Matter Yoga at CES 2023

Over the past few years, we've seen screens that could be foldable, rollable, stretchable, pivotable, slidable, wearable, or even laughable. By CES 2024, I bet screens will be chewable and inflatable until that bubble pops*.

It's not just us who exercise with the help of our new gizmos, like our smart watches or this laptop-powering exercise bike (Acer's eKinekt BD3)...

... Our gizmos themselves are doing some serious stretching now, from the basic figures of Lenovo's aptly named Yoga Book 9i to the epic contorsions of the foldable and slidable Samsung Flex Hybrid (in one or two directions - Flex Slidable Solo or Flex Slidable Duet):

No wonder our screens look slender and fitter - not even a bikini string attached for the elegant, 97-inch LG Signature OLED M3 (still needs to be plugged to the electricity grid, but Zero Connect otherwise... goodbye meshrooms!):

Of course, as our mobile and home hubs get smarter, new devices keep popping up to feed them and our screens with even more vital data. CES 2023 even proposed to health monitoring nerds a weird game of thrones between Aetrex Albert 3DFit (get your health scanned by stepping into some kind of toilet bowl) and Whithings U-Scan (get your urine scanned as it flows)**:

How to keep this ever expanding and ever more complex ecosystem as simple and sustainable as possible? Even the most pervasive manufacturers gave up their dreams of growing their own proprietary Internet of Things a long time ago, and to cover all bases, they all need a minimum of stability and interoperability. 

 

For that (not necessarily fecal) matter, the industry's new standard changed its name from a very 1990s 'Connected Home over IP' to a more Millenials-friendly 'Matter' behind which all the big guys join forces, starting with Apple (HomeKit), Google (Weave), and Samsung (SmartThings). Since no significant anti-Matter emerged at CES,if an explosion shall occur, it should be a positive one (except of course regarding our most intimate data).

mot-bile 2023

* I guess 'screenable' now means 'that can be turned into a screen' 

to get their health checked (TTcare by AI FOR PET)

CES 2022, with real humans inside

Fourty thousands of visitors, only 30% of which from abroad, that's a far cry from the heyday, but a quantum leap from last year's virtual event. 

Anyway, you can always show off without showing up - CES 2022 simply shifted buzzwords from WFH to metaverse, and amped up everything VRtual.

If NVIDIA's Omniverse predated Facebook's Meta*, special mention to Hyundai for their branding extravaganza: Metamobility, MoT (New Mobility of Things), MobED (Mobile Excentric Droid), PnD (Plug n Drive), DnL (Drive n Lift).... Of course Boston Dynamics' tireless robots are in the loop (always willing to play with BTS members or to showcase innovation campaigns), but there's also the possibility for robots to somehow become our IRL avatars or surrogates. A bit more ambitious than just using e Ink to turn your car into a chameleon (a fun BMW concept car paint, though).

Samsung flexed once again their muscles and screens, between the curvy AI-speaker unfolding into a display to the S-and-G-shaped Flex S and Flex G, and their big browser Flex Note, a monitor that goes laptop. 

 

Yet I fancied even more some of their more conventional hardware: not necessarily the QD Quantum Dot) OLED, but the elegant The Frame (a collector somewhere between The Wall and an upcoming The Stamp?), and the convenient The Freestyle, which comes with Alexa as well as Bixby, but also with Tap View (just tap gently the projector with your smartphone to project what's you've been watching on it).

 

As usual, you can find all kinds of gizmos at CES. I have yet to wrap my head around this one, though. What went wrong at Colgate, and moreover among CTA curators? Who wasted their 20% allocated to pet projects on this slam dung?

But when it comes to relieving an itch and solving pain points, mosqitter deserves more buzz. Maybe that's because this ugly Dalek is into removing buzzing beasts: it lures all female mosquitoes within a 50 m radius indoor or outdoor. 

Maybe that was the whole plan from the start: drawing from a close range annoying innovation suckers to Vegas in order to prevent them from reproducing.

mot-bile 2022

* see "Meta-Fiction or Meta-Stasi?"

Photos: Hyundai, Samsung, CES, mosqitter.

