From the WCA meeting, I'll immediately be going to the Santa Clara Valley IEEE Consumer Electronics Society meeting on Serial Port Memory Technology (SPMT). SPMT is a "new memory interface standard for mobile and consumer electronics devices".  The technology is being developed by a consortium of companies, including ARM, Hynix, LG, Marvell, Samsung, and Silicon Image. SPMT is intended to address the need for higher bandwidth, low power memory. This was one of the challenges described by Greg Delagi, Senior VP at Texas Instrument, during his keynote at the International Solid State Circuits Conference earlier this year.

It should be an interesting set of discussions. Watch this space for a follow-up report.

Well..my awesome wife apparently read that. I was left speechless today when the book by Jack Gould somehow appeared on my desk. "Honey, could you show me something on your computer?", she said. And there it was, like a time machine taking me back to that day in the cottage where I lived as a kid... at 15 ¹⁄₂ Garner Ave. in Buffalo NY.

I couldn't wait to find the chapter on the foxhole radio. What a strange feeling it was to realize that this was exactly the set of instructions we followed, each image recalling a vivid memory from the past. 

It was a great gift then, and an awesome gift now! Thanks to my Dad, and thanks to my lovely wife.

Recent market share gains for Android smartphones have been well publicized, as devices based on Google's mobile OS now challenge for 3rd place behind RIM's Blackberry and Apple's iPhones.  At the same time, less well known (outside the techie community) is that another operating system for mobile devices is about to emerge from Google's development Labs - the Chrome OS.

• Like Android, Google is developing Chrome as an "open source" project.
• Also, like Android, Google is promoting an app store model for Chrome.
• Unlike Android, Chrome is targeted not at smartphones but at netbooks (and tablets?).
• Also, unlike Android, Chrome's apps are hosted on the web, i.e. "in the cloud" through the Chrome browser.
• Android apps = Java
• Chrome apps = HTML5

Now the Chrome browser might be familiar to many of you, since it also has achieved a 3rd place position (passing Safari), but what is the purpose of another OS?

And, how will Chrome impact mobile computing?
Oh, and what's with another app store?

I had the opportunity to discuss some of these questions with two members of Google's Chrome development team at a Silicon Valley Meetup earlier this week.  It was clear, from the lively discussions at the meeting, that the developer community is also unclear on how the dual efforts on Android and Chrome fit together in the grand scheme of things. 

You can watch a video on the Chrome Web Store concept from Google I/O, but here are what I see as the key assumptions in Google's thinking:

• Tabbed browsing has led to clutter, "why have multiple tabs for the same site"?
• There is "no inherent discoverability on the web".
• Too many sites ask for permission, and this will get worse with HTML5 features.
• The taxonomy of the web will develop into two branches: rich media HTML5 "applications", and more standard web "pages".
• It is hard for developers to monetize these applications on the web. 

Tab clutter is a subjective issue. I myself apparently abuse browsers well past their capacity, as evidenced by frequent crashes or freezing up of my PC. But I like having separate tabs.

On discoverability, I'm not sure that Technorati, digg, StumbleUpon, or a number of other social website sharing services would quite agree. Google is going up against Facebook on this issue.

Regarding monetization, Google's Chrome Web Apps do provide a benefit over the mobile app store model. Developers will get 100% of the revenue.

Since the Chrome browser runs on multiple platforms, the Chrome Web Store will also facilitate access to web apps that can be run on PCs, Macs, etc. However, underlying Google's strategy are the advantages envisioned for cloud computing, especially for mobile devices.

• Google Chrome OS will make your netbook more secure, even disposable. You don't have to worry about it being lost or stolen, since there won't be any data or applications stored on it.
• Faster boot times, since Chrome OS requires a solid-state drive.
• Cheaper computers, i.e. no OS "tax". Just like Android, the Chrome OS will be free.

Developers in attendance had many questions, many no doubt influenced by the current Android fragmentation issues, that the Chrome strategy appears to repeat if not exacerbate.

