Will 4G Networks Get Sidetracked by Patent Problems? As the world moves to fourth generation wireless networks, lawyers for chip firms, handset makers and other technology firms are moving into their bargaining positions on patents related to the technology that enables the WiMAX and LTE networks. When deploying an in-depth technology protocol, such as WiAMX and LTE, many firms will own the intellectual property needed to create a network, from the silicon to the handsets. Those IP owners want to get paid, but the more patent holders charge, the more expensive the end devices and network components can become.
Over at Fierce Broadband Wireless, they have a story noting that in-building wireless firm ADC thinks it has a several key patents related to deploying LTE and WiMAX. ADC says it's willing to license those patents at a "fair and reasonable rate," which is basically an invite to bring people to the negotiating table. Is ADC trying to be the next Qualcomm, which has aggravated the industry by controlling key patents and charging high royalty rates?
A group of handset makers has banded together to create a patent framework for LTE, but other key players, notably the silicon vendors are absent. ADC adds another player to that mix. Because ADC doesn't make hardware such as handsets, it doesn't have an incentive to trade its patents for the use of other patents needed for an LTE device to work. It also isn't a member of a standards organization, which WOULD limit the royalties ADC could charge. We'll see if the industry players attempt to deal with ADC or move straight to litigation. The results could mean pricier LTE handsets or even the halt of LTE- and WiMAX-enabled devices, should litigation go poorly.
Today at NewTeeVee Live, We Debate the Future of Internet Video Some two years ago, it started to become clear: The web was going to change the way we consume video. So in December 2006, in order to closely track and monitor the growth of online video, we launched NewTeeVee. Since then, Liz Gannes and Chris Albrecht have developed deep insights into the online video industry. Today the two of them will get on stage for our second NewTeeVee Live conference, where they will talk to dozens of industry experts, insiders, movers and shakers to help guide the conversation around the future of online video.Some two years ago, it started to become clear: The web was going to change the way we consume video. So in December 2006, in order to closely track and monitor the growth of online video, we launched NewTeeVee. There we have chronicled the massive influx of venture capital investment into literally hundreds of startups -- some of whom dream of being the next YouTube, others that hope to come up with the magic potion for video advertising.
In the process, Liz Gannes and Chris Albrecht have developed deep insights into the online video industry. And they have done a great job of separating the noise from the signal. Today the two of them will get on stage for our second NewTeeVee Live conference, where they will talk to dozens of industry experts, insiders, movers and shakers to help guide the conversation around the future of online video. The world of video finds itself in a pretty awkward place ? watching videos on the web has become as natural as sending email.
When recovering from my heart attack, I turned to Hulu to provide on-demand fun. Today, I don?t think twice about spending $20 a month on TV shows from Apple?s iTunes store or $10 for a couple of movies from Jaman. My video-watching habits, while extreme, are precisely what is scaring cable companies into taking the self-destructive and short-sighted approach of imposing metered broadband on their customers. Phone companies are following suit.
Meanwhile, the broader economic downturn and subsequent advertising slowdown is threatening the vibrancy of this business I love so much. Layoffs have started to mar the online studios producing eclectic independent content, and a lack of advertising dollars is poised to plunder the meager treasuries of startups that are finding that the VC spigot has run dry.
But just as when you think the (online video) world is coming to an end, you have companies like Netflix, Blockbuster and others introducing devices that marry the web video to the living room experience, and in the process, inventing a whole new dynamic.
Today we will hear from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who is going to share his vision of the future, while Sling CEO Blake Krikorian is going to talk about the future of our living room in a fireside chat with yours truly.
The success of Hulu has awakened the Hollywood studio system to the possibilities of online video, among them the riches that don?t need to be taxed by cable companies and other gatekeepers. With that in mind, Jason Killar, CEO of Hulu, is going to be sharing his story.
CSI creator and executive producer of the CSI franchise, Anthony Zuiker, seems to have figured out the magic formula for cross-platform storytelling and he is one of our keynote speakers.
The online video industry is transitioning from being a gangly teenager to a grown-up; what remains unclear is exactly how it will evolve. I'm confident that by the end of the day we will have a better sense of what that will involve, allowing Liz, Chris and I to bring you the stories that will help all of us prepare us for this new future. We hope to see you there.
