Jeremy Toeman’s LIVEdigitally

If you haven’t heard of Maker’s Faire before, check out details here (don’t worry, I’ll wait for you before continuing).  I tried describing it on the phone to a friend earlier today, I said “it’s like a big county fair except instead of people throwing small items at smaller targets, you see them building flamethrowers and personal helicopters and solar-powered stuff.”  It really isn’t the easiest thing to describe, but if you have any shred of childhood creativity left, it’s the kinda place you should go for a few hours this weekend.

I say all that, but now, wait for it, the truth is, oh boy, I’ve never been.  As I mentioned on the Bug Labs blog today, I’ve managed to miss it year after year.  I really believe that MAKE magazine and the corresponding event represent the best possibilities of “growing up”.  Yes, I was one of those kids who took apart toys then put them back together again, albeit slightly worse than when I started (and even threw them out my bedroom window, just to see what might happen).  I still have a huge bag of Lego sitting in my closet waiting for my son to get old enough to not eat them.

Tickets are only $25, though Scott Beale’s going to give away a few to some lucky folks.  I’ll be at the Bug Labs “booth” along with others from the team.  We’ll make some gadgets, hack some gear, and try to find a way to hook the BUG up to a flamethrower.  Please join!

Wouldn’t it be fun if they name it iPhone ][? It won’t happen, but … Then they could even have a mini-upgrade iPhone ][+! Okay, that’s enough geekiniscing for the day.

Spent the day hiking in Marin and having a BBQ with some old friends, somehow the iPhone came up as a topic numerous times, despite none of us being iPhone owners. There’ve been rumors aplenty about an iPhone 2.0, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet something‘s coming. As always, Steve’s playing it close to the chest, which is part of what makes Apple such a fun/special company (disclaimers: (1) I own Apple stock, (2) I own a MacBook, (3) I don’t own an iPod or iPhone, (4) I’m one of those guys that was fairly anti-Mac until mid-last year, (5) I don’t own any black turtlenecks).

In the day of chatting, a few ideas came through our conversations. I’ve decided to go throw my stage in the ground, even though I may be 4 or more months early on any timing. Further, I’m adding a little “likelihood” to each prediction.

1. I believe Apple will have 2 different iPhones available on the market simultaneously (not just v1 and v2, but two distinct models with a lot of similarities). Likely
2. At least one of these models will have a keyboard and will take on BlackBerry/Windows Mobile more aggressively in the business market. Possible
3. 3G. I Garontee!
4. Video recording. Very likely
5. Deeper .mac integration will be built-into the phone(s). Very likely
6. Put the above three statements together for a built-in live video streaming feature. Possible
7. Bluetooth tethering will be possible. Likely
8. A 4+ megapixel camera will be included. Possible
9. One model will be somewhat smaller/lighter/thinner than the 1.0 model. Likely
10. Microsoft will have some type of Office for iPhone available to coincide with the launch. Possible
11. It will not have two cameras (Steve won’t even allow them to put two buttons on it!). Not a chance
12. The battery still won’t be replacable. Likely
13. Real GPS is included. Possible

And now for some more outlandish possibilities. All are a bit more… out there. Warning: to my more serious readers, this list gets increasingly goofy. If in a hurry, it’s probably best to skip it altogether.

1. It might come in multiple colors.
2. They include an ATSC tuner for live, real-time HDTV reception.
3. They skip 3G but include Wimax support.
4. Instead of just two (or one) models, Apple introduces two different distinct lines of iPhones. The second is a much smaller unit - think “iPhone Nano” - but is still all-touchscreen. In an even wackier move, it’s a flip-phone.
5. They make the screen capable of playing 720p resolution video. Again, the more extreme prediction has an HDMI connector and IR interface and doubles as an AppleTV.
6. It has an infrared emitter and supports the TV-B-Gone technology. Just kidding.
7. Apple massively updates the .mac infrastructure to include mobile social networking features for iPhone users. This probably won’t be heavily used as iPhone people can actually feel the aura of other nearby iPhone people…
8. Voice-operation for all controls. As a downside it has the voice of Marvin from Hitchhiker’s, and after 90 days of use goes crazy, HAL 9000-style. After this point, one in every ten times the user touches the screen the iPhone starts playing Rick Astley at max volume.
9. Rather than continue support for YouTube, all videos are sourced from 1938Media, who Apple becomes a sponsor for and Loren introduces a Fake Steve Jobs puppet.
10. Forget touchscreen, instead consider these three words: rotary dial interface.

