Headworx

Telephony reduced distance. We have been able to speak to others far away. But really? Has the distance disappeared? Imagine the world without the Internet (I know it's hard, almost as hard as trying to explain the Internet twenty years ago). No emails. No bulletin boards. No web. So how did people communicate? They were fed with one way TV stream and they made phone calls. Telephony really reduced distance. And many made fortunes living in the supply chain that ultimately charged the consumer for reducing the distance. So distance did not disappear. It was exchanged for money. Fortunately, early on phone companies found out billing was more expensive than they were making on local calls. So the local calls started to be free. And they started to make money on so called long-distance services. But hey, how do you define long distance? A few microseconds at light speed? Or an opportunity to collect fee because there was no alternative for the service? With the advent of the Internet...

A few days ago Wired News reported the new development at Inmarsat . We are going to have a global hot spot. The new Broadband Global Area Network will operate at speeds up to 500kbps. Promised coverage is "88 percent of the globe's landmass". Even parts of the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica are covered, but unfortunately the poles will not get the signal (not enough market there, yet?). BGAN supports IP streaming, simultaneous voice calls, SMSes and ISDN. I think BGAN may soon be available as an option for cars, with flat, roof-mounted antenna and local LAN (WiFi) or PAN (Bluetooth) hotspot inside a car. Us, who love the satelite radio, would love BGAN connectivity in a car too...

Our window to the world, TV, is dead. George has been telling us this for years. But it looks like not many of us have realized this has already happened and we have not noticed... I have a TV in my house. But I have not turned it on for 7 months now. I have 4 computers here as well. And a WiFi network connected to a DSL line. They all have their start pages set to Google Portal ( http://www.google.com/ig ). Our new windows to the world. We do not buy newspapers. Whenever we need an information or to communicate or to entertain or to learn or... we turn on one of the machines and fire up Internet Browser, that brings personalized view of the information world. OK, you say, but this is still computers, and we want a traditional screen with remote and 100 channels to choose from. Coming soon. So how does the TV of the (near) future looks like? Let us see... It is flat, thin (high definition LCD), has two remote controllers (one with cursor keys and numbers, the other one with alphanumer...

Wow, it looks like somebody shares my view on Sony PSP design! Datel has just announced a 4GB hard drive for the console . Using a clever design the hard drive goes around some limitations of original PSP. The sad thing is the MemoryStick interface that is used to connect the drive has a 4GB limit, so we are still far from being a real competition to the iPOD.

Teleputer , a great idea originally developed by George Gilder, is a converged device, bringing together functions of many gadgets we use today. Among these are personal computer, digital video camera, telephone, MP3 player and video player. The common wisdom is we still have a couple of years until the real teleputers arrive. But on the other hand there are several devices already on the market, that from the technology perspective could have been treated as teleputers. Could have been - only if the designers or product managers or marketing people did not make some mistakes. Yes, that is right, sometimes (I don't know why?), they just don't want to have a killer device. So for example let us look... ...how Sony blew it with PSP (PlayStation Portable). PSP seems to be a perfect teleputer candidate. There are several factors that fit the perfect teleputer design. Overall looks. Three years ago when I bought my first iPOD, I was shocked, how an electronic gadget can be designed...

Yesterday I was discussing various Google aspects with a friend of mine. And we came to a conclusion is would be relatively hard for Google to reach for internal information resources within enterprises. OK, so if it is not possible to pull data from enterprise file systems and databases, then let's get inside with our stuff. They have already done that with Google Search Appliance and Google Mini . But this is only search and index - like what Google used to be several years ago. And we try to look into the future. New services are popping up almost every day. And I still think they will do Office suite using web technologies, may be with the help of Sun Microsystems. So it is very likely a new breed of Google Appliances will soon emerge - something I'd call a Google Enterprise Server. So what is it like? Well... probably a nice looking rack box, several U high. Something you put on a shelf, plug into your LAN and power up. And then you access it from within a company networ...

During my recent trip to the US I saw the nano iPod for the first time. I was really shocked how thin and small and elegant it was. And then in the old copy of T3 I found this picture. So, dear Apple, when will we see the bottom half of the nano iPhon? I want one!

R ecently Google has made available a beta version of Google Secure Access. The service is not officially launched yet, but you can access it here and then at the bottom o the page there is a link to download the installer. When first I saw it, I was blown away by how simple and smart this move was. S o let's have a look at what this service delivers and what is the possible overall impact. First, you probably know WiFi, the synonym of very convenient way to access the network. WiFi however is also a synonym of lack of security. Since the inception WiFi struggled with several approaches to secure the transmission channel. From 40-bit WEP, that was insecure by design, through various improvements like 128-bit WEP, WiFi still has been looked at as very unsafe way to connect. So while sitting in a hotel lobby or an airport lounge and browsing the current online issue of The New York Times has been a popular scenario, not many of us trusted hot spot networks enough to log on to their ...

Better late than never, I have finally decided to post my thoughts on Google. Actually I have decided to open this blog because I've had a growing need to share my thoughts on this subject. There is no doubt this company will have a big impact on our lives. Inspiration What inspired me to act was Ray Kurzweil's keynote presentation at the recent Gilder-Forbes 2005 Telecosm conference . Ray's keynote was an introduction to his fantastic new book, The Singularity Is Near . There are two main lines of thinking in the book. One is the overall progress we experience is exponential. Second is all the atoms in the universe will soon have their representation in the information domain as bits. Everything is and will be pictured, designed, described, cataloged, measured. While that is indeed true, this is enormous amount of information. So where will it reside? On the Internet of course. And how will we manage this information? Or, to be precise, who will manage this information fo...