Lately I have been thinking a lot about the technology that has entered and exited our lives over the past 10 years.  Over the ten-year lifespan of this blog and the mailing list that preceeded it much has changed in the technologies that permeate our daily lives — when we began this journey in 1999, desktops outsold notebooks by 4:1, Apple was a novelty computer maker for uber-geeks, and no one you knew had ever ‘googled’ themselves in public.  I thought I’d run down the most disappointing aspects of our jaunty shuffle into modernity.

What makes a technology disappointing?  Many products fail in obscurity because they try to solve something irrelevant.  What you need to do to make this list, friends, is aim high and fail wildly.   While most of the FAILs described herein are products, I did also find a couple of product categories which have really disappointed.. and one entire industry.  After all, disappointment is invariably the result of a combination of promise (our hopes & goals for the product or service) and the provider’s failure to achieve that promise.  Sometimes the predisposition for failure afflicts not just one company or product team, but an entire industry.  So here we go:

Motorola ROKR

In 2005, the fact that Apple was working on a mobile device to follow-up the iPod was a very poorly-kept secret, but the specifics were the source of much speculation.  And oh, how the fan boys wept when they thought that the sum-total of this effort was the ROKR, an epic piece of crap on which Apple collaborated with Motorola to produce a re-labelled Moto E398 with an iTunes client.  Although the ROKR had 512MB of memory on-board, the device was software-limited to 100 songs — and downloading them was a painful process as the device lacked USB 2.0.  Predictably the product was a #FAIL and Jobs and co. left Zander in the dust with the iPhone, but for those who actually believed that this was Apple’s solitary foray into mobile, there were a few sleepless months.

Satellite Radio

FM radio sucks.  There’s probably a JACK-FM station in your city, where the DeeJays “play what they want”.  Only, they don’t really.. they play exclusively Top 10 hits from the past 20 years regardless of musical genre, the result of which can easily result in a computer-controlled segue from Katrina and the Waves to a Beyonce track.  That the radio business considers this format to be innovative explains why we need alternatives, and satellite radio was supposed to be that alternative.  Sirius and XM radio both got off the ground in 2001, so to speak.  In 2003 I predicted a merger between the two, which was announced February 2007.  And while Satellite radio does permit greater diversity, and thus narrower focus, in channels there are many problems.  Foremost of these is the audio compression technology, called Lucent PAC, which according to studies has lower perceptual quality than even MP3 at the same bitrate; and the rumoured limitation of stream bandwidth to 64Kbps per channel… far worse than the MP3s on your hard drive and light years from the “CD Quality” that Sirius et al used to advertise.  This makes Satellite radio a no-go for audiophiles, but OK for talk radio and sports.  We continue to wait for decent music without wires.

Nokia N-Gage

It’s likely that the N-Gage failed simply because it failed to.. uh.. engage the game development community with much enthusiasm.  Launched in 2004, the device’s total failure was predicted by a string of awful reviews stemming from substantial usability problems, such as the fact that users had to essentially disassemble the device to swap games, or the fact that one couldn’t receive calls while playing a game, or that the device was weighty and uncomfortable and impractical for use as a phone, or the fact that the screen could not display horizontally, or its $299 price tag (substantially higher than the Game Boy Advance).  Developers probably saw the writing on the wall when evaluating early test units of the N-Gage.

The PDA

Remember the iPaq?  Or the early Palm devices?  Today, the notion of a mobile address book device that isn’t coupled to a telephone seems positively stupid.  In November 2000, I asked the market to build me a mobile handheld device that married my email to my phone and tied it together via my address book — all of which synced to my PC.  In my mind at the time, PDAs were gap fillers until we could field broadband wireless IP networks that provided persistent connectivity.  The smartphone — devices like the iPhone and Droid — killed the PDA and for most of us I suspect that is good riddance.  Nobody wants to walk around looking like Batman, their belt burdened by half-a-dozen devices beeping and squawking.  How many people bought these things or received them as gifts, only to abandon them within months?  Still, credit where it’s due — the PDA begat the SmartPhone, and we’re all better for it.

Modo.NET

I’m betting you never heard of Modo.NET because it was launched exclusively in San Francisco, LA and New York in the summer of  2000, but Scout Electromedia, the company that created it, collapsed within 3 months (in fact the device was available in SF for only 1 day before the business folded dramatically).  Like Dodgeball, which launched shortly after Modo’s collapse, Modo was all about the urban hipster lifestyle.  Built around yet another PDA-like device with a hugely innovative design, the Modo leveraged the paging network to update its users with happenings in and around the city… it was like the pager you carried with you when going out on the town on Friday nights.  Two major design compromises crippled the Modo, however… it had no keyboard; and was receive-only.  Also… like Dodgeball, the Modo was an idea ahead of its time: all of Scout’s business and consumer goals are now attainable on smartphones:  no stand-alone device or clunky SMSing necessary.  Today many of these goals are embodied in Foursquare and other services.

Motorola DVR Series

Hello again, Motorola!  Let me make this crystal clear for you, Mr. Zander:  Dude, I just want to be able to watch TV and record things for playback later with a minimum of interference.  In response, Motorola created an underpowered set-top device that frequently overheats, trashes its own hard drive, and has a user interface that is akin to debating Keynesian Economics with a three-year-old.  Perhaps it’s because you have an effective duopoly, along with your buddies from Scientific Atlanta, on the cable set-top-box market even despite the FCC’s insistence on the CableCard standard.  Perhaps you simply lack the kind of employees that have any affinity for user experience design.  What is evident is that you and your cable partners are under no specific motivation to improve this product, as it has now been in circulation for nearly 5 years with zero material improvement.  In fact, your products in this category, including the DCT-6412 with which I am famously saddled (this article is the number one most visited on ianbell.com) are so crappy that the FCC believes they are discouraging people from adopting Cable Television itself.  Be ashamed.  You suck.

