Follow the money, from the first to the second round of broadband stimulus grants 18 January 2010
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.add a comment
More than a thousand first round hopefuls are still staring into the black hole that swallowed their applications. The second round notifications of funding availability (NOFAs) issued by the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for the broadband stimulus program do not explicitly address the status of first round applications.
The stimulus bill gave RUS $2.5 billion and NTIA $4.7 billion for broadband project funding. In the first round, RUS said it would give out up to $2.4 billion. Now its saying it’ll give out a total $2.2 billion in the second round. The target budget is:
| Category | Second Round |
| Last mile projects | $1.7 billion |
| Middle mile projects | $300 million |
| Satellite projects | $100 million |
| Libraries, tech assist | $5 million |
| Reserve | $95 million |
| Total | $2.2 billion |
That leaves $300 million, which presumably goes to first round grants and, presumably, overhead. So far, RUS has only announced $54 million in first round grants. It still has first round applications in the due diligence stage of review, so any applicant that’s made it that far has a plausible hope of winning funding. The lion’s share of RUS’s money is shifting to the second round, so if you haven’t heard back about first round review yet, I suggest you start thinking about round two.
Unless you also put in a joint bid to NTIA. Including broadband mapping grants, NTIA allocated nearly $2 billion to first round projects. It’s allocating a total of $2.6 billion for the second round:
| Category | Total Targeted | First Round | Second Round |
| Infrastructure | $3.55 billion | $1.2 billion | $2.35 billion |
| Public computer centers | $200 million | $50 million | $150 million |
| Sustainable adoption | $250 million | $150 million | $100 million |
| Mapping | $350 million | $350 million | -0- |
| Reserve | $200 million | $200 million | -0- |
| Total | $4.55 billion | $1.95 billion | $2.6 billion |
The two NTIA rounds match up pretty closely with the targeted totals. There’s $150 million unaccounted for, but that’s a believable overhead number for a federal operation.
The inference is that the two rounds will be processed, considered and funded separately. As it lays out now, if you have a first round NTIA application that’s disappeared into the process, it’s possible that you might yet advance to the due diligence stage. But that possibility diminishes as time goes on, particularly if NTIA sticks to its end-of-February target for closing out the first round and its 30-day due diligence period.
The second round workshops start next week, and more information should be available by then. My advice to first round applicants who haven’t heard from NTIA yet is to spend this week beginning to form the community alliances that it advocates so enthusiastically. It won’t be wasted effort, even if you slide into the first round under the wire.
Real time tweets from Showstoppers at CES 2010 7 January 2010
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.add a comment
PlasticLogic promises and deliversPlasticLogic is back with a real product this year, was worth the wait, $649 to $799 for coolest pro-level e-book reader.
PlasticLogic QUE Pro Reader delivers newspapers, displays work documents, has PIM functions, wireless connectivity.
Screen 10.7 inches diagonal, unit 8.5×11 total, wafer thin, light as feather, at top of a crowded category.
Xyxio has breakout potential although it’s a headscratcher at first look, control a computer with your breath.
Xyxio is a technology company, offers means to create devices that are breath controlled and do the same thing as a mouse.
Can use to control GPS while driving, combine breath control with voice input, real potential for disabled people.
Xyxio isn’t a gamechanger but has potential to make a lot of things a little more useful in ways never considered.
Sanyo demoing electric bike, motor won’t run unless you pedal a bit, not much of a workout but a hell of a lot of fun.
If Lance had one he’d still be with SherylZaggbox is a home media aggregator, also aggregates your gizmos, control all your boxes with one remote.
Siemens Gigaset turns your home phone system into a Bluetooth accessory for your mobile phone.
Mobile phone rings, answer it using your landline handset, no running around the house looking for the damn thing.
iMate is ruggedized GSM smartphone, works underwater, can run over it with a car, $700, not Mythbusters tested yet though.
At least you’ll know where it isVu is showing a teeping platform costing $3,500 without monitor, really glorified video conferencing, nice stuff anyway.
FastPencil is online collaboration/coaching/publishing for would-be authors.
Big Brother, take 1: Tiwi is realtime GPS tracker for teen drivers, tells parents if they misbehave or go out of bounds.
Big Brother, take 2: Datecheck is web service powered by Internet snoop Intelius, “Look up before you hook up”.
PogoPlug lets you feed video content from a hard drive to a mobile phone, does transcoding into H.264 and Flash.
