Incremental Blogger

The other day I blogged about how I’d like to see the OS support video (more specifically “enhanced” video) as a native data type to ease sharing and recording of desktop content directly. I’d also like to revisit another idea that I’ve blogged about before that’s also along these lines: I’d like to see direct audio recording supported on laptops, video cameras and mobile devices.

What do I mean by “direct audio recoding?” If I’m recording a talk and the speaker is using a wireless mic (in particular), I’d like to be able to record directly from the wireless mic to my device. Why record over the air in this electronic world when a simple electronic solution is practical and would produce much better results? How many times have you tried listening to a recording that some one’s made in a large class or at a conference and instead of hearing the speaker you hear those around the recording device whispering, adjusting their chair, typing, and the like?

Seems to me with wireless recording of audio every college student, conference goer, and reporter should have an appropriately equipped device. These are all three very attractive customers for OS vendors because they include influentials and new buyers. Kind of seems like a great differentiating “feature” for a company, doesn’t it? Imagine if Apple supported a standard like this? Imagine how much additional market they’d capture? Would we see reporters on TV holding up their iPhones all recording directly to their phone? Would we see even more college students using MacBooks?

How might this work? There are a couple possibilities.

One is to have a “sound server” that the speaker can plug into which digitizes the stream and broadcasts it in a stream over the network (WiFi/Internet) so it can be directly recorded locally. This might be a good way to go because it only requires a single hardware change on the broadcast side–at least for laptops. And, of course, it would require WiFi support in the recording devices, which is a reasonable assumption going forward for many devices.

There would need to be some additions on the device end, however. For laptops, Tablet PCs, and the like we’d need a way to record the live audio stream. Lots of possibilities here. An OS built in feature would make sense to me, but it could be an extension.

A downside to this approach is that it would place more stress on the network–particularly WiFi where there could be many users such as at an industry tech conference. WiFi at settings like this are already overloaded.

Another approach would be to add circuitry on each device that could record the audio. Unfortunately, it’s probably not practical to record from the mic itself. It may be of a proprietary format. Some of the companies that make the wireless technology aren’t going to want to make their technology cheaper and more accessible to the vast number of digital devices. They’re all focused on the high end, which makes sense. They have to be focused on quality for professional productions. Providing mass-market access is another game. 

One solution might be to add an FM-based repeater in the network and integrate FM-recorders on each device. This might be better in the sense that it would not load up WiFi networks and it’s more broadcast oriented than connection based. It wouldn’t matter how many people are recording. It could be 10 it could be 1000.  There are some USB FM digitizers on the market which hint at how much this might cost each supporting device. (I’m not sure if an FM-digitizer would consume less than a comparable WiFi-based one. That’s a question for the double Es.) I did try a simple experiment where I took an ultra-small FM radio and wired up its audio out to my Tablet’s audio in and then recorded some test broadcasting I did from a wireless mic. It worked OK although the range wouldn’t support large-hall uses.

So if this is such a good idea, why doesn’t it exist already? Well, essentially it does exist, in pieces at least. But the reason is simple and a couple fold: First, this is something that mobile devices really need. If you’re primarily using a tethered desktop, you’re unlikely to be anywhere that you might want to record “over the air.” That being said, we’ve all probably wanted to record audio/video streams over the network at some time. Unfortunately, this technology has been held back for various reasons in order to prevent people from recording online music or broadcasts. Silly though. This should not be a high-end feature. It should be made accessible to everyone and everywhere.

And I don’t just mean laptops, Tablets, MIDS. Video cameras should support features like this. While you’re video recording let’s say Bill Gates at a presentation, you should be able to switch the audio feed to come directly from the WiFi network or possibly some radio (FM) frequency. If the videographer wants crowd noise they’d turn off direct recording and use the device’s mic. If they want to focus on the speaker, they’d switch to the direct recording “channel.” Sure would make for more professional audio recordings.

Looks like Engadget has the details on the fortcoming HP 2133 “UMPC.” Some details, “.9-inch 1366 x 766 (WXGA) display, ExpressCard/54 slot, Wireless LAN, nearly full-sized QWERTY (95% of full), integrated webcam, and optional SSD in a 2.5-pound anodized aluminum sex pot running Vista or Linux.”

