Cisco to Push into Home Electronics – Why?

I get and respect Cisco’s desire to dig deeper into the home, but I am not convinced that a piece of consumer electronics gear is the way to to do it.  According to the NYT, Cisco is looking to develop a “a digital stereo system that is meant to move music wirelessly around a house.”

I can’t help but wonder why Cisco is not simply focusing on enabling the connectivity and distribution piece on the network rather than going for the end-point.  I’d rather have something neutral that provides access to content (and not just music btw) where I want it – whether that’s in my house or pushed out to my mobile device.  The limited info on the upcoming Cisco product seems to limit the usefulness to a connected audio component.  These typically sit in your stereo rack connected to your home network and stream content through as through it was in your audio player.   Sounds a lot like Sonos, AppleTV and quite a few other boxes that have been sold with considerably less success.

There’s no magic bullet here.  In order to get your entertainment connected and distributed you need to have a way to either view or here it in every room which means cables or wireless kit.  We chose the wired route and centralized most of the equipment into a couple of racks beneath the basement stairs.  Each room in our home in which we planned for AV has speakers installed in-wall we’re able to select any source from any room.

My original AppleTV recently had it’s brain expanded through Boxee and now can play both the (limited) protected content we have from iTunes as well as any other file we happen to have accessible.  Cisco is going to have to win over Apple unfortunately in order to earn access to the iTunes ecosystem and I just don’t see that happening anytime soon either.  So far, the standard fault of every media streamer is that it can’t play iTunes DRM … I don’t see how Cisco’s solution solves any of this.  Another box to setup and futz around with as a source?  No thanks.

I was given a demo of the Nokia Home Control Center solution at Nokia World and it will take a very different approach.  Instead of trying to provide a streaming end point, Nokia is shooting for a more centralized role in your home and one that I frankly would have expected from Cisco.

Average person will soon have two mobile phones

In my regular commute on the train it’s not uncommon to see people with two phones – and like the cited UK survey notes one is the typical work Blackberry. The other varies from a freebie looking flip to an iPhone.

The average mobile phone owner now has an average of 1.8 handsets and the figure is expected to rise to two mobiles for every person soon.

The rise in ownership is thought to be because more people have one mobile for personal calls and another for work as companies give employees Blackberry devices to keep in touch out of hours. [via Telegraph]

Initially my (non-standard) usage was one for personal and the other as a work-issue, though over the past couple of years that’s evolved to be two personal devices. I do use a work-issued SIM so they pay the airtime as well as my international roaming and data – I’m traveling for work after all.

Interestingly now I ‘m at the point where I’m considering a second plan for my personal consumption … only be for data though my third independently connected device.

Nokia Internet Stick CS-10 – Almost

Nokia Internet Stick CS-10

The Nokia Internet Stick CS-10 made a quiet appearance at Nokia World earlier this month and the news piqued my interest. Though after a quick check I saw it only supports the 850/2100MHz bands which is a real bummer unlike other higher end 3G modems which also add in 1900MHz for tri-band world compatibility this Nokia device will be hard to consider for purchase.

The 850MHz band is something that tends to appear in a more limited capacity here in the States, though this device should be just fine if you only travel in Europe.

Quick N85 and N79 Photo Test

Just getting going with both the new devices and decided to snap a quick picture following breakfast today …

First the N85:

12/24/2008 - N85 Close Mode Pancakes

And now the N79:

12/24/2008 - N79 Close Mode Pancakes

Aside from the “pilot error” in focusing on slightly different parts of the plate, I’d call this pretty even. Both devices offer Carl Zeiss 5MP AutoFocusing optics and response time is excellent. The N85 had a much easier time acquiring my position over A-GPS, but that’s thanks to AT&T vs the T-Mobile TZones connection of my other SIM card.

Nokia’s Mark Selby Interviewed on TelecomTV

Mark is VP Industry Collaborations for Nokia and a very well spoken guy and definitely worth a watch. In this interview Mark talks about his role collaborating in our evolving mobile world. Who owns the customer is a particularly interesting topic discussed.

The Nokia Facebook application … that’s just a bookmark

Not Facebook

If you regularly check the Download application on your Nokia devices you might have recently seen the addition of Facebook as I did. I was pretty excited to see this as I’ve been expecting something since Nokia and Facebook announced a relationship many moons ago …

To my disappointment, however, the Facebook “application” downloaded and installed yet when launched, my web browser opened and I was taken to the existing m.facebook.com site I already have bookmarked! I have to say I find this type of thing a tad deceptive as it totally misinforms the consumer experience and could probably have been solved with a tweak in the firmware update I recently completed. If the goal was to get me in the browser why not just add the bookmark automatically …

Facebook is not the first time I’ve seen this. Nokia’s own MOSH service installed in the same manner … only opening the browser. The only advantage I can see to this method of installation (ahem) is that I can choose the bookmark as an application from Handy Taskman and also easily add it as a homescreen shortcut. Of course, as expected this does not see the open tab I’ve already got going for Facebook and just opens another … further wasting my time and reducing system resources.

