wheels and shockproof covering (early prototypes are wrapped in brown shag), that goes off and then, when its snooze button is pressed, skedaddles across the room and hides, requiring owners to get out of bed and find it. By the time they have, the thinking goes, Clocky has done its job because they're out of bed and wide awake, if a little frustrated.

Gauri tells me the clock is now out and about, although it’s dropped the shaggy pile in favor of robust rubber and plastic, leaping off your nightstand and running erratically around the room making an annoying, R2D2–like noise. (see a video here.)

 I think it’s a great idea, although it’s not the only annoying alarm clock on the market. Uberreview lists some others, including:

• a hanging clock that retracts towards the ceiling the more you hit its snooze button
• one that fires four jigsaw pieces into the air and requires you put them back in the alarm clock before it switches off
• a clock whose neck you have to wring to switch off
• a rubber ball with prongs on that shakes its way across the room
• a clock that lays eggs and won’t stop chirping until you’ve put all the eggs back and
• a flying alarm clock you have to catch. (That’s enough alarm clocks – Ed)

Tags: clocky, clock, sleep, waking, design

Phones Aren't About Telephony

Skype is a powerful tool because it’s found its way into the hands of people who need it most — ordinary folk. Now it and the companies that make devices to use Skype on need to understand that it’s not about telephony anymore, if it ever was. It’s about two or more people sharing each others’ presence. Now we need the products to make that happen.

I was chatting with someone last night, a gent in his early 60s from LA, who should have retired but decided to take on one more project, in Hong Kong. He was in two minds about it because it would mean a year away from his wife, but he was persuaded because he knew Skype would keep him in touch. Of course it could be any VoIP tool, but the point here is that Skype was the first to cross the threshold into this market because it was easier (and worked better) than all the others at the time. Now the guy can chat with his wife every night and being apart is bearable and not making him too poor.

But he was still using it as a phone: Call the other person up, chat and then hang up. Had he ever thought about just leaving the line open, I asked him? Why would I do that? he replied. Because it won’t cost you anything, and then you’ll hear the sounds of home, which in a way is what you’re really missing. Your wife banging around in the kitchen, the kids arguing, a dog barking, the sound of the wood pigeon in the garden (OK, that’s more my memory of home than his. Not sure they have wood pigeons in LA.)

I then realised that actually there would be a great line of products here. Wireless devices that you could place around the house, outside, some that are just microphones picking up sound, and others that also serve as speakerphones, so his wife can just wander around and, when she wants to, chat as well. Of course, a Bluetooth headset might do the trick, and maybe there are some wireless handsets that might work. I’ve done a quick search and not found any obvious candidates. Most seem to assume you want to use Skype as a phone. But Skype is not really about phones anymore. It’s about presence — on one side, showing other people whether you’re available, etc, and on the other, allowing you to teleport yourself to the person you’re with without the old restrictions of the phone: cost, the structured nature of phone conversation, having to press a device to your ear.

Manufacturers, it’s true, are beginning to wake up to the idea that we don’t use our devices in the way, or the place, they’re designed for. Take the percushion pillow phone, for example, which finally solves that problem of trying to have a conversation with someone while you’re trying to get to sleep. That’s a good start. Now lets see devices that use sound and vision to make anyone, including my new homesick friend, to really feel they’re home.

Podcast on Gadgets

Here's something I recorded for the BBC World Service Business Daily show on gadgets. Email me if you'd like the transcript.

If you want to subscribe to an RSS feed of this podcast you can do so here, or it can be found on iTunes. My Loose Wire column for The Wall Street Journal Asia and WSJ.com, can be found here (subscription only; sorry.) 

Thanks for listening, and comments, as ever, welcome. 

To listen to Business Daily on the radio, tune into BBC World Service at the following times, or click here.