I was asked about Chrome versus Android during my presentation at the Netbook Summit back in May.  As you can see in that presentation, there are already Android netbooks on the market, though not so much in the U.S. as in other regions of the world. Many Android tablets are in development as well.  My answer then was that I could envision a convergence, offering a choice of browser-based vs. native apps. While the distinctions between Android and Chrome appear to be (excuse the pun) a bit cloudy, in my discussion this week with the Google representatives it was made clear that Google sees the two OS development efforts as "completely orthogonal".

While a technically sound argument might be made for that, the issue I have is that success in the consumer market - which this effort targets - is very dependent on making the user's life simple. While Google's culture of experimentation is a great one for driving innovation, as we saw with the Nexus-1, "build it and they will come" is not a prescription for market success. As an engineer turned marketer myself, I have seen this many times.

I wonder if Google has run any focus groups on prototype Chrome devices? Understanding the end-consumer is a key differentiating strength that Apple possesses.  It's all too common in engineering-driven organizations to take the approach of "who needs marketing"?

Here are some issues that I see, and some thoughts on why a converged Android-Chrome strategy should be considered:

• The Chrome Web App store is based on Google Checkout, which has been a limiting factor in deriving revenue from Android apps. Relatively few people have Google Checkout accounts, and many people don't want to register on another pay site. The Chrome App solution is to redirect to the application's host site for alternate payment mechanisms, such as PayPal. A user should be able to register their own preferred payment mechanism once on the market site.
• As was announced at Google I/O, the Android Market is finally going to get desktop browsing capability. Why not make one unified Google Market? The Android Market already knows everything about my device when I login, and I fail to see the benefit of creating multiple shopping sites. Since web sites can be turned into a Chrome Web App, will we see Android Market apps in the Chrome Web App store? Confusing!
• This will get worse with the introduction of Google-TV and a growing number of non-smartphone applications for Android.
• Or maybe better yet, why not hand off the whole app store to a 3rd party that has more consumer-facing expertise and brand identity (e.g. Amazon)? 
• While the Android browser is, currently at least, not Chrome - wouldn't it make sense to give Android devices the same access and user experience for Web apps? This is going to be critical to the success of Android tablets, especially with Google's emphasis on HTML5 rich media applications.

Here is the planned rollout schedule for Chrome Web Apps:

• mid-August: developer-facing launch.
• October: consumer-facing launch. Sellers in U.S only at launch, in USD 
• Other countries and currencies to be added later.

Stay tuned. Innovation never sleeps!

With all the ongoing controversy regarding the iPhone-4 antenna design flaw (yes, that's what it is), not to mention the absurd PR disaster, some pundits have blithely suggested that it's much ado about nothing... customers must be happy or they would just return the phone.

After reading this morning's San Jose Mercury News, I was struck by the thought myself.. "why don't customers just return the iPhone-4"? According to the story by John Boudreau...

Since the iPhone-4 was released less than 30 days ago, couldn't Ceci just return it for another AT&T smartphone.. like say the HTC Aria? Is she confused about being "locked in"?

I think cell phone contracts are very confusing, so I decided to check out what would happen if I wanted to return a new iPhone-4. I had a little chat with one of AT&Ts online customer support agents.

Here's how that conversation went.

In Part 1 of my report from the WiMAX Developer's Symposium at Stanford, I reviewed the opening presentations from Clearwire and Sprint, the two companies that are currently rolling out a nationwide WiMAX network in the U.S. In this post I will review some of the presentations from the Applications Showcase, where  entrepreneurs (and some established companies) described how they could take advantage of the increased capacity and speed of a 4G network.  I found that a number of the presentations were not particularly 4G-oriented, so I will highlight a few of the applications that in my opinion best-fit the theme.

