Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Update on Zipcar's Forthcoming iPhone App

Zipcar showed off a new iPhone app last month at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference that got me salivating (I'm a Zipcar member): it offers GPS help finding cars that are available, and can even honk the car's horn to help you locate it in a parking lot. See the video demo below...

Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith told me today that he has already been testing the beta version on his iPhone, with a few of the company's cars here in Boston. "We're finishing the app now, and then we have to do a complete new software download to our whole car network, so that iPhones will have the ability to honk the horn and unlock the car for you," Griffith said. The app will be free. Griffith estimates that it'll be available in about four weeks. Future versions of the Zipcar app, he added, might give Zipcar members discounts on music, or deals on iPhone navigation apps or other travel-related apps.

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Monday, September 29, 2008

The Future of Mobile: From the Emerging Technologies Conference

Here's some video I shot at last week's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT. It features two local executives (Google's Rich Miner and Motorola's Liz Altman) talking about where mobile is headed -- especially with regard to open and proprietary operating systems. (This took place a day or two after the official announcement of the first Google/Android phone.)



Some notes from the panel (not direct quotes):

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch: It's still too expensive to develop an application that runs across a broad range of phones.

Liz Altman: Low-end phones will use proprietary operating systems.

Rich Miner: Agrees with that, but says mid-range phones are getting more capable, and will be compatible with the Android operating system before long.

Miner: Google will try to avoid bloatware - aim for simplicity - even as phones get more capable.

Lynch says that "thought interfaces" will be a promising way to interact with mobile devices in the future. Miner is bullish on speech, and mentions Vlingo, a Cambridge start-up. The idea of scanning barcodes of products to get more info about a product also comes up.

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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Filling Out Your Fall Calendar: Events Worth Knowing About

Here are a couple events for September, October, and November that I think will be worth going to. I'm planning to be at each of them in some capacity (reporter, moderator, organizer, etc.)

9.23-9.25: Emerging Technologies Conference @ MIT
Werner Vogels from Amazon, Rich Miner from Google, and Craig Mundie from Microsoft top the list of interesting speakers (according to me, at least)

9.25: Tech @ The Movies
This is the first entertainment industry panel that Mass TLC has organized, focusing on the role Massachusetts tech companies are playing in the movie industry. I'm moderating a panel, and giving a short talk about the historical contributions our state has made to the movies, based on my new book Inventing the Movies.

10.2: Mass TLC's Innovation UnConference
Mass TLC is reinventing its big fall event this year (previously known as the investor conference), trying to make it more valuable for entrepreneurs.

10.21 New England Mobile Summit
Part of the Mobile Internet World 2008 trade show, organized by the Yankee Group.

10.30 Ideas Boston
A chance to meet big thinkers like IBM's Martin Wattenberg, Daniel Schrag from Harvard, and John Maeda, the new president of RISD.

11.12 Innovation in Hollywood: Past, Present & Future
I'm giving an illustrated book talk about Inventing the Movies at the Museum of Science... chock full of movie clips, photos, and trivia.

11.15 HBS Cyberposium
Last year's speaker roster included Walt Mossberg, Ray Kurzweil, and Curt Schilling.

11.19 Future Forward 08
A gathering of entrepreneurs, investors, and CIOs/CTOs to explore new directions in technology. Audience limited in size; invite only.

12.6 MIT Venture Capital Conference
No Web site up yet for this year's event... but last year's included Google exec Chris Sacca and VMWare CEO Diane Greene.

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

More gPhone Buzz, in BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek says that software developers are angling for partnerships with Google that would give them a prominent spot on the forthcoming gPhone. That includes Burlington-based Nuance Communications, the (almost totally silent) speech-recognition giant.

