Live from CES Unveiled, pre-press day, Tuesday 6 January 2009 6 January 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: apple computer, asus, blaupunkt, boxee, broadcom, CEA, CES, consumer electronics show, hd radio, igo, Intel, lenovo, msi, novatel wireless, powermat, sigma, truphone
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Last to first, real time tweets from Las Vegas…
- Tethering is deciding battle between mobile carriers & CE industry. CE guys don’t get it, think it’s a tech problem. It’s the money!
- Novatel Wireless hasn’t signed any carriers yet. Expects to Real Soon Now. If they do, it’s a significant market signal re tethering.
- Novatel Wireless also into tethering. Selling gizmo combining mobile data card, embedded Linux, WiFi tethering. Serves 5 users at once.
- Blaupunkt has Internet car radio. Needs tethering-capable mobile phone. Don’t count on mobile carriers cooperating with the biz model.
- Buzzword Alert! iGo makes travel adaptors. Nice, same sh** different year. But now (pause for effect & wink knowingly) “we’re green”.
- Boxee talking to Sigma & Intel. Broadcom reportedly doesn’t care yet: he who is last is lunch.
- Boxee vs AppleTV. Good interfaces. AppleTV tied to iTunes. But
- Boxee runs on an AppleTV & pisses off Steve Jobs. Great business model!
- Boxee runs on 1 GHz processor or better now, working towards reducing code to run as embedded app with less horsepower.
- Boxee managed $4 mil in VC financing last month. In this market that’s like winning the Nobel prize. Nobody gets funded these days.
- Boxee runs on Mac, Windoze, Linux. Takes content from all sources, including your computer. Puts it on TV. TV, photos, music, whatever.
- Boxee only potential disruptor at this press event. Open source media center software. Takes content from everywhere, puts it anywhere.
- HD Radio has neat idea. Listen to song on radio, push button, tag song, sync with iPod, buy song from iTunes. GPS integration too.
- Lenovo on same track as MSI, good not revolutionary. When you have a hot category, take market share, not press clips I guess.
- MSI Wind product looks good, not game-changing. WiFi, but no WiMAX. When I asked, PR person thought WiMAX was a kind of hard drive.
ASUS has best new stuff. Love the netbook with the swivel screen. Turns into a tablet PC or e-reader. Under 1kg. WiMAX on roadmap.- Three netbook makers pushing hard at CES: MSI, ASUS, Lenovo.
- CES Unveiled, big turnout nice buffet. Open bar, but Powermat display has bigger line. This crowd is fueled by electrons, not booze.
Make that ASUS chairman Jonney Shih.- @jodrell Truphone Anywhere uses GSM to make a plain old mobile voice call to a voip portal. Nice but not mobile voip.
- Microsoft guy unveils a rad new concept: voip. Next hot idea from Redmond: padded laptop cases!
- ASUS hot on WiMAX, introing a 512GB solid state drive
- ASUS press conf packed, already learned something: it’s pronounced “ah-zeus”.
- In car TV top product pick for young parents, other mobile TV products getting lots of attention. More dough for services and content for sure.
- Early leader for WTF award: HD diving mask.
- Services seen as integral part of media product sales, “wouldn’t make sense without”.
- Mobile, cloud computing, green tech all getting serious attention. Squares with VC predictions for 2009.
- E-readers a top growth product in 2008, albeit from a small base
- Green products, mobile stuff, embedded Internet, input & display tech tagged as top trends for 2009.
- Early leader for Alice in Wonderland award: “CE is a necessity not a luxury”. So are cars, and auto sales are zip.
- Early leader for understatement of the show: “consumer spending is in transition”.
- CES state of the industry press conf: DTV, mobile phones, video games & PCs account for 70% of CE sales in 2008.
Live from Showstoppers Media Event at MacWorld 2009 5 January 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: boingo, drobo, macworld, newber, showstoppers, skype, stellar information systems, truphone, uclick
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Last to first, realtime tweets from Showstoppers event at MacWorld in San Francisco, 5 January 2009…
• Advice to Truphone: go ahead, stick it to The Man!
• Truphone guy sez he’s heard about something called hacking somewhere but doesn’t know what it means. Really…
• I will try Truphone next week from New Zealand, if I can figure out how to load it on my hacked iphone.
• Drobo showing usual data back up stuff, it’s good but expensive, now offering a Linux NAS.
• Truphone, Skype potentially very disruptive to mobile model, Newber just seems complicated.
• Newber at Showstoppers again, integrates iPhone with landline service, adds biz line.
• Stellar Info Systems intros media content-specialized data recovery utility.
• Uclick might save editorial cartoonists. What have you done for the planet lately?
• Uclick has neat app, puts newspaper cartoons, crossword puzzles on iPhone.
• Skype introducing screen sharing app, shares videos, powerpoints, spreadsheets, whatever.
• Skype now selling Boingo wifi access by the minute, paid via Skype account.
• Skype at MacWorld & Showstoppers too, Skype guy regarding iPhone app: “watch this space”.
• Truphone runs on other smartphones but first hop is via regular cellular network.
• Truphone only works via wifi connection, 3G blocked ’cause the The Man say so.
• At ShowStoppers, truphone is voip app & service for iphone, free or way cheap calls.
• One kid in line for tomorrow’s MacWorld keynote, being interviewed by 3 reporters.