The AppleTV

Like Afghanistan, the set top box seems to be a graveyard of empires — so much so that even Silicon Valley’s King Midas, Steve Jobs, has been laid humble before it.  The AppleTV is, like many other set top boxes, underpowered for the task at hand.  More like an iPod than a Mac Mini, the AppleTV fails to meet user expectations as an all-rounder, lacks CODECs for popular formats and wrappers like .MKV and .AVI, and only works effectively when you pay for and download all of your content from the iTunes walled garden.  Set top boxes that do satisfy tend to allow users to get their content from wherever and sync/stream it from a media server elsewhere in the house — this is true of the iPod lineup, and that is a lesson Apple should have carried forward into this product.  Moreover, the AppleTV doesn’t even have an OFF button.

Green Cars

In 2006, when I bought my Jetta GLI, I promised myself that it would be my last gas-guzzler.  I just bought another vanilla car last month, though, after seeking and failing to find a suitable practical alternative in the diesel, hybrid, pure electric, or hydrogen vehicle.  It’s important to understand that gasoline, hydrogen, and batteries are simply storage media for energy.  Where energy is derived from — whether it’s nuclear, solar, wind, coal, crude oil, or whatever else you can come up with — determines the sustainability, not what it burns or farts out the tailpipe.  Moreover for me, like most consumers, a next-generation car needs to fulfill my usual manly requirement for sportiness or (for others) accessibility or safety, with some added convenience — such as not needing to buy gas at stations or being able to drive long distances without a refuel.  The zero tailpipe emissions is a nice benefit, but not a buying feature for most.  As I pointed out last year, mainstream auto manufacturers have consistently failed to figure this out.  And if you live in a region where all of the energy on the grid is derived from coal or natural gas then you are not doing the environment any favours by purchasing a plug-in.

Pet Robots

Since Robbie the Robot did the rounds on TV sitcoms in the 1950s, Americans have fantasized about having a jetsons-style friend rendered in metal and silicon adorning their living room.  With the launch of Sony’s AIBO in late 1999, things were looking up for us.  At a price tag of $2500 though, there was still some room for improvement, and robots began to emerge all up and down the cost and capability matrix.  The most successful by far was iRobot’s Roomba, which fulfills the robot servant role quite nicely but falls flat on the personality index.  In the latter category resides the Pleo, and I will confess I have always wanted one.  Unlike the Aibo, though, the Pleo isn’t really autonomous.  It gets an hour at the most out of its batteries, and cannot return by itself to its charging station.  The Pleo is a great demonstration of how pre-programmed behaviour can trigger emotions — not in the robot itself, but in its owner — but sadly disappoints and is not viable as a “pet” robot.  Maybe next decade, Robbie.

Music Revolution

At the end of the last decade, with the massive growth of Napster, the writing was on the wall.  People clearly voted with their feet in showing how they wanted to use music.  While this had been the case for decades, with mix tapes and pirate radio, the internet as in other industries was a key enabler.  Yet rather than embrace and extend this revolution, as tech industry companies tend to do, the music industry went on the warpath via the RIAA.  Lawyers mobilized, suing 12-year-old kids, single moms, and other obvious villains.  The only accomplishment of the RIAA has been to effectively kill internet radio, which would serve to promote their artists, while music sharing has continued unabated.  Yet, at the end of the decade came one smattering of good news, and further proof of industry executives’ failure to appreciate irony:  a lawsuit revealed that the Canadian music industry has been stealing from artists for 25+ years, and faces a $6Bn liability.  Small justice, I suppose.  So while the technologies (that’s what this post is about after all) that came from the publishers has been an abject failure, the technologies, such as BitTorrent, WebJay, Pandora, et al created by users and lovers of music has flowered.  Imagine what would happen if the innovators actually had the support of that industry?

Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you through the teens.

Falling Apart?

This just in:  Vancouver has been ranked fourth on the world’s list of least affordable cities.  This is well ahead of cities like Manhattan, San Francisco, London, Paris, and Hong Kong.  As most rational people know, the city’s thundering real estate market has been bolstered by rampant speculation and constant construction of new condominiums.. but salaries, and the city’s economic development, have not kept pace.

The survey quoted in the article cites research indicating that the cost of housing in Vancouver is massively disproportionate to median salaries earned by its residents, specifically when compared to other cities around the world.  The median house price in Vancouver as of the time of the survey is 8.4 times the median income — 8.4 years’ average income to purchase a house, compared to the average median in Canada: 3.5.

What this tells you is that the fundamentals that support high real-estate prices are simply not there in Vancouver.  People just don’t earn enough income to sustain this market at such lofty prices whereas in cities like New York and San Francisco, where real estate prices are indeed higher, median incomes are substantially higher and thus can support high prices.

Vancouver is plagued by a number of problems that keep the salaries of its citizens low:

1. Affordable commerical real estate is hard to come by in the city — leading in some cases to a perverse reverse-commute where urbanites must schlep out to the suburbs to their workplaces — but more importantly this discourages companies from locating here.
2. Most large cities with expensive downtown cores operate as financial centres — the aforementioned London, Hong Kong, and New York spring to mind.  Vancouver does not, except for our storied love affair with ponzi schemes.  Without the sustaining flow of capital through our city there is highly limited opportunity for local investment.
3. We’re still a bunch of tree-cutting, pickaxe-wielding hicks.  And BC’s resource industries, the bread and butter of Vancouver for more than 150 years, are weak thanks to everything from the US softwood lumber tarriffs to Kyoto to a number of key mining company collapses.  Our province has failed to diversify its economic base substantially away from resource businesses.
4. The advanced industries like software and aerospace that keep California sizzlin’ have failed to grow in scale in this city.  Investment in this area is weak, with very little private investment and weak government support (nearly all of the Venture Capital in Vancouver is government-derived).  We did however blow >$500 million on a handful of useless fast ferries, though.  Two notable exceptions are alternative energy and biotech.  For now, at least, they are humming along.
5. The film industry, which we in BC have courted for decades, is a fickle bride.  Since productions are built for each project and torn down when completed with little long-term planning, unfavourable economic winds mean that producers can pull up stakes and shoot in South Carolina, Mexico, or wherever they can cost-optimize.  In any case, the profits are retained in New York and LA… like a Mumbai call centre, we’re just an outsourcer.
6. Drugs, and by “drugs” I mean the cultivation and distribution of marijuana, constitutes probably the largest industry in BC and it flies completely under the regulatory / taxation radar.  Conservative estimates peg this at between $5Bn and $7Bn per year.  These people have a hard time getting mortgages.  They also tend to be undesireable tenants, since they tend to get arrested/shot at/sent into hiding — that is if they don’t blow up their penthouse with a meth lab.
7. Our transportation infrastructure is pathetic, particularly when compared with major metropolitan areas (of which Vancouver is now one) such as Boston, Montreal, Toronto, New York, London, Tokyo, and others.  If we wish to become a center of commerce then we need to be able to move people around better.  Skytrain is a laughing stock and the West Coast Express, which goes to a handful of proximate suburbs from the downtown core twice a day each way, doesn’t even merit comparison with the British Urban Railway system.  Our highways (such as they are) subject people to multi-hour commutes to travel 20km.  We have failed, failed, FAILED to build infrastructure and it will continue to haunt the city for decades to come.