Update: BusinessWeek has another piece, titled, 'Will a Google Phone Change the Game?' From Roger Crockett's story:

    Wireless industry consultants and marketing executives with knowledge of Google's plans say it has been showing prototypes of a new phone to handset manufacturers and network operators for a couple of months. Its plans have been kept top secret, but Google is expected to tap a company on the Pacific Rim that specializes in mobile design and manufacturing to build a handset to its specs. Google could then apply its expertise in operating software and user applications, says Paul Catalano, a partner at consultancy RelevantC Business Group (RCBG). Google officials won't talk about phones, and industry sources don't expect one before the second half of 2008.

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Sunday, September 23, 2007

Vanu, Inc. in the NY Times

Michael Fitzgerald has a nice profile of Vanu, Inc., the Cambridge company run by Vanu Bose (son of Dr. Amar Bose), in today's NY Times. He writes:

    Most of us don’t think of our cellphones as radios, but they are. Any wireless device uses a radio. Figuring out a way to operate the radio with software has obvious potential advantages: for one, it’s easier and cheaper to upgrade software than it is to send field technicians to cellular towers to add components. And a software-based radio — the industry calls it software-defined radio — could handle multiple cellular signals at the same time, the way a computer can run a browser, a word processor and a spreadsheet all at once.

    So, in theory, letting cellular companies accommodate new spectrum or technologies by doing software upgrades could expand coverage and services while possibly reducing what we pay for them.

Vanu raised a $8 million "angel" round in July.

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Sunday, September 16, 2007

Today's Globe column: Cell Towers, the Home Version

Today's column deals with a few of the local companies developing technology for femtocells -- essentially a tiny cellphone tower for your home -- and some of the VC firms backing them. From the piece:

    Plugged into your high-speed Internet connection, they'll communicate with your existing cellphone whenever you're at home, and send your calls over the Internet. The benefits are better coverage, faster data speeds, and longer battery life for your handset - since it no longer has to communicate with a cell tower that may be a mile away.


And here's Airvana CEO Randy Battat talking about femtos...it'll be interesting to see whether Airvana's femtocell product looks like the prototype he has in the video, or has a flashier design (Randy is an ex-Apple exec, after all.)

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Thursday, September 13, 2007

For $1.99, you can get Monet to roll over in his grave

Fine art for your cell phone.

I'm sure Winslow Homer never imagined he'd read this sentence: "Text 'fog' to 69632...and the museum will send back a copy of 'The Fog Warning,' the museum’s most famous Winslow Homer painting"?

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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Boston's mobile start-up ecosystem

Connecting mobile phones to the Internet creates opportunities for start-ups -- and erodes the totalitarian control your cell phone carrier has long exerted over what you do with your handset. That's the starting point of Carolyn Johnson's piece in the Globe this morning. She looks at Boston's mobile start-ups, writing:

    Mobile media companies in New England attracted $33.5 million in investments in 2005, a number that tripled to $104.2 million last year, according to Dow Jones VentureOne. In the first half of 2007, mobile media companies have attracted $49.5 million in investments in Massachusetts.

    "People say that it's just a novelty now. But when the PC connected to the Internet, it transformed a word processor to a communication platform, to a media platform," said John Puterbaugh, founder and chief strategist at Nellymoser in Arlington, which takes content from places like Comedy Central and VH1 and mashes it up into cellphone-sized bits of video, audio, and visuals.


There's also a related piece about a contest sponsored by Boston-based Ulocate that'll try to motivate developers to create new location-aware applications.

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Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Solid lists of mobile and video start-ups around Boston

David Laubner runs the great local tech site 93 South. Two cool new postings there:

1. A list of video-related start-ups in the Boston area, including Brightcove, PermissionTV, Avid, and ExtendMedia. (David used to work at Gotuit, one of the video companies on this list.)

2. A list of mobile-oriented start-ups in the Boston area, which includes Enpocket, MobileLime, JumpTap, Skyhook Wireless, and the super-stealthy LocoMobile, funded by General Catalyst.

I think gaming is another area where there'slots of activity. Your next list, perhaps, David?

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