PogoPlug streams your video on Internet, managed via their portal, say they’ll shut you down if you violate their TOS.
Evolution Robotics showing a hardwood floor cleaning robot, costs $250, sorta mops up with a swiffer.
Very cool idea by Shapeways, upload a 3D diagram, they print out a 3D model of it and send it to you.
You can make toys, prototypes, rings, special items for events, cost goes from a few bucks to maybe $100.
Avermedia showing a gizmo that feeds video into a PC off air, then makes it available to you and your friends over the web.
Avermedia’s technology looks good but the service model is not lawyer-tested.
IFA presentation interesting, neat history, would make for a nice trip in September.
Fraunhofer up now talking about home telepresence.
It’s a wrap: another great Showstoppers, quality time with smart people showing interesting stuff, good food and drinks. Thanks!
Broadband stimulus grant update: first round still under review, second round likely to slip a bit 7 January 2010
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.add a comment
Anna Gomez, deputy assistant secretary for communications and information at NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), spoke at today’s Tech Policy Summit at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Secretary Gomez speaks to reporters
at 2010 Consumer Electronics ShowShe repeated previous agency comments about wanting to “get it done fast, get it done right and with the greatest effect possible.”
She described the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) as “unprecedented” at the NTIA.
Lessons learned in a difficult first round would be applied in the second round. Among those lessons is a better understanding of what sort of projects should take priority for BTOP funding.
Her comments regarding the program’s time line were:
- The notice of funding availability (NOFA) for the second round will be released in a “few weeks”. She wouldn’t say if that means the previous target of mid-January would slip, although she left room for thinking it will.
- The first round grants will be completed “on a rolling basis over the next two months.”
- All grants will be made by Congress’ mandated deadline of 30 September 2010.
- In separate comments, Karen Jackson from the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Technology Office, confirmed that there will be at least a 60 day window for second round applications, rather than the original 45 day deadline in the first round.
I spoke with Secretary Gomez afterward about some of the nuances of the application review time line and progress to date. She couldn’t provide much else in the way of details, although the inference was that the first review stage for the first round BTOP (broadband technology opportunities program) applications is still ongoing, and that not all of the projects that will advance to the second, due diligence stage of review have been selected.
She did say “our goal is to make sure people know their status in time to file in the second round.” Asked whether first round applicants could be in the position of having to simultaneously prepare a second round application and follow up on a first round application, she said “hopefully not.”
Connecting the dots, here’s my take:
- The second round NOFA will be released around the end of January, maybe even as late as the first or second week of February.
- If a first round application hasn’t advanced to the second stage of review by the end of the month, it won’t.
- The second round NOFA will be more specific about program goals, be structured to encourage cooperation amongst applicants, and favor projects that include significant, shared middle mile infrastructure, with or without last mile facilities.
- NTIA has a much better understanding now of how to run the program and what its goals should be. Don’t be surprised if the first round falls significantly short of its $4 billion target, with unspent funds redirected to specific program goals in the second round.
Secretary Gomez also announced a new program, available at match.broadbandusa.gov, called Broadband Match. It’s an online tool that is supposed to “facilitate partnerships among prospective applicants for a grant.” She said the idea is to further NTIA head Larry Strickling’s goal for the next round of favoring public/private partnerships that take a “comprehensive view” of communities.
She said that they want to ensure that key community members – meaning anchor institutions and government agencies – can access middle mile projects directly and that private companies can make use of it to create last mile services that reach consumers and businesses.
The emphasis in the second round will clearly be on middle mile projects. Gomez spotlighted the grant made to such a project in Georgia last month as an excellent example of what they’ll be looking for in the second round. The objective of the Broadband Match program is to ensure that public/private groups “can put together the most comprehensive application possible.”
Computing power can now go wherever people want it 7 January 2010
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.add a comment
Light Blue Optics debuted its Light Touch technology here at the Consumer Electronics Show, and it is what computers, mobile and fixed, will be ten years from now. As CEO Chris Harris put it, “it transforms any flat surface into a touchscreen.” The concept is disruptively simple. What it really does is unleash computing power from physical, mechanical devices.
Any table becomes a team work spaceKeyboards, mice and monitors are easily broken and awkward to arrange anywhere except a desk. Touchscreens and pads are all of that, as well as being expensive and hard to keep clean. But we’re used to it and anyway, it’s what computers are from a user’s perspective.
Not anymore.