LG Rollable @ CES 2021

ICYMI at CES, LG announced a commercial launch of its rollable screen phone in 2021. Fascinating to see a smartphone seamlessly morph into a phablet as its screen stretches from 6.8 to 7.4 inches: 

 

 

Note that according to Nikkei Asia*, LG teamed up with its Chinese coopetitor BOE, who showcased this 12.3 inch prototype 2 years ago (a thick papyrus scroll with a gimbap roll sidekick to hang on your wall):

Smart way of making handset news without making new handsets.

Frankly, I was impressed but not really convinced by LG's rollable TV. A rollable phone seems to have a greater potential. I always wanted to be able to carry a tablet in my breast pocket, and this solution looks more elegant than developing a king size barrel chest. Provided it comes with a stylus and the screen doesn't feel as uneven as a foldable, I might even consider switching from my dear Galaxy Note.

While we humans keep evolving at a very slow pace in uncertain directions, our personal devices are becoming shapeshifters. Some day they will wrap around our necks like scarves. And strangle us when we don't behave well enough for Big Brother.

mot-bile 2021

* "LG to release world's first rollable smartphone, developed with BOE" (Nikkei Asia 20210112)

Japan v. Japan - Artificial Belligerence v. Artificial Intelligence

In a Trumpian move, Shinzo ABE started a trade war with Korea, so far not reciprocated, except by South Korean netizens threatening to boycott Japanese products. Japan is not raising tariffs for Korean imports, but making Japanese exports to Korea more difficult for key tech components, particularly essential to chipmakers and display manufacturers*. 

Pressed by national media to explain such a masochistic move, the PM ended up saying that there was a risk these valuable technologies could end up in North Korea. Of course that's a ludicrous statement, since such trade between both Koreas would not only contravene international sanctions, but also defy logic considering the North's situation and priorities. 

The actual motive was officially to punish Seoul for insisting on reparations for Imperial Japan abuses, particularly regarding sexual slavery and forced labor**, abuses denied by ABE, his government, and the revisionist lobby Nippon Kaigi he was instrumental in founding during the nineties. This lobby that has all but taken control of Japan politics, while keeping the population in the dark regarding its highly controversial agenda (restoring State Shinto, the Imperial rule, denouncing peace treaties and human right laws, denying war crimes, rejecting postwar's peaceful constitution, returning to militarism, rewriting history textbooks...).

Today, MOON hosts LG's KOO Kwang-mo, Hyundai's CHUNG Eui-sun, and SK's CHEY Tae-won, to prepare a response that likely will pass by the WTO. Samsung's LEE Jae-yong and Lotte's SHIN Dong-bin couldn't attend since they are in Japan. A few days earlier, LEE invited his friend Masayoshi SON (Softbank) to meet President MOON Jae-in and major chaebol leaders. Even before ABE's bomb hit the ground, Samsung was expecting to lose half its profits in the second half of the year.

Korea Inc. and Japan Inc. united swiftly for good reasons. Playing a Huawei-style blame card against South Korea could backfire for Japan, and China could actually become the biggest winner. Giant tech companies on both sides of the... East Sea agree on one thing: this is the worst moment to fuel divisions between them. Regardless on how the trade war between China and the US ends, the fact is Korea and Japan are lagging behind in key technologies, particularly A.I., where scale matters.

So why would ABE take such risks? Is he still blinded by his obsession with revisionism, worried he could lose support from his base ahead of elections? Nationalism could be a welcome diversion when Japan pensioners panic about their financial future, but is it the right time to expose Nippon Kaigi's agenda, and what they are desperately trying to hide from the public?


mot-bile 2019

* fluorinated polyimides and resists (Japan produces 90% of the World's total), and hydrogen fluoride etching gas (70%). 
** South Korea's Supreme Court recently ruled that Japanese companies should compensate survivors.

5G Korea, Huawei inside

According to Pulse and other media*, Huawei will open next month its first 5G Open Lab in the world in Seoul.

Of course, earlier this month, Korea became the first country in the world to launch 5G commercially (even if for enterprise customers only at the beginning). Korea Inc precipitated the launch just to achieve that premiere, SK Telecom, KT, and LG U+ literally beating Verizon on the eleventh hour.

