Mimo LCD Monitor - The Power Of USB

The Mimo 710 USB monitor (see http://www.mimomonitors.com/) arrived a couple of days ago. I have to confess I was somehow skeptical on how it would actually work. Plenty of well advertised gadgets these days, but not all of them working as expected. The Mimo is different. Works flawlessly. Of course the main selling point was the single USB cable it uses for power and video signal. Using USB to carry video has been news to me... But it looks like a USB interface is quite capable of carrying video, at least with lower resolutions, like the 800x480. At the moment I am not sure of the final application for the Mimo in my environment. So far I have been using it to display a number of side tasks. I configured it to extend my Windows desktop, so I can basically grab any window and drag it over to the Mimo. It can play Media Player videos. It can be used to display real time performance of selected stocks (I have been using Google Finance in full screen browser for that). I can drag progress dialogs for long tasks, like DVD authoring or large file copying to it.


I also started toying with an idea to use it as a primary control monitor for a media center PC. I have one built around a Mini-ITX fanless VIA platform, with composite output to a TV set. It runs an instance of SlimServer too. There has always been an issue with media servers built with PCs and used just for audio streaming. There was no easy way to control them without powering a full display. Now this setup is much nicer with a small USB LCD, especially with a "touch" skin of the SlimServer (http://slim-server-ip:9000/touch). Yes there is still a mouse needed for the 710 model, but according to Mimo, there is the touch - enabled 740 model hitting the shelves. That one should be able to visualize, power and control a media server application like the SlimServer.

In parallel I have been discussing with a group of friends the current prospects of Microvision, the company behind the PicoP projector, mentioned here an number of times. Microvision tries to get the first version of PicoP out to the market. Comparing the preliminary specs for the PicoP and for the Mimo, I can see they both offer 800x480 resolution. The difference is the PicoP accepts analog input, probably requiring a messy cable combination to attach it to a PC or laptop. I think Microvision should go the Mimo way - make a USB - powered, self contained projector, using the very same USB cable for video signal. This way we should get a gadget the size of a box of matches (no battery required...) with a single thin USB connector, able to project really large image. While I have some doubts on what exact scenario I would use the current PicoP for, I would definitely buy a USB variant, just to let it sit beside my laptop and throw a gallery of my pictures to a nearby wall...

Search... for something like this!

I have been playing recently with several satellite TV set top boxes. They have their own race... started probably some time ago by TiVo. Play / pause live programming / replay / watch one while recording another... Yes, television, even in its classic form, has changed... Many service providers already offer movies on demand...

But to be honest, despite virtually thousands of satellite channels, I watch TV quite seldom.... And it is not so easy for me to find something I really like... I like movies, not necessarily of American origin, but French or Italian... With some eminent characters like Jean Reno for example ;) But EPG (Electronic Program Guide) services offered by TV service / platform providers do not stand the test. They are organized in structured directories and usually do not allow search based on various attributes. Tonight I would like to find a channel playing a movie of particular genre or with an actor of my choice... It ain't possible - what I have is just titles... and when I select a title on a EPG screen, then I can get more description... But it is just not possible to browse all of them one by one... Structured directories should have been gone long time ago... We all know how to use free form search...

The above also applies to other areas of our lives. Since the first Apple iPhone the smartphone market keeps on erecting application stores - and again all of them are organized in structured directories. Google has recently said such stores have no future - the future is search. And I may agree... Application stores are great as enablers for millions of creative application builders... But on the other hand they are controlled walled gardens and we all know - people do not like walled gardens... Smartphone companies repeat now the errors of various different service providers - they mix content with conduit, artificially limiting the users and the number of applications and services.

The other discovery model I like is the one embraced by Pandora, the music streaming service. You start by selecting a theme - be it an artist name or a song, then it tries to pick up something similar and allows you to rate the served selection - thumb up or thumb down. And by collecting your thumbs, after a while it usually starts playing only songs you like. For a long time I have been waiting for the Google Reader to start serving me Pandora - style news. Currently I have to specify the exact RSS sources and organize them in a structured directory. Why doing that instead of rating the incoming news thumb up or thumb down, and letting Google Reader select the next ones in line...? Well... last week I saw a little light in that tunnel - the Google Reader introduced a small "Like" icon at the bottom of every news item. I just hope this is just the beginning and ultimately they will offer Pandora - style RSS - based news service...

Google Chrome OS: Worlds Won't Collide

So everybody is talking now about Google's announcement of the Chrome OS. How it will collide with Microsoft and Apple etc... Thinking of the Google's move from a perspective of a few days now, I do not see it as a major thing... at least for a few years from now...

