Prayatna

CNET's new home page design

[Via E-Media Tidbits] CNET has unveiled its new beta home page design http://beta.news.com.com. It has a superb user interface, with lots of functionalities which aren't obvious at first look.

• move your mouse over the various headlines under "Top headlines" - and the photograph at the left changes appropriately to something related to the headline/story.
• look at (and click on) the "previous" and "next" buttons alongside the Daily Spotlight section - to see more articles within the same screen.
• click on one of the top headlines and go to the article page (say this headline titled $100 laptop moves closer to reality) - and then scroll down and look below the ad on the right. There's a very interesting visual way of presenting What's Hot - the most interesting (by size of the box) and most recent headlines (by colour of the box). But one can also switch to the plain old text headlines at a click.
• click on the the "Big Picture" "Related Stories" and the "Surprise Me" links just above the visual representation of "What's hot" - for instance, if you click on "Big Picture" for the $100 dollar laptop story, a graphic loads to present the perspective view of how this story is linked to various other related stories/developments and one can shift the focus to one of the other stories or go on to read any of those actual stories.

Ajax at work? Also see Mediaweek's piece on CNET's new home page design.

Why Google might need Google Web Accelerator more than us users today?

John Batelle's Searchblog, which is an excellent blog covering the latest in web search and related applications, points to problems with the Google Web Accelerator, Google's latest beta product.

But what is more interesting is a pointer to another post by Tristan Louis, suggesting. that the Google Web Accelerator may actually be a desperately needed indexing tool for Google, far more than it is of use to us users, at the present. Of course, if Google indexes pages better, the users benefit, but what Google is trying to do is to get us users to help it discover many new and updated pages on the web, which Google's crawler may not be getting to soon enough, or at all.

Tristan explains, how search engines work, why Google is falling behind in its job of indexing the web, especially fast updating pages like blogs, and how Google Web Accelerator helps Google index pages faster.

Keyboards for handheld devices

Technology for virtual keyboards is evolving. A projection-based virtual keyboard product is now available from VKB Inc, a US and Israel based company.

The first application of the [unique, patent-pending optical technology that uses standard, low-cost components] technology, the Virtual Keyboard-Enabled SX-1, consists of a projection system and a detection system.

The projection system (custom laser technology) projects the image of a full-size keyboard on any nearby flat surface. The detection system (IR Beam and CMOS sensing unit) allows complete detection of user finger movements and keystrokes.

For the initial standalone keyboard accessory product, the keyboard can connect to a handheld through a serial, USB, IrDA, or Bluetooth interfaces. The Driver is compatible with Windows 98/XP/NT/2000, WinCE/PocketPC, Linux, Palm and Symbian operating systems.

Is iPod the razor or the blade? and Is the Mac Mini the iPod equivalent for movies?

Robert Cringely asks if the iPod is the razor or the blade, drawing an analogy to Gillette's marketing innovation over a hundred years ago.

Gillette's marketing breakthrough was selling the razor handles at little or no profit while making huge profits on the consumable -- the blades. This same technique is used today to promote mobile phones and inkjet printers. And it is supposedly behind Apple's success with the iPod music player.

But in the case of Apple, is the iPod a razor or a blade? In other words, is Apple a hardware company or a media company?

I think they are a hardware company, but one very well-informed reader with whom I've been discussing this disagrees.

To me, it seems that Apple has reversed the relationship of razors and blades, and eliminated the loss leader role entirely. Apple makes very little money from selling songs, but it does make some profit. Apple makes a LOT of profit from selling iPods. So the song is the razor, not the iPod, and that's because the price sensitivity is currently about the content, not the player.

Apple's margins on the iPod Mini are about 30 percent from the retail channel and 60 percent through its own stores, so let's say that's an average of 35 percent or $75 on an iPod Mini. Apple makes about $0.20 on each song. So to make more money from the songs than from the iPods they'd have to sell 375+ songs per iPod. Apple has sold 250 million songs to date and has sold 10 million iPods. That is 25 songs per iPod, not 375+.