If local MNOs don't communicate much on their 5G network suppliers, Huawei already holds significant positions in Korea, as a recent Asan Institute focus** noticed:
- LG U+'s 4G network in Seoul, Northern Gyeonggi-do, Incheon, and Gangwon-do, in other words its most strategic areas (capital region, and all borders with North Korea)
- parts of Naver's new Internet Data Center
- KT's network upgrade for NonHyeop Bank, a big 4 player

Korea Inc does communicate on a key 5G supplier, Samsung, who clearly won the first round at the smartphone level with its Galaxy S10 5G.

Another of their groundbreaking handsets, the Galaxy Fold, received mixed reviews from the few journalists who were granted one ahead of the official launch, but the manufacturer did warn them that they shouldn't have pulled out the plastic protection away from the delicate screen.

Interesting to see what happens when the veil is lifted about Huawei's presence in the country.


mot-bile 2019

* "Huawei to open its world’s first 5G open lab in Seoul in May" (Pulse 20190422)
** "Opportunities and Challenges for South Korea in the New Era of 5G" (J. James KIM, HONG Sanghwa - Asan Institute 20190321)

CES 2019 - Driverlessly nuts

A power outage at the CES? In the heart of Neon City? 35 miles away from Hoover Dam? And, of all reasons, because of excessive rain? In the Mojave Desert? This is nuts.

Like LG's 65-inch roll-up OLED TV... totally nuts:

And how about ForwardX's CX-1, a driverless luggage that follows you wherever you go? Now if that one doesn't drive airport security people nuts... imagine the mayhem when hundreds of these suitcases roam their halls, and no one can tell who's 'carrying' what...

Can't get nutsier, you think? Consider this: Spartan underwear, radiation-blocking boxers from France, to 'protect your nuts' from harmful waves...

You've been briefed.

So what to expect for next year? The Crotch It, an ankle monitor that punishes convicted sex offenders as soon as they get within range of former victims? A Wonder e-Bra, to fend off potential Harvey Weinsteins, and keep them away from the Internet of Tits? The Locker Room Banner, a semi-A.I.-based app to automatically delete your account each time you post something offensive on social media*?

We'll see. So far, if CES 2018 didn't bring any of the 3 gizmos I expected last year (see"CES 2018: tighten your 2.5 ppm helmets"), we've already been graced with a lighter version of one of them: smart masks from R-PUR ('pure air' in French - yes, we frogs are not just into smarty pants)






mot-bile 2018

* by the way, Samsung built The Wall. A 146-inch modular TV. With Micro LED. Now who will pay for it?

CES 2018: tighten your 2.5 ppm helmets

So you came back from Vegas with your LG bendable OLED screen (needed to wrap those smart gimbap rolls), your Hushme mask (needed to give Hannibal Lecter a call), and your Plume Labs Flow (needed a cheese grater that doubled as a air quality monitor).

Hushme mask (gethushme.com) allows you to mask your voice using various sounds (Minions, R2D2, rain, wind...).

Plume Labs Flow (plumelabs.com)

And you wonder what CES 2018 will bring you next year. Here's an exclusive preview of the 3 gadgets that will define the event:

• Xiaomi 2.5PPM Helmet: after purchasing Plume Labs and Hushme, the Chinese manufacturer created an air filtering mask with an airbag that inflates around your head as soon as nanoparticle levels hit the roof. In this safe bubble, the air is pure, your eyes don't hurt, and no one can hear you scream. 
• Alphago D-Bunk: this cloud-based A.I. service boosts your messaging and SNS apps, and sorts fake news from verified stories. Or at least it used to until Russia hacked it.
• Samsung Gear Fit Cuffs: clip the smartwatch on your left wrist, the other end of the handcuff on your right wrist. It beeps and flashes LED rainbows as soon as LEE Jae-yong moves 200 ft away from his cell.

mot-bile 2017

CES 2014: Beep Beep Goes Bling Bling

Very disappointing first day at CES 2014: the long awaited (see "Rise of the Nork Zombies") "Frankenstein Android" and "Headtop iBrain" didn't show up so far.