There are number of reasons, and many of them sit on our very own PCs running Windows. Generally speaking is the client software compatibility. There is ever increasing base of electronic gadgets that come with PC applications to configure and run them. Start with a wireless modem - a USB dongle provided by a mobile network operator. It gives us the connectivity on the go. But there is no generic interface to configure these things. Every single one comes with a piece of software (aka connection manager) that runs on Windows. Most of them are Windows only. Then there are printers. Be it HP or Canon, each requires a driver talking to the printer. Drivers are for Windows and Macs, with very few supporting Linux and none ready for the Chrome. Then there are mobile phones or smartphones - be it a BlackBerry or an iPhone or a Windows Mobile machine. Each comes with a sort of a desktop manager or iTunes in the case of the iPhone. Mac and PC only. Digital cameras - each manufacturer comes with own Photo Suite. Most of them are PC only. Some support Macs. I could go on and on, but I think you are getting the point.

Is there a remedy? Yes, there is. All these gadgets should finally support standard management and configuration interfaces over standard protocols - such as http and ftp. Only this way we will be able to free ourselves from the requirement of installing a "client" software on our PCs. Google may have a plan of slowly introducing such kind of thinking among gadget manufacturers. But this will take time... many years will pass until every device will be a web server, exposing it's proprties and functions in a browser - friendly way. And before that happens, we will be mostly tied to Microsoft, leaving one or two niches, such as Web Tablets, for the Google Chrome OS.

The USA Mobile Disconnection

I continue traveling across the USA. Have been on the road for more than two weeks now. Armed with many mobile weapons, many interesting observations come to my mind. The truth is I have mostly been to remote areas - mountains and national parks of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and now California.

• The most often used form of connection has been WiFi at various hotels. There has been just one lodge (Cliff Dwellings, AZ) that did not offer complimentary wireless Internet. And having a morning coffee in front of my room with a computer on my laps, other guests approached me asking "have you found a wifi here?". WiFi becomes as expected in a hotel room as a hair dryer or a coffee maker. Still there is a rule of thumb - budget hotels give WiFi for free, while the expensive ones prefer to charge for this "luxury".


• UMA on my Orange Blackberry works very well. Most of the time (but not always - I suspect some firewalled ports) the phone logs on to the home Orange.PL network tunneling via WiFi, to avoid roaming charges. I had some long discussions with my bank and I was glad I did not have to pay these ridiculus roaming prices. A friend of mine has T-Mobile (PL) phone that logs on to the T-Mobile (USA) network and calling home costs her $3 a minute... like 20 yeares ago... At the same time mine over UMA is $0,03 a minute - two orders of magnitude a difference. I just wonder how long such high roaming rates will hold... When the real cost of transmitting a 9,6kb/s stream of packets around the globe is virtually zero...


• In many areas my phone was displaying "Emergency calls only", meaning there was a network coverage in the area, but the network did not have a roaming agreement with my home network. Very strange in the GSM world... I thought such days are gone long time ago... Why would not one MNO signed a roaming agreement with another one? Especially when there are roaming aggregators...


• There are still problems with packet data roaming... Even big MNOs, like AT&T often let me just do basic voice calls but no data... Weird... I remember this was a common problem ten years ago, when GPRS was introduced... but in 2009?


• SMS text messages often take several hours to reach their destinations... A record I remember back in 2003 was a message I sent from USA to Poland that arrived three weeks later... Subscribers are accustomed to sub-second SMS delivery time... And they are really surprised a 160-byte message can still travel four hours across the Atlantic...


• My Virgin Mobile CDMA data dongle is somehow disappointing... My thinking behind the purchase was CDMA coverage was much better in the US compared to GSM. So I should have a CDMA modem along with my GSM BlackBerry smartphone to stay connected. But unfortunately in the rural areas it was showing no signal. Only in Zion NP (UT) it allowed me to publish some photos via Picasa Web Albums over 1xRTT connection.


• The CDMA data dongle handles EVDO to 1xRTT handovers not better UMTS to GSM handovers are handled in the GSM world. I mean it often breaks a connection, which is frustrating, especially as after subsequent reconnects it automatically opens the Virgin Mobile web page, eating kilobytes from the pay-as-you-go plan...

So that is about it for a report from the road... I do know and understand USA is a big and not densely populated country. But it seems it is not the physical radio coverage where the disconnectivity problem has its roots... It is a disconnection on various operational levels of mobile networks here, that still makes me think of bringing a satellite dish with me when I will be back with a next visit...