For those of us in the technology industry, certainly during this housing price spike, Vancouver seems an illogical place to locate our startups or ply our trades in information technology.  While the average condo price can be as high as 2x-2.5x the price of a comparable condo in Toronto or Montreal, our salary variance is just 103.5% the national average, versus 104.2% for Toronto and 103.9% for Montreal (this according to the 2009 Robert Half Salary Guide for Technology Professionals).  While we spend more to live here in Lotus Land, we sure don’t make up for it in income.

Comparing Income to Housing Prices

So how high is too high?  Right now we are finding out.

If you were blindsided by the Vancouver Real Estate crash then you were clearly in a profound state of self-delusion.  Evidently that list of deluded fools includes our civic leaders who played russian roulette with the city’s finances, underwriting the now disastrous Olympic Village project in which the taxpayers stand to lose as much as $750 Million.  Still, even amid the free-falling values, Realtors and Developers are outright lying to you… inviting you to join in their deathmatch with catch phrases like “don’t wait too long” and “strong fundamentals“.  Where have we heard that before?  Oh right, it was John McCain, about the US Economy in September – days before it collapsed.  Oops.

UPDATE: In a passionate article, former mayor Sam Sullivan says the Olympic Village is not a clusterf*ck.

Speculators and developers will beg to differ (they’re invested in fostering positive vibes) but remember:  they’re betting with your money, not their own.  Condos down the street from ours were forced into liquidation at 40% off, and there have been stories of other developers dumping their inventory at similar price cuts.  This is the beginning of a trend, not a sign of the bottom, so if you’re foolishly lining up to jump in at this point, you get what you deserve.

Not until a software engineer making $60K-$70K per year can buy a 1-Bedroom apartment in the city will the fundamentals be aligned and the market be stabilized.  This means mortgage + maintenance of less than $1500 per month using the 30% rule.  On a 25-year mortgage that probably means this 1BR apartment has to be less than $200K.  If the research that started this article can be believed, we should expect an adjustment of as much as 60% across the board to bring Vancouver back to the Canadian mean.

So in other words, wait ’til the bottom really drops out, Vancouverites..

And then we can start figuring out why no one in this city (not even the property developers, after 2007) makes any real money.

Today, it was revealed unto me that Miss Virginia, Tara Wheeler, is in fact a goalie.  Yes.  I repeat.  There was a one in fifty chance that the winner of the Miss America pageant held this weekend would be a goalie.  Just think — they only narrowly averted having someone with an actual ability win the pageant!

Frankly, I don’t know how she does it.  I gave up wearing my tiara on the ice years ago, and now for special occasions (such as when it’s well below freezing, nighttime, and I am on a backyard rink somewhere in Kelowna) I wear a toque.

Also today I became buddies with Alexander Ovechkin.  On twitter.  Which is almost as good as being his fake friend on Facebook or MySpace.  A couple of years ago your humble author ran into Caps’ owner Ted Leonsis in San Francisco and I cheerfully asked whether he could release Ovi to spare with my summer league team.  He said that he and Ovi were a package deal and he thought I should ask the Sedins.  They could use the practice, we agreed, but I didn’t think they’d enjoy being on our second line.

I know there is a really creative way in which I could combine these three stories, however it is late and I have things to do, people.

Online Music Broadcasters Sue RIAA 36 minutes ago

Add Technology – AP to My Yahoo!

By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO – An alliance of online music broadcasters sued the recording industry in federal court Wednesday, alleging major record labels have unlawfully inflated webcasting royalty rates to keep independent operators out of the market.

Webcaster Alliance, an organization claiming some 400 members, filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming the major labels and the Recording Industry Association of America ( news -web sites ) have maintained a monopoly over their music.

The suit alleges the negotiations for arriving at royalty rates to broadcast songs over the Internet violated federal antitrust laws and seeks an injunction that would prevent the major labels from enforcing their intellectual property rights and collecting royalty payments.

The current royalty rate for broadcasting music over the Internet is 7 cents per performance for each listener accounted for, a rate that has kept small webcasters from entering the market, said Ann Gabriel, president of Webcaster Alliance.

Gabriel’s organization would like to see the per performance royalties eliminated. Instead, a flat percentage of commercial webcaster revenues, somewhere between 3 and 5 percent, would be a fair fee to pay, she said.

The RIAA called the suit a “publicity stunt that has no merit.”

“Record companies and artists have worked earnestly and diligently to negotiate a variety of agreements with a host of new types of radio services, including commercial and noncommercial webcasters,” the RIAA said in a statement.

The major labels have struck a variety of agreements for webcasting that go beyond the behemoths of the industry, such as AOL, and deal with smaller commercial and noncommercial operations.

SoundExchange, the organization that collects payments on behalf of the music industry and artists, recently struck licensing agreements with satellite radio stations, college Internet radio stations and background music services that send tunes to retail stores.

___

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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer

SAN FRANCISCO – Yahoo! Inc (NasdaqNM: YHOO -news ). on Monday snapped up Overture Services Inc. (NasdaqNM: OVER -news ), the pioneer of pay-for-placement online search results, in a $1.6 billion deal that fortifies the Internet powerhouse for a looming showdown with Google and Microsoft.

The cash-and-stock acquisition valued Overture at $24.82 per share — a 15 percent premium over the stock’s closing price last week. The price consists of $312 million in cash and 0.6108 Yahoo shares for each of Overture’s 65.7 million outstanding shares.