Following last year's trends*, wearable gizmos keep popping-up, and the screen war between LG and Samsung didn't abate. Now TV giants are not only flexing their muscles, but their screens as well. And if we've already seen "bend it like Koreans" on handsets, with a 85 inch TV, that's quite something:



OK, not as flexible as to wrap you up like a piece of bulgogi in a sesame leaf, but that's a good start. 

Nothing distruptive in DreamWorks' DreamTab (not flexible, but for kids who like to move it move it), just another example of how classic smart devices have become commodities:

Same trend for previously new communicating devices and internet everywhere gizmos**.

Smartwear-wise, more show off stuff from Vegas:

Vuzic V720 video headphones

Razer Nabu: not a wedding ring, but a smartwatch that does ring

LG Lifeband Touch: earn it, burn calories

.. and the Killer Melanomapp of the Year Award goes to the Netatmo JUNE, the ultimate bling-bling UV tracker:



I can't wait for the Geiger or Yellow Dust versions, to track exhausts from my North Korean and Chinese neighbors...

Again***, expect more line-blurring between fashion and smartwear from those who look for ways of escaping the commodity market curse.


mot-bile 2014


* see "I see through you: City of Sin, Screens, and Smartpagers" (January 2013)
** except maybe the Kolibree Bluetooth Toothbrush (bluetoothbrush?)
*** see "Apple's Ready to Ware v. Fast-Fashion" (July 2013)

I see through you: City of Sin, Screens, and Smartpagers

Remember that old 3D classic "Avatar"? Now Navis can say "I see through you" instead of "I see you" on Hisense's latest see-through 3D TV.

CES 2013 is all about screens, and it starts on your wrist. I wonder if Amazon will try to sell haikus on this mini ebook reader:

Pebble's e-paper watch for iPhone and Android does look like a gizmo from the 90s, some sort of Bluetooth-enabled smartpager, but the biggest story about it is the way it was crowdfunded on Kickstarter, smashing the $100k goal and raising $10M within days. 85,000 units have been ordered before the CES, more to come.

Does your handset require a remote control that works on Bluetooth? That's another story:


Moving on to some bigger screens: how do you like your OLED TV? 4K (Panasonic)? 4K and Ultra HD (Sony)? Curved (Samsung - nothing as sexy as its "Samsung Flexible AMOLED" of course -, LG)? Multi-view (Samsung again)?

Sharing your screen, that's also possible on the Lenovo IdeaCentre Table PC, a touch table that may host interesting game applications in a near future.

Nevermind the fingerprints, the dust, or even water. One year after HzO Waterblock, Huawei demonstrated a waterproof Ascend series (Ascend Mate, Ascend D2). I'm still in shock to see a smartphone, with all its connectivity slots open, take a dive and come out just fine.

And how about this schizophrenic Asus Transformer AiO? An Android tablet taking off from your Windows 8 desktop? Will an iPad spin off from it? An Apple, wrapped in a Google, inside an Microsoft?

I still don't know what to make of the Firefox OS (showcased in Vegas). A Plan B for Android makes sense (I'm not even mentioning iOS), and it's nice to start in Brazil, but can the Mozilla ecosystem grow that big?

SmartTVs, smartphones, smartwatches... it all sounds like logistics these days, more about fine tuning delivering processes than about delivering new goods.

Still better than last year's shark lawyer frenzies.

mot-bile 2013

Samsung Flexible AMOLED

Buzz of the day: a viral ad from Samsung Mobile Display featuring a flexible and transparent AMOLED screen / tablet:



This concept Samsung Flexible AMOLED has it all: 3D holograms, enhanced reality, fresh udon, you name it. Definitely one of the best teasers of the decade.

Take the apps separately, and you don't have anything really new. But I really like how they wrapped it, and the way they boosted two apps: picking a dish from a menu (the above mentioned noodles), and instant translation. Here, the user puts the gizmo between himself and his interlocutor. Each one can talk and read from each side of the screen because the text the said interlocutor needs is written in reverse. A simple but smart detail: transparent means see-through and both ways. Likewise, foldable means two ends of the screen can directly see each other, and there's also a video call app leveraging that.

Not the first concept screen from SMD, but definitely a giant marketing leap for their research teams.

mot-bile 2011

Motorola's Android Tablet : Focus On TV (Apple, Amazon, Others Watching)

Motorola and Android have already met, but Motorola and tablets are a new item.

