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
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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
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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.
First dribble of broadband stimulus funding announced 17 December 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: ARRA, BIP, broadband stimulus, BTOP, NTIA, rural broadband, RUS
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The feds today announced they were giving $182.7 million of broadband stimulus money to 18 projects scattered across the U.S. (but nothing so far for California). 18 projects funded out of 2,200 applications, representing less than 3% of the $7.2 billion allocated.
Not much detail but a few worrisome hints.
The infrastructure grants announced today all appear to be for RUS/BIP-type projects. Even the ones that were funded through NTIA/BTOP. That’s consistent with what we heard back in September: a select few RUS projects were fastracked into the second stage of review.
RUS is going down a familiar path – giving money to rural clients. Unlike NTIA, RUS has the staff and experience to do this work, they didn’t have to start from scratch. Even so, it took four months to process a handful of grants.
From the Associated Press:
The administration plans to award a total of $2 billion in grants and loans on a rolling basis over the next 75 days as it starts doling out the first round of stimulus funding for broadband.
Nice, but the first round was supposed to total $4 billion. Are they cutting the first round in half? Dragging it out past the end of February? Or did someone get the number wrong? Let’s hope it’s a typo. $2 billion is about what RUS was supposed to give out. Maybe they’re only referring to NTIA. Or maybe only RUS has its act sufficiently together to get anything done in the next two or three months.
From StimulatingBroadband.com:
NTIA head Lawrence Strickling “yesterday stated that “300 to 400″ project applications for broadband stimulus funding are now being reviewed…in the due diligence phase.”
What’s not clear is whether the other 1,800 or 1,900 applications are still in the queue, or have been rejected. If 1,800 apps are still sitting in someone’s in-box, we’re in for a long wait. If some or all have already been rejected, we need to know.
NTIA and RUS also just posted the comments they received regarding Round 2. It’s a lot of reading.
This process might take a lot longer than anyone ever thought.
CPUC Approves $5 Million for Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito Broadband 23 November 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: ARRA, BIP, BTOP, ccbc, CPUC
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The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unanimously approved a $4,975,009 grant from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to the Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC) on Friday, 20 November 2009. The grant pays for 10% of the approximately $50 million fiber optic trunk line network planned for Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties on California’s central coast.
CCBC system map
CCBC’s CASF and associated federal stimulus grant applications are managed by Tellus Venture Associates, which also does the financial planning and budgeting for the project. In August, the CCBC submitted a proposal for a $40 million grant to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and the Rural Utility Service’s (RUS) Broadband Initiatives Program. The remaining $5 million has already been committed by consortium members.
CPUC’s approval follows endorsements by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and congressman Sam Farr, who represents the three county region. NTIA and RUS are reviewing the grant proposal, with a decision expected next month.
The project would create a 428 mile fiber optic backbone linking unserved and underserved areas to better served communities, and connecting the entire region to Tier 1 Internet facilities in Silicon Valley. Using a loop architecture, any point on the network would have two independent paths to any other point, and to the Internet.
Current plans are for the system to be operated by a cooperative, which will offer access on a wholesale basis to last-mile Internet service providers and major institutional customers.
Two big endorsements for major Central Coast broadband project 26 October 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: broadband stimulus, BTOP, casf, ccbc, CPUC, csumb, NTIA
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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) staff have signed off on a 428 mile fiber optic trunk project for Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties on California’s Central Coast. These approvals make it more likely that the project will receive federal stimulus money through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).
The Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC) applied for grants to the CPUC’s California Advanced Services Fund and BTOP in August. In round numbers, CCBC asked for $40 million from NTIA and $5 million from the CPUC, with the remaining $5 million coming from local agencies and organizations.
NTIA sent all 176 California requests to the governor’s office for review. The governor endorsed 64, of which 30 were for broadband infrastructure projects (the remainder were public computer center and “sustainable broadband adoption” proposals). The next step is for NTIA to determine if the CCBC application meets its initial screening criteria and is eligible to move to the second, more intensive due diligence stage of review. That decision is expected within the next couple of weeks.