And if you can?t be present in person, we will be streaming the conference, thanks to the efforts of our partners, Ustream. We will also be posting to NewTeeVee Live?s Twitter stream, and will be live-blogging the conference over on NewTeeVee.
NTT DoCoMo Moves Into India, Buys a Piece of Tata
[qi:076] Japanese telecom giant NTT DoCoMo said today that it has acquired 26 percent of Tata Teleservices for $2.7 billion, which is actually higher than the valuation of the largest CDMA carrier in India, Reliance Communications. The premium is a sign that the Japanese covet the Indian market and, more importantly, the ethics of the Tata Group. Tata's wireless and fixed wireless business is sold under the brand Tata Indicom. The new money will allow Tata to expand into offering GSM-based services and compete more effectively against the likes of Bharti Airtel and Reliance. A large number of international players have made a beeline to the Indian market in recent months, with DoCoMo being just the latest.
My.Gov: How Obama Can Use the Net to Improve Government
President-elect Obama promised during his campaign to create a "Google for government." Now that he's on his way to the White House, let's imagine what this might look like, and how such a tool could change the way people relate to those tasked with running our country. The first image this phrase brings to mind is some sort of search engine that would allow citizens to see what the government is doing, especially how it's spending money. While useful, it's not enough, as it lacks a key element: a personalized front end for government services. Think "Amazon for government," where a vast array of products and data is personalized and displayed in simplified form. Many people view the government, the federal government specifically, as a remote entity that imposes taxes and provides little tangible benefit in return. There is an opportunity here to fundamentally alter the relationship between government and citizen to be more like that of a customer and vendor.
What I would like to see is my.gov, where I can go to get a snapshot view of government services I use or for which I am eligible. By way of comparison, consider banks, most of which now offer sophisticated web services that aggregate financial data from many sources (deposit accounts, credit cards, investments, mortgage, etc.) and display them on a financial dashboard.
What would a dashboard for government look like? It could include, among, other things:
A summary of your current social security account, projected benefits, etc. (you get one of these in the mail each year, no reason the same data can't be delivered via web)
Your IRS account, including a summary of what's been paid in, contact information for your account rep, links to online filing forms, etc.
Stats about recent projects funded in your vicinity, so you can see how federal funds are being spent in your area.
Stats such as treasury bond yields and a current balance sheet for the government as a whole.
Votes by your elected officials in Congress, compared against other districts, averages, etc.
White House decisions or court rulings
Support for RSS and other push/alert mechanisms
The point is that given the right tools, you could build a portal that provides you with personalized information about government services you are enrolled in and mandates and rulings that affect you by pulling in data from various systems behind the scenes. It might start out with just a few pieces of info, but could be expanded over time. The key is personalization, with an emphasis on customer service, so users visit frequently.
In the long run, the goal should be to build something that is a cross between Amazon (for viewing and managing government services) and Google (for finding and managing information, such as funded projects in your district). Whether they be average citizens or those whose job it is to track the government, the idea is to build an interface that makes government more transparent and more like a vendor or service provider, rather than a faceless abyss for taxpayer dollars
This practice of aggregating information from many sources and providing tools for personalizing a site to meet individual needs is old hat for those of us in the web industry. The Obama administration would do well to commission people from companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and others to draw up wireframes of what my.gov could be, as well as a strategy for building a first-generation version of it. My guess is that, if allowed to experiment, a skunkworks team could build an impressive site in not much time. After all, Silicon Valley's leading companies and sites were built using paltry amounts of money and on far more limited timeframes compared to federal projects (the Dept. of Homeland Security, for example).
The most important benefit of such a system, apart from improving accessibility and customer service, would be to recast the relationship between taxpayer and government. If the user can see direct relationships between taxes paid in, and services provided or benefits delivered to his or her community, it will become clear that government is not as wasteful as it may first seem, and that it does many things that most people are unaware of.
I think we're entering a period of great change, one comparable to that of FDR. It would be a great thing if we could apply what we've learned from the past decade in web commerce to build similar interfaces for government services and statistics. The result for us as taxpayers -- more transparency and better service -- would be a win for everyone involved.
Area Codes Are Dead ? Thank VoIP
Over the years we have seen the gradual separation of phone numbers from geographical location. To date, Skype's SkypeIn service has been the best demonstration of this trend; even though I live and work just outside Toronto, Canada, I have a Palo Alto, Calif., SkypeIn number for historical family reasons, and I recently acquired a San Francisco number for Truphone. The same separation can apply to most VoIP-based voice services.
