Category: Mobile Computing

Stronger Economy May Weaken Netbook Sales | Wi-Fi Planet

Netbook growth might end when economy recovers, says iSuppli

My comments on this issue

The “people’s cars” that were built in Europe.

Between the 1930s and the 1960s, VW, Citroen, British Motor Corporation and Fiat had put in to their lineup a small simple car which sold at a price affordable for most people in the country they were sold in. Before these vehicles came on the market, vehicles that were on the market wore priced out of reach of most people living in Europe. In some cases, the national governments were involved in the manufacture and sale of the vehicles to their citizens.

The vehicles, which were the VW “Beetle”, the Citroen 2CV, the Morris Minor, the Mini and the Fiat 500, had minimal equipment levels and were powered by a low-power engine which was of a simple design with the power going via a three or four-speed manual gearbox. These cars, which were of the sedan (saloon) body style, were able to comfortably accommodate four adults including the driver or a family of two adults and three children at a pinch.

But through the life of the models, they had undergone significant revisions to make them to the same standards as one of today’s small cars. For example, some of the cars were equipped with more powerful engines and had equipment which they did not have previously like electric windscreen washers or wind-down windows. The vehicle builders also had issued the vehicles in different body styles such as a delivery van, or convertible as well as the standard sedan (saloon) body style. In the 1960s, most of these vehicles had undergone a “rework” which had modern conveniences, improved performance and compliance with newer road-safety expectations integrated in to their design.

Now these cars had acquired “cult status” especially amongst people of the “baby-boom” generation. This was due to the vehicles being used by their family as the main household vehicle or these people buying them as their first car. The minimalist design that these vehicles had also been valued by the 1960s hippie culture.  The vehicle builders had responded with or are responding with “one-more-time” designs of these vehicles which look similar to the original model but have a design based on a current-issue small car. These cars are still considered “cool” and fashionable amongst today’s generation.

How this relates to the netbook.

I see the netbook as being akin to these “people’s cars” – a computer designed with a quaintly simple design with a simple outlook for a simple purpose. Then, like the vehicle builders had done with the “people’s cars”, the manufacturers will supply newer models with improved performance, capacity and functionality but in the same form factor, especially as the financial situation improves. Similarly, operating systems available for installation on these devices will end up being able to do most of what a full-size computer can do.

How the netbook could be relevant in a stronger economy

The netbook would evolve as a lightweight small-unit alternative to the economy notebook for the entry-level computing market. This class of users will want to start out on something simple so they can “get the hang” of the technology and work out their direction with it.

It would then exist as a secondary-computer option especially for users like journalists or students who want a highly-portable computer to take “out and about”, especially for notetaking or liveblogging. On the other hand, it could exist as an alternative to the mobile Internet device or the smartphone as one’s personal computing device.

It can also exist simply in a home network simply as a secondary “floater” computer that is moved between the kitchen, main lounge area (where most of the TV viewing is done), the outdoors entertaining area and similar common areas for online activity like interacting with TV-show Websites or responding to social networks and Web-based e-mail.

The thing to remember about these devices is that they won’t be used by most computer users as a primary desktop or laptop computer. They will simply be seen as an extension of one’s computing life.

O2’s Joggler, formerly OpenFrame, launches in UK this April

Over the past few months, a new device category has started to emerge in the form of the Mobile Internet Device. It would have the functionality of one of today’s smartphones except for cellular voice and data communications.

The device would link to a home or other network using 802.11g or 802.11n WPA2 wireless or use a Bluetooth-connected mobile phone as its modem when it wants to benefit from the Internet. They will work as a media player, a games machine or an Internet-based information device. Some of these devices may benefit from extra software being downloaded on to them through a Web portal set up by their manufacturer or supplier. The primary user interface on all of these devices is a touch screen, but they may have extra keys for access to regular functions. They would mainly use a standard or micro SD card and / or built-in flash memory as their user storage and have their software loaded on other flash memory.

Interestingly, Clarion, one of the most respected car-audio brands, had developed the ClarionMIND which is a combination of a portable navigation device and a mobile Internet device. This gadget provides in-car and on-foot satellite navigation as well as Internet information access and media playback. If it is installed in a matching dock, the unit works like a high-end portable navigation device, passes its audio through the car stereo system and matches its display to “day” or “night” mode according to how you operate the car’s headlight switch.

The iPod Touch was one such device that predicted this device-category trend. It had the ability to play or show media held within it and was able to benefit from a wireless home network by being able to browse the web or add on software through the iTunes App Store.

But could they make the smartphone or connected electronic picture frame / portable navigation device / portable media player redundant? Not really. I would see them as a companion device for all mobile phones and a device which can perform functions complementary to these other devices.

For example, a mobile Internet device could become a DLNA Digital Media Controller / UPnP AV Control point for the DLNA Home Media Network. Similarly, they could perform other control functions that are becoming part of networked home automation. As well, they could be seen as an alternative to handheld games consoles by being able to download games from the Web portal. Other applications would include Web activities where very little text entry needs to be done such as monitoring information pages.

It would be certainly interesting to see how the new Mobile Internet Devices fit in to the personal computing ecosystem as they start to appear on the market.

Wi-Fi for your Car, Truck, or MPV

My Comments

One factor that is often missed when WiFi in the car is mentioned is the idea of network-hosted media in the car. This should cover access to Internet-hosted media like Internet radio through the car stereo, the ability to sync to the master media library at home whether the vehicle is at home or away and DLNA functionality at home or away.