BTOP grants only fund 80% of proposed projects. A special law passed by the California legislature in August allows the CPUC to contribute 10%, if proposals also meet state funding requirements for unserved and underserved areas. CPUC staff moved quickly to review the CCBC proposal, determining that it is a qualified and viable project and recommending that the commission approve it at its next meeting on 20 November 2009.
Tellus Venture Associates did the financial planning for the CCBC project, creating plans and budgets for the construction and operational phases, preparing the required financial documents for NTIA and the CPUC and developing sources for matching requirements and other funding needs. Tellus Venture Associates also managed the application process for the CCBC, identified and documented eligible service areas and, along with the City of Watsonville, Blue Pacific Computer, the Monterey County Business Council and other CCBC members, did the necessary economic and demographic analysis to support the application.
California State University, Monterey Bay was the lead agency for the application, filing it on behalf of the CCBC. CSUMB’s Wireless Education and Technology Center is the host organization for the CCBC, playing the central role in creating, organizing and shepherding this community based initiative.
Digital sixth sense pokes a nose over the horizon 8 October 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: CTIA, intermap technologies, iphone, qualcomm
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He didn’t invent it, but he might be the one who brings it to market. Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm, talked about a coming “digital sixth sense” at today’s CTIA keynote session. His father, Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs, mentioned that at his age he’d like his mobile device to help him recognize faces and remember names. Paul took the idea to the next level, putting it together with other augmented reality concepts.
It’s still a fuzzy notion. Generally though, augmented reality involves delivering instant information about the real world around you, more or less automatically. It could be a system for recognizing faces, telling you the person’s name and giving you some quick background info regarding, say, the last time you met. Or you could look at the street you’re on through your mobile phone’s camera, and have buildings visually tagged with information about the businesses inside. And the list goes on.
The information flow can go both ways. You could walk into a party, take a quick peep at your phone’s camera, and instantly know who’s there. At the same time you could broadcast your own tag, telling something about yourself to anyone checking you out with a mobile phone.
Augmented reality still has a long way to go before it makes the jump from lab to market. But companies are starting to edge in that direction. The CTIA show featured applications that link GPS data to information about a specific location, and displays the result on a map. Intermap Technologies demonstrated its Accuterra iPhone app that provides tourist maps and guides to national parks and other outdoor attractions. They’re taking a hard look at iPhone 3.1 platform, which was just released to developers and supports early stage augmented reality functionality.
Mobile phone cameras and screens are just the beginning. Utimately, it’ll involve dedicated sensors and wearable display devices (glasses, maybe contact lenses?) tied to cloud based data and processing power. The mobile phone will just be one element in the augmented reality ensemble of the near future.
Realtime tweets from Pepcom and CTIA, 8 October 2009 8 October 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: AT&T, augmented reality, digital sixth sense, pepcom, qualcomm, roambi, rocketvox, trilibis
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Irwin and Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm on stage talking about mobile phone development history, fascinating long view of industry.
Paul: user interface is the killer app, Irwin: iPhone was the major breakthrough.
These guys love their stuff, think critically about how it’s used, best session of the show!
Far out & spot on prediction from Paul Jacobs: mobile phone will become “digital sixth sense”.
John Donovan, ATT CTO, speaking now, interesting so far, outlining wireless data challenges.
Donovan slowly slipping from interesting talk into ATT briefing, almost defensive about tech choices.
Donovan managing to balance ATT pitch with industry high view, talk is substantive.
Increased focus on integrating social nets into unified communications platforms, new stuff from Trilibis, RocketVox at last night’s Pepcom event.
RocketVox looks like the best of breed so far, goes live next Tuesday, will check it out.
Roambi showing platform for translating spreadsheets to mobile medium, adds killer graphics.