Over the past couple of years Belgian-based Voxbone has also developed an international numbering service which offers its clients a "local" phone numbers in any of 5,000 cities in 45 countries. OnState has used Voxbone's "local" numbers as access points to its virtual call center service; its clients' businesses can offer customer service and support centers with worldwide "local" access. However, it would be even more convenient for businesses selling into multiple countries if they could simply offer one universal number worldwide. Now, they can.
Yesterday, three months after the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) made available the +883 "global" country code, Voxbone announced the launch of its country-agnostic iNum service. I first learned of Voxbone at last spring's eComm 2008 where Voxbone CEO Rod Ullens first mentioned the iNum concept. This announcement starts to realize his vision of enabling low cost conversations with worldwide access by taking advantage of the technology around IP-based communications:
?iNum is a new kind of phone number for a new kind of world ? a world with a new geography that?s about local presence and global relationships, not about distance or national borders,? said Rodrigue Ullens, CEO and co-founder of Voxbone. ?We believe the new geography is defined by the markets, customers and vendors that businesses need to connect with most. We need ?local? communication with these people ? whether calls originate on public-switched or VoIP networks, whether they are truly local or ?virtually? local.?
In practice, that means a Voxbone iNum Service Provider Partner will supply a customer, whether an individual or a business, with a number that has an 883 country code. Once the service is fully rolled out to Voxbone's 5,000 local points of presence worldwide, that iNum number will be accessible for, at most, the cost of a "local" phone call from any PSTN or VoIP service.
"At most," because fundamental to Voxbone's services is that they are IP-based and therefore calls amongst iNum Partners' services are free. Currently Voxbone has 10 iNum Service Provider Partners, including Truphone, Mobivox and Voxeo, who either have made iNum numbers available today or will do so in the next few weeks. (For those callers who don't use an iNum partner's service, iNum numbers can be called through 55 "local" access points in 45 countries for the cost of a call to these access points.) Ullens, in a SquawkBox conference call yesterday, said that Voxbone will be negotiating with carriers and service providers worldwide to build out their service to become universally available.
Voxeo has set up a demonstration iNum service example; call +883 510 001 800 028 024, give their virtual operator a U.S. postal code and you will get local weather reports. This call can be made via the iNum Partners' services today; it will become available via the local access points as they are set up over the next week. Another example: iotum's Callflower Conference Call service will be using iNum numbers in a few days.
Jim Courtney is an Associate Editor of Skype Journal.
Recession Hits Intel Where It Hurts
[qi:043] Well that didn't take long. Intel after the close of markets today issued its fourth-quarter revenue forecast -- something it had said it would do on Dec. 4 -- and as expected, cut its guidance by some $1 billion, citing "significantly weaker-than-expected demand in all geographies and market segments." The chipmaker now expects fourth-quarter revenue to be $9 billion, give or take $300 million, vs. a prior outlook of between $10.1 billion and $10.9 billion. The recession and drop in consumer spending are doing a number on the consumer electronics supply chain, and Intel is not immune.
The Sky Is Falling: Google Shares Below $300
[qi:114] So much for the Obama bump. The markets have resumed their downward spiral, making clear that our economic conditions aren't going to improve anytime soon. The impact of this sustained selling is even being felt by companies that were, until recently, deemed bulletproof -- among them, Google. Shares of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company have dropped below $300 for the first time since 2005, indicating that the company might not be immune to the downturn in consumer spending (and thus advertising) after all. Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media, makes a very compelling case as to why online advertising is in for some stormy weather.
Citibank Internet analyst Mark Mahaney earlier today cut his fourth-quarter profit and net revenue estimates on Google, saying he's picking up all sorts of negative data points. "We have conducted two dozen+ checks with SEMs (Search Engine Marketers), Online Ad Agencies, large brand retailers, high ASP retailers, travel companies, etc...Conclusions aren't uniform, but Search marketers almost universally expect Q4 to be the weakest they have ever experienced," he writes in his morning note. While these might be transitory issues for Google -- the company continues to increase market share in search and has a monopolistic control of online advertising -- as Mahaney points out, even it has nowhere to hide as the planet gets hit by this economic comet.