The deal’s value will fluctuate with Yahoo’s stock until its expected closing date in the fourth quarter.

Overture’s shares rose $2.54 to close at $24.05 Monday on the Nasdaq Stock Market, where Yahoo’s shares gained 1 cent to close at $32.20.

The acquisition continues a recent flurry of dealmaking in the lucrative business of online searching, a crucial axis on which much of the Internet’s utility depends.

By buying Pasadena, Calif.-based Overture, Yahoo gains control of one of its most important business partners and strikes a blow against Google and Microsoft.

A fierce rival of Google, which offers ad-based results distinct from its popularity-based search rankings, Overture now threatens to become more formidable by tapping into Yahoo’s greater resources, which included $1.1 billion in cash as of June 30.

Privately held Google, which provides some search results to Yahoo, declined to comment on Monday’s deal. Microsoft, whose MSN service, like Yahoo, has been collecting steady profits from Overture, was circumspect.

Lisa Gurry, MSN’s group product manager, said the software giant will make its next move after examining how Yahoo’s deal might affect its relationship with Overture.

Although Yahoo executives said they hope to maintain Overture’s existing alliances with partners such as MSN, it seems improbable that the rivals will want to subsidize each other, said Danny Sullivan, editor of the industry newsletter Search Engine Watch.

“This hurts MSN because Overture had been one of its best buddies,” Sullivan said.

MSN has been pouring more resources into online searching in an effort to become less reliant on services provided by outsiders. Besides relying on Overture for some of its search results, MSN also draws upon Inktomi, a search engine service that Yahoo acquired earlier this year for $279.5 million.

During the past 18 months, Overture has become increasingly valuable to Yahoo, prompting predictions that the two companies eventually would unite.

Overture has played a pivotal role in Yahoo’s recent financial revival, accounting for roughly 20 percent of Yahoo’s revenue of $604 million during the first half of this year.

Conceived by dot-com entrepreneur Bill Gross in 1997, Overture developed a search engine that sorts its results based on how much advertisers are willing to pay to be ranked under specific words.

Overture’s commercial database feeds search engines at popular Web sites such as Yahoo and MSN, which display the advertising links along with results generated by objective, algorithmic formulas.

Ridiculed just a few years ago, the so-called “pay-for-performance” concept has turned into an online gold mine. Pay-for-performance search is expected to generate $2 billion in revenue this year and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray expects the lucrative niche will reach $5 billion in 2006.

Overture has cashed in on pay-for-perfmorance’s popularity, attracting 88,000 advertisers while generating earnings of $114 million since it first became profitable in the summer of 2001.

But the company’s success attracted more competition, most notably from Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, which has lured away pivotal partners such as AOL and EarthLink and spurred pricing concessions that have lowered Overture’s profit margins.

Although it followed in Overture’s footsteps, Google now has a slight edge over its rival in the United States. Domestically, Google’s network generated about 54 percent of all paid search results compared to 45 percent for Overture, according to market research compiled by comScore qSearch.

The competitive pressures prompted Overture’s management to lower its profit projections earlier this year and contributed to a downturn in the company’s stock, opening the door for Yahoo’s offer.

The deal supplements Yahoo’s recent acquisition of Inktomi with two other search engine services, AltaVista and Alltheweb.com, that Overture bought earlier this year for a total of $207 million.

Putting all those search engine tools under one roof is likely to create overlap, Sullivan said.

Yahoo executives believe all the services will help further its quest to overtake Google as the Web’s most popular search engine.

“We now own all the crucial elements of an end-to-end search offering,” Yahoo CEO Terry Semel said during an analyst call Monday.

Google continues to provide some of Yahoo’s search results. Semel declined to comment how the Overture acquisition will affect Yahoo’s relationship with Google. “I didn’t lay awake last night wondering about that,” Semel said in an interview Monday.

As a counter-punch to Yahoo’s moves, Microsoft seems more likely to acquire a search engine company, Sullivan said.

Potential candidates include Ask Jeeves Inc., FindWhat.com Inc. and, perhaps even Google.

MSN’s Gurry declined to comment on the company’s possible interest in Google.

Wi-Fi’s true believers see powerful ‘grass-roots’ force

John Markoff NYT Monday, July 14, 2003

  SUN VALLEY, Idaho Is the Wi-Fi boom about to bust? Even though that has lately become the fashionable view, the answer is probably no.

Critics argue that there are too many competitors trying to deliver high-speed wireless connections to the Internet. Prices for most commercial Wi-Fi services are too high, they say, and free or subsidized operations abound, including those like the one McDonald’s started rolling out last week at its fast food restaurants in San Francisco.

All this will make it practically impossible, the skeptics insist, for anyone to build a profitable business in Wi-Fi, a short-range wireless radio technology that frees personal computers from their physical tethers to the Internet.

A surprising number of true believers in Wi-Fi were present at this famed mountain resort during an annual conference, organized by the investment banker Herbert Allen, that brings together technology, media and entertainment industry leaders.

Intel, in particular, is betting a lot of its own money on Wi-Fi. And that may be exactly what the new technology needs to succeed.

Intel’s two top executives, Craig Barrett and Andrew Grove, were here this year to preach the virtues of Wi-Fi, in the belief that it will be a powerfully disruptive force in the telecommunications industry.

It has certainly been a disruptive force at Intel. The industry and analysts have focused their attention on the current frenzy to build out wireless Internet locations known as hot spots at airports, coffee houses and hotels. But Intel has a much bolder wireless plan in the works: it wants to close the so-called “last-mile” gap between homes and the Internet backbone with cheap, super-fast connections so that businesses can deliver interactive entertainment and a host of other digital products and services right into America’s living rooms and dens.

The new Intel bet is remarkable given that the company initially backed the wrong wireless standard, putting its resources behind a competing standard known as Home RF. But Intel, the world’s biggest computer chip maker, changed its strategy after company executives realized the power and potential pervasiveness of the unregulated Wi-Fi wireless networking standard.

The Wi-Fi standard was developed and commercialized at Apple Computer as early as 1999. Ultimately, though, it gained widespread popularity on its own, Mr. Barrett acknowledged in an interview here, as a grass-roots, from-the-bottom-up movement. That success stands in striking contrast to top-down wireless data strategies, like the 3G cellular approach pushed by the telecom industry, which has so far been an expensive bust.