I’ve followed Dash, the Internet-enabled GPS company, for quite some time (I even tried to be a beta tester), as I utterly love the concept. GPS receivers should obviously have Internet access to download new maps, get traffic data, and then of course do some more clever things. Like have my entire address book and calendar built-in. And have Internet services that call my phone when it’s time to leave if I want to make my next meeting on time. I completely expect the category to standardize around these services in the next few years. In the meantime, Dash is trying to be first to market and grab a comfortable spot.

First, here’s the state of the GPS market as I see it (as it pertains to Dash)

1. Dash is competing with massively entrenched, well-known players (Garmin, TomTom, Magellan, Mio, Pioneer, Sony, others, and of course, all the in-car receivers). The best of these companies (listed above in order) make great products, most of which are extremely well-liked by consumers.
2. In my opinion, enabling Internet access into a GPS unit is at best a sustainable innovation. In other words, this isn’t a revolution, it’s an evolution, and Garmin/TomTom/others probably already have working prototypes with similar functionality.
3. Major players are spending a lot of money on advertising (Garmin does Superbowl commercials!).
4. It is likely to suffer as an industry as GPS-enabled cell phones become widely available and affordable (which is probably why Garmin has introduced a phone, and is simultaneously facing revenue/sales problems).

So if I interpret these signs, I see a startup attempting to enter a commodity industry with a product that I’ll label as “slightly better”. Before any Dash fans roar at me, I’m not trying to say they haven’t made a great product, as I haven’t used it at all - the key point here is the consumer perception of their product. In other words, to the average Joe about to buy a GPS receiver, the Dash only stands out with one additional feature, and that feature is fairly complicated, which drastically diminishes its true value in comparison.

It’s getting mixed user reviews on Amazon (with 4-ish stars and is placing nicely in the top-25 for GPS), Engadget’s happy, and Walt sorta likes it, the combination of which isn’t enough to help push it over the top. Somehow this Silicon Valley startup needs to get out of the Valley and into millions and millions of peoples’ cars before the rest of the industry catches up. Personally, I don’t see how they get there in time.

At a personal level, friends have challenged me on my doubts, making Slingbox-to-Sony comparisons. Here are the quick differences:

• Slingbox/Sony LFTV was a brand new category to define - Dash is an existing, huge one (that may actually be on the verge of decline).
• Sony’s product was terrible (sure I’m biased, but virtually every single user and professional review backs up this comment), whereas companies like Garmin/TomTom make great products. Further, these products are cheaper than Dash.
• Slingbox averages 4.5 stars from Amazon users (181 reviews as of this writing), and had massive impact from strong word of mouth effects, yet Dash’s user reviews are nowhere near as glowing.
• Slingbox had an instant “I get it, I need it” (or “I don’t need it”) response when people heard about it, one that left almost no room for discussion. Dash has to define itself around existing categories with incremental (albeit cool) technologies. Worse still, Dash has a monthly/annual service fee.

Part of me really wants to see Dash overcome these odds. Another part of me thinks this is a whole lot of money chasing an excessively elusive goal. I believe the company’s best chance at mere survival is through licensing, which is another tricky path to follow on its own.

I hate to say it, but I believe this is one of those disappointing moments where good technology doesn’t appear to have the legs it’s going to need to survive for the long haul. Can Dash navigate these windy roads? Will I come up with yet another terrible pun? Can this post get any longer? Only time will tell.

Updated: while re-reading this, I realized I’m leaving out a key point here: it is entirely possible that the cost structure for running Dash as a company is low enough that they do not need to be a top player in the space. It could be a healthy company without being as big as the Garmin/TomTom/other pool…

For years I’ve envisioned a future of digital cameras that would be smart enough to take more than one picture at a time, but instead would simply take a stream of pictures that you’d select from a little later.  I didn’t have all the details worked out, but it seemed like the logical evolution.  When I read David Pogue’s column a few minutes ago, it looks like the guys at Casio have in fact worked it out:

It takes 60 pictures per second (not 60 frames of a compressed movie file, which is different), all are 6MP.

