Pigs Can Fly : Etcetera

Advertisements are now Music Videos

rgr — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:47:37 GMT

I just love this add for the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1.... its just barely an add. Its really a pretty cool music video...

CES - Car Audio

rgr — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 07:21:28 GMT

Ok, I'm officially and old fogey - I had no idea how big the car audio business is... its HUGE. Most of the 409 thousand square feet of the CES north hall was packed full of car audio companies selling anything and fevering for car audio. There array of amplifiers, speakers, thick cables, batteries, small video screens, DVD players, navigation devices, and stereos was jaw dropping in its breadth.

There were super tricked out cars everywhere. For example, this Scion is probably double its original weight due to all the speakers, amplifiers and LCD displays (it has displays 16 total).

Some cars where so customized I couldn't even determine their original make and model. This one didn't even have a steering wheel.

Many of these cars where just for show, but they also had some other incredibly cool - and fully drivable - show cards. This Audi has some kickin' intercooled turbos.

This black coup is both subtle and gorgeous. It has a flawless matt black finish worthy of a stealth fighter. It was my favorite of the show.

When I was building cars (many moons ago) speakers where important, but the world revolved around amplifiers. Today, the situation is just the opposite, amplifiers are important, but man-o-man, speakers are KING, especially the big base speakers. The big ones are beyond big, the are gi-normous. This one is hanging from a cherry picker...

However, the single most amazing thing at the show was the 5.0 Farad 18 volt capacitor. Yes Lucy, that's a full five Farads. Holy electrons Bat Man

Steve Jobs Just Doesn't Get It...

rgr — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 08:59:00 GMT

Steve really doesn't understand what it means to build a platform. Apple's deicsion to close the iPone ensures its success only as a niche product. His recent comments about the iPhone are telling - quoting from the MSNBC article here:

“You don’t want your phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

Its pretty groovy that Cingular (AT&T) has chosen to market the Apple iPhone, but if Cingular was really worried about 3'd party applications running on their network, then they wouldn't be selling the Samsung Black Jack, Cingular 8525, Palm Treo 650, Palm Treo 680 or Palm Treo 750, Nokia E62, Cingular 3125, Cingular 8125 Pocket PC, BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry 7290, BlackBerry 7130c, or BlackBerry 8700c. Others have noted the same thing, for example this item at ArsTechnica from Clint Ecker.

These are all open platforms; 3'd parties are free to write - and monetize - applications for them. This is good for Cingular as well - customers are attracted to their service because their phones can be more usefully than Cingular can make them by themselves.

Being an open platform has long been a key factor in the success of many new products. The first Palm devices succeeded where others failed because they made it easy for developers to write applications and for users to load them on a Palm. Apple has had success here as well - one of the drivers of the early Macs was HyperCard. Lots of people bought Macs so they could run any number of the many HyperCard applications availed. I've always belived that Apple killed HyperCard becuas its openness limited their ability to monetize the HyperCard eco system. They had no success with this by making HyperCard part of the Claris applicatoin suite.

One of the things that has made Microsoft successfully is our focus on being a platform. Yes, the Mac OS is a platform as well, but not to the extent of the Windows, Office and Visual Studio franchises. Why? Because we have long know that enabling others to leverage our platforms to make money is of strategic importance. In contrast, Apple only enables others when it suites their purpose.

The advantage of openness from a platform perspective is clear - profitability and scale. The Windows PC business dwarfs Apple - it long has and it will continue to do so. Can Apple remain profitable? Of course! But the business eco system around Apple will always be more limited than the Microsoft eco system because of Apple's desire to monetize everything.

Just look at the financial numbers for Microsoft and Apple - there really isn't any comparison. If you add in the Windows based business from other companies such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, AMD, Intel, and thousands of others, the ratios become even more lopsided. The cynics will point out that this disparity is because Microsoft "doesn't play fair". I call bullshit on that sentiment - we (Microsoft) have our issues and make mistakes, but we fundamentally "get it" that maintaining a profitable eco system around our products is of long term strategic importance: it builds virtuous circle and leverages network effects. In contrast, apple seemst to go out of their way to avoid these models.

Of course, Apples decision to close the iPhone can be reversed - even in a controlled way at any time. But Steve should be more clear - Apple's goal is to monetize as much of the iPhone revenue as possible and (for now anyway) this means developing and selling all the applications that run on it and monetizing any recurring services based on those applications. Its the same model as the iPod and Zune and I don't think it is a model that can sustain long term success.

CES - Bill Gates Keynote and MS CES BLog

rgr — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:02:00 GMT

You can find Bill's key note video here: http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0701/29031/ces.asx

The MIcrosoft CES blog is here: http://microsoftatces.com/Default.aspx

Enjoy!

CES - TV's, Cool Phones, and Out of the Ordinary Gizmos

rgr — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:10:00 GMT

I'm finally back from CES - what a HUGE show! There were 2,700 exhibitors spread over all 3.2 million square feet of space. Its the biggest show Las Vegas has each year and the whole town is full of technology folks. I spent a total of about 10 hours walking the show floor and I didn't have time to see everything but some things stand out. Here are some notes and some pictures from the show... enjoy!