Barrett now says that people who predict a Wi-Fi shakeout are missing the point, as well as failing to see the deeper implications of the technology. “What is missing is the realization of how many legs this technology has,” he said.

In the three months since Intel introduced its new wireless PC chips, the company has become the dominant force in the Wi-Fi market. It is now putting Wi-Fi circuitry in all of its chip sets for portable computers, investing widely in Wi-Fi industry start-ups and spending almost its entire annual marketing budget in a $300 million advertising campaign trumpeting the virtues of its unwired Centrino brand.

“Intel has raised the level of the water and is floating all the boats,” said Glenn Fleishman, editor of Wi-Fi Networking News, a Web-based daily newsletter.

Of even greater potential import, Intel plans to start a test in Texas in a few months that will use a combination of wireless technologies, including Wi-Fi, to bring broadband Internet connections directly to homes. Last week the company quietly announced that it was teaming with a small equipment maker, Alvarion, of Tel Aviv, Israel, to back a complementary wireless standard that is intended to send data over distances of as much as 30 miles and at speeds of up to 70 megabits per second. The data rate is high enough to comfortably stream high-definition television video broadcasts, and the range makes it possible to quickly deploy a system in a large urban or suburban area.

By comparison, current Wi-Fi technology is limited to several hundred feet and speeds of 11 megabits per second. The Intel test, however, will explore using the 802.16 standard, known as WiMax, to distribute the data to Wi-Fi antennas in local neighborhoods. If Intel is able to jumpstart the market to reach millions of homes with a relatively inexpensive interactive data and video service, the technology could quickly alter the communications landscape. That is already starting to happen. There is now an explosion of Wi-Fi hot spots in hotels, coffee shops, restaurants and airports, and a new wave of handheld gadgets will soon supplement portable personal computers for a class of mobile workers that analysts are calling windshield warriors.

In a speech here, Barrett sketched a portrait of a rapidly growing market. There are now about 40 million Wi-Fi users, he said, and new access points are selling at the rate of about 15,000 a day, which makes Wi-Fi a much faster-growing technology than cellular telephony.

While prices for connection times are certain to keep falling, industry executives say they are already seeing usage patterns that suggest that Wi-Fi commercial services are working and are here to stay. Moreover, they say they believe the services will complement and not compete with free services that are emerging in urban areas around the country. “We have a good business model in hotels, said Dave Vucina, chief executive officer of Wayport, a provider of Wi-Fi hot spots in hotels, airports, restaurants and other locations that is based in Austin, Texas.

In the hotels that Wayport serves, he said, the company is seeing between 8 and 12 percent nightly usage rates for each occupied room. He said he believed that the rate could go as high as 15 to 24 percent. Those numbers are credible, industry analysts said, because out of the 40 million business travelers in the United States, 30 million now carry personal computers when they hit the road.

The central issue in the debate is whether those workers will be able to meet their data needs with next-generation cellular telephone networks, or whether the far higher data rates available on Wi-Fi networks will prove preferable.

Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune

Question: Why does my monitor need to be on 802.11?

-Ian.

—— http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncidX2&e=8&cidX2&u=/nm/ 20030312/wr_nm/tech_intel_wifi_dc

Intel Wireless Computer Push Sparks Industry Rush Tue Mar 11, 9:22 PM ET Add Technology – Reuters Internet Report to My Yahoo!

By Elinor Mills Abreu and Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO/HANOVER, Germany (Reuters) – Flexing its muscles as the world’s largest chipmaker, Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC – news) on Wednesday will show how its industry arm-twisting could make connecting to the Internet via wireless networks a standard feature on mobile computers within a year.

At news conferences from Sydney to Beijing, from Tokyo to New York, Intel will finally unveil its much-ballyhooed set of chips known as Centrino that it hopes will become the wireless computer counterpart of its established Pentium chip line.

Analysts think Intel’s push could be one bright spot in an otherwise dismal market for new technology this year.

But by marshaling top notebook computer makers, retailers such as McDonald’s Corp. and U.S. bookseller Borders, and mobile telephone providers around the globe, Intel is giving the biggest boost yet to a technology sometimes seen as a spoiler for the emerging generation of mobile Internet phones.

Intel is lending support to a grass-roots technology that for years suffered from fragmented industry support and disparate names such as Wi-Fi, WLAN (wireless local area network) and 802.11, by transforming a patchwork of local and regional efforts into a worldwide grid for wireless computing.

NOTEBOOK MAKERS SIGN ON

Despite initial resistance to the idea, top-ranked notebook computer suppliers have signed on, including Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HWP – news), Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq:DELL – news), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM – news), Toshiba Corp. (6502.T) and Sony Corp (news – web sites). (6758.T) Gateway Inc. (NYSE:GTW – news), the No. 3 U.S. PC maker, is also introducing Centrino-based laptops.

“Every notebook vendor is launching and announcing products with us on Wednesday,” Don Macdonald, Intel’s director of mobile product marketing, said of top computer makers in an interview with Reuters ahead of the product unveiling.

By putting the functions of wireless networks inside the brains of an off-the-shelf laptop, rather than computer users having to configure add-in cards, Intel could set off a veritable tsunami to help propel Wi-Fi into wide use, analysts are predicting. Widespread wireless computer connections could create a sea change in the way computers are used, they say.

Analyst Steve Kleynhans of META Group predicts that by the end of 2003 Centrino will be at the core of up to 80 percent of the new laptops bought by companies, allowing office workers to walk from desk to conference room untethered. Up to half of consumer laptops could be equipped with it this year.

“You’ll find that virtually all notebooks sold into the corporate markets, and by extension, most notebooks sold into the consumer markets, will end up wireless,” Kleynhans said.

PUSH COMES TO SHOVE

Intel’s technology marketing machine looks set to succeed where prior industry prodding has fallen short.

In the late 1990s Apple Computer Inc. jump-started consumer support for the technology by offering a home radio unit known as Airport, while in 2001 Microsoft’s XP operating system simplified the way Wi-Fi worked for Windows users.