I put “UMPC” in quotes, because although this is a small form-factor computer, like the ASUS Eee PC, it’s lacking touch or an active digitizer, also like the ASUS. There’s also no way to fold down the display into Tablet mode.

This may not be a bad thing for the “UMPC” moniker. Maybe it’s a time to just let all small computers be called UMPCs whether they have touch or not Instead, let’s begin calling touch-capable devices “Origami”–the popular code name originally used for the device. I like it even better.

When it comes to mobility, several Tablet PCs have led the way. Remember the NEC LitePad? Lightyears ahead of the competition. But it disappeared. Why? For many of the reasons it was so good: It was super thin. It was super light. It didn’t waste weight on an internal CD/DVD player. Its processor was a miser, which helped save precious battery life.

Unfortunately, there were many voices online and offline that talked down designs like this. I heard reps from Best Buy argue, for instance, that no one wanted a system without a CD player. I argued it was much about education. People needed to see how things were migrating to the Internet–changing how systems were going to be used–and didn’t you want to be part of the future?

Of course, it’s true that some things have changed slowly. There isn’t as much online content as soon as I had expected. That’s changing now though. And opinions have been slow to change too.

Well, I see both making a move–and both are in large part courtesy of Apple. Yes, Apple. First, the success of iTunes is helping the content creators see a possible different future. There’s more room to go here, however, but things are getting better. My guess is that within the next year or so TV networks, major studios, and music providers will all realize that they can relax and stream content online–with ads–and make more money. Not less.

Anyway, there’s another part of this equation that’s changing too and that’s the acceptance of trimmed down machines. Intel is going this way with its processors, sacrificing performance for battery life. We are in a performance lull, which is benefiting the competitive landscape of mobile systems.

But it’s not really Intel that is persuading people that mobility is good. It’s Apple and its new Air. When the Air was first launched, there was much criticism. No CD/DVD. Few connectors. Limited battery capacity. Not enough horsepower. However, some realized that these were the design tradeoffs that a good mobile system is probably going to have. If you want a faster, loaded system, go elsewhere. There are plenty of machines to choose from. Well, it appears that this latter group is wining the conversation war.

I’m reading more and more about people proudly showing off their new Air laptops with resounding acceptance.  People like the lightness, the sleekness, the accessibility. The other stuff–you know the high performance stuff–is just not needed in this type of computer.

Yes, the tide it turning.

And my guess is that as thin and mobile become more “in” in the Apple world, so will it be in the Tablet space. And maybe, just maybe Tablets will make it back into retail. They’ll become cool for students to own. They’ll become acceptable as a lead laptop. The market will grow.

It’s unfortunate that Microsoft and its partners had to wait for Apple to fix this marketing problem, but it appears to be doing just that. Better late than never. And better Apple than no one else.

It’s an interesting lesson–at least in terms of what made marketing sense over the last few years: The big voices that needed convincing online were the journalists (who have led much of the Web 2.0 growth by the way–so by definition and by monetary gain they’ve been the leaders) and the young early adopters. Both groups have disproportionate voices online. At least for the last five years or so you couldn’t gain much success without their acceptance. The Tablet PC convinced a few, but not many. And–at least in my view–as Tablet designs went sideways and started becoming more like market followers than leaders–it lost more and more possible converts. It’s true, these designs became more acceptable to institutional buyers, but they didn’t help to persuade the online voice, which was needed in order to grow greater market acceptance.

Now the next five years may need a different marketing recipe. As the next generation of online innovation occurs, new powerful voices will emerge and maybe they’ll marginalize this 2.0 generation of trendsetters–we’ll have to see. But either way, I think we’re finally at the point where Tablets can actually be efficiently and successfully marketed.

Happy Mobile Birthday James!

palmsolo (aka Mathew Miller of ZDNet Mobile Gadgeteer fame) posts a video on YouTube showing the unboxing of a Wibrain UMPC.

You can read his review here.

I think I’ve found my favorite way to browse the Tablet PC/UMPC conversations list: on an iPhone.

My first stab at it was less than satisfying. The page was too small. Turns out there was an easy fix. All we had to do was add the following meta tag to each html page, which tells Safari how to scale the page in relation to size of the screen:

<meta name=”viewport” content=”width=320″/>

With this simple addition, pages now scale nicely so that by default the text is readable. I just tried taking some pictures of the iPhone showing the conversations list, but I don’t have a good setup yet, so instead I’m using the iPhoneTest.com iPhone emulator here and taking screenshots from it. (Be sure to use the Safari browser for best results.)