The reference device is about the size of a paperback book and projects a 10-inch image onto a table. It senses the location and movement of your hands, and you can manipulate the image by brushing your fingers across the table top. You can select items, move them about, operate controls, even type on a virtual keyboard albeit slowly for now.
Flip through a menu, wipe off the tableA computer – at least the bits humans directly use – can now be anywhere. You can page through a restaurant menu directly on the table. You can play a game, by yourself or with someone else, on an airline seat tray. You can project an ad layout or a circuit diagram onto a conference room table, allowing everyone to work on it together.
It can be permanently installed, as in a restaurant, or carried about, from room to room or in a briefcase.
Plans and directions can be seen and accessed wherever you’re actually doing something. Page through a recipe on a kitchen counter top, or expand a shop diagram while your head is under the hood of your car. Work on your computer wherever you, and your colleagues, happen to be.
Right now, the reference design puts Light Blue Optic’s holographic laser projector into a small unit with an ARM11 processor and 2 GB of solid state storage. It’s battery powered and has WiFi, Bluetooth and micro USB connectivity.
Light Blue Optic’s first holographic laser
projector reference productIt has a composite video input, a gravity sensor, a micro SD slot and a headphone jack. The projector output was set at 854 x 480 Wide VGA.
As productized, it’s a mobile accessory – it’ll take video input from a mobile phone – but that’s just a very small start.
The product was integrated by Foxconn, and is being offered as a reference design for the OEM market.
The company won’t talk about pricing or bill of materials cost. Right now, it’s probably very costly to make because the core holographic laser technology is not mass produced. Once production volumes ramp up, costs will plummet, to less than a large touchscreen in the near term and eventually to less than a keyboard and monitor.
This concept unit runs applications written in Adobe Flash Lite. There’s no software developer kit yet, the company says it will run applications written for any touchscreen. Maybe. In any event, this particular device is just a start. It’s the technology behind it that counts, and it can be integrated into any device, or no device at all. Network it to cloud computing resources and the computer – the physical object we know it as – disappears.
The revolutionary services, applications and products this technology enables haven’t been imagined yet. But in the not-too-distant future we won’t think of using computers in any other way.
Mobile phone disruption coming soon to a TV near you 6 January 2010
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.add a comment
“If you like developing for a 3-inch screen, I have a 55-inch screen for you,” challenged Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America, as he invited mobile application developers into the world of television. Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show, he introduced Samsung Apps, a consolidated app store for televisions, mobile phones and Blu-ray players.
You’re welcomeSamsung is a major mobile phone and television manufacturer, with a mobile phone app store already serving subscribers in Europe and Korea. It connected the dots simply and elegantly. If you can run your calendar and tweet from your mobile phone, why not do it on your TV? If you’re watching a movie on your TV, why not walk away and keep watching it on your mobile phone?
The answer to both might be “because nobody wants to”. That’s fine, those are obvious applications that Samsung already has on the table. By creating app stores, with all credit to Apple for walking point, mobile phone companies created and proved out a business model that disrupted their own industry and will do the same to the television business.
Details are still thin, but Baxter said Samsung Apps, and the devices it supports, will be an open platform and that they will be releasing a software developer kit. They’ll start with free apps in the spring and add premium apps later this summer.
The next TV superstar will be the software developer who figures out what to do with a CPU-enabled television besides watch linear content. It doesn’t have to be a major Hollywood blockbuster. It almost certainly will be a high concept, low complexity application created by one or two independent devs that does something no one ever thought to do on a TV before.
RIP STB 6 January 2010
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.add a comment
The set top box is on the run, harried away by television manufacturers. Toshiba sounded the hunting horn this morning, unveiling its Cell TV product line. Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s a classic case of branding in a vacuum. It has nothing to do with mobile phones. It’s a computer morphed into a set top box and wrapped with a big screen TV. The set top box is the TV.
Spot the set top boxToshiba calls the chip that powers it the Cell TV Broadband Engine, which was developed in a joint venture with Sony and IBM. Details were sketchy at the press conference. All Scott Ramirez, Toshiba’s marketing VP for television, could say was “maybe you can ask one of the Japanese guys.” That I’ll do at their booth tomorrow.
They did know that the chip has 8 cores and is capable of 200 GFLOPS. The TV set that’s built around it also has a 1TB hard disk drive and all the networking capability – wired and wireless – anyone could want. It does Internet TV and social networking, works as a home media server and a video phone, and, they say, can convert standard 2D television into 3D. One highlighted feature is its ability to filter Internet noise and process video streams in real time, to narrow the gap between cable/satellite and Internet delivery.