After taking, you can keep em, delete em, or pick manually.

Per Pogue: “In pre-record mode, you half-press the shutter button when you’re awaiting an event that’s unpredictable: a breaching whale, a geyser’s eruption or a 5-year-old batter connecting with the ball. The camera silently, repeatedly records 60 shots a second, immediately discarding the old to make room for the new.

When you finally press the shutter button fully, the camera simply preserves the most recent shots, thus effectively photographing an event that, technically speaking, you missed.” - WOW!

It also has a motion detector.

For a full review, go back to David’s article, it’s very balanced and thorough.

Will I really buy one?  I don’t know, I still don’t like the idea of a big bulky camera to lug around.  I’m also not sure if this is exactly up the alley of a “prosumer” such as Thomas Hawk, as Pogue laments about the quality of the actual picture-taking-thingamajig inside the camera.

But this definitely marks the future of the entire category.  In fact it’ll always be features and functions like these that keep the digital camera sector enough steps ahead of cell phones to remain extremely relevant.  Me likey.

Trying to “keep it fresh” (or is that “keep it real”?), I’m doing my show recap with a slightly different format. Here are my highs and lows of the show:

HIGH: Unquestionably, winning the Best of Show award with Bug Labs this year. All in all Bug Labs (whom I work with) had a phenomenal CES, which I’ll blog about over at the Stage Two blog in the next couple of days.

LOW: Panasonic’s 150 inch plasma. I’m probably going to end up buying a Panny plasma this year anyway, but I couldn’t help but shake my head with dismay at this screen (although it’s certainly using some impressive technology, I definitely give them credit for that). It’s just ridiculous from every perspective, and the utter waste in even creating the thing is astounding to me. Especially in light of…

HIGH: Philips’ eco-friendly plasma TV. Of all things to lose the Overall best in show award to, this was my pick. Good for them to set a good example for the CE industry. Hopefully this is the beginning of a big trend, as plasmas are about as non-green a gadget you can possibly buy.

LOW: No major new innovations. While I wasn’t following the news as well as I’d have liked, it seemed like CES ‘08 was really about bigger (or thinner), faster, better, etc. No major new formats/platforms/technologies announced (other than Tru2Way, the terribly named tech that will probably be only minorly more successful than CableCard), no really new innovative device unveiled, just more of the same old, same old. Also, I (and others) think the show is just too darn big now.

HIGH: Watching the Bill Gates keynote AT the BlogHaus. I didn’t make it last year at all (perhaps due to location? Scoble - hint, hint), so it was fun to go there and see the bloggers’ reactions to the keynote. I tuned out as he spun Vista’s success, but it was definitely a lively environment for it!

LOW: “Gizmodogate.” I think more than anything else I’m disappointed in that group, as I know some of the Gizmodo staff individually. Seems like one of those moments where a funny idea went way way way too far. The idea? Funny. Doing it? Not Funny.

HIGH: Flying Virgin America from LV to SFO. In-seat videos and gaming, combined with AC adapters (and USB chargers) at every seat? As per the letter I just wrote to United Airlines (where I’m currently a 1K flyer), it’s pretty irresistible.

LOW: Not getting a day to just watch and walk the show floor. Last year I had 3 days to scout for cool technology for a client, as well as blog the whole time. This year I had 15 hour demo days. But at least I got my…

HIGH: Steak at Smith & Wollensky’s. This is an annual CES tradition of mine, and one I intend to continue for years to come.

LOW: CES 2009 reverts to the old-school Thurs-Sun schedule. AND it coincides with MacWorld. I’m sure some planners had very good reasons and intents, but the outcome is just miserable for everyone involved. Here’s a suggestion: can we begin a plan to shift CES from it’s current timeslot to one month later? It’d be nice for the 100,000 or so individuals involved in putting together demos and booths to have a December vacation once in a while.

And now to end on some very positive notes…

HIGH: Catching up with all my friends at the show, be they bloggers, former Sling Media coworkers, venture capitalists, press & analysts, or consumer electronics industry execs. Great to see you all again!

