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November 2006
Wasted Potential?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Remember how excited you were when you picked up that picture-taking, MP3-playing, can-opening cellphone? Remember how you planned to become the Ansel Adams of the cellphone set? Videograph your life and upload it to YouTube for the world to see? Download your entire Grateful Dead collection for between-call croon-fests?
Betcha didn’t.
David Chamberlain, principal wireless analyst for InStat, stopped by the Wireless Technology Forum at the Marriott Perimeter Center in Dunwoody to talk about consumer trends.
According to his company’s research, 57 percent of camera-equipped cellphone users planned to prodigiously share cellphone photos, but only 28 percent actually have.
Chamberlain said nearly 65 percent of music-playing phone owners planned to use them as their primary or secondary MP3 player, but 44 percent haven’t transferred a single file and another 29 percent say they haven’t added all those they’d planned to.
“The numbers are kind of sad when you consider how important camera phones were when you were going to go down and by one,” Chamberlain said.
What’s the big hang-up? Ease of use, he said.
One suspects there’s money to be made there.
Think Tank
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The intellectual property set has a new place to hang out in Alpharetta.
The Clements Walker law firm has opened the “Think Tank” at its Alpharetta offices as a creative haven for inventors.
The law firm isn’t doing this purely as a public service to all you brainiacs out there: Clements Walker is an intellectual property law firm that works to protect what comes out of the brains of innovative folks.
The room features amenities designed to get those brain juices flowing, including creative play and audio-visual tools. It also features broadband access, which in our case usually means dawdling around watching stupid YouTube videos instead of being creative. Maybe we’re just not using it right.
In any event, partner Rick Walker says the company isn’t quite ready to let us into the space, which Clements Walker says is “designed to provide function as well as fun,” but as soon as we get a tour we’ll clue you in.
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Instant Messaging and the Enterprise
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Instant messaging. For now, it’s that thing your kid does all day long, but according to IDC wireless analyst Scott Ellison, it’s going to be the big enterprise technology story of 2007.
“There’s a huge amount of venture capital pouring into messaging,” Ellison told the November general session of the Wireless Technology Forum at the Marriott Perimeter Center.
According to IDC, more than 130 million Americans use instant messaging systems, many of them AOL’s Instant Messenger. Most of those users are private individuals, and most of those are youngsters who use the service to make plans with friends, gossip and collaborate on schoolwork.
That instant collaboration is what business users are after. Fast, ad-hoc working groups can spring up quickly on instant messaging applications to solve problems. Similar programs can also be used by customer service representatives to help consumers on the Web.
Another big wireless trend for the coming year, Ellison said, is telemetry č the ability for machines to send data back to their respective mother ships for action. Wireless technology could, for instance, wipe out an entire generation of utility meter readers by allowing meters to wirelessly transmit data about customer usage back to the utility. It could also allow the office vending machine to send word back to the distributor that it’s nearly empty, Ellison said.
Of course, much of this depends on ubiquitous next-generation, or 4G, wireless broadband access, which is creeping ever closer. For instance, Sprint intends to launch its 4G network in early 2007. Instant messaging. For now, it’s that thing your kid does all day long, but according to IDC wireless analyst Scott Ellison, it’s going to be the big enterprise technology story of 2007.
“There’s a huge amount of venture capital pouring into messaging,” Ellison told the November general session of the Wireless Technology Forum at the Marriott Perimeter Center.
According to IDC, more than 130 million Americans use instant messaging systems, many of them AOL’s Instant Messenger. Most of those users are private individuals, and most of those are youngsters who use the service to make plans with friends, gossip and collaborate on schoolwork.
That instant collaboration is what business users are after. Fast, ad-hoc working groups can spring up quickly on instant messaging applications to solve problems. Similar programs can also be used by customer service representatives to help consumers on the Web.
Another big wireless trend for the coming year, Ellison said, is telemetry č the ability for machines to send data back to their respective mother ships for action. Wireless technology could, for instance, wipe out an entire generation of utility meter readers by allowing meters to wirelessly transmit data about customer usage back to the utility. It could also allow the office vending machine to send word back to the distributor that it’s nearly empty, Ellison said.