The 10 inch screen device would be bundled with Verizon FiOS TV (pay-TV) service, which makes perfect sense. Much more sense than say Nokia, to name a fabled marketing counter-example... Let's see how rivals will move, for instance how Samsung will position its own Android tablet, smaller in size but with a screen of potentially much better quality, and a better grasp at personal computing.

But this is first about entertainment, and Verizon takes and interesting shot in the convergence barnum. Most quadplay operators across the World have necessarily been, if not working on, at least thinking about a "tabletish" gizmo to complete the set of home / away screens, and if people start (for instance) massively and legally downloading and watching movies with an Android 3.0 / 3G ticket on their tablet this November, xmas season looks fine...

Except maybe for Amazon : expect even more push marketing until then... unless of course Jeff Bezos manages to stevejobs a new Kindle feature high up into the buzzosphere.


mot-bile 2010

Big Screen Kindles and Papyrus

Kindle DX joins Amazon's Kindle family. It's bigger (9.7 inch screen), smarter (screen rotation, 4 GB memory), and of course pricier ($ 489).

Comfier too, if you want to read magazines, newspapers, documents with images. But not that much if you intend to carry it everywhere. This one will probably remain at home most of the time, and may not even make it there if you already own a tablet PC.

I expected something more disruptive. Say a really big screen, for real newspapers... the foldable kind of Kindle. Technology is there, but short term marketability remains another story... Keep an eye on Amazon labs for that one.

Anyway, this newcomer will make such competitors as the Samsung Papyrus look smaller. But a no-frills, no-connectivity, A5, half a GB memory ebook reader can succeed if it comes at half the price.


The CNET video on Kindle DX :

Orange Hello, is it me you're looking for ?

Orange Hello is an internet computer for dummies, the word "dummies" covering the minority of techno- / PCphobes who never considered purchasing nor using a computer, and people ready to pay EUR 1 + EUR 39.9 per month for a simple play (internet access) instead of the standard EUR 29.9 per month for a full triple play... Ideally, seniors with a comfortable pension but lacking the courage to join their kids and grandkids in the internet age. Grandkids who mock at their absence of smart screens at home. Grandkids who may even not enjoy staying overnight simply because here, they can't browse the web on a bigger screen than their own smartphone.

Hello is expensive, granted, but delivers, installs, and maintains at your place a PC with an almost iMacish look : a thick 15 inch- screen connected to a keyboard and including a 120 Go hardrive, a webcam, and a broadband modem. Orange makes sure Kids can get their daily fix : features include messenging, video, music, games, web TV... (plus text to speech for their myopic dinosaur ancestors).

A little sexier than Jean-Louis Constanza's first device meant as an entry point to French households : a no-frills fixed phone that would automatically compose the 4 prefix for Tele2 France customers.

Now CEO of Orange Vallee, Constanza (who after the Swede category killer moved on to Ten MVNO) is still working on pedagogy and simplicity for new usages in daily communications, only with smarter technologies, and different budget constraints for the operator... and obviously the customer.

Hello can be considered as the big brother of another Orange Vallee device* : Tabbee, an always on, family friendly, stand alone web terminal featuring a 7 inch touch screen.

But Hello doesn't have a touch screen. So don't even dream about smearing your Hello screen while imitating John King with your greasy fingers. All you may ruin is the supposedly more intuitive and user friendly keyboard. Because believe it or not, even French dummies know how to use a keyboard.

Orange can thank mother company France Telecom for this miracle : most post Y2K seniors are former Minitel users.


* While I'm at it : "Orange Vallee"'s 2009 Summer Collection include mobile platforms (WorMee music platform, Application Shop, TV d'Orange for iPhone, Orange 24/24 news engine), entertainment accessories (Hi-Fi Adapter, Media Remote Control), business / messenging solutions (Instant Messenger for all, Visual Voicemail, Teleconference, Medical Office)... see Orange Innovation TV for details.

Reed Richards follows Sue in Korea

Korean researchers are not only making giant leaps towards invisibility¹: they're also going for thinness and flexibility.

A Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) - Sungkyunkwan University (Pr. Hong Byung-hee) team found a way of mass producing graphene nanofilms via Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD).

I know, this doesn't sound like the sexiest piece of news ever, and it isn't.

But it could mean the end of the silicon, and major disruptions in micro-electronics as we know them.

Not to mention endless applications for silicon semicon giant Samsung (the S in SAIT) : "the wafer-scale graphene is expected to be used in flexible displays, wearable computers and advanced transistors and electrodes. It can also replace indium tin oxide, used extensively in the production of touch-screen panels and solar cells". And as one could have guessed, this team intends "to develop next-generation ultra high-speed nano memory chips, transparent flexible displays and solar cells." (AsiaPulse / COMTEX).

Of course, Invisible Woman and Mr Fantastic will not be available right away. And nowadays, IT are under the spell of other members of the Fantastic Four... The Bear Market Thing and The Bottomline Human Torch ?

But now is the time for leaders to make the difference. Now is the time to invest in R&D. We all know major innovations will come out of this Not-So-Great Depression. And the so called "new technologies" need Change as badly as the rest of us.

Live from Korea's Graphene Valley...



1 - I already mentioned the KAIST and its Transparent Resistive Random Access Memory ("TRRAM : don't miss this one !" - 20081215) but last autumn, the SAIT developped "a fully transparent non-volatile memory with a conventional sandwich gate insulators structure based on a wide band gap semi-conductive oxide of amorphous gallium indium zinc oxide", a.k.a. amorphous GaInZnO or a-GIZO. Even if it's closer to 80% than actually "fully" transparent, that's something. The beauty of it : whether it works or not, a-GIZO GIZMOs are not to be seen.

From car jacking to home hacking

I don't have any key.
I punch a code for the building, another for the appartment*. I can even implement fingerprint recognition if I fancy that. There's a jingle each time someone enters the building using that code. Every visitor is taped for 10 seconds, and I can (but don't) watch this reality TV channel from the living room or the kitchen screen, the TV, my mobile phone... Anyway, the said visitor can't escape the hundreds of CCTV cameras covering the block's "public" areas (over 40 per parking floor).
Welcome to "ubiquitous" Korea.
Don't ask me what happens in case of blackout or hacking.


* a RFiD card takes care of the parking access, another can spare me the building code.

From Couch Potatoes to French Fries - World Cup and Giant Screens - the new mass media

Flat screens didn't wait for the World Cup to defeat old cathodic tubes, but the clear winner of the competition could be the Giant Screen.
TV operators now enjoy new channels and propose an extreme customer experience : as the main public media, TV follows the event down to the streets and stadia and while couch potatoes remain stuck on their sofas, masses now stand up in public places like French Fries in cornets. The phenomenon even overshadowed such traditional semi-private diffusion sites as restaurants and bars.
Giant screens really became mainstream during the 2002 World Cup in Korea, when millions would hit the streets to follow the great campaign of the Taeguk Warriors. Back in 1998, public events would just gather a few thousands souls (ie in front of Paris' city hall). For the 2006 edition, which took place over 1,000 kms away, Parisians would flock by tens of thousands in the Parc des Princes, Jean-Bouin and Charlety stadia. Simultaneously. In a city where organizers traditionally avoid cannibalization among sportive / cultural events. And Germany itself enjoyed a new phenomenon : hundreds of thousands of ticketless foreign supporters took their cars, trains and planes just to join these giant screen parties (and that beer, too, maybe...).
Under such conditions, the battle between smaller screens (PC vs TV) looks almost trivial... and the very little screens have to position themselves a new way. Handsets can help the TVless supporter following games live or goal by goal, but they also remain the personal tool of individuals as well as small group of users for coping with a mass of supporters located either on the same spot or accross the globe. I guess by 2010 cellcos will package some solutions for such public game sessions the way they do now for music concerts.
During this World Cup, they noticed a very weak traffic during the games, but incredibly hot flashes during the breaks and at the end of the games, for voice as well as for data. For them, here lies the dilemma : if I get the rights for the event I have to invest heavily in order to cope with time and space peaks, and if I don't get them my network is as good as dead during one month...

