Saturday, January 13, 2007

Come On Steve... take my money now!

An iPod is so old school.... why do I need to carry it, charge it, plug it in ????

I want to get into my car (keyless), have the car know its me (the fob), adjust my seats, stations, mirrors... and my system in the dash sync ... my music, podcasts, voicemail, weather, maps, recent searchs, etc.

Connecting by 802.11 b/g/n, 802.16d/e, GPRS, Edge, HSDPA, 1X, EVDO rev A/C....

a networked car... no pieces are missing. Just the glue.

Steve, its a gold mine. People are spending $3000 on systems for the car and fretting over spending an extra $100 on a phone. And the carrier can get a data account that does not have to be always on (wow, so they can use free air time!!!!).

iPhone, AMEX application, my Portal

Apple is going to roll out OSX 10.5 with TImeMachine which will require an external hard drive, and their only external hard drive is 40G? Stick a 400G drive, increase the price by $125 and suddenly there is new reason to buy. I would prefer the hard drive to be in the router, but they didn't offer that either.

When are we going to hear what OSX iPhone has? and what tools to develop to the UI are available. I want my phone to be my remote... I want to interface with my Tivo via my phone by touching the TV guide on my phone... I have this already in a $300 device... but its a separate, dumb device that I can't take to work. With iPhone I can!! Drat those walled garden, ATT types. I thought they would be the experts on closed systems after Carter Phone, then the Break Up... allowing Whittaker to roll them all up is really rolling back the clock. Come on Web 2.0 crowd... we really need move them to the current century.

... When am I going to be able to get on My Web Page, and be able to see my contacts from my wireless phone, my voicemail, my bills that need to be paid, my bank accounts, the stocks I own, my EOBs from my insurance company, my calendar, my email, my grocery list, the notification that my cleaners has my stuff ready???? It's my portal... This is not what Yahoo has.... yet.

... when is my iPhone going to get a pop up everytime I hit my company AMEX card??? it should show up, and I should be able to gesture it into a category... Meals, Airfare, Local Transport, Parking& Taxi.. Office Supplies... what are the other silly categories??? and when it pops up... the thing knows the date, it knows the vendor (so it should suggest the same category as last time). And because this will be so awesome and a realitve pain in the ass to spend cash, users will use the AMEX and not cash!! Huge value add!!

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Apple, Own the Living Room and Car

Common Steve... you own the teenagers pocket, have the interface, design, and brand.

People do not want and ugly computer in the living room with wires, and yet, MSFT is about to provide a GUI that competes... get on with it and own the living room. Just buy Tivo, move it to your interface, charge $200 and make it make money. 10.5 requires an external harddrive to make Time Machine useful, and the heavy weight content is intended for the living room (video, gaming and music) where should it be store (my vote is connected to the media center). Why not fix the media center interface issue at the same time.... use the iPod interface, or a Tivo remote... the hardware has connectors on the back side. Provide a MIB, and API, and get the user community to tie it to a hardened user GUI for the audio and video controls. Apple wins!! then use that platform for home automation (intercomm, security/HVAC control, lighting control). I want a iPod mini like controller at the wall switch.... it will sense my presnese (maybe based on my touch or based on the bluetooth signal, or based on my car fob signal... ) and do things... my music, my temp, my mail, my alerts, my schedule, my pictures and photographs....

Deploy Tivo/auto... this concept of carrying a device (iPod) around to have our environment is ridiculous. You have to plug it in the car?? or worse plug it into another device so it can send radio waves to the car to hear it on the speakers... that is even more clumsy and inelegant and very unApple like. Put a Mac in the dash, provide the interface, get 4 firms to build the apps: navigation (Garman/Google search), music (iTunes), vmail (Nortel), traffic (Google), weather. Network the thing (Intel/Nortel).

National Issues for Congress

competitive issues
  • Cost of health car
  • Impact of oil
  • Global warming
There was a report in the news that florescent blubs can reduce the impact of air pollution by 10%. This sounds extreme, but given there are probably 5 bulbs per house that get predominantly, congress should offer some national rebate to get people to use these bulbs or LED bulbs. There will be huge pollution, oil, international trade and power plant capital investment implications. This one is simple.

The cost of health care in the face of an aging baby boomer demographic is huge. Several things must be done. The cost of the system must be reduced. Insurance, administration needs to be cut. The actual use of health care must be reduced and become more efficient. The delivery (huge cost in moving from dr to dr, to test, waiting for test results, referals... it is insane. the patient has not econimic value in the process. This must change. there was an article a year ago in Business Week based on a book suggesting that computer modeling and partient/family history could be modeled and greatly impact the use of and cost of health care and pharma. This is in the national interest, and must be funded.

Transportation Systems. Rail for freight and passengers in urban and suburban areas must be funded. A rail corridor from Mexico to Texas for a new deep water port is obvious, but not nationalistic. This must be made a priority if goods from China are key for the next century.

The biggest consumer of oil, and the biggest polluter in the world is the automobile. Firstly we must get big polluters off the road. Old, grandfathered cars and trucks have got to go. Allow fines, impounding, pay credits.

On the wars, protecting our way of life. We soiled our hands. Supported the Shah, then supported Saddam against the Ayatollah, then supported the Taliban and Osama, now Osama says we should stay out, and we move in, then he attacks us as a wake up call, and we move into Iraq where a tyrant supporting one side in a civil war in a country that should be divided to its pre WW2 lines exists... get out, these are 1000 yr old issues, not something we will solve. We have meddled and they have a war going on that is based in culture and family lines. Not something we can solve and provided it does not impact us, should we. Get out. Maybe assist in rewriting maps... be a friend to all. Provided they don't arm and attach us when we aren't meddling stay out of it. --On Korea, they are arming, the bozo is a head case, building a nuclear arsenal, which is their right, except they agreed not to do so. We are obligated to attack and destroy. If the leadership remains, remove it.