Australasia: Mon-Fri 0141*, 0741

East Asia: Mon-Fri 0041, 1441

South Asia: Tue-Fri 0141*, Mon-Fri 0741

East Africa: Mon-Fri 1941

West Africa: Mon-Fri 1541*

Middle East: Mon-Fri 0141*, 1141*

Europe: Mon-Fri 0741, 2132

Americas: Tue-Fri 0141*, Mon-Fri 0741, 1041, 2132. 

My pieces usually appear on Wednesdays.

The Hot Air War

Are the days of the wet hand over? A few months ago I wrote in the WSJ about the Mitsubishi Jet Towel (subscription only; I did a version of the piece for the BBC World Service which you can download as a podcast here), which has been drying hands effectively around Asia for some time, now arriving on U.S. shores:

I spotted it when I was gorging in a food court -- a plastic-cased, cream-colored, wall-mounted device that looked like an attractive waste-disposal unit or, possibly, a mailbox. The only clue that it was actually a hand dryer was its proximity to the wash basins. Using it was like a glimpse of hand-drying heaven. Instead of sticking your hands below a single air jet, you put them inside a sort of trough inside the unit, between two jets that start blowing automatically onto both sides of your hands.

Instead of searing blasts of hot air that shrivel the skin and give your hands a weird burning sensation, the Jet Towel envelops them in a strong but muted cushion of air, circulating within the trough. Instead of rubbing your hands together vigorously in the vain hope of dislodging the damp, you just move the hands up and down slowly. Instead of the water dripping off your hands onto the floor, it falls to the bottom of the trough and down a pipe into the base of the unit. Instead of the usual half-minute or so of frantic hand-rubbing, followed by some pant-wiping, pull out your hands after a few seconds and they're dry. Really.

Now it looks like it has a rival, in the form of the Dyson Airblade. Right now I'm not quite sure what the difference is between the two devices -- they both look remarkably similar. I'm still waiting for word from Dyson's PR people. But anything that gets our hands dryer quicker and more hygienically can only be good news. Coverage at engadget and The Guardian.

 

Technorati tags: hygiene, handdryers, innovation, toilets

Loose Change Sept 19 2006

It used to be called Loose Bits, but I prefer Loose Change. For now. It's the same thing: tidbits I found that might be of interest:

• First off, NeatReceipts, which sells a small scanner and special software to scan in your receipts while you're on the road, has announced a new version of its software, which should be in the shops next month. Includes color Scanning, a better Document Organizer and better OCR. Version 2.5 will retail for $200, the same price as the current Scanalizer. I reviewed the product a few months back and was impressed, though you've got to really love receipts to get into it.
  
• Lost in the Crowd allows you to search the web more anonymously by mixing in with your normal searches entirely random ones sent on your behalf: "What searches did you care about versus those that were just made up? There's no way for the search engine, or anyone else, to tell." Nice idea. Only hitch I can think of is if those random searches lead down weird alleys that may come back to haunt me.
  
• Forget Google anonymity. Just worry about voting. A blog by two Princeton University types reveals an ordinary "hotel minibar" or office key will open the door on Diebold Voting Machines, allowing someone to remove, alter or replace the memory card that stores the votes.
  

The Slow Death of the iPod

Jupiter Research has come up with figures [BBC] suggesting that only 20% of the tracks found on an iPod will have been bought from iTunes. The conclusion: “Digital music purchasing has not yet fundamentally changed the way in which digital music customers buy music.”

Paul Thurrot reckons that for Apple things are the other way around to what was expected (where the iPod was the razor, iTunes was the blades they made their money off): Apple has to sell more hardware for its business to thrive. He also reckons that Apple has got to come up with something neat to keep the circus rolling: “As iPod moves from gotta-have-it fashion accessory to all-too-common electronics device, it will be interesting to see if Apple can keep the momentum going.”

There are plenty of folk heralding the doom of the iPod. The Observer last week: “Sales are declining at an unprecedented rate. Industry experts talk of a 'backlash' and of the iPod 'wilting away before our eyes'. Most disastrously, Apple's signature pocket device with white earphones may simply have become too common to be cool.” One of its main sources: Tomi Ahonen, author of Communities Dominate Brands. (Check out these two posts for more discussion of this.)