Quite the change from last year, when all the TV set guys said they were putting an Ethernet port into all their products, but didn’t quite know what anyone would do with it. This year, it looks like Toshiba, at least, is getting it right. Take a ton of computing power, use most of it to enhance video quality, save a tiny bit for networking, navigation and sharing, and give it a consumer-friendly user interface that actually does the job.
They’ve turned set top box technology into just another feature set, and integrated it into their product line. Fewer gizmos in the living room and fewer start-up plays in the consumer video space mean content creators and online services will have the same direct path to the living room television that they do to a desktop computer.
The buzz from CES Unveiled 5 January 2010
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.add a comment
CES Unveiled was the usual mob scene. Maybe even more so this year. But its a good first look at what has the buzz and what doesn’t.
Lenovo tablet computer becomes a laptopLenovo was the only computer maker showing a genuine tablet computer at the event. And its a beauty.
It’s really two computers in one. The tablet runs on a mobile processor and has good, basic functionality. It docks into a laptop-like device. In fact, when it’s docked, it is a laptop. The tablet becomes the screen and the laptop unit powers it with a full-on Intel processor and a keyboard. People were stacked three, four, sometimes five and six deep trying to get a look.
Entourage’s e-book readerE-book readers were surprisingly hard to find, but there were a few. Marvell had some cool reference designs. One was a dead ringer for a gizmo I’ve been waiting years and years to get: a wafer thin tablet maybe 15 cm by 20 cm, that I’ve been lusting after ever since I first saw one on Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Entourage was showing a dual screen model. It opens like a book and has an e-book screen on one side and a smaller computer display, suitable for video on the other.
The set top box business is losing its pizzaz. Not in terms of product – the user interfaces and on-screen navigation keep getting better and better – but in terms of it representing something cutting edge. Everybody knows you can get TV on the Internet, and you don’t need cable or satellite to get all the movies and television shows you want. The two best STB products on display, the Popbox and D-Link’s Boxee unit, seamlessly integrate social networking functionality so you can watch TV with your friends, no matter where they might be.
Marvell’s Deep Space Nine reference design
The unexpectedly hot category was small projectors. Palm-top devices that let you watch TV or whatever from your mobile phone or share a video quickly were being demonstrated by 3M and Microvision. Sharper Image was showing a prototype home projector that’s supposed to start selling for $149 in August. These small, inexpensive projectors are based on LED technology that will only get better over the next two to three years. The days of the $1,000 video projector are numbered.
ASUS aims for design and lifestyle driven brand positioning 5 January 2010
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.add a comment
ASUS chairman Jonney Shih gambled that he could set a meet-or-beat benchmark with an early Tuesday news conference at the Consumer Electronics Show. Risky strategy, because if he doesn’t have a game-changing announcement, ASUS will end up looking diminished with every comparison made during Wednesday’s wall-to-wall press events.
Didn’t happen. No tablet computer or e-reader or smartphone to announce.
Turns out, the game they’re trying to change is their brand positioning: shift the ASUS brand from representing smaller, cheaper, geekier laptops and netbooks to being a full-on, mainstream portable computer maker, with a design-driven, consumer electronics edge. Nowhere near, say, Sony’s level, but they’re certainly taking their first steps along that road. The goal is to become one of the top three portable computer makers by 2011.
World’s first panda-recyclable laptopShih supported the positioning with new products. A streamlined product line for gamers and power users, with a full sized, full powered, Darth Vader-look laptop. High concept netbook styling by a brand name designer intended to appeal to women. Social responsibility and lower carbon footprints across the product line. Computers made out of bamboo. A big laptop that’s trying to evoke the black tie aura of an orchestral instrument.
More powerful, better looking, greener, more this, more that. Unfortunately, Not news, unfortunately. It would be news, albeit bad, if this year’s stuff ran just like last year’s.
They have good stuff to talk about, and likely will move into the top three in their category in the near term. The mobile computer sector, Shih said, grew by 25% in the third quarter of 2009, while ASUS grew by 56%. That’s exactly what they need to do.
From a concept perspective, Shih introduced Waveface, which might someday be a line of wearable, stuffable, mountable computing and communication devices, tightly integrated with a networked suite of lifestyle services. Think of a smartphone that wraps around your wrist like a bracelet, or a tablet computer that folds up like a piece of paper. Game-changing stuff, if it ever becomes actual stuff.