Here’s the Tablet PC list as of this evening much like it appears on the actual iPhone:

The Tablet PC conversation list is currently the default page on the server, but it’s also available as: http://www.thredr.com/tabletpc.html.

What’s really cool and convenient is setting up a home-screen icon for the page so you can get to it with a single tap after powering on the iPhone. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open the Safari browser from the home screen by tapping on the Safari icon.
2. Tap on the url edit box in the browser and enter:
http://www.thredr.com/tabletpc.html.
3. Then tap on the plus sign at the bottom of the screen and in the pick list that appears select the “Add to Home Screen” option.
4. You will then be asked to give this bookmark a name. I use “Tablet PC,” but any short name will do.

That’s it. Now when you go to the home screen you’ll see an extra icon that looks like a bit of zoomed out text with the bookmark name that you entered in the last step.

Now when you want to check what’s going on in the Tablet/UMPC world, you just pick up your iPhone, wake it up and tap on your custom icon. This brings up Safari with the conversations list ready to scroll through. Did I mention it’s addicting to use your fingers to flick through lists on the iPhone? Well, it is. At least for me.

Now as I’ve mentioned before, we’re working on a couple other custom micro-conversation lists too. There’s one that tracks Apple talk at http://www.thredr.com/apple.html. It looks like this on the iPhone:

As you can see in this screenshot, the conversation threader supports YouTube videos. When one appears you can tap on the link to watch it–although on the iPhone not all videos are available because they have to be re-encoded for the iPhone video format. There’s no Flash as of yet on the iPhone.

Well, here’s one other list that I have added to my iPhone home screen: http://www.thredr.com/msdev.html. It tracks a wide variety of Microsoft-oriented developers. (We still have many more to add to the watch list, but there are some good ones already.) Anyway, what better way to monitor what’s going on with Microsoft developers than on an iPhone :-).

What makes the iPhone so great for checking a list like this? It’s quick and easy to get to it. Waking up the iPhone or powering it up from a cold start is fast and getting to the page is only two or so taps away. The slow part will be downloading the content if on the EVDO network, but for the most part that’s not too bad. Plus it’s easy to flick through the content by sliding a finger up and down the page. And if the content is too small, it scales up nicely in landscape mode. Just flip the phone sideways.

Now wouldn’t it be cool if you could flick the page side to side to switch topics :-). (Probably would be too slow on an EVDO network, but it would be cool.)

Otto Berkes, creator of the Origami project and now Partner Architect in the CTO’s office at Microsoft, takes a look at the ASUS Eee PC.

Overall Otto (and his family) give the Eee PC a “very positive review.” Some of the things he likes:

* low price
* small, light-weight, well-built, started up fast
* real browser, connects to the Internet, “pretty good collection of applications”

He also mentions that the battery life is “OK–no worse than a typical laptop.”

From what I’ve been reading many other people have similar reactions. He does say that the display and keyboard are a bit cramped, but I guess this makes sense for a small UMPC-like device such as this.

Otto points out that in part Eee’s design success is due not only to what they put in, but what they left out. He compares the Eee to the ASUS RH2 UMPC, for instance, which is several times more expensive although structurally similar. To me, the prices of the UMPCs have simply been a terrible mistake. I think they went after the enterprise market rather than the consumer market. What a common story this has been in the Tablet space. From a money standpoint I can understand why–they can charge more, they can leverage their sales force, and they don’t have to deal with finicky consumers. However, it’s also capped their sales.

However, whereas the UMPCs went up market–even if they were originally designed for all–the Eee is definitely consumer friendly. It hits the “sweet spot” as Otto points out.

Actually I think price is a big part of the Eee’s success. Charge $999 for the same thing and I think end users would have yawned. Yes, the exact same hardware, just a different price.

I do think, though, that these smaller, more mobile devices need more than inexpensive hardware and a low price (shouldn’t these go together!). They need good experiences. The Eee does an admiral job here with its custom Linux install, but I’d still like a turn on and go experience more like that with the Amazon Kindle. When WiMax finally makes it into the mainstream, this may become a reality. Manufacturers can package their systems with connectivity out of the box–more like a cell phone than a laptop.