Real-time tweets from CTIA and Showstoppers, 7 October 2009 7 October 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: AT&T, bitstream, fcc, FloTV, friendcaller, intermap, showstoppers, verizon, yahoo
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Julius Genachowski, FCC chair, CTIA keynote, commends ATT, Verizon for opening iPhone to Internet calls, adopting Android.
Four priorities at FCC, spectrum for 4G, remove obstacles to 4G, “fair” rules of road for Internet, empower consumers.
Ralph de la Vega, ATT CEO up now, thanks Genchowski, but warns of danger of interference.
Ralph saying US mobile industry most innovative, consumer friendly in world, damn we’re great.
Ralph descends into ATT sales pitch, time for a nap.
David Ko Yahoo Mobile SVP up now, he’s excited about Yahoo’s ads.
Ko hands off to tacky home page demo, abuse of a captive audience IMHO, l8r dood.
At Showstoppers event at CTIA show, saw some interesting companies and products.
FloTV is potential disruptor. Originally delivered streaming video for Verizon and ATT, now going direct to consumers.
FloTV will be selling something like 16 TV channels nationwide, via UHF channel 55, for $9 per month.
FloTV demonstrated branded mobile device with $249 price point, but no reason to think their market is limited to mobile subs.
FloTV essentially $9 per month basic cable with streaming news, sports & such. Get rest off air & by download, bye bye cable.
BOLT browser launched out of beta by Bitstream, heats up browser competition, further tilts market away from native apps.
Virgin Mobile showing first nationwide pay-go mobile broadband. $149 dongle, buy bandwidth in $10 or more increments.
Friendcaller.com showing browser to browser VOIP, not revolutionary but still a neat angle that’ll find a market.
Intermap has Accuterra service, runs on iPhone, links GPS data to downloaded maps of parks, wildlands, fine for tourists.
Talked to Zer01 Mobile, claims unlimited data & voice for $70/month, lots of holes in their story though.
Mobile devs aligning into 2 camps: those who do & don’t play nice with iPhone. Is iPhone the Apple II of smartphones?
Quick look around the press room at CTIA, nearly everyone using Macs, even the guy from PC World magazine.
Over the top of the wall 7 October 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: bitstream, bolt browser, google, opera browser
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Browser developers are doing their best to push apps out of the operating system. Roy Satterthwaite, vice president, Americas for Opera claimed that no one is developing native applications for desktop systems, that the market and the innovation is primarily browser based and the mobile market will go the same way. It’s an arguable point, but the argument is interesting.
Bitstream took the opportunity to launch its BOLT browser out of beta and into the mainstream. Its aim is to replicate desktop browser functionality on a mobile phone. The killer app: Mafia Wars, a Facebook-based game that pushes the limits of what mobile browsers can handle. While it was still in beta, BOLT became the mobile browser of choice for Facebook gamers, at least according to Bitstream.
Google sees significant cost advantages to the browser-based approach. Supporting multiple platforms across a deep inventory of native applications is daunting, out of the reach of even Google.
Full featured mobile browsers could be the decisive breach in mobile carriers’ walled gardens, particularly if the network neutrality concept extends its embrace to the mobile Internet.
Browser based applications, services and content can be quickly distributed across any and all platforms, to a large extent irrespective of carrier or handset manufacturer. A browser based platform is limited by its ability to access hardware resources such as cameras, GPS data, user interface and peripherals, even more so in the mobile realm than the desktop world. Satterthwaite’s answer is standards-based APIs – JIL and Bondi for example – that enable browser access to device and, potentially, carrier network resources.
On the downside, that sort of access creates massive security headaches for carriers. But it’s a headache they might well deserve. They’ve relied heavily on controlling both ends of the connection to manage their networks, a tactic that died thirty years ago in the personal computer sector. Whether the cause is the political push toward more open networks or the creative chaos of the marketplace, carriers will have to find better security solutions eventually.