How long does a digital song last? If the customer is careful, it should last effectively forever. How long will an iPod last? The life expectancy of a mobile phone is 18 months and the life expectancy of a PC is 3-5 years. I'm guessing the life expectancy of an iPod will be something in-between, on the order of three years. That means Apple can expect to make the profit equivalent of 375 songs every three years from selling a new iPod to each old customer.

So Apple isn't in the content business, they are in the hardware business, and will be for sometime to come.

But he also provides a counterpoint from one of his readers.

"I see your point on the iPod being the razor, but we thought of it more as the blade since it is essentially the disposable item. You will constantly be upgrading your iPod, much like you buy improved razors and as you point out, the music file should last indefinitely..."

"As for Apple being in the content business, let me offer a comparison. In the 1970s, Motorola used to tell people it sold technology. You talked to any of the SPS engineers, production control managers, marketing people, etc., at their facilities and operations in Phoenix, and they would say that 'we make and sell technology.' But between 1978 and 1982 they stopped saying that. They began to say 'we provide the technology.' That subtle shift in language reflected a change order of magnitude. Technology migrated from being a product to being the process (an enabler) by which things happened.... It seems to me that Apple is now making that shift. They appear to recognize that digital or electronic technology is no longer a product but a process, an enabler of activities rather than the activity itself. When I bought my first computer, I was buying a computer. Sure I wanted to write programs to do things, and use software that did things, but fundamentally I was buying a product that was about the product."

He then follows up on his previous article which speculates that the new Mac Mini is all about movies. He suggest that a video distribution service from Apple (like the iTunes audio distribution service) based on the Mac Mini as a high definition movie machine (like the iPod is to music) is likely to be in the making.

Fascinating stuff  - another sign of  the revolution in the making in the area of content business models.

Samsung set to launch a Personal Video Recorder in India

CIOL reports,

Samsung India is gearing up to introduce the personal video recording (PVR) device in the Indian market. Targeted at the home segment, these machines would provide digital storing, reproducing and editing capability of video content right at the consumer level.

"We are looking at launching these PVRs in a couple of months time. We have already captured a lot of market share by introducing these machines in the US and the European markets. There are still a lot of homes that use VCRs and these machines would be targeted at replacing VCRs and providing much more digital capability at the consumer level," informed Samsung India VP, Vivek Prakash.

When launched, the company expects these PVRs to capture the existing market for VCRs in the country. "This device will provide a recording facility to the consumer, so that a user can program this device to record a TV program according to one's schedule," he added.

Typically, a PVR will have a hard disk capacity of 80 GB and the device will use around 10 GB to record an hour of program into the disk. "With High definition TV (HDTV) picking up as an emerging segment - this product is likely to do very well in this geography," Prakash explained.

Building social capital in the neighbourhood

I had heard about i-neighbors, a newly launched FREE online community site that connects people to neighbors in their local community. It has been set up by a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It is a social networking site based on local geography rather than affinity which is what members of most virtual communities share. This is also an attempt at exploiting both the online and offline networking possibilities for the community members.

When I first came across i-neighbors, it struck me as a very interesting idea worth replicating in the Indian context, but I hadn't thought more deeply about it. Listening to a talk on Social Capital yesterday, provided me with a totally new perspective on i-neighbours and the potential impact of a site like that.

A press release at the MIT web site describes the idea behind i-neighbors in more detail.

The web site, which can create a homepage and e-mail list for every neighborhood in the United States and Canada, provides community groups with a system to organize local events and share information on local services, and connects neighbors with similar interests. The easy-to-use services include a local directory, a shared photo album, neighborhood messaging, opinion polling, and a carpool system.

The I-Neighbors project grew out of three years of research by MIT Assistant Professor of Sociology Keith Hampton, initiated in response to concerns that Americans have experienced a decline in neighborhood and community participation over the past 30 years. "Much research has focused on the ability of the Internet to connect people over long distances, but we wanted to focus specifically on how the Internet is used locally," said Hampton. "We are hopeful that I-Neighbors will lead to neighborhoods that are safer, better informed, have a stronger sense of community and are better equipped to deal with local problems."