Triage-4G
It should be no surprise that video applications are generally expected to drive demand for 4G wireless services. I predicted as much in my report on The Emerging 4G Wireless Landscape in the U.S., in which I showed how the higher capacity required to meet consumer demand was creating a disruptive event in the industry... one that Sprint/Clearwire was well positioned to exploit over the next two years.

The WiMAX Applications Showcase at Stanford demonstrated how the use of mobile video in non-consumer market segments also presents many new opportunities. In recent years the wireless industry has increased their focus on mobile health (or telemedicine), which was the topic of this presentation on Crisis Telediagnosis - Emergency Response.

The idea in this presentation was to build an application that can link first responders on emergency calls with a network of remote medical specialists, to aid in "on the spot" triage.  The first responder would use text tags transmitted via SMS to a server to describe a patient's condition, so that an appropriate physician could be notified. The physician would then log into the system to access a live video feed to continue the diagnosis with their own eyes.

I'm far from a medical expert, but I'm skeptical on how much value a physician can add to a trained paramedic in such instances. In a true emergency time is of the essence, and I am guessing that video would not necessarily be as valuable as a live streaming data feed from wireless medical instrumentation. Also, liability and insurance issues being what they are, I suspect this would only be practical between emergency teams affiliated with local hospitals.

Embedding diagnostic medical instruments in mobile devices is an actively growing field. Industry collaborations such as the West  Wireless Health Institute, which includes Qualcomm, GE and Cisco amongst its sponsors, are working on developing new innovations in this area.

4G Video Surveillance
This presentation of using video over WiMAX comes not from a startup or a student project, but from the Moog Videolarm company that has been in business since 1976. The company, which is headquartered in Atlanta, has installed 200 of their Liberty Series 3G/4G cameras in a city-wide network there. I have to say that it felt a little creepy to be watching unsuspecting pedestrians on the streets of Atlanta while sitting in an auditorium at Stanford - 2500 miles away.

The Liberty Dome provides a built-in modem for the Sprint-Clearwire network, enabling (secure) IP connections for H264-compression cameras. (We were told that the streaming video we were watching was only accessible with a password for that IP address).

Besides the obvious privacy concerns, the point that struck me was that the cameras use an upload stream that consumes 500Kbps of data 24-7. I wished that the scene in Atlanta had included some citizen walking into the scene with a new HTC EVO 4G smartphone, to see what effect it would have. The Clear WiMAX service is currently capped at a maximum of 1Mbps in the upload direction, and in my experience with the service in Las Vegas, each camera is equivalent to the average data rate that I achieved.

In the earlier presentation from Sprint, the theoretical capacity of each WiMAX tower was spec'ed at 420Mbps. This assumes the (unrealistic) availability of the entire 150MHz of spectrum at an individual base station. So let's divide by 5, since Clearwire uses 3X10Mhz deployments currently. That gives us a maximum capacity of 84Mbps per tower. Now divide that by 3, to get a capacity per sector of 28Mbps.

Finally, divide by 4 because the TDD spectrum is allocated in a 3:1 download:upload ratio. The result, by my calculations, is an upload capacity in an individual sector of only 7Mbps.

Forget privacy for the moment. The question then is: How many surveillance cameras per sector? And.. what effect do they have on the consumer experience?



Geogad - using social media for travel guides
Geogad is described as "Your own personal mobile tour guide". The name Geogad is explained as:

A combination of two words, geo, which means Earth or world, and gad, which means to roam or wander.

Geogad allows users to build a customized tour of their destination by downloading audio-video recordings that describe a desired set of stops. The videos I sampled were slide shows, but one can imagine more rich content in the future as befits a 4G application. The tour can be run on a smartphone, and Geogad has released an Android application for this purpose.

The tours can be from amateur travelers or professionals, and that's where the social aspect comes in. Users can also upload their own favorite tour stops to share with other users. It's sort of like a multimedia version of FourSquare or Yelp, but the idea of mixing & matching a set of tour stops is a novel one. Geogad was awarded one of the awards for best app at the Symposium.