Jeju Telematics celebrates the wedding of GPS and DMB

Jeju-do, Korea's capital island for honeymooners, has been a test bed for enhanced telematics since 2004. When the trial period ends next July, the Jeju Telematics consortium promoters (beyond the MIC and a few VCs : SK Telecom, SK Communications, SK C&C, Samsung Electronics...) could start exporting the concept to mainland ROK.
Nothing revolutionary there : LBS, 3D navigation, multimedia broadcasting... but you can tell SKT are involved : e-mail since the beginning, Cyworld, DMB games and TV for the second phase started last month. Samsung's 3.7 inch touch screen PMPs (Portable Multimedia Player) complete the multimedia oriented consumer experience. It definitely beats NATE Drive's handset craddles for seamlessness.


=> Jeju Telematics website : http://www.jejutelematics.com.

Nano vs Micro - The Other Yellow Peril

China's Desert Storm op is a total success : Korea was caught by surprise and had so shut down key production lines for a few hours. Unlike plasma screens, semicons were preserved thanks to outstanding confinement procedures.
The Empire of the Middle struck its neighbor's silicon core with silicon. Sand, to be more accurate. From the Gobi desert, as usual ; these yellow fog days are happening more and more often and because only the smallest dust travels all the way, both humans and machines fear for their lives.
Last week-end, the volume of dust went over the 2,000 microgram per cubic meter mark. Instead of enjoying the scents of the capital's trees magnificent blooming, Seoulites had to cover their face.
So much for my cultural lag : I had just landed in Incheon after a few days in Dubai.

Movio Modio Modeo

Following their Pittsburgh, PA trials, Modeo LLC (the new name for Crown Castle Mobile Media) will launch DVB-H services (including audio and video podcasting) across 30 US markets (including NYC) by the end of 2007.
Meanwhile, BT released some data from their BT Movio DAB trials (1,000 users) : unsurprisingly enough considering the technology and the services, digital radio was more popular than digital TV with 90 mns per week vs 66. 50% of the time, mobile TV is home TV, with a 6 P.M. prime time... One should wonder whether the age of broadband - at least one screen in every room - will make this kind of usage irrelevant, but up to now, the Korean case proved mobile TV usages could bloom even in the dead middle of the broadband home / office spheres. The fact is mobile TV is more personal TV than the set in a teenager's bedroom, mobile TV is more seamless than TV on the go. Two thirds of BT Movio users would pay £8 per month for the service (translation : reality would put that around one fourth max, especially when they learn digital radio will be free), and one third would change for an operator with this service (make that one third max).
Because of BT's intense PR, Nokia are already asked why they chose DVB-H over DAB, whilst the latter is clearly out of the global race for mobile TV. Mainstream medias don't even mention DMB, Nokia's and DVB's biggest competitor. For the moment, argumentation appears like a walk in the park for Nok-Nok.

ColorZip unzipped

The first buzz about barcode applications for 2-3G started in the late 1990s, and the usage of handsets as code readers started as soon as cameraphones appeared. Remember SonyEricsson's happenings in the US ? Remember SK Telecom's Nate Coupons in supermarkets ?
But then barcodes evolved. They even dropped the bars and became bidimensional. The dress code switched to friday wear and then rainbow wear as ColorZip added new dimensions : color recognition now, caracter recognition later. For CR, all you need is a camera with 100,000 pixel resolution plus a good network.
MNOs seized the opportunity (SKT's Nate Code proposes virtual stamps (Happypost) and a mobile shopping mall), along with publishers (ie TV programs, IDEE magazine). But broadcasters just love the concept and the interaction with their own programs. KBS invested in ColorZip Korea and both Fuji TV ( Fuji Television Network) and TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) put more than a few bucks on ColorZip Japan, which is becoming the entry point for internationalization : Colorzip Singapore happens to be a JV between Colorzip Japan and Colorzip Media.
The franchise is blooming from Korea to Asia (Japan, Singapore, Taiwan...) and Europe (France, Italy...), not to mention USA (patents and partnerships pending). ColorZip could become the de facto standard for m-coding (why not beyond ?). The fun should be catching, and I wouldn't be surprised to see "artistic" evolutions... Definitely sexier than treacherous RFID and carceral barcodes.