HIGH: Sneak preview of TuneUp Media at the show, as well as Splashtop winning a PC World “Most Innovative Products” award!

HIGH: Meeting some people in person whom I’d previously only known online. Especially some original Slingbox beta testers, and bloggers Shawn Morton, Doc Searls, and Engadget’s Ben Drawbaugh.

HIGH: Bothering my friends and family in a little grass roots attempt to win CNET’s “People’s Choice” award at CES. I even used Facebook and (oy) Twitter! Bug lost out to Motorola (and probably a few others). I think they have a slightly wider brand awareness…

HIGH: Not catching the CES Flu this year. Feel better, Robert and others!

UBER-HIGH: My CES Best Of Show Threepeat. More on that on my personal blog later.

That’s my wrapup of CES 2008, another one for the books! All my photos are online here. Now I wait for MacWorld, to find out exactly what my new MacBook Pro will be, as I will undoubtedly pick one up the first day I possibly can.

This is fun (more fun than being yelled at by everybody in my Apple post - yes, people, you’ve made your point!).  Bug Labs  (with whom I work) just got picked by CNET as a Best of CES contender!  For such a tiny startup, this is a wonderful honor, and the whole team is really energized (I’d say “psyched”, but that’s more for us in California, the New Yorkers wouldn’t be big fans of the term).

The company could also use a little help and support from the tech community, as they are up against some huge players.  So our David is taking on the Goliath by reaching out to get some votes for the People’s Voice award.   You can vote online here, or you can text in your vote (text PV14 to 26381).  Please use your proverbial slingshot to help the company out!!

UPDATE: I just noticed that CNBC/Donny Deutsch show is also polling for their favorite, and we’d love a little help there too!

Bug Labs (whom I work with) announced a bunch of updates today, the day before we head off to LV for CES. For those of you following the company, whose “Lego of Gadgets” is catching a lot of great attention in the tech community, here are the highlights:

Pricing (including an Early Adopter Discount):

• BUGbase $349 ($299 w/discount)
• LCD module $119 ($99 w/discount)
• GPS module $99 ($79 w/discount)
• Camera module $79 ($69 w/discount)
• Motion detector / Accelerometer $59 ($49 w/discount)

Availability:

• Pre-orders start on 01/21
• Fulfillment starts by 03/17

New module:

• The Von Hippel module (named after MIT professor Eric von Hippel) is a “breakout box” for the BUG platform

New promotions:

• Early Adopter Discount - price break offered to consumers who purchase/pre-order within the first 60 days. Now that’s technology.
• BUG+EDU - promotions aimed at educational institutions, no specific details announced at this time.

For the first time, the company issued a press release in addition to the blog post, if you are curious as to why, take a look at my marketing blog post. Coverage is popping up online at Engadget, Gizmodo, Geek.com, PC Magazine, EE Times, Random Thoughts, Mashable, and Brad Feld, Fred Wilson’s and Bijan Sabet’s blog (note: these three are investors).

See you in Vegas!

I’ve seen lots of Top 10 lists on the subject, and I’ve decided to try a different format for my own prognostications. Instead of by rank, I’ll do a list by industry.  Also, I have way more than 10 predictions to make.

TV Technology

• Every major cable company will increase it’s rates by more than 3%. Nobody will complain, and our government will (again) fail to protect us from them.
• A resolution above 1080p starts appearing in demos and labs, I’d predict a bump up into the 4000 vertical lines space.
• Bluray and HD-DVD continue to duke it out while consumers continue to not care.
• One of Hulu, Joost, etc get integrated into the Xbox 360 and/or PS3.
• Google launches “Android for Set-Top Boxes” but gains little traction in the foreseeable future.
• Anyone who is not a telephone company that tries to launch an IP-streaming set top device has a very rough year.
• Despite near-constant predictions of their demise, TiVo makes it through another year, possibly getting acquired (by DirecTV, Comcast, Netflix, Blockbuster, or someone out of the blue like Amazon or eBay).