This kind of talk infuriates fans of the iPod, Apple and Jobs. A piece on Arstechnica’s Infinite Loop points out that given CDs have been around for 20 years, and iTunes for only three, the idea that there are more CD tracks on iPods than from the Apple store isn’t overly surprising. (The article and the comments below, however, convey some intriguing vitriol against iPod-doom merchants specifically, and technology journalists more generally.)

A lot of this, I suspect, is down to the differing experiences across the globe. U.S. cellphones have long been woeful, but online commerce cheap and highly efficient, so it’s not surprising the iPod/iTunes model would work well. Europe is a little trickier: great cellphones, but at least in the case of the UK, overpriced iTunes content is apparently driving users legally dubious music download sites like AllofMP3.com (which overtook Napster.com in traffic about a year ago, according to Alexa). Asia is a different kettle of fish: cheap, small, generic MP3 players are so ubiquitous here, as are cellphones, it’s a tough call. But most people are going to prefer one device to two, so as music on phones gets better and easier, expect to see music shift.

That said, Apple are now so much more visible in Asia because of the iPod and there’s no reason they can’t be a part of that although if the iPod becomes commoditized, it’s hard to imagine Apple keeping pace with the already commoditized cellphone. I guess the final point here is the shift from music as a product to a service: It makes a lot of sense to listen to music on your phone if your collection is somehow fed to you by your cellphone operator. Subscribe to songs and they are on your music phone when and where you need them, and the whole ripping/syncing thing is going to seem pretty antiquated. Think ringtones, a market 12 times the size of iTunes.

Loose Bits, Sept 15 2006

Some links and stories worth a look:

• Microsoft releases details of Zune, a sort of social networking iPod. More details here.
• Yahoo! releases its new email service, which looks nice but only highlights how full of Nigerian email scams my Yahoo! account has become.
• Talking of which, Charles Arthur from The Guardian is calling for a gibberish generator to help the 419 Nigerian scammers automate their ridiculous letters. I’m only disappointed they don’t seem to fall for our tricks anymore. (WSJ.com version here, blog version here. Full length version in the book. Oops, I promised no more shameless plugs.)
• News of a service from Sonos which allows users to access music from their streaming Internet audio directly, bypassing the PC. Great idea. Another great idea: Turning on the radio. No need for PC or Internet connection.

 

The Commuter's Shopping Impulse

A good piece that explores the point I was trying to make earlier about the commuter element in cellphone service adoption, from Reuters’ Sachi Izumi (via textually.org).

Someone needs to look closely at the link between flat free pricing for mobile browsing and m-commerce (yeah I don’t like calling it that either, but it’s there to differentiate between buying online and buying on the mobile. I’m sure the distinction will blur eventually). Japan’s burst in mobile commerce ahead of the rest of the world is impressive, and it’s all to do with people being stuck with their phones for company for long periods. Jun Hasebe, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research: “Impulse shopping accounts for most of the purchases done on mobile phones, and that would not usually happen unless users are on flat fee-based services.” Phones, in a word, have become more like our friends than our friends are.

The only thing holding this back? Fear of fraud. Most people don’t like punching in their credit cards to their phones, although this may have as much to do with where they are (public places, public transport) than it is about actual fraud. One reason I think facial recognition as authentication will play a big role.

Journalists' Phobia of Digital Recorders

The AP picture that accompanies this OPEC story says it all: Journalists still don't seem to have switched from cassette recorders to digital, even though prices have dropped amazingly in the past five years and features risen impressively. (I've just bought an Olympus DS-20 for a quarter of the price I paid for a DM-1 back in 2001.)