To study how the Internet impacts local community life, Hampton and his students studied the residents of four Boston area neighborhoods over two years. Within a year the study found measurable increases in the number of local social ties and the sense of community in two of the three areas where I-Neighbors web sites and messaging were introduced. The changes included the formation of new neighborhood social ties and higher levels of community participation, both on and off the Internet.

Neighbors also were less likely to rely on visible social characteristics, such as age, the presence of children, and physical proximity when forming new ties. Residents used I-Neighbors to learn about their neighbors' backgrounds and interests, relying less on visual details learned about neighbors from watching them on the street. The average user met nine new neighbors in person and talked to two new neighbors on the telephone.

"The Internet service that had the strongest impact on the neighborhoods was a simple e-mail list. Residents used it as a virtual street corner," said Hampton. "The neighborhood e-mail list provided a forum for residents to exchange everything from information on home repairs to opinions about local elections. Elected officials used the e-mail list to report back to their constituents, and residents used the list to organize face-to-face community meetings with officials, as well as the occasional barbeque and house party."

Who is going to be the first to attempt this in the Indian context?

E-mail by bus?

The Economist reports (link via Dina),

It is supposed to be an “information superhighway”, but as with real highways, there are still places where the internet, and its many benefits, have not reached. To extend its range, a number of projects are now exploiting the existing and far more extensive road network—in effect, putting the internet on wheels.

But perhaps the cleverest plan to put the internet on wheels comes from India. At “The Future in Review”, a wide-ranging technology conference held in San Diego earlier this year, Allen Hammond of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think-tank, outlined a cunning scheme to provide e-mail access in rural India using buses. Each bus would be equipped with an e-mail server and a high-power Wi-Fi base-station, with a range of a mile or so. This communicates with nearby computers in homes, schools, offices or post offices, delivering and collecting e-mail wirelessly as the bus drives past, so that there are a handful of deliveries and collections each day. The buses connect to the internet when they reach the depot at the end of the line. Given the reach of the bus network, it is estimated that this approach could provide national e-mail coverage for a paltry $15m. E-mail by bus—why not?

I haven't heard about this so far. Seems like an excellent idea. Anyone know more about this?

Transmeta's Crusoe processor to power HP's thin clients

Today's Tech Investor column on Business 2.0 reports on Transmeta's deal with HP,

Hewlett-Packard announced that it would be using Transmeta's Crusoe power-saving processor in some of its "thin-client" units. Thin clients are essentially stripped-down computers, either desktops or notebooks, that rely on servers for most of their applications and smarts. "The dynamics of the thin-client market are ideal for our processor: efficient and low-cost," says Art Swift, a senior vice president for marketing at Transmeta. "Our goal over the next couple years is to be the leading processor supplier for the thin-client market."

As with all things, however, perspective is key here. Though the HP deal is a big win for Transmeta, since it could act as a foot in the door to bigger and better deals, the thin-client market is tiny, accounting for approximately 1 percent of the overall computing market, according to Alan Promisel, an analyst with IDC.

Would be interesting to find out the price of the typical thin-client that is available in the market today in the US and the number of thin clients are out there and who's using them today. Maybe Rajesh who is an active proponent of thin clients, especially in the Indian context, may have some idea of the numbers.

The Tech Investor column also asks if Transmeta which launched in the late 90s with Linus Torvalds as of one of the people involved in the company, is doing too little too late. It is up against the more established chip makers like Intel and AMD.

A glimpse of the future - Ethernet ports built into TVs

Gizmodo, a weblog on gizmos, describes Toshiba's ethernet TV.

Toshiba is adding Ethernet ports to four of its flat-panel displays: a 42-inch plasma, and 37-inch, 32-inch, and 26-inch LCDs. The sets will have Web browsers for accessing the Internet, Firewire ports, and slots for viewing digital photos stored on SmartMedia, SD, MMC, and Memory Stick memory cards. Sadly, there are no plans to sell these anywhere outside of Japan, but don't worry. Sooner or later, every TV is going to come with an Ethernet port or WiFi or both, it's just a matter of time.