This downturn poses another challenge for Google as well: To date, it has been able to spending liberally on attracting talented folks to its team. But many of those options are now under water, leaving those employees to resent some of their predecessors. Maintaining its talent -- and attracting new blood -- is going to be that much harder going forward. And that will leave the company even less time to play with its new toys, such as its newly acquired fighter jet.
Apple?s iPhone Offers the Ideal Micropayments Platform I was playing Texas Hold'em on the iPhone the other day when it struck me: If Apple allowed one-touch financial transactions inside apps -- in the case of Texas Hold'em, for example, to buy $1,000 of poker chips for $1 -- the consequences could be huge. Social networks like Facebook and MySpace, games, location-based services and pure-play commerce apps could see instant windfalls with the right functionality.
Apple is in the catbird seat to dominate micropayments. Their "batch and bill" implementation in iTunes, which boasts perhaps the smoothest online purchasing UI ever, now serves as a foundation for the App Store, creating a whole new genre of software that I call "impulseware" -- cheap enough and easy enough to buy on a whim. I've already spent a total of $22.99 on apps for the iPhone -- some useful, some not -- since the App Store launched in the summer. Just getting people to spend on software is a feat; I, for one, haven't spent money on software anywhere else.
I would be spending a lot more if Apple extended the API to allow for the ability to transact within apps. It would give real viability to virtual gifts, currencies and goods across the myriad of apps out there by allowing pennies and dollars to change hands in a frictionless way. As both a developer and a consumer, that is exciting.
There is potentially a lot at stake here. As we shift toward the mobile web, we are seeing a repudiation of the browser as the single, über app. Apple has already re-inspired (and perhaps revitalized) the vibrant shareware industry; it now has a chance to legitimize new online business models. Such a move would allow those of us in the tech industry to move away from our uncomfortable dependence on the "media model" that has informed web development for the last 15 years or so. And by offering new options for generating revenue, Apple would get a leg up on Android in the battle for developer mindshare.
The carriers have had ample opportunity to spread their own payment platform, but instead their various handsets and typically unfriendly strategies toward developers have opened the door for Apple. The company, after upstaging the music industry titans, stands poised to extend their revolution of content delivery to that of application delivery -- and in the process, to sell even more devices.
A Mobile Phone For Facebook Lovers They say good things come in small packages. That certainly is true of the new INQ Social Mobile phone from INQ, a subsidiary of Hutchinson Whampoa, a global wireless company that runs 3G networks in eight countries around the world, including the UK and Australia. INQ's new triband-with-3G phone is diminutive -- 110 g (3.9 oz) -- but it packs a powerful punch. It is smaller than a bar of Baby Ruth chocolate and is likely to cost about $50 a pop. INQ's new phone will make a debut on the 3 network in the UK later this week, and it should raise some eyebrows and impress many.
Hutchinson's 3 network caused a sensation last year when it released a phone that was designed around Skype and Skype's communication abilities. The phone proved to be a commercial and critical success. Encouraged by its success, Hutchinson decided to spin out its handset operations into a standalone company to sell phones to carriers other than 3.
The result is a new phone -- the first of many -- that is chasing what is going to be the biggest trend in the mobile industry: application-specific mobile phones. Frank Meehan, CEO of INQ, last month said that while "iPhone and BlackBerry Storm are sensational devices," the fact remains that carriers need more lower cost devices with great UI. "INQ isn't meant to compete with those top end devices, but instead is designed to get the core Internet comms services easy to use for the mass market," Meehan said. I agree, and after using the phone for less than a day on a slower EDGE network, I can only imagine how good a device it will be on faster networks. And its sole purpose is to keep the data usage growing on the mobile networks so that carriers can recoup the money they spent building their 3G networks.
The phone is based on Qualcomm's 6260 chipset and uses the Brew OS. The device's whole experience is optimized for a few web applications -- Skype (obviously), Facebook, Google, instant messaging and other apps like Last.fm. All the apps show up at the bottom of screen, reminiscent of Apple's App Dock, which makes it easy to navigate through many apps. (I wonder when Nokia will buy some clues and make navigating through apps easy.)