It’s hard not to be critical of this stuff … it’s lame.

Mail for Exchange is NOT enterprise ready

I’ve had Mail for Exchange running on my E71 for about 6 months now … essentially since I got it over the summer. In that time, I have had to either create new a profile or re-install the application dozens of times. For some reason the my profile data seems to get lost and the E71 stops syncing with Exchange.

I’m not clear on what causes this problem and I’ve seen it across two versions of Mail for Exchange as well as firmware updates for the E71. I know this is a DIY Solution rather than something implemented (or required) by IT so I’m somewhat on my own, but our IT team has also seen the same things. We use Exchange 2007 and there are never issues like this with Blackberries in the company.

This type of application / service needs to just work. Once configured there should not be any thought required other than how well and consistently it syncs.

Dear AT&T – Why is a modem locked??

att_quicksilver_modem

Kevin Tofel brought a new 3G modem to my attention today and I got very excited about the possibilities as it supports Tri-band HSDPA (850, 1900 and 2100) which would work in my global travels.

It was impossible to tell from the AT&T site whether the device was locked so I picked up the phone and called it in. After confirming my identify multiple ways to the customer support agent, I was placed on hold while she checked things out. She reported that the modem was able to take additional SIM cards which was promising, but given it took a few tries to explain things to her, I was honestly not very confident with the information. Well, I just checked it out at an AT&T store on my way to the train and was told that in fact the device is locked.

With mail-in rebate the unit is free which is what made it so attractive, but there’s no way I’m paying international data roaming charges regularly. I would love to know why something like a USB modem is locked by ANY carrier. In this case I would potentially be signing up for a 2 year contract which includes a $60/mo plan. Whether I actually use the service or not I’m committed to the contract and they get the money.

Why would I also be required to use their SIM when traveling overseas … and actually how is this thing even locked? This policy just cost AT&T a sale and 2 years of data revenue.

Planning for the digital TV transition – do it now!

So I was just reading this NYT piece on the Digital TV cut-over and am somewhat shocked that it seems people still don’t know what’s about to happen… not. I would imagine that most people reading this are like me and well prepared for the transition. We’ve had HDTV for many years at home now and only have digital HD cable boxes. I’m sure not too unlike many of my tech centric friends…

The poor normal consumer though is about to have their television experience completely broken because we can’t figure out how to tell people effectively. Here’s a thought …

NASCAR was an interesting idea (sorry you crashed twice) to complement the regular commercial broadcasting, but how about getting out there and actually explaining the situation to people in the community. The digital transition is a big deal and instead of leaving it to chance, let’s actually make sure people are prepared. Walmart seems like a great place to have someone standing at the door handing out the government voucher so it’s a $10 purchase RIGHT NOW. Why make someone mail it in and wait … just do it. This process could be easily replicated in malls and big box stores in the markets our crack government researchers feel will be most impacted.

Ok … so more one Netbook for consideration – The Samsung NC10

Samsung NC10-14GW netbook

So I’ve had some great comments and discussion since yesterday’s post on finding my likely netbook (the MSI Wind) and it seems the Samsung NC10 is clearly worth a serious look as well.

For starters it offers a considerably larger keyboard (93% vs. 80%) and battery life is well over 6 hours … possibly closer to 8 through conservation. Both of these features are well worth a pause over the Wind and believe me, I’ve spent some time researching again today. What I think is really driving me though is the option for a SIM slot. Apparently, the Samsung NC10 has a SIM slot hiding behind the battery (a 6-cell comes standard) though it’s unclear so far if the current model actually has a modem inside. The modem / SIM combo is what initially drew my attention towards the HP Mininote, but it seems the MSI wins on a few counts there – for now anyway. Netbooks are hot and the competitive nature of the various companies is bringing new features and enhancements pretty rapidly.

Back to the Samsung… I need to confirm the SIM slot is functional of I’ll be waiting for the next rev to arrive — or will just wait it our for that updated MSI model. You can get an Acer at Radioshack now for as low as $99 if you are willing to sign up for a 2-year data plan with AT&T though I’m quite certain I can get data for less than $60/mo. The Acer did feel quite solid though – especially compared to the ASUS systems I saw recently at Best Buy.

I think I just found my netbook

MSI Wind U120

via jkkmobile of course!

This new MSI Wind U120 system sounds killer!

  • 10 inch 1024 x 600 screen
  • 1.6 GHz Intel® Atomâ„¢ with1GB RAM
  • 160GB HDD
  • Wifi b/g/n
  • Bluetooth 2.0edr
  • 3G HSDPA/HSUPA
  • 3 x usb2
  • 4-in-1-card reader
  • 1.3Mpix cam with mic
  • 4400mAH 6 cell battery
  • XP Home

Of course I’m still more than capable of being swayed by a surprise from Apple if they feel up to it at MacWorld.