Apple, analysts say, has been out in front in creating wireless networking technologies that are fairly easy to set up. The iconic computer maker’s chief executive and co-founder Steve Jobs (news – web sites) has dubbed 2003 the “year of the notebook.”

Wi-Fi provides high-speed Internet access from fixed-position phone or cable television network lines.

Users of properly equipped laptops can gain access to the Internet, or potentially their own corporate network, if they are within 100 meters (328 feet) of a Wi-Fi access point.

Already Wi-Fi is popular among home computer enthusiasts who can install a small antenna box in their house to create a local network linking PCs and other home electronics. The trend is catching on in offices, but security concerns are a snag.

Centrino is intended to be used only in laptops and notebooks, which will be priced competitively with Pentium models. “They’re priced for the mass market,” Macdonald said.

Intel said in a statement on Tuesday that laptops will cost as little as $1,399, comparable to today’s notebook computers.

The microprocessor portion of Centrino is available at clock speeds ranging from 1.30 gigahertz to 1.60 gigahertz, and the price of the chips includes the chipset and the network connection device, Intel said.

The 1.60 GHz Pentium M costs $720; the 1.50 GHz processor costs $506; the 1.40 GHz chip $377; and the 1.3 GHz costs $324, all in quantities of 1,000, Intel said. There are also two low-voltage processors available, running at 1.10 GHZ and 900 megahertz, costing $345 and $324, respectively.

Intel’s push into the wireless computing market is helping prod other major electronics makers to create built-in wireless connections in their own products.

Philips Electronics (PHG.AS) Chief Executive Gerard Kleisterlee said on Tuesday his company is planning to offer a full line-up of consumer electronics products with built-in wireless connections, including computer monitors, portable music and video players, sound speakers and televisions.

JOINING THE PARADE

Intel’s move encourages not just consumers and companies to install wireless networks, but also telecoms carriers and independent operators.

Public wireless computer locations are known as “hotspots.” They have the potential to create a Web of wireless connections in heavily traveled locations like hotels and airports serving business travelers, Starbucks cafes, and even public plazas.

Hilton Hotels said on Tuesday it plans to make Wi-Fi available in 50 of its North American hotels this month. By 2007, some 25,000 hotels globally will offer Wi-Fi, up from just 1,000 in 2002, according to a recent estimate published by market forecasters Pyramid Research. “Wi-Fi will become as free as the soap in the rooms,” the report predicts.

In Japan and South Korea (news – web sites) key operators have aggressively built Wi-Fi networks, even though they will eat into some of their other wireless services, such as mobile phone traffic.

Every Wi-Fi hotspot that sprouts up at the local coffee shop or airport represents one less potential revenue-earning area for cash-starved mobile operators that have invested billions building these new phone networks.

Nonetheless, mobile phone companies across Scandinavia, Germany, France and the United Kingdom are lining up to supply Wi-Fi services on the theory that if anyone is going to skim their revenues, it had best be themselves.

“I think that both technologies complement each other extremely well,” Rudolf Groeger, chief executive of O2 Germany (OOM.L), the country’s fourth largest wireless operator.

washingtonpost .com

The Best Dissent Has Never Been Anti-American

By Michael Kazin

Sunday, February 9, 2003; Page B03

As the U.S. military prepares for war, millions of Americans are seeking a way to stop it. Hundreds of thousands of them have attended national demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco. Local protest — on campuses, in churches and by labor union members — is broader and louder than at any time since the Vietnam War, more than three decades ago. Most Democrats running for president, eager to keep step with the party’s base, have warned the White House against rushing into war.

But the American left, the natural vehicle for opponents of imperial overreach, remains a tiny persuasion — and a sharply divided one at that. The organizers of the recent Washington and San Francisco marches refuse to say anything critical of Saddam Hussein; many belong to the Workers World Party, whose stated goal is “solidarity of all the workers and oppressed against this criminal imperialist system.” That viewpoint dismays liberals such as philosopher and editor Michael Walzer, who calls for a “decent” left that would never apologize for tyrants. But whatever their views on Iraq, no one in the current peace movement has put forth a moral vision that might unite and sustain it beyond the precipice of war.

Progressives once had such a vision, and they derived it from unimpeachable sources — the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They articulated American ideals — of social equality, individual liberty and grass-roots democracy — and accused governing elites of betraying them in practice. Through most of U.S. history, this brand of patriotism was indispensable to the cause of social change. It made the protests and rebellions of leftists comprehensible to their fellow citizens and helped inscribe those movements within a common national narrative.

Thomas Paine, born in England, praised his adopted homeland as an “asylum for mankind” — which gave him a forum to denounce regressive taxes and propose free public education. Elizabeth Cady Stanton co-authored a “Declaration of Rights of Women” on the centennial of the Declaration of Independence and argued that denying the vote to women was a violation of the 14th Amendment. The Populists vowed to “restore the Government of the Republic to the hands of the ‘plain people’ with which class it originated” through such methods as an eight-hour day and nationalization of the railroads. In the 1930s, sit-down strikers proudly carried American flags into the auto plants they occupied and announced that they were battling for “industrial democracy.” Twenty years later, Martin Luther King Jr. told his fellow bus boycotters, “If we are wrong — the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong” and proclaimed that “the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right.”

One could list analogous statements from pioneering reformers such as Jane Addams and Betty Friedan, industrial unionists John L. Lewis and Cesar Chavez, and the gay liberationist Harvey Milk. Without patriotic appeals, the great social movements that weakened inequalities of class, gender and race in the United States — and spread their message around the world — never would have gotten off the ground.

A self-critical sense of patriotism also led activists on the left to oppose their nation’s expansionist policies abroad. At the end of the 19th century, anti-imperialists opposed the conquest of the Philippines by invoking the words of Thomas Jefferson and comparing President William McKinley to King George III. Foes of U.S. intervention in World War I demanded to know why Americans should die to defend European monarchs and their colonies in Africa and Asia. When Martin Luther King spoke out against the Vietnam War, he explained simply, “I criticize America because I love her. I want her to stand as a moral example to the world.”

It’s difficult to think of any American radical or reformer who repudiated the national belief system and still had a major impact on U.S. politics and policy. The movement against the Vietnam War did include activists who preferred the Vietcong flag to the American one — and a few star-spangled banners were actually torched. But the antiwar insurgency grew powerful only toward the end of the 1960s, when it drew in people who looked for leadership to such liberal patriots as King, Walter Reuther and Eugene McCarthy rather than to Abbie Hoffman and the Weathermen.