The apps themselves have been optimized for the tiny screen experience, and worked flawlessly over a T-Mobile 2.5G EDGE connection. The Facebook app, for instance, was easy to use: I could snap pictures with the 3.2 megapixel camera and post them to Facebook with relative ease. I was suitably impressed with the way INQ has integrated Skype, Facebook and IM into the phone's address book and developed a next generation communication experience. The phone has a decent browser (Netfront 3.4) that can handle Flash, and the screen, while tiny at 2.2 inches, is good enough to use the web applications effectively.
I wish I could have tested the phone on a 3G network and not been limited by the slower EDGE connection. Being on a slow connection, I couldn't really use Skype effectively, and I find doing messaging (IM) or replying to emails using a 12-key dialpad impossible. But I am sure there are folks who are not challenged by big thumbs and advancing years.
Now, this device isn't going to work in the U.S. -- which is a shame because I really love this tiny-yet-simple device. It is like the Toyota Scion of the mobile world -- well designed, cool, functional and inexpensive.
Consumers Aren?t Gonna Pay a Lot for Telco TV
[qi:032] Telephone companies pushing television services will gain customers by offering lower prices than cable or satellite providers, according to a survey being presented today by Heavy Reading. The survey, which consisted of about 200 consumer interviews, found that price, more than special interactive features, will dictate which provider consumers turn to. That's grim news for the telcos, which have been spending heavily to lay fiber and upgrade their networks so they can offer the triple play of voice, video and data in order to better compete with cable companies.
The pitch on the part of telcos is that consumers tired of boring TV delivered by their cable company could switch to a more interactive experience through, such as those offered by AT&T's U-verse service or FiOS TV or Verizon. And for the privilege of such an experience, they would pay more. Of course many of those features, such as alternate camera angles and personalized channels, haven't yet been rolled out. In the meantime, cable companies are offering digital video recorders and interactive services such as Start Over as part of their digital cable packages.
In fact, a survey in September found that consumers weren't even happy with the current pricing or service being provided by their cable companies -- suggesting that undercutting cable companies while providing better service is the key to gaining their business. That being said, many of the consumers in the September survey said they'd be happy to switch to telco TV if the price was right. It looks like that for all the technical innovation, the promise of the triple-play bundle isn't about service, but about the bargain. Carriers will have to find other ways to boost their bottom lines for the time being.
Review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 Possibly the Nicest WinMobile Phone For the last couple of days I have been playing around with what could arguably be the best Windows Mobile phone in business ? Sony Ericsson?s Xperia X1. From the packaging to the diminutive USB charger to the sleek finish of the device itself, the whole X1 experience is flawless. It is a well-designed smartphone that is very well-engineered. It is no different than Sony VAIO laptops or Bravia TVs, and as such it's no surprise that it's expensive: $799. The device is going to be available in the U.S. starting Nov. 28 on Sony's web site, Sony Style.
It comes with a very comfortable slider keyboard, great connectivity options (WiFi, 3G, Quad-band GSM etc.) and is a multimedia powerhouse. The phone comes with a 3-inch WVGA display with resolution of up to 800 X 480 pixels screen, which means it can play back videos in almost DVD quality and makes it easy to play 3D mobile games. I love the photos taken by the 3.2 megapixel camera and the music playback is solid and clear. X1 has a pretty decent battery life -- and yes, it beats the pants off the iPhone 3G battery. It got about 8 hours on AT&T's 3G network -- ahead of my iPhone -- but lagged the Android G1. However, it had better GSM standby and talk times. But again, battery usage differs from person to person. One thing I hate about the device is that it lacks built-in memory, but the good news is that it can take up to 32 GB in a memory card.
What will surprise you the most is that this phone is powered by Windows Mobile 6.1. Despite the torturous Windows Mobile interface, I found myself liking this device, which shows that with some creativity and lots of imagination, even Windows Mobile can stand up to assaults from Apple's iPhone, RIM's ( s rimm) Blackberry and Google's Android. Of course Windows Mobile means that the phone syncs with Microsoft Exchange over the air. It can read documents, spreadsheets and presentations natively.
I was surprised by how nimble the phone feels -- I have yet to use another Windows Mobile phone that comes close to X1. The device gives you many ways to interact with the contact touch, full QWERTY keyboard, 4-way key and optical joystick navigation and panels. It is the panels which are awesome and function almost like how the applications are accessed on the iPhone.
Bottomline: If your company insists that you need a Windows Mobile phone, then Xperia X1 is an obvious (and perhaps the only) choice.