There’s one, possibly four, digital recorders in this picture (the mic dangling on the left might be attached to one, and there’s possibly one over Mr Daukoru’s left shoulder. Another might be below the Sony relic in the bottom right. But they’re definitely outnumbered by the cassette and micro cassette recorders. OPEC meetings are big news for financial news services, so these journalists would be measuring their success or failure in getting the story to screens in seconds.

I think part of the reason is that journalists are crusty types who prefer to stick with what they know. But there are more compelling reasons that may simply make digital recorders less useful than the old cassette, and, given that journalists would seem to be the biggest single market for these devices, I would have thought Olympus, Sony et al would do well to ponder them:

• cassette tapes are easier to wind forwards and backwards, scanning (or cueing) through the tape as it plays. This is done at a standard speed, with enough of the audio audible, so to speak, for the listener to get a pretty good idea of where they are in the recording. This is vital for the journalist, who may need to find that Edmund Daukoru quote about getting out of autopilot before the other guys do. Digital recorders do offer this feature, but not having a visual clue (the tape spool itself) and the varying speed of the forward/backward wind (my Olympus apparently jumps in three- and then 15- and then minute-long- increments when you hold the FF or REW buttons down) makes it hard to find what you're looking for quickly;
• digital recorders let you transfer your recordings to a computer, where it's easy to store them (and easier to transcribe them.) I suspect few journalists do this because they're in a hurry, they don't always work from the same computer, and, probably, their tech staff won't allow them to install external software on their PC. The other issue is that it may just be easier to keep a pile of cassettes in your drawer in chronological sequence as a record of your work, so if, say, you're hauled to court you can easily find the interview in question. Journalists are living proof that just because something is made easier, it may not be more convenient.
• another issue is that news organizations usually provide the recorders that journalists use, and I'm guessing they’re not over-anxious to increase their budget for such a trivial article. On top of that, a tape recorder is often left next to a speaker, or on a podium, and you never know when a light-fingered colleague may take a shine to your svelte device.
• often the internal speakers on these digital devices are not as powerful as those on their analog forebears. Journalists can’t be bothered with earpieces, so that’s another turnoff.

To me these problems are quite easy to fix. And better positioning of the indexing button on digital devices (which allow the user to mark a certain point on the recording for easy return to later would help. Most often times the button is either too small or not easily distinguishable from other buttons (and so raises the danger of pressing “stop” instead of “index”) for it to be a viable option.)

A better option altogether would be the incorporation of gun microphones into the body of the recorder, so a user could point it across the room and pick up the speaker clearly without having to join the scrum. That’s what I’d call an advance.

Footnote: A much better approach, of course, would be to include a record function into the cellphone (as some do have, and have had for 10 years; my first cellphone, a Panasonic, had quite a generous record time) so that reporters can point their phone at the subject, both recording his words and sending them back to a colleague who could bash out the appropriate quotes directly. In fact, I thought most such doorstops were covered this way nowadays. Apprently not.

Doing the Nokia Swivel

Another day, another new Nokia, but I think the N93 might be the shape of things to come. The clamshell swivel has several positions, but this one I think offers a way forward for all smartphones:

More pix here. Perhaps other manufacturers have already adopted the manoeuver conveyed above; apologies if I missed it. But if the keyboard can be modified so that it faces the screen in a more traditional way, this would open up opportunities for a lot of smartphone manufacturers looking to put screen and keyboard in an alignment that favors typing.

Drive Safely

This is probably the way to go with USB drives — security features that the user has to follow, or else the device won’t work.  Verbatim’s new Store 'n' Go Corporate Secure USB Drives’

mandatory security features safeguard all device contents with a complex password. Hack resistant feature locks down device after 10 failed logon attempts, protecting your data from dictionary or brute force hack attempts.

Of course, Verbatim are aiming this at corporate and government types, but I’d be interested to see this kind of thing used by ordinary folk too, perhaps as part of a handshake between host computer and USB drive. Internet cafes, public terminals at airports etc could encourage users to plug in their drives (as opposed to either blocking the ports or hiding them) so long as they have certain security features in place to prevent transmission of viruses, sending of spam or botnet controlling, or whatever bad people do at public computers.