Of course, much of this depends on ubiquitous next-generation, or 4G, wireless broadband access, which is creeping ever closer. For instance, Sprint intends to launch its 4G network in early 2007.
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Laundry Time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So what happens when a washer and dryer hook up on the Internet?
Yes, it’s back. Laundry Time, the oft-ridiculed study to see if hooking up a washer and dryer to a home network will save homeowners time, has revealed initial results that found, perhaps not surprisingly, users find great benefit in the technology.
Folks who tested the technology, including a Roswell family, said they liked having messages about the status of their dirty laundry pop up on their TV screens, but didn’t much care for getting the information on their cellphones.
Oh, and they liked being able to turn on a fluff cycle without having to get off the couch.
The Internet Home Alliance is behind the research. The group, which includes such companies as Whirlpool, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Panasonic and Procter & Gamble.
All kidding aside, home automation is going to be an increasingly big deal in the technology space. What kinds of household tasks would you like technology to take care of for you?
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Privacy and Electronic Medical Records
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is calling on the newly Democratic Congress to pass legislation encouraging the adoption of electronic medical records, a concern near and dear to several Alpharetta-area companies.
Gingrich, in Alpharetta last week to visit a medical practice that uses electronic records, said there are “only details” to sort out before passing the legislation, but one of those details is a big one: privacy.
Democrats may be unlikely to jump on an initiative backed by President Bush and which many groups, including privacy advocates and some physicians groups, say fails to adequately protect patient information.
Bush has called for the universal adoption of personal health records that patients and providers can access from anywhere in the country.
Advocates such as Gingrich point to cost savings, a lower risk of medical errors and increased patient participation in care decisions. At North Fulton Family Medicine, where Gingrich spoke last week, Dr. Thomas Bat said electronic records save him and his colleagues time and money that they can better spend on patient care.
But privacy advocates worry about provisions that would allow use of medical information in health-care studies and questions about the security of information after so many data breaches, such as those that bedeviled Alpharetta’s own ChoicePoint last year.
What can technology companies do to make sure electronic medical records are safe from prying eyes?
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Gadgets or garb?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The holiday gadget forecasts are out, and it looks like good shopping weather.
While some analysts say consumers are planning to return to “tried and true” gifts, such as clothing, the Consumer Electronics Association predicts consumers will spend 7.2 percent more this year on electronics compared to last year.
What are your gift-giving plans? PCs or pants? And what technology do you most want Santa to leave under your tree this year?
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GIS Day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sure, the holidays are on your mind, but here’s the real question: Have you finished your shopping for GIS Day?
That’s right, GIS Day is just around the corner.
We’d never heard of it either, until the fine folks at Forsyth County government clued us in.
They’re celebrating Wednesday. With a “full day of GIS fun.” Now, we love technology here, but this one is kind of odd.
GIS, or geographic information systems, seems a bit like plumbing —- pretty darned important but really not all that interesting. Governments use GIS for land planning, to locate routes for roads, pretty much for anything that requires a map.
And here we are with a whole day dedicated to it. The day is being celebrated in 70 countries and all 50 states, according to GISDay.com.
There’s even a line of T-shirts.
And yes, you can buy them.
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Psst! Fry’s is open in Alpharetta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you’re been waiting for Fry’s Electronics arrival in Alpharetta, your wait is over.
While the giant store’s grand opening won’t happen until Friday, the store — located on Ga. 9 north of Windward Parkway — has been quietly admitting customers for a few days now, and the slack-jawed look on several customers told the story.
For those who aren’t in the know, Fry’s is rambling gadget storehouse that got its start in Silicon Valley in California, providing the original geeks with just about anything they needed to pull off their computing dreams. This is the chain’s second store in metro Atlanta — the first is near Gwinnett Place Mall.
Read the full story | Map to the store
So, who’s going to be there? Or have you been? Who’s going to stay away? Why?
If you’ve been, what’s your first impression, and what did you buy?
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