The technology involves sending data on the same wires that provide electricity. Every half a mile or so, a device clamped to the line perpetuates the signal...The key innovation introduced in the past few years, Blair said, is the ability to remotely control the devices fixed to power lines. That way it can be told to switch frequency when it meets interference.
IBEC has signed up IBM, which is are going to get $9.6 million to provide and install the BPL equipment on a network that would reach 340,000 homes in Alabama, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. The venture's promoter and CEO, Scott Lee, says the cost of the network would be as much as $70 million, an amount that they have received as $70 million in low-interest loans from the Department of Agriculture. I gotta be honest -- this is going to be money down the drain.
Web Firms Step Into Green Shadow in the Valley At last week's Web 2.0 Summit -- the annual convention that has come to represent the new web boom ?- a leading web industry journalist asked me if green technology was here to stay, or if it is just another fad that would die at the hands of dropping gas prices and a recession. "I think it?s one of the world?s biggest opportunities," I responded, and what I wish I?d have added is this: It?s also trumping the web in terms of excitement, innovation and inspiration for the next generation of entrepreneurs.
That cleantech is, at the very least, what people are excited about was obvious at last week's Summit. Green startups -- even those that had little to do with the web -- took over large parts of the show. Former Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Kleiner Perkins cleantech investor Al Gore received a standing ovation for his keynote. The CEO and Chairman of high-profile electric vehicle startup Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, and the CEO of electric vehicle infrastructure startup Better Place, Shai Agassi, both had long fireside chats with the conference-organizers. And half of the startups in the launchpad section of the show were green companies -- Carbonetworks, GoodGuide and Sungevity.
Perhaps the biggest indicator at the show, though, was when John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, declared green technology to be ?the growing thing in Silicon Valley? and said kick-starting energy research will be President-elect Barack Obama?s most important task. Kleiner was responsible for Internet investments like Google (GOOG) and has now allocated a third of its fund to green investments -- equal to the amount it?s pumping into digital media/web plays. Doerr even told the audience that Kleiner partner Bill Joy would be a good choice for Obama?s Chief Technology Officer; Joy has stated for the past year that he is staying away from most Internet investments and focusing entirely on innovations to fight climate change.
So far, the overall venture dollars have started to follow this path, too. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers and National Venture Capital Association, while venture funding for the third quarter of 2008 was down 7 percent from the second quarter to $7.1 billion, cleantech?s portion of that investment grew 14 percent over the second quarter to $1 billion. Internet companies accounted for $1.1 billion of those venture dollars, a 36 percent drop from the second quarter. Back in 2006, cleantech became the third largest venture category, under biotech and software, and remained the third largest in the latest quarter.
That?s not to say that cleantech investing won?t be affected by the current financial crisis. Analysts with the Cleantech Group are expecting that in the next quarter later-stage green firms that need to raise a lot of capital ?- e.g., to fund biofuel plants, solar thermal farms or green car factories -- could find trouble. Tesla Motors already couldn?t raise a planned $100 million financing round on the terms it wanted and turned to an internal round of $40 million, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk carrying half the load. Large clean power projects like T. Boone Pickens' wind farm are also getting cut back.
But the overall cleantech industry will survive a downturn. The opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovation is large ? and just starting to be realized. Energy alone is a $6 trillion market, compared to $100 billion for the Internet. And the industries that cleantech entrepreneurs are trying to tackle -- power generation, the power grid, the water system -- have been largely neglected in terms of technology innovation. As Thomas Friedman points out in "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," paraphrasing GE's CEO Jeffrey Immelt: Over three decades GE has sold eight or nine generations of medical devices, but only one generation of energy technology.
There's also the fact that the underlying problems that have lead to the ascendancy of cleantech are still persistent. The price of gas might fluctuate wildly, but the planet is still growing increasingly warm, and the population is still expected to boom to more than 9 billion people in the next three decades ? largely in developing countries like India and China. Cleantech is about figuring out smart, sustainable ways to allocate resources like energy, water, and raw materials; the need for which won't disappear in the face of temporarily cheap fuel.