As much as I like the Asus and its minimalist design, I do realize I’m part of the problem. Most of the Tablet PCs and UMPCs I’ve owned are all top of the model systems. I go for speed. I go for battery life. I load them up with features. I’d really like to purchase the new Dell Latitude, for instance, because of its touch capability, but frankly the processor is just too slow. I’d be tapping at the desk all day waiting for things to happen. I wouldn’t be happy. I do too many tasks, such as code development, where I need the speed.

Anyway, despite the fact that I tend to go up market, I do appreciate lower cost devices. Something in the under $500 range. I look forward to the UMPCs being pushed down into that price point–which is exactly what I think will happen–particularly with this year’s forthcoming MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices). The game is going to be changing. Finally.

[Via Gottabemobile]

Rob Bushway posts a great overview of Microsoft Research’s clever, technology-placked note app, InkSeine. Nicely done.

Want to learn more about InkSeine? Check out Ken Hinckley’s (the creator of InkSeine) blog and join in his doodles.

I experimented a bit with using a Tablet PC with an external monitor in a live stream. It works OK, but I need a bigger monitor I think :-).

In this setup I’m writing on a Tablet PC using Journal and cloning the Tablet’s display on an external monitor so everyone can see what I’m writing while I’m on the webcam. I’m also using WebcamMax so that I can switch between a webcam feed and a live view of the desktop, which is useful for providing higher quality views of the display.

Update: I modified the Mogulus channel so that the recording discussed here plays along with other shows now.

A couple takeaways:
* An external webcam is better than a built-in one on the Tablet PC for recording because otherwise the webcam shakes when you draw on the display (if the display is in “notebook” mode).
* Likewise an external microphone is a good idea so that when you write on the display the internal microphone doesn’t pick up any writing noise.
* Writing with light ink on dark “paper” seems to work better with at least the webcams I have.
* Thicker ink seems to work better–particulary when the video is scaled down in size.
* I used Mogulus for recording, but unfortunately the service doesn’t let me download the video so I can back it up or upload it to other services, such as YouTube. I wish I’d recorded the video to UStream instead and then moved it to Mogulus. Similarly, Mogulus doesn’t have a way to play video on demand, so I’ve taken all my other videos off of my Mogulus channel instead so that for right now all that plays is this recording in a loop. I’ll restore the other videos later.
* I “minimized” the WebcamMax application by setting View to “No Preview” and “Always on top”.

By the way, I’m using a trial version of WebcamMax in the video because my licensed copy got lost when I switched from the Toshiba M400 to the M700. I’ve looked around for my license key, but haven’t found it yet. I guess I need to email the WebcamMax folks.

TabletKiosk is blogging here (http://tabletkiosk.blogspot.com/). Cool.

“Thanks for visiting the new TABLETKIOSK Blog. I put this site together to keep Tablet PC owners and fans updated with all of our latest product announcements as well as describe some of the cool ways our Tablet PCs and UMPCs are being used.”

Despite some interesting new products, there was a collective “huh?” rumbling across the blogosphere yesterday after Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote. Why? Much for the same reason that many give Apple kudos for–the secrecy.

Here’s the thing. Apple has done so well delivering some innovative products over the last couple years, such as the iPhone, that people expect a lot from Apple. Lots more. In fact, they are ahead of the Apple curve in their thinking. Why? Because with all this secrecy Apple is unable to set expectations. And even if they did try to set things straight by leaking some details here and there, who would believe them? There’s so much fake leaked material racing across the Internet. It’s become a favorite 15-minute fame game. Who can Photoshop the most realistic Apple subnotebook? Who can list the specs of the as of yet next gen iPhone? The noise level is getting awfully high–and messy.

There were some differences this year though that may have played into this. It appears that many of the prime products mentioned in the keynote had been leaked before the official announcements–at least in part. We didn’t know the specifics, but we’d learned that there was to be a new thin, 13″ notebook. We had learned that Apple was going to rent out movies. We had learned that the iPhone was going to get a refresh.

Maybe it was partially the fact that these details were leaked that many started dreaming further. There was chatter about a Tablet Mac. There was talk about 3G and WiMax. There was talk about a sub-notebook. All of these would have been leading, ultra-cool products. But none were to be found, which created a deflating sigh of disappointment.