Portable Devices That Are Not Cell Phones

• Zune 3.0 launches. It’s very very good. Further, iPod’s market share dips, although they still have an increase in overall unit sales (in other words: the pie gets bigger faster than their sales do). That said, a new iPod is even more betterer than all previous versions, making everyone who recently bought a prior generation a wee bit annoyed, but gosh that Steve Jobs is so charming they just don’t care. After all, that’s technology!
• At least two major camera vendors introduce integrated wifi cameras, but no more than one uses an open service, the rest have some proprietary, closed, annoying-to-use system. Ideally one of them buys Eye-fi.
• Digital picture frames continue to grow in market share, but still don’t “tip” into the mainstream.
• More companies introduce e-book readers despite general malaise in the category. Kindle II is launched with mild improvements.

Enterprise Services

• I have no clue, I don’t follow the space. Hello, this is a consumer tech blog!

Computers

• Apple’s new laptops will include an ultramobile, a tablet, and a “desktop replacement” OR a “gaming model” (they may combine the first two). Enhancements will include a card reader, 3G access as a built-in option, and new gestures. Market share continues to climb.
• Microsoft continues to spin about how amazing Vista is. Michael Gartenberg’s observations are probably the most poignant as to why it isn’t.
• Asus or Dell acquires or merges with one of HP, Acer, Toshiba, or other “meh” PC maker.
• Sony continues to make subpar Vaio laptops. And for the last time (I think) in 2007: don’t buy the Sony Vaio VGN-SZ4xx series laptops, they are just plain terrible. I’ve now had the chance to voice my discontent directly to the Vaio PR team (at Ruder Finn) who have yet to write me back on the topic.
• Nobody makes my awesome dual-screen laptop concept, thus leaving me the opportunity to make zillions one day.

Social Networking

• Facebook continues to get backlash from the media and tech community, meanwhile its user base continues to skyrocket. Further, they hire another 1000 people, yet only make modest improvements to the site itself. I’d add a 33% chance that they “pull a Netscape” and go after the desktop or the browser or some other place they really don’t belong.
• Randomly pick some names from the huge list of other social networking sites and some of them merge.
• Adults who didn’t grow up with social networking services experience burnout of being bitten by zombies after a few months, and many stop checking in four times per day. Those who went to school during the Facebook era continue to complain about all the old fogies (like me) polluting their sacred resting ground. They also continue to put radically inappropriate pictures of themselves online, blissfully unaware of the interviewing process.

Mobile Tech

• A few Android-powered phones ship, but not as many as the tech community would like to see. Again showing why the Razr can utterly dominate the market despite a closed architecture and terrible user interface.
• Apple launches the iPhone 3G, the iPhone nano, and the iPhonePro. Ok, I’m not 100% sure on the third, but I am betting on the first two. Also, one of these new phones comes unlocked OR on a carrier other than AT&T.
• Some major lawsuit occurs between a carrier and either a cable company or a broadcaster, all about mobile video rights. All parties involved appear as nothing but greedy to outsiders.
• Something new comes out in the phone space that’s more astounding than the iPhone. It’s possibly: uber-small, has a radically better battery life, does something funky like synchs with the Wii, or works with all US carriers.

Gaming

• With lots of stealth, a new console comes to market. It might only be a moderate shift from a prior model, or possibly be a whole new entrant.
• Rock Band 2 and 3, and Guitar Heros 4, 5, 6, and “Eddie Van Halen” editions come out, however nobody licenses the Harmonix engine to make “Jazz Trio”.
• Someone comes up with a really impressively new concept for the Wii. Good odds, however, that they wrap it inside a crappy game.
• More really amazing HD gaming occurs, continuing to drive HD adoption faster than the meager channels the cable companies try to placate us with, despite the fact that they raise prices again. Did I already say that?

Web Services/Misc

• A wide swath of “Web 2.0″ companies will go dark, primarily out of an inability to either figure out a business model for their product, or an inability to successfully market their service outside of the Bay Area.  They will quickly be forgotten and replaced by new ones with even goofier sounding names like Froobooloo.com.
• No major Wimax deployments occur.
• The digital transition date looms, starts creating a lot of media hype a la Year2000 mania.
• RFID continues to be a fun topic for the media, but all that happens is Walmart continues to make small vendors spend loads of money for the privelege of selling there.
• Bloggers fret about not being recognized as “press”, yet continue to spend too much time/energy gossiping about other bloggers, an activity the general public remains disinterested in and doesn’t give extra respect/credibility for.  This circular logic is baffling, I know.
• We lose even more rights to big media, because few Americans are willing to take even the tiniest steps to do anything about it.  PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG (start here)!
• I still don’t Twitter.