The recession could also turn federal legislators green in the coming months. President-elect Obama is calling for the creation of 5 million green jobs in a decade and has pledged to provide more support for renewable energy than any other previous administration. Josh Green, managing partner at MDV thinks that Obama's cleantech plan will make up part of the economic recovery package, as does Al Gore. If green jobs really can help ease the pain of the recession, the cleantech industry would find even more government and private sector support when we eventually get to better financial times.
This article also appeared on BusinessWeek.comPhoto courtesy of Brian Solis via Flickr.
Meet 10 Breakout VideoStars of 2008 at NewTeeVee Live In less than two days we are going to kick off our Second NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco -- and we are getting excited about this year's event which has some stellar line up of speakers including Reed Hastings, CEO of NetFlix, Jason Killar, CEO of Hulu and Anthony Zuiker, the creative genius behind the CSI franchise on CBS. I will be talking to Blake Krikorian, CEO of Sling Media about the future of the living room.
Of course there will be many industry insiders who will help us understand where the online video industry is headed. We all need help -- it is the best of times for online video (because of audience acceptance) and yet it is the worst of times for online video (because of the economy.)And in-between these weighty deliberations we will meet the Top 10 Breakout Video Stars, most of whom will make live appearance.
These are folks who have made a name for themselves on the web and purely on the web. You know -- like that Wine Library TV guy. Hopefully you can join us at the event! If you have not bought your ticket, it is time to get one for we are closing our registration tomorrow. See you thursday, November 13th at the Mission Bay Center in San Francisco.
Broadcasters Boost Mobile TV With New Standard
Yesterday, Ion Media, a broadcaster behind an effort to create a new way to deliver over-the-air broadcast television to mobile phones, announced a successful test of a new mobile digital television standard. Because when you have a laughably small number of mobile television viewers, you may as well try a different standard in hopes that it will succeed where others have failed. The standard, created by the Advanced Television Systems Committee, has succeeded in trials at easily delivering broadcast television to mobile phones, using existing spectrum. However, the content won't be linked back to the Internet -- this version of mobile TV turns your phone or other portable devices into a mini-TV.
The ATSC standard will compete with Qualcomm's MediaFLO technology that AT&T and Verizon use to deliver mobile television to subscribers, but unlike MediaFLO, it doesn't require a separate network to broadcast the shows. A group of broadcast networks, LG Electronics and Samsung are part of a coalition called the Open Mobile Video Coalition working with the ATSC to create a single standard for delivering mobile television to cell phones and other devices by 2009, when the switch to digital television is complete.
The ATSC plans to formally approve its mobile TV standard later this month. Chips and systems will be available before the end of 2009. Initial offerings are likely to appear in the automotive space. I have tons of questions about this service that I'm trying to get answered and will update y'all if any of the parties gets back to me.
News Feeds 
I was playing 
The result is a new phone -- the first of many -- that is chasing what is going to be the biggest trend in the mobile industry: application-specific mobile phones. Frank Meehan, CEO of INQ, last month said that while "iPhone and BlackBerry Storm are sensational devices," the fact remains that carriers need more lower cost devices with great UI. "INQ isn't meant to compete with those top end devices, but instead is designed to get the core Internet comms services easy to use for the mass market," Meehan said. I agree, and after using the phone for less than a day on a slower EDGE network, I can only imagine how good a device it will be on faster networks. And its sole purpose is to 
The apps themselves have been optimized for the tiny screen experience, and worked flawlessly over a T-Mobile 2.5G EDGE connection. The Facebook app, for instance, was easy to use: I could snap pictures with the 3.2 megapixel camera and post them to Facebook with relative ease. I was suitably impressed with the way INQ has integrated Skype, Facebook and IM into the phone's address book and developed a next generation communication experience. The phone has a decent browser (Netfront 3.4) that can handle Flash, and the screen, while tiny at 2.2 inches, is good enough to use the web applications effectively.
I wish I could have tested the phone on a 3G network and not been limited by the slower EDGE connection. Being on a slow connection, I couldn't really use Skype effectively, and I find doing messaging (IM) or replying to emails using a 12-key dialpad impossible. But I am sure there are folks who are not challenged by big thumbs and advancing years.
Now, this device isn't going to work in the U.S. -- which is a shame because I really love this tiny-yet-simple device. It is like the Toyota Scion of the mobile world -- well designed, cool, functional and inexpensive. 
In less than two days we are going to kick off our Second NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco -- and we are getting excited about this year's event which has some stellar line up of speakers including 