This is the problem with keeping things secret–or should I say semi-secret. People dream. And rarely can you surpass the expectations of those dreams.

Remember when Microsoft’s Origami was pre-announced via a sparsely worded website? People dreamed. And the dreams raced past what was to ultimately arrive.

Yes, there was a great spike of traffic at the time. There was a lot of news coverage and chatter. However, I’d argue it all led up to a collective sigh. It wasn’t that the product was bad. It was that people got ahead of it. That’s the challenge.

Here are some of my photos from the Tablet PC Gathering that was held at this year’s CES.

One great thing about this year’s gathering is that people brought lots of Tablets and UMPCs with them to share and show. Here are three of the ultra-small notebooks Via brought, for example:

Which one would you like?

Feeling lucky? Here are the business cards ready to be drawn for one of the many prizes that were given away, including four Tablets.

More Tablets on display–kind of like a mini-show. In fact, is it time for another Tablet-specific conference? Hmmm.

More giveaways and Gottabemobile shwag.

Some hot news at CES was that Everex would soon (by the end of January) start shipping its $399 Everex Cloudbook/UMPC. Engadget is reporting that the unit will be available through Wal-Mart.

I haven’t seen the Everex model per se, but Via did bring along a Packard Bell machine, which is of the same lineage (FIC has one called the Nanobook too), to the Tablet PC Gathering yesterday.

With the ASUS Eee PC, OLPC XO, and now the Everex notebook things are really heating up in the low-end notebook space. Will this help to bring down the cost of UMPCs? We’ll have to wait and see.

LG will be showcasing at CES two large, mutli-touch LCD displays: one 52 and the other 84 inches. Yes, these are large displays.

So how does the multi-touch work? IR sensitive cameras (I believe they are mounted on the frame of the unit) are used to detect one or two points of contact. You can use fingers or writing/pointing instruments when interacting with the display.

Now it’s important to realize that the LG’s two-point multi-touch is different than that implemented in Microsoft’s Surface computer (which uses rear mounted cameras) and Dell’s forthcoming multi-touch which uses a capacitive sensor. The LG unit only supports two points of contact–like the iPhone. These other systems support more than two points of contact.

What I think is important about LG’s new touch-enabled displays is that this is one more signal that the touch era is upon. Not only do we have touch Tablets, and iPhones, and Surface, and an increasing variety of touch displays, but there are other technologies yet to make it to the market, such as those that embed imaging sensors directly within the display.

What does this mean? That there’s no better time than now to create a single model for touch gestures and actions. Unfortunately the market is going in all directions. There’s the Tablet’s SDK which supports limited gestures, such as the Flicks gestures, the new SDK from the Microsoft Surface group, and potentially now a new API from Dell for its multi-touch.

The Tablet group would be ideal to lead this effort. So where are they in this? The silence is overwhelming. What a missed opportunity.

Engadget is reporting that multi-touch software drivers will be available sometime in the future for the new Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC.

I’m very much looking forward to the day that multi-touch hits the streets, but what concerns me here is that Microsoft doesn’t appear to be in the middle of this new feature. It should be. As developers, there should be a standard coming forth and I’d expect to be seeing it now or at least hints about it.

This makes me wonder, is the Tablet PC SDK a dead branch? With Microsoft Surface going its own way and now it looks like Dell taking the initiative with multi-touch for its Tablets, I’m beginning to wonder. This would be extremely unfortunate. It seems to me that we’re only beginning to get to the core of what Tablet technology can provide. I’d expect to see the SDK continue to grow.

There are hints of growth in terms of shape recognition and the like, but it doesn’t go far enough in my book. I’d expect to see multi-touch support and multi-touch gesture standards. I’d expect to be able to provide my own reco training sets (and tools for doing so) for shapes or my own goofy language or whatever. I’d expect to see math reco. I’d expect to see more cross-platform support of ink–such as why aren’t ink drawings available in Messenger on the Mac?

Maybe this is all part of the consolidation of the technology. In order to move forward, Tablet technologies have to shrink a bit. We have to shed some excess stuff, re-access what’s important, and rebuild. Maybe the time is ripe for this–or at least the first signs of a do-over are whispering in the wind.