The last function would cover DLNA media play through the car audio system whenever there is a DLNA media server in or near the car. A situation that would be covered in this setup would be to play music files held on a DLNA-enabled laptop or mobile phone or a home network’s DLNA server through the car speakers. Similarly, music could be downloaded to a hard disk installed in the car from these sources for later playback. In a similar vein, the car stereo could be a DLNA media server for RV (caravan) and holiday-home setups where the media library could be available through a UPnP AV-compliant media client device in the RV or holiday-home. This same setup can also please tradesmen who don’t want to hear the usual radio content on the job.

Another issue that needs to be raised is to have wireless broadband service at a cost-effective rate so that more people can think of benefiting from the technology.

WiFi tops poll for best technological innovation of last decade – Telegraph

What has WiFi been about especially for the home IT environment?

One major way WiFi has benefited the home IT environment is the increased sale of laptop computers (http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24851973-15306,00.html?referrer=email) over desktop computers. This typically would manifest in a home computing environment consisting of one or more laptop computers that have built-in WiFi wireless ability. The network – Internet “edge” device in this environment would be a wireless router that brings the Internet to these laptops via WiFi wireless. In some countries, the standard provider-supplied “customer premises equipment” for Internet service would be equipped with WiFi wireless capability.

Increasingly, nearly every printer manufacturer is running at least one residential-tier multi-function printer equipped with network ability, typically with WiFi network access. This means that the printer can be located in one position wherever the user desires and print documents from their laptop. There also is the increasing number of “Internet radios” or “i-Radios” that use WiFi to bring Internet radio streams to the speakers in these sets.

This may not be strictly a home-IT environment issue but the number of “hotspots” and “hotzones” that are part of public places is now increasing. These WiFi-based public networks are allowing for anywhere computing.

This has also caused most current-model mobile phones and PDA devices to be equipped with WiFi wireless thus allowing for cost-effective portable Web browsing and, increasingly, DLNA-driven music management and playback. These phones will eventually lead to WiFi being another mobile-telephone network usually in the form of fixed-mobile communications for example.

There have been attempts to “kill the goose that laid the golden egg” by limiting WiFi or making it unpopular. It has mainly been based on the “electromagnetic waves being dangerous to people” theory being propagated as part of junk science, but real scientific tests have proven that the RF emissions yielded by typical WiFi and Bluetooth setups none or very little detrimental effect on people.

Even without this article, I would certainly agree that WiFi has become an important computer technology for all IT scenarios.

Broadcom’s New 802.11n Chip Includes Bluetooth and FM

My Comments

I see this design as being increasingly relevant because of the way major electronics manufacturers are building “best of class” personal-electronics devices in all of the device classes (mobile phone, personal digital assistant, personal media player, etc) that they offer such devices in. The main issue that has plagued people who use these devices is the increased likelihood of the device’s battery dying on them when they want to get the best out of the device.

I see this design as a step in the right direction regarding long battery run-time for these devices because, as the article has said,  of integrating the WiFi N, Bluetooth and FM radio circuitry in to the one circuit with improved power consumption. This is certainly important if the device is to be used in a wireless network and with a Bluetooth headset for example.

It also encourages device builders to consider not just Internet-hosted services but network-based services like DLNA-based media server / control / play functionality. Now that this version of the chip integrates low-power FM transmission, this could appeal to the idea of a “music phone” or personal media player with DLNA media play functionality playing music from its own collection or a DLNA network media server through an ordinary FM radio.

At least this chipset will be a step in the right direction for “raising the bar” in personal-electronics design.

SlotMusic web site

Those of us who lived through the 60s, 70s and 80s, will remember the pre-recorded cassettes being another way to sell recorded music. These tapes were typically marketed as “Musicassettes” and were able to be played in any old cassette player or recorder that existed, whether in (or under) the dashboard of a car, a portable unit or a cassette deck attached to the hi-fi system. They were typically considered second-rate to the LP record and people who were serious about music quality typically recorded the LP onto one side of a blank C-90 cassette for in-car or portable use rather than buying these tapes.

This was until the 1980s where there were many high-quality cassette players and recorders being used by the public. This was exemplified by the Walkman personal cassette player and the large “boom boxes” of that era and vehicle builders equipping their premium vehicles with high-quality cassette players. It led to the music industry improving the quality of these tapes by using improved tape stock for the cassettes, implementing an improved signal path and using stringent quality control during the tape replication process. This led to the cassette being respected more as an analogue recorded-music medium alongside the LP record. Some people then ended up not using the turntable function of a music centre or built up a music system with a cassette deck as the system’s only packaged-music source.

Now, SanDisk has implemeted the MicroSD card as a recorded-music distribution medium for use with mobile phones or MP3 players. The medium, market as “SlotMusic”, is sold with an accompanying USB card reader for use with PCs or media players equipped with USB ports, but can be played on equipment that has a MiniSD or standard SD card slot through the use of a MiniSD or standard SD adaptor card. These cards will contain 320kbps MP3 files of all the music that is on the album.

I have read many criticisms to this format, primarily by CD enthusiasts who see it as another poor-quality format for portable use. This is going to be very much the same sentiment that was held regarding the pre-recorded Musicassettes where they were only suitable for playing on a low-quality portable cassette recorder and weren’t fit for use on a hi-fi system.

As far as the home network is concerned, music files on a SlotMusic card can be copied to a DLNA media server which can provide them out to other DLNA music clients. This could be done either by copying the files in to a directory named after the album using the network file-transfer techniques or by “inducting” the SlotMusic card’s contents in to the music collection using the PC jukebox software’s content-import procedures and, if necessary, synchroniing that data to the music server.