I’ll be taking my son to the Maker Faire for the third year in a row this weekend. It’s a great Father & Son festival where you see what happens when you throw together technology, imagination, dedication, and passion into a big pot and mix it up together.
On display will be Steve Chamberlin’s hand-built CPU which he built in 18 months using $1000 worth of parts and 1,200 pieces of wire hand-wrapped around gold wrap posts mounted to a board that he bought off of eBay. In the end, he re-created a large version of something the equivalent of the Apple II CPU. He nicknamed it, Big Mess of Wires. Full details on Steve’s blog.
I look forward to seeing Steve’s homebrewed CPU along with many other pet projects that are sure to inspire.
Although still in concept (UPDATE: Lenovo now saying this is a two year mockup), this is the closest thing I’ve seen to a netbook as fashion accessory (note the burled walnut finish). The belt clasp also acts as a mouse, or so says the caption the the photo on the Lenovo picture feed, and the screen also flips around so that you can write on it with a stylus.
It’s too big to really fit in your pocket or purse so it doesn’t really pass the test of a portable broadband device for me. It needs to be something I would take to the park with me when I go play with the kids. This is the size of the old Apple Newton which was just too big to be practical.
Spend a lot of time sitting on the bus or train with your handbag in your lap wishing you could catch up on all your favorite TV shows and movies? BagTV from London has created a line of handbags with a built-in monitor for just this situation.
The first in a range of new products, is a beautifully crafted ladies hand-bag, which comes in a range of cool colours, leathers, and fabrics, integrated with a high quality 7in TV screen combining, DVD, and Mpeg player.
The screen sits behind a protective transparent shield and enables the owner to literally watch Films/Videos either on DVD or downloaded to the bag.
The system comes with full connectivity for use with computers or digital cameras through USB port and SD card slot, allowing the playing of scrolling photos on the bag.
Just add wifi connectivity and a touchscreen and you could use this to surf the web as well!
I had a chance to visit the KDDI Design Center in Harajuku right at the base of Takeshita-dori (well worth a visit if you get a chance) as well as a few electronics stores to see what’s on offer from the major operators. Here’s some of the highlights of what I saw.
Casio’s Exilim 8.1 megapixel phone
The obligatory 8.1 megapixel camera phone. Some of the specs include a wide angle lens, a 3.1-inch, 480 x 800 pixel OLED display, and a video mode that films in VGA at 30 frames per second.
Reviewed on engadget.
Over 90% of the phones in Japan are flip phones so the outside cover display is important for things like date/time, signal & battery meters, and scrolling message previews. Many of the models I saw featured a display that was behind a mirror type cover (you can see my camera in this photo) that makes these displays more subtle when they are sitting out on the table during a meeting. Some of the models offered for women double as mirrors so you can check your make-up.
Animated Cover Display on Japanese Cellphone
The graphics on the phones were truly stunning. Not only was the resolution magnificent, the graphics complimented the fit and finish of the phones beautifully. The example to the left is the settings page for the phone’s bluetooth feature. The idle page (as people in Nokia call the homescreen of the phone) was also a place where a lot of time was spent to create an experience with beautiful visualizations of simple things such as the time.
Cellphone Bluetooth Settings Screen
The average person spends two hours a day on the train commuting to and from work or school so many phones have built in television antennas to pick up broadcast TV using a technology called 1seg. These phones are equipped to make the transition to digital television next year and, with enough on-board storage, could even begin to act as pocket Tivos.
Broadcast TV via Cellphone
I’m still learning the ins-and-outs of the cell phone operator business but it’s curious why we don’t see more of these phones outside of Japan. The Japanese domestic market is cut-throat and margins on these devices are razor thin so there’s not a lot of money to be made on these devices for the manufacturers that make them (indeed, Nokia’s pulled out of marketing devices for the Japanese market for all but their high-end Vertu brand).
When I asked around, people told me the PR and marketing of having a leading device was more important than the revenues. I can see what they are driving at when you see a specialized sports phone branded by G-Shock and the 8.1 megapixel camera phone from Casio as well as the TV phone by Sharp. Each of these devices help position their company for their other products and become extensions of their other products.
The last image is obviously not a phone but I include it because it’s an example of the full featured laptops that are on sale from the cell phone vendors. They are subsidized so you can pick one up for under $100 with a two year wireless data plan (about $40/month). Most run Windows XP so if you throw Skype onto one of these things along with your bluetooth headset, it could work as a phone.
Fujitsu Netbook
Yes, that’s a standard sized business card on the keyboard. Don’t think anyone’s going to write the next great novel on this machine but it certainly is an impressive feat of miniaturization!
Cell phones are getting larger to accommodate a larger display and laptops are getting smaller and more portable. As the cellphone gets more expensive and the laptop gets cheaper there will come a time in the not too distant future where they will cross. Which device will it be? The netbook or the smartphone? Who’s going to make the first bookphone?
Add VOIP software and all you need is a Bluetooth headset to make your calls. What’s a carrier to do? Will they offer netbooks on subsidy to get you to commit to their dataplan? It’s already happening.
So I’m really excited because I scored a free pass to this week’s Web 2.0 Summit based on a comment I left on John Battelle’s blog where he asked his readers for questions for executives he is going to interview on stage. My question was for Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel:
Do you forsee a time when Intel will embed social features into its hardware? Microsoft tied it’s activation to Windows activation. Would Intel ever offer the ability for users on Facebook and other social networks be able to uniquely identify itself to a social graph and the associated permissions via the Intel chip?
Besides the v-chip (which embedded the parental rating system into televisions) and the Windows activation mentioned above, are there any other instances where hardware embedded a social action or social rating into hardware?
You’ve heard about Red One, the swish new HD digital video camera available at the fraction of the cost of competing digital cameras. Red, founded by the guy that brought you Oakley sunglasses, will revolutionize the movie industry and threatens to replace 35mm film.
Now you can see some sample footage, it’s spectacular.
The Red One records motion in a whopping 4,096 lines of horizontal resolution—”4K” in filmmaker lingo—and 2,304 of vertical. For comparison, hi-def digital movies like Sin City and the Star Wars prequels top out at 1,920 by 1,080, just like your HDTV. (There’s also a slightly higher-resolution option called 2K that reaches 2,048 lines by 1,080.) Film doesn’t have pixels, but the industry-standard 35-millimeter stock has a visual resolution roughly equivalent to 4K. And that’s what makes the Red so exciting: It delivers all the dazzle of analog, but it’s easier to use and cheaper—by orders of magnitude—than a film camera. In other words, Jannard’s creation threatens to make 35-mm movie film obsolete.
More sample video on the Shot on Red website including the movie a trailer shot by Peter Jackson referenced in the Wired article.
A new type of Bluetooth headset hits the market today that offers a unique service for busy travelers on the go. Listening in on your conversations, the Concierge by Sony Ericsson offers helpful tips when it senses hesitation or pause in the dialog.
Let’s say you’re talking to your date about a good place to go for Chinese and have come up short after a run down of the usual spots. Concierge will softly suggest a few places nearby based on geo-location data made available from your GPS-enabled phone.
Having a debate with your landlord about a drafty window that needs fixing? Concierge to the rescue again with a list of reasonably-priced contractors convenient to your home address.
Once you get used to that voice in your head, you’ll never want to take it off. Concierge will sing softly to you when it’s time to go to sleep and bark your active to-dos first thing in the morning when you’re brushing your teeth.