A Communicator Killer?

I tend to think of the Nokia Communicator (aka The Brick) as a somewhat retrograde device, popular to folk who haven’t quite caught up with the shape of things to come (aka The Smartphone). But Indonesians and Germans don’t agree (link to a podcast I did on the subject for the BBC), using the Communicator in such large numbers that Nokia tends to focus most of its promotional energies in those two countries. This may explain why a German company is about to launch a Communicator lookalike: the HandyPC.

Tony Smith of The Register reports that Berlin-based phone maker ROAD GmbH has announced the HandyPC, a clamshell device based on the Linux operating system and Trolltech's Qtopia GUI. It's a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE device with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on board too. No date has been given for when the product will be sold, or how much it will cost.

Linux-based HandyPC to challenge Nokia Communicator | Reg Hardware.

The Failure of the Smartphone Interface

I still don’t understand why people think that a stylus is a good thing, or that mimicking a Windows environment — designed for navigation by mice and other pointy things — is regarded as a worthy goal for mobile devices.

Take what Walt Mossberg, who has emerged as something of an expert on the new Treos, has to say about them in his mailbag (the URL isn’t a permalink, so don’t know how long it’s good for):

I have reviewed both devices, and I find that the Windows Mobile software on the 700w is considerably inferior to the Palm operating system software on the 700p. Too many common actions in the Windows version take more steps than the same actions on the Palm OS version, and often require navigating menus. You are likely to use the stylus more often in the Windows version as well.

I think in the near future we’ll wonder what the hell we were doing with our mobile interfaces. Why is it harder to answer a smartphone than it is to answer a normal mobile phone? Stylii were designed for sitting in restaurants and at desks, not when you’re standing in heavy pedestrian traffic outside Leicester Square tube trying to find someone’s phone number. Windows was designed for laptops, desktops, more or less anything with a flat surface and a mouse nearby, not for navigating on crowded trains or in fast-moving cars (especially when you’re driving).

Palm still looks good because it’s relatively simple as an interface. But it’s still looking dated, even while we’re still waiting for something better to come along.

Podcast: The Communicator

A BBC World Service piece I did on the tenacity of a device that perhaps should have been binned long ago: the Communicator.

Getting a Lock on Your iPod

A sign of the times: what are billed as the first mobile security locks for iPods. According to a press release (not yet available online):

Featuring a keyless, user-settable three-digit combination for added convenience and protection, the new Targus security locks are designed for use with iPods configured with a dock connector, including the 5G, nano, iPod Photo, 4G, iPod mini and 3G.

The Mobile Security Lock for iPod is “a compact case that houses the retractable cable and combination lock. Users simply loop the cable around the strap of a backpack, purse or briefcase, or other stationary object, insert the combination lock through the opening in the case, and then attach the lock to their iPod.” Cost: $40.

The Desktop Security Lock secures the iPod to any stationary object, while the Eyelet Security Lock for iPod (pictured above) “is designed for use with any notebook cable lock to secure the iPod and notebook together” by attaching to the iPod's dock connector and then threading the cable from the notebook lock through the Eyelet Lock's pass-through loop and then fastened to the notebook. Cost: $20.

Actually, I’m kinda surprised this kind of thing hasn’t emerged already. (Actually it has, but not the mobile element, I guess) I always feel horribly vulnerable walking around with my iPod, even though I’m actually still in the apartment. There seem to be plenty of thefts reported, hype aside: Dianne Wiest’s daughter pleaded guilty to lifting one in New York last month.

USB, Off The Cuff

Always looking for a new way to carry my USB key drive. Here’s another option (via Ubergizmo):

Designed by Berlin-based Tonia Welter, the cufflinks are a prototype, but with plans to build with a capacity of up to 1 GB. A bracelet is in the works, wh