See you in 366 days to see how I scored!

OK, that’s a bit of a misnomer since a few of us live here, but Peter Semmelhack (CEO) and Ken Gilmer (head of software) came out to SF this week for our BUG+SF event. From 6-9pm on Thursday we had a big turnout of people interested in seeing hands-on demos of the BUGbase and a few modules. We had a great time, and thanks to everyone who could come (here are some pix on Flickr).

Friday morning Peter, myself and the rest of the Stage Two team, and some of my officemates (and colleagues and friends) from Echo Marketing went to the San Francisco Food Bank to volunteer for a few hours . With each BUG+ event we like to follow it up with spending some time directly giving back to the local community (I missed the one in Boston, but here’s Matt’s excellent writeup). Prior to joining Sling I was doing a lot of regular volunteering, but due to insane traveling those two years I really hadn’t done much since. It felt really good to get involved again, and it’s something we plan to do a lot more regularly. For those of you who need any incentive (beyond the fact that volunteering makes you feel really really good):

ONE in FIVE (aka 1/5, one-fifth, or 20%) of FAMILIES in San Francisco (the city, not the Bay Area) earn under $25,000 per YEAR. That’s 150,000 people. They need our help. Click here to read more and get involved.

Our group of 7 people was paired up with another larger group of 30. In under three hours we boxed and sorted 5 tons of food. The SF Food Bank has less than 60 people on staff, so it’s pretty easy to feel the impact that small groups like ours can have on helping getting things done. You can see more pictures here.

We went back to my office to get some more work done, and my friend Robert Scoble came by for a chat. And for those of you who know Robert, when we told him we had a working BUG to show, out came the video camera cell phone, and he got a bunch of fun, casual footage of Peter and I doing demos.

Overall, great trip at so many levels. Especially playing a little Rock Band before Peter caught his flight back to NYC.

First, let me say I very much like Amazon, and about 90% or more of my online shopping goes through them, in virtually every category. Used books, new games, my soon-to-be-replaced 32″ Olevia LCD, baby apparel, rechargable Xbox controllers, and even Kangaroo Ribs - all from Amazon (sorry, the kangaroo meat vendor seems to have disappeared, but its hopefully temporary. tastes like chicken). But no matter how much I may like them doesn’t change my belief that their new electronic book reader device will fail, and fail terribly.

Electronic readers are one of those categories that sound really great in a boardroom. They demo great, and technologists tend to love them (yup, that includes my friends). I’m sure they even test well in focus groups, and will rapidly admit that there is *some* market for them. But that market isn’t the masses, it’s a small niche. And unfortunately, small niches are hard to sustain if you are a gadget maker.

The way I like to look at a new gadget is generally inspired by the language Pip Coburn uses in The Change Function. Is the market today “in crisis” when it comes to books? No. Next, is there a perceived pain in adopting electronic book readers? Absolutely. Now that’s not enough to completely rule out the category, but it certainly is a quick and dirty way to see why it’s not quite a slam dunk either.

In my eyes this is one of those technologies that is still searching for a problem. At $399 + $9.99 per book, it’s certainly not a cost-competitive solution to purchasing books, unless you are comparing solely against new, hardcover prints. Further, it’s not exactly a challenge to find and buy books, whether online or offline, new or used. In fact, it’s pretty hard to argue that an electronic reader will vastly improve the book discovery, purchase, and consumption experience (unlike how much an MP3 player was able to do that exact thing). The only really viable argument against physical books is they are bigger and bulkier, but that really only applies to hardcover books.