Since then, however, many on the left have viewed national ideals as fatally compromised by the racism of the founders and the jingoism of flag-waving conservatives. Noam Chomsky derisively describes patriotism as the governing elite’s way of telling its subjects, “You shut up and be obedient, and I’ll relentlessly advance my own interests.” Protesters against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank echo Malcolm X’s description of himself as a “victim of Americanism” who could see no “American dream,” only “an American nightmare.” For such activists, fierce love for one’s identity group — whether black, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay or lesbian — often seems morally superior to devotion to a nation that long tolerated that group’s exclusion or abuse.

Progressives have certainly had some cause to be wary of those who invoke patriotism. After World War II, “Americanism” seemed to become the property of the American Legion, the House Un-American Activities Committee and the FBI. In the 1960s, liberal presidents bullied their way into Indochina in the name of what Lyndon Johnson called “the principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania.” On the contemporary right, popular talk-show hosts routinely equate a principled opposition to war with a “hatred” for America.

Yet the left’s cynical attitude toward Americanism has been a terrible mistake. Having abandoned their defense of national ideals, progressives also lost the ability to pose convincing alternatives for the nation as a whole. They could take credit for helping to reduce the sadism of our culture toward homosexuals and racial minorities. But the right set the political agenda, in part because its activists were willing to speak forcefully in the name of American principles that knit together disparate groups — such as anti-union businessmen, white evangelicals and Jewish neo-conservatives — for mutual ends.

When progressives abandoned that vision at the end of the ’60s, they lost something precious and necessary. The left could no longer speak convincingly to individuals and groups who did not share its iconoclastic assumptions. The economic interests of many of those “Middle Americans” whom Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan lured to the GOP clashed with those of the pro-business right. But the left’s grammar of protest, with its emphasis on rights for distinct and separate groups, failed to mobilize an aggrieved majority.

On the Mall last month, some protesters carried signs that read “Peace Is Patriotic.” If the left hopes to become more than an occasional set of demonstrators and grow, once again, into a mass movement, it will have to build on that sentiment and elaborate the wisdom behind it.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the stakes have been raised. Even if war against terrorism and against Iraq doesn’t continue to overshadow all other issues, it will inevitably force activists to clarify how they would achieve security, for individuals and the nation. How can one seriously engage in this conversation about protecting America if the nation holds no privileged place in one’s heart? Without empathy for one’s neighbors, politics becomes a cold, censorious enterprise indeed.

Progressives should again claim, without pretense or apology, an honorable place in the long tradition of those who demanded that American ideals apply to all and opposed the efforts of those, from whatever quarter, who tried to reserve them for privileged groups and ignoble causes. When the attorney general denies the right of counsel to a citizen accused of terrorism or a CEO cooks the books and fires workers who take him to task, they ought to be put on the defensive — for acting in un-American ways. A left that scorns the very notion of patriotism is wasting a splendid opportunity to pose a serious alternative to the arrogant, blundering policies of the current administration and its political allies. Now, as throughout its history, the most effective way to love our country is to fight like hell to change it.

Michael Kazin teaches history at Georgetown University. His latest book, co-authored with Maurice Isserman, is “America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s” (Oxford University Press).

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

By Joe Wilcox Staff Writer, CNET News.com January 6, 2003, 4:00 AM PT

Apple Computer on Tuesday is expected to unveil a new portable product aimed at bolstering the company’s strategy to make itself into a major player in home entertainment, sources and analysts said.

The product, which is expected to be shown off during a keynote speech by CEO Steve Jobs at Macworld in San Francisco on Tuesday, will come with 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless capabilities and serve to make the Mac a more appealing “digital hub” than Windows XP PCs, according to sources. Machines with Windows XP Media Center Edition can be used to record TV shows, similar to digital video recorders (DVR) such as TiVo boxes, and catalog music and video.

What the product does exactly, however, remains shrouded in mystery. Some sources and analysts believe that it will be similar to the tablet computers released by Acer and others late last year. These are full-fledged portable computers complete with handwriting recognition and handwriting input.

Others, however, say it will be a device geared toward playing or capturing video. By incorporating both 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless capabilities, the device could connect to both upcoming Apple PCs (Apple has said it will support the 802.11g wireless networking standard) and the latest digital cameras and video recorders. A standard TV jack would allow the device to be hooked up to TVs as well and function as a DVR or as a bridge to let the TV act like a DVR.

Then again, it could be something entirely different, as the company has proven adept at confounding speculation preceding the convention before. An Apple reperesentative would not comment on new products ahead of the show.

One thing that is not expected at the show are new computers. Because of a relatively modest inventory bloat, Apple is delaying new models, according to sources.

Analysts note that Apple has all the pieces in place to deliver a tablet-like computer. Such a computer, outfitted with Mac OS X 10.2, Apple’s Inkwell handwriting recognition technology, iSync data synchronization capabilities and 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless would be a formidable entry.

Bluetooth would remove the need for a docking station as the mouse and keyboard would connect wirelessly. With speeds up to 54 megabits per second (mbps), 802.11g wireless networking would allow the transfer of large data files or video without the need of cables.

“That kind of device would make a lot of sense,” said NPD Techworld analyst Stephen Baker. “The idea of the digital hub is to try and tie a bunch of different product types together but provide a lot of mobility of your data–your TV entertainment data, your music data, your digital data. This kind of device would have that.”

IDC analyst Roger Kay agreed. “If it were really cool it would generate a lot of buzz and maybe even a few sales.”

A tablet computer, however, would be risky. These devices generally sell for more than $2,000, or more expensive than most notebook computers. Overall tablet sales in 2003 are expected to be fairly small: Gartner projected first-year Tablet PC portable sales of 425,000, or about 1 percent of the notebook market, while IDC said it could go up to 775,000.