Big, flat panel TV's where simply everywhere, Sharp, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sony, LG, etc. etc. all had dozens of TVs. There were companies I had never heard of such as Hisense, which private label TV's for many other companies.

Even Westinghouse is manufacturing TV's again!

There were also lots of projectors - the most interesting to me is Samsung's new tiny 640x480 Pocket Imager. Its really tiny and produced a sharp image from its DLP based projection engine.

It worked well for 4:3 TV and power point presentations. Given its small size, its not very bright (they demo was in a tented area), but it was respectable.

Of course, the big news was really big TV's. Many companies have large TV's (60 inch+) including LG.Philips has a 100 inch LCD. However, Sharp Electronics takes the grand prize with their 108 inch LCD TV...

Note how my Cannon Powershot A710 (no flash) had no trouble catching the fast moving video frame on the Sharp Aquos. All the major TV manufacturers are promoting technology that makes high motion video much sharper - the demos where really stunning (sorry I don't have a photo).

Of course, there were a gazillion cell phones - they were everywhere where and came in all shapes and sizes. My favorite was the LG Shine and I think the most interesting was the SoftBank 911SH (a rebranded Sharp phone). Its not a tiny phone, by any means, but its not really intended to be as its designed for watching TV - it has a built in Tuner (which didn't seem to work well at the show).

The thing that makes this phone quite interesting is its rotating screen. The mechanism is really smooth and intuitive and when rotated, the phone was quite natural to hold and watch.

The video demo was really good which isn't surprising given the Sharp Aquos screen.

The phone has a SD card slot and other sites talk about this, but the SoftBank representative was a vague about the video formats it would support, and wether or not it could record TV, or what kind of DRM it would support.

That being said, it looks like this phone would be killer for as a Microsoft phone running some media center software (I wonder if it has enough CPU power and RAM....?)

Next, do you want to go retro? There were at least four companies selling record players - yes vinyl record players. Many of these were in combination with a CD player, burners, radio. The highest quality products were those from Crosley. They also sell "vintage" phones, radios, music boxes and digital juke boxes. Their products are extremely well made (and no doubt expensive). I was particular impressed by the woodwork.

Their other products are also quite nice. I particular liked the Traveler Turntable. It looks 100% vintage.

Interestingly enough, there were some other "new vintage" items as well such as 40 channel CB radios from Cobra, and a reel-to-reel tape deck. Note that the tape deck has a CD player (I wonder why it isn't a recorder?). I don't believe the tape deck is really from RCA.

The Corbra representative told me that their CB radio business still runs at about $40 million dollars a year (gross) and is one of their most profitable business units. He also mentioned that the overall look of their CB radios is identical to the ones they sold in the 70's - this is intentional and due to customer feedback, particular from tuckers who wanted the old look of the original CB radios.

There were some other very interesting things as well such as this Meade telescope and automatic mount (a mere $150,000). I overheard a couple of the Meade guys talking and the sold two of the mounts at the show.... amazing.

Both the mount and the telescope were very impressive and - to my novice eye - are extremely well made and engineered. Just a few years ago these would have been considered fine scientific and professional instruments. Today, they are targeted at the high end semi-pro market.
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The Cobra folks also had another set of interesting gizmos - speed camera detection devices. These really don't detect speed cameras, but they function as radar detects for speed cameras in Europe and especially the UK. These devices are small and use GPS and a database to provide a warning when you are driving in range of a speed camera. Corbra (and several other companies) provide a subscription service that updates the location database. Its about three British Pounds a month for the subscription.

Well, we live in a science fiction world - Iris scanning has long been a staple of movies and books and its been predicted anecdotally on the web for years. We'll, its here now for real. LG is selling "large numbers" of its Iris scanners to large data centers, banks, governments and other entities that need high physical security.

What I found interesting about this product is that its well... a product. This technology is well out of the lab and prototype stage and (as I'm told by the LG rep) is reliable and robust. Indeed, the scanner itself was very well built and had an institutional feel I would expect from a high end security device.

This scanner is a 3'd generation design and includes facial recognition as well.

We'll... that's enough CES info for one post! I have some pictures from the 409,000 square foot North concourse that was packed full of Car audio gear - its just amazing. I'll post some pictures from that part of the show in a day or two.

CES - LG Shine Cell Phone

rgr — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 07:14:00 GMT

Wow, there are a TON of cool things at CES with lots of great blogs and pictures of new and interseting products. I thougt I'd run along with the pack and post a few entries about things that caught my eye.

ONe of my favorting gizmos at this years show is the LG Shine cell phone. Its really sleek and stylish - the front has a mirror finish and when the display is active it is visible through the mirror. The effect is quite stunning.

Its also a well built phone without the flimsy feel of many other recent phones. The control wheel on the front is very usable and responsive - allowing for easy scrolling thorugh items.

Its also nice and thin and should fit nicely in a pocket or purse.