I can go on at length about all the different use-cases for why an electronic reader can’t win, but then I think this would become one of those all-too-wordy posts I tend to use. So, I’ll jump into quick bulleted list format for the rest:

• Unlike newspapers and magazines, the content of books isn’t about timeliness, so digital versions do not offer an advantage. While those industries are in a change-or-die crisis, books aren’t.
• Book consumption is unlike any other form of media, and cannot be compared to music, videos, news articles, blog posts, etc.
• The “barriers” to buying a book today involve knowing where to buy a book. Anyone savvy enough to buy Kindle knows where to buy books, and it is highly unlikely they are in massive dissatisfaction with that process. Compare this to the perceived barriers about an electronic reader.
• Most positive comments on e-readers have tons of “ifs” in them. IF it has good battery life. IF the screen looks good. IF buying books is easy. IF its very “booklike”. This isn’t a sound argument for a product, it’s instead presenting a very narrow window and how to look through it in order to see the light.
• For the most part, consumers do not buy technology products because of technology. They buy products for the services they provide, and the experiences that go along with them. Kindle would have to literally knock it out of the park to pass this criteria, not to mention everything I’ve mentioned above. The reality is the mass market of consumes tends to resent most new technology, since it tends to be overly hyped and well-marketed, yet do little more than frustrate and fail to deliver on expectations (much like the Sony Vaio VGN-SZ460N, an utter failure of a laptop).

Lastly, it’s most prudent to think about the real-world use case for reading books. How many people are really in a position where they need a mobile library of 200 books with them to choose from? Few. In my years of experience designing products for consumers, they routinely react to new device categories extremely poorly. I obviously don’t know how much money Bezos & Co is willing to throw at the Kindle, so I can’t possibly predict how long until it disappears from the catalog, but I’m definitely willing to predict it doesn’t go the distance.

UPDATE: I just read Seth Godin’s thoughts on Kindle. One of the marketing blogs I definitely enjoy, and his post on the topic is pretty good. But he mentions something that again shows me how off the mark even “industry experts” can be. He writes “The challenge that my hero Jeff Bezos has is that if he’s really really lucky, he’ll sell a million of these things in a year.” I think he’s missing about 5+ “really”s here. If he’s lucky he’ll sell 50,000 in a year, really lucky is 100,000, and really really lucky is about 200K. Moving 7 figures worth of hardware per year is VERY VERY hard! VERY hard. And that’s in an established category, let alone a speculative one.

I try to keep my clients’ work out of this blog (yet another reason for me starting a personal blog), but since this falls into gadgetland, I figured it’s okay to do so. In case that’s not abundantly obvious… Disclaimer: Bug Labs is a paying client.

This evening we put up a new version of the Bug Labs web site which incorporates real pictures of the BUG hardware platform. I’ve been working with the company since Winter of ‘06, but I’m especially excited for the rest of the team, especially Peter, the founder. I vividly remember the first time I saw a production-quality Slingbox, and even back when the Denon NS-100 prototypes came out. All were extremely uplifting, proud moments. I didn’t play a part in designing the BUG, but I still have a great feeling about seeing the vision become a reality.

You can see all the pictures of the BUGbase and first four modules here, and the products page was updated as well. For more editorial opinion on the company, here’s coverage from Engadget, Gizmodo (ooh, video), Popular Science, Crunchgear, MAKE Magazine, and TechCrunch.

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for quite some time.  The birth of my son massively influenced my perspective on gadgetry, and a recent loss in my family has cemented this opinion.  The digital camera is the single product I own that is creating long term value in my life, one which cannot be measured by any known metric.

Without going into too many details because I try to avoid such things here (I’ll even skip ranting about a certain Vaio and how much you shouldn’t buy one), my 94-year-old grandmother passed away this weekend.  She’d fallen in July, and never recovered.  Thanks in advance for the sympathy, but that’s definitely not the focal point of my post.

My wife and I managed to hop on a plane a few day later, and we took dozens of photos and videos of her holding my then-three-month-old boy.  It’s barely two months later, and those pictures are already some of the most valuable in my collection.  I look forward to the day when I’ll sit my son down at the computer (or hopefully some very cool holographic virtual device that’s the size of a cell phone.  it should also have a lasergun in it, but I digress), and get to show him the time he met his great-grandmother.

Cell phones are very practical and probably are in the #2 slot for me (and I’m not counting cell phones with cameras built-in yet, not until they hit 5MP or higher resolution).  The computer doesn’t count as a gadget in my world.  MP3 players aren’t even close.

As I was once told, and very much like to repeat: the value of a photograph is zero the moment you take it, and gains infinitely over time.  What a good investment!