Typically, Apple’s “cool” products have done well when they are relatively cheap. The first iMac, targeted at new computer users, and the iPod music player have sold well. The cube, geared for professionals and carrying a corporate price tag, did not sell well. And sales of the the flat-panel iMac, which was unveiled at last years Macworld, have cooled after an initial flurry.

iPod II But some analysts don’t believe the new product will be a tablet, but a successor to Apple’s iPod music player. The new device would have video capabilities and possibly a touch screen and wireless capabilities. As such, the device would be similar to the portable video player unfurled by Intel last year. Sonicblue is currently marketing the Intel-designed device.

“I think any rumors about a tablet computer are a smokescreen for iPod II,” said Richard Doherty, president of research firm Envisioneering Group.

Technology Business Research analyst Tim Deal agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple introduce an iPod with touch-screen capabilities as well as additional applications to include cell-phone connectability and gaming as it continues to evolve into a fully functional PDA,” he said. “A wireless iPod with bolstered display features would allow users to share and view digital (pictures) and videos on the fly.”

Doherty said Apple has been working on a video-capable iPod-like device for some time. “Originally, Apple had planned to announce iPod II at Expo Tokyo,” he said. In December, IDG canceled next month’s Macworld Expo/Tokyo. “We think the product can be announced, if not shipped now,” Doherty added.

The iPod II, in fact, is one of three principal pieces of hardware in Apple’s labs that Apple has shown analysts but not officially announced yet. The company is also working on computers that will contain IBM’s 32-bit and 64-bit chip and a computer with a 3D screen, similar to the screens recently unveiled by Sharp. Of course, Doherty added that not everything in the lab eventually goes public.

Whether tablet or iPod, emphasis on video would be one of the new product’s distinguishing features, Doherty said. Apple could further advance its digital media strategy around MPEG-4, the successor to the MPEG-2 format widely used for Hollywood movie DVDs.

“Nobody has better MPEG-4 tools than Apple,” Doherty said.

The ripe and the unripe During his keynote address Tuesday, Jobs also is expected to unveil new versions of the company’s digital media programs, or “i” applications. But consumers will have to pay as much as $50 for new versions of iDVD, iPhoto and iMovie, which will be sold together as a bundle. Apple released new versions of iCal and iSync on Thursday.

Bluetooth and next-generation 802.11g wireless networking will be important parts of the Macworld announcements, sources said. Apple plans to release a new version of its AirPort wireless base station using 802.11g, as the company moves up from the slower 802.11b that moves data up to 11mbps.

Meanwhile, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company apparently has delayed launching new Macs ready for Macworld until later in January, while the company sells out stock left over from the holidays, according to sources. When available, some of the new Macs are expected to include support for 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless.

The “quarter’s financial results will undoubtedly show weaker-than-usual holiday sales for Apple,” Deal said of the decision to delay new Macs.

Inventory information from distributors Ingram Micro and Tech Data indicate Apple is sitting on modest inventory–anywhere from one to three weeks–in most product categories. But some products are considerably backordered, such as the 5GB and 10GB iPod for the Mac, AirPort base station and 15-inch flat-panel monitor. Based on similar past situations, the backorders would suggest new products are coming in these categories. But sources said to watch for Apple to drop the 15-inch flat-panel monitor as the company replaces the current 17-inch display and adds a new, 19-inch model. The new monitors could debut on Tuesday, but are more likely to appear when Apple announces new Mac models.

No matter what happens on Tuesday, “The innovation ratio will be much higher than Apple’s 5 percent market share,” Doherty said.

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Want to find out about the anti-war movement in America? Forget network news and tune in to Jerry Springer, says Duncan Campbell

Tuesday December 10, 2002

Tom Hayden was one of the main figures in the anti-Vietnam movement in the Sixties, arrested in 1968 during the anti-war demonstrations in Chicago and charged as a member of the Chicago Eight.

So it was interesting to see him addressing a gathering at the Westwood United Methodist Church in Los Angeles last weekend, called “Beyond the Battlefield – the Real Costs of War” and comparing the national mood then and now.

Opposition to the war on Iraq was far greater, he said, than the opposition to the war in Vietnam at a similar stage. But he did not feel that this was reflected by the media. “The anti-war movement does not have a voice in the national debate equal to our numbers,” he told 1,400-strong gathering at the church. “The corporate media has ignored or trivialised the movement … the talk shows are filled with right-wing pundits or failed military officials.”

He criticised both the New York Times and the public television network PBS for underestimating the numbers at the recent anti-war demonstrations in Washington.

So does the media deliberately ignore the opponents of a war in Iraq? Two journalists, one from the New York Times and one from the LA Times, addressed this issue in a lunchtime meeting at the day-long conference.

The NY Times journalist, Bernie Weinraub, acknowledged – as did the paper itself at the time – that a mistake had been made in under-reporting the demonstration. A long article covering the anti-war movement appeared shortly afterwards. But he said that people could not expect that every small demonstration was worthy of a new story.

The LA Times journalist, Robin Abearian, said her paper had already set up a war desk and she had asked them who had been assigned to cover the peace movement, which had now been taken on board. Regarding the lack of coverage of 80,000 people marching against the war in San Francisco that same weekend, she said, “sometimes bad calls are made”.

Many in a sometimes hostile audience clearly believed that the mainstream media has been deliberately under-reporting the extent of the anti-war movement. This is delicate territory for the media. The Guardian has often been criticised over the years for not covering marches and demonstrations or for not giving them the weight they deserve. The issue has been the subject of more than one article by our readers’ editor.

But what is noticeable about the television news in the US at the moment is a lack of any of the voices to which Tom Hayden referred. The war is now covered almost as a given with whole segments devoted to scaring everyone to death with talk of smallpox or anthrax and retired military and diplomatic gents speculating endlessly at third or fourth hand.

It took Jerry Springer, of all people, to say the unsayable – that most ordinary Americans are very keen on tackling Osama bin Laden and al Qaida, but have no great interest in extending the war to Iraq. All a war would achieve, he said, would be to create a whole new generation of people who hated Americans and it was thus patriotic to oppose the war.

This week, dozens of well-known actors will sign a letter to President Bush expressing their opposition to the war. Last week, hundreds of clerics of all faiths did the same in a full page advertisement in the New York Times. It will be interesting to see whether all this now starts to get as much coverage as all the military hardware and smallpox.

Email duncan.campbell [at] guardian.co [dot] uk

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